Tetris for Applesoft BASIC - <AUTHOR> https://paleotronic.com/2018/06/26/tetris-for-applesoft-basic/ <comment><USER2> I wrote a Tetris game for the TRS-80 in the early 90's. To save on CPU and memory, I directly represented the state of the board, including the "cup" the pieces fell into, in video memory. On the first run I accidentally only drew half of the bottom of the cup, and I dropped a piece through the hole, where it sliced into whatever RAM was just past the video memory, crashing the system.

<comment><USER3> Just like Tron escaping the game grid. :-)

<comment><USER4> Indeed!: [http://blog.danielwellman.com/2008/10/real-life-tron-on- an-a...](http://blog.danielwellman.com/2008/10/real-life-tron-on-an-apple- iigs.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like reading old mags & BASIC+ASM sources. Often there are interesting things to be found there; the old computers had very limited memory and a lot of tricks had to be used to make things fit. And the BASIC memory was even smaller than the machine memory. It was really amazing what some devs did and do. I got into firmware development for devices with the same kind of restrictions (our MCU has 24kb of usable memory) because I like this kind of bit fiddling.

My favorite mags are [http://www.msxcomputermagazine.nl/](http://www.msxcomputermagazine.nl/) and, even more, but more unorganized, [https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/general- discussion/msx-gi...](https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/general- discussion/msx-gids-pdfs-dutch-mag?page=7) .

<comment><USER6> Hey, the number 3 has my first computer in the front page! the Yashica YC-64. I still have it in working condition.

<comment><USER5> Ah! That is one of the few MSX systems I do not have yet... I have all of them including east EU/Russian knock-offs. In my experience MSX systems were far far more robust that C64 for instance; I have a lot of C64's; most of them are broken; all MSX's still work. That can have many causes but looking at the PCBs and components it seems they really tried to make C64 as cheap as possible while MSXs have more robust components.

<comment><USER7> Do you have the Brazilian Gradiente MSX?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Writing a simple Tetris clone (or at least starting one) is a pretty good coding test that be done in a sort amount of time. Anyone who can't figure out a few simple algorithms for detecting full lines or moving pieces down the screen probably won't be able to figure out any useful ones for other programs.

<comment><USER4> Too bad if they got wind of the practice, The Tetris Company LLC would sue any company that did it into a smoldering crater.

<comment><USER9> Calm down please, you're off topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Tetris related, if you haven't seen Ecstasy of Order you should watch it today.</comment>


Visual Studio 2013 Launches With New Online Tools, Browser-Based Code Editor - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/13/microsofts-visual-studio-2013-launches-with-new-online-tools-for-team-and-build-management-preview-of-browser-based-code-editor/ <comment> tyler-codenvy The Monaco project form Visual Studio is exciting. We (Codenvy) have tracked nearly 50 web-based editors that have emerged in the past 2 years. A few of them have transitioned into full businesses with venture backing. Most of them have remained side projects or experiments.

With Microsoft's project related to Monaco and their VP's statement in the TechCrunch article that this style of development is where the future is vectoring towards, this is the first major platform vendor that has indicated that they see these sorts of cloud environments as not only as supplemental to core development, but potentially displacements.

Of course, there are years of engineering ahead before cloud systems can offer true displacement, but some of the early adoption scenarios are getting well defined. We attempted to capture the market size and early adoption drivers of cloud browsers in this quora post.

[http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-market-size-of-cloud- IDEs-a...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-market-size-of-cloud-IDEs-and- what-are-the-possible-business-models/answer/Tyler- Jewell?__snids__=229426941&__nsrc__=2)

<comment><USER2> Is there a list of web-based editors beyond [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_JavaScript- based_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_JavaScript- based_source_code_editors) ?

<comment> tyler-codenvy This is the list that I track and follow today. Apologies for any duplicates or typos. It's just my scratch pad list.

Of course my company, Codenvy should be in the list, too.

Koding (funded) CodeRun Eclipse Orion & Eclipse OrionHub Cloud9IDE CodeNow Nitrous.IO CodeCube ApplicationCraft Adobe Brackets.io UmbrellaSDK Vaadin Arvue TrackVia DevUnity Py I/O Web2Py Collide (GOOG) FriendCo.de WebStorm Coffee.io Cloudifier SWIFT Edit - England CodePen JSFiddle Dabblet Pastebin.me CSSDesk jsdo.it tinker SQL Fiddle Compilr Codeanywhere.net (funded) IDEOne PythonAnywhere Scalakata.com ideone.com onlinejavaide.com Kalupa Magikai Ninja-ide.org Microsoft TouchDevelop Notepad++ Codepen.io cloudenvy [http://icecoder.net/](http://icecoder.net/) jackdb.com codio.com codebender.cc PythonMonk Hull.io maqetta Codebunk.com thebinaryapp.com editey.com brainengine [http://www.crunchzilla.com/code- monster](http://www.crunchzilla.com/code-monster) codiad goorm.io Microsoft Visual Studio Online Monaco

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very nice, we (Floobits YC S13) are also planning to integrate our web based editor with Visual Studio, with real time collaboration and the ability to connect to other types of native editors.

Our editor is based on the awesome ace editor and comes with unparalleled collaboration tools including webrtc video chat (and Google Hangout support), terminal sharing (flootty), automatic deployment tools (floomatic) and the ability to connect with your native editor with our editor plugins for Sublime Text, emacs and vim (intellij/webstorm/pycharm, etc in the works!). Git integration is also in the works.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would also like to comment on this topic while pimping my company.

<comment><USER5> You're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER6> He (twiceaday YC14) is following these comments closely. He's using his literacy to enable real-time text-concept-memory translations, with the ability to verbally communicate the contents later, or simply re-type them if the ideas are relevant to later comment threads.

<comment><USER7> Think of it as "machine learning for humans."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Speculation here:

I wonder if Microsoft sees the fleeting profitability in owning the desktop environment (more competition, shrinking market, higher expectations). So they're trying to apply the same concepts that really helped propel windows as a popular platform (easy to develop for) to their cloud platform (azure) in an attempt to coax their existing user base to start adopting it over other cloud platforms (like google apps)

As a windows developer myself, I see this as a great strategy. I've been questioning staying with C# and windows for a few years now... it started with buying a Mac (while running Parallels) and learning several new languages. But I still LIKE C#. So it might be a great transition plan.

<comment><USER9> I don't think Microsoft yet sees the demise of desktop as a given, but they are hedging their bets against it. Web, mobile, cloud, &c. are all platforms that are threatening desktop. Microsoft is trying to push into them, not to abandon desktop, but to make sure that they have a foothold regardless of which platform(s) end up dominant in the future.

As late entrants into most of these platforms, their strategy is to leverage their existing technical capital as much as possible. So, we're seeing cloud versions of Outlook, Office, and now Visual Studio. I don't think they're trying to move people away from desktop (yet), but they are making their company's fate less tightly bound to desktop.

<comment> at-fates-hands I'm wondering if a lot of moving their products to the cloud is to limit or try to stop pirating of their software. Adobe has been successful thus far with their new Creative Cloud platform.

<comment><USER10> _Disclaimer: Not speaking in any official PR capacity here. Just sharing my personal opinions as a guy who has been in a bunch of cross-team meetings._

I've been working as a developer in Redmond in "Server & Tools", now called "Server & Cloud", for the better part of a year now. I know for a fact there are teams that work to address piracy, but I personally haven't seen it as a driving force in specific goals.

Without wanting to give away key strategy (not that I even know much) Look at how the company is structured and where the revenue comes from. Our division serves primarily enterprise customers. Enterprise customers are totally loving the cloud and are the primary driver of this demand. So we're focused on delivering a first-rate cloud platform (Azure) and first-rate developer tools (e.g. VS 2013 and cross platform Azure libs) to develop for it.

It seems to be working, our deployments are growing steadily. Public reports claim that we are deploying semicustom data center capacity in markets that impose some localized requirements.

Look at the investment in infrastructure capacity being made here. Such a fundamental shift wouldn't make sense (to me) for the goal of reducing the number of over-deployed licenses, when that could probably instead be addressed with far cheaper (even if annoying) DRM-like solutions.

So again, our customers told us they want cloud, so we're going to build them the best darn cloud ever, not forgetting our experience with their particular needs and requirements.

<comment><USER11> Pretty sure it's "Cloud and Enterprise."

<comment><USER10> D'oh! I'll have to be sure to get that right if I ever meet Satya.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, I am blown away. It's worth watching their list of features video. [http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Visual-Studio-Online- Monaco/...](http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Visual-Studio-Online- Monaco/Navigating-the-environment)

</comment><comment><USER12> Visual Studio Online is pretty cool! I've been using the git repository hosting for a while now and I am loving it. Free for up to five members and it's a private repo. Cool to see them continue to add more to it.

</comment><comment><USER13> For anyone who downloaded (but has not installed) a VS2013 ISO from MSDN before November 8th might want to download again as they were updated on the 8th. Details on the update is available at [http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2890846/en- us](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2890846/en-us)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's worth pointing out that they have Git support built in as well.

<comment><USER14> Wish it had Mercurial support, but at least it has TFS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Visual Studio Online - a set of development services running on Windows Azure that focus on agile team collaboration, Application Lifecycle Management and support for Windows Azure.

I don't see any online code editor here.

<comment><USER16> Please read the whole article.

>The other feature in private beta is codenamed "Monaco." It's a cloud-based code editor that enables lightweight editing for Windows Azure websites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Without ReSharper, I find Visual Studio code editing to be a very unpleasant experience. I'm guessing the online editing will be even worse.

</comment><comment><USER18> For a review of what's new in the IDE (not the VS Online portion): [http://www.drdobbs.com/240163830](http://www.drdobbs.com/240163830)

</comment><comment><USER19> Forgive me for asking that $0.02 question : Can I create Xbox One apps with Visual studio ?

<comment><USER20> Traditionally the console SDKs are 'Visual Studio plus proprietary magic', so you'll need to get registered as a developer either way. But you'll almost certainly be using Visual Studio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Okay - this actually looks very good. Almost like Sublime Text in the browser!

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only one to notice this[1]? Looks pretty okay aside from that.

[1] [http://uploads.woutervdb.com/files/5283a1c42f8bc.png](http://uploads.woutervdb.com/files/5283a1c42f8bc.png)

<comment><USER22> Fire. Everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> In other news - TechCrunch is now friends with Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER24> Does it only work in IE?

<comment><USER25> I don't think so. I'm using it in Chrome and it works perfectly fine. :)

<comment><USER26> You mean it works fine in NewIE, right? :)

(That's how most people I know that do front-end work have come to call Chrome and webkits in general as there are so many chrome/webkit specific bugs and "webkit-ish standard extensions" that it feels like debugging for IE back in the day. And nowadays Firefox and IE(10+) actually have more sane behaviors and more standard compliance than Chrome. Yeah, the Chrome devs bring new features to the people faster than anyone else, but they also introduce a shitload of specific bugs that are hard to fix because just reproducing them well enough to report them is a huge pain.)

<comment><USER25> Yes, it works fine in the NewIE as well. I've tested it in Chrome, FF, Safari, IE9+. All looks good so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very convenient for hacking on the go when you are usually ng something like surface or iPad.

<comment><USER28> Ah, that's actually a great idea. Going to try it on my Surface RT :) It would be awesome if I could do some simple hacking on my tablet for those occasions I have to wait or when I'm in an airplane or something :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like VS. It's a great product.

But why on earth Microsoft have to have a finger in every pie? Can't they just focus on some area and make some great products instead of trying to have monopoly in every little area and forcing or bullying everyone to user their product.

Just think about it, MS is most earning software company. But is there any field where MS is pioneer or revolutionize something? MS has monopoly in desktop but that's not for their quality of product, they just got lucky and IBM did some stupid mistakes. Windows is not a bad OS. But as the market leading OS, it's really mediocre. Even now Windows don't have basic feature like virtual desktops, a decent command shell, a good searching tool like "finder" in OS X.

<comment><USER30> > Even now Windows don't have basic feature like..

Hyper-V? Powershell? Search has been in Windows since forever.

<comment><USER31> Do you know that Powershell is something they had to make to have something ti compete with native Shell, right?

This isn't a native feature for Windows and they have to monkey patch it.

If you have used anyother OS, you will find out that Windows is fundamentally broken.

<comment><USER30> I ran Gentoo as my main/desktop OS for a year or so. Have multiple machines that run ArchLinux and Ubuntu. I don't think Windows is fundamentally broken.

"This isn't a native feature for Windows"

That line makes no sense at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Putin Says Snowden Must Stop Hurting U.S. to Stay in Russia - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/europe/snowden-applies-for-asylum-in-russia.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Entire article can be summarized in this paragraph: ""Russia never gives up anyone to anybody and is not planning to," Mr. Putin said. He added, "If he wants to go somewhere and they accept him, please, be my guest. If he wants to say here, there is one condition: He must cease his work aimed at inflicting damage to our American partners, as strange as it may sound from my lips.""

<comment><USER3> Basically, "Stay here as long as you need to figure out where to go next and how to get there. Just don't put us in a difficult position in the meantime."

<comment><USER4> Nailed it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are two basic scenarios here that I see, both of them extremely bad for US national security (something I care about, and everyone reading this should too because it is core to our safety). *

1\. Obama made a _huge_ back-channel concession to Russia to get them to deny Snowden asylum. He had to do something to get Putin to decide not to shelter Snowden, and it would likely be an extremely painful concession. Most likely something security related in eastern Europe, probably BMD.

2\. Putin cannot keep Snowden from releasing information and has done what he can to bind Snowden to Moscow. By forcing Snowden to stop publishing, he can keep any revelations from being released and instead give him a thorough debriefing to gain sole access to a treasure trove of counter espionage intelligence.

This is bad. Very, very bad.

(*)Understand that every country spies on every other. Germany moaning about us spying is highly hypocritical because they do the same exact thing to every ally. So does France to Germany, the UK to France, so on and so forth. Hell, Israel spies on us and we spy on them. Spying is core to our safety in the modern age, and has been core to the safety of every country since the days of the roman empire.

<comment><USER6> _Understand that every country spies on every other. Germany moaning about us spying is highly hypocritical because they do the same exact thing to every ally. So does France to Germany, the UK to France, so on and so forth. Hell, Israel spies on us and we spy on them. Spying is core to our safety in the modern age, and has been core to the safety of every country since the days of the roman empire._

At the risk of being proven wrong in the (near) future I challenge your statement. I doubt the German government or an intelligence agency would dare to bug an US embassy, the headquarter of one of your parties or whatever comes closest to the EU buildings supposed to be bugged. Equally I doubt they are in the business of mass surveillance.

There is a huge difference between USA and Germany (and probably many other European countries) - we don't have this paranoia that everyone is against us (justified or not). People don't care about terrorism. Admittedly I have never been to the USA and can not judge how much a concern this really is in the general population but the impression that arrives on this side of the ocean is that there is a widespread fear. There are of course people dealing with terrorism - we don't simply ignore the problem - but the general population really does not care. I am also not old enough to judge if this was different when Germany experienced terror attacks, for example by the RAF from the 1970s to the 1990s.

I think the USA was a very different place before 9/11\. I read the recently leaked NSA IG Report and what it says about the time before 9/11 is very different from what the current situation seems to be - they are talking about what they can not do and what court orders they need and so on. But then 9/11 happens and they go completely nuts.

<comment><USER7> >At the risk of being proven wrong in the (near) future I challenge your statement. I doubt the German government or an intelligence agency would dare to bug an US embassy, the headquarter of one of your parties or whatever comes closest to the EU buildings supposed to be bugged. Equally I doubt they are in the business of mass surveillance.

All intelligence services are in the business of mass surveillance, period. If they're not, they aren't a good intelligence service. The simple fact is that with the way the world is today, it's foolish to blindly assume that your allies are always acting in your best interest. They are, obviously, going to act in their own best interests, but it's important to know when your interests coincide, and when they don't. And it's more important to know that now than any other time.

The difference between today and 30 years ago is that there isn't a Warsaw Pact for NATO to oppose. Keep in mind, every major player in the Warsaw Pact is now either a member of NATO, or in a "partnership for peace" with NATO. The current major "adversary"(and I use that term very, very lightly) is China, who enjoys good trade relations with the entire world, to the point where open conflict with China would be so disastrous to everyone involved(including China), that it's completely off the table.

That's why this kind of spycraft is even more important now than ever. Large scale military movements are easy to see. But knowing things like what the EU as a whole is going to do with trade agreements, or if the Chinese are talking to the Russians about a new oil pipeline, is hugely important.

<comment><USER6> _All intelligence services are in the business of mass surveillance, period. If they 're not, they aren't a good intelligence service._

Isn't it the other way round? You fail at targeted surveillance and have to resort to mass surveillance?

 _The simple fact is that with the way the world is today, it 's foolish to blindly assume that your allies are always acting in your best interest. They are, obviously, going to act in their own best interests, but it's important to know when your interests coincide, and when they don't. And it's more important to know that now than any other time._

I mostly agree - usually the best you can expect is that someone is acting in common best interest. But there are also some exception like help after a natural disaster where states might indeed act in your best interest.

 _The difference between today and 30 years ago is that there isn 't a Warsaw Pact for NATO to oppose. Keep in mind, every major player in the Warsaw Pact is now either a member of NATO, or in a "partnership for peace" with NATO. The current major "adversary"(and I use that term very, very lightly) is China, who enjoys good trade relations with the entire world, to the point where open conflict with China would be so disastrous to everyone involved(including China), that it's completely off the table._

For Germany China is an important trade partner with between 5 % and 10 % of the total import and export volume. Stopping all trading relationships will without doubt have a noticeable effect but I don't know if it will be our if I would call it disastrous.

 _That 's why this kind of spycraft is even more important now than ever. Large scale military movements are easy to see. But knowing things like what the EU as a whole is going to do with trade agreements, or if the Chinese are talking to the Russians about a new oil pipeline, is hugely important._

Yes, it might be interesting to know, but obtaining this information by spying at others is not legal. In this world it is also important to have some money at hand but that makes a really bad justification for robbing a bank. Just because you want something does not mean you can have it or are even entitled to have it. If law and justice means something to you, deal with it, otherwise you are just opportunistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The short of the news coming out over the last few days is that things are starting to look grim for Mr. Snowden. Ecuador has bowed to U.S. pressure and no longer looks interested in hosting Snowden. Wikileaks admits he is "marooned" in Russia and they don't seem to have any more tricks up their sleeves to get him out. Now Putin seems to be threatening Snowden not to leak anything else or be unwelcome in Russia, while it seems like Snowden has already set the leaks in motion and may not be able to stop them. The Russian official who spoke to the New York Times about Snowden's asylum applications called them a "desperate measure."

I think it is quite probable that Mr. Snowden will be coming home soon.

<comment><USER9> It's not clear that Ecuador bowed to political/economic pressures as much as Mr Assange upset Ecuador by appearing to be the orchestrator (showboating)[1], [2].

[1][http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/ecuador- snow...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/ecuador-snowden- asylum-julian-assange/66704/) [2][http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/RafaelCorrea-Assange- Snow...](http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/RafaelCorrea-Assange-Snowden- Patino-EE-UU_0_947905395.html) Use google translate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> >"It seems to me that Snowden is the greatest pacifist. This person has done no less to win the Nobel Peace Prize than Barack Obama."

love it.

</comment><comment><USER11> If a country agrees to grant him asylum are they under any obligation to stick to that agreement?

i.e. Can he just apply to as many places as possible, and trust whichever of the offers he likes the most, or does he have to worry that maybe a country would offer the asylum while having a secret agreement already in place with the US to extradite him as soon as he is in their power?

<comment><USER8> I think that would seriously damage the reputation of the country granting "asylum." I cannot imagine that could possibly be worth it.

<comment><USER12> I'd say whoever grants Snowden asylum will be seen as Robin Hood by many people :)

<comment><USER13> GP meant that offering asylum _and then_ turning Snowden over to USA custody would cause a damaged reputation. I think that's optimistic...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the heart of the matter:

> But over the week that Mr. Snowden has spent at Sheremetyevo airport, top > Russian officials have tried to remain neutral on whether Mr. Snowden should > be granted asylum, perhaps because they are wary of the damage it would do > to their relationship with the United States.

The same scenario is going to repeat with most countries on the planet. There are three kinds of countries: 1) those that have an extradition treaty with the US, 2) those that don't and are neutral to the US and 3) those that don't and that are enemies of the US.

Countries in situation 1) and 2) will never accept to offer political asylum to Snowden. At worst, countries of type 2) will have to be given incentives (trade, money, etc...) to extradite Snowden but they can certainly not afford angering the US.

Which leaves countries that are enemies of the US (e.g. Iran, Afghanistan, Cuba to some extent, etc...). Such countries couldn't care less to damage their relationships with the US and will gladly have Snowden over, but for Snowden to accept to move such countries would be openly admitting that he is an enemy of the US as well, which is what Putin is hinting.

Blowing the whistle is one thing, disclosing confidential matter that damages the US on the geopolitical scene is usually referred to as treason.

<comment><USER15> "for Snowden to accept to move such countries would be openly admitting"

.. that no other country gave him asylum?

Also:

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

 _Oran 's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." In many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aiding or involved by such an endeavor._

^ that's a long queue, but Snowden isn't in it. But I think it could be argued that those who habitually hand over the democratic process to the highest bidders are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not Snowden that is inflicting damage to America, it is those who have corrupted the government with their prodigious wealth.

Congress is 51% lawyers despite the fact that less than 1% of Americans are. Congress is ~40% millionaires (or more) despite the fact that less than 4% of Americans.

Vote out the rich and their lawyers lapdogs and we will have our country back peacefully.

<comment><USER16> I was interested in a source for these numbers and I might just post them here for anyone wondering :

Percentage of lawyers: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- fix/files/2013/01/Co...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- fix/files/2013/01/Congress.jpg)

Percentage of millionaires: [http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2013/feb/04/rob...](http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2013/feb/04/rob- woodall/congress-millionaires-club/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >there is one condition: He must cease his work aimed at inflicting damage to our American partners, as strange as it may sound from my lips."<

Didn't Snowden already give all of his information to various persons around the world? Is he really revealing all of this from an airport?

<comment><USER8> Perhaps that is the game. It sounds like the U.S. is successfully pressuring Ecuador and Russia behind the scenes. If Russia wants to give Snowden over while saving face, this is the way to do it. Give him an ultimatum you already know he cannot possibly comply with. Then you make it look like his fault.

<comment><USER18> I see it as the opposite: Russia is completely in control here. They avoid complying with US wishes whilst portraying themselves as keen to avoid antagonism, get rhetorical ammunition to defend their own policies of censorship, and retain Snowden and any actually useful information he might actually be able to supply them with as a bargaining chip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Maybe this is why Greewald tweeted this earlier:

"NOTE: Snowden's leak is basically done. It's newspapers - not Snowden - deciding what gets disclosed and in what sequence."

[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/351730381478821888](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/351730381478821888)

<comment><USER20> I wonder if Russia is setting up Snowden for eviction. If Russia knows that newspapers will soon publish more Snowden leaks, it can publically demand that Snowden stop leaking and then kick him out when the leaks inevitably appear-- even though the leaks have, in fact, already occurred. In this way, Russia complies with U.S. demands without appearing to just hand him over.

<comment><USER21> Putin's direct quotes in the article are entirely unambiguous: he's not getting handed over/kicked out, just that he won't get asylum.

Also, he's not leaking anything anymore, as all the data's been handed off to journos already. Technically his role in all of this is done now—his is now but to do and die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What is the evidence that Snowden's activities have harmed US?

<comment><USER23> You haven't read about the outrage from countries, citizens, human rights activists, etc? Lawsuits from the ACLU? Ecuador dropping their favored trade status (trade favors go both ways). At the very least, this has harmed the public image of the US government just by the very nature of its public reveal.

<comment><USER24> There is something that angers me a bit about this sentiment, and I am speaking as a US citizen here. Snowden has harmed the US government by _embarrassing_ it, causing civil rights groups to file lawsuits, and by causing a trade agreement to possibly fail over his request for asylum? It sounds like you are saying we should just keep quiet about government abuses, which is basically the opposite of what America is supposed to stand for.

<comment><USER23> I'm not arguing right or wrong. Just that yes, in fact, the US has been hurt by this. I want to know why you're jumping to the conclusion that I think this is okay. I never once implied anything of the sort.

If I tattle on the school bully and he gets detention, he has been hurt by me (even though once he catches me I'll be hurt worse).

<comment><USER22> A bully's actions are detrimental to his own self as well as others and to awaken a bully has no implicit cause to harm the bully. On the contrary, it is motivated by love.

Under the guidance of those who are in power currently, the US will be run into the ground. Do you know why that will be the result? It's because of falsehood that our society is being ruined. It will never happen that revealing the truth will ruin a society.

So our efforts to reveal the facts of what is happening in reality are not to the detriment of the country - it is to save it from destruction.

That's why I demand evidence of your words.

How has the US been hurt by this? You said it is fact, so please show us something we can confirm.

<comment><USER23> Seriously how does a simple comment like "yeah, getting called out hurts" lead to this much fucking witch-hunting? I feel like you guys are about to dox me and send SWAT to my house. Why aren't you ganging up on kalms, who responded in agreement?

I already answered your question that you're somehow still demanding an answer to. There's a TV channel devoted to people who want to ignore the fact that someone responded to their question and make conveniently and intentionally false accusations in an attempt to discredit them.

I broke my hand once, and before I could get to the hospital the bone started to heal. It needed to be rebroken in order to heal properly. Sure the doctor broke my hand out of love for his patient. _IT STILL FUCKING HURT_.

<comment><USER22> Snowden didn't begin the spying program, he is the one who informed people about the fact so that they can protect themselves from being cheated by a lie.

The thing which hurt the US is the activities that its present government has been taking - and those activities are what people overseas are upset about.

Indeed, you need to re-break a break sometimes, but it is not an action that harms the break or the person: it is the only action that enables them to heal. We judge if they are harmed or not by the result, and the result of this method of treatment if correctly followed is decidedly good. So it's not true that temporal pain is implicitly indicative of harm.

The people who are in power in the US right now do not represent the real will of the people and thus they do not have the people's mandate. As such, no matter whether the EU withdraws from a trade deal with the current US government, it is not withdrawing from a government which is of the real people. As such, it would in fact be right of the EU to withdraw its agreement with the current US government so that more truth about the degree of legitimacy of the current US government is revealed. It's only by admitting the truth that we can finally start to go on the right path. To continue the way things are going now, where these dire problems are hidden, is even more painful to truthful people than it is to have the truth come out. Because the truth always exists.

I hope this helps things make more sense to you.

<comment><USER23> Again: not what I'm arguing. I don't know who you're arguing against, but it's not me, so I'm going to bow out of this conversation. All I mentioned was the negative reactions from this leak that were directed towards the US government as things that have hurt the US government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Read: Snowden should publish everything he has, because after that he will be granted asylum.

What better way to get everything out of Snowden, still stay "neutral" and give USG the diplomatic finger

</comment><comment><USER12> It's unfortunate there's not a single country that can withstand US influence. Not even so called "dictators".

<comment><USER26> Snowden could probably go to North Korea, but it's doubtful that he wants to.

<comment><USER27> The DPRK isn't going to stick to principles. They'll sell him off or use him as a bargaining token whenever they need, without thinking twice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Champions of human rights don't go to russia for "asylum" \- it's where defecting spies go.

So let's just call it like it is: he's defecting.

Less and less, at this point, are his actions about government accountability and civil rights, and more and more about damaging US national security for the benefit of its (completely _NON_ -free) adversaries

I hope he relishes his unbounded freedoms in Russia, since it's a place of government/defense/intelligence-agency transparency, a bastion of free speech & democracy, and a place where journalists are not routinely murdered. At least he's out of the tyrannical USA.

Oh, wait...

<comment><USER29> I cannot see the relevance of conditions in Russia to Snowden's decision that conditions in the United States need to be fixed.

Every country in the world could be far worse, without releasing the US from its principled goal of fostering a new birth of freedom through a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

<comment><USER30> If that's what Snowden cares about he's not doing much to make that point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> And 14 other countries as well ...

</comment><comment><USER32> The US will quietly offer to release one or more Russian "spies" caught in the USA in exchange for them handing over Snowden. This type of thing happened all the time during the Cold War.

</comment><comment><USER20> It sounds like Russian intelligence services have finished rifling Snowden for classified information. They don't want Snowden leaking to anyone else what they've rightfully pilfered.</comment>


Ribosome – Generic Code Generation - <AUTHOR> http://ribosome.ch/index.html <comment><USER2> One problem with code generation where the result is meant to be readable by humans -- especially if there are multiple rounds of code generation -- are identifiers. They tend to grow and in the end they are as complex as C++ template signatures.</comment>


NYTimes's New Look - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/prototype/

<comment><USER2> I like the site that showcases the new design better

</comment><comment><USER3> Since I got into web dev, I feel like nytimes.com has been a poster child for how not to design a website. It will be interesting to see what they've come up with when they start from scratch.

<comment><USER4> Hmmm? The NYT has always had very nice web design—attractive, functional, fast, and "appropriate": it feels like a newspaper.

It may not follow all the various web fads the moment they pop up, but that seems quite appropriate for a site that needs to maintain a certain tone and consistency.</comment></comment>


Socratic vs. Euclidean Forms of API Documentation - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2020/2/24/socratic-vs-euclidean-forms-of-api-documentation.html <comment><USER2> In my experience, the best documentation usually starts with a section called " _Concepts_ " or something similar.

Beyond some simple floor of complexity, starting by elucidating the high-level concepts you're dealing with is really important to convey understanding. Too many docs jump straight from the introduction into the technical minutiae. The doc writer often takes for granted all the implicit mental models they've built up from repeatedly hacking on the underlying system. Without those mental models, the technical details are just meaningless facts that the user's never going to retain.

Great documentation starts by carefully explaining the core concepts not just from the system, but from the problem domain itself. This builds up a common vocabulary that allows for precision, non-ambiguity, and clarity throughout the rest of the documentation.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the best articles I've seen on writing documentation is "What Nobody Tells You About Documentation" [0]. It divides docs into four categories: Tutorials, How-To Guides, Discussions, and References.

I'm currently working on a major rewrite of the Redux core docs [1], and I've been taking notes on that post and various other docs writing resources [2] so I can apply them to the rewrite.

[0] [https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/](https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/)

[1] [https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/issues/3592](https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/issues/3592)

[2] [https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/issues/3609](https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/issues/3609)

<comment><USER4> Don't forget the "Quickstart". For example if you run a weather forecast/historical data API most people probably only want "how to get weather on X day" which should be up front and center. The rest of the options such as filtering or finer tuning comes later.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's actually something I'm planning to add to the Redux docs shortly - a "Quick Start" tutorial page that shows things in a "top-down/how-to" approach (specifically using our new Redux Toolkit package [0] and the React- Redux hooks API [1]), vs the existing tutorial that teaches concepts "bottom- up".

I started an initial attempt to write that page [2], wasn't happy with where it was going, and stepped back to do some analysis on other docs sites first so I could nail down how i want to tackle explaining things. I'm hoping to try writing that again after I get this next version of Redux Toolkit out the door.

[0] [https://redux-toolkit.js.org](https://redux-toolkit.js.org)

[1] [https://react-redux.js.org/api/hooks](https://react- redux.js.org/api/hooks)

[2] [https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/pull/3675](https://github.com/reduxjs/redux/pull/3675)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > API doc tends to be Euclidean, but at its best documentation is Socratic. > That's when you can really be productive—fast.

Socratic documentation is necessary, but you need both. You really do need both. When I come back to your library after a year of not using it, and I can't remember the name of a slightly obscure function, I don't want to have to dig around in prose for the sentence where you explain what it does. I want to be able to search for a few keywords and get a function definition, with the arguments and the return type listed, and a short description of what it does. (If possible, I want to be able to search by the type; the only language that I've ever seen have this feature is Haskell, even though it would be doable in any statically typed language.)

<comment><USER6> You seem to be describing the difference between a User Guide and a Reference Manual. Both are needed.

<comment><USER7> You're right that both of these forms are needed.

There is, however, yet another category of documentation that is increasingly common and often becoming necessary in order to cope.

I don't know if it has a formal name, but let's call it "context-sensitive" documentation. Some examples that come to mind are when you have auto- completion, "light=bulbs" or intellisense in IDE's, or -? options in the commandline.

In situations where you are just trying to get stuff done, and you forget something trivial-- it's usually not some extremely complex edge-case, it's usually something mundane that you forgot because you don't often do that particular task everyday. In such scenarios, it's infuriating to have to skim through detailed man pages that cover every damn exotic use-case of the the command in alphabetical order, nor is it pleasant to pick up a user guide that starts from the most fundamental basics.

There's room for documentation that sort-of reads you rather than the other way around. This kind of stuff has sometimes gotten a bad rap, since the days of "clippy" but it's getting better. In the IDE world, there was Resharper, and now even the Rosyln for dotnet has this stuff increasingly built in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> « Euclidean - state your axioms and let users derive the rest. Easiest for the API provider, but hardest on the user. This is the most common form of documentation. You see it all the time. Each entry point in the API is sort of explained, but there's nothing tying the whole API together. »

I agree that the last sentence describes the most common form of reference documentation.

But I think characterising it as "state your axioms and let users derive the rest" is too generous. Typically what you have to do isn't so much "derive" as "make educated guesses".

As far as I'm concerned, the problem is that most of this documentation _isn't_ stating its axioms. It's much more common for each function to have a description in terms of definitions and concepts which aren't further defined. And very often if a piece of behaviour doesn't have any knobs controlling it, it doesn't get documented at all.

I dislike the dichotomy presented here, where this form of bad documentation is on one side, and "A FAQ, recipes for common tasks, and working code examples" are on the other.

Those are all fine things to have, but they're not really a substitute for setting out directly, in the reference documentation, just what it is the software is promising to do.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a good point. Lists of all the options are not great. I recall... a long time ago... the GNU tar man page didn't have much in the way of examples, just descriptions of all the options.

<comment><USER8> The GNU tar man page is explicitly a shortened reference, because the real manual is in info format.

Info manuals are often examples of documentation done well, and the tar manual looks pretty decent.

For example it has sections like "Some Definitions" and "What 'tar' Does", then a tutorial, followed by the formal documentation.

It looks like it also separates the coverage of what the program does from the description of how to request those things on the command line. That's also often a sign of high quality documentation.

<comment><USER9> Fair enough; this was nearly 25 years ago on a laptop with 4 megs of ram, and no internet connection, though, so firing up emacs (I used 'jed') was kind of a PITA and I'm not sure I even had the info pages.

In those days, it would have been sufficient to have

       tar czvf something.tar.gz some_directory/
       tar xzvf some.tar.gz

In the man page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Euclidean form is what you get with a minimalistic javadoc output

Used to work on a product whose _entire_ API documentation was merely a huge javadoc dump

Very very hard to work with - especially since the "docs" were in Java format, but the _API_ was Python

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of the article talking about the four different kinds of documentation: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21289832](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21289832)

I found that four-way distinction to be quite useful.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hmmm. Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood took Plato's settings for Socrates's dialogs -- under trees around classic Athens -- and made them work worldwide. StackOverflow.com

And, their attempt at the Euclidean approach -- their Documentation project -- didn't work out.

</comment><comment><USER13> examples. examples. examples.

Most documentation has the theory. The best documentation shows examples of the common use cases.

Examples are a more wholistic way of transferring the state of mind of the implementer to the person who will use it.

<comment><USER10> There's never enough!

There's always too much!

[https://antipaucity.com/2013/10/11/theres-never-enough- docum...](https://antipaucity.com/2013/10/11/theres-never-enough- documentation-theres-too-much-documentation/#.Xl1w_RdOmhY)</comment></comment>


Tontines may make sense despite their history of disrepute - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/this-sleazy-and-totally-illegal-savings-scheme-may-be-the-future-of-retirement/ <comment><USER2> Previously on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10299482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10299482)

<comment><USER3> At least we can reuse that debaitified title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see how this is really different from an annuity beyond getting a bonus payment when someone dies and not being funded in a way that you're sure the money won't run out prematurely.

With an annuity, a company sells you a plan that will pay you $X/mo for a lump sum of $Y. Those that die below actuarial estimates end up paying in more than they get out while those that continue living get the profits from it.

I guess the difference is that with an annuity, you're expecting the monthly payments to be pretty close to what you're paying in over a normal life expectancy. So, a million dollar annuity with a 10-year life expectancy might net you $8,000-$8,500/mo. By contrast, a tontine would see you put in a million dollars and then maybe get $3,000 per month with a 10-year life expectancy with those that outlive others getting more money as time goes on. So, if you live long and others die, your payment might go up to $10,000 or $15,000. Is that the point of the tontine?

But why on earth would that be the future of retirement? An annuity is predictable. The risk is borne by the company selling it. With a tontine, you get unlucky and everyone lives long and you're in a bad situation. In the best case, your payments go up, but why would you want the chance at $10-15k after others have died rather than $8k predictably always?

An annuity already spreads the risk and uncertainty of life expectancy. That's the problem we're trying to solve. An annuity already lets you profit off those who die early who have paid in more than they take out - and if you live long you get more than you paid in. If you want to add the morbidity of the tontine to your retirement plan, take out life insurance policies on your friends and cash in when they die young and lose money if they live a long life. Combined with an annuity and you basically have the tontine. You get regular payouts from the annuity and you profit when your friends die via life insurance policies on them.

But looking at that, why bother with the life insurance policy? Why wouldn't you just get the annuity and have a predictable, steady income?

* You might not like companies that sell annuities and think they aren't a good investment. However, they're sound compared to some hacked-together, crowd-sourced thing that isn't backed by someone reliable with deep pockets. I won't personally buy an annuity, but they're based off spreading the risk in a conservative enough way to guarantee predictable funds (along with a reasonable profit for the company). An under-funded tontine that has people live longer than expected would simply run out of money and leave people destitute.

<comment><USER5> This is completely correct. The only reason these sorts of silly financial instruments are available, and the only reason you're not at the top of the thread, is because the level of basic economic literacy is so low.

The question of why annuities are relatively unpopular is an interesting social/institutional one. From talking to some financial planners, it sounds like some crooked origins gave them a bad reputation (like used cars) that they have struggled to shake. Even today there are an unusual number of scummy annuities, although it's much lower than in the past. I suspect it's because they have several moving parts, and are a bit harder for the financial unsavvy to value and compare between companies, so the market gets more swindlers.

EDIT: I previously also wrote "and the only reason this article is in the Washington Post without directly addressing these points," which is incorrect, as roymurdock helpfully pointed out.

<comment><USER6> The article addresses both your point and the GP's point directly:

 _Economists have long said that the rational thing to do is to buy an annuity. At retirement age, you could pay an insurance company $100,000 in return for some $5,000-6,000 a year in guaranteed payments until you die. But most people don't do that. For decades, economists have been trying to figure out why.

James Poterba, an economics professor at MIT who has extensively studied American retirement, says it's still a mystery why annuities are so unpopular. A number of theories have been advanced — people might like to leave some money for their children, or they might worry about medical expenses late in life. Poterba and his colleagues have also pointed out that Social Security is already like an annuity, promising constant payments for life.

But there's also some evidence that people just irrationally dislike annuities. As behavioral economist Richard Thaler wrote in the New York Times: "Rather than viewing an annuity as providing insurance in the event that one lives past 85 or 90, most people seem to consider buying an annuity as a gamble, in which one has to live a certain number of years just to break even."

Here is where tontines come in. If people irrationally fear annuities because they seem like a gamble on one's own life, history suggests that they irrationally loved tontines because they see tontines as a gamble on other people's lives._

I agree that financial literacy in the US is low, and the basic accounting/finance classes should be required at the high school level, but this article is good and draws upon a decent amount of actual economic literature. I recommend reading it to the end.

<comment><USER7> I'd like to put forward another possible reason why someone might opt to not get an annuity...

If you are financially savvy, or can pay someone else to be, does it not make more sense to invest your money yourself? There are a number of "too big to fail" companies, like GM, and Wells Fargo, that offer dividends. If you composed a portfolio of high dividend, stable, stocks... Could you theoretically have a "guaranteed" monthly income AND the ability to liquidate, in the event of an emergency?

<comment><USER8> > If you composed a portfolio of high dividend, stable, stocks... Could you > theoretically have a "guaranteed" monthly income AND the ability to > liquidate, in the event of an emergency?

No. You can buy an annuity, or US Treasury bonds, but guaranteed high returns don't exist, and adding in a liquidity requirement doesn't help.

Note that GM declared bankruptcy in 2009. Even if it is still "too big to fail," that doesn't mean investors can't lose all their money.

<comment><USER7> I never claimed guaranteed high returns. An annuity doesn't guarantee you "high" monthly income. It guarantees you AN monthly income.

My comment was to address the question regarding why more people don't use annuities, and I'm not sure your response counters that.

Regarding GM, yes, I'm aware they went bankrupt. But correct me if I'm wrong - Investors didn't lose their shares? The government bailed them out, and they're operational today. That's what I mean by "too big to fail".

<comment><USER8> > In the case of GM, investors who held shares of the company before its > reorganization saw their equity holdings cancelled in March, 2011. Per the > company's reorganization plan, they did not receive any shares of the "new" > GM.

[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/23/what-a- corp...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/23/what-a-corporate- bankruptcy-means-for-shareholders.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My favourite example of death related investment is the French housing system, _viager_. You can buy the rights to a house, but you only get the deeds once the current owner dies. In return for paying the current (often elderly) owner a modest monthly rent plus a lump sum, you get the house for a low price (e.g. 50% off). The lump sum is a fraction of the discount price and the rent is, keeping it morbid, based on French life expectancy.

The fun part is you aren't allowed to ask explicitly how healthy the owner is, so it's a total gamble. You might be stuck paying rent to someone who lives until they're 100 or they could die in an "accident" tomorrow. So in addition to checking the walls for damp when you go round, buyers surreptitiously look for medication and disability aids. Presumably some people also go to the trouble of stalking the current owners to gauge how close they are to the coffin.

To make things more exciting, if your parents bought a house _en viager_ and they leave it to you in their will (but the owner hasn't died yet), you're on the hook for the payments. If you don't keep them up, the owner can re-sell the house.

[http://www.connexionfrance.com/explaining-the-viager- system-...](http://www.connexionfrance.com/explaining-the-viager- system-10211-news-article.html)

<comment><USER10> If you're unlucky, you end up with [http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/29/world/a-120-year-lease- on-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/29/world/a-120-year-lease-on-life- outlasts-apartment-heir.html) (1995):

 _" Andre-Francois Raffray thought he had a great deal 30 years ago: He would pay a 90-year-old woman 2,500 francs (about $500) a month until she died, then move into her grand apartment in a town Vincent van Gogh once roamed.

But this Christmas, Mr. Raffray died at age 77, having laid out the equivalent of more than $184,000 for an apartment he never got to live in.

On the same day, Jeanne Calment, now listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest person at 120, dined on foie gras, duck thighs, cheese and chocolate cake at her nursing home near the sought-after apartment in Arles, northwest of Marseilles in the south of France."_

<comment><USER11> So she lived in a nursing home for 10 years but still didn't let the guy live in the apartment? I know she had the right to it but come on...

<comment><USER12> He has no rights to the house until she dies. This is perfectly within her contract with him.

<comment><USER13> Contract rights have nothing to do with the morality of this...

<comment><USER14> The morality is already clearly established: in exchange for a very small monthly sum, you get the property when the owner dies. The property may be a dedicated rental unit already, so whether or not the owner lives there has no bearing. So it's not just _within_ the contract, it's the _purpose_ of the contract.

<comment><USER13> > _The morality is already clearly established: in exchange for a very small > monthly sum, you get the property when the owner dies._

That's, again, the contract. Seems some people can't tell between legal and moral, unless we talk about the 70s and segregation or something like that...

<comment><USER10> It is a lottery with two participants that willingly took part in it. She won big, but if she had died the day after the contract was signed, he would have won big: he would have gotten the house for about $500. Would you suggest he should have paid her inheritance a lump sum if that would have happened?

<comment><USER13> I don't see much harm in "winning big" over somebody who just died. Being dead, it's not like she would have missed the money.

On the other hand, having someone pay tons of money and then die without anything to show for it, I do see, even if he "willingly signed into it".

There's also a threshold over which it should just be handed over. That such a threshold wasn't in the contract doesn't make it any less odious.

<comment><USER10> Her heirs would have disagreed. Consider the case where your mother owns a house and 'sells' it for $500 just before dying.

Also, I expect people buying such rights are generally well-off, and the people selling it to be relatively poor. After all, the buyer must be able to pay money on a house they cannot live in for an indeterminate period, and the seller typically chooses this construct to be ensured of both a roof over their head and money to live from for one's entire life, no matter how long that is.

The odds in this lottery get better every month for the buyer, so, assuming that the buyer can afford to buy into this, they should have no reason to want to get out of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is one problem with that. People can predict their own life expectancy. People who expect to live shorter will avoid such scheme.

To give an example: state pension in my (European) country is unfair to men. We live shorter and retire latter. In average women gets 45% more money for the same contribution. As result men are avoiding state pension and use private funds.

<comment><USER16> In Finland this is solved by it not being possible to avoid state pension. You can collect your additional stash, but if you're getting a salary, you _will_ be paying to the pension fund.

Yes, women live longer, but in general have a bit smaller pension due to their time off the workforce because of motherhood, and (still) slightly lower salary levels. I don't consider this unfairness towards men any significant issue.

<comment><USER17> That's an excellent point. It actually helps balance existing inequality. Maybe not 'ideal', but fairly practical.

<comment><USER18> No! You don't balance unrelated, uncorrelated things.

Do we now abandon efforts to reduce gender roles, or pay-gap differences because that would upset the balance. Are women who don't become mothers owed a greater pension?

Refusing to fix one problem, due to some illusion of karma is ridiculous. Should we also abandon cancer-cures out of concern for those who are short- lived by other causes?

<comment><USER19> Can you elaborate? Why is it wrong to base individual pensions payments on individual contributions? I'm not following.

Are you just saying it wrong to lump people into two different groups arbitrarily? Like we don't base social payments on two arbitrary cohorts like "people over/under 68 inches of height", so why would we base it on gender?

<comment><USER18> The original poster was implying that other inequalities wrt gender "balanced out" the equality wrt pensions and lifespan. I was rejecting arbitrarily linking two unrelated things (problems), and consider them as cancelling each other out.

The poster also stated "In Finland this is solved by it not being possible to avoid state pension" so this _isn 't_ basing individual pensions on individual contributions, because much like life insurance, and individual pension would adjust for life-expectancy, whereas I believe the Finnish system is a flat rate wrt gender (this is what I inferred?).

The point about arbitrary groupings is a good one, but it will fall on deaf ears in places like the US, where established groupings have high political importance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A hybrid tontine system is the most common way to save for your pension in Denmark. It is not regarded as sleazy.

The companies that run the schemes, has historically been run by unions, and has historically given good yields on their wealth. The largest company of the type is state-owned and it gets money from an obligatory tax applied to all people working in the country.

The system will stop working, if politicians begins to tax these pension funds for infrastructure investment purposes, or the pension funds shifts people to financial products that prioritize individual savings/insurance.

This "tontine" system is probably the best investment, in terms of securing a good life after 65 years old, if you are among the survivors.

<comment><USER21> Wait, do the payments actually increase as more people die? If not, it's not a tonine, just regular pension insurance.

<comment><USER22> Well, the money invested by the deceased has to go somewhere..

I'm not sure how the system works in Denmark but in Sweden you choose whether to give the remaining pension to your family or to have it split among the other people in the pension fund _that also opted for the split_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "There was rampant shadiness back in the day" ...this is an actual quote from a major paper? Maybe I'm just getting old, but this seems like unbelievably sloppy language for someone being paid to write.

<comment><USER24> This is a blog/column. I'm not sure this article appeared in the actual paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > There was rampant shadiness back in the day, including countless swindles > perpetrated on the public, both related and unrelated to the tontine. > Bribery of newspapers and politicians was also routine, as was embezzlement > and plain theft. Magazine exposés riled the public with stories of secret > payments and secret blackmail of public officials.

And WaPo thinks our current financial industry can do better? Sounds a lot like NINJA loans and synthetic CDOs ...

</comment><comment><USER26> Further reading:

"Tontine Pensions: A Solution to the Chronic Underfunding of Traditional Pension Plans", Forman & Sabin 2014 [http://repozytorium.put.poznan.pl/Content/343995/Szczepanski...](http://repozytorium.put.poznan.pl/Content/343995/Szczepanski_Brzeczek_Gajowiak_Systemy_zabezpieczenia_spolecznego_wobec_wyzwan_demograficznych_i_rynkowych.pdf#page=55) "Tontine Insurance and the Armstrong Investigation: A Case of Stifled Innovation, 1868-1905", Ransom & Sutch 1987 [https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ubxv59z524fq5s/1987-ransom.pdf](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ubxv59z524fq5s/1987-ransom.pdf) [http://cyber.sci- hub.bz/MTAuMjMwNy8yMTIyMjM2/10.2307%4021222...](http://cyber.sci- hub.bz/MTAuMjMwNy8yMTIyMjM2/10.2307%402122236.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER27> It seems to me that the middle/upper middle classes moving from defined benefit (old school pension plans) to defined contribution (401k plans) was a chance for them to build up (and learn to sustainably manage) real capitalistic wealth that could be passed down to their kids. It's not a stretch to predict that to the extent the vast majority of these folks store their wealth in annuities, or similar plans that effectively evaporate upon death, the result will be much smaller estates/inheritances which would reinforce or even worsen the wealth inequality that exists today.

</comment><comment><USER28> Couldn't this whole scheme be developed in totally decentralized fashion using bitcoin, ethereum or similar? Would be quite a good idea.

<comment><USER29> I was about to say something about needing an enforcement body of some sort. But then I realized you could literally use a dead man switch.

<comment><USER30> Couldn't the members could write a script (or even just have a friend) that keeps them "alive" forever?

<comment><USER31> Maybe using some form of biometrics. Or also hiring some sort of private investigator who would keep track of everyone in the tontine primarily via social media and sometimes by physically checking on them.

I'd imagine it would be impossible to get around this problem completely though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't think I would like to invest on something called "tontine"; "tonto" means dummy in Spanish. White Snow's Dopey is called "tontin" in Spanish. Lone Ranger's friend Tonto had to be renamed "Toro" as in bull.

<comment><USER33> I thought that Tonto's name was the joke/point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> My biggest concern is the direct benefit off the death of others causing a perverse incentive to kill. There are people who will mug and risk killing you over the money in your wallet, so I could definitely see people being killed over the money in one of these.

</comment><comment><USER35> Makes sense, it's like crowd-sourced life insurance. - [http://blog.streeteye.com/blog/2015/09/tontines-strange- name...](http://blog.streeteye.com/blog/2015/09/tontines-strange-name-great- idea/)

But insurance companies love selling insanely high-priced annuity products, and US laws around insurance, securities registration, taxes make it hard/impossible.

Regulation can be premature optimization / standardization. (or insurance company rent-seeking)

</comment><comment><USER36> Damn, didn't take long to get to the real reason. Governments are scared shitless about the public pension default issue. The hundreds of billions of unfunded liability with regards to public employee pension payments has been well known and no good solution has been found. From straight up state employees to those working for transit authorities. The numbers of truly staggering.

So I guess need a new means to sell people on a lower payout? Perhaps this will also end up in a way taking over SS?

</comment><comment><USER37> Pension funds in many cases operate similarly; their finances improve if beneficiaries die early, and in some cases they are required to pay out surplus returns above a certain level. The difference seems to be that pensions operate continuously (ie, they'd only see a demographic effect on payouts if there were a global decline in life expectancy) rather than on a defined batch of customers.

</comment><comment><USER19> Can you construct an insurance instrument that behaves like a tontine without breaking the law?

I'm imagining some giant network of life insurance policies with thousands of beneficiaries on each policy and automatic rebalancing after every death.

I don't know, it just feels like a tontine (illegal in the US) can be constructed through what I assume are legal mechanisms.

</comment><comment><USER38> The title sounds like an ad for local news. Please change the title to what it is.

</comment><comment><USER39> So, it's a shame you can't do this over a blockchain, to verify honesty of the payouts -- no way to make sure that someone's still alive.

<comment><USER40> The government keeps legally meaningful records of deaths. It can be done.

Blockchain assassination market was a thing a few years ago, IIRC. Obama and Bernake had prices on their heads.

I wonder if these two products can be combined somehow, Highlander style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The old British comedy "The Wrong Box" tells a story about a tontine and its consequences.

<comment><USER42> The Simpsons did it in _Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish"_.

<comment><USER43> And for that matter, in Archer, too. Woodhouse and his army buddies set up a tontine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> of course, www.tontines.com is a landing page to godaddy

</comment><comment><USER45> I like reading about old financial products because the conditions can be recycled as novel

</comment><comment><USER15> ... and fuck men who live shorter.

<comment><USER3> Please don't post this sort of angry unsubstantive comment to Hacker News. It's destructive of the spirit of the site, which is intellectual curiosity.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11861314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11861314) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> She probably rented it out. Socialist Europe tends to frown on property standing empty, but there's no reason the guy should've got the rental income.

<comment><USER3> Drive-by name-calling ruins HN threads, as seen below. Please don't toss matches into political petrol on this site.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11861319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11861319) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER46> I wasn't name-calling, I was describing. I'm a socialist and a European. The government of France is literally the socialist party.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough. The phrase doesn't hop contexts so successfully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Everything old is new again.

</comment><comment><USER48> "a modern tontine would be particularly suited to soothing the frustrations of 21st-century retirement"

You know what would be even better? Higher interest rates.

<comment><USER49> Interest rates in most of the developed world have been on the decline for almost 30 years. There is no way to just magically increase interest rates in the market. Contrary to the popular belief, the Fed doesn't set interest rates in the economy, and it has even lower power over long-term interest rates [1]. Also, you're interested in interest rates above and beyond inflation, i.e. 'real' rates of return, not nominal.

[1] [http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-fed- intere...](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-fed-interest- rates-and-stock-prices.html)

<comment><USER48> I disagree with almost everything you said here. And a blogspot link does not prove your point. It's just someone's opinion.

Interest rates aren't _directly_ set by central banks, but of course they influence the cost of borrowing for commercial banks. That's why when central bank rates fall, commercial rates fall too. And visa versa. And why when commercial banks don't lower rates in turn there is political pressure to "pass on the savings".

As for longer term rates, they do have power over that by selling one maturity of instrument for the purchasing of another maturity. This has colloquially been called "operation twist".

I am fully aware of real vs nominal. But I'm curious. How do you know what real rates are if you do not have a consistent, repeatable, uncorrupted measure of inflation?

<comment><USER50> The central bank can set their rate at 1000%, but if no one has any potential investments that can yield 1000%+ returns, companies just won't borrow money. In other words, no one will be getting 1000% returns on their savings. On the other hand, if you'd be willing to lend your savings at say 5%, you might find action.

<comment><USER51> People invest in the CB and earn their guaranteed return. This would drive inflation as bonds mature and soon investment returns would eventually look something like (1000 + $realReturn)%.

Maybe not at such an extraordinary rate, but Volcker raised rates to 10-21% in the early 80s and US-based stock returns during that era were substantially higher than at any other time.

[http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/...](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/histretSP.html)

Referring to that, in the 16 years after the 10 T-Bond return hit a peak of 33% in 1982, stocks yielded over 30% in six separate times. In the next 16 years, from 1999 to 2015, it's done that once, 8 years after a -30% return from the crash of 2008. The S&P also yielded 30+% only twice in the 16 years before 1983.

It's not concrete evidence, but it does suggest some relationship between central bank yield and stock returns.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Playboy Asks Which Female Blogger You'd Like To See Sans Clothing - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/09/one-step-backward-playboy-asks-which-female-blogger-youd-like-to-see-sans-clothing/ <comment><USER3> I love the juxtaposition of the article's outraged tone with a link to Playboy's website.

Actually, now that I think about it, that's the perfect recipe to drive clicks to both...

</comment><comment><USER4> Okay wait - just who buys Playboy today? This is a weird idea for them - <USER2> don't know a single person under the age of 55 who even cares about that mag. How many 55+ men care about female bloggers? Just weird.</comment>


Living in cars, working for Amazon - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/02/nomadland-living-in-cars-working-amazon <comment><USER2> For those who want to read an expose on the nomadic and way underpaid, I'd suggest checking out Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. (actually, anything she writes is phenomenal). This whole living in your car and being nomadic is hardly new to America. I saw it when I was traveling the USA from 2001 to 2007 or so.

As I tell anyone, the only reason Los Angeles can have so many gyms is because the working homeless needs to take a shower too.

On the one hand, I'm glad that this topic is getting more attention, but I'm uncomfortable with the thought that Amazon is the poster child for this, when they are one of the few companies that has low wage workers working full time, which is very rare in this day of required health care.

<comment><USER3> I agree it is weird. It is also sad that as a society we can't take care of our elders. With respect to insurance, some of these workers are over age 65 so they get Medicare. What's interesting is that the article describes "Don Wheeler" a former software exec who lost everything in the '08 crash as well as his Berkeley house to his ex-wife. For the HN softare crowd who worry about a career as they get older, this is close to home. That being said he may have unique circumstances but still... I think people also underestimate the financial impact of divorce.

<comment><USER2> It hits all ages full-force. The person serving you coffee, cooking your food, ringing up your groceries, are all part-time and can't get full-time.

Yeah, a lot of them are homeless. At the end of the day, no one is going to help them.

<comment><USER4> Can't get full time because that means the company have to pay for health benefits. That one was totally predictable and could have been solved by making part time employment provide part of the benefits.

<comment><USER5> Or just punitively tax all in kind benefits.

There's no good policy reason to make it advantageous for businesses to provide compensation that the recipient can't spend or sell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazon seems to almost always be the target of these articles, how about highlighting someone else for a change. For example, drive along El Camino Real next to Stanford University and you will see a long line of campers parked along the road. Many of the people living there work either directly or indirectly for the University. Stanford has literally thousands of acres of empty land where they could build housing for their temporary and low income employees, yet they chose not to. They could at least provide a campground with proper facilities and hookups (so sewage doesn't go down storm drains, for instance). Of course the real solution, which is to pay ALL your employees a living wage, that apparently is crazy talk in The Valley.

<comment><USER7> I think amazon is the target because they apparently have program dedicated to hiring temporary workers who lives in RVs:

[http://www.amazondelivers.jobs/about/camperforce/](http://www.amazondelivers.jobs/about/camperforce/)

(it's almost unbelievable)

<comment><USER8> Aren't there people who _want_ to do this?

<comment><USER9> I know people that actually do like these sorts of mobile adventures. It's pretty common in the health industry to have traveling doctors and nurses that hop from state to state to fill in for vacationing docs or temporary needs. It's called locum tenens. You can read more here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locum)

This scenario is slightly different, but there are certain types of people that prefer to not be tied down or simply have a craving to spend a piece of their lives roving around geographically. Similar mentality to liveaboard sailors and people that seek out work in Antarctica.

<comment><USER10> My wife is a CNA. If you're flexible about suddenly hopping on a plane for a few weeks or months and living in a rented room, there's some good money in it (several times her usual pay rate and housing paid for). But at least in that case, the wages are pretty good. Amazon's are pretty low, and they don't pay to house the workers.

<comment><USER9> The article points out that Amazon DOES pay for their RV park fees (these tend to be: $15-50/day). Additionally, the people in this article say the pay is good (compared to what they'd be making elsewhere for unskilled labor). It's not what your wife would make, but she has special training and certification. I do know a family that lives out of an RV supported by a locus tenens RN. The dad (former schoolteacher) homeschools the kids. They could settle down in a single location if they wanted, or rent out locations during the wife's appointments, but this RV trip is their adventure.

My point is that there is a type of person that actually enjoys this type of lifestyle. I don't think Amazon is being nefarious and taking advantage of impoverished RV migrants as much as it's creating a mutually beneficial arrangement.

<comment><USER11> I am sure someone enjoys it but it is less fun when you dont have a choice

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There is no concept of 'society' and 'community' in the country. As long as things are good there is no problem, but when things start falling apart you need robust social and community structures and these simply don't exist.

Because people who are down need more than just tokenism, they need real human structures that can provide psychological human support, that sense of family, and then social and community structures that show the society is human and has empathy for its fellow members to get them back on their feet.

People who are wealthy already have this. People who are not need to think about down times, not just for themselves, but their family, friends, community and children down the line. If everyone thinks they are strictly individuals on the verge of becoming rich and these silly things don't matter you are going to have serious social problems.

<comment><USER3> There are definitely communities organized around churches, mosques and synagogues. I think one problem we have is that we expect faith based organizations to pick up the slack instead of the government. That was a big agenda in W's administration.

Here's the issue, everyone is broke except the rich. Some of them don't want to pay their fair share in taxes. Politicians are easily bought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This will only become more common once vehicles are self-driving. People will live in their vehicles and have them either drive around all night or find a place to park many hours away from their jobs (assuming there any jobs left).

The fantasy many folks seem to have about self-driving vehicles causing car ownership to disappear in favor of automated Ubers/Lyfts/whatevers on demand might come to pass for one class of people, but there will be large numbers of people for whom the opposite happens: they give up their homes (by choice or not) and live in a self-driving vehicle that is the only dwelling they own.

<comment><USER14> We already have this, without self-driving cars.

[http://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/mc-sands- bethlehem...](http://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/mc-sands-bethlehem- asian-bus-20140329-story.html)

Some Asian patrons of casinos almost live on the bus, in between stays to sell the various free perks they receive. It's a hellish existence, and not one to be wished on anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The most famous one is probably the google employee who lived in a truck: [http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in- truc...](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-truck-in- parking-lot-2015-10)

There are actually a lot of other software engineers / freelancers on [https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/top/?sort=top&t=all](https://www.reddit.com/r/vandwellers/top/?sort=top&t=all). Like this engineer from Tesla: [http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-employee- lived-out-of-v...](http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-employee-lived-out-of- van-2015-11/#-7)

I find the modding be really cool. But the stories of people getting killed/robbed at night like this Palo Alto tech worker scares me: [https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/man- kill...](https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/man-killed-in- gym-parking-lot-in-wrong-place-at-wrong-time/)

(Google campus would be a pretty ideal place to do this though)

<comment><USER16> Did you read the article? It's not about a high-paid engineer working at a big 5 tech company and living in an RV. It's about people who can't afford homes and work temporary jobs around the country because our economy has failed them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Federal minimum wage, times 2000 hours (if you can get it,) is not enough to sustain a living, much less a family. If we want people to work for a living, we'd support significant increases there.

<comment><USER18> Minimum wage increases make it uneconomic for employers to hire workers whose labor produces little value — mainly youths and people without advanced education. So they get stuck in the permanently unemployed underclass, always reliant on welfare or working under the table for cash. A better solution would be to eliminate the minimum wage entirely and make up the difference through income redistribution with something like a negative income tax for the lower brackets.

<comment><USER19> Higher wages also means more disposable income for workers which flows quite heavily to industries like retail and hospitality, which offer a high proportion of entry level jobs

<comment><USER18> Disposable income is disposable income regardless of whether it comes from wages or income redistribution. If minimum wages are artificially fixed higher than the value of labor then those workers won't get any wages at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is terrible, but that dude, Don Wheeler, absolutely should not have had that much assets in assets like stocks at such an advanced age. As you get older your asset mix should shift towards more low gain and high stability investments, like bonds, T-bonds, and other stable fixed-income asset classes.

Or, so I understand.

<comment><USER21> I had the same thoughts. Also, his story highlights the impact of divorce and rising trends of solo living arrangements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Haven't anyone noted that the guy was made homeless by divorce?

<comment><USER21> So heartbreaking! As a younger man, I have seen enough. Married people can say what they want about how they love their lives, but the risk is just overwhelming. I am sure Don Wheeler loved being married at some point as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> People have to live in car .. while working in amazon.. but why in earth we should use amazon ?? Do we support rich getting richer only.. ?

Please, lets start to respect our self and forgot these mega companies

<comment><USER7> You can regulate these companies through the political process, but you do need to get involved...

What chance do you have of convincing consumers to use a less convenient more expensive alternative to Amazon, when you can barely convince them to vote in their own interest?

<comment><USER21> 'Barely convince'? When did that happen? I think it is fair to say Americans are flat out incapable of voting in their own best interest. It could be argued they don't even have a chance to, but regardless, they by-and-large cannot identify that chance whether it exists or not.

<comment><USER7> Fair point...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Let's not fool ourselves into thinking these people are _forced_ into living this way due to rising housing and apartment costs. There is always a choice. These people could live in crappy apartments in crappy city-jobs if they so chose. But they don't want to, because part of them romanticizes life on the road.

<comment><USER25> You're trash.

<comment><USER26> The GP was not a charitable comment, but outright personal attacks are still not allowed. We ban accounts that post this way, and I don't want to ban you, so would you please not post like this?

You've been here a long time, so I'm sure you know that civil, substantive comments are what we're looking for.

<comment><USER25> I will obey this, respect the needs of encouraging good discussion, and value my place as a member of this mostly interesting and thoughtful community. Still I stand behind the logical accuracy of my original statement.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Systemd.conf 2015 - vezzy-fnord https://systemd.events/

<comment><AUTHOR> They sure know their PR stuff...</comment>


Show HN: Website for finding direct links to Software Engineering internships - <AUTHOR> http://www.intern.supply <comment><USER2> Any plans for future improvements?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely. Companies already on the list will be updated when their applications become available and new companies will be added as well.

It is still fairly early in the summer 2017 internship season, so new applications should be coming soon.</comment></comment>


Action Cable – Friend or Foe? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nateberkopec.com/2015/09/30/action-cable.html <comment><USER2> Really good article ! It would be nice to compare the perfs with an Elixir/Phoenix backend, since they target exactly this use case.</comment>


Show HN: Easypz.js automatically makes visualizations interactive via pan and zoom - <AUTHOR> https://easypz.io/ <comment><USER2> It's worth mentioning here that this works well with D3, and examples are provided on the page.

The author says it handles "almost all" of the D3 gallery, which makes sense because some of those have very fancy zoom behaviors on them. I've written a few D3 visualizations, and while I enjoy the flexibility of the framework, the pan and zoom behaviors have always been a little tricky to work with.

Being able to skip all that and instead write <svg easypz='{"applyTransformTo": "svg > *"}'> to get universal zoom is very helpful!

<comment><USER3> Thank you! Yeah that's right. I put up part of the official D3 gallery here, automatically applying EasyPZ: [https://demos.easypz.io](https://demos.easypz.io)

In addition, you can get a EasyPZ demo of any visualization posted on GitHub gist / blocks by navigating to demos.easypz.io/[blockid]. Example: [https://bl.ocks.org/027e163073864ef2ac4ceb5c2c0bf616/](https://bl.ocks.org/027e163073864ef2ac4ceb5c2c0bf616/) becomes [https://demos.easypz.io/027e163073864ef2ac4ceb5c2c0bf616](https://demos.easypz.io/027e163073864ef2ac4ceb5c2c0bf616) with automatic EasyPZ! Try it out on any block you like, and let me know if anything doesn't work that you think should work!

</comment></comment><comment> super-serial I like the timeline example. Do you happen to have the .svg file so I could try out the demo?

<comment><USER3> The timeline examples are not simple .SVG files, since they need to react to zooming in by replacing decades with years with months with days and so on. I can give you a SVG file of the years-level-zoom state of the timeline, and you could zoom in and out, but it wouldn't change the dates etc unless you would code that in JavaScript. Does this help?

<comment> super-serial Yeah that would help - sometimes at work I make proof-of-concept demos... and I was thinking of making a timeline like yours but with images on a canvas as you zoom/scroll the timeline. So I was already planning to have to write a good amount of javascript.

<comment><USER3> So you're hoping I can give you the interactive version, which automatically switches between decades, years, months etc?

I can look into providing my timeline as library, but that would take a while. It's built on angular4.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> love the name!</comment>