Ask HN: I got bad news about my housemate - <AUTHOR> I got bad news about housemate it's related to his work stress. Any advice for me please ?? News below is encoded due to its sensitive nature. Please only decode only if you are mentally strong.<p>bXkgaG91c2VtYXRlIGNvbW1pdHRlZCBzdWljaWRlIGxhc3QgbmlnaHQgOiggaXTigJlzIGhhcmQgdG8ga25vdyB3aHkuIGFwcGFyZW50IHJlYXNvbiBpcyB0aGF0IGhlIHdhcyBzdHJlc3NlZCBmcm9tIHdvcmtpbmcgZXZlcnlkYXkgZm9yIGxhc3QgNCB5ZWFycy4gSSBndWVzcyB0aGlzIGEgcmVtaW5kZXIgZm9yIGFsbCBvZiB1cyB0aGF0IHdlIG5lZWQgdG8gbG9vayBhZnRlciBvdXIgbWVudGFsIGhlYWx0aCBhbmQgc2VlayBoZWxwIGlmIHlvdSBhcmUgc3RyZXNzZWQuCg== <comment> minds-matter I'm sorry to hear this. You'll quite likely have lots of questions, and there may well be few answers.

In Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), we use the acronym ALGEE in supporting people: \- Assess \- Listen non judgementally \- Give encouragement and support \- Encourage professional support \- Encourage self-help and other support

You can apply this to self-care as well.

I'd encourage you to be aware of your feelings and emotions over the next few weeks and months. Assess what you are feeling. You can find thoughts re-emerge at odd moments, and your emotions changing. That's normal and OK.

Finding someone who will listen, without judging you or your housemate, is important. They don't need to be trained, but they do need to listen without bringing themselves and their feelings and views into the conversation.

In the UK there are organisations such as Samaritans and Shout 85258 (Crisis Text Line in USA) with people trained in how to listen, email or message as support, particularly for those in crisis, but also for those who need someone to listen. There are also specialist support groups for those who have experienced bereavement by suicide such as [https://uksobs.org/](https://uksobs.org/) who also provide guidance on support after suicide [https://uksobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Support- after-...](https://uksobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Support-after- Suicide-Booklet-V5-10-2019.pdf). See what is available where you are.

Depending on how you are doing, you may need or want to get other professional support.

Be kind to yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your write up. I will definitely check out precessional help if I need to.

<comment> minds-matter You're welcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> As already stated, it's not your fault, and honestly the tip of the iceberg of this problem is that such illnesses are not even considered as such by society at large.

My eldest daughter, that is an incredible bright and intelligent person was just where you are early January this year with her partner.

I eventually got tired of telling people that he was sick, that he was not to blame for his actions. And even rationalizing this is very difficult to not feel otherwise.

Stay strong, seek company, don't blame yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks very much. My cyondolesenes to your daughter, hope she is in well place now.

<comment><USER2> Thanks. She's a strong woman as well and, as devastating as these events are she's moving forward with her life, up to the point that she is planning to move to Germany in a few months.

Have a nice day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Echoing those saying it wasn't your fault. Don't be afraid to reach out and see a therapist yourself, as this can be a traumatic experience.

</comment><comment><USER4> See a psychologist and get help for yourself and

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey OP. If you return to this thread, know that I'm thinking of you.

</comment><comment><USER6> Please take care of yourself. It's not your fault.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hard so hard

</comment><comment><USER8> My condolences to you and their friends and family.

What a shame and a total waste; it takes away a person's every future possibility.

Things are very rarely ever _that bad._

No job is worth it.

No circumstances are worth it.

No relationship is worth it.

No property is worth it.

No funk is worth it.

Progressive incurable/debilitating conditions _maybe._

When someone is depressed, they tend to experience one or more of these changes:

\- Cognitive distortions (including over-catastrophizing and assuming the worst) - Miscalibrated/misinterpreted orders-of-magnitude about how good or bad things seem. Inflict a mild setback on someone who is depressed, it can seem life-ending to them. (Ask me how I know.)

\- All-or-nothing (black & white) thinking - Little nuance. Also, tends to lack a sense of humor and be dramatic as well.

\- Hyper-vigilance / paranoia - Anxious all the time. Easily startled. "That shadow over there might get me." "There's snipers on that roof over there, I know it."

\- Less situational awareness

\- Looking at the ground more

\- Less eye-contact with others

\- Avoiding social interactions

\- Less time outdoors during the daytime

\- Sleeping more

\- Sleep pattern disturbances

\- Sensitivities to light/sound

\- Eating less or more (losing/gaining weight)

\- Unhealthy diet

\- Wearing darker clothes

\- Less attention to appearance/grooming

\- Not exercising

Life ProTip(TM): When life seems down, get a pet (if you can properly house, water, feed, groom, and meet their attention and veterinary needs. And be sure you know how much time, money and work you're getting into... and puppies and cats like to chew and explore.)

Between the ages of about 8 and 27, I vividly-fantasized about self- termination quite often in a myriad of methods.

<comment><USER9> >No job is worth it.

I suspect that may be because you have something else in your life that you value. Thing is there's plenty of people that have no friends, no family, no possession. Nothing to value other then little meager work they do.

Take that away, and what would someone like that have left?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Decoded version (trigger warning, it talks about suicide):

> my housemate committed suicide last night :( it's hard to know why. apparent > reason is that he was stressed from working everyday for last 4 years. I > guess this a reminder for all of us that we need to look after our mental > health and seek help if you are stressed.

<comment><USER11> I don't feel this is appropriate. For whatever reason, the OP specifically encoded it to bypass text searches of archived pages. Most of the people here can identify and decode base64, or at least OP intended the message for those who could.

I don't understand why OP chose to provide his message this way but I think it's good to respect his wishes here while he's processing the event. He put a certain amount of trust into the community and it's possible that having community members post the plaintext like this would give him additional regret.</comment></comment>


Harry's Lawyer Sent Gillette a Letter Accusing Big Razor of False Advertising - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcocreate.com/3067202/harrys-lawyer-sends-gillette-and-pg-a-letter-accusing-big-razor-of-false-advertising <comment><AUTHOR> Hilarious "cease and desist"</comment>


Why I Don't Want a Windows iPad - <AUTHOR> http://slaven.posterous.com/why-i-dont-want-a-windows-ipad

<comment><USER2> Dunno, OS X is always FreeBSD for me.</comment>


Show HN: GridCraft, an advanced spreadsheet for data analysis and analytics - <AUTHOR> http://www.gridcraft.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

Here are some of the features that set GridCraft apart from other spreadsheets:

1) Formula language is functional and supports reuse of user-defined functions. No need to use an external macro environment like VBA or AppScript to make reusable data transformations. [https://gridcraft.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/202808670-Cr...](https://gridcraft.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/202808670-Creating-and-Using-User-Defined-Functions-UDF-)

2) Matrix projection / transformation language. Process any matrix value (data source, spreadsheet area, or output of a formula or user-defined function) using a powerful matrix transformation language. Formulaic ability to sort, select, project, and group. [https://gridcraft.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/203540234](https://gridcraft.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/203540234)

3) Data connectors: connect to various cloud services as well as JDBC/SQL and pull data into your spreadsheet using formulas.

4) Tabular import: bring in tabular data (CSV, TSV) as a data source and manipulate it with the same projection / transformation formula language used for external SQL and cloud data.

5) Always-on / always-connected: functions like INTERVAL and NOTIFYIF allow periodic evaluation and push/email notification based on spreadsheet conditions.

6) Region-level ACLs and sharing. Share a specific region of a sheet, or share a whole sheet as read-only and a specific region as read-write.

7) Full audit/revision log with ability to revert.

<comment><USER2> Your (5*) iOS app reviews[1] are obviously astroturfing and written in terrible marketing-speak. No one speaks like that. It leaves me with a bad impression of your company.

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gridcraft-powerful-cloud- spr...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gridcraft-powerful-cloud- spreadsheet/id904789197?ls=1&mt=8)

<comment><USER3> Supposed comment from a real user "I firmly believe this product is a game changer." The attempted deception is insulting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm one of the devs at GridCraft. You can also go directly to the web app at [https://app.gridcraft.com/](https://app.gridcraft.com/)

Also available to answer any questions you may have.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a weather company. We produce a buttload of hyper local , real time weather and road data. Gridcraft lets me stream this data in to an environment where I can quality check it, analyze it, and share analysis back with customers. There's more capability here than meets the eye.

<comment><USER6> Your free sample data on weathercloud.co returns a 404.

<comment><USER5> link being fixed. public API still in development. thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Android app to read source code on GitHub? - <AUTHOR> Hi, most apps I tried are general and slow. Is there a better way to read code in an Android phone? <comment><USER2> Fasthub. Free and open source, works great. You can find it on f-droid</comment>


Computer Workers exempt from Overtime Pay - <AUTHOR> http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17e_computer.pdf

<comment><USER2> This was a result of a Republican amendment to the Clinton-administration increase in the federal minimum wage (around 1992 - 1995. Subtitled "A bill to increase the take-home pay of workers..." or something like that, if I recall correctly. It should be available at <http://thomas.loc.gov> but the site isn't terribly easy to search.). Another Republican amendment to the same bill decreased the minimum wage for workers who receive tips to $2.XX (I can't remember exactly.)</comment>


Show HN: Crowdsourced annotations for arXiv articles - <AUTHOR> http://ascribo.ca/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to make something like Fermat's Library [1], but not limited to only a selection of articles. This thing actually works for any PDF file, even local files.

Now the problem is how one would promote this and get users.

Feedback?

[1] [http://fermatslibrary.com/](http://fermatslibrary.com/)

<comment><USER2> It's a great idea! Not sure what else is already out there; aren't there a number of pdf annotation sites? Not sure if any are targetted at arXiv. The interface is nice; is PDF.js easy to mod?

But where's an example of an article that actually has annotations? I clicked on a couple of article links on the main page, expecting that these would be the most recently annotated articles. But I hound no annotations. I assume that if it has annotations, you can view a list of them? Because, that's really important to have

<comment><AUTHOR> I know hypothes.is supports PDFs, but their annotations work on selected text ranges and that doesn't work very well for math stuff (hard to select).

The main page has recently listed arXiv articles right now, we'll add the recently annotated articles soon.

As for PDF.js, it's pretty well written and easy to understand. I didn't have trouble make modifications at all.</comment></comment></comment>


Productive Social Software for your Office.  - <AUTHOR> https://www.peopledock.com <comment><AUTHOR> 10 Things You Can Avoid by Using Peopledock.

Box.net, Basecamp, Bugzilla, Yammer, MSN Messenger, Outlook Calendar, Plaxo, Flickr, Server Crashes, and best of all, Missing Deadlines.</comment>


The Mediocrity Principle - <AUTHOR> http://edge.org/response-detail/11272 <comment><USER3> _" The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent. If we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."_, Stanley Kubrick

<comment><USER4> _" As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."_, Albert Camus, The Stranger

<comment><USER5> Nice quote! That's what the hero of _The Stranger_ , thinks just before being executed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't really understand what is being argued. Two statements are made:

> A: The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren't special.

> B: Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, > universal laws.

The argument being that B implies A.

First this is self-contradictory: B implies B and nothing more.

What does he mean by "special". Are we talking about some mushy, subjective definition of "special". If that's the case, then it's a moot point. By that definition you're as special as someone thinks you are, including yourself. If your mom thinks you're special, you're special. That's what subjective means.

If that's not the case, by special, does he mean highly unlikely, finite, or unique? -- Math is infinite and governed by sets of universal rules, yet there are many unique ("special") mathematical patterns.

In this case, we don't know if we're special or unlikely because we don't know what the odds of us existing are. We don't know how common or uncommon intelligent life is.

"But intelligent life is not special, even if it were uncommon, because it's governed by the same universal laws as unintelligent dead matter."

Then, if our definition of special is not subjective, and uniqueness or unlikelihood does not imply specialness, then what is the definition of special that we're using here?

Or does he mean "governed by intent" (of a deity or purposeful universe). Now we've got a new problem, which is defining what intent is, and if there even is such a thing (which, if there isn't, the whole point is moot again).

<comment><USER7> I take "special" here to mean "deserving of privileges over and above other instances". In this sense, if you think you are "special" that means you think that you ought to be able to bend the rules more than other people, or that cashiers ought to be nicer to you than to the rest of the people in line, or that you deserve to get that last discount TV on the shelf on Black Friday, or that it's okay for you to zoom past traffic on the shoulder because you're in a hurry moreso than anyone else.

Possibly part of your trouble in interpreting the essay is that you're missing out on what the essay is in response to. The question was posed: "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?"

Whether the Mediocrity Principle is "correct" or not is not even the point. The point is that _assuming_ the Mediocrity Principle to be true and acting as if you and your situation are not special is a productive stance to take in life, as it is in science.

It's another way of saying "the world does not revolve around you", "you are not the center of the universe", etc.

<comment><USER8> It's a false dichotomy to say the only two choices are 1) Acceptance of the Mediocrity Principle or 2) Believing you are the center of the universe. I can easily posit a third option where some aspect of our Universe and existence is special without needing to be the center of it all.

<comment><USER7> Who said there are only two choices? The point is that it's often more useful to assume the Mediocrity Principle. Not that it's the truth. And not even that it's always better. Just that more often than not it's more useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How does one prove this "Mediocrity Principle"? "Specialness" is in the realm of philosophy and from that perspective, this principle just comes across as a mellow form of nihilism. Telling students to filter all of science through the "we're not special" lens just biases them so that if there actually is something special, they will be blind to it. Might I suggest as an alternative the "Keep an Open Mind Principle"?

</comment><comment><USER9> About some of the other comments: We need a term on HN for _this is something you 'd understand if you weren't apt to take things so literally and see it as a logical argument_.

<comment><USER10> Amen. I mean, maybe I expect too much of other people, but I always try to interpret what they say in the most coherent sense possible. People talking about this kind of stuff don't usually just mash the keyboard - they have something to say and assuming that it's crap because the literal interpretation is crap is dumb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hey, this principle's not so special.

<comment><USER12> That's ok, neither are we :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> also known as the copernican principle

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_principle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_principle)

</comment><comment><USER14> See, this is really begging the question. As in actually "begging the question" \- the logical fallacy.

The author states that people who have weird religious beliefs that imply that people are the centre of the universe should not do so because science shows us that the universe is indifferent to us. We are not special but part of the universe and a product of the same rules that produced everything else. But this is obviously begging the question: if you accepted the scientific view of the world you wouldn't have a nutty religious view to start with.

In essence, the author says: accept science because science. No different to when Christians say: accept Christianity because of what the bible says.

The author is correct but his argument is crap.

</comment><comment><USER15> He should dig deeper...

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/0704.0646v2](http://arxiv.org/pdf/0704.0646v2)

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.2593v1](http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.2593v1)

</comment><comment><USER16> _Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, universal laws_

 _Everything_ that happens in the world is the consequence of natural, universal laws. That's what makes them universal.

 _The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren 't special._

The universal laws of nature have led to beings capable (among other things) of discovering them. That seems pretty special to me.

</comment><comment><USER17> No surprises here: pretty much Meyers entire career has been confusing the word "metaphysics" with the word "science."

</comment><comment><USER18> It was phrased as a scientific question, but I think of it more on philosophical, ethical and human behavior lines. If you accept that you are not special, you will tend to be nicer to other human beings. If you accept that your country is not special you might avoid the aggressive behaviors that lead to wars because "God is on your side".

</comment><comment><USER19> Counterpoint - humans are very much not mediocre, we really are special. No other species is as advanced as us, no other species is as capable as us and no other species is as awesome as us.

We may one day discover intelligent alien life, until then the blue planet really is special. Okay it may not look like much, but looks can be deceiving.

<comment><USER20> _" and opposition to the mediocrity principle is one of the major linchpins of religion and creationism and jingoism and failed social policies."_

<comment><USER19> Well that is awesome then - either I have to agree with him, or I am a nationalist. This is straight out of the What you can't say playbook.

<comment><USER20> Indeed - it's not very flexible! If anything the principle says that nothing is more important than anything else. Which is humbling and a good thought experiment, but I ask whether we can actually go about our lives using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How is this different from humility? "Be humble" is an easier sell than "Be mediocre" if the message is the same.

</comment><comment><USER20> Question - how could we use The Mediocrity Principle in our technology works, in our hacks, designs and developments?

There seems to be some fundamental opposition to the principle in the world we live and operate in:

User centered design implies that the User is special.

Business and marketing say that the Customer is always right.

Solutions that seek to make things better, to improve the lot may go against the principle as the universe doesn't care either way.

<comment><USER22> You essentially got it right. The Mediocrity Principle mean it's proper to put your users before yourself.

From a code standpoint, it means you strive for "it just works", even if it means a lot of redundant code that doesn't match common expectations of best practices or adds a lot of "useless" work for the devs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What follows immediately from the principle is that humans are not special among species. We are average. Most of the life on Earth is bacteria life. At least half of bacteria must be more intelligent than we are. Instead of pursuing futile AI idea, we need to find a way to cooperate with bacteria, as equal partners, and make use of their talents.

<comment><USER24> I don't know. Everything in the principle seems to equate equal to equal - <USER2> as a human are not special among humans... Earth is not special among planets, and so on. To assume humans are not special among all life is to ignore evolution and our dominant position on Earth.

That said, we didn't get here by divine intervention, and on another planet with life, the dominant species will likely have followed a similar pattern to dominance, and our existence as the dominant species is not special (the dinosaurs once owned the place).

Also my ability to understand to what level you are being silly or snarky or sarcastic is equally non-special.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The only thing that seems to violate the mediocrity principle is the staggering odds that we exist in the first place given the conditions under which intelligent life needs to have in order to exist. But then, Anthropic_principle, so there's that.

Een then, once you understand the vastness of the universe, even falls under the veil of inevitability.

<comment><USER26> Don't confuse our history as the only possible history. There are lot's of planets out there vary much like earth. Presumably there are trillions of planets with single celled life and quite possibly trillions of planets with intelegent life just not close enough for us to notice.

The universe is likely far larger than just the observable univers. Still ~27+ billion light years across means we only get to see suff that's less than 1 billion years old within ~1/20,000th of the univers and the last 1 million years is ~1/20,000,000,000,000 of the visible universe. Look back 1 million years and earth has little trace of any intelegent life. Worse if there was another identical earth pushing out radio waves as much as we do 1,000 light years from us we would probably have missed it so add another 9 zeros.

Hell voyager 1 is in a well known location less than 2 light days from us pointing a directional antenna directly at us and it's not that easy to detect. 1 light year would mean ~1/10,000th the signal which would be hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yes, nobody whatsoever is special, except, that is, for those of us who are.

Furthermore, our cosmological position is, in fact, at least somewhat special, but that is not surprising, by the anthropic principle.

Yet another idiotic bloviation from PZ.</comment>


BBC Trust Vice Chairman on net neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/comment/open_internet.shtml

<comment><USER2> While I applaud their efforts, it's not like the BBC is unbiased. iPlayer benefits massively from 'net neutrality'. I recall speaking to an ISP who mentioned that 90% of their traffic during the olympics was iPlayer traffic.

I'm completely for net neutrality but I don't think it has addressed the potential for a tragedy of the commons.

<comment><USER3> And that's the fundamental disconnect. The BBC is _not_ getting a free ride. They _are_ paying for the bandwidth they use - through their own ISP & CDN bills.

Granted, it's probably not the same provider, however why should that matter? They're paying to get that bandwidth somehow. They shouldn't have to pay even more to every little provider so their traffic is not deprioritized.

If the ISP needs more money, they should charge their users more. They're the ones using the bandwidth - not the BBC.

<comment><USER4> Not only that, but no ISP customer can ever download more from iPlayer or any other service than they have _already_ paid for with their ISP subscription, or use more bandwidth than they were _promised_ when they signed up.

On the one hand, ISP's offer "50Mb broadband", on the other they get the vapours when people actually use it.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I've been thinking about this and I agree with you. The problem here is the ISP pricing models. As part of their marketing, they create 'uncapped' tariffs based on a business model that says that most users won't download a great deal of data. iPlayer breaks that model but what it should mean is that ISPs re-evaluate their pricing plans rather than creating a tiered internet which has the incentives in all the wrong places.

Amusingly, some ISPs do quite well out of iPlayer. Plusnet has a fantastically cheap capped deal (6.95, which I suspect is a loss leader) that users almost immediately exceed by switching on iPlayer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are other possibile outcomes to tiered access that are not being discussed. Offering tiered service to content publishers does not mean that traffic from those publishers must be prioritized for all consumers. Specifically, tiered publisher access can subsidize a new level of "subsidized" internet service, with price Y that is lower than the "neutral service" price X. More households will be able to access the internet as a result. Those households that prefer to continue receiving all publisher content in a "neutral" way may continue to do so (at the same price X).

Creative consumer education (as implied by Ofcom) can assist in this. ISPs are incentivized to do this because they can reach more consumers this way, ultimately increasing their bottom line. ISPs that do not pair prioritized publisher service with subsidized consumer service (as described above) will whither in the face of competition from ISPs that do.

Regulation cannot be considered without acknowledgement of the potential to stifle innovation in the internet service business and related technologies.

<comment><USER6> Can you give some examples of where this has worked? (excluding models which require the consumer to buy other stuff with the money they saved)

<comment><USER5> I'm unaware of any ISP offering priority transport in any form, including the consumer subsidy model I've described above. But if regulations were put in place, it would be illegal even to experiment with business models such as this.

<comment><USER6> What about in other industries?

<comment><USER5> To generalize this to other industries, the subsidy model I detailed can be described simply as offering reduced service quality at a reduced cost. This is a universal strategy of marketing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Side point:

"Four out of five people think that internet access is a fundamental right, according to a recent World Service poll in 26 different countries."

I'm all for net neutrality, ISP competition, etc, but this "right" makes no sense to me. Operating an ISP costs money. Why is anyone entitled to an ISP's services without paying for them?

<comment><USER8> Many systems are migrating to the net, for example paying bills for utilities or other governmental (uk) facilities. If the three strikes legislation were in action and someone was cut off, they stand to lose a lot more than just their internet connection. Handling my virgin broadband connection using the ebill site rather than having letters sent every month saves me £5 ($8) per month.

<comment><USER9> As a company director in the UK, I am legally responsible for making sure that the company meets its legal and regulatory obligations. Some of those obligations involve filing regular returns with HM Revenue & Customs, Companies House, etc. Some of those filings _must_ now be made using on-line systems.

As a citizen in the UK, I am also legally responsible for providing various information to government departments and renewing various statutory services and licences from time to time: filing a personal tax return, driving licence, TV licence, electoral registration, etc. Once again, much of this is now done on-line, though I don't think any of the above are on-line only yet.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as putting Internet access on the level of "fundamental human right". As someone concerned about the recent erosion of far too many genuinely fundamental rights in far too many places, that seems like a loss of perspective. But you can't be asking people to file legal stuff on-line one minute, evangelising about high-speed nationwide broadband as an engine for getting the economy moving again the next minute, and then threatening to cut people off from the Internet based on... less than robust arguments made in some extra-judicial process, let's say. That just doesn't make any sense at all.

<comment><USER8> You're right, it doesn't make any sense to call it a fundamental right on that basis, but would you not say that by filling out these forms or by using the Internet in other ways you are more efficient than if you could not use it at all? If this is true, would this not then put you at a significant commercial disadvantage without the internet against your competitors?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> AFAIK, no one has ever suggested that the phone company is entitled to a percentage of the money that a biz makes by using the phone. Instead, phone companies have to make do with biz charges that are the same for all biz and based solely on usage and installed equipment.

So, it's unclear why ISPs should be any different.

I've often hoped that Google would do a "day without google" for ISPs that felt that they were entitled to a cut. I think that ISPs would feel the pain long before Google and I'm optimistic enough to think that the lesson would not have to be taught many times.

<comment><USER11> > AFAIK, no one has ever suggested that the phone company is entitled to a > percentage of the money that a biz makes by using the phone. Instead, phone > companies have to make do with biz charges that are the same for all biz and > based solely on usage and installed equipment.

Look up 'premium-rate telephone numbers', in which the phone company and the line-leasing business enter a revenue sharing agreement.

Now is it unclear why ISPs should be any different?

<comment><USER10> 'premium-rate telephone numbers', aka 976-porn and 1-900-more-porn are for biz that use the phone company as a billing/collections agent.

This is pretty much the exact opposite - the ISPs are asking the biz to be their billing/collections agent.

I have no problems with an ISP offering to do billing for internet companies that wanted it, or offering to give some of the money that they collect from their customers to internet-based biz for services rendered. However, that's the opposite of what they're proposing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there a UK body similar to the eff that is fighting these kinds of battles?

<comment><USER13> You're looking for the Open Rights Group ( <http://www.openrightsgroup.org/> )

<comment><USER6> In a similar vein: <http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk>

<comment><USER9> I'm not aware that Liberty have expressed a formal opinion on net neutrality or the various recent suggestions that Internet access should now be considered a fundamental human right, though if anyone has seen something relevant then I would be interested to read it.

I suspect Liberty are more concerned right now with the various mass Internet snooping provisions that seem to keep cropping up. Net neutrality seems a little on the commercial side and perhaps a little below the radar of an organisation that is campaigning against things on the level of torture, detention without trial, freedom to protest peacefully, etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: WiFi issues with new MacBook when USB-C hub plugged in – anyone else? - <AUTHOR> When I plug an USB-C hub (Satechi Slim Aluminum Type-C Multi-Port Adapter with HDMI) into my shiny 2016 MacBook Pro (13 inch, "Escape"), the (2.4 GHz) WiFi  performance drops precipitously (25 to 30 dB), sometimes making it unusable.
See this screenshot of the Wireless Diagnostic performance monitor: http://imgur.com/a/fe017
Noise (blue line) rises, signal-noise-ratio (red line) drops when I plug it in, reverts when I unplug.
There are some reports and rants ([1], [2]), but nothing widespread.
Notes:
* also happens when I plug in a plain-old-USB external hard drive with the original 9$ Apple USB-to-USB-C dongle, though less extreme. So it's not confined to this hub, or crappy cheap dongles.
* the problem/interference vanishes when you pull out the plug just a tiny bit.
* with the hub plugged in, AppleWatch unlock often doesn't work, so it seems to interfere with Bluetooth (also on 2.4 GHz), too.
An Apple FAQ [3] suggests to move the device, or plug it into the front or right ports ("you're plugging it in wrong" :-), but that doesn't seem to make a big difference for me. Alternatively it suggests to switch to 5 GHz WiFi, which obviously isn't possible everywhere.
Is anyone else seeing this? Is everyone using 5 GHz WiFi, or super strong WiFi, or not using USB-C hubs and dongles? Or is there something wrong with my machine?
Thanks, any input appreciated (check Wireless Diagnostics -> Window -> Performance :-)
[0] http://www.satechi.net/index.php/metallic-series/satechi-slim-aluminum-type-c-multi-port-adapter-with-type-c-charging-port-4k-hdmi-video-output-and-2-usb-3-0-ports-space-gray
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u3EBxuAPXQ
[2] http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-macbook-pro-wifi-drops-when-externals-connected.2012327/
[3] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201163#17 <comment><USER2> It honestly happens when I even charge my new MacBook using USB-C. Wifi is not "really" affected if I use the right side ports but totally cuts out my wifi if I use the left side.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Interesting - unfortunately my "cheap" MacBook Pro only has ports on the left side!</comment></comment>


A Singularly Valuable Decomposition: the SVD of a Matrix [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.math.umn.edu/~lerman/math5467/svd.pdf

<comment><USER2> We use an application of singular value decomposition in our search products, in particular Latent Semantic Indexing: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_indexing>. This is being used to drive a "concept search" feature.</comment>


SciPy 1.0: fundamental algorithms for scientific computing in Python - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-019-0686-2 <comment><USER2> > _Our policy for evolving the API over time is that new functionality can be > added, while removing or changing existing functionality can only be done if > the benefits exceed the (often significant) costs to users and only after > giving clear deprecation warnings to those users for at least one year. In > general, we encourage changes that improve clarity in the API of the library > but strongly discourage breaking backward compatibility, given our position > near the base of the scientific Python computing stack._

This is one of the nuggets out of it. I have been using Python with scipy and more extensively with it's sci-kit library since 2014. Started with it by solving discrete _traveling sales man_ problem for solution of sitting arrangements and was astonished with its ease of use of matrix algebra with this libraries and got hooked to it. It helped me to do scientific computing and create a user friendly user interface on web to help end-user to just focus on siting arrangement and conference Organization. Can solve it with Matlab or GNU octave, but couldn't have developed easily the whole system with user interface in them.

If Swift wanted to be used in scientific computing it needs to follow the similar policy of managing its scientific stack.

Julia is good for scientific computing, but it's UI and web development libraries are isn't that powerful. So will see how it develops.

I constantly see on HN mostly criticism of Python and something rewritten in Rust as something revolutionary or ground breaking that it will change the whole world. Earlier this fad was with go language. Probably in time to come Rust will be used for some core library development which brings substantial benefits like scipy, not something rewritten as wrapper around C library with unsafe code which can be done with Python much better.</comment>


How to make a Rails app faster with Redis - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@aledalgrande/how-to-make-a-rails-app-faster-with-redis-bfa3e5f48fcf

<comment><USER2> Nice intro but I disagree about the gotcha - you can tune persistency so that every operation is written to disk, it will just make Redis much slower. One of the unique things in Redis is that you can decide for yourself on the persistence vs performance tradeoff.</comment>


The dumbing-down of Windows 8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2012/05/30/the-dumbing-down-of-windows-8/ <comment><USER2> Flagged. The title is misleading and the very first sentence is factually inaccurate.

MS is not eliminating Aero (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero>) they are eliminating Aero Glass ([http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/05/micros...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2012/05/microsoft-sprucing-up-windows-8-to-boost-consistency- multimonitor-friendliness/)).

Basically they just dropped transparent window chrome in their default theme.

<comment><USER3> This article draws some truly insane conclusions, that dropping Aero Glass had anything to do with "dumbing" down Windows to put it on phones is ridiculous.

The real key here is integration, it's more in the line of Smart Glass - having a compatible and familiar UX on all their lines of products, and I think it's about time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know why the article considers the only two possible options as "Metro" and "Aero". I'd go for "Classic". I still set my Windows boxes to that style immediately after install, along with separately turning off most other visual enhancements in the System control panel.

I'm not a complete luddite; I know that on a modern system Aero is not going to have a terrible effect on performance, and that UI elements can be customized, and that I like some of the Windows 7 enhancements to the taskbar and start menu. But the visual style of Aero is just extra visual distraction.

I can see the point of using GPU to accelerate the UI, but there should always be an option of minimal visual distraction.

<comment><USER5> Instead of disabling Aero, I just installed a custom theme and turned off all the transparency. I too found Aero to be too much of visual distraction; too many different colored elements with no consistency.

However, a subtle Aero theme is a considerable improvement of classic.

<comment> excuse-me Goto ctrl pnl->system->advanced->performance

Select manage best performance (ie remove all the features) then turn back on the bottom 4 options. It gives you almost all the aero look but without the CPU/memory load

<comment><USER5> Honestly, the CPU/Memory load is pretty minimal and disabling Aero for performance on a modern machine is micro-optimization at best.

<comment> excuse-me Unless you are running CUDA or openGL shader code, then anything that uses a GPU function brings you to a halt.

It took us a long time to work out why we getting crappy performance on some people's machines when the dev's with identical hardware were doing fine. Aero transparency does terrible things to the texture memory

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't believe the Aero interface won't be an option - Does anyone really believe Microsoft has forgotten where their corporate bread is buttered?

<comment><USER7> After chrome.exe and eclipse, the most memory consuming app on my Task Manager's process list is DWM. I think i can give up on some effects to gain more memory.

<comment><USER8> I don't think you will save much memory unless Microsoft is also removing desktop composition. When I turn off transparency in Win7, the amount of memory used by DWM.exe does not change.

<comment><USER7> Transparency is one of the features of DWM. If you want to get rid of DWM, you have to select Windows Classic theme.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Implementation Inheritance Is Evil - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/inheritance-based-on-internal-structure-is-evil-7474cc8e64dc <comment><USER2> I'm curious what HN thinks of the current trend in languages like Kotlin and Typescript of having getters and setters masquerade as properties.

Then again if you have to use accessors in the first place you have already committed the crime and exposed the internals and might as well just go with the simpler syntax instead of trying to fool yourself with a bunch of getFoo()s and setFoo()s.</comment>


Visual Studio 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2013/06/03/visual-studio-2013.aspx <comment><USER2> I wish they would dedicate more time to improving cl.exe and link.exe in terms of performance and language support and less time with these hokey team visualization gimics.

Every release since 2008 has been getting slower and slower for C++, the C compiler is awful, PGO instrumentation in Win8 is less capable, and there's no equivalents in the Windows ecosystem to gcc's likely/unlikely, oprofile, or valgrind.

It's at the point now where developing on Windows vs Linux is a serious performance and security impediment due to their withering native toolchain. But I guess nobody over there gets promoted for fixing the hard stuff.

<comment><USER3> ex-VS person here (from 5 years ago though).

It is never an either-or. It is always a complex mix of what customers ask for, what the strategic priorities/market realities are.

Often the problem with these queries is that there are not enough devs complaining to MSFT. No PM/engg manager is going to ignore a bug/problem if it shows up high in customer requests.

On promotions - I think it's the reverse problem. People only get promoted for working on something that's perceived to be hard.

<comment><USER4> Mozilla has been fighting the MSVC linker's 3GB virtual address space limit for years. Mozilla has asked Microsoft for a 64-bit linker that can produce 32-bit code, but Microsoft apparently has no plans for such a configuration.

[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.d...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform/wLHTg_moymM)

<comment><USER5> What I want to know is how someone can see that their software project has become unlinkable on a 32-bit OS and somehow think that this is purely a compiler problem.

<comment><USER6> I'm actually about to sit down and write a blog post about VS compiler memory issues, and I had a long talk with the Firefox guys a few weeks ago about this issue. It's not all their fault.

<comment><USER5> Awesome - where's it likely to get posted?

<comment><USER6> Visual C++ Team blog

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No mention at all about missing C++11 features. I hope their continued silence is not an indicator of nothing to come. [http://cpprocks.com/c11-compiler- support-shootout-visual-stu...](http://cpprocks.com/c11-compiler-support- shootout-visual-studio-gcc-clang-intel/)

It should be noted that features listed as included in the VS2012 Nov CTP, such as initializer lists, variadic templates, etc., should not in my view be listed. The CTP does not work via the Visual Studio interface, but only from the command line compiler. And the CTP is not included in either Update 1 or Update 2.

Meanwhile GCC and Clang are both feature complete: [http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTM1N...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTM1NTg) [http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/GCC-4-8-1-is-C-11-fea...](http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/GCC-4-8-1-is-C-11-feature- complete-1875093.html)

<comment><USER8> From the article: _"I will not, in this post, be talking about many of the new VS 2013 features that are unrelated to the Application Lifecycle workflows."_

It seems that the OP talked about what the blog's focus was first, then will come in later (maybe on a different blog?) to talk about anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yet another Visual Studio, yet another truckload of "features" that do nothing to help day-to-day, heavy-lifting programmers. (And which probably help by adding bugs or just bloating the system). Sigh.

I am hoping they have made substantial improvements that are not mentioned in this blog post.

<comment><USER10> Try R# with VS.

<comment><USER11> Try R# with VS in a solution with 54 projects and ~ 1.5MLOC...

It stinks!

<comment> trust-me Are you serious? That's a medium size project, just get a fast machine (e.g. i7 4770) and you'll be perfectly fine.

<comment><USER11> I've got an 8 core 3.0 Xeon with 32Gb RAM and Samsung 840. It's still slow.

It's more latency than long waits but it's enough to stop me using it.

<comment> trust-me 8 core Xeon would be good at video rendering, but as of now for VS and R# you need single threaded performance, where a 3.9GHz Haswell shines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone who uses reharper to make the IDE cool, git for source control, teamcity for builds, nunit for C# tests, mocha and testacular for js tests, and a goddamn whiteboard, cards, pens, and blue-tack for "agile portfolio management", I'm not seeing a lot here that interests me.

I'm underwhelmed with the desire to suck all activities into the one tool to rule them all. Especially when it rules them from _bleh_ TFS.

I want VS to let me write code. I want to find and manipulate text. I want it to compile fast and produce relevant warnings. I want a debugger. I want it to host duiverse plugins. That's mostly it. ALM? I'm probably doing whatever it is that you mean by that and I don't care about integrated tools for it.

<comment><USER13> _I want VS to let me write code. I want to find and manipulate text. I want it to compile fast and produce relevant warnings. I want a debugger. I want it to host duiverse plugins. That's mostly it._

That's all I want Visual Studio for, too. Fortunately those things will continue to work and we can continue to ignore things like TFS and mstest.

<comment><USER14> It would be really nice if you could strip the things out of VS that you don't want. For me, all I really want is the code editor, R#, NCrunch, nuget, and the debugger. There might be a few other things that I didn't think of right away. I personally prefer to do source code management (git) outside of the IDE, because I find visual studio doesn't tend to make good choices about what should be controlled.

If I could make VS just do those things and nothing else, that would be really nice.

<comment><USER13> I strip down the UI a lot. I don't have any toolbars visible, for example. It's not exactly the same thing, but I have no complaints, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Way way way way, WAY too soon Microsoft... most shops, including my current employer aren't even on 2012 yet... Honestly I prefer VS to be tied to desktop OS releases or SQL release or something other than yearly.

This is not a Madden game, nobody is asking for yearly updates for Visual Studio.

<comment><USER16> Seriously! My company has been keeping up with the latest stuff but I have hard time understanding what the justification was behind releasing a whole new Visual Studio version. Are there new features that won't be available in VS 2012? I guess we'll see at the Build conference.

<comment><USER17> Update 3 was the last one.

Maybe Microsoft is tight on money. :)

<comment> trust-me VS is not there to make money directly, but to sell MS platforms - Windows, SQL Server, etc. They give it away for free to students, startups and pretty much anybody who asks. The only reason all editions are not free is to not kill the other commercial Windows IDEs.

<comment><USER17> Really? You don't have to pay for licenses I imagine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm actually a bit relieved to see a new version of VS so soon. The Entity Framework team said that v6 would come out with the "New" Visual Studio and I was wondering how long that would be. Apparently it's a lot closer than I thought.

<comment><USER18> Personally, it's a bit unnerving to see a new version instead of another update so soon imho... an upgrade is nicer than having yet another version of VS installed... the VS installer installs so many bits and pieces, it's nearly impossible to get rid of all of the last version to upgrade to the new one.

I'd rather see a 2012.3 version... I'd also like to see a _LOT_ more stability, as well as a non-building project (for external systems) that still has a pre/post-build event, but no compile step from inside VS... (mainly for projects that use other runtimes/build systems but make sense to include in a VS solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> And yet, still no formalized C99 support.

I know everybody is hot and bothered about C++11, but honestly I'd suggest just getting proper support for things we've needed for a decade or so before chasing the new shiny.

<comment><USER17> Have you missed the news? C is dead on Microsoft tooling, they have deprecated it.

[http://herbsutter.com/2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc- and...](http://herbsutter.com/2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99/)

<comment><USER20> I prefer to think of it as "Microsoft tooling is dead", since C continues to work just fine.

<comment><USER21> Either way, C99 in Visual C++ isn't happening, so why beat a dead horse?

<comment><USER19> For the same reason people still push Python 3...hope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Fingers crossed that this will also include a good version bump to the CLR and take .NET tech up a notch, rather than just tooling.

</comment><comment><USER23> Former member of the Visual Studio ALM team here.

ALM is that is where the money is. Higher-ups in orgs are much more willing to pay for oversight and management features than language features.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was asked to renew our expiring VS licenses at my previous role, and was all but paralyzed by the bevy of options and bundles available.

What is the motivation behind having 10+ bundle and service options? Is it to trick us into buying the wrong thing, then forcing us to buy other addons that we initially didn't realize we needed? Is it an attempt to maximize sales by offering tons of bundle options to extract the maximum value out of the variety of customer needs that exist out there?

I guess shops that are even looking to buy VS are so locked into VS that we _will_ spend the cognitive energy to figure out where the best value is for our needs, but this current method just doesn't seem elegant or efficient to me.

<comment><USER25> _What is the motivation behind having 10+ bundle and service options?_

Maximize revenues.

The trick is that many users will opt for the most expensive option because they don't understand or are intimidated by the marketing / licensing material and therefore make the safest choice. If you don't know what you need ( and most large corporate shops don't) you buy everything.

Having lower priced options mostly serves to hide the true costs of the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone happen to know if it supports inline assembly (64 bit) yet?

<comment><USER2> They don't support inline assembly because it messes with the register allocation in their compiler. It's likely they'll never support it because of this. :(

<comment><USER27> I'm not a compiler guy, but wouldn't this be true for any compiler?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How about improving F# support?

</comment><comment><USER29> Link is down for me.

Server Error in '/' Application.

Runtime Error

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".

<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->

<configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="Off"/> </system.web> </configuration>

</comment><comment><USER30> Those tools look very nice, but it's a shame they run against TFS. Plus the entire toolset must cost what, 4000$ per license?

</comment><comment><USER31> [http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/doesvisualstudiorotthemind...](http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/doesvisualstudiorotthemind.html)

</comment><comment><USER25> So what's the new data access paradigm?

</comment><comment><USER32> That was fast.

<comment><USER33> menu still shouting

<comment><USER34> I don't mind it. It's not like it's high-contrast, large font, or bold, it just serves as a heading for the menus they show without making the font large or bold.

It's definitely nowhere near as annoying as intellisense randomly breaking and putting a red line underneath half your statements.

<comment><USER35> > intellisense randomly breaking and putting a red line underneath half your > statements

There's a reasonably simple solution with which you can solve the red line problem, if you're talking about the C and C++ projects:

[http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/5...](http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/533605/stdafx- h-cant-be-parsed-with-intellisense-squiggles-mechanism)

"Posted by JoeWoodbury on 25/02/2010 at 10:16 (...)

The solution is to add the location of the stdafx.h file to the include path list. This is often a matter of simply putting a dot comma (.,) as the very first item in a projects include list."

<comment><USER34> It happens regardless of precompiled headers, so I don't think that's the issue. I do think it's an include problem, but I don't know why.

<comment><USER35> It's precompiled headers and it can be proved: If you would try to turn off precompiled headers in your project and rebuild it, the compilation would fail in all the files in which you see the red lines. It's because your project has subfolders and the files in the subfolders reach stdafx only by accident of having the "use precompiled headers" turned on. So once you fix the include path, and that you can do on the project level, your project will compile independently of "use precompiled headers" settings and the intellisense would work too. I know from experience, I fixed the big projects on which I worked.

EDIT v2: Looking at the project you cited in the reply of this message and the file: [http://code.google.com/p/freetype- gl/source/browse/trunk/dem...](http://code.google.com/p/freetype- gl/source/browse/trunk/demo-font.c) on the computer on which I don't have VS, I still have an idea what the reason for such errors are: the project authors use something like:

         #elif defined(_WIN32) || defined(_WIN64)

Now think about it: when intellisense parses the file, can it assume you're building a 32-bit version? No. Can it assume you're building a 64-bit version? No. So intellisense doesn't use the header inside that elif at all. Setting defines in the project can fix that.

<comment><USER34> I'm not using PCH in the most recent example. I've been playing with this project: <http://code.google.com/p/freetype-gl/> , so it includes Freetype, GLUT (using freeglut), and opengl stuff. Builds fine, intellisense lines everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Will we get variadic templates so that

I can std::thread(a,b,c,d,e,f,g) more than 5 arguments?

</comment><comment><USER37> Still No C99... _sobs_

</comment><comment><USER38> All these wonderful tools and they still can't release an operating system that's worth a single plugged nickel.</comment>


Show HN: Gravitle – 2D soft-body engine built with Rust for the web - <AUTHOR> https://loicbourgois.github.io/gravitle/index.html <comment><USER2> Site freezes on Moto G4, latest Chrome after about a second. At least back button still worked.

</comment><comment><USER3> How do I use this on mobile? The controls mention touchscreen...

<comment><USER4> Idk if it breaks on other platforms, but Firefox on Android it's working to tap and hold the middle of the screen for the center thruster, left for left thruster, and right for right thruster

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do you ensure stability? Based on the "learn more" section, I would presume the soft body is made up of vertices stitched together with damped springs. Is that accurate?

<comment><AUTHOR> The springs are not damped yet, but for the main example, drag is enabled[1]. This continuously slows down the particles.

Drag is computed[2] for all the particles using something similar to the Drag equation[3].

Also, like electricslpnsld said, having a small enough time step helps.

[1] [https://github.com/loicbourgois/gravitle/blob/master/fronten...](https://github.com/loicbourgois/gravitle/blob/master/frontend/index.js#L12)

[2] [https://github.com/loicbourgois/gravitle/blob/master/src/par...](https://github.com/loicbourgois/gravitle/blob/master/src/particle.rs#L341)

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

<comment><USER6> You might want to look into finite elements. That's a bit harder conceptually, but it's not that hard to implement and should be far more realistic and robust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I landed my first job 20 years ago by writing a similar demo. It was in ASM on a 80286, I was rendering a torus in 3D and applying physics using a spring/mass model.

<comment><USER8> What was the context? Where people still using 286s in 1999?

<comment><USER9> Nope. Probably meant to say 30 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Verlet physics are so nifty. A basic implementation with points, springs, gravity, and a simple floor (a Math.max check) produces stunning motion. Going from trying to tune angular momentum calculations to getting believable rotation 'for free' felt like a revelation

</comment><comment><USER11> Man this is great fun! I got all scrunched up by the circles of doom.

</comment><comment><USER12> This works in Chrome, but not Safari (macOS 10.14.5).

<comment><USER13> It indeed works on Safari with WebGL 2.0 enabled (Developer -> Experimental Features)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't work in Chrome : /

E: And started to work, could just have been some fringe issue, the page was just a white screen and didn't respond.

</comment><comment><USER15> Doesn't work in Firefox 67 on Windows.

<comment><USER16> Firefox 69.0a1 (2019-06-22) (64-bit) chugging along just fine on macOS

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is very nice. It works perfectly on a BlackBerry K2 - with full keyboard support :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Didn't work on my iphone

</comment><comment><USER19> It would be possible to use SDL2 with rust for rendering too.

</comment><comment><USER20> super interesting. Is there a blog post somewhere?

how much better is the performance due to rust/wasm compared to implementing the physics in JS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. There is not, but on the readme you can find a few links to learn more[1].

I don't have solid metrics, but using only JS for a previous attempt, I couldn't have 8 points running smoothly [2]. Now it works with 500[3].

I'm not sure whether it's because I have a better understanding of the problems now or just because Rust/wasm is way faster, but what is sure is that Rust makes it easier to write performant code, even if it's harder to learn at first.

[1] [https://github.com/loicbourgois/gravitle#learn- more](https://github.com/loicbourgois/gravitle#learn-more)

[2] [https://loicbourgois.github.io/treeminor/demo/heart](https://loicbourgois.github.io/treeminor/demo/heart)

[3] [https://loicbourgois.github.io/gravitle/playground.html?test...](https://loicbourgois.github.io/gravitle/playground.html?test=test_15)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Freezes in Firefox mobile on a LG G5.</comment>


Ask HN: Weekly HN updates - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I would like to avoid checking HN all the time.
How can I get a summary of top stories on HN on a weekly basis. <comment><USER2> We've been toying with making a page for each day's worth of stories that made the front page that day. For example, you could go to [https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2016-01-26](https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2016-01-26) and see all the stories that were on the front page at some point today. I wonder if people would find that useful?

We want to do something to help users find the best content they're currently missing. Since HN goes round the clock and none of us does, we're all missing out on something.

(Not quite a direct response to the OP, but it would help with that as well.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not exactly what you want, but you can try reading [https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best) . It's like the front page, but with less gravity. So it has more stories with a lot of points in spite they are not so new.

</comment><comment><USER4> A quick google search found [http://www.hackernewsletter.com/](http://www.hackernewsletter.com/) and [http://www.hndigest.com/](http://www.hndigest.com/)</comment>


IBM 5100 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5100 <comment><USER2> I inherited one of these from my stepfather's business when I was a kid. They never used it. You should have seen the size of the external 8" dual floppy disk drive; it weighed 300 lbs!</comment>


Show HN: Spellingalphabet.xyz – Convert Words to Their NATO Phonetic Alphabet - <AUTHOR> https://spellingalphabet.xyz <comment><USER2> This is really nice. Thanks for building and sharing</comment>


Kanzi is a male bonobo who has been featured in studies on great ape language - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanzi

<comment><AUTHOR> One thing I found interesting about Kanzi is how organic his learning experience seems to have been compared to some other animals who were taught language. (Alex, for instance: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_\(parrot\)) ) Seeing this sort of learning through exposure makes me think maybe we're not so different after all.</comment>


Nuclear goes retro – with a much greener outlook - <AUTHOR> https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/technology/2019/nuclear-goes-retro-much-greener-outlook <comment><USER2> One question - while I would love to see nuclear power grow what are the risks of a tank breakage? Better than a meltdown probably at least - I would guess possible groundwater contamination if not in a suitable geological location which while not good would still be inhabitable.

<comment><USER3> I like ThorCon's approach - the entire facility is intended to be 100 feet underground, secure from most anything including jet airliner crash.

As another poster stated, the emergency storage tank can be made arbitrarily durable.</comment></comment>


Extreme weather is pummeling the midwest US and farmers are in deep trouble - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/05/30/extreme-weather-is-pummeling-midwest-farmers-are-deep-trouble/ <comment><USER2> its more complex than the article covers..

Let me explain(my bias I am in NW Indiana and grew up working on my Uncles Farms). The herbicides used for corn mess-up other crops that have shorter periods of growth that could be used to replace corn due to late planting.

That means for example they cannot switch ot Soybeans due to herbicides used for corn from the previous years crop.

Late planting of corn affects price as most farmers sell corn on the options market per a contract and late planting will adjust that future contract price downward</comment>


Phantom Island - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_island <comment><USER2> Temporary zones where I can work on crypto for a few months before fleeing and leaving no trace. Nice</comment>


Show HN: *Not* my first web app – PDF memo creator with privacy - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hiramsoft/os-create-a-memo <comment><USER2> Have you deleted the other submissions of this same app? Or it wasn't you?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the only submission from me. You're probably thinking of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12843466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12843466).

I cloned that app to show how to build the same thing while also respecting user privacy. And, it's open source.

<comment><USER2> Very nice.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your thoughts on "unofficial" programming languages in companies? - <AUTHOR>

All companies have their standards as to what languages they will support and not support.  The company I work for in particular, a 10,000+ corporation, is strictly a Microsoft shop.  I understand the decision for having "official" languages from a management point-of-view; supportability is the bottom line.<p>But after reading "Developing Erlang at Yahoo!" and how the new Delicious is written in Erlang, I started to think about how "unofficial" languages can be approved up the ranks for a production system, such as the case with Delicious at Yahoo!  I wish the slides explained more about the decision making in the early stages.  What are your thoughts about developing in languages that are not supported?  If you were proposing to use unsupported language x to build a system, what would your argument be to go this route?<p>(My aim is to make this conversation more about management and less about programming language wars) <comment><USER2> Fighting that front and center will make you that hoarding programmer that doesn't cooperate or share, writes horribly obfuscated code and tries to ensure job security by not just doing things the "right" way. You'll be perceived that way whether or not you're the Mother Teresa of code, so don't do that.

An arguably better approach to this problem is to find places where the MS stack is lacking (source control, automated builds, deployment are some things that come to mind from my circa-2003 knowledge of the MS stack) and write scripts that improve your company's development processes.

If you do this successfully you might see things change from "we only use $tech products" to "our customer facing, support-requiring products are all written in $tech". From here you have a valid footing upon which to demonstrate the quality, productivity and _supportability_ (be sure you can support these commensurate with the company's need!) of other solutions.

Now that you have a footing upon which to build, you can architect solutions that push the strategic part of the products away from the customer facing veneer and toward an asynchronous, nearline component where potential failures won't be seen by the customers directly.

You may not be able to get that far, depending on what your products do, but maybe you can take the first step or two, and at least scripting in nicer languages can certainly make the rest of your job a lot easier and more pleasant.

</comment><comment><USER3> > But after reading "Developing Erlang at Yahoo!" and how the new Delicious is > written in Erlang

Didn't you read the bit about it _not being written in Erlang_ ?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=323116>

One route would be simply to go work somewhere where you can learn new languages, rather than try and get around obstacles at BigCorp.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks David - I didn't see this thread, but the presentation was clear that there was still a lot of C++ in addition to the Erlang services. Still curious as to the thinking behind Erlang getting the nod...

And yes, that would be one route - arguably the best route. But if one were to make a career out of his job in a big corp, I would say it is worth it to introduce new languages into the company to open up more options in future development. It goes without saying though...languages with more/better documentation and healthy community would be a plus in considering.</comment></comment>


Turkey kills school books, moves to tablet in all schools - <AUTHOR> http://fatihprojesi.meb.gov.tr/tr/duyuruincele.php?id=17

<comment><USER2> Here's an inside story about this project: up to this point the government has been running a small scale pilot which has been hit with all kinds of problems. For example, the kids who have received these tablets have been selling them on the street to buy candy instead of using them to study. Further, there is no centralized management software for the books and other tablet content. As a result, kids just delete books on the tablets and tell their teachers that tablets don't work because they are missing books. The data center that the gov't has been using is not equiped to deal with the volume of service requests that the tablets are sending to the DC. There is a real sense amongst participants that despite all the investment on part of the Turkish government the project will be a huge failure.

</comment><comment><USER3> As an Turkish citizen living in Turkey. this move is bold but too early move. Also it's nothing about killing books. It's just a AKP(the ruling party) pr move without any bases.

We even lack the tech to run governmental sites in a stable and secure way. Forget about making this kind of technological movement worthy for the kids.

These will be highly restricted tablets - even not working outside of classrooms -, and with highly censored Internet. We have a tendency to restrict any sites against Islamic creationism so most of any pro-evolution or even scientific evolution ones will be restricted. I believe they will put the kids on a "white-listed" restriction zone.

Other than these points, we lack a decent educational system. Every government has been trying to circumvent the system according to their views and change curriculum, exam and admission ways annually. And there are too many children lacking the basic thinking and reading abilities. So these tablets won't make any good to them.

\-- loosely related political point of view start --

Even governments have been circumventing how long and "how" the education system is. This year AKP legislated an education system of 4+4+4 which means, well I have no fucking idea! But as much as I've heard it would make possible 4 year old kids to be admitted for elementary school which will have "optional" Quran and "Prophet Muhammad" lessons and women to be continue education without attending the last 4 years.

\-- loosely related political point of view end --

In the light of these information, I again don't believe this bold move means anything for the children. It's just a pr and social engineering move.

<comment><USER4> As an American citizen living in Turkey, I agree that this effort is a bit cart-before-the-horse. That said, I think that Turkey is in an interesting place right now. Maybe the _way_ they are introducing technology into the classroom is wrong, but at least they are _interested_ in using technology in the classroom. Meanwhile, the US is arguing over the best way to use statistics to decide which teachers to fire.

It seems that this same story is playing itself out in a number of areas. Turkey "gets it" in terms of science and technology investments, it just doesn't seem to know the best way to go about making those investments. Personally, I prefer this situation to the alternative: knowing exactly how and what to do, but not even bothering to keep a manned spaceflight capability or high-energy particle physics research facility funded.

As for what Turkey can do to get on the right track, I think the first thing that needs to happen is the expansion of homegrown technologies. It seems every user group or startup weekend type event I've seen advertised is almost exclusively sponsored and/or run by Microsoft. Turkey would do well to look at a country like Brazil that, while it suffered being behind the times for a while, is now a strong player in the technology sector because it focused on homegrown tech.

<comment><USER3> The ones that are advertised are from Microsoft. Because they have the money. I'm a - past time active - Turkey LUG/LUF (Linux User Foundation) member and we still continuously do events but lack the funding for advertisement.

On the topic, In my point of view, these moves are just wasting government funding, even a corruption possibility. If you know about Deniz Feneri Lawsuit you can understand my doubts.

Without deep understanding of the upcoming results and project targets, these projects are only time and resource wasting. Also giving false hopes to parents about our education systems quality.

<comment><USER4> I think the outcome of this experiment very much depends on the attitude that parents and students take into it. If they passively accept the technology, don't ask questions, and don't push for more access, more technology, then the project will be a waste regardless of any corruption or inefficiencies.

If, on the other hand, the students and parents expect to take this technology and _do_ something with it, to _change_ somehow the state of education, then it won't matter how poorly executed this first project is. Students will demand more and better access as time goes on.

I am an optimist. Recent reports on the success (or lack thereof) of the One Laptop Per Child program make me slightly more pessimistic, though...

<comment><USER3> I believe, only a few of the kids will push whatever they have for better use. This may be my pessimism, but lack of DIY culture and abusing of technology tendency of Turkey population makes me think like this.

<comment><USER4> I can't say you're wrong. I only wonder what it would take to change that...

<comment><USER3> Better education.

Better funding for education and better life conditions for teachers. Putting science before religion. Going against memorization and teaching kids analytical thinking and social arts.

Of course academia is another place that must be revolutionized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The big problem I see with the project is that everone seems to be focused on hardware, which I think should be at the bottom of the the list to provide decent digital education system.

Money should be spent on good educational content and infrastructure to distribute this content. End devices will change every year anyway but content stays for long time and it is content that actually matters.

The content delivery part actually could be independent of the hardware, but government of course can subsidize a cheap and robust device for students. Which naturally means an OSS solution like android.

However Microsoft entrenchment is at highest levels in Turkey and prevents development of a healthy IT ecosystem. Even the best universities completely bound to Microsoft tools and technologies. So I would expect they will try to derail this project on both software and hardware fronts.

This project has slim chance of success because of wrong focus and poor software expertise of contractors. But I can't blame them for trying. Turkey adapts technologies very fast, and has a chance to leapfrog other countries on this front.

</comment><comment><USER6> Where here does it say Turkey is "killing school books"? Even if they were replacing all schoolbooks with tablets, I find that idea kind of bad seeing as it makes it difficult to flip between exercises and the chapter or the index and the rest of the book (or other functionality that a textbook is supposed to support). Ebooks are fine for novels but I just can't use an endless scrolling touchscreen tome for learning something

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think they are going to just load the PDF files of current books to tablets and give the tablets.

They are saying that everything will be tablet optimized. Don't think your regular school books, thinks about something like, umm, Flipboard. With video and other content in it. All interactive.

I don't know how much they can achieve, but I'm really looking for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let alone the problem with the implementation of the system,

Almost half of the public schools in Turkey does not have proper funding for decent education.

Quarter of public schools have classes with more than 50 students (that holds true for metropolitans).

Many public schools in the Eastern part of Turkey lack money to provide heating to the students during winter. PS. Winter in the Eastern part can be as cold as -20 Celsius.

Yet government can find funding to provide tablets for students for some lucky schools. This is more than just PR work for the ruling party. This is plain hypocrisy.

</comment><comment><USER8> Disclosure: I'm currently in Istanbul.

This seems like an idea that could go pretty wrong.

1\. I have doubts to the quality of screens they will choose, for cost's sake. This is a country that still has a lot of poor people and doesn't have the tax base to use iPads exactly. Is a poor screen better than a "Retina Display" paper book? Now, while displays will be cheaper and better by the end of the 5 year rollout, and (barring more Europe recession) Turkey is still growing at a respectable rate, giving them a better tax base in 2018. I'm still not convinced what they can reasonably afford.

2\. If these tablets are too good or can do too much, they will be stolen. Kids will drop them. Dropping a paper book isn't as problematic as dropping every book you have and the tablet shattering, or a kid stealing another's tablet/submerging it in water out of spite, or adults stealing the tablet. It will happen.

</comment><comment><USER9> Be serious. You'll see that nobody is planning to kill school books, if you can read between the lines. That could have happened if the ministry had restructured the educational system to use tablets effectively. All they've done is scan the books and slap them into feature restricted tablets.

Unfortunately, this is just a public relations move and nothing more IMHO. (Oh and the site is down I think? It only gives me a "1" when I click on the address.)

<comment><USER10> I agree, the title is misleading in that, "Killing the books" is not intended as part of the project if you read the ministry web page (with a grunge design reminding 90s.)

The Peru experience with OLPC is reportedly having mixed results; so such projects should be worked out properly if not targeting short-sighted PR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I completely buy the idea that there's potential for new learning tools in tablets (or any computing device over books) but has anyone actually done it? Has anyone moved from potential and successfully effected this? At the very least tell me you're going to makes copies of lectures and video examples of everything available.

Changing from paper to electronic still images is kinda "meh".

</comment><comment><USER12> This is bad. Physical objects are a way to permanently an irrevocably establish a position. It is not possible to delete or change a textbook on the fly. This will open up textbooks to instant manipulation for political goals.

</comment><comment><USER13> I should also add that the contract bidding for this project was a 'closed' one. So they are just transferring tax money into their friends' pockets.

</comment><comment><USER14> I heard Nokia got the contract to distribute these tablets.I am not sure whether these are ones running Meltemi.

<comment><USER15> In the Pilot they used a US based Android tablet manufacturer (General Mobile) and Samsun Galaxy Tab. Initially they were going "only Android" but after some MS-Nokia lobbying (This is my guess, Both are very strong in Turkey) they had to change the requirements and they invited Nokia to the bid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If M$ is involved, it can't be good.

These people have no morals. I remember reading some documents about how neighboring Bulgaria was talked into buying Vista+office licenses for EVERY computer in every high school. At the time, the average computer was probably a PIII if not even PII. Doesn't make sense does it? Well they still did it!

<comment><USER17> Question: Who has better support for Turkish right now, MS or Linux?

<comment><USER3> I believe it is a draw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Epic.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is such an amazing move. It's going to put access to information into the hands of millions of children. It is a revolution in the making.

<comment><USER20> They said the same about the internet but most kids just play games or go on Facebook :-)

I read a recent study by teachers using iPads in the classroom - they said that they didn't help learning as the children just played games or messed around with them instead.

<comment><USER21> Which is not really a problem with iPads, nor with kids - it's a problem with education.

<comment><USER22> Exactly. During traditional class, as I recall, your options are roughly these: 1) mess around with something, 2) study or make it look like that.

In terms of temporal motivation theory, the utility of messing around is much higher than the utility of boring study. Two ways to fix this—either lower the utility of messing around, or raise the utility of actual learning.

A punishment by teacher (with high enough expectancy) for messing around with classmates or cellphone does the first. Obviously, a book is too boring—but replace it with an iPad and children can now play games while no one notices[0], which makes the utility of messing around go up again.

Another, arguably better way would be raising the utility of actual learning relative to messing around with stuff. In other words, make so that children would like to do it themselves—through some psychological reward (valuable and close enough temporarily), or by making it an enjoyable process (i.e., immediate reward). It means fixing the system though.

[0] Like many of us, in regular day job environments, can (and do) procrastinate with the help of our fancy devices.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Clone of hacker site: www.youyap.com - <AUTHOR>

i clone this site for people who want to sell product or service.
goto: http://www.youyap.com<p>please provide your feedback. <comment><USER2> Bro. Seriously. You keep spamming your website everywhere on the web and it's really irritating. What's going on? Let's talk, what's your email?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> what you mean spamming?</comment>


World war 1 military records, free for this weekend - <AUTHOR> https://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/world-war-1 <comment><USER2> Doesn't seem to be actually free-free - you need to sign up for a free trial as best I can tell from a 5 minute attempt to get some family details.</comment>


History tells us what may happen next with Brexit and Trump - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@theonlytoby/history-tells-us-what-will-happen-next-with-brexit-trump-a3fefd154714#.fvqpdo105 <comment><USER2> > How could I sit in a nice café in London, writing this, without wanting to > run away

So true, but where would you run to? Even the Antarctic is melting due to "made-up" climate change.</comment>


Discovering Hats, a New Generation Brims With Anxiety Over Etiquette - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703748904575411874109848424.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

<comment><USER2> I wear hats all the time, and they are almost never ball caps. I follow pretty traditional hat wearing rules:

Take it off or tip it when you first meet someone.

Take it off if you go inside, especially someone's home.

If you're in the subway or a hallway of a public building or something it's optional.

If in doubt, take it off.

If you're worried about your hair being messed up or that the hat is part of your style, you're too vain. Grow up.

Note that the rules for women are different. Basically pretend the rule is this: wearing a hat is to protect your head from falling water. If you wear it in someone's home, store or restaurant, you're saying "I'm afraid you have a leaky roof." That would be rude so don't do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This has many of the hallmarks of what Jack Shafer at Slate calls 'Bogus Trend of the Week' stories. He's tracked a few dozen over the years -

[http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=3944&da=&qt=%22...](http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=3944&da=&qt=%22bogus+trend%22)

</comment><comment><USER4> Hats are fairly common among young Japanese nowadays, including ladies. You might still stand out by wearing one, but not too much. I usually wear one myself and I used to worry if I should take it off inside restaurants, but I noticed that nobody else seems to bother.

(Incidentally, I now have an easy opening line: "nice hat", often followed by "thanks, yours too".)

<comment><USER2> It's funny, when I wear a hat here in Japan and meet someone, I don't know wether to tip my hat or bow. I usually end up doing both in an awkward hat- taking-off, hide-behind-my-back and bow ceremony. I don't think Japanese natives have that issue because they weren't taught to take off their hat. They just leave it on and bow.

In the west you would probably bow with your hat held over your chest, left arm behind you (like at the end of a theatrical performance), but in Japan your arms should be at your sides or slightly behind you.

<comment><USER4> As far as I can remember, the last few times I met Japanese people informally they extended a handshake (I don't know if it's a "foreigners can't possibly know how to bow" or a "I want to speak English/act like a Western" thing). In formal situations I'm not wearing a hat.

<comment><USER2> It's neither. Without stereotyping too much, Japanese people generally look for compromise and will seek common ground. The offer of a handshake is part of that. They like to shake hands with foreigners. They do also appreciate a bow in return.

But yeah, I agree with you. That's why I take mine off still.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html></comment>


Downloadable Engine Sounds - <AUTHOR> http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article127868.ece

<comment><USER2> I really dislike this trend of adding sounds to electric cars.

One of the things I liked the most about the electric car I used to drive was the quiet, and I would have hated if it made some fake sound as I drove around.

Once any car is moving, there are plenty of other sounds, such as gear-whine, tire noise, etc, to be audible to any pedestrians. And if the car is going so slowly that there's no sound at all, then there's plenty of time for a driver to stop if they see someone entering the street.</comment>


Ask YC: How many apps for the winter funding cycle have you received? - <AUTHOR>

In the application guidelines, it says there's a significant advantage to applying early. Just curious as to how many teams have taken advantage of that and already applied. <comment><USER2> I submitted my YC app since Sep 7th. None of the links in the app has been visited yet (including the website). I guess they received plenty of applications.

</comment><comment><USER3> I applied very early too...but I am not sure if they have visited - because I also submitted the coming soon page here and I have a ton of California traffic from that event :|

I also created a unique URL for them, but not sure how to track that in GA separately.

<comment><USER2> Use bit.ly in order to create and track unique links

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Applied last week. Wait & see :)</comment>