A weekend with the United Order of Tents - <AUTHOR> http://www.lennyletter.com/life/a1014/united-order-of-tents/ <comment><USER2> "How many seem to believe the route of shaming people into political action is effective. How few people seem to talk about community, about joy, about love, when discussing political action."

</comment><comment><USER3> A 150 year old "secret" society of black women. Nice article about a seldom discussed group.</comment>


Adobe Demonstrating How Not to Run a Software Company? - <AUTHOR> http://danshafer.com/onemind/node/991

<comment><USER2> I don't think the title should have a question mark given how much vitriol is in the article.</comment>


Accidentally the first commercial lunar satellite. - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGS-1

<comment><AUTHOR> I love the way this was declared a write-off by the insurers, and then the engineers found a way to boost it around the Moon, and bring it back into a usable orbit.

<comment><USER2> 1\. Force clients to stop trying to save satelite via legal actions, claimint it will void the insurance.

2\. ???

3\. PROFIT

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So there is some serious calculating going on to figure out how to use all these resources to deliver a sat minimizing fuel use. Impressive.

</comment><comment><USER4> Surely "commercial lunar satellite" means "thing orbiting the moon in order to make someone a profit" rather than "thing orbiting the earth that happened to go past the moon a couple of times"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, yes. Perhaps the title should've been something like:

"The first satellite intended as a commercial geostationary satellite but which went past the Moon accidentally on purpose."

Doesn't have the same ring to it ...

<grin>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Accidentally the whole satellite?

<comment><USER6> Apparently it's some sort of 4chan meme

<http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-accidentally>

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh - I knew nothing about that. My intention was to say that this was the first commercial satellite that went past the Moon, but that it was not originally intended to do so. In this way, to have done so was more-or-less an accident.

I didn't have enough space ...

And nothing was left out - I could have said "this was the first commercial lunar satellite - by accident." but that would have been silly.</comment></comment></comment>


Google TV Already In Trouble? Sony Offering 25% Off Blu-ray Google TV Units - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/27/google-tv-already-in-trouble-sony-offering-25-off-blu-ray-google-tv-units/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> It's an introductory product. I'm sure they've identified the mistakes they made with it and will improve on them for the next version. GoogleTV is still an amazing device, and I can't wait to see where they'll take it in the next 12 months. Greater integration with cable boxes and DVR units, a few interface touch-ups, and circumventing the ridiculous content-blocking that services like Hulu have done should be their primary goals.

But aside from that, this article is obviously flame-bait. Companies offering discounts on products leading up to the Christmas holidays? UNHEARD OF.

<comment><USER3> You've missed the greatest feature of all, though to be fair so did everyone else. Google TV isn't just a device; it's a application platform. The world changed when phones gained applications; why is everyone so myopic about the changes that can happen when television gains applications?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Explain something to me: why would I pay for a Blue Ray player if I am downloading all my content?

As a developer the platform is exciting to me but I'd like to see Google get more deals with content providers first. Besides everyone knows that Samsung makes the best big screen TV's.</comment>


Payments revolution in next two years? - <AUTHOR> http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2011/01/payments-revolution-in-next-two-years.html?sms_ss=hackernews&at_xt=4d3f67774a599b42%2C0 <comment><USER2> It's interesting. Currently we're thinking about the possible payment "paths" possible (that's a lot of p's) for our application/service. The current trend in major marketing hubs such as the app store and Fb claiming a big share of the payments makes me wonder how to quantify and compare the benefits to cost. I suppose since this is all still pretty emerging, time will tell how cross competition and future options might drive these rates down, or if it just becomes a given.</comment>


PC users to invent ideal machine - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7704709.stm

<comment><USER2> This will be ideal. In fact, there's already a wikipedia article about it.

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

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> An interesting marketing strategy: They'll get, if they can figure out how to filter the data, excellent market feedback, but their competitors will have the same data.

This is something to keep our eye on.</comment>


ITA's old "Hiring Puzzles" is still a treasure trove of good problems - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20111012115624/http://itasoftware.com/careers/work-at-ita/hiring-puzzles.html <comment><USER2> Most comments here are misunderstanding these puzzles as some awful alternative to leetcode, but as someone who remembers puzzling over these on the T, still learning to code, it was a very different world when ITA was using these.

These appeared during the post-dotcom bust pre-startup boom period of 2004-2008. If you look at CS enrollment rates of the time you'll see they were at record lows. Software paid well, but not that well and most engineering jobs were really bad ones resembling Dilbert comics. The culture of treating engineers well, giving them good tools, snacks, unlimited pto didn't happen until later.

At the time people solving hard problems and keeping up with changes in programming languages and tech were doing it because they loved it. Nearly everyone doing tech was doing it because they where obsessed and passionate about it. This is because if you weren't there where much more pleasant ways to make about the same money.

These ITA puzzles were a way of signaling "hey! we're a company of people that love to code and work on hard puzzles too! If you're the type of person that sees puzzles like this and can't get it out of your head for the rest of the day, you should check us out!"

These puzzles were not a leetcode like gates (in fact they very explicitly were NOT required for applicants), but rather a way of advertising to programmers that ITA was not just another boring big corp that would suck your passion for coding away.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely right! While we did suggest that applicants try to solve one of these in whatever language they liked, the main purpose was to attract curious and smart people. And it worked! These puzzles brought us a ton of great candidates along with lots of smart people who weren't looking for a job, but just wanted to know how their solution to a given problem stacked up. It wasn't a proxy for 2019 whiteboard hazing; these were simpler times...

\-- Dave, ITA cofounder and creator of some of the puzzles, including my personal favorite, "Rebus".

<comment><USER4> I'm looking at Rebus now and it looks tantalizingly difficult to work through. So simple, yet very subtle.

<comment><USER5> I see that you're a Rust enthusiast, if you feel like, please share the solution on GH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Like a few other commenters have mentioned, I had a great time trying to work through these problems having seen them in ads on the Red Line in the mid to late 2000s.

For me, these puzzles were what got me to change careers; at that point I was in a non-technical job and didn't have any CS training. Still, I saw these puzzles and was hooked. Figuring out how to even set up a basic coding environment was part of the puzzle for me.

I spent a few weeks on "Strawberry Fields", eventually getting to a brute force solution that passed all the tests. I was about to send it in, and happened to meet one of the ITA folks at a social event. After a few minutes of talking to this gentleman, I realized he was in a completely different intellectual class from me, and that I had to do a lot better than hacking together a solution to a single optimization problem if I really wanted to work in this industry.

I persisted. I kept solving whatever coding problems I could find and rung by rung, climbed my way into some interesting and challenging software and data roles. I bombed plenty of whiteboard interviews along the way.

It sounds funny to write down, but it is not an understatement to say that those ads on the T changed my life!

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember reading these on the T on my way to and from my first job in Boston back in maybe 2009. Back then it felt like you had to have a PhD to work at google and it was cool to know there were companies that just wanted curious people who liked solving puzzles with code.

I don't see the question I remember pondering, which was simpler than these but more fun to think through on a short subway commute— something like "Create the longest possible string of connected movie names, like 'Independence Day of the Dead Man Walking...'"

Edit: I found it! It was called "Sling Blade Runner" and it ran from 2007-2008 so my memory was off by a year. Solution: [https://github.com/vy/ita- puzzles/blob/master/README.md#slin...](https://github.com/vy/ita- puzzles/blob/master/README.md#sling-blade-runner)

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the key here is "old". It's their OLD hiring puzzles. They worked because they did them first, in a new an interesting way.

So much stuff on the internet (and business in general) thinks that "hey, it worked for someone - it must be a new paradigm!"

The people who wrote those puzzles would never think of writing them as incentives to join their company now - because that idea has long-since sailed.

So much of the crap part of hiring (and business in general) is because it involves taking something unique and interesting that someone has done, and rehashing it until it's a hollow, shallow, uncreative version of its original effect!

</comment><comment><USER9> ITA used to advertise puzzles on the MBTA (public transit) in Boston and I emailed in a solution when I was a university student. Looking back, it seems like an effective way to find candidates with a sense of curiosity for problem solving.

I eventually got an offer, but chose another job. They were acquired by Google soon after, and I sometimes regret not taking it!

</comment><comment><USER10> Good problems, yes. But effective interview tools? I thought we were moving away from arbitrary puzzles during technical assessments.

<comment><USER11> I don't know. The wordplays, yes maybe, but the "build a chat" one is pretty interesting. What kind of buffer will you use, how do you handle errors, how did you test, which socket library did you use and why can tell a lot about how you work alone with clear but not well-defined objectives.

<comment><USER12> Chat is fine in scope and definitely achievable. But I'd rather whiteboard instead of doing these silly homework assignments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Most of these are 3 days of effort, well over what is reasonable to ask for in an interview.

<comment><USER7> Maybe today when every company would love you to do a series of coding exams to vet you for their thousands of competing positions, but in 2007/2008 a fun brain teaser to chew on and solve in your spare time was novel, fun, and a good way to attract people who liked solving tough problems without just filtering through resumes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had put in a few hours of work to solve a few of these problems when ITA was not yet acquired. [0]

\- It was definitely fun working one's way to solve these

\- And they are nothing like the LC problems thrown around in interviews nowadays

\- Neither are these ITA problems a good fit for a 45 min interview from the duration perspective or getting `the right answer` perspective

[0] [https://www.deepaksurti.com/blog/category/ita](https://www.deepaksurti.com/blog/category/ita)

edit: added the page link where I posted my solutions

</comment><comment><USER15> I just checked my gmail account - found that I had an interview with ITA Software in 2005. The task was about finding palindromes in the dictionary. Man, I bombed that one really hard. The language barrier was one thing, but lack of practice was another. Nowadays we get a lot of support from a plethora of sites, other engineers and many companies train people to take interviews which helps another way too. I got into a large Common Lisp project 5 years later anyway, so no bad feelings.

</comment><comment><USER16> I find it interesting that 2 of the problems specify that solutions must be written in Java, but the others don't require any specific language.

<comment><USER17> These problems were very late, mostly after ITA had got into developing an airline ticket-booking application that had to interact with badly managed airline companies who thought Java was actually a good idea. Extreme algorithm design skills were not so valued then, and a person who liked that kind of thing wouldn't enjoy interfacing with corporate servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was hired at ITA in 2002 on the strength of solving one of their puzzles.

The thing about the puzzles was that, once you start thinking about one, you want to see what a solution would look like, and the only way to find out is to solve it. Having solved it, you want to know how it compares to others'. So you send it off, even if you aren't really interested in moving cross-country.

In my case, the puzzle was "add-a-gram": given a word list, find the longest sequence of words in which each word after the first is an anagram of the previous word, with one letter added.

I thought about it for a day or two until I realized I had a workable strategy. Then I sat down at my laptop, checked the clock, and started coding. Exactly two hours later, I had a program that, after reading in the dictionary, was a one-page, deeply-nested loop that exited when it found the answer.

It ran in ten seconds. How could I know if that was any good? I sent it off to ITA. The next day I got a call. We talked a little about setting up a phone screen, but she let slip that their solution was faster than mine. That could not stand. I spent the day inverting the control flow, with memoizing, and got a 10x speedup for less than 2x as much code, and sent that off.

I went on to interview. At the interview, they assigned a programming task that was a simplified version of the puzzle. I worked there for three years, until I got fired for being depressed. (I found treatment five years later.) I don't remember much of it because I was sleep-deprived, from having toddlers who would only sleep in the daytime. But I encountered there the most intelligent people I have ever known. Most were musicians, on the side.

I had been there three months before I thought to check their solution. My second version was faster. (Bitwise operations FTW!)

While there, I encountered a problem that I have used in conducting dozens -- maybe over a hundred -- interviews: Undergraduates solve it in two minutes, graduates in five, MSs in 20 or more, PhDs either never, or as fast as an undergrad. Every single person who has solved it used the same hand gesture in describing the solution.

Sometime later, ITA were bought up by Google, and I got some cash for stock. Taking care to owe only long-term capital gains did no good because Google paid cash, so we all ended up owing "alternative minimum" taxes as if we had made all the money in one day, not over N years. (The same thing happened when my next employer was bought by IBM.) Alternative minimum taxation is a terrible thing.

The version of the puzzle I was assigned during the interview is one we sent to candidates between phone screen and scheduling an interview, at my next employer. If it ever took more than an hour from problem statement to solution, it was too long; although I heard of people taking 12+ hours. Some sent code that ran 12+ hours, and was wrong. (Our best ran in <1 ms, which no candidate matched.) Some candidates posted their solutions online, after being rejected, but every posted solution was really _bad_ , so that was OK. Cheaters disqualified themselves.

In 2010 I solved the "bitvector" problem in the posted article, during two weeks of sharply heightened intelligence I had while adjusting to the new antidepressant. To this day I marvel at that code. But by then, there was noplace to send it. Google took down the puzzles a little later.

I sometimes wonder what Carl went on to do, after he left ITA.

<comment><USER18> What was the problem that you gave to the interviewees? Sounds interesting.

<comment><USER17> It is a file distribution problem, copying a file to a large number of destinations through a slow link. At ITA, the file was the airlines' seat availability record, that really indicated which price points on each flight could be offered for sale right then.

I always tell them that undergraduates solve it quickly, but that never seems to help MSes.

There was a similar problem, back in the 80s, that made starting an Occam program on a network of transputers very, very slow, that was solved the same way.</comment></comment></comment>


Today's Oceans and a 94M-Year-Old Catastrophe - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/suffocating-oceans/550415/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Several years ago I wrote a piece titled, "To Save the Gulf, Send the Enterprise". At the time the Deepwater Horizon oil geyser was spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and the well's owners were trying to figure out what to do.

I suggested sending the US Navy's portable nuclear reactors (such as carried in the Enterprise and other aircraft carriers) to aerate the ocean surrounding the oil geyser. It was entirely impractical - a navy blogger responded to my email with a blog post (and a link) to say it was a terrible idea.

The Enterprise has since been retired, and is currently being disposed of. But I think the core of the idea is still valid. Aeration would help deal with all this agricultural runoff...

Maybe I'll write a new post for my neglected website: [http://SendTheEnterprise.org/](http://SendTheEnterprise.org/)

<comment><USER3> Would you mind explaining how your proposal could help mitigate the effects of agricultural runoff?

<comment><USER2> People put bubblers in aquariums to support more fish than could otherwise survive based solely on the surface area of the tank.

The gulfs are basically anaerobic septic tanks. Adding oxygen would allow aerobic bacteria to consume the excess nutrients.

Edit: thanks for asking, I should develop this into a full blog post.

<comment><USER3> I would appreciate a blog post or article on this topic. I asked for an explanation because I see a number of serious obstacles to implementing a solution of this kind. A more complete explanation would give you the space to lay out the proposal in a way that might answer my objections. FYI - I work in the environmental field and so I am genuinely curious about the specifics of your proposal. If you do write a more complete version, please let me know .

      email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Aren't the algae in the ocean responsible for creating most of the oxygen that we mammals breath?

</comment><comment><USER5> If the problem is too much life of the wrong sort (algal bloom) appropriate solutions are probably biological too.

Follow the carbon and the energy.

Life tends to concentrate carbon; handy for us if it could be sequestered. So which living method of sequestration exists or could be engineered?

afaik the reason for the existence of oil and gas is not well understood. Above is a proposal to lay down a new layer of it.</comment>


Ask HN: any restaurant tech startup people want to meetup in SF? - <AUTHOR>

My startup, Sidework, provides online training for restaurant employees. I came out to SF from New Orleans to meet with investors and checkout your city. Please ping me at email@example.com if you work in the restaurant tech space and want to grab a drink. Also down to meet people in general. <comment><USER2> How long are you in the area?

<comment><AUTHOR> I leave Saturday morning</comment></comment>


Ubuntu Will No Longer Track Which Packages Users Install - <AUTHOR> https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/ubuntu-popularity-contest-removed <comment><USER2> Also posted this as a child comment elsewhere in the thread, but:

\---

I don't know about Ubuntu, but while installing Debian the installer makes it very clear what popularity-contest does and asks the user for explicit consent.

It also makes it very clear that this setting can be changed later at any time.

The default option is "I do not wish to participate", so if someone isn't paying attention during the install process and just hits 'Enter', their privacy remains intact.

This, IMO, is the perfect way to do telemetry.

<comment><USER3> > This, IMO, is the perfect way to do telemetry.

I understand @notRobot's sentiment, but do not agree with it.

If the default is "no telemetry", then very little telemetry will be collected.

This is an advantage to the user, but a strong DISadvantage to the collective, because the distro manager now cannot make informed decisions as to what packages are installed where and how often.

It really is a balance of "individuals vs the collective" and I don't think that answering both needs is simple, nor is it cut-and-dried.

<comment><USER4> Do you _really_ need samples from that many users? Wouldn't a sampling of a few thousand users give you more or less the same results as a sampling from a few million? And if not, is it worth the bad will you're earning from your users by treating them like this?

<comment><USER5> A random sample – sure, if you have enough traffic to still get decent sample size, but a sample obtained by users opting in is often close to worthless because it's not random and so not representative of your userbase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Popcon (the software that collects such metric) has existed at least for 20 years, via Debian, just for the record for people freaking out for how long this has been a thing without them reading the installation dialogs.

<comment><USER7> popcon is off by default. You have to explicitly enable it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why couldn't they just track at the server end which packages were being downloaded if they wanted to know which ones are popular?

This seems like something trivial to solve without impacting user privacy if they're downloading all the packages _from you_ or your mirrors.

Unless the point was to see what PPAs people are using?

<comment><USER9> Quite apart from the difficulty of collecting logs from the hundreds of official and unofficial mirrors, it also doesn't account for the various layers of caching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> for deb packages I guess?

[https://snapcraft.io/docs/snap-store-metrics](https://snapcraft.io/docs/snap- store-metrics)

> the store assigns an anonymous identifier, the device-serial, to every new > snapd client it sees. This exchange usually happens when a new installation > contacts the store, and the identifier persists for the lifespan of the > machine.

> Systems running snapd will periodically make a refresh request to the store, > checking the for the most recent release of each installed snap. At that > moment, they inform the store of their device-serial along with a list of > the currently installed snaps.

<comment><USER11> Lol another reason for me to hate snaps. I didn't yet know that.

PS: My other reasons: \- Much more resource wasteful \- Single store operated by canonical only \- No simple updating a library with a vulnerability and having all apps that use that library automatically fixed. \- Makes really messy virtual mountpoints everywhere.

<comment><USER12> Have you tried opening the calculator in Ubuntu? On my laptop it takes a full 3 seconds for the GUI to come up, assuming I have nothing else running. 3 full wall clock seconds. It's actually faster to pull out my phone and open the calculator on it than my laptop. Which is what I do now, every time. So, if you want people to look for alternatives to your application, only provide it as a Snap.

<comment><USER13> You can take your hands off the keyboard and mouse, dig your phone out of your pocket, unlock it, open the app drawer, scroll and find calculator, tap it and open it, under 3 seconds? I doubt that.

<comment><USER14> I just picked my iPhone up off the desk (where I keep it charging when using a computer) pulled down the shortcut screen and opened the pinned calculator app. Was roughly 2 seconds from thought to screen. Windows calculator just took me about that- press Windows button, type 'cal' press return, actual launch basically instantaneous. Mac would be analogous to Windows.

<comment><USER15> Seems more likely that you just don't notice time passing whilst active (getting your phone out) that you do notice whilst passive (waiting for app launch).

KDE/Plasma does calculations in the launcher - which comes up immediately. Or you could open your console (I use Yakuake) and use bash/python/bc -i/whatever.

<comment><USER14> You're pointing to instances where snaps aren't involved- kinda missing the point. Just because there are other ways to get the desired result, the optimal path used by most people is seriously impaired for no benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow! When did they start doing this? I'm glad they stopped!

I'm really grateful to Ubuntu for helping me get deeper into Linux in 2007, but I would never recommend them to anyone today.

<comment><USER17> Why would you not point a linux noob to ubuntu?

<comment><USER18> Years ago(I started around 2008 or 2009 I think), Ubuntu was different because it Just Worked. It came with lots of drivers, easy defaults, and guis for everything. You could easily dual-boot it with Windows(there was a windows executable that would get it done without burning a CD or dealing with an iso), and could be installed on just about any computer at the time.

Nowadays, lots of distros are just as easy(Debian, fedora, Linux mint), come with all drivers, work on basically all systems, and don't spy on you. Ubuntu isn't as easy to dual-boot windows now too. There's basically no advantage to Ubuntu now except community.

<comment><USER19> > There's basically no advantage to Ubuntu now except community.

Ding Ding Ding. This is why I still recommend Ubuntu, there's a community and a wealth of knowledge out there for working with Ubuntu.

Though if you are more experienced and deal with nuanced issues you will find often the community is outdated and this is a double edged sword -- a lot of material out there is for older Ubuntu distros and is no longer relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Simple server logs for package downloads will give a very good idea which users have which packages installed.

Ubuntu doesn't even run all the mirrors, so hasn't even got control of if people are collecting this data.

</comment><comment><USER21> From the article: "Is "Ubuntu removes thing which doesn't work and no-one uses" front page news?"

In other words, the headline is false because "Will No Longer" implies the opposite, which even the author acknowledges is not true.

<comment><USER22> Because omgubuntu is almost entirely clickbait. That I fell for. Again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This has been in Debian since forever, and the installer asks if you want it. I've always opted to not install it since it's my opinion that my package choices are weird and shouldn't -at all- influence the distro defaults.

</comment><comment><USER24> Geese, I'm surprised they were doing it to begin with! This sort of thing is why I won't touch VScode and fsharp.

How do people building these things become convinced this is ok?

<comment><USER25> > How do people building these things become convinced this is ok?

Because they have the data proving that opt-in telemetry means no telemetry. Every time this topic comes up, HN sticks its fingers in its ears and refuses to accept this, but it's the truth. 99% of users, even for a developer-focused application like VSCode, just click through and accept the defaults. So if you want telemetry that isn't useless for any practical purposes, it has to be opt-out.

If you want, you can have a separate argument about whether having the telemetry is worth it, but if you've had that discussion and decided the answer is yes, then opt-out follows immediately from that.

<comment><USER11> Just because a supplier wants to have telemetry doesn't suddenly make it ethical to do opt-out (or even forced like MS does with Windows 10!).

If they care about their users and it's not possible to have worthwhile telemetry with opt-in, they simply can't have it.

<comment><USER25> That's a strange definition of "can't". VSCode can and does, and it's the most popular editor in the world [0].

[0]: [https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#development-e...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#development- environments-and-tools)

<comment><USER26> It's the same definition that says you "can't" steal your coworkers' lunch as they are eating it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Just to confirm, this only seems to relate to popcon/popularity-contest, and not the other data collection features.

The other two main ones are Apport for crash reporting, and ubuntu-report, which sends system info if opted-in at install.

</comment><comment><USER28> Homebrew - please take note of this and follow this precedent. Yes, you are (now) opt-in; so was Ubuntu's.

<comment><USER29> Last I recall, they changed from collecting analytics without notifying the user to keeping it opt-out but explaining how to do so on first install. Has this changed?

<comment><USER28> IIRC they had an explicit question last time I installed it, but it's been a few years now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I had a momentary panic the title meant at the system level - a system admin's nightmare!

</comment><comment><USER31> how do we know? the snap server is proprietary and closed-source, right?

<comment><USER32> This is the apt system that's losing the statistics system. Ubuntu is likely collecting data from the closed source proprietary snap system that they push users toward.</comment></comment>


It's possible to write flaw-free software, so why don't we? - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/its-possible-to-write-flaw-free-software-so-why-dont-we-33522

<comment><USER2> Because most people can barely work with basic algebraic expressions let alone formal logical systems capable of expressing correctness guarantees.</comment>


The original colonists of the Pacific - <AUTHOR> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/03/people-pacific/smith-text

<comment><USER2> _".. While Cook was impressed with the speed of the Polynesian canoes—they could literally sail circles around his ships—he came to question the islanders' ability to make long, intentional sea voyages. He records an account of a group of Tahitians who, helpless in the face of a contrary wind and unable to set a course for home, drifted hundreds of miles off course and were marooned on Aitutaki, in what is now the Cook Islands ..."_

This idea is conflicting with skills of Joseph Banks "exotic souvenir", Tupaia. There is no doubt Tupaia played a big part in filling in the gaps of Cooks maps with his innate knowledge of 1000 of so South Pacific Islands. You can't get the kind of cartographic knowledge without someone having observed the island and recorded them. So the question is how? Another thing to remember is Cook was the "master navigator". His idea of a long sustained voyage was to sail in 30m ship from Plymouth to Australia, New Zealand followed by a leisurely stop over in Hawaii. Cook also had access the latest navigational aids like the "Larcum Kendall K1 chronometer" in his second voyage.

</comment><comment><USER3> Linking to the print version of this article annoyingly brings up the print dialogue every time I load the page.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's worse otherwise.

<comment><USER3> I don't mind paging through sites nearly as much as everyone else seems to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like the expansion of America over the Midwest (replace seas with prairies, and native plants and animals with Indians).

The book Hawai'i by James Michener is a good historical fiction about the natural and cultural history of Hawai'i (including the early Polynesians)

<http://www.amazon.com/o/asin/0449213358/pchristensen-20></comment>


Antenna Design app beta testers needed - <AUTHOR> https://www.cenos-platform.com/antenna-desing-beta-signup <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, everyone! CENOS is a 500 Startups Batch 26 company, building a new Antenna Design app. We're looking for beta testers. Click on the link to sign up! Also please share this with any antenna designer or engineer you personally know. Thanks to your input we will be able to build the most affordable & easy-to- use simulation software.</comment>


New Singapore Google Cloud Platform region - <AUTHOR> https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/06/Google-Cloud-Platform-comes-to-Singapore.html <comment><USER2> "The Singapore region is now open as asia-southeast1. [...] the total number of paid GCP customers in Singapore has increased by 100% over the last 12 months."

Was it already privately available before now?

EDIT: Probably "in Singapore" means that the customer is in singapore, not the service

<comment><USER3> It's been publicly available for a while (a month maybe?), but was launched quietly until now.

<comment><USER4> True. I've used compute engine in Southeast region for weeks, didn't know it's official just now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _" The Singapore region is now open as asia-southeast1. [...] the total > number of paid GCP customers in Singapore has increased by 100% over the > last 12 months."_

I willing to bet that a significant number of these are Indian customers. Singapore AWS, Softlayer, Azure were the closest datacenters to India for a long time. Now Azure and AWS have india datacenter ... and google has been promising one for a long time.

Indian startups (like mine) which have a buy-in to the Google ecosystem have to operate from the closest point - Singapore. I wish you guys launch the Mumbai datacenter soon enough.

<comment><USER6> Any specialized reason for Mumbai data center? Latency?

<comment><USER5> for an Indian startup ? yes - latency is one. regulatory is another. If you are touching PII or financial data (like us), having the DB in India is critical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm vaguely under the impression that AWS, Azure and Digital Ocean (and probably many more, don't own a facility in Singapore but, essentially, collocate (though maybe some would prefer the word partner?) which Equinix.

Does anyone know if that's true and, more importantly, if it's also true for this new GCP region?

<comment><USER8> AWS is in Equinix in Sydney. Not sure about Singapore though.

<comment><USER9> I am quite surprised about this given space requirements. When I visited Equinix HKG1 it was on the 14th floor of a shared office building and space seemed very limited, most customers seemed to use it just as a network POP judging what you can see through rack doors. Rented floor, 4GS security guys, pen and paper sign in. Perhaps in other locations they own the building and have large spaces to accomodate large clouds.

<comment><USER10> Equinix runs some gigantic data centers and high value ones as well. The Chicago/Cermak data center hosted essentially all oil futures trading in the states until the CME got into the hosting business.

Last I looked they were approaching 200 data centers. There is going to be a bit of variance amongst that many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fun fact: for the large run on Sunday [1], Andrew Sutherland included these zones in his cluster, so I ended up entirely removing the legend ;).

Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14548017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14548017)

</comment><comment><USER12> Hi, hoping to get someone from GCP here. I am based in SEA and would like to get into Spark & Surge. We are a part of an incubator but our incubator asked us to talk directly to GCP but GCP asked us to ask incubator. We are in a bind. Can someone from GCP help us in this matter?

<comment><USER13> Shoot me a note, we'll sort it out

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A bit off the topic: I tried to search for this but couldn't get anything conclusive. Are applications hosted on GCP, GAE, Google Cloud Storage and Google Cloud CDN accessible in China?

<comment><USER12> If I am not mistaken, Firebase is OK but then again no one from Firebase is willing to verify this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> London and Northern Virginia have also launched recently.

</comment><comment><USER16> Any plan for GAE in SG region in the foreseeable future?

</comment><comment><USER17> Eagerly awaiting Indian region. :)

<comment><USER6> Is the latency so bad to Singapore?

<comment><USER11> Mombai <=> Singapore is roughly 60 ms. Chennai being closer and where many things meet is ~30 ms. So it kind of depends on what your latency requirements are (remote database no, website sure) or as jpatakol said if you _must_ be located in India for other reasons.

Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud but am no networking / regulatory expert ;).</comment></comment></comment>


Magic: The Gathering, Evolved - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure a lot of people here played this game (and some probably still do). I ended up playing again over the weekend after a years-long hiatus and realized that there might be a big opportunity to create some sort of web-based online trading card game that doesn't suck as much as MtG, ChronX, or Sanctum.<p>If anyone's interested, please ping me (email@example.com or myoung8 on skype) <comment><USER2> I funded a couple guys that wanted to do something like this a few years ago...but they completely dropped the ball because they were really only interested in the tech challenges instead of the creative and business aspects. (They basically made the cardinal geek sin of getting too focused on the tech instead of customers, so they've been spinning their wheels with a distributed game server that no one wants instead of working on an actual game they could sell.)

If you get anywhere with this, shoot me an email. I'd also be very interested in online murder mystery games.

<comment><USER3> Hey "Shooter" ... couldn't help but notice your posts seem to filled with "if any one has any ideas how to solve xyz, shoot me an email" type comments, yet your profile lists no contact info.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, fixed.

I was one of the people that thought the email address I put in the YC.News profile resulted in a visible link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good idea. I am unavailable, but keep us posted on what you come up with! I see a huge market for this. And the monetization is a no-brainer: sponsored cards.

</comment><comment><USER5> i don't know about the MtG online interface, but the game itself is very well done.</comment>


Namecheap And Bitcoin – A Review - <AUTHOR> http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/05/13/namecheap-and-bitcoin-a-review-of-using-bitcoin-with-one-of-the-webs-largest-domain-registrars/

<comment><USER2> Namecheap does NOT need to be waiting for even a single confirmation to accept deposits. The kinds of services that they offer are all easily reversible within the kinds of timescales where double spend attacks are feasible (domain registrations take days to clear), so they are certainly not in the class of merchants that could practically be defrauded. The only businesses that actually need to wait for transactions are SatoshiDice, exchanges and consumable digital goods sellers (eg. game codes).

Fortunately, most Bitcoin vendors actually do accept transactions without waiting, and I've only heard of SatoshiDice successfully being defrauded (they've since added various defense mechanisms against unconfirmed transaction double-spending).

<comment><AUTHOR> My guess would be that BitPay requires the 6 confirmations, not NameCheap in particular. If they wanted to accept zero confirmation transactions then they'd likely need to implement their own Bitcoin wallet and associated checkout service.

The appeal of a service like Bitpay of course is that it converts that Bitcoin into fiat currencies, such as the USD, without the vendor having to deal with it. I agree that a zero or single confirmation system could be implemented by a vendor such as NameCheap. However, it would be more costly and time consuming than their current use of Bitpay.

<comment><USER2> Hmm, I remember seeing BitPay merchants take zero-conf just fine.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you review my startup idea? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, I'm a senior in high school and I'm trying to launch a startup that I think would really take off. Of course, this is just me speculating and being blindly optimistic. I'd really love the HN community to check it out and give me some feedback, I'm prepared for both positive and negative! ~~ The idea would be to swap textbooks constantly. So with a large enough user base, you would always be able to search for a book you need for class and then just have it shipped to you ($2.00 fee + shipping/handling). And in return, you would put up all of your old textbooks to swap on the site. This way, you don't lose money because in the end, you're always swapping for all four years of college.
~~ Again, it's an idea I've had for a while and I made a sign-up site: http://lendsit.com
Thanks so much,
I really appreciate it,
Alex <comment><USER2> checkout www.swaptree.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm... very interesting, but I don't think this would compete against Lendsit seeing as how swaptree has so many sects within the idea of swapping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey!

This model exists & works.

Greenmetropolis.com Fatbrain.co.uk

The main issue is popularity. The issue isn't building the site it's a) getting people to remember it when they need a book b) having the book they need.

Maybe target students at the beginning/end of academic year & try to incentivise folks to sign up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response! I really appreciate it. And your ideas are extremely valid, I was thinking that I could maybe target universities in which your login would consist of your school email address, this way they could first search for a book within their own school's ecosystem and then if they can't find it... move on to the rest of the country. Would word of mouth be enough to gain popularity?

Thanks again, Alex

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://lendsit.com> redirects me to <http://signup.lendsit.com/> but doesn't load a page. Should I be seeing something there?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well that's weird that nothing shows up! It should redirect you to the signup page, so that's good! You should be seeing a little blurb about the idea and a place to input your email. Why don't you try once again and see if it works.

Thanks for the response! I really appreciate it. Alex

<comment><USER4> It's working, and it looks pretty nice. A couple comments though. There are a number of things that would make textbook swapping pretty difficult. I'd be interested in how you plan to address these issues.

1) Often times a given textbook will only be used at a university for a couple years before they update to the new edition. So, at least every couple years a group of users will still have to purchase expensive textbooks. Will they then want to lend them to people instead of reselling them?

2) Would the users register they're books and then hold on to them? What if they then decide to sell them back?

3) What would stop someone from "borrowing" a bunch of expensive books and then selling them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While there are quite a few companies in the textbook rental and marketplace space, this seems to be the only one doing flat-fee swaps: <http://edubookswap.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that would pose a problem for my idea, but do you think Lendsit would be able to compete since it's completely user-based? It would be more of a platform/forum where students could just type in the book they wanted and check to see if we had it.

Thanks for the response! Alex</comment></comment>


Venezuela Tries to Silence Critics - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/opinion/venezuela-tries-to-silence-critics.html

<comment><USER2> And this is what socialism is bringing to Latin America. Brazil is about to explode, Argentina's president is accused of murdering the prosecutor on Iran case, Chile is also on a shitstorm of corruption, just like Bolivia.

Looks like USSR, China and Cuban examples wasn't enough.</comment>


Show HN: Read science papers for free...it's sci-hub, but legal - <AUTHOR> http://unpaywall.org <comment><USER2> This will be a big deal. People are a bit conflicted in their use of Sci-hub, so there's definitely an appetite for something that works without requiring you to support copyright infringement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting way to get the full papers. This is how they do it: "We gather content from thousands of open-access repositories worldwide. To help us, we rely on a number of data sources, including PubMed Central, the DOAJ, Crossref (particulary their license info), DataCite, Google Scholar, and BASE. After we put all this data together, we in turn make it open for reuse via the oaDOI API: a free, fast, and very scalable way to leverage our data and infrastructure to support your own projects."

</comment><comment><USER4> Really hope this becomes part of the mainstream scholarly communications infrastructure - it's slick enough to get people to actually use which is probably half the battle.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a great idea. I will certainly use this!</comment>


Philosophy of science books every computer scientist should read - <AUTHOR> http://tomasp.net/blog/2015/reading-list/ <comment><USER3> Gonna go ahead and recommend Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_ on top of this, which underlines the complete impossibility of inductive proofs—not deductive, recursive proofs, but inductive proofs based on incomplete knowledge of state available.

This is not because it's immediately relevant to coding, but because it helps illustrate the difference between knowing the complete state of a problem and only knowing part of it—the latter of which is the central problem of science, arguably. Most of the philosophy of science builds on this work either directly or indirectly. Hustle and read it!

EDIT: reasoning -> proof, my bad.

<comment><USER4> Given that inductive reasoning _is_ possible and that that it is (in the case of Solomonoff induction) on very solid philosophical and mathematical footing, I'm skeptical of any book which claims it's impossible.

<comment><USER3> You can reason effectively, but proving is another thing entirely. You can never prove beyond the shadow of a doubt we are not about to be razed by gamma rays--there could be some arbitrary rules to the universe that only kick in _right now_.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, but it's stuff like this that causes me to avoid most philosophy.

Yes, there are extremely small likelihoods for all kinds of extremely unlikely things. That doesn't make tools like induction any less useful. Sure you can't _prove_ X, but you can show that the likelihood of ~X is far, far lower than the likelihood that you will hallucinate ~X.

<comment><USER6> This one's at the foundation of our science though. Karl Popper's ideas on falsification have been very influential in how scientists frame their work. And errors of induction have caused some notable financial blowups because models missed tail risks.

The example you replied to was farfetched, but not an abstract ivory tower notion – it's something deeply built into how we view the world.

This doesn't mean there's no use of inductive reasoning, or that we shouldn't suspect that some things are far more likely true than others. But remembering the ultimate impossibility of inductive proof can help avoid real world errors.

<comment><USER5> Please notice how far afield you went to find a failure of inductive reasoning: Financial markets. Not a bad math proof. Not an incorrect physics theorem. Not even a civil engineering disaster. Markets!

Markets aren't exactly known for regular behavior. If anything, they are _anti_ -inductive.[1] If you find and exploit any regularity in them, the regularity eventually disappears.

It's for these reasons that I remain unswayed by your claim.

1\. [http://lesswrong.com/lw/yv/markets_are_antiinductive/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/yv/markets_are_antiinductive/)

<comment><USER6> Ok, Newtonian physics. That was accepted for a long time because it was utterly, utterly consistent with all our evidence.

Until it wasn't, in some edge cases. And we adopted a new theory that explained things better.

My point was that the impossibility of induction _is at the core of science_. Science generally does things well because it accounts for this. I cited financial crashes as an example of what can happen if you _don 't_ account for induction.

What, exactly, are you disagreeing with?

<comment><USER7> And it's still consistent with most of our everyday evidence.

It hasn't been falsified, it's been expanded. There's a difference.

<comment><USER8> No, the universe Newton described was falsified. In the Newtonian universe, information (including gravitation and electrical attraction) travelled instantly.

Kuhn talks about this concept quite a bit in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". Relativity was not merely an expansion of the Newtonian explanation of the universe. It was a complete change of our understanding of how the universe worked, even though relativity reduces to the same equations as Newtonian mechanics at low velocities and low masses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those who have a curiosity but lack the patience or inclination to read these books, "Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction" is a highly approachable introduction to this particular branch of philosophy.

[http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short- Introduc...](http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short- Introduction/dp/0192802836)

<comment><USER10> That's exactly what I did, and it left me feeling even more confused. As an example, the book, as I understood, proposes that "What is life?" is a serious philosophical question for biologists to deal with. That sounds an awful lot like arguing over definitions, which seems to be rarely useful.[1] Then there's the famous Feynman quote which seems to make it clear that he thought little of PhilSci.

It'd be great to see a real example applied to software languages. A concrete "here's why it does X" kinda thing. I see there's several essays and a paper linked from Tomas's site so perhaps I'll find something useful there. I do understand that as a mere software writer, there may not be much for me.

Meanwhile, the biggest use for PhilSci is defending physics models we can't test, isn't it? Perhaps, for example, using Bayesian probability to rate things, and using, I dunno, elegance, as positive evidence. But I'm way out of my depth here so perhaps someone can tell me if this is even remotely coherent. Consciousness seems to also involve a lot of philosophy, mainly because the understanding at this point is fairly limited and a lot of is just reasoning about things. (Versus being able to point out how a brain really works, how a consciousness works, etc. Some apparently think this is simply unknowable and magical.)

1: It's more common that fighting for definitions is useful for rhetorical purposes. E.g. copyright infringement being called _stealing_ versus infringement or "piracy".

<comment><USER9> One of my majors was Philosophy and I'm often disappointed by the attitudes of Feynman, Hawking, and other scientists towards philosophy. Their domain is science and I don't think that it is their place or right to judge the value of other disciplines as they apparently do not have a deep understanding of the subject.

Questions like "what is life" have serious implications for biology and arguing over definitions is important because it ensures that when we say something like "a virus is not alive" we have a well grounded and justified basis on which to make that claim. If we didn't take the time to argue over definitions we would have scientists arguing past one another because of trivial misunderstandings about the meaning of words rather than arguing over some other actual significant point such as the conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. The role of Philosophy is often described as providing us a framework for reasoning.

Philosophy typically intersects with science at the "edges" where we are making novel discoveries in both disciplines and don't really know what to make of them yet so we have to reason about the evidence and concepts to make sense of it all so we can proceed.

You mention Physics, and the big debate in philosophy is whether the Standard Model describes reality as it is, or whether it simply a convenient tool where equation manages to encompass most of the empirical results we have so far. I'm not sure exactly where you are going with Bayesian methods but probability is definitely a focus of some philosophers and our department head wrote a somewhat influential paper about different concepts of probability. (a "taxonomy" of probability if you will but that might be a controversial way to put it in an academic setting just like the rest of this post) Edit: I might also add that this professor had a Phd in philosophy as well as theoretical physics, so really smart guy, and the TA had one in physics and was pursuing one in philosophy, so also a really smart guy.

It's also important to note that philosophy of science by and large does not aim to judge the merits or validity of science/scientists/scientific theories. The point is more to understand "what is science" and provide a passive definition instead of a passive one if you will.

Philosophy of Mind is a "hot" branch right now as well and it remains to be seen if any significant progress will be made in the next several decades. We still don't have a consistent way to discuss "consciousness" and if you read literature coming from people with a computer science background, then from a psychological background, then a neurological one, you will find that they describe it in very different (and likely incompatible) ways.

I've forgotten the context specifically but there is a degree of controversy over the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia since the diagnosis rates vary wildly depending on geography even when patients display the same symptoms. The implication is that neither disease is "real" and is instead a result of the training of psychiatrists. Yet we still don't want to abandon the idea that these people are mentally ill so how do we provide a coherent definition of a mental illness. It seems to pertain to consciousness in some way and if so how? We can't answer this way with out a coherent and consistent way to discuss consciousness which we still don't have.

I hope that gives you a bit of insight even if this comment comes across as disjointed and I have been willingly vague and partially inaccurate at points because you could spend a lifetime reading on some of these subjects but still not consume all of the relevant literature. This again probably reflects the difficulty that you had with that book. Philosophy of Science is already a somewhat specific branch that is difficult to approach without some background in philosophy already. In a way that book is an introduction to a specific branch of philosophy that assumes a large amount of background knowledge.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for your reply.

Who cares if we say "a virus is [not] alive"? _Obviously_ that's predicated on the definition of alive. It doesn't change what a virus is, and certainly doesn't change our understanding of viruses. It seems like the only time that kind of thing matters is if you've got some existing issue with "alive" (like, say, a law granting rights to anything "alive") and now need to fight it out to retrofit something.

I'm thinking of "Dissolving the question"[1] and the infamous "If a tree falls in a forest a but nothing hears it, does it make a sound?" The fact that this generated any serious question/answer is absurd. Everyone agrees on what happens. They just like to argue over what "sound" _really_ means. Again, this is only an issue if you're e.g. at court resolving a poorly written noise violation law. Yet "If a tree falls" isn't apparently used as a quick lesson in definitions, but apparently treated like it holds something interesting.

It might be fun to argue stuff. Like, is vim _truly_ an IDE if I load it up right? Doesn't really change anything, but it might be fun. I get the feeling a lot of philosophy consists of people chasing this. If it's not to judge merits or validity, and is just passive, then perhaps that explains it.

On physics and using Bayes versus Scientific Method, I was thinking more about string theory (and I know nothing of this at all), where, since we can't test it at all, it's not proper science. Yet using a Bayesian model, we're free to add evidence apart from verifying experiments. If, for example, I come up with some simple rules for how the universe works, and out of those arise a huge amount of known equations, there may be no way to test if my rules are true and worth studying more on. It'd violate the scientific method, since there's no testing. Yet the mere fact that that "one little trick" explains a bunch of known physics is a huge amount of positive evidence by itself.

Again, thanks for taking the time to write out your reply; I did appreciate it.

1: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/of/dissolving_the_question/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/of/dissolving_the_question/)

<comment><USER11> I want to push on the "alive" issue a bit more. You're absolutely correct in that it doesn't tell us anything more about the virus - but it _does_ tell us more about our definition of "life".

This is in line with the "tree falls in a forest" example as well - <USER2> "paradox" is not in whether the tree falls, but whether we would consider it sound. The solution is to be more precise about defining "sound", as either "vibration of air molecules" or "vibration of someone's ear drum". Similarly, the "are viruses alive" question is pushing us for a more precise definition of "alive", which we can then apply to (for example) how we might classify self-sustaining chains of chemical reactions on alien planets.

<comment><USER10> But there is no precise definition of sound that encompasses both (or more?) uses. It could refer to either, and you just need to make it clear and the whole fuss disappears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Everyone who is interested in popular science should study at least the basics of philosophy of science. It helps us understand the meaning and implications of a lot of concepts that we often use in our arguments, such as falsifiability, reproducibility, and "evidence-based".

These concepts sound neat in theory but need to be interpreted a lot more carefully, with a healthy dose of subtlety, in the messy world of bleeding- edge scientific research. Especially if you're using them to try to discredit somebody else's work as "unscientific".

If you're the type that gets impatient with philosophy, the broader field of science and technology studies (STS) is a lot more exciting and interdisciplinary. It's a loose collaboration among sociologists, anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and political scientists who share a common interest in the interaction between science and human society as a whole.

If you're interested in STS, Sergio Sismondo's _Introduction to Science and Technology Studies_ offers a high-level overview of the field, both philosophical and political, in a compact and accessible package. The bibliography section is also a gold mine of interesting books and case studies from every subfield of STS. (Disclaimer: Sergio was my Ph.D. supervisor.)

Programmers in the age of social networking and IoT might also find actor- network theory particularly interesting. Callon and Latour were way ahead of their time, trying to view everyday objects as first-class citizens in the vast, distributed network of knowledge that makes up modern science. French sociologists are crazy, but sometimes they're prophetic as well.

</comment><comment><USER13> Speaking as a complete layman, Philosophy of Science rocks. Feynman was smoking crack. Philosophy of Science is an extremely important discipline. It will just make your head explode. (Along with epistemology and couple others)

I started on my learning journey using The Great Courses series -- it's kind of like famous professors giving an abbreviated overview (20-40 hours) of their 101 courses. Deep enough that it's not some Discovery Channel show, light enough that you're not up until 2 a.m. every night for a month reading Hegel.

I think that the reason most scientists like Feynman don't get it is that they treat philosophy as a scientific discipline. It is not. Philosophy is the asking of questions. Every now and then you get into a fertile area where those questions can become their own science. This is why philosophy is called the "Mother of all sciences" Oddly enough, I think philosophers themselves have lost their way, but that's a story for another day.

My advice to those who are interested is to get an easy introduction, and don't take it too seriously. I love philosophy because it's like meeting the smartest people that ever lived in a bar and having them talk about really deep questions. But you'll have more fun talking to a _lot_ of people than spending a deep dive with one guy. They tend to have a few good ideas and then spend the rest of their lives over-applying them.

Philosophy is also a great way to begin to talk about the important questions involving technology and people. Don't let anybody tell you any different. I've been very interested in the Philosophy of Language and how it relates to technology teams talking to users about solutions. Just got through writing an essay comparing the conditions that led to Sir Francis Bacon's New Orgonon with conditions in the Agile practitioner community today. Anybody writing apps controlling the speech of millions should have a grounding in political theory -- or risk turning the planet into a cesspool of conformity just so they can make a buck. Cool stuff.

<comment><USER14> > Just got through writing an essay comparing the conditions that led to Sir > Francis Bacon's New Orgonon with conditions in the Agile practitioner > community today.

Can you share a link to the essay?

<comment><USER13> It's part of a script for a video training series I'm working on. I'll post a link when we release it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think you can start with "For and Against Method" which gives you Feyerabend and Lakatos. I'd also substitute Ludwik Fleck for Kuhn.

But that's personal preference. The list is solid (imo)

<comment><USER12> Michael Polanyi is also a solid substitute for Kuhn, and a contemporary of Fleck.

Kuhn is way more popular, though, and the _Structure_ is short and straightforward, so it's probably a safer recommendation for beginners.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would also highly suggest Giere's book, Understanding Scientific Reasoning: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/015506326X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/015506326X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=015506326X&linkCode=as2&tag=fasdf0c-20&linkId=3GLKKT5SZHAPUXQR)

It's a textbook so it's a bit denser than a standard nonfiction offering, but it explains the perspectives of a few famous philosophers of science, the scientific method, clears up some common misunderstandings, and is packed with case studies which make the concepts easy to understand. It's a great piece for either reference or learning about science in general.

</comment><comment><USER17> Would add The Sciences of the Artificial by Herbert A. Simon [1] to the list. The current list is lacking a design science view, which is much more applicable to computer science than natural science books.

[1] [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sciences- artificial](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sciences-artificial)

</comment><comment><USER18> I also recommend the course PHIL202 - Philosophy of Science on Saylor.com. It is for free.

[https://legacy.saylor.org/phil202/Intro/](https://legacy.saylor.org/phil202/Intro/)

</comment><comment><USER19> I would add: Conjectures and Refutations, by Karl Popper.

<comment><USER20> And also "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", Karl Popper.

I read it at young age, and it was an open-mind read.

<comment><USER21> It might be worth mentioning that the titles of those two Popper books are the reason why Imre Lakatos's book recommended in the OP is called "Proofs and refutations: the logic of mathematical discovery".

(I don't think knowing this makes any particular difference to how one reads any of the books involved; it's just amusing.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "A Science Of Operations" sounds great.

But can someone explain to me why the hard cover costs $120 (Amazon), and the paperback $180 (Amazon, B&N)?

It's 342 pages, so it's not like it's one of those encyclopedic tomes. Not that I try justifying a price-per-page, but what is it, a collection of expensive papers in print form?

<comment><USER23> It is an academic publication by Springer. That's why - academic publishing is just crazy. (Anybody around here doing a start-up that would make it obsolete?)

I would, of course, never suggest downloading the PDF from unofficial sources, but I could completely see why people are doing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Please keep in mind that the book by Bruno Latour referenced here (Science in Action) and another of his articles was lampooned in the Sokal Affair because Latour was confused about relativity:

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

[http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/trans...](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html)

[http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/le_monde_english.html](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/le_monde_english.html)

[http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/noretta.html](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/noretta.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> For more practical persons I recommend skipping the historical parts of philosophy and go straight to Bayesianism. I recommend "Rationality" by E. Yudkowsky as an entry point, "Probabilistic Inference" by J. Pearl, "Artificial Intelligence" by Russel & Norvig for the theory and "Formal Theory of Creativity & Fun & Intrinsic Motivation" by J. Schmidhuber for inspiration.

[1]: [http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/creativity.html](http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/creativity.html)

<comment><USER26> I wouldn't recommend anything by Yudkowsky as an introduction to anything (other than maybe an introduction to contemporary techno-cults, aimed at the graduate level). As a "philosopher" he is exceptionally inept at questioning his own assumptions and reasoning. His writing lack any philosophical rigor (they try to obscure their axiomatic assumptions rather than articulate them, let alone explore them). As a result, his "philosophy" \-- and in particular his views of rationality -- feels very antiquated (some read as if they'd been written in the 1700s) or something Sheldon Cooper would write. It has all the philosophical rigor of a child; or Ayn Rand. In any event, it is very uninformed and limited (not to speak of his nomenclature, which deviates from that of philosophy, and so makes orienting his views in the grand scheme of things difficult).

His writings are more of an interest to people who are interested in researching particular modes of thought in various sub-cultures. In this case, how antiquated views of "rationality" are gaining popularity in Silicon Valley pop-philosophy: [http://harpers.org/archive/2015/01/come-with-us-if-you- want-...](http://harpers.org/archive/2015/01/come-with-us-if-you-want-to- live/?single=1)

He is a cult-leader, not a researcher, and like all cult leaders, his talents lie in charmingly convincing gullible victims that his thoughts are profound, when, in fact, they don't exceed those of a very intelligent 14-year-old know- it-all. If you approach his writings as actual philosophy (rather than intriguing historical documents of a techno-libertarian cult, which is what they are), after reading them you are certain to know less of philosophy than when you've started, even if your original knowledge was absolute zero.

His writings are to philosophy what Fox News is to news: inspire and agitate unquestioning followers, while making sure they don't learn about the world by constructing an elaborate -- and enticing -- virtual world to isolate them from reality.

<comment><USER27> This is a very important point. His cult can wreck your thinking. I think it should only be read by people with enough contextual information to call his bullshit. He definitely _is_ a smart guy in a way, and you can't easily attack his writings in a way that would be easy to understand for a newcomer.

So I won't attempt that here. Instead, I'll tell my (random internet guy's) feelings and vague ideas: You know when you meet a stranger and you feel something is off, but you don't really know what, but something's funny? Martial art and personal defense coaches usually recommend that you listen to this feeling and act accordingly.

Singulitarianism is basically an apocalyptic doom-religion. It follows the same scheme. For example, I just read a reddit thread ([https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/3vsoe7/chri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/3vsoe7/christianity_appears_to_have_been_designed_to/)) the other day and the post reminded me of Singulitarianism a lot. There is an apocalypse, some external information that you should rely on instead of you intuitive faculties because they are biased and unreliable, but if you follow the path of the leader you'll be saved.

Also, its followers react to criticism similarly to religious people.

And another problem is that nobody serious has ever rolled up their sleeves, went through and criticized the whole mess of their Bible (called Sequences), a massive collection of writings, interlinked thousand-fold in an intricate complex network. Simply because the people who could do this don't care much about some random guy posting stuff to his blog.

Fortunately since the Basilisk story came out and we could see Yudkowsky's reaction, it was an eye-opener for many people. Still his movement is quite well-spread and gets linked to often by CS people, mathematics students etc.

And I won't start to refute individual claims. I admit this. The thing is not about the individual claims but the way they are linked and the kind of narrative it builds. The untold assumptions lurking in the background etc. The way he tries to take credit for age-old ideas by renaming them and not caring about the origin of them, since the history of philosophy is irrelevant anyway, we should just read his blog posts and related stuff.

My advice for novices is to start with the mainstream. You can of course criticize the mainstream once you have sufficient knowledge. Read textbooks, classical works, go to universities, take interesting courses etc. Don't teach yourself this stuff from a random guy's blog who has no qualifications on anything he speaks about (which isn't a disproof but a red flag).

I've been vague and I stand by it. Yes I might have been irrational in my comment or led by feelings and emotions. I don't care. I just had to put this out here. I don't aim my paragraphs as ultimate refutation but as a warning. I felt I had to write this for the benefit of people who may be new to this man's world.

<comment><USER28> _Climate science is basically an apocalyptic doom-religion. It follows the same scheme. For example, I just read a reddit thread ([https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/3vsoe7/chri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/3vsoe7/chri...)) the other day and the post reminded me of climate science a lot. There is an apocalypse, some external information that you should rely on instead of you intuitive faculties because they are biased and unreliable, but if you follow the path of the leader you'll be saved.

And another problem is that nobody serious has ever rolled up their sleeves, went through and criticized the whole mess of their Bible (called Climate Science Papers), a massive collection of writings, interlinked thousand-fold in an intricate complex network. Simply because the people who could do this don't want to be criticized in the media.

Fortunately since the Climategate story came out and we could see the leadership's reaction, it was an eye-opener for many people. Still this movement is quite well-spread and gets linked to often by journalists, politicians, etc._

None of your critiques are remotely specific to lesswrong. All could be equally well applied to climate science or a variety of other things where I suspect you'd be unwilling to apply it.

<comment><USER27> If climate science was advocated by a single person without any formal qualification in climatology, physics, hydrology, Earth Science etc. it would be similar.

But Climate science is a lot less about an Apocalypse. Mainstream climate science isn't about a total wiping out of humanity but a few degrees of change in temperature, extreme weather, more deserts, floods etc., which are terrible catastrophes but nowhere near on the scale that Yudkowsky likes to dream up (evil robots destroying everything and torturing and extorting and creating myriads of simulations of simulations of you being tortured in the worst ways possible in various hypothetical, counterfactual scenarios to acausally motivate you to serve these evil overlords etc.)

Also, climate science doesn't ask you to "obviously" dismiss reputable fields and past sources. It's just a very bad analogy. The best defense of Singulitarianism is the "but what if you're wrong" kind of betting. Because their imagined doom scenario is so extremely unimaginably bad, they argue that they can get away with little proof, since multiplying the huge disaster with a little probability still gives a large expected risk. They like to say "shut up and multiply" as a slogan for this, i.e. multiply probability and outcome to get the expectation. He lays the groundwork and path for this such that if you gradually get into his system, he can take you in the woods without you noticing. It's no less than a panic-inducing mind virus.

And yeah, you can say I didn't disprove him with this. I don't want to. My main point is: don't start with his writings and don't recommend them to people who are uneducated in these topics. You'll do them a favor by recommending reputable sources.

<comment><USER29> Your writing implies you think Yudkowsky believes/promotes the Basilisk. Are you not aware he thinks that is nonsense?

<comment><USER30> I have no idea what he truly believes in and I don't even care too much. What I care about is the effects of his writings. Remember we are debating whether his writings are to be recommended to someone who is new to philosophy about science, algorithms, cognitive biases etc.

The Basilisk is an organic outgrowth from it. And it's just one of many. They follow naturally from the tenets of the religion, they aren't outliers or "bad apples".

<comment><USER28> To repeat this idea with a different mood affiliation:

I have no idea what muslims truly believe and I don't even care too much. What I care about is the effects of their beliefs...Terrorism is an organic outgrowth from it. And it's just one of many...

I take it that if Donald Trump makes this claim, you'll support it?

<comment><USER31> Please stop trolling on HN.

<comment><USER28> Can you clarify what you mean by the word "trolling"? I'm honestly asking the question because I don't understand what you object to.

If I understand what the term means to you I can avoid that in the future.

<comment><USER31> You've used a dismissive hand-wave ("mood affiliation") to reduce somebody's comment to something clearly provocative ("muslims... terrorism... Trump"), then alleged that the commenter must support the latter. Such a post is in effect just a delivery mechanism for the provocation, so I call it trolling. It's like reaching out and tweaking somebody's nose as you're talking—it doesn't much matter what point you happened to be arguing for at the time.

Your post (and you post a lot of these) takes the _form_ of logically substituting one expression for an equivalent one, but that's not what you're doing at all—you're simply pretending to. Not even mathematical expressions can be substituted that way without careful proof that every step preserves the meaning, and natural language simply doesn't work this way to begin with. It isn't valid to rip something out of its context, do major surgeries on it, then fling it back with the claim that it's what the other is really saying. When the thing you're flinging back seems designed to be offensive, the likelihood that this is sincere communication, aiming at understanding, plummets.

Many of your recent comments seem crafted to be technically unimpeachable while still tweaking people's noses. I could be wrong about that and would prefer to be; it's hard to read intent. But the fact that they come across that way is already a problem. You'd contribute more of value if you sincerely, and not only technically, eliminated that element and sought neutral ground with others. Note that this doesn't entail changing your views, though it can involve making an assessment of how much the conversation can tolerate before it goes haywire, and calibrating accordingly. But that's part of civil discourse anyhow. It makes no sense to send messages with little chance of being received.

<comment><USER28> I didn't mean to imply that I really thought Johann30 supported Trump or islamophobia. Rather, I used that example because I thought it was such an extreme and obviously false example of similar logic ("I have no idea what X truly believe and I don't even care too much") leading to wrong results. I realize now that my last sentence could be misinterpreted as being literal rather than rhetorical with an obvious negative answer (as was intended by me).

And of course there is possibly a distinguishing principle that Johann30 used as an unstated premise - that's just a flaw of natural language. But I realize I could have been clearer in allowing for that possibility. I'll try to be more literal in the future.

I understand you want others to stop being provoked by my comments, but I can't really control that.

What is the concrete action you'd like me to take? Will being more literal and explicitly requesting the elucidation of unstated premises/stating that I obviously don't think the person believes the contradictory conclusion/etc be sufficient? Should I include an explicit disclaimer that I'm making an argument by contradiction? Or are arguments by contradiction now explicitly disallowed (only constructive logic, I guess)?

<comment><USER8> You could create a neutral version of the claim:

 _I have no idea what X truly believe and I don 't even care too much. What I care about is the effects of Y ... Z is an organic outgrowth from it. And it's just one of many..._

Your claim is that if you substitute in any X, Y and Z (where X, Y and Z are consistent with each other), the statement is equivalent. You want the original poster to reply to this idea. Dan's point, which I agree with, is that putting in emotionally charged X, Y and Z is not civil, promotes emotional responses and is effectively trolling.

(I also happen to agree with Dan that the particular X, Y and Z matter, and the sentences are not necessarily logically equivalent with any X, Y and Z. But it's still possible to make the above argument without the emotional baggage. I understand it's a rhetorical technique to shock the reader into seeing what you perceive as sloppy thinking, but I think it is more likely to inflame and prevent discussion on the original topic.)

<comment><USER28> To make the argument the conclusion can't be neutral. It has to be definitively and obviously wrong. That's why I chose Trump and Islam - it's such a ridiculously wrong conclusion that I doubted anyone here could support it.

I agree that the particular X/etc sometimes matters. And a valid argument against mine would be to give a clear limiting principle (something unstated in the original post, but perhaps implicit?) that applies to the critique of less wrong but fails for Islam.

Pron kind of tried to do this - he said Johann30's argument can only apply to small groups and Islam is large (though where this large vs small distinction comes from is unstated).

To take a mathematical (and hopefully completely uncontroversial) example of this:

Fool: "The sum of IID random variables is gaussian. Therefore $Z"

Smartass: "Oh yeah? What about C/(1+x^2)? Your argument is invalid."

Fool: "Oops I meant IID random variables with finite variance, just thought that was implicit and obvious."

Of course, if Fool can't come up with that added clause then the Smartass has disproven him.

<comment><USER8> You can still construct an example that is "definitely and obviously wrong" but _emotionally_ neutral. Which you did above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Speaking about books, there are a lot more accessible books than those on the list, and here are a few:

[1] Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction.

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415891779](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415891779)

[2] Philosophy of Science Vol 1 & 2 by Mario Bunge

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0765804131/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0765804131/)

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/076580414X/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/076580414X/)

</comment><comment><USER32> I recently encountered the Duhem-Quine thesis on wikipedia which I think presents a really interesting perspective on testability, something I never really questioned before in the philosophy of science.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis)

</comment><comment><USER33> I would add Ruth Millikan's work. "Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories" is her masterpiece, but way out of depth for a beginner ("out of depth" in philosophy meaning most people are likely to be bored, confused, or dismissive yet with the right background the book is amazingly exciting, insightful, and valuable). "On Clear and Confused Ideas" is more approachable and has been made available for free online now. [http://web2.uconn.edu/philosophy/department/millikan/clearct...](http://web2.uconn.edu/philosophy/department/millikan/clearct.htm)

</comment><comment> unix-junkie I would add "The Formation of the Scientific Mind" by Gaston Bachelard. This text analyses the nature of the mental patterns that prevent from making actual discoveries (what he calls "epistemoligical obstacles").

</comment><comment><USER34> My #1 recommendation is [http://beginningofinfinity.com/](http://beginningofinfinity.com/) by David Deutsch. I also recommend his two TED talks, especially [https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation) which makes clear why induction is simply wrong and explains how science actually works.

</comment><comment><USER35> I would add: The Retreat to Commitment, by W.W. Bartley, III.

</comment><comment><USER36> The Value of Science [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0375758488/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0375758488/)

Meditations on First Philosophy [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0192806963/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0192806963/)

</comment><comment><USER37> In a similar vein, I highly recommend _Discussion of the Method_ by Billy Vaughn Koen. It's a philosophy of engineering that resolves many of the unanswered questions you'll have after reading Feyerabend, and also gives an overview of the field of philosophy of science along the way.

</comment><comment><USER38> Also:

Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology"

Ellul's "The Technological Society"

</comment><comment><USER39> Why Popper is not on the list?

<comment><USER23> Popper is definitely important! He's not on the list because I didn't read his works (I know I should). His key points are widely known that I was simply more interested in reading books that go in other directions. (There is also nice introduction to Popper in the textbook mentioned.) But I would like to get back to him!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> While all the books he suggests are worth reading, the list as a whole has a major gap: nothing from feminist or post-colonialist perspectives. So I'd add Sandra Harding's "Sciences From Below", and perhaps the collection "Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science".

<comment><USER41> Are there any Marxist or African-American perspectives you might be able to recommend?

<comment><USER40> Not sure that it's classified as "Philosophy of Science" but Mackenzie Wark's "A Hacker Manifesto" is pretty darn Marxist ... it even has a red cover :) Here's a 10th-anniversary interview of him by Melissa Gregg: [https://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/courting- vectoralists-...](https://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/courting-vectoralists- interview-mckenzie-wark-10-year-anniversary-hacker-manifesto)

On the African-American perspective, nothing leaps to mind, sorry. Anybody else have suggestions?

<comment><USER41> Thanks-

I've recently started a 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it' sort of pursuit- I'm currently stumbling through Lois Tysons' "Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide"

EDIT: I mean that I'm doing my best to suspend/address whatever judgments I currently have, not immediately discard what I read.

<comment><USER42> Surely 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it' is a mark of any competent developer , After all you very often have to entertain competing theories about the inner workings of a program and pretty much everyone involved, users, maintainers, architects, managers, etc., will have a different theory. As a developer you will probably have to be able to discuss all of them without necessarily accepting any.

Unfortunately this does not necessarily require an educated mind.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nursing mother smashes 268-mile Montane Spine Race record - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-46906365 <comment><AUTHOR> The race is 268-mile race and travels over hilly terrain and covers 43,000ft of climbing. She did it in 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds and slept only for three hours. Makes you wonder what are the limits of the human body.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is an incredible athletic and mind-over-matter feat that makes overpaid football and soccer stars look pathetic in comparison.</comment>


Google+ Has 40 Million Users, Says Larry Page - <AUTHOR> https://mashable.com/2011/10/13/google-plus-40-million/

<comment><USER2> I signed up too; then I realized I had Facebook for family/friends, LinkedIn for career/jobs/contacts and Twitter for when I absolutely have to know what Ashton Kucher is thinking ;-).

Then on top of all that, I have a family that demands a real hangout time. Anybody know what Google+ can do for me ?</comment>


The US economy is strong, and it's about to get even stronger - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/01/the-us-economy-is-strong-and-its-about-to-get-even-stronger-atlanta-fed-model-shows.html <comment><USER2> uh oh</comment>


Twelve commandments for Beautiful Python code - <AUTHOR> http://commandline.org.uk/python/twelve-commandments-of-python-style-2008-04-25-19-00.html

<comment><USER2> I still don't agree with the 80 characters per line rule. That's an old relic rule from the 70s and 80s. In the time of wide screen displays, 1080x1600 resolution, there is no really need to cut off your code at 80 chars per line.

I'd rather have code that goes a 100-110 chars per line, then having a line cut off, just to have only few characters in the second line; as it makes it harder to follow thru code. Sure, at over 110-120 chars, it is time to cut that line in two, but at 80, no need.

<comment><USER3> The 80 chars per line rule goes back way beyond the 70s and 80s. It comes from typesetting. If lines are too long, you lose your place when your eye moves on to the beginning of the next line. Many years of experience showed that about 70 chars per line was optimal for text. It might be slightly different for code.

<comment><USER4> I don't read code like I read prose. A line of code tends to be a logical unit. For example, breaking up arguments passed to a function across multiple lines, just because you break the 80 char rule, doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER5> _"... For example, breaking up arguments passed to a function across multiple lines, just because you break the 80 char rule, doesn't make sense ..."_

A good argument for concise languages?

<comment><USER4> It is indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd planned to read this, then come back here and grumble about whatever it had got wrong.

But it turns out, I agree with every word.</comment>


Building a Pure CSS 3D City - <AUTHOR> http://cubiq.org/building-a-pure-css-3d-city

<comment><AUTHOR> This is pretty cool. Clickable live demo. And all created from CSS3.

<http://cubiq.org/dropbox/3dcity/></comment>


Hacker News for Marketing? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering if there's a Hacker News type site for marketing. I've found a few forums for design.<p>Browsing forums seems to help me learn through osmosis. Are there any quality forums that discuss marketing? <comment><USER2> Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz CEO) and Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot co-founder / CTO) are working on a site for this now:

[https://plus.google.com/111294201325870406922/posts/1dJvk7Ax...](https://plus.google.com/111294201325870406922/posts/1dJvk7AxHbp)</comment>


Ask HN: Any new hacker house in SF/PA/MV? Or room available? - <AUTHOR>

Hi guys,
Need a place in SF or Palo Alto now through Nov (Sept-Nov). Anyone interested in getting together on short-term rentals? Or need a roommate?
Please let me know.
Thanks,
Raj <comment><USER2> i was looking for something short term too. i would be interested in this. thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just found a regular rental room in Haight. Here for 3 months. Hope you found something! Reply at firstname.lastname@example.com.</comment></comment>


What Do You Mean "You Don't Have a Bike"? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/07/what-do-you-mean-you-dont-have-a-bike/ <comment><USER2> I agree with the author concerning places with somewhat-level terrain, with short distances between home, work, and grocery stores, with police officers posted around these locations to ensure good traffic, and so on.

On the other hand, many places are not like that. Where I live, distances between important locations is often twenty-five miles or so, there are many hills that go up for hundreds of feet, there are many sharp curves, many cliff-like areas without rails, no sidewalks, hardly any police to ensure sane traffic conditions, people driving twenty or thirty MPH over the speed limit, vehicles taking shortcuts by cutting into opposite lanes, people driving home from bars and liquor stores in other counties which are not "dry", etc. Around places like this, biking is a fine way to die.

<comment><USER3> Fortunately most of don't live in such places! Cycling is a very good way to get around. Urban areas in particular have been making accommodations at a fantastic pace.</comment></comment>