Paul Allen has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/15/microsoft-co-founder-paul-allen-dies-of-cancer-at-age-65.html <comment><USER2> I had an opportunity to work at both the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) and the Allen Institute for Brain Science (AIBs). I was part of the 10 year strategic planning efforts at AI2. Paul Allen was both involved and hands-off in the support of the leadership AI2 and AIBs. It was a rare balance and Paul Allen knew how to create the conditions for innovation and novel research breakthroughs with micromanaging.

Additionally, Paul Allen was an advocate for open science. Through AI2 he directly supported arxiv.org and funded the development of Semantic Scholar. I had an opportunity to participate in a gathering of scientists, academics and publishers organized by Vulcan and the Allen Institutes to investigate innovations to support open science. Alexandra Elbakyan (founder of Scihub) was skyped in (technically on the run) to share her advocacy of accessible and open science. It was surprising and inspiring to see that Paul Allen provided Alexendra a platform to share her experience (especially as several major publishers were in attendance).

His lasting legacy in AI will be the support of Semantic Scholar and the Alexandria (common sense) project. In neuroscience research, AIBs has made major breakthroughs in mapping the mouse brain and producing prolific open datasets (Allen Brain Atlas) to support research.

In Seattle, it was hard to not run into the influence of Paul Allen. From the Seattle Seahawks to the Museum of Popular Culture (MoPoP), Paul Allen had an impact everywhere in Seattle.

It is sad to see him pass away. He has a immense impact on both Seattle and scientific research. I hope both AI2 and AIBs will continue doing amazing work as part of his legacy.

<comment><USER3> > In Seattle, it was hard to not run into the influence of Paul Allen. From > the Seattle Seahawks to the Museum of Popular Culture (MoPoP), Paul Allen > had an impact everywhere in Seattle.

The whole South Lake Union urban office park that Amazon now dominates was Paul Allen's work also. (see [https://www.seattletimes.com/business/timeline- of-paul-allen...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/timeline-of-paul- allen-and-vulcans-interest-in-south-lake-union/))

<comment><USER4> Only after Seattle voters rejected his much better Seattle Commons plan though ([http://www.historylink.org/File/8252](http://www.historylink.org/File/8252)). Shame really.

<comment><USER5> Seattle voters have a track record of rejecting good things. See: The Rapid Transit Plan from the 70s.

At least we passed ST3...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Many here have noted his many large-scale philanthropic efforts, which are fantastic, and often benefit our whole species.

But my personal favorite, even if it doesn't benefit large swaths of humanity in the same way as a cell research insitute:

[https://livingcomputers.org/](https://livingcomputers.org/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Computers:_Museum_%2B_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Computers:_Museum_%2B_Labs)

It's a computer museum, but they work. They're turned on, and you can use them! You can program them; you can even get an account to access ancient computers over the internet (via telnet).

For example, look at the cool as hell control panel and general design of this thing! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Sigma_9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Sigma_9) \-- light bulbs add something to computers that LEDs don't. :)

If nothing else, it makes us nerds happy. Thanks, Paul.

<comment><USER7> That Sigma 9 photo brings back fond memories. An earlier version, the Sigma 5, was my first personal computer! Back in 1968.

I was hired as "night operator" for a timesharing company in Phoenix called Transdata. Their service ran on a Sigma 5, but they didn't offer the service at night.

So my graveyard shift gave me full access to the Sigma 5 to do whatever I wanted. I learned BASIC, assembly language, and Algol 60. And the art of writing an entire useful program on a single punch card.

One single-card program we used a lot was a simple print program. You'd put the program card at the front of the deck, and it would load and then print out the contents of all the cards after it.

Only problem was it was a bit slow. It had a single buffer that it read a card into, then printed the contents, then read the next card and so on.

I looked at it and realized I could squeeze in just enough code to make it double-buffered. It could read the next card at the same time it was printing the previous one. Twice as fast!

Not much by today's standards (unless you're into code golfing), but it was a lot of fun at the time.

<comment><USER8> That story really makes me wonder if my understanding of computers would be deeper, or more complete in some way, if I'd had that sort of background/experience...

<comment><USER9> Take a course on compilers. It will teach you these things and give you a much more fundamental understanding.

<comment><USER10> Seconded! Also play with assembly language for a small CPU, even in an emulator. Doing assembly in the 68k and Z80 really helped me grok computers. Even the old assembly makes super CPUs of today more understandable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I worked as Paul's technical adviser at Vulcan - he was funny, warm, and prickly in turns, well aware of the outsized shadow he cast, and absolutely dedicated to bringing the sci-fi future he so loved into reality.

His legacy in the Institutes, in his philanthropic ventures, and in the bones of Seattle itself cannot be overstated. Outside of the sciences, he built South Lake Union (home of Amazon and many other tech companies), saved the Seahawks, supported thousands of famous musicians, and played a mean guitar himself.

I'll miss him.

<comment><USER12> > absolutely dedicated to bringing the sci-fi future he so loved into reality.

We need more people like this.

Some of this stuff might be impossible, but there is only one way to find out. It takes a great person to throw themselves into the machine of failure for the benefit of humanity.

It is, ultimately, also philanthropy - it's just philanthropy on a timescale that is far greater than one life and far more than a few [million] lives.

People who push humanity forwards will be remembered forever - through their name on someone's lips, or their legacy in someone's hands. In many ways these type of people are immortal.

<comment><USER13> >It takes a great person to throw themselves into the machine of failure for the benefit of humanity.

Great line!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Incredibly sad news, only two weeks after he learned the disease returned.

For those who don't know, he was also apparently a very capable guitar player, who according to Quincy Jones could "sing and play just like Jimi Hendrix".

Play one more riff in the sky computer man.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAYY- MmonYU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAYY-MmonYU)

<comment><USER15> To be clear, it hasn't been stated that it was only two weeks after he learned the disease returned. That's when it was publicly acknowledged by Allen. He only said that it was recent that he learned about the recurrence. That could mean it was several months ago and Allen may have chosen for personal reasons to keep that information private.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a sad day. Paul Allen certainly had many achievements, but one of his endeavors that I truly admire is the founding and funding of the Allen Institute [0], especially after I had the pleasure of attending Christof Koch's lecture at the American Academy of Neurology annual conference two years ago [1].

Thank you for everything. You are truly an inspiration. RIP.

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Institute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Institute)

[1] - [https://alleninstitute.org/what-we-do/brain- science/about/te...](https://alleninstitute.org/what-we-do/brain- science/about/team/staff-profiles/christof-koch/)

<comment><USER17> Also, as an aviation enthusiast, I am really thankful for the Flying Heritage museum, which is one of his endeavors.

Keeping historically important aircraft airworthy is something that is keeping the _dream_ of aviation alive. It is too sad that so many have been scrapped (the great flying boats all but went extinct), but this is one effort that sets an example - and benefits the humanity.

[1][https://flyingheritage.org/](https://flyingheritage.org/)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Heritage_%26_Combat_Arm...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Heritage_%26_Combat_Armor_Museum)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Such sad news. Paul Allen was a friend of a friend, and so we got to go to a couple of his halloween parties up in Beverly Crest in Los Angeles. He was incredibly down to earth and generous. His parties were a blast – the main fixture was always him playing with a live band. He loved rock-and-roll music. We bumped into Dan Aykroyd at one of them, dressed as his character from Blues Brothers.

He wrote an autobiography called "Idea Man", which I'd recommend if you want to know more about the man who was quietly behind the revolution in computing that brought all of us here today.

R.I.P., Paul Allen :(

</comment><comment><USER19> SpaceShipOne, owned the Seahawks and the Blazers, sunk $500m in brain research, $100m into cell research another $100m into AI, started the -Rock & Roll Hall of Fame- Museum of Pop

He made a dent.

<comment><USER20> Do you mean Museum of Pop? (not Rock & Roll Hall of Fame)

<comment><USER19> That's the one! Thanks!

<comment><USER21> Previously known as EMP - the experience music project

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> We just had a giant "get well" card out last week for people to sign for him at UW's CS department (he's donated enough to us that we're named after him, the Paul G. Allen School of CSE). Almost surreal to see that he passed so soon. It's fortunate that he at least had the time to make a great positive impact on the world; his legacy will live on in many ways.

<comment><USER23> As a fellow member of a Paul G. Allen School (in this case the Global Animal Health one at WSU) I'm a little stunned - but he has indeed made a huge impact on the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have to mention an article by Allen which I think is the single best critique of the idea fo the "singularity" which I have seen.

Paul Allen: The Singularity Isn't Near

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/425733/paul-allen-the- sin...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/425733/paul-allen-the-singularity- isnt-near/)

<comment><USER25> _> There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth._

When you know somebody didn't take calculus or didn't "get" it.

Either that, or he didn't explain what he meant.

(Not Paul Allen, just another interviewee.)

<comment><USER26> Interviewee? That's a quote from Google Director of Engineering Ray Kurzweil - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil)

<comment><USER27> d/dt e^t = e^t. So while vapid and pop-sci, technically true. Of course, the exponent is constant or we'd be talking about the Ackermanity instead.

<comment><USER28> Technically true, but the quote makes it sound as if this were not necessarily the case for some kinds of exponential growth, which is clearly false.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Paul wrote an autobiography:

Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft

[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/technology/18allen.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/technology/18allen.html)

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

<comment><USER6> It's a good read.

I often wonder what would have become of him had his parents not had the forethought to send him to Lakeside School; his family wasn't rich like Bill Gates' family; I imagine, with money, Gates would have done well whether or not he had gone to that school, but if Allen hadn't, and therefore hadn't met Gates, where would have gone?

It makes me think long and hard about my children's education. They'll get a fantastic education regardless of what school they go to, since we'll learn at home, but just how important is the networking? Does that itself supercede the education?

I guess biographies always make you ask yourself these what if questions, and often apply them to yourself.

<comment><USER15> It's an interesting thought experiment with Allen, because he provided the unrelenting prompting to start Microsoft. As you know from the book (and Gates has confirmed this numerous times), he urged Gates repeatedly that they should start a company focused on software to capitalize on the burgeoning personal computing era. Finally convincing him when the famous January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics came out with the Altair 8800 on the cover.

Allen very plausibly was even more of an entrepreneur personality type than Gates was. It seems likely that Allen may well have pursued founding his own company in the absence of Gates.

From a very young age, Allen apparently had a strong penchant for science and technology. Striking out on your own, then as now, is maybe the best way to leap forward with new technology, versus laboring in the corner of a stuffy, conservative corporate behemoth like Honeywell (where Allen worked) or IBM.

Lakeside at a minimum very likely accelerated by several years his introduction to computer programming, due to the resources the school had. Then on top of that, he had a small group of friends to pursue those adventures with thanks to Lakeside, and they all had access to the same tech. The amplification value of all of that, has to be considerable.

<comment><USER6> But as he also admits in the book, he would pursue anything and everything, but Bill Gates would temper his expectations and help direct energy in a productive direction; so, it's possible--or even likely, I think--that Paul Allen would have started one of the many, many computer companies that didn't succeed. i.e. a PC manufacturer with a million competitors.

Of course, it's also possible he would have been wildly successful as an early entrant. Who can say?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> When I was a kid, programmers - the elders, those whose lives and achievements had been described in all my introductory books - seemed to be immortal, because all these people who changed the world and created the wonderful universe of computers and software - they were all alive then (at least those I knew and cared about). That time is long gone now... and we are no longer immortal. We have lost so many of our kind. And today, we have lost yet another titan. R.I.P. Paul Allen. The world will remember you. And the kids of tomorrow, and the day after that will still discover our wonderful world reading books mentioning and revering your name. Alas, in the past tense now. Goodbye.

<comment><USER31> At least the ideas are immortal.

<comment><USER32> "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment."

\- Woody Allen

<comment><USER33> Great quote, creepy guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> 2 weeks ago: [https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/1046864324310982668](https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/1046864324310982668)

> Some personal news: Recently, I learned the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma I battled > in 2009 has returned. I've begun treatment & my doctors are optimistic that > I will see a good result. Appreciate the support I've received & count on it > as I fight this challenge

Just now: [https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/1051958128885940226](https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/1051958128885940226)

<comment><USER35> Wow can your condition go south that quickly?

<comment><USER36> My uncle went to the dentist complaining of bit of bleeding in his gums. The dentist immediately sent him to get blood tests done and the next day he was diagnosed with leukaemia. Three days later he passed away.

<comment><USER37> Like Arthur Kane, bass player for the New York Dolls. Goes to the hospital thinking he has the flu, is diagnosed with leukemia, 2 hours - HOURS - later, he dies.

<comment><USER38> Last time I went to the doctor with extreme flu like symptoms (Pretty sure I had pneumonia) the doctor treated me like I was wasting her time and actually ridiculed me. Hearing stuff like this stresses me the heck out.

This was the often praised UK NHS btw

<comment><USER39> I had a doctor be dismissive and rude for coming in with a huge crater blister (from climbing) on my foot that had become infected, hot to the touch, and too painful for me to walk. This was in America, and I had good health insurance. As crappy as the Tories are making the NHS, it's still better than what we have.

<comment><USER40> I got to my (Dutch) doctor for far smaller things than these. Really trivial stuff. But I go because I'm not sure what it is and I prefer to be on the safe side. I'm always taken seriously, even when it's nothing.

I guess the Dutch system is not so bad after all. Or maybe you've got bad luck in that doctor, and I'm fortunate to have a good one. There's always some bad apples in every group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> For whatever reason, I always remember him for the Allen Telescope Array: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Telescope_Array](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Telescope_Array)

Not many are willing to donate that much into funding a project whose chance of success is small, but whose success would change everything.

<comment><USER42> A worthy, pioneering investment.

I'll also remember Paul for the Museum of Pop Culture, a wonderful gift to the Pacific Northwest. Born as the 'Experience Music Project' in 2000, it has since added a Sci-Fi museum which became the SFF Hall of Fame. Much appreciated by all fans of pop music and sci-fi, and a location for numerous cultural and educational events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Paul Allen on Gates, Microsoft (CBS 60 minutes)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IM0SvIiMI4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IM0SvIiMI4)

<comment><USER44> From Australia

> The uploader has not made this video available in your country.

Does anyone have a link that is viewable outside the US?

<comment><USER45> Odd - I'm not in the US and I can view it. Here's a link for you: [https://openload.co/f/FFCGebcsLxY/Paul_Allen_on_Gates%2C_Mic...](https://openload.co/f/FFCGebcsLxY/Paul_Allen_on_Gates%2C_Microsoft.mp4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The world is a better place because the Allen Institutes exist. A worthy legacy, and a worthy way to spend one's riches.

</comment><comment><USER47> Paul was among the top philanthropists in America, and has contributed so much to society. Truly a sad day

<comment><USER15> Incredibly sad day. The Allen Institute for Brain Science, for one example, is a gem of potential for humanity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I wonder why nobody mentioned Interval Research[1] several people around the Smalltalk/Squeak scene worked there.

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

<comment><USER49> I worked there for a while around 2000, after Interval was drastically downsized. Among other things they'd been working on a prototype "web tablet", ten years before the iPad. They did some good work there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Really sad to hear this. He was one of the early financial supporters of Scaled Composites in their successful bid for the X-Prize, as well as a great supporter of the Allen Telescope Array for both astrophysics and SETI applications. Always had respect for Paul Allen.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is so sad. I met him once when my company was doing some work for Vulcan and I was impressed that his manner was so understated but SHARP, he just "got" things very quickly.

My favorite anecdote from that time period was someone telling me that the first time they met him they were seated next to each other at dinner and he turned and asked "So, what's your favorite shark?"

(I mean I think it was at a dinner for something to do with the ocean/sharks so not totally crazy, but still - charming)

RIP

</comment><comment><USER52> The heroes of the masses are often those in the spotlight.

My heroes have always been those in the background who were more concerned about getting work done than talking about it.

I can think of no better example than Paul Allen.

So sorry to hear this. R.I.P.

</comment><comment><USER53> Outside of his work at Microsoft, I was mainly aware of him through his ownership of the Seattle Sounders in MLS. I live in the UK, where we have world-class football teams aplenty, but I think the Sounders were the first team in MLS that I saw that had the ownership and the facilities to be taken seriously in any league around the world. It's a shame CNBC missed his ownership of that team, because he's done as great a job with them as he had done with the Seahawks.

I searched him up on Sunday while at the Seahawks game in London, and I saw that he was undergoing treatment, but his Twitter post made it seem like things were going well and that he'd pull through, so it's been a real shock to see that he's died.

He sounded like a great guy, and it's always nice to see the successful ones be great guys. Co-founder of Microsoft, a set of successful sports teams, numerous philanthropic donations and organisations. RIP.

<comment><USER54> I'm glad you mentioned the Sounders, because nobody else has.

I grew up in the Seattle area, and the constant threats of sports teams leaving (Mariners, Sonics, Seahawks) were sort of tiring. As a kid, I was thrilled to see the Mariners stay (Nintendo backed that one, IIRC) and enjoyed the new stadium. The Sonics got away (I'm guessing Allen already owned the Blazers at the time..?) but he was instrumental in keeping the Seahawks.

Around the time CenturyLink field was built, the Sounders became an MLS team. I don't remember the exact history, and I left Seattle around that time, but it's been awesome to see Seattle rally behind a top notch soccer team; the fan base is one of the strongest in the US, and the regional rivalry with the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps is a lot of fun to follow.

To be honest, the Sounders have the kind of following and give the city the kind of energy any city would be proud to have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Paul Allen has died. It's sad. I remember him from the very early days when the Altair was new and Microsoft BASIC was the language of choice and the People's Computer Company was publishing computer games. Paul exuded a quiet confidence in those days punctuated by droll humor. Better, he put his money where his imagination went and has left the world a better place. For greybeards, the Living Computer Museum is a joy to behold.

</comment><comment><USER56> I met Allen down at Scaled Composites. He wanted to shoot people into space for fun, which I totally respect. World needs more like him, not fewer. RIP.

</comment><comment><USER57> Paul definitely put a pretty big dent in the personal computer universe. And I really love the Living Computer Museum.

</comment><comment><USER58> One of the first people to sign on to the Giving Pledge. Worth 20 billion according to wiki. Owns the Seattle Seahawks and the Trailblazers. Will these be sold off? Will be a true test of the Pledge.

<comment><USER59> NFL rules require that an NFL team have a majority owner (with Green Bay grandfathered as an exception).

It will likely have to be sold.

<comment><USER60> Could it be a Corp or an NGO ? Or does it have to be a natural person?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> "What we did was unprecedented. But what is less well understood is that we had no choice." _-Idea Man_

RIP. An engineering titan. And humanitarian colossus. In addition to his triumphs in computation, philanthropy and neuroscience. His deep sea exploration team discovered the final resting places of some of the worst disasters in naval history: USS Indianapolis, USS Lexington, and USS Juneau. The images evoke a final frontier frozen in time. Befitting the legacy of one who forever tacked the course and speed of human affairs. We have have only ourselves now to fulfill that legacy of rapid progress into the era of a New Space age!

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/paul-allen- lexin...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/paul-allen-lexington- underwater-discovery-spd/)

</comment><comment><USER62> He's done a ton for Seattle. A few of my favorite less known things he contributed are the Living Computer Museum and Flying Heritage Collection.

May he rest in peace.

</comment><comment><USER63> Paul Allen did a wonderful job restoring old aircraft and creating a flying museum. [https://flyingheritage.org/](https://flyingheritage.org/)

</comment><comment><USER64> Paul Allen did enough good for hundreds of lifetimes in one. Allen's skills helped create Microsoft/Windows and allowed him to attain wealth which he also used for good reasons, funding brain, medical research and history as well as fun and entertainment. Allen is the type of person you want people, and especially wealthy, to be, supporting good efforts and being a force for good in humanity.

</comment><comment><USER65> Interesting to see the many initial attempts to edit Allen's Wikipedia page were reverted as possible vandalism.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Allen&action...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Allen&action=history)

<comment><USER66> Adding a death date on the page on a well-known individual without any source is the easiest way to get quickly reverted.

<comment><USER67> As it should be.

<comment><USER68> Indeed though if a bunch of different users are doing it, you might want to allow it with a citation needed marker. I've been to so many articles with a "citation needed" marker for years, but surely it would not be too complex for someone to find a source.

<comment><USER67> Actually, that's not the purpose of [citation needed]. Adding a death date without a reference is very close to violation of [[WP:BIO]]. When I created [citation needed], I didn't envision it to be used for just adding any old data or information into articles, especially this sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Sometimes I wonder what the tech industry could achieve if all companies agreed to donate 1% of resources to find a cure for cancer. I know that derived advances in tech (ML/Data Science, etc) have an impact but… is it really enough? We could do sooo much more for contributing to eradicate this disease.

RIP Paul Allen.

</comment><comment><USER70> Whenever I see sad news like this, that a great person dies too early, it reminds me that life is too precious and I am lucky to have more time to do something meaningful. Take care of your body and do something that really matters. RIP

</comment><comment><USER71> As a kid who grew up outside of the tech scene but in Washington State, Allen had a big impact on the wider community through his philanthropy and his love of sports, he was well liked everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER72> What!!??? But he didn't get to go into space yet :-(

</comment><comment><USER73> I don't know if there's an HN policy re: plugging charities, but speaking of lymphoma, last I heard this one is legit: [http://lls.org](http://lls.org)

</comment><comment><USER74> I never met him, but he definitely had a big impact on my life. Like so many I was first exposed to computer programming through Microsoft BASIC. These days I make a living working as an engineer at one of his philanthropies. But what I will maybe remember most is a weekly invitation he extended to come to his pool, where I have helped teach my wife to swim in a relaxing environment. His family and friends I am sure will be sad, but his impact lives on today.

</comment><comment><USER75> Wow, so disappointing that his wealth didn't help him this time. Was hopeful that one of these experimental treatments we keep on hearing about would prove fruitful.

<comment><USER76> ...helped him 9 years ago. But cancer came back.

<comment><USER77> You would think a person with 20 billion net worth would fund a couple hundred million a year net of institutes researching his particular disease, 'just in case'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Simply reading the wonderful comments you guys makes me a bit teary. This is what marks a great human being, someone who is remembered by the work they have done.

</comment><comment><USER79> I have been working with him and his team at Vulcan on a project. I met him once and he was super cool and deeply interesting within a few minutes of talking with him. He had a way at taking the idea to the next level and not getting bogged down in why it won't work. Vision and drive. His team at Vulcan were all smart, creative and driven. I would work with them on anything. It is a big shock and bummer to hear about him passing.

</comment><comment><USER80> A titan. Very sad.

</comment><comment> evil-olive Fuck cancer.

</comment><comment><USER81> As a programmer, one of the coolest places I've been is the living computer museum in Seattle. I'm reading "idea man" right now. This guy was quite the force. It's a big loss!!

</comment><comment><USER82> I was really impressed with the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum. It is quite a well put together display. Allen contributed heavily to it; I think that it grew out of his personal collection.

</comment><comment><USER83> I read his book Idea Man, a few years back. I still remember the parts where he travelled the world with his family. Beautiful journey. Most books of people so successful are too inclined towards their work or general advice. It was refreshing to read about somebody you could relate to just like Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. That they had lives outside of their work and went through worse days than most of us will ever face. And yet, he made a difference in the world he lived.

</comment><comment><USER84> Was never a fan of allen or microsoft as I felt that Microsoft's monopoly has held back computing by a generation, but it's still sad to see cancer finally get this guy after a lifetime of struggle. He left microsoft because of cancer in the 80s. Hopefully he left much of his wealth for cancer research and lots of good can come from that.

<comment><USER85> In the 90s, yes. But in the early 80s when there were dozens of different computer architectures competing, the rise to dominance of MS-DOS brought about the standardization of computer hardware on a single platform.

That, in turn, led to lower prices as hardware was commoditized, and to accessibility for millions worldwide who could never before buy a computer.

<comment><USER86> So illegal practices are okay as long as they result in lower prices for the consumer?

Actually, this reasoning checks out with current interpretations of monopoly law. Carry on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> That is a reminder - no matter how rich you are, you have exactly the same hours in the day as the guy sleeping under the bridge.

</comment><comment><USER88> Godspeed Good Sir. Thank you for all of your contributions that moved us as a Society forward. You will be missed!

</comment><comment><USER89> Does everyone know the story about when he told Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer he had cancer back in the early days?

</comment><comment><USER90> I recently had the opportunity to intern with Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle. Paul Allen was an individual whom the general public in Seattle spoke highly of in terms of his goodwill, magnanimity and philanthropy to the people of Seattle and the US.

</comment><comment><USER91> Incredibly tragic. He seemed like a very good man, and most certainly a titan of our industry.

</comment><comment><USER92> RIP.

Microsoft lost one of its two founders, so did Apple. Two of the most influential companies. How sad.

Amazon and Facebook are both a single man show, then we have Google, one of the two founders also had some health issues, though much less serious.

</comment><comment><USER93> One of my heroes. You'll be missed! Can we get a cure for cancer?!

</comment><comment><USER94> He always amazed me because he never gave up even when he had cancer. He kept on going and that took a lot of guts.

Steve Jobs was that way when he had cancer, kept on going until he passed on.

</comment><comment><USER95> What an incredible loss on so many levels. 65 is young but look at everything he did and his contributions speak for themselves. R.I.P. Paul and Godspeed

<comment><USER96> To think he was told he was going to die so many years go, yet it still never stopped him from having ambitions as large as we have come to realize today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Wow, so sad. Like Jobs, he dying young is a loss to humanity.

<comment><USER98> What? Loss to humanity? Sorry but he was no Steve Jobs or even close. He exited Microsoft in 1982 and essentially spent money that he made off of Microsoft (to do some good things let's say if you forget the patent trolling). Not minimizing what he did that was positive but don't compare it to Steve who actually did 'change the world' (no Jobs fanboy but need to point out what he did was way more than Paul Allen).

Separately that OS that made Microsoft as everyone knows they bought from another company.

<comment><USER99> What a time to get pedantic.

A space company, half a billion into brain research, tens of millions more in other fields, environment efforts, multiple sports teams, cultural investments, etc. That's a fair loss, and I think the first few qualify adding "to humanity" as well.

Donated $2 billion in his lifetime.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen#Philanthropy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen#Philanthropy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> RIP man. Thanks for all the good you did in the world.

</comment><comment><USER101> Life is short [http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> This sucks.

</comment><comment><USER102> Too young.

</comment><comment><USER103> Can you imagine if we could have another ~30 years of Allen? Me neither. I really hate cancer. RIP space guy.

</comment><comment><USER104> This is so sad. RIP Paul Allen. He did so much for he world. Just yesterday I was talking about his work.

</comment><comment><USER105> Sad. His autobiography, a fantastic read, gave me great perspective on business and parenting.

</comment><comment><USER106> One more amongst 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' passed away. RIP Paul Allen. :(

</comment><comment><USER107> Sad day. RIP Paul Allen. His legacy and contributions will have a lasting impact forever.

</comment><comment><USER108> So Sad. You will be missed Paul. Thank you for all your hard work in computers.

</comment><comment><USER109> Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now! RIP Paul, too soon

</comment><comment><USER110> Life is transient, death is instant. Farewell, Paul Allen.

</comment><comment><USER111> Whatever you think of MSFT at x time, Paul Allen was certainly a genius. 65...and worth untold billions. But then, maybe, he reached 65 because of better treatment the first time. RIP.

</comment><comment><USER112> meta: what is the meaning of this post getting 2724 points (as of this writing)? just a mechanism to bring it to first page?

<comment><USER113> Take a look at the top posts of all time:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> I'm sure most of us were envious of his life, but almost no one would trade places with him today. It goes to show that health really is more valuable than money.

<comment><USER115> Here's the thing... One rich-person-year is typically equal to 4 common- person-year. Why? Rich people (defined here as folks with net worth of $100M+) _can_ spend all of the time in things they desire. They can outsource almost all of the chores like cleaning house or doing taxes or laundry or cooking leaving more free time besides not having to do 8-hour jobs. Their transportation and commute is frictionless and doesn't penalise their _effective available lifespan_. They have approximately 13 hours available in each day to acquire desired experiences while a common person has only 3 hours. Things are actually bit more worse for a common person because the available experiences for them is far more limited. They can't fly out to Paris in personal jet, have dinner in 3 star michelin restaurant and fly back while taking a nap in cushy bed. In other words, a rich person typically gets to have 4X _experiences_ in same period of time than a common person. In other words, if human common-man life span was 60 years, the _effective_ life span of a rich person is approximately 240 years.

<comment><USER116> What about all the studies (not that I've read them, so correct me if I'm wrong, I just hear them referenced all the time) that says once you have the minimum money needed to live comfortable, more money doesn't necessarily increase happiness?

I have no reason to doubt your x4 common-year-person, but how does that relate to happiness? Arguably the only metric that matters in the end.

By the way, private flying to paris and 3 star restaurants? Eh... not bad, but what I'm really looking forward once I'm old is having enough free time to play MMORPGs again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> Very Sad. Paul Allen, you will be missed.

</comment><comment><USER118> [https://goo.gl/pbXjwN](https://goo.gl/pbXjwN)

^ "We (almost) have BASIC" Allen calls MITS

</comment><comment><USER119> damn.

</comment><comment><USER120> Sad day, he was one of the first to recognize the importance of neuroscience and to fund it.

<comment><USER121> This is of course completely untrue. Neuroscience has been major branch of science for thousands of years, and funded pretty much constantly in human memory.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER122> So sad to hear this, rest in peace, you did well

</comment><comment><USER123> Rest in peace

</comment><comment><USER124> :(

</comment><comment><USER125> :-( RIP

</comment><comment><USER126> :(

</comment><comment><USER127> Much too early. RIP Paul Allen.

</comment><comment><USER128> RIP Paul Allen

</comment><comment><USER129> rip

</comment><comment><USER98> I am guessing that most people here have apparently forgotten about the patent troll aspect of Paul Allen:

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100827/12001710802.shtml](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100827/12001710802.shtml)

Now I am sure there are those that will think it's in bad taste to bring this up. However I am not saying this to family or friends at a funeral. I am merely raising it so people can stop lionizing him because he was a co-founder of Microsoft.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/the-woz-slams-paul-allen- as-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/the-woz-slams-paul-allen-as-a-patent- troll-2011-5)

Allen was with Microsoft for a short period of time and left pretty soon after they struck the deal with IBM for the OS. 1982. Edit: As such he contributed a nominal amount to Microsoft's success (and after all it was Bill Gates connections and hustle that got that deal).

Also interesting that the wikipedia page has no mention of the patent trolling it obviously appears to be cleaned of this info (as of this moment at least):

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

<comment><USER130> Most comments here seem to be remembering him for his philanthropy and contributions to science and humanity, rather than for being a co-founder of Microsoft.

It's an interesting contrast to the thread from 7 years ago about the death of Steve Jobs [1]. Steve Jobs was a visionary, but he wasn't a philanthropist. His legacy is Apple, Allen's legacy is his contributions to charity. Gates will be the same, he will be remembered as the man who tried to eradicate malaria, not the man who made Microsoft Windows.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3078107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3078107)

<comment><USER131> phillantropy is a marketing ploy by rich people

you don't amass this much wealth without profiting off of the work of others by exploiting a position of power, usually gained through ownership

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER132> fuck cancer

</comment><comment><USER133> Man, if ever it were black bar time...

One of the early giants of my teens.

<comment><USER134> For sure it's a black bar time.

Edit: and it's up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER135> Died Worth $20b

</comment><comment><USER136> a little too soon, imo

</comment><comment><USER137> F

</comment><comment><USER138> It's shocking to me that even now, hours after the announcement, Microsoft.com is completely bereft of mentioning the news. I know Paul Allen's impact at MS isn't akin to Bill Gates in popular culture, but it seems soulless to make no effort whatsoever.

<comment><USER139> I think it depends on your location. I didn't see anything in Singapore till I switched to the US version of the website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER140> Press "f" to pay respect.

<comment><USER141> Not appropriate.

<comment><USER142> Why not? It's for sure a meme, but it's used sincerely in many places as well. Let's all mourn in our own ways, and not judge others for mourning in theirs.

<comment><USER143> In case you really can't see why: because it's _not actually respectful._ It's a dumb meme, it has nothing to do with Paul Allen, and– despite what you might think– a lot of people won't know what it means.

Humor can be a powerful tool for coping with grief, but something like this reads as glib and disrespectful in a forum that holds itself to a higher standard of discourse than the broader internet.

<comment><USER144> At what point are we no longer celebrating a life well lived?

Paul Allen loved computing, and funded a living computing museum, along with with another museum dedicated to to pop culture. I wouldn't presume to know how he'd feel about a meme based tribute, but I sure as heck wouldn't feel the need to spit on one for not meeting my own criteria for respectfulness or sincerity.

RIP. Paul Allen - one smart cookie, who lived more than most of us ever will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER145> It doesn't detract from his greatness but I didn't like his hypocrisy in giving millions to gun control initiatives while personally owning a Panzer tank, SCUD missile launcher, MiG fighter jet, etc.

<comment><USER146> You can support gun control without supporting total suppression; even Japan, with some of the world's strictest gun control laws, still lets you buy one if you qualify.

<comment><USER147> And to qualify, you usually have to be extremely rich and well-connected, thus enforcing the idea that there are two sets of laws - one for hoi polloi and one for the exalted elite. I think it's better when there's just one, and your rights do not depend on who you know.

<comment><USER148> That's just straight-up wrong. Legal ownership of a gun in Japan requires an extreme amount of bureaucracy, but it's entirely possible and most legal gun owners in Japan are (non-rich, non-well-connected) farmers.

[https://www.businessinsider.com.au/gun-control-how-japan- has...](https://www.businessinsider.com.au/gun-control-how-japan-has-almost- completely-eliminated-gun-deaths-2017-10?r=US&IR=T)

<comment><USER149> OP may very well be referring to California. There are some districts where concealed carry permits are "may issue" \-- issued at the discretion of an authority like a sheriff -- as opposed to "shall issue" \-- mandatory issuing if you meet the legal obligations / restrictions. In practice, this results in celebrities and the well-connected getting permits, and "nobody" citizens with clean records and legitimate personal safety concerns being denied permits.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Encrusted – A Zork Interpreter Written in Rust / WebAssembly - <AUTHOR> https://sterlingdemille.com/encrusted/ <comment><USER2> This is a wonderful implementation! Great work! I know how complex this is ... I'm in the middle of writing a z-machine interpreter in Python as a pet project. You have some great ideas here - if I borrow any, I will credit you in the code/git. Thanks for posting this!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yeah this was a lot of fun. Hit me up if you have questions with the documentation at all. I remember there were one or two things that were written somewhat confusingly.</comment></comment>


A Guide to Raising a Seed Round - <AUTHOR> http://bretthard.in/2012/08/raising-a-seed-round-a-step-by-step-guide/

<comment><AUTHOR> A friend and I were discussing all the things we wish we knew when we raised our seed round. We thought a high-level guide would have helped us when we raised, so I decided to write it up. Thoughts/Comments?</comment>


Psychologist James Pennebaker reveals the hidden meaning of pronouns - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-language-code&offset=2

<comment><USER3> There's some interesting gems in here:

 _One of the most interesting results was part of a study my students and I conducted dealing with status in email correspondence. Basically, we discovered that in any interaction, the person with the higher status uses I-words less (yes, less) than people who are low in status. The effects were quite robust and, naturally, I wanted to test this on myself. I always assumed that I was a warm, egalitarian kind of guy who treated people pretty much the same.

I was the same as everyone else. When undergraduates wrote me, their emails were littered with I, me, and my. My response, although quite friendly, was remarkably detached -- hardly an I-word graced the page. And then I analyzed my emails to the dean of my college. My emails looked like an I-word salad; his emails back to me were practically I-word free._

<comment><USER4> Interesting, but I think there are some good comments (at the article) too -- pointing out that it also just seems to make sense -- like,

Undergraduates write to professors with singular first person pronouns because they are often requesting information, or this sort of thing... understandable then that there's less reason for I, me, and my in the professor's response (and easy to imagine similar situation in other relationships).

Still, a cool article. Interesting research.

<comment><USER5> Also, (at least where I'm from) there's an expectation that as an undergraduate, you'll address professors using proper tone. This way, you end up writing lots of "I'd like to ask (...)", ", "is it possible for me to", etc. The writing gets full of fixed-phrases with lots of "I" and "me" - <USER2> author's "I-word salad". And academics I know tend to reply directly, without any formally required style of writing, so their communcation is more natural.

<comment><USER6> Also, the student is trying to get the professor to understand things from their perspective. "I am having trouble with ...", "I don't understand why ...". They want the professor to sympathise with their position.

The professor is giving instructions - "you should check the course website ...". They don't care if the students understands their position. They could try to justify "I can't help you with this, because if I did I would have to make exceptions for everyone"; but they don't need to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I commented when this was submitted yesterday, the bit that struck me was this:

       ... we can predict people's college performance
       reasonably well by simply analyzing their college
       admissions essays. Across four years, we analyzed
       the admissions essays of 25,000 students and then
       tracked their grade point averages (GPAs). Higher
       GPAs were associated with admission essays that
       used high rates of nouns and low rates of verbs and
       pronouns. The effects were surprisingly strong and
       lasted across all years of college, no matter what
       the students' major.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2895701>

<comment><USER8> What if the same prediction could be made on motivation letters sent by candidates to potential employers? If I were Google, I would hire this guy. He would fit perfectly in their candidate selection effort of using automated tools to process resumes & motivation letters...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder, if they checked some languages that includes pronouns in verbs.

For example in Polish pronouns are mixed with verbs - you say "szła" (she went), "pójdzie" (he will go) or "idę" (i am going), you can add pronouns "ona szła", "on pójdzie", "ja idę", but that's only stylistic choice.

Most people rarely use pronouns (it's considered verbose, and sometimes egocentric to add "ja" (I) when you don't have to).

I suppose in Polish usage of pronouns would not predict anything, because it is not determined by structure of text (like in English), but by stylistic choices of speaker.

<comment><USER10> Ditto in Russian - I suspect this is true of most slavic languages, and if I had to guess, romantic ones.

(Apparently, one of the hardest things for someone learning Russian from English is the almost total lack of the verb "be" - you can say "I am." in Russian, but it's almost a nonsense sentence.)

<comment><USER11> Pronouns are hardly used in Spanish (in Spain at least "me voy"). They are optional in Italian too ("sono contento").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think it's prudent to add to the conversation that the Japanese language has a rather significant difference in the way that pronouns are used.

"The first person pronouns (e.g. watashi, 私) and second person pronouns (e.g. anata, 貴方) are used in formal situations. In many sentences, when an English speaker would use the pronouns "I" and "you", they are omitted in Japanese. Personal pronouns can be left out when it is clear who the speaker is talking about."

There are a lot of gems on this wikipedia page that have other interesting correlations.

Such as: "Social standing also determines how a person refers to themselves, as well as how a person refers to the person they are talking to."

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

</comment><comment><USER13> _Much to my surprise, I soon discovered that the ways people used pronouns in their essays predicted whose health would improve the most. Specifically, those people who benefited the most from writing changed in their pronoun use from one essay to another. Pronouns were reflecting people's abilities to change perspective._

On my home page the tagline says, "Your perspective guides your thoughts, your choices, your trajectory." I believe your ability to change perspective is one of the keys to life so this idea that you can use pronouns as a signal for one's ability to change perspective is fascinating to me. As Alan Kay was fond of saying at Xerox PARC, "A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points."

</comment><comment><USER14> >Much to my surprise, I soon discovered that the ways people used pronouns in their essays predicted whose health would improve the most. Specifically, those people who benefited the most from writing changed in their pronoun use from one essay to another. Pronouns were reflecting people's abilities to change perspective.

Not surprising if you consider this idea has already been entertained. Freud's "Ego", "Super Ego", and "Id" are Latin translations for I, We, and It. Pronouns

Neo-Freudian techniques like Voice Dialogue are training in examining phenomena from all pronoun perspectives. A training tool for horizontal perspective fluidity.

</comment><comment><USER15> Can they analyse the bible ? (or any holy book for that matter)

<comment><USER16> The Quran uses the royal-we consistently. It's an entirely big fat condescending lecture cum morality tale.

One of my favorite verses reads "We have created man in the greatest form, we then made him the most deformed" (speaking of decaying corpse)

لقد خلقنا اﻻنسان في احسن تقويم. ثم رردناه اسفل السافلين

<comment><USER17> No, poor mistranslation there. "We have certainly created man in the best of stature; Then We return him to the lowest of the low, Except for those who believe and do righteous deeds, for they will have a reward uninterrupted." "The Fig" 95:4-6

<comment><USER16> Thank you for the correction :-)

I'm not a believer but I read the Quran from time to time. Pretty potent stuff. The imagery is rich!

انا صببنا الماء صبا، ثم شققنا اﻻرض شقا. فأنبتنا فيها حبا، وعنبا وغضبا، وزيتونا ونخلا

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I had noticed in the past that i use 'I' a lot, i do.

<comment><USER18> post-lunch "let me explain that for you" edit:

Given that i have a self-centered personality, for several reasons, possibly starting at being an only child, i have noticed on several texts i have written, like e-mails and other things, that i have a tendency to use the word "I" a lot, possibly more than required.

Having noticed his, i've done experiences of writing texts, avoiding the "I" as much as possible and noticed a reasonable change in both communication and "personal" emotions.

For example, re-phrasing "I believe that ..." to "A possible solution would be ..."</comment></comment>


GitHub Mobile - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.github.com/

<comment><USER2> "Introducing?" These have been around for a while.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is this not a web app?

</comment><comment><USER4> What is it built with?

Edit: It appears to be native and built with <https://github.com/probablycorey/wax> on ios.

</comment><comment><USER3> Notice the price (free). I wonder whether this app would actually be very useful. Are you updating issues on the train?

<comment><USER5> Without looking at the link at all id guess getting push pull notifications on the train would be pretty cool. At least seeing whats on order for the day sort of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> GitHub Issues has been around for a while. Where's GitHub - with all the Android version's features - for iOS?</comment>


Ask HN: What's your choices if you write '7 network frameworks in 7 weeks'? - <AUTHOR> I mean, what's network frameworks/libraries you think are very high performance/well design/funny/beautiful? <comment><USER2> Silex for PHP, Flask for python and Sails for JS.</comment>


Is there social value in shorting? - <AUTHOR>

The value of investing (going long) in a business makes sense to me on a social level: it's people putting faith in other people that they will offer a good business to the market that will help them make a return on their investment. Even more simply put: it's people having faith in other people.
Shorting on the other hand seems to make a mockery of society: it shows the behavior of some people who do not have faith in people.
I think Germany is doing the right thing by banning shorting not only to prevent further liabilities but also to secure faith (even though the press and experts don't seem to think so):
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-25/german-short-ban-drops-bomb-on-regulators-lawyers-update3-.html
I'd love to know what other people think! <comment><USER4> Seeing shorting as "making a bet against a company" is an accurate, but overly simplistic view of modern financial theory.

Say I want to buy a stock index that includes BP, but don't want to expose myself to their current volatility. I could buy the index and short an equivalent amount of BP to replicate the risk I am looking to take on.

Or maybe I am bullish on BP, but don't feel like I have good knowledge on the Oil&Gas industry. I could buy BP and short a basket of stocks that collectively represented the performance of the industry.

This is what people talk about when they mention "complete markets" - <USER2> ability for investors to create any desirable risk profile - <USER3> themselves against events they deem overly speculative.

When the government bans short selling, it's essentially saying "oops, shit has gotten so bad that everyone insuring themselves would risk the collapse of socially important businesses... we got this one (ie bailouts). don't worry, we'll just take it out of your taxes/currency".

</comment><comment><USER5> Shorting sends information and that has serious utility.

Having faith in _all_ people, _all_ companies, _all_ industries, _all_ technologies (e.g. buggy whips, punched card ADP) is delusional. If you're basing a ban on short sales on that, you're just sweeping problems under the rug, ones which will get worse and eventually bite back.

Question: are you interested in efficient allocation of capital or something else, and if the later, why is that superior?

However, did Germany ban real short selling or naked short selling? I've read one account that it did just the latter (and I for one don't support naked short selling).

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh, ok, so blind speculation about even positive outcomes is dangerous (and I can see how this can be just as abused as shorting). So, I can see why paying attention to who is shorting and why they are shorting it is equally important.

Personally: I'm by no means a financial person — just super curious about the usury and trading world and the recent blow up that occurred.

I'm also super curious to see how economics will change from this point forward.

(That article that I posted says that germany wants to ban naked short selling.)

<comment><USER5> " _Blind speculation_ " on positive outcomes is I'm pretty sure fantastically worse, that's a cause of the worst sort of bubbles, the ones that destroy money wholesale (deflation), with sobering examples like the Great Depression and Japan's two Lost Decades (and counting ... and only WWII broke us out of the Great Depression).

Whereas covered short selling pretty much by definition has limited effects; for the purposes of the below, A > B > C

It works by someone borrowing (I don't remember the details so I'll accept Daniel_Newby's calling it renting) something and selling it at current price B. The short seller hopes that the price drops, so that he can buy it back at price C and make a profit on B - C - transaction costs etc.

One limiting factor is that unlike normal investing there is no theoretical limit to the short seller's losses. If the price goes up, he has to buy it at A and he loses A - B - etc. So you need to exercise greater care in taking a short position.

Short positions must be reported in the US and that sends information to the rest of the market. As Daniel_Newby points out, covered shorts make markets more "efficient", an important term of art and an important goal.

I've never come across a defense of deliberate naked short selling that made sense to me (it can also happen in "oops" situations, or so people say); as far as I can tell the only legitimate debates WRT it is how extensive the non- accidental type is and how hard should the latter be cracked down on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I invest my money in a stock, I'd feel safer if other people in the market had had the opportunity to short the stock prior to my investment.

This is because when someone shorts the stock, this results in a sale of the stock, thus pushing the price of that stock down. Thus when they short, their actions help to prevent the price of that stock increase to a level where it is unreasonably highly priced.

So by preventing the stock price from being unreasonably high, this helps prevent me from investing in the stock at an unfairly high price.

People shorting the stock can cause chaos in certain situations where lots of players are highly leveraged and there is significant counterparty risk (in naked short scenarios). However, I fail to have too much sympathy for highly leveraged players because I want them to get burned by the market so they realise it's an unstable and dangerous situation for them to be participating with unreasonably high leverage.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone recall the studies about markets or securities where shorts are banned?

I seem to recall that onion commodities cannot be shorted and have a great deal more volatility because of it.

<comment><USER5> There have of course been some since the 2008 credit crisis and the various bans on short selling and according to _The Wall Street Journal_ the effects weren't good (but take that with a big grain of salt). The example of commodity onion trading is supposed to be the classic one showing it's a bad idea.

<comment><USER8> There is no ban on "shorting" onions specifically - it is just not traded on the futures market at all. Gerald Ford pushed through legislation on behalf of onion farmers in the late 1950s to disallow it on the futures market. It has been an example of extreme market volatility ever since.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lets assume there is not just no social value, but a negative social value to shorting. I fail to see how you can make the leap from saying that shorting is bad for society to saying that we should ban shorting. Alcohol is bad for society, we should ban alcohol. Television is bad for society, we should ban television.

In America, it's currently Memorial Day, when we celebrate the people who have fought and died to defend our freedoms -- even freedoms that seem bad. Our soldiers carry our flag into battle and die for our right to burn that flag in protest of their actions.

I hope you aren't an American, given the way you so flippantly propose throwing away freedoms because it might hurt poor little society. "Society" isn't a thing. There are only people. If you propose a change in the laws, then you need to argue about individuals and the liberties they will gain or lose, the freedoms that will be protected or weakened. If you propose throwing away some liberty, you must make a very strong case indeed, as it is much easier to destroy liberty than to win it back.

You are essentially proposing that we take freedom from traders to give security to stakeholders. (Nevermind the fact that stakeholders are often the traders.) That is almost never a win. Without liberty, there is no security. Just ask any slave or dictator's subject.

<comment><USER4> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." -Ben Franklin

But seriously there's no reason to get so strident about it these days. Because of rational pricing (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_pricing>), it's extremely doubtful you could find a single economist at a respectable institution who thinks shorting is bad.

In a sense, it's such a abstract issue that I can never see a politician stirring populist sentiment against the sober advice of economic policy advisors. It's simply a short term fail-safe to give politicians time to act.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was running money for a socially conscious Catholic hedge fund a few years back (they used monks as traders) and asked this question to the fund manager. Specifically, I wanted to short a 'culture of death' video game company which I thought was overvalued.

The fund policy was to hold no positions in any firm that violated Catholic doctrine in any way.

His response was something like this:

"Shorting and derivatives like options tend to reduce the volatility of an asset and hence, tend to improve the credit rating of the firm. So shorting can actually help a firm receive funding from banks that are reluctant to lend if the stock price is more volatile. That being said, I would not condemn anyone for shorting securities of firms engaged in immoral behavior."

</comment><comment><USER11> First of all, Germany is not banning all forms of shorting, just naked short selling. Even then, banning a type of investment unilaterally has only one effect: driving investors out of germany. In today's connected world, money will _always_ flow to the least taxed location. Regulation is just another kind of tax. We have global markets, but no global government to enforce market regulation. So, in my opinion it doesn't matter whether you think Germany's policy is good or bad: when something is futile, good or bad doesn't matter.

</comment><comment><USER12> Naked shorts are basically selling counterfeit stock and _should_ be banned. If I saw a naked short seller being burned at the stake, I wouldn't even spit on them.

Covered shorts are a way of renting out a long-term investment that you do not need at the moment. Renting out equity means that the arbitrageurs use it to make the market more efficient. This gives a buyer an improved price today and a seller an improved price tomorrow, with the short seller taking a modest cut for the valuable service they have provided. An analogy is separating land rights (long term investment) from mineral rights (consumption good).</comment>


Cofounders wanted - <AUTHOR> http://www.grouvey.com/survey/AvvChPoGH65v

<comment><USER2> At least you're honest.

<comment><AUTHOR> what do you mean?

<comment><USER3> "The product doesn't matter but the people do."</comment></comment></comment>


Request a Free Ebook: Happy Holidays from the O'Reilly Newsletter Team - <AUTHOR> http://www.oreilly.com/pub/get/prognews?imm_mid=0c924a&cmp=em-prog-na-na-newsltr_20141227

<comment><USER2> Upvoted, and the book choices are as follows, but note that the response after submitting the request is something along the lines of: "Our team will review your request, and get back to you in a couple of days." (So I'm expecting coal in my stocking.)

Test-Driven Development with Python

iOS Game Development Cookbook

Java Performance: The Definitive Guide

Continuous Enterprise Development in Java

Clojure Cookbook

Mastering Perl, Second Edition

Mining the Social Web, Second Edition

Java Network Programming, Fourth Edition

Understanding and Using C Pointers

Embedded Android

ZeroMQ

Programming Android, Second Edition

Geolocation in iOS

Programming Computer Vision with Python

Safe C++

Python and AWS Cookbook</comment>


JavaScript frameworks, tools and techniques to create killer applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/javascript-frameworks-tools-and-techniques-to-create-killer-applications <comment><USER2> Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /blog/javascript-frameworks-tools-and- techniques-to-create-killer-applications on this server.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, appears to be down at the moment.

<comment><USER3> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catswhocode.com%2Fblog%2Fjavascript- frameworks-tools-and-techniques-to-create-killer-applications)

TLDR: Very brief blurbs about:

        Ofmlabs Codecs
        Popcorn.js
        JSZip
        Money.js
        fitvids.js
        pdfkit
        Impress.js

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please, no more list posts on HN.

</comment><comment><USER5> still not working :/</comment>


A Decade of Dynamo - <AUTHOR> http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2017/10/a-decade-of-dynamo.html <comment><USER2> DynamoDB is amazing for the right applications if you very carefully understand its limitations.

Last year I built out a recommendation engine for my company; it worked well, but we wanted to make it real-time (a user would get recommendations from actions they made seconds ago, instead of hours or days ago). I planned a 4-6 week project to implement this and put it into production. Long story short: I learned about DynamoDB and built it out in a day of dev time (start to finish, including learning the ins and outs of DynamoDB). The whole project was in stable production within a week. There has been zero down time, the app has seamlessly scaled up ~10x with consistently low latency, and it all costs virtually (relatively) nothing.

<comment><USER3> This is the good side of Dynamo, and it's awesome that you've had that experience.

The flip side: Dynamo gets _expensive_ and it gets expensive _quick_ , and being a custom API (and, indeed, a very different way to think about datastores) makes migration difficult.

It's great to use, if you understand the tradeoffs. Just make sure you understand them before you make the leap.

<comment><USER2> >Dynamo gets expensive and it gets expensive quick,

DynamoDB's pricing scales sublinearly with volume; if it starts getting expensive it was an initial misuse of DynamoDB that got obvious with scale. There are a lot of factors that go into whether you should use DynamoDB and how you implement it. I recommend anyone who is considering using it very carefully understand this page first: [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developergu...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/BestPractices.html)

<comment><USER4> This is how enterprise developers use the database, sometimes:

[https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Query-of- Despair](https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Query-of-Despair)

You do this on your own server, slowness and bad performance are the result (but it may never, or very rarely get called). You do it on dynamo, a $10k bill may be the result.

<comment><USER5> That's not quite true. With DynamoDB, you provision capacity, so by default, it will simply get slow (throttled) if you use more than you expect.

The only way you could be "surprised" with a $10k bill is if you set up autoscaling for it with your upper limits (which it requires you to choose) high enough to reach $10k. And then you'd have to forget that you did that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was at AWS from 2008 to 2016. Werner Vogels, Amazon's CTO (yep, not just AWS', but Amazon's, as he had to point out numerous times) has been one of the most talented, humble and generous senior exec I've ever met in my life.

Lots of good memories of time spent with him, and one of the sad aspects for me of leaving Amazon.

His blog writings are really interesting. If you haven't already, I suggest you search the archives, there are several hidden gems there.

<comment><USER7> I have always tremendously admired that guy; what a job he has! He is literally responsible for about half of the shit on the internet not going down (and also running the biggest internet shopping mall and making sure a bunch of crappy speakers can talk, but both of those are straightforward by comparison IMO).

Can you even imagine? I want to know what his direct report structure looks like.

<comment><USER8> He is an individual contributor

<comment><USER9> Interesting contrast to YCs path post from the other day ("Founder, Executive, Individual Contributor").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm more interested in solutions like Spanner and Cockroach. Different tradeoffs for different applications, but they seem to be the most general purpose of the highly scalable databases. DynamoDB is cool and I've tried to adopt it for things, but it's surprisingly hard to imagine an application where the model isn't somewhat limiting. The capacity provisioning is also quite painful, which doesn't help matters any.

<comment><USER11> The databases you mentioned both have strong consistency, but do not have serverless pricing models. My employer FaunaDB has a similar consistency model, but a pay-as-you-go model that requires no provisioning or capacity planning.

You can read more about our ACID transactions here: [https://fauna.com/blog/consistent-transactions-in-a- globally...](https://fauna.com/blog/consistent-transactions-in-a-globally- distributed-database)

<comment><USER10> Pretty cool. Of course, the serverless version doesn't have too many regions yet, so some of the advantages of strong global consistency may be less useful. But I'll keep my eye on this regardless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd be interested to hear how others are handling read/write capacity configuration for dynamo. It seems like it would be very easy to hit the account limit of 10,000 units once you are querying any significant amount of data. I've also run into issues with auto scaling where you have to endure up to 15 minutes of downtime before the scaling kicks in [0]. Even on a table with ~2000 items I've found it becomes quite slow and costly to fetch data. Also the 25 item limit on batch writes makes it pretty frustrating to edit/delete lots of data.

\- [0] [https://hackernoon.com/the-problems-with-dynamodb-auto- scali...](https://hackernoon.com/the-problems-with-dynamodb-auto-scaling-and- how-it-might-be-improved-a92029c8c10b)

<comment><USER13> You can request that limit be increased through the limit increase form.

Also, if you need to scan a ton of items to assemble your desired result, you should re-think using DynamoDB as a whole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> When they mention companies using DynamoDB, at least one of those actually uses their own implementation of Dynamo that they wrote to work around cost and performance limitations.

The main problems faced are not the ability to scale or reach performance benchmarks or keep data safe. They are operational, and primarily problems of infrastructure complexity and management. Oh, and having developers architect and manage the operations of a really freaking huge service is a bad idea. (No offense intended - those developers don't want to be woken up in the middle of the night either)

</comment><comment><USER15> Direct link to the Dynamo Whitepaper PDF: [http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo- sosp...](http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo-sosp2007.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't know why amazon is so taken with Dynamodb. I find it to be incredibly unintuitive and lacking real world application, requiring applications to perform gymnastics to work with it.

<comment><USER17> I've found just the opposite actually. While it's far from perfect, it has been amazing for rapidly standing up new apps (especially prototypes). We've used quite a few different strategies and found it to be flexible and performant.

The only downside is we do find ourselves sometimes implementing relational DB functionality at the application level to compensate for Dynamo DB's "flexibility." Postgres is still the go-to for data that is relational in nature. But man, letting Amazon worry about hosting and scaling is also pretty awesome...

<comment><USER16> >> we do find ourselves sometimes implementing relational DB functionality at the application level to compensate for Dynamo DB's "flexibility."

Yep, this is A-grade crazy, and exactly my point. I would question if it's "sometimes", or "actually almost all the time, now that we think about it, there's not much that we CAN do with DynamoDB without writing application level database functionality."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Now that autoscaling is available for Dynamo DB, my main complaint with DynamoDB is the lack of out of the box backup solution that works at scale.

Production DB without backups is unthinkable. It just takes one human mistake to erase tons of data. Consistent and regular backups are must have for any production system.

</comment><comment><USER19> > The Dynamo paper was well-received and served as a catalyst to create the > category of distributed database technologies commonly known today as > "NoSQL."

No, sorry, it was Memcached and Bigtable paper that popularized "NoSQL" term. Although there were many NoSQL databases tracing way back to 60s [1], those were the ones that "served as catalyst" for the term "NoSQL".

[1] [http://blog.knuthaugen.no/2010/03/a-brief-history-of- nosql.h...](http://blog.knuthaugen.no/2010/03/a-brief-history-of-nosql.html)

<comment><USER20> Dynamo was certainly one of the products that spiked interest in the "NoSQL" datastore category.

The phrasing "served as a catalyst" seems right — it doesn't imply the only catalyst.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Congrats to aws on the impact DynamoDb has had on the ecosystem & industry. The article does make it seems like DynamoDb was the first to publish a unique noSQL architecture. Is this true?

<comment><USER16> Lotus Notes was first. Distributed, replicated key value store.

Actually I'm not right: [http://blog.knuthaugen.no/2010/03/a-brief-history-of- nosql.h...](http://blog.knuthaugen.no/2010/03/a-brief-history-of-nosql.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I would be interesting to read some comparisons between DynamoDb, CosmosDb and maybe Spanner.

</comment><comment><USER23> Need a library sdk for a Dynamo Sync feature to allow easy development of offline mobile apps. Similar function to Cognito Sync. Also hope that AWS will release a serverless SQL db. And cheaper price.

<comment><USER24> > Also hope that AWS will release a serverless SQL db.

You mean like RDS?

<comment><USER16> RDS is serverful not serverless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Oh _that_ Dynamo. Not this Dynamo: [http://dynamobim.org/](http://dynamobim.org/)

</comment><comment><USER26> What is the machine in the photo?

<comment><USER27> A dynamo... ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> amazing product

</comment><comment><USER29> The thing doesn't even support a useable cross region replication. On top of that the whole read/write capacity is a joke (a painful one at that).

Other than a dirty js config or a prototype store this db is useless.

<comment><USER3> I would be very, very careful of calling anything a company of such very sharp people does a "joke."

One of my prior gigs was pushing a billion data points a day through DynamoDB without it breaking a sweat. We were paying for it, too--but it was there and it worked.

<comment><USER29> Anything that can go to dynamo, can go to s3, especially at that volume. And you get proper multi region replication, read/write capacity based on actual usage and instant scaling.

I stay by my comment that dynamodb is a joke wrapped in thick layer of marketing crap.

<comment><USER13> You cannot replace DynamoDB with S3. S3 can not perform atomic and strongly consistent operations.

Edit: as other commenters have noted, you can perform a read after write on a new key.

<comment><USER27> I am pretty sure S3 is atomic. That is, you can't get a transitory state. Your object either updated/PUT or it didn't AKA read after write consistency.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Deskilling and The Cul-de-Sac of Near Perfect Automation - <AUTHOR> http://www.macroresilience.com/2013/05/09/deskilling-and-the-cul-de-sac-of-near-perfect-automation/ <comment><USER2> Good :)</comment>


Ask HN: Will Apple, Google, Amazon and Others Install Backdoors for Australia? - <AUTHOR> New legislation requires companies to secretly install backdoors if the government asks or risk multi million dollar fines.
Will Apple, Google, and Amazon install Australian backdoors?
Or will they just exit the country? <comment><USER2> I think that the best solution here would be for the major players to go dark together for a day or two. No Google, no Bing, no WhatsApp, no Facebook.

I say this as an Australian developer who relies on these services to communicate with family back home. The Australian market is so small that these companies could do it, and I think that it would have the desired effect. Australia is a country which requires these services, and if every single citizen was suddenly without these facilities then something would be done about the problem.

Right now, the average person in Australia is not informed about the changes, and they do not know the impact it will have on them long term. It needs to be brought into sharp focus.

That is of course, if these companies actually see it as a threat to them - which is up in the air.

<comment><USER3> > Right now, the average person in Australia is not informed about the > changes, and they do not know the impact it will have on them long term. It > needs to be brought into sharp focus.

I feel like there has been a decent amount of coverage on this topic as it was a main subject in the final sitting days in the year and you had the labor opposition ceding their "no" position.

Maybe it's not fully explained technically to everyone, but people generally understand that encryption is generally ubiquitous on the internet.

I think in the end alot of people actually don't mind the idea that the government should have some power to snoop on someone they think is doing bad things. They understand to varying degrees what kind of abuse that will lead to, but just don't see the inherit dangers ever applying to them or someone they know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Under the Five Eyes partnership, isn't this just a law passed so that Australian citizens can be forced to install backdoors on behalf of the US.

The CIA is said to not spy on American citizens domestic activities, but ASIS and ASD can do that for them.

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

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes, of course. Censorship for China, backdoors for Australia, espionage for USA, lies for the rest of the world. Unfortunately the only thing that counts is money. We are just providers of information they sell.

</comment><comment><USER6> The way the law reads, we won't know if they have installed backdoors for Australia as they aren't allowed to notify people about it.

Mind you, if they all exited the country - along with Netflix and Facebook then I'd imagine the bulk of Australia would suddenly take a serious interest in it and the law would get revoked.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, Google wanted to run their software in China until their employees disagreed :)

So maybe it depends on the employees?

Either way, anything we'd comment would just be speculation.

<comment><USER8> They are looking at ways to clamp down on leaks and stuff internally from what I hear. They will just get better at hiding projects from the employees going forward.

<comment><USER9> Compartmentalization has worked for intelligence agencies looking to stop their agents from putting the whole moral puzzle together.

Why not Google?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes, they will install backdoors. We just won't know about it.

<comment><USER11> We WILL know about it if their services continue to be available in Australia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's an interesting situation. I wonder if Apple will bend over and give up user's privacy, or will exit Australian markets.

Google and Amazon will definitely sell out the users.

(and I'm not an Apple user)

<comment><USER13> Apple already operate data centres in China without privacy controls - seemingly happy to provide full government access in exchange for access to a lucrative market. Google currently have no operations in China.

<comment><USER14> Apple's users in China don't have an expectation of privacy. Chinese consumers have never had a web service offer privacy, and therefore don't expect it. Apple running a priavcy-less service in China isn't violating the users expectations, as long as they don't ever claim it's private or secure.

Australian users however _do_ expect privacy. They do expect that their chat messages will only be read by the recipient and not the government.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a good question. I'm very curious to see the impact this has too. Personally I am appalled that this legislation went through. Very scary precedent.

I want to think Australia shot itself in the foot here, if big companies will be exiting or if Australian developers are looked over for projects because they don't want to deal with this backdoor BS.

</comment><comment><USER15> They can comply, or they can block Australian users from their services. I really hope it's the latter, as the Australian public largely doesn't know about this law and maybe wouldn't care if it did.

</comment><comment><USER16> Not just Australia - the UK too, don't forget.</comment>


Buttons with built-in loading indicators - <AUTHOR> http://lab.hakim.se/ladda/ <comment><USER2> This is very pretty, but there's no need for a larger, separate JS file. All of this can be handled with CSS and a simple JS command that adds/removes a CSS class on click.

Quick demo: <http://codepen.io/ultimatedelman/pen/klDHy>

Since you wouldn't obviously use all the effects in this article, just pick the one you would use and have the .loading class effect the correct change.

UPDATE: now with fewer elements. Only HTML element needed to achieve this effect is the button itself :)

<comment><USER3> The other nice touch in Ladda is that it disables the form button on activation. Again, given your demo, not hard to replicate with a `this.disabled=true` statement.

<comment><USER2> You can also do this with CSS:

pointer-events: none;

cursor: not-allowed;

<comment><USER4> Though doesn't stop giving it focus and pressing it with the keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not known very well, but Bootstrap has similar functionality, albeit not as pretty:

<http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/javascript.html#buttons>

<comment><USER6> That's actually the technique I use for buttons in my apps, and I believe I prompted them to add it to Bootstrap. You can see the thread about it here where it was added: [https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/issues/471#issuecomment...](https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/issues/471#issuecomment-2500189)

But my point isn't who-invented-it, it's that it's very easy to implement this in your own buttons without using Bootstrap. I still use my own implementation, despite suggesting it to them. Just create some data attributes (I have data-default-message, data-inflight-message, and data- success-message) and change your buttons appropriately. I have a standard function that I call on my forms that handles that for me, which I've gisted here: <https://gist.github.com/pamelafox/5714109> You could do that in a more elegant way than that bit of code. :-)

I prefer the changing-message approach to the showing-the-indicator approach because the verb stays, and you remember what it was that you were doing. Handy for us forgetful folks. You can use both, too, of course.

<comment><USER7> It's a great technique for buttons, even without the nice design. I've wondered for years why this is not more common. Having a "submit" button change state is such better UI than those horrid messages warning you not to click twice—I still run into that from time to time.

<comment><USER8> The best route would probably be to show that warning somewhere, but hide it using JS. That way it's visible in scenarios where JS isn't available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hakim has more amazing experiments on his site (incl. Sinuous) worth checking out: <http://lab.hakim.se>.

<comment><USER10> Wow, he's talented. Avgrund seems like it could get some use on a project i'm working on now: <http://lab.hakim.se/avgrund/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hm, I was going to say it is slightly messed up in Opera -- the boxes don't move like they should -- but I guess it's not going to matter in the very near future. :(

</comment><comment><USER12> What impresses me the most is the JS. It is so clean, concise, and, the only other word that I can think of, professional. It puts the onus of capability on the browser and doesn't try to make up for those who lack. Sure you can shim addEventListener or setAttribut, but F IE (really), it has been adding complexity for far too long.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for pointing this out. Based on your comment I reviewed and the style is really nice. I haven't seen that method of returning the public API before but like you said, it is very clean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nifty. I don't know how we missed the possibility - this looks really nice.

Oh, and _thank you_ for adding a license. So often I see neat hacks posted, without any license at all...

</comment><comment><USER15> This is quite nice. All of the animations would be made better by removing the bounce at the end; it's a jarring way to end something that's otherwise very smooth.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice! Although the loading gif looks a bit dodgy on retina screen. I'd suggest playing with CSS and making that loading bit a pure css shape.

</comment><comment><USER17> We did something similar on one of our office hack days.

<http://waitable.adstruc.com/>

<https://github.com/ADstruc/waitable>

We built a generic jQuery plugin which binds to jQuery promises, taking care of the waiting state and double-submit issues while firing off Ajax requests.

<comment><USER18> I like your implementation. The demos in TFA all seem like pretty bad UX to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> On Firefox, a dotted line appears around the button's text when it has focus (after click for instance). IMO, it ruins the nice clear style of the buttons.

You can remove it with the non-standard `button::-moz-focus-inner{border:0}`. Then you could define some style for `button:focus{...}` to help keyboard navigation.

<comment><USER20> Or just button:focus{ outline:none; }. That should remove focus styling on all browsers, last I checked.

<comment><USER19> Not on Firefox. It doesn't use the pseudo-class :focus{outline} for buttons' dotted line, but the pseudo-element ::-moz-focus-inner on which a border is applied.

Note that the dotted line appears inside the button, around the text, and not around the button like :focus{outline} would do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is really cool! The only thing that makes it a little ugly for me is that when I click on it, my browser puts an ugly grey box around the text like I'm selecting it. Could this be solved by immediately changing the focus of the input?

<comment><USER22> please don't mess with focus that way, it ruins accessibility.

<comment><USER23> These buttons become unclickable once clicked upon. There is no additional loss of accessibility if you remove focus at this point, on the contrary.

<comment><USER22> the unclickability is also an accessibility issue imo. I know which problem it solves, but creates another when the site becomes unresponsive due to connection loss etc.

<comment><USER21> Genuinely interested: how would it be more usable if the buttons remained clickable after they'd been clicked? If you lost your connection, wouldn't you expect some kind of error? In that case how would it be more usable to be able to click the button again?

<comment><USER22> if I lose connection and the form is unresponsive I have to f5. often forms have some custom js selectors and after refresh some elements (or even whole formsets) lose their data.

of course an error would be nice, but the main goal is to submit the form I spent the last minutes filling in.

<comment><USER21> Good point, thanks for the reply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's worth a note that these buttons are very laggy in MobileSafari, except for zoom-in and zoom-out, which use -webkit-transform and thus have hardware accelerated animation. While slide-* could be changed to use -webkit- transform, I'm somewhat surprised that the performance of the others is so bad, and I wonder if there's some not-completely-awful trick that would improve expand-*.

<comment><USER25> I actually was impressed by their smoothness on my 4S. What device are you using?

<comment><USER26> They were a little choppy on my iPad mini.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That looks cool. But in most of my projects, I use a "frame" structure. After submitting something, the frame changes to either left or right, completely moving the submit button out of sight. So while this is very cool, it doesn't work for popups and frame like designs which are supposed to "move" immediately and process ajax requests in background to give an illusion of speed.

</comment><comment><USER28> I actually did a similar thing for iOS, I'll try to extract it from that project and open source it when I find time :)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is also a nice solution

<http://fgnass.github.io/spin.js/>

<comment> slash-dot This seems to use it

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I saw this and just thought, "why isn't this the way we do buttons and loading" nice

</comment><comment><USER31> A few years ago I built a button for an iPhone app that turned into a progress bar while loading:

Here's a CSS version of it (with image assets).

<http://codepen.io/kballenegger/pen/uJGCF>

</comment><comment><USER32> I like the slid.es examples. Are there some JavaScript based slides, which work on a server so that one user can navigate to new slides and the other users see the change in their browser?

</comment><comment><USER33> Nice. I like the in-place-with-overlay option particularly, though I can still interact with the other buttons while the overlay is in place which I was not expecting.

<comment><USER34> I dug into that, and what I found blew my mind.

Usually these lightbox/modal overlays use an extra div either loaded with the page or injected on the fly that covers the entire window and is positioned just below the modal on the z-axis (z-index).

His solution was to give the button a really massive box-shadow :O

        box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 3000px rgba(0,0,0,0.8);

I'd never have thought of that.

         ---
        |   |   <--- the box
         ---

          X     <--- where Hakim thinks

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Something like this, but with a progress bar instead of a generic loading thing, would also be very nice.

<comment><USER2> this can be very difficult, as very often the front end is not aware of the loading status of an item. pretty much only files being uploaded can have any sort of progress attached to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Interesting use case, but not practical enough. All the times when you need to show a loading indicator do not occur after clicking on a button, loading indicator needs to come up when any amount of delay is anticipated. It can show up after clicking a link, image etc etc whereas this example implies as if loading indicator is only need when a button is clicked.

<comment><USER37> I expect this is trying to solve problems like double form submission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> very neat, and incidentally made me discover slid.es, what an extremely well made app that is.

<comment><USER39> Same here, slid.es is brilliant!

I had to learn more before I throw out PowerPoint, so I Googled (which is difficult because of the top level domain in the name, had to search with quotations). [http://ltlatnd.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/slid-es-for- lightwei...](http://ltlatnd.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/slid-es-for-lightweight- presentations/)

TLDNR: Formerly Rvl.io, free tier, commenting. Paid tier at $7/mo has revision history, private slides and offline export.

And no, I don't work or know Hakim :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> this is great, thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER41> The slide right seems broken.

</comment><comment><USER42> very cool. progress bars next?</comment>


Ask HN: What would change in a neighborhood that installed Gigabit Internet? - <AUTHOR>

I am helping a non-profit that is trying to bring gigabit internet to a main street in a neighborhood of Saint Louis.  I want to explain to small businesses (restaurants, coffee shops, movie theaters, retail stores) how internet speeds that are 100 times faster will impact them (positively).  My sense is that right now most of these people use the internet for emails, streaming movies, ordering things on Amazon, and Facebook/Pinterest. What will happen to a neighborhood and non-computer savvy people living in places that are among the first to install this capacity? <comment><USER2> For the small businesses, especially the restaurants and coffee shops, the biggest advantage will be that the "mobile people" will like them. Mobile data is dead expensive, if it's available in high speed at all, and giving your customers access to high-speed internet will increase the timespan they spend at the venue.</comment>


Things I learnt as a CEO in 2012 - <AUTHOR> https://www.zippykid.com/2013/01/01/the-lessons-i-learned-in-2012/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, I wouldn't have thought that #5 would be one of the "top lessons" but it makes sense. I often struggle with the cheerleader function that is inherent in promoting a business and part of that is acknowledging that there are expectations that surround executive communication.

<comment><AUTHOR> nroach, I can't speak for others. But I've struggled with the whole 'marketing a product' thing. It's easy for me to make a good product, it's harder for me to tell people about it.

Something about my past has made me think that if I tell people about how awesome my product is, is gloating. So, I'd just say it.. "It doesn't suck".. which is a funny way of saying it's awesome. But if you don't know me, it may look like I don't think it's worth trying.</comment></comment>