Breonna Taylor case: Louisville police nearly blank incident report - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/10/breonna-taylor-case-louisville-police-nearly-blank-incident-report/5335929002/ <comment><USER2> USA Today has the best coverage of this I've seen. The NYT coverage of this is awful: [https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor- police.html](https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html)

A key fact is that the police shot Taylor after her boyfriend shot at the police, thinking they were intruders. While he was fully entitled to do that, the NYT doesn't believe in gun rights so that's a messy fact. To make the victim seem more sympathetic, the narrative under the heading "What Happened in Louisville?" doesn't mention Taylor's boyfriend shooting first. Instead, you need to go down several paragraphs to learn that fact. Which leaves the whole article deeply confused: at first you think police just started shooting for no reason, and then later you learn they shot because they were fired upon. Which of course leaves the reader with little understanding of what police actually did wrong. Were they not supposed to shoot back when Taylor's boyfriend shot at them? Is that the problem?

Obviously nobody expects the police not to shoot back when fired upon. What the police did wrong, instead, is failing to respect black peoples' second and fourth amendment rights. This happened in Kentucky, where if you barge into someone's house in the middle of the night you can expect to get shot. Police barging into people's homes in the middle of the night unannounced is fundamentally incompatible with what the Constitution and Kentucky law gives homeowners the right to do: shoot at intruders in their home. And as such the practice of serving these no-knock warrants is an infringement of that right. It leads to tragic consequences under predictable circumstances where homeowners are just exercising their rights. And of course, it's doubtful that officers display the same callousness to the possibility of armed homeowners when it comes to policing white neighborhoods. It's another one in a long pattern of cases where black people are murdered for daring to exercise their second amendment rights.

<comment><USER3> context: I am a super liberal hippy. I'm really left, like, crazy.

I paused reading your comment at "instead you need to go down several" because I wanted to test my current knowledge of this incident: almost nothing, I know, hard to believe, given the claim at the start. (I've been under a lot of stress at work, it's OK, I'm fine, thanks for asking though :) )

So I read the article... Here is the first paragraph under "What happened in Louisville?"

"Shortly after midnight on March 13, Louisville police officers, executing a search warrant, used a battering ram to crash into the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American emergency room technician. After a brief confrontation, they fired several shots, striking her at least eight times."

OK - so, I feel like I completely understand this is a complicated situation, not one where the cops kicked down the door and started shooting.

1\. "After a brief confrontation"

This is an obvious "and cut-to," that is, I know lots of stuff happened here. I would expect a reader who isn't completely engulfed in polarizing furor to think about this for a second like I did.

2\. Gunshots after a confrontation

I think this might be contentious, or where this is all loaded up... When I see "a confrontation" followed by "eight gunshots" \- I actually do assume there was some reason that a reasonable gun toting police offer might have to fire after a confrontation. To me, this sets a pretty clear context.

Let me add some more that came in later paragraphs that helped crystalize my understanding and leaves me feeling like the article here isn't really as biased as you are reading it as, though, I am not accusing you of being biased, or misreading the article. I can't begin to know all the things that contribute to your thinking, and vice-versa!

3\. no-knock warrant

While this all sounded like a completely legal entry, and a normal police procedure, here are my personal "let me add some context to how I interpret this" thoughts.

\- If I were a POC (I'm not), multiple plain-clothed white men with guns just stormed into my apartment. This is immediately tense. Imagine how you would react. What's going through your mind as a civilian? Keep in mind, police should be trained to do a no-knock warrant. They should be experienced and cool as a cucumber. I want this in our operators who go into dangerous situations, in fact, I expect it. You can train for danger. There is no excuse for imprecision when you are dealing with life and death, especially if, when doing it, you aren't planning to deal with life or death.

4\. Her home was searched not because of an actual crime she committed, but because it was a _possible_ drop-off location for a package involved in a crime.

This feels really weak. Investigate the location then. Stake it out. Find your target and gather more evidence. This sounds rushed, and desperate. Storming an intermediate source of evidence rather than waiting for a better opportunity? Welp, it's not my job so I honestly don't know. I'm not in law enforcement so opinions are like assholes, right?

So in summary?

I think NYT speaks to a reader who is open-minded and understands that context is important, and that these subjects are complex. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit? If someone can walk away from the article with your point of view, I must be, time to think about that.

If anyone broke down my door, I would attack them. If I had a gun, I would shoot them, I wouldn't think twice. I sit here, and have no reason to believe someone should kick in my door unless they mean me harm. Let me grant other people the same right.

I expect police to be professional. The details on how this went down are not professional. It think that is safe to say simply because of the outcome.

The police were executing a warrant for a bad person who was not the person who died. How can we accept that they were in control of the situation, and if we cannot, or we think they couldn't have been, why would we send people into such a situation?

I am very flexible when it comes to granting authorities protections and flexibility in interpreting the law. I actually, for most of my life, have had faith in the system. I can imagine a scenario where I think many objective individuals would agree a no-knock warrant would make sense, so I can agree that they might be useful. I can also agree that ill-equipped people given tools they don't comprehend, or are not thoughtful enough, or well trained enough to use, will ultimately abuse and/or misuse them.

<comment><USER4> Still, would you agree that the wording of the article tries to create an impression that the police fired first, and tries to downplay the fact that the boyfriend fired first?

I do not disagree that the police was wrong to storm the place, but I think that given the well-known bias of NYT, they are trying to create more rage in the community by creating an impression that the police fired first.

<comment><USER5> Exactly this. The single most important question with a shootout is "Who fired the first shot?" The Times clearly misleads the reader to think the police fired first after a "brief confrontation," only later to reveal that this confrontation was the police being shot at by the boyfriend. The fact that the Times did not report the sequence of shots in that straightforward way (in the purportedly dispassionate "What Happened..." section of the article) indicates their clear bias.

<comment><USER3> I think this question becomes more complex when it includes "who fired the first shot when plainclothesed men break down a door into an apartment at midnight where there is a legal gun-owner"

1\. They should have known a legal gun owner was present. What would anyone expect a gun-owner to do when their home is broken into? Hasn't Charlton Heston said something about all this?

2\. They should have been trained and prepared to execute their warrant under these conditions with a plan for mitigating loss of life, especially since the suspects in the crime were already arrested, and none were thought to be present at the address. None of the people at the address were suspected of criminal activity, and no drugs, or criminal paraphernalia were found. The stakes of the raid were not justified in my opinion - but I of course, do not have all the facts, but I feel like I have enough to make these statements.

I absolutely will not accept "who shot first" that's absurd.

<comment><USER2> To clarify, I'm not denying that the Taylor's boyfriend had the right to shoot first. My point is that the NYT _readers_ generally don't believe in the right to bear arms, or for armed homeowners to shoot at intruders. If you reject that premise, it becomes much harder to understand why the police did something wrong. That's why the NYT buries that fact instead of reporting it in the straightforward chronological order.

<comment><USER3> What should the NYT have said, and what forms your opinion of how NYT readers interpret an article like this? Personally, I don't think I could even get anecdata on people I know based on their primary news source.

<comment><USER6> > After a brief confrontation, they fired several shots, striking her at least > eight times.

To

Breonna's boyfriend fearing for his safety fired several shots at the plain- clothed men who had just broken into his home. These police officers returned fired, striking Breonna at least eight times.

When most people read "Kenneth got into a brief confrontation with John. John then fired four rounds at Kenneth." they will assume brief confrontation means "shouting and cursing match" or "physical altercation" not "fired a gun at".

<comment><USER3> That's fair. I think there are a lot of ways to interpret how one person or another can... interpret this... with that said, my stance has been clear on the balance of power in this kind of situation.

Your home, your legally owned gun, your panic and chaos, you shoot. I would do the same, I would not be surprised that others did the same.

Expectation of professionalism, and de-escalation is on the regulated authority with power and accountability. If they were well trained, and made a calculated risk for an important case, they may be justified. From all that I can find, it seems clear to me that the police acted unprofessionally, and anything past that is not really a factor until that unprofessional behavior is addressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Feels like this incident is even more egregious than the George Floyd incident. In this case the police actually tried to frame the boyfriend, and probably would have gotten away with murder and convicting an innocent person if not for national attention

<comment><USER8> I agree, but video and a simple narrative goes a long way to getting support.

Breonna's case has the following disadvantages: many Americans are willing to give LEOs benefit of the doubt when there is no video, it's "the word of the police versus a suspected criminal", the police union's hitpiece[1] in the media, and the slow wheels of the legal ("justice") system to investigate the facts which are never fully known in the media within days of an incident.

[1] [https://www.wdrb.com/in-depth/louisville-police-fop- presiden...](https://www.wdrb.com/in-depth/louisville-police-fop-president- disgusted-by-metro-councilwoman-statements-in-breonna-taylor- case/article_b4f80758-9b84-11ea-86b1-8b4ad95e2ce3.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recently led the project completely rewriting the incident reporting system for one of the top 3 (by size) police departments in the country. This report wouldn't have even come close to passing client-side (or server-side for that matter) validations upon submission. An incident classified as a death with no medical information submitted? Usually the systems have some basic checks in place to ensure that, for example, if a theft occurred, property marked as stolen is present in the report. Likewise for any incident with some sort of physical harm: there's always a medical incident listed too. And a (nearly) blank narrative?! Even if that's due to Louisville PD policy, it still wouldn't have flown in the city I worked in. A simple assault (not battery, no injury) on public transit where the offender ran away and nobody could identify them would've produced a more thorough report than this one.

If this is standard in Louisville and there are no safeguards in their reporting software, stringent incident reporting software ought to be added to the list of reforms we ask of them.

<comment><USER10> The nearly blank narrative is listed under the header "public narrative". Many departments use this to separate out the actual narrative from what can be immediately provided to the public (often just a sentence or two). So, there's a possibility the full narrative was withheld as it's an active investigation.

It's also not uncommon practice for initial report narratives to be somewhat anemic when the follow-up investigation is immediate. Homicides being a perfect example where, in many agencies, all the useful details beyond "found dead guy" are in the murder book (i.e. case notes) outside of RMS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This deserves state and/or federal investigations...

EDIT:

Contrast: In Washington State, an investigation about the death in Tacoma a couple months ago was just this mentioned in a news conference by the governor. Due to conflicts of interest the state is currently evaluating who can be assigned to lead a fully independent and unbiased investigation, with new announcements expected in the next few days.

<comment><USER12> The Louisville PD and the FBI have both announced investigations and the officers involved are on paid leave. Historically, that hasn't generally produced much in the way of prosecutions. Maybe in the current climate things will be different.

<comment><USER13> The concept of paid leave has always puzzled me. This would be my choice of punishment if I am ever given a choice.

<comment><USER14> Paid leave isn't meant to be a punishment. There is some expectation that police officers will inherently be involved in controversial activities that will require further investigation, some of which may legitimately reveal that the cop did nothing wrong. Paid leave is supposed to be a compromise to remove cops from active duty during the investigation (in case they are guilty, we don't want them still roaming the street potentially doing bad things) but also not be a punishment (in case they aren't guilty).

The problem is that said investigations always seem to drag their feet, never going further than the paid leave, and never seem to actually get to the things that _are_ meant to be a punishment (firing, arrest, etc).

<comment><USER15> Arrest should be made nevertheless, on the grounds of possible witness intimidation. I'm not saying that they do it all the time, but the power dynamics allow it to happen, so the best approach for a crystal clear investigation is to have the officers removed from the community that is investigating them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I find it very telling about the state of policing in the US when the law enforcement community knows they have the world's eyes on them, and they have the audacity to put that someone who was killed had 0 injuries. It doesn't help that the cops had the wrong address, and the person they were looking for was already in custody.

<comment><USER17> Or the fact that they were serving a no-knock warrant. The only reason for a no-knock warrant is to prevent destruction of evidence, which means, practically, flushing drugs down the toilet. Well, if this kind of situation is the result of no-knock raids in society, I'm fine with missing some convictions because drugs got flushed. No-knock raids shouldn't exist. Neither should the "war on drugs."

In this case, they were supposedly looking for a person. They would have surrounded the place. It's not like he could have vanished into thin air between the time they knocked and then had to force their way in. No-knock raids should never be used for arrest warrants anyway! It's insane to think that supposedly responsible, intelligent representatives in our government have led us to the legal situation under which this occurred in the first place.

<comment><USER18> It wasn't a no knock warrant, though. They said they announced themselves. They obviously lied, but this lie exposed the truth that the raid was their own initiative for their own reasons. The lame warrant story is likely meant to hide the more nefarious truth that there are rogue cops roaming around and raiding random apartments as they see fit. Basically, police no longer needs to consult with courts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _" Louisville public agencies [refused] to release records underlying the Taylor case, including the incident report, 911 calls made in the incident and Taylor's autopsy report.

"The city has since released Walker's 911 call — but only after an attorney for Taylor's family gave it to news media hours earlier."_

That 911 call can be heard here: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/28/breonn...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/28/breonna- taylor-shooting-911-call-details-aftermath-police-raid/5278227002/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Injuries: none

Forced Entry: no

<comment><USER21> And this is what will be recorded in the official statistics about police use of force. Wonder what else isn't in there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Scribd link to the report (as much as I hate Scribd, I haven't found a better direct source): [https://www.scribd.com/document/465105285/Breonna-Taylor- Inc...](https://www.scribd.com/document/465105285/Breonna-Taylor-Incident- Report#fullscreen&from_embed)

Some "amusing" notes (and by "amusing" I mean "horrifying" and/or "the entirety of the LMPD should be fired and prohibited from ever working for a law enforcement agency again"):

\- "Forced Entry: N" (today I learned breaking down a door and shooting people is somehow not "forced entry")

\- "Bias Motivation: None (No Bias)" ( _cough cough_ bullshit _cough cough_ )

\- "Public Narrative: PIU Investigation" (wow, real descriptive there)

Can't really comment on much else given that it's entirely devoid of information.

</comment><comment><USER23> What happened to "THIS IS THE POLICE, OPEN UP" along with banging the door?

The only situation where I understand a no-knock warrant is like when the police is actually targeting someone's computer and don't want to go through all the hustle of cracking the password.

<comment><USER24> But they were in plain clothes anyway. Any gangster could knock and announce themselves as being the police.

<comment><USER25> At least the gangsters would announce themselves, on your scenario.

<comment><USER26> So you could tell if they're police by the fact that they didn't knock. Brilliant! :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Incident report: [https://www.scribd.com/document/465105285/Breonna-Taylor- Inc...](https://www.scribd.com/document/465105285/Breonna-Taylor-Incident- Report)

</comment><comment><USER28> The body camera footage has not been released by the police that killed Duncan Lemp.

</comment><comment><USER29> The highest authority in the country directed police to dominate the public. This is how they dominate the public: fear, intimidation, the deployment of chemical weapons and physical violence against crowds, the 3 AM knock on the door. Next come the targeted killings, roving death squads, and the mothers of the disappeared protesting in public squares. It's alomost like an international standard being followed to the letter. Will no one rid us of the meddlesome priest?

The poor police were just following orders.

<comment><USER30> Still hoping I won't have to reevaluate my amateur Brandenberg analysis: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349804](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23349804) (the US military is now even less of a concern, but I'd forgotten about all the other groups in-country, awash in small arms and light weapons)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why is it acceptable to edit the headlines on HN, especially to something nonsensical like this?

Original: Louisville police release the Breonna Taylor incident report. It's nearly blank

HN: Breonna Taylor case: Louisville police nearly blank incident report

</comment><comment><USER32> what does this have to do about tech?

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't want to be charitable to the police, but this situation is a strange one.

If they were trying to bust a drug smuggling ring, it sounds like maybe there was parallel construction afoot. In other words, they may have been acting according to a supply of information beyond that which would ever be presented to the public, and could not be used to support a prosecution.

Reading between the lines, there's a hint that her role as an EMT put her in contact with pharmaceuticals that could be siphoned from channels of legal medical authority, as she was an insider. That, as an insider, she may have been a sacrifice by illegal operators, or that parallel construction would be the only way to parry criminals that could have access to insider tip offs that allow them to perpetually dodge getting caught.

This raises the spectre whereby, maybe there's more than one layer of misdirection, so where do you draw the line? How would you know whether the murder itself wasn't an internal turf war among rival corrupt operators using the aegis of authority?

If she was a medical operator, acting as a relay runner from an official position of trust, for a smuggling ring, we'll never know.

But the one other angle that bothers me is: maybe they were digital patsies. If the police used digital/mobile device sources of intel to determine that these were crooked operators, would they know or care if these were just regular people who had their devices targeted for squatting in caches and slack space, and remote relay/exit operations? Would it be believable that a sophisticated matador practice could be employed as warning canary devices, so the real operators could throw a kill switch, if their canary croaks?

Hard to say...

The police would use a no-knock warrant if they were corrupt. Or if they thought they had the real target. But they could be made to believe a false target is authentic. I don't think we have dirty cops operating a no-knock death squad. Which means they probably believed they were taking down a legitimate suspect.

That only leaves open 2 possibilities by my count: She and her associates had compromised devices and were being used as canaries by real criminals, or they were the criminals.

The one probable vindicator is if knocking her link from the chain of smuggling relays should have an outwardly observable effect on some unknown portion of the black market. If a drought is induced, could it be that her death disrupted the distribution of drugs? Probably not a crime punishable by death, but this would point to a rational reason to have been seeking her arrest.

Meanwhile, there's probably enough noise introduced by pandemic lockdowns, and the notoriety of the press and media attention, that these other circumstances could play an outsized role in causing a drought in black market drug availability on their own.

Furthermore, in some cases, drug gangs are so powerful that one cannot discount the idea that any such gang that might operate canaries might also retain muckraking journalists with bribes, who might even work for payment in access to drugs. At that level of paranoia, you have to believe this may even be full spectrum warfare, involving very powerful transnational entities, and that this is akin to covert warfare.

<comment><USER34> fucking racist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> and not a single shred of evidence it was racially motivated rather than an accident having to do with the fact that her boyfriend shot a police officer

<comment><USER36> Just, Devil's Advocate, but do you think the accident could have been the police kicking in the door of the wrong apartment? The boyfriend shooting at the police does not seem accidental, nor does it seem in any way wrong to my mind. If the officers had kicked in the door of the right apartment, the boyfriend would not have tried to take the officers out. Again, a completely appropriate and well reasoned response in my own opinion.

If you enter private property forcibly, you should expect to be shot at. If you shoot back while having forcibly gained illegal entry to private property, you've committed a crime. It seems fairly open and shut to me. The only hold up is police and court system corruption along with a healthy dose of good old fashioned racism. Again, just my opinion.

<comment><USER35> i agree with what you said. the entire ordeal was an accident on both sides but my question remained. is there a shred of evidence it was racially motivated since it's getting lumped in with BLM

<comment><USER36> That's not what I said. The responsibility for the entire ordeal falls squarely, and solely, on the police. It was not "on both sides". It is not an accident, nor in any way inappropriate, for a man to defend his woman from illegal armed intruders. So the boyfriend made no mistakes at all, and committed no crimes.

You seem to be attempting to put forth a narrative that the boyfriend somehow made a mistake. Probably in some misguided attempt to support the police in this incident. But you're not helping the cause of LEO's right now. You're actually doing enormous harm to it. When you make mistakes you admit it, you hold people accountable, and then you fix the issues that lead to the mistake. That inspires confidence. The response of you and the Louisville PD and court system inspires not only lack of trust and lack of confidence, but also widespread animosity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is sensationalist nonsense.

The narrative is mostly blank because the media probably couldn't get the full narrative as it's an ongoing investigation and thus not subject to open records. It looks like they only got the public narrative [1] which simply states "PIU Investigation" and are pretending to be shocked. In any case, you would expect most details to be contained in supplements or the case file, not the initial incident report narrative.

The forced entry checkbox and injuries only have meaning in the context of an offense and "Death Investigation" isn't a reportable offense or incident, it's just a placeholder. When they have a finding (justifiable or criminal homicide) then they'll either complete a supplement or generate a new incident which will need to have certain flags and drop-down options set correctly for reporting.

That any of this is being used as some sort of evidence of a cover-up is ridiculous.

[1] [https://www.scribd.com/document/465105285/Breonna-Taylor- Inc...](https://www.scribd.com/document/465105285/Breonna-Taylor-Incident- Report)

<comment><USER37> > The narrative is mostly blank because the media probably couldn't get the > full narrative as it's an ongoing investigation and thus not subject to open > records.

It's not "the narrative", it's the incident report.

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that you are correct that they aren't obligated to release the incident report. But they _did_ release the incident report, presumably as a pretense of transparency and/or good will. The fact that it is basically blank shows that the pretense is just that, a pretense.

> In any case, you would expect most details to be contained in supplements or > the case file, not the initial incident report narrative.

I would expect the incident report to report the incident. This isn't confusing.

Your argument here is basically, "Oh don't worry, that's just the report with the lies--the report with the truth exists somewhere, you'll get to see it eventually!" But that's no less damning: why is there a report with lies on it, and why is the report with the lies on it the only one the public gets to see?

If you're arguing that not reporting the incident in the incident report, or not having transparency, are police norms, I won't disagree with you there, but that's a huge problem.

<comment><USER10> > But they did release the incident report, presumably as a pretense of > transparency and/or good will.

No argument here; either release useful information or don't.

> Your argument here is basically, "Oh don't worry, that's just the report > with the lies--the report with the truth exists somewhere, you'll get to see > it eventually!"

Forced Entry doesn't mean what people think it means and is probably correct on the report. As for selecting 'None' for injuries on the victim of a homicide, it sounds like the program that prints the report did that on its own (obviously needs to be fixed as computers shouldn't be adding words to official reports). I don't think it's fair to call these things "lies" or use them as the basis for conspiracy theories as others here have.

> If you're arguing that not reporting the incident in the incident report, or > not having transparency, are police norms, I won't disagree with you there, > but that's a huge problem.

I would argue that restricting public access to complete police reports related to active investigations is both a norm and serves a legitimate state interest (protects the integrity of investigations). I would also argue that once the case is indicted/closed, it should be made available to the public for inspection.</comment></comment></comment>


The story of the Jewish codebreakers who helped win the war - <AUTHOR> https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/features/jewish-codebreakers-who-help-ed-win-the-war-1.431345 <comment><USER2> I sit uncomfortably with the article's emphasis on a specific ethnicity. Great things were done at Bletchley during the war, and I think there is a good argument that diversity (or should we say lack of anti-diversity?) was helpful.

This is a great documentary on the lorenz cipher[1][2] (sadly fairly garbled to avoid it being taken down - though doesn't seem like you can buy it either), which was a more secure encryption method than enigma and didn't require an operator. It was thought to be unbreakable by Nazi high command, and the breaking of it has only recently been declassified.

The documentary points out the diversity at Bletchley - race, country, gender, disability and sexual orientation, which was quite the opposite to the Nazi's intelligence employment requirements.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0l8aAOiJI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0l8aAOiJI)

[2][http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00l9j0v](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00l9j0v)

<comment><USER3> It's not about the ethnicity, it was about people who were reading secret Nazi massages about mass murder of their own people, quite possibly their own relatives and not been able to talk to anyone outside about it .

<comment><USER4> exactly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What an interesting story and credits those who may be missing from the general narrative of codebreakers in WW2.

The impact of breaking NAZI codes and learning about the murder of your people -- without being able to act -- is a terrifying position for any human to be in.

</comment><comment><USER6> On a related note, if you ever find yourself near the south of Baltimore, the National Cryptologic Museum at NSA is free, open to the public, and absolutely fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER7> Jewish scientists were instrumental in the United States Manhattan project, where notable scientists such as Richard Feynman, Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, etc., made significant contributions to the discovery of the fission bomb.

<comment><USER8> And contributed to Bombing of Hiroshima or that point we blame politicians, military-industrial complex etc?

<comment><USER9> "It is with appreciation and gratefulness that I accept from you this scroll for the Los Alamos Laboratory, and for the men and women whose work and whose hearts have made it. It is our hope that in years to come we may look at the scroll and all that it signifies, with pride. Today that pride must be tempered by a profound concern. If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of the nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people of this world must unite or they will perish. This war that has ravaged so much of the earth, has written these words. The atomic bomb has spelled them out for all men to understand. Other men have spoken them in other times, and of other wars, of other weapons. They have not prevailed. There are some misled by a false sense of human history, who hold that they will not prevail today. It is not for us to believe that. By our minds we are committed, committed to a world united, before the common peril, in law and in humanity."

J. Robert Oppenheimer, Acceptance Speech, Army-Navy "Excellence" Award (16 November 1945)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting, I had no idea about this. I lament that this story went from #1 to #43 in no time; what happened?

</comment><comment><USER11> >Today, our strong partnership with our Israeli counterparts in signals intelligence is protecting people from terrorism as I write.

This article celebrates the intelligence / defense community which after just coming back from a trip to Israel & Palestine I feel obliged to add an asterisk to. What goes on in Israel under the pretense of security is horrifying to say the least. I don't mean to undermine the great accomplishments of the codebreakers. But I do want to address the modern context this article mentions.

Information on US-Israeli security coordination and how it transpires into police brutality in the U.S: [https://deadlyexchange.org/](https://deadlyexchange.org/)

General Israel-Palestine 101: [https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/israeli- palestinian-conflict...](https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/israeli-palestinian- conflict-101/)

<comment><USER11> If you're down-voting me, please explain why.</comment></comment>


Reddit no longer counts karma for self-posts - <AUTHOR> http://blog.reddit.com/2008/06/sorry-karma-whores.html

<comment><USER2> I hope the same isn't done for HN. The difference between self-posts in Reddit and HN is that the Ask YC/HN/PGs here stimulate good discussion and suggestions, not only useful to the original poster but to the rest of the community as well.

Although "karma doesn't mean anything!" if you post a good Ask YC/HN/PG and it has some good discussion and stuff in it, you should be rewarded with some points, just like if you post a good article.

</comment><comment><USER3> Too little, too late. This won't change Reddit. They might as well sell themselves to Digg and be done with it.

<comment><USER4> No doubt. I go reddit for the funny pictures section (it's my guilty time waster) but no more will I visit the other parts. And it's mostly b/c I hate the new interface moreso than other high-falutin' reasons. I have enough GreaseMonkey scripts installed to make the UX ok on the old reddit but this new interface is just too much for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The page seems deleted. Google's snippet tells me that it used to contain:

      Sorry, karma-whores.
      Thursday, June 26, 2008.
      We are no longer counting karma for self-posts. That is all.
      posted by david [ketralnis]

1) what happens on the internet stays on the internet

2) maybe the strong language plus it's removal means it wasn't an official post?</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a way to use Facebook events without using FB's main website? - <AUTHOR> I found myself on the verge of quitting Facebook a few times lately, but two things keep me from doing it. A) Messenger. Too many contacts tied to that. I've solved this with the standalone apps. B) Events. In the last two years I've found so many events from Facebook that I'm scared for my social real life if I'll quit. And no, I've tried to stay away from it as a trial and I've missed amazing nights and concerts.<p>I currently have no solution for B). Does anyone know if there's some app that singles out the event section of Facebook? Is that even possible with Facebook's APIs? <comment><USER2> Apparently there is a dedicated Facebook event app

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.S...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.Socal)

</comment><comment><USER2> I've been wanting this as well. I don't have a Facebook account so I rely on talking to close friends/coworkers in person but it's definitely lacking.

</comment><comment><USER3> You could just stop using all the other features. Ignore tag requests, ignore comments, disable notifications, etc. That's pretty much what I do at this point.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's hard. You get sucked in very easily. I was thinking about a platform that just uses the API to list events and that's it.</comment></comment>


Refreq – See the music, hear the images - <AUTHOR> http://refreq2.com

<comment><USER2> Nine Inch Nails did some really interesting experiments where they'd produce visuals on the spectrograms of their music [1].

It's almost like refreq is bringing the same concept to the masses. I love seeing how the simple distortions in the video create an eerie feel to an otherwise normal song. This looks like a REALLY cool product. I signed up.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(album)#Promotion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_\(album\)#Promotion)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> refreq is a free, open source software, an experimental project, which aims to open new ways to generate music, or new sound effects

With refreq, not only can you load music files into the program, but also images. But what does that mean?

Well, after you've imported an .mp3, the program first analyzes the track. Once the analysis is complete, the program can then draw its frequency spectrum -- or, in other words, the image of the music.

Once the image has been created, you can play it back with refreq -- and you can actually hear the original music play!

But instead of just exploring the image you've generated, you can now take that image and create a whole new sound. Just export it as a .png, manipulate it with your preferred image-editing software, like Photoshop, and then import it back into refreq.After you've explored your own generated image, try importing a different .png or jpg. See what different patterns sound like, maybe a mandala, the floor plan of your apartment...or even the Mona Lisa! Now you can listen to these images with refreq.

<comment><USER3> keep up the good work mate $$

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I was in college studying CS, music composition and Linguistics simultaneously (not the best plan it turns out) I dreamed of making this exact app. Thanks for this, it's amazing!</comment>


GPUs Mine Astronomical Datasets for Golden Insight Nuggets - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2018/04/16/gpus-mine-astronomical-datasets-for-golden-insight-nuggets/ <comment><USER2> At my university's astronomy dept we've developed gpu software and used it to discover many new objects in the kuiper belt. It's robust enough that it can also be used to detect airplanes.

[https://github.com/DiracInstitute/kbmod](https://github.com/DiracInstitute/kbmod)

<comment><USER3> That's really neat! What do you use for training data?

<comment><USER4> GPUs can do things besides machine learning. It uses a maximum likelihood estimator, so no training data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This makes me curious – remember back in the oughts where SETI@Home and Folding@Home were popular? Were those adapted for GPUs and saw a huge acceleration in calculations?

<comment><USER6> If distributed computing had a fraction of time on the millions of GPUs mining cryptocurrencies, I can't imagine how close we'd be to curing disease and finding ET.

<comment><USER7> Time for a cryptocurrency for F@H?

<comment><USER8> The problem of replacing the general purpose proof of work in cryptocurrencies (finding partial SHA256 collisions in the case of Bitcoin) with something more useful is that the attributes for a good PoW computation are hard to find in real world distributed problems.

In particular you want something a problem with the following attributes:

\- must derive somehow from the block data you're trying to mine, otherwise you could reuse your work for an different block and make double-spend attacks trivial. It's very important that once a new block is mined everybody else must start from scratch for the next one, otherwise you could "premine" an arbitrary number of blocks and later append them at an arbitrary position in the block "tree", potentially rewriting history.

\- difficulty should easily be modifiable to account for the current "hashrate" otherwise your blockrate will go whack as the amount of computing power available changes. It also means that you should be able ahead of time to guess the difficulty of a problem and the average amount of processing power required to solve it.

\- easy to validate: the nodes of the network should be able to check that the proof of work is valid using a tiny fraction of the computing power necessary to actually produce the proof (finding hash collisions is hard, verifying them is comparatively trivial).

\- doesn't require access to a centralized resource. If you need to connect to some central repository to fetch the work set then not everybody is on equal footing. You have a single point of failure and some miners could have privileged access to the work data.

It's very difficult to find real world problems that have all these attributes.

<comment><USER7> It wansn't a particularly serious suggestion, but thanks for the explanation.

<comment><USER8> Oh I took it very seriously because it's something I've given quite a lot of thought. I'm not a huge believer in cryptocurrencies but I would be a lot more optimistic about them if they weren't wasting so much energy. Harnessing all that processing power to do something useful would be amazing. Unfortunately so far the most useful PoW people have manage to implement are things like "compute very large prime numbers" which I suppose is mildly more useful than finding SHA256 collisions but not by a very large margin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can we please never use the phrase "data nuggets" again

<comment><USER10> I second that.

Also, leverage.

<comment><USER11> Why do I have a data lake if I can't leverage that for insight nuggets?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What was that Australian startup incubator/mentor site? - <AUTHOR>

A few days ago I saw an item on HM about an Aussie startup website.  Can't find it now - can anyone tell me what it was? <comment><USER2> <http://www.startmate.com.au/>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Whoops HM = HN = Hacker News</comment>


Microsoft Built a Robot That Tries to Guess Your Age - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/30/how-old-do-you-look-microsoft-built-a-robot-that-tries-to-guess-your-age/#.rzwl7w:R0Gl

<comment><USER2> Prior discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9466298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9466298)</comment>


Decorator: A responsive front-end framework - <AUTHOR> http://decorator.codable.org/layouts

<comment><USER2> I have an issue with the fact that the page itself isn't responsive.</comment>


President Obama on How Artificial Intelligence Will Affect Jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgL32wtgeXQ <comment><USER2> They mention that a lot of the jobs that might be displaced are some of the more skilled ones like doctors or lawyers, because those are tasks that machines can do well. I wonder if we'll see a weird shift where parents begin encouraging their kids to get involved with the arts rather than becoming a doctor, because it will be the more sound career choice?</comment>


Who Wants to Return to the Office? - <AUTHOR> Who wants to return to an office or do you prefer WFH?<p>If you prefer a hybrid, what % would you prefer in and out of the office? <comment><USER2> In a perfect world, it would be more hybrid (probably either 3 or 4 days at the office, the rest at home).

But, given the choice to stay at home or go back? I am having trouble saying that I miss the office. I never worked remote before this. I'm not sure our team's productivity is hurt, I'm saving tons of money on gas, and saving all the travel time as well. There is also a personal component - I just plain don't miss the office.

</comment><comment><USER3> I never want to go back to an office. At home, I set my hours. No commute. I can create my own setup, and not be forced either into open offices, nor "office furniture". I can work from my back yard, my recliner, or even my trampoline. I get work/life balance by simply living my life around my work... or working around my life, however you want to look at it.

<comment><USER4> All I need is a standing desk and I'm good

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 3 days at home for working on technical problems with less distractions.

2 days at the office to make higher level decisions with the team. Code reviews in person and planning out the next week's goals. Plus I get exercise riding to work...

</comment><comment><USER6> >> Who Wants to Return to the Office?

More like I want the kids to return to school :-)

<comment><USER7> +1

I'm quite happy with my home setup - dual monitors, window view, etc. I'd love a bit more quite though because I've got two kids running around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where did you get your furniture from? Anything missing from your setup you want?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Working from home has many benefits and I prefer it but I'm more than ready to return to the office. This entire WFH situation has made me realize that my coworkers are absolutely awful at communicating.

Absolute basic things like due dates are not communicated, attention to detail is slipping, responsiveness is low. Things I didn't have a problem with because I could just walk over to your desk ask you to explain something to me. Now I have the most difficult time wringing basic information out of people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you a manager of a certain job function like developers? It seems that managers are having a harder time

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good quiet office at a walking distance from my home, with dedicated desk spaces, dual monitors and respectful colleagues? - 100% office and 0% WFH.

My own pre-virus situation of having to take public tranport in a big city, "hot-desking" (basically not enough space for everyone and no assigned desks) and having to work from a laptop in the office - 60-40% split between office and WFH.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had the best of both worlds where I only had to go in once a week. I say "had to" but I enjoyed it. We made bigger decisions and become more cohesive as a team.

I can't wait for this to go back to normal.

</comment><comment><USER11> WFH is probably a 2x improvement in my quality of life and increases my productivity as well. Sure I miss out on the small interactions but that doesn't outweigh the benefits.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would strongly prefer some kind of hybrid model. To actually code or write something complex, WFH is great. But some interactions with colleagues just can't be replaced, even with slack and zoom.

The percentage should be flexible, depending on the current task and phase of the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it was a hybrid, I guess that would mean a smaller office would be needed by your company. Do you think that is an opportunity for companies to think about moving their office out of expensive city centers or you think it is still necessary to be centrally located for talent/client interactions?

</comment></comment><comment> non-entity Diverging from the majority here, but I prefer a hybrid solution, maybe about 50-50 where I can determine when or ad-hoc type wfh where I can do it whenever I feel like it. I've been wfh full time in the past and now during COVID-19, and I'm not a fan.

</comment><comment><USER13> I had an ideal flexible schedule. WFH was already an option, so I was spending 2-3 days in office and the others at home with no real fixed scheduled.

I miss the change of scenery. My WFH setup is great, but sick of being in the house 95% of the time.

</comment><comment><USER14> No, thanks. I like the current setup; Only go into office for HW issues. The team has got more done since all of us were forced to WFH. That whole "open office" env really does suck.

<comment><AUTHOR> What sucks about it?

<comment><USER15> try coding at Home Depot in the lumber section

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha - I imagine no good headphones could help with that. Damn sales guys...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 100% WFN since 2013: never want to go back.

<comment><AUTHOR> What did you hate about it?

<comment><USER16> I didn't hate it -- quite the contrary, I have quite enjoyed working in various offices, but working from home is better. Unlike some people, I find online interaction with people is fine. And I get much more flexibility and control over my life when I don't have to go somewhere else to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I do.</comment>


Comments work with https - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Is HN having SSL problems? Firefox is complaining that HN's SSL cert has not been verified. A screenshot can be seen here: [1]

It used to be fine up to today.

[1] - <http://img1.imagilive.com/0313/hn-cert-130311.png>

<comment><USER3> That is not the fingerprint I have.

<comment><USER2> Is news.ycombinator.com resolving to 126.96.36.199 for you as it is for me?

We may be looking at different servers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Chrome users - don't panik if the site looks ugly with https; It's supposed to look like this ;) [https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...](https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1342714)

<comment><USER5> If you want it to load the css/images, click the shield icon on the right side of the address bar and click the load button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wait. Since when has HN had https?

<comment><USER7> A very long time, AKA long enough that I can't remember how long ago it was when I updated my bookmarks to use https by default.

<comment><USER6> I can remember a number of times that people would complain that HN wasn't https / didn't have a certificate. Heh. Didn't realize that it was changed at some point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why did it take so long to support comment with https though?

<comment><USER5> I think this was in response to comments not working on the http (insecure) protocol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> it's fixed now.

</comment><comment><USER10> this css man, this css.

</comment><comment><USER11> Thanks!</comment>


The illicit drug trade in the United Kingdom (2007) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218141356/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/rdsolr2007.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> just stumbled over this pdf referenced in Narconomics, a book recently recommended in one of the threads on HN[1], and the pdf is full of goodies like this one from the book:

 _> The deal had been agreed, the drugs were ready for collection, and the funds had been rustled up. All that was needed was for the exchange to go ahead. The leader of the operation, a high-level dealer who specialized in importing cannabis and cocaine from mainland Europe to the United Kingdom, got the cash ready:

a fat bundle of £300,000 in used banknotes, equivalent to nearly half a million dollars. The notes were counted and handed over to the driver, whose job it was to travel to Belgium, meet the contact, and hand over the cash. That was when things started to go wrong. That amount of money in crisp banknotes is quite a thing to behold. So the driver decided to deal it out—spread it around and see how it looked. It was such an impressive sight that he couldn't keep it to himself, so he invited his girlfriend over to show it off. Later, speaking to researchers from the Home Office (Britain's security ministry) in his jail cell, the boss of the operation wearily explains how the plan unraveled. "The divvy decides it would be nice to lay the money on his bed, make mad passionate love to his seventeen-year-old girlfriend and photograph it." Taking intimate selfies with the loot was probably unwise. But it gets worse: as well as having a girlfriend, the driver also had a jealous wife. The following Saturday night, before the trip to Belgium, husband and wife were out on the town when they ran into the girlfriend, who was drunk. An argument erupted during which she decided to show the X-rated photos to the driver's wife, who was not exactly pleased. The wife decided to teach her cheating husband a lesson. Still enraged, she called the UK border police to tip them off about the upcoming drug run. The unwitting driver set off to Belgium with the £300,000 and was promptly stopped by customs officials at the port of Dover, before he had even left the country. Questioned by border agents about his big stash of cash, he cracked. "The numpty goes into meltdown," his boss sighs. The operation was blown, and the deal was off. To add insult to injury, the jealous wife—who herself had a £2,500 ($4,000)-a-week cocaine habit—came back to the boss a few months later, asking if her husband could have his job back._

[1] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Narconomics&sort=byPopularity&type=comment)

<comment><USER2> The dealer was from Liverpool, "divvy" is slang for idiot, from the Deva mental hospital in nearby Chester (Deva was the Latin name for the city of Chester).

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks I was familiar with "numpty" ... but divvy - never heard it :D</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to write a web app that will outlast the latest JS trends? - <AUTHOR> HN is rife with JS framework wars, comparisons, latest feature news, libraries of the week, etc. What are surefire strategies for building a web app that won't have to be completely rewritten in 2-3 years? If I choose to write a web app in AngularJS and then in 2 years the Web community decides to coalesce around the new latest and greatest framework, technology, then it seems like I'll be in a rut.<p>How do you write a modern web app and be sure it will still be maintainable in the 2-3 year time frame? <comment><USER3> _How do you write a modern web app and be sure it will still be maintainable in the 2-3 year time frame?_

There is no magic.

1\. Write your code using standard JavaScript, avoiding corner cases and features that aren't universally supported.

2\. Use libraries (you decide the architecture and when to call them) instead of frameworks (they establish the architecture and your code has to fit within it).

Neither of these is a new argument, it's just the usual trade-off with using bleeding edge functionality or building around a framework, now applied to the world of front-end web development and JS: you can do more things quickly at first with these tools, but at the expense of introducing portability and maintenance overheads that might cost you further down the line. Whether the benefit outweighs the cost is something you have to consider on a case by case basis.

<comment><USER4> "you can do more things quickly at first with these tools, but at the expense of introducing portability and maintenance overheads"

I totally agree with this. When I first started working on my product ([http://gitsense.com](http://gitsense.com)), I decided to use extjs and it did the job in the beginning. However, as I got better with JavaScript and became more design savvy, I found extjs to be an anchor. Getting it to work the way I wanted, basically required overriding everything and it was at that point that I decided I was better off going my own route.

Now I'm sitting at around 180,000 lines of custom JavaScript code. I still have some extjs code, but 98% of my current JavaScript code is custom. And it should last as long as my product does.

<comment><USER5> I'd definitely be interested in reading how you organize and maintain your codebase. Have you developed an in-house framework?

<comment><USER4> Yeah everything was in house. I can't remember how I came about my build solution, but it works amazingly well. If I do a quick find on my JS code base, I see that I have 343 JS files, which is spread over 44 directories.

It's a bit involved to explain how it works, and I probably should do a blog post to explain it in detail. I'm pretty sure the solution that I have is what other big JS code bases uses, but I could be wrong. What I really like about it, is it lets me debug individual un-minified JS code.

The more that I think about it, my overall build and development environemnt/process is rather unique. My Java code base is about 100,000 lines spread over 200 Java files and I don't use maven or any ide. It's good old makefiles and vim with ant sprinkled in there.

There is a lot to blog about, so I'll see what I can come up with next week.

<comment><USER5> A blog post would be great -- I really like lightweight dev processes.

Do you use map files for debugging unminified JS?

<comment><USER4> "Do you use map files for debugging unminified JS?"

No its even simplifier than that, and it has to do with how the browsers JavaScript engine reads the JS files. Well at least modern browsers. When I generate my html file with the include JS lines, I make sure to put the minified version first, then the unminified files to debug.

If the unminifed version contains the same function, the browser will use that instead of the minified one. So when an error comes up, the browser will point to the unminified JS file in the stacktrace.

<comment><USER5> Oh that's really interesting -- thanks for explaining it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My suggestion - you can't predict the future. Evaluate the best of what's currently available based on momentum, user base, and community. Pick the best for your current use cases. You can decide not to use the latest and greatest- observe what will stay constant, and use that.

</comment><comment><USER7> The way I look at it, I will not switch frameworks just because the web community says so. I will switch only when the current framework is causing issues (loss in productivity, stability issues, performance issues etc) and most importantly how does it better solve the problem your application was trying to solve in the first place. IMO, code, programming styles, frameworks (js or server side)and IT in general needs to align with the problem its trying to solve. Just changing because the community thinks its cool is for the birds.

</comment><comment><USER8> "The best way to predict the future is to invent it". - Alan Kay

Therefore, the obvious solution is to invent a new JS framework.

To me, it looks like the Google team is committed to staying relevant based on their roadmap to 2.0. I personally feel confident AngularJS will be around in 5 years. Web components and dart fit well with angular, so I doubt it'll go the route of GWT.

<comment><USER9> Please, no more JavaScript frameworks unless you're doing something truly interesting, ala React with its virtual DOM or Angular with its.. everything.

There are enough to go around already.

<comment><USER8> I was being facetious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am actually using AngularJS to rewrite an old project for a client. The reason I chose it is not because of popularity alone, but because it makes my code easier to read and it adds responsive interface to it.

Don't aim for a growing trend in regards to frameworks, aim for productivity and user experience.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why would you be "in a rut" if the way you built your site is no longer the latest fad in 3 years?

<comment><USER12> Sometimes a need arises for browser-based apps that are not on the net, usually as part of a system installed at a location without access to public internet for various reasons.

If these systems are planned to have a life time of say 5-7 years, it would be best to not start developing parts of them with libraries and frameworks that are due to be phased out in just 2 or 3 years.

E.g. AngularJS, the writing is clearly on the wall. Google are investing in a number of libraries and technologies that are the "next thing": Polymer, Dart, Web Components + Shadow DOM in Chrome etc. It appears that in the big picture AngularJS is a stepping stone, which is a problem when you plan on building something that should be supportable for 5+ years.

Remember GWT? 5 years ago it was all the rage. At the 2012 Google I/O event they announced they're handing over control to a steering committee - <USER2> way of letting go and moving on. Imagine if you needed to continue supporting GWT based code for another few years, when the catalyst for the technology are phasing it out themselves. The worst part of this is the lack of developers - they see Google dumping GWT and stop learning about it. How do you hire developers to continue maintaining your software? This should qualify as being "in a rut".

So it begs the question, should an organization start using AngularJS (or any other fashionable framework trend) for long-term support systems? If so, how should one decide?

<comment><USER8> What makes you think that AngularJS isn't going to involve in that time? Looking at the plans for AngularJS 2.0 and you see discussion about Polymer, Dart, and using ES6/ES7 features and polyfilling anything missing nowso the framework will last for 5-10 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Simple.

Build something people want.

Nobody cares what JS framework you use. Look at Craigslist.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why limit yourself to a client side JS framework?

Certain server side frameworks such as rails let you build apps that feel very similar to client side js apps without having to use them.

<comment><USER9> How is Rails different from any other server side solution in creating apps that feel like applications?

<comment><USER14> Because it has mechanisms in place to make server side driven templates feel like they are client side for most use cases. I carefully included "such as rails" because I'm not saying only rails can do it.

I can't speak for other frameworks but rails has turbolinks and also seamlessly handles the ability to send back pre-compiled html results to the client as a response to an xhr.

Basically you get the best of both worlds and it's all unobtrusive so all of your content is crawlable and you get a great user experience without having to do hacks or extra work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> use vanilla.js</comment>


Employers: don't blame millennials if you can't hang on to them - <AUTHOR> http://www.irishtimes.com/business/work/employers-don-t-blame-millennials-if-you-can-t-hang-on-to-them-1.2605418 <comment><AUTHOR> Open in private mode to get around paywall if needed.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the most popular development setup used at home? - <AUTHOR>

I want to know what developers are actually using at home. There are tons of opinions. If you're writing Python you probably should be using Sublime Text, but if you're in a café use VIM, and if you want street cred use Emacs. Two monitors are better than one, three is worse than two, but four is better than three. What are you actually using?<p>I posted a quick 2-minute survey here (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9YLSQJN) <comment><USER2> I use three monitors connect to an Arch Linux machine running i3. My development environment consists of tmux, vim, and fish.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there human sound generation emulators? - <AUTHOR> Like we have 3D programs that can trace light and create images. Are there any acoustic generators that mimic how a human produces sound using software and then give the output. To be clear this is the opposite of recording sound and playing it back. It is basically defining the environment where the sound would get created, have the sound waves mocked by software and play the actual sound that is produced. If a collision happens in a tin room how would the sound waves travel and what sound would they produce.<p>One of the things I can think of is this would go a long way towards generating human like speech, especially if breathing limitations, internal organs, shape of the mouth and tongue are mocked correctly. <comment><USER2> It's called modeling the human vocal tract. Sampling, then tweaking with DSP has proven to be a better approach.

<comment><AUTHOR> But like a rendering engine are there sound software that can generate and simulate realistic sounds without being fed recorded stuff in.....

<comment><USER2> Yes, I get what you want. This approach is used in many modern synthesizers, such as the Korg Kronos. It's just that approach proved to be too complicated to get working well for speech to text. I was a little surprised myself. Google for vocal tract modeling and you'll see it pretty much died out a decade or so ago.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Comply with EU Cookie Law in Django Projects - <AUTHOR> https://www.intelligems.eu/blog/how-to-comply-with-eu-cookie-law-in-django-projects/ <comment><USER2> You should add country detection, there's no cookie law outside of the EU. (Ever since cookie law is introduced I avoid the European web completely.)</comment>


The Economic Case Against the GPL - <AUTHOR> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=928

<comment><USER2> The basic error of this article is that it ignores the prisoner's dilemma problem. The basic idea behind that problem, as a reminder, is that parties acting in their best interest for themselves will, in certain situations, select a suboptimal outcome.

Applied to open/closed source software, the prisoner's dilemma suggests that parties acting in their own interest will opt for closed-source software, because of the personal benefits (trade secrets, market power, etc.). Thus, even if open-source software is more efficient as a general matter, everyone will go for closed source, resulting in an inefficient outcome.

The solution to the prisoner's dilemma, of course, is contracts. By binding the hands of the parties, you can force people to choose the more optimal solution. The ideal contract adds a breach penalty that offsets whatever selfish gain may be reaped from defecting, and thereby encourages cooperation.

This is, in effect, what the GPL does: it adds a penalty to closed source software (namely, you can't use open-source with it). If open source is indeed more efficient, then developers will be willing to forego the benefits of closed source in order to take advantage of open source software.

I think that this generally summarizes what everyone else is saying ("nothing would deter an unscrupulous company from stealing open source code," "economic principle of free riders"). My own comment is offered as a general thought, not a precise cost-benefit analysis. There is much more careful thinking on this subject, much of it in the law review articles I read while in law school.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article is written in a confusing manner but his point is basically that the GPL forces people who write software that derives from GPL licensed code to open source their derivative software. By doing so it discourages people from using GPL licensed software because some of those developers might want to close their source code.

I see the point but I'm not sure I agree with it. He claims the open source community "loses allies" when it enforces the GPL against companies who closed their source. But if those people are taking GPL licensed code and violating the terms than they are not allies at all. So his argument really boils down to having the GPL but not enforcing it so you can keep allies that are allies in name only.

There are more permissive open source licenses out there and if a developer wants someone to be able to use their open source code in closed source projects they can use one of those. But when people choose the GPL they are doing so to further the ideal of completely open source code. Meaning allies like the ones described above are counter-productive because they would compromise that ideal by doing exactly what the GPL users are fighting against.

<comment><USER4> Here's what he's getting at, perhaps: if you have some code that's more "library like" in the sense that it's not a standalone product, people including it in their own proprietary products isn't going to hurt you that much, and if they're smart, they may even contribute back to the project, especially if your code isn't really a competitive advantage for them. If your code is GPL, you lose those potential contributors.

Case in point, I know a few people are using Hecl in commercial products, and yet they have made some very nice contributions back to the project, something that wouldn't have happened had it been under the GPL.

<comment><USER3> I get that. I'm just saying I think people who use the GPL do so because they want the software industry to develop an open source culture. Their idealogues in that way. They want to change the world in addition to creating software which makes their aim different from someone who just throws their code open for the heck of it.

So allowing people to use their code for closed source projects would be working against their cause.

<comment><USER4> Some GPL users (RMS) are definitely like that. I think many others simply "don't want to be ripped off", and like the license because it makes them feel safe that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _we stand to lose not only Cisco as an ally, but any corporation that estimates (rightly or wrongly) that their own potential exposure to an SFLC lawsuit might be greater than their potential efficiency gains from open- sourcing._

Why should that matter if we live in universe B and their estimates are therefore wrong? The open source community, being more efficient, would just build an alternative product that works better.

OTOH, if we did not have the GPL or refused to enforce it, nothing would deter an unscrupulous company from stealing open source code and not contributing their own improvements to it to the community. Any improvements to the software from the open source community would quickly be incorporated into the proprietary version, while any improvements made by the hypothetical unscrupulous company would remain proprietary. Once a few of these companies started enjoying success, every other profit-maximizing company would be forced by the market to follow suit or perish, and we'd eventually have a clusterfuck of companies stealing open source code while the open source community dwindled to nothing because their products could never possibly compete with the proprietary alternatives.

I think we live in universe C, where, without an enforceable GPL, the most efficient method of software production would be to take what you can (from the open source community), and give nothing back. YARR!

</comment><comment><USER6> Sorry, not a very good article, the arguments are simplistic and don't make much sense to me.

There is a good discussion to be had about the GPL but this is not it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I find it somewhat amusing that none of the comments so far seem to acknowledge that this is written by Eric S Raymond. I guess that shows how far he's fallen into irrelevance.

Without wanting too engage with the actual content too much, he appears to be arguing, despite the headline, that there is no economic benefit or cost to the the GPL. The only impact is based on human (actually corporate) psychology of not liking being sued.

<comment><USER8> who?

<comment><USER7> Third guy in this comic strip:

<http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/show-them-the-code>

(thanks to whoever posted this in the other ESR thread, I'd searched for an appropriate strip but hadn't gone back far enough to find this gem)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think it's a well-written article, but he fails to acknowledge the economic principle of free-riders. I think it destroys his argument.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem>

<comment><USER4> One non-GPL solution is to have a very broad group of people who rapidly develop the open version. Think Apache or Postgres. Sure, you could hire a developer or two and make a closed version, but that person will end up spending all their time merging in the open source changes, which will outpace whatever value they can add to the closed product.

In theory, at least - and I think that sort of strategy works in practice too, in _some_ situations. And therein is the key - there are no general answers - some projects are better under a GPL style license where everyone knows that no one is going to 'take the code and run', and others are not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author fails to take into account that many(?) open source developers aren't dependent on or motivated by market forces. Regardless of its virtues in a business setting, GPL will still live on.

<comment><USER11> I disagree : they are motivated by what can be conceived as a market : a social reputation system. They gain reputation by writing and publishing GPL software. This reputation certainly is not money, but it serves the same signalling purpose.

<comment><USER10> But if you stop writing open soure code in favour of closed source, you're no longer part of that market. It's more like two different markets (one pays with reputation, one with money or something like that) that are competing for a limited resource - developer time.

So I'd say that there is a market, but it's on another level.</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Air Force overstepped bounds in SpaceX certification: report - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/us-usa-military-space-idUSKBN0MM2QZ20150326 <comment><USER2> If SpaceX is providing fixed pricing to the Air Force rather than cost plus pricing, their internal processes and methods are basically irrelevant. The only time that matters is when doing cost plus where management efficiency might have some kind of an impact on the price.

The Air Force took a pretty silly position on the whole thing IMO.

<comment><USER3> Certification isn't about cost, it's about safety, where internal processes and methods are paramount.

<comment><USER4> You know, I wish I could believe that in the context of "aerospace" or "Defense Department". After working in aerospace in the mid-80s, I came to believe that certification was more about barrier-to-entry than anything else. Ever notice how the seat-belt buckles on passenger transport planes look like a 1948 design? They're certified, and it costs way too much to certify a new design or process. Sorry to be cynical, but I just don't believe the public justifications of "certified" any more.

<comment><USER5> > I came to believe that certification was more about barrier-to-entry than > anything else

Still the case with most government procurement processes.

If you manage to jump through all the "certification" hoops, you can mark up your product to an insane rate and then lobby for certification to be expanded.

Then the government has a list of "approved" vendors who are basically in the "certification" club and sometimes you can only find a product of a particular type only by a particular company and when you ask them for the price, your jaw drops (especially if there is a 20x cheaper COTS one on the market at the same time).

<comment><USER6> You can add Medical to that list. Need a USB thumb drive for a Medical Device? That'll be 10x the cost of the exact same one you can buy on Amazon. OK, so _maybe_ the vendor guarantees traceability. So now you just paid 10x the price to be safe in the knowledge that you and Amazon are buying from the same guy in a basement in Shenzen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" Welch faulted SpaceX for assuming its experience launching other Falcon 9 rockets would suffice to be certified, and not expecting to have to resolve any issues at all."_

That sounds unbelievable to me, like one of those findings of issues that come out of a review that is given to parties that have done very little actually wrong --but _something_ is needed as a sop so the other guy doesn't feel picked on. I cannot imagine that SpaceX went into a review expecting no issues or feedback, I can easily imagine them hitting the roof when a list of 400 issues came back.

<comment><USER8> Especially since SpaceX _knows_ these payloads need additional security, including cleared employees it can only hire if it's got a contract (clearances at this level are associated with a job, although it's of course a lot easier to get a new clearance for someone who's been recently employed with one).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like the Administration/ Pentagon wants some sort of "SpaceX is good" certification, which is pretty much counter to everything military procurement is designed to do. The process is designed to be resistant to outside political pressure. In this case it is bad, as SpaceX most likely has the technological ability to compete with incumbents. But I think we could all easily imagine opposite cases where caving to political pressure is bad.

Of course the system isn't perfect, and politics still plays a major in role in program funding. But it could be worse.

<comment><USER10> But when you see, for example, huge arguments over the fact that SpaceX doesn't do vertical integration and hence shouldn't be considered for certification, it does make you wonder.

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately vertical integration makes things hugely easier for the organization doing the certifying, and avoids the issue of two contractors blaming each other (and the gov't) when the integrated solution fails.

It's a difficult problem that only gets made more so as visibility and pressure on the project increase.

<comment><USER11> I think that you are using a the more general meaning of vertical integration, but in this context it means putting the payload on the rocket while the rocket is standing upright and not on its side.

SpaceX is dramatically more vertically integrated as a company than the ULA (their competitor for government launches).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >The Pentagon is eager to certify SpaceX as a second launch provider, given mounting concerns in Congress about ULA's use of a Russian-built engine to power its Atlas 5 rocket.

What's this about? Is there any substance to it? Or is it congress members upset the engines weren't bought from one of their buddies?

<comment><USER13> I think it's because Russians have banned US from using their engines for military launches.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180#2014_availability_concer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180#2014_availability_concerns)

<comment><USER14> Well, that _and_ the US congress have banned themselves from using their engines at all, apart from ones already bought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps SpaceX should just work with other militaries and organisations around the world who have more realistic ways of working - I mean, after all, this is a capitalist society, right?

<comment><USER16> No, it isn't. What would give you that idea?

It's illegal for SpaceX to work with foreign governments or companies without State Department approval.

<comment><USER15> I know.

Perhaps they should re-domicile in a nice equatorial country, say, Guyana.

<comment><USER17> If they want to lose most of the contracts that pay their bills, sure... as well as access to all of their manufacturing and launch facilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Established US defense/space industry does not want to make it easy for SpaceX to enter the market. Simple as that.

Since many generals leaving AirForce join the major firms as basically lobbyists, you can see where that's headed.

It's not REALLY the AirForce that's making it hard. It's the established space launch firms, using their newly hired lobbyists.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sorry, I don't understand this article. What exactly did the Air Force do that was wrong?

<comment> 0x5f3759df-i >dictating changes in SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and even the company's organizational structure.

Why should the Air Force have any say in a company's organizational structure?

The Falcon 9 is already good enough for NASA cargo missions.

The air force has been dragging their feet through this whole process and their regulations seem to be created to be so narrow that only ULA (United Launch Alliance) is able to achieve certification.

<comment><USER8> Security can require that. Various SpaceX employees are going to have to have or get clearances, and I'm sure there's rules about who can manage them and how.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > He urged the Air Force's Space and Missiles Systems Center to "embrace > SpaceX innovation and practices," while SpaceX needed to understand the Air > Force's need to mitigate risks, and be more open to benefiting from the > government's experience.

I found this to be the most important point in the entire article because I'm sure the USAF is very "old guard" with a mentality of "if it isn't broken don't fix it" while on the other hand, SpaceX is the new kid on the block with the newest and coolest tech

</comment><comment><USER21> This video about the evolution of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle may shed some light on why the Air Force ended up with a report with far more requested changes than SpaceX had anticipated:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA)

</comment><comment><USER22> Funny funny funny, are we seeing Russian trolls on hacker news?

Yesterdays article [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269760) got me thinking, there were several newly registered users voicing doubts in American Democracy and showing support for Russsa (c_los, M8, ibi7) and now borgia is chipping in for Russian rocket engines.

<comment><USER23> Accusations of astroturfing aren't allowed here. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9180466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9180466) and the links there for why.

Astroturfing is a problem on the internet, but destroying civil discourse by smearing users you disagree with is no way to address it.

<comment><USER22> Fair enough, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The Air Force grew a backbone and did not bend to political pressures, good on them. Space X needs to compete on Cost AND Quality.</comment>


Euclid – A more accurate measuring cup by Joshua Redstone - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1075898346/euclid-a-more-accurate-measuring-cup?ref=thanks_share <comment><USER2> For baking the standard solution is to measure by weight, using a scale. The density of flour varies quite a bit, so an accurate volume still wouldn't help with getting consistent results.</comment>


New startup for writers - fictionthis.com - <AUTHOR>

Hi, Some friends and I are really interested in writing so we tried to find a site where we can write together to create a book, and vote on each others work.  After looking around we found that there wasn't much choice on the net, so we decided to create a site - http://www.fictionthis.com
It is currently in beta at the moment and we are in the process of selecting the opening verse of the book. I would really appreciate your feedback.
http://www.fictionthis.com/ <comment><USER2> Nice job. That's new startup #2 today (chompchompdead.com) - which is definitely motivating.

My only criticisms are: Really cut down on that huge red banner at the top. I think most of it is dead space, and one thing that annoys me is having to scroll down on a home page just to see the content. What you can do is move that red banner towards the center and segment it into 'read,' 'write,' 'rate,' to explain the site and have your big 'sign up' button underneath. Also, you might want to jazz up the nav bar seeing everything else seems nicely polished. I think your description of the purpose of the site is a bit confusing and not as direct as it should be, personally. I had a bit of a hard time understanding it. Maybe you should have the login form right on the front page, extra clicks are tedious.

The color palette is pretty soothing and nice to look at. The only thing I might change is to maaaaybe somehow differentiate the ads on the side from the main content of the site.

It'd be cool if you used cafepress or any other service to physically publish the book when it is complete and give those who made it in the book a cut of the book sales, but that's definitely not a primary concern.

Congrats on launch. Sounds cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, unfortunately since we are just starting and are working a shoe string budget we had to manage with the design, I do take on board the feedback and i am currently changing the content and some styles that do have some rough edges. We are also in talks with different publishers to get the book published once its complete .. that was the initial idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sounds really good actually will have to take a look!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> have you seen webook.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> It has a similar idea..although I haven't seen this before. What we are planning is to concentrate on one book. There will also be time periods for each submission.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the coolest computer simulation you can think of? - cool-RR

Hello everyone.
I'm working on an open-source project called GarlicSim (http://garlicsim.com), which is a Pythonic framework for working with simulations. I've been working on it for about 6 months, and it's progressing, but what I want to have now is a nice example of a simulation to implement with it. I'm free to choose pretty much anything I want. It can be a simulation of physical solid bodies interacting with each other (like maybe a solar system), or of a road system with traffic lights and cars driving through it, or anything else.
So I figured I might ask here and get some nice ideas. Do you have any? <comment><AUTHOR> Zombie invasion.

Basic rules:

\-- VISION:

\- noninfected can see agents within radius R but can only determine if a seen agent is "zombie / not zombie" within radius r < R

\- infected can see agents within radius Z (r < Z < R) and can make "zombie / not zombie" determination instantly

\-- VISUAL PERCEPTION:

\- both agent types perceive (1) the position of other agents within their field of view and (2) the orientation of those agents (3) the current movement of the agent (movement vector + rotation)

\-- SMELL:

\- noninfected and infected leave (distinct) scent trails; over time these trails both (1) diffuse and (2) diminish in intensity (say: exponential with a cutoff below which you round to zero)

\- noninfected agents have a cutoff N below which they can't smell infected scent

\- infected agents have no such cutoff

\-- NONINFECTED COMMUNICATION:

\- noninfected can communicate about zombie locations in relative terms over a distance C > the visual cutoff. The contents of the message have the form of a list of agents (positions, orientations) _relative to_ the sender's position ("zombie five meters to my 7 o clock, facing my 3 o clock"). The communications are tagged with two fields: a relative position (direction and distance relative to agent's current position) and the communicator identity.

\- position rules: if communicating agent is in visual range then relative position is exact; if communicating agent is out of visual range than relative position is a range (22 to 57 degrees), (50-60 meters)

\- identification rules: if communicating agent is "known" to receiving agent then receiving agent gets the message tagged with communicating agent's identity. If the communicating agent is not known to receiving agent then the message is tagged "unknown" if it originates outside of visual range and with the communicating agent's identity if it originates within visual range.

\- knowing rules: an agent becomes known to another agent if the agent communicates to the other agent within visual range (eg: if you talk to me when I can see you I know your voice now)

\-- INFECTION RULES:

\- all agents have a variable tracking the amount of zombie toxin in their bloodstream; this ranges from 0 to 100.

\- a noninfected agent becomes infected when they cross the '50' level of zombie toxin. At the moment of infection they instantly shoot up to '100' zombie toxin.

\- a noninfected agent loses zombie toxin @ a linear rate (with floor @ 0)

\- an infected agent loses zombie toxin @ a slow-ish exponential decay; it should take them awhile to decay from

\- an infected agent becomes uninfected when they cross the '25' level of zombie toxin.

\-- MOVEMENT RULES:

\- noninfected agents move more quickly than infected agents

\- all agents have a finite maximum turning speed

\- noninfected agents move progressively slower the more zombie toxin they have (eg: base speed - (penalty x (ZombieToxin/100))

\- infected agents move progressively slower the less zombie toxin they have (eg: base speed + (booster x (ZombieToxin/100))

\-- INFECTED BEHAVIOR:

\- infected are understood as trying to produce more infected.

\- INFECTING: infected who are within some infection radius of a noninfected agent for > some minimum # of timesteps begin to infect the agent with zombie toxin at some rate (perhaps: higher rate the more zombie toxin there is); the agent doing the infecting also gets increased zombie toxin at some fractional rate (eg: if an infected agent adds Z zombie toxin to an noninfected agent's bloodstream then the infected agent gets .7 * Z zombie toxin, also). The infected agen ThInfection "stacks" on agents.

\- INFECTING: infection (zombie toxin increasing) stacks on the receiving agent; "multiple zombies can attack the same survivor at the same time"

\- INFECTING: zombies can't attack multiple agents at the same time; "a zombie can only be biting one survivor at a time"

\- HUNTING: zombies are either "hunting" or "wandering". A zombie "wanders" (random walk) when it isn't doing anything else. A zombie can determine if some other zombie in its field of vision is hunting or wandering.

\- HUNTING, LOWEST PRIORITY: if a zombie sees a sufficiently strong and unambiguous zombie scent trail it will go into "hunting" mode and follow the trail until it thins out

\- HUNTING, NEXT LOWEST PRIORITY: if a zombie sees a sufficiently strong and unambiguous noninfected scent trail it will go into "hunting" mode and follow the trail until it thins out

\- HUNTING, NEXT LOWEST PRIORITY: if a zombie sees other "hunting" zombies it starts chasing the nearest "hunting" zombie

\- HUNTING, HIGHEST PRIORITY: if a zombie sees noninfected agent it immediately begins chasing the agent

\- WANDERING: a zombie returns to wandering mode when none of the above conditions trigger

\-- SURVIVOR BEHAVIOR:

\- I'd make this pluggable (and then the fun really begins!) but the general behavior is to try to avoid getting infected, presumably by avoiding contact with zombies (break incoming zombie hordes into clusters with similar movement vectors; project movement vectors forward in time; aim to be elsewhere)

\-- MAP:

\- some tile-based system with walls and open spaces is a good starting point

<comment><AUTHOR> I forgot a couple other points.

A noninfected can see a zombie and recognize that it is the zombified version of some "known" agent.

There's two goals with the communication:

\- the first is that it opens up a lot of fun if you have pluggable behavior for noninfected (EG: LIARS!)

\- the second is that it forces you to deal with interval arithmetic (or an equivalent scheme)

<comment> cool-RR This is one comprehensive description you gave here. But the problem is, it looks like a simulation that will be more enjoyable to the programmer than to the person watching it. After all, it would just look like dots moving around changing color.

Additionally, I'm looking for something that besides being cool, will be sort of useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Eh I can tell you that variations on the above scenario are actually useful.

There's a handful of companies that essentially do more in-depth versions of these things at like the level of "h1n1 comes to small town america; what emergent behavior patterns do we see in our model" (names escaping me sorry).

There's also a lot of boring-ish economics sims that've been done (names escaping me also, sorry).

To make it fun for the end-user you'd have to "borrow" tilesets from a videogame I think.

You're right though: it's more fun for the person making it than a casual observer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cool-RR I've reposted this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=827071></comment>