Ask HN: Hypervisor setup for gaming/servers - <AUTHOR> I'm interested in converting my home workstation from one-OS-per-disk to a hypervisor running VMs. I like the idea of having more reproducible, ephemeral instances without having to dual boot (think containers).<p>My use case is primarily to run containerized services in a 24/7 linux vm, while having a Windows VM for gaming that sits in a stopped/paused state most of the time.<p>- Is anyone else running a similar setup?<p>- What hypervisor would you recommend (Xen, KVM)?<p>- Is it realistic to get decent gpu perf through VT-d/gpu passthrough?<p>- Can I do this on my fairly consumer-grade machine (MSI mobo, nvidia gpu)? <comment><USER2> The fact that your server would be locally on site eases two of the major pain points... If the Windows games you're playing on your VM are resource intensive, why not instead just do a V2P to a bare metal gaming rig each time you want to refresh the OS from your "reproducible" image? This would eliminate many more difficult scenarios... however if the games you're playing on the VM are not resource-intensive, especially if they're 2D, then sure GPU passthrough stuff may be the easiest and best-performing option for you considering all the overhead of maintaining a separate, physical box.

Use a Type I hypervisor and expect to tweak your configuration endlessly... and once it's working, endlessly still more...

I'd recommend ProxMox... here's a setup that worked for somebody: [https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/gpu-passthrough- tutorial-r...](https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/gpu-passthrough-tutorial- reference.34303/)

I've set up an online gaming company/system that's rather novel but my implementation is far removed from yours, as you have dedicated graphics on a local hypervisor.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have not done passthrough with a GPU, so I cant comment on how "good" it will be. You will need to see if your hardware supports it, and then see how stable it is and is it really worth it. I'd also make sure your system has enough resources (cpu, memory, disk) to do what you want to do with this setup.

I work with passthrough networking devices everyday in KVM, so I would suggest KVM, vs HyperV.

Have you seen this? [https://blog.zerosector.io/2018/07/28/kvm-qemu- windows-10-gp...](https://blog.zerosector.io/2018/07/28/kvm-qemu- windows-10-gpu-passthrough/)</comment>


George Price: The man who died trying to prove selflessness doesn't exist - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/healthy-living/george-price-the-altruistic-man-who-died-trying-to-prove-selflessness-doesn-t-exist-a7237866.html <comment><AUTHOR> _The Price equation was not, as Price had hinted to him, a new derivation or correction of his ideas. Instead, it was "a strange new formalism that was applicable to every kind of natural selection". Its strangeness came precisely because Price was not a biologist – instead of starting from the work of their scientific forebears, he had worked everything out for himself from first principles._

 _"In doing so," wrote Hamilton, "he had found himself on a new road and amid startling landscapes."_

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for the slightly editorialised title; I omitted the word _altruistic_ in order to come in under the 80-character limit.</comment>


(Nearly) Visible Quantum Interactions - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/scientists-drag-quantum-mechanics-into-the-visible-realm.ars

<comment><USER2> I read this and don't understand, but I want to. Can anyone explain?

<comment><USER3> I'll make a start to the best of my understanding so that at least more learned readers can correct me. In particular the Josephson phase qubit is beyond my ken, really, so take this with a pinch of salt.

They have a lump of material which will vibrate when driven with microwaves. The mechanical energy of this vibration is, like other forms of energy, quantised. They cool it down so they can distinguish the ground and first excited states.

The oscillator is piezoelectric, so they can get a current from it that depends on the frequency of the oscillation, and this enables it to be coupled to the qubit device.

The Josephson junction has two phases, superconducting and non- superconducting. The junction in a circuit behaves like an oscillating circuit. Transitions between these phases occur at certain resonant frequencies which depend on the current applied. The resonant frequencies are quantised and you can have a superposition of the states, and that's why this is a qubit. The splitting between these quantum states depends on the current.

Coupling the piezoelectric oscillator with the qubit allowed them to drive a circuit at frequencies that could change the qubit state. Conversely, the state of the qubit can set the vibrational state of the oscillator. Since you can set the qubit in a superposition of the ground and first excited state, the ground and first excited states of the oscillator i.e. not vibrating and vibrating, are also superposed.</comment></comment>


OLEDs are coming--everywhere - <AUTHOR> http://semiengineering.com/oleds-shine-in-phones-tvs-lights/ <comment><USER2> It might just be me, but the refresh rate/persistence of vision on these displays that kinda screws with my eyes in low-light situations.</comment>


Why are most programmers white males? - <AUTHOR> http://brianknapp.me/most-programmers-white-males/ <comment><USER4> I used to get teased for being so interested in computers and electronics during grade school, and for staying in at recess to program or read.

Being able to ignore social pressures and just be yourself is definitely a benefit of privilege. So it's easy to see how many of the rarest skills and ingenious founder stories are examples of someone going against the grain to do something he or she cares about.

When people decry privilege, they seem to think that it's a bad thing, that we should all feel the insecurity, the doubt, and the drive to conform that most people feel.

I think the opposite is true, we should strive for all people to feel the empowerment of privilege and the freedom to pursue whatever moves them.

As a corollary, it's not a coincidence that the top schools admit the most privileged applicants. Those are the people whose privilege has allowed them to think about what is important to them... not just simply trying to be popular, avoiding getting beaten up by the kids who hate nerds, or avoiding ticking off an abusive parent, etc.

Privilege puts a person years ahead when it comes to moral clarity, purpose, curiosity, and self-actualization. Metaphorically, everyone else is in some sort of minimum security prison.

<comment><USER5> There are multiple factors, but basic discouragement, starting from childhood, is a big one.

100 years ago, when writing could make you a decent living, women were constantly discouraged from writing. Here's Virginia Woolf's character Lily in To The Lighthouse, dealing with nagging doubts:

"Then why did she mind what he said? Women can't write, women can't paint—what did that matter coming from him, since clearly it was not true to him but for some reason helpful to him, and that was why he said it?"

At roughly the same time, women were often employed as "computers" \-- that is, people who did complex mathematical calculations. It was thought that women were good for this more tedious math, thus leaving men free for the higher math to which they were more eminently suited.

So, to review: When writers could support a family, women were discouraged from being writers. When math skill was not connected with a good salary, women were accepted as being good at math.

Nowadays, very few writers can make a living, while mathematically-minded coders can. So today's generally accepted wisdom is that girls are naturally good with words (which doesn't pay), while boys are good with math and computers (which does).

The fact that women aren't in coding isn't a bug, but a feature. Remember the Eniac? Programming that was brutally hard, and it was all done by women, and there does not seem to have been a particular amount of money or glory in it. Now there's both, and that's why women are discouraged from joining in the lucrative boys' club.

Once code starts being written by robots and the average developer can't find a job, then you'll see the field fill up with women.

<comment><USER6> Where do you see women being discouraged from programming? Because I see the opposite everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article makes some decent points around class and the expense of a computer in the 80s/90s. But it dodges more substantial questions, and a lot of the substance is either circular logic or confirmation bias.

There are plenty of asian men in programming, so this isn't a race thing. It probably is socioeconomic for the reasons the article points out, so that's fine - I think we can leave it at "white and asian people dominate programming because they tend to come from wealthier families".

I think the much harder question is why women aren't in programming. They make up 50% of the population and come from the same exact socioeconomic background as men. This question is important because the repercussions still haunt us today. The article starts this question with "girls weren't interested in computers or video games at all", and then circles the logic with "people tend to do things that they see other people who are 'like them' doing". Well, I'd like to know why women weren't interested in programming. In my circumstantial experience it wasn't a conscious decision or peer pressure, it was coming top down from society. I saw many parents encouraging their sons to play with computers and completely ignoring that their daughters may want to also. The article completely avoids this topic, sadly.

edit: downvoted within 30 seconds - if you're gonna downvote, please at least reply and start a discussion about it.

<comment><USER8> I once had plans to create a small scripting language, specifically designed for woman in tech. I always envied woman for the ability to hold such huge social networks in their memorys and manipulate them. Maybe if you you made a programming language whose basic datastructure is similar to another person, and who's classes communicated with each other.

Then i held a C-Introduction course at university for a womans only class and abandoned the idea. Its not that woman are not smart enough to grasp tech, quite the contrary, on average they where faster learners then men.

The problem is that woman constantly evaluate their surroundings, and value their prospects accordingly.

And sorry, Nerds dont make for a high-value surrounding. This is no shiny glass apple-shoe-box a programmer princess lands- this a dorm shoe-box filled with Ramen eating nerds, partially unwashed, seemingly stuck in infinite childhood( W40k as a break talk), which to make things more bewildering, is a bonus to the job, because you are able to grasp things faster with a playful mindset. Lots of Hitchiker and LoRs insider jokes between the Bachelors and the graduating Masters dont help to that either. Its like a great Insiders game - to which you have come much too late - and which compared to other groups doesn't look very glamorous.

Now, hold against this, the other study groups- lawyers, MBAs and doctors who hold at universities quite the social high life (every fraternitys part is famous, except for the Infoguys) already- and you begin to grasp why programing doesn't keep woman interested. Its small stuff, and its eroding away confidence, one day at a time.

<comment><USER9> I guess the question is why aren't the unwashed ramen eating nerds of the female gender interested in programming? Now let's not pretend they don't exist, they're key members of any university anime club. Why did they choose systems, civil, and chemical engineering over computer science?

<comment><USER8> I forgot the neurotics and otherwise social outcasts. Not that unwashed, but definitely not bragging material for someone who defines his value by the showman factor of the company he spends time with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Throwaway, because race is a sensitive topic, and below is a potentially unpopular way to look at things in regards to race (I am not addressing gender in this comment).

1\. Whites actually do not make up a disproportionate number of the programmers in the US! Whites are 74% of the workforce and 72% of the programmers.

2\. Asians do make up a disproportionately high number of the programmers in the US, they are 6% of workforce but 20% of programmers.

3\. I'd suggest that programming is a job where intellectual ability (specifically math-type logic) is highly correlated with success. Everything else held equal - on average more intellectual ability will lead to a better programmer.

4\. Black Americans have on average significantly lower math skills (measured by the SAT) than white Americans. The factors leading to this are widely debated, but the fact remains that the gap still exists in a big way.[2] Asians have, on average, much better math skills than whites and blacks.

5\. This doesn't seem to me primarily a culture issue, it seems like an intellectual ability issue.

Conclusion: I am not qualified to say what drives the intellectual ability gap (education, infant diet, genetics, culture, etc). But the fact remains the highest IQ people (and therefore highest IQ groups) will continue to perform the best in jobs where IQ is a big factor for success.

[1][https://datausa.io/profile/soc/151131/](https://datausa.io/profile/soc/151131/)

[2]I'm using SAT math scores to show this here, which of course have faults, but it's tough to argue they don't show an actual difference. IQ tests show similar results: [https://www.brookings.edu/research/race-gaps-in-sat- scores-h...](https://www.brookings.edu/research/race-gaps-in-sat-scores- highlight-inequality-and-hinder-upward-mobility/)

<comment><USER11> Number 5 seems like a leap.

<comment><USER10> Do you agree that higher IQ (on average) makes a better programmer, and that as a group asians have higher IQs than blacks?

If so, how do you expect blacks (as a group) to have the same number of quality programmers as asians?

Again, I am NOT saying this needs to be inherently true in the future, that this is unsolvable, is genetic, etc. I am simply saying that today (on average) 18 year old asians have more intellectual ability than 18 year old blacks - and therefore, I would expect the asians (as a group) to do better in programming today.

Maybe in 20 years the IQs of the various race groups will be equal. And if that becomes the case and there is still a gap, then my thesis is disproven. But that is not the case today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this hits the nail on the head, and explains why some people feel gilted by the recent push for diversity in tech -- like it or not it's only a popular issue because tech is now sexy where it absolutely wasn't before. Other fields have worse gender ratios by a fair margin (in both directions) but you don't see news articles about it -- maybe because there's no Zuckerberg of mechanical engineering.

</comment><comment><USER13> The reason men are more inclined to program is autism. Thinking systematically and enjoying some level of solitude are traits that make a good programmer. It's no coincidence that men are 4.5x more likely to be diagnosed with autism[1]. Look at any early interview with Zuck or Gates or Musk or Jack - it's like an educational video on how to spot mild Asperger Syndrome.

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html](https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html)

<comment><USER14> This is what programmers tell themselves but it sounds bizarre to me.

1) There is almost no profession where thinking is required for which "Thinking systematically and enjoying some level of solitude" isn't helpful. Programming isn't special in this regard.

2) Having empathy with your users seems even more important to me, and a lack of this is the cause of a lot of shitty software.

Also, Mark Zuckerberg doesn't strike me as being Asbergery at all but maybe that's just because I work at Facebook.

<comment><USER13> You seem like someone who is way outside of the autistic spectrum.

Imagine the sound of other people talking sounding like nails on a chalkboard. Now imagine working a job in sales, biz dev, marketing, customer support, investing, legal, management, child care, or HR. How many hours can you go in a day without hearing that screeching sound? Maybe 1/2 hour if you tried hard? Now imagine working in a good programming environment where you can frequently spend 1-3 hours without talking to anyone, and when you reluctantly do it's for very short periods with people who understand you don't like talking. Or maybe you can just work at home and almost never deal with anyone.

Are you the type of person who wants to spend weeks at home, alone, no travel, no dinners, with almost no human interaction outside of say 4 family/close friends? A very large number of programmers I've met are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why are people asking more and more of these basically racist / 'genderist' / _whatever_ ist questions? Why is it that it is nearly impossible to open a newspage or magazine without being confronted with '...blah blah blah _white males_ blah blah ...' or '... blah blah blah _women wearing hijab_ blah blah ...' or '...blah blah _LGBT people_ blah blah ...'?

I live in Sweden, one of the most egalitarian countries in the world, but if you were to believe the media we're about as bad as it can get when it comes to 'discrimination' and 'privilege' and such. Strangely enough those claims are mostly made by people from the 'upper class', living in the most comfortable (and, need I say it, 'white'...) areas of the capital and other big cities. People who send their children to remarkably homogeneous schools while they promote diversity everywhere.

This whole thing with identity politics better stop soon or we'll be back in the 18th century before you know it, with segregation everywhere. Because that is what this mostly leads to. The more people identify themselves with some special interest - be it based on skin colour, gender, religion, sexual preference, country of origin or any other factor - the more society will fall apart into disparate camps.

Back to the question, why is the majority of people in IT of a specific gender and a specific skin colour? Well, I can ask the same question about, say, horse riding: why is the majority of people of a specific gender and skin colour, at least in this country? Or let's take another profession, veterinarians, why are they mostly of a specific gender?

The answer to these questions is mostly that, for some reason, more males than females are interested in computer-related stuff. On the other hand, more females than males are interested in working with pets. Is this a problem? If so, what should be done about it? Should there be a mandatory stop on veterinary college for women to combat the female domination of the field? Should girls be forced to play football and boys be lifted in the saddle?

If so, why? What would be achieved by this, other than increasing the level of injustice - men who want to work in IT can not due to quota, women who want to work as vets can not due to quota...

If racism is bad, stop drawing attention to race. If gender is a social construction (...), why decry the lack of a specific gender (...) in a given field. Just... stop. No more identity politics, please.

<comment><USER16> > If racism is bad, stop drawing attention to race.

I understand where you're coming from. Not having to think about race, or gender, or whatever is a great _long term_ goal that we probably share. However, I argue that saying we should stop thinking about it _today_ is premature.

Most discrimination is unconscious, but has a significant cumulative effect. Consider the studies on blind interviews or auditions, showing that interviewers rate women higher when they don't know they're women. Or the studies showing that the _same idea_ can be presented in meetings, more likely to be shot down when it's from a woman and accepted when it's from a man (sometimes even both in the same meeting). You don't need me to look these up for you. There have been many, they're easy to find, and you can even conduct your own experiment if you want. Or ask some women you know whether this has happened to them. Here's the key point:

       Discrimination does not require ill intent.

It's highly likely that nobody in these interviews or meetings means to be discriminatory, or recognizes themselves as such, but the outcomes happen anyway. Even if you are the most virtuously fair-minded person ever, that won't undo the effect of _other people 's_ unconscious discrimination. The only way to address discrimination is to _consciously_ recognize it in others and in ourselves, and to _explicitly_ address it when it happens. That means paying attention to different outcomes for different groups, which in turn means maintaining an awareness of who's in which group. Leaving our eyes open might be uncomfortable, but closing them simply doesn't work.

<comment><USER15> Discrimination exists, true. So does racism, partly due to the fact that humans develop a preference for 'their own' within a few months after birth [1]. Those habits die hard and can, in some, end up as debilitating racism where they consider anyone outside their own phenotype to be undesirable. In most people it just stays around in a watered-down form without doing real damage. Some people make conscious efforts to try to unlearn this latent racial bias, some even go so far as to hyper-correct against their own phenotype.

Having said this, I still stand by my wish to get rid of identity politics and to tone down or get rid of focus on race/ethnicity/gender/ _etcetera_. The reason for this is that it leads to less cohesion in society, not more. As usual in politics it is the louder mouths which get heard while the more thoughtful ones get relegated to the back. This quickly leads to outspoken people pushing themselves forward as defenders of their identity group, decrying the injustice society supposedly does upon them and calling for special treatment. It does not take long for all nuance to be lost, for the discourse to polarise around these loudmouths. Disparate identity groups withdraw behind their barricades, hurling insults and epithets at perceived opponents and soon any chance of improving the original situation is lost.

I'm left-handed. If I were so inclined I could start a political pressure group to fight all the injustice this right-hand-dominated society foists upon me and my identity group. I'd throw myself up as the fearless leader of the oppressed sinister masses - see, even the word used for left has a stigma attached to it - and request, no _demand_ that society adapts itself to my minority. I'd be in the media, be positively flooded with funding from government and NGOs, I'd be famous. What's not to like...

...but I won't. Why not? Because, even though there is a clear right-handed bias in society [2] due to the fact that around 90% of people are right- handed, I don't see how it would help to focus my identity around my left- handedness. Jimi Hendrix was left-handed as well but that did not keep him from picking up a right-handed guitar. Like him and countless others I learned to adapt to my environment and use it to my advantage.

[1] [https://www.google.se/search?q=babies+racial+bias](https://www.google.se/search?q=babies+racial+bias)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left- handed_peopl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left- handed_people)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yeh $1500 computers.... you where looking at the wrong thing. Everyone else was looking at the not Microsoft market... commadore, Atari etc. I bought my first computer with Christmas money when I was about 10 for under £100 in the mid 80's. The whole girls weren't into computers is looking at the bubble from the inside and not looking at why there's a bubble. Parents in the 70's tended to point the boys at building and engineering toys and the girls at dolls etc. Those children followed on in the same fashion. That's left us in the gender bias we have now. As for ethnic groups... that's complicated and depends on local demographic, plus imigant families tend not to be overflow in spare cash....

<comment><USER18> The video game crash of the early 80s put a stop to those cheap programmable computers. By the 90s, any cheap home computer, like the NES/SNES/Genesis/Gameboy was not programmable by the end user.

When I was a kid, I learned BASIC on a 10 year old Tandy 80 to write games like I had on my NES (which was marketed solely to boys btw). Eventually my dad dropped $2000 on a 486 (and subsequent upgrades) and that's when I was able to start writing C with the DJGPP toolchain, installing Linux, rebuilding machines out of spare obsolete parts, etc.

If my family wasn't well off, there's no way I'd have progressed past having known BASIC for a couple of summers.

I think this is a common refrain for anyone born between about 1980 and maybe 1995. By 2010, there were cheap laptops, netbooks, and whatnot.

<comment><USER19> My family weren't at all well off when I was growing up in the UK, but my Dad had some contacts in a local IT business who had a spare BBC microcomputer that he got hold of around 1988 when they were throwing it away.

I was born at the end of 1984 and played games on it with him from around age 3, then started tinkering myself and learning how to load games and play them at around age 5. In another couple of years I was going to the library and checking out books full of lengthy game listings in BASIC, painstakingly typing them in, running them and saving them to tape. That experience basically ignited my love for computers and for programming. When the family managed to get a cheap PC I was about 9 or 10 and I spent as much time on there as I could, learning how to use MS-DOS 5, Windows 3.1 and playing games.

After this point I scrounged whatever hardware I could - I acquired an old IBM 286 with an EGA monitor that a local school wanted to get rid of, various other components, borrowed software off friends to copy the disks, etc. My parents were pretty supportive and at age 13 they were a little better off - <USER2> persuaded them to get me my own PC as a joint birthday and Christmas present, using an old monitor and peripherals we already had. I got access to the internet and started viewing the source of web pages, copying the HTML, learning what it did and editing it to make my own pages. I started to learn CSS, how to edit images and how to write Perl.

The story goes on and on - I'm mostly just going on a bit of a ramble about my past and fondly remembering all the experiences I had. The point is that yes, if your family is absolutely on the breadline while you're growing up then you probably won't have access to this stuff, but we were by no means upper middle class and I managed to get a great start with computing. It's mostly about passion and people looking out for you. I scrounged so much old hardware and software from people who didn't want it any more because I knew it'd be a fantastic learning experience, and I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged me to do this and didn't spend the _entire_ summer telling me to go outside and "do something".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> On the other hand, why are so many crystallographers women? Dorothy Hodgkin, Olga Kennard, Eleanor Dodson, Kathleen Lonsdale, it's easy to come up with all these and many more, they are among the greats.

You'd think it's due to J D Bernal. He was a pioneer of x-ray crystallography and was involved with many women, all of whom he treated with respect. That set the tone in the field.

<comment><USER21> I know that you said many more, but such a list surely isn't complete without Rosalind Franklin?

<comment><USER20> Definitively. And Jane Richardson. How we think about protein structure is due to her artwork.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is a topic of high interest to me personally. Over the past couple of years I have been teaching middle school students how to code on and off. I am also a female who has been coding for close to 20 years now.

In the classes I teach, the girls are usually far beyond the boys. They get this stuff so much quicker and at a much deeper level. They are so much more focused and really try to understand what everything means.

The boys need instant gratification. They want to hack and mess around with the code but most don't want to really try and understand what it all means. They also need way more confirmation from the other boys in the class. They all create their games and show them off to the other boys and then they all try to one up each other. This is how they are motivated. They also completely exclude the girls from this.

In my current class of 17, there are 5 girls. All 5 are far ahead of all of the boys and 3 of those girls are already doing the advanced stuff. 4 of those girls sit together and actually seem to be annoyed by the boys antics. This has been similar in all of the classes/workshops I have taught.

It has been a very interesting observation which has convinced me that the boys club type behavior starts very early. What I am not convinced of is that we should necessarily try and change the boys behavior as long as they are not specifically offending the girls. I worry that this would suppress their instinctual way of being motivated and learning. I can also understand however why girls bail out, which is unfortunate in itself being that even at this early age, they are so good at it. I am not really sure what the answer is other than trying to encourage girls to stick with it and give them that support early on.

"There is one other reason I think you see fewer women and minorities as software developers. People tend to do things that they see other people who are "like them" doing"

It helps when other girls are doing it with you like the 5 in my current class.

<comment><USER23> I hope your political beliefs aren't implicitly biasing your teaching against the males.

The primary education system seems to be failing males (more female college graduates every year) and it wouldn't help if you added to that.

I'm curious, would it be an issue to you if all the boys in the class were "beyond" the girls?

<comment><USER22> I am simply stating what I am observing and the different ways males and females learn and what motivates them.

I would never advocate not teaching males or giving females priority. Ever! I have a 13 year old son btw. He helps me in these classes.

As my comment states: "What I am not convinced of is that we should necessarily try and change the boys behavior as long as they are not specifically offending the girls. I worry that this would suppress their instinctual way of being motivated and learning."

I do believe that they learn differently and we need to try and find a way to appeal to both in the different ways they learn and how they are motivated.

I personally think the education system is failing both males and females but that is an entirely different discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > _It was flat out unpopular and the only people I found that were really into > it were nerdy white kids like me who somehow tricked their parents into > buying a computer._

Indeed the seeds were sown a very long time ago. My father bought a PC with some inheritance money he had, then he immediately regretted it because I spent all my time and summer on it rather than playing sports or hanging out with friends!

Back then nobody realized how in demand our field would be. By the time I started college I had already been programming.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm black and my family wasn't upper middle class. My parents bought a computer when I was 11 years old and I lived on that thing. After I dropped out of HS and was living on my own at like 18, I would put dollars into the machine so I could build my music website as I didn't have a computer at the time.

The point is people who are interested will do what they have to even if they don't have large amounts of money.

<comment><USER26> I think your experience is highly admirable. But I think even you have to admit that most people, regardless of background, do not have the sort of will power and drive you exhibited.

So yes, any particular person could overcome the obstacles in their path. But most will not. And it's the "most" that will lead to skewed statistics over time.

<comment><USER25> I certainly agree. It was just my interest and I felt like it was fun for me to put something out that the whole world could see if they wanted to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is it even really a privilege to be into programming in your childhood/teen years?

Most kids are not Feynmans. They aren't naturally curious geniuses who are only stopped by a judgmental society and "biases". There is a whole other, more dominant incentive structure in place.

The way many kids/teens become interested in programming is through video games and trolling online forums/message boards. Now, why do some kids play videos games and troll the internet more?

Because the opportunity cost is low for them. Meaning that if they did not play video games/troll the internet, the other potential activities are not as fun for them.

A vital activity that other kids do is socializing and hanging out with family, friends, etc. in real life.

Is it really a privilege to be exiled from real life to the internet? Would those kids spend time on the internet playing video games and reading about programming if they weren't as "privileged" as they are and had opportunities to socialize in real life?

</comment><comment><USER16> The 'white' part is pretty straightforward. THe 'male' part is trickier. If it's a simple matter of role-model discouragement, why has it been getting _worse_? Depending on which data set you look at, the percentage of CS graduates (bachelor's) who were female has been declining since the early to mid 80s. This matches my own experience, with a steady decline in the percentage of my developer colleagues who were female from 1989 until this year. It's not all about the so-called pipeline. There are many forms of discrimination and discouragement that apply even to women who are already in the field. That includes everything from differences in conversational style to pay disparities to actual assault.

To a large extent, most programmers are men because the people driving the culture - not just programmers themselves but execs, investors, etc. - <USER3> been men, and that culture has been more comfortable for other men than for women. (BTW I was going to use "male" and "female" but the objectifying way that "female" is used by the MRA/alt-right crowd made it sound creepy.) When _those_ people stop injecting their old-boy-network ethos and habits into our workplaces, we might stand a chance of creating an ecosystem where someone who's not just like them can still feel like an equal.

<comment><USER23> > If it's a simple matter of role-model discouragement, why has it been > getting worse? Depending on which data set you look at, the percentage of CS > graduates (bachelor's) who were female has been declining since the early to > mid 80s.

It depends on your perspective. You don't have to see the situation through percentage of total market share.

The absolute numbers for female CS graduates are increasing. It is just that more males are enrolling and becoming interested in CS than females.

When did this all start? when video games became mainstream

<comment><USER16> > The absolute numbers for female CS graduates are increasing. It is just that > more males are enrolling and becoming interested in CS than females.

I'm honestly not sure how that changes anything. "Why isn't the growth the same for women" is practically the same question as "why aren't the absolute numbers the same for women". The same explanations and the same remedies are likely to apply either way, and over time lower growth rates will still leave us with lower absolute numbers. So no, I don't think it really depends on perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is it even true that most programmers are "white males"? Is the scope the global population?

<comment><USER20> At a certain Java school in the South that is attended mostly by Indians, the gender ratio amongst the Indians is fairly even. The Americans, they are all white and male. What this means is open to interpretation.

<comment><USER28> I believe in Indian culture, engineering and programming are respected as solid, lucrative professions, while in general (white) American culture they're seen as second best to being say, a doctor or lawyer, which is where more high achieving women end up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The author makes a good point as to the high cost of computers in the US in previous decades, which meant kids who grew up using computers tended to be upper-middle class, but what about places like Britain where the Sinclair Spectrum and various Amstrad machines reigned in the 1980s-early 1990s? These were cheap machines. It would be interesting to see if this cheapness led to a more diverse set of programmers.

<comment><USER21> They were cheaper, but the social status of geeks was just the same in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The reason most programmers are white males is because traditionally only wealthy western countries had access to computers. As the cost went down, more people could afford to study and in silicon valley at least there are many Chinese and Indians, basically a reflection of world population than anything else. Plus, the majority if good jobs are still in the US where the majority of the population are white males.

This is completely separate than white male privilege. Programming was never something to make you popular and there was never any attempt at creating barriers to entry. It was a nerdy unsexy job till recently. The biggest gate to diversity is probably getting a visa.

I don't hear any white expat programmers complaining about why all the programmers in China are mostly chinese and being looked down on for lack of advanced math skills.

</comment><comment><USER31> Because women are smart. The women I've worked with claim ignorance to programming, have no desire to learn programming, and give me a mile high task list of things to do. Then they take all the credit for my work while I'm being worked to the bone. I burn out and quit while they hire the next fresh programmer ready to accept work.

I've tried teaching employees to program, but when they realized how much painful/frustrating work they can now accept with this fresh new skill, they immediately stop learning how to program. Easier to give me all the work.

<comment><USER32> Become a manager and play the same game. But seriously, it may be a function of your workplace culture. Where I work, the programmers have a typical 8 hour work day, and their managers are very protective of their time. In fact, if I need some programming work done, I have to do it myself, even though I'm supposedly not employed as a programmer.

Another option is to find a role where you use your programming skill, but you're not developing software for someone. That's my case. My title is "scientist," and truth be told, I spend a considerable portion of my day programming, but I'm using code to solve problems, and my code will never be used by a customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I understand the logic. But data about the diversity among programmers around 20~25 years old must be significantly different from ~40 if he is right. We do not have to sit and wait 20 years hoping he is right. Is there any such data available?

About the cost of the equipment to learn. Is there any raspberry pi based computer that one can use to learn to code? Like, something below USD100? That would also help more class diversity.

<comment><USER34> That's pretty much _every_ RPi. Computers are cheap now, and the RPi in particular is incredibly inexpensive and has more than enough power for people to learn programming skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I encourage everyone in tech to read Unlocking the Clubhouse, by Margolis et al. It doesn't quite propose how to solve the problem, but it certainly teases out a number of contributing factors. I think in the case in point, the importance of being encouraged/discouraged depending on gender cannot be understated. Of course, to the individual involved it'll feel 'normal' since it has always been that way, but on a societal level it is blatantly obvious that children are moulded into gendered expectation patterns from literally the moment they're born. (As to that last assertion, there's a study floating around on how adults react to a baby crying then told the child is either male or female. Quite saddening.)

</comment><comment><USER36> I think in the US it is not the case the programmers are significantly disproportionately white.

<comment><USER37> [https://datausa.io/profile/soc/151131/#demographics](https://datausa.io/profile/soc/151131/#demographics)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> That is so spot-on... the only reason people care about forcing diversity in tech is because its now a fashionable industry that gets you respect and makes you money. If coders were not lauded for being super-smart, rich, and working in "fun environments" nobody would care how big of a white sausage fest it'd be.

<comment><USER39> I was wondering if other industries (construction, commercial fishing, oil drilling, nursing, coal mining, aircraft maintenance) were as focused on diversity as tech. And if not, what made tech an outlier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Interesting topic, but I think _Why are most programmers in the USA white males?_ is a much more accurate title.

</comment><comment><USER41> Asians are proportionally over-represented because programming broadly rewards IQ, and asians have the highest IQ. Men are over represented because they are naturally better, on average, at abstract mathematical reasoning.

There are social reasons as well, but this is the core of the issue.

</comment><comment><USER42> What kind of question is this? Do you think there are many white male programmers in China for example?

It shouldn't surprise anyone that white people are majority in white coutries and that it reflects to working life too.

And why male? Because men like programming and only few women do.

</comment><comment><USER43> Because white males were more likely to have access to computers 15-30 years ago?

</comment><comment><USER44> This kind of article is trashy at best. We all know the answer alread, and the solution is found in the answer!

Encouragement from the time people are young. "Cultures" that can't respect what a kid wants to be curious about and lets them explore that shouldn't be allowed to persist.

Reading, scientific exploration of subjects, using their minds.

The society and culture that shuns learning and education need to die off.

The rest is race and gender baiting garbage.

<comment><USER45> How much of the beneficial parts of the "hacker ethos" are rooted in having to circumvent the disapproval and blockers that attempted to prevent access to the machine?

Nobody was encouraging me to dick around on the computer and learn what have turned out to be hugely beneficial skills. Instead it was "Get the fuck off that thing and go outside and stack the firewood!"

<comment><USER44> Well you had responsibilities as a child and presumably you have them now as an adult. That hasn't a thing to do with what I'm talking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Why are most prison inmates males?

</comment><comment><USER47> Why are most coal miners males?

</comment><comment><USER48> Yeah...20 years ago "girls didn't like video games" is a very weak narrative.

<comment><USER49> well, 20 years ago, being a nerd was awful until college. Just the worst possible childhood available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> it's the IQ folks.</comment>


How Do Co-Founders Meet? 17 Startups Tell All - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/12/25/how-co-founders-met/

<comment><USER2> One way not mentioned in the article is free co-founder matching Meetups like the ones we organize. Check out <http://www.cofounderslab.com> to see if one is happening in your city .</comment>


Is Google wasting its time with self-driving cars?  - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/17135/google_cars

<comment><USER2> I was inclined to say "yes" but then again, $10M and 15 engineers is peanuts for Google; just the publicity Google being the source of innovation and cool may be worth close to that amount.

Google is standing on the shoulders of other efforts in this case, e.g. DARPA Challenge (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge>).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think google is trying to make itself into an organization similar to Bell Labs in its heyday. Bell labs had a lot of research going that was only peripherally important to phones.

</comment><comment><USER4> "and meanwhile Google has more immediate problems." I think they have more opportunities than problems!

</comment><comment><USER5> Streetview wouldn't benefit from some self-driven cars?</comment>


Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb-kills-panama-papers-journalist?fbclid=IwAR3Z2Q7phHcN5dIrj1lzb5py8mAX8UNeYF17MptnR31miYFKC3Hw5rhc7Rc <comment><USER2> The Council of Europe has appointed Dutch political party CDA member of parliament Pieter Omtzigt as special investigator in the murder case of Daphne Caruana Galizia. He is expected to present his report April 2020.

<comment><USER3> Why so far into the future?

<comment><USER2> He was appointed in April 2018.. He got two years to investigate.. Why everything takes so long? Because politics I guess.</comment></comment></comment>


"Naenara" North Korean government online - <AUTHOR> http://18.104.22.168/en

<comment><USER2> why go by IP, it looks as though they can't afford a domain like that:

<http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah. I only found links to naenara.kp, which didn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not loading here... server overload?

내나라 (naenara) literally means "my country".

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like it just got combinatorized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> just tried to connect from south korea and got redirected to <http://www.warning.or.kr/>

hope i dont get the wifi's owner in trouble :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoa. Seriously? Is South Korea known for heavy online censorship?

<comment><USER5> Seriously, yes. South Korea censors the North Korean websites and some illegal ones (heavy porn, for example) too. I think there are no known such instances against the free speech rather than NK-related ones, but I'm afraid that there might be in the future.

<comment><USER6> > heavy porn

porn + tf2?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like how they call their country "Korea".

<comment><USER8> What else would they call it? (use DPRK everywhere?) They don't recognize the "other" Korea. South Korea does the same, e.g. at <http://www.mofat.go.kr/></comment></comment>


Unlocking Heaven's Gate on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://redcanary.com/blog/heavens-gate-technique-on-linux/ <comment><USER2> Fascinating! I would be curious to see a follow up testing some of the popular Linux EDR solutions.</comment>


Why my F# projects don't use RavenDB, or the cost of the esoteric choice - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/swlaschin/73691bea8d6397ba97f4 <comment><USER2> I think you could turn almost all arguments in this text the other way around. A team of 4 developers spend 12 months building a system and then a DBA works with it for 4 hours a week. Which part should you optimize?

Long time ago there were many more Oracle and DB2 users. No-one should ever have switched to SQL Server accoring to the logic in the text. Accoring to the text Oracle must be better since it is more expensive in almost all configurations I've seen (in this argument I don't care if it really is better or not). Should all projects that don't need the extra features/quality/performance still pay the premium? And so on. I agree that there is a cost to esoteric choices but I think is really wrong to say that you should always choose the dominant product/technology. If that were the case we would still use switches on big "mainframes".</comment>


Show HN: My .nanorc - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/plugnburn/cbcac8a4ec4d8febd54b <comment><USER2> Got me wondering, "If I just give Nano Emacs bindings, will I have a decent text editor?"

<comment><AUTHOR> I must admit that Nano's keybinding capabilities are pretty limited compared to, for example, Atom's. For instance, you cannot use arrow, Tab, Esc keys or even Super or Shift as a modifier. Given the range of keys you _can_ use, I honestly don't understand why they don't allow to use the mentioned keys. Probably their rc-parser is too straightforward and primitive.

Also, I wonder why they don't allow to define own keyboard macros for external commands on the buffer at any time, not just insertion.

But nevertheless, you still have just a decent text editor (with syntax highlighting) in the first place, not an OS inside an OS (like in Emacs or Atom), and not archaic controls for arrowless keyboards and useless rot13 plugins (like in Vim).

Here's your starting point: [http://www.nano- editor.org/dist/v2.4/nanorc.5.html](http://www.nano- editor.org/dist/v2.4/nanorc.5.html)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just an addition to the question about Termux and mobile OTG usage. Please read the README carefully.

This config is used IRL and really saves me from a PITA.</comment>


Show HN: Runnaroo – A new web search engine - <AUTHOR> In the sprit of releasing to the public early, I would like to share a search engine/portal I have been building in my spare time:
https://www.runnaroo.com
Why: I started to not be able to easily tell the different between ads and organic search results in other search engines (even on DuckDuckGo), and I have been disappointed with recent UI changes in a lot of the major search engines.  My main guiding rule when adding features has been to ask, "is it better for the user?"
Important to know: I still believe Google currently returns the most relevant web results, so like StartPage I use Google's index as the base of the web results.
Some interesting features:
Deep Searching - The inclusion of relevant results from different vertical specific search engines depending on the search query.  For example, if a user searches for 'python jobs NY', results from Indeed.com will be pulled in. The long term plan is to connect into the best vertical information sources for each type of query.
Quick Directs - Automatic redirects for a limited number of commonly searched terms (facebook, google, etc.).  This is similar to the Google "Feeling Lucky" button, but done by default. I found that most of the searches I did in Google were navigational. It's simple, but surprisingly has been the thing to resonate with normal (non-technical) users.
Strict Search - Optional selection to force all the search terms in the query to be present in the web results.
Full URL paths - The full URL path of the result is available on the SERP under a toggle.
Privacy - The site doesn't do any tracking. There will most likely be a need to put some things in place at some point to prevent abuse, but user search data will never be used for ad tracking.
The number of things I still have to add to the site is incredibly long, but I have gotten to the point where I have switched over to using it full time as my default search engine. <comment><USER2> Looks great, the only thing I ask is that you add a google band so I can quickly get back to google for local results that you won't be able to accommodate for a while. Every time I switch to one of these other search I'm always forced to switch back bec they don't do local results at all.

Well I guess I spoke too soon. You do have a google bang. I've gone ahead and switched to you as my main search on my laptop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I should have said that in my original post. Search !bangs work for Google, Bings, DDG, Yandex, and Baidu. Navigational !bangs also work for many top sites (e.g. !wells -> wellsfargo.com).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you scraping Google's SERPs or do you pay them for API access? If it's API, how do you plan to monetize?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Are you scraping Google's SERPs or do you pay them for API access? If it's > API, how do you plan to monetize?

API.

I think the only way to monetize and preserve user privacy is context based ads. The challenge is that there are very few privacy focused ad networks [0].

So either I need to built an ad network that fits my use case, or try to do direct ad sales. An important part of either of those strategies is user traffic, otherwise no one would be interested in advertising anyway. For that reason I have decided that I will focus on getting people to actually use the site and provide user value first. That does mean I will have to cover the costs in the mean time.

Right now, I do have a clearly indicated ad with an Amazon affiliate link that does display for a limited number of relevant shopping terms, but that won't even come close to covering the operational costs at any volume.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22362517](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22362517)

<comment><USER3> Building your own ad network sounds hard, especially the part where you convince people to buy ads there instead of Google (or on top of, but it's less about the CPC than the general overhead, I assume).

Affiliate links _might_ be a good idea in general, adding a partner tag to all links to Amazon for example. I'm sure Amazon doesn't mind, and it doesn't matter to the user, their prices are the same, though clearly stating it is a good idea. For the large retailers that get a lot of traffic and aren't too picky in signups, that could work, but hinges on you getting a lot of traffic that ends up in clicks to shopping related sites.

Unfortunately, I don't think there an ad network to do this. Everyone that I've seen that lets you link to a large variety of retailers without needing to sign up with each one is shady at best (and targets shady sites that wouldn't get affiliate status), so they won't work with the privacy-first approach.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree on all fronts. I was really hoping that something already existed that would just work, but I couldn't find anything that fit the bill.

I assumed that with GDPR (and now CCPA) there would have been a greater overall need for privacy focused ad companies, but I may have been wrong.

<comment><USER3> I do some work for large affiliate-sites, and my experience is that the small sites monetize with links to amazon and AdSense and the large ones don't care about GDPR.

Building a privacy-first ad network would be a good thing with regards to harm reduction. We're not going to "fix" the need for all the sites wanting to monetize with ads, but if they had a less harmful option than helping Google track your every move, that would be progress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting project!

Why does it say " _About 7,690,000,000 results_ " but there's only 10 results available?

<comment><AUTHOR> I still have to add in pagination to get more results.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [https://www.runnaroo.com](https://www.runnaroo.com)

</comment><comment><USER5> I like the design. I wonder if I would prefer it over Googles design in the long run. My first impression is that I prefer the clean design of Runnaroo. Not sure if I would miss all the stuff that Google throws into it, like images, places etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! A lack of design skills helps me keep things very clean and minimal.

I think you are right though. Google has great organic web results, but I find the most value I get from them today are the instant answers and additional structured information that they bring in. It's to the point where I rarely need to go to any website and can find what I am looking for without navigating away from Google. Long term I wonder of the viability of Google's method of obtaining and displaying the data with antitrust considerations, but that is an ancillary thought.

My goal is to ultimately mimic this with the "deep searching" feature. Today deep searches include Twitter, Wikipedia, IMDB, Stack Overflow, and Yelp results, but I have dozens of sites on my list to add, and I'm sure I am just scratching the surface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's no pagination now, but I like the design. It feels like a breeze!

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice! Bookmarked, will take it for a spin today.</comment>


The Social Network: (In)accuracies regarding the Computer Science (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://chomaloma.blogspot.com/2011/02/social-network-inaccuracies-regarding.html <comment><USER2> Mark's browser at the time was actually Firebird 0.7, not KDE Konqueror. It made him particularly easy to identify in server logs.

Regarding gender balance, it's worth noting that CS161 has been taught by Margo Seltzer (an excellent professor, and a woman, though the professor in the movie was male if I remember correctly) for years. See [http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/teaching.html](http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/teaching.html).

If you want to talk about inaccuracies, it's probably good to know that his last name is Zuckerberg, not "Zuckerburg."

A fuller discussion of the many problems with the film and the book it's based upon can be found here:

[http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=149115776&...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=149115776&a=2&z=a6de4ab7)

[http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/8l0iwprb/massachusetts- dist...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/8l0iwprb/massachusetts-district- court/greenspan-v-random-house-inc-et-al/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The answer to the second virtual memory question is wrong. Actually there is not enough information to answer the question. For 16 bit virtual addresses and 256 byte pages a single level page table will have 256 entries, but how large is an entry? It will be at least one byte because of the status bits but it also has to contain the frame the page is mapped to and there is no information about the number of frames. Assuming physical addresses are not wider than virtual addresses, frames do not overlap and page table entries are multiple of 8 bits wide, a reasonable assumption is that page table entries are 16 bits wide and therefore the page table occupies two pages or 512 bytes.

</comment><comment><USER4>
       0x0400 being the first 1K of memory). The breakdown of the 8 bytes is inconsequential for our example

'8 bits is inconsequential for our example'

</comment><comment><USER5> The same way inaccuracies about tech in movies irritate people like Jeremy, the fact that people like Jeremy even _care_ in the first place irritates me. I know he admitted to it being pedantic and not the point, but I can't help but scoff in absolute surprise when I read that fellow programmers apparently pause films whenever a shot features a desktop monitor to make sure that all the elements on the screen make sense.

What the fuck, dude. You're not watching the results of efforts to seem technically correct ( or the results of efforts to portray Facebook -- that would be a 2-hour instructional video on how to use and the history of facebook.com's UI and features. Nor the results of efforts to portray the _foundings_ of Facebook, either -- that would be 2 hours of Mark Zuckerberg and Co. sitting at computers typing code, maybe some business-y and legal paperwork stuff towards the end of the film) .

You're watching the efforts of concocting and creating an elegant story that pieces together elements and scenes and bits of dialogue; the efforts of producing a story that uses genius character development and interaction and conflict and some of the wittiest, fast-paced dialogue I've seen in an film, all to emotionally affect the viewer in some way.

So who gives a shit if IRL Zuckerberg -- oh, for the rest of this post I will differentiate IRL Zuckerberg from tSN Zuckerberg by using those prefixes -- because those are two veeery different people, because tSN isn't a documentary and it's perfectly fine if the studio executives asked for a movie about Facebook and Aaron Sorkin delivered a very witty, fast-paced dialogue-focused story about fleshed-out, 3D characters and their beautifully complicated developments, all meaninglessly attached to the Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook names. -- anyways, who cares if IRL Zuckerberg's intentions weren't as closely tied to women and money (which is an incredibly immature way to see tSN Zuckerberg's intents, btw, I'd say they were more focused on getting recognition, fame, feedback and, subconsciously, getting Erica back. If you pay attention you notice Sorkin made sure to get across the fact that tSN Zuckerberg doesnt care about the women or the money for their own sake, but for the sake of recognition and getting his massively arrogant and pretentious judgments about himself qualified. But I'd have to go into a full review of the film to delve into those elements).

Who gives a shit if saying "LAMP" was off. Who gives a shit if the hacking competition was not realistic.

At the end of the day, it's still a brilliant story and that brilliant story could only be told if the writers were more focused on masterfully adding, removing, and resolving plot elements and character developments than focused on fucking going to hackathons in order to portray them more realistically.

And those scenes still do their intended jobs perfectly . OS scene's intent was to portray and further the idea that tSN Zuckerberg was a precocious CS prodigy, but he has ego problems hindering his ability to interact with other humans regarding that advanced skill. It still does that perfectly, so what if the actual CS is wrong. Hacking competition scene still does it's intention perfectly, which is to portray tSN Facebook and the environment that tSN Zuckerberg was creating as a fun, exciting environment with a lot of potential for growth.

And if Sorkin/Fincher and co. have to spend more time on the scene's additions to the core story and character development than they spend time on technical accuracy, so be it. I'd rather see Sorkin's interpretation of the hero's journey told through the lens of an arrgant, precocious teenager. Not like I'm watching the movie to make sure they accurately portray hackathons in the first place.

And this reminds me of all the people that criticize tSN by saying it's trying to say that creating a tech startup involves a lot of money and parties and sex and drinking -as well as the members of the exploding SV startup coolboy brogrammer "social webapp" hypeshow shitfest that exist because of that massive misinterpretation of the film's intentions. Again, that's not what the film is saying, or is about.

It's about a precocious prodigy who's incredibly arrogant because of his skills. When his arrogance and pretentiousness gets in the way of his human interaction and connectedness, he goes down a road of trials in an effort to get what he had with Erica. At first, he thought recognition (both in terms of social relevance, money, and women) would get him that -- and this is why he thinks mentioning Facebook when he meets up with Erica again in the restaurant will make her attracted to him again, and why he's so hurt when he realizes that's wrong ("WE NEED TO EXPAND!", he aggressively demands, as he thinks the answer to the connection he had with Erica is MORE recognition and relevance). Later, he meets a man who has the energy he thinks he wants and a thousand times more (Sean Parker, who's portrayed as someone who has all the social relevance, sex, and money that Zuckerberg wants), and latches on to him. Later, his conflict and dick behavior with the Winklevi (promising to work on something and then not working on it, even if tSN Facebook was nothing like tSN ConnectU and the tSN lawsuit was bullshit) and tSN Wardo (sort of letting tSN Sean Parker backstab his own best friend and replace him as lead business guy and money hustler in the company, even if Wardo didn't respect the potential FB had the same way Zucks did) further help him develop into realizing his initial goal (social relevance, money, sex) will never get him what he wants (human connection). At the end of the film, we see the protagonist finally notices the error in his ways and become a better person (the significance of "Go home, Sean." and the heavy implication of him being the one who called the cops, and finally him adding Erica as a Friend on Facebook). This all told using brilliantly fast-paced dialogue and fleshed-out characters. And all of that is far more beautiful and significant than whether the fucking hackathon was portrayed correctly.

I'd have to do a scene-by-scene analysis to really get across my point regarding the film's quality and it's character development and how it's sorely misinterpreted by techies and SV brogrammers, which isn't what I came into this thread to post.

So trust my ability to expand on this brief divulgation I left here if you want me to PROVE how good the film really is and how it's not about, or trying to be about, irl Mark Zuckerberg or irl Facebook or an inaccurate representation of the experience of starting a startup.

And if you don't trust that I have that ability, ask yourself this question (meant for blog author and anyone who enjoyed the film "despite it's inaccuracies", which I assume is a lot of people cause the film got raving reviews) : why do you think you enjoyed tSN more than the other "bad Hollywood representations of the tech industry"? Do you think it's really because the film is slightly more accurate than the other films and because Mark uses Emacs? No, there's obviously something about this story that intuitively attracted your inborn senses to appreciate good films (because good films are those appreciated by a lot of people, by tautological definition), even if you don't understand that intuitive attraction.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was the first film that was able to convey a non trivial mathematical point to me simply by having viewed it.

The idea of assigning ELO ratings to girls' attractiveness based on a set of 1 to 1 comparisons, rather than taking an average of multiple 1 to 10 ratings gives a much better sense of their relative attractiveness.</comment>


Letter from Unabomber to Dr. David Gelernter (1995) - <AUTHOR> http://www.montanaheritageproject.org/edheritage/1910/unabomber.htm <comment><USER2> What most people don't know is that the US government experimented on him at the age of ~16 when he was a math undergrad at Harvard in project artichoke offshoot MK Ultra.

<comment><USER3> Do you have a reference for that?

<comment> aaron-lebo This is what he's referring to:

 _In his sophomore year at Harvard, Kaczynski participated in a personality assessment study that was conducted by Harvard psychologists and led by Henry Murray. Students in Murray 's study were told they would be debating personal philosophy with a fellow student. Instead, they were subjected to "vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive" attacks in a "purposely brutalizing psychological experiment".[28] During the test, students were taken into a room and connected to electrodes that monitored their physiological reactions, while facing bright lights and a one-way mirror. Each student had previously written an essay detailing their personal beliefs and aspirations: the essays were turned over to an anonymous attorney, who would enter the room and individually belittle each student based in part on the disclosures they had made. This was filmed, and students' expressions of impotent rage were played back to them several times later in the study. According to author Alston Chase, Kaczynski's records from that period suggest he was emotionally stable when the study began, and Kaczynski's lawyers attributed his deep-seated hostility towards mind control techniques to his participation in this study.[28] Furthermore, some have suggested that this experience may have been instrumental in Kaczynski's future actions.[29][30]_

Dunno about all the mkultra stuff, but they psychologically abused the hell out of a 17 year-old kid.

<comment><USER4> [29] RadioLab (June 28, 2010). "Oops". [http://www.radiolab.org/story/91721-oops/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/91721-oops/)

[30] Jump up ^ Cockburn, Alexander (October 18, 1999). "CIA Shrinks & LSD". CounterPunch. Retrieved August 7, 2015. [https://www.counterpunch.org/1999/10/18/cia-shrinks- lsd/](https://www.counterpunch.org/1999/10/18/cia-shrinks-lsd/)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the second time in recent days that Kaczynski's writings have been the subject of HN discussion. Rather than rehearse what I had to say then, I'll just link it: [https://aaron-m.com/2017/07/09/on- kaczynski](https://aaron-m.com/2017/07/09/on-kaczynski)

<comment><USER6> Taking "technology" to its logical end, you will probably arrive at AGI. And despite being decades off away from it, there are already many people making sure that it will be "safe" since the default otherwise will most likely lead to human extinction.

[https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence- revol...](https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence- revolution-1.html)

[https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html)

EDIT: I am getting a lot of downvotes for this comment. And just to clear up intention, all I am trying to say here is that yes, technology could be deleterious but we can prevent it in ways other than concluding "and that's why we have to start blowing shit up and killing people". I don't see why that's offensive.

<comment><USER7> Part of what we see as "human intelligence" comes from our biological origins. For example, intelligence AND emotions drive our actions: ambition, empathy, fear, greed, jealousy, love, etc. They are survival and reproductive mechanisms built into our brains based on the human condition.

My response to the theory that an all-powerful computer intelligence will one day have us at it's whim is why would it even care? For the same reason it lacks empathy, it would also lack any ambition or fear or jealousy.

The bigger risk is relying too much on A.I. built for very specific purposes (ANI). A contrived example would be putting A.I. in charge of managing the nuclear arsenal. A bug in the A.I. that caused a pre-emptive strike could wipe out all life on earth.

<comment><USER5> I'm going to stay on the self-promotion train for one more stop, because I actually just a little while back started writing a long piece on a subject very much adjacent to what you're describing: [https://aaron-m.com/2017/08/01/on-the-theodicy-of-system- sho...](https://aaron-m.com/2017/08/01/on-the-theodicy-of-system-shock-part-1)

Part 2, although I know where I intend to take it, is very inchoate at this point for a reason that I mention in a postscript to part 1. I'd love to have any feedback anyone would care to provide! It'll be of great use in improving the back half of the essay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The German director Lutz Dammbeck made an interesting documentary "Das Netz" (the net) about strange parallels in the development of the internet, the counterculture and the terrorist attacks of the Unabomber:

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

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe I'm cynical but does a connection exist between sudden renewed interest in Kacynski and a discovery channel docudrama being released?

<comment><USER10> Advertising? In my HN feed? Say it ain't so!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I read his manifesto in middle school because it had just came out in the papers. Previously I thought it was incredibly repetitive to disguise the simplistic ideas. Reading this I change that opinion, he was an angry "loser" with delusions of his own intellect that overcompensates with a lot of words.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps you should look at how he became what he became, the CIA and the MKULTRA project were probably a huge factor in the creation of his persona. So calling him a loser is probably an unfair assessment.

<comment><USER13> Calling him a loser also means largely discarding anything he says without any consideration. The fact is, we've done that with large classes of people (in every country, in every time) who feel that the "current" (whatever it is at the time) system or progress is harming them. Eventually, they boil over to become either the majority or mobilized minority army and we have chaos in a country, region, or globally.

This letter speaks rather directly to our contemporary issue of technology displacing non-degreed workers. Either by exporting the jobs (cheaper transport, better logistics), eliminating or reducing the number of people required (increased automation), or increasing the technical sophistication required (again, automation but also increasing presence of computer systems and more complex tooling). It's pretty obvious in the present discussions (and the most recent US presidential election) that people are feeling a great deal of fear and hardship because of our direction over the past 30-40 years (in particular). We have to confront these issues. Otherwise, a lack of consideration or deliberation (publicly) is a tacit endorsement of the current direction and its negative effects on large blocks of our fellow humans and citizens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is an interesting documentary about Kaczynski and the philosophy behind him by Lutz Dammbeck called "The Net": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLqrVCi3l6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLqrVCi3l6E) Featuring a pretty pissed David among others.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you read his manifesto it goes much deeper into his thought process. There are also quite a few documentaries out there that give more insight into how he gets caught.

</comment><comment><USER16> It looks like the Unabomber's fears have come true... and surprise, we're still mostly OK!

<comment><USER17> _we 're still mostly OK_

There are _a lot_ of people who are definitely not OK. Arguably the majority of people live in a state of at least uncertainty about their future, if not outright fear for their security and safety. This is true at both a local and a global scale.

<comment><USER18> We're down to just a majority, from pretty much everybody for pretty much all of human existence. Good work, folks! Let's not stop now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would like to see Kaczynski and Manson appear by Snowdenbot for a roundtable. Both share dystopian views that inspired them to violent tragedy. I'm curious what their thoughts are on legislation to address regulation of genetic engineering etc.

<comment><USER20> snowdenbot?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Doesn't anyone remember that it's "UNABOMer"?

<comment><USER22> > Doesn't anyone remember that it's "UNABOMer"?

No, the FBI investigation was named "UNABOM", the popular media name assigned to the perpetrator before he was identified, inspired by that, was "Unabomber".

"UNABOMer" seems to be an attempt to preserve the sound of the latter while making it more consistent with the former, but is historically inaccurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> i presumed this would be something at least... quasi-intellectual, but this is just a slimy letter from a terrorist harassing a (soon to be?) victim.

kind of gross.

</comment><comment><USER23> i flagged this because its essentially terrorist propaganda because of what the guy did. i dont know what the guidelines are regarding such things but i don't think this belongs in a civil place like this.

<comment><USER14> So his ideas could radicalize us here? Is this what you think? Like ISIS propaganda?

He did math too. Do you want to ban math here also?

<comment><USER24> The argument is that we should not reward terrorism or further incentivise it.

If you want to discuss this "math" of yours, bring it from a source that does not amplify the signal by killing people.

<comment><USER14> I don't feel it amplified anything in me. How is it that you have such strong feelings about it?

We also read excerpts of Mein Kampf at school. I did not have the feeling I needed to kill Jews afterwards. Maybe the text is not the problem here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's astonishing, the seriousness with which the media takes a terrorist's opinions, if that terrorist has the correct politics.

<comment><USER5> Of which mainstream American media organization am I to believe radical anarchoprimitivism is the secret agenda?

<comment><USER26> Well, most mainstream media organizations actually do have a _deeply_ reactionary attitude towards technology and a _deeply_ naively optimistic view towards Nature, in fact _routinely_ committing the naturalistic fallacy... so... almost all of them, on some level?

<comment><USER20> seems almost comically reductive just to get to the 'all of them' zinger.

<comment><USER26> It's not a zinger. Almost all major media organizations are techno-reactionary and bio-conservative. They regularly run stories trying to convince people that, for instance, selectively-bred food crops are a Really Bad Idea.

<comment><USER20> > techno-reactionary

yet they have pervasive technology use including new and emerging technologies, so this is reductive.

> selectively-bred food crops

humans have been doing this for ages, from bananas to cows... are they telling people to not eat bananas? this too seems reductive.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Making Memories: Memorizing Phone Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://joeltagert.blogspot.com/2014/01/making-memories-memorizing-phone-numbers.html <comment><USER2> I've never tried the PAO system, due to the startup costs of pre-memorizing 100 person-action-objects.

But a simpler alternative which requires less work up front is the Major System (sometimes called the Phonetic system) [0].

The way it works it by assigning each digit a sound-value (or family of sounds). To remember a number, you then convert the digits to the letter- sounds, and fill in vowels that don't have a digit value to create words.

E.g. to remember Boltzmann's constant, I do this:

1.38 x 10^-23

1 has the letter value "t" or "d". So I use the word "tea" ("e" and "a" have no digit value), to remember the digit 1.

The 38 is converted to "m" and "v", which becomes "movie".

23 becomes "n" and "m", or "nemo", the fish from Finding Nemo.

Putting it all together it becomes: Ludvig [1] walking on bolts (= Ludwig Boltzmann), and in his right hand he's holding a old VHS _movie_ on top of which balances a cup of hot _tea_. In his left hand he holds a frozen (to indicate the negative sign in the exponent) Nemo.

To make it memorable you can make this scene as vivid as possible: Ludvig is a cautious character who sniffles a lot; walking on bolts would hurt and make it difficult to balance the cup of tea on top of the movie; the frozen fish would be cold and slippery in the hand; the tea would smell nice; etc.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system) [1] [https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/525793520662380544/w9GJ...](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/525793520662380544/w9GJj317.jpeg) A character in an iconic Norwegian film.

</comment><comment><USER3> I remember phone numbers and long digits of numbers by their position on a number pad. Don't know why this is easier for me, but remembering the pattern my finger would trace tapping in a sequence of digits just pops in my memory with ease. So I have to mentally retrace the pattern to figure out what the actual digits are.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm fascinated by memory, yet I've never been able to make any progress with any of these memory systems that involve artificial indirection.

I don't think in a spoken language, so if I have to memorize a word it ends up being the concept, and I pull it out as a cluster of synonyms, and then I also need an out-of-band way to memorize which of the synonyms it is. I really don't know how actors memorize lines.

I also can't visualize a complex artificial scene all at once. That's lots of extra things to memorize before I can get to the thing I want to memorize, and figuring out a way to remember these zany scenes is harder than just memorizing the numbers themselves! Numbers are easy. There's no possible synonyms for "8".

For phone numbers, 95% of my contact list has the same area code, so they're really only 7 digits. That's the same as a license plate, and I pick those up just by looking at them a few times without really trying. I'm not disparaging anyone who can make this system work -- I'm impressed! It just seems like a lot more work than necessary, if the goal is merely to memorize 10 or 20 phone numbers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Caveat: requires usage of English language. Useful if you (mostly) think in English. Otherwise, if English is not your native language nor your primary language then I expect this application to be problematic. Has anyone falling under such circumstances tried it?

Also, too bad (for the application) that the need to remember phone numbers is no longer high.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was hoping this was going to be a lighthearted piece on how it's funny how we don't remember phone numbers anymore.

It turned out to be very weird. Why would you need a system for remembering phone numbers? Before cell phones, I easily had dozens of phone numbers in my head: family, friends, even things like the local pizza shop. Everyone I knew had similar recall. We didn't _try_ at this; it just came out of simple repetition.

If you want to memorize phone numbers, write them down on a small piece of paper and stick it in your wallet. When you need to call them, consult the list, and enter the numbers manually, not by rote, but while actually thinking about the numbers as you enter them. Assuming you call them enough, you'll have the numbers down within a few weeks, a month at the outside. If you don't, then perhaps you don't really need to memorize them in the first place?

These days I know two relevant phone numbers: my own and my sister's (and only because hers is similar to one of my prior phone numbers). I also remember the home phone number for where I lived until I was six years old, and a few other old ones. Oh, and I remember my (fixed, publicly-addressable) IP address from my freshman year of college (20 years ago). I kinda wish I could evict those old numbers and make room for something else.

</comment><comment><USER7> I had an amazing memory when I was a kid (now I have good memory, but less than exceptional). As an example, I knew by memory ~300 phone numbers. To this day, 30 years later, I still remember 60-70 of these.

</comment><comment><USER8> The book "Moonwalking with Einstein" was my first introduction to memorization techniques. I had no idea these techniques existed, much less there were competitions for them. I drove my wife crazy trying to impress her with memorizing pi to 100 digits and memorizing a deck of cards. She was not impressed...I moved on to the next hobby.</comment>


HTML5 parsing XLS (Excel) files in browser - <AUTHOR> http://sheetjs.github.io/js-xls/

<comment><USER2> Too bad it doesn't support xlsx and the older BIFF5 xls format..</comment>


The PCAP – single file with 50 different protocols - <AUTHOR> https://weberblog.net/the-ultimate-pcap/ <comment><USER2> Pcaps are remarkably versatile. The choice to store two lengths in the packet header means that you can record both the actual wire length--the number of bytes that came in--and a bigger number that says where the next record starts, and any metadata you like in the gap.

(This wasn't the original purpose of the second number: the original thought was that you would not be able to afford to store all the bytes of every packet, so the second number would say where you cut it off.)

The 32-bit seconds / 32-bit microseconds timestamp in the packet header has evolved to use 32-bit nanoseconds as we got better at timekeeping, with just a change of magic number. Meanwhile, the 32-bit unsigned seconds count (since 1970, UTC) takes us all the way to C.E.2106 while the time_t crybabies are running in circles about 2038.

The whole fintech industry rides on lz4 pcaps of multicast packet streams, with essential file metadata recorded _in the file names_. (There is a very complicated "NG" pcap format, but nobody uses it.)

Just for the record, a single 1U server with a disk array can record the complete activity of all the New York exchanges plus CME, CFE, Impact, and OPRA with enough headroom to handle >2x peak daily traffic of previous years, as happened in each of the last three weeks: but only if programmed with C++, ring buffers, and kernel bypass network drivers.

This has been a PSA.

<comment><USER3> > The choice to store two lengths in the packet header means that you can > record both the actual wire length--the number of bytes that came in--and a > bigger number that says where the next record starts, and any metadata you > like in the gap.

> There is a very complicated "NG" pcap format, but nobody uses it.

This is the reason that pcapng was created - to formalize the structure of this metadata. pcapng "Pcap Next Generation" (2006) is an update to the pcap format (which originated with libpcap/tcpdump in the 90s). It's used in the networking industry as it's the default output file of wireshark, tshark, and tcpdump to capture traffic. If you use these tools, chances are that you have pcapng files.

The biggest reason to use it over pcap (in networking) is that you can save packets from multiple network interfaces. If you have a wireless access point and want to capture both ethernet and 802.11 traffic in the same capture, pcapng would be necessary.

<comment><USER4> Oh come on. Ported my pcap parser in 3 hours, and that included reading the docs and looking up a example capture.

SDB is the 'file header' packet. IDB is the 'interface description' packet. EPB is the 'data' packet.

The rest you should ignore except if you need to look through other block kinds, and in this case you're quite happy to have pcap-ng. No custom block in pcap, except forking wireshark...

All the ethernet/ppp/802.11 after that is the same as with pcap. What do people find so complicated there ?

Also pcap-ng is quite the generic data-recording format. Merging internal logs, network capture, interface stats, system configuration state, whatever you might want... In a /simple/ unique format. Easy to write, easy to have it read by wireshark... Even if it's not only network related.

The real strength of pcap-ng is that you can read it in both directions. Size is at the start /and/ end of each block. Seems stupid but it's very useful for some kind of analysis. Used to build indexes for pcap files... Not so useful now. And anyway, if you want to build an index, you can just add it as custom packet at the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you work in the networking industry, pcaps are used to troubleshoot networks. I see guys walking around with t-shirts with "pcaps or it didn't happen". The behavior of protocols or the data in their fields can point exactly to what is failing, and a pcap captures this.

If you want to search for protocols in packet captures, I created tshark.dev/search/pcaptable/ for this exact purpose. Search 1000+ protocols from 6000+ packet captures.

\---

Per capinfos, the author merged a bunch of pcap files with `mergecap` from Wireshark's sample captures. It has 38 interfaces, which is the highest I've ever seen!

      $ tshark -r ultimate.pcapng -T fields -e frame.protocols | sed -e 's/:/\n/g' | sort | uniq | wc -l
      69

Looks like it's actually 69 protocols, which makes it quite novel as a packet capture.

<comment><USER5> Packet captures are helpful even if you're not personally involved in the networking layer, but still talk to the internet and would like to keep logs of it. My university organizes capture-the-flag competitions and everything that goes through the game network is captured, both by us and by many of the teams. The captures let us monitor the state of the game, quickly detect and respond to denial of service attacks, and serve as a sanity check of the event in case some critical infrastructure goes down and we lose game data. Good teams log all their traffic so they can reverse-engineer and replay exploits that people shoot at them, of course ;)

<comment><USER6> That's an interesting usecase. Is there a blog/article talking more about this?

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if we ever actually wrote up anything specific about our architecture (CTF people tend to hate write-ups), but I did find that we did a post when we disqualified LC/BC for a DDoS attack against another team, which we detected using network logs: [https://ictf.cs.ucsb.edu/pages/the-2016-2017-ictf- ddos.html](https://ictf.cs.ucsb.edu/pages/the-2016-2017-ictf-ddos.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've wanted a protocol reference site for years, listing different network protocol dumps and examples. In fact, I bought pdumps.com and set up a wiki for it, but then the site got hammered with spam so I shut it down.

I have been thinking about setting up a static site instead, having pull requests as a gating procedure to fight off spam.

If more people here are interested, I'm willing to set it up again. Help doing the basic static webpage setup and reviewing PRs would be appreciated. Please reply in thread if you're interested.

<comment><USER8> Many years ago, Jeremy Stretch created a series of (networking-centric) "cheat sheets" [0] which may be of interest.

As boring as they can be to read, the RFCs are still the best single reference WRT network protocols and such.

\---

[0]: [https://packetlife.net/library/cheat- sheets/](https://packetlife.net/library/cheat-sheets/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My biggest issue with pcap files is lack of random access capability. If you wanted to search a large file for a packet by time or contents, you can't just hop around. You have to scan sequentially. Some people chunk a capture into individual files, but this can also get unwieldy.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there some reason/significance for collecting all the protocol captures into a single file? I would have thought that a tarball containing separate captures one per protocol would be more useful wouldn't it?

<comment><USER11> As a network guy this was my first thought as well. Putting everything and the kitchen sink in a single file just serves to obfuscate the relations, interactions, and dependencies of many protocols. For instance good luck opening this up to get an understanding that certain multicast protocols require certain information in IGMPv3 fields to come up the way it shows in the pcap.

Simply filtering for the high level protocol tells you A LOT less than having a barebones capture which shows all of the things that happen for that high level protocol to work and nothing more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great idea!

But leads to an observation/question:

 _Why do so many protocols exist in the first place?_

I think it would be a great idea for a protocol engineer in the future to try to look at all known protocols, and try to compact and integrate them all into a

 _Single universal protocol, eliminating all redundant functionality_...

Maybe someone has already done this, or is working on this... I don't know. If anyone has any ideas or knowledge in this direction, please feel free to post what you know...

<comment><USER3> This is like asking for a "universal vehicle". Some people want a truck while others want a forklift. It would also not be economical to make a truck extensible so that forklift components could be later tacked on. What vehicle you use depends on the goods you carry.

Likewise, the protocols do different things at different layers. Some are nested like Ethernet/IP/TCP/HTTP. TCP ensures delivery while UDP does not.</comment></comment>