Ksplice wins $100,000 in MIT start-up contest - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10240865-76.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 <comment><USER2> If you're into systems programming, read the paper! <http://www.ksplice.com/paper>

The process they follow to apply a patch is:

\- compile the kernel without the patch, but using certain options (-ffunction-sections and -fdata-sections, to produce location-independent code). This is known as the _pre_ code.

\- compile the kernel with the patch and same options, producing the _post_ code.

\- perform a binary diff between _pre_ and _post_ to figure out what changed; extract the changed functions and package them up into their own module.

\- perform a binary diff between the running kernel, known as _run_ , and the _pre_ code. This is the _run-pre_ matching stage, and it has two goals: to verify the assumption that they are fundamentally the same, and to get the symbol addresses out of the running kernel. (Since _pre_ was compiled with slightly different options, _run_ and _pre_ don't match up perfectly; the paper explains how they can safely differ.)

\- use the symbol addresses learned during _run-pre_ matching to patch the _post_ code

\- stop the machine at a safe point (no functions which are being updated can be on any thread's call stack)

\- load the _post_ code into the running kernel as a new module, inserting jump instructions at the beginnings of obsolete functions being replaced.

</comment><comment><USER3> KSplice seems to be a interesting concept, but seems like the product/service is quite an unfit for the domain they are operating in (Linux Kernel updates).

The KSplice software is open source under GNU, so why not a community behind KSplice's technology simply package these (just like you would deb or rpm packages) and publish them freely (instead of having to pay KSplice, Inc simply to convert these diff's in to KSplice format).

The technology is wonderful, and I am very glad they open sourced it as well, but I am just wondering why they made it a Inc (assuming it's for-profit with their subscription service) instead of making it a open source project.

Source: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice> Source: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhbRyLATEPo>

<comment><USER4> The only obvious exit strategy is an "HR acquisition".

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> At first I thought it was all about Windows and I'm like "on linux there's no rebooting necessary!" mumbling: "except for kernel updates"

But reading the website, it turns out, that they seem to have found a way to do kernel updates without rebooting. Big Up!

And it seems like they want to support all major and minor OS.

</comment><comment><USER6> The write-up didn't fill me with confidence but their website actually has a more technical take on things.

It seems to be (atleast initially) a way of updating the Linux kernel without rebooting.

<http://www.ksplice.com/></comment>


Inside Rolex's Manufacturing Facilities (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/inside-rolex <comment><USER2> I treasure my Submariner. It's the one article of fashion I have that goes perfectly with every outfit; it looks great with a tuxedo and it looks just as good with shorts and a t-shirt. It's incredibly well-made: I wear mine every day and after nine years together, it still looks better than the year-old iPhone in my pocket. It's also understated--at least, my stainless steel, black-bezeled Sub Date is--and it doesn't scream "expensive" or "showy" like many watches on both ends of the price spectrum often do.

There are a few advantages to owning a Rolex that may not be so obvious: For starters, it's quickly exchangeable for a high percentage of its value in cash in virtually any major city in the world. Because you're always wearing it, that's $8,000+ in cash that you can have in short order if you needed it badly and circumstances prohibit you from accessing your bank account.

Another advantage: they almost always appreciate in value over time. Very few physical assets can claim similar long-term value. People have been coveting these watches for nearly a century and that's unlikely to change. I will surely give mine to one of my sons someday.

If you can afford it, I highly recommend you treat yourself to one. I get enjoyment every day when I put mine on. I can barely remember any of the cars and trucks I've owned but I spent less on my Sub and I'll never forget it.

Thanks for the article, OP.

<comment><USER3> The drawback is that you make it crystal clear to everyone that you have money. That's the one thing that always troubles me with luxury items. How do people who own Porsche's or Ferrari's cope with unwanted attention, assuming that they don't want it. It's one thing wearing a $3k Burberry coat which few could really tell its value and quite a different one wearing an $8k Rolex watch which everyone and their dogs could tell it's a luxury item.

Other than that, I agree with your sentiment. I own a couple of Longines and they're masterpieces of engineering. But they're a bit more discreet than Rolexes :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not to be facetious, but fake Rolexes are so widespread now that I actually wonder what the chances are that a random robbery will yield a real versus fake Rolex.

<comment><USER4> Even a good fake with a Swiss movement could cost $500-1000. It might still be worth robbing.

<comment><USER5> I own one, it's a datejust, uncle grabbed it for me in Singapore maybe 10 years ago? It still one for my favorites, except the stem mechanism does not work correctly. My Apple Watch ended up replacing it for everyday use. I should open it up....

<comment><USER4> I don't know anything about movements other than what I can see through transparent backs and Wikipedia articles, but...they look sensitive to experimentation

<comment><USER5> It has a sweeping pattern, opposed to the "tick-tock", It's already broken, worst case its broken more :p I'll post some pictures later.

<comment><USER4> Automatics do sweep though right? Rolex do anyway

Could be a good project if you could make headway

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now that's an ad.

"We are not in the watch business. We are in the luxury business" \- Rolex CEO.

Rolex today only gets chronometer certification for about 3% of its output. Any decent quartz watch is more accurate than the best mechanical watches. Chronometer certification for a mechanical watch only requires -4/+6 secs/day. The best quartz watches are good for 5 seconds a _year_.

Unless you also have a boat, a sextant, and a nautical almanac, but no GPS, a chronometer watch isn't going to do you much good.

<comment><USER7> My guess is buyers of mechanical watches know this already. I've never seen a luxury watch advert whose main selling point was the accuracy of the watch.

<comment><USER8> I remember Rolex adverts "from back in the day".

I destinctly remember them stating that all their watches were COSC Chronometers and explaining what that meant in terms of accuracy.

Now I'm 41 but even then it was post quartz so people weren't buying Rolex watches for their absolute accuracy.

Personally, I have an Omega Speedmaster Professional that I've worn almost everyday since my 30th birthday. It's manual wind and keeps even worse time than any Chronometer but I love it and don't covert any other (smart)watch.

Owning a mechanical watch is ...odd, I guess. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Based on my in-depth knowledge of several obscure product fields, I've developed an instinctive skeptical reaction to believing that whatever a layperson thinks of as "the best" is _actually_ "the best".

When it comes to watches, Rolex is obviously the high-end brand that the layperson will be familiar with and will believe to be representative of high quality.

Can someone who is well-versed in high-end watches tell me if they are, in fact, leading the game when it comes to engineering and quality? I seem to recall reading a few years back that Rolexes had abnormally high maintenance costs, but this article directly contradicts that, so perhaps I'm mistaken.

<comment><USER10> A Rolex is a [fairly ostentatious] signal that the wearer has a very great deal of disposable income: is the engineering quality particularly relevant?

<comment><USER11> If you're not a watch person, Rolexes might look like ostentatious status symbols. However, the flagship watches that they are most known for (like the Submariner, Milgauss, Daytona etc) are all tool watches first and foremost made mostly of stainless steel.

Like watches, some people buy BMWs because they're actually very passionate about cars and quality. Spend any amount of time on watch forums and you'll soon appreciate the engineering involved and the passion that people have for these things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't sure how this article would fair on HN but some seem to be enjoying it, and since crdb brought up Seiko elsewhere in the comments, here is a similar tour of some of Seiko's facilities[1]. It might be worth taking a particularly close look at the part about the Micro Artist Studio.

[1][http://www.fratellowatches.com/seiko-factory-visit-trip- repo...](http://www.fratellowatches.com/seiko-factory-visit-trip-report- part-1/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I own an Omega Seamaster (James Bond Special Edition) - the last thing given to me by my wife before she passed away... However, my dream is to one day be able to afford a used stainless-steel Rolex Sea-Dweller or Submariner.

<comment><USER13> Don't discount the Omega Speedmaster Professional. I've had multiple people comment on my "moonwatch"

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Rolex, more than anything, makes me optimistic about the "rise of the machines" taking everyone's jobs. There is no reason whatsoever for Rolex watches to exist besides that they make people happy. As a timekeeper, a $20 timex beats them in every way, but as art they are unmatched.

Rolex is a giant art project that employs thousands and makes millions happy. That people are willing to pay for this art and the way it is produced is profoundly hopeful.

</comment><comment><USER15> And they said long-form advertisement is dead!

</comment><comment><USER16> Impressive native advertising.

<comment><USER17> But therefore the website is ad free. No Adsense, no popups.

Seriously, this kind of content is the future the Adblocker fanatics are dreaming of.

<comment><USER18> I'd pay real money for a book that goes this in-depth into any subject, especially stuff that isn't generally public knowledge. The subject matter isn't even all that important. If this is the future of advertising bring it on.

<comment><USER16> The problem with an article sponsored by a company is that it's not going to be objective. It may be in-depth, but it's definitely hiding any conceivable bad PR for Rolex at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As I was reading about the scale of their production process, I had to wonder how many people actually buy rolexes, turns out it's been less and less every year since quite a while:

[https://twitter.com/vexmark/status/771182258099073024](https://twitter.com/vexmark/status/771182258099073024)

"The Swiss watch industry is grappling with some of its toughest times since the quartz crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, when battery-powered watches threatened to make mechanical timepieces obsolete. A drop in Asian tourism to Europe has added to a laundry list of challenges including the strong franc and a four-year anti-graft campaign by the Chinese government."

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-20/swiss- wat...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-20/swiss-watch- exports-drop-15th-month-longest-slump-on-record)

</comment><comment><USER12> Don't forget that Rolex made a quartz watch.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Oysterquartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Oysterquartz)

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm interested in buying a luxury watch.

For all the Rolex fans here: why Rolex over say Breitling or Waldan (I like the look of the Waldans the best)?

<comment><USER21> No one can really make that decision for you but the best advice I can give is seek out any watch that you're considering spending money on and hold it in your hand. Product photos, specs, and reviews rarely do justice to the personal reaction you'll have to the piece itself. I've been disappointed by watches that looked perfect on paper and been surprised by pieces that I never would have considered from just looking at them.

What did it for me when I bought my Rolex (2016 Explorer I) was the how the quality of its finishing felt in my hand. It practically vanishes when it's on my wrist thanks to how comfortable and unobtrusive it is but the materials, fit, and finishing on it show undeniably where a lot of the money went.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Submariner article.

[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> Hey, uh, why the fuck does this website want to send me notifications? That really makes me want to bounce from a page ASAP, especially one that is just serving up an article on the surface.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I didn't notice that but I just checked and it looks like I already have notifications blocked.

Sorry I submitted such a site. I agree that it is very annoying.

<comment><USER23> Well I'm mostly curious at this point. The content itself was deeply researched and informative, nothing else seemed fishy on the page.

What reasons would a webdev want to enable such a feature on a site like this? And no, I'm not giving a random page permission so I can find out!

<comment><AUTHOR> This is just a guess on my part since I always deny these permission requests but I would think maybe accepting the request would allow the website to notify a reader when new articles are posted? Maybe it's something like notifications on an app only this is done via the browser?

I feel like I started seeing these requests more frequently about 12-18 months ago. I agree it's very off putting.

<comment><USER24> The only site I allow to send me notifications is dictionary.com because I like getting a word of the day. Other than that, getting an alert from blogs every time a new article is posted gets old really fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If we have to trick rich people into paying too much for something in order to keep this level of manufacturing autism going, I am 100% in favor of it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've always really liked how the Submariner looks, and apparently so did everyone else, because there are about two billion different varieties of homages to it.

While I have no doubt that the Rolex is well-engineered, it's hard for me to believe it's literally a hundred times better than my Invicta Pro Diver, and I won't feel too bad if my Invicta gets stolen...Most people just assume I'm wearing a Rolex.

That said, if I had a lot of spare cash I'd probably end up buying a legit Submariner, and if I were eccentric enough, the Paul Newman variety of the Daytona.</comment>


2012 vs. 1984: Young adults really do have it harder today - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/2012-vs-1984-young-adults-really-do-have-it-harder-today/article2425558/ <comment><USER2> I would bet that the reason housing prices have outpaced inflation is due almost entirely to the popularization of rent-seeking activities and real estate speculation (not including the relatively recent distortions due to late 1990s deregulations that led to CDS and other financial "innovations" created to derisk the asset class beyond what was rational).

Someone should do a comparison of the number of landlords per capita today versus back in 1984 and a comparison of the number of people who own a second home or own real estate investments.

I would speculate that society has by and large re-organized in a way that permits older generation to extract greater rents from younger generations beyond just social security.

It's probably possible to write an entire Phd thesis on the myriad ways in which the baby boomers and to some degree older Gen Xers extract rent from younger Gen Xers, GenY and millenials.

The world would be a much better placed if the most highly taxed form of income was rent profits in all its forms. Non-productive income is responsible for perpetuating a lot of income disparity.

If any government really wants to promote _sustainable_ home ownership for all their citizens, they'd make homes a financial deadweight for people that aren't fully utilizing the home _themselves_. This would do more to make homes affordable for those that will actually live in them. Homes need to stop being seen as an investment and need to be seen as a utility. Whenever a utility is perceived as an investment you often seen market manipulation phenomena like the ones that contributed to the California Electricity Crisis of 2001.

<comment><USER3> It's possible that housing prices are much higher for good, because real estate was historically undervalued.

I know, I know, hear me out ;)

I remember reading an article during the housing boom that made a very interesting argument in defense of the high prices. It was wrong, of course, but it was different from the usual "there's never been a better time to buy... or sell!" crap you heard from the real estate PR machine. It was a pretty sober look at the numbers.

The argument boiled down to this - if you're going to compare current prices to the historical trend, you need to exclude the possibility that real estate was undervalued before you can conclude that current values are overvalued purely based on divergence from historical trends.

The paper argued that housing was historically undervalued because creditworthy people didn't have good access to credit. A house required a 20% down payment, and banks (back when banks held a loan for the entire life of the loan) wouldn't allow income to debt ratios to exceed a certain threshold. They argued that new methods to spread risk across larger pools allowed the extension of larger amounts of credit without a huge jump in risk.

An example was a loan made to two nurses with excellent credit earning a combined income of well over $200k, but who only had about 20K in down payment. In the past, this 10K would have limited their purchase price to 100K. Now, they could bid much higher - without, as the article described, a massive increase in risk to the lender, especially if that risk could be spread.

It was a well-reasoned argument, and I think what it missed was the profound level of corruption and dishonesty going on in the industry at the time. As we all know now, and as our wise leaders like Greenspan should and could have learned while they were reassuring everyone things were just peachy, is that the "two nurses" example was not at all typical of these "higher risk" loans, and the "spreading of risk" was in fact a way of dividing up and obscuring risk to make horrendous loans look better (and package them up and sell them, and then bet against them).

But this phenomenon will probably continue. Yes, housing prices are higher, but I suspect that once the dust settles, some of these "innovations" (my disgust with the industry makes it hard to use that word) may actually come into play.

In short, we may pay more for houses than our elders did, but we may actually have better, more efficient access to credit _in the long run_ (I want to make sure nobody thinks I'm defending the antics of the banking sector during the bubble with this argument).

Oh lastly - I do apologize for no cite. Can't really remember where I read this...

<comment><USER4> That's an interesting theory.

Comparing purchase to rental prices pretty much blows it out of the water, however.

<comment><USER2> I'm interested in hearing more on this point.

<comment><USER4> Briefly, look at a "buy vs. rent" calculator.

If the costs of renting, _inclusive_ of any possible foregone appreciation gains from real estate, are lower than of buying, then the economically rational choice is to rent, not buy.

In urban economics, the value of housing is largely dictated by the potential income one can acquire by virtue of holding it. That is: housing reflects the local prevailing wage.

It makes zero sense to rent a property (as a wage earner) for more than one can make in income living in the area. Hence, rents tend to be much more responsive to wage inflation/deflation than housing prices (student and retirement housing would be exceptions, but they're constrained by similar functions ultimately).

With real estate, there is the potential for appreciation gains. This presumes, however, that there's someone willing to buy at the appreciated property later. Housing prices cannot inflate indefinitely over other assets. And the long-term historical return on housing (since the 1880s or so in the US -- period for which data are available) are in fact lower than most forms of investment. Housing carries heavy costs: taxes, maintenance, improvements, etc. And it's largely an illiquid asset, particularly for the small investor (I may have many of a smaller investment to sell, I generally only transact in a single house at a time).

There are other tweaks on this: rental/owner-occupied housing aren't perfectly substitutable (covenants, HOA restrictions, etc.), there are non-financial returns to housing (or at least longer-term returns), notably school district access and crime/safety rates. In markets with low vacancy rates, rental values may fluctuate more broadly. Bank lending practices may make buying easier (2000s) or harder (2010s) at any given time.

But the upshot is still: rental prices in a given market tend to be a better guide to local economic conditions than real estate prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes college was more affordable and for many it is unaffordable today. Young people and parents need to seriously consider forgoing college entirely, that will be the only thing that will force the price down. These parents and students freely choose to pay these absurd tuition fees. Until you stop paying them, they will keep raising them.

Cars in 1984 are not comparable to cars in 2012. There are many emissions and safety requirements on modern cars that have forced the price up. Also the reliability and quality of most modern cars far exceeds 1984 models. Most young people would not want anything like a 1984 car. Ford Pintos were cheap, problem is they exploded when they were rear ended.

Housing is expensive, but it depends where you choose to live. Hip areas have always been expensive. Toronto wasn't hip in 1984 and nor was silicon valley. In Mpls I rented a decent 2 bedroom apartment in 1986 for $550 per month, the same apartment today rents for $850. if you want to live near the "cool" people it will cost you.

<comment><USER6> > _Young people and parents need to seriously consider forgoing college > entirely, that will be the only thing that will force the price down._

That's definitely a problem I've seen with my peers. They go just because their parents expect it of them. I can't find the article (it was on HN maybe 6 months ago) that compared college majors in the mid 80's to 2011. While useful stuff like CS stayed relatively flat, the majors that skyrocketed were things like Liberal Arts. Those are the people making college expensive for all of us.

One real way to bring prices down would be to attend community college for 1-2 years. It's extremely cost effective, easily transferable, and designed for working adults so the schedules are often more flexible than traditional college.

<comment><USER7> This is the source you are looking for - [http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/col...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/college- has-been-oversold.html)

<comment><USER6> That's it! Much appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's funny how most comments here are dancing around the issue trying to point out factual errors and counterexamples.

Bottom line: Young adults today have it way worse than their parents.

In most developed countries in the world. How should this issue be dealt with?

In my opinion you can't just call it bad luck, and tell people to deal with it and adapt.

Personally I think the biggest motivation of all is the sense of change for the better, and a future to look forward to. I simply can't accept that my generation got the bad future, and all the good future was used up by our parents.

Looking at my parents generation I think they lived pretty subservient lives, which were also quite stressful, with lots of stress related disease, heart attacks, blood pressure issues etc..

And if I work _really_ hard and study, best case scenario is that I get the same jobs as my parents, only twice the workload and half the pay.

<comment><USER9> > best case scenario is that I get the same jobs as my parents, only twice the > workload and half the pay

Unless you're way out of the target demographic for HN, this is preposterous. Even semi-competent programmers are way under-supplied; you can name your price, location, and working conditions.

<comment><USER8> Ok I'll name my working conditions: A work environment with peace and quiet to be able to concentrate. Have enough time to be able to deliver though-out quality work. Having reasonably specified tasks, and if not, have the decision power to fill in the blanks as I see fit. Not being constantly interrupted.

Not being under constant stress and pressure to the point where I feel that my health might be suffering.

From my experience these (common sense?) demands on working conditions would rule out pretty much most programming jobs.

<comment><USER10> Do you think low stress heart surgeon jobs exist?

Work conditions in tech have more to do with what those jobs are than economic conditions. Companies are desperate to fill positions and you see many going out of their way to create as low stress office environments as possible but after a certain point you just have to come to grips with that's just what the job is.

That said, low stress programming jobs _do_ exist, but in my experience they tend to exist in companies you would not normally look at for programming jobs. Damn near every sizeable company has programmers but we tend to only look for jobs "in industry" at the Googles, Microsofts, Facebooks, etc. Think east coast, foundations of the company not in tech, non-glamorous. Basically the equivalent of your heart surgeon working in some sort of research instead of in a hospital on live patients.

<comment><USER11> Most surgeons spend the great majority of their time in a regular doctor's office or making the rounds in a hospital. I've worked for surgeons and have spent hundreds of hours in the operating room. Tense moments happen but on the whole keeping a busy webserver up and running is probably more stressful for the staff.

<comment><USER10> Fair enough, I was under the impression that surgeons had particularly stressful jobs. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of inherently stressful jobs though. Maybe table waiting, depending on levels of business.

Stress in the workplace seems to be to be a function of responsibility and activity. Speaking from experiance, lifeguard jobs have very high responsibility but (you hope) very very low activity; meanwhile jobs like being a farmhand are high activity but usually very low responsibility. Both of these were the lowest stress jobs I've ever had. Stress seems to go up when both of those factors are up, jobs with neither activity nor responsibility probably don't really exist (or at least pay well).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Truthfully, a young adult shouldn't be buying a house anyway. Owning a home in a depressed market will increase the length of unemployment for a young adult. Since you cannot unload the home, you need to find a job within commute range of your home. This limits the job prospects.

We need to make renting or other alternatives more attractive.

<comment><USER13> I agree with you whole-heartedly. In your 20s, the best investment you can make is in your career. These days, that often means moving. Staying light on your feet and going for the best job for your career is more important than optimizing cashflow. A couple good experiences in the first 2-10 years of your career really can set you apart, especially when other people are floundering in this economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am sorry, but this guy is an idiot.

He is referring this study: [http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/hot- topics/caninequality.a...](http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/hot- topics/caninequality.aspx)

It has a chart of INFLATION-ADJUSTED median after-tax income in 2009 dollars, from 1976 to 2009. He then takes a figure for 1984 from this chart, around $48500, and proceeds to compare it to prices in 1984 dollars, without converting them to 2009 dollars.

So from a house price of 100k in 1984, he infers it was only 2x times median income then. While in fact, he needs to convert 100k in 2009 dollars and get around 200k and 4x times median income.

<comment><USER15> Not only that but his other example (cars) is ludicrous. Cars are by far, without a doubt, cheaper, safer, better made, more reliable, and more feature- laden than at any point, ever. For $12k (roughly 1/4 the median income), you can get a brand new, pretty decent car.

Also, just about everything else (save maybe gas) is much cheaper and more plentiful today than 30 years ago. The Russian athletes and dancers who came here to compete/perform in the 70's and 80's told many tales of being awed by common supermarkets. I think if you took Americans from the 80's and brought them to a Costco, they might not be awed, but they'd be pretty surprised.

<comment><USER16> Although he opens mentioning buying a car in 1986 what he actually says is that cars have pretty much matched the rate of inflation. Seems to me he is saying cars are about as good a deal today as they were back then. I do not find that ludicrous. The other point to be made about cars is that all those improvements do not really matter that much in terms of the value you are getting out of them, cars in the '80s got you from point A to point B just like a brand new one does today.

(To be completely off topic I would add that computerization in the modern cars has always been a concern for me, when a 2012 car's computer starts acting up in 2032 what are we going to do with them? I have a late-ninties highway tractor and every time I have a wiring problem with it I am pretty worried it will become more expensive to fix than it is worth despite being mechanically sound.)

<comment><USER17> >The other point to be made about cars is that all those improvements do not really matter that much in terms of the value you are getting out of them.

Cars today on average run much longer than cars did 30 years ago, the get better gas mileage on average, and go longer between scheduled maintenance. How is that not added value?

<comment><USER16> For one thing the better gas mileage is not much of an improvement from the mid-eighties, gas was much cheaper then ('78-'84 prices were high, inflation- adjusted still not as high as right now though except maybe in 1981). If you buy a new car and your issue is capital or cash-flow how long the car lasts will not be a significant factor in your purchase. Don't get me started on car maintenance! You can hardly touch a modern car anymore yourself, you pretty much have to pay someone to do anything. But I will concede that a modern car needs a lot less work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think part of this is that young adults have a harder time doing what our parents did at the same age.

When I was trying to rent my first post-college place with my girlfriend, my parents didn't think we would need a co-signer. They had gotten all their apartments, years ago, with a handshake and an understanding they had word. After they realized things had changed, they were happy to help, but it took a while.

I think there are many people, who are divorced from the experience of being a young adult, who think "kids today" aren't achieving like their parents did. They're right - we aren't living in the post-war prosperity - but I think young people are also achieving differently. Even if the things our parents did were the same price, how many of us would do them?

</comment><comment><USER19> We should be burning the financial system to the ground... well maybe not literally but pretty damned close.

The despicable thing is that the insanely rising cost of education is just plain class warfare under a veil of financial hocus pocus and it takes aim at what I see as developed society's achilles heel. Education is the root of everything that underpins our current and future society. You kill that and you are tinkering with killing just about everything of social value in X years. Look at any country that has a weak education system and the correlation is extremely clear.

Our current education system is/was a very very good one that now is largely unaffordable and increasingly inaccessible. Complaints about the impractical value of certain degrees has merit but on the whole the US education system has provided an environment that has fostered a class that by enlarge has been one of the most creative, productive, and compassionate of this past century.

I really fear that our current trajectory in the opportunities for one to receive rich educational experiences is going to inevitably lead to our society being stagnant at best.

<comment><USER20> The financial system has tons of problems, but it's a hell of a lot better and more democratic than a world where there is no avenue for the wealthy and the middle-class to share in ventures. You and I and our neighbors can buy stocks in big companies and earn returns to save for retirement; we can (at our discretion) have rich jerks fund our little startup and launch businesses we couldn't otherwise. We can borrow money to buy a house, and enjoy the stability and independence that such a purchase provides for the next couple of decades while we pay it off, instead of saving up while we're renting and enjoying none of that.

But of course no one who's been through an introductory economics course should be surprised that subsidizing the purchasers of a good or service (like education) makes the price rise. :)

<comment><USER19> What you describe is also my definition of a healthy financial system but IMHO we are increasingly moving away from that description and I think the fact that socio-economic mobility has been decreasing in the US somewhat verifies this.

Just about everyone can "share" in economic growth in the US. That is positive. But the problem is that the financial vehicles accessible to most are increasingly weighted to capture less of the percentage of capital gains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _But other comments reflected a view that today's young adults should just grow up._

Hmmmm. Bullshit alert going off.

Every generation needs to come of age, get their education, look around in the world, and fit in. Many times this involves a lot of protesting and asking for change, complaining about the way things currently are, and experimenting with various alternative lifestyles. This is good for everybody.

What some observers see -- probably because of the way the press reports it -- is a lot of kids who are ass-deep in debt, lack the education (even though they've graduated from a nice college) to be employable, and instead of adapting to the world as they see it, are stuck in a mode of complaining and waiting around until something comes their way. This is by no means all of them, but kids like that make for a good newspaper story: "Still living in his parent's basement at 35, Joe Smith emails out 100 resumes per day before going to the Starbucks and playing MMORPGs all day. 'I'm just not sure where the management jobs are,' the Art History major says...."

To a story like that, sure, people will say something like "perhaps instead of insisting the world conform to your ideas, you should learn to like the world as it is and adapt. Many have found that this leads to a happier life." or the shorter form, "grow the hell up, kid!"

People who offer this advice are not trying to be callous, cruel, or insensitive to the plight of the young. Nobody is saying to give up on your dreams. It's just that big goals like being an astronaut often begin with flipping burgers down at the Mickey D's, even for people with 4-year degrees.

Like I said, I blame the press for setting up this "fight". If you ask me, most college grads already have this figured out.

<comment><USER22> Flipping burgers at McDonalds is a good way to get your foot in the door if you work at it. Shift managers can make $50-75k, and location managers frequently top $100k. Given the high rates of turnover, such positions can be earned in 2-3 years (for college graduates).

Moreover, McDonalds has an extremely generous education assistance program, including full-ride scholarships to business schools for employees who qualify for its executive training program. A high percentage of McDonald's executives are promoted from within. And like Dominos, a vast majority of McDonald's franchises (which clear >$1 million/year, on average) are owned by former employees. (Don't remember what the % is for McDs, but for Dominos, their pizza box claims >95% of their franchises are owned by former employees.)

<comment><USER23> When I worked at Hardees (mid-90s, but inflation hasn't been so high since then), I happened to see my shift manager's paycheck. She was making like $20k/year.

Perhaps shift managers _can_ make $50-75k, but I'd be surprised if it's common. If you have a reference that shows otherwise, I would be very curious to see it.

<comment><USER22> I did specify "McDonalds" for a reason. McDonalds has always had great employee relations. In-n-out is even better than McD's in this regard, but the total opportunity for growth is limited because of the smaller footprint.

Hardees (Carl's Junior in the west) is almost the polar opposite of McDonalds. Its founder was a vocal opponent of labor laws, and for a while in the 1990s was one of the principal financial backers of the effort to repeal the minimum wage and overtime laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Cars are a bargain relatively. An example low end of the Mercedes line in 85 was a 190E about 30k. That's $58k in today's dollars. Current low end is MB C-Class MSRP about 34,800 (so you are probably talking a few thousand more with options but less a discount brings you back to that amount approx.).

A much better car for only a little more.

<comment><USER25> Mercedes prices actually did go down relative to standard car prices. Pointing at Mercedes alone doesn't really show much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Similar tone to an excellent article about last year's hockey riots in Vancouver from an angle most of the media did not take. It's by no means an excuse, but I agree most of the troublemakers were youth from the suburbs disenchanted by many of the same economic reasons: "What does the future look like for the average 20 year old? It's a depressing, empty place where they can't get decent-paying (let alone secure) jobs or ever have a hope of owning property." [http://www.straight.com/article-399635/vancouver/vancouver-h...](http://www.straight.com/article-399635/vancouver/vancouver- hockey-riot-symptom-larger-problem)

</comment><comment><USER27> He's picking on a couple of numbers: cost of education and cost of housing.

Both have outpaced inflation. Canada's had the same commodities boom as Australia, Chile and Russia. Housing bubble obviously hadn't hit. yet. ( I hear they balance their budget and don't give away tax deductions for going into debt so maybe they won't have as bad a one).

Other obvious question is : have houses improved over almost 30 years making the question of average priced house then vs average prices house now a bit cloudy.

$6000 for tuition??? Not a bad deal. Canadian government must be subsidizing it. Maybe it was higher subsidies back then.

Bottom line cherry picking your comparisons are hard.

Unemployment was worse then: [http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?...](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?&id=UNRATE&scale=Left&range=Max&cosd=1948-01-01&coed=2012-04-01&line_color=%230000ff&link_values=false&line_style=Solid&mark_type=NONE&mw=4&lw=1&ost=-99999&oet=99999&mma=0&fml=a&fq=Monthly&fam=avg&fgst=lin&transformation=lin&vintage_date=2012-05-11&revision_date=2012-05-11)

But duration was better : [http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?...](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.png?&id=UEMPMEAN&scale=Left&range=Max&cosd=1948-01-01&coed=2012-04-01&line_color=%230000ff&link_values=false&line_style=Solid&mark_type=NONE&mw=4&lw=1&ost=-99999&oet=99999&mma=0&fml=a&fq=Monthly&fam=avg&fgst=lin&transformation=lin&vintage_date=2012-05-11&revision_date=2012-05-11)

<comment><USER28> I hear the argument about how products have improved over time and how that justifies their increased price and I don't buy it. It makes sense if people still have the option of buying the 1980s house in which case purchasing a 2012 house would be an expensive luxury. But people can't get the 1980s house for the 1980s price so we must conclude that housing prices have inflated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> But... but... today's young adults have the Internet!

I'm being slightly facetious, but technological advance has gotta count for something, right? (ex. new cars may be expensive, but is it easier to find used cars these days with Craigslist, etc?)

<comment><USER28> If you look at the numbers as percentage of income instead of dollars then we can see the percentage of income that an item costs go up if the item has advanced (ie better cars, better refrigerators, better houses). If the percentage of income for one item goes up it must go down for another. Since no technologies get worse over time which expenditure is suppose to become less of a percentage of income over time?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> the author highlights the higher interest rate, but neglects to give a mortgage payment as a percentage of monthly income. current rates are as sometimes a third of what they were in the 80s.

</comment><comment><USER31> Generations will always have their differences. Generation X v Generation Y etc etc

It is easy to compare income/costs however what about non-financial value?

Health and life expectancy

Globalization and travel

Academic and learning

Technology

etc

At least these can apply in the first world [1] and even second world. Maybe these are all correlated to money?

[1] <http://www.reddit.com/r/firstworldproblems/>

</comment><comment><USER32> Article rather specific to the Canadian big cities, in which prices are currently rather high. Some of this house price growth is transient, some is permanent.

How much does land cost? In a place like Toronto or Vancouver, it costs _as much as it possibly can_. That is to say, since desirable land in these cities is so much more desirable than undesirable land, people will pay _as much as they can possibly afford_ in order to get a good piece of land rather than a lousy one.

What this means in practice for most people is: take all the money you're ever likely to earn, deduct the money you need to spend on other stuff, and what's left over is the amount of money you're going to wind up spending on a house. Sure, you can spend less if you want, but you're going to wind up living in a much worse place, and since (as I just said) the desirable places are much more desirable than the undesirable places, people are willing to give up, say, a fancier car, for the benefit of living in The Beaches rather than Outer Missisauga.

The good news is that things don't actually get _worse_ for people just because they have to engage in this cut-throat competition for desirable land. Like I said, house prices merely soak up all the money that's left over once the necessities are paid for, and if house prices go up considerably in real terms it just means that the prices of necessities have, in real terms, dropped.

<comment><USER33> There is an obvious solution to the housing problem, which is to fix transportation and take pressure off the market. There's one reason urban housing is so expensive, and it's this: commuting sucks, and finding parking is horrible, and people will pay immense amounts of money not to deal with that shit. Obvious simple and right solution: tax the hell out of the landlords and the very rich, and build the best public transit system the world has seen.</comment></comment>


Discovery, ESPN to launch 3D TV channels - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9143116/Discovery_ESPN_to_launch_3D_TV_channels <comment><USER2> Just about every time I've seen ESPN HD (in restaurants and bars), it's used the extra resolution to upconvert a standard definition signal and bookend it with two huge "ESPN HD" logos.

Is there any reason to think they can do better with ESPN 3D?

<comment><USER3> I don't see how these are remotely related. I have ESPN HD at home and the quality is outstanding. A lot of channels add their logo when showing SD content on their HD channels. Big deal.

<comment><USER4> As far as I know ESPN is one of the few channels left in the US with a decent bitrate (~18mbps) and using 720p (end-to-end) which is why it looks so good.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple's Game Console will Change the Living Room - <AUTHOR> http://kylerichter.com/?p=100

<comment><USER2> Well the problem is Battery. Since you are using the processing power directly on your Phone. It will required to be constantly charging. And this means if this was used for serious gaming the battery will use up all its recharge cycle much quicker then used otherwise.

AirPlay needs more work and my guess is that a 5Ghz only, Less interfered, Beam Forming mandatory, WiFi standard is required. Hence 802.11ac. Although i believe the Wifi lantency doesn't matter much if the developer had the intention of developing their games for AppleTV play they will have to use some tricks to minimize those Latency.</comment>


France Maintains the Goal of Creating a 'European Army' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-14/france-maintains-goal-of-creating-a-european-army-minister <comment><USER2> I've always wondered, if the states were able to unite, why can't the European nations? And the EU was a small step towards that, and this would be another major leap. No idea if uniting is for the best or worse of everyone, but I like the thought process, and somehow it does feel like progress to me, at least in the abstract.

<comment><USER3> Because europeans are as diverse between them as they are with americans. An EU federal state is not a low energy state at the moment.

<comment><USER4> Neither is the US at this point.

<comment><USER5> That's not actually true; while the electoral system masks this somewhat, especially where further reinforced by gerrymandering by the dominant party, the major divides in the US our ideological divides where the major factions are relatively consistent nationally, , they are much less regional that at virtually any previous point in US history.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Dear 'open source' people (on defending rms) - <AUTHOR> There have been countless times when rms has said something, and you jumped to attack him, on every level. Here are some of your argumets. I try coming with some answers.
1) "To me, free is the freedom to use whatever I want, including propertiary software."
In this context, when we talk about 'Freedom', we mean 'Free Software'. Fortunately, Richard Stallman, they guy you are bashing about, defined the term 'free software'.
Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
This is what 'Free Software' means. Please, feel free to use any propertiary software you want. But please dont try changing or misusing the 'Free Software' term. This is the software freedom rms talks about. When arguing about 'Free Software' you dont have the right to change the meaning of term for the sake of argument.
2) "Richard Stallman is crazy. We should replace him with someone more practical."
Free Software Foundation is an ideologic campaign. Its not a Software Project. Its not there to create a fancy UI for your desktop. Its there to pusht the concept of 'Software Freedom'. 	FSF doesnt care about quality of software. Their priority is freedom.
GNU project, on the other hand, is a software project. It includes many many software projects, created by hundreds of programmers around the world. You probably have emacs, gcc and gnu coreutils on one of your devices. These are written by rms. He has doe more. Way more.
He puts his work where his mouth his. He has done some high-profile work. He IS a practical person.
GNU project is a software project. Richard Stallman created it. Created emacs, gnu coreutils, gcc and many other projects on it. He has done A LOT on his 'practical' side of efforts.
FSF should NOT be run by people who would give up a penny on software freedom for practical reasons. Because insisting on software freedom is its mission.
3) "Richard Stallman is politically incorrect." 	Yes he is. That is the way he is. Like it or not.
 Respect his individuality. Not everyone should be 'politically corect'. 	However, that doesnt mean he is 'wrong'. Most of the times, he is a very harsh guy making very valid points.
4) "rms should 'step down'." 	rms should step down as what? As the leader of Free Software `movement`? Well, there is no official 'leader' on this movement. Its just that people value his words ad his work. And he earned it.
Now, you say he should step down as the president of Free Software Foundation? Why? He is the founder of FSF. He drives it the way he wants. If you (or anyone else) think you could do a better job of pushing free software through an organization, GO DO IT. Free Software Foundation is not the 'exclusive' supporter of Free Software.
(There are already other orgaizations like FSFE)
Now, enough defending rms. I dont think he needs me or anyone else to 'defend' him. As a matter of fact, I bet he would argue me about many things I write here.
Lets talk about you this time.
Most of you are the people who use propertiary software. Even develop (or dont mind developing) and selling propertiary software and its 100% ok to you. You use Macs and iPhones because they have a litte bit fancier user interfaces. You praise Apple because its products are 'slick'. You would immediately choose a propertiary software if its technicaly 'a little bit' ahead.
You occasionally drop a few hundred lines of code on github and then think you are a contributor to Free Software? No. Your reasons for sharing that piece of software is usually very 'Open Source'. You do it because you want a good resume. You do it because it gets you credit and karma. You do it because its fancy. Most of you dont do it because of Free Software. You dont actually care about Free Software.
Disclaimer: Im among you. Im not like rms either. We barely have people like rms. Thats what makes him noble and the right person to lead the Free Software movement.
Sorry for not-good-enough English.
Edit:Formatting. <comment><USER2> The problem with hardcore ideologists is that they always end up bickering about details with other hardcore ideologists. This is fine, and it's their right to do so, but from a distance it will make the movement they all represent together look like a bunch of fighting children.

Any activist group that has ever made a difference in history has had leaders who were able to accept their minor differences and fight together for the greater good (until the fight was won, at least)

RMS is entirely incapable of separating main points from side issues. This makes it impossible for him to make peace with people who are, in fact, on his side. How can you expect someone like that to ever gain the amount of support needed to really push a globally relevant point forward? The world of software isn't a village council.

This man might have been a great programmer, but as an activist, he's a joke.

<comment><USER3> _This man might have been a great programmer, but as an activist, he's a joke._

Activists raise consciouness of an issue, and he seems to be doing that quite fine - who else is fighting the same fight with the effectiveness he is? If he weren't around... where are the public figures making his argument and getting press inches?

Also, minor differences he's capable of - he's apparently given up on the hurd kernel due to the linux kernel being top dog, despite not fully approving of it.

<comment><USER2> > _Activists raise consciouness of an issue, and he seems to be doing that > quite fine_

Are you sure? Afaik, he's only reaching us, insiders. If you want to convince a non-nerd about using free software, would you dare using material that RMS produced? Would you show them a recording of him speaking?

> _Also, minor differences he's capable of - he's apparently given up on the > hurd kernel due to the linux kernel being top dog, despite not fully > approving of it._

That's _super fucking nobody-cares-about-that-shit_ minor. Really. Which kernel you use is _not_ what free software is about.

<comment><USER3> If you read the dead comment below, you'll see he's very popular in the developing word. As for the developed world, what tech activists get any more traction with the non-nerds? It's not just a matter of saying 'here, my friend, watch this' as that doesn't really happen, it's a matter of the message being raised and pursued. No-one is going to make a non-nerd sit through a lecture on software patents, no matter who does the speaking. But guys like RMS keep _us_ aware that there is an issue.

Regarding the dead comment itself, I have absolutely no idea why the comment below is dead - it simply says he's popular, then uses Jobs' own words about misfits and troublemakers to defend the man. Apparently HN has interpreted this as "misfits and troublemakers you like", which kinda runs counter to the context of the paragraph. RMS fits almost everything in the comment.

The fact that that comment is dead - polite, informative, insightful - is just further evidence that the moderation system on HN needs an overhaul.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When speaking publicly, RMS is often tactless, offensive, and socially inept. The "emacs virgins" debacle wasn't an issue of "political correctness," nor is the dust up over his comments on Steve Jobs' passing.

Granted, there may be a utilitarian point regarding Jobs' work to advance closed platforms, and his death meaning he won't be able to do so any longer, but to spit on his grave? Absolutely uncalled for.

We should expect more from our leaders.

<comment><USER5> Oh get over yourself.

My condolences if you knew Mr Jobs personally, but really, spat on his grave? Stallman did nothing of the sort.

What Stallman did was address the practical change for free software that Steve Jobs removal from leadership at Apple would make. That's it. The manner of removal RMS notes as undeserved.

<comment><USER6> People keep saying this and I don't really want get into a philosophical debate about it, but Steve Jobs has not been at the helm of Apple since January of this year and officially resigned in August. I'm not saying that RMS is spitting on his grave but if Steve Jobs' "removal" from Apple was really the catalyst in provoking such remarks surely they were due in January or August, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are campaigns like Bad Vista and Windows Sins really promoting free software, or bagging on non-free software? It is campaigns like these that can make you question, does the FSF really send the right message about free software. They certainly have a lot of positive campaigns, but some people could be put off by the almost 'smear campaigns' that the FSF supports.

<comment> dorian-graph "There are those who always speak of themselves, and they are either insecure or proud. _There are those who always speak of others. They are usually very boring._ There are those who speak of stirring ideas, compelling books, .."

I too thought the Bad Vista campaign was in horribly taste and ineffective. Hell, it wasn't too horribly accurate either from what I remember.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> When the concerns of an individual are focussed so intently on a particular licensing agreement for their works that they lose the perspective that the death of any being is a sad thing. At that point, I'm afraid, I no longer can regard that person as sane, i.e. in control of their own mind.

I am grateful for the work the FSF has done in the past, but I'm also grateful for the work Steve Jobs has done.

Fanatical and extremist views lead to misery for the owner of the views and for those they effect. It doesn't matter if the views are religious, political or just software licenses.

I don't believe you need to defend RMS - I can separate the ideas from the man. However the FSF has just had it's reputation burnt severely and if they want to have any useful contribution towards the ongoing debate about how best to move the industry forward they should reconsider the ir public image.

That is if they want to increase their support and not end up a fringe group.

I'm a great fan of open source software and have been for the last 23 years but let's be clear - the producer of software always has the right to choose what license they have, that is their freedom and that was the freedom that Steve Jobs like many others chose. Sometimes the license was open source (Darwin, WebKit etc.) sometime it wasn't, he chose, that was his freedom as the producer of the work. Freedom is such a loaded word but how often do we stop to see the freedom of _other people_ not just our own when we cry it's name.

When people cannot see the freedoms of others but only talk about their own freedom, be suspicious. Because their agenda is the most important thing to them, not the wellbeing of others.

I wish a long life to RMS, to the FSF and to open source itself. I would like to see a very quick end to a world view that is filled with contempt and hate for other people which is poisoning all three.

<comment><USER3> More character assassination. I have no particular fondness for RMS, but the amount of character assassination he receives is incredible. I think he's a crazy loon, but a harmless one.

In his own words, he said "Nobody deserves to have to die". He said these words on his own blog, and separated the ideas of Jobs (glad to see gone) from the man of Jobs (not glad to see gone), just like you yourself claim to about RMS. He didn't go out to another publication or stand on the FSF soapbox. He mentioned those words _on his personal blog_. This whole 'burnt reputation' has little to do with what he actually said, and more to do with people intentionally misreading it and being wilfully offended.

Also, philosophically speaking, it can be quite normal for the death of a human being to not be sad. (let alone _any_ being, quit gilding the lily - most humans don't feel sad about meat animals, let alone fish in general or lower order animals)

If you've known anyone who has had to suffer a long, lingering, painful death, the actual occurence of their death can be an escape from sadness, a relief, even peaceful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Who died and made RMS the King of England? That is his definition of Free Software and he is welcome to it. Not everyone else follows his definition, in fact I would say most don't. So much so that his pronouncements about this and that violates Freedom turn people off the movement. His inability to function as public figure just makes it worse(ie his publication about SJ's death being a victory for Freedom.)

He has done some great stuff, that doesn't excuse his faults. Basically him being the leader of the free software movement reminds me of the old line about being promoted to the level of greatest incompetence. When people talk about him stepping down they mean as president of the FSF. They want to see the organization focus on being useful rather than being ideological because they think the ideological stance rather marginalizes the movement. I know when I come into contact with free software 9 out of 10 times the FSF isn't involved.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you dont follow fsf's definition of 'Free Software', then 1) Why would you care if FSF is ideological or practical? 2) Why dont you define your meaning of 'free software' and give it a name? Thats what esr did and named it open source.

If you dont care about free software (with rms'es definition), why do you want FSF to function differet? Why would you care? Why would FSF and rms chage their direction towards what _you_ value as 'software freedom'?

<comment><USER9> _Why dont you define your meaning of 'free software' and give it a name?_

I already have it is called free software. Look at the founding of any movement from Alan Kay and Object Oriented programming to Christ and Christianity, founding a movement allows you to push the world in a given direction. It doesn't make you king who gets to lord over every last thought of members of the movement.

Why do I care if the FSF is practical or ideological? Simple I believe in free software and think it could be so much more. However when FSF goes off on its ideological jaunts, it hurts free software. When ESR and RMS had their little spat that lead to the creation of OSI it hurt the movement. When the president of the FSF leaves little notes about how the world is better place because someone is dead it hurts the movement. I don't care what the FSF does so long as it quits trying to kill free software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> RMS is one of the primary reasons I stopped contributing to gcc.

RMS did huge amounts of damage with his "EMACS virgins" joke to women in computing, and has never apologised.

At the end of the day, I believe the days he is a help to the open source movement are over. He is now a major hinderance.

</comment><comment><USER11> Your response to objection number 1 misses the point.

The issue is what critical thinkers would recognize as an equivocation fallacy: It's one thing to classify certain software as 'free' according to a particular definition. It's another thing to attribute a moral judgment to something by using a certain term such as 'free'.

Objection number 1 is about Stallman's use of the word 'free' in the second sense. Your response is about the use of the word 'free' is the first sense. Therefore, you either misunderstood the critics, or you're deliberately erecting a straw man.

My guess is on the first interpretation: "Please, feel free to use any proprietary software you want." is the opposite of what the Free Software movement is all about: One should not use proprietary software! It's evil, according to Stallman.

<comment><USER12> Many vegetarians believe eating meat is evil. They tell me "you should not eat meat, it is evil".

I agree with them, and yet I eat meat, especially when my mother / girlfriend cooks it for me. Are vegetarians going to moral-judge me? Some of them might; Others would just see me as "strong" enough to resist meat.

With most politicians, the more you listen to them the more inconsistencies you will find. rms, however, is remarkably consistent and is unrelentingly principled.

I wish I were only one-tenth as principled as rms. Then I can reject meat and only use Free software. Alas, I'm not, so... rms can moral-judge me and I won't mind.

I don't think that prevents me from being a support of either causes, however.

<comment><USER11> I'm not quite sure what you're trying to tell me.

I didn't say that Stallman has no principles, or that he is inconsistent. For me, there's just one main question: Is his conclusion -- that all software should be free software -- rational?

To be rational, a conclusion should follow logically from true premises and at least one fundamental moral principle. It's been a while since I studied Stallman's writings, but back then, I fail to find any sound argument. It was mostly just logical fallacies. Since I doubt, he changed his arguments, this probably still holds true. If so, this is a sufficient reason for me to not support his cause.

<comment><USER12> You trotted out his point of view: "One should not use proprietary software! It's evil, according to Stallman.", sounding like it is because of his moral judgement that you do not support him.

<comment><USER11> I think, all ideas should be given due consideration. Those that turn out to be wrong should be dismissed. The idea of the Free Software movement appears to be a wrong idea, and should be dismissed. The idea of the Open Source movement ('Some software should be free'), though, seems to be a right idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand the purpose of this post. You're not asking anything, you're defending RMS with some incredibly shallow logic and then presumptuously chastising us for not caring about free software ideals, mixed with some ad hominem attacks.

Honestly, you are missing, or dismissing, important points - e.g. normal humans need software and devices and they can actually use - and the ad hominem arguments in the latter half of your post are completely out of line here on HN. If you want to have a discussion we can have a discussion but you have failed to start a good one on the right foot.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sadly I have a feeling RMS is destined to follow the path of Ted Nelson. Visionary and important, but largely forgotten or derided. Or maybe Cassandra, destined to wander the earth spouting prophecies the world takes no notice of, while people complain about him freaking out the Trojans.

</comment><comment><USER14> WTF people!?! RMS is guilty of bad taste. Let's move on.

</comment><comment><USER15> I dunno, I am one of the largest supporters of FOSS outside of the likes of RMS and Linus and ESR and co.

However, I'm going to repeat something I've said before (and I think before on HN as well): I did not celebrate the death of Saddam and Osama, and I'm sure as hell not going to start with Steve Jobs.

I did not agree with every one of his business decisions, but I think he was an interesting guy. He did things no one else did, and he made a few enemies doing it.

I know a lot of people will shoot me down for saying this, but a large part of RMS's beef with Apple is Apple used BSD licensed software according to the BSD license. They didn't have to give back to the community, the license doesn't require it... but they did.

RMS largely hates BSD licenses because they don't require further code to be Free, and you know what? No one cares. If a company thinks they can wade into a market that already has a major competitor (the code they're "ripping off"), then let them.

So yeah, RMS is the destroyer of public relations for FSF, and hes a bastard beyond measure. But when RMS dies (in the next 20-30 years), I'm not going to celebrate his death, I'm going to remember what he did that was right and try to learn from that.

The golden rule of society is "don't be a douchebag", and it would be great if everyone followed that rule even if they follow none of the rest.

</comment><comment><USER16> > You occasionally drop a few hundred lines of code on github and then think > you are a contributor to Free Software?

Yes I do. Github being is so successful these days is proof that FOSS matters. FOSS is not only about kernels, compilers and emacs. Those things were just the start.

Being able to use a fully open stack from the bootloader to the javascript library and be as productive as with closed platforms means a lot, and it owes not only to FSF's activism, but also to the software community.

Rails wasn't born out of the desire of spreading ~free software~ ideals. It was born out of the desire of changing the world of web development. And why is it open source, then? Because it was the best option, and still is. A community was born around it and the results are as good (or better) than anything a company could make just by hiring.

Today, with things like GitHub, the barriers to free software are pretty much gone. Everyone can contribute. This is infinitely better than Stallman's 'cathedral'. I can not only look at, thinker and modify somebody else's code: I can effectively _give back_ to the creators __in a matter of seconds __, and then, suddenly, I become one of the creators myself.

Seriously, your post full of fallacies.

Everyone is free to criticize Stallman on this point. Don't try to invalidate their criticism just because they haven't written a GCC or an Emacs.

So, yes, I am part of free software, but I don't want anything to do with FSF or Stallman. I want to win this open vs closed fight by fighting with my code. Not by pissing on someone's grave.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, Im not saying your code is worthless. Im saying your reasons for contributing and dropping the code wasnt and isnt 'Free Software'. As you mentioned, its 'Open vs. Closed'.

Also, rms did not piss on his grave. He respectfully said that he's happy that Steve Jobs couldnt affect the computer world anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In my own interactions with RMS he has not been totally nice (he once asked me about releasing one of my old Springer-Verlag Lisp books under the FSF doc license, I did not have the original files, I didn't want to type in the book myself, and he seemed testy) but I feel like defending him.

RMS has done a ___lot_ __in the past to make my life as a developer much better. Some irony, typing this on my MacBook: I think that we are going to lose a _lot_ of freedoms in the future: controlled computer hardware, loss of open media, loss of open internet, ...., the list goes on...

Logically, we should all be throwing our support behing FSF, EFF, some of the few rational political movements supporting personal freedom, etc. because once the tipping point is reached where we lose freedoms, it is likely we will not get them back.

I am an older hacker (60) and you may disagree with me and my world view, but just take a look at history to see cases when people did not stand up for their rights and lost them.

So, a tip of the hat to RMS, and thanks to him.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've never advocated finding another leader of the FSF ... But I am afraid that it will become completely irrelevant if it's viewed as an extremist organization. I think the real danger is that it's membership will decide not to be associated with it and it's funding will dry up. RMS hasn't really said where his income comes from, but I'm assuming he's paid as the FSF's leader. Assuming that RMS' marketable skills revolve around software, wouldn't it be ironic if he had to develop closed software to support himself? Given his current extremist stance, I suspect he'd choose to starve first.

<comment><USER19> According to [1], his income is from speeches. The Form990 filed by the FSF [2] (If I understand it correctly) confirms he does not get any salary from the FSF.

1) [http://blog.mypapit.net/2005/06/richard-stallman-admits- his-...](http://blog.mypapit.net/2005/06/richard-stallman-admits-his-income- is-from-speeches.html) 2) [http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/042/042888848/042...](http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/042/042888848/042888848_200809_990.pdf)

<comment><USER18> I stand corrected ... though alienating his followers would be even more problematic then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Stallman is autistic. He has poor taste when it comes to social interaction. [http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ltrpsRyTn- wC&pg=PA31&...](http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ltrpsRyTn- wC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&source=bl&ots=ZKjc2nSSJK&sig=furpgEebz1rj91u2oHmjI18Y7HU&hl=en&ei=D0mQTq7VDoeGrAfNptyvAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&f=false)

End of story?

</comment><comment><USER21> >The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

...

>you dont have the right to change the meaning of term for the sake of argument.

So we should have the right to improve software, but not to improve the definition of words (or to use them the way that most people typically do)? Time to fight back against this tyrany and start the Free Language Foundation.

</comment><comment><USER12> FSF and rms are unrelenting principled. There are not many other political organisations I trust more than the FSF. None, in fact. I commend you for speaking up. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER22> Nice job! Most people pretend to 'get' rms and free software when it suits them.

</comment><comment><USER23> Thank you. It's a tad unfortunate that you have had to spend/waste time to explain this , but, I think it was needed. Much appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER24> Worse than crazy, he's right.</comment>


Show HN: Coördinator, a visual interface for turning an SVG into XY coördinates - <AUTHOR> https://spotify.github.io/coordinator/ <comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. A little background on why I made this and how it could be used to add some whimsy to data visualizations: [https://labs.spotify.com/2018/03/02/introducing- coordinator-...](https://labs.spotify.com/2018/03/02/introducing-coordinator- a-new-open-source-project-made-at-spotify-to-inject-some-whimsy-into-data- visualizations/)

</comment><comment><USER2> The title of this entry at both Hacker News and the actual website is very misleading.

For me as a scientist "XY coordinates" most likely means cartesian coordinates. In SVG (like virtually any other graphics file format), coordinates are given in a cartesian coordinate system by default.

However, what is meant here is: "Turning an SVG into a dot matrix" or "Turning SVG paths into a series of dots".

The purpose of the author is mainly to emphasize clarity of animations.

<comment><USER3> The algorithm, which generates a set of discrete XY coordinates, is the interesting part of this page.

Changing the size and color of the dots yields no new information about the operation of the algorithm. The dots are just a way to visualize the coordinates on a plane.

<comment><USER2> This may be hair-splitting, but when I say dot I mean a mathematical point. Of course it does not matter how we represent a zero-dimensional object in a graphical scene (we need some kind of representation, obviously).

My point was the emphasis on "XY coordinates". It is just a suggestion to be more precise here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ahh this hurts my eyes!

</comment><comment><USER5> This is really cool! Thanks.</comment>


Our Dazzling Night Sky When the Milky Way Collides with Andromeda in 4B Years - <AUTHOR> https://kottke.org/19/10/behold-our-dazzling-night-sky-when-the-milky-way-collides-with-andromeda-in-4-billion-years <comment><USER2> Time to reference my favorite Wikipedia page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future)

From a logarithmic standpoint, around 1 billion years is when geologically interesting things happen to the earth as it's no longer to sustain life an have the oceans boil over as well.

<comment><USER3> My favorite datum from this page is that the days will be 1 hour longer in 180 million years. If the year lengths are constant, by linear interpolation some time around 63 million years from now the years will be exactly 360 days, just like the ancient Babylonian calendar. What a great time that will be to be alive and to be a programmer, with exactly 30 days every month.

<comment><USER4> What makes you think that a 360 day year would be 12 months of 30 days each? We'll probably do something weird, like take all 5 out of February.

<comment><USER5> Just imagine the nightmare for the poor programmers who will have to maintain backward compatibility for 63 million years of timekeeping.

<comment><USER6> This all assumes we survive the unix 2036 apocalypse.

/s I mean it apparently is so bad they sent time travelers back in time to try and fix it. (Google: John Titor)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ok, that is the first thing I've read that makes it sound like fun to be around in 4B years to watch it all happen.

It is also interesting to think about two galactic civilizations coming together over a common need to survive in the post collision Milkdromeda galaxy.

<comment><USER8> I don't think they'd really have to worry about survival:

> it's extremely unlikely that any individual stars will collide because of > the sheer amount of empty space in galaxies.

<comment><USER9> Many stars will get ejected into intergalactic space as well. Hopefully they are not the unlucky ones.

<comment><USER10> What kind of impact would that have on a star and its planets?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is almost as long as the Earth has existed since its formation. It is an extremely long length of time. Suffice it to say humans will _not_ be around anywhere close to that time. Nor will any currently recognisable life. All current species and families would've drastically changed and evolved into other forms, with the exception of simple, unicellular life. And of course around this time our Sun will be on its way to a red giant so the Earth would be becoming well nigh inhospitable for life (as it exists now). As for intelligent life, I don't think intelligence can remain stable for such lengths of time.

<comment><USER12> The Earth will be inhospitable for life (as we know it) within the next 800 million years, in fact. It's a bit sobering to think that we've progressed through about 75% of the time life has on this planet.

Source: my favorite Wikipedia page, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ah well. That's 2.5 billion years after the collision with the Large Magellenic Cloud. Which may turn 'our' galaxy into a quasar.

[https://www.space.com/42901-milky-way-galaxy-large- magellani...](https://www.space.com/42901-milky-way-galaxy-large-magellanic- cloud-crash.html)

[https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/483/2/2185/5181341](https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/483/2/2185/5181341)

</comment><comment><USER14> Lest we forget, in around 5bn years the Sun will become a red giant. I doubt humanity will make it that far.

Cool images though

<comment><USER15> I think the problems may happen as soon as 1B from now.

[https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.universetoday.com/1...](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.universetoday.com/12648/will- earth-survive-when-the-sun-becomes-a-red- giant/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjLqbXizbDlAhWDhJ4KHYRhAdYQFjADegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw3AmzSGiWUATfsCIKeKUvjQ)

<comment><USER16> On the off-chance that humans are around in a billion years, I would hope we'd have learned to manage a planet-sized climate by then, so preventing Earth from turning into Venus should be manageable. Certainly more manageable than surviving another billion years, at least.

<comment><USER17> If there are descendants of humans in a billion years, their capabilities might only be limited by the laws of physics - and I would not even be surprised if this time is off by quite a few orders or magnitude (up to like ... six? _Edit: that would mean as early as 1000 years from now. It 's a bold guess, I know_).

<comment><USER18> > _If there are descendants of humans in a billion years, their capabilities > might only be limited by the laws of physics_

Or, something few consider, they might have plateaud way earlier, after most low hanging fruits have been achieved (fire, steam engine, electricity, nuclear power, computing, telecommunications) and the rest are diminishing returns...

<comment><USER19> Isn't that what the "limited by the laws of physics" mean? Worldwide climate engineering is within that envelope.

<comment><USER18> > _Isn 't that what the "limited by the laws of physics" mean? Worldwide > climate engineering is within that envelope._

"Limited by the laws of physicals" implies only physical laws are the limitation.

Whereas my response was more about being more limited (due to complexity, lack of resources, etc). So response was about a possible way lower envelope. I.e. not necessarily much more advanced than we are today, with diminishing advances in various areas.

So no "worldwide climate engineering" (except the clumsy stuff we already have), and no personal robot assistance of sci-fi style...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It should be noted that these views will require long time exposure photographs.

The surface brightness of Andromeda and the Milky Way are both around 22 mag/arcsec2. As andromeda grows closer, the surface areas spreads out in our sky, so even as it gets closer it's not really going to get brighter.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_brightness](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_brightness)

</comment><comment><USER21> Note: That's 4,000,000,000 years from now, not 48 years from now!

<comment><USER22> My eyesight is really failing me...

</comment></comment><comment> java-man In four billion years the Earth might be engulfed (or at least fried lifeless) by the Sun.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth)

<comment><USER23> Out of curiosity, I looked it up, and it seems like there's less than a billion years left for life as we know it on Earth before the Sun sterilizes the planet. That doesn't mean some of our descendants won't figure out ways to move farther out in the Solar System (or to other planetary systems), to survive it.

<comment><USER24> It seems like we might sterilize the Earth ourselves long before the Sun has a chance to.

<comment><USER23> We are a long way from being able to sterilize the Earth. Heck, I don't think we could even wipe out humanity - or even civilization - much less all the myriad forms of life out there that thrive in conditions that would kill humans instantly. (Go to Yellowstone, see the brightly colored pools of boiling volcanic mud, realize those pools are brightly colored because they're full of living beings...)

I think what we're looking at right now is making life a little more uncomfortable and expensive for part of humanity. That's as bad as we can manage right now. The fact that we treat it like the end of the world says more about us than the damage itself does.

<comment><USER9> > Heck, I don't think we could even wipe out humanity - or even civilization

You are talking about global warming and the like, right? There's another possibility, and it involves nuclear weapons. THOSE can sterilize the planet many times over.

<comment><USER25> While we MIGHT be able to wipe humanity off the planet with nuclear weapons [0] and would certainly create a mass extinction event, it is extremely unlikely we would be able to sterilize the earth. Even if we somehow manage to wipe out all multi-cellular life (which would, at a minimum, require completely vaporizing our oceans to expose deep ocean vents), it would take massively more destruction to wipe out all single celled life on the planet (which would likely require removing the entire planet's crust.)

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust#Likelihood_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust#Likelihood_of_complete_human_extinction)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have marked my calendar so I won't miss it!

<comment><USER27> I literally can't wait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The vast majority of the stars will pass through each other; what I'm curious about is what happens at the galactic cores, and how many solar systems will end up being swallowed by the super-massive black holes at the center of each galaxy. Also, what are the side effects of two black holes merging? Have we ever observed such a thing?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMNlt2FnHDg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMNlt2FnHDg)

<comment><USER29> >it's extremely unlikely that any individual stars will collide

What do you mean they'll pass through each other.

<comment><USER28> The distances are so vast, that essentially, yes. Think about two sailors in small boats, crossing an ocean in opposite directions, and how unlikely it would be that their boats collide. Now multiply that by several orders of magnitude.

One of my favorite factoids: if you fire a laser from the surface of the earth (and the beam magically stayed perfectly straight), you have a small but significant chance of hitting the sun or the moon, but anything beyond that, the scale is so enormous, the odds that your laser would ever hit a celestial body _anywhere_ in the universe are effectively zero.

<comment><USER29> You're confusing me more. Stars passing through each other like you said before to me implies collision. Would you say these sailors are going to pass through each other?

<comment><USER30> They stars won't pass through each other. The "solar systems" will pass through each other.

<comment><USER29> I would have guessed that even that is highly unlikely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was moved by the images. It reminded me about how selfish I am the way I grab at things. At these time scales would it matter if I had more prestige or material possessions. I want to become kinder but I don't know how or if I ever can. The more immediate instincts of anger and jealousy hold far more sway.

<comment><USER32> At these time scales does kindness matter any more or less than prestige or possessions? The only behaviors that might matter are those that could lead to our interstellar diaspora. It's not clear that kindness is or isn't a greater motivator for that than pride.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yeah, but this is astrophotography _and_ it's from Nasa, so it's what it would look like with ultra-long exposure, lots of photoshop, and false color. If we extrapolate the naked eye view, it'd be a grayish smudge at best.

<comment><USER34> The first couple of images show the milky way pretty much as it actually appears from a suitably dark location. Maybe just a bit brighter and more contrasty than I recall, but I'm sure there are many here who see it almost nightly and can speak to that better. Just saying, it doesn't look grossly exaggerated to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It makes me feel so small to know something so large will happen so far in the future that any memory of the human race is so unlikely.

<comment><USER36> I am really not a fan of the feeling reading a lot of this thread and linked materials gives me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> 5B years eh? Perfect timing for some fresh matter; we'll probably have used up most of the raw materials in this galaxy by then.

</comment><comment><USER38> This shows a (beautiful) theoretical point of view from Earth. I feel dumb asking this but will this event affect our solar system?

<comment><USER7> Looking at the video, yes. But not in the form of something colliding with the Sun. I would guess the most likely interaction would be perturbations of orbits as the solar system deals with these freight trains going by. That could result in anything from planets changing orbits as they follow the changes in the Sun's orbit around the galactic center, to having the entire solar system ejected on its own path away from the galaxy (that first pass "collision" is going to impart a lot of momentum on different systems. It shows a 'spray' of things going out from the galaxy but those things are stars with their nominally attached planetary bodies!)

<comment><USER39> The planetary orbits in the solar system are vastly smaller than the typical distance between stars in the combined Milky-Way-Andromeda system. The only difference will be a slightly higher typical speed for Andromeda stars compared to the relative motion of stars in the Milky Way disk. But that's only by like a factor of 10, and I don't have any reason to think that will cause a perturbation that's noticeable above the normal uncertainty from chaos in planetary orbits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Ah, but what will this look like from our light polluted cities?

<comment><USER9> You are very optimistic if you are talking about "cities" in that timeframe.

<comment><USER40> Meh, the sun will grow warmer but won't enter it's red giant phase until about 5 billion years from now. Placing reflectors in a lagrange point to control the amount of solar energy reaching Earth with be child's play. Even once it enters the red giant phase, it'll be several hundred million years before it consumes Earth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Mass Effect Andromeda anyone?</comment>