Teacher Suspended For Reading 'Ender's Game' To Middle School Students - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/19/south-carolina-teacher-suspended-for-reading-enders-game-to-middle-school-students/ <comment><USER2> Following back the chain of links o the original newspaper story [1], there appear to be three books involved. Only "Ender's Game" is named. Based on the account in the complaint, one of the phrases in question certainly does not come from _Ender's Game_ , and refers to "prostitutes having their faces covered with ejaculat[e].' [2]

The district apparently requires an (apparently simple) administrative review of material beyond the prescribed curriculum, which was not done in this case.

So, it may be that EG was the least sinister but most widely known book of the bunch. I, like others here, leap to defend it, but it may not be the actual source of many of the parent's concerns, but included because its inclusion was in violation of the review policy.

1: [http://www.aikenstandard.com/story/0315Followup-with- school-...](http://www.aikenstandard.com/story/0315Followup-with-school-- 3862406) 2: [http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/Student_claims_Aiken_Co_m...](http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/Student_claims_Aiken_Co_middle_school_teacher_read_explicit_material_to_class_142658256.html)

<comment><USER3> Check out Updates 2 & 4 on the story:

From #2: "According to a news report by local station WRDW, the police incident report in the case claims that the teacher read "pornographic material from the Internet to the students in class. One of the stories was about prostitutes having their faces covered with ejaculation."

And in #4, OSC says that he's pretty sure it wasn't Ender's Game at all.

There are some pieces of the story missing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Odd. This was perhaps one of the earliest Sci-Fi books I read (along with many of the Doctor Who books.)

I'm fairly certain I first read it in middle school, which would have made me about 10, but may have been as late as the start of high school, making me about 13 (yes, I was young, graduating at 16). I followed the next couple of books in the series, but couldn't get into them to the same extent. I have Ender's Game on my shelf at home (along with Ender's Shadow, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Hegemon), and have actively encouraged my 11-year-old son to read them. He's not quite ready yet (by his own reckoning), but he will be soon.

As others have pointed out, the descriptions of violence don't compare at all to "Hunger Games" (or more particularly, the following two books in that series). The Harry Potter series, particularly the last three books, were violent as well (though not to the level of "Mockingjay") ... to the extent that we won't permit our children to watch them, yet, although even my 9-year- old has read all of them.

I read "Ender's Game" again in high school, and a third time in my early twenties. One of the fascinating things about good books is that the parts that stick with you change as your experience and outlook on life changes.

My recollection from the curriculum at my middle school included "Animal Farm", which also has messages on multiple levels; my younger sister was required to read "Tunnel In the Sky" (by Heinlein; she hated it, but I enjoyed it); my middle school coursework also included "Lord of the Flies", "Great Gatsby" and "Of Mice and Men", all of which also have violent sequences.

Part of what makes these books classics (although even having read them a couple of time, I still don't like the last three on that list) is that they capture the human existence—and like it or not, the nature of humanity includes violence, overcoming violence, and the occasional necessity of violence.

<comment><USER4> >"Tunnel In the Sky"

I loved that book. Heinlein's juveniles would be great for middle school kids.

I hated all the crap I had to read back then. I read Jurassic Park in 3rd grade, and by the time I was in middle school I found the standard literary fare too mundane to be interesting.

School could be much more interesting if they'd just update the reading list.

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised to this day that this hasn't made it onto film.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _"It's a tiny bit violent"_

A child kills several other children barehanded.

Then goes on to stamp out an entire intelligent life form - Card's view on this is pretty apparent in the first two sequals; _Speaker for the Dead_ and _Xenocide_.

It's always surprising how non-analytical we can be when it comes to violence - an entire planet is destroyed and millions of people screams are heard across the galaxy in _A New Hope._ Yet, the movie so ingrained in children's culture, it was an uphill battle to prevent my son from watching it when he was three [I felt like it was a victory that he didn't see it until he was five].

That said, _Ender's Game_ is appropriate reading for 14 year olds, and the idea of it as pornographic is asinine. Same could be said of Bloom's _Forever_ of my youth.

<comment><USER7> TBH I don't even see the problem with a three year old seeing A New Hope (except that he might be too young to understand it and might get bored and turn it off). What damage are you hoping to prevent, exactly?

Exposure to new ideas is a GOOD thing. Actively preventing your children from knowing about something simply because you disagree with it is censorship in its worst form.

<comment><USER8> Parental censorship is widely accepted, and not even worth comparing to state- sanctioned censorship, which I would argue is "censorship in its worst form".

Every parent has a right and a responsibility to teach their children in a way that they see fit, and though the state can be called in for cases where their teachings are far outside the norm, to take away or limit these rights is to remove the parent from their role.

Of course you can disagree with how someone else raises their kids - aunts, uncles, and grandparents have been doing that since the dawn of time.

But, just off the top of my head:

\- Very young children: Owen and Beru's bodies after the stormtroopers find them?

\- Slightly older children: Torture of prisoners on the Death Star?

\- Near-teens: A greedy scoundrel as a "hero" through much of the film?

I see plenty of reason to prevent children from seeing them until you feel they're "ready". I don't have children yet, so I don't know when that would be for mine.

<comment><USER9> It really irks me that in these conversations, we don't talk about the rights of the children, instead, it's just seen as a sliding scale between the rights of the parents and the rights of the state.

Of course, all of this makes me think of Ogden Nash's poem "Don't Cry Darling, It's Blood Alright" ... two lines:

Innocent infants have no use for fables about rabbits or donkeys or tortoises or porpoises, What they want is something with plenty of well-mutilated corpoises.

(It's also crazy that I can't find a complete copy of a poem from 1935 online)

<comment><USER10> It depends on what you mean by right, its a very context dependent word. In one sense, rights are precisely the things which the government is not permitted to interfere with. So in that sense it really is about the ability of the state to interfere (or not) with the way a parent raises their child.

In the broader sense, it becomes somewhat hard to talk about because it might matter greatly much how old the child is. My 3 year old is simply not in an position to make many good decisions for herself, but my 6 year old gets a fair bit more freedom, and as they get older I will hand more of the reigns of their own lives to them happily.

It is also hard to talk about separately because in a sense a child's rights are what is left over after the state and the parent divide up their rights, any right absolutely given to the child is denied to one of those two entities. Should I have the ability to restrict what my 3 year old sees? I think most would agree that I should.

Should I have the ability to restrict what my 13 year old sees (when one of them reaches 13)? That is touchier, but I think most will answer, "Yes, but you should use it less and listen to their judgment more." I certainly think that even when my child turns 13 I will want to keep them away from materials that overtly objectify women and I will judge on a case by case basis if they are ready for horror films or not.

For what it's worth, I agree with your sentiment at the end that many parents overly coddle even older children. But I also respect that each parent has the privelege and duty of making those decisions for themselves and their children until those children cease to be children.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Headline is misleading. Teacher was suspended for reading a short story from the internet, not Ender's game.

[https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.graytv...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.graytvinc.com%2Fdocuments%2FSchofieldSchool- PornInvestigation.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Could you explain how this is related?

The original article in the _Aiken Standard_ (linked to from from the OP's Forbes article above) mentions three "books," and specifically mentions Card's _Ender's Game_ as being one of them. That _Standard_ article in turn points to a press release from the previous day, also mentions three books and "swear words."

Nothing in either article seems to hint at the explicit, graphic sexual content in your link above, dated ten days before the press release in the _Standard_ , and describing material as "pornographic material, from the Internet," not "three books."

<comment><USER11> That's the whole point. Ender's Game has little to do with why the teacher was suspended, and the original article was wrong, as well. The original article was posted on /r/scifi a few days ago, and was pretty quickly debunked by the police report.

<comment><USER8> The school district's press release still only mentions the books, not the downloaded material.

I wonder if that means "we're going to fire him because he circumvented our process by bringing in books he didn't clear first, so that we don't have to publicly discuss the fact that he may have been reading more salacious material to students as well."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As with most things 'Forbes' these days, this article is very link baitey. (We need an index for baitness I think, and a unit)

Its also incorrect on a number of facts.

Its also in a school district that isn't your school district (probably) and so outrage is difficult to change into action.

Its also not part of a cluster of such events, or a general rise in incidence of such events and so unlikely to be an indication of a trend.

But the author knows that the book 'Ender's Game' is well regarded by the tech savvy community, as is the author, and so constructing a blog post which implies that a well regarded story is considered 'bad for children' elsewhere in the country, is a great way to pump up the page views in the morning.

I would have so much more respect for these folks if they did research, checked their 'facts', and then put those facts in a bit of context. But of course had they done that in this case, it would have been a non-story and well who is going to click to read that?

<comment><USER14> Instead of a blatant "it's incorrect on a number of facts", I think it would be more constructive to say what those facts are and why they're incorrect so we can have an intelligent discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of the biggest things stopping kids from developing a lifelong love of reading is the "let's not offend anyone" drivel they are forced to read in the lower grades. It took until about 8th grade to actually come across required- for-school reading that I enjoyed - 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Flowers for Algernon' - and that was in a suburban, progressive school district. When reading is "the thing that teachers make you do," and with the material that is typically chosen, the thought that picking up a book could be done willingly is a foreign concept.

<comment><USER16> It's a matter of taste but where I'm from I think most people would consider 'To Kill a Mockingbird' "let's-not-offend-anyone drivel", then again I can see how in the US it would be more poignant than in countries with less history of racism.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps I'm misreading the parent, but I think he said "to Kill a Mockingbird" was one of the first required readings in school that did not fall into the drivel category.

<comment><USER16> Yes, and I'm saying where I grew up most people seemed to think it was outdated drivel. We live (where I live) are in a multicultural society with many immigrants living peacefully, and we found, from the people I know, TKaMB dry and mining lessons that have long been incorporated in our society.

<comment><USER10> I must respectfully disagree that it is outdated drivel. First, there are large pockets of racism still present throughout the US and the world at large. Even if you are fortunate enough to live in a place where it is simply not encountered, it will be encountered if you travel much.

Second, even if and when we reach a point in society where racism is truly gone, it is useful to know how we got there. To Kill a Mocking Bird not only helps show how society was before, it was itself a small piece of history that helped in a small way make society the way it is now with less racism.

Even if we reach a utopian day where its lessons are no longer relavent (and we are not there yet), it will remain a significant aid in understanding our history.

<comment><USER16> I just happen to think there are perhaps more important issues worth focussing on in schools such as materialism, environmentalism, the role of belief and science, what it means to be part of a society, the nature of democracy etc which are more timely and vital to introduce kids to.

Racism, in the first world other than the US, seems not dead but mortally wounded and we are ready to move on to the next problem to tackle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Did anyone else read _Lord of the Flies_ in school? As far as I remember, that was way more gruesome than Ender's game.

<comment><USER18> Grade 11 - most students are 16 or 17 by the time they are exposed to Lord of the Flies.

<comment><USER7> Am I the only one who, though exposed to violent media as a young child, didn't turn into a deranged psychopath?

<comment><USER17> No offense, but how many deranged psychopaths actually agree that they are?

<comment><USER7> I don't know. What does the relevant medical literature say?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The teacher should just read the Old Testament to them. The students then get the "religion" their parents want and all the nudity, sex and violence they crave. Win-win!

<comment><USER20> Are you being sarcastic? To me it's obvious that middle schoolers should in fact at least skim parts of the Bible. If not the most important, it's in the top ten most important texts of the western culture.

BTW Those other nine (Iliad, The Song of Roland, Heart of Darkness, 1984...) are also full of violence so if schools really do apply that criterion consistently, teachers may as well stop bothering students with any reading.

<comment><USER19> <http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html>

Of course they should read it. It is a book of life; it contains everything from utter foolishness to profound wisdom; from vile pettiness to unrestrained love; from brutal punishment to loving clemency.

It is the right book, which would be presented to them for all the wrong reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That's awful. I loved this book as a kid, and recommend it to every young person. The series as a whole taught me quite a bit about human nature.

I would not call it pornographic at all - The few scenes in the book where there is nudity, there is very little that's sexual about it. In other parts of the series, I will agree that it may not be appropriate for 14 year olds.

I wonder what the parents are overreacting to.

<comment><USER22> Seems like a safe bet that the parents are overreacting to their kids' reports of the book's contents. I can imagine a young teenager mentioning the fact that the children in Ender's Game are sometimes nude (albeit in a nonsexual way). There is almost no chance that the parent(s) have actually read the book.

<comment><USER23> >> _There is almost no chance that the parent(s) have actually read the book._

It's sad to think that this might actually be true. I can totally imagine a scenario where except for the teacher and children, none of the other parties making so much noise have read the piece before making a ruckus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There are around 13,000 school districts in the US, most with many constituent schools, each supporting many hundreds of families. Even if everything about this story is credible (remember, their job is to sell page views, not to inform you), all we've got is one school district in which there was simultaneously a crazy parent and an incompetent school board.

Ender's Game is also not a "tiny bit" violent, and although its characters are all young, it was not written specifically for young readers.

(In my house, the boy read Ender's Game when he was 10; the girl heard an audio version of it at 9, and "Ender's Shadow", which is more explicit, was on the bookshelf in the boy's 6th grade class room).

</comment><comment><USER25> Given how many of these middle school Students are probably devouring the ultra-violent "Hunger Games" trilogy in anticipation for the film, I find this complaint/decision odd.

</comment><comment><USER26> My high school teacher put Ender's Game on our recommended reading list. I think I was about 14 or 15 at the time. It was the first science fiction book I read, and I loved it. I don't really remember that much explicit violence. Sounds like the parent is having a bit of an overreaction.

<comment><USER18> Several sections of brutal violence from memory - the first fight at school, where they realized he had what it took to fully commit to victory, and then the shower sequence - which really was quite brutal.

Not inappropriate for Jr. High, but maybe a bit mature for eighth grade. I don't think a suspension is warranted on purely this basis - I'm sure there is more to the story.

<comment><USER27> I haven't read the book in question but is it more brutal than the hunger games? I know multiple 11 year olds who have read the hunger games trilogy and the children/parents had no issue with it other than "the idea of kids fighting to the death is a weird topic for a young adult book".

<comment><USER18> I would say its more brutal. The violence depicted in hunger games is distant and somewhat clinical - almost as though it was written with the possibility of future film rights. In Enders game, other children are beaten to death in a quite personal manner. I recall being quite effected by the deaths in Enders game. I don't recall any similar explicit imagery in hunger games.

<comment><USER8> (Just going off memory, it's been a while)

\- Not thirty seconds into the games, Katniss is struggling with an unnamed boy when he drops dead with a knife through his back.

\- Katniss drops a nest of mutated wasps directly onto a number of sleeping children, two of whom die from the stings.

\- Katniss witnesses Cato kill an unnamed boy with his bare hands.

\- Rue gets speared through the torso right in front of Katniss.

\- Thresh crushes the skull of Clove with a rock, (not enough to kill her, but enough to disfigure her) then does it again and finishes her off. (This one happens no more than a couple of meters in front of Katniss, as Clove had been in the process of choking her before being yanked off by Thresh.)

\- Katniss shoots a helpless dying Cato in the face with her final arrow.

That's just in the first book. All but one of those deaths occur _right in front of Katniss_ , along with several others.

The only fight that stuck with me in Ender's Game was with Bonzo - the fight with Stilson was over too quick (and the ending was technically a mystery until they talk about it after Bonzo's death). Bonzo's death was also technically very quick - there was a lot of lead up to it, but the fight itself probably only took about 20 seconds and about half a page (also from memory).

Note also that the boys who Ender fights are bullying him mercilessly. Both Stilson and Bonzo bring groups to witness and prevent interference from others. He is forced to fight for his life, in situations which could quickly turn against him, and only an unbelievably swift and alarmingly brutal victory will prevent a future recurrence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I also had Ender's Game on my high school reading list, although I read it much much earlier, definitely when I was still in middle school. Remains one of my favorite books to this day. No bad repercussions from reading it on this end.

</comment><comment><USER29> I was first exposed to Enders's Game when a middle school teacher started reading it to the class a little bit each day. After about a week, I couldn't stand the wait anymore and bought the book, probably the first time I had done such a thing of my own volition.

It is incredibly sad that the students at this school might miss out on an opportunity to discover this series due to one ignorant, over-protecting parent. Heaven forbid a 14-year-old should be exposed to a swear word or two; it's not like they are constantly exposed to swearing and sexual situations outside of class... Oh wait.

</comment><comment><USER30> This, as a former resident of South Carolina and family member of someone who works in that state's educational system does not surprise me at all. South Carolina has probably the most fidgety, hammer from God mentality at the state education level.

Even so much as a twitch is enough to startle most and send the local district into a tizzy.

</comment><comment><USER31> nudity != pornographic

<comment><USER32> Unfortunately, in the mind of many Americans it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Got to love the fact that another HN link hovering around this one reads:

"Fact based, data-oriented news (s0rce.com)"

</comment><comment><USER34> What? An entire race of intelligent beings is wiped out and the teacher complains about _nudity_?

</comment><comment><USER35> What?? My 10 year old loved it. The teacher should be fired for not making the kids read it themselves... Amazing book.

</comment><comment><USER36> Beyond pathetic. What a bunch of neolithic morons.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is why teacher tenure is necessary.

<comment><USER38> No, that is the institutional scar tissue representing why we need better school administrators and more reasonable parents.

<comment><USER39> Agreed, but improving the quality of administrators is incredibly difficult to do and forcing parents to be rational about their children is pretty much impossible.

So we're left with tenure as an imperfect but practical way to limit the damage that can be done by bad administrators and crazed parents. Which is why tenure is important.

<comment><USER40> What about the damage done by poor teachers protected by tenure?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> As the only HN user who disliked the entire series of books, I have no problem with the sentiment, though I disagree with the action. If I found out my imaginary child's imaginary teacher were reading from Ender's Game, I would visit that teacher to ask that better books be read.

<comment><USER42> I can't say I've read the entire series, but you're definitely not the only one who here who disliked Ender's Game. I keep this around in my bookmarks since it pretty clearly expresses what I think is wrong with the book: <http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm>

<comment><USER43> As a teen who grew up in a pacifist background, I rejected the book's dubious moral constructions. As I said to a friend at the time, who had argued Ender had no other choice: "he doesn't HAVE to live." The same applies to humanity as a whole. As your conclusion rightly notes, we are not so special as to deserve to live at any cost, or to deserve to destroy our enemies at any cost.

<comment><USER44> I agree that it is immoral to hold 'self preservation' as your ultimate value. It does not prevent a few people choosing to do so from time to time, and when one of those gets cornered, the results are horrific.

On the other hand, you need to consider that for you to have grown up "in a pacifist background" its quite an unusual event in the History of Humanity. In particular, it means that there's someone somewhere doing all the dirty deeds that keep the pacifists safe and unaware for long enough to raise any offspring. In the primal environment, uncompromising pacifists would probably end up darwinized!

<comment><USER43> When I say that Ender didn't have to live, I don't say that out of ignorance. I know the history of those who've held the conviction that _"God did not condone killing or the use of force for any reason"_ and _"were therefore unwilling to fight for their lives."_ People from my particular tradition [0] were persecuted, at least in some areas, from the 1530s until 1990. In some communities, a book of martyrs [1] is held in high regard. Migration to escape persecution was remarkably common. ("Running away" is a survival strategy employed by quite a few species.)

I am by no means arguing that others should follow this philosophy. Merely explaining that, having grown up in a culture where we gave this idea serious thought, I found Ender's Game to be shallow and naive.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonites> [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr%27s_Mirror>

<comment><USER44> Wow, thanks for sharing that. I honestly had not thought of "running away" as a sustainable strategy.

To clarify a little bit, it's not so much as of pacifism not being a viable strategy, but that it is a viable strategy for individuals or small communities, but not implementable on a national scale.

Eventually, the martyrdom of a pacifist, while a tragedy on its own, is not detrimental to the meme of pacifism. I'd say it's the opposite. However, if a group of people that follows the meme of pacifism is systematically harassed, I'd think it would eventually be assimilated by the other group doing the harassing. Even if most of the individuals are not physically harmed, the idea of pacifism is the one that suffers.

But of course... geographic isolation may take you a long way, I guess.

<comment><USER43> > _"if a group of people that follows the meme of pacifism is systematically > harassed, I'd think it would eventually be assimilated by the other group > doing the harassing."_

History shows that "running away" and other isolation strategies have allowed at least some groups of pacifists to persist through several centuries. Harassment seems to actually strengthen the idea of pacifism within many of these groups.

It may not be viable on a large scale. But that ties in to my earlier point: a viable strategy for survival is not the ultimate goal. Or, at least, it's not a universally agreed upon primary goal. We're not so special that our survival _must necessarily_ trump everything else. Neither Ender nor anyone else in the book series seems to give serious consideration to the idea that maybe it's better to die than to kill. Again, I'm not arguing that everyone should agree to this philosophy, I'm just saying the failure to give it even token consideration comes off as a bit shallow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I like how there's a condescending attitude against prudes through the whole article, and then they have to backtrack and say that the pornographic part probably had nothing to do with Ender's Game and had to do with other, actual pornographic material that the teacher was reading to the students. And even then, they wait until the very end to say that "the rest appears to be little more than rumor". Who needs facts to get in the way of pushing an agenda.

"It's a little odd that the school would maintain it was just the books if this wasn't the case."

Is it so odd? I think it's the school trying to protect the teacher. Just look at the situation in Los Angeles. Many reports of teacher molestation are coming out in the wake of the Miramonte scandal. Parents refused to send their children to Miramonte Elementary after it was revealed that a teacher engaged in despicable acts with students, and the parents were angry that they were not informed sooner. And its possible that more complaints about teacher abuse are swept under the rug, since a deal made between the teachers' union in LA and the LA school district expunges a teacher's record of unproven allegations after four years. They envisioned it would protect teachers against punishment for "petty" misconduct (being late/absent too much, messy, etc.) but never envisioned it would be used to protect teachers from sexual harassment accusations.

[http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me- banks-20120317,0,693...](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me- banks-20120317,0,6938495.column)

There is more to this story than what is out there now. The teacher is being protected, and they probably won't tell us what is really going on until more parents come out demanding to know the truth. LA is not an isolated incident, unfortunately. Some particularly bad characters have eroded the trust parents have in teachers, and then teachers react demanding protections, and the same bad characters abuse these protections to save their hide when allegations of misconduct pop up. The whole truth has not come out, and we will probably not like it when it does.

</comment><comment><USER46> Downvoted for outright lying in the headline. Big bold letters on the article: South Carolina Teacher Suspended

A suspension is not being fired from a job.

<comment><USER47> You can't downvote submissions.

<comment><USER48> Someone from Reddit?</comment></comment></comment>


BBC struggles, so many missed opportunities with iPlayer - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/20/tony-hall-gave-bbc-stability-but-failed-to-see-digital-crisis-ahead <comment><AUTHOR> Iplayer launched as a new TV box, yet they failed to capitalise on the launch of Blue Planet, that came just before it. if made an exclusive, Sir David Attenborough alone would gather everyone's attention. Great TV shows, crime dramas, but no publicity or cover from the media whatsoever, until it reaches netflix and the likes. Quite sad tbh :( or just lack of vision

<comment><USER2> Not just that, but the interface is both clunky and godawful. I'm not really in the mood to categorize all of the flaws I've observed, but just seeing my parents (and myself) use it (on the PS4 and the laptop) have convinced me that it was not designed well. That's not to mention the fact that the tech stack they chose to use meant it was incompatible on a lot of android devices (Basically, anything that wasn't one or two specific devices, or using completely up-to-date android (when the majority of phones in the mid-range market were using the previous version)) at the time of release.</comment></comment>


Paypal Gets A Homepage Update - <AUTHOR> https://www.paypal.com/

<comment><USER2> Looks exactly the same to me.

<comment><USER3> I can see the new page if I view it in an Incognito window (Chrome).</comment></comment>


Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python - <AUTHOR>

I've been doing Python professionally for 4 years now, including Django (sys admin to front end), GIS, and some basic machine learning.
Some pre-reading would be most effective so you'll have specific questions.  If you already know how to code and are picking up Python, I recommend http://diveintopython.org/ .  If you are new to programming, I recommend http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index
Email me to agree on a schedule; I'd prefer Freenode IRC if you want to chat. <comment><USER2> Plug: I'm just in the final stages of finishing an introductory Python book, Hello! Python: <http://manning.com/briggs/>. It's a bit different, in that I'm using real world projects (Hunt the Wumpus, Django, web scraping, writing games) to demonstrate _how_ to program, rather than just having a laundry list of features and stepping through them one by one.

Think of it as _Land of Lisp_ , but in Python rather than CL.

<comment><USER3> I took a quick look. As its a paid-book I think it would be useful to have at least one of the exercises open for people to see. I appreciate the introduction is available to download, but the real-world projects aren't (and I understand why) but my suggestion would be to open one of them so that we can see what kind of exercises in real life

<comment><USER2> That's a pretty good suggestion - from what I can see most other similar books have at least one chapter that you can download. I'll see what I can arrange.

Any preferences as to which one? :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks. Thats enough for most people (including myself) to have confidence in the author and to make a purchase decision.

In terms of suggestion I too think web scraping, however it might be worth taking the most simple one so that its easy to run on from the intro.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OK, folks, I've had 10 responses to this now. I think that's more than I can effectively help at once, so no more for now, thanks.

<comment><USER4> As a fallback, you can ask me questions on aim: saysauston

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm trying to learn python and I picked learn python the hard way by Zed Shaw, I don't have a programming background I'm more like a sys-admin combined with a degree in Electrical - Electronic Engineer and the book is really good.

I was able to follow the book very well until I got into chapter 23 "Read Some Code", I thought it was a good idea to learn the lansom code as he created it but as I'm learning python and at the same time learning to program the concepts of packages and API's all combined together just didn't help me, so I started reading code from <http://inventwithpython.com/>, chapter 9 specifically where the real code start to show up; the code in the book is just one file so you can leave packages and API's until you get more background.

I providing my personal experience because I'm sure that even HN is a site for programmers there is a fair amount of guys here like me just starting in the world of programming and this can help them a bit.

BTW, if some one drops the offer I'll willing to take his place because I really want to learn python + django.

<comment><USER6> I tried installing lamson, fwiw. After two days of googling and having some friends who know what they're doing, python-wise (jdunck's former coworker, actually) we FINALLY got it up and running. Barely.

So yeah. My experience says, stay away from lamson as a learning tool.

<comment><USER5> Not bad at all, indeed I want to learn and help the project, the issue installing is just that you need lockfile-0.8 and right not the egg lockfile is 0.9.

Zed gave a hand here thought in the error you get while trying to start the server it says it has to be with that file.

<comment><USER6> Really? I didn't get a helpful error about that. It literally came down to trying various versions of lockfile, in the middle of heavy drinking and cursing the creator of lockfile, who released a minor version upgrade that broke all previous functionality.

If I'm dumb, tell me, but without basically expert help, it would have taken me like a week to figure it out, instead of two days.

<comment><USER5> I don't think you are dumb, indeed I wouldn't be able to find the right file either, as I said Zed help me on this.

Anyway try with 0.9 and start the server you'll see that lockfile was the issue, but I wouldn't know what version to install.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I see. Yeah, I realized that was the issue, but I didn't know which version I needed, either, or if it was something I was doing wrong.

I assume Zed doesn't maintain this actively anymore? The fact that it doesn't work out-of-the-box suggests so, at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shameless plug:

If you are interested in learning python+django intensively for a week with a few people, I'm co-teaching a class with Dave Beazley in Chicago next month. There is still a few seats left. <http://www.dabeaz.com/chicago/index.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool -- if you're new to Python, you may not be familiar with Dave's work. He's awesome. Consistently one of the best presentations at each PyCon.

@rguzman - do you know who runs hnofficehours.com? I found some bugs. :-/

<comment><USER8> You're off on the right track.

You should probably report it via the Github Issue tracker here: <http://github.com/ezl/hnofficehours/issues>

Alternately, if you'd like to hit someone up directly, the About page is a good start. <http://hnofficehours.com/about/>

What's the bug?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My question is: I don't know any Python and would like to start learning it. Should I bypass Python2 altogether and start with Python3 or stick with Python2?

<comment><USER10> You should definitely learn Python 2. Almost all libraries still are on 2, so if you tried to go straight to 3, you'd have to struggle your way around most newbie documentation on the internet - Especially if you're planning on doing Django work.

Anyway, there isn't a whole lot of difference between python 2 and 3, really. The "proper" way of coding in python2 is very similar to python3.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish this weren't true. We all need to be pushing towards 3, and I think introducing people to 2 isn't helping the community in general -- but it is the right thing on an individual level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been wanting to learn python for a long time. I have even bought a big arse book and have been to those sites and have read them. I come from a web application background and the biggest challenge I have with learning python is that I never seem to have a reason to use it.

So what type of application would you recommend python for? What do you normally use python for?

<comment><USER2> Pretty much anything - Python's a multi-paradigm language. Web development, system admin, desktop apps, games, console programs - it doesn't really matter.

Some of your workflow or setup might be a little different, eg. Django vs. PHP, but not so much that you'll be completely lost.

<comment><AUTHOR> Eh, no tool is great for everything.

I think python applies broadly, but it isn't great for building an OS. :)

<comment><USER11> I agree, I try to look at languages as tools in the toolbox. If you compare django to symfony or rails. Then I think the difference is preference. However if I'm trying to write a game for the pc then I wouldn't use php (or maybe I would [evil laugh]). So that's why I was curious what applications you would normally use it for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Web dev, GIS, scientific, networking, machine learning, maybe some games. I agree on similar libraries in various langs, though I think community culture counts for a lot. I think the various runtimes for python is a particular strength.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How did you teach yourself about how Python classes work, and about the differences between names and objects and scope and stuff like that.

I have some resources that I could re-read to learn more, and I could do experiments myself, but as a sysadmin python user, I'd like to know how you picked it up, for perspective's sake.

Thanks for the offer!

<comment><AUTHOR> I already had taken a programming languages course in college, so had a fair grasp of different approaches. I've dev'd professionally in a fair number: <http://mytechne.com/user/jdunck/programming-languages/>

So, learning Python was sort of just picking from the menu; DiP was perfect in this regard, as it related python's features to other langs you might know.

Given your different context, I think it might be helpful to just see some examples and play in the shell, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Are you sure you want to recommend "Dive Into Python"? It has some flaws, which are discussed by Zed Shaw at <http://oppugn.us/posts/1272050135.html>

Basically he says the book is outdated and not maintained, and has bad examples.

</comment><comment><USER14> I know you only have a limited amount of time to help others learn, so you can't take on any more pupils. Would you be willing to document your instruction and work it in to a syllabus of some sort for the rest of us? I'm gonna start with the reading you recommended. Thanks!

<comment><USER15> While I applaud the author's effort to help, I can assure you that you are capable of this on your own without any tutoring. If you know how to program then skim through Dive Into Python and think up a fun little project for you to do, then finish it.

I recommend a web application project because it forces you to learn a lot of different moving parts - pick a framework and study their code. Try to build your own basic wsgi framework.

Just to show and tell so you know I'm not coming from a Mr. Superior stance: <http://bitbucket.org/ixmatus/rubedo/src/tip/rubedo/>

Use it if you want - it was my attempt at building a (somewhat) Py3k compatible wsgi framework. MVC with really minimal routing and super simple configs. The request class I spent a lot of time on and had been studying the WebOB sources a lot (hence the resemblance). Doing that actually made wsgi apps and the "pythonic" way of building web applications click for me (coming from a PHP background).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> awesome! I am barely dipping my feet in this area, specifically using Django - so I have a quick question for you. I'm setting up the dev environment on a Windows machine; should I go with BitName Django Stack ( <http://bitnami.org/stack/djangostack> ) - but it seems to have an older version of Django itself, or fo through all the manual steps ( <http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/install/> ) ? Is there, by chance, an easy way for me to use the BitNami stack and then manually update the django version inside of it to get 'best of both worlds' ? Thank you in advance!

<comment><USER17> According to [http://bitnami.org/files/stacks/djangostack/1.2.3-0/changelo...](http://bitnami.org/files/stacks/djangostack/1.2.3-0/changelog.txt) , BitNami includes Django 1.2.3 as of 2010-10-08. That's the latest release of Django.

But even if that version were a little old, it's probably more important to get up and running with something rather than spend lots of time tweaking the environment. I'm a linux user, so I haven't tried BitNami, but it seems like a great way to get started on Windows. Using a virtual machine image (BitNami seems to have these also) under the free VMWare player is also a nice approach, but working in your main windows installation might be a more familiar place to work.

<comment><USER16> Thank you! That's been the path I followed so far - good to hear I'm not straying from the reasonable approach!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been teaching myself python for a while, and I just built my first Django site. It works fine in runserver, but I'm having trouble deploying it. Is anyone (OP or otherwise) willing to help me understand how to go about doing that? I could really use some help.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm really bummed to have missed this opportunity. Please keep me as a reference in case someone drops out or you can take another. Many thanks.

</comment><comment><USER20> How about an HN Python Study Group? Join #HNpython on Freenode if you are interested.

Link: irc://irc.freenode.net:6667/HNpython

<comment><USER21> Are there any existing python study groups that python users on HN can help with as well? There aren't really that many advantages to HNers having their own channels when the more users the merrier - better to chat with non-HNers as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been trying to get an answer to my Python question: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1841536>

Maybe you can take a look at that?

<comment><USER2> Looks to me like you're trying to shoehorn everything into the one list, which is going to make your code hard to write. Something to note is that you're adding blank strings ('') to your list to pad it out, which is a bit of a warning sign that your data structure is wrong.

Rather than do that, I'd use a dictionary keyed off either an id or the original text, store the user input as a list after that, then sort out how to display this in the display part of your code. Something like:

        typing = {
            'Hello World': ['Hello World', 'Hello World', 'Hello World']
            'Hello Universe': ['Hello Universe', 'Hello Universe', 'Hello Universe', ...]
        }

Bear in mind that dictionaries are unordered though, so you might need to either use a list to order them, or use sorteddict from the collections library.

<comment><USER22> Thanks. I am sorry that my question is not clear. In this case, the user enters a string s in a form and I append that to an empty list L = [] then I test if the last saved string is the same as the new string. If same, I write it on the same column; if not the cursor moves to next column (I was trying to do this with tables) and as long as the user types the same string the cursor stays on the same column. If a new string is typed; a new column is started; and so on.

In your example, if I understand correctly; it is assumed that there is a list of 3 "Hello World"s. In reality, each should be entered and then displayed (I use Mako templates).

This looks like a simple problem but I was unable to make it work. Thanks again.

<comment><USER2> I was just showing you what the data structure to store your text might look like. In practice there are a number of ways to do it, but you should be guided by what'll make it easiest to get your data out. In other words, you might be able to make it work with a list of lists, but you're trying to cut 'across' the list, rather than with it. So with your existing list:

list = [ ['Hello World', 'Hello World'], ['Hello Universe', ...], ... ]

you'll need to display the first item of each on one row, then the second, and so on, which is a hassle.

Another way might be to pregenerate your list of lists with blank items (assuming that you know how many different strings you have and how many tries they get) then track the current row and column number. If they enter it successfully then your current row increments by one. If they choose a different one, then increment your column and reset

But you seem to be overly focused on the details of your implementation (ie. rows and columns), rather than the simplest way to achieve what you want. A third way would be to have each series on a separate page, so you only need to track the current string. Once they're ready, they can click a button to get to the next one/enter a new string.

A fourth way - don't use a table, use <divs> with a set width and display- inline. Each
 has the previous entries separated by line breaks, with a form for the final one. With this sort of structure you can process each list in turn, without having to worry about indexing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dude Where Is My Package? The Impact of Missed Deliveries - <AUTHOR> http://www.mailhaven.co/blog/2016/4/26/dude-where-is-my-package-the-impact-of-missed-deliveries <comment><USER2> Summary: Mailhaven wants to sell you a special mailbox. No pictures of the mailbox though, or pricing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment, Mailhaven is still in prototype phase but you can see a rendering of the 2nd prototype here. [https://www.facebook.com/mailhaven/](https://www.facebook.com/mailhaven/). Pricing is not yet set for final unit.

Preorders for private beta testers of the prototype just ended, but sign ups are still open for the app and the next iteration of the prototype. Do you ever have any of the problems?</comment></comment>


Zip Code to City, State, Country API - <AUTHOR> http://ziptasticapi.com

<comment><USER2> Should have called it ZIPTasticUSAPI..

{"error":"Zip Code not found!"}

Also, whats wrong with geonames or google geocoding apis? Not slim enough? :D</comment>


Separation, Abstraction, and Cascading in CSS - <AUTHOR> http://www.lispcast.com/cascading-separation-abstraction <comment><USER2> "Similarly, why do styles defined in the HTML (in a style tag) take precedence over those that are linked to externally? It has always made more sense to me that it should be the exact opposite. An HTML page could define default styles for its elements, which would be carried in the page, and overriden with an external stylesheet."

Well that statement is just peculiar. Most people define the style of elements in CSS stylesheets. However, in certain cases, like positioning a single image where is does not make much sense to create a new CSS style, it can be defined in inline, overriding default properties. At least for me, it is always the other way round.

<comment><USER3> Hmm, I would tink the opposite naturally. Any style rules that is "closer" to the element I would expect to take greater precedence, because you are applying it more "directly".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article makes an interesting point about using mixins instead of multiple classes in the HTML, e.g.:

        div.foo { .red(); .big(); .narrow(); }

instead of:

It feels so much nicer to use. Unfortunately, if you use it in a general way, your compiled CSS will balloon _hugely_ \-- in fact, you're kind of defeating the whole point. Obviously gzip can help somewhat, but it still doesn't seem like the right way to go for any site of scale. (Plus the browser needs to keep track of so many more rules.) So for the foreseeable future, HTML+CSS is going to include a weird mix of classes for some things and mix-ins for others. Separating presentation from content was always a goal, but has never been remotely close to a reality.

Regarding the references 37 signals post [1], I definitely sympathize. But the problem there is that they've essentially gotten rid of the whole concept of "styles" that can be used in different places, because everything is mapped exactly to the tree. Except for page size, they might as well just be including all the CSS inline! Plus, they're forcing themselves to use mixins to create actual "styles" that can be reused.

I've found that CSS cascading generally isn't a problem at all if you stick to a few sane and well-chosen development rules with a well-planned architecture, and someone is in charge of being a dictator in enforcing them. Of course, in most places, that's too much to ask for...

[1] [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3003-css-taking-control-of- th...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3003-css-taking-control-of-the-cascade)

<comment><USER5> _your compiled CSS will balloon hugely -- in fact, you're kind of defeating the whole point_

Obviously, it depends on the use-case, but I doubt it would balloon too much. The styles themselves aren't expanding at all — all that would be happening in your example would be that you'd have

        .red, .foo {color:red}
        .big, .foo {font-size: 2em}
        .narrow, .foo {letter-spacing: -1px}
        .foo{border-radius: 10px}

(or whatever). So you'd be adding a bunch of ", .foo"s in the CSS. And, yes, most class names will be longer than that, but I don't know that for most web applications you'd be adding too much bloat. Even an inefficient CSS file is going to add minimal overhead when compared to an additional image file or javascript library.

As to "you're kind of defeating the whole point" ... well ... what _is_ the point? If your point is optimizing to get the absolute fastest download speeds, then it very well might be a bad direction to go in. But in terms of developer efficiency, using @extends and mixins can make the process radically easier. I'm working on an approach to CSS architecture that's similar to the original article linked (lots of @extends), and the benefits have far, far outweighed the costs. I'm still experimenting with it, and it's not ideal for every use-case, but I've been working with CSS for over 10 years, and it's the best approach I've found.

Definitely agree with you on the critique of the 37signals approach. It seems like a very fragile method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think cascading is necessarily a problem; rather, HTML/CSS lacks good encapsulation features. Actually, this has been well-recognized by browser vendors, who want to use HTML and CSS to implement things like HTML5 video player UIs, but don't want the styles of the page itself to interfere with the video player. They've implemented a rather intricate system called the "shadow DOM" to manage this. (This page explains it decently well: <http://glazkov.com/2011/01/14/what-the-heck-is-shadow-dom/>)

We'd like CSS to grow up, and decide it wants to be a proper programming languages, with all the abstraction and encapsulation facilities we'd come to expect. Until then, I guess there is this language called JavaScript...

<comment><USER7> > We'd like CSS to grow up, and decide it wants to be a proper programming > languages, with all the abstraction and encapsulation facilities we'd come > to expect.

I'm not sure that's really needed. Having semi-independent DOM trees with CSS not leaking across from one tree to its sub-trees would be sufficient (that's roughly what "Web Components" aim to achieve, from what I understand)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not really responding to the OP, per se, but had some thoughts motivated so I'll just jot them down:

The issue isn't that there's a problem of content versus styling; it's that there's no strict definition for _structure_. Instead, structure is conflated with content in HTML. You can't style something generically unless you have a content-agnostic structure to style. You can see this working in templating languages: we define views and have a bunch of sockets into which the content goes, and the styling just rides on top.

I could see content that looks like this: <text for="login_link">Log in</text>

And then something structural like this:

Obviously, this is already possible using ERB or Handlebars or whatever, but if we're ignoring server-side processing the way the OP is (and JS's ability to manipulate DOM, for that matter), then I think this has a little merit.

</comment><comment><USER9> It irks me to find a paragraph break in the middle of a sentence in a document which is, broadly speaking, about doing html et al. correctly.

One inconsistency that I have noticed blighting pages all over the web is defining a dark text colour and just assuming the background will be white. Try to view this using a 'dark theme' and often the undefined background colour will be dark but the original css will be respected for the text colour, meaning dark text on a dark background.

Try to force a light text colour in the user/theme css and you mess up all the pages that did it right in the first place (i.e. specify text and background colour to have suitable contrast, or leave it all up to the browser/whatever to render nicely)

I wonder if this is something that could be adressed by the tools in the article.

</comment><comment><USER10> It took me a long time to understand this article because I don't think the definition of "cascade" is what we typically use. When I say "cascade", I think of inherited properties and the CSS values falling through the DOM nodes (properties like font-family). The author, however, is simply referring to multiple CSS declarations that match a single DOM node.

      div {
        margin-left: 10px;
        margin-right: 10px;
      }

      .my-widget {
        margin-left: 0;
      }

The author refers to margin-right "cascading" into my-widget. I don't think that's what "cascade" means, but it certainly made CSS harder to work with before tools like Firebug showed you exactly where each property comes from.

</comment><comment><USER11> "No bare selectors may occur in the LESS rules."

I don't like this. It would require me to come up with a name for every single element I would like to style.

<comment><USER10> I think the author's intention was that nested LESS rules aren't considered "bare", so this is OK:

      .my-widget {
        a {
          text-decoration: underline;
        }
      }

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The cascade is very useful. In real-world situations, where I usually don't have the luxury of building a new website from scratch, the cascade has allowed me to implement changes and improvements the original creators never imagined. Maybe I have been in a hole and missed it, but this is the first complaint I have seen about the cascade.

</comment><comment><USER13> That font size was uncomfortably large.

<comment><USER14> It seems the font size depends on the window width.

<comment><USER15> It's that size when the width is at least 1000 pixels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can someone explain why they use CSS and HTML?

Why are two presentation frameworks used with a language called Javascript bolted on top, rather than a powerful programming language?

<comment><USER17> Because one would end up implementing HTML and CSS in that "powerful programming language".

Funny, have a friend that does desktop dev because he "hates web dev", built his own UI building framework on top of Swing :

        menu.addChild(item)
        ...

Now he's building an XML dtd to automate it...

<comment><USER16> You seem to be saying that the reason to use HTML+CSS+Javascript is that without them one would need to use HTML+CSS+Javascript. That you use it because you need it. Well, are you sure you need all three?

An alternative would be to use a more powerful language that would let you express the kinds of things you often need with CSS as macros and have no CSS at all.

<comment><USER18> More like, without them you will likely reinvent (badly) some subset of HTML+CSS+JavaScript.

The problem is that you want to organize the content of the document (HTML+DOM) with annotations and whatnot, and then style it to look pretty or position it just-so (CSS), and then finally maybe add some goofy runtime logic or updating (Javascript).

We've got tools that have evolved already to solve these three problems, so why not use them? One of the happiest days in my life was getting to do UI development on the web instead of an AWT/SWT/Swing behemoth (CAD software in Java) or really clean but subgreat visualization/menu framework (C with OpenGL, C++ with rendering interface, various other toolkits over time).

<comment><USER16> _why not use them?_

Because they are not powerful enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article seeks solutions to non-existent problems.

<comment><USER20> The article addresses some valid issues, but tackles some of them in a manner which is likely to affect maintenance in a different, and not always positive, way.

The article illustrates LESS and Sass in a sort of magic bullet fashion, but the reality is that such pre-processors are likely to cause many side effects and unwanted behaviour when coming back to maintain a site when used in the fashion suggested.

The author complains about the cascade and such issues, instead of embracing those same features and utilising them to their power.

I've written an article covering methods for writing scalable CSS utilising the cascade, preprocessors, and practices I have found invaluable in assisting with scalable sites / apps:

[http://themousepotatowebsite.co.za/simple-methods-for- writin...](http://themousepotatowebsite.co.za/simple-methods-for-writing- scalable-css-right-now/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Bolting-on preprocessors that add features to a language without changing its actual model fixes the problem forever, maybe.</comment>


3D.City – Game built with three.js and sea3d - <AUTHOR> http://lo-th.github.io/3d.city/index.html <comment><USER2> Beautiful work with Three.js. But the simulation work is also really impressive -- and a lot of work.

Simulation code here:

[http://lo-th.github.io/3d.city/build/city.3d.js](http://lo- th.github.io/3d.city/build/city.3d.js)

Background worker (neat idea) that handles all user input and costly events, to keep the 3D animations consistently fast:

[http://lo-th.github.io/3d.city/js/worker.city.js](http://lo- th.github.io/3d.city/js/worker.city.js)

<comment><USER3> > The simulation work is also really impressive -- and a lot of work.

The simulation is from my own micropolisJS ([http://micropolisjs.graememcc.co.uk](http://micropolisjs.graememcc.co.uk) and [https://github.com/graememcc/micropolisJS](https://github.com/graememcc/micropolisJS)) just stripped of the GPL License headers and attribution.

micropolisJS in turn is a port of Micropolis, the open-source release of Sim City 1989 for One Laptop Per Child.

Edit: edited the link. You'd think I should get links to my own site correct!

<comment><USER4> Is that compliant with your license?

<comment><USER5> I think, when he is the author, than he can decide which licence to use. There are many examples (like MySQL) where double licensing is used. The original author can decide, which licence he finds appropriate.

<comment><USER6> The author of micropolisJS is not the author of 3D City. In this case, 3D City needs to be licensed under the GPL, and I believe 3D City needs to include the copyright details for the original port.

In addition, micropolisJS has additional terms added to the GPL [0], which are clearly linked to from the top of every source file in micropolisJS [1], which need to be distributed with 3D City.

[0] [http://micropolisjs.graememcc.co.uk/LICENSE](http://micropolisjs.graememcc.co.uk/LICENSE)

[1] [https://github.com/graememcc/micropolisJS/blob/master/js/Blo...](https://github.com/graememcc/micropolisJS/blob/master/js/BlockMap.js#L1)

<comment><USER5> If he is not the same author, then you are right. One statement from an other poster suggested, that he is.

The original author would have the right to add new alternative license conditions as he wishes to.

Maybe the author of 3D City should say something about it.

Edit: Now I saw, what you mean. MicropolisJS seems to be an alteration of the GPL'ed Micropolis of an other author. And the owner of MicropolisJS stripped the GPL license from it to use it in the other project (btw. why?). I am no lawyer, but it really looks to me as a violation of the GPL, at least without permission of the first author.

<comment><USER2> The author of MicropolisJS is not the author of the ThreeJS SimCity clone that is the top of this HW story.

<comment><USER7> It's not a clone, it's derived from the original SimCity source code, which EA licensed under GPL V3 with the added condition that it should not be called "SimCity" without EA's approval. So it's important that all versions of the code include that license and the required provisions.

[http://donhopkins.com/home/micropolis/olpc-ea- contract.pdf](http://donhopkins.com/home/micropolis/olpc-ea-contract.pdf)

[https://code.google.com/p/micropolis/wiki/License](https://code.google.com/p/micropolis/wiki/License)

2.1 Modification. EA hereby grants to OLPC a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sub licensable, non-assignable, revocable right and license to modify the Original SimCity as provided by EA for the sole purpose of producing a version of the Original SimCity for distribution on laptops provided through the OLPC Program pursuant to the specifications set forth in Exhibit A ("OLPC SimCity"). All right, title and interest in OLPC SimCity and any interim modifications shall belong solely to EA. OLPC SimCity, and any subsequent versions, will not be distributed by OLPC unless the software meets the requirements set forth in Exhibit A. For the avoidance of doubt, nothing contained in this Agreement shall be deemed to limit or restrict EA's right to use, modify, sell, distribute or license the Original SimCity in any other manner as EA so desires.

And on a completely unrelated topic:

Q: How do you know there's an elephant hiding under your bed?

A: Your face is pressed up against the ceiling!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In Chrome on OS X I find myself clicking to place a zone then having to wait, then move my mouse a tiny bit before the zone would appear. If I started moving the mouse too much after clicking it gets put in the wrong place and if I don't move the mouse the zone never appears.

After 10 minutes I hit a bug where adding more zones seemed to place an 'invisible' zone. Which deleted the trees that were there and could be connected to electricity but didn't draw anything on the ground and would never populate. Or at least I couldn't see if it was populated and I couldn't play anymore.

<comment><USER9> I've hit that bug a few times. If you save the map, refresh the page, load the map again and bulldoze the invisible zones everything works again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The developers, Laurent Thillet, blog is here: [http://3dflashlo.wordpress.com/](http://3dflashlo.wordpress.com/)

including other crazy stuff like this: [http://3dflashlo.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/png-to- script/](http://3dflashlo.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/png-to-script/)

</comment><comment><USER11> The Load and Save worked, the game is amazingly good. The use of "use strict" blew me away, I had no idea that existed, it gives me a sense that JavaScript is becoming a solid language.

The game, day/night, seasons, I would buy this. It might need to be converted to Java to lower CPU usage but even as JavaScript it actually uses less than I'd have thought.

Very nice work.

On "use strict" I can't believe all the stuff JavaScript allows when it's not used, so I'm glad it exists: [http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_strict.asp](http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_strict.asp)

</comment><comment><USER12> Really enjoy this! Like everyone else, the nostalgia is so strong.

The only thing that seemed off for me was the "Drag", which I think somebody else mentioned. I found myself clicking and re-clicking it multiple times to pan around the map, which got old after a bit. That was in latest Chrome on Mac OSX.

Great work however!

</comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for wasting away the last 30 mins of my life (really it's fantastic, great job!).

<comment><AUTHOR> Not my game, just posted the link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Awesome! Brings back old memories of late nights and precious cities with the very first simcity.

At this point, my browser has ground to a halt, my retina macbook is running very hot, and the little green rectangle does not follow the cursor anymore to aim where i'm going to plant the next building: [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14314213/Screen%20Shot%2...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14314213/Screen%20Shot%202014-11-28%20at%207.02.56%20PM.jpg)

cheers!

</comment><comment><USER15> Here's what Simcity 3D ought to look like! [http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1ouer157w1r3qp3f.jpg](http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1ouer157w1r3qp3f.jpg)

(Found it [http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/03/retro-future- gloriou...](http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/03/retro-future-glorious- transportation.html) here and used it as a desktop wallpaper for ages!)

</comment><comment><USER16> Surprisingly it runs on my Jolla. I thought the browser is not enough bleeding-edge. It's pretty smooth as well, although switching to snow kills it a bit.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm really glad to see this wonderful work that people have done based on the original SimCity source code! many thanks to Will Wright and the people at EA/Maxis and OLPC for helping make it open source, and to everyone who worked on making it run so nicely and easily in the web browser. This project shows exactly why that was an important thing to do, and I hope it inspires others to do similar things.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's nearly killing my whole computer. What are the requirements to run it?

<comment><USER18> Preferably a WebGL capable browser and video card, otherwise Three.js could potentially switch to HTML5 canvas.

<comment><USER17> On the newest FF it's very slow (maybe not WebGL?) and on the current Chromium it's not even loading. Both running on a freshly installed Ubuntu 14.04.

<comment><USER18> Do you have proper drivers for your video card on Ubuntu ?

On my MacBook Air runs smooth on both Chrome and Firefox. Same on Windows 8.1. Unfortunately, I can't test it on Ubuntu because I don't have a GUI installation of Ubuntu (I use the server version).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It runs almost as fast as simcity native ran on my 33Mhz 486 in 1991.

Is WebGL evere going to really work?

<comment><USER19> Something tells me your browser doesn't support WebGL, in which case Three.js will default to canvas operations.

<comment><USER4> Right. That's what's frustrating about WebGL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is amazing. I remember playing this game before and it was all choppy. I am not sure it used threejs before. Good job in improving it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, this is very impressive. Some people say that anything that can be done in a C-type language will be done in JS between five and ten years later -- this is evidence for that point.

The gameplay feels nice, and it reminds me of Caesar II, if that game is familiar to anyone. That being said, I think the game would benefit from introducing a few objectives.

<comment><USER22> You are right.

About Caesar II/III, it was a nice city building game. But the 3DCity game is very similar to another game called SimCity/SimCity2000. Some mentioned in this thread that it even uses the open source code of the original SimCity 1 for its city simulation code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It ran pretty well in Chrome for Android.

A few observations about it: The drag view was buggy so I had to re-click it over and over again. It also crashed on me a a couple of times. Also placing objects was hard to do and it took me awhile to figure out how to drag the screen.

</comment><comment><USER24> Feel asleep after playing the game. I woke up rich! [http://imgur.com/BTZdkCo](http://imgur.com/BTZdkCo)

</comment><comment><USER25> What to do to solve the pollution problem? :D

<comment><USER26> Haven't found anything yet. Concentrating all the industry away from the residential sections doesn't help. Using all nuclear power doesn't help.

<comment><USER27> Building a lot of parks?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> pretty awesome. just wanted to say that in latest chrome on windows 8.1, when the city gets in 30k population range, new buildings and zonings model's don't appear; well, everything new doesn't appear, pretty much. also, wire seems to have trouble being built over steets most of the time

</comment><comment><USER29> This is beautiful, thank you for posting.

</comment><comment><USER30> The last 10 min reminded me how much time I spent playing SimCity, SimTower and Civilization.

</comment><comment><USER31> Didn't work until I reenabled Hardware Acceleration in Chrome settings. Doh!

</comment><comment><USER32> As a three.js fun, I enjoyed very much. Great job.

</comment><comment><USER33> Crashes Firefox mobile

</comment><comment><USER34> Got any screenshots?

<comment><USER35> [http://3dflashlo.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/sim14.jpg?w=518](http://3dflashlo.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/sim14.jpg?w=518)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Nice! quite fun!

</comment><comment><USER37> Doesn't work Chromium 38.0.2125.111 Ubuntu 14.10

</comment><comment><USER38> wow thanks this is awesome

</comment><comment><USER26> Breaks Ghostery:

Exception { message: "", result: 2147746065, name: "NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE", filename: "resource://gre/modules/addons/XPIProvider.jsm -> jar:file:///firstname.lastname@example.com!/bootstrap.js -> resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://firefox-at- ghostery-dot-com/ghostery/lib/ui/desktop/button.js", lineNumber: 60, columnNumber: 0, inner: null, data: null, stack: "create@resource://gre/modules/addons/XPIProvider.jsm -> jar:file:///firstname.lastname@example.com!/bootstrap.js -> resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://firefox-at- ghostery-dot-com/ghostery/lib/ui/desktop/button.js:60:11

Reported to Ghostery support.</comment>


Modifying Transcend WiFi SD Card Firmware - <AUTHOR> http://fernjager.net/post/modifying-transcend-wifi-sd-card-firmware/ <comment><USER2> Author here! It was quite a surprise to see one of my old posts on HackerNews.

For those interested in what happened next: I managed to build and run sqlite, rsync, and dropbear SSH on the SD card using buildroot: [http://buildroot.uclibc.org/](http://buildroot.uclibc.org/)

I quickly moved onto other interests as I couldn't work out any practical applications at the time.

Feel free to reach out to <me AT fernjager DOT net> if you have any ideas, or want to pick my brain on this project.

<comment><USER3> Could you potentially still use the card in a camera, while it was running linux?

<comment><USER2> Yup! One of the advertised features for the SD card is being able to stream just-captured photos automatically to the mobile app.

The SD card has a script that monitors filesystem changes, and would push the images via curl to the client connected to it through WiFi.

<comment><USER3> Man, I thought that getting a "yes" back would lead to a Eureka moment for some awesome use case...but the best I've got is just how cool it would be to show off, haha. Amazing work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The commercial WiFi power harvester I remembered would be the perfect partner for a WiFi Spy.

Despite the announcement that "on the CES floor, they were able to charge a BlackBerry from 30% to full in about 90 minutes, using nothing but ambient WiFi signals as a power source. " [1]

The device has never been turned into a commercial product. [2]

[1] [http://www.ohgizmo.com/2010/01/09/ces2010-rca-airnergy- charg...](http://www.ohgizmo.com/2010/01/09/ces2010-rca-airnergy-charger- harvests-electricity-from-wifi/)

[2] [http://www.ohgizmo.com/2011/01/07/ces-2011-hey-rca-hows- that...](http://www.ohgizmo.com/2011/01/07/ces-2011-hey-rca-hows-that- airnergy-wifi-charger-coming-along-oh-no-where-to-be-seen-what-a-surprise/)

<comment><USER5> You can make a very simple GSM signal detector using a germanium diode, an LED, and a bit of wire. Tune the wire by cutting it to the right length (a square with sides of 7.5 cm is fine) and solder the diodes in series. Hold a phone near it and send a text message to the phone.

[http://www.creative-science.org.uk/mobile_LED.html](http://www.creative- science.org.uk/mobile_LED.html)

Of course, that's a tiny amount of power but it's still there to be harvested.

Not sure what the legal situation is. In England an "artist" was asked to remove their installation of flourescent tubes in a field below power lines. They similarly harvested power. (I can't find that case using Google :-( but here are plenty of others [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fluorescent+tubes+power+li...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fluorescent+tubes+power+lines+field&sa=X&rlz=1RMGOYI_enGB573GB573&hl=en- GB&espv=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&sboxchip=Images&source=univ&ei=dMFaU4r3EcGp7AbJ0IHoBw&ved=0CD0Q7Ak&biw=480&bih=300) )

<comment><USER6> Legal situation?!? You're creating a matched impedance point in space.

RF energy harvesting is a bit of a hot topic, there are a number of modules on the market atm. Just search for it on mouser or farnell to get started.

Thanks btw for that LED schematic, so simple. I'm currently tuning a harvester around a BQ25504 and super caps. I'll give it a test next week.

[http://uk.mouser.com/Embedded-Solutions/Energy-Harvesting- Mo...](http://uk.mouser.com/Embedded-Solutions/Energy-Harvesting- Modules/_/N-8t3zx?P=1yzotr6)

This one contains other energy sources as well:

[http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp?N=2002+225290&Nt...](http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp?N=2002+225290&Ntk=gensearch&Ntt=energy+harvesting&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know if the currently available versions of the hardware ( [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3D...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=transcend+wifi+sd+card+16gb) ) are still compatible with these modifications?

I ask because frequently identical outward appearance does not mean identical internal hardware, especially on low cost consumer devices.

<comment><USER8> That's really a good question. At these prices, I would like to know before I commit to anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why don't companies sell an open/hackable version of this? Surely they could make a killing off the maker / Hacker News crowds.

<comment><USER10> Actually, Transcend released sources of the firmware : [http://www.transcend- info.com/files/Driver/WIFISD_GPL_releas...](http://www.transcend- info.com/files/Driver/WIFISD_GPL_release_20131219.zip)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For anyone who is interested, there is pretty good writeup here [1] on how to do kernel builds for this card. I also have a WIP of crosscompiling for this card as part of a wifi connectable (using waypoints) automated quadcopter, though I probably won't get to do more on the copter side until the fall.

My current writeup is here [2] - I am in the process of using the 8GB Transcend cards to save a few $$. I also did not experience any weirdness with the first 8 bytes of the initramfs, so I will need to investigate that further...

[1] [http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=15&proj=15.%20...](http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=15&proj=15.%20Transcend%20WiFiSD)

[2] [http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/raw.githubusercontent.com/k...](http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/raw.githubusercontent.com/kastnerkyle/kastnerkyle.github.io- pelican/master/content/downloads/notebooks/hack_automated_quadcopter.ipynb?create=1)</comment>


It's not that seed investors are smarter – it's that entrepreneurs are - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2010/07/05/its-not-that-seed-investors-are-smarter-its-that-entrepreneurs-are/ <comment><USER2> I was 2/3 through this before I realized that the point of the post is that _the author's new venture_ is a better deal for founders than the traditional VC firm.

I spent most of the post thinking along the lines of "former founder offers free advice to other founders".

<comment><USER3> Sure, cdixon has his biases and own interests like any author, but he's generally pretty insightful. As readers it's up to us to think critically about what we're reading and figure out whether or not it actually makes sense. It's good to be aware of his potential conflicts of interest, but they don't automatically make him right or wrong.

That said, I do wish he would justify the "amount raised" and "pre-money valuation" line items under the "Seed+VC" hypothetical scenario column.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some of CDixon arguments: For non cash intensive startups going after VC it's a distraction especially if they are not Top Tier VCs: * VCs are extractors not builders * they are on the board and are going to give their "opinions" and often they never were tech founders themselves * best advice comes from having gone through the same thing as the founders: building a company vs sitting in (board) meetings * if you raised with a VC at seed level and that VC does not follow up, you are dead (negative signaling) * VCs want to "put a lot of money at work" to justify their work. The bigger their fund the more they have to justify their management fees and the less company they fund the easier the job even if risky. * it is their job not a hobby: pressure to succeed or pretend. More at stake than for Angels or angels agregate in seedfunds. Angels most of the time already made their money and built their reputation. They consider more it play money and more ready to lose it. * It takes more time to raise with them than with angels or seed funds * VCs by default take prefered stocks vs common for founders & employees and can add many death pill clauses, vs more standard (even open source) less agressive legal documents in the case of seed funds, angels.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love this kind of transparency. Making it much easier to be a founder :)</comment>


The Little, Big Idea - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/editors-picks/271ae5edf93e

<comment><USER2> Agree very much with this article - this is probably _the_ most common problem I see when founders try to pitch me their ideas and getting me involved.

They have some domain expertise, and they've let that convince them that they know _exactly_ what needs to be built. They've slaved over designs, they've painstakingly considered all the angles they think matter, and they've been operating on pure hypotheticals for months on end.

The reality is that, should you prevail and be successful, your product will only loosely resemble what you're envisioning right now. I am frequently frustrated - even by experienced technologists - whose "MVPs" are the size of the moon, and they regard validation as being only applicable to details, not the core of their concept.

As someone once said, "no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy".

</comment><comment><USER3> Obviously getting posted five hours ago was the wrong time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5931889](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5931889)

Three points, no comments. This repeat already has 7 points - let's see how much better it does.

<comment><USER4> Ha - it gets a second chance! I think the main problem is that Medium can have multiple URLs for the same article. So it got picked up as an editor's pick and so has a different URL. Doesn't HN usually give a vote to the previous posting if the URL matches?

<comment><USER3> If the URL matches (or is "similar enough" under some secret metric) then a submission acts as an upvote for the original. In this case the URL is no "similar enough" so it's a new submission.

<comment><USER5> What I'd really like to see is for this behavior to also give a link a second chance on the New page. As it stands, if someone submits something, it falls off New with no upvotes, adding a vote two days later is completely useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> medium.com - better than tedium, but not by much.

Perhaps this is overly harsh, but all these superficially insightful posts in font-size: 300 strike me as rather narcissistic.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm in the midst of reading this:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976470705](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976470705)

and while it's a bit "corporate", many of the concepts presented there are dead-on.

</comment><comment><USER8> I agree with everything there, however this popped out at me and I've gotta say I disagree using 2 days as a metric to judge the feasibility of a product.</comment>


Cocktail Party Effect - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect <comment><USER2> The best cocktail parties always require superior olives</comment>


BigStash offers 5TB of long-term file storage free for one year - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/01/05/bigstash-offers-5tb-long-term-file-storage-free-one-year-following-renaming/

<comment><USER2> Hi there, how does it compare to Amazon's Glacier?

<comment><AUTHOR> BigStash is based on Glacier, but offers an abstraction layer over the Glacier technical and pricing complications.</comment></comment>


Giving cryptocurrency users more bang for their buck - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2020/spider-cryptocurrency-routing-efficiency-0130 <comment><USER2> Little confused seems like they just reinvented a centralized bank?</comment>


Lawmakers move to block government from ordering digital back doors - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/387122-house-lawmakers-move-to-block-govt-from-ordering-digital-back-doors <comment><AUTHOR> Just a reminder to contact your rep to voice your support for this legislation. It's important to contact them to support good legislation, not just when they do things you don't like.

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately my senators (Ron Wyden & Jeff Merkley) are always supporting these things, so writing them asking them to support it would be a waste of time.

<comment><USER3> Thanking them for doing so might be worthwhile.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, thanking them is a pretty good way to encourage them to continue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the idea as described in general, but the devil is always in the details. Unless I'm missing something, the article doesn't cite a bill number or name, to my frustration. That makes it harder to go look at the text of the bill to see if it is indeed something I should support or not, or to contact my representative to voice my support or disapproval.

The article did mention it was introduced Thursday, so that does narrow it down somewhat, but after a quick search, I haven't found it yet.

<comment><USER6> [PDF] [https://lofgren.house.gov/sites/lofgren.house.gov/files/docu...](https://lofgren.house.gov/sites/lofgren.house.gov/files/documents/Secure%20Data%20Act%202018.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Thank you.

Reading this, this looks simple and straightforward. There's additional things I'd like to see, suggested elsewhere in the comments, but I'll be happy to take this, and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

My only worry is that getting a bill passed can require negotiation and compromise. In the process, key bits can be excised or altered, and what was good becomes bad. I hope that doesn't happen. I shall have to keep an eye on this bill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> EFF has a better article: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/secure-data- act-would-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/05/secure-data-act-would- stop-backdoors)

</comment><comment><USER8> they should make it so that is not legal to sell any device in the US with such a backdoor and if they really want to spice it up, no US company is permitted to do so for any other country.

<comment><USER9> If you're willing to do that, why not just make it illegal to do so, period? It doesn't matter why you're backdooring it for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The legislation makes an exception for mandates, requests or court orders > that are authorized under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement > Act, a 1994 law requiring telephone companies to make changes to their > network design in order to make it easier for the government to wiretap > phone calls.

What's this mean, precisely? That device-level backdoors would be forbidden, but network-level backdoors would be allowed?

<comment><USER11> My guess is that they don't want to interfere with long-established procedures for wire-tapping (which probably pre-date 194). But perhaps the effect would be what you suggest.

If so that's good because it is still an important difference that the govt merely orders service providers about rather than mandating that your own device work against you.

<comment><USER12> For a high-level intro to wiretapping and the 4th amendment law around it, the Illustrated Guide to the Law is good: [http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1704](http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1704)</comment></comment></comment>