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Hello ECMA-408, the new official Dart Programming Language Specification … - priteshjain https://plus.google.com/+dartlang/posts/DnCSv8jrXMF ====== dang [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=dart+specification#!/story/forever...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=dart+specification#!/story/forever/0/dart%20specification)

Leaving Ljubljana Vegas: A Retrospective - tomp http://blog.samsandberg.com/2012/10/25/leaving-ljubljana-vegas-a-retrospective/ ====== MattBearman Ljubljana (and Slovenia in general) is an awesome place, it was definitely the one of the highlights of my Summer European motorcycle tour. If you ever find yourself in Slovenia, try a Cockta (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockta>) which is much nicer than Coke or Pepsi. Then see how your Satnav pronounces Ljabljana ("La-Juble-Jana") ------ fghh45sdfhr3 1\. Slovenia isn't some far off magical, difficult to reach, place. It is a first world EU member in the center of Europe. 2\. Was there a point to this besides the author bragging how many places he visited? Call me jaded, but _I moved to Europe for a few years and traveled around_ , is something you can hear from a large portion of US college students. ~~~ pulplobster For a few years? Hardly. Actually living in another country is extremely different from traveling for a few months. You don't know much about a country until you live your everyday life there, shop at the grocery stores, participate in cultural events, go to the doctor, pay bills, rent an apartment, go through the immigration process, have a JOB etc. You don't truly know a place by just traveling there. ------ mattdeboard I was fortunate enough to live in Europe in the late 90s (southern Spain), and have traveled the content fairly extensively but left so much unseen and undone. Cannot wait to get back. ------ keithpeter Excellent. What would be even more fun is a 'parallel text' from one of your work mates in Slovenia recording the arrival, adventure, and departure of this American programmer... ~~~ xdaseinx I might do that actually. It was an interesting experience! ------ riffraff great story, and it bears repeating, you will have an incredible time _anywhere_ if you go with a positive spirit[0]. And you could end up being a slightly better person. But you will always feel crap when leaving[1]. I have met many people who don't like where they live, I have yet to meet someone who regrets having lived somewhere else. [0] yes, all over generalizations are wrong [1] In italian there is a beautiful saying: partire è un po' morire, roughly "to depart/leave is (to die a bit|a bit of dying|a bit like dying) ". EDIT: actually a french expression! <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Haraucourt> ------ tomazstolfa Although I did not get to hang out with you enough, I have to say that Ljubljana's tech, art and "good people" scene benefited a lot from your stay. Keep it up Sam and Brooke. ------ subsystem Reminds me of the european vacation scene from the movie 'The Rules of Attraction'. <http://vimeo.com/19815019>

Marc Andreessen says Snowden is a traitor - sabelo http://www.cnbc.com/id/101733893#_gus ====== tptacek I would not under almost any circumstances, including the revelation that he was working directly with the FSB† when he decided what to leak, use the word "traitor" to describe a national security leaker. In addition to being inaccurate, the word sucks all the oxygen out of the room and makes it impossible to have a dispassionate discussion about what happened. But if you can get past Andreesen's unfortunate choice of framing, this story is useful as an indicator of how captive we are to our filter bubbles. The valence of Andreesen's feelings about Snowden isn't at all weird. Lots of people share the perspective that Snowden is doing more harm than good, but people on HN seem to have a hard time believing that. † _Which I doubt; it 's too interesting, and the most boring narrative always wins._ ------ 2close4comfort Well I guess he falls in the "I am complicit giving over your stuff to the government" side of things. Good to know if you are a conscious consumer. ------ gatehouse I'm inherently suspicious of a one-word quote, but it seems to be essentially what he said. I don't think "everybody knew" that the NSA was moonlighting in the drug war: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team- intel...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intelligence- laundering) ------ wutbrodo Leaving aside the meat of the article, I found this quote interesting: """ Andreessen said he was not surprised that the National Security Agency was spying. "The biggest surprise for me was that people were so shocked, because I thought we've been funding this agency for 50 years that has tens of thousands of employees and spends tens of billions of dollars a year." """ Does anyone else find this to be the case too? I feel like the actions of taxpayer-funded agencies like the CIA/NSA have been despicable for decades, and I'm puzzled as to why this is the first time that people seem to actually care (which, don't get me wrong, is great). For those of us who gave a shit before Snowden, I feel like there was a sense of being resigned to the fact that most people (even in tech circles like HN) simply don't care; similar to something like climate change. I know that these revelations are relatively novel in that they involve surveillance of Americans' data as well as foreign nationals, but that was the case for warrantless wiretapping in the 2000s. That made news, but there DEFINITELY wasn't as much fuss made about it (to my bafflement at the time). ~~~ jgon This is now the bog standard reply of the closet fascists who support the NSA and their rampant spying. They've had to switch to this response because their previous response "You're just being paranoid", has been utterly blown apart by the Snowden revelations and thank god for that. Both replies avoid grappling in a substantive fashion with the question of whether or not these activities are moral and something we should accept in our society, but at least the second reply doesn't actively shut down the conversation. Whereas before they could claim that we are being paranoid and there would be no real comeback to that, and thus our points could be safely dismissed, at least now one can reply "No we shouldn't be surprised, and now let's discuss whether or not it is something that should continue." I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world were the exact people talking about how not torturing was what separated our good hearted security agents from those savages employed by "evil empires" such as Russia or China. At the end of day, I am heartened because now at least the cards are on the table and these activities can't just be denied as the figments of paranoid imaginations. The conversation is moving along a bit, however slowly. ~~~ wutbrodo > This is now the bog standard reply of the closet fascists who support the > NSA and their rampant spying. Yea man, those "closet fascists and their support of the NSA" and their statements in no uncertain terms that the NSA always been despicable. So let me get this straight: between 1) people who have always been fine with the NSA until a couple mos ago and 2) people who have always been disgusted by them and see this as an (unsurprising) affirmation of that disgust: the LATTER are closet fascists? You realize that even someone like rms fits directly into your characterization of "closet fascist", right? That should help you understand how stupid your conclusion is. Your core issue is that you're conflating "hey man this has happened for ages and it's just how the world works" with "this has happened for ages, where the fuck have you been, people who are just deciding to get mad now that it's in fashion?". The former is definitely a bog-standard apologist tactic (though I'd argue that it's been around for a lot longer than just Snowden; it's basically the neo-con anthem, and neocons aren't exactly in the "closet"), but the latter couldn't be more different from apologia. > I'll add finally, that yes apparently we should be surprised because the > same closet fascists now adopting this whole grizzled "wise to how the world > works" persona have previously spent the last few decades strongly claiming > that the NSA would never flagrantly violate the constitution in this manner, > that they were stalwart defenders of America and apple pie. You can see the > same sort of evolution with torture, where the people proclaiming that it is > a "necessary" action in today's ruthless dog-eat-dog world Again, you're mixing up two different views. "People who actually paid attention before it was fashionable" doesn't consist only of the people defending this bullshit, it also consists of plenty of people that were protesting it. I know it makes you feel better about ignoring this for so long to pretend that the only people paying attention were apologists, but that's just flat-out, 100% wrong. ~~~ jgon For what it's worth I entirely agree with you about people who dislike this and are also unsurprised by it. Andreesen makes it very clear he not the latter. He is claiming both that we should be unsurprised by it, and that because of this lack of surprise it isn't a big deal that we should care about. I am emphatically not coming down on people who are now, and have always been, against this type of surveillance. ~~~ wutbrodo My mistake, your comment sounded like a direct rebuttal to what I was expressing, which was that it was unsurprising and still despicable, not unsurprising and thus defensible. It also seemed like you were just assuming that anyone unsurprised must be condoning it. That's my mistake, I misread the subtext of your comment. ------ Fuzzwah Currently active discussion going on in prior submission of same link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852246](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7852246) ~~~ dang Thank you. Burying this one as dupe. ("Burying" means lowering in rank, but not killing the item, so conversation can continue in the thread.) ------ midhem History is written by the victors. Traitors? heroes? It is just a point of view, depending on who win at then end. We now know on which side Marc Andressen is seated. ------ jsmcgd I don't understand Marc's position. He says that foreign governments knew about the spying but that Edward Snowden is a traitor for telling them what they already knew? So what damage is ES supposed to have done exactly? It is public record that terrorist organizations knew about intelligence services surveillance against them, which I suspect everyone on the planet would guess would be happening. So how has ES acted against the interests of the American people? It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous. I'm deeply disappointed :( ~~~ mikeyouse Knowing that someone is spying on you is worth much less than knowing that they use Camera Model XYZ, which transmits on XYZ frequency and the camera is located at coordinates XX, YY. ~~~ jsmcgd As far as I am aware no information has been revealed that is specific to a national security target only information that targets millions of innocent civilians. I would hope and expect that the intelligence community has much more invasive and targeted tools they deploy against genuine national security threats than what has been revealed so far. Edit: To clarify, I'm sure Al-Qaeda already knew not to trust any computer, or cell phone that they used because they were probably completely compromised. So nothing that has been revealed by ES would change their behaviour. Edit 2: Also, it doesn't matter. The most important thing for our civilization is not personal or national security but our democracy. A 'security state' is never democratic. Its people are never free. ------ nabla9 I'm an European and treason and espionage are political crimes. If Snowden is a traitor, then he spied on my behalf against U.S. government. For me and many other citizens of so called free word he is a hero. He should get a medal. In U.S. media the discussion centers around Americans being spied and if that is illegal. As a non-American, I see U.S. UK and other mass surveillance countries as constantly attacking me personally. As more and more people feel the same way, it will eventually have real consequences to U.S. interests. It might take generation or two, but it will happen. First world countries are very interdependent and this kind of attacking harms us all. Even in the cynical machtpolitik world view this can be seen as shortsighted strategy. ------ napoleoncomplex Yes, let's worry about Silicon Valley's bottom line in all of this. Brave warriors, always on the ropes. It's always surprising when one discovers the Ellisons and the Andreessens of the world. Luckily their type is a rare exception in the Valley though. ------ higherpurpose I started disliking this guy since he coerced Oculus Rift into a sale to Facebook (and I'm assuming soon Imgur, too). He's probably too worried about his investments and what the Snowden revelations impact will be on them, and that's why he's calling him a traitor. ------ kumar303 "The fallout from the Snowden leaks have hurt U.S. technology firms' ability to sell their products overseas" What an idiotic, capitalistic claim. So Andreeson calls him a traitor because "business is now harder." Huh? Nevermind invasion of privacy and injustice. ------ contingencies Ooh! _Big capitalist profiting vastly from status quo throws in lot with conservatism!_ News at 9. Trusting any of these filthy rich buffoons, including governments, is imbecilic. The only way to change the system is through decentralized, bottom- up, participation-based (ie. opt-in) change. ------ seanhandley A "textbook traitor".... and which textbook would that be? ------ aerolite moron

Ask HN: Will e-ink laptops be a thing soon, or ever? - Kluny I&#x27;m a writer by night and a programmer by day. I have to stare at bright LCD all day for work because I don&#x27;t have a choice right now, but when I&#x27;m writing, an e-Ink display would be more than enough, and much, much easier on my eyes.<p>My dream would be something with a Mac keyboard, a 13-inch e-ink display like a kindle, a simple word processor (rich text only, no need for MS word or anything fancy), days of battery power, light weight, and a simple means of transferring snippets of text and document files from my main machine or phone to the tablet. I would probably do research on a &quot;real&quot; computer then copy and paste snippets to the word processor machine as needed.<p>Internet connectivity for basic email and file transfer would be nice, but I can save the facebooking and the gaming for my main computer.<p>Anyone else thinks this is a good idea? ====== jonbruner There's a stripped-down, e-ink word processor similar to what you're describing called Freewrite ([https://getfreewrite.com/](https://getfreewrite.com/)). It launched on Kickstarter as Hemingwrite a couple of years ago. It's got an e-ink display and syncs documents over WiFi. I think the real selling point is a distraction-free venue for writing, but the e-ink display could be a plus as well. ~~~ Kluny That's exactly what I'm after. Thanks for the link. edit __checked it out. screen is parallel to typing surface, looks like a recipe for hideous neck pain. I 'll wait til v2 I guess. Still, nice to see that a market exists. ~~~ andrei_says_ Also, the screen is tiny. I'm wondering if someone can come up with an optical contraption to turn this tiny-screen-on-a-keyboard into a less tiny screen parallel to one's face. Something like the screen magnifiers seen in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. ~~~ Kluny Lens-based enlargment allows perfect image fidelity, while looking cool and steampunk! ------ dragonwriter I think the problem is that e-ink (and similar, e-ink itself is, IIRC, a particular brand) displays are slow (and possibly power-intensive) to update. They are excellent for their optimized uses, where updates are (compared to typical laptop displays) infrequent, but perhaps not otherwise. I know there has been work on faster and color e-ink (etc.) displays, but I don't know that there is much progress toward the point where they would make sense for general workloads. ~~~ Kluny Do you mean power intensive if you're updating the screen constantly, like you would if typing? This article mentions that they're very efficient:[http://www.wired.com/2016/05/get-ready-world-covered- electro...](http://www.wired.com/2016/05/get-ready-world-covered-electronic- paper/) "...[e-ink price tags] will last two to five years on the coin-cell battery that comes inside." That refers to tags that are updated once or twice a day at most though. ~~~ dragonwriter > Do you mean power intensive if you're updating the screen constantly, like > you would if typing? That's what I meant. (And I'm not sure; ISTR that they are _more_ power intensive for updates, but I don't know in typical general-computer-use cycle how they would fare against more typical laptop displays, if it would just be reducing their advantage or flipping to a disadvantage.) ~~~ Kluny Yeah, I would be interested to know how they stack up. Seems to me that a lot of power is saved by not lighting the screen up brighter than the sun. The updates take a lot of power, I thin, because the whole screen has to be refreshed with each keystroke. But that's the same as with LCDs, isn't it? ------ GrumpyYoungMan The closest thing to what you're looking for would be the Dasung 13" e-ink monitor ([http://dasung.com.cn](http://dasung.com.cn)) plus some sort of ultrabook. (Yes, I acknowledge that their web site looks incredibly sketchy but, insofar as I know, it is a real product.) I believe their most recent production run is sold out though, according to their Facebook page ([https://www.facebook.com/dasungtech](https://www.facebook.com/dasungtech)). A review can be found at [http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/07/10/one-week- with-dasun...](http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/07/10/one-week-with- dasungs-13-3-e-ink-usb-monitor-video/) (Disclaimer: I'm neither affiliated with Dasung nor a customer.) ~~~ mattm I had shown interest in the Dasung and was on their mailing list for when they had a recent production run. Unfortunately for them, they emailed everyone in CC so customers who bought the product and didn't have a good experience could (and did) email everyone else to tell them. I didn't buy it but from what others wrote it seems they still need to iron out issues which is not surprising from a new product. I didn't buy because the price was way too much ($1000). I would want to wait for it to come down to under $500 before considering buying plus I don't know if it works on Linux. Like the OP, I too would like an e-ink monitor for programming and doing most things that don't need a high refresh rate but it seems the technology is still at least a few years away. ------ f_allwein Yes, that might be nice to have. The One Laptop Per Child laptop (XO) had a dual-mode display with a "Reflective (backlight off) monochrome mode for low- power use in sunlight" [1]. Does not seem to have caught on though. Wasn't the same, but as far as I remember, it was alright. I guess the majority of users would not want a greyscale display (or at least manufacturers think so). [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO) ------ alok-g About me: I have spent nearly a decade researching a display technology (Qualcomm's mirasol) more capable than E-ink in terms of colors and refresh speed. Both an e-ink screen and an emissive display like an LCD is basically sending light to your eyes. If the brightness, viewing angle, surface reflection, contrast, etc. match between the two, then one cannot be better than the other. The most practical solution at least for now is to use emissive displays with wide viewing angle, anti-reflective coatings, matte finish, and with appropriately adjusted brightness, contrast, and also font sizes. All of these seemingly small factors matter. Try this experiment: Apply a white background on the emissive screen, and now put a blank printer paper in the front of half of the screen. If the screen looks too bright as compared to the paper (good chance it will), you need to get its brightness down still more! I cannot find anymore, but there was a post on Hacker News of someone making an LCD image look indistinguishable from a printed photo in a frame. ~~~ Kluny Thanks! Can you give any more tips? I'm super interested in anything I can do to make, for example, my macbook pro (non retina) easier on my eyes. I've got flux on already, and I'm thinking about using grayscale instead of color. ------ chatmasta Here's a video from someone who got vim to work on an e-ink display: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdmX52SCpG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdmX52SCpG0) ~~~ soared Man that slow refresh rate would kill me. ------ id122015 i asked this question many years ago. +1 Count me in. The best thing is to be proactive and start making the list of people who want such a device. For me even just the monitor is enough, not need to wait for a full laptop. next time when they crowdfund a new project we will be ready to act. ------ rwallace Can't you get the same result with off-the-shelf hardware by turning down the brightness? Like, change the background color in your editor from (255,255,255) to something dimmer? ~~~ Kluny Not really, no, but making the screen black and white or grayscale at least would probably help. Maybe I'll try that. ------ vanattab Does anyone know of a ultra low power lightweight laptop. I am dreaming of someday working remotely while backpacking and would like a small laptop I could charge off solar panels. ~~~ drkrieger00 Chromebook is the first thing to pop into my head; small panel, battery and inverter would be be able to keep one charged no problem. I dunno how small you can go, but since most chromebook's AC adapters aren't more than 40w, should be able to find something that would fit in a backpack. ~~~ Kluny I was thinking about that also, and mentioned it to a friend who has some experience with them. She said that they're terrific as long as you have internet access; as soon as you're offline they're holy pain in the ass. When I'm writing I want to be offline pretty often, either because I've gone someplace where there's no wifi or because I want to eliminate distractions. For simple word processing, will a Chromebook make my life difficult if I'm offline? ------ mbrock You could also research e-ink Android tablets with USB/Bluetooth for the keyboard. (I looked at some a year ago, but I forgot their names.)

Education Inflation, Technological Advancement, and Cognitive Surplus - tedlee http://www.lisazhang.ca/2011/04/education-inflation-technolgoical.html ====== yummyfajitas One possible way to mitigate this problem is a Pigouvian tax on signalling (perhaps compensated for by a reduction in income tax). Signalling is a lot like standing up at a baseball game. It gives you a great view, at the cost of having your legs get tired. Once everyone else starts doing it, your view is no better than before, and everyone is a little more tired than before. But no one can sit down, because they don't get to see the game. A tax on signalling might reduce the benefits and thereby reduce the amount of resources wasted. Additionally, the people who don't engage in signalling would enjoy reduced taxes. To begin, I'd propose an education tax, since education seems to be our nation's most expensive form of signalling. You want an education? Fine, but be prepared to pay an extra $5-10k/college year to compensate the people who don't get a job as a result of the degree inflation you cause. (Obviously, ending subsidies for higher education would also be a good start.) ~~~ Retric The problem with a fixed cost is for plenty of poeple an extra 10k/year is meaningless but for others it's a huge deal. A possibly better approach would be a 1% increase in your income tax (for life) if you get a Masters/MBA/etc. The net effect is similar (3 mil lifetime earnings = 30k in extra tax). But it scales with income so it attacks the value of signaling. ~~~ yummyfajitas The harm to society is also fixed, so charging a % of profits is a strange way to tax. Think of degree inflation as being a form of pollution. Now think directly about pollution taxes. Emitting 1kg of pollution to create an iPod is not a bad thing - iPods are more valuable than having 1kg less pollution in the air. Emitting 1kg of pollution to make a sandwich is bad, however, since the value of a sandwich is much lower than 1kg less pollution. The end goal is to pollute only while making iPods, not sandwiches. Charging as a % of profits or revenues would not create this incentive. Similarly, the goal of an education tax is to create a disincentive for acquiring a degree for people who won't gain a lot from the degree. ~~~ Alex3917 "The end goal is to pollute only while making iPods, not sandwiches." Actually, the end goal would be to reduce the total amount of pollution. ~~~ yummyfajitas Why? Pollution has a cost and production has a benefit. If $BENEFIT - $COST > 0, we want more pollution. The problem is that since pollution is an _external_ cost, the producer/consumer has no incentive to accurately make this calculation. As long as $BENEFIT > 0, the producer/consumer will pollute, and society will pay $COST. The point of the Pigouvian tax is to give the producer/consumer an incentive to make this calculation correctly, and to compensate the rest of society for the costs they impose. ------ gaius Hmm _In order to obtain a job, you need to satisfy an employer's stringent and sometimes arbitrary requirements. In order to do so, you must spend extra years of your life in school._ That's a naive analysis - given a pool of unknown candidates (e.g a stack of CVs from people unknown to the hiring manager) he or she will obviously look for "the best" candidates, and lacking any other indication (e.g. from fresh grads with no work experience) will go for the best qualified. It's not the case that employers are driving up the academic requirements - they are merely responding logically to a more academically qualified pool of candidates. ------ kongqiu On the one hand, the spirit of inquiry and promotion of learning that higher education (should be) driven by is an excellent thing for both "productivity" and society as a whole. On the other hand, the idea that colleges exist merely as a credentialing system, and the intellectual complacency that pervades much of academia since it can extract such high rents as a gatekeeper, result in a vast misallocation of resources. Untangling the two (education vs. credentialing) will take time, but with the enormous debt-loads of graduating students these days, I find it hard to believe that today's college students will accept sending their own children through an educational/credentialing system that resembles today's status quo. ------ michaelochurch China's "education inflation" problem is not like ours. The problem in China: it's an underdeveloped economy. This may change in 20 years-- I think everyone in the world hopes it does-- but right now, there are so few middle-class jobs available in countries like China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The competition is incredibly tight and (as anywhere else) mostly on socioeconomic status and connections, not education. Our problem is different: technology and the national job market have created The Résumé Blizzard. The cost of sending a CV to an employer has dropped from about $1 (today's dollars) in postage, nice paper, and printing, to $ε in electron-pushing. Most HN posters are relatively successful in their careers and probably send out 3-5 CVs per job search, but there are unqualified lottery-players who send out hundreds or thousands. Front doors don't work anymore-- "closed till the Blizzard ends"-- and colleges and universities now provide a very expensive sorting mechanism for entry-level jobs. The truth is that job-matching is a difficult unsolved problem that no one has solved very well, and the universities and business schools are, at the entry level, the best solution. ~~~ daniel-cussen Charging each applicant would work, and most universities do it, but I believe it's illegal for employers to do. ~~~ michaelochurch What I don't like about this idea is that, seeing as companies have scads of money and job-seekers generally don't have any, it seems unfair to put fees on job applications. Unless they were limited to a certain level (say, $5.00) I wouldn't support it. What I would do is create a job-search site where each application costs 1 credit, and encourage employers to spend a lot of time using my well-filtered site. Each member gets 12 credits for free every year, and more credits can be purchased via a premium membership. As the site branched out into a career site, with discussion boards and networking, credits could also be given as a bonus for positive contributions. Limiting the application volume solves the spam problem, though.

Python for Ruby Programmers (LA RubyConf 2013) - facebiff https://speakerdeck.com/mleone/python-for-ruby-programmers ====== masklinn To add to other comments, things the author could have expanded upon: * vararg keyword arguments ( __kwargs) * Keyword-only arguments (Python 3) * help, vars, a few other nice introspective builtins * Assignment unpacking (multiple names as left-hand side of an assignment) * The strangest "first blush" difference between Ruby and Python, or at least the one which I found oddest when I first started switching, is that a new Ruby class is defined from the `class {Name}` line, the whole body executes in the context of the already-created class. Not so in Python, the class object will only exist once the body has finished executing. * No mention of generators? Also outer v inner iteration is a pretty big split between two otherwise similar languages. Mistake-ish * obj.__dict__ -> vars(obj) * obj.__class__ -> type(obj) * Python's lambdas are not one-line, they're one-expression. The reason you "can't do [this] in Python" is that if:elif:else: is a statement, so doesn't fit in lambdas. But you can have arbitrary complex code in lambdas aside from that, by following <http://codon.com/programming-with-nothing>. For instance you can (although you should not) write: map(lambda num: 0 if num % 3 == 0 else num * 2 if num % 4 == 0 else num, range(1, 6)) * Author talks about methods a lot. They're not methods, a method is part of an object. They're functions. Granular functions, inner functions, ... * We generally don't say Python values "evaluate to False", we say they're falsy: they're _never_ equal to False (outside of False and — for historical reasons — 0), they're just equivalent when evaluated in a boolean context (or passed to `bool()`). Also, the list is _way_ incomplete: _any Python type defines its own "falsiness"_ by implementing __bool__ (or __nonzero__ in Python 2) * Python's reflection and metaprogramming are roughly on par with Ruby's, their lack of use is more of a cultural artefact (possibly historically motivated) than a technical one. Consider adding methods to existing types for instance. You can do it in Python (on python-defined types), you just very rarely do, it's not in the culture to do something like that. Same with using metaclasses, it's done but it generally isn't the first thing a Python developer will reach for, aside from things like registering classes on the fly/on definition Odd comments: * Ruby mixins, as far as I know, work by injecting the module in the inheritance chain somewhere above the new class. MI is clearer and just as powerful. ~~~ sirclueless Is Python's multiple inheritance model still wonky? For example, I remember this being a "broken" (that is, incompatible with MI) class: class BaseClass: def __init__(self): do_important_work() It's broken, because this class doesn't expect to have any superclass other than Object, and hence doesn't call super(self, BaseClass).__init__(*args, **kwargs) or something like that (which by the way, is super awkward syntax, repeating both self and BaseClass). But if it's subclassed as one of multiple base classes the parent classes _might_ not get their __init__ methods called (or _you_ might not get your __init__ called, because they forgot to call super().__init__ as well, and the superclass inheritance order ended up putting them in front of you). ~~~ ch0wn > which by the way, is super awkward syntax, repeating both self and BaseClass In Python 3, you can write just `super()`, even though I personally prefer the verbose (and thus explicit) way. In single-inheritance cases, there's actually no benefit of using super(), so using `BaseClass.__init__(self, _args,_ *kwargs)` is even more explicit. ~~~ ch0wn I screwed up the markup there, it's supposed to be BaseClass.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs) ------ arxanas The presentation incorrectly identified Python dictionaries as “lists”. It also identified actual Python lists as lists. The presentation states that tuples are “immutable lists“ and that they ”should be homogeneous, but [this is] not enforced“. I disagree: tuples are meant to act as “records“ (as in a database or other set of data), which are neither lists nor homogeneous. The presentation brought up multiple times filter and map. An article by Guido in 2005 [1] argued that these tools should be cut from Python 3. While they still exist, I am under the impression it is considered more Pythonic to use list comprehensions in the place of filter and map, as stated in the article. Python not having define_method is misleading. One can define a method of a class as one would any attribute of the class [2]. However, it is far easier to dynamically define a method in Ruby than in Python, because lexical scoping is inherent to a Ruby block but not a Python loop. Python not having method_missing is wrong. One can simply override __getattr__ and return the appropriate function [3]. [1]: <http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=98196> [2]: <http://ideone.com/njXDzO> [3]: <http://ideone.com/EB9MQ8> ~~~ masklinn > I disagree: tuples are meant to act as “records“ (as in a database or other > set of data), which are neither lists nor homogeneous. Indeed, hence `namedtuple` (named tuples extend tuples). The author got it _exactly_ backwards: tuples are generally heterogenous, the (rare) cases of homogenous tuples are reflexive short lists and hope of a slightly cheaper creation cost. ------ ubernostrum Not bad, but the big weakness is that the author seems to be very familiar with more expert-level aspects of Ruby, but not so much with Python. And turns that into "Python doesn't have these". For example, he mentions Python doesn't have an equivalent of method_missing -- it's technically true that there's nothing you define on a Python class to _specifically_ intercept a nonexistent method, but that's because Python's standard facility for this operates more generally at the level of attribute access. Suspect there's a bit too much expectation of Python to be message- passing like Ruby in not seeing that one. Similarly, Python has plenty of metaprogramming features, they're just implemented differently -- and from a different conceptual standpoint -- than Ruby's. And so on and so forth. ~~~ untothebreach There are also a few non-idiomatic practices he seems to favor. For example, he seems to advocate use of `filter`, `map`, `reduce` in a few places, which, in Python, are better expressed with list comprehensions, combined with builtins like `sorted`, `all`, `any`, `sum`, etc. Adding the `operator` module opens up even more functional constructs without ever touching `map`, `reduce`, or `filter`. ~~~ pcote Using list comprehensions as a replacement for filter and map I can see. I don't really see where you're getting at as far as substitutes for 'reduce' are concerned. For me, the 'operator' module is a justification for using 'reduce', not a replacement for it. ~~~ masklinn > I don't really see where you're getting at as far as substitutes for > 'reduce' are concerned. Reduce simply isn't used much in Python code, as a product of both culture and rather lacking lambdas. It's used so little (pretty much the only "usual use case" is covered by `sum`) it's been moved out of the builtins and to the functools module in Python 3 (whereas `map` and `filter` have remained) ~~~ untothebreach Thank you, that was much more eloquently put than I could have provided. Indeed, `sum` was the one common use case I could think of, so I didn't bother including it as an example. I honestly can't say I miss `reduce` at all when writing python. ~~~ masklinn > Indeed, `sum` was the one common use case I could think of There are 4 other not-completely-uncommon cases in the builtins, implemented in a significantly more efficient manner for the latter 2 (ignoring Python v C): min, max, any and all. And map and filter _technically_ but repeatedly concatenating lists together (in python) isn't the most useful way to peg your CPU. ------ facebiff Author here: Thanks much for the feedback. I definitely have more experience in Ruby than Python. In a longer version of this talk, I go into more detail on list comprehensions, iterators and decorators. I'll work to include these to some degree for the shorter talk too. Also, if I say "Python doesn't have these," I'm often saying it in support of Python! :) ~~~ untothebreach I definitely appreciated the open-mindedness of the presentation, and I thank you for a comparison without any petty language-flaming :) ------ danjaouen Technically, you can open up Python classes: class Test(object): pass t = Test() def test(self): print('ehlo') Test.test = test t.test() This is rarely done in practice, however (at least, as far as I can tell) ------ lardissone Weird that author never mentioned PEP8 guide. I think it's the main thing that difference Python from Ruby developers. If you follow the PEP8 rules, you can interact with other Python programmers without much problems, and enforce you to be a better and organized programmer. ~~~ tallowen Though the author didn't mention it explicitly, I actually felt that the author did a fairly good job of covering this when he said: > It's harder to write code that pisses off other developers in Python ------ rraval I know very little of Ruby, but difference 13 states that Ruby has stronger metaprogramming features in that "Python doesn't have define_method, class_eval, and method_missing". Are these really things that can't be implemented with metaclasses and overloading __getattr__? ~~~ masklinn * method_missing is "return a callable from __getattr__" * define_method simply isn't needed, just set a function as attribute on a class tadaa you've defined a method: >>> class A: pass ... >>> a = A() >>> a.foo() Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> AttributeError: 'A' object has no attribute 'foo' >>> A.foo = lambda self: 3 >>> a.foo <bound method A.<lambda> of <__main__.A object at 0x100623c10>> >>> a.foo() 3 * class_eval I never really understood the use case for, if it's just to add new methods to an existing class, take the previous recipe and annotate the function with the `classmethod` decorator: >>> A.bar = classmethod(lambda cls: 4) >>> A.bar() 4 >>> a.bar() 4 but there might be more to it I missed. ------ ultimoo Thanks for posting. As a Ruby programmer I have been wanting to learn Python since 2 weeks and hopefully this will get me started for good. ~~~ throwa Except if you have a good reason for wanting to learn Python, I will say as a rubyist you should learn a functional programming language like clojure or scala if you don't know them already. This is because both Python and Ruby are OO and similar in alot of ways. ~~~ untothebreach I would say you are right except in one case, which is scientific computing. The OP touched on it, but that is definitely the "killer app" of the Python ecosystem, IMHO. Not that the languages you mentioned don't have equivalents, but if you are a rubyist who just wants to do some heavy-duty scientific/data- intensive computing without stepping too far out of your comfort zone, I can see Python being an attractive option. ~~~ tommy_m I am in the exact same situation. I know Ruby, as my first language, but keep running into scientific applications where Python or R is used. The languages are so similar, it is pretty easy to move between the two at a superficial level, but does take away some bandwidth trying to stay current in them both. It seems that if you are going to do web based work, Ruby is a good choice, but it you are going to be actively involved in non-weby stuff, Python is a better choice. I say this as a dedicated Ruby guy, who would rather stay with it, but am being pushed into more and more Python.... ~~~ MrBra I know nothing about scientific computing, but I am sure you took a look at this,right? <http://sciruby.com/> It goes like: " Ruby has for some time had no equivalent to the beautifully constructed NumPy, SciPy, and matplotlib libraries for Python. We believe that the time for a Ruby science and visualization package has come..." But status is pre-alpha, last commit 7 months ago... so dunno how much it can help... ~~~ untothebreach I don't know much about that project, other than the fact that it isn't mature yet. In my comments above, I didn't mean that Ruby _didn't_ have any libraries focused on scientific computing, just that they didn't have the community and tools for scientific computing that Python has. ------ ufo Broke my heart when he said you shouldn't need powerful anonymous functions :( ~~~ masklinn It's so highly unlikely you'll get them, you should probably resign yourself (or use a different language, or try to approach it from the other direction: convert Python statements to expressions so you can use them in existing lambdas, after all Python's current lambdas are no more restricted than Haskell's, it's just that _the rest_ of Python doesn't play nice with them) ~~~ ufo I know Python will probably always have shitty suport for functional stuff. What bothered me the most was the bit in his presentation where he said using anon functions are "harder to test", "harder to follow" and lead to code duplication, implying you should instead create a stupid named func like "process_num" instead of passing a lambda to map directly. ------ tragomaskhalos As a longtime Ruby person who has recently been doing a bit of Python, I find Ruby to be more regular (echoing its Smalltalk heritage, another plus point), but the one Python thing that really jarred - but which I have never seen anyone else complain about! - was having to put all those pesky colons in after defs, ifs etc. On the credit side, I don't understand why anyone would grumble about the indentation thing - this comes very naturally, and has the pleasing side- effect of gently coercing you into writing shorter functions. ~~~ yen223 If you are allowed to complain about the pesky colons, then we should be allowed to complain about having to put "end" everywhere :P ------ dstywho One of the things that bothers me about python is the way you have to specify 'self' for instance methods. Instance methods should be the norm not the exception. ~~~ arxanas Interestingly you can do this: class Foo: def bar(self): return "bar" foo = Foo() foo.bar() # returns "bar" Foo.bar(foo) # returns "bar" So it's not actually specifying `self` for instance methods; it's just a special thing about class instances that calling a method will call its class's method passing the instance as the first argument. After realizing this, I was enlightened. ~~~ masklinn > Foo(foo, bar) # returns "bar" I think you meant `Foo.bar(foo)` here. ~~~ arxanas You're right. I'm not thinking. ------ pwim One point about "Functions as variables". Ruby actually does have method objects, which you can access via the method method. def add(a,b) a+b end def process_numbers(a,b,method) func.call(a,b) end method(:add) => #<Method: Object#add> process_numbers(1,2,method(:add)) => 3 This isn't a normal programming paradigm in Ruby though. ------ MrBra "elif" just doesn't sound good :P

A CEO's Sequoia Meeting Notes - lanceweatherby http://blog.weatherby.net/2008/10/a-ceos-sequoia.html ====== jmatt There are bigger things in the global economy than the opinions of Sequoia. This may not be very popular to say here. It is likely companies like Sequoia got burned worse than many other businesses. Money that funds them comes from investments like the stock market which has lost ~ 2 trillion dollars in value in the last few months. On top of that the last thing most big companies are thinking about are acquisitions - let alone IPOs. I understand their pessimism but I don't think it necessarily applies to the whole economy over the next 15 years. ~~~ Prrometheus I was wondering if I were the only one that wasn't terribly concerned. Certain assets that were overvalued are readjusting to a reasonable valuation. Even the stock market's average P/E could look reasonable again. We'll have a short period of slow growth in economic aggregate statistics, then the singularity will hit and we'll do just fine. ------ prakash _We are in the beginning of a long cycle, what we call a “Secular Bear Market.” This could be a 15 year problem._ Really grim news if it turns out to be true. ~~~ sabat Here's some great reading for those who might be tempted to believe the doombaya message. [http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/eichengreen.depressio...](http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/eichengreen.depression/index.html) Excerpt: _Barry Eichengreen is George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley._ _Every time the economy and stock market turn down, financial historians get predictable calls from reporters._ _Could this be the start of another Great Depression? Could "it" possibly happen again? My stock answer has always been no._ _The Great Depression resulted from a series of economic and financial shocks -- the end of a housing bubble in 1926 and the end of a high-tech bubble in 1929 -- but also from truly breathtaking neglect and incompetence on the part of policymakers._ _It couldn't happen again precisely because policymakers know this history. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson remembers the mistakes of Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary._ ~~~ davi This is flawed logic, which goes like: "The biggest economic problem we know about is the Great Depression. Policymakers know how to deal with that; therefore we are fine." Maybe the new global economy contains challenges which current policymakers _don't_ know how to deal with. And if these challenges aren't met, we might end up with Great Depression _effects_ , due to a different set of initial causes. Or, maybe everything will settle down in a week or two. ~~~ khafra Insightful. "Fighting the last war" is one of the more popular ways for generals to utterly fail. ------ iigs _Operations review: Engineering: Since you already have a product, strongly consider reducing the number of engineers that you have._ :( ~~~ timr This bit of "advice" soured the whole thing for me -- a shining example of MBA wisdom. To be fair, maybe the advice was mis-communicated, or maybe the speaker was talking about VC-funded monoliths who had grown too quickly (and hired poorly), but it seems kind of foolish to fire engineers at a tech company, just because you think you "already have a product". ~~~ thorax I'd say follow it if you hired quick/not-solid engineers in a quick bid for growth. But you should fight _very hard_ to keep talented/experienced engineers around and happy. They very much could become your strategic advantage while everyone is cutting things! ~~~ SwellJoe Agreed. Much like the stock market crash has led me to start thinking about bargain hunting, and to move some of my capital into stocks, I'm viewing this advice as a sign that I'll be able to hire great engineers at a good rate in the not too distant future, as competitors without our profitability run into problems and begin to extend their runway by reducing their headcount (and since they've "already got a product", they don't need those pesky engineers any more). Then again, I believe that a team of three great engineers lightly managed by another engineer (with some management skills) can outproduce a dozen or more mediocre developers managed by an MBA, so I've always planned for our company to produce more code in less time and for less money than our competitors. ~~~ ardit33 "Then again, I believe that a team of three great engineers lightly managed by another engineer (with some management skills) can outproduce a dozen or more mediocre developers managed by an MBA, so I've always planned for our company to produce more code in less time and for less money than our competitors." \--- I fully agree with this. Best managers are the ones that are really strong technically, and that still do some/little coding. They know exactly what's going on, and reward competence over arse-kissing. ------ biohacker42 The whole "forget growth and get to positive cash flow" push sounds a lot like the 37signals business plan. ~~~ josefresco No, sounds a lot like 'fundamental business logic'. Nothing 37signals does is new to the traditional business world (just VC funded 'exit strategy' startup minded folks) ------ adrianwaj The speakers at that meeting don't need to worry about survival. They're probably all ultra high net-worth individuals. It's the CEOs who they want to make tough choices and live tough. In the end, the downturn just has status and reputation implications for these partners, and making sure they feel the pain of (or with) their comrades, or at least appear that way, like they are here. ------ fallentimes I just sent these notes to many of my founder friends. Please do the same. I don't think I'd ever bet against Sequoia. Even if they're wrong, most of what they said is a good practice regardless of economic state. ~~~ acgourley That's not true ... if you define 'good' as what will lead to maximum growth then you would not want to follow these survival tactics in 'good times' ~~~ fallentimes That's why I said "most". Focusing on profitability, becoming cash flow positive, trimming fat & reducing overhead are good practices always. Some of the other ones, especially if you're trying to attract and retain talent, are not. You'd think this would be common sense, but based on how many companies are run, it's not. ~~~ DaniFong I don't think that focusing on profitability is always a good idea. If you extend the argument to what you work on personally, then there's no way to ever start a product company, or a new line. And in the last bust, Google didn't focus on profitability until much of the storm had already passed. They're doing fine now. The difference was that they had time. Lots of runway. We might very well not, and the goal is to extend that runway. ~~~ fallentimes I wasn't talking about what I or anyone works on personally; I was talking about Companies. Google is the exception, not the rule. ~~~ acgourley Statistically speaking, most startups ventured have a poor chance of being a Google, but must dollars earned have a good chance of being a Google's. Don't discount their type of business strategy just because it doesn't suit your personal risk preference. ~~~ fallentimes I'm trying to understand what you're saying. _"but must dollars earned have a good chance of being a Google's"_ Are you saying that the few companies "make" the portfolio (i.e. the anomalies and hits carry the return) or? If so, I agree, but the hits aren't all run like Google. My personal risk preferences have nothing to do with this argument. ~~~ acgourley Just to set things straight, you are suggesting companies shouldn't start like Google where they are focused on a technology that has no obvious way to make money (at the time). You agree the high growth long term strategy has its place, but claim companies should not just start down their runway before making sure there is even a profit to be made there. I was talking past you because in my mind I wasn't seeing a distinction between having a long term, high growth business and being unsure of how to monetize. While your stance is prudent, most of the greatest tech company success stories of this decade were from companies that didn't know (for certain) how to monetize, because they were so far into uncharted territory. And even though there are only a few of those companies, they seem to be earning most of the money between companies started in this decade. So being more focused on technology than profitability is a valid business strategy, as long as you have runway. That's what I'm saying, and what I think you disagree with. ~~~ fallentimes Thanks for putting everything in one paragraph. _"So being more focused on technology than profitability is a valid business strategy, as long as you have runway."_ Yes, I agree with this. Which is why I don't really have a problem with companies like Twitter (you can debate the technical merits, but it's certainly _different_ ). They've kept their team lean and haven't taken gobs of money right away and all at once like some of these other startups My comments were more aimed at investors & companies that spend money just to spend money on either me-too ideas (e.g. many many ad networks, social networks) or overcapitalizing companies that aren't ready for it. They and their brethren aren't investing in the development of cutting edge technology at all, they're doing something because everyone else is. ------ wschroter This whole line of thinking is great for companies as a whole. If it forces more companies to be more responsible and efficient with capital, I don't see a problem. ~~~ sabat Some of it is good thinking for any startup or small company -- it's so easy to be lulled into parting with cash unnecessarily. But the full recipe seems like it's designed for stasis, not growth. ~~~ jksmith Absolutely. My deal was going along pretty well until all this crap made the investors look like a herd of spooked wildebeests. My deal includes a mix of startup and acquisition (with cash flow). The M&A investors I've worked with are hardly vision-oriented, and their schemes are just variations on the house-flipping theme. So guts and vision are just not part of their makeup or mission. Their latest analogy is the ship dropping anchor and waiting for the fog to pass, but this sounds more to me like they think they're in quicksand and just don't want to move for fear of sinking more. There will be a "Next Big Thing," but this current crop of investors (if exemplified by who I've worked with) will not be a part of it. ------ smakz It makes sense. The credit markets are imploding so it's going to be harder to borrow. Basically you need to survive by not borrowing, so get cash flow positive. I think this crash is analogous to the long depression: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression> But I doubt it will take as long to recover as it did in 1873. ~~~ shedd Yep, finding a business model that generates revenue quickly seems to be the emphasis across the board. The get users, find cash later, models of the past are certainly out for the most part as long as this economic cycle is with us. Back in are real business models that actually make money. ------ sabat Counter this doombaya ceremony with these (wiser) comments (pulled from a CNN economic report), below. Most salient point: _This is a financial panic, not an economic one._ QUOTE: _The weak dollar is boosting demand for our goods abroad, and lower gas prices are making Americans feel more flush. Add in the cash that the Fed has been hosing into the banking system and we are bound to see growth in 2009. "If all this stimulus has no effect on the economy, that would be a rarity indeed," says Paulsen._ _Standard & Poor's chief economist David Wyss expects a mild recession that ends next spring. "Gradually we will regain confidence in the market. Lower oil prices and a falling trade deficit will help," he says. "This is a financial panic, not an economic one."_ _Of course, that could change if the financial panic doesn't abate soon. If banks remain too scared or broke to lend, would-be home buyers will be frozen out of the market. If that happens, home values could fall even more, crimping confidence and putting the brakes on the economy's greatest engine: the consumer._ ~~~ iigs I think that the benefit from "hosing money into the banking system" is front end loaded. That is to say: we've been living above our means for a while now and we've done the (inter-)national equivalent of kiting checks for the last 5 years. Now that there are some calls on this money (via defaults in the mortgage field) we're seeing that all of that leveraged money isn't quite as useful, real, or protected as we thought. "demand for our goods abroad" is barely a consolation prize. The effects from that are so long term and abstract that while they might help us climb back out, they certainly don't fix the immediate problem, which is businesses having to cut back because they don't have the cash to operate _today_. It's like saying you get to take a tax deduction because you had a big loss. Sure it might help but it's not nearly as nice as not having the loss in the first place. Same deal with oil. Financial crisis + time becomes an economic one. Financial crisis means that employers are considering layoffs (it's even in the article). Risk of job loss is the biggest thing controlling my _personal_ confidence level, and I certainly can't be alone in that regard. Discretionary spending drops (things are already hurting in tourist towns), and the layoffs continue. I suspect the depth and breadth of this depend on the health of the remaining financial institutions. I feel unprepared to speculate on that, since I don't understand the complexity of what we're already in, but things sure aren't looking good right now. :/ ------ sabat Smacks more of abject panic than it does common sense. If a company has to work _that_ hard to survive, then it would never survive a 15-year (?? unprecedented and hyperbolic) depression anyway. Better to sell everything off and close the doors. Seriously. If things are as bleak as the Sequoia panickers are saying, then most of their companies should probably just cut their losses by selling off capital assets and closing their doors. Better that than going down in three years with nothing left.

The state of computer science education in California’s high schools - kalengallagher https://medium.com/p/1953dba5d36b ====== gms7777 First, are statistics about AP Computer Science classes actually reflective of the "state of computer science education"? If they're the only computer science courses being offered, than perhaps this is the case but that isn't substantiated in the article. If they're not, you're making quite a generalization. Even if they are though, that is just as big of an issue to raise on the state of computer science education. At least back in my high school days, kids separted pretty early on into those that took advanced courses and those that didn't. Just because you don't have the ability to keep up with the pace of AP classes, doesn't mean you shouldn't have the opportunity to be exposed to computer science classes. Moving on from that, the article discusses differences in ethnicity among test takers. I think to some extent here, you need to make a comparsion to the distribution of ethnicities amongst students that take AP courses in general, not just to the general high school population. Which is not to say it isn't a problem, but that it isn't necessarily a problem directly associated to AP CS, but to advanced classes in general. Lastly, the statistic used of ".0034% of 10-12th grade students across the state" took the AP test in 2013 may be true but its a bit disingenous, since its comparing the amount of kids that took it in one year the total population of students in grades 10-12 (some of whom may have already taken it, or may be taking it the following year). A better statistic would be the amount of students who have taken it upon graduation, or taking the 3 years of AP numbers and comparing it with the number of students that were in the eligible pool those three years. Besides those points, I found this to be an interesting read through.

Ask HN: How would you build a startup to last 100 years? - keiferski According to Wikipedia, most of the oldest businesses in the world seem to be inns or breweries&#x2F;alcohol producers:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F; wiki&#x2F;List_of_oldest_companies<p>If you were starting a company today and wanted it to continue existing long past your death, what would you do differently? ====== davismwfl Stay away from fads, stay away from cutting edge technology, build something that will always be needed and don't take venture capital money in the first 10-15 years or so. Why: Fads fade. Cutting edge tech is expensive and generally unnecessary to solve most problems. Startups focus on tech and not on the things people need all the time, housing, electricity, food, water, consumables etc. VC dollars are short term focused, < 15 years say, to build a long term business you need fundamentals early on and you cannot be focused on the short game. Essentially the key is building something that not only has a need now, but has a fundamental need in the future. Alcohol is interesting as it isn't a need but a desire/want, and it is fairly highly regulated and has been illegal at times all over the world (still today in some places). Both alcohol and nicotine based products are sticky because they have addictive properties, which even though most people aren't an alcoholic they are drawn to the properties of the drink. One could argue currently social media also shares some of those same traits, it isn't needed and could be argued it is damaging in ways, but people are drawn to it. ~~~ keiferski Good answer. All very good points. Thanks! ------ drdeca I’m not sure that a new company being a startup, and having a high probability of lasting 100 years, are aligned with each other as goals. It is possible that I am confused/incorrect about what the term “startup” refers to though. (I thought it generally referred to the “grow fast, particularly high risk of failure” model) Edit: though, I suppose that “probability of lasting 20 years” and “probability of lasting 100 years” might not be as correlated as I thought? Perhaps making a company which is more likely to fail quickly, but if it doesn’t is likely to become large and stable, would make it overall more likely to last a long time than making one which takes fewer short term risks at the start and which is therefore more likely to stay around for at least a smaller amount of time? I don’t know.

Minima processor - Nokinside http://www.minimaprocessor.com/ ====== justaaron what is it? a licensable core? an interconnect? a risc-v implementation in silicon? the website says nothing about what the actual product/service is... am I being silly? ~~~ Nokinside It's a new processor technology that can be used in different processes and processors. see my other comment. ~~~ brudgers I guess my question is, what is [or will be] for sale? Is it a chip or would I need to contract with a fabricator or a fabricator and a design shop? ------ Nokinside summary: 20x energy efficiency improvement over competition using ultra-low voltage (subthreshold) operation and additionally the elimination of timing margins brings. Current power efficiency leader is Ambiq using Micron ARM-architecture. Minima uses 12,5 uA/Mhz, Ambiq 35 µA/MHz. Minima joined as founding partner in RISC-V foundation.

A highly efficient, real-time text-to-speech system deployed on CPUs - moneil971 https://ai.facebook.com/blog/a-highly-efficient-real-time-text-to-speech-system-deployed-on-cpus/ ====== thelazydogsback Personally, I find I dislike any "emotion" added to TTS -- I find Alexa's emo markup, a la: [https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/blogs/alexa/alexa- skills-...](https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/blogs/alexa/alexa-skills- kit/2019/11/new-alexa-emotions-and-speaking-styles) to be disturbing and without much added value. (Such as used with games like Jeopardy.) If used, the application of these tags needs to be both meticulous in its proper context, somewhat non-deterministically applied, and with randomized prosody. Repeated usage of the same overstated emotive content is annoying and unnatural (worse than a "flat" presentation) and only serves to underscore the underlying inflexible conversational content. ~~~ teilo I agree. All I care about is that the pronunciation is contextually correct, and smooth. Accents are fine, and necessary. But I don't want a non-human simulating human emotions. Now if they aren't simulated, that's another story... ~~~ mwcampbell +1. And I know I'm in the minority here, but I prefer it if computers don't use actual human voices at all. I like my computer to sound like a computer. (I wouldn't go so far as to add distracting retro affectations though.) I'm visually impaired, and I often use a screen reader when browsing the web. Here's my favorite voice to use with a screen reader: [https://mwcampbell.us/tmp/hn- comment-20200515-1.mp3](https://mwcampbell.us/tmp/hn-comment-20200515-1.mp3) ~~~ specialist That's amazing. Thank you for sharing. I could not comprehend that. I tried a few times. IIRC, people can learn to "speed hear". Make me think of the Star Trek TNG Bynars meets the FEDEX speed talker. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11001001](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11001001) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1o2wg5wqko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1o2wg5wqko) ~~~ mwcampbell I only run my TTS moderately fast. I have blind friends who run it faster. I have some vision, so I only use a screen reader part of the time, and not for programming. Also, I think speech synthesizers can do a more consistent job of enunciating at high speed than humans can. I didn't quite understand everything the FedEx speed talker was saying. ------ ekelsen Exciting to see our research making broad impact across the industry! [https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.08435](https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.08435) ~~~ ajtulloch Absolutely, it's super impressive work (as is your later work with Marat :) ). ------ jandrese Speech Synthesis has always baffled me. You could run a reasonable (albeit strangely accented) version on 16Mhz Macs without major CPU impact. The code including sound data was less than a megabyte. In order to achieve modest improvements in dictation we're throwing entire GPU arrays at the problem. What happened in the middle? Was there really no room for improvement until we went full AI? ~~~ Someone IIRC, it was _with_ major CPU impact. A 8 MHz machine couldn’t do much else while talking. Also, the original MacinTalk sounded a lot better if you fed it phonemes instead of text. It didn’t know how to pronounce that many different words, and wasn’t really good at making the right choice when the pronunciation of a word depends on its meaning. For example, if you gave it the text “Read me”, it always pronounced “Read” in the past tense. That always seemed the wrong bet to me, and I would think the developers had heard that, too, but apparently, fixing it was not that simple. I also think it didn’t know to pronounce “Dr” as “Drive” or “Doctor”, depending on context, or “St” as “Saint” or “Street”, to mention a few examples, and probably was abysmal when you asked it to speak a phone book, with its zillions of rare names (back in the eighties, that’s an area where AT&T’s speech synthesizers excelled, I’ve been told) And that’s just the text-to-phoneme conversion. The arts of picking the right intonation and speed of talking are in a whole different ball park; they require a kind of sentiment analysis. ~~~ wkearney99 hee hee, the best mispronunciation from Macintalk had to be chihuahua. chee-hoo-ah-hoo-ah ~~~ thelazydogsback The TI/99 TTS was the bomb! :) ------ blickentwapft It’s a pity that all the best text to speech and speech to text systems are cloud based with heavy vendor lock in. ------ Avi-D-coder Any chance of a open source implementation of this? I could really use a better tts for Linux. ~~~ brutt No, it cannot be open sourced. It literally has no source to open. ~~~ jandrese Huh? It appears to be written in PyTorch according to the article? The training data could also be considered source. And I agree that this is of limited use if I have to access it by uploading and downloading everything from Facebook servers. Not only do I have privacy implications, but there's the need for a solid fast low latency internet connection that I can't guarantee. ~~~ brutt AI is not written, AI is trained using dataset, PyTorch, and lot of computer time (and manpower). Dataset is not a big problem (if you can speak, you can create your own). PyTorch is already open. ~~~ qchris Depending on the architecture, though, it's possible to export the trained model into a stand-alone file that can be imported by somebody else's program, de-coupling the network's training data from model it produces. This is done pretty frequently in areas like computer vision and speech recognition, with the pre-trained weights for YOLO and Mozilla Deepspeech[0] being available for download. I'm not sure if the word "open-source" totally applies here, since as you pointed out, apart from downloading the dataset source might be tought, but OP's question might be answered by having the resulting models made publicly available with the source code of the networks they used to train and deploy it? [0] [https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech/releases/v0.6.0](https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech/releases/v0.6.0) ------ ge96 Impressive but also still sounds "robotic" like AWS Polly. I wonder if they'll fuse that tech where you can sample someone's voice from a paragraph and build something. Then you could hire a voice actor(ress) and maybe license their voice? I don't know how that would work. ~~~ shakna Personally, I quite like Polly's voices. But Polly already offers custom voices, such as trained with a particular person's voice. [0] [0] [https://aws.amazon.com/polly/features/#Brand_Voice](https://aws.amazon.com/polly/features/#Brand_Voice) ~~~ ge96 Which one do you use? I built something 3 years ago been using Kendra, not sure if Joanna is new that one sounds much better. ------ birdyrooster How long until computers can brainstorm all sorts of exciting new voices for characters removing the need for pesky contracts and royalties paid? ------ godelski That video at the end really is deep in the uncanny valley. ~~~ microtherion Meh. The synthesis quality is not terrible, but calling it "state of the art", quality-wise, is a bit of a stretch. ------ Causality1 The weaknesses of TTS twig different people in different ways. For example, Microsoft Zira and the older Google TTS voice rank near the top for me, while I find every single one of the modern Google voices so horrible as to provoke instant anger when I hear them. ------ bergstromm466 Yeah, awesome! This proprietary transcription algorithm must make it a hell of a lot easier for NSA databases. If this is deployed and used by FB so they send the finished and full transcripts of calls and other voice traffic [1] instead of the original audio to be transcribed later, it will all be more efficienct! // sarcasm [1] [https://theintercept.com/2015/05/05/nsa-speech- recognition-s...](https://theintercept.com/2015/05/05/nsa-speech-recognition- snowden-searchable-text/)

Our Brain Uses a Not-So-Instant Replay to Make Decisions - prostoalex https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-brain-uses-a-not-so-instant-replay-to-make-decisions/ ====== rjf72 Often when I read papers on neuroscience, I find it difficult to dismiss an analogy. It feels much like we're trying to analyze how different models of computers work by giving them all some input and then trying to discern meaning from the circuitry that then activates in response. The problem with this is imagine I give you even the precise specs of a fairly basic computing system. You're going to be able to create a lot of correlations, yet you'd probably make effectively 0 meaningful progress towards 'cracking' the system, or really gaining any meaningful degree of insight beyond repeating correlations. E.g. it may be that if you press the 'f' key, a certain area of your circuit board sees a heat spike but that doesn't really tell you much of anything. And, at worst, can give you false leads as you start to draw correlations such as 'ahh!!! it heats up when I press f, g, and h, but not i, j, k!!' When the actual reason, as is easy to imagine, might be entirely spurious. And in this case the analogy is many orders of magnitude worse. The brain is, by far, the most complex computing system we know of. And instead of precise specs, you have nothing but previous correlations to try to even have a clue as to what you're studying. And even of the specs we can measure, it's not looking hot. The Openworm [1] group for instance has been trying to model a worm brain. The roundworm brain is about as simple as you can get: 302 neurons, 7,000 synapses. The human brain's at 86 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses. Yet even that worm project seems to have hit some unforeseen hurdles since it appears to have stalled out since making headlines some half a decade ago. Of course neuroscience is far from my specialty, and it's entirely possible I'm missing some critical nuance. I'd love to know why this analogy is inappropriate if anybody could share. [1] - [http://openworm.org/](http://openworm.org/) ~~~ divan > It feels much like we're trying to analyze how different models of computers > work... There is a paper on exactly this case - "Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor?". Great read. [https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...](https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268) ~~~ hacker_9 Wow that was an eye opener to the state of the field, thanks for posting! ------ woliveirajr So not only the physical repetition of an activity makes it perfect, and not only replaying it mentally with eyes closed, but also dreaming of it... It's the common sense being proven right, thus reinforcing how to improve it. ~~~ SubiculumCode I wish i wasnt on a nokia feature phone or id go into depth on the misunderstandings u state about memory, the hippocampus, and the utility of repetition as a mnemonic. Perhaps another memory researcher can in my place, as it has taken me a while to type this already on this old style phn keyboard ~~~ SubiculumCode Example. Repetition least advanced mnemonic. Better: integration concepts and rich imagery. Neuro replay not likely analogy 4 repetition mneumonic. hippocampus fast learn, cortex slow learning, hip replay trains cortex to remember and cortex integrates with other learned ~~~ whatshisface Your comments are almost impossible to understand. It might be nice if you found a computer to type them on.

New Genetic Risk Factors Associated with Major Depression Have Been Identified - dpflan https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0090-3 ====== brudgers A preprint, [https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/07/24/167577](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/07/24/167577)

Bill Watterson's Speech – Kenyon College, 1990 - tim_sw http://www.serverunderground.com/archive/bill_watterson.html ====== GHFigs I am reminded of one of Taleb's aphorisms: "You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept", and of Glenn Gould's interview with himself: "G.G.: I simply feel that the artist should be granted, both for his sake and for that of his public – and let me get on record right now the fact that I'm not at all happy with words like "public" and "artist"; I'm not happy with the hierarchical implications of that kind of terminology – that he should be granted anonymity. He should be permitted to operate in secret, as it were, unconcerned with – or, better still, unaware of – the presumed demands of the marketplace – which demands, given sufficient indifference on the part of a sufficient number of artists, will simply disappear. And given their disappearance, the artist will then abandon his false sense of "public" responsibility, and his "public" will relinquish its role of servile dependency. g.g.: And never the twain shall meet, I daresay! G.G.: No, they'll make contact, but on an altogether more meaningful level than that which relates any stage to its apron." \-- [http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/028010-4020.07...](http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/028010-4020.07-e.html) ~~~ skore > "You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you > accept" Reminds my of my favorite saying of Thoreau: "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." And Watterson was right in that precise sense. Had he sold out, there would have been no end to the things he didn't want to, but would have had to do. ------ precisioncoder Bill Watterson is one of my heroes. From what I've read of him he had an extraordinary strength of will. His comics were a major influence on me growing up and the more I learn about him the more I admire him. ~~~ jdrobins2000 The world could use a little more Bill Watterson. There is a man who values what is truly valuable, and refuses to sacrifice it for the sake of greed or ego. To me, that is the epitome of virtue. ------ sramsay "If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood." Someone please put this in the fortune file for all eternity. It describes my life as a scholar, and the life of every professor I've ever known. ------ Wingman4l7 It tickles me to know that there's some dorm room ceiling at Kenyon with a copy of of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam", done by Watterson, hiding under a few coats of paint -- unless of course that dorm has since been torn down _(even if it was brand new when he was a student, it'd be ~35 years old now; he attended 1976 - 1980)_. ~~~ mbreese It's probably more common than you think. When I was in college (actually, just down the road from Kenyon at Denison - they were our big rival), I had a friend paint a large part of the "Creation of Adam" on her ceiling... in Tide. So, by day, it looked normal. However, by blacklight, you could see it in all its glory. I still don't know how she got the shading right. ~~~ Wingman4l7 Working on that under blacklight would have been interesting. That's going to really freak someone out someday, if it never got painted over... ------ easyfrag I recall Watterson also battled with the newspaper industry over how his strips looked, especially with the use of colour in the Sunday strips. I believe he felt somewhat constrained by the format and you can see him stretching the format's boundaries in the Calvin & Hobbes strips, especially the Sunday ones. I used to wonder why he never moved to doing comic "books" where he had more room to breathe. I've since come to believe that creative work benefits from some kind of constraint - a boundary to push against. ~~~ nollidge Not color, but format. Some newspapers will format a comic with two rows of panels, whereas another newspaper will format it with three narrower rows, etc. So the syndicates wanted comics with panel divisions that allowed that reformatting, whereas Watterson wanted to simply have his block of space to do whatever he wanted with. He ended up winning that battle. But to hear him tell the tale (IIRC in the 10th anniversary collection), while it opened up creative possibilities, the toll it took on his psyche probably helped ensure the relative brevity of his career. ~~~ MaxGabriel If I remember, another good example of this is that papers split on how much space was given, thus many Calvin and Hobbes comics have a "throwaway joke" at the top that the rest of the strip can be independent of. Example: <http://calvinhobbesdaily.tumblr.com/image/48223268456> ------ stkni I wish that I'd heard that speech when I graduated. He nails a lot of things I've discovered to be true as I've come along the way. But even if I had of heard it, I probably would've shrugged it off and made the same mistakes that I made anyway :-) ------ ctdonath On a related note, an anecdote which has long stuck with me: In the foreword to the _Complete Calvin & Hobbes_, Watterson noted his excitement at receiving the first copy, a box containing his life's work nicely arranged and packaged. Then horror hit him: that was it, his life's work, in just one small box. ~~~ Zikes As a fan of his work I do hope he realized how much everyone loves his life's work, and that ultimately the reach of that work extends far beyond what was in that one small box. ------ F_J_H So, somewhere out there exists a manager who was not able to harness and utilize Bill Watterson's creativity, and fired him instead. Don't be that guy.... ------ signa11 this is just _beautiful_ "Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards." ------ mattm It's a shame that Bill Watterson just simply disappeared. ~~~ noonespecial The opposite, I assume, would be Jim Davis-hood. He said what he needed to say, and no more. Magnificent. (I'm actually expecting a disappearance of _why-like proportions from Randall Munroe in the not-to-distant future as well.) ~~~ InclinedPlane I doubt it. xkcd has been hitting it out of the park consistently of late, and he's been experimenting more and more with radical new projects. I think it'll be a while before he gets tired of cartooning. ~~~ noonespecial That's why I said "_why-like proportions". It will be unexpected and shocking. I know its a bold prediction, but this kind of whimsical genius seems like a most unstable isotope. ~~~ InclinedPlane The difference between Watterson and Munroe is that Watterson made far more money but didn't have a ton of control, whereas Munroe probably makes less money but has far more control. Part of that is down to sheer popularity. Watterson is worth several hundred million dollars according to reports, whereas Munroe likely makes at most a few hundred k a year. Which is still very respectable, but not quite in the "fuck it, I'm retiring" impulse zone as Watterson's wealth is. Also, Watterson was fairly disconnected from his fans and the primary interaction of his work were the ongoing struggles with his syndicate masters. Whereas Munroe's main interaction related to his work is directly with his fans, which also directly provide his income (through merch sales, mostly). So there's very much less reason for Munroe to get frustrated with the process and stop. Watterson got tired of the bullshit and decided he'd had enough. If Munroe gets bored of doing the strip I suspect he'll just move on to some other project, which will be equally public (like what-if). ------ iagomr First time I really read about the man behind the masterpiece of my youth, and it did not disappoint, by far. What a great human being. ~~~ nollidge It's kind of rare for our heroes to refrain from disappointing us, isn't it? ------ nathell So this is where the inspiration for <http://xkcd.com/557/> came from. ~~~ andrewb I don't think he took inspiration from it. From speaking with friends we have all had the same dream for the first few years graduating University. ~~~ scott_s So much so that I'm shocked that nathell apparently _doesn't_ have them. In the past six years, I've _taught_ more classes than I've attended, and I still have them. ~~~ Pxtl Good news! There's a version for dead loved ones too. ------ Pxtl Watterson was born in the wrong decade. The internet era has created a lot of horrible things, but it has also created a massive culture of creator-owned creativity. The webcomic revolution has run a complete short-circuit around the heartless syndicates, establishing the relationship between the artist and the consumer as a _direct_ one. However, because nobody pays for webcomics, by necessity the artists can't have Watterson's high minded attitude about merchandising. A web cartoonist that doesn't merchandise is one who doesn't eat. But on the other hand, the merch is entirely theirs to design - they have first and last say over what is sold with their brand on it. ------ curiousabout Wonder if anyone has tried finding out where his room was and removing layers to reveal his painting? ------ spodek I would love to be a fly on the wall of a room with Bill Watterson, Banksy, and some beer. What other artists work with such passion, independence, and integrity? I'm sure there are others, but they come to mind. ~~~ wging It's interesting that David Foster Wallace also spoke at Kenyon. [http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster- wallac...](http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace- kenyon.html)

Silk Road: The Untold Story - Libertatea http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-untold-story/ ====== Nemcue I kind of feel uncomfortable reading this. We fight for our privacy, and for others to not in secret take part of our lives — but then we gobble these kind of articles up; frothing at the mouth for every explicit detail. Is Ross OK with them being this invasive? I'd like them to state upfront. ------ chkuendig Link to part 2 seems currently broken. Correct URL: [http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk- road-2/)

DDecode – Hex,Octal,HTML Decoder - steeples http://ddecode.com/hexdecoder/ ====== whitten Seems to be a useful tool based on a research project, but very little example of what it expects for input. I tried it with some HTML entity notation, and didn't see the letters represented, but was disappointed. Maybe my use case didn't match theirs. The history of examples where it has been used is very useful in determining how to use it.

Hyperlinking Reality via Camera Phones - simonb http://vicos.fri.uni-lj.si/research/hyperlinking-reality-via-camera-phones/ ====== onreact-com This is obviously the future.

The Brain vs the Mind - bennesvig http://bennesvig.com/the-brain-vs-the-mind/ ====== zoba What is talking about are called more technically called second order desires. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_volition>) From his example he "wants cheese cake" but he "wants to want to focus on his work" and instead he is "wanting cheesecake". Wikipedia gives the good example of the drug addict who "wants drugs" but he "wants to not want drugs". Its very close to the ideas of self control and willpower. Second order desires are important in artificial intelligence as most AI only has 1st order desires (e.g. 'make a plan of actions to accomplish something'). Second order desires can be used as a controller for 1st order AI processes, and are therefore very powerful (think about a real time system that can know when it has spent too much time planning, and needs to use whatever its current best plan is). ~~~ ramy_d I found your post much more informative than the original article. His work vs cheesecake seems to be an issue of discipline vs temptation, and to be honest, something we all face with various amounts of success (especially considering how popular home-grown projects are in this community) ------ AndrewDucker The problems a lot of people have with self-control stem from the way they deal with the split. If you think of the brain as something to be controlled then you will run out of energy very quickly. You can't hold it in place. If you think of it as an animal to be trained, then you can slowly alter its behaviour until it does what you want. ------ disgruntledphd2 Its funny that a hundred years ago, this article would have been the mind versus the body. Apart from highlighting a particularly interesting form of dualism (with which I have some sympathy), this article shows how much neuro- science has altered our perceptions of ourselves. ------ overgard I think as far as models of the brain goes, this one is somewhat useful and popular, but basically wrong. This book outlines a model that I think is a lot more accurate (as reviewed on Less Wrong): <http://lesswrong.com/lw/6yh/consistently_inconsistent/>

Four year old's commit in linux kernel - xg15 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=690b0543a813b0ecfc51b0374c0ce6c8275435f0 ====== jfjfjfkkkfjj Bullshit, Just some parents want to be famous. ~~~ omosubi Way to suck the joy out of a very innocuous change

Why NULL is Bad? - yegor256a http://www.yegor256.com/2014/05/13/why-null-is-bad.html?2014-19 ====== kazinator It's a blub language issue: (defun get-by-name (name) (let ((id (database-find db name))) ;; return NIL or employee instance (if id (make-instance 'employee id)))) If necessary, we can make the generic functions that normally operate on employee to also work on nil, by specializing methods for the null class: (defmethod salary ((e null)) 0) ;; null employee makes nothing No problem to see here, move on: (salary (get-by-name "Nonex Istent")) -> 0 Note, by the way, how the test is "(if id ...)" and not "(if (zerop id) ...)". get-by-name itself returns nil when the name is not found, rather than an integer, which means zero could be a valid ID. The conventions shortens code since the result can be treated as a boolean value indicating found or not found, and the true value is an ID also.

BlackBerry PlayBook takes the lead to Apple iPad? - mark01 http://www.ihelplounge.com/blackberry-playbook-takes-the-lead-to-apple-ipad/ ====== bbguitar Flawed article. Misleading Headline. How many of those Playbooks were returned after christmas and swapped for a Kindle Fire that actually works? "PlayBook managed 160,000 units. All iPad models combined sold 203.000 units."

A Mathematician’s Lament (2002) [pdf] - gshrikant https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf ====== mrcactu5 This is how people think of Math class: "Music class is where we take out our staff paper, our teacher puts some notes on the board, and we copy them or transpose them into a different key. We have to make sure to get the clefs and key signatures right, and our teacher is very picky about making sure we fill in our quarter-notes completely. One time we had a chromatic scale problem and I did it right, but the teacher gave me no credit because I had the stems pointing the wrong way." ~~~ nextos That's very sad and very true. For some reason, I stumbled upon Hubbard & Hubbard Vector Calculus a few days after first reading this essay and it stroke me as the opposite to this wrong math teaching. ------ jnbiche I actually disagree pretty strongly with this essay. I think Lockhart is advocating for an educational approach that would cater strongly (and exclusively) to a particular learning style, specifically, those learners who thrive when going from abstract to specific (deductive learning). For those of us who do best with _inductive_ learning, the type of education he proposes would bring even greater misery to our grade school education. It was not until I took statistics and probability (for science and engineer majors) in college that I truly began to enjoy math once again. I was able to start with concrete ideas and applications, and then work my way back to the theory behind them. I'm now reading "Concrete Mathematics" and really enjoying it. Knuth's ideas on math education are pretty diametrically opposed to those of Lockhart, as far as I can tell, and they give rise to something very close to my ideal learning environment for math. Why not allow children to follow which ever of the two math paths that is best suited to them, instead of forcing concrete thinkers into an abstract world, and abstract thinkers into a concrete world? Edit: I should probably add that I agree with Lockhart that there's a problem in the way math is taught, but I disagree with him on the solution. ~~~ jacobolus Endless drilling, memorization, and focus on pushing numbers through “formulas” is not the same as “inductive learning”. It’s entirely possible to do lots of pattern matching and bottom-up “inductive” problem solving in a way consistent with Lockhart’s recommendations. Here’s a great book chapter wherein a mathematician teaches some 6-year-olds in what might be called an “inductive” way: [http://www.ams.org/bookstore/pspdf/mcl-5-prev.pdf](http://www.ams.org/bookstore/pspdf/mcl-5-prev.pdf) ( _so much better_ than a standard first grade mathematics curriculum) Edit: to clarify, I basically think you’re reading something into Lockhart’s essay that isn’t there. ~~~ jnbiche Agreed, which is why I included the note (preceding your comment) adding that I agree with Lockhart that there's a problem in the way math is taught. Edit: Can you expand on your idea? I did just re-read the essay (for the 3rd time) and Lockhart seems pretty absolute in his belief that math should be taught as a playful, creative abstraction. And he seems to disdain practical applications of math. So how would you teach math in an inductive manner that maintains the level of abstraction and "playfulness" he's advocating for? By the way, love the book chapter! That's _exactly_ how I'm trying to teach my kids. Not always easy, but they respond well to it. And it's entirely possible I'm reading something into the essay that isn't there. But I'm not yet convinced. ~~~ jacobolus I’ll let Lockhart speak for himself: > _Now let me be clear about what I’m objecting to. It’s not about formulas, > or memorizing interesting facts. That’s fine in context, and has its place > just as learning a vocabulary does— it helps you to create richer, more > nuanced works of art. But it’s not the fact that triangles take up half > their box that matters. What matters is the beautiful idea of chopping it > with the line, and how that might inspire other beautiful ideas and lead to > creative breakthroughs in other problems— something a mere statement of fact > can never give you. > By removing the creative process and leaving only the results of that > process, you virtually guarantee that no one will have any real engagement > with the subject. It is like saying that Michelangelo created a beautiful > sculpture, without letting me see it. How am I supposed to be inspired by > that? (And of course it’s actually much worse than this— at least it’s > understood that there is an art of sculpture that I am being prevented from > appreciating). > By concentrating on what, and leaving out why, mathematics is reduced to an > empty shell. The art is not in the “truth” but in the explanation, the > argument. It is the argument itself which gives the truth its context, and > determines what is really being said and meant. Mathematics is the art of > explanation. If you deny students the opportunity to engage in this > activity— to pose their own problems, make their own conjectures and > discoveries, to be wrong, to be creatively frustrated, to have an > inspiration, and to cobble together their own explanations and proofs— you > deny them mathematics itself. So no, I’m not complaining about the presence > of facts and formulas in our mathematics classes, I’m complaining about the > lack of mathematics in our mathematics classes._ ------ drcomputer I loved mathematics throughout school. I don't know about anyone else, but I can see quite clearly how mathematics has shaped the way I think and form concepts, ideas, and understandings of my perception of the world. I would say that mathematics is foundational to my perception, if there exists anything that serves as the base way I interpret information. That said, I paint and I hated painting classes. I hated almost every art class I took. I paint okay, but painting is more about getting rid of negative emotions for me, than anything. I never really liked piano lessons either, I prefer to gain a small ability and spend years perfecting it with a combination of the few I've learned and perfected, into various impromptu permutations. I guess some people call this jazz, but all the stuff I've studied makes it sound like classical music does to me. With math, I don't really care about creating it. I just want all of the math in my head, with the right understanding of it, because I think that makes me a better computer scientist and software developer. I don't know if that's irrational reasoning, but I know that understanding math correctly is hard, and writing code is easy. ------ jackmaney A beautifully written and tragic essay. (Note: What follows is US-centric.) After nine years of teaching mathematics courses (one semester as an undergraduate, 4.5 years as a graduate student, and 4 years as an assistant professor) and navigating university politics, I'm convinced that this is, at its heart, a cultural issue. There's a hatred of mathematics in mainstream American culture that runs very, very deep. And it will probably take generations to change that (if changing it is even possible at this point). ~~~ dxbydt >There's a hatred of mathematics in mainstream American culture that runs very, very deep Completely agreed. As an immigrant, I can say it is very much a US thing. Haven't seen this much math-hate, but more importantly, math-utilitarianism, as in the US. In Asian countries & in Europe ( UK, France especially), people don't constantly fixate on stupid questions like "what is it good for ? ", which is ultimately a proxy for "how do I make money with this thing ?". But when I taught math here in the US as a graduate student TA, the majority of questions focussed on this single metric - usefulness. So math texts here are forced to invent bogus problems like "You want to house pigs with 500 feet of fencing. What dimensions of your rectangular pen will house the most hogs ?". Then the American kid says, Ah! Now I see the point of all this! Let l be the length of my pen and b its breadth. You want me to maximize the area of my pen l _b subject to 2l+2b=500 so I can house the most pigs! Ok so I see that b = 250-l, so l_ b is 250l - l^2, so I take its derivative & equate to zero & l=125, b=125, and that's the biggest pen that can house the most pigs. Very nice! In other countries, you simple wouldn't come up with all these sort of bogus utilitarian problems in animal husbandry. Students here learn exponentials & Taylor expansion as part of "how do I compute compound interest on my bank account", because that's supposedly the only legitimate use of e^x ! I honestly found teaching pre-calc, calc-1 & calc-2 a complete travesty, because the theorems & the entire courseware was essentially perverted - it was all in service of how to make use of the math for some bogus application, rather than learn it for its own good. The worst was when I had to teach how the horizontal range of parabolic trajectories varied - the textbook had examples of the US bombing Japan, & the students went to work computing the best possible angle for firing the missile, so that it would fly across in a parabolic trajectory and land the farthest thus maximizing its horizontal range & kill the most number of Japanese! There was no thought given to how violent & nasty this was. I actually have very radical ideas about how things should be taught - like you must learn Rolle's theorem before learning shit like pre-calc. Learn as much of undergrad real analysis before you get into application oriented shit like calc-1, calc-2 etc. Don't bring in garbage like LCR circuitry into pde's, even though yes, you can use a third order differential equation to compute current through an LCR circuit. Applications have their place, but such an overemphasis on application is simply not healthy. It actively distorts the culture & the body politic. Note that American students don'r ask "what use is rock and roll ? otr what use is hbo ? or what use is literature ?" all those things are given a free pass. But when it comes to math, suddenly use becomes the primary criterion. Read pages 6-7, & especially 12 of Lockhart's lament, where he chooses to parody this point of view via Simplicio. ~~~ jinfiesto I'm also a math teacher, and agree that there's something about American culture that's really messing with mathematics education. As a student, I was always annoyed by applications questions. Not because I have anything against applications, but because they were usually contrived, and often outside of my field of study. There were all sorts of physics questions that would pop up in the lower math classes (Never took physics) that I could do the math for, but had no reasonable physical intuition about how the system in question should actually behave. I was mostly just crunching numbers. ------ ColinDabritz Such a wonderful essay. It's very applicable to the teaching of computer science/software engineering as well. So much of the problem is the misunderstanding people have about the field. It's a creative, constructive discipline, and so much of the instruction is consumption, mimicry, and repetition. Solving well defined problems is relatively easy. Our real problem is that real problems are not well defined. ~~~ theoh I think I agree but isn't your last line a bit like saying "hammering in a nail is easy. The problem is that these screws aren't nails." Chuck Close: "I think while appropriation has produced some interesting work … for me, the most interesting thing is to back yourself into your own corner where no one else’s answers will fit. You will somehow have to come up with your own personal solutions to this problem that you have set for yourself because no one else’s answers are applicable." ... "See, I think our whole society is much too problem-solving oriented. It is far more interesting to [participate in] ‘problem creation’ … You know, ask yourself an interesting enough question and your attempt to find a tailor-made solution to that question will push you to a place where, pretty soon, you’ll find yourself all by your lonesome — which I think is a more interesting place to be." [http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/12/27/chuck-close-on- creat...](http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/12/27/chuck-close-on-creativity/) ------ zodiac FWIW one of our professors here at uwaterloo taught a first year abstract algebra / number theory class in a very Lockhart-esque way (Math 145; he even quoted Lockhart on one of the assignments). I learned a lot of math and enjoyed myself, but the main problem I observed was figuring out how to fairly grade students, and the fact that the homework took a lot more time than a class taught normally. ------ mathattack I have a lot of sympathy for his point of view. I loved Math growing up. High school drove the interest out of me, and I didn't get it back until senior Calculus, when I started doing well again. Then I learned to appreciate CS theory, economic theory, etc. Trying to figure out how to break the cycle for my kids: Stats for practical work, and math for curiosity. ------ 4ad A very similar piece by V.I. Arnold[1]: [http://pauli.uni- muenster.de/~munsteg/arnold.html](http://pauli.uni- muenster.de/~munsteg/arnold.html) [1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Arnold](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Arnold) ------ samwilkinson As a Physicist, I feel obliged to mention that black holes were first hypothesised by Physicists (contrary to the essay), albeit through Mathematical enquiry. ~~~ tokai I would assume that he means that mathematicians worked with singularities, before we knew, or hypothesised, that singularities arises in the real world. ------ WhitneyLand I often hear the excuse that mainstream courses like Algebra and Calculus are taught first and in a boring way because you have to learn mechanics before getting to the good stuff. However I don't see why they couldn't start a Calc course with one of those cool documentaries on Newton. For me it was incredibly motivating to hear the questions that drove the theory. Beyond that it seems certain classes like discrete math or combinatorics might allow more creativity and experimentation in secondary school without requiring a ton of foundation. Geometry, if I recall correctly, was one of the exceptions in early math where you are allowed to veer off the path a bit. Is everything else algorithmic until college? ------ MaxScheiber [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6187014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6187014) With that being said, I've always loved this essay. As of recently, I've viewed it as relevant to the recent argument that programming should be a requirement in American public schools, either as a tool in math and science classes or a free-standing course. This kind of mathematical reform might actually be a prerequisite for programming and computer science, given that it would develop mathematical maturity much more effectively than the current system does. ~~~ jnbiche Yes, but Lockhart is arguing _against_ any practical applications of math in the early years. I'm almost certain he would oppose any attempt to connect math to programming, for the reasons outlined in his essay (roughly, "math should be about imagination and playing, not applications"). In fact, I disagree with this essay, for reasons outlined in [1]. 1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847132) ~~~ birdsareweird Who do you think mathematical programming has to be practical? ~~~ saraid216 You're taking away the wrong thing from the grandparent post. If you teach math as a prerequisite for something else, you're naturally going to be undervaluing it. Math should be taught for the sake of learning math, not because it's the gateway to something else. It is, yes, but that's _not the point_. ~~~ birdsareweird You know the problem with that sentiment? Most people do not find abstract patterns and rote symbolic manipulation to be interesting. They simply don't, and if you teach math class mistakenly assuming they do, 90% tunes out. If you can show them how those abstract patterns reflect things in nature, and how those symbolic manipulations represent ideas and algorithms and systems, and can explain complicated things, that's something else. e.g. You don't need computer graphics to teach linear algebra, but how many people who 'know' matrix algebra know that the columns of a matrix are the basis vectors for the principal axes, and that matrix multiplication is the (affine) transform tool from photoshop? I would also suggest that if you want to get kids interested in trigonometry and you fail to mention that every single thing in a 3D video game is made out of triangles, you are a bad teacher and you should feel bad. ~~~ saraid216 I'm not interested in teaching math to people who don't want to learn math, honestly. It baffles me why so many people think that if someone is uninterested in math, they must be tricked into being good at it anyways. Teaching shouldn't be so dishonest. ~~~ birdsareweird Why do you think creating interest from real life is going to make them not "want to learn math"? That makes no sense. Teaching is all about benevolent dishonesty. The first thing a teacher does is dumb themselves down to their students' level. ~~~ saraid216 > Why do you think creating interest from real life is going to make them not > "want to learn math"? That makes no sense. I don't. I think it's entirely possible to cram knowledge into people's minds unwillingly. But you're making an unnecessary assumption: that you _have_ to teach everyone math. Why is that? ~~~ birdsareweird Why do we teach everyone history? Because it's valuable to know where we came from, and to realize that whatever's going on today, it's probably happened before. Why do we teach everyone math? Because it creates quantitative literacy, because it helps people deal with systems and complexity, to break down problems logically, and to not let biases get in the way of the truth. Or at least that's what I wish it would be focused on, instead of producing droids who know how to execute symbolic algorithms. ~~~ saraid216 > Because it creates quantitative literacy, because it helps people deal with > systems and complexity, to break down problems logically, and to not let > biases get in the way of the truth. None of these things are math. These things can take advantage of math, yes, but they have as much to do with math as figuring out how to use Microsoft Word does. > Or at least that's what I wish it would be focused on, instead of producing > droids who know how to execute symbolic algorithms. You want to know how to get them to focus on it? Ask them to. Stop asking people to teach math. Ask them to teach quantitative literacy. Recognize that this isn't necessarily math. Ask them to teach systems theory and complexity theory. Recognize that math is not the best vehicle for understanding those things, especially for grade schoolers. Ask them to teach logic. Recognize that set theory isn't covered in grade school at the moment, and that learning logic isn't going to happen through math. Ask them to teach ways of discerning truth despite bias. That means covering the scientific method, covering statistics, covering research strategies, covering fact- checking. Be. Honest. With. Your. Goals. Your goal isn't "Students should know how to derive polynomial expressions." You've stated your goals. Recognize them for what they are. Stop asking math teachers to carry all that weight for you. Stop hoping that students will magically gain "quantitative literacy" from geometry proofs about angles. You get "droids" because you've asked for "droids". ------ blahblahblah3 I think for most people, math is best learned in the context of some application that they care about (the last four words are very important). Few people appreciate the beauty of the abstract game itself. For example, most people who play poker online quickly learn about expected value, probability, and variance. ~~~ eruditely Precisely. Poker is one of the most advanced games that legitimately teaches you what you need to know! The language used by poker players should be adapted wholesale. ------ ashark HN is big on curated lists lately. Is there one for resources to aid in teaching mathematics the way Lockhart would prefer? I've seen this posted so many places so many times that surely there's a market for materials and support for it. Where are they? ~~~ GregBuchholz With a quick search, here's the closest thing I could find: [http://mathoverflow.net/questions/5074/are-there- elementary-...](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/5074/are-there-elementary- school-curricula-that-capture-the-joy-of-mathematics) ...but I too would like to see what you are looking for, at an elementary school age level. ~~~ ashark Now that I've thought about it a bit more, what I'd really love is a directory of sensibly ordered learning resources (free online stuff, videos, links to books on Amazon, whatever), headed by one or two mission-statement type papers (like Lockhart here) for the pedagogical strategy they generally follow, for a whole bunch of topics with several strategies per topic. That way you could pick a topic, read the statements for the various strategies, select one or more that you like and just start working down from the top. ... and I'd also like a pony :-) ------ prestonbriggs Lockhart has a book, "Measurement", that elaborates in the same vein. Quite nice. ~~~ mushishi I personally found it inspiring and beautifully written. ------ drcomputer I loved mathematics throughout school. I don't know about anyone else, but I can see quite clearly how mathematics has shaped the way I think and form concepts, ideas, and understandings of my perception of the world. I would say that mathematics is foundational to my perception, if there exists anything that serves as the base way I interpret information. That said, I paint and I hated painting classes. I hated almost every art class I took. I paint okay, but painting is more about getting rid of negative emotions for me, than anything. I never really liked piano lessons either, I prefer to gain a small ability and spend years perfecting it with a combination of the few I've learned and perfected, into various impromptu permutations. I guess some people call this jazz, but all the stuff I've studied makes it sound like classical music does to me. With math, I don't really care about creating it. I just want all of the math in my head, with the right understanding of it, because I think that makes me a better computer scientist and software developer. I don't know if that's irrational reasoning, but I know that understanding math correctly is hard, and writing buggy programs is easy. ------ drcomputer I loved mathematics throughout school. I don't know about anyone else, but I can see quite clearly how mathematics has shaped the way I think and form concepts, ideas, and understandings of my perception of the world. I would say that mathematics is foundational to my perception, if there exists anything that serves as the base way I interpret information. That said, I paint and I hated painting classes. I hated almost every art class I took. I paint okay, but painting is more about getting rid of negative emotions for me, than anything. I never really liked piano lessons either, I prefer to gain a small ability and spend years perfecting it with a combination of the few I've learned and perfected, into various impromptu permutations. I guess some people call this jazz, but all the stuff I've studied makes it sound like classical music does to me. With math, I don't really care about creating it. I just want all of the math in my head, with the right understanding of it, because I think that makes me a better computer scientist and software developer. I don't know if that's irrational reasoning, but I know that understanding math correctly is hard, and writing code is easy. ------ krazydad Love the bit about the misconception that Mathematics is mainly about utility. I remember reading something about G.H. Hardy (which I can no longer find) in which he said he would get a little bit disappointed if he found that one of his results ended up finding a practical use. ~~~ Retra That's not a misconception. It would be great if all mathematics had obvious utility, but that's demanding perfection. It doesn't mean mathematics would be worth doing if it had no utility. In fact, we often try to do mathematics in a way that guarantees some amount of utility; that's why we use proof-based methods in leu of wishful thinking. Should I write a mathematics paper concluding "true = false" and argue that mathematics is not about utility? No. Such a thing is utterly useless, and it would be ridiculous to propose that I'm doing mathematics without taking the necessary care to ensure my work is useful. ~~~ saraid216 I'd be more concerned that such a paper would be a lie. When did utility become more important than truth? ~~~ Retra Truth is important because it has utility. It enables consistency and reproducibility in a way that nothing else does. ~~~ saraid216 Really? What consistency and reproducibility does "An individual is a worthwhile human being" have? ------ aaronem Vital context: _The Underground History of American Education_ , free online: [http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/ughoae.pdf](http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/ughoae.pdf) ~~~ GregBuchholz Wow. It certainly has an excellent hook in the very first sentence: "Our problem in understanding forced schooling stems from an inconvenient fact: that the wrong it does from a human perspective is right from a systems perspective." ~~~ aaronem It gets better from there. Keep reading. ------ WhitneyLand I often hear the excuse that mainstream courses like Algebra and Calculus are taught first and in a boring way because you have to learn mechanics before getting to the good stuff. However I don't see why they couldn't start a Calc course with one of those cool documentaries on Newton. For me it was incredibly motivating to hear the questions that drove the theory. Beyond that it seems certain classes like discrete math or combinatorics might allow more creativity and experimentation in secondary school without requiring a ton of foundation. ------ WhitneyLand I often hear the excuse that mainstream courses like Algebra and Calculus are taught first and in a boring way because you have to learn mechanics before getting to the good stuff. However I don't see why they couldn't start a Calc course with one of those cool documentaries on Newton. For me it was incredibly motivating to hear the questions that drove the theory. Beyond that it seems certain classes like discrete math or combinatorics might allow more creativity and experimentation in secondary school without requiring a ton of foundation. ------ drvortex If the musician woke up in the first sentence, how is he still dreaming in the next one? ------ sarciszewski My favorite part is "The Standard School Mathematics Curriculum". ------ eximius Always a good read.

Epidemiologist: Social Distancing Guarantees Second Wave of Covid-19 - giardini Dr. Knut Wittkowski: &quot;at the Rockefeller University for 20 years, Head of the Department of Biostatistics Epidemiology and Research Design, and before that, I worked for 15 years with Klaus Dietz, one of the leading epidemiologists in the world in the German town of Tubingen in the Eberhard Karls University.&quot;<p>Complete interview at:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ratical.org&#x2F;PerspectivesOnPandemic-II.html<p>Selections from the Interview of Dr. Wittknowski at:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thecollegefix.com&#x2F;epidemiologist-coronavirus-could-be-exterminated-if-lockdowns-were-lifted&#x2F;<p>Some quotes:<p><i>&gt;WITTKOWSKI:&quot;However, if we are preventing herd immunity from developing, it is almost guaranteed that we have a second wave as soon as either we stop the social distancing or the climate changes with winter coming or something like that.&lt;&quot;</i><p>[30:10.16] JOHN: I see. And so, to summarize, you are saying that’s going to flatten and extend the epidemic and create the second wave that we are being told to fear?<p>[30:21.00] WITTKOWSKI: Yes. The second wave is a direct consequence of social distancing. ====== mullingitover Oh, it'll be more than two waves if we're lucky. See figure 4 from the the Imperial College paper[1]. Note that that paper assumes R0 of 2.2. A paper in CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases written by researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory shows evidence that the real R0 could be as high as 5.7[2]. This guy's argument is wildly reckless, he's basically advocating for the rejected "herd immunity by infecting everyone at once" strategy that would've killed millions. He gives absolutely zero thought to the health care workers who are already dying en masse even with a quarantine strategy. [1] [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial- college/medicine/s...](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial- college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI- modelling-16-03-2020.pdf) [2] [https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article?deliv...](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article?deliveryName=USCDC_333-DM25287) ~~~ giardini mullingitover says _> " he's basically advocating for the rejected "herd immunity by infecting everyone at once" [a] strategy that would've killed _millions_."<_ "Herd immunity" is not "rejected". For example, the Dutch and the Swedes have chosen to use it against Covid-19.. Furthermore, the total number of Covid-19 __cases__ in the USA is less than a million! to claim that the herd immunity strategy would have "killed millions" is nonsense. Deaths in USA due to Covid-19 are < 17,000 as of today, April 9, 2020. ~~~ himlion Not true, the Dutch have been on quasi lockdown for the last 4 weeks. ~~~ giardini Well, it _is_ true, they did and it was official: _" Dutch embrace 'herd immunity' as dire death warning prompts UK to change course"_ [https://pjmedia.com/trending/dutch-pm-announces-he-opts- for-...](https://pjmedia.com/trending/dutch-pm-announces-he-opts-for- extremely-risky-herd-immunity-in-battle-against-covid-19/) ~~~ himlion It was a gaffe from the PM and quickly retracted, see for example: [https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/03/mps-back-ministers- on-...](https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/03/mps-back-ministers-on- coronavirus-herd-immunity-is-not-the-aim-says-rutte/) ------ himlion Well, I think two waves that stay manageable for the healthcare system is preferable to one wave with people dying without treatment in overcrowded hospitals. ------ rdtwo If we can build enough masks and enough hyperbolic chambers for wave 2 sure but there isn’t much effort. Vents are mostly useless and most people on vents either die immediately or have poor long term outcomes. ------ computerphysics Social distancing just flattens the curve. Lockdown lifting necessarily implies a second wave unless Suppression is applied. [https://miro.medium.com/max/1344/1*Xey24l-zNkU8pScTu7st5A.pn...](https://miro.medium.com/max/1344/1*Xey24l-zNkU8pScTu7st5A.png) [https://medium.com/@juan_marketpayio/please-america-do- not-f...](https://medium.com/@juan_marketpayio/please-america-do-not-follow- us-991939b9a5e1)

Ask YC: euro vs dollar vs export? - Tichy Just read in the German newspaper: german businesses are worried that the high euro will hurt their foreign sales. Now I am wondering, naively trying to understand economics: isn't a high Euro a result of high demands for European goods? In other word, is that another example of an extremely absurd headline, or am I overlooking something?<p>It's just the kind of headline newspapers blurt out on a regular basis, so I would be interested to understand it. ====== davidw They're not mistaken to be a bit worried, if a lot of their demand is from the US. To really start understanding these things... probably the best thing is to follow some good economics blogs. ~~~ Tichy Naturally, it get's harder for foreign countries to buy European goods, I understand that. It just seems as if the cause is too high a demand for European goods to begin with, so there is not really anything to worry about? At the moment the statistics are still good, apparently, as demand is still rising. The other scenario might be that the markets are saturated, like, if Germany were to produce 10 billion cars per year, but there is only demand for 10 million cars. But then they could lower their prices or just produce less cars (thus saving costs), which would probably be equivalent to the Euro falling? ~~~ davidw I think the problem is more that the dollar is falling than that the Euro has risen, and a lot of it has to do with money flowing around, debt, interest rates and lots of other things that I'll admit that I sort of grasp when I read them, but haven't digested well enough to explain them decently. ~~~ Tichy I guess if the rest of the world went broke, it would be bad news for export. Good products, but no buyers. But the exporting country would still have their presumably superior efficiency, so they can't be too bad off.

“Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth.” - chumchum http://florian-michahelles.blogspot.com/2015/04/information-is-not-knowledge-knowledge.html ====== MichaelCrawford Data is not Information.

How to cause utter chaos on Facebook - thomasdavis https://gist.github.com/968060 ====== program It all began when a user pasted the value of the _jsText_ variable in the address bar. The script create a new _script_ DOM element and append it to _head_ injecting the malicious links (so that there is no more need to run the bookmarklet-like link.) The problem here is that the (old) Facebook prompt_page.php page: <http://www.facebook.com/connect/prompt_feed.php> doesn't sanitize feed_info[action_links][0][href] allowing _javascript:_ links. ------ kooshball Can someone post an image of what the "Remove this app" picture actually looks like? does it show as part of the newsfeed? ~~~ oomkiller <http://i.imgur.com/wljHt.png> Seems to be a decent example. ------ wilshire461 It seems as though she is more the victim of some asshole that may or may not know her, that is now trying to extract some revenge by making her life a miserable hell while this mess gets sorted out. ------ rottyguy seems like a better way to cause a dns attack on the file hosters machine no? better title: dns attack from facebook. ------ thomasdavis Makes a vulgar post on a users wall, if the user clicks "Remove this app" it then post it to all your friends walls. Reddits reaction thus far <http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/search?q=nicole+santos> Edit: I think facebook has already taken it down, it lasted about 30 minutes. ~~~ guywithabike It was Dropbox that took down the file, though I bet it was taken down by some sort of automatic hotlinking protection system. ~~~ thomasdavis The Dropbox link went down quite fast, it was mirrored by another site nearly instantly and the hack remained in working condition. Then I'm guessing Facebook took down the App and deleted all the comments that were spread. ------ bhickey Great, you found a script injection. However, I think you misunderstand "Hacker News" ~~~ thomasdavis Wasn't me and I don't understand this comment.

No Code - severine https://vas3k.com/blog/nocode/ ====== kleiba The second sentence ("First, you work all month, and then you give half of the money to those who didn't work.") is already so blatantly wrong and reactionary that I almost have to force myself to read on - after all, if the premise is already flawed what good can come of it? ~~~ thenoblesunfish Seriously.. it wouldn't be such an aggravating statement if people didn't actually believe it. (To state the obvious, the idea of the taxes is that the money is used to pay for the roads to get you to work, for the education that provides you and your employees the skills to work, and for all the other things that allow society to function so you can work. Yes, including helping people who are looking for work, so that the economy in which you work can function. It's not altruism - you're paying for the system which supports your job existing in the first place.) ~~~ sfoley And, in Berlin, pays for health care. ------ perl4ever I've gotten sucked into this in the form of MS Power Automate, and it just seems to make everything more complicated and confusing. I spend most of my time looking for workarounds to try to get back the ability to do stuff that any programming language allows. I only learned Access and VBA about a year ago, but I tend to agree with the people who say Microsoft has broken up parts of the functionality of this reasonably useful workhorse into various products, all with their own learning curve and without caring much about covering all that you could previously do. I'm beginning to think it's just a scam, where Microsoft and others sell a vision to people who can't judge it because they don't know what programming is...and the point is to have an incredibly convoluted and random licensing system where every little thing requires paying more money. It feels as calculated and predatory as a casino. What "no code" boils down to, it appears to me thus far, is you don't have the version control, the refactoring ability, the ability to reuse code, the ability to see a reasonable amount of logic at once, the ability to easily copy and paste, the security of an editor that won't randomly mangle your code (sorry, it isn't code, it's...uh...JSON) it's just on and on, things you can't do, and nothing added in exchange except the label of "no code". And I don't see how anything complex can be maintained; it merely has the political advantage that you don't have to _designate_ a developer to maintain it...but in reality, it's if anything harder to understand. ~~~ bokstavkjeks From how I understand it, the idea behind Power Automate isn't to move programmers over to it. It's to allow other people in the business to automate their workflows without bringing in developers. No/low code systems are great for departments such as accounting and finance, they typically have some tasks that are great targets for automation, and the workers know more about the process than the developers. If the workers can create the automation without bringing in developers it can save quite a bit of resources over time. These people are also not all that keen on actually learning programming languages, source control, version control, and all of that. They just have a problem in their day-to-day work they'd like to solve. If you want the "developer experience" (source control, some code, etc.) while also having access to the flow-based editor you should look into Azure logic apps instead. ------ s17n What "no code" is really about is "no figuring out the toolchain, deployment, integration with third parties, etc". For actually writing business logic, replacing code with drag and drop logic blocks is... not really helpful to anybody. But with all the crap that programmers actually spend our days dealing with removed from the picture, anybody can write their own business logic, even if they have to do it in _gasp_ code. ~~~ capableweb > For actually writing business logic, replacing code with drag and drop logic > blocks is... not really helpful to anybody It's not helpful for anybody to be able to write their own services, even if they cannot code? Everyone who can't code, would disagree with you. Sure, they can spend some free time to pickup programming, and maybe after a lot of reading and practicing, would be able to build the flow in a programming language, but why do that when you could just drag and drop logic blocks until it solves your particular problem, then move on to what you really care about? ~~~ UK-Al05 Because drag and dropping blocks is the same difficulty as writing it down just with more steps. The difficulty isn't in writing the code, but specifying exactly what you want to do. ~~~ capableweb Yeah, I mean, you're right, it is difficult to specifically know what you want the computer/server to do. But, writing code (as text) is a lot harder for people to do, than to use graphical elements. Why I don't know, maybe it's just more daunting to get started. But people have an easier time pickup "programming" via blocks rather than text. ~~~ lmm In my experience that's not actually true. People might be able to drop some graphical elements into place, but they can't fix bugs in their "programs". ------ marcus_holmes It's not "no code" it's "code later". It doesn't prevent the effort of coding the solution, just moves it down the line and makes it harder. The good part is that (as the article) says, you only need to write the code when you know the code will be used. The bad part is that the no-code solution will break at some point. Usually because some part of the chain introduced a breaking change, or the process its modelling needs to change in a way that the solution can't handle. Then you need to replace the no-code with actual code, while under time pressure because the business is broken waiting for the new solution. He's right - this is a useful tool, and sitting in the middle is the best place. But there are lots of people who will read this and create something completely with no-code and with no intention of replacing it with code, until it breaks and then they're in a painful place. ~~~ lloydatkinson > It doesn't prevent the effort of coding the solution, just moves it down the > line and makes it harder. What is harder about using a OCR app and calling the Airtable API to get the expenses compared to writing all the code to take photos, scan for text, and then upload to Airtable or even a SQL DB? ~~~ marcus_holmes The harder part is that when you have to write the code, it's because your existing business relies on it, and you have interfaces defined by other systems. So, to take the example: you set up the expenses handling with no code, it's easy, all good. Then halfway through next year, the OCR app starts charging $1 per scan (as a hypothetical). Now you have to write some code. But your accountant is waiting for your receipts, so you have a deadline for the coding. And your code has to use the Airtable API, because that's where the rest of your process takes off. That API might be a lot harder to use than, say, SQLite, which would be your choice if you were coding the system from scratch. So the code you have to write has constraints from the rest of the process that still works, and a deadline. So it's harder to write. That's what I meant by "makes it harder". ------ jl2718 I haven’t been following the no-code “movement”, but it seems to me that this is really a revolt against abusive software development practices justified by UI/UX and of course data lock-in. It seems that people really want editable, transparent, and composable pipelines for common tasks. This is the GNU philosophy for the command line. Little story: I did a lot of work with Army grunts trying to avoid getting blown up. The main tool was excel. Software shops kept delivering junk that nobody used. The acquisitions guys loved a slick demo and that’s pretty much all it did. They’d come in and install a new server cluster, which means a bigger server room, which means more cooling, which means a bigger generator, which means more diesel trucks, which means more convoys on the road, which means more getting blown up. New grunts would tool around on it for a month and then get a novel task they had to use excel for, and never go back. The acq guys had such disdain for the ‘users’ that they couldn’t imagine that they actually knew WTF they were doing. The slick demo went on to win the DCGS contract, and now they’re stuck with ‘easy’ where they need flexible, customizable, fast, simple (all the way down the stack). So yeah, now I get it. It’s more like, no-UI than no-code. ~~~ locallost I would say people want to get rid off developers. The way it usually works is that somebody has an idea useful for humans, but they don't speak code. They then need somebody who knows bits and bytes, but unfortunately probably does not understand the actual idea or its purpose. So what ensues is the developer trying to make a stupid machine do something that somebody else envisioned, as a sort of idea to code compiler. This is not always true -- especially for startups -- but it is I think for the no code part. Now if the developer could concentrate on giving the tools where his expertise is relevant to the people with ideas everything would be amazing. If it can work. ~~~ vangelis Asking people what they want is an underrated skill. ------ phnofive From Not Invented Here to Exclusively External Dependencies. Took me down a fun rabbit hole of German tax deductions for expenses - especially the fact that you can deduct a few thousand euros without evidence: [https://www.thelocal.de/20180509/german-tax-return-know- your...](https://www.thelocal.de/20180509/german-tax-return-know-your-tax- deductible-expenses-wundertax-tlccu) ------ jamexcb In Portugal we just give our NIF (fiscal number - VAT Number) every time you buy something. All invoices will have your NIF. And all invoices are communicated to the government by the software that make your invoice. All invoicing software need to me certified by the government. This is mandatory. When you need to make your taxes they are already filled in. And business can't avoid taxes because they are communicated to the government. ------ reeeeee Soooooo, the author moved away from waveapps because the system did no allow him to link multiple pictures to 1 receipt. So he started implementing his own no-code solution which... also doesn't allow him to link multiple pictures to 1 receipt... ~~~ reportgunner So they at least wrote an article about it to salvage the time spent. ------ totetsu I am trying to read this article, but it has a lot of money bumps.. ------ voltagex_ What do you do when Integromat shuts down? ~~~ bszupnick Same can be said about most cloud platforms that programmers would store their code. "What if Google Cloud shuts down", "What if service X changes their API", "What if your CI/CD provider makes a breaking change in their YAML syntax". This happens, it sucks, but it's not a reason to not host on cloud, use an API, or deploy with a CI/CD. Outsourcing is a calculated risk. ~~~ majewsky The difference is that Integromat is less fungible than, say, GitHub. If GitHub were to shut down, I could move to GitLab or my own Gitea instance, and it would be a fairly easy adjustment (mostly just changing the domain name everywhere). If Integromat shuts down, you have to completely rebuild your workflow on a competitor's platform because they're not based on a common protocol. ------ pjc50 Is "Scanner Pro" good enough to be able to: \- take a photo of a supermarket receipt and OCR _all_ the items \- get that at least 95% correct \- output that in a document with correct horizontal grouping? If not, can someone recommend me an Android app for this? ------ avmich vas3k is a wonderful blogger, glad his page made it to HN. He has technical stories on the site, but it's non-technical ones which I consider real gifts to his readers. ------ jgarzon For me the worst part is that I can use a keyboard to write code but only use a single pointer from my mouse to move stuff. It’s so much slower ------ mikecoles I saw no-code and poor eyesight picked out what looked like an amateur 2x2 callsign so I thought this was about licensing and morse code. Cool workflow he has developed. It seems taxes are too crazy everywhere. ------ ykevinator What does the auto segmentation and ocr? ~~~ stuzenz Scanner Pro does the OCR \- and it was implied (due to the need for the correct name) that the categorisation is a mapping from the name used for the scanned OCRed file. That is my take from it. I could be wrong. ------ klingonopera Wow. That seems like a lot of work. I just use GnuCash, a scanner, some good old Samba file-hosting on a local Debian server running 24/7, and WOL and VNC (or just SSH and SCP) if I need to access anything from not at home. ------ p2t2p It is me or “no code” is just “Unix way” of cloud world? ~~~ kennydale if Unix utilities could do a thousand different things instead of just one - then yes :) ~~~ p2t2p Well, I mean there are cloud services that serve one function, like sending emails (MailChimp) or storing files (Dropbox) and then you glue them together with IFTTT. Analogy of Unix utilities and shell scripting comes into mind by itself. ------ patchtopic "First, you work all month, and then you give half of the money to those who couldn't work." fixed the wording for you. ~~~ seph-reed It sounds like Taxes in Berlin are extremely effective. In the US my Taxes seem to just vanish. ~~~ imtringued The biggest chunk of those taxes are mandatory government insurance programs. The government may or may not be running them poorly but you can definitively say that the money is being used for a specific purpose. ------ teraku This reminds me of [https://xkcd.com/1425/](https://xkcd.com/1425/) ------ peace2all TL;DR: He relies on 3 different online services to scan business receipts and track expenses. None are needed. He spends hours (days) trying to automate what he himself claims is only a few expenses per month (and shows a photo of a very thin folder of receipts). I can’t imagine his business will be ever very successful. He wastes too much time toying with simple things. But aside from that, if one wants a “no code” solution to tracking expenses, along with imaged receipts in case later proof is needed here you go: 1\. Take pic of receipt. If you need multiple pics per image, you can combine images post de facto via something like Apple’s Preview app (save as PDF), or you can use Apple Notes to do for you. I assume other competing platforms have similar options. Worst case scenario: simply add “page-2”, “page-3”, in the file name. 2\. Save image file in a directory called “business-receipts”. 3\. Name file with receipt date, vendor, amount, and maybe description or anything else. Date comes first for easy finding later. “2020-06-15 ATT 63-00 USD Monthly business cell bill.pdf” 4\. Enter transaction into appropriate tab of business finances spreadsheet (cash, bank, credit card, etc.) 5\. Add a category for the expense, if you want. 6\. Get back to work. Benefits? 1\. No code necessary (unless you count your initial spreadsheet setup and the use of VLOOKUP for reporting). Call me crazy but if you’ve been going through all the gyrations outlined in the article, I assume you’ve mastered VLOOKUP or can do so in 10 minutes and that you’ve also graduated Junior High school. 2\. No trusting OCR “auto-populate”. Most of us can type faster than these things can think. Also, if you trust those (without verifying each time), I have some perfectly safe driverless cars to sell you. 3\. Almost no technical debt. No API depreciation. No risk of anyone being bought out. 4\. Offline. Works without the internet. As did most all business processes 25 years ago on PCs. Amazing. No clunky browser needed either. 5\. Secure. Your data is kept Local First. If you choose to backup online, so be it. Encrypt and Backup. But all your prior processing between multiple “services” (with your unencrypted data being manipulated on their ends) is no longer necessary. Counter-Arguments: 1\. Excel is now also a “service”: True but it’s more popular and has more staying power than any of the ones you’re using. If you really think you don’t want to pay monthly for Excel (not sure what business can avoid this), there are plenty of free options. And for the purposes of this method, at least, you could do this on Excel 97 (buy once, use ‘forever’). 2\. Still have to deal with online storage: Well, no you don’t, but let’s pretend that you only trust hard drives in the cloud and not the $100 4Tb one you can get at Walmart. So what? Encrypt and send it on up. If you use Macs or Office365, you likely have plenty of room already. Why involve another third- party? But anyway, this is a part of the “no code” process you added as if it was unique only to that process. It’s a bigger part of a different decision on how you store, encrypt, and/or backup your business data. A single line CRON job would take care of this, unless you count that as “code” since it involves typing a line of text instead of 47 mouse clicks. 3\. This isn’t multi-user: True. Based on the 2 receipts per month statement, and the thin Lemonade Stand folder of receipts, it didn’t seem worthy of that functionality. If multi-user is needed, and the free WaveApp is costing you sleep, Quickbooks is your solution. Welcome to the world of Big Boy Businesses where the owners work hard and underlings do data entry into complex software. ~~~ kixiQu Hacker News needs a "Flag As 'This Is Going To Be The Next Dropbox Comment, Isn't It'" button

PSA: Apple's $29 iPhone battery replacement program ends soon - Varcht http://zdnet.com/article/psa-apples-29-iphone-battery-replacement-program-ends-soon/ ====== herogreen PSA = public service announcement ? ~~~ tqkxzugoaupvwqr Correct. ------ dzhiurgis Mine broke camera, good luck proving that to Apple.

Two Charts For Anyone Who Thinks Skipping College Is A Good Idea - maigret http://www.businessinsider.com/pay-gap-high-school-and-college-graduates-2011-6 ====== mgl The conclusion is completely wrong. If you have a potential to go to college but you consciously decide to skip it/drop out, that's somehow different from stopping your education at high school level just because you can't get into university. It's 21st century. You won't make money just from having a degree and being dumb.

Smart scale goes dumb as Under Armour pulls the plug on connected tech - close04 https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/smart-scale-goes-dumb-as-under-armour-pulls-the-plug-on-connected-tech/ ====== _Microft Only half a week ago we had a thread that _Smart homes will turn dumb overnight as Charter kills security service_. I suppose I could just copy my comment from there but you might want to look it up as some discussion followed. "The manufacturer should never be able to either deactivate or otherwise disable the functionality of a device they sold in a form that requires a service to function. [...]" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22083881](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22083881)

Quikly Jump to Your Favorite Directories with HyperJump Shell Script - x0054 http://sdbr.net/post/HyperJump/ ====== cpbotha Similar to the tool written about here, FASD is also awesome! [https://github.com/clvv/fasd](https://github.com/clvv/fasd) It remembers where you go and which files you open. These days I just do "z gn" (for example) and it'll go to the project directory I've most recently been working in containing the letters "gn". ("zz gn" gives me a list, sorted in order of probability)

Ask HN: How can people use N95 masks effectively? - quietthrow We can’t rely on CDC at this time given they are still trying to get their act together along with the fed govt. Their advice is often conflicting and&#x2F;or confusing. Eg: ordinary people should not use n95 masks. But medical professionals should. I understand we have in short supply but it’s confusing to say it helps in one place but not another.<p>Any health professionals on HN can provide objective thoughts. We know we can’t rely on this govt.<p>If one has access to these masks. What’s the proper way to use them?<p>1. should they be worn only when one goes out? 2. how much can they be reused? Days? Weeks? Indefinitely? 3. what are the benefits of using regular (non n95 masks) I one dosnt have the n95 masks? Is it still better than no mask when doing groceries? ====== ThrowawayR2 > " _What’s the proper way to use them?_ " The only correct answer is "Donate them to your nearest hospital." ~~~ chupa-chups The correct answer is: wear them always (this is only the right answer if you passed high school mathematics). If you expect a significant percentage of the population to be infected, wearing a mask significantly reduces the infection rate of others (as demonstrated by all asian countries). By reducing the reproduction factor (which causes the exponential increase ignoring people having developed resistance), it also reduces strain on health workers. And if you're able to grasp _how and why_ this is so, it even reduces the infection risk for yourself.

Show HN: My startup for book collectors - pmtarantino http://www.shelfproud.com ====== semanticist This seems to be an online/social version of Delicious Library. We have just under a thousand books in our library - and the only reason they're in Delicious Library is the barcode scanning feature, which makes adding books easy. Unless you have a similar feature (scan barcodes using the user's webcam to get ISBN, auto-fill details automatically from that), I can't see most people with large libraries taking the effort to enter their details. It's a huge amount of work for very little benefit. You could also stand to have a walk-through or similar - unless I sign up for your service I can't see how it works, and I don't intend to sign up unless I already know I want to use it. ~~~ miahi I'm not really the target audience (I own less than 30 paper books, e-books are way more portable, I gave away 90% of the books I had the last time I moved), but I wanted to try your service. I have the same advice: show how the application works before asking the users for the e-mail. I thought "hey, what if I have 30 huge bookcases, does this application know how to manage the place of the book?" but I could not find the information before I hit the login wall. ~~~ pmtarantino Hey, both of you! First, thank you for your feedback. Yes, we definitely have to make a video tour or something like that to show how the website works. The main difference of Delicious Library is that we are online, so your info is in the cloud, and you can check it from everywhere. Also, one of the most important features (although is not a feature because it's part of the core) it is that you have a public profile, so you can show your books to everyone, only sharing your url (shelfproud.com/username). Of course, we are working on extra features, mainly for book collectors (the target), like showing interesting eBay and AbeBooks listing, based in the books you have. ~~~ semanticist From an end-user's perspective, the main difference with Delicious Library is that it looks like you're going to make me type in my book's details. The ease of entering data into Delicious Library is much more valuable to me (and a lot of people, I think) than the 'always available' nature of an online service (which has its drawbacks: you go bust and my data goes with you) and the 'show off' factor from your social/sharing platform. As well as scanning ISBN barcodes, I'd also look into importing data from existing applications (like Delicious Library) or as CSV/similar files. The early adopter of your service is probably someone who already has some form of cataloguing going on already - take advantage of that and don't ask your users to do a ton of work they've already done somewhere else. Good luck! ~~~ pmtarantino Yes, the feature to import from a excel file is already on the way :) Thank you for all your feedback! :D ------ BasDirks At 24 I have 300+ books, and the fact that I feel the need to mention it indicates that I am your target audience. The graphic designer in me cringes at your layout and typography. Letters and their arrangement are important when you want to appeal to book lovers. I am not sure if "trophies" work to enthuse the elitist book reader because after all, my leather bound Bibliothèque de la Pléiade version of "À la recherche du temps perdu" makes me superior to any Dan Brown reader. I jest, a bit. ~~~ pmtarantino You are definitely our target :) Thanks for your feedback. Of course, book lovers really are into design, cover designs, illustration, etc. But there is not only a unique design which collectors appeal. For example, you have antique book collectors, but also horror book collectors, so we have to target to all of them. That's why we chose a neutral design :) The trophies are an incentive to upload more books, and can say "I have more trophies than [X]", just like you can do the same in FourSquare. We are working in special trophies for people into special books, like you. For example, the "Antique Trophy" :) ~~~ BasDirks I'll keep an eye on it. ------ bndr It looks kinda strange on my monitor: <http://i.imgur.com/GKwK3.png> 1600x900 Chrome ~~~ Avalaxy Same problem here, I was just about to post it. Chrome too. If I remove the 'overflow: hidden' from the #wrapper, it's centered. ~~~ pmtarantino Thank you for your feedback. We will correct that soon :) ------ hv23 At first glance I'm not sure what the difference is from Goodreads, which I actively use and update? ~~~ pmtarantino The main difference is that ShelfProud is not for book readers, but to book owners. You upload your books, the one you own, and not the one you read. Besides, you get extra stats, you got a public profile to share. When you collect books, the item you own is unique, although a lot of people could have the same book, the one you own is unique because has something special. ------ DomreiRoam What is the the difference with <http://www.librarything.com/> ? Are you targeting the same target? Why would I switch (I m a lifetime member there)? ~~~ pmtarantino As I said before, the main difference is that ShelfProud is not for book readers, but to book owners. You upload your books, the one you own, and not the one you read. Besides, you get extra stats, you got a public profile to share. When you collect books, the item you own is unique, although a lot of people could have the same book, the one you own is unique because has something special. ~~~ DomreiRoam I m using Librarything to manage my physical collection of book and to avoid buying 2 time the same book. I still need to add some of the book and I m not sure to include my ebooks. So if I was both an avid reader and also book into book collecting: would I use both of this applications? ~~~ pmtarantino You could use ShelfProud, of course, but you won't be able to make comments of the plot of the book, or add your opinion, only details of the book as an object.

Trump’s Tough Talk on NAFTA Suggests Pact’s Demise Is Imminent - TuringNYC https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/business/economy/nafta-trump.html ====== igravious Whoops. Somebody should tell the Brits. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/10/britain-could- joi...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/10/britain-could-join-nafta- trade-alliance-us-canada-mexico-post/) “Britain could join trans-Atlantic trade alliance bigger than the EU if there is no deal on Brexit” (Article only _two_ days old at time of writing!) ~~~ pjc50 Brexiteers have been pushing nonsense like this for ages, usually under the delusion that Britain and America would be equal partners. Meanwhile we're facing another Trump related trade dispute with Canada that affects the UK: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern- ireland-41592474](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41592474) What's not stated in all of this is that the collapse of a major employer plus other Brexit fallout plus the collapse of devolved government in NI could result in a resumption of terrorist violence. ~~~ igravious I don't think there's any appetite for a return to violence. Besides – as you probably know – the former IRA's political arm, Sinn Féin, is in power north and south of the border. ------ bryanlarsen Prediction: this is going to kill a lot of American jobs short term. It may or may not be good for America long-term, but in the short term it's a huge disruption, and in disruptions jobs get lost quickly and gained slowly. Example: right now, an American firm builds widgets in Mexico with Canadian resources and sells to all three countries. In the future, the American firm builds in America and sells only to Americans. A Cana-Mexican firm builds in Mexico with Canadian resources and sells to Cana-Mex. You can argue which is better for America & Cana-Mex. But there's no doubt that the transitional period will suck for all. In the transitional period the Cana-Mexican firm hasn't been founded yet, nor the American factory built, so the pre-demise scenario continues. But now prices double for everybody due to increased tariffs, non-tariff barriers and currency fluctuation. So sales drop through the floor or are lost to Chinese competitors. Lose-lose-lose. ------ TuringNYC I know when we hear about NAFTA we usually think of industrials and manufacturing. Curious if anyone has a good analysis of NAFTA and the (obvious) first-order benefits it presents to the information economy -- since the US is a large net positive on that front. ~~~ danmaz74 Yes, I expect that if Trump continues on his protectionist direction in some industries, there will be consequences in other ones. Why should the rest of the Western world allow Amazon, Google, Hollywood etc. to dominate their respective fields without tariffs or restrictions if the USA becomes protectionist where it suits Trump? ~~~ readittwice The EU and its countries are actively trying to tax Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, etc. more than today for some time now. It's just not so easy. But that doesn't have anything to do with Trump, this started well before most people in Europe even knew him. ~~~ danmaz74 That's because those companies pay _lower_ taxes than local companies. The real beef here isn't with the companies themselves, but with some smaller member states that steal the tax base of other bigger member states. ~~~ readittwice You are right, that's what e.g. the verdict against Ireland/Apple was about. But this is only part of the story. The verdict in this case was that Ireland let Apple pay lower taxes compared to other local companies. Some other EU- countries want to tackle a different thing: Apple (just to give an example) not paying taxes on the profit they make in each country individually but only in Ireland (in the case of Apple) for all (EU-)countries combined. ------ blowski Trump’s negotiating tactics do genuinely seem quite clever, despite me not liking the man at all or supporting the aims of the negotiation. He seems to combine the “madman” theory with “good cop, bad cop” to produce a “crazy leader, sensible leader” tactic. It’s probably a very effective strategy, if all you’re interested in, is optimising the short-term, very narrow, very selfish interests of a part of the US population. It’s a strategy I’d like to try in a board game. ~~~ theyregreat The crybully is similar but he rotates through all three phases of the Karpman Drama Triangle often in order to play hero. My hypothesis is many sociopathic leaders of different stripes use/d similar tactics to hit people’s emotions and bypass their rationality. It is what it is, and many people are seduced when times seem rough that someone has a panacea or a plan to make everything better. I wish people focused more on manipulating _him_ into doing what actually needs to happen and less on useless demonizing or lionizing. Polarization is gonna kill more people by not tackling huge problems like locked-in climate change... the world needs CDR, solar shade or whatever scales as fast as possible, “moon-mission”-style. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle) ~~~ mercer > I wish people focused more on manipulating him into doing what actually > needs to happen and less on useless demonizing or lionizing. While I'm hope to be wrong and corrected about this, the impression I get is that this is exactly what's already happening. Except it's the 'bad guys' doing what they feel needs to be done.

Security At Coinbase - barmstrong https://coinbase.com/security ====== tedivm I'm honestly not that impressed by this. They're basically picking some basic types of exploits and are claiming to guard against those, which is nice and all but it seems like they're targeting the buzzword issues and aren't talking about anything really special. There were a few things that really stood out to me- * SQL Injection is something every web application should do. This is a completely separate issue from CSRF (cross site request forgery), but they conflate the two as if they're one. Talking about specific issues they're focusing, especially when those things are not only extremely basic to deal with but also what I would consider programmer buzzwording makes me wonder what they aren't doing. * Payment Industry Best Practices means a hell of a lot more than "we through an SSL certificate on the site" and "we encrypt your junk". If you're going to claim that you're following payment industry standards I want to hear a little bit about PCI compliance and I sure as hell want an external audit. * The Bounty Program looks nice, but the fact that it has so many people who have used it and that they clearly aren't disclosing the issues that come up leaves me a bit concerned. How serious are these issues, why weren't they found in advance, and what internal changes took place to prevent them from happening again? The main point I'm getting at here is that this seems like a marketing site, not a real security disclosure page, and that when you really get down into it they're saying a whole lot of nothing. If they really want to impress me they can get into more technical detail, and if they don't want to do that I'd love to see a third party audit them properly. ~~~ tptacek This is exactly the page most startups should have. First, startup customers to a first approximation don't care about the distinction between CSRF attacks and SQL injection. The neuroreceptor this page is trying to trip is "this company understands the concept of application security". For most companies, counterintuitively, the more you delve into the specifics, the less confidence you instill: you're increasing your customers perception of risk. Second, there's nothing a typical company can say to clear the bar you're implicitly setting, which is "convince a technologist familiar with the issues that their application is free of vulnerabilities". Nobody is free of vulnerabilities. There are no tea leaves to be read here about code quality. To understand code quality, you have to look at or test code. Third, since the objections they're addressing on this page are nebulous, appeals to authority through naming best practices or citing industry analogs are just fine. Also, what do you expect to learn from "PCI compliance"? PCI is a joke. Fourth, most companies don't disclose vulnerabilities. Contributors to this bug bounty have disclosed, which presumably means that payout on the bounty doesn't include an NDA. So what are you complaining about? There's a list of named bugfinders on the bounty page. Go ask them what they found. Github has over the last few years built one of the best appsec teams in the business. Look at their security page. Coinbase's is, if anything, better. Dial back your expectations for pages like this. Coinbase makes it easy for people who have found vulnerabilities to report them to Coinbase, and makes it clear that they understand the basic concept of security for application providers. I grade security pages "pass/fail", and this one clearly passes. Startups should take cues from it and pages like it. _(I don 't know anything about Coinbase's actual security practices or the wisdom of keeping "90% of bitcoins offline" or whatnot; I'm talking exclusively about the page itself. I don't like Bitcoin and find it very difficult to take seriously.)_ ~~~ patio11 To elaborate just a wee bit on what Thomas said, there are many, many startups which transact real money (via, e.g., taking credit cards on their website, even if via one of the methods where it doesn't get POSTed at their server) which don't go as far as saying "Here's the address you can talk to if you find something critical. We WILL get back to you." Startups without this page have often found out about security vulnerabilities via posts at third party sites. Regardless of the moral righteousness of that, that is for better or worse the cultural expectation of many security researchers. Also, since it's on your website, you're going to have a bit of tension in serving the "Needs to report a security vulnerability" audience at the same time as you're supporting non-technical customers who care about "security" for business reasons. Those are very different conversations. I had one with a stakeholder at a large organization who was worried about the physical security of my servers recently. I told him that they were in a professionally managed datacenter, behind a gate, which required a keycard to access, and that if I showed up at the door they would turn me away because that isn't the model at my host. His response was, I kid you not, "Oh, wow, you're Fortune 500? Sorry, I just have to ask that because a lot of our vendors keep the server in their home or office." ------ haeqon Sadly, they're doing a lot better than most of the Bitcoin community. I recently found two exploitable XSS issues on Blockchain.info, a website which runs the largest number of Bitcoin based wallets in the entire network. To get a response from them, I had to use a public front-page post on reddit just to get an email address to contact. [https://pay.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1n57uj/im_attempti...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1n57uj/im_attempting_to_reach_a_security_contact_at/) Had either bug been used maliciously, every user visiting almost any page on the site would have lost their web wallet with no further interaction. It was of course, "not an issue", despite at my count, three core Bitcoin developers chiming in and talking to the developers of the site, named Zootreeves and MemoryDealers. [https://pay.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1n57uj/im_attempti...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1n57uj/im_attempting_to_reach_a_security_contact_at/ccfpni3) Full disclosure: I was later paid a small bounty after it was fixed. ------ tptacek Are there really 20+ bug bounty payoffs for this one application? On the one hand: kudos for running an effective bug bounty program. That's an impressive amount of community engagement. On the other: this is just one Rails app, right? ~~~ seiji Isn't security is under one of those "things you can fix later" startup problems these days? As far as I can tell, it goes: hype to serve growth to create a fad to exponentiate your user base to get you more funding to ... then start considering fundamental problems of architecture and security. All startup writing focuses on growth at all costs by manipulating pleasant surface experience. The current model of "just keep iterating until users stick" is also: know as little as possible and keep changing things until you generate a random key to the lock of your market. That model of company building is in opposition to security and stability. Just keep paying 21 year olds 150k salary+100k bonus to make rails apps. It'll all work out in the end. ~~~ mdpopescu Isn't security is under one of those "things you can fix later"... The problem is that the saying is: make it work, make it good, make it fast. Most programmers stop after the first step. "Make it secure" is not even an afterthought, and generally you only think about it after being bitten. To be honest, "make it work" can be hard in itself. How do I justify spending four hours to add an issue and fifty to go through the other steps? I can imagine telling my boss "oh yeah, I added the feature two days ago, then I cleaned up the design, now I'm optimizing it and then I'll think of ways in which it can be exploited". ------ ukd1 I feel like coinbase is the safest place for me to keep my bitcoins; they're doing everything I'd love to do and more, but don't have time for. I would love to know an outline of; \- How you segregate access to offline funds from staff members who don't require access \- Coinbase development process and how it helps you minimize releasing security issues :-) ------ brryant If you're a believer in security by obscurity, then this isn't the way to go :) ------ eruditely It would be great if they could fix their customer service, and their false level 2 account verification status, that still flags the information you provide as false. That status is what makes it 'instant', but you cannot even achieve it with valid info. Then they have the audacity to send you the same email signed by different support staff members. Coinbase is garbage and it's only running because they're the only competitors who have not burned their house down. I'm waiting for improvement, or a valid competitor so I can be on to the next one. ------ rdl This seems like a good set of technical controls to mitigate the inherent risk in storing third-party bitcoins. The main thing I'd be concerned about would be insider controls; what happens if someone kidnaps someone significant to one of the founders and threatens to do bad things unless he subverts the control. While it's quite reasonable to lose $5mm or whatever bitcoin Coinbase currently controls to save someone's life, the potential for this kind of attack is what makes it at all likely -- if you could articulate exactly why that attack wouldn't work, it wouldn't happen. ("Someone kidnaps someone important to a staff member" is the hard problem; it also implies a solution to the "staff member goes evil", "has always been evil", "gambling or drug debt", etc. The weakest attack of this type is "someone pwns and employee's laptop or online accounts", which potentially could subvert the display, so a user approves a $10 transaction and a $500k transaction is actually approved.) You'd have to articulate a multi-person control over large pools of the "cold" bitcoins to really deter this kind of attack. This security should be implemented in such a way that people can't easily defeat it, even over time. That's a hard problem in a rapidly growing organization. Strong audit systems to catch this after the fact, combined with preventive controls to minimize the actual scale of an exploit, is fine. I have zero concerns with a loss of less than $5mm or so at Coinbase; the equity value of the company would cover it. ~~~ ukd1 I would assume that the cold stored coins are encrypted requiring t of n keys to decrypt using some standard secret sharing scheme. This should stop the 90% offline being an easy target for internal issues and also for physical hold- ups / robbery. I'm not sure if publishing the exact method of this would be a good, or a bad thing. Having their bank / storage require a fixed notice period before allowing access to the offline funds - like a time lock - would also make it harder to steal the offline funds. Not knowing their stack outside of the guessed Ruby/Rails, I'd guess the weakest point lies around code deployment. ------ tlrobinson [Mostly] off topic: How does one usually go about geographically distributing data in safety deposit boxes? Do you need someone at each location to store/retrieve data? ~~~ ukd1 I guess you can just encrypt it with their public key, email it and have them print it...just gotta be sure they'll actually do it? ------ aresant Quick note if devs are looking - your landing page is broken @ 1024x768 resolution: [http://imgur.com/fiVin0M](http://imgur.com/fiVin0M) Chrome latest build Win 7 ------ crystaln What happens in the event of a world catastrophe, like a terrorist attack, plague, or meteor strike, killing key people, limiting travel, and otherwise inhibiting recovery of all these distributed tokens and keys? Security is not only protection from being hacked, but protection form loss. If Bitcoin is to survive political, economic, and environmental turmoil, shouldn't we worry about our coins being stored with such potentially fragile recovery plans? ~~~ karamazov I'll only have myself and Coinbase to blame when the zombie apocalypse comes and I can't trade my digital currency for canned beans and shotgun pellets. ------ tmorgan I like the sound of most of that, especially the two-factor authentication on all accounts. One thing wasn't clear to me, "Wallets (and private keys) are stored using AES-256 encryption." Are individual users wallets stored with a key derived from the users password? Or, rather, could you act, under coercion say, to transfer my funds without my password? (i.e. in a "bank robbery" situation) ------ gesman Well, announcing "how secure we are" is very stimulating to someone's desire to hack in for the upper hand bragging rights. I'd suggest to be secure minus bragging part about it. ~~~ herge You'd feel more confidence in the security of the system if less people desired to try and hack it? ~~~ gesman I'd feel more comfy to keep money elsewhere until "us vs. them (and we bet your money on it)" security bragging spree would be well over. ------ GaryRowe These guys need to be investing in hierarchical deterministic wallets (BIP0032 and BIP0039). That would take away all their private key issues. ------ cdjk I'm curious about the paper backups - how do they do it, what's their recovery procedure, and have restores been tested? ~~~ shabble Could use something like PaperBack[1], which can handle >1MB/A4 sheet. Combine that with a decent quality printer/paper and autofeed scanner, and you could quite easily dump a few hundred MB without too much manual effort. I believe "offline wallets" require only the (relatively) short keypair to be stored, which would make this a practical solution. If they're using much fewer wallets, or are confident that the paper would be last-ditch restore only, they could print (semi-)human-readable data in an OCR optimised font, to give them some chance of recovering from otherwise corrupted media. I'd put more trust in the automated bitmapping with sufficient redundancy & forward-error correction, but wouldn't discount extra semi-manual methods for any high-value wallets. [1] [http://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/](http://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/) ------ drwl "We whitelist attributes on all models to prevent mass-assignment vulnerabilities." Sounds like what happens in Rails 4 ------ lwhalen They're so committed to security, they're making my ticket asking 'why was there a security token sent to my phone when I did not log in?' rot in whatever queue for a week now. ------ rfnslyr Completely off topic but wow that is a REALLY beautiful website. Great at displaying information and great use of icons too. Definitely going to add it to my list of inspirations when designing. ~~~ joe_the_user Does beauty have to involve difficulty in reading? I mean, maybe great beauty does involve not communicating a lot of factual information clearly. Great art and even beautiful print magazines generally don't do this. Having the text all across the page did not make the information very accessible to me. And going from the huge light-blue banner to the gray and white was actually rather jarring. It took me a minute to decide I had to scroll down to the text rather than clicking a "next" button or something. And icons looked nice but like most icons were more eye-pleasing than actually communicative. I'm surprised some people find it beautiful but I'll file it under "once interface design made computers (barely) usable, designers decided they had to make them unusable again (but now beautiful)". It's the world of "satisficing". ~~~ rfnslyr Link examples of websites that elate you. ~~~ joe_the_user This is designers and programmers talking at cross purposes. I don't know if I've been elated by a website lately but I'm a bit doubtful I'd even want to be. Mostly I want the useful information to go down easy without excess eye-strain and only then do I notice beauty (and naturally I prefer the understated version of beauty). Wikipedia and hn are two of many examples of sites that are easy to read (though the text on hn is rather small, it's right for it's purpose since it makes threading easy). I do have wall paper of great art if want to be inspired or elated but mostly I chose "real life" activities for my elation. ~~~ rfnslyr Great design just gives me a hardon, what can I say? I'm geared more towards pretty things as long as its readable. ------ ateevchopra Hacking 101 - Nothing is 100% SECURE.

Comparing how different devices display the SSID “á̶̛̛̓̿̈͐͆̐̇̒̑̈́͘͝aaa” - herohamp https://hamptonmoore.com/posts/weird-wifi-name-display/ ====== mitchs Fun story about one of the devices mentioned there that I worked on. We used to store the saved wifi creds in a file named exactly what the SSID was. Some user managed to break things, and with their permission we gathered detailed wifi logs and found they were connected to an SSID that was an ASCII depiction of the equation: boobs plus penis equals a smiley face. The issue was the forward slashes, presumably there to add fingers to the scene. Must have been an awkward customer service follow up when we told them to change their SSID while they waited for an update. ~~~ SCHiM Sounds like a directory traversal to me :) It's generally a bad idea to have the user in control of filenames you create if those files are not on a device they own. ~~~ thaumasiotes In this case, it sounds like the files were on a device owned by the user? ~~~ account42 The user in control here is the one configuring the SSID, which is not necessarily the same one owning the device used to connect to it. ------ GekkePrutser I used to have something like this as my SSID: ʕ•̫͡•ʕ _̫͡_ ʕ•͓͡•ʔ-̫͡-ʕ•̫͡•ʔ _̫͡_ ʔ-̫͡-ʔ (Not this particular one as it was too long though!) Many nice examples at: [https://1lineart.kulaone.com/#/](https://1lineart.kulaone.com/#/) It was fun but some OSes didn't show it correctly, in particular Windows. It would just show it in HEX. And more annoyingly, some devices refused to connect to it at all, especially IoT crap like those WiFi power sockets. So eventually I gave up. PS: Something with more vertical stuff would also be really fun, some of these can write across multiple lines of unrelated content! Unfortunately most OSes block this from happening now. Example: Ỏ̷͖͈̞̩͎̻̫̫̜͉̠̫͕̭̭̫̫̹̗̹͈̼̠̖͍͚̥͈̮̼͕̠̤̯̻̥̬̗̼̳̤̳̬̪̹͚̞̼̠͕̼̠̦͚̫͔̯̹͉͉̘͎͕̼̣̝͙̱̟̹̩̟̳̦̭͉̮̖̭̣̣̞̙̗̜̺̭̻̥͚͙̝̦̲̱͉͖͉̰̦͎̫̣̼͎͍̠̮͓̹̹͉̤̰̗̙͕͇͔̱͕̭͈̳̗̭͔̘̖̺̮̜̠͖̘͓̳͕̟̠̱̫̤͓͔̘̰̲͙͍͇̙͎̣̼̗̖͙̯͉̠̟͈͍͕̪͓̝̩̦̖̹̼̠̘̮͚̟͉̺̜͍͓̯̳̱̻͕̣̳͉̻̭̭̱͍̪̩̭̺͕̺̼̥̪͖̦̟͎̻̰_Ỏ̷͖͈̞̩͎̻̫̫̜͉̠̫͕̭̭̫̫̹̗̹͈̼̠̖͍͚̥͈̮̼͕̠̤̯̻̥̬̗̼̳̤̳̬̪̹͚̞̼̠͕̼̠̦͚̫͔̯̹͉͉̘͎͕̼̣̝͙̱̟̹̩̟̳̦̭͉̮̖̭̣̣̞̙̗̜̺̭̻̥͚͙̝̦̲̱͉͖͉̰̦͎̫̣̼͎͍̠̮͓̹̹͉̤̰̗̙͕͇͔̱͕̭͈̳̗̭͔̘̖̺̮̜̠͖̘͓̳͕̟̠̱̫̤͓͔̘̰̲͙͍͇̙͎̣̼̗̖͙̯͉̠̟͈͍͕̪͓̝̩̦̖̹̼̠̘̮͚̟͉̺̜͍͓̯̳̱̻͕̣̳͉̻̭̭̱͍̪̩̭̺͕̺̼̥̪͖̦̟͎̻̰ So the Unicode above this would write through the next lines on some platforms, even system screens like the wifi chooser :) But these quickly get too long for an SSID too. ~~~ joshschreuder This worked for me on Windows + Chrome :) [https://i.imgur.com/bJHlPb9.png](https://i.imgur.com/bJHlPb9.png) EDIT: though not on native HN, I think it might be a result of having HNES installed. ~~~ GekkePrutser Lol, that's really bad! On native HN in Firefox Windows it also works but it stops at the "reply" button under my post. And on native HN on Firefox Mac it doesn't work at all, strange enough. Firefox must rely strongly on the platform rendering. ------ barbegal The 802.11 standards have always allowed up to 32 bytes which can be filled with any data, it does not have to be in a particular encoding. In 802.11-2012 there is a separate tag SSIDEncoding which can be used to specify if these bytes are in UTF-8 or "unspecified". If the UTF-8 option is set, the SSID should be interpreted as UTF-8. It is not clear in this case if the router sets this flag or not. Either way there is no stipulation in the spec about how the UTF-8 characters should be displayed so many of these options are potentially valid. ~~~ ynik The bytestring was truncated after 32 bytes, in the middle of a UTF-8 byte sequence. This means the resulting truncated string is not valid UTF-8 anymore. So my guess is that most devices decide "if it's not valid UTF-8, it must $LEGACY_ENCODING". ~~~ tialaramex Unicode offers two ways forward when you can't decode what you have, one alternative is an exception, you just fail because you weren't able to decode something. The other is for any code unit that won't decode you emit U+FFFD the Unicode Replacement Character and then you carry on decoding. For humans U+FFFD makes it obvious something is wrong, it's typically visualised as a black diamond with a white question mark. And for a machine it shouldn't match parsing rules, it isn't an alphanumeric, it isn't any of the common separator or spacing characters, so it's unlikely to be of use in an attack. ~~~ account42 That is a reasonable approach if you know that what you are decoding is supposed to be UTF-8. If you don't know the text encoding because there is no information to indicate it (or you don't trust that information to be correct) then you will have to guess and "decode as UTF-8 for valid UTF-8, use some legacy encoding otherwise" is a common approach (used e.g. by many text editors). ------ saagarjha > Both the s8 and the Firestick are rendering the result in what I deem as the > correct way with it showing the name just with some of the vertical > characters cutoff. At least one is doing a poor job, though, because the diacritics look nothing alike… > After asking around on the Apple discord server someone said it might be > using the Mac OS Roman character set. It turns out it which is strange > because iOS used UTF-8 internally and not Mac OS Roman as that was phased > out with the release of Mac OS X. I would guess that some part of IOKit is passing a C or C++ string to CoreFoundation using an inappropriate function or using the “system encoding”. I can’t remember of the top of my head, but Mac OS Roman might also be encoding 0. In any case there’s certainly a convention going on there with a poor default or some sort of strange compatibility story. (I’m actually curious if there is “supposed” to be an encoding for this. Perhaps Mac OS Roman is just as correct and more convenient?) ~~~ kalleboo The first Apple Airport routers predate MacOS X, so it wouldn’t be crazy for the initial MacOS X implementation to fall back to MacOS Roman as backcompat to routers configured with MacOS 8.6/9\. And then if they never changed it since for 99% of users the UTF8 auto detect works fine... ------ unnouinceput And out of curiosity, taking some from this: [https://github.com/minimaxir/big-list-of-naughty- strings/blo...](https://github.com/minimaxir/big-list-of-naughty- strings/blob/master/blns.txt) especially the Asian ones, seems to varying from mildly amusing to interesting effects, when you try to set them as SSID. ~~~ unphased What's so naughty about Lightwater Country Park? ~~~ lozf twat (I'm not calling you a twat, I'm pointing out that twat is probably the problem.) ------ nix23 Ok i am a bit angry, first i was thinking that a fly shit is on my screen, then that my GPU has a problem, then i read the Title ;) It's really crazy, looks completely different on my bsd-box compared to my linux-laptop LOVE IT!! ~~~ herohamp If you want to share screenshots Ill happily put it up on the site. My email is me (at) hampton {dot} pw ~~~ nix23 Sure, here you go: [https://imgur.com/a/Sqjh2TZ](https://imgur.com/a/Sqjh2TZ) ------ bouke My Canon printer won’t join my SSID containing an emoji, helpfully throws generic E36 (or something like that). All Apple devices show and connect to the SSID just fine. ------ sdedovic I'd be curious to see how a car may display that. I've paired my phone with a family members Volkswagen SUV and it could not display the SSID properly, an emoji. Most laptops are capable of displaying emoji SSIDs (bluetooth and wifi). ------ tarsius In my firefox it looks like four "a"s with a little rat sitting on top of the first of them. ~~~ seanalltogether Same, I actually assumed that's what the string was supposed to be, now opening this in chrome I can see wildly different it looks ~~~ sundarurfriend This[1] is how it looks to me on my Firefox, is that the Chrome version or the Firefox version on your side? [1] [https://i.postimg.cc/nVPBqXjV/fireunicode.png](https://i.postimg.cc/nVPBqXjV/fireunicode.png) ~~~ seanalltogether Oh weird, are you on windows? I'm on mac and I see all the diacritics squished down into a small pile in firefox ------ bobowzki I've got some dirt on my screen. Be right back. ~~~ jyriand I tried to use my nail to scratch it off, no luck. ------ devadvance Very cool. It's pretty interesting to see the various failure modes. Some seem straightforward (e.g., the font is missing the glyphs) while others seem to be parsing limitations. As an aside, this finally convinced me to explore using additional SSIDs in creative ways with emojis. ------ GlitchMr Out of curiosity, I ran this test on Nintendo Switch: [https://i.imgur.com/8o2LLUm.png](https://i.imgur.com/8o2LLUm.png) It seems like its OS doesn't support combining characters. ~~~ laken My SSID is a single emoji, and the Switch displays just the missing char/"box" for my SSID as well. ------ tzs For most of the Western world, if you take the set of all commonly used characters in the language(s) that are widely recognized in each country and form their intersection, you'll have at least the Arabic numerals and plain A-Z. If SSIDs were restricted to just those characters, it would be fine in the Western World. But of course there is more to the world than the West. Question: do most or all non-Western languages also have small subsets of characters that would be fine to restrict SSIDs to? For instance, Wikipedia tells me that Persian is written with a 32 character alphabet, and Arabic uses 28 characters for its alphabet. I'd expect that for every alphabet-based language, there is a similar base set of characters you could reasonably limit SSIDs too, and so avoid all the problems you get with allowing full Unicode. How about the languages that use logographic writing systems, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese? Do they all have reasonable (albeit probably very large) subsets SSIDs could be limited to that would avoid all their weird stuff that can happen in Unicode but still allow most reasonable names to be used? ~~~ jmiserez Don't forget that some of these are left-to-right (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic). Words are rendered left-to-right, and early email software would just expect each word to be sent reversed so that simple RTL rendering could be used. UTF solves this (and many other issues) quite nicely. ------ yunruse I tested this out of curiosity, and all iPhones I could find in my household rendered correctly in UTF-8 with only 12 octets [0]. This is replicated on iPhone 7, SE and XR, all running 13.5.1. So it may well be the issue was fixed in 6s or 7. [0] [https://i.imgur.com/KDau4PP.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/KDau4PP.jpg) ------ tinus_hn At least it nowhere caused an exploitable crash ~~~ dannyw On popular, actively maintained operating systems. Plug in your cheap Chinese IoT device and see what happens... ~~~ saagarjha It might actually do well if you feed it Chinese… ------ yrwwywtywsrty Last I checked late last year, my PlayStation 4 was unable to connect to my network when I used a single emoji in the SSID. ------ bravoetch My Logitech device won't even acknowledge an SSID with Japanese katakana. ------ worewood Tried to set the SSID of an Android Phone Wi-Fi thetering, it said it exceeds the maximum character limit and does not let it set. Bummer ------ yrlf This is a really good post that shines some light on how the insanity of encodings still isn't fixed today, since so many operating systems still don't completely use Unicode everywhere. Some of the reasonings behind why the characters are displayed like that are slightly incorrect, though, so here are some corrections: I'm going to supply each example here with some python3 code to reproduce with, with the following definition: `data = b"a\xcc\xb6\xcc\x81\xcc\x93\xcc\xbf\xcc\x88\xcc\x9b\xcc\x9b\xcd\x90\xcd\x98\xcd\x86\xcc\x90\xcd\x9d\xcc\x87\xcc\x92\xcc\x91\xcd"` First, let's start at the beginning: > My router just cut the name down to 32 octets though to stay complient > > This was what was being sent according to iw > > `a\xcc\xb6\xcc\x81\xcc\x93\xcc\xbf\xcc\x88\xcc\x9b\xcc\x9b\xcd\x90\xcd\x98\xcd\x86\xcc\x90\xcd\x9d\xcc\x87\xcc\x92\xcc\x91\xcd` If you look at this closely, the last byte in this sequence is `\xcd`, which is an incomplete UTF-8 character. It's missing the final `\x84` that the router cut off (along with the three additional `a` characters). > with the raw hex being > > `97ccb6cc81cc93ccbfcc88cc9bcc9bcd90cd98cd86cc90cd9dcc87cc92cc91cd` small mistake: the hex of `a` is `61`, not `97` (that's decimal), but otherwise correct. > Galaxy S8 running Android 9 with Kernel 4.4.153 > Amazon Firestick Everything correct, except for a small detail: These two devices render the result of UTF-8 decoding while ignoring bytes that are invalid unicode (in python3: `data.decode('utf-8', 'ignore')`) > iPhone 6 running iOS 13.5.1 > Apple TV Second Generation Completely correct. This is definitely Mac OS Roman (in python3: `data.decode('mac_roman')`) > Windows 10 Pro 10.0.19041 This one is a incorrect again: Windows is interpreting the characters in the "Windows Codepage 1252" (also known as "Western") encoding and ignoring invalid characters (in python3: `data.decode('cp1252', 'ignore')`) Decoding every character separately as UTF-8 would fail (since every byte that can be a continuation of a UTF-8 character is not a valid start byte). Interpreting every character as a Unicode code-point number would give something very similar, but not exactly the same: What Windows decodes as quote, caret-y thing, angle bracket-y thing, tilde, dagger, double dagger, and single quote fall into a control character block at the start of the Unicode "Latin-1 Supplement" block (`\x80` to `\x9f`). > Chromebook running ChromeOS 83.0.4103.97 Correct. The Chromebook seems to have rendered the ASCII a, but replaced all other 31 characters with question marks. > Kindle Paperwhite running Firmware 5.10.2 > Vizio M55-C2 TV Also correct. Those two devices seem to opt to display hex instead of falling back to question marks as the Chromebook does. I hope this comment gave some useful insight into why these devices decoded it this way :) ~~~ herohamp Hey, I am the OP. Thank you so much I will go through and amend what I got wrong, anyway that you wish for me to credit you? ~~~ yrlf If you want to credit me, just tag my twitter :) (@theFerdi265) ------ cl3misch How are you running iOS 13 on an iPhone 6? Or did you mean 6S? ------ app4soft > _Comparing how different devices display the SSID “á̶̛̛̓̿̈͐͆̐̇̒̑̈́͘͝aaa”_ I always though that such Unicode characters not allowed in the HN titles. ------ tonetheman This is a wonderful article and great work. I love this type of content. Brilliant!

The Type of Companies That Publish Future Concept Videos - llambda http://daringfireball.net/2011/11/companies_that_publish_concept_videos ====== rjd I've worked for a few companies over the years, and there is a type of manager I run into a lot. I can summarize them by a statement they make "Just get it done." The thing about these managers are they are delivery focused, not product focused. The have no imagination, and no emotional attachment to the product. They are there to make sure the books balance and revenue increases, thats it. These people have always frightened me a bit because they just don't understand what the people who work under them do. You can't sit in a meeting and explain a new concept to them, you have to completely design a working product and walk them through it step by step. A verbal explanation will only confuse them, and often they get agitated... because they don't understand. I'm sure most of us have been in a meeting where every single person understands the speaker except for person who has the authority to approve or deny the work... and all they can say is "I don't get it" (and you are going holy crap 20 other people get it, I can see them rolling there eyes and smirking). I wouldn't mind betting that these videos are a sign of delivery managers being brought into R&D departments. These videos are made so that the delivery manager can understand what the people around him are doing, and so he can explain it to the bean counters. Its a sign you have put the wrong people into positions of authority. EDIT: I just realized that the character Veronica on "Better off Ted" is exactly what I'm describing. I recommend watching it if you've never seen it. ~~~ thesash > _These videos are made so that the delivery manager can understand what the > people around him are doing, and so he can explain it to the bean counters._ The irony is that concepts that intentionally ignore reality create the impression among those same people who "don't get it" that these concepts not only _are_ grounded in reality, but are as trivial to create as the concept video makes it look. It reminds me of this clip from Ali G: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuOuxRD1Bc&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuOuxRD1Bc&feature=youtu.be&t=5m16s) ~~~ rjd Oh that vid was brilliant, I have been in presentation like that, intact I gave one the other that got extremely luke warm responses, and people staring at each other going this guy has lost his marbles. My concept was this (pitched to the news agency I used to work for). I did some thinking about the next wave of devices and I thought I found a nice market that no one else had tried before. We modify the RSS subscription interface where users can select categories for news stories they are interested, and email service already exists. The RSS feeds already exist, and there are already staff curating the best of the best etc... they are pretty good feeds. We then run batch scripts every morning, compile the articles into ePub format (essentially HTML), and push personalized pre-packaged news paper style format to subscribers. Target eReaders, tablets etc... turn a passive website into one that chases customers each morning. Now this isn't difficult to implement, there is already a email service doing exactly the same thing. Basically all this service would do is wrap up HTML pages and build an index or two. I felt like everyone in the room was the chap Ali G was talking to, they just wanted me to shut up ASAP. ------ ethank I saw this video at HP in 1992 or 1993 or so called HP 1995 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPKX5iuBvZg> I was 13 or 14 at the time and to me it was a bit of a "wow" moment. Not because I related to the topic (mostly this was manufacturing) but because of the interfaces and the speed of information dispersal. I remember seeing other concept videos (the famous AT&T ones, Apple's, Adobe, etc) and they were likewise inspiring. I know reality is often the best thing to market, and Apple and the like have made reality as inspiring as a far future concept lately. But concept videos from the late 80's -> mid 90's had a huge impact on why I'm in technology today. ~~~ DavidSJ As a kid, Star Trek was my concept video. ------ 2arrs2ells Has anyone else been in the Microsoft "Future Home" and "Future Office" in Redmond? They're similar to this concept video, but actually have some working features (although you quickly realize they're mostly staged). They're more private than the video (used only by internal staff/guests/partners), but a much bigger waste of money. ~~~ lambda I was at the Microsoft office in Cambridge (MA, US) the other day, and they had a Surface there. It was much the same; a neat toy, but ultimately a distraction. They spent serious engineering resources on it, and it amounts to something that will sell a handful for companies to put in lobbies as a something fun to play with. Given the wear patterns on it, it looked like it was mostly used for playing checkers. Now, the Surface could actually be a neat product. If it were affordable enough for any small office, or for people to use in their home, it would probably sell well. If they actually developed only one tablet platform, that scaled up from their phones to the Surface with only minor modifications to UI, they'd have a serious contender for a touch based platform. But with something that's just a toy for companies with extra money to spend entertaining their guests, with its own APIs so that software isn't portable between it and other products, and no real significant tablet offerings to fill in the gap between the phone and the Surface, it just doesn't make that much sense. I doubt that they can be making much money on it. ~~~ tylermenezes The non-profit I work with built one for about 1/10th the cost - $1400 in total (<http://wiki.studentrnd.org/Surface_Computer> for anyone interested in replicating it), but it's still mostly used as a "LOOK HOW COOL" sort of thing. Maybe if you replaced all the tables with computers you'd get some minor benefit, but having a single computer the size of a table is honestly pretty pointless. ------ jordank Publishing videos to the world may have issues, but these sorts of videos can have extreme internal value (the OP mentions this). I've worked on quite of a few of these — they've turned out to be useful tools in securing budgets and coordinating teams. These concept videos can also be useful when an ingredient brand wants to push other players in their industry forward. When company A needs company B to buy into building new types of hardware, far-out concept videos can go a long way. By publishing concept videos, firms can essentially create reference designs for the future. ~~~ pohl _When company A needs company B to buy into building new types of hardware, far-out concept videos can go a long way._ Compare this to how far (and how fast) one can get by letting your purchasing power do the talking, rather than a concept video. I like concept videos, personally. They are techno-lust candy to me. If this is a big part of how they move other players in their industry forward, however, then this is an inherent weakness in their business model. Industry players respond much more quickly when you're handing them money. ~~~ dpark > _Compare this to how far (and how fast) one can get by letting your > purchasing power do the talking, rather than a concept video._ This makes a lot of sense when you're Apple, and very little when you're Microsoft. Going to Samsung and saying "I'll buy 10MM units, guaranteed" isn't very fiscally responsible if you don't sell hardware. Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft ~~~ pohl Exactly. That is the weakness in your business model to which I referred. I'm not saying that it's a failing in your business model. Clearly you're doing fine despite it. But it is a relative weakness against Apple's integrated model. ~~~ dpark Historically it's been a strength. Apple's resurgence is a pretty recent thing, and most hardware+software companies have not done well. Look at Sun and see how well the hardware+software model worked for them. For that matter, look at Android, which is following the software-only model and has overtaken the iPhone in most areas now. ~~~ pohl _Historically it's been a strength. Apple's resurgence is a pretty recent thing_ The historical context in which it was a strength is gone. It was a strength during personal computation's ramp-up to ubiquity. It was a strength while Moore's Law allowed Microsoft to confidently add features in anticipation of more Mhz for less money in the nick of time. It was a strength while the margins for hardware vendors were fat and Microsoft could benefit from their race to the bottom as they competed with each other. That is when the hardware vendors were the most innovative. It was a strength before various governments around the world grew weary of its monopoly position on operating systems. And, frankly, it was a strength back when consumers were willing to eschew quality in favor of a cheaper, safer choice. Those days are over. Computers are ubiquitous now. We've hit the Ghz barrier. The race to the bottom is over, and hardware vendors have razor-thin margins. Their corporate structures and cultures were formed around making things cheaper. Microsoft can no longer tie products together without legal hassles. And perhaps most importantly, humans have figured out open data formats and protocols. Biology is replete with strategies that were historically strengths until environmental changes turned them into liabilities. For well over a billion years being an anaerobe was the best game in town. Then cyanobacteria gave us photosynthesis and free oxygen, rendering anaerobes' dominance an edge-case at the dawn of life. Microsoft's dominance is literally the edge-case at the dawn of personal computers. They are now in a position where they have to look to concept videos to inspire ossified and margin-starved cost-cutters to innovate. Anaerobes probably thought the first air-breathers were an anomaly, too. ~~~ dpark Most of what you just said is irrelevant. The question is not just whether Microsoft is in a weaker position, but whether software-only has become a weaker position. Microsoft's antitrust scrutiny, GHz barrier, open formats, etc. What do any of these have to do with the software-only strategy? Antitrust scrutiny? Well, that would only get tighter for Microsoft if they started selling hardware. GHz barrier? Affects everyone whether they sell hardware or not. Open formats? Seems irrelevant, and Microsoft generally supports widely-popular open formats. I also don't think the environment has changed as much as you say. We've still got numerous PC manufacturers selling "IBM compatibles" running Windows. On the phone front, we've got a similar situation, with Android in the lead. On tablets, it's likely just a matter of time before someone dethrones Apple. Really, when you talk about historical context being gone, I think you're just talking about Apple becoming so huge. And that is a big deal. I'm not sure it fundamentally changes the software-only strategy, though. I would personally (and this is just me, and obviously has no relation to Microsoft's plans) love to see Microsoft sell hardware. I would love to buy a sleek tablet, phone, and laptop made by Microsoft. I'd love it if we sold a premium product designed exclusively in-house. But would this be a good strategic move for Microsoft? Honestly probably not. ~~~ pohl As characterizations of Microsoft's historical strategy go, I'd say that merely calling it a "software-only strategy" is pretty anemic. The real strengths of that strategy were drawn from the details that you claim are irrelevant. I couldn't disagree more on that point. You ask what those details have to do with the software-only strategy? Well, they were the historical context in which that strategy allowed them to dominate. Did it matter that the hardware innovation of that era had to do with cost reduction? Yes. Did it matter that Microsoft was able to keep customers captive through closed document formats & protocols? Yes. Did it matter that Microsoft both had and leveraged a monopoly position? A thousand times yes. Did it matter that Microsoft had OEMs over a barrel and got them to sign anticompetitive distribution terms? Of course. I would be reluctant to point to Android phones as an example of a software- only success, because that knife cuts both ways for Microsoft. How is Microsoft going to sell Windows Phone in a market where Google is dumping a free operating system as a loss-leader for potential ad-revenue? Android is just yet another way in which the historical context that allowed Microsoft's software-only strategy to thrive has changed. You have to be able to actually sell the software, after all. Regardless, here's a great illustration of the effects of Android's software- only model: [http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android- orphan...](http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans- visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support) ~~~ dpark > _Did it matter that the hardware innovation of that era had to do with cost > reduction? Yes._ Why is this relevant? If the hardware innovation had been about attractiveness or energy efficiency or portability or any other factor, would Microsoft have been unable to compete? Would Windows have been non-viable if Compaq had been selling sleek aluminum boxes instead of beige boxes? Have hardware manufacturers stopped competing in price now? Last I checked, that was still a major selling point. > _Did it matter that Microsoft was able to keep customers captive through > closed document formats & protocols? Yes._ This has nothing to do with the viability of the software-only strategy. Would anyone be less locked-in by Microsoft Office if it were running on a Microsoft Machine? > _Did it matter that Microsoft both had and leveraged a monopoly position? A > thousand times yes. Did it matter that Microsoft had OEMs over a barrel and > got them to sign anticompetitive distribution terms? Of course._ Sure, and you still haven't explained how any of this makes Microsoft's software-only business weak now. Microsoft reached their dominant position as a result of their software-only strategy. Software-only allowed them to partner with every PC maker to make sure that 95% of people would buy a Windows machine. > _I would be reluctant to point to Android phones as an example of a > software-only success, because that knife cuts both ways for Microsoft. How > is Microsoft going to sell Windows Phone in a market where Google is dumping > a free operating system as a loss-leader for potential ad-revenue?_ That's a good question, but I think the end answer will come down (partly) to price. If Windows Phone is a better experience than Android, but it costs an extra $15, will anyone care? Is anyone going to reject Windows Phone because it adds a couple percent to the price of their phone? (Especially when many Android phones are probably paying as much for patent licensing anyway.) > _Regardless, here's a great illustration of the effects of Android's > software-only model:_ That's an illustration of how crappy the carrier lock-in model is. Or perhaps how little Google cares about its phone users. There's no intrinsic reason Android couldn't use the Apple model and push directly to consumers. Nonetheless, Android is selling extremely well in spite of this. ------ pnathan I see a concept video as something that would serve as the unifying vision for a company. Something that delineates something along the lines of this kind of template: We are going to work on creating a set of products X, which will enable these ways of living and working Y, which in turn will spawn these associated needs Z, and here is a scenario acted out where we can make a case that this is a vision that we should go for. When designing our products, this video is the high level reference point for the product world we are moving towards. ------ Tichy At the very least I thought the design in the video was pretty cool (the fonts, colors and what not on the various screens). I haven't followed Mango or whatever, so I am not sure if that was just an interpolation of the Mango theme or something new. Also, I totally suck at design, so I am easily awestruck by people who can do it. In any case, I wouldn't think too much about it. MS is a really big company, and they probably pay for something like that from their pocket change. Whatever. Also I like reading science fiction, and isn't a video like that also a kind of science fiction? I didn't think the video was "creepy", but it made me think: it showed essentially how people are being pushed from location to location by their devices. I guess that is an interpolation of the life of office workers today, who are dominated by Outlook. But it struck me that in the end humans might become merely processes executing the program their devices and management software sets up for them. I doubt that is what humans really desire, so I suppose MS got it wrong in the video. But it was sufficient to evoke some thoughts. ------ guelo I'm pissed at HN for wasting my time with this article. A rant against concept videos is not only totally useless information to me it is completely boring. I guess it could supposedly be useful to "visionaries" at giant companies or their marketing department but, fuck, are we going to be analyzing their brochures next? Who cares!? ~~~ dextorious 1) Nobody wasted your time with this article, and surely not HN (which is just a posting engine). People chose to vote on it, and you chose to read it. 2) Who cares? The people who voted for it on HN maybe? What part of "social news website" don't you understand? (rhetorical question: the "social" part of course) ------ dredmorbius "You Will" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8> The company that brought it to me wasn't AT&T. ------ InclinedPlane Concept videos are ill-founded in general. Indeed, I'd say it's better to have a vague, handwaving long-term goal than a crisp, sharply focused, highly detailed concept like these videos. The basic fallacy at play is the idea that it's possible to predict the future so far in advance. In reality this is only possible if your products are boring and mundane. When you make products that transform people's lives and the way the world works then it becomes impossible to predict how people will use them and how society, industry, and the economy will change as a consequence. That's true even from generation to generation of a device or piece of software, making it utterly useless to try to predict anything several generations ahead. Worse yet, concept videos make it all too easy to fall into the trap of working to make a product that looks cool in a demo but in reality is either hugely impractical to make or use or simply not very useful. For example, you could make a demo video of people commuting to and from work via rocket powered skateboard. And it would look _awesome_ , and after watching the video everyone would want to commute to work via rocket powered skateboard. But in reality it's not practical, and possibly not even as fun as it may seem (after the first 100 times the novelty would wear off, and then you're just riding a death trap and getting rained on and stuck in rocket-powered-skateboard traffic ... ok, it still sounds awesome, nevertheless...). When you skip so many intermediate steps you can generate a false sense of what's possible, or even mislead yourself on what you're working on. Eventually smartphones are going to have no bezel and be super thin, so what? That's cool, but what does it have to do with what you are doing in the mean time to make smartphones better? It's easy to make a demo about voice control but the hard part is making it work in the here and now, how do you do that? ~~~ JEVLON Concept videos are important. They are not saying 2019 will be exactly like this, but they are looking at potential use cases for various interfaces etcetera. When they come up with a idea they particularly like, they don't sit on their hands for ten years. They look at their idea of the future, then they start taking the best parts of that idea and implementing it in the products they are creating. Since that video they have released or announced two products with the metro interface (Windows 8 & Windows Phone 7). Microsoft also has announced a version of the metro interface for the game console (Xbox 360). The part of the video where the guy takes a photo of the display and transfers it to a page is already possible in a less exciting capacity on WP. Take a photo of something, and it instantly shows up on your skydrive account. The children communicating through the wall display is a possibility today, but less impressive, with the use of a Kinect and a projector/screen. Microsoft actually has developed wall displays in their research division. They also announced yesterday that they will be partnering with a bunch of companies to provide the Kinect in enterprise environments. Every good microsoft product already has implementations of an idea that is in their concept videos. The average person doesn't go watch their concept videos, so it has no negative effect on their image. Also, thinking of the future does not have to be a distraction from the present. Why is Apple doing better than Microsoft with consumers? They are not associated with viruses, IT departments, ugly products, and office suites. Microsoft = Painful & Not-Cool. Apple also gives their employees more freedom and they push products out when the market is ready, but only when they are ready for them. If Windows Phone came out instead of the iPhone, when it was announced and released, WP would have failed completely. ~~~ brown9-2 But why do they need to make a video to then make the products? How does a concept video help in product development? You say that they are "important" but you don't say how or why - you're listing a bunch of stuff MS has done since/alongside the video. But I don't see where the proof is that a video like this was necessary. ~~~ Skalman As a student (in user experience/computer engineering) I enjoy these concept videos, and they help me get inspiration for future projects. Companies that release them are much more likely to be viewed in a positive light by me, and I'd much rather work for a company with a creative mindset than some company that I feel is behind. This is a great way to communicate with future employees. It's also an inspiration for the various design challenges/competitions that some of those companies do. ~~~ absconditus Do you find MS's concept videos more compelling than Apple's accomplishments? ~~~ WayneDB What accomplishments? Making lots of money? They haven't introduced anything new, they've taken ideas that have been around forever and made some high-quality versions of them. Big deal. How excited can you get about that? Meanwhile, Microsoft gives us things like Kinect which I find much, much more compelling than anything Apple's ever come up with. ~~~ WayneDB The idea of tablets and portable devices has been around since the fifties, they didn't invent multi-touch and they built OS X on the back of Unix. How am I wrong? ~~~ brown9-2 Was the idea for Kinect one that didn't exist before, or that required no previous accomplishments (such as Unix --> OS X)? That seems unlikely. ~~~ WayneDB Fine, Microsoft didn't do anything new with Kinect either. That still doesn't prove that Apple did anything original. ------ mgunes "Real artists ship, dabblers create concept products" -- <http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/> ------ joebadmo Apple is obviously doing very well. But that doesn't mean everything Apple does is right, or that everyone should do things the way Apple does. I love when companies do this kind of concept video, and if anything, I think these don't look far _enough_ in the future. I've never seen these as predictions of the future. More like sci-fi vignettes. I think it's great that big tech companies allot resources to look beyond the next product, out to the horizon of imagination and inspiration. ------ trout I think there's some value to them. Sure, apple doesn't do them - but apple operates in a shroud of mystery and nobody knows their next move, so no surprise there. Apple has had the ability to nail technology inflection points and truly innovate so they don't need to. Apple doesn't write the rules for companies in different positions. Gruber argues that this is lost attention on the Windows phone, but is it really? Would there be conversations about the video and would it have this type of debate and conversation about a video about the Windows phone? How does one criticize both science fiction that isn't daring enough, not inspiring enough, and corporate future concept videos that are too futuristic and unrealistic? Is it that both sit in the unimaginative future, or is it insulting when a company attempts to claim credit for generic futuristic visions? I think if you take a look at most big tech companies they have these visions, will talk about it, put it in slideware, and slip some into their advertising. Making a video is taking it one more step. The videos are probably not for the HN crowd, but instead those that haven't seen or thought of similar things and have now painted that company as the innovator. ------ cateye With the same logic, how about BMW: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTYiEkQYhWY> ~~~ MaxGabriel When I first watched the BMW video, I thought you had a good point, but then I watched the Microsoft video. The difference is that BMW is innovating on an _actual_ product they can make now and learn from. Microsoft's video envisions translucent, credit card size touchscreen phones and people interacting with holograms. There's some value in Microsoft's video, but given the unnecessary production costs, acting, etc., all of which is divorced from the engineering team[1], it sounds like their time would be better spent taking an approach more like BMW's. ------ jamesrcole _“Knowledge Navigator” didn’t help Apple in any way. Apple never made such a product. It didn’t bring Siri to us any sooner than if that video had never been made. It only served to distract from and diminish Apple’s then-current actual products._ For all I know he could be 100% right about this (I'm not claiming he's wrong), but he just asserts it without giving any explanation or justification. ------ protomyth A long time back, I knew a group of consultants that were big into Shockwave. They were the types that would throw parties with their animations projected on the walls. They would use Shockwave professionally to visualize the interactions of a business workflow. It was really a animated use case when you get right down to it. They had a lot of success and it was easy to get people onboard with a new process because they could "see it". Really not sure what happened to them. I can see using a concept video like this as an internal "Does this make sense?" and "Prototype Modeling", but I am at a loss as to why you would release it the public. You aren't selling it now so you cannot profit off it, and various critics will point out the flaws in usage inside the video. Plus, Gruber is right, it does take away headlines that could be about your now and selling. The worst part is having a obviously struggling and clueless competitor decide they too need a video. ------ AccordionGuy As the author of the article to which Gruber is referring, I think I'll simply say "Well played, Mr. Gruber, well played." ------ jrodgers I think a concept video, as long as it isn't too outrageous, is a decent way to inspire people. Some people watched minority report and said "I want to build that" -- concept videos could achieve the same. At the end of the article he mentions RIM's videos. I would say those are totally different as I think most of the basic components of that world are in the device or rumoured to be coming soon. That is cool. If someone can grab their latest device and make one of those workflows happen how good will they feel and what could come next? Yes there are bad videos and they may have an unclear purpose but I think it is all about the context of the video. ------ ryanwaggoner I can think of at least one potentially valuable use of concept videos: customer validation. Dropbox used this to great effect, as I recall. I could be wrong, but I thought that the video Drew launched (here on HN) was of a product that didn't fully exist yet. But I could be mistaken. Either way, I think there's tremendous value in being able to sell (or get a verbal commitment of a sale) a product before you have to build it. Just make sure you _can_ build it. EDIT: Here's the thread where Drew showed Dropbox to HN. Video is long gone though... <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863> ~~~ InclinedPlane There's a difference between a concept which addresses an obvious, immediate need and a concept which just shows a bunch of vaguely cool stuff happening. The problem isn't that videos of not-yet-existing products are universally bad. The problem is that when you use fiction to portray a concept the farther away it is from the here and now the easier it is to go astray. ------ mrbgty Surprised the car in the beginning wasn't a self-driving car ~~~ ctdonath Speaking of cars, reading the article I was thinking of automotive "prototypes" featured in magazines and trade shows, but nigh unto never on the road. Cars or computers or phones, stop wasting time giving us lofty promises and prototypes of a future that won't happen, give us tangible purchaseable incremental and revolutionary improvements of real products NOW. ------ UjjwolL I think there needs to be distinction between concept videos and advertisement. Concept videos which are glamours like advertisement are not "concept videos" because it not practicality of the concept they are showing but how can we market and make this product cool "if we make this." There is fundamental problem with this. As Gruber said, concept videos are the sign of warnings that you are not doing anything. ------ mindstab Nokia did it too with the Nokia Morph <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX- gTobCJHs> Doesn't seem they are doing too well now either? Nokia Windows Morph phone 7 anyone? ------ Andi With this videos you demonstrate the will to create something, but delivering is a completely different challenge! Keep quiet, keep informed about your field, focus! ------ Andi With this video you demonstrate the will to create something, but to deliver is a completely different challenge! Keep quiet, keep informed about your field, focus! ------ bane Maybe a good time to show these: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PJcABbtvtA> ------ MatthewPhillips Is Daring Fireball a technology blog or a business-strategy blog? ~~~ DavidSJ Both. ------ DodgyEggplant The actual real competition to Apple is Samsung-Android. As business insider pointed out, Android caught up with the software, than the hardware, than the single big manufacturer. ------ fuzionmonkey Apparently in the future, we use lots of Gotham. ------ teyc there is nothing wrong with concept videos as long as they are proof of concept. Otherwise, it is no better than watching CSI.

How You Know - _pius http://paulgraham.com/know.html ====== nilkn There's also a danger associated to this phenomenon. If the source of your mental model is later debunked, you may not realize that you need to revise your model precisely because you don't remember what your source was. You may even read about the debunking of the source but fail to draw the connection and realize the implications that it has for your own view of the world. I think that perhaps very squishy subjects like politics are particularly vulnerable to this sort of disconnect, where a complex viewpoint is formed based on the hot topic of the day, and this viewpoint persists for years or decades even if the basis for its formation is completely forgotten. ~~~ arjunnarayan This is an important corollary of Paul's essay that I wish he mentioned. Sometimes when you update your model of the world significantly, you still have a cache of previously computed facts that were computed using the old model. You have to clear out that cache and recompute with the new model, and that takes a significant amount of time. Often, rereading is a core part of that, since it forces you to revisit a lot of source material and recompute. ~~~ scobar "The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life. Which means it is very much worth reading important books multiple times." For me, this quote was the most powerful. I strongly and immediately agreed, yet I hadn't consciously considered the idea before. I now ask myself the question, "Which ones were the important books?" Some seem obvious, but I may have a deeply rooted worldview established a long time ago that needs to be reevaluated. I may have read books that added support to that worldview, and have since forgotten from where that support came. I'm not very well read yet, but I have a question for those of you who are. What are some methods you utilize to remember which books are the important ones? Edit: The comment at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8753656](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8753656) contains a great idea. I agree that taking notes and writing a journal can be great solutions, but I don't often read the notes and entries I've written. A personal wiki that is searchable and contains references seems very interesting. ~~~ sillysaurus3 What types of books are important to you? ~~~ scobar >What's "important"? (That may seem like a misguided question, but it's not.) I'm not certain if this question was meant for me directly. If it was rhetorical, I apologize for misunderstanding and answering. I prefer not to define "important" in this context to avoid excluding any definitions subjective to those who may respond to my question. That way, I may learn both what makes a book important to someone and tips on remembering which were important. Edit: Now that I know the question was intended for me, I'll provide a little more depth to my answer. The first thought I had when considering what makes a book important is how strongly it resonated within me, and the intensity of my emotions when reflecting upon what I've learned or how my perspective changed shortly after reading it. I know those stronger emotions may derive from a bias I had at one point in my life, and may no longer have. Therefore, I can't help but think my definition is wrong because it's relative to the period in my life which I read the book. So some books that were important before may not be now. That's why I was curious to learn others' definitions of "important" books, and how to identify them for rereading. ------ pitchups An associated problem caused by a change in the mental model due to reading is the "Curse of knowledge" principle - which essentially states that "....better-informed parties find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed parties." Once you have read something and your mental model of the world is adjusted to include the new information, you have a difficult time understanding why others don't see what you see. This is compounded by the fact - as highlighted by pg in the essay - that you also forget how and when your mental model changes. This is one reason why not every expert is a good teacher - as they fail to see the world from the point of view of students. But it is also relevant and useful to remember this in the world of startups. Established large companies routinely get disrupted by novice startups - often because the experts at the large company fail to see problems the way novices do. It is impossible to become an expert at something while continuing to view the world from the eyes of a beginner. [1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge) ~~~ awolf >better-informed parties find it extremely difficult to think about problems from the perspective of lesser-informed parties Reading this made me think of poker. Calibrating to the skill level of lesser players is often very difficult for intermediate and lower-advanced players. Being able to synthesize the less sophisticated thought technologies beginners are using is surprisingly difficult. Failure to adjust often leads better players to play incorrectly against newbies. Anyone who has experienced the frustration of beating medium/high stakes cash games only to lose in home games with your friends for 1/1000th the stakes will know what I mean. ------ sinak If you haven't seen it, S01E03 of Black Mirror, _The Entire History of You_ , deals exactly with what PG describes at the end of this post: technology that lets you review and relive your past. It's very much worth watching, and was recently added to Netflix's library: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/) [http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70264856&trkid=33258...](http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70264856&trkid=3325852) ~~~ berberous I just watched the whole series, and I wanted to go ahead and recommend that everyone watch more than that single episode (although I think it's one of the strongest). It's only 6 episodes total (each season has 3 episodes). I think this audience would especially like the series: 'Black Mirror is a British television anthology series created by Charlie Brooker that shows the dark side of life and technology. Brooker noted, "each episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality. But they're all about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes time if we're clumsy."' ~~~ adcuz There's a new episode being broadcast tomorrow evening in the UK. ------ agentultra > Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. Hence the important art of keeping a journal. You can keep a transaction log of changes. The act of replaying the journal allows you to identify patterns in your thought processes and identify cognitive dissonances. The very act of reading should induce a reactive compulsion to write. As Burroughs taught in his later creative writing courses -- in order to become a better writer one must first learn to read (I'm paraphrasing here). Part of becoming a better thinker is learning how to think. In order to do that one must catch one's self in the act. ~~~ chubot I'm definitely a fan of taking notes on things you've read (among other things, the effort to write notes makes you choose what you read more carefully). And I agree that it will help you remember the sources for various ideas. But I think a journal is the wrong model (i.e. time ordered entries, either electronic or paper). I have used a paper notebook in the past, but I would rarely go back and look at things, and it's not searchable, and paper is not editable. For the last 10+ years, I've used a Wiki. Hyperlinks are huge. They really do model the associations your brain already makes. I have wiki pages that are 10 years old and that still grow new associations. I think it takes a big load off your brain to have all that stuff written down, and searchable with ease. (I had to write my own Wiki to get it fast enough though.) ~~~ Raphmedia I've heard a few people tell they use a Wiki. Do you host it on your own server? Is is a public wiki, or a private one? I'm very curious. ~~~ chubot It's a private Wiki, which started out as a Python CGI on shared hosting, but is now a WSGI app on a Linode. I started it 10 years ago, and side benefit was that writing a Wiki is a good project to learn about web programming. The first version was of course riddled with XSS and escaping problems :-/ I think writing a Wiki is still a good exercise now. I'm not a front end person per se, but every programmer should know something about the web. I'm always a little taken aback when I meet some back end guy who doesn't know how HTTP or the browser works. And IMO there is too much bloated JS on the web now. I think people forgot how to make a simple web app with a form and plain buttons. There are too many fast-moving frameworks, so just doing it "raw" (or to WSGI) is a good learning exercise. ------ ctchocula I really enjoyed Paul's compilation analogy. It reminds me of a quote by Robertson Davies. "A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight." It also reminds me of that MIT paper that gives advice on how to do research. The part it talks about why it is that when your colleague gives you a paper to read and says it's particularly poignant, but when you read it it doesn't seem like anything special. Maybe it's because your colleague had the dependencies in his state of mind that you did not have in yours, so it didn't seem as memorable to you as to him when the code compiled. ~~~ temuze Yeah, his analogy extends to art pretty well. Let's say we use Tolstoy's definition of art, that art is about communicating a feeling to others via a medium. There are times in our lives where our state of mind makes us more likely to be moved by a piece of art. It's why you should revisit your favorite books from your youth - you'll often find the same words mean completely different things later on. ------ sirsar Most people equate the term "memory" with what is more accurately termed _episodic memory_ \- little movies in your head. Most people can't remember when "Christmas" was first defined for them, but they can rattle off many things about it - the date, the religious meaning, the corporate meaning, etc. This is _semantic memory_ , and together they form your conscious _explicit memory_ or _declarative memory_ (there are differences between the two that are not relevant here). The brain often throws away the episode but keeps the concept, and that is what Paul is talking about here. But there's more to it than that. Your unconscious _implicit memory_ includes things you can't even articulate. That's the difference between the date of Christmas and how to ride a bike: the latter is nondeclarative. Learning a different way to ride a bike, or approach programming, is even more difficult than recomputing semantic memory. You can (and should) read a new books and gain new episodes to base your facts and opinions on. Read diverse material with abandon. But when learning something nondeclarative, like a weight-lifting technique, it can be well worth seeking out an expert and learning it right the first time. With nondeclarative memory, what you don't know _can_ hurt you. For more on the science and classification of memory, the Wikipedia page is as good a starting place as any. [0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory) ------ Alex3917 Why not take notes? Whenever I read a book I want to remember, I just pencil a dash in the margin next to any key fact, insight, or quote. Then after I'm done with a few chapters I retype these sections into a mindmap. It probably only adds 10 - 20% extra time, but you're getting 1000% more value. In general what matters isn't how much you read, but how much you retain and what sorts of connections with past and future insight and information. It's important to have the full experience of having realizations and making connections while you're reading, which is why I just make a dash in the margins as opposed to taking actual notes in real time, but I feel like by not circling back later you're cheating yourself out of the true value of learning. Especially since you have no idea if the books you're reading are even true or not until you vet the facts with primary sources. ~~~ Qwertious The problem with taking notes is that you'd have to do so for literally every book or article or video you ever watched, and then you'd have to refer to it every time you remembered any facts from them. ------ snowwrestler This comment will run the risk of sounding condescending, but I believe it's true so I'm going to post it anyway. Thought processes like the ones captured in pg's post are fostered by education in critical analysis--the sort of analysis that one learns in the humanities. Art, literature, philosophy, history, etc. are the products of human thought, and learning to critique them is in part an exploration of how humans think. Not the physics or neurology, but how influences can shape each person's mental model. Part of this is exploring the influences that affected the mental model of the person writing or creating the art. Another is exploring the mental model(s) that the artist or writer sought to create. (This is what we experience when we "get into" a book.) So, if you're looking for a reason that CS or engineering students should take humanities courses, I think one is illustrated in this post: it teaches you how to read books consciously. It gives you a framework for exploring how the thoughts of others (and therefore yours as well) are influenced and shaped by the information that is consumed during a lifetime. ------ igonvalue > And yet if I had to write down everything I remember from it, I doubt it > would amount to much more than a page. This was reassuring to hear from someone else, because I've had this exact feeling about books I read, films I've watched, conversations I've had, work projects I've completed, etc. This is true even in cases when I was completely engaged in, for example, reading the book, and the book left a positive impression on me. I've always felt guilty about this, especially when I see others who don't seem to have the same problem when they talk about the books they've read, etc. I've also found that recall can be greatly improved by repeatedly talking about the specific topic with multiple people. The strange thing is that I have an excellent memory for certain things - information about people and relationships. In light of our evolutionary history as a social species, perhaps this is not so surprising after all. ~~~ philwelch I've found that when I reexpose myself to the same subject or book or whatever, I recall or relearn the information a lot more easily than I did the first time. A lot of times it was just in cold storage the whole time. ------ coderholic I remember reading something very similar to this (but can't remember where, ha), where it said the important thing about reading is how if affects your general thinking rather than the individual pieces of information that you're likely to remember (or not). I spent several years reading a ton of different books on economics and I can recall very few facts from those books, but it did and has completely altered my world view of many things. pg's analogy of a program where you've lost the source code doesn't feel quite right, because you can't make modifications to the program without the code. Some sort of machine learning model seems more appropriate, where you've lost the original training data but can still update the model later with fresh data (a new book), and end up with a better/different model, but then lose that training data again. ~~~ eoi I think a machine learning model provides a nice version of Graham's "The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life." Using an artificial neural net analogy instead of a compilation analogy: "The same book would optimize your neural net towards a different local minimum at different points in your life." ------ pacalleri While I was reading came to my mind the Borges's short story "Funes the memorious". It's about someone who can't forget any detail. He remembers absolutely all the things and the infinite instances of them through the time. At some point of the story Borges conjectures: "I suspect, nevertheless, that he was not very capable of thought. To think is to forget the difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details, almost contiguous details." ~~~ themodelplumber Great passage. As a digital artist who works with fractals, that really resonates with me. Visual fractal detail quite often converges to visual noise (and looks remarkably like a noise function as expressed on e.g. a TV set). I usually need to remove or de-emphasize that noise in order to clarify the direction and abstract intent of the work. One of my favorite films that works along these lines is the 1998 Japanese film "After Life," in which a small party of workers attempt to recreate others' memories with very basic film studio equipment. I absolutely treasure the loss of detail in the various recreation scenes, and the way it suggests that there is actually a satisficing point at which we might realize, "yes, I'm actually reliving that memory right now." So I agree with Mr. Graham's conclusion that technology can bring this about. On an unrelated note, PG's essays always bring to mind the Meyers-Briggs INTJ type. Essays about the annoyance of accumulating "stuff", a focus on abstract / intuitive learning styles, and clever writing which quickly establishes a theoretical framework which is then thrown against the world's (audience's) experience, rather than starting from first principles hoping to eventually reveal a framework as others might do. His seems to me very much a "systems thinker" approach. ~~~ applecore I've noticed that whenever truly original thinkers encounter a problem, they'll quickly establish a workable model—even if it's known to be flawed or wrong—just so they can begin testing it “against the world's experience.” (I had no idea this style of thinking was associated with INTJ types.) ------ WalterBright I have an interesting take on this. Most of the books I've read, I have a copy of. A while back, I endeavored to cut, scan and OCR them all into my computer. One idea was then I could do a full-text search, limited to what I've already read rather than what google thinks is relevant. So far, I've found it very handy to find something if I at least remember which book it was in. But I need a program that can extract the OCR'd text from .pdf files - anyone know of a simple one? (I can do it manually, one at a time, by bringing it up in a pdf reader, but that's too tedious and slow.) ~~~ sixdimensional This is a great idea. Full-text search for "my knowledgebase", books I've read, thing's I've written, etc. is an area with potential that still seems unfulfilled. Some ideas: \- Apache PDFBox [https://pdfbox.apache.org/](https://pdfbox.apache.org/) \- command line: [https://pdfbox.apache.org/commandline/#extractText](https://pdfbox.apache.org/commandline/#extractText) \- XPDF has a command line tool you can use in Windows - [http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/](http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/) \- pdftotext \- If you're going for accuracy, Tesseract is one of the most accurate [https://code.google.com/p/tesseract- ocr/](https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/) \- Apache Tika is often used the way you suggest: [http://tika.apache.org/](http://tika.apache.org/) ------ normloman I will never understand why this guy's essays are so revered. I'm expecting some profound conclusion, but the only message of the essay is "reading and experience form mental models." Well, duh! Whats worse, he doesn't support his claims with evidence, besides a single anecdote. Am I missing something here? ~~~ Dragonai Well, Paul's essays aren't all meant to be mind-shatteringly revolutionary. He simply likes to share his thoughts and advice on a wide range of subjects that have helped shape who he is and what he knows, and the general public respects both him and his essays because a.) he's got the credibility to back them up, and b.) because it shows in his work and in his writing. I personally think this essay is some pretty nice food for thought. ~~~ normloman I have a problem with sharing every thought that pops in your head. If you don't have something new to contribute to the discussion, why add to the noise? As for "food for thought," have you really never thought about how reading and experience shape your beliefs? I thought this was pretty basic stuff. Maybe I'm wrong. ------ scoofy What i found shocking here, is how casually pg talks about what i believe is the fundamental point of philosophy. That is the mapping of our minds inductive model of the world, and our deductive one. >Reading and experience train your model of the world. And even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world persists. Here, he is pointing out the the relevant information you perceive, your empirical data, is only retained insofar as it effects your deductive model of the world, that is, the model we use to determine truth and falsity. The rest of the data is generally trivial. This is a very sensible insight in my mind, and kudos to him. The dance between empirical data and deductive truth is one of the most difficult things for me to get my head around. This as a model for data retention is something i'd not thought of. >Eventually we may be able not just to play back experiences but also to index and even edit them. So although not knowing how you know things may seem part of being human, it may not be. Here, i find this problematic. In Soros's terms, the mind is reflexive. Thus, in reviewing the data, we are experiencing new data. If we edit our thoughts, do we not remember editing them? I don't see away to take away the reflexive nature of self examination, that in creating changes, we create new data about the changes. ------ japhyr One of the most significant books I ever read was _A Walk Across America_ by Peter Jenkins. He graduated college in the 70's, wasn't sure what to do, and decide to walk from New York to the Pacific ocean. This book covered the first half of the walk; he wrote it while taking a break in Louisiana along the way. That book was hugely influential to me. I graduated college and spent two years teaching. The summer after my second year of teaching, I had no obligations to anyone else for the first time in my life. I remembered Peter Jenkins' story, and decided to bicycle across the US. I knew I wanted to travel under my own power as he had done, but I wanted to go a little faster than he did. Bicycling was perfect for me. I ended up doing two cross-country trips over successive summers, and then I spent a year living on my bicycle, circumnavigating North America. I reread _A Walk Across America_ some years after doing my own trips. I was amazed at how bad I thought the book was. pg observes that _The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life._ This is absolutely true. Now that I'm in my 40's, I'm going to go back and reread the most influential books of my 20's. I might even have to change my HN username after doing so, but I hope not. ~~~ d23 May I ask what in your perspective on the book changed? What made you think it was so great the first time and so bad the second? ------ debacle I don't like the flavor of this post. It feels very much like navel-gazing and, if it wasn't for the domain name, it likely would have been lost to /newest. Where is the knowledge here? That we don't have immediate recollection of retained information? Knowledge is based on a beginning and ending context. ~~~ larrys Which makes me think of a saying. One that I remember. "Sophia Loren without a nose is not Sophia Loren". Here's another one "if my grandmother had balls she'd be my grandfather". The point is PG wrote it so just like if anyone of note wrote it it would be more of interest than the same thought from anyone else. After all these are analog thoughts and subjective this isn't science. ~~~ debacle When a renowned writer writes something weak, it doesn't give credence to the piece, it takes credence from the writer. ~~~ npizzolato I'm also surprised people actually find the contents of this blog post insightful, but I suspect it has far more to do with who wrote the article. I mean, is it not obvious that you can take away new ideas from reading a book multiple times at different stages of your life? As a simplified example, movies with twist endings hinge on exactly that fact -- armed with new information, events you have already experienced take on new meaning. More "important" things will have more significance, but it's the same idea. Is it not obvious that your own world views are the result of your own experiences and others who you have contact with, even if you cannot precisely remember everything that would lead to that world view? ~~~ vehementi No, those things aren't obvious FYI. And if your summary was "boy, new ideas from different stages" you kind of missed it. ------ arh68 It's not that you _forget_ the content, it's that you forget _how to phrase it_ concisely. If the author needed 70, or 200 pages to explain a concept, and you can at some point raise your hand and claim 'I get the point', it's not reasonable to expect a 12-word summary. _What do I remember?_ Hard to put into words. Likewise, it's not reasonable to expect a perfect memory, reciting paragraph after paragraph of the original text. If you really _can_ summarize a book in a sentence or two, wouldn't the author have done that already? Maybe it's time for me to reread Cryptonomicon. There are parts of that book I have absolutely no memory of, flipping through it, yet other parts I remember all too often (bicycle sprockets, comets of pee, bisecting alligators, van eck phreaking). (also... > _seige warfare_ ?) ~~~ csallen _> If you really can summarize a book in a sentence or two, wouldn't the author have done that already?_ Not only is this possible to do, but it's often done. The problem is that it's not necessarily useful or sufficient to hear a mere summary of something. For example, let's say I tell you that "Idea X is important." That's a simple idea, right? It only too me four words to express it. But do you believe me? Probably not, because I haven't spent any time or effort convincing you that idea X is important. And do you understand what idea X is? Probably not, because I haven't spent any time or effort explaining that. Etc. Even if you can summarize it, you probably need to write the entire book for people to get the background information necessary for them to find your summary useful, otherwise it will go in one ear and out the other. ~~~ d23 I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this has absolutely nothing to do with what PG was referencing in the article. I'm guessing he could at least give some _broad_ overview of the book he's referencing. The issue seems to be that it seems so small in comparison to the book itself. ~~~ csallen Well, exactly. The book as a whole accomplishes much more than a brief summary of it does, which is why it feels bad to lose all of that additional information. I disagree with the parent that you still remember the content but can't summarize it concisely. I believe the opposite: you forget the specifics but retain the ability to summarize them. ------ david927 This essay reminds me of a NY Times essay: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.html) Interestingly, if shown a series of hundreds of images, we wouldn't remember many in the list. But if we're shown alternates (was it a goldfish or a watch?), we would instantly recognize the item. We didn't forget, we just couldn't access the memory on demand. The conclusion is the same: it's there, influencing us and adding to our lives, even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes. ------ karmacondon I've been thinking about this very issue recently, and coincidentally started working on software two days ago to help manage the problem of remembering things that I've read. Obtaining information in 2015 is remarkably easy. Retaining it is damn near impossible, at least for me. I read books and bookmark links from hn and reddit on a daily basis, consuming constantly. But I find that I recall very little of it. I don't know if Stephan Hawking was right about black holes destroying information, but my bookmarks folder comes pretty close. Links go in and then are never seen or heard from again. I take copious book notes and type them up, only for them to be consigned to the void of my hard drive file system. I've tried evernote and anki and several other tools, but it's always a one way ticket. My trouble isn't remembering what I've read, but remembering to remember. No matter how I've tried, I can't change my daily work flow to set aside time to review the notes and information that I've already collected, rendering it useless. If I had a magic device that recorded all of my experiences, it wouldn't do me much good because I'm too busy collecting new experiences to be remembered. It would be great to be able to search for details and trivia, but I wouldn't have time to peruse the archive to refresh myself about things that I had forgotten completely. Much in the way that google lets us search for and recall anything, except the things we don't remember the name of. I'm going in the direction of reminding myself about things that I previously read or bookmarked, especially as they tie in to what I'm currently reading. I think one part of the solution is to display existing bookmarks and typed up book notes to myself in a near random fashion. It's not the most sophisticated solution, but at least they won't be lost and I'll have a chance of reconnecting with something and establishing more anchors in my memory. I think a plugin that relates past content to the current page might be a good idea, ie for this page I could see any previous bookmarks that involve memory and retention. And generally reminding myself to review things I've already learned, even if they don't seem relevant at the moment. I don't have any great ideas yet, but I've been coding like heck for the past few days to try to take small steps toward a solution. I've been on a quest to make my brain work better, and this essay has definitely given me some ideas and helped to push me along. ~~~ jasim > It's not the most sophisticated solution, but at least they won't be lost > and I'll have a chance of reconnecting with something and establishing more > anchors in my memory. Go for it; simplicity works. I've pushed a few of my favourite passages to a simple web page which I can flip through randomly ([http://www.jasimabasheer.com/amateur_reading/serendipity.htm...](http://www.jasimabasheer.com/amateur_reading/serendipity.html)). As a bonus I can also link to it when relevant discussions come up. ------ foobarqux Schopenhauer said it first and better: "However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have bourne them." \-- Schopenhauer ------ davemel37 I am in middle of reading a fascinating book that discusses how the brain, processes, interprets, and retains information as it passes from your Sensory Information Storage to your short term memory to your long term memory, as well as how you retrieve information from your long term memory. (The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis) The book was written as a guide to CIA Analysts to understand the limitations their own filters and mental models place on new information they process. One important point that I find applies to this essay is that the way we retrieve information is through schema that associate various memories with each other. Creativity is about mapping new pathways through your memory or applying other patterns and schema on top of existing memories. So, reading a book a second time, or even "forgetting" what you read, can not only give you new patterns and schema to apply to your other mental models and memories and stimulate creativity. I highly recommend everyone read The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis... or if you want the abridged version you can read my brief recap. [http://www.davidmelamed.com/2014/12/05/internet-marketers- ci...](http://www.davidmelamed.com/2014/12/05/internet-marketers-cia-hedge- funds-business/?hvid=2UkF6u) ------ snide This goes both ways. Sometimes I avoid rereading books for the same reason. There was a Summer where Catcher in the Rye felt very important. I'd hate to reread it under my new, adult perspective. I'd prefer to let it linger in nostalgia. ~~~ hudathun I had the same same thing with the much less erudite Stranger in a Strange Land. Re-read it 20 years later and was disappointed. On the positive side, I should consider how much I've moved forward in that time :) or sideways :-S ~~~ snide The nice thing about Heinlein is he has a book for all stages. As I've gotten older I really prefer his "Time Enough for Love" novel, which is about looking back on a long life. ------ bcbrown A few years ago I started an annual tradition, where around the new year I'll re-read the Pragmatic Programmer. This year will be the third year, and I expect I'll continue to gain new insights from future rereadings. ~~~ Kluny How long does it take you to get through it? I struggle with reading non- fiction books, and gave up at around 100 pages in last time I tried it. Sucks, cause I've heard that it's one of the more readable books go, in terms of programming manuals. ~~~ bcbrown Under a week. I've coincidentally also had off from Christmas-New Years the past three years, though, so I have plenty of free time. I also read a lot of nonfiction, and read a couple of technical textbooks every year. ------ sytelus This is great essay. Few points: 1\. The more correct analogy would be _training data_ and _machine learned model_ rather than source code and compiled binary. 2\. Lot of people move from book to book, always reading some book at any point in time. This provides great dopamine hit to brain and keeps boredome away. However one need to _reflect_ on what they read to gain any significant "take always". The act of reflecting enforces recall which in turn induces analysis and memory storage. I try to create a book review to formalize my reflection process after I complete a book. 3\. These days I also get digital (usually pdf) copies of most books I'm reading. This allows me to use tools like GoodReader to highlight striking statements and make notes of my opinions as I read along. You can sure just use pencil and margin of book :). This habit has rewarded me greatly because it makes me take a pause and think about what I read. I can come back to book anytime and refresh it 10X faster. It's also fun to know what my opinion used to be on some of the things years ago. ------ levlandau This makes a lot of sense. However, a machine learning model + data analogy feels more satisfactory (and accurate?) to me. We throw away the data but our model as well as its parameters are retained. The model as well as the parameters get refined with experience and it's possible that the model is recursively made up of multiple models and that combination is governed by parameters which are also governed by experience. Realizing this has always been fascinating to me and it makes it clear that exposing the brain to more data in pretty deliberate ways can yield profound results. The "smarter" you are the less data you need. If you are not so smart/knowledgeable you need more data. The data you need is also specifically of the question-answer form i.e. examples of what it is you are trying to learn. Anyways before i go down the rabbit hole, I think these metaphors are extremely helpful for the purpose of self analysis and improvement. ------ larrys "The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life. Which means it is very much worth reading important books multiple times. " I also find that this rings true with movies as well. ------ sbensu I experienced this phenomenon starkly when I started a book, and felt it was filled with obvious remarks and little novelty. It took me 50 pages to realize I had already read it. ~~~ lmkg This is the primary downside of reading without a bookmark. Any book I've read on public transportation, I would guess on average each page gets read about twice (with some chapter intros reaching double-digits). It's hard to figure out if it's really something you've read before, or if it's just a very logical continuation of what you read yesterday. I also feel obligated to one-up you. One time in high school English class, the teacher put a sample student essay up on the projector and picked it apart in front of the class. It took me half an hour to realize that I had written the essay in question, and by that point I had concluded that I did not completely agree with it. I learned something that day about writing. ~~~ andyjdavis >Any book I've read on public transportation I suspect this is also a key part of your inability to determine whether or not you have read a given page before. You are reading in an environment that does not lend itself to creating notable memories. This is purely personal conjecture but I suspect that if you went and read somewhere more interesting your memory of what you are reading would magically improve. Books I read while at home or similar tend to disappear into some sort of memory hole. Meanwhile books I have read while visiting other countries tend to be easier to recall, both in terms of the book's contents and the circumstances I was in when reading it. ------ larrys "What use is it to read all these books if I remember so little from them?" Well for one things it gives you pleasure. You could also say "what's the point of listening to music" or "what's the point of watching comedy". Other than pleasure, as a generality, you might read because it makes you feel good to do so. I find that a key to good mental health (that works for me) is not to question what harmless things make you feel good and why. If I did that it would make me unhappy. Just go with the good feeling. One thing that I'm sad about is that I don't get the same pleasure that I used to from browsing books at Barnes and Noble. With the internet there is to much to read already. I don't find the same utility that I used to from books that are essentially a single perspective (at least the ones that I used to buy, non-fiction). ~~~ gdulli He wasn't actually questioning the value of reading. That question was only a rhetorical device that led into his main point. It was put there as a straw man to start the process of disproving that there's no value to reading if you don't remember details. And that it's unnecessary to lament not remembering details. ------ kiyoto This theory explains why many smart people also read a lot. Not necessarily books or even any body of text, but reading as a generic behavior to find meanings in various objects and events in life (Books, I feel, is just one of the easiest things to read). Because they read a lot, they have broader and deeper mental models, which they use to model new/different things/events well. Also, in my experience, what sets the smartest people apart from "just" smart people is their ability to retain the how: not only do they have broad and deep models, but they also know how these models are built and can adapt them quickly as they acquire new information. Most people need to run a disassembler of their compiled thoughts, and after a certain point in life, their binaries are so bloated that they can't decompile them at all. ------ ejstembler Having read Carl Sagan's Cosmos in my youth, I always feel guilty re-reading a book: “If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.” ― Carl Sagan, Cosmos ~~~ anigbrowl Don't feel guilty, Sagan's quantitative approach is a teribly shallow view of reading. If you feel you want to read something again it's because you expect to get something out of it - perhaps to refresh your memory, perhaps to pay more attention to the subtext of the work, perhaps to study the author's literary or rhetorical techniques. You wouldn't assume that you had learned everything about a complex musical composition or painting from single listening or viewing, why assume you've learned everything worth knowing from a single reading of a book? The only reading I ever feel guilty about is my aversion to leaving a book unfinished. I'm pretty good at picking what to read, but about once every year or two I encounter some real stinker that is a literal waste of my time, and I feel a bit annoyed with myself for plowing through to the end even though I have long ceased to expect any literary or intellectual payoff. ~~~ jeffbush I think it was Thomas Hobbes who said "If I had read as many books as other men, I should have been as ignorant as they are." ------ weinzierl Reading and experience train your model of the world. And even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world persists. Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. It works, but you don't know why. I often feel like that, but much more in regard to people than to books and experiences. It's strange, how much others have formed me, but how little I do remember about them. How little I remember about my parents, but how big a part of my compiled program they are. Of all the time I spend with my daughter, of all the activities we do, she probably will not remember much in a few years, but at least I can hope it will have an effect of her model of the world that persists. ------ cliffcrosland When I was a freshman in college, I was in a humanities class that focused on the intersection between humans and machines. We had an assignment to build and test out a "prosthesis", i.e. a technology that extends human capability, in Second Life. I created a simple wristwatch accessory that was scripted to upload a copy of all of your chatbox text to an external service. Later, you could log in to this external service and search through a history of all of the conversations your character ever overheard. Real-world versions of this technology appear inevitable as digital storage costs trend to zero. A rudimentary digital copy of the physical world is being created in services like Google Maps. The Google self-driving car records a 3D copy of its surroundings with accuracy at the centimeter level. Dropcam uploads video and audio data from within your home to cloud storage. A world with fully recorded life experiences seems creepy at first blush, but I believe we'll discover a mechanism for trust that will allow everyone to safely record a digital copy of their lives that is inaccessible to third parties. Perhaps in the future we'll each own an open-source private cloud container of CPU and storage resources. Instead of processing your data on external servers, third-party services might provide code that runs in your own container under tight network permission restrictions. Such a system might be able to maintain the benefits of continuous software deployment while allowing consumers to keep their data under their control. ------ sbensu The problems is figuring out which books provide those useful mental models. I found that fiction usually doesn't but a list with recommendations in the comments would be great. ~~~ agentultra A good article on the importance of fiction from a scientifically validated point of view: [http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/04/28/why-fiction- good...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/04/28/why-fiction-good-for-you- how-fiction-changes-your-world/nubDy1P3viDj2PuwGwb3KO/story.html) Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury L'Etranger - Albert Camus Frankenstein - Mary Shelley Metamorphosis - Ovid Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood The Picadilly Papers - Charles Dickens Permutation City - Greg Egan Fiction allows us to experience the most intimate thoughts of people we've never met in a way we cannot emulate in reality. We can visit places we've never been to and experience situations we'd try our best to avoid. We sit for hours hallucinating vividly reading these stories as we download these characters, concepts, and ideas into our meat. And if the story resonated with us we walk away a different person: new connections in our synapses, reinforced signals in existing ones. Stories are one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal; perhaps even more so than mathematics or computation. ~~~ sbensu I agree that good fiction book can be an eye opener. I'll give the ones from you list I haven't read a try. By non-fiction I didn't only mean science but also historic novels and biographies. I find they come with connections and lessons that no human could have come up with. ~~~ agentultra Try the Penguin Classics hardcovers. Frankenstein for example[0] includes an amazing abridged version based on the original manuscript and later revised editions as well as a very engaging historical account of the author's life, times, and influences when she wrote it. These are also important things to understand about a story as well and can give deeper insights into its inner structure. [0][http://www.penguin.com/book/frankenstein-by-mary- shelley/978...](http://www.penguin.com/book/frankenstein-by-mary- shelley/9780141393391) ------ hrjet This raises two interesting questions to me: 1\. Are technological advances required for re-living experiences? Wouldn't (some forms of) meditation achieve similar results? Personally, I have found myself remembering many past events, a few days into the start of meditation. 2\. When we re-read books, we often choose to re-read those that we liked. But could there be some benefit in re-reading books that we _didn 't_ like (and surpasses a minimum threshold of quality). ------ lifeisstillgood I strongly advise pg to go find a DVD of Black Mirror a horribly under-rated TV series from the excellent Charlie Brooker - the one on replaying ones memories suggests just reading will be a lot less troublesome ! I do suspect we will be less likely to record our lives for later playback than have them analysed at or near the time for feedback on how to improve. Twitch TV is (I am told) full of streams of top rated people playing WoW and commenting on their actions (so others can learn, or be entertained). It's probable that there are shows now or soon that have players commentating on other players streams, and a fairly short leap from that to commenting on videos of me training my dog, or performing reps or basically anything in the life coach / therapy repertoire. Audio and visual analysis already allows therapists to zoom in on the important parts of observed patients (certainly in sleep therapy) and will only get better. Whilst the unexamined life is not worth living, there is no reason you have to be the only examiner. We shall all have our own life long therapists. ~~~ smeyer >go find a DVD of Black Mirror It also recently made it to Netflix. I've been hearing about it all over among my friends the last few days as they've been watching it there (and watched the first couple of episodes myself.) ------ ojbyrne I hate this: "What use is it to read all these books if I remember so little from them?" Because reading is enjoyable? ~~~ worklogin Did you read the article? There are multiple reasons for reading, and though many of them feed into enjoyment, it's not always the end. ~~~ ojbyrne I did read it, and found it trite and obvious. My problems with it were essentially summarized by the particular sentence I quoted. ~~~ kissickas I found it obvious, which pg admits, until this quote: "The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life." A nice analogy, as others have pointed out, and that is the thirteen-word summary I'll remember from this essay. Not bad, considering most thousand-page books will be compressed down to a page of take-away memories. ------ d0m > Intriguingly, this implication isn't limited to books. We can see it clearly with the functional paradigm renaissance right now. The same arguments already existed 40 years ago, but _something_ changed recently where the perception of some people toward functional paradigm completely changed. ~~~ hcarvalhoalves Probably because we hit a threshold where dealing with mutability started to get unmanageable. Another area of interest is "microservices", for the same reason. ------ shubhamjain I started reading books about an year ago - read about 16 this year and I am not sure if it just a phony hunch or a real thing but I feel reading has helped me a lot in programming. I am able to grasp things pretty quickly, I am able to link two different things to get ideas to solve problems, and also, I have grown more confident in approaching challenging problems. Albeit, with anecdotal evidence, I believe, taking interest in wide variety of fields may not give immediate benefits but it helps you in ways you don't imagine. The very fact about which I used to worry - not focusing on specialising and hoping from one thing to another, is what I think has helped me grow my skills in programming, in general. ------ zenogais I think this is part of a larger point. Books aren't just collections of facts. Deleuze and Guattari perhaps said it best in the introduction to "A Thousand Plateaus" \- "A book itself is a little machine..." They then go on to say: "We will never ask what a book means, as signified or signifier; we will not look for anything to understand in it. We will ask what it functions with..." Books are machines you plug into your understanding of the world and they either have an effect on you or they have no effect at all. What and how a book plugs into your understanding and works on it is more important than the content of the book itself under this view. ------ a3_nm > "when Stephen Fry succeeded in remembering the childhood trauma that > prevented him from singing" Does anyone know what this is referring to? Searching for "stephen fry singing trauma" doesn't return anything useful except pg's essay. ~~~ Tycho he seems to mention it in his autobiography [http://www.amazon.com/The-Fry-Chronicles-An- Autobiography/pr...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Fry-Chronicles-An- Autobiography/product-reviews/B005GL492I?pageNumber=5) (search for "singing") ~~~ a3_nm Interesting, thanks. Somehow it seems that Google didn't index up to that page. ------ rluedeman This is a really interesting perspective on cognition, and it all kind of makes sense if you consider the brain to be a black box pattern recognition machine with various built-in biases. New data is always added to the model, but not in an entirely rational fashion. The updated model is likely to slightly overfit new data ("compiled at the time they happen"), and particularly salient bits and pieces of old data (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)) are disproportionately weighted. ------ sinamdar 'Reliving experiences' is part of the Exposure Therapy that is used to treat PTSD. I remember watching on NOVA or some science program how virtual reality was being used to treat veterans suffering from PTSD. By reliving a dangerous situation in the VR world, they are able to 'recompile' the program in a safer context than it actually happened. EDIT: Found the link [http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Top_Story/Using_V...](http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Top_Story/Using_Virtual_Reality_to_Treat_PTSD.htm) ------ gxs I've read other takes on this interesting subject as well. They too, convinced me reading is worthwhile despite our memory limitations. [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.html?pagewanted=all) [http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-curse-of- read...](http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-curse-of-reading-and- forgetting) ------ personlurking I recently met some people who swore that photoreading was legit and that because of it they'd read about 10 thick books per week. Not knowing what it was, I looked it up and immediately didn't believe the premise. There's something to be said for speed reading (at a rate slightly faster than normal) but photoreading just seems ridiculous. Not only can no real content/meaning be gained from doing it, but no mental models can be formed. I'd love to be proven wrong, though... ~~~ marvy I once read a about a small scale study on some super-duper speed reading method. By small scale I think there were like two participants. One was a an expert in the method. The other was the guy doing the study. There were 3 main findings. 1\. Yes, you will "read" much faster. 2\. If you take a standard reading comprehension test on what you've read, you will score much lower. 3\. If you don't take such a test, you will be under the mistaken impression that you absorbed more than you did from the book. [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/2000001...](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20000011599.pdf) ------ proveanegative >Reading and experience train your model of the world. This sounds convincing but then an argument against reading fiction follows since fiction trains your model of the world with fake data. ~~~ chrdlu Hmm this is a very interesting point, but we would have to dive a bit deeper and acknowledge there are many different types of fiction. I would argue that certain types of fiction may actually be beneficiary such as To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye (vs something like 50 Shades of Gray). Those sorts of fictional settings allow the writer to present the experiences and specific feelings/situations to readers. Even though, say Lord of the Rings, isn't exactly relevant to our present day world, the morals and spiritual emotions involved reflect humanity (what makes a human?) I guess your comment has some parallels in art: why should we draw abstract things when we can recreate what we see? Isn't recreating what we see more important/better art than something that would never end up existing? While it's not a perfect analogy, I believe reading and looking at the creative arts ultimately benefits your model of the world through bettering your model of humanity. ~~~ walterbell Fiction could be viewed as "fake data" or "possible data". The scientific method depends on the generation of testable hypotheses. How do we generate hypotheses? ------ brd I am a firm believer in actively curating a mental model. At work I could be accused of over-communicating and I demand the same from those around me. I do so because my goal is to help refine the mental model of myself and all my coworkers so that everyone has a better intuitive understanding of the system/process/organization we're working with. By this process I've been able to internalize much of a massively complex system (SAP) in a relatively short period of time. ------ irln > Eventually we may be able not just to play back experiences but also to > index and even edit them. Like most things this may have unintended consequences. I think our ability to forget is an important "feature" of cognition. What would happen if we were unable to forget even petty squabbles between friends, loved ones, supposed enemies? How far could this escalate? Our ability to forget and put things behind us may be the reason we're still around. ~~~ whattimeisitnow I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure it's quite important. Autistics I believe have lost some of this filtering (forgetting).. non-autistics like probably you and I capture our environment photographically but ditch the things our brain thinks is unimportant ------ oh_dear I'm just really happy to hear that I'm not alone in my anxieties about needing to re-read books and my inability to remember everything written in a book! ------ ontoillogical > e.g. when Stephen Fry succeeded in remembering the childhood trauma that > prevented him from singing That sounds fascinating, does anyone have a reference for this? ------ karolisd Knowledge is an interesting subject. When I read, I don't remember the exact order of words. Especially in the age of Google, we have a choice of what to burden our memory with and what to leave to Google. Are names and dates important? What's important is to have models of how things work in your mind. It is through the process of reading that we develop and refine these models. ~~~ DenisM Approximate dates are important to find connections with other contemporary events, and more broadly to put things into the context of the prevailing culture at the time. ------ arasmussen I don't like the use of the word "compiled". It's more like a program that modifies it's source at runtime. This reminds me of how JavaScript used to be simply interpreted but now with V8 (and friends) the hottest paths are optimized at runtime so that the result is more performant than any compilation because you have more information than you do statically. ~~~ Qwertious You're describing JIT. ------ lutorm I experience this phenomenon powerfully reading scientific articles. You read a bunch of articles when you are trying to wrap your head around some topic, but if you then go back and read them again after you've worked on it for a while, you'll find all kinds of things that now are very meaningful while they previously didn't seem important to you. ------ drawkbox The idea of compilation without the source is a great way to put it. A beginners mind is a good way to look at things and learn. With a beginners mindset when needed, maybe temporarily you can recompile portions to take down the filters and walls in your current binaries, with that mindset maybe you can update and refresh from the basics. ------ rmason I also think that its equally important to reread books that gave you great insight. A few years later with more experience and knowledge you derive more from it. On first read you have a few key points and years later sometimes those end up knitted together forming a greater insight that eluded you previously. ------ OoTheNigerian I think this is the phenomenon that forms the basis for Gladwell's BLINK. It took me a while to learn that almost everything I have heard or seen has already been stored. The problem of memory is in retrieval. This also applies to creative work. When you have seen quite a lot of things, it ends up influencing stuff you could swear was original. ------ Empact “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson ------ jordanbrown "Reading and experience train your model of the world. And even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world persists. Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. It works, but you don't know why." \-- love this ------ zeeshanm I think one of the points from this essay can be made that "content" discovery is going to be a hot problem to crack if it is not already has been. Because good discovery mechanism leads to more user engagement that ultimately results in creating products with lasting impact. ------ yarek Fascinating. A corollary would be: be careful what you read and be critical of what you read. There is danger of manipulation, particularly by others. The plus is that you could manipulate yourself, change personal perceptions and mode of thinking. ------ ghobs91 This helps alleviate the fear of potentially "wasting time" if a startup or project we're working on doesn't take off. Either way, the things learned while undertaking the endeavor will affect our mindset, usually for the better. ------ sopooneo Regarding the retention from books, it's often the case that I could fill a dozen pages with correct answers to questions that I only know from having read a particular book, even if I could only fill one page with unprompted recollections. ------ calebm There's a quote which I (ironically) can't remember about how a mind is made up of the books it has read in much the same way as a lion is made of of the animals it consumes. Or to put it another way, "you are what you eat." ------ robg Not for nothing, the laying of new memories in the brain is exactly context sensitive. The hippocampus is actively weighting new information based on what we already know. And emotion hacks the hippocampal patterns that much more. ------ finid It takes a deeper understanding of the mind and how it works to grasps these things. When you learn about the four aspects of the mind and how each plays a role in your outlook, then you have the key to this "mystery". ------ rezaur " The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life. Which means it is very much worth reading important books multiple times." \-- I loved this statement most. ------ BeoShaffer See also, the psycological litterature on source amnesia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_amnesia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_amnesia) ------ adam419 The funny thing is I had just posted on hear to ask about how others help improve their reading retention, since I've been feeling bad about forgetting thing after I read them. ------ tvvocold Anybody know how to rss his feed? i try with [http://paulgraham.com/rss.html](http://paulgraham.com/rss.html) but seems not a full article. ------ swah On some level we don't really forget - when you reread a book it comes back to you like a stream, all the insights and connections appearing stronger and clearer than before. ------ dimfisch "Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. It works, but you don't know why." Nice. ------ herodot "Your mind is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. It works, but you don't know why." ------ fab13n TL;DR: a healthy brain accumulates wisdom, but won't bother archiving the sources of that wisdom. ------ easytiger > "a perfect formulation of a problem is already half its solution." Is that simply rubber ducking? ------ mempko So apparently the metaphor that our brains are computers is still used? And that they "compile" experiences (though we don't understand how). What if our brains are not easily shaped? And maybe our brains are good at forgetting experiences? ------ applecore It's deeply heartwarming to see another “OG” PG essay enter the canon. (Obscure reference to historical French prose in the introductory sentence? Check!) ~~~ chris_j What is meant by "OG" in this context? ~~~ pzxc [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=OG](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=OG) ------ Tycho Or put a slightly different way, reading book is a way to test/validate your model of the world. It's like running unit tests on your assumptions. ------ meta-coder Quote: There are no facts, only interpretations. \--Friedrich Nietzsche ------ porter maybe this is more an argument for taking notes while you read rather than just reading. ------ locksley The mind is a sophisticated algorithm with a shit database. So why not replace that database by taking notes? ------ michaelcrn What ------ michaelochurch _I 've read Villehardouin's chronicle of the Fourth Crusade at least two times, maybe three. And yet if I had to write down everything I remember from it, I doubt it would amount to much more than a page. Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves. What use is it to read all these books if I remember so little from them?_ I've gone through this exact anxiety. Access into past experiences (whether they're books, vacations, or pieces of visual art) isn't random-access. We seem to have a lot of on-demand knowledge but struggle to retain deep knowledge of something in an independent, self-encapsulated state. Depth of knowledge seems to form, in us, emergently and subconsciously. It makes a case for the Buddhist argument that all things are interconnected and interdependent; certainly, in our knowledge bases, that becomes true very quickly. For me, the solution was to learn to enjoy the process of learning rather than completed act of _having acquired_ knowledge, it being difficult to summarize any acquired knowledge without coming up with a trite, denatured reduction. It took a while because I was secure in the realization that, yes, I _had_ read that 500-page book even if I couldn't reproduce more than a few pages of "raw" and independent knowledge.

Makeitopen.com – new Open Source learning site from Facebook - mjohnston4 http://makeitopen.com/ ====== thrusong Does anyone know why Facebook never followed through with open sourcing Haystack, the photo storage tool which I believe is now powering inbox attachments as well? ~~~ captn3m0 Had never heard of Haystack before. A few relevant links in case anyone is interested (It is the system powering facebook's photo storage infra): \- [https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/osdi10/tech/full_papers/...](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Beaver.pdf) \- [https://web.archive.org/web/20140906020211/https://www.faceb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140906020211/https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=76191543919) (The note is not up anymore) \- [http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2009/04/facebook- haystack.h...](http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2009/04/facebook- haystack.html) ------ gfosco Lots of great and thorough content here, and I'm really happy that it uses Parse Server! [https://github.com/parseplatform/parse- server](https://github.com/parseplatform/parse-server)

We Know Exactly Who Strong Arms a Free Press - MediumCool https://medium.com/@davepell/we-know-exactly-who-strong-arms-the-free-press-1c8d1d4bbe39 ====== MrZongle2 TL;DR: Trump == Hitler. Edit: don't downvote, _debate_. How is this article not a dog-whistle about Trump being a democracy-destroying authoritarian?

Apple LZFSE open source reference implementation - dcohenp https://github.com/lzfse/lzfse ====== mtanski A more direct comparison would be with zstd. zstd started zhuff which was the lz4 authors work of putting lz4 & FSE together. [https://github.com/Cyan4973/zstd](https://github.com/Cyan4973/zstd)

A Photographer Rediscovers The Crumbling Remains Of Tatooine - c_schmitt http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672518/a-photographer-rediscovers-the-crumbling-remains-of-tatooine#1 ====== jgrahamc Most of these locations in Tunisia are very easy to find. You ask a tour guide and they will take you there in a 4x4. When you get there some locals will arrive to sell you stuff. [http://blog.jgc.org/2011/01/visit-to-mos-espa-on- tatooine.ht...](http://blog.jgc.org/2011/01/visit-to-mos-espa-on- tatooine.html)

Tips for Succeeding in a CS. PhD - Nalta https://sybrandt.com/posts/2020_03_30_tips_phd_cs/ ====== johntiger1 Very insightful article! I like how you retrospectively analyze advice you were given. Maybe I will do a meta retrospective analysis in a few years :)

Signed distance field raymarching. Procedural elephants - rinesh https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4dKGWm ====== strangecasts If you're interested in graphics programming, Íñigo's articles are absolutely worth reading: [http://www.iquilezles.org/www/](http://www.iquilezles.org/www/)

Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC - jszumski http://johnszumski.com/blog/hands-on-with-apple-pay-competitor-currentc ====== jimkri I really don't understand what the companies involved with MCX are thinking. They build an app that is going in the opposite direction of where the market is heading and limit the amount of payments they accept. I was in line at 7-11 at my university, where an girl was trying to use the currentc app. She was 2 people ahead of me, when I went up to pay she was still trying to pay with the app. At first her screen was to dim, and the scanner would not read the QR code. Eventually she was able to pay, but I was already long gone by that time. If you look on the google play store it has a rating of 1.1 starts. This is straight from its website,"Merchant Customer Exchange is the only merchant-owned mobile commerce network built to streamline the customer shopping experience across all major retail verticals." With an app that rates 1.1 stars and no improvement, I don't think it cares about the shopping experience, and people will see this eventually. ~~~ untog A clue to what the companies are thinking from the article: "Its payments are also routed from the retailer to the ACH system instead of the credit card system, which saves retailers from having to pay interchange fees (typically around 2% of the transaction amount)" ~~~ jimkri Yea I realized that when I was thinking about it. Which is a financial smart reason, but in the end it limits them. If I only have my phone which I have android pay on and I need to get something from a drug store, I would go to CVS but they don't accept NFC. So I will have to go to Walgreen's instead which is usually near a CVS. So I don't get why they don't offer NFC, because keeping 98% of the transaction amount is better than 0. ~~~ ISL If your margin is only a few percent, 2% is a big deal. What matters to a retailer isn't the revenue, it's the difference between costs and revenue. ~~~ toomuchtodo Walmart is also smart about this. They algorithmically determine how many cashiers to have at certain times of the day, under the assumption that even though some people may give up and leave instead of waiting in line, its still more profitable for that to occur than to staff more cashiers for everyone to complete their purchases in a timely manner. In the real world, its about profits, not volume. ------ Veratyr In Australia retailers have supported NFC in the form of Visa's payWave and Mastercard's PayPass for years now and I've got to say, it's fantastic compared to the experience in the US. Walk into a supermarket/retailer/cinema/restaurant in Melbourne and payment is as simple as waving your card at the terminal. If the purchase is less than ~$100 you don't need to enter a PIN and don't need to sign anything (we outlawed signatures for domestic payments mid last year). It's just done. Visa/Mastercard/banks generally cover any fraudulent purchases using the system so you don't need to worry too much about fraud. In addition to this, since the US tech companies generally don't appear to have cared about the rest of the world until now, our banks have provided us with contactless payment apps for our phones and unlike the numerous standards being developed in the US, the banks' apps work with the existing payWave/PayPass systems that are already supported. The reason I'm bringing this up is to show just how behind the US is when it comes to payments. I'm currently living in the Bay Area and the only places I've been able to successfully complete a purchase using a contactless payment method are Office Depot and Whole Foods. Most fast food places don't accept it, most retailers don't accept it, most businesses in general don't accept it. In Melbourne at least nearly everywhere accepts it, from coffee shops to supermarkets to tech retailers. Even the US's move to EMV is backwards. The country has the second highest credit card fraud rate in the world yet when moving to a "more secure" system, signatures are still being retained as "authentication" or "authorization" despite being literally attached to the back of the card. The US is fantastic when it comes to technology but when it comes to banking and payments it's incredibly dated and behind. ~~~ mikeash I don't understand why you praise NFC but condemn EMV on the basis of fraud. In both cases, the possession of some physical item is considered sufficient for authorization. Copying that physical item is sufficiently difficult that it's probably not an avenue for fraud, so you have to actually steal somebody's card. If physical card theft is actually a big deal, then NFC would be just as bad. If it's not a problem and fraud comes from copying the information, then EMV is just as good. No? ~~~ Veratyr Yes, now that you point it out it does seem odd. The physical presence of the card and lack of authentication are common to both methods but: \- NFC reduces risk by limiting transactions to $100. \- EMV is slower (much slower) and more cumbersome due to the requirement that a signature still be collected and the card be inserted into the terminal. This takes a minimum of 15-20s while exchanging receipts etc compared to NFC's ~1s. NFC has the same level of security while reducing risk and increasing convenience. ~~~ mikeash It's pretty common not to require a signature on smaller purchases. It depends on the merchant and the card, but most purchases under $50 are just swipe and go. Presumably they'll change to be insert and go. I totally agree with you that NFC wins for convenience and speed. I just don't see much of a security advantage, and it looks to me like EMV should substantially reduce in-person fraud, since you won't be able to copy them the way you can copy magnetic stripes. The card companies seem to think this way, at least: the way they're pushing EMV isn't to require it, but simply to say that if you _don 't_ have it and you participate in a fraudulent transaction, you're liable for it. ~~~ Veratyr That's true but it's still possible to make a completely unauthenticated $4000 purchase with a physically stolen US credit card. I didn't mention this earlier but NFC payments over $100 generally only require a PIN be entered but this is a relatively (to signatures) painless process and comes with the benefit of requiring something not printed on the credit card. For small payments, NFC is faster. For large payments, NFC (at least as implemented in Australia, with PIN), is significantly more secure. ~~~ mikeash That certainly does sound better for fraud, but that's just a policy choice, not anything inherent to NFC or EMV. NFC could be without limits (I think that's how it is in the US) and EMV could require a PIN (as is typically the case in Europe). It would be interesting to see the breakdown of different types of credit card fraud. How much fraud is physically stolen card versus copied card versus online purchases? I have no real idea myself. ------ mfringel Between the privacy concerns and the fact that it's ACH only, it sounds like it has a tremendous benefit for retailers.... and precisely none for me. ------ prplhaz4 I believe CurrentC's (Paydiant's) QR code tokenization works the same as you've described Apple Pay tokenization - the merchant POS does not see any payment info other than a one-time-use token. This was another decent teardown of Paydiant's Subway app - but it looks like someone high up has had some of the code redacted :) [http://randywestergren.com/reverse-engineering-the-subway- an...](http://randywestergren.com/reverse-engineering-the-subway-android-app/) Functionally, it looks like CurrentC only has two advantages over *Pays - loyalty integration and big box retailer backing. Not likely enough, but will be interesting to see how it plays out in the lower end market where a flagship device is not required... ~~~ ascagnel_ As far as loyalty integration, there is some of that in Apple Pay -- it supports my local supermarket and drug store (Wegman's and Walgreen's, respectively). ~~~ prplhaz4 Any chance you can point me to a good demo? I haven't seen a good single-scan loyalty/payment demo for ApplePay yet, and the SamsungPay demo seems to imply it but isn't very clear... ------ sarahprobono I have to say, just because of the privacy implications, I'm much more inclined to use Apple Pay than CurrentC. ~~~ DaveWalk I'm not an Apple Pay user -- is their privacy policy any good? Does it not collect metadata? The article highlights CurrentC's brazen lack of privacy. From their policy: > We share your information across our network of merchants and with our third > party service providers. MCX may share...To third-party analytic providers > and advertising partners to help us deliver, track and analyze the > operations and effectiveness of our marketing campaigns, promotions or > advertisements. ~~~ macavity23 Apple Pay's privacy is much better. AIUI: Apple knows nothing about your cards (they are all encrypted on-device), and nothing about your transaction except that there was A transaction (since Apple just sees a token that gets passed from you to the card provider). The merchant doesn't see your real cc number, just a one-use token. So they can't track you unless you choose to add a loyalty card. The card provider sees all details of the transaction. Just as now, and what you want. And the real cc details are stored in dedicated silicon on a fingerprint- locked device. ~~~ pdpi > The merchant doesn't see your real cc number, just a one-use token It's worth noting that the token is one-per-vendor, rather than one-per- payment. This is what allows TFL to match your tap-in to your tap-out on the London Underground, and what allows them to apply daily/weekly capping on fares. ------ chasing Just the name ("CurrentC") seems like it's going to lead to numerous Who's-On- First kinds of interactions... A: "Do you take CurrentC?" B: "Of course we take currency." A: [Pulls out CurrentC app.] B: "Oh, no. We don't do that." Might do better if it sounded distinct when spoken. Like "Apple Pay." A: "Do you take Apple Pay?" B: "No, we only accept payments in currency, not in fruit." A: [Pulls out CurrentC app.] B: "We don't take that, either." [Audience laughter, applause, and scene.] ~~~ glhaynes First time I tried Apple Pay in a McDonald's drive thru I ended up with an apple pie added to my order. ------ wahsd "...retail customer's money is on the line in the event of fraud..." is a good point that may just slide by. The fact that corporations have significantly moved to evading any kind of responsibility through various means from regulatory capture to force arbitration and market monopoly; it strikes me that the factor of risk to the retail consumer aspect will play a huge role. It is a huge competitive disadvantage, to both not develop something well and with vigilance towards security like Apple Pay is, while also then setting in place a framework for conveying to customers that "if there is fraud because of our poorly designed and developed system, we are going to duck and weave like champions". Do you want to keep away customers, i.e., revenue, because that's how you keep away customers. ------ prplhaz4 Did more research - it seems like this article is wrong about fraud liability (in addition to QR tokenization). There are plenty of things wrong with CurrentC, no need to make stuff up... _To further protect CurrentC™ consumers, our zero-liability policy protects consumers in the event unauthorized or fraudulent charges are made to their checking account as a result of unauthorized ACH transactions processed through BIM._ [http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mcx-adds-bim-guaranteed- ach-17...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mcx-adds-bim-guaranteed- ach-170000793.html) ~~~ mfringel Even with a zero-liability policy, the money is coming directly out of your bank account, and will be put back in eventually, after investigation. Since the only person that's out money is you, no one has financial incentive to speed the process. ------ LeoPanthera The article seem to suggest that your phone requires a working internet connection in order to make a payment. This seems like a huge limitation compared to Apple Pay (and presumably Android Pay?), which does not. ------ serge2k > 3 security questions Why are these still a thing? Is it regulations or something? ------ draw_down Sounds great!

Habits of Mathematical Minds - phreeza http://mathteacherorstudent.blogspot.com/2010/09/habits-of-mind.html ====== stonemetal >>I've decided not to use the term "problem solving" because I believe this term is often misused to include solving problems Best line of the whole article.

Show HN: Debbit – Automate spending requirements for high-yield bank accounts - jakehilborn https://github.com/jakehilborn/debbit ====== jakehilborn Extremely low interest rates have cut high-yield savings account interest rates from over 2% to ~1%. Most folks would be better off with a high-yield checking account, which pay between 3% and 5%. However, high-yield checking accounts typically come with a catch; you must make `n` debit card transactions per month. Depending on the bank, `n` can be between 10 and 60. I created Debbit to automate meeting these spending requirements. Debbit will programmatically buy 50 cent Amazon gift cards and/or pay your cable bill in small increments throughout the month. It's built to be a set it and forget it solution. Run it once and it will execute in the background using headless Firefox month to month. Behind the scenes Debbit is a hand rolled scheduler + Selenium automation.

Paradoxes of Material Implication (1997) - olooney https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/log/mat-imp.htm ====== tr352 Let me copy/paste my reply from the same discussion yesterday ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18531650](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18531650)): There's another "solution" to this paradox: if we assert something we are guided by a set of "conversational principles". For example, asserting "X implies Y" if we know that X is false is inappropriate. If X is false, "not-X" would be the appropriate assertion. According to this theory, there's nothing wrong with the truth-functional meaning of "X implies Y". We just need to take into account what is implied by asserting "X implies Y", rather than e.g. "not-X", or "X and Y". Same with disjunction: "X or Y" is true if we know that X is true. However, if we assert "X or Y", it is implied that we're not certain that X is true, otherwise we would have used "X", which is the simplest way to convey what that fact. This is known as Grice's Pragmatic Defence of Truth-Functionality. ------ foldr The claim that the material implication analysis preserves the validity of valid arguments is pretty questionable. Consider the following argument: No student will succeed if he goofs off Every student will succeed |- No student will goof off Analyzing the 'if' in the first premise of the argument above as material implication, we get: For every student x, it's not the case that [x won't goof off or x will succeed]. = For every student x, x will goof off and x won't succeed. The following argument is valid only trivially, as the premises contradict each other (assuming the existence of at least one student): For every student x, x will goof off and x won't succeed. Every student will succeed |- No student will goof off I suspect it's quite easy to construct other similar examples involving quantifiers where validity is not even trivially preserved. (It's easier to find examples of the material implication analysis failing to preserve the invalidity of invalid arguments.) ~~~ a-nikolaev No student will succeed if he goofs off = Forall x: (GoofOff(x) -> not Succeed(x)) = not Exist x : (GoofOff(x) and Succeed(x)) ~~~ foldr Sure, but then you're doing violence to the structure of the original sentence. (How did the negation get into the consequent?) If you're allowed free reign to paraphrase, then you can always get the right result. "No student will succeed if he goofs off" is a standard example discussed in the semantics literature, by the way. What you're pointing out, in effect, is that this sentence seems to mean "No student who goofs off will succeed". The problem is that it's unclear how to get to that interpretation given the actual syntactic structure of the sentence. In other words, you can't get there just by following a direction to interpret if...then... as material implication. ~~~ a-nikolaev I agree that you cannot just mindlessly parse "if ... then ..." as implication, especially in the context of other things going on in the sentence and hope it will automagically work out as a correct interpretation of the sentence meaning. ~~~ foldr Right, but that means that material implication can't be used as an analysis of the meaning of "if...then..." in English. If you have to make ad-hoc adjustments for different kinds of sentence, then you don't have an actual theory of the interpretation of "if..then..." \-- you just have a toolbox of techniques for paraphrasing it. Note that it is possible to do much better than this, so it's not an unreasonable goal to have in mind. See e.g. [https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/95781](https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/95781) for an overview of modern approaches to the semantics of conditionals in natural languages. On the preceding point, virtually everyone agrees. I was questioning even the weaker assertion that analyzing "if...then..." as material implication always preserves validity. ~~~ olooney Trying to map natural language onto logic is a mug's game, although the converse - mapping logic _into_ natural language - is possible. Leibniz was perhaps the first to understand that the solution to this was to abandon natural language and replace it was an artificial, perfect language, where connectives and grammar had one and only one clear meaning: the calculus ratiocinator and the characteristica universalis. Although Leibniz didn't succeed in his lifetime, he inspired Frege to write the Begriffsschrift[3] which was an early and very complete presentation of what today we would call predicate calculus. One of Frege's insights was that quantification ("there exists x such that..." and "for all x...") needed to be explicit and could only be made unambiguous if the exact order and name of each quantification was used consistently - hence the idea of "bound variables." Without explicit quantification, it is impossible to determine the meaning of a statement such as: "All mice fear some cat." Does this mean that for every mouse, there is some nearby cat which that mouse fears? Or does it mean that there is some kind of King Cat, feared by every mouse in the world? Natural language is ambiguous on this point. (Note also that this particular example is one which _appears_ to be a syllogism, but which cannot be fully analyzed using Aristotelian logic.) However, if we use explicit quantification, we write either: ∃x ∀y My ∧ Cx ∧ yFx (1) ∀y ∃x My ∧ Cx ∧ yFx (2) Or, in the stilted yet precise jargon of mathematicians: There exists a cat x such that for all mice y, y fears x. (1) For all mice y there exists a cat x such that y fears x. (2) The __only __difference between (1) and (2) is the order of quantification, and this is not something English or other natural languages is careful about tracking. This is why you feel like you have to butcher sentences to rewrite them in this form, and also why this re-writing cannot be done by rote but requires human judgement and understanding: because this critical information is in fact missing from the original natural language sentence! These are not particularly contrived or unusual examples, by the way. One of the fundamental notions in real analysis is that of the limit, which is defined as follows: the limit of the sequence a_n as n goes to infinity is C if and only if for every delta > 0, there exists N such that |a_n - C| < delta for all n > N. Such a thought cannot even be precisely _articulated_ unless one has the necessary language to talk precisely about statements involving multiple quantifiers and bound variables. Which is why early presentations of Calculus (Leibniz, Newton) relied of unsatisfactory notions of "fluxions" and "infinitesimals"[4] while later mathematicians (Weierstrass, Cauchy,) armed with a more sophisticated mathematical language were finally able to give a satisfactory foundation to calculus.[5] We see the same category of problem when we try to interpret "if... then..." as the material implication of formal logic. Not only do we have the problem of conversational implicature[6] but we have the so called paradoxes described in the original article. Similar problems exist for common words like "or" which is often taken to mean "exclusive or" rather than the inclusive "or" favored by logicians, and even simple words like "is" don't necessary map purely onto the Law of Identity[7] the way logicians and philosophers would like them to.[7] The way I see it, the fault lies fully on the side of natural language, which is too squishy and imprecise and overloaded to be useful to convey precise formal arguments. But that doesn't mean you have to learn an artificial language like Lojban[8]. Mathematicians do quite well by speaking in a kind of restricted subset of English (or whatever native language they're used to) simply by giving exact and precise meanings to certain words and formulations like "if and only if" or "implies."[9] When a mathematician says "implies" in a paper or lecture, you can be quite sure he or she is speaking of material implication. But as for pining down the meaning of natural language in the wild, as it is actually spoken... well, that's a rather more difficult problem, don't you think? [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_ratiocinator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_ratiocinator) [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begriffsschrift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begriffsschrift) [4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_calculus#Newton_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_calculus#Newton_and_Leibniz) [5] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_(mathematics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_\(mathematics\)) [6] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicature/#GriThe](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicature/#GriThe) [7] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_identity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_identity) [8] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban) [9] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_jargon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_jargon) ~~~ foldr >Trying to map natural language onto logic is a mug's game Not really. Modern linguistic semantics has done a pretty good job. Check out the link to the overview article that I posted in the grandparent, or the von Fintel & Heim textbook here: [http://web.mit.edu/fintel/fintel-heim- intensional.pdf](http://web.mit.edu/fintel/fintel-heim-intensional.pdf) (sections 4.3-5 in particular). It's possible to give precise logical analyses of natural language conditionals to a pretty significant extent. It's just the material implication analysis that doesn't work. > because this critical information [about quantifier scope] is in fact > missing from the original natural language sentence! You're moving a bit too fast there. The information can't be recovered from the sequence of words, but that doesn't mean that it isn't present in the structures that underly interpretation. A precise logical analysis can be given for each of the possible interpretations of an ambiguous sentence. Semanticists treat quantifier scope ambiguities using such mechanisms as quantifiying in [1], quantifier raising [2], type shifting [3], or even continuations [4]. No-one is suggesting, by the way, that formal logical analyses of the meanings of English sentences are useful _for the purposes of doing math or logic_. But the "paradoxes" in the original article relate to the use of material implication to gloss the meaning of "if...then..." in English. This naturally raises the question of whether there might be better analyses available. [1] [http://www.coli.uni- saarland.de/projects/milca/courses/comse...](http://www.coli.uni- saarland.de/projects/milca/courses/comsem/html/node96.html#sec_clls-scope.qi) [2] [https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/16287](https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/16287) [3] [http://lecomte.al.free.fr/ressources/PARIS8_LSL/Hendriks- TCS...](http://lecomte.al.free.fr/ressources/PARIS8_LSL/Hendriks-TCS.pdf) [4] [http://www.nyu.edu/projects/barker/barker- continuations.pdf](http://www.nyu.edu/projects/barker/barker- continuations.pdf) ------ dwheeler I created the "allsome" quantifier to reduce the risk of some of these confusions. Details here: [https://dwheeler.com/essays/allsome.html](https://dwheeler.com/essays/allsome.html) ------ leoc Graham Priest's book is great: [https://www.cambridge.org/ie/academic/subjects/philosophy/ph...](https://www.cambridge.org/ie/academic/subjects/philosophy/philosophy- science/introduction-non-classical-logic-if-2nd-edition) ------ gus_massa Original title: " _Paradoxes of Material Implication_ " ~~~ pierrebai About the example given with teh number 3, I prefer this even more absurd form: if the number 3 is not the number 3 then the number 3 is the number 3. It's true! ------ ninegunpi Descendants of Aristotle still find limitations of the system amusing, that’s amusing itself. I hope to live to the day when philosophical advancements of 20th century (or re-discovery of 2500-old Indian logic, if you like), formalized in accessible forms, get widespread acceptance, could leave plenty of people who’se job it to juggle limited abstractions with the need to pick more useful jobs. No pun intended, these are terribly useful abstractions we’ve built our world on, but they barely hold up against thorough reality check and leave out a lot as ‘paradoxes’. ~~~ myWindoonn Please add some substance, or I will make your argument for you. Yes! We all need to get on board with constructivist mathematics [0][1] already. Construction is very similar to computation, and it is not inconsistent to take "all reals are computable" or "all functions are continuous", the same rules Turing discovered, as axioms if we like. We can therefore move computer science fully onto a foundation that is _more_ rigorous than typical maths. [0] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mathematics- constructive/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mathematics-constructive/) [1] [https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/2017-54-03/S0273-0979-2016...](https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/2017-54-03/S0273-0979-2016-01556-4/S0273-0979-2016-01556-4.pdf) ~~~ ninegunpi You've made far better one than me below. Hats off.

Lockheed Martin's new fusion reactor - yurylifshits http://sploid.gizmodo.com/lockheed-martins-new-fusion-reactor-design-can-change-h-1646578094 ====== zimpenfish Isn't it fairly standard for anyone having a new idea about fusion to claim they'll have a working model "in 10 years" once they've ironed out the "few small details"? Then, in 10 years, after billions of dollars, it'll be "we've -almost- cracked it, another 10 years, easy." Repeat for 40 years and counting...

How to Wire Up Ruby on Rails and AngularJS as a Single-Page Application - jasonswett http://www.angularonrails.com/ruby-on-rails-angularjs-single-page-application/ ====== ewoutkleinsmann We (10KB) have built our own CMS combining Rails and AngularJS. Our main goal for our CMS was to turn every website made with it in a Single-Page Application, but at the same time maintain support for server-side rendering. We loved the combination of Rails and AngularJS, but we didn't like that we had to write a lot of stuff twice (ie. Rails routes & Angular routes, Rails controllers & Angular controllers). Therefore we have written quite some glue code to automatically generate AngularJS code from our Rails code. I have been wanting to make a full write-up of all our experience in combining Angular & Rails for a while now, but didn't get to it yet. I did write-up a quick and dirty way to automatically generate Angular Resources from you Rails controllers, though. ([http://10kb.nl/blog/automatically-generate-angular- resources...](http://10kb.nl/blog/automatically-generate-angular-resources- for-your-rails-api)) And, if anyone has any questions about combining Rails & Angular feel free to shoot me an e-mail. ~~~ martindale I'm building something like this, but in node: [https://github.com/martindale/maki](https://github.com/martindale/maki) ------ jesalg Nice work! I've put up a similar (but much simpler) demo and blog post: [https://github.com/jesalg/RADD](https://github.com/jesalg/RADD) ~~~ jasonswett Nice. I think your Angular/Devise work will probably end up being helpful for me. ------ mbell Great write up! I wrote a bit[0] awhile back about setting html5mode routing with rails and angular using a similar setup which may be a useful addon to this article. [0] [http://mbell697.github.io/2014/02/04/yeoman-angular-rails- ht...](http://mbell697.github.io/2014/02/04/yeoman-angular-rails-html5mode/) ~~~ jasonswett Thanks! I'll check it out. ------ lynndylanhurley I've been using a similar setup for some time now. The most significant obstacle for me was user authentication. For anyone else who needs to add auth support to Angular + Rails: [https://github.com/lynndylanhurley/ng-token- auth](https://github.com/lynndylanhurley/ng-token-auth) [https://github.com/lynndylanhurley/devise_token_auth](https://github.com/lynndylanhurley/devise_token_auth) ------ davedx Nice writeup. I tried to do the same thing a few months back and gave up. How did you handle getting your browser to talk to a server running on a different port? (Cross-origin requests). I have to say though, Rails used to be known for "convention over configuration", but when I've tried to use it lately I've found it becomes almost as complicated as configuring enterprise Java projects. ~~~ jasonswett I didn't have to do anything special to allow CORS, and now that I think of it I'm not sure why, because it's been necessary on other SPA projects I've been involved with. Maybe because both servers are localhost. That would be a good thing for me to figure out and include in the post. I'm kind of learning all this in public. ------ tcopeland I wrote up a guide to this along the lines of "here are things I _didn 't_ do when doing my first Rails / AngularJS app": [http://thomasleecopeland.com/2014/03/12/doing-a-rails- angula...](http://thomasleecopeland.com/2014/03/12/doing-a-rails-angular- mvp.html) ------ kclay Fyi promise unraveling has been deprecated after Angular 1.2. So it should be Group.query().then(function(groups){ $scope.groups = groups; }) ~~~ donmack Do you have a link to any discussion on that? It looks like the docs still suggest the method used in the blog post: [https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ngResource/service/$resource](https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ngResource/service/$resource) "It is important to realize that invoking a $resource object method immediately returns an empty reference [...] Once the data is returned from the server the existing reference is populated with the actual data. This is a useful trick since usually the resource is assigned to a model which is then rendered by the view. [...] This means that in most cases one never has to write a callback function for the action methods." ~~~ bronson [https://github.com/angular/angular.js/commit/fa6e411da26824a...](https://github.com/angular/angular.js/commit/fa6e411da26824a5bae55f37ce7dbb859653276d) [https://github.com/angular/angular.js/commit/5dc35b527b3c99f...](https://github.com/angular/angular.js/commit/5dc35b527b3c99f6544b8cb52e93c6510d3ac577) [http://blog.angularjs.org/2013/12/angularjs-13-new- release-a...](http://blog.angularjs.org/2013/12/angularjs-13-new-release- approaches.html) ~~~ donmack Thanks. Okay, that makes sense. The $resource usage described still works in version 1.2.19, with no promise unwrapping options set. I could be wrong, but I think it is because the $resource returns a reference to an empty object that has values copied into it when the call completes. The actual promise is a property named $promise on the returned object. Example: [http://jsfiddle.net/92zmG/7/](http://jsfiddle.net/92zmG/7/) ------ klochner Why is grunt needed? Is it because he's using Rails::API? Most setups I've seen just let Rails serve the templates. ~~~ devNoise grunt is the build tool for the Angular.js side of things. It is doing a lot of other html front end stuff to make the SPA. Also grunt has a watch process that see code changes, it will then compile them and have the server get the browser to reload content to get the new version. When this gets deployed to your production server, you will probably use the same server process that handles the Rails requests. grunt is for development only. ------ weatherlight Why RAILS::API instead of something like rabl? ~~~ mbell Rails-api is a gem that configures rails in a more lean and mean fashion for API usage, it doesn't handle the json serialization. Mostly rails-api disables a lot of default rails features/middlewares that aren't needed when you're only building an API. For json serialization you may want to look at Active Model Serializers[0], I found it much easier to work with than rabl, and it's also written by the rails-api group. [0] [https://github.com/rails- api/active_model_serializers](https://github.com/rails- api/active_model_serializers) ~~~ steveklabnik AMS maintainer here, I'm making a big announcement about it soon. That said, you're correct, AMS <-> RABL is the right comparison, not Rails-API <-> RABL. ~~~ JustinAiken Where is this AMS announcement going to be? I'd like to watch, since I use AMS extensively (thanks for the great project!) ~~~ steveklabnik It'll be on the rails-api-core mailing list: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rails-api- core](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rails-api-core) ------ ch4s3 This is a pretty good tutorial, that seems to be poorly covered in the body of recent(ish) blogs. ~~~ jasonswett Thanks! ------ arxpoetica Is this an isomorphic set up? Or does the front end do ALL templating? ~~~ jasonswett No, not isomorphic.

AboutUs Secures $5 Million in Funding - qhoxie http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/aboutus_wiki_five_million_series_a.php ====== Dilpil What? The economy is not completely dead? Potentially profitable ventures are getting funded? Blasphemy! We are in a HORRIBLE DEPRESSION which will end the age of American dominance, capitalism, and possibly humanity itself. Haven't they heard? ~~~ pclark AboutUs /is/ profitable - big difference between that and "potentially" ------ bjclark We're very excited about this and some cool stuff we're doing that is launching very soon.

The JavaScript Packaging Problem - cbhl http://jamie-wong.com/2014/11/29/the-js-packaging-problem/ ====== edwinnathaniel GWT solves some of these issues via Code Splitting: [http://www.gwtproject.org/doc/latest/DevGuideCodeSplitting.h...](http://www.gwtproject.org/doc/latest/DevGuideCodeSplitting.html) Step 1: GWT will compile + package everything into one big giant JS and one big giant image file (CSS sprites is automagic in GWT via Java interface with annotation, no longer one needs to download bajillion tools to stich the images and write bajillion CSS coordinates to access the icons). Step 2: Follow code splitting guide to asynchronously load your code :) ------ justinph This is a good writeup. We ran into some of the same issues on the smaller site I work on, compounded by use of pushState. We use require.js and a very simple client side router to determine what packages to load, and depend on require.js to pick up anything else. [http://blogs.mpr.org/developer/2014/01/dynamically- loading-a...](http://blogs.mpr.org/developer/2014/01/dynamically-loading- assets-with-pjax-and-require-js/)

Zurmo, an Open Source CRM - grobmeier http://www.grobmeier.de/zurmo-open-source-crm-03012013.html ====== raysto Great article

Laid Off ISO vs. NSO Options - takklz Hey all,<p>I was recently laid off from DataRobot. Womp womp.<p>Anyways, they gave me the option to extend all my ISOs excercise date for a year, but to do so they will be converted into NSOs.<p>Is the tax benefit really worth that much more that I should exercise them now? Could I potentially be missing something else? ====== seattle_spring It depends on the spread between your exercise price and the fair market value, and if you own enough to trigger AMT. ~~~ takklz Hmmm I suppose I should figure out the fair market value! (Is this even possible if they are private?). Thanks for the heads up. ~~~ seattle_spring Yes, the company should be getting a regular 409A valuation. They should be willing to share this with you when you exercise shares.

Don't Stay Hungry - chrisyeh http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2014/01/dont-stay-hungry.html ====== utkarsh_apoorva I think you have misunderstood the 'Stay Hungry' part. It doesn't mean 'Don't Eat'. It means don't get satisfied with success and keep striving for more. There, now I can go have my food with a clean conscience :-)

Ask HN: Would it cost less for a large scale company to use mainframes? - techdominator Very large scale companies, such as Google and Amazon for example, relies on hardware servers infrastructure to support the running of their services.<p>It is in my understanding that these companies use x86 and ARM based rack-mounted servers pushing them to scale horizontally rather than vertically.<p>Why don&#x27;t these companies use mainframes (IBM System Z for example)?<p>Wouldn&#x27;t they benefit from the following advantages? - Simpler software architecture that leverage vertical scale - maybe less datacenter space required? - maybe more efficient power consumption? ====== danielvf Mainframes are tremendously expensive per unit of compute power. Commodity hardware is far cheaper. However Google and Facebook have their own custom designed and built computers that have almost every drop of unnecessary cost squeezed out of them. Mainframes would be incredibly more expensive. The software architecture benefits wouldn't be there either. They'd still have to build multi data center distributed systems, even with mainframes. ~~~ rich335z What data do you have to back up this assertion? ------ danielvf Mainframes are tremendously expensive per unit of compute power. Commodity hardware is far cheaper. However Google and Facebook have their own custom designed and built computers that have almost every drop of unnecessary cost squeezed out of them. Mainframes would be incredibly more expensive.

Ask HN: Hacker News wants to know your location” - MattyMc So... what&#x27;s up with that? Has HackerNews always had location popups, or is this new?<p>And if new... why? ====== rubbingalcohol I haven't seen this. What browser?

Show HN: Cloning the Voices of Alan Rickman, Carl Sagan and Robin Williams - voiceclonr http://www.voiceclonr.com ====== FatalLogic It sounds terrible and inhuman, but there is definitely some similarity to the target voices. It's much easier to detect the similarity when you compare the different voices to each other saying the same phrase, instead of just listening to one in isolation Alan Rickman seems clearer than the others. ~~~ voiceclonr Thanks for taking a look. Agreed Alan Rickman sounds better than others. Partly because, I couldn't harvest that many sound samples with others for training. The commercial ones have their voices recorded exclusively in studios under controlled settings (besides using concatenative synthesis, so the sound bits are real recorded streams). ------ voiceclonr I have been working on a side project that attempts to clone human voices. www.voiceclonr.com presents the voices of Alan Rickman, Carl Sagan and Robin Williams. Appreciate if you could give it a try and leave feedback. ------ waterlesscloud Pretty cool. Rough and fuzzy around the edges, some of the usual speech synthesis cadence issues. Any insight into the techniques you're using to do this? ~~~ voiceclonr This uses [http://hts.sp.nitech.ac.jp](http://hts.sp.nitech.ac.jp) (HMM-based Speech Synthesis System). Yes, it is expected to be robotic sounding since real audio streams are not used during synthesis. Some improvements can be made I believe (larger training set and some post processing) - but don't think it will change dramatically. Thanks for trying. ------ cmsj Nice, I had fun listening to Robo Sagan recite some of the Pale Blue Dot speech, with some fruity additions ;) ~~~ voiceclonr Great! Do you think there are any use cases with this ? For example, is the quality good enough to build a news/blog reader or a fun chat box ? ------ beenpoor Alan Rickman looks the best.

Vue.js vs. React: Which JavaScript Framework to Choose for Your Project - eugeniyakorotya https://da-14.com/blog/vuejs-vs-react-which-javascript-framework-choose-your-project ====== onion2k _Vue.js has also displayed an ability to handle higher frame-rates (10 frames per second as compared to 1 frame per second typical for React) which makes it a better choice for development of applications involving animation._ I'm working on a React app that runs at 60fps at the moment.

Is Virtualization Worth It? - gaius http://gaiustech.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/is-virtualization-worth-it/ ====== gaius Interested in anyone's thoughts on this...

Zombie Chaser: A graphical interface for mutation testing - chrislloyd http://andrewjgrimm.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/zombie-chaser-its-alive/ ====== woid Plus bonus points for new Thriller version. Next time do also some dancing please :-) ~~~ weilawei Definitely, the accompaniment was a great idea. Also, who _doesn't_ like zombies?

BMW, VW, Ford, Daimler team up for electric vehicle charging network in Europe - laktak http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/11/bmw-vw-ford-daimler-team-up-for-electric-vehicle-charging-network-in-europe/ ====== mtgx Before even reading the article I was about to say that I hope they chose the 350 kW charging standard. If they are going to join together to create an Europe-wide network, then it better be future-proof as well, because it's probably going to be quite hard to upgrade those networks drastically for 10-15 years after they're deployed. They probably wouldn't have the will to do it again soon together. Plus, 350 kW charging may seem like "a lot" now, but I think it will barely be enough by 2025 or so. Most EVs should have at least 100kWh batteries by then, and assuming some loss, and only 300kW charging (maybe even less), and the fact that the batteries only charge fast to 80%, then it would still take most EVs ~25 minutes to do fast-charging. Also, consider all the future EV trucks and buses with 300+ kWh batteries, for which 350kW charging will actually be quite low. Hopefully at least the fast- charging standard creators will continue to do their research, so we can eventually get to 1+ MW fast-charging, so we can charge large EVs relatively fast, and most small cars within minutes.

The state of SIEM: How to rock security ops in the age of DevOps - whichwaytogo https://tracking.feedpress.it/link/16145/6935183 ====== mtmail When submitting use direct URLs, not tracking URLs or URL shorteners. Those will be blacklisted on Hackernews.

Algolia raises $110M Series C - vvoyer https://blog.algolia.com/algolia-series-c-2019-funding?2 ====== redox_ Congrats Algolia! ~~~ papa_ogre GG \o/ ------ Julie90210 Boooom

Ask HN: How to handle sales tax for SaaS side projects? - billconan I just realized how complex sales tax is. It seems to be a huge overhead for small projects. How can I handle it with ease? ====== billconan I asked this also on Reddit, and got this really nice answer: Pasting it here hoping it will help others too [https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/brvxgc/how_to_handle_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/brvxgc/how_to_handle_sales_tax_for_saas_side_projects/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) I ran into the same issue with my startup. There are two options: Use a service like TaxJar / Avalara / Quaderno to automatically calculate taxes. Keep in mind that there are costs to getting a sales tax ID in certain countries / states and that you'll be losing valuable time by having to file returns (autofile isn't supported everywhere). Also, you'll need to consider that they may not support every country that has a sales tax implication either. Use a payment processor that acts as a reseller of your digital products (Paddle, 2Checkout, FastSpring) Because they will act as the merchant of record for a transaction, they will be responsible for calculating and remitting sales taxes. The disadvantage of this method is that there's much higher fees. For instance, Stripe charges 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction, while Paddle charges 5% + $0.50. Not having to worry about sales tax is well worth the added cost in my opinion. ~~~ davidgh Agree. When you have a digital product or service, intended or not, you have a global customer base. Sales tax, VAT is just one of the burdens a company will face to keep on the right side of the rules. Denied party screening, export controls, various data protection and privacy laws, to name a few. By selecting a provider that acts as the “merchant of record” (or reseller of your product), you offload many of those regulatory burdens to a party that has the proper economies of scale to provide the service for a lower cost than you can do it on your own. Modern platforms that provide you with the option to be the merchant of record usually provide a host of other features that making running an online SaaS business much easier. And to your customers, it won’t feel like your sending them off to some unrelated store to buy your product, you can generally customize your integration so that the transition during the purchase process is mostly seamless. Source: I’ve been in the business of providing a service that acts as merchant of record for more than 20 years. In the early days, people came to us mostly to for the online payment processing. These days, many of our customers express that it was the reduction in regulatory burden that they value the most. ~~~ alt_f4 Whilst I am happy for you and that your business of providing these services is doing well, it is a sad state of affairs when small online businesses have to cough up anywhere between 3%-7% of revenue to deal with the regulatory mess the governments have created. ~~~ davidgh I look at this from a different angle. Doing business is always going to be associated with some regulatory overhead. Traditionally, the footprint of a small business was the owner’s local area, where the scope of rules and regulations is small enough that it can be managed. With the advent of the Internet, it is now possible for a small business to have the same reach as a large multi-national. Along with this market potential comes a massive number of jurisdictions, each with their own particularities. I find it quite liberating that a small business has the option to go to the entire world market by paying a small percentage of their sales (a cost that can be quantified and factored into their pricing model) rather than being forced to spend massive amounts upfront, without any idea if their investment will pay off. Of course, there’s also the option to simply ignore the regulations, which many small businesses do (often out of ignorance). But as a business becomes successful, not following the regulations of the jurisdictions it does business in becomes an ever-growing liability. I was a witness to a transaction where a small business was approached by their much larger (publicly traded) competitor. The larger company made an offer to buy this small business for many millions of dollars. During due diligence, the buyer discovered that the small business had not been collecting VAT in the EU for the digital products it sold there. The small business asserted that since it did not have an EU presence, the EU couldn’t force it to do so. The buyer, however, did have an EU presence, and worried that with the acquisition, it may inherit the large liability of many years of uncollected VAT. This nearly wrecked the entire deal. The resolution was that the small business had to indemnify the buyer that if a claim was made by the EU for the uncollected VAT, the small business would be on the hook for most of it. So, to me, paying a very small percentage to an external party to not only take on the burden of managing the regulations, but also to assume the risk of penalty for being out of compliance with any one of the thousands of governmental jurisdictions around the world seems like a very good value. ------ danieka If you are in the EU remember that sales to companies will have reversed tax, just make sure to get their VAT number and then you don’t have to apply VAT. But I think that the invoice/receipt has to say that reversed VAT should be applied. Sales to individuals should be declared in MOSS and the VAT of the country where the customer is located should be applied. But (at least in Sweden) there is an exception that if your revenue is under 10000€ per year you many declare all VAT in your country using your country’s VAT. Also, IANAL. ------ mikeyouse Most states have sales thresholds to hit before you have to worry about dealing with it in their jurisdictions. Here's a decent roundup of when you'll have to start to care: [https://blog.taxjar.com/economic-nexus- laws/](https://blog.taxjar.com/economic-nexus-laws/) Essentially, take care of the tax in the jurisdiction you're in and wait until you're much further along before worrying about other states or territories. ------ jmhyer123 We ran into the same problem with our SaaS. We haven't gotten to the point where we need to solve the problem yet but in my research I ran into TaxJar ([https://www.taxjar.com/](https://www.taxjar.com/)) and was confident they will be one of the easiest solutions to the problem when we get to that point. This of course assumes a US-based product/users. ~~~ billconan So I found a service [https://paddle.com/](https://paddle.com/) Saying that they can handle all sales tax for me, because they are a reseller of my product. Is this true? Is anybody using it? Any other alternatives? ~~~ jerriep I use Paddle and so far I am happy with them. The integration was simple enough and their support has been responsive. I cannot use Stripe in my country, so I had to look for alternatives. Paddle is more expensive, but they have many things built in that you would have to pay extra for on Stripe. One of those is the handling of sales tax. The other, which I will implement soon, is built-in handling of affiliates. ~~~ techsin101 I think stripe can calculate taxes ------ johnwheeler I’m not sure I follow. Services are exempt from sales tax [https://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/insights/sales-taxation- sof...](https://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/insights/sales-taxation-software- service-relatively-new-frontier) The law is murky at best. Doesn’t feel like something a startup should devote much energy to. ~~~ HillRat In Texas, if nowhere else, it’s established that SaaS is a “business service” and taxed appropriately either via sales or use tax. (Texas is unusual in taxing business services, however.) ------ vebu I tried to do the sales tax management myself but ended up with incorrect calculation on some occasions. I would highly recommend getting a professional tax consultant for guidance. They'll know how to handle tax for your project. Once you start making revenue, the cost of consultant would become affordable.

Startups Spend with Abandon, Flush with Capital - gdilla http://online.wsj.com/articles/startups-spend-with-abandon-flush-with-capital-1412549853 ====== ChuckMcM I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it is impossible to tell how someone will react so a sudden change in their financial status, prior to that change happening. The interesting thing I learned in the dot com era though was that when people conflated their _actual_ net worth with their _paper_ net worth, it really screwed them up. It works like this, you own 10% of the equity in a company that raises a round of funds which price that company at $1B. You are worth $100M right? Wrong. Your wealth hasn't changed until you convert that equity into cash and them something unrelated to the company. Further you probably can't sell it (the board won't let you). What I have watched happen though is that people _think_ of themselves as being "worth" $100M and start spending like they have that sort of money in a checking account somewhere. And lots of people are more than willing to help them spend! And then things don't go quite as planned, the market changes, a competitor gets bought, the S-1 gets pulled at the last minute, what ever, and the company is sold at a firesale for not even the liquidation preference of the preferred shares. And our poor founder is living the $100M lifestyle with nothing in the bank. What follows is predictable, depression, bankruptcy, divorce, in some cases suicide. It was, for me, the worst part of the dot com explosion. Watching people I knew and respected self destruct. ~~~ clairity net worth is the accumulation of all the assets you have, including cash and the paper worth of the equity in your startup, less your liabilities (debt). so it's more appropriate to couch this in terms of asset liquidity, and secondarily, the riskiness of that asset. as you allude to, the hard part is properly discounting an illiquid and risky asset (like the paper valuation of a startup) based on your risk tolerance so that you can adjust your finances accordingly. what many new founders don't realize is that a startup is an undiversified investment. they are all-in on a single asset and that's _very_ risky. ------ 7Figures2Commas > But increased interest rates or a sudden stock-market chill could slam on > the brakes. ZIRP _will_ end. The stock market will _not_ continue to be an easy source of double-digit annual returns forever. The question is always timing, but anybody who is following the Fed and looking at the action in the market can tell you that we're closer to the end of the current environment than we are to the beginning. That doesn't necessarily mean a meltdown is coming (it's of course a real possibility), but even modest changes that inflict minimal pain overall could have significant implications for the startup scene. For all of the genuinely smart, successful people in the Bay Area, I'm constantly amazed at how few people here seem to be looking at how the broader environment has made the most recent boom possible. Mention ZIRP and the majority of people will ask "What do they do?" thinking ZIRP refers to a hot new startup. > More worrisome, Mr. Moeller says, are startups with small teams looking for > massive spaces and locking themselves in to long leases. Startups are > signing five- to seven-year leases on spaces that used to require two, and > more landlords are pushing for 10-year leases on new construction. Those > could become a burden if financing tightens. Generally speaking, the landlords are far savvier than the entrepreneurs they're leasing to. They're not pushing 10 year leases to help tenants lock in a good deal. > Mr. Altman says he met a few months ago with an entrepreneur who drove up in > a new Porsche sport-utility vehicle. The man’s startup had completed a $10 > million early round of financing the previous week. Mr. Altman says he > looked at him sternly, asking him, “What message do you think you’re sending > to the rest of the company?” The message the entrepreneur is sending to his employees is irrelevant. If there's anything of importance in this anecdote, it's what such behavior says about the mindset of some of the founders investors are lavishing with millions of dollars of investment. ~~~ sshumaker I'm not sure if the landlords are as savvy as you think. If the startup runs out of money, landlords will be the last in line at bankruptcy proceedings. It's hard to claim losses for the next 6 years of lease income when they can turn around and rent the space to a new tenant. ~~~ Animats "I'm not sure if the landlords are as savvy as you think." Some of them are. Saeed Amidi, the rug dealer behind Medallion Rug Gallery in Palo Alto is famous for this. He demands some equity in startups leasing his properties. Google's first office was in his space. PayPal's first office was in his space above the bike shop. Facebook's first office too. Also Foursquare, Danger, and others not as successful. Amidi is now a venture capitalist, but he still has the rug stores. [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2011/oct/14/welco...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2011/oct/14/welcome- to-silicon-valley-shuffle) ------ gdilla to get through the paywall [https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...](https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fstartups- spend-with-abandon-flush-with- capital-1412549853&ei=BfsxVLbOGIyyyAT_zoGIAg&usg=AFQjCNGgO75xaCrJxX5bmW0M4fwrO2UNzg&sig2=Q9Y2hvarL9OVTbmcbAabew&bvm=bv.76802529,d.aWw) ~~~ timedoctor That did not work it says you have to subscribe or log in ------ hemantv Startup need to spend so much on other things because employees are not working 100% on making company a long term success. They are just doing yet another job. Reward employees with good amount of equity, so that everybody long term interests are aligned in success of the company. I don't see most startup giving meaningful equity, so they have to compensate with all of these perks and high salaries. ~~~ Voodoo463 The first part of this statement sounds like speculation, and the second part sounds a bit like Voodoo logic, no pun intended. There are many factors that will attribute to an employees stock in the company, and I'm not just referring to 'company stock'. Equity is an entrepreneurs best friend, and as such should be treated little different than a savings account (Rarely touched: with exceptions of a rainy day, or if something exists that you REALLY REALLY want/need e.g. a specific Employee) as opposed to monopoly money, where it is spent till the original owner has none of it left. If the company starts to award every employee high yields of equity, it hinders an entrepreneurs ability to leverage the companies assets to possibly position it's longterm stability. This is why there exist so many 'perks and high salaries', and they work... for the most part. However, to imply that these perks and high salaries are falsely impacting an employees investment at a company for long term duration's seems a bit of a stretch without data points, perhaps Hacker News should strike up an Anonymous Poll to find out if such claims are true? I will speculate that for some it is nothing more than 'just another job', but for the right person, it can be the right job. Thus, perhaps the solution isn't necessarily in an excessive amount of equity, or bloated perks, or high salaries; perhaps the true solution is taking the time to find a candidate that isn't necessarily as skilled as they could be, but over compensates by possessing a fervor of desire? If that is indeed the appropriate conclusion; isn't that in other words what Y.Combinator is all about? The ability to find individuals in the most unliklyist of places with a will and a heart to attempt what may just lie out of their reach, helping them grasp what once was only the impossible? It is people like this that attribute towards a companies long term standing, and without them, fulfilling the founders end goal will be much more difficult. ------ jcrubino Anyone want to discuss competitive sober strategies for startups? I see four main issues that the money is being used for 1\. Location 2\. Business Scaling 3\. Work-Place Incentives 4\. Founders Optimistic Self Valuation These issues are all necessary to a high degree but what viable options are there that give startups a competitive environment to offer and work with? ~~~ Voodoo463 I am intrigued of what others might add or discern from this list. ------ teddyh Title has now changed to “Free Spending by Startups Stir Memories of Dot-Com Era Excesses”. Still can’t get through the paywall. ------ hemantv just search the title on google and than read to avoid the login thing.

The Skills Poor Programmers Lack - geekrax https://gist.github.com/justinmeiners/be4540f515986d93ee12ac2f1980631a ====== chmaynard The first example is interesting. Suppose we have a smart compiler that emits the same machine language code in both cases. Which version is better? Perhaps the first, which is more verbose but expresses the idea in a way that some readers might prefer.

Process Partitioning in Distributed Systems - craigkerstiens http://www.miyagijournal.com/articles/8-process-partitioning-in-distributed-systems ====== jpitz "Using queues also exposes you to the noisy-neighbor syndrome. If you have 25 jobs on the queue, all consisting of the same resource-intensive work, your queue could get bogged down while less intensive processing is blocked. Queues represent a false form of parallelism and are subject to such congestion." This isn't a failure of queueing. This is a failure to use queueing correctly. You either haven't defined the proper queues, or you are failing to use priority. Overall, I'd say the process partition model wins best when you can take advantage of sequential access paths to your dataset. In that case, don't enqueue work items for each individual data key - enqueue a work item for a range. Queues are fundamentally an excellent mechanism for managing work items. ------ digeridoo Also known as: embarrassingly parallel problems. ~~~ ChuckMcM Often true, but not exclusively so. One can sometimes create a process partitioning solution to a problem by exploiting speculative execution. You start workers which speculate the previous execution will result in their being run. If that speculation turns out to be false you discard their results, it if turned out to be true you continue with them. There was a talk at ISSCC about doing speculative branch prediction this way, two compute units where one proceeeds as if the branch isn't taken while the other proceeds as if it is, and when you finally get the result back that says which would have happened you retire the other thread, making it available for the next branch.

Ask HN: Best free online collaboration tool for a startup? - havoc2005 What is everyone's preferred online collaboration tool for their startup? I know basecamp is popular but we are looking to save as much as possible because we are just getting our team together. ====== kiriappeee I'm surprised that no one replied here. At our office which isn't a startup at all btw we use clocking it. Thing is that with most of the free alternatives you have to live with self hosting. But since a lot of them also run on open source you can get it for pretty cheap. <http://www.ilovecolors.com.ar/basecamp-alternatives/> Really good list. Good luck :)

Show HN: Tinytracks – Makes Parenting Easier - george_dee https://www.tinytracksapp.com ====== george_dee Hey HN! George here. I've been working on an app (over the last couple of years) called Tinytracks which aims to make parenting easier. Tinytracks is a baby tracker app which allows parents to track their child’s diapers, sleep, feedings, books read to, and captured moments. As a parent myself, I could never find a baby tracker app that fit my needs. So, I decided to build one myself with everything I wish I had. Some of these differentiating features you get with Tinytracks are: 1\. Logging data hands-free with Alexa as your hands are more than likely occupied with your little one 2\. Seeing rich visualizations of this logged data — to help you understand your child’s trends! 3\. Real-time sync of logged data between all invited caregivers’ devices 4\. Setting goals which will help promote your child’s development and academic success. The sleep goal uses the CDC recommended amounts and changes as your child gets older. 5\. Logging read books to your child which is important to do as it’s an early indicator of future academic success. There’s also a goal to reach 1000 books before kindergarten. Studies show children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million words than kids who were never read to. This is important for your child’s early literacy development. So, it’s important to be reading to your child early and often. 6\. Adding photos of your little one which are shown as memories and shared with other caregivers Please play around with the app — would love to hear your feedback! I hope it helps any of you current or new parents to be.

Improve your REPLs with rlwrap - telemachos http://ithaca.arpinum.org/2013/01/20/rlwrap.html ====== larsberg This program is exactly what we usually recommend for people who aren't using SML/NJ inside of an Emacs inferior window (which is far and away the most common usage mode for experienced SML/NJ programmers - all ten of us <grin>). I personally apologize for my laziness. Two or three different times I've started in on making something similar to the haskeline package in GHC to provide readline-style support to make life easier for students, but have never quite finished it up. Unfortunately, "just linking" readline/libedit isn't a very friendly solution given the way that the interpreter is currently architected, as it's written on top of the ML basis library primitives for reading/writing individual characters from the input stream. ~~~ telemachos Thanks for mentioning Emacs: You made me realize _why_ this hadn't come up in the course notes or material for the Coursera class I'm doing[1]: they explicitly recomment using SML inside Emacs. Unfortunately, I'm a relatively long-time Vim user, and I'm just not comfortable editing in Emacs. So I came to this round-about solution. [1]: <https://class.coursera.org/proglang-2012-001/class/index> ------ jackalope I've been using rlwrap for years with Oracle's sqlplus command line client on Linux. Because it uses readline, it can benefit from settings in ~/.inputrc, along with all of your other readline-based applications for a more uniform experience. For example, I'm a vi(m) user, so I put this in my .inputrc: set editing-mode vi That's just the tip of the iceberg. These days, I tend to use the dbext vim extension for Oracle queries, allowing me to develop and save them in one file per project. But when I need to fire off something quick on the command line, it's nice to have rlwrap available. ~~~ minimax The command line SQL client is one place Postgres blows away Oracle. I'd pay real money for psql on Oracle. ~~~ loeg You would have to, wouldn't you? It's Oracle... ~~~ minimax Not at all. There are several free open source alternatives to sqlplus like Yasql and sqlpython but none of them are as good as psql. ------ Inufu This is great, exactly what I needed for the new Coursera class about Programming Languages: <https://class.coursera.org/proglang-2012-001/class/index> (They start of with ML and a very simple REPL) ~~~ telemachos I'm taking the same course. I was frustrated with the SML REPL, learned about _rlwrap_ and wrote this up. Glad it helps. (I just posted the tip to the course's forums as well. Thanks for reminding me.) ~~~ prezjordan Thanks for your contribution! What do you think of the course so far? I had too much fun doing the first homework. ~~~ telemachos ML itself is interesting, and I think the material for the class is good. I enjoyed the first round of homework - not too easy, but not really too hard either. The tough thing for me will be seeing whether can I maintain the extra work for the full 10 weeks. ------ wging OS X users, I advise using brew install rlwrap instead of downloading the tarball in the link. You may feel tempted to download a tarball and compile readline. But I experienced the problem mentioned in rlwrap-0.37/BUGS: 49-On recent OS X sytems, libreadline is not the real thing, but a 50-non-GNU replacement. If the linker complains about missing 51:symbols, install GNU readline and try again. This may then lead you to attempt compiling and installing GNU readline, which will ultimately lead you to try to solve more problems you're having in compiling readline. You might find this fun. But if you just want to get things over with, there is an easier way. Homebrew[1] to the rescue: brew install rlwrap Perhaps this is just obvious to others. Would've saved me a few minutes to hear this, though. [1]: <http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/> ~~~ telemachos I definitely think a package manager is better than manual installation. That's why I said this: > Simply install rlwrap via your operating system’s package manager (or > manually) But I'll add an update that mentions the bug on OSX. Thanks for the feedback. ~~~ wging Ah, you're right. Sorry for implying you didn't mention this. I overlooked that--just went to the rlwrap page and got caught up in what I was doing. ~~~ telemachos No worries at all. Any feedback is good - and I added a clarification to make it's clearer now. ------ malandrew For the rlwrap gurus in the thread, is there a way to use rlwrap to better deal with multiline expressions in the repl? For example, when using a clojure repl and entering a multiline expression, I might err on one line and want to go back and correct that line before evaluating the expression. Unfortunately, the only option I have right now is to terminate that expression by entering in a bunch of closing parens and then trying to enter in the entire multiline expression again. It'd be great if multiline expressions could be modifiable and if you could up arrow to load a previous multiline expression. ~~~ stinkypete You might try starting rlwrap with the `-m' option (--multi-line) which by default escapes " \ " into newlines. By itself this isn't all that useful but this enables editing the line in your $EDITOR via `ctrl-^'. When you do this the editor will display the escape sequences as literal newlines, so that means you can do multi-line editing with up to recall a previous expression and `ctrl-^' to edit it. If you're to the point where you are editing lots of multiline expressions you may want to consider using an editor that has a function that will send the contents of a buffer or the current expression to a running interpreter. Emacs is an obvious choice for this, but there are lots of plugins to other editors/IDEs that do the same. ------ 6ren I just want to say that rlwrap is awesome. Such a _simple_ idea, yet so effective. ------ niggler rlwrap seems cool at first blush, but you quickly realize that for anything nontrivial (e.g. context-aware autocomplete) you need to use readline directly ~~~ snprbob86 This isn't about adding readline support to your own programs (although it's a reasonable stop-gap solution there), this is about adding basic readline support to _other people's_ programs without a massive investment. ------ pi18n I knew about rlwrap, but hadn't bothered to learn anything in depth. Thanks, keywords are a great feature that I wouldn't have known without this. ------ shitlord For people who like ruby but think irb sucks, there's pry (<http://pryrepl.org/>), but it's still missing some features. ~~~ banister which features is pry missing? ------ prezjordan This is a godsend, thank you! I've been having a tough time using `sml` and `gprolog`, but this fixed every single issue I found. Thumbs up. ------ toolslive ocaml has an awful default interpreter repl, so most people use it with emacs. Alternatively, my default rlwrap is this: rlwrap -p"0;31" ocaml -init _init.ml the -init allows me to preload, set directories aso. As a remark on the side. A lot of people complain about a lot of things without even bothering to improve the quality of their working environment. ------ Syssiphus News at 11'

Global Unicorns ($250mm+ valued startups) - salar https://global-unicorns.silk.co/ ====== ddorian43 at least put a website link so we can know what they do

Thats Why No-One Will Remember Your Name - spoiledtechie http://www.spoiledtechie.com/post/Thats-Why-No-One-Will-Remember-Your-Name.aspx ====== Allocator2008 History remembers the risk takers more or less. Even if you fail, lose, are dead wrong, etc., if you have dared or risked greatly you will be remembered for that. Fred Hoyle might have been "wrong" about steady state theory, in that the standard big bang model seems to match observation better, but it was a damn cool model in its hey day nevertheless, and Hoyle is rightfully remembered for that. So I think it is not so much about being right or wrong or winning or losing but more just attempting. History recalls those who attempt and then fail or are proved wrong. History will not recall those who never even try great things. ~~~ spoiledtechie Thats an awesome thought and observation.

Epic Games chief pays $15M to protect 7,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness - mutor http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/285149/Epic_Games_chief_pays_15M_to_protect_7000_acres_of_North_Carolina_wilderness.php ====== M_Grey This is the kind of action that can have long-term positive impacts. Maybe it won't change the world, and it won't get you Zuckerberg "I'm ending all disease" press, but it's immediately, tangibly beneficial to masses of life. I respect the hell out of this. ------ austinl Reminds me of Douglas Tompkins (the founder of Esprit and The North Face) who has done this on a much larger scale in Chile and Argentina. He's used his profit from selling his share in both companies to buy over _2 million acres_ of land, and is in the process of restoring the it to original conditions (which is sometimes at odds with the interest of local ranchers). Check out: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tompkins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Tompkins) [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/the- entr...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/the-entrepreneur- who-wants-to-save-paradise/380116/) ~~~ ivm He also successfully fought against greedy politicians and businessmen who wanted to build huge dams in Patagonia and flood an enormous area. I think it is one of the reasons why Chile is turning towards solar now. ------ divyekapoor A conservation easement is not a payment. Sweeney didn't actually pay $15 million. He just gave up the right to develop on a piece of land he wasn't ever going to develop on anyway. This gives him a $15 million tax deduction over several years that he can use to offset his tax liabilities. Since he donated $15 million worth of property rights, he probably has a lot of them. Not very different from Trump's conservation easement donation in New York. ~~~ iamcreasy What is your source? The article explicitly says 'Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney has reportedly paid $15 million to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to permanently protect 7,000 acres of undeveloped land'. ~~~ notlisted I guess it works like this - [http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-land- donations-put...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-land-donations- put-him-in-line-for-conservation-tax-breaks-1457656717) ------ WalterBright Buying land and making nature preserves out of it is an excellent and effective way for wealthy people to do good. ~~~ branchless In our current system, yes, but should we not reach higher to say that this land is common land and that it is a resource not just for us but for all generations going forward. When we say that all land is for sale and once owned is at the disposal of the owner in perpetuity, we rely on the good-will of the owner. In the majority of cases this is not enough. We need to look at land ownership differently if we want to achieve real change. We have to bake in behaviour into the rules of our society. Right now we bake in land speculation and exploitation of natural resources for private good and often the public purse picks up the pollution costs later. ~~~ jonlucc I think it's worse than that. This particular person is in a position to likely make enough money to not need to worry about the cost of management of this land. What if his kids aren't as rich or don't care as much about nature? What if he has 6 kids and they split the land equally; will 5 generations down the line still feel attached to their distant relatives to be able to hold the land together? ~~~ maxerickson The conservation easement is likely to be durable. So the protection should survive sales and such. _This donation, earmarked as a "conservation easement" (which typically require landowners to forfeit the right to develop, subdivide, or otherwise interfere with the preservation of a natural landscape),_ ------ deepnotderp With the trump presidency coming up, we'll need more people like this. Even the common people can do so, try dominating to some organizations. ~~~ treehau5 Less government regulatation, government doing less and citizens doing more? Sounds like a political ideology I've heard of before...name is slipping me right now. ~~~ Retra Is it that one that never works because it is completely fragile, unenforceable, and prone to divide-and-conquer over-runs by corporate interests? ------ lukego Just randomly: one of my great internet regrets is flaming Tim Sweeney about boring type system wars on "Lambda: The Ultimate" without realizing what an impressive fellow he is :). ~~~ ethbro I made a joke about Walter Bright's (of so many famous things) username without knowing who it was. That was a distinct "Wow, I feel like an asshole" day. So it happens to all of us, I guess; take your lumps and keep on trying to be awesome. ------ TJTorola Here is a rough idea of what 7,000 acres looks like. [https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2t4y1KUdvnlbUV1aW9CdHR1dF...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2t4y1KUdvnlbUV1aW9CdHR1dFU) ------ jamesblonde This is nice, but really it's pissing in the ocean, as somebody said. In Sweden, we have "the right to roam". The idea is that all land is accessible by anyone. Any citizen can walk on any private property, subject to not damaging it or coming to close to an abode. You have rights but also responsibilities. There's none of this nonsense of breaking your leg on somebody's property and then suing them (as is done in Ireland, where private property is king). ------ RayVR This is a tax scheme to offset massive amounts of income. I have looked at many of these deals. You can generally get multiples of 3-10x the value based on the government discount tables. Congrats to him for playing it this way. ~~~ formula1 Please provide a source(s). I appreciate this kind of knowledge because I have little faith in american upperclasses approach to good will. But unless I see proof, I dont want to feel like ab angry fool ~~~ 1123581321 You don't need to either way. Our government provides this large tax break incentive intentionally because it is good for the earth. ~~~ RayVR If you simply google this incentive you'll see that it's history long predates any popular notion of environmental preservation. ~~~ 1123581321 You're right, and in the last ten years or so (after the IRS took notice and started cracking down on abuses) it's become an intentional conservation strategy. The recent legislation to increase the valuation demonstrates this. ------ spullara This is become a popular way to avoid paying income taxes. This year it moved from being able to offset 30% of income to 50% of income. It can be 100% of income if you are a farmer. ------ gild All right, I'll play devil's advocate. What happens a couple of centuries from now, when the Eastern Seaboard is overpopulated and we have 40,000 acres of land being held in limbo by the Sweeney Foundation? Having this land being preserved in its natural splendor for future generations to enjoy is a worthy and noble goal, but what happens when we need housing more than we need forests? Granted, I know this is only a small portion of the land in North Carolina (62.5 sq. mi / ~53,800 sq. mi or roughly 0.12%), but if 2-3 billionaires every generation pay to keep land pristine and untouchable forever, it'll add up over the centuries. Just something to think about. ~~~ Buge Overpopulation is ending. Fertility rates are declining and are almost below replacement rate. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate) ~~~ coldnebo Are you saying the process that creates risk is ending or that we are simply hitting a boundary condition (i.e. The edge of the Petri dish)? TFR is synthetic based on population behavior (I.e. Not solely intrinsic, such as genetic). My point is that there is a feedback-loop at work here. Educated women self- select against reproduction because the consequences are more obvious. But under-educated women still have high TFR-- they will need to hit hard boundaries (starvation, dieback). I don't think the process of overpopulation is ending, just clamped. ------ alanz1223 Had it been musk though, oh you people would have sacrificed a small child in his name. I applaud this guy, doing more than most of the people that claim to be saviours or at least perceived that way. ------ pashapiro I've found that undeveloped land in low-demand, rural areas tends to go for about $2,000/acre. It jumped out at me in the headline that the donation was about the same rate. ------ photonwins You don't have to be rich to do this. [http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film- showcas...](http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film- showcase/india-man-plants-forest-bigger-than-central-park-to-save-his-island) ------ tomovo I try to help whenever I can... [http://www.laphroaig.com/default.aspx?ReturnURL=/friends/reg...](http://www.laphroaig.com/default.aspx?ReturnURL=/friends/registration/CodeCheck.aspx) ------ qwertyuiop924 Is it a tax dodge? Yes. But it's a _really cool_ tax dodge. ~~~ oliyoung it's not a dodge, it's exactly the reason these deductions exist, to encourage philanthropy and charity ------ fb03 Can't expect less from the legend that created the programmable roguelike system ZZT. Long live to you, Tim! ------ kayoone Maybe its the same reason as Sam Altman has for owning a remote patch of land so that in case of things going really bad, he can fly there because he has all the important stuff (water, food, antibiotics, gold etc) stored there. ------ maxxxxx I am a little cynical maybe but I wouldn't be surprised if they built a luxury resort next to it and only wealthy clients can access it. I would be more positive if it were run like a national park accessible to all. ~~~ zokier > if they built a luxury resort next to it and only wealthy clients can access > it. Would that be such a bad thing though? Seems like lot better than not having protected land at all. ~~~ maxxxxx It's a problem in the sense that more and more area is accessible only to rich people. There is a good reason that ocean beaches in the US are accessible to everyone. ~~~ tjbiddle How about an idea like this: \- Setup non-taxable charity \- Inject $15M in charity \- Purchase $15M of land, make it accessible to wealthy only for a price of $X with monthly/annual dues of $X \- Accumulate $15M in non-taxable profits \- Purchase $15M of land \- Make first segment open to public, repeat process. ------ eadlam Is there anything like Kickstarter where citizens can pool their money to buy up land for conservation? ~~~ douche In Quebec, there are a huge number of Zec's[1]. Basically non-profit, co-op hunting and fishing clubs. Quebec does have the advantage that there is a huge amount of mostly empty Crown land, but they are pretty common in the denser section south of the St. Lawrence as well. [1] [http://www.perc.org/blog/what-world-zec](http://www.perc.org/blog/what- world-zec) ------ deepnotderp Just bought some stuff from Epic games after reading this, keep it up :) ------ tn13 A lot of billionaires are doing this. I am no billionaire but I purchased a small hunting grounds in Arizona few years back. ------ daveheq Yay! Thank you human CEO being. ------ mcs_ Pay to build Pay to not build ------ knowaveragejoe Hopefully we see similar efforts from others. The incoming president has stated he plans to gut the EPA and potentially even divvy up some state/national parks for development. Private donors will have to win out over commercial interests, as far as conservation is concerned. ~~~ mikeyouse You're not joking.. The guy who's in charge of Trump's EPA transition thinks that climate change is a hoax, that the Clean Power Plan is illegal, that the Endangered Species Act should be repealed, that the Paris Climate Agreement is unconstitutional. The likely pick to head the DOE is a lobbyist for the oil industry who wants to open up Federal lands for energy exploration. Good lord this election is going to have far-reaching consequences. ~~~ losteric It's not just Trump, the entire government is seeing red. The Republicans have control of the House, Senate, Presidency, and they will take control of the Judicial branch as well. It's a conservative wet dream. In four years, we'll either have a 1-party system or an N-party system. ~~~ s4vi0r >It's a conservative wet dream. Man, c'mon - why you gotta lump all conservatives in with these people? You can be a conservative without being an absolute anti-science/anti- intellectual/anti-environment/etc lunatic. ~~~ oxide you can be a liberal without being a bleeding-heart. but you can't _vote_ liberal without voting in bleeding-hearts. it's the same for conservatives. sooner or later you're going to have to vote for an absolute anti-science/anti-intellectual/anti-environment/etc lunatic. when partisanship trumps all, almost none of it is so black and white. it becomes shades of grey. ~~~ Taek That I think is a huge problem in our government. Why can't I vote for both smaller military and bigger NASA at the same time? Why when I decide climate change is super important do I also have to align with 15 other unrelated policies as well? Parties are all-or-nothing and that's painful. Because I find that no party represents me in more than like 20% of my political positions. I should be able to delegate better. ~~~ jlarocco That's a self-imposed problem. There were 22 choices for president on my ballot. Until people wake up and start looking at the other 20 parties the current system is what we get. ~~~ ethbro It's an electoral system problem. From a game theory standpoint there is no reason to ever vote third party. If we'd had a more nuanced system that allowed voting negative in addition to positive... pretty sure Johnson would have won. ~~~ BrandonM I'm hoping that Maine's Ranked Choice Voting[0] (instant runoff) is an answer to some of the problems inherent in our current winner-take-all system. It passed in Maine; hopefully it achieves its aims and spreads. [0] [http://www.rcvmaine.com/](http://www.rcvmaine.com/) ------ douche Fantastic, great work Tim Sweeny. One note of caution, is that sometimes when private individuals buy up these big chunks of land from the government or big land-management organizations, they restrict access and traditional activities on that land in ways that mightily piss off the locals. It's a not uncommon point of contention in the north woods of Maine where I grew up; IP or Meade or Plumb Creek tends to be pretty lax about hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, etc, as long as their lumber is left alone and the roads aren't ripped up. Millionaires from away have a tendency to lock it down and post everything, in a modern-day form of enclosure. ~~~ david-given I come from Scotland, and that's one of the weirdest things to get used to in other countries: that someone can just fence off a patch of wilderness, say 'that's mine' and stop anyone from going in. It feels oddly alien; I can't think of a worse way to teach respect for the countryside. If it's land that's being used for something, that's one thing. Generic wilderness? That just seems wrong. (Scotland doesn't have trespass is the same sense that other countries have. The legal system is quite different from English law, which I believe (vaguely) is what the US system was based on.) ~~~ alistairSH For those interested, here's a quick overview... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Scotland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Scotland) tl;dr - The Land Reform Act 2003 codified the long-held tradition of unhindered access to open country. This includes the great estates, forestry land, etc. Basically, as long as you behave, you can hike, camp, cycle anywhere you like. Obvious exclusions would be somebody's yard adjacent to their home, areas with active livestock activity, etc. ~~~ Agentlien This sounds very similar to what we have in Sweden with Allemansrätten [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden) ~~~ alistairSH Not surprising, given the shared history. Scotland can be very Nordic-like on some issues. ------ johansch Quite a leap from building Jill of the Jungle ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4IArecoE_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4IArecoE_c)). ~~~ joakleaf Jill of the Jungle was one of those shareware games where the technology (and graphics) was not great, but the gameplay was! It came after id software had developed smooth scrolling games (albeit only in EGA) and the scrolling in Jill just felt pretty bad. Smooth scrolling was certainly possible in 256 color VGA, and they could also have used mode X to perform fast blits (4 pixel moves). They didn't use the smooth scrolling registers, and it didn't seem like they used mode X - at least the game did not feel like it. However, I think, keeping the scrolling implementation simple, enabled them to focus on gameplay and sound on the Sound Blaster -- a relatively cool and unique thing at the time! Thus a classic example of not getting distracted by the tech side of things, but focusing on user experience. I dazzled quite a bit with side scrollers then, and it took me a long time to uncover the possible ways to use the VGA hardware on the 286 and 386 for scrolling -- It was really hard to find information about the VGA hardware registers around 1990/1\. By the time I had it nailed, the 486DX was already common and fast enough that everything could be done trivially on the CPU. Thus everything I had struggled to learn about smooth scrolling on the VGA hardware became obsolete. That was how I learned, not to spend too much time trying to optimize (prematurely) for current hardware! ~~~ johansch > I dazzled quite a bit with side scrollers then, and it took me a long time > to uncover the possible ways to use the VGA hardware on the 286 and 386 for > scrolling -- It was really hard to find information about the VGA hardware > registers around 1990/1\. By the time I had it nailed, the 486DX was already > common and fast enough that everything could be done trivially on the CPU. > Thus everything I had struggled to learn about smooth scrolling on the VGA > hardware became obsolete. That was how I learned, not to spend too much time > trying to optimize (prematurely) for current hardware! I did the same, but with the 486 in 1993! And I wasn't connected at all, no BBS:es, just sharing copies of copies of copies of floppies (etc etc). It's hard to imagine the dearth of information nowadays, and how valuable every scrap of information was. Now and then you'd get across this goldmine of information (in the form of some source code), and spend weeks/months understanding it all. I spent so much time experimenting with Turbo Pascal, inline assembly and VGA mode 13h and mode X. And trying to build the ultimate sprite and tile engine... The good thing about not being connected though: it was easy to stay concentrated on one issue at a time. ------ Pica_soO Awesome, wish we had more of this kind of silent heroes, investing into biodiversity and keeping a little bit of nature save from the worst animal on the planet. ------ perfmode Of course it changes the world. ~~~ ronilan More accurately, prevents changing the world. ~~~ mc32 Physically yes, but it changes attitudes towards how we view our environment and that's refreshing coming from a corp. ~~~ zokier I don't think this comes from the corp, but from an individual (who just happens to be most famous for running a corp). ------ h4nkoslo I'm always curious about the model fans of this approach are using. What is the "correct" amount of conserved land? Given that the government essentially never reverses these kinds of easements or grants, you have to be extremely confident of future possible uses of the land to say that deeding it in perpetuity is a good idea. The HN crowd tends to realize that a policy of "never build anything ever again" is a bad idea in SF, but is a great idea as long as the area in question is mostly trees not in their backyard. ------ fiatjaf This is stupid. He should have bought the area and protected it himself. This donation will be used to finance wars and hire government employees that will stand in their desks the whole day waiting for someone to bribe them, not a single penny will be used to protect land or animals. Never give your money to the government, it doesn't matter what are you thinking, it is never a good idea. ~~~ jstelly The article links to a more accurate piece. He did buy the property for $15M. He then created an easement preventing development and donated that easement to US Fish & wildlife. He has also bought other property for the same purpose. He created this easement partially because a developer sued to use eminent domain to force him to allow them to construct a power line across the property. [http://www.citizen- times.com/story/news/local/2016/11/08/box...](http://www.citizen- times.com/story/news/local/2016/11/08/box-creek-wilderness-permanently- protected/93443704/)

A hand gesture could be your next password - johnshades https://www.fastcompany.com/90214588/a-hand-gesture-could-be-your-next-password ====== Ezhik Can't wait to shoot Revolver Ocelot's finger guns to sign in.

Xerox calls off $6.1B sale to Fujifilm - danso https://www.ft.com/content/faccc538-56f9-11e8-bdb7-f6677d2e1ce8 ====== psetq Somewhat off topic, but If you're interested in the history of modern computing and not already familiar with the Xerox PARC [0] story, you should know that Xerox has a fascinating history of computer research innovation, and is often regarded as one of the real major driving forces behind the P.C. as we know it. An interesting account (as well as a great deal more about the rest of the history of modern computers) is documented in the book "The Dream Machine" [1], which I highly recommend if you find this sort of stuff interesting. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_\(company\)) [1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722412.The_Dream_Machine](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722412.The_Dream_Machine) ~~~ vvanders Dealers of Lightning[0] is also pretty fantastic and covers PARC in good detail. [0] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1101290.Dealers_of_Light...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1101290.Dealers_of_Lightning) ~~~ ghostcluster Dealers of Lighting is great, and is good as an audiobook as well. ------ GnarfGnarf I worked for Xerox in 1979. They were totally focused on copiers. The management structure in the field had no idea what to do with the new technology. Classic Innovator's Dilemma. Branch staff found out about new Xerox products in the trade press, not from sources inside the company. Xerox withheld crucial technical information from its customers. Every new hire was issued a copy of "The Billions Nobody Wanted", a great book that ironically warned against the very malady that Xerox succumbed to. ------ neonate [http://archive.is/cfPJC](http://archive.is/cfPJC) ------ lunaru Can anyone close to the Xerox/Fujifilm situation comment on why this matters/doesn't matter/is relevant? ~~~ mathattack Two old tech companies want to merge. An activist investor blocked this, figuring there is more to be made milking the technology on the way down. This can happen in software too. ~~~ sho Is fujifilm really "on the way down"? They seem pretty well diversified with some good product lines. Hell, I own one of their recent cameras. Xerox I won't argue with, but they're still not exactly on death watch. Just get the sense your comment is a little negative, like they've both obviously failed and all that is left is milking the dying husks. Fujifilm could quite likely outlast facebook. It will almost certainly outlast the likes of snapchat, IMO. Old != bad. ~~~ weaksauce Fujifilm also is not just electronics. ~~~ calypso I even use their film still. Granted they are discontinuing most of their film lines this year but still a very relevant company, especially with their mirrorless cameras ~~~ paulmd Disappointing, but unfortunately not surprising. They have been winding down their film production for a while now. First it was Astia and some of the oddball LF sizes, then it was FP100C in 4x5, then the 3x4, then FP3000B, and it just keeps rolling on. I've been expecting this for a while and have a good stash of film tucked away that will carry me for quite a while. I have about 150 rolls of various slide films in 120 and maybe 200 rolls of B+W in 120 and 35mm. I'll probably still try to tuck away another 100 rolls or so in the deep freezer if I can. Unlike FP-100C, slide+negative films can be stored for a long time (practically indefinitely) if kept cool/frozen. At this point I am getting worried about how long E-6 processing will be around though. There are DIY kits but they are not archival-grade stable. Fuji is also terrible at communicating these discontinuations to their customers. Several times now it's simply been "oops, we're out, this will be the last shipment", and only to their Asia distribution chain at that. ~~~ Aloha If no one is buying it - or not enough to sustain production, its going to go away. ~~~ paulmd Kodak "rightsized" their film production a few years ago, and film sales are actually on an incline since then (both due to enthusiasts and professional cinematographers). They're actually _bringing back_ various classic film stocks as well as introducing new ones based on modern R&D. Ilford has shed their financial legacy (and toxic waste-dump of a site) and is doing better these days too. [https://www.dpreview.com/news/9503675822/analog-revival- incr...](https://www.dpreview.com/news/9503675822/analog-revival-increase-in- film-sales-spurs-kodak-to-bring-back-ektachrome) [https://www.dpreview.com/news/1282034127/kodak-alaris-is- bri...](https://www.dpreview.com/news/1282034127/kodak-alaris-is-bringing- back-t-max-p3200-high-speed-b-w-film) [https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/features/gr...](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/features/great- film-renaissance-2017) Fuji just can't get their act together, and to be honest they've never been a very well-run company. Amazing products (best-in-class film, cameras, lenses, etc) but _extremely_ shitty marketing and distribution, particularly outside the Asia market. They're _finally_ sorta getting it together with the digital side of the company (the X-series are great and have a big following in NA/Europe) but the film side has been a mess for 50+ years. Probably a lesson in there for the entrepreneurs of HN - along with the importance of producing the appropriate amount of product. The really aggravating thing is their instant packfilms (peel-apart Polaroid film) - they literally are making the emulsion anyway for their Instax series (which have been selling like crazy for years), they just need to produce different sizes of film, which has traditionally not been A Big Deal for film companies, up until Fuji made it one. They could increase their volume quite a bit if they would just restart production of the standard film sizes that Polaroid, MF, and LF shooters have been using for decades, but they only make the proprietary one that fits their cameras. ~~~ davidgay > Fuji just can't get their act together, and to be honest they've never been > a very well-run company. This is a more than strange statement to make in a thread mentioning Kodak, where one of those two companies successfully managed the transition from film to digital, and the other went bankrupt. [https://leaderonomics.com/business/kodak-vs-fujifilm- success...](https://leaderonomics.com/business/kodak-vs-fujifilm-success- failure) is the first hit on "fujifilm vs kodak", but there's quite a few there with the same message... ~~~ ghaff Fujifilm didn't so much manage the transition from film to digital as manage the transition from film to other things that could make use of their technical capabilities in making film. [https://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/01/how- fujif...](https://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/01/how-fujifilm- survived) Not to take away from their cameras. I use them and am a fan but they're pretty much a niche. ------ crb002 Surprised that Xerox hasn't gotten into Docusign, industrial 3D printing/scanning, PDF automation, general small manufacturing robotics ... ~~~ csteinbe Hah. I figured Xerox was dead, but didn't know it yet back in 2011 when they outsourced their product engineering to HCL ([https://www.marketwatch.com/story/xerox-explores- outsourcing...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/xerox-explores-outsourcing- with-hcl-technologies-2011-05-24)). You can't enter new markets if you don't own your own engineering.

G'MIC, full-featured ImageMagick alternative - wx196 https://github.com/dtschump/gmic ====== patdavid It should be noted that the project CIMG/GMIC is _not_ built and billed as an IM alternative. It's an image processing framework that happens to have similar utility to IM for some folks and that is also available as a plug-in to GIMP for visual+interactive use. ~~~ tyingq "In this setting, G'MIC may be seen as a serious (and friendly) competitor of the ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick software suites."[1] [1][http://gmic.eu/](http://gmic.eu/) That feels a lot like being billed as an IM alternative to me. ~~~ patdavid As a single _example_ of one (of many) possible interfaces for it? Seems to hardly qualify as 'billing' as much as one example of how it might be used... ~~~ tyingq One of two possible interfaces (command line vs not command line) The context is that their command line interface is billed as an alternative to IM. ------ jawngee I recently using G'MIC to produce a video for a client. We used the G'MIC plugin in GIMP to build up the look, then used those parameters to drive it on the command line frame by frame. It's very slow, so we ended up having to build a solution with AWS to do massively parallel processing, but in the end it turned out great. G'MIC is really good at that kind of thing. I wouldn't use it to replace ImageMagick though. ~~~ LeonidasXIV Which G'MIC features did you use for the video? ------ mrSugar So, a question: why? Just so that there is an alternative (not that there is anything wrong with that), or is there an issue with ImageMagick that discourages some people from using it? ~~~ LeonidasXIV GMIC is far more powerful with a lot of very sophisticated filters [1] and a completely different beast to ImageMagick to the point of this title being actively misleading. Yes, both can edit images. But so can Gimp or Darktable, but they are not trying to displace IM either. [1]: [http://opensource.graphics/christmas-is-already-here-for- ima...](http://opensource.graphics/christmas-is-already-here-for-image- processing-folks/) ------ dahart I want to be nothing but encouraging, but I have simultaneous positive and negative reactions. On one hand, we need better FOSS alternatives to imagemagick, on the other hand, using imagemagick as the target to compare against means it's doomed to repeat some of IMs mistakes. And sure enough, using the online server's filter examples, so many of them seem to exist to fill a checkbox and increase the filter count, but are utility wise, useless as a serious filter, and aesthetically unpleasant to boot. I have the same contention with a significant portion imagemagick's feature set. The IM/GM command line is also a disaster of weird names for things and inconsistent conventions and hundreds and hundreds of pages of manual. Reinvent IM's command line to be pleasant and simple and make sense, and it'll be a HUGE win! What we really need is an open source alternative to is Nuke or Shake (RIP). Anyone want to help build that? ;) I can't get to the project page, but I hope that GMIC borrows the positive developments from GraphicsMagick. One of the things GM improved over IM is large image handling. GM can stream a gigapixel image resize in minutes, while IM gets stuck in virtual memory swap for hours. ~~~ wx196 Could you please mention good filters, both free and commercial, that you think "aesthetically pleasant to boot"? ~~~ dahart Sure, though clearly I need to explain that it's not symmetric. I don't expect a filter to output a beautiful image. It is possible for some filters to be neutral while others spit out "ugly" results. And, of course, ugly is strictly my biased personal opinion, not an objective result. What makes filters more ugly to me is filters that aren't very functional as a building block or a node in the middle of an image processing graph. When I said aesthetically unpleasant, I was thinking about _design_ too, not just the aesthetics. Filters that include any aesthetics at all, frankly, are not very useful, and that is the main problem with many of G'MICs (and ImageMagick's) filters. Photoshop has some too. I'm using [https://gmicol.greyc.fr/](https://gmicol.greyc.fr/) as the reference for filter names. G'MIC Filters that are useful as a building block (filters you're likely to find used by professionals), and are not aesthetically unpleasant: Basics, Colors|Channel Processing, Contours|Difference of Gaussians, Degradations|Blur, Details|Sharpen, Repair|Upscale A small sampling of G'MIC Filters that are aesthetically unpleasant to me, primarily because they are poor building blocks (less likely to be used in professional work), secondarily because they add an aesthetic that I personally don't like, and try to do too much: Arrays|Puzzle, Artistic|Ellipsionism, Deformations|Rain drops, Frames|Tunnel, Lights & Shadows|Shadow Patch, Patterns|Hearts, Rendering|Cupid, Sequences|Lava Lamp Note that many of these could be re-created easily using proper image processing building blocks, like an over operator for compositing, or an expression node for image warping. ~~~ wx196 Ah, I see, thank you for detailed answer. ------ jbverschoor Does it support vectors? And PDFs, AI, EPS? Does it handle CMYK/RGB properly? ~~~ sevensor Looks like a raster library to me. I imagine if it does handle vector graphics, it's only on the input side, same as ImageMagick. Didn't see any indication one way or another on color spaces. ~~~ mario14 It is announced as an "image processing tool". This is a field mostly interested in raster images usually. ------ mario14 G'MIC home page is : [http://gmic.eu](http://gmic.eu) ------ overcast The only thing I want to know is if it breaks every dependency, on every update, like ImageMagick does. ------ mario14 It's a very popular plug-in for GIMP. I don't think this is an alternative to ImageMagick ~~~ wx196 I marked it as alternative only because it has full command line support, which is rare case for filters. But it is mainly strong _filter_ library, than batch convertor/resizer, you are right. ------ acqq As far as I understood, it calls GIMP to do the work? ~~~ sevensor It appears the GIMP dependency is just so you can build the GIMP plug-in. It appears to use (the same author's) cimg to do the heavy lifting. ([https://github.com/dtschump/CImg](https://github.com/dtschump/CImg)) ~~~ acqq Thanks. CImg seems to be whole in one 2 MB header file? Wow. ~~~ wx196 Yes, and all 450+ filters compiled in one 5 MB file.

Slides: Responsive web design from the future - bergie http://speakerdeck.com/u/kneath/p/responsive-web-design-from-the-future ====== kneath For the curious, here's a few extra links from this talk: <http://warpspire.com/talks/responsive/> Hope you enjoy! ------ jasonwatkinspdx I'm glad that designers are starting to see the problems with page state that's not tied to URL state. Nearly all the sites I've seen using #! state have got this wrong. ------ idan I loved the site hosting the slides—does anybody here have an invite or the ability to setup a new account? Would be much obliged. ------ abredow The infinite scroll example he linked to in the presentation is very nice. Putting the max_id in the URL is a great way to save the state. <http://warpspire.com/experiments/history-api> ~~~ wiradikusuma the idea is good, but the implementation (from user perspective) is not 100% correct. try scroll somewhere, say you see text "My dad just told me I'll get my late grandfather's cornet" on top and refresh the page, you will see different stuff. ------ aresant Loved this, would suggest anybody further interested in real data on page load speed to check out: How site speed impacts conversion rate / engagement: [http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2010/07/01/the-best- graph...](http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2010/07/01/the-best-graphs-of- velocity/) How site speed impacts Google rankings (and tools to asses / fix): [http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/04/official- google...](http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/04/official-google-news- low-website-speed-will-lower-you-page-rank-and-your-landing-page-conversions/)

Ask HN: What would be negative implications of HIV becoming a curable disease? - twidlit Would be interesting to explore how society will change and be affected since HIV is mostly tied to homosexuals. ====== carbocation Nothing that has been discussed on HN lately will, likely, lead to an HIV cure. HIV is notoriously difficult to eradicate due to the fact that it stays dormant inside of immune cells for years. This is why the only cures that you hear about are those that have been induced via bone marrow transplant (which were done for other reasons, not for HIV; BMT is highly dangerous and the risk/benefit is strongly against doing this for cure of HIV alone). I don't think that your statement about homosexuals is the most useful statement one could make about the HIV epidemic in the United States. There are various groups that suffer more from HIV than others: homosexuals, yes, but also ethnic minorities (blacks have 7x the incidence that whites have). This may just be semantics, but in my opinion HIV isn't really "mostly tied to homosexuals." It is true that a majority of new cases of HIV (57%) are due to male-to-male sexual contact, but that still leaves a vast 43% of the pie for heterosexual contact and IVDU. [http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/factshe...](http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/factsheets/incidence.htm) ------ tokenadult Curing a disease is always a good idea. And I think your statement "HIV is mostly tied to homosexuals" is factually incorrect, especially on a worldwide basis. ------ anigbrowl Having to listen to people who complain about how many homosexuals there are, and how inconsiderate it is of them to go on living and being homosexual at everyone. Other than that, I can't think of any.

Understanding Quaternions - njn https://www.3dgep.com/understanding-quaternions/ ====== amai Sorry to spoil the party, but this is the old 19th century way of teaching quaternions (and also complex numbers). It is much easier to start with some [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory) and then you understand that quaternions are simply matrices of a specific form: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion#Matrix_representati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion#Matrix_representations) . Quaternion multiplication is simply matrix multiplication of these matrices. And that's it. No mysteries, this is just simple linear algebra (you do't even need complex numbers, the real representation is enough and makes the connection to 4d rotations manifest). ~~~ gmadsen it shouldn't be an either or with geometry and algebra. both are valid and it helps to know both. representing H as a matrix is certainly valid and makes computations easier, but I dont really think that is building intuition ~~~ earthicus The modern approach is not lacking all geometry, and the 19th century presentation is not lacking all algebra. Any respectable treatment will include both, the question is which makes the relationship clearer? The abstract algebraic approach talks of 'the rotation group' which maps on to geometric concepts as cleanly and directly as possible. Then we talk of different parameterizations or representations of this group, with the unit quaternions being the 'double cover' of the rotation group (which gives rise to the primary difficulty in understanding them - that a rotation by 360 degrees reverses orientation, and 720 degrees returns us to where we started). I think the modern approach is much clearer - the geometric ideas appear more directly, and the algebra is far less messy. ~~~ edflsafoiewq > I think the modern approach is much clearer - the geometric ideas appear > more directly, and the algebra is far less messy. Can you show us an example? ------ foobarbecue In case you missed it, 3B1B has a brilliant video introducing quaternions: [https://youtu.be/d4EgbgTm0Bg](https://youtu.be/d4EgbgTm0Bg) ~~~ raffael-vogler His videos are really incredibly intuitive and well-made. He deserves an award for his channel. ~~~ foobarbecue Yep, and all the source code is developed in the open as well! [https://github.com/3b1b/manim](https://github.com/3b1b/manim) ------ umanwizard Possibly off-topic: why does practically any description of quaternions include the anecdote about somebody carving something into some bridge in Ireland? I’ve learned about plenty of mathematical concepts while having no idea who discovered them or under what circumstances. Why are quaternions the exception? ~~~ nj65537 I think the story is told as a sort of cultural marker of what a Big F-ing Deal this discovery was/is. Mathematics, collectively, struggled for a long time to find a way to make 3-dimensional numbers into an algebra in a way that extends the algebra of complex numbers. (The cross and dot products are unsatisfying, because they don't have division.) The shock that this can be done in _four_ , -- not three -- dimensions is still sort of reverberating, and that's what I think this story marks. It's a short stand-in for the longer story I've just summarized, and it evokes (or is meant to evoke) the mind- shattering thrill of discovery. I don't necessarily think the story _accomplishes_ this -- your question is but one piece of evidence that it doesn't -- but I think for those who spend a good amount of time with these kinds of algebra questions, it comes to take on that role, and that's why I think it's repeated. (Teaser -- if you want to know more about these kinds of questions, Google for "real division algebras". There are not very many, and they way they are organized is not, I think, something one would expect.) ~~~ xelxebar Also, in Hamilton's time they didn't have the view of mathematics as axiom systems that could be played with. Math was a way of finding Truth, so the idea of making up multiplication rules at your convenience probably seemed like an extremely non-obvious move. The discovery of complex numbers and quaternions probably played a big part in getting people to question what math _is_ , leading to Hilbert's program to study Foundations etc. Hamilton's story is a nice, rare single instance we can point to, symbolizing this discovery. ~~~ umanwizard Fair point, but hadn’t complex numbers been around for a while by the time quaternions were discovered? ------ adamnemecek Dual quaternion are even whackier. They are the best formalism for reasoning about 3D space developing over time. Here’s a cool example [http://www.chinedufn.com/dual-quaternion-shader- explained/](http://www.chinedufn.com/dual-quaternion-shader-explained/) ------ splittingTimes Previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364442](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7364442) Those who like to have a print version: [https://github.com/frankMilde/interesting- reads/blob/master/...](https://github.com/frankMilde/interesting- reads/blob/master/3d-game-engine-programming_jeremiah-van- oosten_understanding-quaternions.pdf) ------ kuwze I remember being introduced to quaternions recently by this post[0] which recommended this book[1]. [0]: [https://www.haroldserrano.com/blog/best-books-to-develop- a-g...](https://www.haroldserrano.com/blog/best-books-to-develop-a-game- engine) [1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Quaternions-Computer-Graphics-John- Vi...](https://www.amazon.com/Quaternions-Computer-Graphics-John- Vince/dp/0857297597/) ------ nraynaud I had a question about quaternions: does anyone use them for anything else than multiplying a rotation by a scalar? In particular, it feels a bit like a waste of coding space to always use unit ones. ~~~ macawfish The remarkable thing about quaternions is that you can describe rotation around any arbitrary axis! Try doing that with real rotation matrices and you will bump into a major problem: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock) Because matrix multiplication is not commutative, you can't easily compose a matrix representing rotation around an arbitrary axis from "component rotation matrices". With quaternions/clifford algebras, you can say "here's the vector I want to rotate about and here's this is how much I want to rotate", and it just magically works. ~~~ billfruit I find that many articles explaining how to describe the orientation of a rigid body rotated along an axis by an angle in a confusing manner. Normally in 3d space you will have to construct quaternions for rotations along yaw, pitch and roll, and then take their product to get the quaternion of the orientation of the rigid body. That is, when using quaternions to describe orientations,we are actually describing the rotations done to bring the body from its default orientation to its present orientation. ~~~ twtw > Normally in 3d space you will have to construct quaternions for rotations > along yaw, pitch and roll, and then take their product to get the quaternion > of the orientation of the rigid body Is this not just using Euler angles via quaternions? If I understand correctly, tracking rotation via yaw, pitch, and roll will still run into issues of gimbal lock because it's the same parameterization just using quaternions. ------ edflsafoiewq Anyone know an easy way to show that multiplication by a unit quaternion is a unitary operator? ~~~ joppy Unitary in what sense? Clearly multiplication by a unit quaternion preserves the quaternion norm. ~~~ edflsafoiewq In the sense of preserving the dot product, x.y = (ux).(uy). ~~~ joppy Since the quaternion norm is induced via the quaternion dot product, any transformation that preserves the norm automatically also preserves the dot product. This is a standard result for inner product spaces. ~~~ edflsafoiewq Ah, polarization? And for it preserving the norm you can use the conjugate. Easy! Thanks! ------ wink I found these videos very helpful: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCbpxiCN0U0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCbpxiCN0U0) ------ aaaaaaaaaab Protip: learn Geometric Algebra. ~~~ dbcurtis Can you recommend any good references? ~~~ aaaaaaaaaab Here’s an appetizer from Eric Lengyel in the context of game development (or 3D graphics in general): [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WZApQkDBr5o](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WZApQkDBr5o) And here’s the in-depth stuff: Geometric Algebra for Computer Science: [http://www.geometricalgebra.net](http://www.geometricalgebra.net) ------ choonway Please use Lie Groups/Algebra instead. ~~~ formalsystem Do you mind on elaborating on that? Any nice books or tutorials you've seen on the subject? ~~~ choonway Skipping the formalism you can get directly into the practical aspects in this book. Modern Robotics by Lynch and Park Chapters 3 and 4 pre-preprint of book / more info available here [http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/index.php/Modern_Robotics](http://hades.mech.northwestern.edu/index.php/Modern_Robotics) ------ bnolsen left handed thingies. go to geometric algebra for the real meal deal. ------ paulgrant999 I have no idea why they insist on using such horrible graphs to explain a simple idea. Go to wiki/quaternions. scroll down to about 2/3rds of the way ;)

The One Way XML Beats JSON - impostervt https://medium.com/@john.titus/the-one-way-xml-beats-json-8613b9484463#.idj810skw ====== PaulHoule There are a lot of ways to add metadata to JSON or otherwise enrich it with XML-like capabilities. My favorite personally is JSON-LD [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON-LD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON-LD) because it is compatible with RDF and you can use SPARQL queries, rule engines and similar techniques. There are methods of language tagging that are idiomatic and also the XSD schema primitives and a namespace mechanism that has fewer mathematical singularities than XML.

Show HN: Django-Chartit a Django app for plotting charts effortlessly - pgollakota http://chartit.shutupandship.com ====== pgollakota I created this Django app for making it really easy to create charts directly from database (Django models). This is my first django project and would really appreciate any feedback from everyone. Thanks! ------ martey I think people might find this more useful if it did not rely on Highcharts, which requires a paid license for commercial use. <http://www.highcharts.com/license> ~~~ pgollakota I agree with you. I was looking at a whole bunch of JS chart libraries. Highcharts was the best which had a 'stable' API. jQPlot was a close second however the API was still changing. So I decided to do the project with Highcharts. Will extend the code to include other libraries (most likely jQPlot) depending on the interest it generates.

The Programmable Government - larrywright http://larrywright.me/blog/articles/213-towards-a-more-open-government ====== hendler Love this title - although the "APIs" are query only. But a '''programmable government''', run by optimization algorithms? I like this - as long as it's open source. No politicians, just good code and bad code. No lobbyists, just competing, crowd-sourced algorithms. Sounds too Utopian or too nightmarish? ~~~ anamax > run by optimization algorithms What is the evaluation function? How do we measure? For example, we may agree that leaving houses empty is a bad idea and disagree as to whether we should leave them in the hands of folks who couldn't afford to buy them or to foreclose and sell them to people who were priced out of the market before.

Google pledges $2 million in prizes to hackers who exploit Chrome - evo_9 http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/08/google-pledges-million-in-hacking-prizes/ ====== DanielRibeiro Limiting Daniel J. Bernstein to _the creator of djbdns_ is quite an understatement. He is a very important cryptographer, to say the least[1]. Specially for a man that has been ulogized[2,3] as _the greatest programmer in the history of the world._ HN has in the past done a good job telling his great story[4] [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Bernstein> [2] <http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/djb> [3] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=890034> [4] [http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Bernstein+&...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Bernstein+&sortby=points+desc) ~~~ casca So true, djb is a legend in the field. To give an example, he wrote qmail as a replacement for sendmail and the last stable release was in 1998. There have been no identified security vulnerabilities in that time. If you want to learn how to program securely, read ""Some thoughts on security after ten years of qmail 1.0" - <http://cr.yp.to/qmail/qmailsec-20071101.pdf> ------ casca Link to the actual announcement: <http://blog.chromium.org/2012/08/announcing- pwnium-2.html> If I had a "Full Chrome exploit: Chrome / Win7 local OS user account persistence using only bugs in Chrome itself", I could sell it for far more than the $60k on offer. Why not offer $1m? ~~~ mda Nowadays this sort of exploits in Chrome uses a chain of several bugs, (remember flash now runs in a strong sandbox as well); I would say it is probable that your exploit would be obsolete before you find a real buyer in the market. So I would argue that taking the money on the table immediately would be the right thing to do. Also added bonus karma of not dealing with shady organizations, compromising innocent peoples computers, etc.

How To Write fanfiction: 10 ficwriting rules - pavelegorkin https://readandwrite.today/essay/10-ficwriting-rules.html ====== billyjobob This article is full of grammatical mistakes. I know usually we should focus on the content and not the presentation but it’s difficult to take seriously advice on writing from someone who isn’t a good writer. To address the content, I think the rule to never delete what you have written is terrible advice. Some of the best authors throw away everything and rewrite from scratch multiple times before publishing.

HP's New Strategy and Firesale Fiasco - jameshicks http://www.thetechscoop.net/2011/08/21/hp-new-strategy-and-firesale-fiasco/#more-23527 ====== ddw Saturday morning I drove to some stores looking for one. At Staples they said that they weren't selling them and that corporate told them to return them. Waited outside Best Buy for about 25 minutes with 15 other people and same thing. Radio Shack had them in the back room, but they hadn't marked them down. THEN the next day Best Buy and Staples have them marked down on the web. I randomly go to bestbuy.com that morning and buy a 32GB mere minutes before they sell out. I'm really curious as to why the stores changed their mind. If the employees on Saturday are to be believed, corporate didn't want to sell them at a reduced rate and just wanted to return them for refund to HP. What did HP say to convince them to mark down the Touchpads? And Staples had an additional $50 instant coupon on the 16GB! Did they drive a hard bargain with HP and forced them to refund to Staples an additional $50 even though they sold them? Did HP really not want them back that badly? Couldn't they just have them sent back and sell them on HP.com themselves with some kind of actual communication to the public? It's all very strange and I would love to know the whole story. (I sometimes spend my time pondering such trivial things) ------ mvkel It's so funny seeing people scramble for something they didn't know they wanted 24 hours before, and not get it. I went to a local Best Buy, which refused to drop the price. They stated they were shipping all the TouchPads back to HP. One gentleman apparently REALLY wanted a TouchPad, so even though he was there for the fire sale, he bought one at full price. My head exploded.

Google Visualization API & R - john_horton http://r-ecology.blogspot.com/2011/01/r-and-google-visualization-api.html ====== instakill This is brilliant, thanks for the link. Busy wrapping my brain around R and knowing that you can export R graphics into interactive charts makes for interesting learning. ~~~ john_horton What would be really wonderful (and what I'm hoping will get built) is way to generate web-friendly visualizations directly from the amazing ggplot2 package.

How we built Dojo Learning - Planning and designing new features - lux http://www.dojolearning.com/siteblog-post-action/id.36/title.how-we-built-dojo-learning-part-5 ====== lux This is the fifth part of a six-part blog post I wrote talking about how we built our startup, Dojo Learning, from my perspective as co-founder/lead developer. This post talks about how we plan and design new features of our software.

The Busier You Are, the More You Need Quiet Time - happy-go-lucky https://hbr.org/2017/03/the-busier-you-are-the-more-you-need-quiet-time?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits ====== 11thEarlOfMar > "the disadvantages of noise and distraction associated with open office > plans outweighed anticipated, but still unproven, benefits " [0] I'd say that the CFOs of the world are a bit selectively biased when it comes to analysis of employee satisfaction and productivity of open office vs. private space offices. Other studies discussed on HN have pointed to the importance of a space you can personalize as well, so even shared private spaces may not be optimal. [1] Prime office space in SV (Palo Alto) is currently going for $100/sq ft per year [2]. So an 8'x10' private space would cost $8,000/yr. at premium rates. If a company is paying $200,000 for a fully burdened engineer, as many do in SV, it seems a relatively small investment (4% of cost to employ said engineers) to offer them private offices as an option. Other functional positions pay nearly as well, so really, at least giving the employees the option of private vs. open office should be considered. Outside of Palo Alto, it would probably make even more financial sense. [0] Previously discussed at some length: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13373526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13373526) [1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13668762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13668762) [2] [http://www.cityfeet.com/cont/ca/palo-alto-office- space#](http://www.cityfeet.com/cont/ca/palo-alto-office-space#)

Google Signs Deal to Buy Manhattan Office Building - siculars http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/nyregion/03building.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print ====== siculars Real-estate postering aside, this deal does not "a rebounding real estate market..." It is no coincidence that Google's East Coast offices are located in this specific building. The building happens to be a major internet peering point for the entire NYC region. So no, I do not see a major rush to buy entire city block sized buildings unless there are other enormous, industrial grade, internet peering hubs floating around NYC. ([http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/business/smallbusiness/01h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/business/smallbusiness/01hotel.html?pagewanted=print)) Also, the NYC tech scene is on fire, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1957538>.

How to build a JavaScript package manager - cpojer https://yarnpkg.com/blog/2017/07/11/lets-dev-a-package-manager/ ====== zodiac It was making a lot of sense until the part about recursive dependencies. To my mind, once this happens it becomes a dependency graph instead of a tree, and instead of trying to satisfy dependencies "locally" I would work out all the constraints and then solve them. The "choose highest, check parent" algorithm seems to me like it would make results depend on which package in a cycle you tried to resolve first, and apparently with peerdependencies it sometimes is incorrect ([https://github.com/yarnpkg/yarn/issues/422](https://github.com/yarnpkg/yarn/issues/422)). Any insight as to why it was designed this way? Just the NP-completeness? ~~~ arcatek I've made some early work on using constraints when I started working on Yarn, but it ended up unpractical because of the sheer execution time it required. A huge number of constraints were required to satisfy the requirements, which was made even worse when you consider that a dependency version might have different sub-dependencies than its other versions. That being said, I'm not an expert in SAT logic, and it's quite possible a better solution is possible! Maybe some kind of hybrid algorithm, possibly? In fact, one thing I'd really like to do in medium term would be to externalize the resolver part of Yarn - this way, it would be much easier to experiment with it to try to find algorithms that fits various requirements. If you want correctness you would use a slow but comprehensive algorithm, if you want speed you would use a naive algorithm like the one in the article, etc. ~~~ zodiac Interesting, which packages did you try running it on for which it took too much execution time? Where was most of the time spent? ~~~ arcatek I unfortunately don't remember - possibly a combo of Babel + Webpack and their plugins, tho, they're usually my go-to choices to test install perfs. Now that I think about it, it's quite possible that the process was apparently hanging on the same issue I describe in my article, where babel-core depends and babel-cli and vice versa. Maybe it would work better if I were to run the process a first time with a simple algorithm like the one exposed in the article, that would clear up any dependency loop, then a second more complex pass that wouldn't have to deal with this. ------ fks Love this kind of format as a way to explain how Yarn works. Awesome article! ------ vmarshall23 Oh no. Not just another package manager ... a package manager generator... _runs_ :-) ------ dikaiosune First impression: fantastic section titles. ~~~ ohkaiby I chuckled as well. ------ kronos29296 Yet another package manager except it teaches you how to write one. Nice demo with explaining titles. Too bad I don't know JS and honestly I don't think the world needs another package manager just like it doesn't need another single page web app to read Hello World. But the post definitely gives a bird's eye view of things. ~~~ moron4hire I don't understand these sorts of comments. The world probably doesn't need a lot of different things--another video game, another search engine, another social network--but strict _need_ is not why we do things. Why was it so important for you to leave this sort of dismissive comment? ~~~ jakub_g Agree with the parent. Regarding yarn, it was created because npm started showing weaknesses in many things, with large and complex dependency trees: install was slow, sometimes unreliable and not cross-platform portable, and the codebase was difficult to refactor due to legacy code and backward compatibility, so it made more sense to create a new package manager without that burden and try to iteratively align with npm to become a drop-in replacement. It's easy to fall into the fatigue due to new languages, tools etc. coming out each week but please think twice before posting dismissive comments like that. I observe a lot of "I don't read HN anymore" sentiment lately among top tech Twitter users, partially due to that. There's a lot of awesome stuff being given out for free and people are whining. (Yes, I'm a bit tired of constantly following and evaluating things, but I keep it for myself.) The situation came to the point where some guys are thinking about _not opensourcing their tools_ anymore due to constant criticism and maintenance fatigue. Read the two links below (accidentally, the first one is from yarn co-author!): [https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/879282797915119616](https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/879282797915119616) [https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to- be-...](https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open- source-maintainer/) ~~~ moron4hire I've seriously thought about it myself, shutting off and going back to closed software. I've had my software praised one week as innovative and awesome, to the next week being "yet another example of what is wrong with these young developers and their JavaScript" (I'm 35, I've been programming for 20 years). All here on HN. I won't even touch Reddit anymore. ~~~ oblio Have fun writing it and using it and/or make money from it. Nothing else really matters...

FreeBSD Bhyve WiFi PCI Passthrough - dddddaviddddd https://www.davidschlachter.com/misc/t480-bhyve-wifi-pci-passthrough ====== Seenso That's interesting, but wouldn't it make more sense to have a compatibility system that would allow Linux drivers to be used? Apparently there's one for Windows drivers: [https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ndisgen&sektion=8](https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ndisgen&sektion=8)

New Facebook rollout commences - sanj http://blog.new.facebook.com/blog.php?post=30074837130 ====== furiouslol I guess I'm one of the crazy guys out there who prefer the old design. The nice Newsfeed aside, i find the redesign unintuitive.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh):Hydrazine - rolph https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0329.html ====== chupa-chups Interesting, but way more information is found on wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrazine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrazine)

Fordlandia - codyjames https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fordlandia/ ====== nimbius Ah the paragon of american assembly line manufacturing, Henry Ford. As a millennial its taken me a while to get the real dirt on the guy, as in america highschools extol only his virtue. Did you know Ford had his own secret police after he doubled the salary of his workforce? To qualify for his doubled salary, the worker had to be thrifty and continent. He had to keep his home neat and his children healthy, and, if he were below the age of twenty-two, to be married. he created a division within the Ford Motor Company to keep everyone in line. It was known as the Ford Sociological Department Henry Ford’s paternalism even extended the point where you needed the company’s permission if you wanted to buy a car, which included a requirement to be married and have children. [https://jalopnik.com/when-henry-fords-benevolent-secret- poli...](https://jalopnik.com/when-henry-fords-benevolent-secret-police-ruled- his-wo-1549625731) ~~~ shard972 How much of those policies Ford was implienting can be attributed to the culture of the time? I understand in today's culture such a pushing of family values is pretty much illegal but i wonder how many other companies at the time had similar kinds of policies. ~~~ eecc Adriano Olivetti, although much later in time didn’t hoist his demands on the workforce. He did lay out a huge amount of benefits that nobody in it’s right mind would complain about though... yet most of this drive died with him, as the rest of the Italian industrials preferred confrontation and stashing of their material proceedings abroad in Switzerland... perhaps it had something to do with the witchunt against anything remotely Socialist ------ Kronopath The part of the article that starts with this paragraph is particularly enlightening: > In implementing his vision, Ford faced cultural and climactic obstacles. > People in Brazil were, for instance, used to working in the early morning, > then taking a break during the hottest parts of the day, and later coming > back to work. This didn’t fit with Ford’s ideal nine-to-five workday. Also, > back in the States, Ford had created an industrial system where workers > could actually afford to buy the products they made, but in the Amazon there > wasn’t that much to buy. “There was no consumer society within the Amazon so > they didn’t actually need the high wages that Ford was promising,” Grandin > elaborates. So “they would work a few weeks or a few months and then they > would disappear and … go back into the jungle to work their plots, to > produce their own food, and maybe they come back the following year, and > this would drive the Ford managers mad.” Ford’s turnover-reducing strategies > didn’t work in Amazon like they had in Detroit. This is a great example of how _you can 't just transplant a culture_ and expect it to work flawlessly. Cultures evolve to fit the environment that surrounds them, and attempting to blindly copy things that worked in one environment, and assuming they'll work in another, is folly. ------ oxymoron Rob Dunn also tells the story of Fordlandia in Never out of Season ([https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/031626072X](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/031626072X)). It’s a quick and interesting read of why we need crop diversity, and has a couple of really interesting cautionary tales. The most enticing one to me was the story of how Cassava was saved from disaster in Africa. Somehow a certain mealybug crossed over from Cassavas native range in South America, and free from its one antagonists, it spread like wildfire and threatened the sustenance of millions. A few lone researchers tracked down the native habitat of the mealy bug in Peru, and identified a certain wasp that only prayed on that specific mealybug. They managed to introduce it Africa, thereby potentially saving millions from starvations. Dunn’s case for crop diversity is all in all pretty compelling. I try to pitch it when I get the chance, because it deserves more attention! ~~~ nabeards Oh how quickly the blight would destroy the rubber trees of Southeast Asia... ------ Myrmornis The photos make it look like it's ruined today, but it's a fairly normal small central Amazonian town. There are nice beaches on the banks of the Tapajós nearby. The roads aren't great in the rainy season. ~~~ gordon_freeman I would have appreciated this article more if author were to add more photos of the well-functioning small town it has today . ------ madez > biopiracy What a load of. The privatization and capitalization of literally _everything_ is crazy. I despise companies like Nestlé for trying to capitalize common goods like drinking water. This obsession on the one-dimensional metric of money makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. ~~~ hueving There is a legitimate argument behind treating water as a market good like anything else. There is an incredible amount of waste due to water rights in California (e.g. Almond growing during droughts) because water isn't sold in an auction. We obviously need some token amount guaranteed for drinking water. But the rest used for industrial and farming purposes should be auctioned by the government. ~~~ madez I see the problems you describe, but if you sell the rights in auctions you once again boil it down to the one-dimensional metric of money. I think not just how much one is willing to pay, but also what it'll be used for, is relevant. ------ jimmcslim I can recommend Jóhann Jóhannsson's Fordlandia [1] (also responsible for the soundtrack to Arrival, and sadly recently deceased) as worth a listen, inspired by the Fordlândia experiment. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordlandia_(album)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordlandia_\(album\)) ~~~ tomjakubowski Oh no, I hadn't heard Jóhannsson had died. What a terrible loss. I'll be listening to IBM 1401, A User's Manual tonight. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBw_wSoVQrY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBw_wSoVQrY) ------ 8bitsrule I liked the part where, thanks to Ford's Rules, a small off-property island nearby hosted a bar and sex workers. Also the enforcement of the 8-4 shift, despite workers being used to avoiding the hottest hours of the day. ------ emmelaich Previously discussed with respect to a Guardian article here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12324004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12324004) ------ mberning Milton Hershey did something very similar in Cuba. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in- cubas-h...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/in-cubas- hershey-where-an-american-experiment-ended-bitterly-hopes- stir/2015/05/05/87d40942-e84d-11e4-8581-633c536add4b_story.html?utm_term=.9b78ccd016ba) ------ ateesdalejr Oh, brave new world. ~~~ Covzire I didn't know much about Henry Ford when I read that book so I was a little amused at first that he would be a central background character of a futuristic novel. About halfway through I read parts of his biography and things clicked. Great book by the way. ------ Stratoscope > _Ford hadn’t bothered to learn anything about botany or agronomy before > embarking on his Fordlândia experiment. He didn’t trust the kinds of experts > that could’ve warned him what he was getting into. In fact, he didn’t trust > experts at all — he was a figure-it-out type, skeptical of fancy educations > and titles._ > _Rubber trees had never been grown in the Amazon in the way that the Ford > company was trying to grow them: in dense plantations, with trees planted in > tight rows. This growing style might have worked in the Southeast Asian > plantations run by the Europeans, but that’s because the bugs there hadn’t > evolved to eat rubber. In Brazil, this density ended up creating an > environment where the native bugs that fed on rubber trees thrived. > Basically, Ford built a giant bug incubator, where close proximity helped > pests and blight spread._ > _Strangely enough, despite all of the time and money he invested in > Fordlândia, [Henry Ford] never actually went to visit it himself. He had > orchestrated the whole fiasco from his home, thousands of miles away, in > Michigan._ This sounds like a few present-day startups, such as the one I read about here a few years ago. Someone in SF met a fellow developer, and the conversation went something like this: "You work at a startup? Neat! What does the company do?" "We're disrupting parking." "Oh, that's very cool. So you've run a parking lot or worked at one, and that's given you some better ideas on how to run it?" "No, we haven't done any of that. You have to understand, we're not interested in doing things the old way. We're _disrupting_ parking!" ~~~ please_choose Garrett Camp never ran a taxi company. Bill Gates never ran a computer business. Etc. All them did know the problem they were solving though. Previous knowledge of running a parking lot is not causal with startup failure. I think a better way to be critical is the fact that they say they're "disrupting" parking lots, but can't describe the problem they're solving. ~~~ Buge >Bill Gates never ran a computer business. Yes he did. >At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.[1] And the idea that someone needs to have run a computer business in the past in order to run a computer business in the future is illogical. It means that no one would ever be able to start running a computer business. The requirement should not be running a business in the past, but having some experience with that type of business in the past. Bill Gates had tons of computer experience. [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates) ~~~ please_choose "It means that no one would ever be able to start running a computer business. The requirement should not be running a business in the past, but having some experience with that type of business in the past. Bill Gates had tons of computer experience." Thanks for helping me make my point. Also, I didn't say "Bill Gates" and "Microsoft". You're right, Traf-O-Data was a "modest success". It reinforces my point. ~~~ emodendroket Right, who could forget the epoch-making work of Traf-O-Data. ~~~ please_choose Since when is success dependent on the amount of people in the world that know about it? ------ RickJWag At the time, I'm sure Ford's ideas were considered very progressive and a gift to the indigenous people. Today, he's the target of a critical article like this one. (There's more criticism of Winston Churchill on HN today, too.) My theory is that the world has become so prosperous (at least parts of it) that people have no idea what's good and what's not any more. ~~~ emodendroket Perhaps if you were, say, Indian, you'd feel less favorably disposed to Churchill, even if you did not live a life of opulence. You don't have to agree with someone else's perspective to be able to understand it.

Why Television Still Shines in a World of Screens - robg http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/business/media/08digi.html ====== ars Such a strange article considering that nearly all of the web is text. The vast majority of internet time is spent reading. ~~~ gojomo _vast majority of internet time is spent reading_ Under a certain age, that may not be true anymore. ~~~ jerf This should be the subject of a study. (Not being sarcastic.) I for one read much more and much more widely on the Internet than I ever did offline, but am I the future or am I a sport? It's an important question. ~~~ pgebhard I agree with you. I certainly feel that I read a lot online now, but so much of it is in small bursts. I find it hard now to maintain decent concentration while trying to read long documents/books offline.

Ask HN: When will apple update their native apps? - davidmspi ====== pdenya Native apps receive updates during OS upgrades.

Why You Should Ignore Every Founder’s Story About How They Started Their Company - howitworks https://medium.com/@trevmckendrick/what-reed-hastings-sam-walton-can-teach-you-about-how-to-start-a-company-d38cfe0eafce ====== randomerr Best line: The lesson is that there will be mistakes and problems on any path to success. My wife and found that out while trying to start our restaurant. If you're thinking of starting business I would get with a group like SCORE ([https://www.score.org/](https://www.score.org/)) or contact a college to find an incubator. ------ rmason Pretty much also explains after his early setback why Sam later didn't feel bad for any department stores WalMart put out of business.

Computing Shortest Path in O(1) time - bjt2n3904 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLeWBswGgOE ====== meursault334 Is this actually O(1)? Because the electricity has to to travel the shortest path it seems like it is at best O(shortest path length). The constant factor is of course very small. ------ 8note if you have to wire thousands of LEDs, it will take significantly longer to setup the problem, and I think that should factor into the time complexity

A Stanford-born company is equipping India’s youth for well-paid tech jobs - happy-go-lucky https://qz.com/1061133/no-university-needed-udacity-a-stanford-born-company-is-equipping-indias-youth-for-well-paid-tech-jobs/ ====== happy-go-lucky Looks like sponsored content :$