WWDC 2017 and What It Means for Developers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.clubhouse.io/wwdc-2017-and-what-it-means-for-developers-76c5e5736fb8 <comment><USER2> It was also almost offhandedly announced (in session 707) that they are deprecating network kernel extensions, with no real replacement API in sight.

That's an existential crisis for 3rd party firewalls.

<comment><USER3> macOS is a wasteland, if anyone is investing in it today then they are a fool or have been fooled.

The IPC performance is still abysmal (noticeable latency in several applications) after 16 years of kernel development. The scheduler is meh, the features offered by the kernel are generally meh. The UI and multimedia libraries were quite good, but they neutered them by incrementally removing customization opportunities, and now there's little left. No way to install a codec or container in Core Audio or Core Video, so you can't play or Quick Look Opus or VP9 or a Matroška file in standard applications. Their OpenGL drivers are garbage, absolute putrid garbage, especially on the integrated graphics; they still only support OpenGL 4.2 (read: the year 2011) on any GPU, and on Intel's GPUs performance is often 60% worse than performance on Linux and Windows (which are generally on par). If their Metal implementation shares its shader compiler with their Intel OpenGL implementation, then it's likely that you will _never_ see _any_ performance benefit from Metal on Intel graphics because your application is probably shader bound due to their drivers. And if we're being fully honest, if they were trying to make developer lives easier, they would add Vulkan support, but they refuse.

<comment><USER4> Wow, as a user I don't care all that much about any of that.

I expect many users will feel the same, so developers will keep making apps for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ARKit is fun and easy to get started with. Plane detection works even on a clear glass surface. Here's a demo of a fidget spinner I made: [https://twitter.com/shanev/status/873225569164546048](https://twitter.com/shanev/status/873225569164546048).

</comment><comment><USER6> After going through all the sessions, I think the message is that Apple is going full speed on Swift, regardless how devs might feel like, similarly to Google with Java/Kotlin[1] and Microsoft with .NET/C++.

Besides the LLVM related talks, Metal shaders and real time audio callbacks, there is hardly any C like code to be seen across all sessions.

[1] On Android, NDK is seen as only to bring in code or implement _native_ methods.

<comment><USER7> I wonder how likely it'll be they keep Objective-C support. Ultimately, there's a huge amount of useful legacy code available they would be throwing away.

I think the way it's set up right now with interoperability works pretty well, and using it for new apps is a great idea, but forcing people to throw away existing apps that have been around for years.

<comment><USER8> Forever. It's much easier when you deal with low level code from Objective-C(++) and Apple has tons of that written with no obvious benefit when it's rewritten in Swift.

They might introduce modules that are incompatible or awkward to use with Objective-C in the future though.

<comment><USER6> The benefit are dogfooding and public image.

Microsoft already did it multiple times when VS team had to adopt WPF, the new APIs that are COM only or latest example having the Office team adopt the desktop bridge and make it a UWP only application on Windows 10.

If anything, to give the message to the world that the internal teams also use the technology they are trying to sell.

And they are slowly doing it, given that launchd and the Dock were rewriten in Swift for Sierra and the new XCode 9 build system is now in Swift, as well as some parts of the Store app.

<comment><USER8> Yeah I remember people being really sceptic in the beginning that Apple wouldn't even use Swift for it's own projects. People pretending to have "inside knowledge" nobody uses Swift at Apple internally, claims like that.

You have to silence those critics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Biggest annoucement to me : drop of 32 bits support. Thousands of apps will just stop working.

<comment><USER10> I agree, this is painful. I understand they might not want to maintain 32bit versions of all their libraries (uikit etc), but there are many many useful apps (for example, hardware specific configuration utilities) that aren't being updated. It would be wonderful if 32bit support was available, perhaps as an optional download. Even hiding 32bit apps in the appstore for users who haven't already "purchased" these apps is OK, but it wouldn't hurt non-32bit- users if 32bit support for existing purchases was still available. But for users with important 32bit legacy applications, having the apps run at all is more important than any type of performance and disk space loss caused by having duplicate 32bit and 64bit sets of libraries. Even if 32bit UIKit doesn't get updated with new iOS11 features like drag&drop.

Apparently, macOS 10.13 will also be the last macOS to run 32bit x86 mac apps "without compromise". While unfortunate, that's not too bad since you can always run a VM with an older version of macOS for those kinds of apps, something that is impossible on iOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are the new UIView.safeAreaLayoutGuide and UIView.safeAreaInsets APIs a hint for an iPhone 8 with an screen covering the complete frontside and a home button built into the screen? What do you think?

<comment><USER12> Probably reading too much into it. The things you mention should be taken care by OS, app should not even be aware they are available. New guides and insets help if you use new header styles, which cant take a lot of space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone else disgusted by Apples APIs?

func BNNSFilterCreateConvolutionLayer(UnsafePointer<BNNSImageStackDescriptor>, UnsafePointer<BNNSImageStackDescriptor>, UnsafePointer<BNNSConvolutionLayerParameters>, UnsafePointer<BNNSFilterParameters>?) Returns a convolution filter, initialized with input, output, layer, and filter parameters.

<comment><USER2> That function sure is ugly, but in general they have done a great job in making their own APIs more easy on the eyes.

And even that monstrosity doesn't look _that_ bad in actual use:

      let filter = BNNSFilterCreateConvolutionLayer(&inDesc, &outDesc, &layerParams, &filterParams)

The worst offenders for readability are these C-ish functions that deal with unsafe pointers. But at least in Swift, I appreciate the safety brought by the type checking. It's quite nice that unsafe code is clearly marked.

<comment><USER6> > The worst offenders for readability are these C-ish functions that deal with > unsafe pointers.

That is exactly the point, to make it pretty clear that the code needs to be scrutinized very carefully for its safety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Swift is actually very performant, and I think the XCode updates are particularly exciting</comment>


Open Source Release of Rift DK2 - <AUTHOR> https://developer.oculus.com/blog/open-source-release-of-rift-dk2/ <comment><USER2> I have the DK2 and a rMBP, and for my kids and I, it was just fine. Then Mac support was dropped.

I assume there's been no change there? Nobody working on cool experiences that are Mac compatible? Is there a market for selling this thing? I'm not interested in developing with it (I thought I would be when I bought it).

<comment><USER3> Yikes, that killed my interest with a bullet. Do people only game with it?

<comment><USER4> Vive and Rift are pushed almost exclusively as gaming platforms. Hence, Mac support is meaningless.

<comment><USER5> They are also widely used for non-gaming stuff, it is just less visible.

Concerning Mac the main problem is lack of any meaningful driver and hardware support from Apple. And without that there is little point in trying to port the SDKs.

On PCs both Nvidia a AMD are actively working with both Valve & Oculus and integrating support for things like the asynchronous time warping in their drivers. However, on Macs only Apple can really do that.

The other problem is that no current Mac on the market has a GPU that will work well with a Vive/Rift. The solution used in the laptops which switch between the integrated and discrete GPU is not supported and Apple doesn't offer anything else. And their desktop Macs haven't really been updated in ages, with GPUs being below the minimal spec required.

So while this may be a convenient excuse why not to support Mac, until Apple gets their stuff together it is technically not doable.

<comment><USER6> Can you clarify what you mean by "The solution used in the laptops which switch between the integrated and discrete GPU is not supported"?

<comment><USER7> The issue is caused by the way the Nvidia Optimus works - there's a physical connection which _always_ goes to the onboard intel video, then the Nvidia video card outputs to the onboard video, which outputs to the physical connection.

The extra step of routing the 3d video through the onboard video adds very minor latency, but it's still enough to kill the VR experience and induce nausea etc so it's deliberately not supported.

And because the connection is physical it can not be changed with existing hardware. Next generation :)

I'm unsure about the AMD specifics but I expect it's exactly the same issue.

<comment><USER6> But this same issue is present on non-mac laptops too, right? Except some niche gaming/VR laptops that use desktop GPUs. It's waiting for GPU and laptop chipset vendors whto get their acts together (and hope they care about VR).

Meanwhile eGPUs seem the way to go, and Apple is already shpping it: [https://www.imore.com/apples-vr-dev-kit-egpu-enclosure- ultim...](https://www.imore.com/apples-vr-dev-kit-egpu-enclosure-ultimate- guide)

<comment><USER7> Yes this applies to all laptops using nvidia optimus, PC, Mac etc, the issue is the hardware, it's physically wired to the igpu to enable minimal power usage scenarios.

Agreed eGPUs are the near term future, although cloud gpus are also a possibility ..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note that the firmware is released under BSD + PATENTS license .

<comment><USER9> While I don't anticipate the firmware to be used as much as Facebook's React and other previous BSD + PATENTS libraries, but an excellent reason to look towards Valve if you were interested in manufacturing a VR headset.

As an Oculus Rift owner, I'm sad to see Facebook's influence creep this far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The firmware includes calibration algorithms for a 6-DOF gyroscope sensor. Might be useful for robotics.

[1]: [https://github.com/facebookarchive/RiftDK2/blob/master/Heads...](https://github.com/facebookarchive/RiftDK2/blob/master/Headset/Firmware/src/calibrate.c)

[2]: [https://github.com/facebookarchive/RiftDK2/blob/master/Heads...](https://github.com/facebookarchive/RiftDK2/blob/master/Headset/Firmware/src/autocalibrate.c)

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone here know how to get DK2 working in Windows 10? I tried via the Rift CV 1.0 installer and it didn't seem to work at all.

<comment><USER12> I use the DK2 on Windows 10, it still works. When it asks you to setup the CV1 sensors, you can skip that step. Oculus home will display a warning that your headset is not officially supported, but some games still work fine. EVE: Valkyrie works great on the DK2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Are they supposed to announce new hardware any time soon?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't heard any rumors, but Oculus Connect 4 is tomorrow. If there's going to be new hardware, that'll probably be when they'll announce it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One comment on the page, with wrong English!</comment>


U.S. to sue S&P over ratings ahead of financial crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/04/mcgrawhill-sandp-civilcharges-idUSL1N0B495Q20130204 <comment><USER3> The DoJ lawsuit is over S&P's ratings model for CDOs & CLOs. Portfolio loss distributions are computed using expected loss distributions constructed with historical asset correlations, via large MC simulations. Each ratings agency uses different metrics - moody's using the GCorr ( global correlation matrix), S&P uses creditpro etc, which changes the rating transitions. There's no foolproof way to do this - its a very seat-of-the-pants applied multivariate stats problem, where "bad inputs" skew the SDR ( scenario default rate ) which then drives the ultimate cdo rating. When you have 7 tranches on average & you have considerable discretion over what your put into each tranche, you can essentially "buy" a rating.

Most of the money that went all-in was pension funds. So in a very real perverse way, the public was entirely responsible for this mess. The public bids up house prices - this skews up the asset correlations of the CDO models. The house prices keep going up, & the public parks its profits & savings in pension funds. The pension funds then buy up the very CDOs! You have a nice positive feedback loop that eventually collapses on itself.

Here's a good primer we used back in school ( <http://bit.ly/14AHP5q> ). start on page 13.

<comment><USER4> It's perverse to blame the public for bad financial models created by ratings agencies whose sole professional responsibility is to accurately model risk. "But the public caused an asset bubble we didn't anticipate" sounds like the Wall Street Banker version of "my dog ate my homework." Adjusting the models when they produce incorrect answers is their _job_.

<comment><USER3> > bad financial models created by ratings agencies

Impersonal words like "ratings agency" actually consists of a bunch of really smart math, stat & physics phds ( & the occasional finance phd who didn't get into the buyside IBs & hedgefunds :) The ratings are spit out by models. The models ar driven by simulations upon giant matrices whose input is historical correlations. When the inputs fuck up, the outputs will get hosed too.

> Adjusting the models when they produce incorrect answers

Nobody adjusted the models when they produced incorrect answers because the answers weren't incorrect. They weren't the answers you like _in hindsight_ , but they were correct insofar as the model was vetted & the input was correct.

Lemme give you a crazy, absolute bizarre scenario. Lets say there is massive acceptance of sexting pics among US youth starting tomorrow. Youtube is flooded with penises & vaginas. Then the churches start filing lawsuits against google because youtube is actively promoting pornography. You see what I'm getting at. For youtube to be relevant, it has to cater to the youth & not actively censor content especially stuff that has mainstream acceptance among youth. At the same time, it becomes liable. Rock & hard place. This is the exact sort of crazy bizarre stuff that happened during the financial crisis. The models are predictive, not normative. House prices actually went up, year after year, & the cdo ratings simply reflected that. Then people got burnt & are deciding the models are responsible! If the models priced normatively, the investors would simply look elsewhere for different models that priced predictively.

<comment><USER5> _Lemme give you a crazy, absolute bizarre scenario. Lets say there is massive acceptance of sexting pics among US youth starting tomorrow. Youtube is flooded with penises & vaginas. Then the churches start filing lawsuits against google because youtube is actively promoting pornography. You see what I'm getting at. For youtube to be relevant, it has to cater to the youth & not actively censor content especially stuff that has mainstream acceptance among youth_

Yeah, that's pretty crazy and actually self-serving and disingenuous. If ratings labelled themselves "free-expression platforms for Math PhD's who don't guarantee nothin' but garbage-in, garbage-out" well then they'd have no obligation beyond that of youtube. But they signed up, actually put pen-to- paper and _got money_ , for the responsibility of being "the adult in the room". You seem to think that their failure to actually _be that_ is just a terribly unfortunate coincidence that they should have no responsibility for, despite their claiming that it earlier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No-one will go to jail.

I sometimes struggle to figure out why the political system is such a mess in the US, being a recent citizen, coming from another country and system. Disengagement is obviously a huge factor, as it gives extremists disproportionate influence. Corruption is another, directly, as in directly steering policy in directions contrary to the directly stated will of the people in their voting.

However corruption has a nefarious influence on the first factor - disengagement. When the average joe on the street lives in a world where laws are almost arbitrarily vague and enable arrest and detention on a whole host of grounds - for example, relevant to this community, the hounding do death of folks like Aaron Swartz, but most communities have ehtir own examples - <USER2> where jobs are being lost and real hardship is experienced by large percentages of the country... it is not surprising that when we see these huge crimes, terrible consequences on the common man from dramatic misbehavior among the wealth elites who remain largely unscathed suffering few consequences of their actions... and when we see the wealthy and connected elites absolutely immune to legal recourse - no jailtime, nothing more than slaps on wrists, on companies forced to shut up shop... is it really surprising so many people just give up?

<comment><USER7> People usually don't go to jail as a result of civil suits.

What did you expect, the cultural revolution?

<comment><USER6> Indeed.

I suppose it's the broader point that concerns me, and that I was really focused - the fact is that the tanking of the economy based on fraud and negligence resulted in no jailtime. I feel, and folks may think I'm wrong in this, that this is very visible to ordinary men and women in America and has a corrosive effect on the nation and its body politic.

<comment><USER8> I understand the sentiment, but I'm personally skeptical that jailtime in particular is the solution. I also have the same instinctive reaction to "we jail people for X, but not [worse Y]?!", but I think in many of those cases, when I think about it more, I'd rather jail fewer people to equalize that, rather than more.

And when it comes to tanking the economy, I'd like to figure out how it happened and put systemic reforms in place, more than I really want specific heads to roll. There are some well-run countries that don't tolerate corruption that _don't_ jail people very often— they just see to it that anyone corrupt is shown the door. If you can do that consistently, it hardly matters if you show them the door into jail or a quiet retirement. I.e. keeping a hold on the situation directly, rather than trying to deter malfeasance with jail time.

<comment><USER6> My instinct is to reduce people in jail too. The land of the free shouldn't be so dramatically worse in terms of incarceration rates than ALL other countries in the world. That's messed up.

That being said there are zero consequences of impact to disincentivize widespread corruption and illegality in the financial sector, and that is the biggest systematic failing. So long as you can make $100MM screwing people over, then retire with it all when you get caught, and effectively zero chance of any sanction even if your actions were criminal, people will take that bet every time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks like Biden is pissed about the US debt getting downgraded.

<comment><USER10> Oops: accidentally downvoted you when I wanted to upvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't the S&P rating just an opinion? If I created a subscription-based restaurant newsletter that you relied on and subsequently got food poisoning, would you sue me or just cancel your subscription and tell all your friends that my ratings were garbage?

<comment><USER12> Many banking and insurance regulation are based on the ratings of the securities held : So being a Nationally Recognized Rating Agency is a pretty critical role, and a ratings agency deserves to be held to a higher standard, IMHO. OTOH, perhaps the government should subsidize them, since they are performing work for the governments regulators, in effect.

<comment><USER13> They are essentially a government agency with a profit motive. This worked out as well as any reasonable person would have anticipated. The strange thing is, the government still hasn't stripped them of their quasi-regulatory powers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It seems thats how our law system works today: purely quid pro quo. Knowingly give too good ratings to a bunch of toxic mortgages? Who cares. Give the government a bad rating? We're coming for you!

</comment><comment><USER15> Ratings are silly. It's a huge systemic problem to rely on them so much. If everyone made their own decisions then some would be right and some would be wrong, but we'd end up with market prices. When everyone uses the same model then everyone is in trouble when the model fails.

</comment><comment><USER16> Not only have the loans been repaid, but TARP was unfortunately a necessary evil. I'm certainly against socializing banks, but in this case we had few alternatives. A great book on this is "On The Brink" by Henry Paulson (former Treasury Secretary).

<comment><USER17> I haven't read the book but I worked in DC during bailout and sat in on the Senate hearings with all three of these rating agencies. I tell ya, Hank Paulson was much more confident during the meltdown than the head of each agency. I'm not surprised these guys are under the gun, they've playing stupid and deserve this suit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Arthur Anderson collapsed after Enron catastrophically cooked the books on their watch. An entire industry cooked the books on the 3 major ratings agencies watch, yet they are all still in business.

Why?

</comment><comment><USER3> _very nice_ buying op on mco. i'd sell the 50$ feb 15 puts & load up on the 55$ otm calls.

<comment><USER3> dear wise downvoters, do you downvote on pure reflex ? did you bother reading the article ? can you venture a guess why mco ( not s&p but mco ) fell ? in the very high likelihood that mco ( again, not s&p, but mco) bounces back tomorrow, isn't this a nice buying op ? moody's has not been in lockstep with s&p w.r.t cdo ratings.

<comment><USER19> I think they downvoted because they're hackers reading this who have no idea about what you wrote and downvoted much like the high school bully punching you for saying something nerdy. Please, in the future just complain about gov't injustice: much better for karma.

<comment><USER20> I downvoted because I have no interest in seeing stock trading tips on HN. This is not a stock trading forum, and those kinds of comments don't belong here.

<comment><USER21> In all fairness, the article itself doesn't have much business being on HN, either. It seems a little unfair to click through to the comments on an off- topic article and then down vote the comments for also being off-topic.

<comment><AUTHOR> A reasonable observation. I posted it here because it (IMHO) points to a systematic problem in the operation of markets - a flaw in our economic operating software, as it were.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can I sue politicians for lying? Why is it that this is only a one way street?

Hell, frankly, I think that heads should roll for the bailout. It is not authorized under the constitution, and it is the largest financial heist in history.

A bunch of politicians can simply steal american money and give it to banks, and get away with it? Really? And people are upset, but they blame the banks only?

And then forgive the "debt" they created and pretend like it was "paid back".

It's still going on too.

Right now, every month, they are handing out $40B a month buying "distressed assets".

You know how to get rich? Be well connected, make a loan to someone who then turns around and defaults (he got the loan money, so he's well paid) then get the politicians to write you a check!

There's no oversight now, the Federal Reserve-- a private bank owned by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, probably Rothchild family, et. al. is the one spending the money. No legislation is needed to make it legal.

It's stealing more money every month than all the organized crime has stolen in this countries entire history!

And it's not even worth a mention in the local papers.

That's messed up!

<comment><USER20> _"And then forgive the "debt" they created and pretend like it was "paid back"."_

Could you substantiate this claim?

I'm genuinely interested. I was under the impression that the overwhelming majority of the bailout money was paid back. I'd read in reputable newspapers that this was the case. If it was "forgiven" instead, I'd be very interested to see the proof.

<comment><USER23> I believe you are correct - most of the bailout money has been repaid:

As of December 31, 2012, the Treasury had received over $405 billion in total cash back on TARP investments, equaling nearly 97 percent of the $418 billion disbursed under the program. [Wikipedia]</comment></comment></comment>


Terraform releases template provider v2.0.0 (broke my terraform) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-template/releases <comment><AUTHOR> If you are not pinning the version of the template provider (if not, all providers), this can be used in the tf file that is included during your terraform init:

        provider "template" {
          version = "1.0.0"
        }</comment>


Dealing with Subscription Payments - <AUTHOR> http://activereload.net/2007/5/17/dealing-with-subscription-payments <comment><AUTHOR> good discussion (check the comments too) of the hoops you'll have to jump through once you have the enviable problem of your customers wanting to open their wallets :)

annoyingly, paypal and google checkout really seem to have dropped the ball on flexible recurring billing (paypal requires buyers to have a paypal account, and google punted on recurring billing altogether)

</comment><comment><USER2> Thanks for the article! Are you going to webinno?</comment>


Ask HN: Do developers dislike marketing their own projects? - <AUTHOR> I've had a number of conversations with other developers who seem to have disdain for marketing their own projects (apps they've built, open source projects, etc...)<p>Are you a developer that dislikes marketing your own stuff? What don't you like about marketing? <comment><USER2> I can't speak for everyone but I feel like a large part of why I'm not very excited by doing marketing of a project is because I feel like the project should be good enough to market it's self.

I think developers have a sense that if I focus on making a good product everyone will want to use it so I don't have to worry about marketing. Even though a lot of us know that marketing is very important we feel that by focusing on marketing there is a sense of my work isn't good enough to stand up by it's self.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if this is because there's a difference between how developers discover "new things" and how consumers + businesses discover solutions.

For example, developers hear about new technology, open source projects, and products on HN, on mailing lists, etc...

Businesses + consumers are generally reached through marketing and promotion.

<comment><USER2> Maybe, but I feel it's a little more the result of developers feeling like marketing is pushing their product on someone. I think the perception of posting something someones done on HN is more here's something I did, what do people who know what they're talking about think about? Where as they see marketing a little more like, how can I tryick this user into using my product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As a developer, I definitely feel much more productive if I'm coding rather than cooking up some scheme to market my apps better.

But it is definitely a struggle. I know marketing is super important, because if I don't do it, I won't get enough customers. If I don't get enough customers, then I can't test cool new product ideas and actually see if I'm building the right product for people.

Even if I dislike it, I have to do it. Otherwise, I'm doing myself a disservice.

So, after saying all that... :-)

<marketing>

I make iPad/iPhone apps called Tiny Piano and Tiny Guitar. Tiny Piano has reached 7.9 million (free) downloads, and you can check it out here: <https://itunes.apple.com/app/id477014214>

</marketing>

<comment><AUTHOR> What's your biggest struggle with marketing?

<comment><USER3> My biggest "struggle" is basically what you identified: that I (as a developer) don't like to do it.

But I force myself to, since in the long run, I know it will be worthwhile. So I occasionally write blog posts [1], very occasionally tweet [2], and sometimes I even tend to my Facebook page [3].

I guess one real struggle is that I have no idea whether marketing works, or how well it works. It's pretty hard to quantify (sure, there's google analytics, etc). But when I add a feature to my code base, it feels concrete. Spending a day doing "marketing" doesn't feel as concrete or quantifiable.

[1] <http://blog.squarepoet.com/>

[2] <https://twitter.com/squarepoet>

[3] <https://www.facebook.com/tinypiano>

<comment><USER4> That's a great point. Not being able to measure short terms results is keeping you from achieving then over the long term. Fascinating. Though I think that you are missing insight into getting short term marketing results. They do exist. You can actually get too many of them. I reason that you have not been properly introduced to real marketing. It's quite the same as software as it requires you to engineer scalable systems. It's as challenging too because it requires a lot of data analysis. I wonde if hackers like you would benefit from an introduction to marketing from the POV of data.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any pointers for us hackers? One thing I've used in the past is posting bit.ly links, which can give me some data. But it seems like I'd have to participate in many many different forums & blogs for these links to my products to start having a noticeable effect on my sales.

I'm sure a 3-day crash course on marketing my products would be very valuable for me.

<comment><USER4> May you email me?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have no interest in marketing. I have no where near enough time to develop things, let alone market them. Not to mention, I'm a terrible salesman. To me, it's not about "How much can I trick someone into paying for this?" but "Meh, how much is it worth I guess?". Also, I'm way too honest about what something does, and tend to forget (or take for granted) the things that I assume it should do (and as such, forget to market those things).

<comment><AUTHOR> Tell me more: have you tried building and selling your own apps?

<comment><USER5> I have one app in the apple app store that never really had much potential, but I just wanted to get something released. I have a few things in progress but haven't really started thinking about marketing past setting up a website. Knowing which review sites to contact, writing up catchy descriptions and e-mailing vital people in the app business is it's own little expertise at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A lot of programmers do not like or do it because they simply see no value to it. It's not that they don't "get it." They do. The problem arises when they decide to build a business. Their apathy towards marketing ends up killing their startup. A business is not the code but it's marketing. And programmers fail hard with that reality. That's why patio11 says that a programmer who can market is an unstoppable force. It's true.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't have enough time to deal with marketing. I have a limited amount of free time as it is and I'd rather spend it doing something I love (developing) rather than something that is required to make money off the the thing that I love. It's not that I _hate_ marketing necessarily but there are 1000 other things I'd rather be doing at any given time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are the projects you're working on "for profit" (as in, is your aim to make money with them)?

<comment><USER6> Yes, they're intended to be "for profit". Some of them even make a profit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting: and have you done marketing for those? Or was the traffic largely organic? (if it was organic, how did folks originally hear about it?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Once you market it and take money for it, you have to support it. It may not be worth it to market it if 24x7 support costs outweigh any revenue. Non- developers are never going to do any support or development so of course they are going to seem way more eager to market.

</comment><comment><USER8> _Are you a developer that dislikes marketing your own stuff?_

No, we[1] don't mind marketing our stuff[2] at all. We post links[3][4][5] to our stuff on various forums, answer questions on Quora[6] that promote our stuff, write blog entries[7], share stuff on LinkedIn, Twitter[8], etc., etc., etc. as we go about our business of "putting the Enterprise in Enterprise Social Network".

If you have any more questions, feel free to contact me at prhodes (at) fogbeam (dot) com.

All joking aside, I guess some developers may have an aversion to marketing. Probably more just don't know a lot about marketing and promotion. I'm no expert at it myself, but I try to learn more every day. These days I spend as much time reading marketing books as I do technical books, and terms like "SEO", "positioning", "differentiation", "value proposition", "unique selling proposition", "solution selling", "SPIN selling", etc. have entered my lexicon.

 _What don't you like about marketing?_

It's hard. And I'm a n00b at it. Therefore it sucks. No, really, it's kind of fun in a way, and I enjoy learning and stretching myself in new directions. But it can be frustrating dealing with so many things that I haven't had to worry about in the past.

[1]: <http://www.fogbeam.com>

[2]: <http://www.fogbeam.com/products.html>

[3]: <https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick>

[4]: <https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy>

[5]: <https://github.com/fogbeam/Heceta>

[6]: <http://www.quora.com/Who-are-Jives-competitors>

[7]: <http://fogbeam.blogspot.com>

[8]: <https://twitter.com/fogbeamlabs>

</comment><comment><USER9> I love marketing my own applications. Sadly, it results in more emails, phone calls and other "work" that add stress because the product is not finished. I really need a developer but they want more than I pay myself!

Tell me what you think? <http://goo.gl/PkUWP>

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure of the reasoning, but this is partly true for me. If the interest in my app/site is organic, and not solicited, my reception is much warmer.. but otherwise it just feels fake.. so, I leave the marketing to the marketing folks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if there is a general aversion amongst developers towards "self- promotion". For example: even organic traffic is somewhat "self-promoted". What do you think?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe an extreme case. I've known a developer who kept marketing his work non- stop to everyone and the fact that he worked/works for Google.

</comment><comment><USER12> Marketing is a different job than developing that reuqires tottally diffrent skills. One is logical and one is usually based on soft skills.</comment>


Addict: A Full REST API for Active Directory in 30 Seconds - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dthree/addict/# <comment><USER2> > drop-in REST API

> GET /user/:user/exists

Wat. Use HEAD. Seriously.

Also, what is ":user" \- how do you define the way an account is found in the tree?

How do you handle complex trees with potentially conflicting values for the attribute you use as 'username' ?

Why are their dedicated endpoints for password, expiry, enable/disable/unlock. These are all just attributes on the user object.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Also, what is ":user" \- how do you define the way an account is found in > the tree?

That checks sAMAccountName, which is unique. Searches that can return multiple results will do so.

> Why are their dedicated endpoints for password, expiry, > enable/disable/unlock. These are all just attributes on the user object.

It wouldn't be very user friendly to require a PATCH so a user can change a password. All of these operations are quite granular. You aren't going to enable an account and change a password at the same time very often.

The overriding drive in building this was ease of use, because that bugs me with AD. I'm definitely open to suggestions, though :)

<comment><USER2> > for Active Directory and LDAP implementations

> That checks sAMAccountName, which is unique

Only in Microsoft's schema. If you want to work with just AD, thats fine, but you shouldn't claim to be LDAP compatible if you only work with a single vendor's schema.

> It wouldn't be very user friendly to require a PATCH so a user can change a > password

Why? It's a REST API, you're talking to it from code, you aren't asking users to write curl requests.

> You aren't going to enable an account and change a password at the same time > very often.

I see you've never worked in a support environment before. If the account becomes locked, its usually because the user tried the wrong password too many times. So, they contact support who can unlock it, and invariably will need to reset the password at the same time.

> I'm definitely open to suggestions

Well I think you need to decide if its targeting AD specifically or any LDAP directory server. If it's the latter, it needs to be a _lot_ more configurable .

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough. I updated the readme for now, and will work on those points!

<comment><USER2> For what it' worth, I definitely understand the basic premise of your project. I'm a big believer that people end up re-inventing a lot of things that Directory Services has had working since the late 90's simply because it's too different to what they're familiar with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, thanks for that. I've actually had to deal with it for quite a while, believe it or not. And the current design is working out for my use. I do hope it does help others.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Science and Tech of the Byzantine Empire - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/the-hidden-science-and-tech-of-the-byzantine-empire <comment><USER2> John Von Neunman was particularly a huge enthusiast of the Byzantine empire. A professor of Byzantine history at Princeton once said that von Neumann had greater expertise in Byzantine history than he did. [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Early_career_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Early_career_and_private_life)

<comment><USER3> That's an awesome fact! I'm reading Von Neumann & Morgenstern's Game Theory and Economic Behavior now and while I'm not surprised he's gifted in other disciplines, it's amazing that someone can be _so_ deep in so many fields.

<comment><USER4> You should read _Turing 's Cathedral_ if you are interested in Von Neumann's life.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the recommendation. I'm actually reading the biography of Turing at the moment, so that sounds like a perfect follow-up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can highly recommend History of Byzantium podcast by Robin Pierson.

"The History of Byzantium" is a podcast dedicated to the story of the Roman Empire from the collapse of the West in 476 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Byzantine history is fascinating, world changing and largely forgotten. Listen and discover who they were."

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the recommendation. I've been listening to Dan Carlin and his history podcasts and am almost done with all of them. I needed something to add to the queue.

<comment><USER7> You may want to consider checking out Mike Duncan's podcasts the History of Rome and Revolutions as well. History of Rome especially since it was the ending of that podcast at the fall of the west that encouraged the creation of the History of Byzantium podcast.

<comment><USER8> Duncan in particular gets much better at doing his podcast after a few dozen episodes. I'm pretty attuned to audio issues and almost dropped the podcast about halfway in, but eventually he figured a few things out and it got a lot nicer to listen to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Article aside, an Empire that manages to last hundreds of years (1100+ in their case, and even more depending how you calculate it) must've been doing quite a few things right.

Imagine how many enemies, crisis and emperors they had to go through, yet they survived for a very, very long time.

<comment><USER10> Yes if only they had been obsessed with internal religious divisions and fighting the Persians (ignoring the new threat from the west).

Not to mention the forth crusade!!

<comment><USER9> Quite a few old fashion Orthodox are still upset over it [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constantinople_(1204)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constantinople_\(1204\)) . Like in Islam....different factions debate and hold grudges for ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's kind of odd but as Greeks in school we learn little for the Byzantium as compared to Classical Greece which pretty much dominates history books. That's probably because Byzantium was never actually Greek, many emperors didn't even speak the language.

For anyone interested in learning the history I would suggest John Julius Norwich's trilogy. Impeccable work.

<comment><USER12> _> Byzantium was never actually Greek, many emperors didn't even speak the language._

Huh? I'll admit I'm not that well-read about Byzantine history, but I had always been under the impression that from the reign of Heraclius (mid-7th- century) onwards[1] the court language was always or virtually always Greek.

[1] Which is also as good a dividing line as any between the "Roman" and "Byzantine" periods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Arab Muslims also had an amazing science and tech culture which isn't well appreciated today. Many of the revolutions in Europe in the Middle Ages happened as direct outcomes of Arab Muslim tech. A few of my heros: Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Ismail al-Jazari.

<comment><USER14> To be fair, Avicenna was Persian, although he had been definitely influenced by the Islamic science developed by the Arabs.

<comment><USER15> Both al-Khwarizmi (from whose name came "algorithm", and whose main work also gave its name to "algebra") and al-Biruni (astronomer and geographer probably most famous for the most accurate prediction of the Earth's circumference since Eratosthenes) were also Persian rather than Arab as often incorrectly claimed.

The question of the "nationality" of many Islamic Golden Age scientists is interesting, with many people and nations claiming them as "theirs". There are even Soviet [1] and Uzbekistani [2] postal stamps commemorating al-Khwarizmi, since as his name implies he was originating from Khwarezm (now part of Uzbekistan), which at the time was under Persian rule.

[1] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/19...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/1983_CPA_5426_%281%29.png/220px-1983_CPA_5426_%281%29.png)

[2] [http://news.uzreport.uz/foto/2014/04/tmb1/13977401582.jpg](http://news.uzreport.uz/foto/2014/04/tmb1/13977401582.jpg)

<comment><USER16> It's rather annoying how we're so loose with these terms, of Islam, Persian, and Arab. Most of the important people of the Islamic Golden Age were Persian/Iranian [1].

>"Culturally, politically, and most remarkable of all even religiously, the Iranian contribution to this new Islamic civilization is of immense importance. The work of Iranians can be seen in every field of cultural endeavor, including Arabic poetry, to which poets of Iranian origin composing their poems in Arabic made a very significant contribution."

> Science, medicine, philosophy and technogy in the newly Islamized Iranian > society was influenced by and based on the scientific model of the major > pre-Islamic Iranian universities in the Sassanian Empire. During this period > hundreds of scholars and scientists vastly contributed to technology, > science and medicine, later influencing the rise of European science during > the Renaissance.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> it is necessary to investigate their correctness. The "On fatal wings" story is similar to Hezarfen's story. Maybe it's a story that has been around for years.Take a look at that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hez%C3%A2rfen_Ahmed_%C3%87eleb...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hez%C3%A2rfen_Ahmed_%C3%87elebi)

<comment><USER18> The source 'Choniates' was writing 400 years before that story is supposed to have happened.

<comment><USER17> Well yeah I saw it. So then we know at least there are three people exists in the history who they try to fly with robe. The Arab, Hezarfen and the French guy. People are weird. These are some kind of wingsuit prototype.

<comment><USER19> Eilmer of Malmesbury was fairly successful, flying some distance. He broke both legs but survived: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilmer_of_Malmesbury#The_fligh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilmer_of_Malmesbury#The_flight)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If Byzantium (Constantinople) had lasted just another 39 years (to 1492, to be precise), then one could claim (sort-of) that the Roman Empire had lasted until the West discovered America.

<comment><USER21> I'd argue that we are Roman.

When the western capital Rome fell, people moved east (imagine moving from California to New York). But the Byzantines still called themselves Roman.

When the eastern capital was invaded by the Ottoman Turks, they moved west to rebuild Rome - and started the "Renaissance".

There was no Renaissance, some magical discovery of ancient knowledge, with masterful artists and scientists like the world had never seen. It was a continuation of the Roman tradition!

In fact, one can even go back before Rome to Greece, to Alexander the Great conquering Darius the Mede, to Medo-Persia, to Babylon, to Assyria, to Mesopotamia.

Writing was invented in 3 places: Sumeria, China, and South America. But the Mayan history is almost lost (3 books survive). Western culture split from middle-eastern, and Indian civilisation got fragmented until the British Raj forced everyone to learn English, a Latin language.

Since the dawn of history, there have been Western, Middle Eastern, and China as world powers.

Only in this generation do we have machine translation (Google Translate) to finally share our knowledge more easily between these cultures.

I propose a translated search. Pass the query through Google Translate before loading results. Then if I want to know about the legend of a talking ox, I can find it from Pliny ( [http://peterburk.github.io/pliny](http://peterburk.github.io/pliny) ) or from the Chinese.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I feel I must defend Aristotle. At least we would need a lot more information before we can conclude that Philoponos really knew what he was talking about. Of course he was right but for this to be effective there needs to be a theory and better experiments and that is what Galileo provided. I recommend Carlo Rovelli's essay on Aristotle's Physics: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4057.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.4057.pdf).

<comment><USER23> > _Of course he was right but for this to be effective there needs to be a > theory and better experiments and that is what Galileo provided._

It only needs the simple observation the kind of Philoponos did to refute Aristotle's thesis. And his arguments show that he knew what he was talking about -- very to the point.

What would need "a theory and better experiments" would be to create a physics of falling -- Philoponos didn't do that (or said he did). He merely refuted Aristotle. We celebrate Democritus atomic theory for far less (as he did no experiments and it was just an idea he had).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> And it remains largely hidden, after reading this article :(

But there are a few interesting tidbits, and it's a quick read.

<comment><USER22> More like notes for an article really. Or a high school exercise in creating a summary. I would give it something like "6/10, must try harder".

Might have been interesting to read if there had been more than clickbait so I only read the first two of the six. The fact that the earth is a globe was known at least 1200 years earlier than Symeon Seth because the circumference had been measured by Eratosthenes <[https://www.thoughtco.com/eratosthenes- biography-1435011>](https://www.thoughtco.com/eratosthenes- biography-1435011>).

I'm disappointed, Nautilus is usually a bit better than this.</comment></comment>


Can we use the brands of our customers on our SaaS website without asking? - <AUTHOR> A couple of big companies are using our SaaS and it would be nice to list their logos on our website. Unfortunately, the biggest one we asked said no. In order to leave the door open if we decide to publish the names without consent, we didn't ask anyone else. What do you think? Do you have any tips or tricks that might help us to convince them? <comment><USER2> Include a line about using their likelness for marketing purposes in the terms of service and contract and agree to waive it for anyone not comfortable with the concept.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that's a good idea. Thanks.</comment></comment>


How a social network could save democracy from deadlock - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50127713 <comment><USER2> > And rather than showing the messages that divided each of the four groups, > Pol.is simply made them invisible.

This seems like a good way to find _some_ initiatives through consensus. The main mechanism seems to be giving a "conversational veto" to everyone in the discussion. A "let's move on" button, basically.

I find that very interesting. It would certainly help with concerns that "my legislature does _nothing_ ". It might actually be an interesting mechanism for legislatures themselves to deploy internally to set agendas, though it would necessarily weaken the power of the factions that actually set legislative agendas (the majority party, the majority leader, etc.).

On the other hand, giving a strong and hidden minority veto also doesn't seem to help with the issues that actually divide citizens.

\- Would not talking about Brexit anymore actually help the U.K.?

\- Should the U.S. Congress not pass a budget anymore, to avoid balancing it?

\- Maybe all legislatures agree to broadly humane treatment for refugees, but how would they agree on healthy _levels_ and _categories_ of immigration?

\- The biggest divisive issue in the U.S might actually be abortion, which generally isn't debated so much as such. It's also clear that not addressing the issue isn't making the underlying problems go away.

\- More broadly, would the U.S. have _ever_ done anything significant about civil rights if consensus was required first?

EDIT: Maybe I'm a bit too pessimistic about civil rights... the constitutional amendment process _does_ require two kinds of consensus for ratification. And many amendments did deal with civil rights.

<comment><USER3> Politics is complex and deadlock preserves the current situation which some group considers preferable to change.

Consider, (53+25) = 78% of the US population believes Abortion should be legal in some or all situations. That's why a total ban is rarely debated it's a campaign issue, but making it illegal would quickly cost elections.

Restrictions on the other hand also have popular support (53 + 21) = 74%. Thus rather than a ban one party pushing for more restrictions. This is not a failure to achieve a ban, but rather a middle ground with significant popular support.

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx)

<comment><USER2> My points were more that:

\- Sometimes the controversy is about the process, such as historical efforts for suffrage for women.

\- Sometimes 90% vote benefits for themselves at the expense of 10%. Most unbalanced budgets fall in this category.

\- Sometimes 10% people preserve benefits for themselves at the expense of everyone else.

Especially concerning about automatically hiding debates without consensus is that it hides things that are important or urgent but haven't reached consensus (yet).

Maybe there are other mechanisms to provide transparency there, but the article did not seem to describe any.

<comment><USER3> > Sometimes 90% vote benefits for themselves at the expense of 10%. Most > unbalanced budgets fall in this category.

In isolation you can find many examples of this. But, political alliances mean that group may be trading financial support for support of another issue. Farm subsidies and net neutrality could be traded with people voting for both even if they only care for one or the other.

It smells like corruption, but political horse trading does represent people caring more or less about different issues.

Consider three friends going out, one cares a lot about the movie they watch, another cares about what they eat for dinner, and the third really wants to go out to a specific club afterwards. If everyone votes on each activity separately then people may be less happy than a compromise.

<comment><USER4> A lot of political compromise always seems to me of the form: we have a cake to share, I want the whole cake and you, being reasonable, want the 'fair' portion of half a cake. So we compromise and I get three quarters of the cake and you get a quarter.

<comment><USER5> This is as painfully true as it is down to earth.

Zooming out a bit, a less cynical take (merely observation) is that we seek what we think are the right means for our goals (and these too diverge a lot).

Maybe I want money, maybe you'd rather have love of the people; maybe we just both wanna make this world better, maybe we're mostly in it for ourselves.

The point is, industrious types seek the means to industry, romantic ones seek an emotional path to/of success, technical minds seek the knowledge or practice of their puzzle, etc.; and in the end everything is just as it should/cloud/would have been. There's a reason you asked 100%, got 75 and I let you walk away with it. However I'd want to spin it, it just had not mattered to me as much as it had to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For more context on the Polis platform, watch "Clojure on the cyberpunk frontier of democracy" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tBVMAm0-00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tBVMAm0-00)

</comment><comment><USER7> Democracy in its current form is bound to fail - The greek inventors specifically warned of exactly our brand of democracy.

<comment><USER8> [http://www.anthonyflood.com/rothbarddemocracy.htm](http://www.anthonyflood.com/rothbarddemocracy.htm) might be worth a read.

<comment><USER9> The author does a lot of fun thought experiments that don't hold up long under critical scrutiny.

Take for example: "On the other hand, if, as it is now fashionable to maintain, the majority of voters in a democracy are prohibited from doing one thing—ending the democratic elective process itself—then this is no longer democracy, because the majority of voters can no longer rule."

It is still a democracy, because the majority of voters did not the surrender the power to make that decision to anyone, but in fact nobody is able to make that decision at all. There's no non-democratic entity who could decide so in place of the majority, because it is something that simply can't be changed. Every decision made is still made in a democratic process.

Just because you can't decide that the sun should drop out of the sky, does not mean you are not a democracy. It's simply another decision nobody can make. It's completely outside the scope of your democratic decision making.

Edit:

Another example would be a company in which all decisions are made in a democratic process. Well why can't its workers decide that murder should be legal? The obvious answer is that it is simply not a decision they can make, but is instead at the discretion of the country they operate in.

<comment><USER8> Can the majority of people decide to end democracy if they, the majority, _wanted_ or not? If not, why not, and how is it a democracy then? If yes, then I do not understand the relevance of your comment.

> Just because you can't decide that the sun should drop out of the sky, does > not mean you are not a democracy.

I think this one is pretty obvious and I am not sure of its significance here. You cannot decide to do a lot of things, but that does not mean that you cannot decide to do some other things. Allow me to say this: just because you cannot decide that the sun should drop out of the sky, does not mean that you are a democracy (just as it does not mean you are not a democracy). See the problem here?

> Another example would be a company in which all decisions are made in a > democratic process. Well why can't its workers decide that murder should be > legal? The obvious answer is that it is simply not a decision they can make, > but is instead at the discretion of the country they operate in.

This makes no sense within the context. You have mixed the scopes yourself. It is at discretion of the country, yes, and the company most likely is not the majority that makes up the country, is it? Otherwise if there was democracy, and whoever was part of the democratic process are indeed the majority of the country they operate in, then they are either allowed to decide that, or they are not allowed to decide that. If the majority of people cannot decide that, then it is simply not democratic. At first I thought you would talk within the scope of the company, then that would have made more sense in the way that workers are not necessarily part of the democratic process, or their votes can be simply ignored, which may happen in the context of a country, too, in which case I would not call that democratic either.

For anyone who is reading my comment but have not read the article posted above: please do not dismiss the article because of my comments! There is much more to it than what is mentioned in my comments, and the author has articulated his arguments better than I did! I do not accurately reflect the author's views.

<comment><USER9> > Can the majority of people decide to end democracy if they, the majority, > wanted or not? If not, why not, and how is it a democracy then? If yes, then > I do not understand the relevance of your comment.

You just simply restated what the article's author said and to which I responded at length already. But I'll rephrase from a different angle further below for your benefit.

> This makes no sense within the context. It is at discretion of the country, > yes, and the company most likely is not the majority that makes up the > country, is it? Otherwise if there was democracy, and whoever was part of > the democratic process are indeed the majority of the country they operate > in, then they are either allowed to decide that, or they are not allowed to > decide that. If the majority of people cannot, then it is simply not > democratic.

And on company grounds? What if just worker's of said company decided it's okay to murder each other there?

If you believe that spheres of influence (both physically and in the abstract sense) should have no bearing on what decisions your democracy can make, then you can't ever have a democracy because something will _always_ be out of your influence (unless maybe you're the only country on earth). The decision of whether murder should be legal on company grounds will always be outside of what workers can decide. However if your definition of democracy essentially makes having a democracy impossible, may I suggest you use one that is actually useful.

If you believe that yes, your decisions should be scoped to physical borders and other limitations that arise, then your constitution (or whatever document dictates you can't end democracy), is simply another factor that narrows down what decisions can be made.

Your constitution is very much like your country's border in that sense. It limits the scope of your decisions.

<comment><USER8> > You just simply restated what the article's author said and to which I > responded at length already. But I'll rephrase from a different angle > further below for your benefit.

Only some parts (there were more objections besides this), yes, to emphasize the word "wanted" because your comment seemed to have omitted that crucial part and operated under the assumption that people do not want to do that, which misses the point. You said: "because the majority of voters did not the surrender the power to make that decision to anyone", which means that the majority of voters did not want to do that to begin with. If it is democracy (direct democracy, in this case), and they wanted to, they should have been able to.

> And on company grounds? What if just worker's of said company decided it's > okay to murder each other there?

No, because the company is within the scope of the country and its legal framework, and "there" is within the borders of a country. If the company (read: group of individuals) is large enough to make up the majority of the country, then they should be able to decide so democratically if there indeed is democracy.

> If you believe that spheres of influence (both physically and in the > abstract sense) should have no bearing on what decisions your democracy can > make, then there can't ever have a democracy because something will always > be out of your influence (unless maybe you're the only country on earth).

I am not sure I understand your point. How is there direct democracy if the majority cannot decide to do X or Y (and here I am not talking about the majority of people wishing the sun to drop out of the sky or anything similar, of course)? You cannot just add exceptions and then call it democratic (or direct democracy), which is what is happening here. Are you sure that this is not a redefinition of democracy?

<comment><USER9> > How is there democracy if the majority cannot decide to do X or Y.

The majority can't decide that gravity should cease to exist or the sun shouldn't shine within their borders. Some limitations on democracy are natural, others are imposed by those who established it. That doesn't mean it's not a democracy.

You could do the same thought experiment with dictatorships or any form of government really. If a dictator can decide that he'd rather have a democracy, then he can end his own existence (fine?), unless he operates in some constitutional framework that enshrines him as the one and only power within the country. If that's the case, is he still a dictator? Short answer: clearly. Long answer: We can have a long debate about this and essentially come to the conclusion that either whatever definition of democracy/dictatorships you're using needs to be revised, or you need to come up with new names for most political systems on earth, because we need to names for things at the end of the day.

In any case don't use the article author's definition:

> Democracy is a system of majority rule in which each citizen has one vote > either in deciding the policies of the government or in electing the rulers, > who will in turn decide policy.

According to his definition the majority is allowed to just decide _policy_. I don't think he realizes there's actually no contradiction if you define it like that, because ending democracy would be a matter of _polity_ and probably _politics_ in general, but not really a matter of just _policy_.

Edit: Fair warning, I edited quite a bit above roughly 10 minutes after posting.

<comment><USER10> > The majority can't decide that gravity should cease to exist or the sun > shouldn't shine within their borders. Some limitations on democracy are > natural, others are imposed by those who established it. That doesn't mean > it's not a democracy.

I don't think anyone is arguing that not being able to impose the voters' will over the laws of nature is any indication of whether a system is democratic. Nor should not being able to vote away natural rights (like the right not to be murdered) have any bearing because they're basically the same thing. Red herring, really.

If someone who is long gone (and no longer has voting rights) imposed limitations on a democratic system then how is it even a democracy? More like a dictatorship ruled over by dead people with the illusion that people have "self rule".

<comment><USER9> > If someone who is long gone (and no longer has voting rights) imposed > limitations on a democratic system then how is it even a democracy?

You are always asking for "how" X can still be a democracy, which is a weird question I don't even know how to answer, since I really don't even know what you understand under a democracy.

What do you mean _how_? Can you throw me a rope and explain this to me then:

> Nor should not being able to vote away natural rights (like the right not to > be murdered) have any bearing

If I can't vote to legalize murder, _how_ is it still a democracy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://github.com/g0v/vue.vtaiwan.tw](https://github.com/g0v/vue.vtaiwan.tw)

English translation anyone?

</comment><comment><USER12> I found it quite interesting that they removed the reply button. Afaik HN also has a limited reply button - there is no notification attached to it. This discourages talk/debate like discussion (lack of personal reaction) and encourages more a discourse style interaction around the facts.

<comment><USER13> The opportunity to reply is only invoked after an increasing amount of time, which I think is dependent on the depth of the conversation. In other words, the further into a conversation you are, the more time you are forced to take to think on the other person's response.

<comment><USER14> Can you draft a reply before that times has passed? I wonder how that would influence the conversation.

<comment><USER13> No, you cannot. I think the intention is to deprive you of the opportunity to start writing at all. There are studies that show the longer you take thinking before acting, the better your outcomes are.

<comment><USER14> That's what I thought is the intention. But writing can be part of thinking so if people don't write immediately and send when they can letting them draft might improve outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While a nice idea, the problem is convincing people that compromise is a better alternative to winning.

</comment><comment><USER16> Unlike social media, traditional media "generates" opinion [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West#Democr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West#Democracy,_media,_and_money)

</comment><comment> th-th-throwaway Gamified Nuance. What a brilliant idea.

I don't know if this particular design will work but I expect to see a lot more attempts now that the idea has entered the public consciousness.

Current social networks are gamified for virality which implicitly rewards the lack of nuance. So statements that are as short, simple, and wrong as possible will spread faster within the supporters while encouraging flaming from the opposition. This is such an inherent property of every social network in existence that I didn't even realize fixing it was an option.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am very much convinced —have been for about a decade— that this is the general way to go. To fundamentally give democracy to people in a much more direct fashion, a peer-to-peer design true to what democracy actually is. Starting with the local / small issues (if resistance is met at the top, unlike the Taiwainese example it seems).

</comment><comment><USER17> It's funny I just thought about this yesterday. "What if my smartphone loses network connectivity. How many apps on it will stop working? 95%? I miss the old days when storing and processing my personal data was done 100% on my own devices. Sharing that data with others wasn't really a problem and people had websites as always accessible billboards where they presented themselves as well." Sure the social media "network" aspect wasn't there, but it wouldn't be impossible to achieve that today while the bulk of the data resides on people's own devices.

Ever since the shift of storing the user's data not on their devices but in the cloud and ever since rendering ad blockers useless by tailoring not just the ads but the actual content towards the user's behavior and biases, the internet has gone down the drain. And more and more people are fed up with it.

Societies can be "hacked" via social media, that technology is out there and it is being used not only by superpowers like the US or Russia, but also by political actors in smaller countries like Myanmar or Ethiopia. People die. Mobs incited by fake news campaigns on Facebook kill people. Elections get hacked, not by manipulating voting machines but by manipulating people's minds using the same technology advertisers use. That's some scary stuff. Social Media manipulation is the nuclear bomb of the early 21st century, it's that hot new weapon every sleazy political actor wants to get their hands on. And so we are in a new Cold War, actually it's many cold wars. Unlike the one in the 50s-80s these new ones are invisible and don't feel as scary, which makes them... more scary?! Weapons of mass propaganda... we have to take action to render them useless by abonding social networks and cloud services as we know them today. But that can only happen with a better replacement that's harder to manipulate and that has a higher incentive to be used by the masses.

Without an internet connection your smartphones and even your PC becomes either almost completely or at least partially useless. That is not scary because we have to fear network issues or censorship but it's scary because it means so much of the information acquisitioning and processing is out of our control. Modern devices are perfectly capable of handling all the user's data and then some, they have the storage capacity and they have the processing power, the only reason the cloud still exists for end user's is because analyzing everyone's data makes them money.

And you can't even blame developers and companies jumping on this bandwaggon. Everyone else does it, the tools are out there, ready to be used, and that sweet ad money pays the bills or the investor's demand it because they think that sweet ad money will reimburse their investment.

But is it ethical? Hell no!

It seems like nobody is thinking about putting that processing power and that storage capacity that people own in their pockets to use. I welcome the initiatives that do exist, but I feel like that only something massive, something disruptive can change that.</comment>


Ask HN: Any online book club for scientific books? - <AUTHOR> Some books are hard enough that I'd like to be able to discuss them with others, to share ideas, hints for exercices, discuss complex topics etc. Basically a MOOC with a book instead of a teacher. Technically a web forum would do, with one forum per book, where you would be able to find people who are or have been recently reading that book. Couldn't find anything like that, surprisingly. Am I blind? <comment><USER2> This is a great idea.</comment>


Note-Taking Service Google Keep Briefly Appears Before Disappearing Again - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/17/google-kee/ <comment><USER2> Looks like it will be replacing tasks.</comment>