JuJu: An Arch-based distro that runs on any Linux distros without root access - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fsquillace/juju

<comment><USER2> Fair warning: Not only does Canonical use this for one of their product names, they have a registered trademark on it. This is a clear clash. I'd suggest changing name sooner than later to avoid pain.

[https://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmcase/Results/23/WE00001119596](https://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmcase/Results/23/WE00001119596)

Edit: there's already a bug filled for this: [https://github.com/fsquillace/juju/issues/63](https://github.com/fsquillace/juju/issues/63)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is cool. Curious what the advantages over something like systemd-nspawn? Just easier time setting it up?

Also, ubuntu has a project called JuJu. Could be confusing I supposed. ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juju_(software)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juju_\(software\)) )

<comment><USER4> I think I would change the name from juju, Ubuntu had it first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is this named Juju?

[http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/tools/juju](http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/tools/juju)

</comment><comment><USER6> Some ideas:

* If the juju tool changed the dynamic linker path in installed binaries with patchelf, users could run these binaries directly.

* systemd user mode could be useful to manage services

</comment><comment><USER7> that's really a bigwin. will try in office on monday :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> Awesome !!</comment>


For Startups, Some Good News From Google - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/05/05/google-buys-startups/ <comment><USER2> So i think the conclusion to the story is that if you want to be acquired by Google:

Develop a scalable, location-aware Android friendly business that has advertising and mobile payments built in.</comment>


Facebook investigates data firm Crimson Hexagon - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44909293 <comment><USER2> Crimson Hexagon sounds like something from a "nefarious organization" random name generator.

<comment><USER3> It's a reference to cipher from a Borges story:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Weird how Facebook keeps signing lucrative contracts with companies whose behavior then surprises and astounds them.

<comment><USER5> Facebook did not get any money for Cambridge Analytica's use of their API.

<comment><USER6> Facebook got money for the ads bought based on Cambridge Analytica's use of their API.

<comment><USER4> Correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe instead of "investigating" _data companies_ , just realize that _data companies '_ sole purpose is to profit off violating user's privacy? I mean it says it right there in the name, no investigation required. If a company uses data for anything else than providing legitimate service to its user, it should be kicked off the platform.

<comment><USER3> In this case, it sounds like CH is using publicly available data only. That doesn't sound like a violation of user privacy, unless Facebook is misleading users about what portions of their information are publicly available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has Facebook investigated Peter Thiel's Palantir yet?

<comment><USER9> If you took Zuckerberg's word for it, you'd be left thinking Facebook had never heard of Palantir.

<comment><USER10> His word in an interview or PR bulletin is one thing. His word during testimony before Congress is another.

Out of the entire Zuckerberg / Congress sideshow,m I thought this part stands out as clearly lying to Congress. Not knowing the number of data points isn't out of line (10? 1000? 10000?), but there's no way he doesn't know the term " _shadow profiles_ " in the context of tracking people without Facebook accounts.

> Lujan: Facebook has detailed profiles on people who have never signed up for > Facebook, yes or no?

> Zuckerberg: Congressman, in general we collect data on people who have not > signed up for Facebook for security purposes to prevent the kind of scraping > you were just referring to [reverse searches based on public info like phone > numbers].

> Lujan: So these are called shadow profiles, is that what they've been > referred to by some?

> Zuckerberg: Congressman, I'm not, I'm not familiar with that.

> Lujan: I'll refer to them as shadow profiles for today's hearing. On > average, how many data points does Facebook have on each Facebook user?

> Zuckerberg: I do not know off the top of my head.

<comment><USER9> I was specifically referring to his playing dumb about Palantir during that testimony.

I agree that his pretending to be unfamiliar with shadow profiles was one of the more egregious lies presented to congress, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Emulating Nvidia GPUs [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=650yVg9smfI <comment><AUTHOR> Here's two videos from a guided tour to Nvidia's labs.

Part 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRz_CG3DZb4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRz_CG3DZb4) Nvidia FAILURE… Lab - AMAZING Behind The Scenes Tour</comment>


CEOs Fire Back on Guns – A New American Revolution - <AUTHOR> https://chiefexecutive.net/ceos-fire-back-on-guns-a-new-american-revolution/ <comment><USER2> There is always something unsettling about people who already have private armed security calling for guns to be removed.

Somehow there is always an exception for PMCs, private security teams, corporate security teams, and other rich people who actually never ever intend to give up their armed guards.

I'd love to know how many guns the Walton family security detail has in their inventory right now. I have a feeling they don't want to talk about that.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. An overwhelming majority calling for banning guns; 1. Are white 2. Live in reletive security. 3. Are personally unfamiliar with the operation of firearms.

Every minorty gets nervous when their right to defend themselves is stripped. The history of most confiscations is a harbringer of despotism. The politicians outward pandering to minorities is nearing truly insulting levels, while the issues we really care bout are duly ignored by both parties.

As with most devisive issues surrounding us today, the answer is again, education of those of either view. There is clearly some wisdom on both sides of the debte. To deny that is to deny progress itself, because you are uncomfortable with nuance.</comment></comment>


Distributed consistency at scale: Spanner vs. Calvin (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2017/04/distributed-consistency-at-scale.html <comment><USER2> Also see his followup post here: [https://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2018/09/newsql-database- sys...](https://dbmsmusings.blogspot.com/2018/09/newsql-database-systems-are- failing-to.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053370](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053370)</comment>


Joe Hutto Accepted by Wild Mule Deer - <AUTHOR> http://casperjournal.com/sports/article_77dab141-b962-5443-8bc9-a03685b00c11.html

<comment><USER2> Nature did a documentary about his raising and observations of a clutch of wild turkeys from hatching to release a couple years ago. Full episode is on pbs.org[1].

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/my-life-as-a-turkey-full- epis...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/my-life-as-a-turkey-full- episode/7378/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Huh! Very interesting. I loiter around drinking my 1st cup of coffee with mule deer most mornings, I thought ours were just acclimated to people... north- side of Phoenix metro. A few dozen of them graze our property most mornings between twilight & sunrise. They are oblivious of my presence, sometimes curious... more so with newborns around. I've had them sniff me & my coffee as they mosey by. Just last week a young buck almost walked over me as I was standing in the middle of the driveway talking on the phone. I watched him approach 50+ yards straight at me. I tried walking backward but he wouldn't let up so I chickened out and stepped aside. He walked by without breaking stride or saying 'pardon'. They're pretty good neighbors, otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER4> His PBS documentary, "Touching The Wild," is available on Netflix.

"Naturalist Joe Hutto taps into a new understanding of mule deer by living with a herd in the Wind River mountains of Wyoming for almost seven years."

There's the wind, the river, the mountains, the deer, and Joe Hutto, all part of an interesting story.

</comment><comment><USER5> I haven't gotten to know a single animal (including humans) that didn't end up having a quite distinct personality. I assume ALL animals have different personalities... is not getting to know them an excuse to eat them? :)

<comment><USER6> The development of artificially grown beef steak can't come soon enough.

<comment><USER7> Which will ironically herald the impending extinction of cows.

<comment><USER6> Beef cattle, yes; but it may take a while for dairy to go artificial. I can see a few places like France holding out and supporting an industry focused on "traditional" methods.

No one want's their cheese to have the texture of Kraft Cheddar, or their milk to taste like UHT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "You can't let a 180-pound cat make all the important decisions." I couldn't agree more.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it's a pretty bad idea to let a 8-pound cat make all the important decisions as well...</comment></comment>


Owning Your Words: Personal Clouds Build Professional Reputations - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/cloudline/2012/04/own-your-words/ <comment><USER2> Could trackback or pingback satisfy the need? Or there are additional requirements I am missing?

</comment><comment><USER3> Disqus?</comment>


My gamedever wishlist for Rust - <AUTHOR> https://users.rust-lang.org/t/my-gamedever-wishlist-for-rust/2859 <comment><USER2> So, I'm working on a website/maybe a newsletter while that's under construction. It's focus is on 2d Game Development, and I hope to turn it into an open source compendium or library where the more contributions you make, (and the more you can teach about the language) the more opportunities you get to post articles and scripts. (This is a very brief description but that's the idea.)

Rust is a language I have little to no familiarity with. I would love to learn more about it and talk to people who develop with it. Would you recommend it as something to include as a major platform for 2d game development? Also, is it a "good" engine in your experience?</comment>


Ask HN: What should I learn in 2019 – Elm, PureScript or ReasonML? - <AUTHOR> I want to start the year by making an effort to better understand FP. I also want to try something different on the frontend for personal projects. So which one of these would you personally choose and why? Also if you are already using one of these, why?<p>PS: I have seen people not recommending PureScript unless you have experience with Haskell. I won't say I am experienced with it (which I guess is evident because I do want to get better in FP) but I am a bit familiar with it. <comment><USER2> Let me put in a good word for ReasonML. It has a fast, efficient JavaScript (ES5) compiler and makes it easy to scaffold (one command) and run a React project. It also provides a well-thought-out and precise JavaScript binding DSL. Unlike the other two, it can compile to native executables as well as JS (with some caveats, and the Reason team is building an npm-inspired workflow around that with the `esy` tool).

Also different from the other two and a feature that I find hugely convenient, you don't have to specify all the imports before you can use them. In ReasonML, all imports are automatically visible everywhere throughout the project. For example, if you write this in Reason:

        let abPath = Node.Path.join([|"..", "a", "b"|]);

The compiler will generate the following JS:

        var Path = require("path");
        var abPath = Path.join("..", "a", "b");

</comment><comment><USER3> Elm is kinda limited in the sense that it really only works for UI. You can't use it outside of that. It also doesn't come with all the nice advanced features Purescript has which also makes it "easier" for beginners in my opinion: you don't have to learn as many foreign concepts to get productive. For example I believe I hadn't read "Monad" in the Elm docs even once.

Purescript on the other hand is more advanced and can run anywhere JS does (mainly web and node). FFI with JS is a lot easier than what Elm provides too. It has a better type system but arguably a worse compiler in the regards to error messages. Elm on the other hand has an amazing compiler: thanks to its more restricted nature it can mostly figure out what you were trying to do and give you really helpful tips.

Unfortunately I haven't used ReactML yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are the error messages as bad as Haskell? One of the primary reasons I shifted my focus from Haskell was because of the errors generated by the compiler were not at all helpful when you are learning on your own, especially in contrast to something like Rust.

<comment><USER3> I'm not too sure about that because I haven't used either in some time unfortunately. I tried some stuff on their online REPL. From what I gathered Purescript is doomed to produce more "unwieldy" error messages because of the more complex type system.

Take this definition for example: ` some = drop (Just 5) [1,2,3,4,5,6] `

Purescript isn't even doing _that_ bad in this case: it complains that `Maybe Int` doesn't match `Int` but then goes on talking about checking if `Maybe t0` is "at least as general as" `Int` which will probably be useful information for an experienced developer but not newcomers. This is, at least from what I experienced, what happens most of the time with Purescript: you get way too much information with way too many details.

Compare this to an error produced by the Elm compiler:

>\-- TYPE MISMATCH </comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---- Main.elm

>The 1st argument to `drop` is not what I expect:

>8| List.drop (String.toInt userInput) [1,2,3,4,5,6]

> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>This `toInt` call produces:

> Maybe Int

>But `drop` needs the 1st argument to be:

> Int

>Hint: Use Maybe.withDefault to handle possible errors.</comment>


Cliven Bundy standoff case thrown out in another stunning blow to government - <AUTHOR> http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2018/01/cliven_bundy_standoff_case_thr.html <comment><USER2> I haven't been following the case all that closely, but one person quoted mirrors my feelings, and that is that the government case was a "slam dunk". Seemed clear to me: these are the rules, Bundy blatantly broke those rules (almost baiting the government, IMO), so it's just a matter of doing the paperwork.

So why, oh why, does the prosecution screw this up? Habit? Incompetence? It was not as "slam dunk" as we amateurs thought? I'm trying to give the prosecution the benefit of the doubt, but I'm having a really hard time of it.

<comment><USER3> Did you read the linked article? [http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon- standoff/2017/12/rebuke_of_...](http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon- standoff/2017/12/rebuke_of_federal_us_attorneys.html)

"In the meantime, the dissection has begun: How could prosecutors have lost sight of due process, one of the basic tenets of the legal system."

Near as I can tell, the prosecution committed malpractice. Turning over Brady material is such a basic part of criminal law that the prosecution can't claim it did it out of ignorance. It makes no sense. For now, like so many things in the gigantic federal government, it's a mildly concerning mystery.

<comment><USER2> _Did you read the linked article?_

More than that, I even quoted from the linked article. :-) But I think you're just restating what this IANAL said: I dunno, seems like a horrible oversight (to put it mildly), and I'm as mystified as you are. But I, too, would like an answer as to how this doesn't get you fired on the spot. I'm not a lawyer, but the law is not a complete mystery to me, and it sounds like this prosecutor is either massively incompetent (you mean to tell me you had no clue that this might get a case thrown out?), or willfully obstructing justice.

<comment><USER4> Prosecutors willfully obstruct justice all the time, because they never get fired or punished for anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So my understanding is that government officials did a bunch of illegal stuff, maybe the whole thing was illegal and corrupted in its core, so they decided to rather withhold the evidence of their wrongdoings and loose than expose the amount of corruption.

I am simply amazed by the whole thing. No matter what is the actual "legal" and "illegal" here, and who's right and wrong: to stand up against the Federal government as an individual is extraordinary. An to actually win... unthinkable.

<comment><USER6> He won this stage of a fight because the prosecution acted like drunken sailors in a dive bar, except that it was not a dive bar but Eleven Madison Park. It is unclear and highly debatable if, should the government appeal the order, the order would stand

What we do have here, however, is a yet another example why it is important for _both_ sides not to be so convinced that the other side does not have a chance - we saw it with Democrats being absolutely convinced that Trump would be destroyed in the general election and now we see this.

<comment><USER7> The case was dismissed with prejudice.

An appeal should only be granted if the plaintiff can show grounds for an appeal, which would require extraordinary evidence of judicial misconduct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm no fan of these spoiled rotten ranchers (since I'm not enjoying any free goddamn grazing rights myself), lecturing everybody about the Constitution and so forth, but when the government prosecutors cheat like this, it makes me start to think maybe their grievances were legitimate all along.</comment>


Dirty Coding Tricks - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4111/dirty_coding_tricks.php

<comment><USER2> Not necessarily in the spirit of the article, but one of my favorite nasty tricks (in theory; I never actually did it) was:

vi stdio.h

#define if(x) while(x)

<comment><USER3> I this particular one would be quite easy to find due to else clauses.

<comment><USER2> Excellent point. How about the reverse?

#define while(x) if(x)

?

<comment><USER3> Could work... As long as you don't have do/while constructs in your code. It's not as common as a while() but people still use it sometimes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Career choice for a troubleshooter - <AUTHOR> I have a mix of skills in system administration and development areas, but I'm more inclined to areas related to infrastructure components (servers, storage, networks, app servers, performance analysis, etc). I believe I have a good understanding of many areas that allow me to connect the dots quickly.
It seems I'm able to find the area that is likely to be the problem and then deep dive into it until I come out with a technical solution. In that regard, I'm neither satisfied with a shallow understanding of something nor the supreme authority in a single area. I don't care about team boundaries, just want to find the solution.
With 15+ years of experience, I have identified a pattern. I will join a company that has big challenges, work very hard to get everything in other and after 2-3 years I will become so bored I can't find any meaning. The challenges I like area gone, things are running smoothly, automation is doing its job, the unknowns are gone, I know the infrastructure pretty well and I've taught others how to operate it properly. Or we've reached the limits of technical solutions and now it's a people issue and I hate to be involved in that (I was a team leader in some companies, did a good job but absolutely hated it).
The problem is this constant switching of companies is really taxing on my mind. I have to convince myself I'm not at the right place anymore, then I have to convince others, find a new company, convince them I am the right choice for their problems/challenges, etc.
So I've been thinking being a consultant might be a good thing: I get a constant flow of challenges without getting bored by a single company. The biggest issue: I'm no salesman, I will often charge less than I should (hell, I'll do this for free if my bills are paid).
How do people deal with boredom in this context? Is applying at Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft a solution? How to keep the challenges flowing when all you love to do is fix/explain things? <comment><USER2> Work for a consulting firm. They'd love to have you, would do the sales and billing, and let you move from fire to fire without the agony of job switching.

I have no idea what consulting company is a good fit, but Google around a bit.</comment>


Ancient Viruses Are Buried in Our DNA (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/science/ancient-viruses-dna-genome.html <comment><USER2> Here's a thought. Perhaps viruses are picking up DNA from host organisms and transmitting them to new hosts as they pass from one to the next. Viruses that transmit advantageous DNA will survive in our genome. Viral DNA can be particularly useful when it has an impact on the morphological development of an organism, i.e. as it is developing from an embryo. If this is true it is not surprising that we find a lot of activation of retro viruses during embryonic development.

This also provides us a clue about how cancer develops. These retro viruses are associated with the changing of form and function of the cell within which they are contained, since they impact this within the development of the embryo. When they are activated within adult cells they drive similar functional changes. Which might be why many cancers, seem, to me, to look like distinct entities, like the tissue has suddenly switched to a different functional mode. It's not just one characteristic of the tissue that has changed to make it dangerous, but a whole constellation of changes that together seem to form a unified whole. I.e. we are looking at groups of changes transported into the genome by a virus that has propagated because those changes are advantageous to the host organism. These changes do not suddenly arise within the body due selection pressures on the tissue, but are activated and mediated by the virus.

This kind of cross species transportation of DNA, could well be analogous to what we see at the microbial level, where horizontal gene transfer is an important driver of evolution.

<comment><USER3> > activation of retro viruses during embryonic development.

Citation on this? As far as I know (am writing a phd thesis on development++), there's nothing like "virus activation". Viral elements (mostly transposons) are big evolutionary players but are usually actively repressed by DNA methylation (in eucaryots).

> Which might be why many cancers, seem, to me, to look like distinct > entities, like the tissue has suddenly switched to a different functional > mode.

I don't 100% understand your comments about viruses here, but related to this, we don't need to imagine some virus orchestrating such a thing (besides, as far as I know they are way too simple to drive complex eucaryot gene regulation), but rather gene regulatory networks which if they get unbalanced can lead to significant changes in morphology.

<edit> some spelling

<comment><USER2> "The early embryo is a hotbed of activity for endogenous retroviruses, recent studies have shown. To understand why embryonic cells make viral proteins, scientists have run experiments to see what happens when viral genes are silenced.

These experiments suggest that viral proteins help the embryo develop a variety of tissues. "

From the op article.

I'm am not an expert in this at all, these are just my thoughts on the matter, take them or leave them.

Regarding regulatory networks binding together elements so as to orchestrate changes in morphology - I had not thought about this, of course you are correct. Where you say that the viruses are too simple to drive sufficiently complex changes to the regulatory networks, I would counter by saying that chance mutations are sufficient to drive these changes.

<comment><USER3> We have a LOT of "appropriated" viral code in our own DNA: "Reverse- transcribed RNA molecules compose a significant portion of the human genome. Many of these RNA molecules were retrovirus genomes either infecting germline cells or having done so in a previous generation but retaining transcriptional activity. This mechanism itself accounts for a quarter of the genomic sequence information of mammals for which there is data."[1]

But that they are now part of us and when they are activated it's not some virus waking up but parts of viruses that we have adapted into doing useful things for out cells.

Viruses can cause significant changes in gene networks (for example oncoviruses usually suppress tumor-suppressing proteins [2] which dramatically affects things downstream), but the changes are not as holistic as I think you are describing them.

Yes point mutations (and viruses) can derail neural networks and that can have far-reaching consequences, but I think these things are accidental in both cases and not some virus plan as I felt you were arguing.

[1] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136952741...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369527416300170) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncovirus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncovirus)

<comment><USER2> You are probably right. You know far more than I, but I do have a knack for seeing paradigm shifts coming. Take that as you will, I can't prove it, it's just personal experience. Just try to remember, if this all unravels in favor of my position, that you talked to some guy on the internet who saw it coming. It's getting pretty annoying having called it ahead of time, and no one remembering or caring that I said anything.

<comment><USER4> I'll bite: could you cite some instances of real paradigm shifts that you have previously predicted in public?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are ancient alien viruses buried in your DNA? Tonight on History Channel...

<comment><USER6> That extra genetic code isn't ancient alien viruses. It's part of a message from our forebearers, which has to be combined with genetic code from other alien races in this quadrant.

There was a ST:TNG episode about this.

<comment><USER7> I vaguely remember this episode and want to rewatch it. Do you know what the name or episode#/season it was?

<comment><USER6> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_\(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Legacy code.. It's everywhere!

<comment><USER9> Yeah and we're still using the same ancient language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Haven't quite finished the article and know nothing about biology but sounds similar to the novel Darwin's Radio ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_Radio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_Radio)).

Very interesting novel and unlike a lot of comments on the web I found it a really engaging read.

</comment><comment><USER11> The endogenous retrovirus story is getting quite interesting, particularly in dementia. Some of the top genes associated with brain atrophy appear to be genes important for suppressing retroviral activity. See FUS and TDP43.

There is an increasing body of work in the literature showing that activation of endogenous retroviruses occurs as cells become aged. In many cases, these ancient viral elements in our genome can become activated by external infections.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's an unbroken chain between everything current living thing and the first living thing, so don't we share DNA with well... everything?

<comment><USER13> _There 's an unbroken chain between everything current living thing and the first living thing..._

I don't think that's an established fact at all. DNA is a very complex system so it's reasonable to think that simpler systems predated it. Not that it affects your reasoning at all, since every current living thing that we know of does use DNA.

<comment><USER14> I do believe there's an abstract principle that we share with anything that sustained its structure. Not a specific thing like a set of genes but the underlying set of chaos-avoiding rules that makes living forms living forms.

<comment><USER15> These rules are the laws of thermodynamics.

<comment><USER14> I thought we were the optimized thermodynamics dual/dampener. Our system fight to slow entropy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why not link to the book Virolution?

Why keep spamming nytimes?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15416932](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15416932)

</comment><comment><USER17> Maybe that's why we are evolving towards giving control to a new specie (AI/Robots) that is not under the influence of our ancient code

Or maybe we already infected AI</comment>


Samsung #1, Apple as a mobile carrier + tons of BlackBerry 10 news - <AUTHOR> http://untether.tv/2012/samsung-1-apple-as-a-mobile-carrier-tons-of-blackberry-10-news// <comment><USER2> It's interesting that people say "iMessage does the same thing that BBM does" yet you always hear complaints about how the iMessages are routed. Sometimes to the computer at home, other times to the phone or ipad. If you mean at it's core it's the same in that it allows one person to message another then I guess i can accept it. I think they have a bit to go before it becomes a more consistent experience.

<comment><USER3> I wonder what ever happened to the "one inbox" promise. This one thing drives me crazy about iMessage.</comment></comment>


Disney+ Currently Won't Work on Linux Systems Due to Tightened DRM - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Disney-Plus-Not-On-Linux <comment><USER2> Good. Linux (and Poetterix) has too much corporate crap on it as it is. Keep Disney shit the hell away from Linux.

<comment><USER3> i get the idea that google wants to keep widevine away from open source.

This fellow developing a streaming app attempts to gain license for widevine usage, and google says sorry we are not doing that right now.

[https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/widevine/gmail- thread.html](https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/widevine/gmail-thread.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> if this is supposed to encourage transcoding to alternate formats and distribution through unsanctioned channels, its working, just as well as its worked in the past.

[https://www.androidheadlines.com/2016/06/chrome-widevine- exp...](https://www.androidheadlines.com/2016/06/chrome-widevine-exploit- makes-streaming-piracy-easy.html)

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/security-researcher-cracks- goo...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/security-researcher-cracks-googles- widevine-drm-l3-only/)

"This Disney+ failure happens while the likes of Netflix, Amazon Video, and Hulu work fine due to a difference in their Widevine handling. Linux browsers (as well as some Android devices) only support Widevine Level 1 while Disney+ requires the highest level security features thereby blocking out the support."

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

from hans himself:

...So I subscribed for the testing period, problem all devices in my home run Fedora. I started up Firefox and was greeted with an "Error Code 83", next I tried Chrome, same thing.

So I mailed the Disney helpdesk about this they eventually got back to me in about a week. They wrote: "We are familiar with Error 83. This often happens if you want to play Disney + via the web browser or certain devices. Our IT department working hard to solve this. In the meantime, I want to advise you to watch Disney + via the app on a phone or tablet. If this error code still occurs in a few days, you can check the help center ..." this was on September 23th.

Their so called help-center does not even know about "Error Code 83" even though the internet is full of people experiencing this. Note that this error also happens a lot on other platforms, it is not just Linux.

Someone on tweakers.net has done some digging and this is a Widevine error:

"the response is: {"errors":[{"code":"platform-verification- failed","description":"Platform verification status incompatible with security level"}]}".

Widevine has 3 security levels many devices, including desktop Linux and many Android devices only support level 1.

In this case e.g. Netflix will not offer full HD or 4k resolutions, but otherwise everything works fine, which is a balance between DRM and usability which I can accept.

Disney+ OTOH seems to have the drm features kranked up to maximum draconian settings and simply will not work on a lot of android devices, nor on Chromebooks, nor on desktop Linux."</comment>


The Encryption Debate Should End Right Now - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/encryption-backdoors-shadow-brokers-vault-7-wannacry/ <comment><USER2> Isn't it funny that wired, whose editor Poulsen was personally responsible for taking down manning and putting him in solitary confinement for a decade, because he opened the eyes of the world to american military procedures, feels the need to talk about and recommend encryption. Maybe they could start undoing the damage they did kowtowing to illegal activities and abuses of human rights because of a flag, first.</comment>


Ask HN: Review our startup: Tonido - <AUTHOR> http://www.tonido.com/

<comment><USER2> The site is beautiful, but even after reading the blurb, I'm not sure what Tonido _is_. Is it for users or developers?

<comment><USER3> Agreed, I don't know what it is either. Also, I'd try shrinking your logo/header so that some actual content shows up in the first screen of content.

<comment><USER4> Agreed... beautiful

FYI, when I see nothing above the fold, it's a bit discouraging.

Screen: <http://www.imagecabin.com/?view=24423358607dd118227aaef6e>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has anything changed since the last time you posted this?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537576>

</comment><comment><USER6> Sketchiness quotient increasing:

[http://www.tonido.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=44](http://www.tonido.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=44)

It doesn't look like you mean the same thing that everyone else means when you say "open source". You want to update this?

</comment><comment><USER7> Your pitch is good enough that I was really annoyed when I realized that it is closed-source. I do not expect the crypto/privacy aficionados to help you out with this product.

<comment><AUTHOR> the platform is open source

<comment><USER6> So... uh... where's the source code?

<comment><AUTHOR> if you are interested please sign up in the developer mailing list. we will send the notification.

<comment><USER6> Ok. I did. Will you send the notification? Better yet, since you're open source, just post a link here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yeah, I'm still clueless in regards to what its actual functionality is.

<comment><AUTHOR> it allows you to share, sync files, photos, music and media with your friends and family members without relying on public online services

<comment><AUTHOR> actually tonido is also a platform. it comes with a set of applications currently. can build apps on top of it. thats why we are not sure what message is appropriate (platform or functionality or apps)

<comment><USER9> This is purely my intuition, but it seems like anyone who would develop for the platform is pretty used to digging around a website for information. The people who are just syncing photos, videos, etc. are more likely to be scared off by the first line on the front page.

If it were me I'd put up a simple explanation on the front page then give developers an obvious place to go for more information on the platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> linux-reviewer I have no issues with the Music, files or other documents. Setup has been super easy thus far. I look forward to testing it out on my WinDoze machine next.

A userful review may be found at: <http://www.linux- magazine.com/issues/2009/105/cloud_9>

I agree the tonido website content does the toolset a 'huge' disservice. Tonido is a great environment which is unclearly under-communicated, under- stated, and unclear.

Where it does appear there is no mention of its use for small business; which is huge.

I was not even able to find mention of it on the Ubuntu Forums site... on the main Ubuntu site it appears once: [https://help.ubuntu.com/community/P2PHowTo#Tonido%20-%20Peer...](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/P2PHowTo#Tonido%20-%20Peer- to-Peer%20Personal%20web%20application%20platform)

</comment><comment><USER10> It took a while for the page to load, look into YSlow or that new Google PageSpeed to optimize it. Also took a couple minutes to grok what it does. Once I did, I immediately wanted to get it but was hesitant about how much it cost. I didn't see any mention of price anywhere. If it's free, be sure to mention that somewhere (preferably in big bold letters).

All in all, it looks like you guys have done quite a good job. Good work and I'll be one of your users soon enough (once I get home and can open port forwarding).

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure I expected the site to look that amazing. Awesome job!

I really like the idea behind the software to. I can't wait to hear about you in the news down the road :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice graphics but when I load the page the graphics take up my viewer (1280 by 800) and there is no copy to tell me what it is? I have to scroll down. I would suggest integrate short description into nice design right at the top so when page loads ppl get it right away!

</comment><comment><USER13> Giant graphic obscures your info. I didn't really want to scroll down to find out what. Otherwise home page is good.

I'm not sure what it is you're offering that I can't do with, say, OpenOffice. What makes your apps different from/better than existing desktop software?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can access the apps from anywhere. It has a p2p built in capability that allows you to sync your workspace, files and photos

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Who's your target userbase and how do you plan to make money (assuming this is a business venture and not a non-profit) ?

In other words, are you being realistic by hoping to sell "no server dependency" to an average Joe, the Flickr user ?

<comment><AUTHOR> plan to sell premium applications. differentiate business and personal apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> looks nice but i dont know what it does. i read pretty much the entire front page and i cannot tell exactly what it is. looks like a professional site though!

</comment><comment><USER16> Great idea, beautiful site, and the software looks great (haven't tried it yet). What's your business model if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><AUTHOR> freemium. but we need to get traction first. plan to sell the domain server for enterprises and create new business apps for SOHO segment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.tonido.com/how.html>

You forgot the "Systems Analyst".

</comment><comment><USER17> looks very nice. Who designed the site? Graphics? Logo?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> should the key message target functionality or underlying philosophy of the product?

<comment><USER18> the philosophy would be the main drawing point for me; it's precisely the reason I still keep all my photos, calndar information, files, etc. on my local machine, even though web-based access would be very nice to have. With you app, I can have both, wich is very appealing, although I'm slightly worried about bandwidth consumption if several people start streaming from my music collection, for example. Related to this (possibly), what exactly about the functionality of your app is p2p (that wasn't clear to me)?

Nice job altogether; I will definitely check into using this...

<comment><AUTHOR> the p2p functionality is used in sharing photos and workspaces (similar to backpack app). P2P is not used for jukebox (more like ur own personal music station).

<comment><USER18> another thought: maybe you could sell this as an app you can install on a (commercial) server of your choice, and so not have this drain your local (presumably home) bandwidth, while still being independent of google, flickr, etc.

This would also save you from having to keep your desktop computer on and online all the time..

<comment><AUTHOR> we thought about that. do you think there will be a market for it? will you pay 20$ per month for a virtual private instance to have tonido

<comment><USER18> Me personally, no, but I can imagine that this would be attractive to a small business. Anyhow, isn't the effort to port the app from being desktop-based to server-based minimal since all the interfaces are web-based?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes we can port it easily</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher - <AUTHOR> http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html <comment><USER3> "This is training for permanent underclasses, people who are to be deprived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. And it is training shaken loose from its original logic: to regulate the poor."

Having taught unruly 7th graders, I can tell you that the 6 things he teaches are necessary to control a large number of children. And yes, you need to control them, because otherwise the parents will sue you.

The unsolvable problem is that in this day and age, both parents work. It used to be that the mother would take care of the kids, but now they have to be passed off to a third party, who necessarily must take care of several times the number of children found in the average American home.

What kids really need- and do best with- is individual attention. There's no way to get that kind of attention with both parents in the workforce; the numbers just don't work out.

That's your real problem.

<comment><USER4> Like a lot of these articles, the author is half-right: although schools aren't designed to make drones or conformists, but it can sometimes have this effect.

The real question is how one would redesign school in a realistic way to a) transfer knowledge to a large number of people who b) are compelled to be in class even if they don't want to be. The latter point is crucial: I'm a grad student in English lit, and the handy part about teaching undergrads is that if they don't want to be in your class or they don't like you in particular, they can try elsewhere.

Anyway, this article reminds me of an essay I wrote about the validity of grades: <http://jseliger.com/2010/02/17/the-validity-of-grades> . Short version: grades are problematic for all kinds of reasons. But there's no good alternative to them.

<comment><USER5> Gatto's argument goes a lot further than just education reform. He argues that schools - as we know it today - should be abolished altogether.

There are two other links at the bottom of that article. Read those, and you'll begin to see what he's getting at (that the school is a result of the capitalist need for workers and mindless consumers). The alternatives he offers, however, are rather scary alternatives to capitalism itself. Scary - at least - to me.

As for alternatives to grades: see pg's essay After Credentials <http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html>

Like most of these articles, he's half-right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found this to be very crushing. If school really was invented for the sole purpose of creating a generation of unthinking worker drones, then this means that everything that we believe in - capitalism, the economies of scale, marketing - hinges on the creation of a dumb populace. We have no alternative to school, and John Gatto doesn't offer any other apart from the Amish and the Mondragon Cooperatives (and perhaps homeschooling) - both of them far cries from the economies of scale afforded to the capitalistic society.

<http://www.cantrip.org/againstschool.html> [http://www.wtp.org/archive/transcripts/john_taylor_gatto.htm...](http://www.wtp.org/archive/transcripts/john_taylor_gatto.html)

On a related note, I find his description of an early America very interesting. He observes that you couldn't get many employees back in the day, before the Civil War - because they were all equally entrepreneurial - <USER2> that they'll only stick with you for a year or two before striking it out on their own. (Granted, they had slaves, but let's not go there).

It makes sense, really - and so I find it mildly ironic that things are coming full circle, what with today's growing trend in startups.

<comment><USER6> > If school really was invented for the sole purpose of creating a generation > of unthinking worker drones, then this means that everything that we believe > in - capitalism, the economies of scale, marketing - hinges on the creation > of a dumb populace.

Actually, our system _was_ originally created to produce unthinking worker drones. It's built directly on the Prussian education system:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system>

"The Prussian education system was a system of mandatory education dating to the early 19th century. Parts of the Prussian education system have served as models for the education systems in a number of other countries, including Japan and the United States."

"Seeking to replace the controlling functions of the local aristocracy, the Prussian court attempted to instill social obedience in the citizens through indoctrination. Every individual had to become convinced, in the core of his being, that the King was just, his decisions always right, and the need for obedience paramount."

"The schools imposed an official language to the prejudice of ethnic groups living in Prussia. The purpose of the system was to instill loyalty to the Crown and to train young men for the military and the bureaucracy. As the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a key influence on the system, said, "If you want to influence [the student] at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will."

But - no, I firmly reject that the Prussian system with its heavy importance on obedience is necessary for a healthy society. I think if they announced today that they're going to dump the entire U.S. education system at the end of 2011, no transition, no new programs, nothing - a better system would emerge by 2012.

> He observes that you couldn't get many employees back in the day, before the > Civil War - because they were all equally entrepreneurial - meaning that > they'll only stick with you for a year or two before striking it out on > their own.

People _should_ move in and out of entrepreneurship and employment under others, based on what their preferences are at the time. The fact that starting your own business or working for yourself for a little while is seen as this huge deal in the States is a problem. People are in awe - "you run your _own business_? wow..." It shouldn't be such a big deal. You work for someone else if they've got a good thing going and you want to learn from them, or want more stability for a while. You save up some cash, and strike it on your own for a while. If you sell or close the business, maybe you get into working for someone else because you can make a meaningful contribution in their organization and the pace of work is slower and more enjoyable, or you want stability again. That's a more natural state of affairs. The current educational system with its focus on doing exactly what you're told to do is no good. We need something better.

<comment><USER7> > Actually, our system was originally created to produce unthinking worker > drones. It's built directly on the Prussian education system

The welfare state was designed by Bismark to accomplish the same ends.

Beggars can't be choosers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please don't do this:

 _You seem to be using Internet Explorer. I strongly suggest downloading Firefox. I think you'll like it better:

          · Firefox blocks pop-up windows.

          · It's more secure against viruses and spyware.

          · It keeps Microsoft from controlling the future of the internet.

          · It's better for web designers and developers.

          · Features like tabbed browsing make reading webpages easier.

Click the button on the right to download Firefox. It's free.

Continue without Firefox >>_

There are millions of us visiting hn and its links from corporate desktops locked down to ie without the ability to install anything else. Save your political commentary for your blog and learn how to deliver browser agnostic client side content.

<comment><USER9> The same text displays as the summary when I try to share this on Facebook. :-/

<comment><USER10> You should be able to link on Facebook with the real text using the link <http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html?seenIEPage=1> .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In some ways, I still found it hard to believe.

I taught myself computer programming, learn economics and political theory, read a little bit of history, science, and other intersting subjects pretty religiously, in addition to learning a whole lot about entrepeneurship(which I have applied poorly or not yet tested or taken it).

As far as school goes? I hate mathematics and english. I didn't learn or retain much of anything in physics and chemistry because I was struggling to solve the equation and just survive.

Intellectually, I knew that the school system is "not working". But there were some standout teachers that I genuinely like and respect, such as my Latin teacher, and my government teacher.

I alway have a disdain for public schooling and thought that they were inefficent and sucks soul dry.

But being outright sinister? It may be true, but I don't know what to think.

</comment><comment><USER9> This part really hit me:

"With lessons like the ones I teach day after day, is it any wonder we have the national crisis we face today? Young people indifferent to the adult world and to the future; indifferent to almost everything except the diversion of toys and violence? Rich or poor, schoolchildren cannot concentrate on anything for very long. They have a poor sense of time past and to come; they are mistrustful of intimacy (like the children of divorce they really are); they hate solitude, are cruel, materialistic, dependent, passive, violent, timid in the face of the unexpected, addicted to distraction."

<comment><USER12> Great. We can afford fancier toys, but otherwise how does this differ from pretty much any time in the past or anywhere else? Were we less violent before mass schooling came in after 1848? Somehow we managed to make our writ run from the Alleghenies to the Pacific, partly by purchase, largely by violence. Were we less conformist? A reading of Tocqueville would suggest not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The author, John Taylor Gatto is the former NY teacher of the year. I found his against school piece more compelling.

[http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=tea...](http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=teacher+of+the+year+against+school)

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes and no.

I can only speak for myself, but I could see elements of his _Six Lessons_ in my own public schooling. Yes, some of my classmates' souls were basically crushed by public schooling, but I also know some people who were set free, climbed socially, were brilliant/inventive, etc...

The so-called "bad habits" he fears we learn from those six lessons aren't strictly bad at all, but they definitely become habits. We're talking about habits like "school bell" based time segmentation, taking x amount of time to [do work/go to next class/appointment], balancing homework with home life...

These habits could become tools for an employer/government/etc to control you for life (then they would be called "bad habits"), but methodologies like GTD co-opt the habits to return control to your own self-directed free will (and suddenly it's a "good habit".)

Think of public school as being like an API.

</comment><comment><USER15> FYI there was a three-hour interview with JTG that was just posted on Gnostic Media:

[http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-05T00_01_15-...](http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-05T00_01_15-08_00)

[http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-15T00_11_48-...](http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-15T00_11_48-07_00)

I haven't listened to it yet, but most of his podcasts are really good.

</comment><comment><USER16> In my experience, this seems to hit its mark. However, among those I would consider "good" teachers, there existed an extra layer of subtlety.

Teacher and student might know their respective places, but without explicit discussion, they would together to subvert the system (in minor ways). This taught the meta-lesson of "know how to play the system against itself."

</comment><comment><USER17> And yet, almost all of use are products of this school system without having suffered too badly from the problems described in the article.

Rather than looking for any kind of radical reform, which would likely be highly improbable, we should look for how to improve the system.

</comment><comment><USER18> Perfect implementation of benevolent dictatorship ... as prescribed in The Prince.</comment>


I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html?utm_term=.9d1a02fc9ef4 <comment><USER2> Bear in mind that what the researcher is saying is that they don't have evidence of an effect, not that they have evidence of no effect. The distinction is important in this case: there's a famous one where researchers could find no link between money and happiness. Another 30 years of solid data provided the missing evidence that the obvious was true.

Meanwhile, I live in the U.K. and we haven't had a mass shooting since the laws passed. I'll happily wait for the statistics to go past the required p-values.

Also worth bearing in mind: what statisticians do agree on is that owning a gun is more likely to hurt you than help you. If you live alone that's your own call, but if you have a family I'd say it's something you ought to think about carefully.

<comment><USER3> _> Meanwhile, I live in the U.K. and we haven't had a mass shooting since the laws passed. I'll happily wait for the statistics to go past the required p-values._

I really hate to bring this up, but "no mass _shootings_ " does not equal "no mass _deaths_ ". There have been plenty of attacks in Europe to great effect without guns being used -- for example, the truck attack in Nice, Paris is still unrivaled by any gun massacre in America.

We shouldn't play semantic games / statistical filtering games with phrases like "reducing _gun_ violence" and "reducing mass _shootings_ "; I think we all can agree that our collective goal as decent human beings is work towards reducing violence/harm/death, _period_. Why qualify it on only _gun_ attacks -- other than for political reasons?

If banning guns indeed reduces mass killings overall (again, it's rather a red herring to say your only goal is to reduce mass _shootings_ rather than mass killings in general), then by all means let's work towards that.

But the data so obviously shows this to be a _false_ correlation: Right now Europe is if anything the poster-child of why gun control doesn't work, with all the truck and bomb attacks. Again, I hate to bring this up, but so often Europeans use this as a common insult to Americans but I see this as a rather strong case of cognitive dissonance.

<comment><USER4> The attacks in Nice and Paris are the French equivalent of 9/11\. They're acts of war and are really outliers in statistics. You can't really use these attacks as an argument against gun control. In day to day life there are 0.21 homicides by gunfire for 100k inhabitants per year in France and 3.6 in the US (source: wikipedia). I think the real argument is there... But then again, as a Frenchman most of American politics are more and more foreign and impossible to understand to me (gun law, healthcare...)

<comment><USER5> > In day to day life there are 0.21 homicides by gunfire for 100k inhabitants > per year in France and 3.6 in the US (source: wikipedia).

This is missing the point of the comment you're replying to. You're comparing _homicide by gunfire_ , not homicide.

It is true that Europe has a lower homicide rate in general, but there are exceptions. Lithuania is a European country with restrictive gun laws and a substantially higher rate of intentional homicide than the U.S. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate))

<comment><USER6> Lithuania has also halved their homicide rate over the past ten years.

[https://knoema.com/atlas/Lithuania/Homicide- rate](https://knoema.com/atlas/Lithuania/Homicide-rate)

<comment><USER7> > Lithuania has also halved their homicide rate over the past ten years.

The homicide rate in the US has also fallen considerably over the last 15 years.

[https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of- America/Homicide-r...](https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of- America/Homicide-rate)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Something about this piece smells wrong. It's supposedly written by someone who used to advocate gun control, but then "discovered" after doing research that every single policy that has been proposed to limit gun violence is useless and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. This conclusion seems just a little too convenient.

Let's look at some of the specific claims:

> Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the > buyback program to be clear evidence of progress.

Oh? Just how common do they have to be? Before the buyback the number of mass- shooting was >0 (that's what prompted the change of policy to begin with) and since then the number has been exactly zero. It might be the case that the number before was too small for zero to be statistically significant, the author goes much further than that and concludes that because Australia does not provide enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis that the null hypothesis (gun control doesn't work) is therefore _true_. And this person claims to be statistician?

> When I looked at the other oft-praised policies, I found out that no gun > owner walks into the store to buy an "assault weapon." It's an invented > classification...

This is true, but _all_ classifications are invented. Just because a classification is invented doesn't mean it is meaningless or useless. The idea that because "assault weapon" is an "invented classification" that it is meaningless is an NRA trope. Why would a statistician fall for it?

Also, no mention whatsoever of background checks despite the claim that "By the time we published our project, I didn't believe in many of the interventions I'd heard politicians tout." Background checks are probably the single most prominent proposed intervention, and totally ignoring in a piece whose thesis is that all proposed interventions are useless is either journalistic malpractice or evidence of bias.

It would not surprise me a bit to learn that this piece was quietly commissioned by the NRA in the same way that oil companies fund climate- change-denialism reports. It just seems too sloppy and convenient to be genuine.

<comment><USER9> > the author goes much further than that and concludes that because Australia > does not provide enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis that the null > hypothesis (gun control doesn't work) is therefore true

I don't think this is the claim. I think the claim is that the evidence is insufficient to merit supporting a particular policy intervention. Banning things is not without cost: there will be some economic consequences for people making the thing, and there will need to be an enforcement regime which will either increase law enforcement costs or reduce LEO time spent elsewhere, and the practical impact of that enforcement regime will, if past gun interventions are predictive, involve incarcerating a bunch more people, many or most of whom will be urban men of color, which will result in both monetary and societal costs. And if there's a buyback program, that will also be enormously expensive, and require either incurring new debt or not spending that money on some other means of life-saving.

I think it's reasonable to want to be pretty confident a particular policy intervention will work before agreeing to incur that cost, and I think the author is saying the Australia example does not constitute sufficient evidence to merit that confidence. That's not the same as saying it didn't or won't work.

<comment><USER8> > I don't think this is the claim.

That is exactly the claim, almost word-for-word.

"Neither nation [Australia or Britain] experienced drops in mass shootings or other gun related-crime that could be attributed to their buybacks and bans. Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress."

But if you actually look at the data, this is simply absurd. Australia averaged one mass shooting every 18 months before the ban without about a dozen separate events. Since the ban 21 years have gone by without a mass shooting. To say that "mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress" is manifestly absurd. At the very least it requires an explanation: just how many mass shooting does she require before their total absence for over two decades _can_ be attributed to an intervention?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't think the title represents the content very well. "Gun control" is a rather broad topic and her research is clearly narrowly focused on item- specific sales restrictions.

Personally I'm a proponent of mandatory gun insurance and owner liability. This would align incentives to reduce gun violence: safe storage, less lethal rounds & weapons, mental health checks, trainings, age-tied pricing, etc.

It won't stop all gun violence, but nothing short of a constitutional amendment can even get us close to stopping all gun violence.

<comment><USER11> >Personally I'm a proponent of mandatory gun insurance and owner liability.

That would just be a way to make people who are young, not white, live in higher crime areas, etc, etc pay more.

Shooting something/someone you shouldn't be shooting is incredibly rare so either premiums would be negligible or they would have be be artificially high (vice tax).

Furthermore it would also be fought every step of the way by anyone who doesn't want a registration scheme since it effectively would create one.

The idea itself should have a positive impact (at least on paper) since it would presumably make high risk groups less likely to own firearms (at a statistical level) but it's pretty incompatible with something that's right. You don't need to pay for free speech insurance in case you offend someone.

<comment><USER12> We currently have a government mandate which demands we have health insurance, which was upheld by SCOTUS.

This doesn't seem like that much of a stretch.

<comment><USER13> How well has everybody been served by that mandate?

How much of the current fuckery of healthcare and costs is directly due to the insurance complex?

Hint: it's nontrivial, and in fact is a direct cause of rising costs in healthcare.

<comment><USER10> Car insurance is also a mandate. It works well. The healthcare situation isn't because it's a mandate, it's because of inelastic demand. A situation that's not comparable to gun ownership.

<comment><USER13> Arguably, in cities without good public transportation, car insurance has inelastic demand too. Further, it's being used to do things like backdoor in ubiquitous surveillance using GPS.

One also wonders what the effect car insurance has had on repair costs, for similar reasons as healthcare.

My point is that adding an insurance burden onto guns isn't a clear win, unless you assume that further government intervention (by the queerly circuitous route of private-sector insurance involvement the US seems to like) is unquestionably good. It also doesn't make sense to require insure for guns that are used for target shooting a few times a year.

Frankly, given the _huge_ number of firearms and owners in this country and the rather small amount of violence they produce, it would probably be a bigger win to ask for mandatory insurance on pools, ladders, fast-food, sugary drinks, and so forth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good information. I wish more people understood that suppressors are still on the fine line of hearing damage for most cases.

<comment><USER15> I really wish suppressors were easier to buy. They help protect hearing, and reduce noise pollution for people at or near the gun range.

<comment><USER14> I think anyone who owns a gun wishes they were easier to buy. I mean they are easy to buy, it's just the delay after purchase makes them frustrating.

<comment><USER16> Easy to buy, if you live in a state that allows them, pay the $200 tax, and have a chief of police that likes you.

Even the UK, totalitarian shithole that it is, doesn't regulate them.

<comment><USER14> Obama got rid of that chief of police thing. Thanks Obama.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not from America so this might come off as naive (do pardon my ignorance)– but why don't people analyze what % of these horrible deaths come from guns sold legally? i.e. what % of these killers are getting their guns legitimately vs. off a black market?

<comment><USER18> Usually whenever a mass shooting occurs the media eventually reports on whether the firearms used were acquired legally or not. In the vast majority of cases I can recall, they were.

It's uncertain whether this tells us anything useful, though, because the important question is _would the killer still have acquired the weapons even if guns were illegal_ , i.e. given this particular killer, would he have been willing & able to break the law and acquire black market guns even if they were not legal. This is a counterfactual that's different to answer, because the fact is that guns _are_ legal in the U.S. There's evidence on both sides - on one hand, murder is illegal everywhere and so there's ample evidence that the killer is willing to break laws, on the other, countries that have outlawed guns have reported significantly fewer incidents of mass shootings. (Not necessarily fewer instances of terrorism, though; domestic terrorists there end up using Semtex, nerve gas, or homemade claymore mines instead.)

<comment><USER19> Breivik managed to obtain his guns legally in Norway despite fairly tough gun control. It took him a while to do it. He said his semi-automatic .223 would be used for deer hunting. It would make sense to ban semi-automatic rifles since bolt action rifles should be good enough for hunting.

Paddock had ten times as many guns, many of which were modified with bump stocks to make them practically fully automatic. It would be much more difficult to achieve this starting with a bolt action rifle.

<comment><USER20> And Breivik only legally got guns after trying, and failing, to illegally get guns in Prague.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm pretty sure this comment is against the rules, but I'm willing to go for it.

I'd like to hear from the people who flagged this article: why?

<comment><USER22> Obviously some people don't like the conclusion. If you are solidly in the gun-control-is-good camp, the weak evidence in this opinion piece isn't going to sway you.

The natural effect is to cause such humans to dig into their entrenched positions even further. That requires considering this article and author to be stupid or hostile and hence flag-worthy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just another right-wing/libertarian shill. How about one of his opening sentences:

"Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress."

I see. Hmm...

<comment><USER13> 1\. That's a few paragraphs down, not in the opening sentences.

2\. She, not he.

Check your reading.

<comment><USER23> Touché, #1 seems a little nitpicky though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> America, your denial is deep.

</comment><comment><USER11> tl;dr past and present firearms legislation mostly focuses on banning firearms/features which is both too broad and not properly targeted nor does it reflect the nature of the problem.

</comment><comment><USER25> Looks like this has been stricken from the front page.

<comment><USER26> I've noticed that with a few of these kind of submissions. Seems there's an attempt to keep the gun control debate out of HN.

To be fair, there wasn't much constructive conversation going on in this thread... as has been par for similar submissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I honestly didn't follow the argument - "Gun control policies in other countries don't provide sufficient data to conclusively state that applying them would bring down gun related violence... But hey, here are some completely random measures I think that might work despite having not data to back up my claim"

<comment><USER28> It's probably proof that they do work, if you can't get enough data to make a reliable assertion.

The author is basically saying, "there's so few gun crimes in countries with strong gun control, that we can't determine if the gun control laws work". Hilarious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This article seems unthoughtful to me. Perhaps the actual research was more enlightening, but this barely even qualified as a teaser.

</comment><comment><USER30> C'mon. Stop making excuses!!

</comment><comment><USER31> Thus the researcher will always have something as evidence

</comment><comment><USER32> The author calls herself a statistician but has no advanced OR undergraduate degree in statistics. I would not put much faith into this "research". Making conclusions and recommendations at the global and national population level is something I would only trust a proper scientist to do.

<comment><USER33> Academic credentials do not create truth. If she works at 538 and knowing nothing else about here, I'd wager she is probably better at statistics than most academics, especially those in social sciences who are likely to study this problem. If you actually have a problem with her research, point out the error. Employing an ad hominem like credentialism only makes her findings more credible at first glance.

<comment><USER34> > If she works at 538 and knowing nothing else about here, I'd wager she is > probably better at statistics than most academics, especially those in > social sciences who are likely to study this problem.

I wouldn't assume that. It's clear that Nate Silver is excellent at what he does, but that doesn't mean everyobe who has ever been affiliated with 538 in any capacity is an expert at the use of statistics; the employment-based credentialing you propose is at least as invalid as the academic credentialism you criticize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is an intellectual cop-out. The gun control laws aren't there to curb gun crimes directly, they're there to end the stupid hobby and fascination that people have with guns which places them in everyone's hands.

Get rid of silencers and that's one less thing for hobbyists to play with. Get rid of long magazines, sniper rifles, machine guns - one less thing to play with. On and on until you end up with "gun culture" just being a couple of handguns that all look and shoot the same. It becomes boring and people stop collecting them.

Stephen Paddock had 47 guns. He was a gun nut, a collector, a hobbyist. This is what gun control laws are about - stopping runaway gun culture.

<comment><USER35> My favorite piece of cognitive dissonance was that on the guns subreddit, the first reaction of people was thoughts and prayers, then they immediately started discussing which of the 10 methods he might have used to convert his guns to full auto. I think there wasn't a single person on there who didn't know at least of one.

And here I'm thinking we banned full auto guns. They serve no purpose whatsoever for sports use, hunting or self defense.

<comment><USER14> "And here I'm thinking we banned full auto guns."

They were never banned, just grandfathered. You have been able to buy a full auto gun for a long long time. No one that commits these acts buys a full auto gun legally through NFA.

"They serve no purpose whatsoever for sports use, hunting or self defense."

They are collector items that increase in price every year. You can take them to a gun range and waste ammo. You can use them for self defense like any other gun, Harry Beckwith did just that.

The reason the guns subreddit all flock to see how this person was shooting at such a rapid fire is to see if this was a machine gun (historic event similar to the LA bank robbers) or if he used some other method which would cause such a thing to become banned.

<comment><USER35> Maybe I can't read between the lines in a gun subreddit but they weren't talking about grandfathered collectors items but buttstocks and rotary crank "hacks". Didn't saw anyone mention machine guns or LA bank robbers either.

<comment><USER14> That's because you need to be specific with your language. Your original comment on here mentions how you thought full auto guns were banned, so I tried to clarify that.

When I first heard the shooting the first thought I had was which device did he use to fire so rapidly and what the repercussions might be. This type of thinking always happens because a hobby (or if you feel strongly, a right) you care about will instantly be attacked with false information. Gun enthusiasts try to pick it apart and come up with what it could have been, and the repercussions might be. There were plenty of people who thought he modified the guns to be full auto, I was one. Sliding stocks usually work like crap, and good luck practicing because most gun ranges ban them because you can't aim with them.

My point is just because people who enjoy guns dissect a tragedy to the 100th degree the second it happens, doesn't mean they don't care about anyone but themselves, they just know people who don't know the difference between an AR15 and an M4 or that suppressors are still loud enough to get hearing damage when used will attack your hobby.

When a plane goes down you want to know why and I'm sure pilots do the same exact thing. No you can cry apples and oranges, but before you do please try to put yourself into the mind of the "other" side.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Josh Hawley's war against Big Tech could bring down small startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/article222726315.html <comment><USER2> just exempt small companies.</comment>


Unboxing the World's Cheapest Car - <AUTHOR> https://jalopnik.com/unboxing-the-worlds-cheapest-new-car-reveals-its-so-muc-1843756389 <comment><USER2> Awesome post.</comment>


Kevin Korb's Jokes: Care and Feeding of Your Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://www.sanitarium.net/jokes/getjoke.cgi?41 <comment><USER2> At odds with many of the comments in this thread, I interpreted the article as satire and was definitely amused.

The fact is that a lot of this is uncomfortably true and there is only a small chance that I would interpret this being said of me IRL as a friendly gesture, as opposed to a sarcastic stab at my character for what I regret may seem to be my failures to communicate normally, or my remote behavior, tendency to obsess, smell and preferred style of dress. One of the small chances that I'd be prepared to accept and face the accusations would be in the realm of satire.

But, oh well - for the longest time, hackers have failed to properly deliver jokes.

For example, from the article:

4.2: My hacker makes obscure, meaningless jokes.

If you feel brave, ask for an explanation. Most of them can be explained. It may take a while, but it may prove interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> "No. Hackers aren't, contrary to media reporting, the people who break into computers. Those are crackers."

Calling hackers crackers when they really do mean 'hackers' needs to be curbed (or maybe not, language evolves). Crackers break open and reverse engineer software. They are not the security system hackers that most people definitely mean to refer to when they use the word. When the warez scene was huge there was a very clear understanding of what the terms meant and you would have never seen a group misusing the term. Maybe this is occurring because people want to be able to apply the latest popular meaning of 'hacker' to themselves but also want to avoid possible negative connotations.

Or perhaps I have everything reversed and it is the old warez scene that turned 'cracker' on its head and used it for their own purposes. (My Carl Sagan-esque reflection on both possibilities.)

<comment><USER4> Isn't reverse engineering what hackers are largely about? Taking things apart and figuring out how they work, or does reverse engineering have a more specific definition?

RE to me is not, and has never been, a bad noun/verb though I often see others frowning upon it.

<comment><USER3> It depends on which 'hacker' you mean. The 'Hacker News' hacker or 'the movie Hackers' hacker? Though I bet you could shoe-horn reverse engineering into both without any trouble. That's a big part of the problem. People pick which part of the 'hacker' label they want to apply to themselves while discarding the undesirable parts. The end result is several related terms and multiple definitions, often overlapping or contradicting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> RE: 0.4: "Is there a book on this?"

Rands has a great post on this topic, the "Free Electron". [http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2005/03/20/free_electr...](http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2005/03/20/free_electron.html) It starts a bit down the page.

He's also published this in "Managing Humans". There's a link on the blog post. It's a good read. (I am not the author.)

</comment><comment><USER6> I first thought from the title that it was a guide for your S.O. ( <http://www.google.com/search?q=a+girls+guide+to+geeks> )

Still a fun read. If you're not familiar with the Jargon File, you may find you lose a few unaccountable hours there.

</comment><comment><USER7> We're just people who do a job. I find it distasteful, all this folklore and acting like we are bunch of special, precious gems who need our "flow" and should be allowed to dress and act like mutants. Read the Dale Carnegie book and get over yourself.

<comment><USER8> You know, reading this article half of me was thinking exactly this – it's so goddamn conceited and selfish to write something that says "treat your hackers like the supermen they are and allow them to do whatever they want whenever they want it or else you are stupid and don't deserve them". But the other half of my was thinking: _My God, I need to get this to my boss stat._

I don't really consider myself a hacker, but when I'm sitting in front of a computer I expect to be doing one of two things: either I'm solving problems and stretching my mind, or I'm loafing off. If I'm not given work that involves some sort of interesting challenge, then I'll be spending a big chunk of my time cavorting and goofing around. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing; I spent a month in an intensive eight-hour-a-day writing program where probably five or six hours were spent looking at YouTube videos and Facebooking. The mind needs its down time. But when the idiotic gruntwork piles up, I find it harder and harder to actually do these stupidly simple things. It feels so pointless. I don't have an especially short attention span, but if I'm to spend six hours in front of a computer, I want to spend that time doing something meaningful, or at least creative. If I wanted mindless work, I'd at least like it to be physical or social in nature.

I've been trying to implement a site since August, and it's been an extremely aggravating experience. I had a rough design finished in two days; implementing it took three months, as I had routine task after routine task hurled my way, stopping me from making any progress. After those three months, I presented the site and was promptly told it was no good, the boss didn't like it – even though it'd been sitting in his inbox since my first week on the job. Now I've redesigned it and waited three more months to get extremely rudimentary feedback (on the level of, "you should put a button in that corner"), and now I'm finally allowed to implement it as an actual site.

I'm on the bottom of the list of "people who actually matter" in my workplace, and I'd feel irritating and self-righteous sending this link to anybody, but it nails every single aspect of why I find my workplace so frustrating. Everybody's smart and nice and doing big, important things, but I feel out-of- place and under-utilized. I could be a hell of a lot more productive if somebody even made half an effort to figure out how I work best in a team, but nope, I just sit in a corner and fiddle my thumbs and get told to post links to things on Twitter. (In two months I finish my position here; does anybody have advice on how I'd go about finding a less teeth-gritting employer?)

<comment><USER9> <https://jobpoacher.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Moar esr-fluffing.

<comment><USER11> What does the East Somerset Railway have to do with this article, and how is the article fluffing the East Somerset Railway?

Some useful individual noted that he is referring to Eric S. Raymond, not the East Somerset Railway, but then deleted their comment after getting downvoted. I will continue to assume that we're all talking about fluffing the East Somerset Railway, because that is more amusing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Hey I hear there's this things "hackers" can do to make your internet work. But I'm afraid they'll steal my credit card information. Is this article right for me? Also, Friends is still a TV show" -- this article</comment>


When science shows that scientists are sexist and biased against women - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/2012/09/23/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/

<comment><AUTHOR> When doing science (or being skeptical/a skeptic), you have to be willing to use the evidence above your personal beliefs, even if the evidence shows that something you believe in strongly is wrong.

Creationists have a hard time accepting evidence of evolution because they are very religious and think evolution attacks their religion. Likewise scientists & sexism.</comment>


Swift – Why Annoying Is Good - <AUTHOR> http://seanhess.github.io/2014/09/08/swift-why-annoying-is-good.html <comment><USER2> > One new feature is Optional Typing. You can decide whether a variable is > ever allowed to be null.

Ugh, Swift is really confusing terminology here. Swift has an "option" type, like "Option" in Haskell and F#. It's a wrapper around an object that may or may not be present. You can use that to avoid null-everywhere.

This is totally unrelated to "option _al_ typing", which is a style of static type systems that support mixing typed and untyped code.

Alas, Swift called their option type "Optional" and then talks about "an optional type".

<comment><USER3> This is why I appreciate that Haskell calls this type 'Maybe'.

I think this better captures the types semantics. I mean, an 'Option' or and 'Optional' makes it seem like you are given a choice... but a 'Maybe' implies more that what you are declaring exists only with some probability!

Q. Will this function give a result? A. Maybe.

Q. Will this function give a result? A. Option.

The choice is obvious.

<comment><USER4> The choice is only obvious because you tailored the question to the Haskell type name. But that's not the question you're asking. The question is "What result will this function give me?". The Haskell answer is "Maybe a". It will give me something that might be an `a`? The Swift answer is "Optional<T>". That makes a bit more sense than "Maybe".

The name makes even more sense when you talk about function arguments instead of function result types.

Q. What argument does this take? A. Maybe a.

It takes an argument that might be an `a`?

Q. What argument does this take? A. Optional<T>

Still not natural english, but the interpretation here is a bit cleaner: It takes an optional value of type `T`.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I totally agree. Well I do agree that I tailored the question to suit my point! But to your reply, I think you've changed the semantics of my meaning.

My questions were more from the perspective of the caller, and even then it was a bit abstracted from the actual type and implementation ... just more of a conversational "Does it? Maybe!"

You're rephrasing is still looking at it from the caller, but now takes into account the language semantics (which mine conveniently didn't :) ).

I would rephrase your questions, and look at them from the callee's perspective: "Will I get an argument? Maybe!"

And really, shouldn't we be saying that the function takes Just a to ... and takes Nothing to ... ?

Perhaps this has stretched as far as it might go. Maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's been interesting and amusing to watch the reactions to Swift, especially among those without much exposure beyond ObjC or JavaScript or similar. Many people encounter difficulties and automatically blame the language, as a sort of reflexive action to blame whatever changed last. Sort of like the classic, "You removed that virus last week, and now the computer's on fire, so this is your fault."

Regarding JSON, it is annoying to work with in Swift, but when you get down to it, it's a fault of JSON in general and the available parsers in particular. There ought to be ways to describe and validate the desired structure to the parser, or failing that, ways to tell the parser to fetch a value of a particular type and nicely produce an error if it doesn't match.

Pretty much as the article says, it's hard to work with JSON correctly in any language, Swift just doesn't let you take the easy way out.

In the ideal language, anything that's hard to write is so because the problem is hard. No language is ideal, but whenever we're working with _any_ new language and something seems harder than it ought to be, we should at least stop and wonder if maybe the "easier" languages we're comparing it to are only easier because they let us do things wrong.

<comment><USER6> You're probably already aware of this, but Haskell's JSON parser (named Aeson) does exactly what you ask for. In particular, it can be operated in two modes:

1\. Untyped mode. Here we parse out values of type, amusingly, Value which reflect the total, untyped structure of JSON. We can then express queries deep inside of that structure and see what get's pulled out. For instance, using the `lens-aeson` package

        v :: Value

        x :: Maybe Integer -- Maybe means it might fail
        x = v ^? key "foo"
               . key "bar"
               . key "baz"
               . ix  3
               . _Integer  -- looks a bit like XPath, right?

2\. Typed mode. Now we suggest to Aeson that some of the types of our program have direct translation into or from JSON (or both) and let the parser produce these translations in a type safe way. For instance, should we have a type like

        data Point = Point { x :: Double, y :: Double }

then we can introduce a translation like

         instance FromJSON Point where
           parseJSON = withObject "Point" $ \o ->
             Point <$> o .: "x"
                   <*> o .: "y"

which indicates that JSON objects of a syntax like `{"x": 1, "y": 1}` can be parsed into `Point`s. Technically, the parser designed there is minimal in that JSON objects with more fields can still be properly parsed, although that can be fixed.

Finally, you can easily anoint your untyped mode XPath-like queries with typed fragments. This is especially powerful if your typed fragments include untyped JSON Value fragments _inside_ of them. It means that we can use lenses to dive into an untyped JSON Value, parse some fragment of it into a Point in a type- sensitive fashion, then dive further into that Point. If Points contained more JSON values then that "further dive" could be untyped or typed again.

<comment><USER7> I really wish that Aeson's lookups and fromJSON returned Eithers, and not Maybes. If you try to parse a deeply nested structure represented in JSON, and just get a Nothing back, it really doesn't help you very much. Having an Either is much more helpful.

(If anyone is aware of a canonical library for this, let me know. I wrote my own JSON library which has this functionality but it's not particularly robust or performant).

<comment><USER8> Aeson's «fromJSON» returns a «Result» which is basically «Either String». Most other functions operate on «Parser», which also includes an error message if things go wrong.

The only functions returning «Maybe» are «decode» and friends, and those have «Either String» variants.

You can use «modifyFailure» and «typeMismatch» (and the «with» wrappers) to get more descriptive messages, without a bit of help they are quite useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Go also has a set of "annoyances" (some close to the same, some totally different from Swift) and while I was initially annoyed by some of them, over time I've grown to really love Go for it because there is a payoff to the annoyances (at least in Go, I don't have enough experience in Swift to say the same):

If the code compiles, it _probably_ works. Not 100%, of course, it is always possible you made some stupid logic error or an off-by-one, but in my experience compared to any other language I've used (including a lot of C, C++ and Java not to mention dynamic languages), Go code that compiles is SO MUCH more likely to be functionally correct, and I believe this is because it is such a nag about code correctness and eliminating any ambiguity as to what the programmer intended.

<comment><USER10> what extra correctness does Go guarantee over Java?

I can imagine less concurrency bugs, but ATM I don't recall any particular language feature that should prevent more bugs than any other statically typed language of the last decade.

<comment><USER9> With Java vs Go the little bits of forced correctness are more subtle than they are compared to dynamic languages or some of the less "modern" static languages (and less to do with types, though I could attempt to start a raging debate over the merits of interfaces versus traditional OO), but they do still exist. One example off the top of my head: if bracing.

Java:

      if (state)
        doThis();
        doThat();

This type of error is not uncommon if you don't enforce really strict code- style standards or some sort of linting step that isn't part of the language proper.

Programmer A writes an if statement with one line because that's all that's needed at the time, programmer B comes in to expand the logic and is either just having a bad day or is more of a Python programmer dabbling in Java and so doesn't automatically see the error. Then programmer B dev-tests the code, but only when state == true, so he still doesn't notice the problem because he was expecting both doThis and doThat to be called anyway.

In Go this is an explicit compile-time error, all if statements require opening and closing curly braces. This is exactly the sort of thing, IMO, that might seem like an annoyance to someone who "knows what they are doing and just wants the compiler to stfu" (eg. younger, stupider me) but is, in the long run, actually really helpful for software correctness.

<comment><USER10> thanks for the example, it makes perfect sense to me.

That would be the same reason that when coding in java I moved from "how do I disable warnings" to "how do we automate findbugs+checkbugs for all devs" :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> TLDR: I just discover that strict type system are there for a reason

</comment><comment><USER12> With all due respects to Stanley Elkin:

No, annoying is not good. Annoying is annoying.

Computer languages are there for me to get things done, not to get in my way. Attempts to _force_ good behavior invariably fail. Burn some more midnight oil to figure out how the language/library can deal with it.

I once saw someone write that the 1st and foremost goal of a language was to disallow mistakes. That's nonsense. If it were, all we'd have to do is make a non-functional programming language that can't do anything. So I guess sort of the next step in functional programming?

<comment><USER13> > Attempts to force good behavior invariably fail.

Except this isn't forcing good behavior, it is forcing being explicit. Go ahead and use `!` it will work like you are used to.

> No, annoying is not good. Annoying is annoying.

Different strokes for different folks. I for one think avoiding ambiguity is good given the ratio of code written to code read that most developers experience in their day to day lives.

> I once saw someone write that the 1st and foremost goal of a language was to > disallow mistakes.

You are misinterpreting that requirement. What you are doing is you are forcing the choice to be made when you write the code. More flexible compilers make the choice when designing the language.

Many people believe that you know best when writing the code so stopping you there to correct it makes you avoid problems in the future, that is what "disallow mistakes" means.

As I said it is perfectly valid to instead say "I think the writers of the compiler have good enough defaults for these situations" but I for one don't trust them that much.

<comment><USER12> >Except this isn't forcing good behavior, it is forcing being explicit. Go ahead and use `!` it will work like you are used to.

That's not correct. `!` will _crash_ without recourse where ObjC simply ignores the message and Java raises a catchable NPE.

<comment><USER13> If you actually do a null check all of the languages work the same. Since in all but the prototype cases you will be doing a null check does it really matter?

> ObjC simply ignores the message

Don't quote this like a benefit please, it is a horrendous design.

> Java raises a catchable NPE

Only difference between this and a crash is in theory you can log. In the majority of cases a NPE is bringing you down anyway.

<comment><USER12> >> ObjC simply ignores the message >Don't quote this like a benefit please, it is a horrendous design.

Hmm..so the ? operator for optionals should removed from Swift?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ever heard of speed renting?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/national/speed-renting-may-be-just-the-right-move-for-homeless-20080919-4k9d.html <comment><USER2> Some background: there is a "rental crisis" in Australia, attributed to an economic boom which means:

\- young people with skills in high demand are cashed up and moving out of home earlier

\- there's a load of skilled and semi-skilled migrants coming into the country

The media will commonly run stories about 30 potential tenants turning up to inspections. This is the extreme - some locations/price ranges are not suffering high demand, and most properties fall somewhere in between.

</comment><comment><USER3> _one catch: each had just three minutes to spruik themselves or their property before moving on._

"Spruik themselves"? Let's keep it clean, people.</comment>