Show HN: Space Invaders in C - <AUTHOR> http://blog.loadzero.com/blog/si78c/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

This is a bit of a love letter to Space Invaders, and video games in general.

I started working on this as a simple emulation project, to rekindle my own passion in low level video game hacking, but then realized with a bit of care I could take it further.

So, this is not a simple clone of the game, but rather a painstaking recreation of the source code in clean, readable C code.

I wanted to make something nice that would last a while, as a tribute to the original, and hopefully function a bit like a rosetta stone for future audiences.

Enjoy.

<comment><USER3> I have to ask an honest question (as someone who is interested in emulation and old-game restoration as a whole): why C? Did you consider a newer hacker- news-friendly language like D or Rust?

(my usual disclaimer: I'm not asking this passive aggressively, I'm genuinely interested in the answer to this).

<comment><USER4> I'm obviously not the author, but I can think of a good reason not to use rust.

The project works exactly as the original and recreates the memory state byte for byte, so like the original it has different tasks running at once that are reading and writing to shared memory. Rust's borrow check exists to prevent this sort of thing, because it is so hard to do it correctly or prove it is correct once you have done it. So to use rust, the author would have needed to either totally re-architect Space Invaders, or write the whole thing in ugly, non-idiomatic rust.

Rust simply doesn't let you do the things assembly and C programmers did all the time in 1978 (and with the complexity of our software now and the extra computing power, that's usually for the better). C, on the other hand, has at times been described as "portable assembly," which makes it a good choice for someone wanting to stay true to the original program flow.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good answer, and does reflect a good chunk of the reason for picking C. Dealing with such low level tasks is what the language was made for.

The other big reason I used C, is that it is more of a lingua franca than something more modern, and will make the code more accessible to a wider audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Story time: I wrote an 8080 emulator to play the Space Invaders. I implemented just enough instructions so I could play the game. Problem was, the game's title screen would show, but after a few seconds, it would immediately jump back to the beginning.

First I thought "oh I must have implemented an instruction wrong". So I re- checked all the instructions, read through the Intel 8080 programming manual multiple times. I did find a few errors related to the carry flag, but fixing them didn't change anything.

I then started to actually debug the game code. This was significantly harder than I'd expected. Since the game was in assembly, it was not obvious what each instruction did. What I had to do was pretty much annotate each and every instruction, along with all the memory locations. E.g. address 0xABCD is for player score, 0xCDEF is for player position, instruction X is for drawing the bunker, etc.

It was truly a pain, but it paid off. So the game had an interrupt handler registered to the display refresh signal. And I finally realized the game was constantly interrupted when it was not supposed to. Turns out I had forgotten to disable the signal when entering the handler.

I fixed it, and it ran perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great write up, thanks. I was intrigued by the "tilt" keymapping on the last line of your posting. [https://computerarcheology.com/Arcade/SpaceInvaders/](https://computerarcheology.com/Arcade/SpaceInvaders/) notes:

> In the early eighties you would have found the Space Invaders cabinet in an > arcade right next to the pinball machines. So a "tilt" switch, like you > would find in a pinball machine, would not have seemed as strange as it does > today. If you shake, slap, or otherwise physically abuse an SI cabinet you > will get a TILT message and your game will end.

<comment><USER7> Interesting! With pinball machines, that was to prevent cheating, since you could change the course of the ball by smacking the cabinet. (Some players consider doing this without triggering the tilt sensor a legitimate part of the game.) Hilariously, _Video Pinball_ on the Atari 2600 supported it specifically: holding the button while you move the joystick nudges the ball around, but if you do it too much you get a TILT message and can't score any more points until you lose the ball.

It seems like a weird sort of reflex action to put a tilt sensor in a video game, though. Maybe they were just worried about frustrated players damaging the equipment?

<comment><USER8> Supporting "tilt" was fairly common on home computer pinball games.

<comment><USER9> I'm firmly in the no-tilt camp, and it's very frustrating that all the pinball games out on Switch right now have no option to disable the tilt controls.

Brush up against the analog stick? Sorry, TILT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting metrics, you'd expect C to do a lot better in the line-count department than assembly.

I tried building it on Ubuntu, if you follow the instructions the SDL library include files will end up in a directory called SDL so you have to include SDL/SDL.h and even then the build fails with lots of SDL related definitions missing (SDL_Window for instance).

That's because you really should be doing

      sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev

Then change the include file line to

      #include <SDL2/SDL.h>

and type:

      make

The roms can be found here:

[http://www.freevintagegames.com/MAME/invaders.php](http://www.freevintagegames.com/MAME/invaders.php)

After downloading you'll have to rename the files because the names will all be uppercase:

      cd inv1
      mv INVADERS.E invaders.e
      mv INVADERS.F invaders.f
      mv INVADERS.G invaders.g
      mv INVADERS.H invaders.h
      cd ..

Now the game should work:

      ./bin/si78c

Some minor nitpicks about the code:

\- bracket your ifs and place the starting { on the same line as if/while, or one day you'll sit there staring at the screen for 8 hours trying to figure out why your code no longer works due to an accidentally deleted line.

So:

      while (num < 64)
        {
            int has = SDL_PollEvent(&event_buffer[num]);
            if (!has) break;
            num++;
        }

becomes:

      while (num < 64) {
        if (SDL_PollEvent(&event_buffer[num])) {
          break;
        }
        num++;
      }

Neat project!

<comment><USER11> > bracket your ifs and place the starting { on the same line as if/while, or > one day you'll sit there staring at the screen for 8 hours trying to figure > out why your code no longer works due to an accidentally deleted line.

This is some rather strange advice. That and the rewrite dropped a '!'.

<comment><USER10> That's advice borne from a lifetime of programming C. Good catch about the !, but that was just as an example of the form, not meant as a cut-and-paste replacement.

<comment><USER12> I'm at 30 years of programming in C, and don't understand the comment. I've never had a problem with either curly brace placement. If a line is deleted, and that line is a curly brace, there will be a syntax error. "git diff" (or whatever you're using) will show you what lines you have deleted.

Both ways have some merit. Cuddled curly is good for ismple one-liners. Curly on next line is when the statement header is stuffed with multi-line expressions.

After all the years, I have settled on:

      while (simple) {
      }

      while ((big || complex)
             (condition && multiple && lines))
      {
      }

      for (i = 0; i < MAX; i++) {

      }

      for (big_initialization;
           big && step;
           complex, increment++)
      {
      }

<comment><USER10> Those all work because in all cases single deleted lines will generate an error message.

<comment><USER12> Why are you still going on about this bizarre single line deletion phenomenon?

The only way a single line deletion that contains curly braces will still compile is if it contains _balanced_ curly braces:

      if (cond)
      { foo }
      stmt;

All styles which avoid this do not have an issue with the deletion of random single line that contains a curly brace.

Regardless of bracing style, we can easily find lines in a program which can be deleted without causing a compile error, just not ones which open a syntax without closing it and _vice versa_.

Try not to randomly delete lines from your program, and inspect your "git diff" or what have you should such a thing happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you like this kind of thing, there's also a faithful re-implementation of the original Elite game, with (readable) source code.

Quoting Wikipedia:

"... _around 1999 Christian Pinder developed Elite: The New Kind as a modern PC port of the original BBC Micro version. He achieved a faithful port by reverse-engineering the original assembly written BBC Micro version and recreating a platform neutral C code variant from it, but at David Braben 's request this version was withdrawn from distribution in 2003. In September 2014, on Elite's 30th birthday, Ian Bell blessed Elite: The New Kind and re- released it for free on his website. Since then, Elite: The New Kind is also distributed again in version 1.1 by Christian Pinder; a source code mirror is hosted on GitHub._"

Link: [https://github.com/fesh0r/newkind](https://github.com/fesh0r/newkind)

<comment><USER14> There's a crash bug in the source: when the local star is to be rendered, the game crashes because it tried to explode the star. There are a couple of forks that solve that rather glaring issue, however I don't recall if they're in a playable state themselves.

<comment><USER13> I see. I noticed that the source code repository contains version 1.0 but the latest binary version is 1.1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The white invaders on a black background was iconic in my childhood, so I was kind of blown away when I first saw a real arcade machine with the painted backdrop and the screen reflected over it with a half silvered mirror (or whatever crazy tech they used in those days).

<comment><USER16> Thank you for posting this! Me too! I was at a local arcade and came across a real/original spaceinvader cabinet and I was floored at how much of the experience is not captured by an emulator on a laptop. The silvered screen layer is very eye catching and the sound - so much bass really adds to the experience of the dropping invaders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Amazing work, thank you for sharing! The amount of detail is prey impressive.

How hard would it be to port the sound as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. The sound is a hardware component (synth circuit) that I haven't looked into much, because it's essentially outside the game code.

si78c is faithfully sending all the right bits to the right port, but the hardware component would have to be emulated to get it going.

The relevant code could most likely be borrowed from MAME.

<comment><USER18> Probably this and the corresponding cpp file:

[https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/devices/soun...](https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/devices/sound/sn76477.h)

Emulates the TI SN76477 sound chip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Excellent work! Clean C is underrated nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER20> Both the project and the writeup are awesome, Jason! Thank you for sharing - <USER2> enjoyed it!

</comment><comment><USER21> see also Cannonball, which I discovered recently—a reimplementation and improvement of OutRun

[https://github.com/djyt/cannonball](https://github.com/djyt/cannonball)

</comment><comment><USER22> This is an awesome project with awesome write up. I miss the days of pixelated console games. The constrained environment led to so much creativity. Are there any new games like this being written anymore?

<comment><USER23> Check out the PICO-8 ecosystem: [https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php](https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Nice job! Such a pleasure to read a clean C code.

BTW, in case anyone tries to build it on Ubuntu 14.04 x86 with gcc, you'd need `-std=gnu99 -D_GNU_SOURCE` flags, otherwise it barks about stack_t in ucontext.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for posting this - I also needed this flag on Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I love it. Thanks for doing this.

How long did it take you? How did you verify the memory accuracy? It sounds like you co-simulated your implementation with the emulation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I ran with the original in lockstep and confirmed the same reads and writes were occurring.

<comment><USER27> I'd like to read more about this setup!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, there's probably a good article or two in that.

Cliff notes:

It's basically an extension of the Dual CPU setup mentioned in [http://www.gtoal.com/sbt/](http://www.gtoal.com/sbt/)

In that article, Graham Toal discusses a hack where you can bootstrap a new emulator core from an existing one by making a custom emulator that drives both cores at the same time.

After each clock tick, you check the states of both processors for divergence and halt with the diff if there is one.

<comment><USER28> First I've heard of the technique, that is amazing.

Makes me consider getting back to lower level coding again, even just test code, just to see it in action.

<comment><USER26> Co-simulation is widely used for verifying RTL implementations, see fx. dromajo.org but it's a general useful thing and I've used in many contexts, even for verifying a compiler against an interpreter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hats off, very cool!!!

I have always dreamed of building a classic ROM to C transpiler for native, portable, future-proof(ish) binary builds (just like this).

</comment><comment><USER30> Oh I really appreciate having a neat, complicated C program to explore and learn from!

Could this be done for Galaga? That's my personal favorite.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like someone is doing it:

[https://github.com/neiderm/arcade/](https://github.com/neiderm/arcade/)

Don't know if it's finished though - Galaga would be about 10 times harder to do than this project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is magnificent. Thank you for doing this.

</comment><comment><USER32> > Error code: MOZILLA_PKIX_ERROR_SELF_SIGNED_CERT

Not accessible where HTTPS is required here is a mirror that has SSL [https://archive.is/E6y37](https://archive.is/E6y37)

</comment><comment><USER33> Is this open source? I don't see a license with the code, but maybe I missed it.

<comment><AUTHOR> It most likely will be, I have not decided upon a license yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Was able to build for alpine, but I get a segfault on running.

</comment><comment><USER35> Too bad that for a lot of newer games, the source will never be released. We need abandonware Indiana Jones.

<comment><USER10> It's not like the source for this one was released, this is a re-enactment rather than the original source. But back then the software was compact enough to allow reverse engineering to the point that you could re-implement it faithfully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A build process of 'make 2>/dev/null' is an ominous sign for any project...

</comment><comment><USER37> really cool

</comment><comment><USER38> Somewhat off-topic rant, but why do websites display long videos as GIFs? Is there some size or compatibility benefit? Because it's really annoying to not be able to pause or rewind these GIFs that take the place of where a video would usually be.

Also, get an HTTPS certificate friend, it's 2019. Dreamhost provides LE certs literally for free.

<comment><USER39> Firefox already has the video player control interface for gifs; you just have to right-click.

HTTPS is unnecessary for this site.

<comment><USER38> > Firefox already has the video player control interface for gifs; you just > have to right-click.

And do what? I'm using (latest stable) FF but nothing in the right click menu seems to allow me to control playback.

> HTTPS is unnecessary for this site.

A: HTTPS prevents your website from being defaced

B: I care about protecting the privacy of which websites and web pages I visit - even if you don't

C: The website hosts the author's PGP key

<comment><USER40> D: The more internet data is encrypted, the less encrypted data stands out. I.e., if you only encrypt data when it's important nobody listen, everyone can tell when you're doing something you don't want anyone to hear. If you encrypt data all the time, nobody can tell "secret" from "normal".

<comment><USER28> This! ^^^ (I know I should have something substantial to add, so: Everybody hear this, this is the reason for HTTPS Everywhere, all communications encrypted by default in all possible channels 24/7/365.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > as long as they support _ucontext_ and _SDL2_

Why not SDL1.x? It would be more portable,

What about Symbian support?[0]

[0] [http://anotherguest.se/](http://anotherguest.se/)</comment>


Atari 2600 Homebrew Made in 30 Days – Development Log - <AUTHOR> https://www.mickmuze.com/notebook/the-atari-video-computer-system-2600/ <comment><AUTHOR> There's no index, Next/Previous Post links at the bottom of each page.

The game debuted on ZeroPage Homebrew yesterday. The developer was in the chat: [https://youtu.be/zbmIs_P2Za0?t=9043&vq=hd1080](https://youtu.be/zbmIs_P2Za0?t=9043&vq=hd1080)

The speed at which this was done, and the quality of the game are awe inspiring. The 2600 is a... unique system to develop for, and this was his first time.</comment>


Public IP Address API with Two Lines of Nginx Config - <AUTHOR> https://www.ecalamia.com/blog/show-ip-api-nginx/ <comment><AUTHOR> I see too many people rolling PHP-FPM only to show the IP address of the client. So, I wanted to share an alternative method which, I hope, can save you some time.</comment>


Video: The State of Angel Investing - Keith Rabois - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/06/18/angel-investo-keith-rabois/ <comment><USER2> I hate that the questions are slides rather than voice.</comment>


Where are all the films about poor Americans? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/film-poverty-america-policy-oscars <comment><USER2> When did people lose sight of the fact that the primary purpose of film on the silver screen is entertainment?

Where do authors like OP get the idea that I want to go to the movies to have politics shoved down my throat? And that there is some kind of obligation for those in charge to forgo their primary motivations of artistic expression and/or profit in the interest of some totally arbitrary target of "representation" of every combination of color, gender, and socioeconomic status?

Not to mention, this kind of thinly veiled political grandstanding in the context of film review is almost always cherry picking. There have been plenty of films examining poverty from numerous perspectives. The fact that they are not en vogue now does not speak of some kind of crisis-just like people clamoured over Black Panther as the first positive representation of blacks on screen, while conveniently ignoring decades of black cinema.

Outrage is the kind of thing, in my opinion, that is trivial to find, if you look hard enough.

<comment><USER3> The last paragraph of the piece kinda struck me:

"And perhaps if others saw more realistic portrayals of poverty in the movies, they might be more receptive to programs that would help them instead of demeaning and punishing them."

I would love an example where 'realistic portrayals' of a given subject in movies led to changes in public policy / public perception.

If anything, I would argue that popular films, just like other art forms, are more likely to serve as a barometer of society's perception/reception of a given subject than as something that ignites the change.

Take the war in Vietnam in the 60's and 70's - I'm not sure you could make 'The Deer Hunter' in '68, or 'The Green Berets' in '78.

Or the war on drugs - movies like Trainspotting, Requiem for a Dream, or Traffic certainly showed a realistic side of drugs and addiction... and yet the war on drugs has only intensified since their popular releases.

<comment><AUTHOR> _" I would love an example where 'realistic portrayals' of a given subject in movies led to changes in public policy / public perception."_

I'm not sure if it's really fair to expect such movies, which are a tiny minority of all movies made, to have such a disproportionate impact on policy, especially considering that they're usually ignored or even actively despised by the media and the powers that be.

I don't know of specific examples in film, but some books have had such impact. _The Jungle_ [1] and _Silent Spring_ [2] come to mind.

Film is a relatively young media, and its full potential is unlikely to be realized for decades if not centuries. Give it some time. I'm optimistic that truly moving and motivating films will arrive.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_jungle#Federal_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_jungle#Federal_response)

[2] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_spring#Impact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_spring#Impact)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some recent examples:

\- Florida project

\- 3 billboards outside Ebbing Missouri

\- La La Land (to a degree)

\- Manchester by the Sea

\- Straight Outta Compton

\- Creed

2015 and more recent, set in the USA, nominated for awards at Oscars, protagonist is poor

<comment><USER5> "Protagonist is poor" doesn't come close to what they are advocating. From the article:

 _Take The Same Kind of Different As Me, a movie that presents itself as being about a homeless black man, but is most interested in a rich white couple and the way their volunteerism at a soup kitchen saves their marriage, and their souls._

The protagonist being a caricature of a poor person doesn't make the film an insightful or interesting examination of poverty. Or even about poverty. That takes much more. It's more or a challenge, more of a risk, and when done well (see Florida Project) a much greater potential reward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For me, an entertaining film says something about reality, life, something meaningful, and done so in such a way it makes the most of what you can do with that medium. I wouldn't expect anything other from an entertaining novel, say.

Of course the crap coming out of Hollywood does say something about reality, that there is no hope left other than wish fulfilment, to hope that a saviour will come and save us all in the form of a superhero; or that the only hope for yourself is to get rich or for fortune to be bestowed upon you; or something else utterly implausible. But I've heard that story a million times, it's dull.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hollywood has always been all about escapism. In the 1930's - the golden era of film - most of the offerings were aspirational and inspiring, not Grapes of Wrath gloom and doom, which was a lot of people's actual daily experience.

There's a reason the mainstream entertainment doesn't make non fantasy films - it's because they are a for profit business and there's no money in it.

The recent Churchill film, which was very loosely based on reality and flat out wrong in many areas was all about triumph over adversity etc. There's a good argument to made about fantasy films supposedly depicting actual historical events and people distorting mass reality. That's where my beef is with hollywood...

<comment><USER8> Enforcement of the Hays Code was responsible for weird trends in the movie industry for a long time, starting in the 1930's - American movie makers actually made successful movies about darker subjects and had more women in leading roles until that point. [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=933011...](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189)

<comment><USER7> I'm cynical enough to think any publicity is good publicity, whether it was the 'moral quagmires' of the 30's that resulted in the Hays Code or the current hysteria about predatory sex monsters, which is very reminiscent of the 30's IMO.

All about rear ends on seats, whatever it takes to keep the punters buying tickets, popcorn and drinks (the latter two being immensely profitable...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Last year's Palme dOr at Cannes was the British film _I, Daniel Blake_. It was a fantastic gut punch for how even well-intentioned technology is leaving behind parts of society. My partner and I had a very heated 2 hour discussion after watching it.

<comment><USER10> _I, Daniel Blake_ has absolutely nothing to do with technology and people being left behind.

It's entirely about the fucking awful mess caused by the Conservative government introducing Universal Credit and a punitive benefits regime.

Being fully tech proficient won't prevent a Universal Credit claimant from being sanctioned.

Daniel Blake has heart problems and is advised by his doctor not to work. But he fails his independent medical.

Here's a real life example: A man with heart problems was told not to work. He has the medical. He has a heart attack _during the medical_ , and the independent assessor has to call an ambo.

To you or me this is proof he's not faking and he really is ill.

To the government he didn't complete the medical, which is a sanctionable failing.

[https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm13...](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130319/debtext/130319-0002.htm#column_839)

> Again, I support the principle of a sanctions regime. If somebody > consistently fails to turn up for work experience or a Work programme > scheme, sanctions should be applied. However, I believe that sanctions are > being applied indiscriminately. For example, one of my constituents was a > beneficiary of employment and support allowance after they had retired on > grounds of ill health as a result of a heart problem. He was required to > attend a work capability assessment with Atos. During

> 19 Mar 2013 : Column 840

> the assessment, he was told that he was having a heart attack and the nurse > said that she had to stop the assessment. He got a letter a couple of weeks > later saying that he had withdrawn from the assessment and, as such, was > being sanctioned. That beggars belief. I have other examples, as I am sure > do colleagues.

<comment><USER9> I mean, in a way the benefit system is a well-intentioned technology. And the austerity measures that led up to brexit were constraints on the design, that more or less broke the benefit system for edge case users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 'The Wire', though not a movie, was implicitly about American poverty in a drug ecosystem, and predominantly black.

</comment><comment><USER12> The premise of this article is wrong. There are many movies about people who aren't rich. The stories may not revolve around their poverty, the poverty may not be an integral part of the story, but the characters are still clearly working class.

That said, people don't go to the movies to be lectured about poverty. They go for an escape. Poverty is sad, so there isn't a huge appetite for movies "about poverty".

<comment><USER13> I agree with you. Three Billboards was exactly this type of film. Not sure why it was not mentioned in the article.

<comment><USER9> Three Billboards was not about poverty. It took place in a rural area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article demands that an entire industry conform to the author's own personal opinions on how society is and that educating people about this author's belief is the most important thing in the industry. The character's in a host of movies aren't poor enough, stereotypical enough, don't escape poverty the right way or poverty isn't the single most thematic event in the storyline.

I even agree with the author that conceptually government assistance & social services is important; it just isn't going to make for an exciting core piece of entertainment. While the author nitpicks that no movie goes far enough I would look at it like making progress. The analogy for me is giving a child vegetables. You don't try and force feed raw vegetables to a child as the primary meal because nutrients are important. Instead, you cook it into a balanced (and hopefully better tasting) meal so it can be easily digested.

Yes this analogy has flaws; but I am contrasting the author's craving for essentially a social services documentary with actual reality & entertainment.

</comment><comment><USER15> The author seems, I have to say, deeply confused; about politics, art in general, and film in particular—he seems he mostly wants realistic, descriptive, non-documentary films without a traditional story arc depicting life in American poverty; even _without the poverty part_ this just isn't something that anybody, really, is interested in from film—but most critically _about his own thesis_.

It's clear he is unhappy with something about portrayal of poverty in film, but he starts off complaining that there is not _enough_ of such portrayal, making what seems to be a quantitative complaint, but then spins out of control with contradictory criticisms of _qualitative_ features of the portrayal. This is most stark in his complaints about _I am Another You_ where he initially blames it for being _too focused on explanation rather than description_ and then blames it for _failing to dig deep enough to explain why mental illness leads more easily to homelessness in the US compared to the rest of the West_.

> If policymakers in DC (and in cities and state capitals around the country) > had the Raineys in mind when making poverty policy, rather than the > stubborn, racist myth of the "welfare queen", they might produce smarter > proposals that are more attuned to what poor Americans actually want and > need.

Policy makers don't generally base policy on what they see in movies, and don't generally have the racist myth of the "welfare queen" in mind when making policy that effects the poor, they instead have a very clear picture of the expressed interests of the people they are interested in serving (who are often chosen, much as the story goes with the choice to rob banks, "becsuse that's where the money is"), which very often don't include the poor regardless of their lifestyle.

The "welfare queen" is an image policy makers (and policy entrepreneurs) invented to _sell_ the policy, not a real concern at which it is directed.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wendy and Lucy! Also, TV is better: Atlanta and the Wire are great about poverty.

<comment><USER17> I second the _Wendy and Lucy_ rec. I saw it not long after first reading Scalzi's _Being Poor_ [1] and it really made everything concrete.

It's a tough sell in some ways - "girl loses dog, girl finds dog, the end" \- but oh-so-worth-it.

[1] [https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being- poor/](https://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mudbound - [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/16/mudbound- review...](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/16/mudbound-review- powerful-tale-from-jim-crow-america-has-real-sinew) \- is a very good film about poverty, among other things. It doesn't smack you in the face and say "I'M A FILM ABOUT POVERTY", which seems to be the Guardian writer's requirement for inclusion on his list, but it is.

</comment><comment><USER19> Though not a film, Breaking Bad has I think been exemplary in its treatment of this subject.

By and large now it's a topic that sees much more treatment in TV than in movies.

"Boyhood" comes to mind.

<comment><USER20> I don't think any of the main characters in Breaking Bad lived in poverty; even the secondary ones didn't for the most part. If WW had died w/o becoming a drug kingpin, he would have left his family in poverty, but they didn't live in poverty before.

<comment><USER19> Yes but that's the sad tale of middle america. What should be a "comfortable" existence is perpetually under threat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Well poverty is dispersed and does not compete well with identity politics which gives opportunities of political grandstanding to actors/directors and generate profits for studios.

</comment><comment><USER8> Slightly off topic but there was a documentary about a lower middle class woman in the Bay Area who chose to adopt children that would otherwise never been adopted called My Flesh and Blood (2003). I would never have thought this could have been an interesting story but it really pulled me in even back then as a younger person. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342804](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342804)

</comment><comment><USER22> I really liked The Florida Project. I spent time in motels as a child because my mom was an addict. The film is very genuine.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you're poor and even if you are not, the last thing you want to see in a film is more poor people. I for one like to go to movies to escape my reality. That's what happened to movies about poor people.

No, I did not read the article. Sometimes, the title hits me the wrong way and I have to make my point.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes! Personally I'm waiting for Winter's bone 2, where Jennifer Lawrence does sign up for 'stan.

</comment><comment><USER25> Requiem for a Dream is one I can think of. Very dark though.

</comment><comment><USER26> Ladybird won at the oscars. That's about poor people.

<comment><USER27> Lady Bird was nominated for several awards but did not actually win any Oscars, FWIW. See, e.g., [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90th_Academy_Awards#Notable_no...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90th_Academy_Awards#Notable_nominations_and_winners).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Try Flint Town.</comment>


Hacker News for Education - <AUTHOR> http://news.learnboost.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to reiterate: this is our soft launch. All of these comments and suggestions have been awesome and we're making some design/point fixes.

The official launch is Monday 4/19 and we're getting a few education bloggers to write about this. Let us know if you have suggestions for any other people to reach out to so that they can get the scoop on Hacker News for Education.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure if he does any blogging, but HN user tokenadult jumps into my mind as the most informed person in this community with regards to the state of the education world. If I were you, I'd try to reach out to him.

<comment><AUTHOR> Reached out to him, he emailed within minutes. Awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Basically we're trying to recreate Hacker News but for educators. We were surprised to see there isn't something like this for the #education community, so with some help from Slinkset we've built this. Hopefully we'll save teachers a lot of time and help everyone find the best content, just like HN.

<comment><USER3> I've been pleasantly surprised with the number of education posts on HN. Good luck, I just sent this to my teacher friends :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks for doing that! We're doing the official launch on Monday but wanted to release it to HN early to get the feedback (see some of the comments about theme, fonts, etc)

And please feel free to contribute edu links there, awesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe you're already planning this, but you should consider putting some explanatory 'what-is-this-site' text somewhere prominent. Much of your potential audience has never seen HN, Digg, or Reddit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny how even the most simple things are overlooked. Thanks. We're going to add some text... let me know what you think in a bit.

<comment><USER4> The first two sentences are fine. I'd rethink the third sentence: _Also, up voting and commenting is how you can help every reader uncover the best of the best by pushing those articles to the top of the list._

Problems: (1) Most people have no idea what 'up voting' means. (2) The syntax is needlessly tangled.

What about: "Vote for the articles you find most useful, and they'll rise to the top of the list."

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point. Making that change now!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reach out to Kirsten Winkler - <http://www.kirstenwinkler.com/>

She's like the techcrunch of online education (someone else said this once).

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. I will reach out to Kirsten now... thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clicking on the left side of the header (not the Login/Register portion) doesn't bring me to the homepage. It wasn't immediately clear to me that the Popular link brings me there. This is important if folks arrive at your site via a link directly to an item.

I like the styling better than HN -- CSS is always better than nested tables IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yeah, CSS is more fun too :)

Good catch on the header link going back to the homepage. Iterating, iterating, iterating...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems to have been blocked by my workplace firewall, not sure if there is a catchy term somewhere on the URL. I will wait until evening to check out the web-app, and maybe come up with some suggestions. Thanks for the initiative!

</comment><comment><USER8> Awesome! Great work. I'll read it daily and link to it on our blog! Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Fantastic. And make sure you take the time to give yourself some credit and submit your posts too, so that people discover what you've written...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> OpenID logins would be fantastic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Soon... we've got to work on our core product for now

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't like that I have to login to do anything

<comment><AUTHOR> You don't have to login to gain the primary value, which is finding the best education content. You can click on the links as they're sorted by the community.

To join the community, you create a username and a password. That's it. Which is exactly what you had to do to create your account for Hacker News...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Theme and fonts are not good. This is important.

<comment><AUTHOR> Suggestions?

<comment><USER12> Playing around in Firebug, I think it's a bit easier on the eyes without the bold title and the title size a bit smaller. Also, I love the arrow in HN - very simple and unobtrusive. Yours might be fine with a little bit more margin to the right.

Perhaps maybe a bit more white space as well. With those adjustments I think it looks great

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome suggestions. OK we're going to play around with some of this and tweak... one follow up though: do you think the white space is a suggestion that "the mainstream" will like or is that more for the HN community coming over to news.learnboost.com ?

<comment><USER12> My personal opinion is that while it may not be something that the "mainstream" notices, it's a bit more comforting on the eyes and appears less cluttered.

Keep in mind, it's just one person's opinion, and I work with a guy who's pretty hardcore about padding and white space so I've grown into his style a bit ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Made some design changes (upgrades?)

What do you think now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How many lines of Lisp did it take?

<comment><AUTHOR> hahaha... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting thoughts!</comment>


Netflix will now interrupt series binges with video ads for its other series - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/08/netflix-begins-testing-ads-for-its-own-series-between-binge-season-episodes/ <comment><USER2> It's unfortunate; this "let me interrupt you" tactic is one of the most annoying things to me.

And it doesn't even have to be an ad. Seriously, things just need to stay out of the way. If I launch an app for instance, intent on doing something _very specific_ , and unbeknownst to me it was updated recently, guess what? Instead of just letting me start what I opened the app to accomplish, the app decides to interrupt me with a scroll-up modal list of "what's new!". Well you know what, at that exact moment, I couldn't care _less_ what's new and the interruption is _annoying_!!! Same with interstitial ads: there is absolutely no justification for shoving stuff in the viewer's face. It instantly degrades the entire experience.</comment>


Benchmark Comparison with GridDB and MariaDB - <AUTHOR> https://griddb.net/en/blog/benchmark-comparison-griddb-mariadb/ <comment><USER2> Comparing NoSQL to SQL... didn't MongoDB and CouchDB and others do this too .. where are they today?

Right they didn't take over at all. Sure there are companies who use MongoDB ... and then there are companies who have mongodb installed insecurely exposing their data to the world</comment>


Covid-19 dashboard to compare the viral spread across countries - <AUTHOR> https://louisdecharson.github.io/covid-19/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi folks,

Just made a dashboard on COVID-19 to compare the viral spread across countries. It's based on JHU & World Bank data and is made with D3.js

Happy to get your feedback !</comment>


Introducing Embed StatSheet. Integrate sports stats into any website - <AUTHOR> http://statsheet.com/blog/introducing-embed-statsheet

<comment><USER2> Looks very promising! Can you tell us about the customer development process you went through for this? Did you get a chance to speak to reporters or newspapers about their needs or the chances of them partnering with you, or are you going for individual early adopters for now? Best of luck.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! I launched statsheet.com two years ago. Since then I've talked to several big sports media companies as well as a dozen TV/news, sports betting, and other sports-related website owners. They all liked the content I was creating on statsheet.com and was interested in getting it on their site(s). Embed StatSheet is my solution for that. If someone says: "I wish my sports site/section had some of the stuff statsheet.com has", now there is an app for that :-)

This also fills a gap in the current sports data provider market today. Small content creators (ie bloggers) are completely priced out of the market. Second, you either need to be a programmer (to consume XML feeds) or use a white label hosted service. Embed StatSheet enables website owners to maintain control over their website without needing to hire programmers to do the integration (for many deployment scenarios).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great product - very well executed. I think you might be able to capture a sweet spot in the market: self-service, afordable and fully customizable sports stats/content. Would love to see clear pricing info up-front. Again, great stuff!</comment>


My Startup Engineering Startup: business-and-fitness.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.business-and-fitness.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm using the Startup Engineering course on Coursera as an excuse to become a better programmer. My idea is to create a personal dashboard that you can display on a TV or an extra monitor with your Pi or the new Google Chromecast.

I'm using the Dashing gem that was done by the Shopify guys. It is my first time using Ruby and it seems like a good language to get things done quickly.

I'm open to any suggestions anybody has!</comment>


No design is new: Medium, AirBNB, Flipboard, Beats are replicas of older logos - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/spencerchen/status/725114098107609089 <comment><AUTHOR> The images showing these logos in use at other companies decades ago are pages from a book titled _Trademarks & Symbols of the World: The Alphabet in Design_ by Yasaburo Kuwayama (1989).</comment>


46 Hours Gaming and Counting - Support the MegaMan Marathon - <AUTHOR> http://www.megamanforhealing.com/live

<comment><USER2> Great idea guys! Keep going!

They've already raised over $3K for a children's charity.

Anyone who wants to give them moral support I'm sure they'd appreciate it.</comment>


Why don't more software applications look like clean desks? - <AUTHOR> http://erikschmidt.tumblr.com/post/77510664/why-dont-more-software-applications-look-like-clean <comment><USER2> Already posted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=455001></comment>


Show HN: How to protest big social networks - <AUTHOR> https://www.pledgetoprotest.com/social-networks <comment><USER2> Passive protesting is not enough. I know it will never happen, but hypothetically, I would love to see a DDOS app that lets consumers pick their most hated companies and contribute their bandwidth toward an application- layer DDOS attack tailored specifically against the chosen company target. Like LOIC but mainstream, with the DDOS marketed as falling under free speech.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> People oftentimes say, in a defeatist tone, that it's impossible to protest a monopolistic social network, because network effects make it impossible to quit. I made this project to thoroughly put that notion to rest.</comment>


Feds Seize 307 Sports-Related Domains Ahead of Super Sunday - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/sports-domains-seized/

<comment><USER3> "Under civil forfeiture laws, the person losing the property has to prove that the items were not used to commit crimes."

That seems a bit backwards to me. I thought people were supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?

<comment><USER4> People are presumed innocent. To get around this, legal action is taken against the assets.

Edit: This document contains some information about asset forfeiture <http://www.justice.gov/usao/ri/projects/esguidelines.pdf>

<comment><USER5> Which is how you get stuff like:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_v._$124,700>

<comment><USER6> Wow, brilliant explanation of the reversal decision by the appellate court in that one. "We reverse."

<comment><USER7> Wikipedia quoted only the first paragraph of the opinion. The full thing is here: <http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/06/08/053295P.pdf>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Gotta protect those billionaire team owners and millionaire players - <USER2> would they do without their safetynet?

Once again law enforcement using their massive budget and "terrorist level" tools to help the 1%

I don't see any mention of a warrant or judicial review?

Meanwhile Nevada has nearly 13% (published) unemployment.

</comment><comment><USER9> I get what they're trying to do, but a) there are a lot more TLDs in the world than .com, .net, .org. So sites with a following, and a way to reach that following (twitter, Facebook etc) will quickly, and easily fall outside their grasp.

b) perhaps more concerning is the lack of due process. I get why they're frustrated, so because the owners are either outside their jurisdiction, or because they can't actually find the owners of the site, it's easiest to kill the DNS entry. Ineffective maybe, but at least they're seen to be doing _something_.

c) it's clearly better that 100 innocent sites should be closed than that a guilty one should keep its DNS entry.

While I get where they're coming from, I wonder where it ends? How long before they become a bug that needs to be worked around....

<comment><USER10> > c) it's clearly better that 100 innocent sites should be closed than that a > guilty one should keep its DNS entry.

Did you mean to write this?

<comment><USER11> Sarcasm, I'm sure.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: InfoSec News Aggregator - <AUTHOR> https://ericalexander.org/SecurityNews <comment><AUTHOR> Keeping up with security news is important for situational awareness, but it can be time consuming. This is a tool I wrote for my own benefit to reduce signal to noise. It runs entirely on Github using pages and actions. Source: [https://github.com/ericalexanderorg/SecurityNews](https://github.com/ericalexanderorg/SecurityNews)</comment>


The Imitation Game Cryptography Competition - <AUTHOR> http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/cryptography_competition_the_imitation_game

<comment> m-app The math symbol one is really challenging... I did throw together a small bruteforcing script for the Enigma code:

[https://gist.github.com/michielappelman/90cd7267781e8e67511d](https://gist.github.com/michielappelman/90cd7267781e8e67511d)

Happy puzzling!

<comment><AUTHOR> No! :-)

Don't brute force it. It's breakable by thought alone using an Enigma emulator. All you need is a Herivel Tip.

Did you break part 2? Part 1 is trivial.</comment></comment>


Calling bullshit on 'mobile strategy' - <AUTHOR> http://www.techinasia.com/mobile-strategy-is-bullshit/ <comment><USER2> I'm calling bullshit on a strawman argument.

I'm not aware of anyone who really thinks that "mobile" is the be and and end all of their channel strategy. It's just the current/next (depending on where your company is at this point) channel to go after.

On the flipside, all channels are not created equally. Your mobile phone is not simply a version of your PC in your pocket. Nor is the car dashboard. All have an awful lot in common, but they also have their own specific features. Your laptop or your car is unlikely to become a replacement for your wallet at any point, for example (you could argue that your mobile phone doesn't seem to be doing that either yet, but you know what I mean). And there's plenty of things that make sense to implement on big PC or tablet screen, but make far less sense on a phone screen etc.

So while no-one should have a "mobile-only" strategy (which pretty much no-one does anyway), having a "mobile-specifc" angle to your overall channel strategy is entirely sensible.

<comment><USER3> > I'm not aware of anyone who really thinks that "mobile" is the be and and > end all of their channel strategy

> So while no-one should have a "mobile-only" strategy (which pretty much no- > one does anyway)

Path, Snapchat, Color, Flipboard, Pair, Yardsale, Rumgr, etc. There are lots more, those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

<comment><USER2> Do you really think that none of them are looking at other platforms?

Most of the ones I know on that list are already on at least tablet as well, and I would be amazed if someone there isn't at least thinking about future channels (whether that be smart TV, Google Glass or whatever).

<comment><USER3> There's a big difference between thinking about other platforms and actually supporting other platforms. Users typically don't care what a company is thinking of doing; they care _what_ they're doing.

<comment><USER2> The article (and my reply) were about companies long term strategies, not what platforms they currently target.

<comment><USER3> Path is been out for how long now? Flipboard? Still mobile only. Of course, that depends on what you mean by "long term strategies" but in the internet startup world I strategies don't tend to be that long term.

<comment><USER2> Pretty certain I've got an optimised version of Flipboard on my tablet. Path I haven't got on my tablet, but there's an optimised version available if I want it.

What other existing types of platform would you expect their services to be on at the moment? Flipboard for one almost certainly wouldn't make a great deal of sense as a web app. That doesn't mean that they aren't considering whether it would look good on a gesture-controlled internet TV, or on Google Glass.

<comment><USER3> I guess I consider tablets mobile devices. But even so, my other examples still hold and there are lots more out there who focus only on smartphones and usually only iPhones.

<comment><USER2> Mobile as a general term covers most of the things that the article is talking about - Google Glass, car dashboards etc are all "mobile" technologies. If he means that wider term, then the article is even more stupid, so I can only assume he's referring to mobile phones specifically.

And again, what a company has in market now bears little relationship to what they have in their strategy. As far as "new" channels, my company currently only has a phone app , but we are regularly considering where we might want to go next. And I've not yet talked to a single supplier of any phone technology who isn't at least thinking about the future outside of that one channel (and I talk to a lot of suppliers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's annoying when people assume that something that might apply to their own business is applicable to all businesses. Not every type of business needs to be ubiquitous to be successful; it depends on the market. For example, if your business is leasing virtual servers, it's not likely that you'd need to have a mobile app to do so. If you're Apple (or Microsoft or IBM), your software doesn't have to run on every computer architecture to be successful. If you have a successful game that runs on iOS and Android, you might not get a proportional return from investing the resources to make it run on Windows 8.

<comment><USER5> I don't think he's really talking about all businesses--only those who claim to need a "mobile strategy."

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree, the search results for "mobile strategy" are rather breathless.

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3001816/your-company-needs- mobile...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3001816/your-company-needs-mobile- strategy-yesterday-and-these-numbers-prove-it)

[http://www.inc.com/ss/6-reasons-why-you-need-a-mobile- strate...](http://www.inc.com/ss/6-reasons-why-you-need-a-mobile-strategy#2)

[http://www.zdnet.com/a-better-mobile-strategy-quantify- this-...](http://www.zdnet.com/a-better-mobile-strategy-quantify- this-7000009720/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand the point of what he is saying. Is this just a dig at business cliches?

"Mobile" like "Computerization" or "Internet" or "Globalisation" before it is a big change to the world that affects most/many businesses in one way or another. Among some other effects, it affects how you interact with customers.

It's completely reasonable for businesses to spend some energy thinking about "How does/should this affect me?" Maybe the answer is "very little" but it's worth figuring out.

</comment><comment><USER7> The OP has a point, however I'll add Supercell doesn't appear to be doing too terribly with their _mobile only_ strategy.

[http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/16/supercell-the-cash-rich- lit...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/16/supercell-the-cash-rich-little-known- finnish-startup-that-could-soon-be-worth-600m/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "If you want to build a formidable business for the long term then you need a ubiquity strategy, not a mobile strategy."

I like this idea, matches up with some of the strategies in robomartin's comment at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5068777> .

</comment><comment><USER8> "I hold an MBA from both Columbia University and the London Business School."

If someones business (in software) needs to be 100% quality made, it needs to be native for that particular platform, using its native functionalities. Wether it's on iOS, Android or Windows.

For iOS, it's plugging into the notification centre, the ability to use the calendar as well as the address book. File storage, background services and etc.

'Mobile Strategy' is basically a strategy to be 100% quality on mobile.

It's not the end strategy, but if your customer base is mobile, then yeah, mobile strategy. Jeez, people like him generally don't grasp the complexity of software.

No one really has "ONLY" mobile, unless their business won't work on a desktop. Or they don't see any business value on being on the desktop.

<comment><USER3> > I hold an MBA from both Columbia University and the London Business School.

What's this ad hominem crap? The guy can't have an opinion on this because he's an MBA and "generally [can't] grasp the complexity of software"?

There are a ton of mobile apps out there that don't have any desktop analog and this guy is suggesting that's a poor strategy, just like having a desktop website with no mobile interface is a poor strategy. And what the heck does any of this have to do with whether or not you use native code?

It's a fallacy to state that software needs to be "100% quality made". What does that even mean? Bug free? Sure. Super pretty? Maybe? Native over web? Now come on...

> No one really has "ONLY" mobile

Path, Snapchat, Color, Flipboard, Pair, Yardsale, Rumgr, etc. All apps with little or no desktop web counterpart. The last two have to do with selling and require a large network effect, and yet they are both only available on mobile, and even worse, only on iOS; a perfect example of how a narrow "mobile only (ios first)" strategy can detract from your product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's a slightly odd article. It seems to concentrate on the form-factor of the screen, and ignore the most interesting parts of mobile strategy; the ability to react to the changing location and orientation of the user.

<comment><USER10> Isn't the article attacking corporate speak? I realise there is more to it, but its basically saying corporations call a screen size change a "strategy".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been thinking about way to describe UI in a matter of intentions ( "show this piece of data first, then this one, "warn the user", etc) rather than graphic property and let the device ( or a framework) generate that depending on the device. Anyone knows of such a technology ?

<comment> shawn-butler xForms

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Read the article, thought it was a bit wooly and vague. Agreed with this comment which points out the obvious nicely.

[http://www.techinasia.com/mobile-strategy-is- bullshit/#comme...](http://www.techinasia.com/mobile-strategy-is- bullshit/#comment-110614)

All nicely wrapped up.</comment>


ZeroSum: Sentinel on a server triggered by a crontab - <AUTHOR> http://www.0x000000.com/?i=550

<comment><USER2> Who is voting this up? This is just an incompetent reimplementation of Tripwire. The author gets it wrong, anyway: hashing the _size_ of a file means that someone can trivially modify the file's content but keep the file size the same (e.g. add a line to /etc/passwd but delete a few comments).</comment>


Ask HN: Idea that solves the problem of same-day online delivery - <AUTHOR>

Big box retailers like Best Buy, Target, Walmart would love a way to deliver same-day to online consumers, but it's too expensive.  So here is my solution:
There are already hundreds of thousands of couriers that go in and out of these retailers everyday:  consumers.
Why not make a mobile app that alerts them to deliveries that are needed near their home.  They are already headed that way anyway, all they would need to do is stop by a neighbor's house to deliver the goods.  I'm thinking the retailers can pay fees ranging from $10 - $20.  Heck, I'd check the app to see if anyone needs deliveries near me for an extra few bucks, why not?
Anyway, what do you guys think?  Obviously this idea needs a lot of work, but I think the gist of it could work in some way. <comment><USER2> I think the concept is a very interesting proposition. Agree that if other services (GetAround, TaskRabbit, others) can by through those issues, such an idea could have basis. I do think participating consumers/couriers must be have some vested interest or have to be members or something similar. Beginning with a localized launch with select retailers, it would be a very interesting experiment. The biggest hurdles will likely be getting buy-in from retailers, yet if the bond structure is organized properly, this obstacle can be overcome.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Liability." If Joe Schmoe picks up his sixpack, plus agrees to bring you your iSomething, then forgets to deliver it and/or drops it and/or his dog eats it, who's liable? Especially in sue-happy countries (hint hint), the cost of insurance will make this infeasible. (Perhaps a "trusted customer" program might alleviate this issue?)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that if services like Getaround.com and taskrabbit.com can overcome liability issues, this shouldn't be a big problem.

<comment><USER3> Interesting to know; and for low- to medium-value deliveries, this would be useful. Wonder how this would scale country-wide?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The difficult issue would be bonding of some kind right? Prevent people from just keeping the product which is worth more than the fee, but you could work that out with credit card holdings maybe.

</comment><comment><USER5> how about the many small time, one person delivery outfits that are already bonded and insured? Create a network of these companies and a backend for boxco to connect with.

</comment><comment><USER6> What would be the difference between this and other services that already exist like TaskRabbit and Postmates?

<comment><AUTHOR> The big difference is that this allows you to make money on a "task" that you're already doing anyway. Remember, you would make deliveries only to places that are close to your home, which is where you're headed. It's only a matter of making a small detour on the way home.

I don't even think it will be about the money. I could see this being a system where you earn credits for delivering, so that in the future, you get free deliveries yourself.</comment></comment>


Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight - <AUTHOR> http://www.fluentin3months.com/life-lessons/ <comment><USER2>
      More money will NEVER solve your problems

That just isn't true - the problem is that people realised that being rich isn't the same as being happy, and it was a good point. But then people took it too far, and it stops making sense.

Sure, for some people, having more money wouldn't improve things, but for many people, it definitely could. And I'm not just talking about people who are starving or homeless. You don't need a car to be happy, but if it means you waste far less time every week driving wherever you need to get to, it certainly has the potential to make you happier.

Can a really happy life be built entirely on having money? No (well, maybe for some people, I don't know), but that doesn't mean money can't or doesn't help to improve people's lives.

<comment><USER3> You can't spend 8 years traveling the world without quite a bit of money. The author should look at his own life before telling others that they don't need money; it sounds like luxury to me.

<comment><USER4> Sure you can. Travel needs not be expensive. If you don't stay in expensive hotels and eat out all the time, don't go drinking/partying every night its not difficult to travel on very little money. Move to a new country with a work permit, get a short term job, maybe working in your hostel, or at a bar, or even as general labour and save up enough to make your next hop.

<comment><USER3> I am being downvoted above but isn't travel expensive? It has to be simply because of the fuel costs involved.

In my eyes, 8 years of constant travel would be expensive. Compare that to 8 years of working on the same spot.

<comment><USER4> Travel can be very expensive. It can also be very cheap. It might be nicer to fly from point A to B but odds are there is a cheaper bus ticket available. A 4 star hotel is very nice to stay at but a 0 star hostel will often cost you less than $15 a day. Working in a bar will easily cover that, your food(buying cheap from local sources and cooking for yourself), and allow you to save for your next bus/boat ticket or where absolutely needed a short haul flight.

<comment><USER3> You see, that's my point, as soon as you have to cut the costs of other parts of your life you've clearly started doing something which requires large amount of money...

<comment><USER5> What costs are you cutting? No, vacationing in 5-star hotels for 8 years would not be cheap but that's not a necessity for travelling. You probably don't rent a 5-star apartment at home.

<comment><USER3> People are talking about buying less stuff, and going out for drinks and nice food less often.

These are costs that would be decreased.

My thought was that: you have to make concessions beyond what you would normally have in your life and that, to me, is proof that you are undertaking in a luxury which you can not easily afford.

Which brings me to my original point: when it's clear that the ability to travel requires money can somebody then genuinely advise others that more money doesn't solve a problem?

<comment><USER4> You're also often lowering your level of income by getting rid of steady employment which is where the cutting down on things comes from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Most of these life lessons have nothing to do with travelling. Most people I know (especially in their late 20's) would come up with a similar list even if they've barely travelled.

I think this is just merely the blog poster's world view articulated into 29 points, and incidentally he has travelled the world instead of living in one place.

<comment><USER7> However it is amazing what an impact does living at a place away from were one grew up in have in the perception of the world.

I had already traveled a lot ( as a tourist ) before I left Greece to come and live in Japan, when I started to make a life here, I practically had to rediscover myself. It is not so much the big things, it's the small ones : habits that I took for granted, jokes that do not sound funny, if you can ask someone's phone number... Like a very thin safety net of supporting culture I never new was there just disappeared underneath me.

I also had a fresh view of Greece , and my life before

I think traveling gives you a change of perspective difficult to grasp at home

<comment><USER8> Travelling is different than _living abroad_ though, right?

<comment><USER9> Depends how your travels looks like, you can travel living in luxury hotels, spend most of the time with people from your country either by the hotel swimming pool or guided tours or in the museums - or you can be less savy and go a bit "guerilla" with your travels: go a bit off from the typical tourists' paths, see the real local culture (not the one from museums) and real local people - this should be enough to "open up your mind" for different cultures (of course living abroad adds more of that but you can get some essence even if you stay somewhere for only a couple of days.

<comment><USER7> This is so true.

My current work as a system engineer implementing ERP systems for overseas affiliates, takes me often to work abroad (from Japan, that is) for a few weeks a time. Although I don't have time to do almost any sight-seeing at all, and although they will usually have me stay in more or less high grade hotels (that narrow one's vision, because they are the same, everywhere), it is working together with the local operators and managers, eating together, understanding their work ethic and habits, getting their feedback, pushing it together through the transition period, so when I go back I feel I understand a little bit more about the country from these interactions than from whatever I saw during my limited time off work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As I've been saying to others regarding startup advice and lessons, it's much more helpful and interesting to read stories. You may think you are extracting out wisdom from your experiences, but really, more often than not, these "life lessons" don't mean much without context. I certainly can't take them for a rule and apply them to my life. It may turn out to be the wrong advice for me and even if it doesn't, I'll always have the nagging doubt that I took the wrong decision based on someone else's experiences.

It would be nearly impossible to read these "N lessons" posts if they were not in the form of lists, which points to the fact that they don't flow very well. They are written in bite-sized chunks for information-hungry internet nerds like us.

Writers, please tell stories. We don't need more advice.

<comment><USER3> A life lesson with context wouldn't be a life lesson. The context is life, if the context is more specific and not fully applicable to life then it is no longer a life lesson.

<comment><USER11> A "life lesson" may still have a non-universal set of (common) situations to which it applies.

<comment><USER3> You don't agree that the more specific a situation is, the less applicable to 'life' it is?

<comment><USER11> I disagree with the conflation of "applies to life in general" with "applies to every situation you could be in." I would say it is, for example, a mistake to interpret lesson #2 as "never choose delayed gratification," but it is very important not to overvalue it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > 2\. Deferring your happiness to the future is a terrible idea

Every time I see this, I ask myself, how is this advice reconciled with the famous Marshmallow experiment? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment>

There surely must come a point where enough deferred future marshmallow gratification makes deferred gratification a recommended life strategy.

If I were always to choose not to delay my happiness, I'd eat unhealthy foods, not force myself to do exercise and never work hard to achieve anything.

As I heard a comic say, "I decided to live every day as if it were my last. Now I have really bad credit."

<comment><USER13> They're different things. Marshmellow isn't about deferring satisfaction, but about using metacognitive skills to reach an outcome you _know_ beforehand is favorable (i.e. two marshmellows instead of one). If you just find a marshmellow on a plate somewhere, by all means, the best strategy is to eat it.

<comment><USER14> And then let me know where you were when you found it. I'm all about finding random marshmallows while I'm just ambling around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've spent almost 10 years not having a stable place/work relationships. I also travelled a lot and came to almost same conclusions. But.

Looking back at it now I think that's everything should be limited. Including TV, including reading books alone and including travelling around the world. But.

The only thing that shouldn't be limited - is the pursue of your own unique excellence.

ADD:

So, if you want to be an excellent traveller - travel, if you want to be an excellent writer - write even not seeing others, if you want to be anything you like - do want you like. And try to be excellent.

That's the only life advice I have!

ADD 2: Naturally, if you don't want to be excellent, try to be excellent to be non-excellent !!!

</comment><comment><USER16> but what if i ENJOY watching tv? or being on the internet for hours? why is outdoors better by definition?

this fits nicely into the "what white people like" stereotype. go outside! why? maybe i want to read a book and be left alone. maybe i don't like dancing and singing.

how about: do whatever you like, but please, don't preach. we are different.

/white, like travel and outdoors, but love to consume art

<comment><USER17> If after spending many hours watching TV you feel your life has been enhanced in some way, then by all means keep it up. In my opinion people don't feel this way (I certainly never did and grew up glued to my TV) and would have spent their time better in other activities rather than following hours of reality TV shows etc.

Doing "whatever you like" doesn't necessarily enrich your life. It's just immediate pleasure. Sometimes doing whatever is BEST for you (which you should of course decide) is way more important. If people really sat down and thought about it, a lot of them would realise that, as much as they like it, TV is NOT best for them.

<comment><USER18> I feel my life is infinitely enriched by watching TV and movies. (In UK, we have extremely high quality programming).

You wouldn't say "all books are bad" would you... Sadly people seem to take the worst TV (reality TV) and assume it's all like that.

Watch some good movies, comedies or documentaries. Heck watch "How it's made" for a few days.

<comment><USER19> I have lived in the UK and tv there is just as bad as anywhere else (I particularly remember gardening shows ad nauseum). If you think your life is infinitely enriched by tv, wait till you get out there (and garden for example).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> __Sigh __. Someone needs to write:

"41 Life Lessons Learned by Marrying, Moving to Suburbia, and Raising a Family".

That's what I did and I'm a happy guy.

<comment><USER21>
        Someone needs to write

Why not you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A few points I got from this:

\- Possessions do own you. I have made an effort in the past year to minimize my stuff. One of my long term goals is to be able to shrink the majority of my life into a travel-able size. It allows me to cherish the essentials and not bloat the rest of my life.

\- Money does allow for happiness, just to a certain extent. Money opens up many opportunities and comforts. It also adds security. If my car gets totalled tomorrow, I know that I have enough money saved up to be able to handle it, rather than suddenly be put in a dire situation that could jeopardize my job.

\- Major goals are important, but not everything. People work towards things, its natural of humanity. Everyone sets goals and works towards them (or sometimes waits for them) and it is a strong driving force in our lives. But sacrificing your happiness now for the sake of those goals is counterproductive. You need to enjoy the time used to achieve that goal. You shouldn't look back on the year(s) taken to get to the point and see a lot of unhappiness and pain, enjoy some of the time instead.

\- In regards to the internet/tv posts, I would say that the biggest thing anyone can do is read. The Internet provides an incredibly accessible portal of information and using it to learn new things (and an incredibly breadth of things) is a tool everyone should use and abuse.

... Just my random thoughts after reading the post.

<comment><USER23> possessions don't own you. attachment owns you. the difference is subtle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> As someone who is currently taking a gap year to travel and work on my startup, a lot of this rings true. Especially the part about speaking other languages rather than English. There are interesting conversations that I just can't participate in because I don't understand what people are saying. However, there are several hacks for this that I've found.

\- Don't stay at hotels, use airbnb. The hosts are almost always locals that speak decent English and want to get to know you, so that's enriched my experience tremendously. Disclaimer: I do NOT work for airbnb, but after seeing how it has enriched my travels it's definitely at the top of my list if I ever wanted to apply for a job again.

\- Go out of your way to meet other travelers. Usually, travelers like to keep to themselves. But there are districts in any city that are especially frequented by foreigners. Why restrict yourself to locals? Foreigners from a different country who are traveling are just as interesting for cultural exchange as the locals. They usually speak English fairly well and it's not uncommon to be engaged in an English conversation with a German, a Russian, a Chinese, and a French person at a bar. It's quite fascinating.

While it is definitely less expensive to travel than one would think, it still does cost quite a bit if you want to travel to major cities and have a living standard which is at least close to western-standard. Staying with friends and using airbnb instead of hostel/hotel is the best way to keep costs down. After 3 months of traveling (Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and now Spain) I've spent an average of $4300/mo. I'm traveling with my wife so the per person cost is actually less. Could I get by with less by teaching English and staying in one place longer, etc? Yes, but as with everything, there is a tradeoff between time and money.

</comment><comment><USER25> Nice article. I have myself lived in Latin America and China for about 12 years now, however I prefer to stay at the same place for some years, to make it become "normal" life.

And while I agree with many of the articles points, I completely disagree with #16. The "easy going" may look charming and smart on the surface, but when reality suddenly shows up (illness, accident, any sort of emergency, etc) then its suddenly not so charming anymore.

I believe a big reason for the "easy going" attitude lays in the available Social Capital in a given society. In societies with low Social Capital, its often no use to be "less easy going" and work hard, since careers are not build by knowledge or good work, but by "Guanxi" and Amigos (because Social Capital is low these relationships become more important than actual professional knowledge). I am pretty sure that, having a real choice, most people would opt for the "less easy going" way, where products and services, houses and medical care are available and reliable.

</comment><comment><USER26> These are pretty simple, not so preachy, and generally expected observations from someone working in a location independent profession while travelling the world and picking up new languages. This is also advice aimed almost directly at people in similar positions - those with higher education and almost zero financial or emotional attachment (ex. children, sick family memebers) to their original home. What I'm more interested in though is when the author realizes that being in different places every three months, no matter how much you "hack your experience" there only allows you access to a certain level of experiential depth. Love, trust, deep friendships, community - you just cant cultivate these things every three months while planning your next destination and as much friendliness, and kindness people in these places show you, its not the same as if you are someone planning to be a part of that place permanently.

</comment><comment><USER27> I disagree that the desire to own stuff all boils down to wanting recognition and validation from others. In my experience there are a range of reasons that people want to own things, and validation is just one of the more base reasons.

</comment><comment><USER28> IMHO, different world travellers come up with different life lessons. It all depends on the person's own prejudices. _Lessons are not in the world, they're within you._ World and societies are just tools to discover our own selves.

<comment><USER15> I can't really think of any written example of any traveler who came up with different conclusions about the world.

<comment><USER28> _Conclusions about the world_ can be same. Like, _everyone wants the same in life_ is a popular conclusion seen in several travel blogs. But we're talking about _life lessons_ here, which I think, are not absolutes but drawn differently by different people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Have an up-vote for being from Cavan!

Languages should be always acquired wherever possible. On my travels I've picked up Irish, French, Chinese and attempting to learn Nepalese to placate the in-laws for my future wedding speech.

<comment><USER17> Wa hey! Fellow Cyavan-man? I'll be back for the Fleadh in a month :)

<comment><USER29> The aul fellah is from Cavan, being a mongrel with Kerry blood in me I had the misfortune of living in the Faithful county for many a year.

Out in Sydney now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't like the way this article, and many others like it, disregard peoples ability to be malicious. They portray all humans as good-natured, kind and helpful, and while this is true for the overwhelming majority, the small percentage to who this does not apply do exist.

I personally would love to read some good advice on how to deal with people who actively try to harm you, as most advice available focusses on how to make friends and acquaintances.

</comment><comment><USER31> Amazing blog, thanks for posting it. Been living in Paris for two weeks now and not really even tried to speak French, my aim by the end of my internship was to become conversationally fluent. Definitely starting this soon: [http://www.fluentin3months.com/the-smartest-decision-you- wil...](http://www.fluentin3months.com/the-smartest-decision-you-will-ever- make-to-achieve-fluency/)

<comment><USER17> Another post that you may find more relevant to Paris is my experience in finally learning how to get along with Parisians: <http://www.fluentin3months.com/closed-minded/> This is important to keep in mind as it's the only place in the world that my speak-the-language-from-day- one approach needed some tweaking ;) Enjoy the city - my favourite activity there is to stand over the bridge to the Cité and wave at a boat passing underneath and have 200 Japanese tourists wave back. Fun times!

<comment><USER32> The concept of closed-mindedness is also heavily cultural; it doesn't always translate or map to local values.

<comment><USER17> As I said in the post, closed-mindedness is something that people have to realise lies within themselves. This post wasn't calling Parisians closed minded.

<comment><USER32> I assumed you were calling yourself closed-minded.

But my point was that the whole open-minded versus closed-minded conversation hinges upon cultural values which are by no means universal. There are many cases where the reverse is seen as important (e.g. resisting outside influences) or where the entire topic is not seen as meaningful or important.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for explaining!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well, it is good to have rich parents, no one argues. You can discover basics of the life in 8 years rather than in one year of visiting a public library. ^_^

Disclaimer: I have seen so many Enlightened Tourists after two weeks in Lhasa or a Hindu/Yogi Gurus after one months in Varanasi and especially Teachers Of Humanity with an obvious Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

</comment><comment><USER34> Excellent read. As someone who has (hopefully) just taken up the travelling+programming lifestyle myself I was really inspired by the website. There's a lot of interesting articles on there.

</comment><comment><USER35> I met a guy once who, at the time, had benen travelling for 7 years. His main advice was: Don't get married. You don't want to know how much people cheat on their sopouses.

</comment><comment><USER32> A little John Lennon here, a little Miguel de Cervantes there.

</comment><comment><USER36> Point #1 is why we shouldn't be at war, why people in power shouldn't be always trying to control the populace, and why there shouldn't be so much poverty

</comment><comment><USER37> I have a strong desire to do something like this. I've been saving for the day that I can quit my job, and work on a start-up. At the same time I also want to move to somewhere like Costa Rica with exciting rain forests, and a lower cost of living. Unfortunately I feel tied down, I'm more than willing to sell most of my stuff, I basically stopped buying "things" a few years ago. However I could never move away from my girlfriend, and she could never move away from her life here in Boston.

<comment><USER38> I'll just leave this here for you then: [http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding- Uncommon-Guide-Long-Term-T...](http://www.amazon.com/Vagabonding-Uncommon- Guide-Long-Term-Travel/dp/0812992180)

<comment><USER39> And I'll even cut to the chase: <http://www.vagabonding.net/excerpt/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's easy to be single with this lifestyle, as a professional who can work remotely anywhere. You can't have pets, as well.</comment>


Viewpoints: What will you do with your Pi? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17245294

<comment><USER2> I suppose pi could eat into some of the arduino projects currently being done. Though arduino is much simpler to interface with various sensors - thanks to shields, once a few 'shields' for pi show up, the lure of powerful hardware and full blown OS will move many to pi.

<comment><USER3> I agree; however a particularly alluring component to an arduino is driving it with a 9V battery and throwing it up into the false ceiling and letting it do its thing. (Or whatever your use case may be.)

<comment><USER4> I think I saw somewhere on the Raspberry Pi forums that it would run fine on 4 AA batteries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If I could make one weatherproof, it would be neat to use one outside in my back yard to take some weather information from the internet over wifi and then control some relays that turn some water spigots and save a ton of water for my garden.

In my head whenever I think about a 60 year old version of me in the year 2040, I've sort of burned out on writing code but still bust some out whenever I can use it to save water. And the kids will think I am lame for writing code that saves a few gallons, but we'll be right on the brink of that starting to matter a lot.

Also it would be cool to use the same machinery to drive those little windows and fans to make a greenhouse stay perfectly the same temperature during the day.

This is probably total overkill for one of these devices. But I could code the perl up in an hour or less and it would just work, and having something exist and just work is so much more satisfying than "this thing I keep saying I will do some year".

<comment><USER3> Another more romantic, less useful idea is that a raspberry pi mounted outside sampling the sky quality and scraping a few astronomical forecasts could come up with a composite of "this really is a night you should go outside for an hour before bed" - it would send a txt message to me at a certain time (or even be allowed to wake me up! [for a meteor shower or solar flare report). It seems I can write code and work on house chores 7 days a week and never remember nary a bit of it, but if I spend just an hour gazing at constellations and trying to figure it all out on my own, I remember that slice for a good long while and I dont feel like I missed out on something as much; this would be like a watchdog timer for my distracted life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> XBMC + Projector for entertainment. Custom car radio, and once I get my hands on a third one, hopefully some computer vision toy building.

<comment><USER6> I think using XBMC will be huge. Cheap, low power, and simply point it at a computer/external HDD with a media collection to play all available media.

Also, using it as a gaming machine (see the Quake III video on Raspberry Pi's site) and game emulators for older console games.

I would love to see different sensors being attached for cheap, open-source home automation projects (home heating, turning off lights when no-one is present, monitoring home energy consumption, talking to mobile devices etc.)

Edit: Project Ideas from Raspberry Pi's forum:

[http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/projects-and- collaboration-...](http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/projects-and- collaboration-general/the-projects-list-look-here-for-some-ideas)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stand alone network backup device. I plan on hooking a low power external USB drive, and using something like rsync over the network so that backups are isolated from the computer I'm backing up. There's already several techniques documented for using rsync combined with "cp -al" to create daily/weekly/monthly snapshots using incremental space; combine this with an appropriate "command=" parameter in ssh's authorized_keys file, and you can have a backup that can run automatically, and that can't be destroyed by malware on the host you are backing up.

<comment><USER3> I no longer allow myself to use backup solutions I invent. And that's just a calling to my own confidence in my code, but I have lost data that I liked because I did a home brew backup. It's all that logic that makes sure it's still working correctly over time. There are so many devices available for very low cost that provide this exact solution. For me, it's one of those things where it's dangerous to enjoy inventing because I am not a master tool maker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reprap controller with touch interface for 3D printing.

<comment><USER9> Hope you're thinking of a self-contained LCD/touchscreen off the shelf.

I've been trying to ascertain how to hook up a small LCD and capacitive controller over the LVDS/DSI port and I'm not getting a lot of information. Asking on the forum isn't getting much data.

Is there SPI or I2C on the flex connector? Nobody knows. How about power for the LCD backlight? Oh, the 5V rail is limited to 1 amp. How about the DSI driver? Broadcom won't talk.

You start pressing for details about this and then the stance swivels to "Hey! This is an educational computer! You shouldn't be working on wacky applications like this!" I don't see a lot of people proposing educational applications for the Rpi so far. Just people that want a cheaper Pandaboard.

<comment><USER10> From what I understand, the idea is that the first few batches will go to hackers so they (we) can get to work stress-testing and creating with these. After we're done, they'll sell the next batch to the education market hopefully with the new tools/accessories that the hacker community had come up with.

<comment><USER9> Can't create much when we can't see schematics and ascertain if the I/O ports carry what we need. And if there was a deficiency, they've publicly said they won't respin boards.

Not a very encouraging situation.

<comment><USER10> They do plan (and will have) IO extensions ala Arduino. I can't remember what they call the daughterboard they're releasing.

Mainly what they want is software and cases. It's meant to teach kids computer programming and software basics outside of the Windows and OSX "don't worry about it" mindset they're currently growing up in. Robotics and extraneous hardware design is outside of their current scope.

<comment><USER9> If you're thinking of the "gertboard" that was announced, that's a breakout board that is connected to the Rpi over a SPI line. So it's not turning GPIO lines off the processor into usable connections, it's just an I/O extender. You could be using that exact same board with an Arduino today and bit-bang your SPI commands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm really keen to get at least one for using as XBMC. but I still have no idea when I might get to even order one.

</comment><comment><USER12> Tempted to stick it inside my BBC master case and run BeebEm on it :)</comment>


Media tech – discord HTTPS://discord.com/invite/NsEG9v4 - <AUTHOR> Discord server to discuss all things media tech (dash, hls, h3, hardware, tips n' tricks).  https://discord.com/invite/NsEG9v4 <comment><AUTHOR> Just started to build the group. Let us know if there are additional channels folks are interested in.</comment>


A New Kind of Science: A Rare Blend of Egomania and Insanity (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/ <comment><USER2> True and well-known in the community.

Wolfram is (was?) a brilliant mind and a very successful enterpreneur. He also "crossed the line" way too many times to be taken seriously.

<comment><USER3> > entrepreneur

I think that's the problem West have. Everyone must be an entrepreneur, which translates to profit and money. Even scientists.

The article mentions Kolmogorov and his work on randomness and how his disciple is more famous for finding useful applications on it. Also another collaborator he only met once at a cybernetics conference in moscow, a 23 year old japanese named Karatsuba, came up with another improvement on his ideas and is responsible for the way our CPUs are able to do fast multiplication to this day. Karatsuba didn't even know his paper was being included in a book by Kolmogorov until he received a pre-print!</comment></comment>


Scrum Anti-Patterns - <AUTHOR> https://www.simplethread.com/scrum-anti-patterns/ <comment><USER2> I like being agile (or having agility) agile is a verb not a noun. I like this post as it points out Scrum Anti-patterns that are all too common with the practice of not-so-nimble Agile.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good article with important observations, in particular the "Point Procrastination" part.</comment>


A Few Billion Lines of Code: Using Static Analysis in the Real World - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/2/69354-a-few-billion-lines-of-code-later/fulltext/ <comment><USER2> This is easily the best article I've read on HN in weeks. It's refreshing to read a report from people who clearly understand their problem well, and are able to explain the technical and social problems they face.

<comment><USER3> I was initially skeptical, especially after reading your glowing review (what can I say? I'm a cynic). But the article won me over. It actually quite interesting and informative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"Why is it when I run your tool, I have to reinstall my Linux distribution from CD?"

This was indeed a puzzling question. Some poking around exposed the following chain of events: the company's make used a novel format to print out the absolute path of the directory in which the compiler ran; our script misparsed this path, producing the empty string that we gave as the destination to the Unix "cd" (change directory) command, causing it to change to the top level of the system; it ran "rm -rf _* _" (recursive delete) during compilation to clean up temporary files; and the build process ran as root._

</comment><comment><USER5> Fascinating! Creating tools for developers is such a PITA.

Interesting observation:

Parsing is considered a solved problem. Unfortunately, this view is naïve, rooted in the widely believed myth that programming languages exist.

The C language does not exist; neither does Java, C++, and C#. While a language may exist as an abstract idea, and even have a pile of paper (a standard) purporting to define it, a standard is not a compiler. What language do people write code in? The character strings accepted by their compiler. Further, they equate compilation with certification. A file their compiler does not reject has been certified as "C code" no matter how blatantly illegal its contents may be to a language scholar. Fed this illegal not-C code, a tool's C front-end will reject it. This problem is the tool's problem.

<comment><USER6> From what I understand parsing is a solved problem. Parsing exactly like 40+ different C compilers for which you don't have source is a different beast all together.

<comment><USER7> I'd rather call it: Parsing a given language is solved. Unterstanding the not-C (love that term) language those 40+ C-Compilers accept is hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We used Coverity at ACCESS (who make ALP and the First Else, neither of which you've heard of).

If you're using C and/or C++, it's a truly amazing tool, and chases down some very weird bugs.

As our upgrade method, we basically enabled serious tests a few at a time, fixed most of the problems that showed up as a result, and then later enabled a few more checks on slightly less serious bugs.

But I can see how it's hard to sell that in general. ACCESS was actually a pretty good, sophisticated user of Coverity in most ways, and it paid us back handsomely in code quality.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't know whether to laugh or cry at some of these anecdotes.

 _As a final example, a buffer overflow checker flagged a bunch of errors of the form

      unsigned p[4];
      ...
      p[4] = 1;

"No, ANSI lets you write 1 past the end of the array."

After heated argument, the programmer said, "We'll have to agree to disagree." We could agree about the disagreement, though we couldn't quite comprehend it._

<comment><USER10> Ha! That probably came out of a rule in the standard that a pointer may _point_ one past the end of an array. (Bump it any further and your compiler is not required to do anything sensible, iirc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I want a lot more of this kind of article here.

</comment><comment><USER12> _The C language does not exist; neither does Java, C++, and C#. While a language may exist as an abstract idea, and even have a pile of paper (a standard) purporting to define it, a standard is not a compiler._

That is some Zen shit.

</comment><comment><USER13> " _How to handle cluelessness._ You cannot often argue with people who are sufficiently confused about technical matters; they think you are the one who doesn't get it. They also tend to get emotional. Arguing reliably kills sales. What to do? One trick is to try to organize a large meeting so their peers do the work for you. The more people in the room, the more likely there is someone very smart and respected and cares (about bugs and about the given code), can diagnose an error (to counter arguments it's a false positive), has been burned by a similar error, loses his/her bonus for errors, or is in another group (another potential sale)."</comment>


Some hints on how to avoid writing yet Another Crappy Job Description - <AUTHOR> http://blog.professorbeekums.com/2016/07/job-descriptions-should-be-better.html?m=1 <comment><AUTHOR> They are all "obvious" points but are they? I see the same things described here all over the HN monthly hiring pages.</comment>


First beta releases of Python 2.6 and Python 3.0 - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_thread/thread/baed11a52a011db3

<comment><USER3> What's new here: <http://docs.python.org/dev/3.0/whatsnew/3.0.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks like 3.0 is still weakly typed, making it unsuitable for anything but glue:

        In [1]: True + 1
        Out[1]: 2

        In [2]: (False + 1 == True) - <USER2>
        Out[2]: -4</comment>