A $2 photo from a California junk shop is the 'holy grail of Western Americana' - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/15/why-experts-say-a-2-photo-from-a-california-junk-shop-is-the-holy-grail-of-western-americana/?postshare=4301444920218864 <comment><USER2> You must have pretty specialised knowledge to look at that photo in the junk shop and say to yourself, "You know, that might be Billy the Kid. I should get this appraised."

<comment><USER3> Now imagine, sometime, somewhere, someone got a written manuscript from Plato, or the Buddha, or another figure and just used it to make fire.

<comment><USER4> That might be unfortunate, but we've set fire to priceless manuscripts intentionally far more often. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Library_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Library_of_Alexandria)

<comment><USER5> Also, sacking of Taxila/takshashIla [1] and Nalanda [2] in Indian subcontinent by Huns and Islamic marauders.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda#Decline_and_end](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda#Decline_and_end)

The other, brighter side of this coin is the many remarkable rediscovery stories, like that of the Archimedes palimpsest [3] in the 1990s and Indian statesman Chanakya's 3rd century BCE manuscript 'Arthashastra' [4] in the 1900s.

[3] [http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/](http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/) [4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthashastra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthashastra)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Short version: the photograph is only the second verified image of Billy the Kid. Verification of it required an in-depth analysis, including finding where the picture was taken.

<comment><USER7> I wish the article had gone into more detail about what the verification process is like.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, this. I don't see how they could possibly verify that this is actually an image of BtK when the face is so obscured and the provenance of the image so uncertain. Kagin's is being very cagey about it too: "Any qualified individual wishing to review the authentication dossier and discuss the potential acquisition of the Billy the Kid Croquet Match Tintype are welcome to contact..."

<comment><USER9> Likely coincided with knowledge about where he was living at that point in history. This also takes place after a wedding, so that likely gave some clues if they could determine who was getting married.

As well, the article mentioned that this is the first photo of him with some of his known gang members. The man to his left is quite clear, and therefore if they can identify him as an associate of Billy The Kid, perhaps that gave them more reason to suspect it was Billy.

<comment><AUTHOR> The location of the wedding would probably have been recorded and the lay of the land could be verified against the current landscape. Similarly, there would be land deeds and if the road in the foreground was a public road, then that could also help identify and confirm the location.

As for the associate, my sister thought it looked liked two boys in the midst of arguing over rules and cheating in the way that older and younger brothers do...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of all the photos being taken right now, it's odd to think there probably won't be discoveries of old photos in junk shops in 2150.

<comment><USER4> That is actually a serious issue that many scientists including historians, anthropologists and archaeologists are actually trying to find ways around.

Digital storage is far more fragile than many physical storage mediums, digital data in many cases might also be indistinguishable from random data in such cases where it have been heavily encoded, encrypted, or the mata-data was lost.

Time capsules are now becoming more and more important (including us sending one to Mars) because if we blow ourselves up or encounter a calamity that will erase much of modern technology we will lose more data in that instant than all the data lost to history before that.

Most modern storage media will not last a century even under good conditions, yet alone under conditions that we've found many historical manuscripts and objects of significance so it's quite important for us to develop a high- density, long term media which can store current information in ways that will be fairly simple to access, micro-film was a good candidate at one time but the information density was too small, so allot of people are working on more high density storage media including crystals, and even encoding allot of information into DNA, if you can turn an entire forest into a time capsule you might be able to preserve knowledge for a very very long time.

<comment><USER7> > _if you can turn an entire forest into a time capsule you might be able to > preserve knowledge for a very very long time._

I do like the idea that the information would be self-propagating, but who'd think to look in the DNA of some trees?

<comment><USER4> Future humans that knew about it, future humans that had to rediscover DNA, evolved intelligent racoons, Eloi, Morlocks, aliens take your pick.

The idea is just to have some way to ensure that enough information survives in persistent forms, you can store "important" (for scientific advancement) stuff in various types of media which is progressively harder to access and gets more and more dense, and eventually store everything and it's mother in DNA or anything similar.

As things go if in 50 years we lose Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and Amazon/Kindle we might be on our way back to the stoneage.

<comment><USER11> Obvious question: did it already happen? Did previous iteration of humans leave us some messages? Maybe the pre-Deluge civilization[0]? That would sort of explain why I sometimes look in a mirror and feel like the reflection was telling me something about cloud model being bad. s/.

[0] - the story of Biblical Deluge tells that part of the reason God had to sink the planet is that because angels descended from heaven and started breeding with people and corrupting them. If one believes in that story and is particularly imaginative, one had to ask just what level of technology did we have back then, after being 'corrupted' by what would be aliens?

<comment><USER4> Not sure but Assassin Creed: Syndicate is around the corner so we'll probably find out the next part of the story.

<comment><USER11> You're telling me this idea is actually explored in Assasin Creed? :o. I guess I need to finally start playing it.

<comment><USER4> That's the entire backstory and the connecting over-arcing story for AC (and also somewhat Watch Dogs because it's apparently the same universe), and for the most part it's much more interesting than the game with allot of very cool ideas and premises.

Basically modern humans and neanderthals were bred by a more advanced and ancient form of humans (physically similar to AMH) we were all designed to have a naturally occurring fractal antennas in our brains that allowed them to mind control us to be used as slave/servants (humans) and soldiers (neanderthals). Some humans had a mutation (either naturally occurring, or a case of sleeping with the help which was also implied in the game, basically seraphim doing earthling hot chicks > flood recap) that made them immune to the mind control tech. There was a rebellion and a catastrophe (solar eruption) the ancients mostly have died out, some organizations know about them and some parts of the mind control tech have survived (pieces of eden in the game). The templars are after that tech to control the entire world, the assassins want to stop them.

PSA: That's pretty much spoiler free you can probably find a whole recap of the premise online.

<comment><USER11> > _and also somewhat Watch Dogs because it 's apparently the same universe_

Wait what?! Ok, my mind is officially blown here. Thanks for telling me that, I'll check it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you had bought this picture for $2 later to find out it's worth $5,000,000, would you feel an obligation to share some of the proceeds with the shop from which it was purchased?

<comment><USER4> If you buy a winning lottery ticket would you give part of your winnings to the store you bought it from?

<comment><USER13> I might give them a tip if I'm a regular customer, but it's not as obligatory as tipping waiters. I think it is customary to tip the dealer when gambling, though.

<comment><USER4> Tipping is very dependent on the local customs, tipping a waiter in Germany for example (especially in the more rural areas, or traditional restaurants) will be somewhere between unexpected to outright insulting.

Tipping dealers in UK casinos is actually forbidden by the 'Gaming Board' (gambling commission) to discourage "cheating" since they believe that if dealers might get a cut of the winnings they might be inclined to stack the odds in the player's favor.

<comment><USER14> > Tipping dealers in UK casinos is actually forbidden by the 'Gaming Board' > (gambling commission) to discourage "cheating" since they believe that if > dealers might get a cut of the winnings they might be inclined to stack the > odds in the player's favor.

Are you sure about this? I've played poker in UK casinos where tipping was very common

<comment><USER4> Yes there are games in which you cannot tip, in all others the tip doesn't go directly to the dealer and there is an official process to distribute it, and even that's is restricted.

"Licence condition 10.1.1 Tipping – personal licence holders All non-remote casino operating licences 1 Licensees must only permit tipping of staff holding personal licences where a tronc system is operated; that is to say, where all tips are pooled and distributed amongst the employees concerned. A separate tronc may be operated for each of a number of categories of licensed staff."

[http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/pdf/Latest-LCCP-and- Ext...](http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/pdf/Latest-LCCP-and- Extracts/Licence-conditions-and-codes-of-practice.pdf)

[http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/nimmanual/nim02941.htm](http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/nimmanual/nim02941.htm)

Edit:

It's seems that all tipping was universally disallowed until 2005 (haven't been in a UK casino for about 10 years)

"In the rest of the world, tipping the dealer for success is the norm. In Britain it has become legal (on implementation of the 2005 Gaming Act) and now it is acceptable. It is still however not as commonplace as in other places in Europe or America."

Beyond that it's subject to the 2005 gaming act and the tornc and personal license holders schemes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The caption says the image was taken during the summer of 1878 but there are no leaves on the trees. So either the trees around their hide out were all dead or it wasn't summer.

<comment><USER16> It can be hot and dry in summer in New Mexico. Not great for leaves.

"The loss of numerous leaves from trees is not uncommon in New Mexico in June." \-- [http://aces.nmsu.edu/ces/yard/1997/063097.html](http://aces.nmsu.edu/ces/yard/1997/063097.html)

<comment><USER15> Yes it's also dry here in CA and trees will lose leaves but not _all_ of their leaves. The trees in the photo are completely bare. Note also that the grass in the foreground shows up in the image as dark. This implies that the grass is green. So even if you are correct and all the trees have lost all of their leaves then you would expect the grass to be dormant (not green) and show up as light in the image if it were summer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [http://www.aboutbillythekid.com/](http://www.aboutbillythekid.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> TIL that "senior numismatist" is a job title.

It's consistently amazing how incredibly specialized our modern economy is.

<comment><USER19> Even though it's not technically a job title, I always start daydreaming whenever a new leap second announcement comes out: [https://hpiers.obspm.fr/eoppc/bul/bulc/bulletinc.49](https://hpiers.obspm.fr/eoppc/bul/bulc/bulletinc.49). It's always addressed to "authorities responsible for the measurement and distribution of time." If I had that kind of job responsibility, I'd always be threatening to cut people's time rations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> William Koch (the "poor" brother) is a western nut and bought the other photo. With his wealth he probably bid a high price. (His brothers expelled him from the family business with smaller share of stock.)

</comment><comment><USER21> I wonder which Instagram filter he used, looks really old...

</comment><comment><USER22> The ten-year-old in me was delighted to learn that there is actually something called the Butte Nugget.

</comment><comment><USER23> "It has been independently appraised at $5 million..". Ba ha ha ha, maybe it's raining money in California but in my part of the world there is a saying: "It's not a fool the one who asks, it's a fool the one who offers.. [an exorbitant price for something]".</comment>


Show HN: Paris My State – Contact your state governor to follow Paris agreement - <AUTHOR> https://www.parismystate.com <comment><USER2> I understand that the agreement is a way of raising money from nations to fund e.g. putting pollution scrubbers on factories.

What does it mean for a state to follow the agreement? I don't think they're allowed to give tax money to foreign countries(though I wouldn't mind if they were allowed to).

<comment><AUTHOR> The goal is to get more states to join this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Climate_Alliance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Climate_Alliance) \- which essentially looks at ensuring states are "committed to upholding the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change within their borders, by achieving the U.S. goal of reducing emissions 26–28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025". It's not the same as the US being part of the Paris agreement, but it's the next big thing at the moment looking at lowering emission levels throughout the US.</comment></comment>


I, Consultant? - <AUTHOR> https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/02/27/i-consultant/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm Tom the author of this piece (thanks gk1 for submitting!). I'd love to hear what others here at HN have struggled with regarding labels and identity. I imagine there's a huge spectrum of possible labels for developer-types from "freelance python developer" to "software architect" to "engineering consultant"...!</comment>


Notepad ++ hacked for Je Suis Charlie comments(web archive link) - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20150112220650/http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ <comment><USER2> I'll never understand that logic, how does coming to the aide and support of a group that was brutally attacked mean that they are in turn attacking the group that did the attacking? The attack on Charlie was not defensive, defacing the Notepad++ site is not defensive. Defending yourself doesn't mean attacking, and certainly not harming, other people. You only draw more hostility and attacks.

Edit: I am also curious, the language indicates that the hackers feel it is countries versus religion. The actions of someone who believes in a religion do not define the religion. If I do a terrorist act and say it was for my religion, that does not make my religion a terrorist, but it does make me a terrorist. Do the perpetrators of these attacks feel it is countries against religion, or is that just the shield they want to use.

<comment><USER3> I'll play 'devil's advocate' here for a moment. I'll be sacrificing a lot of internet points, but I'm not in a great position to begin with. :)

Do let me pre-emptively say: I unequivocally condemn the recent killings of the cartoonists. I unequivocally support the right of anyone to say anything.

Okay, so there is something to consider here: indeed there are now more than a billion Muslims in the world who would not have killed these cartoonists, or even approve of the act of killing these cartoonists (I understand some will take issue with the latter part of my statement, this is just my current reading). Insofar as the 'I am Charlie' statement can be interpreted as approval of the supposedly offending cartoons, the statement could be said to be needlessly confrontational. It's turning things into a combative us (non- Muslims) vs them (Muslims) orientation. Look no further than this very cartoon for proof of this -- this is how these Muslim hacktivists interpreted Notepad++'s 'I am Charlie' stance.

I don't think this is strictly a freedom of speech issue. I saw a good example of this in a Reddit comment: when you enrage someone by calling them racist epithets, and they strike you back ... are the rest of you going to take the racist's side by repeating the racist epithet that invoked the retaliation? Mohammad is a very sacred symbol to Muslims, re-publishing offending material (and similarly approving of the cartoons by saying "I am Charlie") is just needlessly insulting and distressing the plenty of other moderate Muslims. The more this is done, the more those moderate Muslims will feel pressured and start to feel the need to also take a position... and guess whose side they will incline towards? They're surely not going to just throw away their religion, they'll probably verge toward an extremist position.

I'm only suggesting that the 'I am Charlie' sloganeering is a little too hastily thunk, a little too unthought. Of course absolutely everyone should have the _right_ to say such a thing, but a mature and reasonable person would practice caution before saying it. I do admit though, that it's a bit of a challenge packing a sentiment like "I don't think Charlie cartoonists should have been killed, they should have the right to say or mock anyone, but I do generally disapprove of content that's racist, antisemitic, holocaust-denying, sexist, etc." into a nice 3-5 word long slogan.

<comment><USER4> I don't think the sloganeering is hastily thought, I don't think it is thought at all. It doesn't need to be. Freedom of expression ingrained in Western culture and you would find it very difficult to believe someone should be executed for expressing an opinion. Fined, jailed, maybe, but never executed.

To think of 'I am Charlie' as supporting the cartoons themselves would require you divorce the victims from their fate. Essentially, you'd have to make a leap of logic, and focus on the selfish part (i.e. they offended Muslims) and at this point you no longer deal with rational argument.

Essentially the devil's advocate argument is 'a mature and reasonable person should practice caution before saying anything that may be taken out of context by any party that is sufficiently upset', which is nigh impossible.

<comment><USER5> >Freedom of expression ingrained in Western culture

Not so much(it is only for things westeros are not emotional of)

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/3/5578984/mozilla-ceo- resigns...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/3/5578984/mozilla-ceo-resigns-amid- controversy-over-donation-to-anti-gay)

[http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/tech/social- media/facebook...](http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/tech/social- media/facebook-threat-carter/)

[http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/john-galliano-fired- anti...](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/john-galliano-fired-anti-semitic- comment-teaches-parsons-article-1.1325315)

[http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/03/02/greek-doctor- arre...](http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/03/02/greek-doctor-arrested-for- inciting-hatred-and-pro-nazi-beliefs/)

<comment><USER6> Such is the scourge that is Political Correctness. Take heed, this scourge will bring about the undoing of Western Civilization.

If you can not call things by their true colors you have nothing and will lose all you thought you had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
        > Because the last notepad++ version (6.7.4) named "JE SUIS CHARLIE" !
        > So you think that Islam is terrorist !

I don't understand the transition between these two lines.

You'll also note the space before punctuation marks, which is typical of French speakers writing in English (e.g. "something !" instead of "something!"). This is not a surprise, since those who defaced the site claim to be from Tunisia, a country where most of the population speak French.

<comment><USER8> Are you sure about the punctuation argument ?

<comment><USER9> I've never seen that, and I have a bunch of French friends I communicate with in writing in a regular basis.

<comment><USER7> I'm French, and I see it everywhere. You won't notice it if your friends are fluent in English, only beginners do that.

<comment><USER8> Fair enough, I asked because I naturally write "word!" without knowing proper English syntax and thought it was a naive reflex everybody would have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Slight OT but I think relevant. The latest cover of the Charlie Hebdo magazine has been published [1].

[1] [http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2015/01/12/mahomet-en- une-d...](http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2015/01/12/mahomet-en-une-du- charlie-hebdo-de-mercredi_1179193)

<comment><USER10> Article translated to English : [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.liberation.fr%2Fsociete%2F2015%2F01%2F12%2Fmahomet- en-une-du-charlie-hebdo-de-mercredi_1179193&edit-text=)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I hope they deface [http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) next, possibly improving the current design and pissing of the STALLMAN, drawing the first blood. I'll tell ya folks, when #JeSuisGnu is trending, full wrath of Stallman will be unleashed, then and only then the world will know real religious fanaticism. ISIS aint got shit on alt.religion.emacs

</comment><comment><USER12> From the archive of the hacked site: "So you think that Islam is terrorist !"

From the explanation of the "Je suis Charlie" release note: "For this reason, Je suis Charlie, not because I endorse everything they published, but because I cherish the right to speak out freely without risk even when it offends others."

Clearly the Notepad++ team is blanket targeting Islam. /sarcasm

</comment><comment><USER13> When will hackers learn web design beyond geocities?

<comment><USER14> I know right, we have bootstrap for a reason!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Samuel Huntington's thesis about the Clash of Civilisations has been thoroughly criticised since he originally proposed it, and yet in some ways the world is increasingly taking the shape he imagined. It would have been wise to treat it as a warning and take precautionary measurers instead; perhaps it is not too late.

<comment><USER16> It was criticized on academic and theoretical grounds. In his field (International Relations) there are hundreds if not thousands of people all producing a lot of dialogue and research relating to overarching models for how states interact. They've been at this for a very long time.

If you want a book deal, though, you ditch all of this work and just paint broad, easily-digestible strokes over everything. In this case, he's throwing social constructivist research into norms and sub/super-state influencers out the window and claiming the world runs on civilizations. You can probably think through how this might not be the case by considering the role of economics, individuals, and strategic alliances in international politics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> After reading comments about this topic, I see a pattern, people blaming religion or/and country for atrocities on human beings. We are human beings first, so trying to justify killing your fellow human being because of religion/country or for wealth suggests we have lost our way and soon we will have another world war and many more after that. Let's learn to forgive and instead of killing lets have dialogue

</comment><comment><USER18> JE SUIS CHARLIE is a movement that condemns killing. It is a movement for freedom and freedom of expression. Some people seem to be pissed off because the killings that started the movement were not the ones that happened before or will happen later. That's plain stupid.

</comment><comment><USER19> Little children, watching their heroes murder people and then playing at being big men by writing on the internet. Defacing something so amateurishly that if I stuck it on my fridge people would ask if my five year old child did it. To be taken about as seriously.

<comment><USER20> Careful. These "Little Children" are showing us more and more how violent and ruthless they can be. And the arrogance of your end statement reinforces their point. Clearly English isn't their first language yet you belittle them and call them children. You said it best, big man, writing on the internet.

<comment><USER19> _Careful. These "Little Children" are showing us more and more how violent and ruthless they can be._

They defaced a webpage. I don't consider that to be very violent. In a fistfight, I'll take a club with a nail in it over the awesome power of defacing a webpage every time.

I do not belittle them for a poor grasp of English (which, actually, is not very poor). I belittle them because they defaced a webpage, and with a very childish message. It says little more than "I was here".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Everyone seems to be missing the point. They list terrible atrocities that don't get even close to the same outcry from the world as the attacks in Paris.

<comment><USER22> The hackers should have also listed the Battle of Tours (732) and the Battle of Vienna (1683) where many Muslims were killed by insensitive Europeans. Where's the outcry about that?

tl;dr - You're confused about the definition of terrorism.

<comment><USER23> State terrorism, anyone?

Sure not, it is not terrorism if you get the right do define it!

<comment><USER22> terrorism or not terrorism? [ ] 9/11 [ ] US drone attacks [ ] Charlie Hebdo [ ] Pearl Harbor [ ] Hiroshima [ ] mugging [ ] insult

Neither you nor I get the "right" to redefine words as we see fit after they have been defined. Invent another word. "State terrorism" could be a rather contentious term for "war" and calls into question your motives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So idiotic. Why do you need to go about defacing the site of a random text editor. I'd be pissed, but not as pissed if it were vim.org ;0

</comment><comment><USER25> This post reminds me of the good old days of the attrition.org mirror, not sure how it's relevant for HN though.</comment>


The Joy of Aluminum Foil Lithography - <AUTHOR> http://sparkboxstudio.com/the-joy-of-kitchen-lithography/ <comment><USER2> This is a lightweight version of PCB etching. Fat (or other e.g. sharpie) as the resist, aluminum foil instead of copper clad board, and cola as the etchant.

If you like this process and are into electronics, you should check out the process of creating your own printed circuit boards at home!

<comment><USER3> You can use sodium hydroxyde as an echtant. It doesn't turn everything it touches into stickiness like cola does.

<comment><USER4> At least with copper, you can also etch using vinegar and salt. I've done that a couple of times when I didn't have ferric chloride, and while it's slow it works just fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks like a lot of fun, but would it really hurt to link to the actual video, rather than a rabbit hole of links and blog in another language?

It feels like "we did this cool thing and took some photographs, but couldn't be bothered to actually write it up"

<comment><USER6> This is the end of the rabbit hole: [http://www.atelier-kitchen- print.org/category/video/](http://www.atelier-kitchen- print.org/category/video/)

<comment><USER7> Thank you so much for linking this site! Great for school/students projects! Real Hacker Stuff!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a video of the same process (but using vinegar for the acid instead of soda) that doesn't cost $8: [https://youtu.be/tXaimUkCVU0](https://youtu.be/tXaimUkCVU0)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is strikingly similar to the process used in modern offset printing. As a young child, I grew up in a family printing business, and though I didn't learn all the details (I didn't really have much interest in the printing side of the business and spent most of my time in the then still _very_ early digital prepress playing with the computers).

My earliest memories of it were marked by specialists doing digital typography on specialist computers, one monitor was a green-screen where some kind of markup was entered and the other screen was a raster monitor where the output was rendered. Each block of text was "printed" on photographic paper, cut and then sent to the "layout" department where it was taped or wax adhered to a page. (If this is hard to picture, imagine taping each block of text from this page [1] onto another piece of paper in order to layout the entire page.) The process looked a bit like this [2]

Then the final page was photographed in a photography room and the negative developed. On occasion a photographic "proof" would be developed to show the final page layout and make sure there weren't any artifacts from all these tiny little pieces of paper that were used to make up the text blocks.

Then the negative was used as a lithographic mask to "burn" the image of the page onto a metal sheet which then went through some kind of chemical bath to etch the image onto the sheet.

From that point the process was basically what's in the rest of this video [3]. And one more [4]

My parents ended up selling their company in the early 2000's because the cost of going "fully digital" from pre-press to print was just too expensive. At that time, the process had completely eliminated the tape and wax steps and the layout was being done entirely digitally in software, then printed onto regular paper which was then sent to film. The rest of the process was simply unchanged.

Big competitors had invested millions of dollars into equipment which apparently was capable of eliminating parts of the lithography process and color separated artwork could go almost directly from the pre-press department to paper. According to the videos I've linked to, the industry is now using laser etching to etch the image on the plates.

Many years later, this knowledge became useful when, in another setting, I was being interviewed by a gentleman with deep experience in microprocessor lithography and we hit it off when I mentioned my family's business and the lithography process we used in printing. Nothing so exotic as what's used in CPU production, but the basics are almost exactly the same. There's been some great videos about CPU lithography posted here recently. Here's one of them [5].

The guys who actually did the printing were an interesting sort. Small businesses being small businesses, we needed cheap help. So my family first started hiring Vietnamese immigrants escaping right after the war and training them. When that ran out, they eventually switched to a variety of people, many of whom were ex-cons. I learned a tremendous number of life-lessons from watching those guys, many of whom ran presses as _artists_ , on how to and how not to wreck my life. The guys who were reliable were worth their weight in gold. The ones who weren't suffered from an unimaginable litany of self- imposed life problems, mostly drug or alcohol related.

At any rate, thinking back, this is really how I got my start into computers, hanging out as a kid in the prepress department. Some more to read [6]

1 - [https://marketplace.canva.com/MABXLyRjyco/3/0/thumbnail_larg...](https://marketplace.canva.com/MABXLyRjyco/3/0/thumbnail_large/canva- finance-review-article-magazine-page-MABXLyRjyco.jpg)

2 - [https://3v6x691yvn532gp2411ezrib-wpengine.netdna- ssl.com/wp-...](https://3v6x691yvn532gp2411ezrib-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp- content/uploads/sites/default/files/story_images_2/20120914SAWG_fg07a.jpg)

3 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LMU- zB8Sro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LMU-zB8Sro)

4 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNZb7CXUjs0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNZb7CXUjs0)

5 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4)

6 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_printing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_printing)

<comment><USER10> That's very cool, I'd not heard of offset printing before.

It's a shame your family had to sell their business, as from what you mention it sounds like not all of the printing method changed.

I was wondering with the kitchen method, how you'd get a photo onto the foil, but as you mention a laser could be used. One thing I was slightly confused about, is, is it always necessary to use a coating on the aluminium for that approach.

I guess you could also coat the foil with the photosensitive emulsion you use for PCBs too, and then etch that.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I guess I omitted that step as I'm not _entirely_ sure how the actual lithography was performed. I remember a large "camera" where the negative would go into the top and the sheet would lie underneath. It looked vaguely like the reverse of an old acetate overhead projector.

How the image was etched in that process I simply don't remember, but I do remember the sheet going through a number of chemical baths and washings (and being reminded to stay clear of the chemicals as a child).

So there may have been some phase where the sheet was treated with a photosensitive chemical before going into the camera, I simply don't remember the detail.

This link [1] seems to have some details.

It looks like the plates run for a little over $1/plate for the smaller ones. [2]

1 - [http://www.offsetprintingtechnology.com/sub- categories/offse...](http://www.offsetprintingtechnology.com/sub- categories/offset-printing-plates/)

2 - [https://www.valleylitho.com/acatalog/Valley_Litho_Supply_Pla...](https://www.valleylitho.com/acatalog/Valley_Litho_Supply_Plates__6.html)

<comment><USER11> Guessing it was something like an Agfa photostat camera. We had one of those at my first job. We used it both for making camera-ready art for ads (we were a tiny business) or positive film to send off to the PCB house to get boards made.

IIRC, the film was standard Kodak 8.5x11 size negatives and the processing was pretty simple. I would do everything from initial tape & wax puppets to the final artwork. Not what I expected to be doing in my first engineering job, but it was fun.

I took a printmaking class sometime later. I think the litho "stone" is made photosensitive and etched, but that aspect of the process is fuzzy. Most of the class was about positive prints and I spent most of my time doing intaglio and lino block printing.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, that looks basically like the device!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Beautiful and so accesible, really want to try this. Also it amuses me that the aluminum is etched with Coke. Polar bears shouldn't give that to their babies!

</comment><comment><USER10> Very neat!

I'm slightly confused what the oil is doing though?

<comment><USER6> dissolving the soap, cleaning the unetched segments so ink can adhere to them

<comment><USER10> Ah cheers, makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Aluminography.

It can't be lithography _sensu strictu_ if you're not using stone.

<comment><USER14> Literally the definition of lithography [1]:

        The process of printing a lithograph on a hard,
        flat surface; originally the printing surface
        was a flat piece of stone that was etched with
        acid to form a surface that would selectively
        transfer ink to the paper; the stone has now
        been replaced, in general, with a metal plate.

[1] [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lithography](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lithography)</comment></comment>


The rise of 'pseudo-AI': how tech firms quietly use humans - <AUTHOR> https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/06/artificial-intelligence-ai-humans-bots-tech-companies?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true <comment><USER2> Lol this is most AI these days.

www.alegion.com</comment>


In Praise of Fake Reviews - <AUTHOR> http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/in-praise-of-fake-reviews/

<comment><AUTHOR> Quite amusing how reputation engines are perceived as broken and so one must break them even more to show how bias it could be - thus breaking the engine even further.</comment>


Waymo Early Rider and his experience riding in a driverless car [Video] - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1047950715392385025 <comment><USER2> Wow, they actually did a ride with no safety driver. They've never released anything on that until now.

They must be really close to the public release considering how reserved Waymo PR usually is.</comment>


UN delay could open door to robot wars - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/06/autonomous-weapons-un-delay-robot-wars <comment><USER2> Robot wars are so much better than human wars. Against humans, robots will eventually use more non-lethal options (it's easier to be humane if losing a fight means replacing a drone than when it's either your life or your enemy's). Then, robots will be mostly used against other robots, reducing death tolls. Then, perhaps, wars will be decided in friendly Starcraft matches, saving billions. :)

<comment><USER3> "Maxim was later knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to humanity -- it was thought that the machine gun would make wars shorter, hence more humane." Spencer C. Tucker _A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East vol 6 1st ed_ pg 1198

[https://medium.com/war-is-boring/maxims-machine-gun- slaughte...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/maxims-machine-gun-slaughtered- hundreds-of-thousands-of-people-f9e068f5148)

"Not even the evidence of the 1904 Russo-Japanese War, with its long sieges and trench warfare—an eerie predictor of World War I's horrors to come—could persuade military observers of the Maxim gun's lethality on the modern battlefield."

<comment><USER4> Artillery caused ~60% of combat deaths and 75% of combat injuries in World War 1. The machine gun is definitely a terrifying weapon, and has the added impact of being directed at individuals, or aimed at groups, but was simply much less deadly. I would also add that indirect-fire artillery is much more likely to cause post traumatic stress disorder (shell-shock), as the randomness and lack of control is traumatic.

<comment><USER5> Not a wargames expert, but you could argue the _threat_ of the machine gun kept people in trenches, which of course shaped the war and made artillery a cornerstone.

Kind of like how the queen in chess may not take many pieces. She is easily the most powerful piece, and as a result a very credible threat. As a result she can be used to project threats rather than taking pieces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> FWIW I recently read "Kill Decision" based on a tip here on HN.

The plotline of the book is about autonomous drones. In my opinion the book seemed well researched and not too far fetched.

<comment><USER7> That was a terrific book. I highly recommend anything from Daniel Suarez.

<comment><USER8> I found it rather dull, and the entire notion of using pheromones to control multicopters really absurd.

<comment><USER6> As noted above I filed it under "not too far fetched". As I grow older and have spent more time in the it industry less and less stuff files under impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Robot wars, or drone strikes, have been going on for at least 20 years perhaps more. And perhaps robots have the ability to even the battlefield. Imagine China sending billions of drones to counteract American drones. Perhaps we should be looking forward to drone war, because anyone can destroy your machines, it's not a big deal for anyone to enter such a war. There will be no diplomatic incident over destroyed robots as a provocation to all out war between countries with real power. The battlefield is pretty much open to anyone with the hardware.

<comment><USER10> It lowers the barrier of entry to use lethal violence and that is not a good thing. A more realistic scenerio is that rich countries will have less reason to seek diplomatic solutions now that the only people doing the dying are the poorer nations they wage war against. Just imagine how many years an all robot military could occupy a nation with no public blowback because of casualties. At that point it's a cost calculation.

Just imagine how this might be applied by powers like the US, Russia, Israel, and China. IMO its a recipe for increased use of force and extended violent occupations. And that's not even getting into the issue of autonomous kill decision capabilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The biggest danger is the government believing they "solved" autonomous killing machines that kill people based on the NSA's mass spying apparatus, when in fact such robots could have many false positives. In fact, they already do that. It's just a human that pushes the button. When the decision will become automated, such strikes will grow 10 or 100 fold, just like the drone strikes increased "air strikes" by 100-1000x fold in the Middle East, too.

It's simple logic really. When it's easy and cheap, they'll just do a lot more of it, and with much more relaxed rules, because every single strike is not a huge deal (to them) anymore, so they can afford to kill "less important" targets, or even "false positives", because there are a lot more strikes where that one came from.

<comment><USER12> > The biggest danger is the government believing they "solved" autonomous > killing machines that kill people based on the NSA's mass spying apparatus, > when in fact such robots could have many false positives.

False positives only matter in so far as they can generate outrage that can threaten power. So if you find a way to make absolutely sure no powerful person gets killed, which doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve, you can pretty much start shooting fish in a barrel without any adverse consequences. E.g. when Mao had his leaders fulfill quotas of persecuting so-called dissidents, whether those people were really dissidents was rather secondary. What matters is that there is a certain percentage that is unemployed, starving, and/or hunted by killer robots; that in itself does wonders to keep people in line, and the people who aren't directly under attack have a huge capacity to rationalize and ignore things, if that's what it takes to not be attacked. If we can accept people needlessly starving we can accept people being killed by a random number generator no problem.

I wish I was being snarky, and I hope for nothing more than to be proven wrong, but absent radical changes, that's what I see in our future. "A boot stamping on a human face, _forever_ " is not a still frame, it's a process, and unless that process is stopped for good, that human face will become infinitely thin and infinitely helpless.

<comment><USER13> Off Topic: I see in your profile, PavlovsCat, a link to the RetroShare Sourceforge page. Are you a contributor to the project? I see that they now have an active GitHub repository [0], when I had thought progress had slowed or ceased.

[0] [https://github.com/RetroShare/RetroShare](https://github.com/RetroShare/RetroShare)

<comment><USER12> Oh, I kinda forgot about that... to be honest, I have used that thing once, when it was discussed here, "added" a few people, but it never even came to really talking to anyone over it. So, thanks for reminding me, I guess I'll try it again! [ [https://retroshareteam.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/version-0-6-...](https://retroshareteam.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/version-0-6-is- out/) ] (needless to say, I'm not a contributor, and I doubt I could provide much of substance to something like that)

Are there other ways to be reachable semi-anonymously? I don't care much about encryption, since the most "dangerous" things I say in public anyway, but I also don't want to put an email or website address because I've, uhh, learned to behave better here by getting hellbanned a lot, and as such wouldn't want to be tied to an identifier like that should that happen again.

Sorry for endulging, I wish HN had a simple private messaging system, maybe requiring a "message permission request" to be accepted before messaging someone; even restricting it to few short messages that get deleted after a while would be great.

<comment><USER13> For asynchronous anonymous communication, I have been experimenting with Pond recently [0]. Message have perfect forward security from each previous, are anonymized through the TOR network, padded to a standard packet length and sent at randomized times (along a power-scale distribution), to prevent size and timing co-ordination attacks revealing identity.

The network is client-server architectured, but as befits a replacement for e-mail one can run one's own server. Everything is open source, written in Go, and the work of Adam Langley, HTTPS security engineer at Google. The CLI is also a standard for aesthetically appealing design.

You need to share a symmetric key with every contact to bootstrap trust; feel free to e-mail me (in my profile) if you would like a first contact.

[0] pond.imperialviolet.org

<comment><USER13> Edit: Messages* have

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> IMO it's not obvious that autonomous robots would be worse at things like discriminating between civilian and military targets than humans -- particularly when said humans are in a life-or-death situation that requires quick decisions. The way the article describes it, it looks more like an attempt by the parties currently lacking technology to level the playing field through diplomatic means, rather than a mutually beneficial arrangement.

</comment><comment><USER15> The biggest threat to automous weapons is the millitary organizations that want to keep manpower central. That's why drones were pioneered by the CIA and the Navy and not the US Air Force. They needed solutions, not pilots.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's hard not to think that a lot of the theatrical upset about "killer robots" is because these are weapons mostly deployed by the United States and a few other Western nations against opponents who don't have a real military defense against them. When you can't respond with warfare, there's always lawfare.

(Cynical, perhaps, but if you watch the UN human rights council for even five minutes cynicism seems quite appropriate.)</comment>


Ask HN: Current hosted document editing/sharing systems and their direction? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking at a start-up opportunity (within my existing small company) based on connecting to existing hosted document systems such as Google Docs, Zoho Writer, Zimbra docs, buzzword.com, etc. (including photoshop.com for pictures, etc.) I guess there's also whatever Microsoft does with Office Online. (Are there other major such services I'm forgetting?)
This might sound naive, but how would one go about figuring the relative popularity of these kinds of services and their trajectories?
These kinds of systems are clearly gaining momentum, but one rarely hears about them in the day-to-day noise of the webosphere.
Do you think they're headed for (mostly) replacement of the desktop-based office suites? Or will the desktop-based suites fight back and maintain some market share long-term?
Or is classical online document editing going to fade away in the face of other collaboration methods like wikis? (I don't think so, ultimately, but it's certainly possible.) <comment><USER2> Have you been forgetting Sharepoint? It is my belief that Microsoft-centric businesses will eventually move towards Sharepoint for document storage.

My suspicion is that Sharepoint and Infopath will become more popular with business users. Like the way that many companies have home-grown apps that started as Access and Excel things, and grew into "mission critical" stuff as time goes by, I suspect that SP and IP will do similar in the next decade.</comment>


A Student's Guide to the Digital World (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-004-computation-structures-spring-2009/study-materials/MIT6_004s09_study_digital_guide.pdf <comment><USER2> The MIT year one EECS courses are a gem! Going through the MITx version of the _Circuits and Electronics_ course in 2012 actually made me realize that circuits down at the level of NFET and CMOS gates are also abstractions, which I had a fairly hard time grappling with earlier.

<comment><USER3> I'm in the second week of MITx 6.002... I feel so fortunate that there is so much free material out there.

I'm 40, and in the last 9 moths or so I've been able to get back into doing calculus well enough that I can follow these kinds of classes.

That fact has been making the next 40 years or whatever I have a lot more palatable to know that if I want I can enjoy working with this stuff.</comment></comment>


Free CS Courses – Amazon Future Engineer - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazonfutureengineer.com/free-courses <comment><USER2> Something I'd like to see massive companies do to is offer lower skilled internships. I had a tough time convincing anyone to hire me coming out of a bootcamp, and I saw a lot of other people in similar situations- even people who I know are much better developers than I am. Internships also tend to require someone to be enrolled in an accredited institution. Offering a simple coding test and a small stipend seems like it would be pretty low risk for a company that has the cash and manpower to run a program like this. Large companies seen uniquely positioned to be able to try something of this size.

<comment><USER3> There should be a medical residency-style job matching algorithm. Most jobs are way more fungible across companies than corporations would like to think. If a graduate would be almost equally ecstatic to work as an SE-1 at Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix, etc...why should they have to apply to each one independently? Of course, the applicant would rank them by preference. If none of them want the applicant, he/she would "drop" to less sought after firms.

Companies on the platform would agree on certain tests the applicant would need to take, and at which institution. They would also agree on the information they all want (in a common app). Interviews would play little to no role in the process, since only technical interviews offer any marginal value according to emprical evidence. If social skills are important, they can be included in an empirically proven test of social skills. Imagine a VR simulation where you are grouped with other applicants, and ML algos are fed dozens of inputs based on your interactions in the simulated environment. Human testmasters can still have input into the process, delivering guided exercises, looking out for algo-hacking, interacting with test-takers, and weeding out anomalies.

<comment><USER4> From my experience with friends going through the residency match, more people end up unhappy or mediocre about their match rather than happy. I say this as the partner of someone who matched at their number one choice. The day was defined for me by how I felt for all of our friends who didn't end up at their number one (or 2nd-5th choice) and ended up feeling somewhat broken.

<comment><USER3> I can't assess that analogy without knowing what your friends were dissatisfied with. Was it because they ended up in a different state away from their family? Was it because their coworkers were worse than they expected? Etc...some problems will always exist, regardless of the matching modality. Additionally, people always want more. They often think they can get better when they get exactly what they deserve, along reasonably objective measures of assessment. Lastly, there is selection bias in who you hear from. All the residency announcements I see on Facebook are wildly happy, with exclamation marks and all. I won't conclude from that that everyone is happy with their match, just like I don't believe the reverse.

Increasing matching efficiency reduces transaction costs. Those costs are huge, and they lower our quality of life and the dynamism of our economy.

Our financial markets are very liquid most of the time. An underappreciated fact is that the aforementioned liquidity increases investment and keeps America on top of the world. Our labor markets aren't nearly as liquid. That is why there is a disconnect between how well corporations are doing and how well employees are doing. Both people and corporations would be better off if our labor markets were more liquid. We currently don't have the tools to make that happen. However, they are easy to create. They just need widespread buy- in and agreement on the core problem of inefficient matching in the labor markets.

Think of all the people who would have benefited from internships they never got and better jobs that they never applied for. If they got those internships and got those jobs, not only would they benefit, the whole country would benefit. It is in our collective interest to 1. keep people employed 2. at the best job at the best company 3. that is equal in quality to the person's qualifications. You can bring up the fuzziness and subjectiveness of qualifications and job quality, but let's be real. We all know who from our graduating class can get a job at an SP500 company and who can get a job at a Russell 2000 company. Both would benefit from a common app-style job application for different reasons. Let's stop pretending otherwise, because that hinders innovation and keeps us in the unsatisfactory status quo.

<comment><USER4> All of the residency announcements I saw on Facebook were also wildly happy, but I know for a fact that some of the people who posted those were literally in tears before that and put themselves together to post a "happy" announcement. Personally, I like the idea of having the option to choose whether or not to accept an offer.

I'm not so sold on the idea that a match system will improve labor liquidity. How do you negotiate wages? Medical residents are stuck with the salary of the site that they matched at. When you enter the match, you cannot simply choose not to accept the job "offer" you are given.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If this course doesn't focus almost entirely on leetcode style problems, than it's pretty bunk for actually getting into Amazon.

Amazon's OA is significantly worse than even it's big competitors regarding the required leetcode grind. I don't think there's a Software Engineer who was hired in the last several years at Amazon who wasn't grilled on a few leetcode medium (and likely, a hard or two) style problems.

Moreover, if you're good enough to get into Amazon and deal with it's reputation for horrible WLB, back-stabbing and political culture, bad pay (for a "FAANG"), horrible vesting, mediocre benefits, and working for a literal vampire, than you can (and should) go work for one of it's competitors who will pay you and treat you strictly better. Microsoft, Google, Apple, the unicorns, and even Oracle OCI all fit the bill. Microsoft will give you easier leetcode questions and a 20 hour work week. Oracle OCI certainly will pay you better (their whole schtick is to poach Amazon Employees for their own cloud).

Amazon is rightfully shamed as being "not good enough to stay in the FAANG" because they treat their engineers so badly. I guess the only reason to work for them is that they need a lot of Java devs for AWS and many places are slowly abandoning Java - but even then - there are so many java shops around still that you shouldn't have trouble finding work.

I suppose COVID may change things a bit but we should be telling aspiring engineers the truth about Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER6> The python course is asking for a lot of personal information, for something free to do while we're all isolating.

<comment><USER7> > free online computer science classes _for any student or teacher_ affected > by school closures due to COVID-19 in the US.

I would imagine they need the information to verify that requirement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is US only: I think that's an important distinction to make.

</comment><comment><USER9> So bascially some grade 12 kids could took your job.....seriously!?

<comment><USER10> If a grade 12 kid can come take my job, I deserve it. And so does the kid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The supply of developers is not going to outstrip demand for quite some time, especially as automation continues to eat low-skill jobs.

</comment><comment><USER12> When are we going to be able to go back to apprenticeships? When we abandon privately held businesses?

</comment><comment><USER13> Over and over it seems like we've reached peak STEM career grooming and then there's more

<comment><USER14> Optimistic take: oh that's nice more educational materials

Cynical take: Damn they really want to pay Software Engineers less.

<comment><USER15> "Anyone can learn to write code. Very few can write good code." -Former Tech Lead

Strive to write good software via intelligent design and collaboration with your peers and you will continue to make great money.

<comment><USER16> Even fewer can write good code in a timely manner.

I can write good code, but it takes me a long time.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Fast Is a PS/2 Keyboard? - <AUTHOR> http://www.os2museum.com/wp/how-fast-is-a-ps-2-keyboard/ <comment> mark-r Their timing analysis is missing the time it takes to respond to the initial interrupt. If there's any delay there, it subtracts from the available time before the second byte wipes out the first.

</comment><comment><USER2> Second time in the last weeks I see a link to this domain and I just get a 403 Forbidden, no matter the URL. Also tried from a few vservers.

I'm in Germany, could this site be blocking?

<comment><USER3> poking through google cache (blocked here too), sounds like they overly aggressively block spam sources.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, but I'm pretty sure I've tried it at home, so they might have blacklisted a good chunk of Germany's biggest dialup DSL provider? :) I'll try to investigate a bit more and contact the author

<comment><USER3> Seems that's what has happened, yes...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 16 ms for USB, versus 1 ms for PS/2, is a good difference. Though does this really make a difference in gaming?

I read of gamers specifically using PS/2 keyboards. Specifically I'm thinking of someone playing Esport games on 144 Hz monitors.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely. Musicians can feel latency as low as 1ms when playing a digital instrument. You bet your ass it matters to people used to immediate response.

<comment><USER6> 1ms latency, you say? With a speed of sound of 340m/s, this corresponds to distance between loudspeaker and ear of 0.34m. So, anything except headphones will add more than 1ms of latency.

I get that the rhythmic nature of music enables precision at the scale of a few ms because musicians can anticipate these moments in time (reaction time does not apply). But I'm baffled by claims of sensitivity to delays less than about 10ms because these are near or even over the limits of acoustics. For example, when you do the math, you'll see that it is basically impossible for a large enough orchestra to play perfectly in sync. But a good orchestra can give the impression of a precise performance despite that. This can only mean that the human hearing is less precise than what people claim.

<comment><USER7> Speed of sound in e.g. wood is 10 times faster than in air. So an electric guitar player with 3.4m cord to the amp can feel a latency of 1ms for low frequencies through the stage and his feet. Humans have more rhythmical precision with said low frequencies. Symphonic orchestras are not known for their tight rhythm.

<comment><USER7> Superior time perception for lower musical pitch explains why bass-ranged instruments lay down musical rhythms [http://www.pnas.org/content/111/28/10383](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/28/10383)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Clojure's Approach to Polymorphism - <AUTHOR> http://www.developer.com/features/article.phpr/3878656/Clojures-Approach-to-Polymorphism-Method-Dispatch.htm

<comment><USER2> Here's a great introduction to how CLOS (definitely the inspiration for this) does multiple dispatch:

[http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation- generic...](http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/object-reorientation-generic- functions.html)

This is also possible (perhaps, non-idiomatically) with Python and Perl:

<http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=101605>

[http://search.cpan.org/dist/MooseX- MultiMethods/lib/MooseX/M...](http://search.cpan.org/dist/MooseX- MultiMethods/lib/MooseX/MultiMethods.pm)</comment>


Georgia dealers want Tesla store shuttered for selling too many Teslas - <AUTHOR> https://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/georgia-dealers-want-tesla-store-shuttered-for-selling-too-many-teslas-192235038.html <comment><USER2> I have no words for how absurd this is.

What happened to free market economy? How are americans totally fine with a company being denied its ability to sell its product to its end users?

And it's probably the exact same people later chanting that Europe is communist...

<comment><USER3> It would be interesting to build economic models of markets that take into account the capacity of large agents to make changes to the rules that govern the functioning of the market itself (via their influence on the legislative process through lobbying).

I suspect that if such models were studied seriously, economists would have a much less rosy view of the wonders of the free-market economy. And the same goes for the benefits of a democratic system versus other forms of government.

Because lobbying is not the exception - it's absolutely standard.

<comment><USER4> What form of government would be less sensitive to lobbying by commercial special interests?

<comment><USER5> Demarchy, with short terms of office.

<comment><USER6> Wouldn't the offices of the demarchy accrete long-held staff positions and/or outside consultants to compensate for the office holders' inexperience? And wouldn't those staff members and consultants be vulnerable to lobbying?

Even if we went straight to direct democracy (which I like in theory, as well as I like the idea of demarchy), the special interest with the biggest advertising budget would win.

I wonder, could an elected technocracy (by which I mean different governments and representatives for different spheres of influence) solve this by limiting both the tyranny of the masses and the influence of any one corrupt official? Or would whatever process controls the final budget still have enough power to corrupt the system?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well I will give my state this, we are one of the more friendly states towards electric cars. You can spot a Nissan Leaf about anywhere you go and seeing a Tesla, or even one of two Fiskers still about isn't a surprise.

The simple matter here is, Tesla needed to sell cars before the law could accommodate a manufacturer direct sales model. Hence an exemption was carved out, likely at the behest of someone influential, so they could.

Georgia automobile dealerships have way too much power in our state. They were able to shove through without opposition in the legislature a rewrite of taxation on automobile sales. They wanted all used car sales business to themselves and they nearly got it. Now even private party sales of used vehicles are subject to a tax of close to seven percent. Hence, you buy a car from your friend and go to get a tag, you pay that tax based on the assessed value of your car, not what you bought it for. This value is usually lower than trade in value to a dealer, but figure the shock when you buy a 20k car and you need to fork out 1400 for tags.

I am very sure this situation will get fixed quickly. The state wants to appear friendly to tech and manufacturing. Auto dealers, liquor, and cigarettes, are probably the most protected in Georgia but politicians bow to pressure in election cycles to the populace here.

note, the real fear is not Tesla, its that other manufacturers will get to setup stores too.

<comment><USER8> > 20k car and you need to fork out 1400 for tags.

If that shocks you, you've never been to Denmark where you pay $36k in tax on top of the $20k for the car [0].

[0] [http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/10/danish-180-tax-on- cars-...](http://www.copenhagenize.com/2012/10/danish-180-tax-on-cars-is- rather.html)

<comment><USER9> You think that's a lot of taxes? You haven't been to Uruguay, we have more than 200% taxes.

Example:

Citroen DS4 in Denmark, 274.000 kr (U$ 39.000)

Citroen DS4 in Uruguay, U$ 49.000

Supposedly Malasya is the 2nd most expensive country to buy cars in the world, and the Citroen DS4 is priced at RM 149,888 - U$ 47.000 (still less than in Uruguay)

and in Norway, the most expensive in Europe, it costs kr 283,900 (U$ 45900).

I think the only place more expensive than Uruguay is Singapore.

Sources:

[http://autobuzz.my/2014/06/citroen-ds4-1-6-turbo-a- dashing-f...](http://autobuzz.my/2014/06/citroen-ds4-1-6-turbo-a-dashing- french-crossover-with-a-different-spirit-video/)

[http://www.citroen.no/Resources/Content/NO/PRISLISTER/Prisli...](http://www.citroen.no/Resources/Content/NO/PRISLISTER/Prisliste_DS4.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just wish you could option out a car online and click and pay by card(or bank transfer for financing etc) like you do with a computer. Ideally deliver it to your house, but picking it up at a port or a freight rail place or something is also a palatable option.

The notion that if I want car x, in color y, with trim z, I have to shop around and "find one that exists in those options" is not something that should be on me as a consumer.

I'm sure dealerships will custom order a car for you, but that sounds like a pain in the ass and I'm sure they charge you more for the privilege of buying the 20-50k product you actually want.

<comment><USER11> I have custom ordered a car through a dealership (not a Tesla). I'm pretty sure any dealership will do it. It's pretty standard. And they didn't charge me any more than I would have paid for something off the lot (I was able to negotiate the price the same way). However, it is definitely a pain. I had to wait months and months for the car to show up. I'm not sure if there's a good way around that, but ever since then, I've been much more inclined to just buy whatever is available that's closest to what I want, even if it's not exactly right. I do wish there were a better solution for this.

<comment><USER12> _However, it is definitely a pain. I had to wait months and months for the car to show up. I 'm not sure if there's a good way around that_

What, are you saying I won't be able to upgrade to one-day shipping for $2.99?

<comment><USER13> You okay getting a Versa?

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001359341](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001359341)

[http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/buy-nissan-versa- note-t...](http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/buy-nissan-versa-note-through- amazon-sort)

<comment><USER12> Doesn't appear to be eligible for Prime :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if Tesla could somehow circumvent these laws.

Open a fake mailbox company in another state. Sell them the cars at production cost, and let that company "import" them.

Actually open a dealership (using another company). This probably won't work, as there might be a lot of red tape involved. Possibly there is a limited number of concessions, or some other hurdle, otherwise they would have done that.

Using middlemen, put Teslas on eBay, Craigslist, etc.. Make it somebody else's problem to deal with.

My favorite: Don't sell cars at first. Just do car shows, Tesla parades, Nikola Tesla tribute parties, and so on. Visit schools and communities and tell people how good electric cars can be for the environment. Partner with schools and driving instructors to get kids to learn driving in Teslas. Get as many people as possible to test-drive one. That's the most important thing. Then just happen to have a iPad around so people can order one :-).

There might be a law preventing them from even selling them over the internet into many states - I don't know if the laws only apply to physical stores or not - but in this case they could fall back to relying on the black market. At least for a while, while they get the legislation sorted out.

Last but not least (and only half seriously) try to frame the current laws as "communist". I picture an ad with thin, sad people in fur hats, waiting in a long line for their car, with hammer-and-sickle ration coupons in their hands. Contrast it with happy free people riding around in their Teslas under the Californian sun. Unfortunately, that might even work.

<comment><USER15> Tesla already does such things. In many places, they don't "sell" cars. They talk about them, then let you go buy them yourself, perhaps on a computer they happen to have setup right there in the "store".

In Denver's Park Meadows mall, on Sunday they have a big sign saying the State of Colorado prohibits them from "selling", so come on in and sell it to yourself.

<comment><USER16> I wasn't even sure you could actually buy through a Tesla store. I think they just direct you to the website. I took a test drive of a Model S P85 this weekend and they didn't even discuss the sale just wanted to know what I though overall. Then today someone contacted me about purchasing. I can't afford a Model S anyway but I am not very interested in used Model S lease returns or the Model 3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't agree with enforcing these laws on Tesla. Tesla has never had a dealer network which might need or want protection from a manufacturer undercutting them in a market they worked hard to develop (this is why these laws exist).

Yet at the moment I don't think this really hurts them. If anything its giving them a ton of free advertising and building consumer goodwill. Tesla is a high-line brand. A status symbol. They are not impulse purchases in the way that mainline Fords, Chevys, Toyotas are (i.e. people buying because they need a car, any car, and they liked the color, etc). If you want a Tesla, you know that going in. You aren't going to buy a Leaf or a Volt instead because you think it looks pretty. You don't really even need to see one in a dealer showroom, and for what they cost, traveling a few hours to buy one is not a huge hurdle. Where I live, if I want to buy a new Porsche, a Ferrari, a Maserati, etc. I would have to travel several hours to the nearest city with a dealer.

<comment><USER18> Your point is valid for the current Tesla model line up. When they finally get down to their "affordable" model then these problems will have a clear effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seems like Tesla has a different opinion [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-03/tesla-denies- georgi...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-03/tesla-denies-georgia- dealers-claims-that-it-broke-rules.html)

<comment><USER20> _Tesla said the sales restrictions under its license agreement are applicable on a calendar year basis. GADA, which represents 500 dealerships, said in its Aug. 29 petition that Tesla sold 173 sedans in the period from October to June._

So in essence, the law perhaps ambiguously states that you can not sell more than 150 cars in a year. The dealerships are interpreting this as "more than 150 cars in any 12 month span" whereas Tesla is interpreting this as "more than 150 cars in a calendar year". On its face, Tesla has the stronger argument.

<comment><USER21> They still seem pretty close to the line there. I wonder if they were planning to stop sales at 150.

<comment><USER22> Not as close as you think.

If it's not calendar months, then it is almost impossible to make actual sense of. If you wanted to limit yourself to 150 cars per year regardless of the start and end months, then you have to limit yourself to 12.5 cars a month which makes a whole lot less sense. Even still, at the day level you then have to restrict yourself to 0.411 cars a day. Then the hourly level...

Things are made simpler if you aren't close to the limit, but what is the purpose of expressing a limit if you aren't intended to get close to that limit?

for example, let's say you have this sequence (assuming the law is 150/year regardless of calendar months:

12.5, 12.5, 12.5, 10.5, 14.5 , 12.5, 12.5, .....

Boom, you're over if you continue to sell at 12.5 a month. You can compensate for the 14.5 by having another month of 10.5 within 12 months of the 14.5 month, but then you are under the limit within a different 12 month period and can/should have another 14.5 month to make up for it. The pattern repeats itself...

The overall point is that this would be a very stupid way to express a limit and it is far from logical to interpret it that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here is one thing I just don't understand about these laws. I know they're setup to protect dealerships, but can't Elon Musk spin off a side company that is basically a car dealership company only?

<comment><USER24> Usually the law requires two things. Separate ownership: musk couldn't own both. Open access: anyone must be allowed to open a tesla dealership.

<comment><USER25> They could presumably enforce on a franchise level salaries instead of commission and fixed pricing, though. That'd address most of the problems in dealerships.

<comment><USER26> Apparently one of Tesla's concerns is that they do not want their cars to be sold by anybody who also sells other cars. They don't think that electric cars will be treated fairly by sales staff that also have the opportunity to sell ICE cars.

Maybe they could put terms into their hypothetical franchise setup to forbid franchises from also being dealers for other companies, or sharing sales staff/floor space with another dealership. I'm not sure about that though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Keep in mind that for the dealers, this is a life or death existential fight. If Tesla wins, the other car manufacturers aren't far behind.

For Tesla, it's not significantly more important to their success than overcoming general disinterest in electric cars, figuring out how to manufacture batteries for less money, or any of its other business challenges.

<comment><USER28> Exactly, which is why I never understood why people demonize these car dealerships, yes they are an unnecessary middle man, yes they are annoying to deal with but they are only doing what is logical.

<comment><USER29> Payday lenders' circumvention and bending of laws to continue their own existence are equally logical.

<comment><USER28> Yes, and you shouldn't be angry at them. You should be angry at the people who allow laws to be passed in their favor.

<comment><USER25> It's entirely possible and legitimate to be angry at both.

<comment><USER28> I don't see the point, you only have control over one of those groups.

<comment><USER25> I'd suspect most people get angry at things they can't control fairly frequently.

<comment><USER28> That doesn't mean it makes sense, for instance someone down voted every one of my comments. Being mad about it would be just as illogical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> 1914 headline: Georgia stagecoach dealers want Ford factory shuttered for selling too many automobiles

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know _why_ this 150 vehicle limit exists?

<comment><USER31> It's a law to protect dealers being undercut by the manufacturers selling direct to the public. [http://truthonthemarket.com/2013/06/24/tesla-and-the- auto-de...](http://truthonthemarket.com/2013/06/24/tesla-and-the-auto-dealers- lobby/)

<comment><USER32> Does that law make any sense other than to protect the jobs of the dealers?

<comment><USER33> it was initially to stop manufacturers vertically integrating all the way from building cars to running stores.

<comment><USER34> Which would suck why again?

e.g. why on Earth would anyone hate the existence of physical Apple stores, for example? (which fits the description of "a manufacturer vertically integrating all the way from building [PC's] to running stores.")

<comment><USER35> And yet you can still buy Apple stuff at any major retailer or high street store. The retail lobby doesn't seem to mind much.

<comment><USER36> There was a time when Apple only sold through franchisees and were unable to sell direct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have a feeling the US auto retailing comples will become a canonical example of various concepts for Econ textbooks for a long time. Austrian creative destruction, regulatory capture. I also think there might be room for new concepts such as regulatory accumulation and you could find some good examples of this here too.

For anyone who knows the ins and outs of the system.. What prevents a dealership from setting up a base in an unregulated state and selling new cars directly to consumers everywhere in The States using fixed pricing. No showroom, test drive or salesman costs. Just a website with a price and trucks that deliver the cars.

Is there no usage loophole created by interstate commerce? Aren't all these laws local?

<comment><USER38> You can buy cars online in the US. And Tesla does sell its cars that way. This is about whether Tesla is allowed to run Brick and Mortar stores in various places in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > How many of you would be willing to travel four hours each way just to look > at one car?

When Tesla faces a ban in a state, they convert their stores to showrooms so people would still be able to see the cars.

</comment><comment><USER40> How about delivering Tesla cars straight to customer's doors? Amazon-shipping style.

<comment><USER41> Imagine the size of _that_ drone! =-)

<comment><USER42> Drones are just helicopters or planes without pilots. There is nothing requiring them to have multiple rotors or look like a quadrocopter.

Here is the existing unmanned heavy-lifter.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K- MAX#Unmanned_remote_con...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K- MAX#Unmanned_remote_control_version)

Can carry 6,000 lbs and the cost of $1,000 per flight hour total isn't a terrible price, it's far more expensive than just putting the vehicle on a truck for delivery of course.

[http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/kmax.html](http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/kmax.html)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukogay1TwAA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukogay1TwAA)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qqUdfSRFXw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qqUdfSRFXw)

The way those rotors cross are insane.

The BlackHawk unmanned system has been in testing for several years also.

<comment><USER41> Oh, I didn't say/mean that it had to be a quadrocopter/multi-rotor vehicle... I was just saying that it'd be a pretty large vehicle. While it's a cool idea, I suspect that a lot of people would be very wary of something of that size flying around their house/building without a human pilot onboard. It's basically the "not in my backyard" syndrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86pcTLJTvUw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86pcTLJTvUw) I think the comments below the video are pretty expressive how the consumers feel about the topic. Never seen a video that has this much downvotes (compared to upvotes) on YT.

</comment><comment><USER44> Electric vehicles are huge here in Georgia. We have state tax breaks on the purchase of EVs that make the vehicles effectively free [1] for many commuters. Anecdotally, one of my coworkers just bought a leaf because of the tax credit.

Guess who wants to stop the state EV tax credit bill? Shouldn't come as a surprise that it's the same dealer lobby [2] mentioned in the Tesla article.

1\. [http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/13/1-nissan-leaf-market- atl...](http://cleantechnica.com/2014/02/13/1-nissan-leaf-market-atlanta-city- risk-losing-secret-sauce/)

2\. [http://m.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2014/02/bill...](http://m.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2014/02/bill- threatens-to-unplug-gas-5k.html?page=all&r=full)

<comment><USER45> I'm one of those anecdotes. Between tax credit and gas savings it's free for a 2 year lease (tech is changing enough you don't want to keep one longer than that; expect a glut of used LEAFs in a couple years). You need some cash flow to make it happen, but net cost is $0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Car dealerships and the three tier alcohol system seem so archaic and anti- consumer, both amaze me in their longevity and the amount of money that must be getting put into them to retain the hold.

</comment><comment><USER47> Nobody seems to care about these laws until some high-profile company starts breaking them. 10 years ago where was the outrage that GM wasn't allowed to sell SUVs directly to customers? Where was the outrage that ordinary people (ie creeps) weren't allowed to put a "taxi" sign on their car and start picking up strangers at night for money?

<comment><USER48> GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, et. al. have already accepted an up-front fee in exchange for franchise agreements; so the franchise laws in that case protect the initial investment of a franchisee.

There actually was some debate over selectively cancelling franchise contracts during the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The irony of a "free market economy" is that businesses are free to lobby the government to get favorable rules and in large part they win. So, a successful business will eventually create enough red tape that they rig the game so that only they or other companies with enough money can compete.

</comment><comment><USER50> That's bizarre, why would they fill a _petition_ instead of litigating?

<comment><USER51> Filing a petition is the first step in a civil lawsuit. It _is_ litigation.

<comment><USER50> Oh, whoops

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> They should just sell through an app, Uber-style. Then no local laws would apply to them because internet. Rename the store the "showroom" and the dealers into "comfort consultants."

</comment><comment><USER53> couldn't they just open another dealership right next to the old one?

<comment><USER54> no, but they can open a show room. Where there would be computers that people could use to order Tesla's online. Also, that would probably mean less money for the state of Georgia, since the taxes would be paid in another state.

<comment><USER55> This depends upon how the court defines a car sale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Free market capitalism is only good as long as it serves your interests.

</comment><comment><USER57> What about setting up show-rooms everywhere so people can see the product, but only sell online? Would that get around all these local dealership laws?

</comment><comment><USER58> <trolling>How is this any different than unions or other stupid government regulations?</trolling>

</comment><comment><USER59> What is the actual law that tesla is supposedly violating?

</comment><comment><USER60> I thought it was the land of capitalism...

</comment><comment><USER61> rich people fightin about rich people stupid stuff

</comment><comment><USER62> Beware though kids, the reason you don't have start-ups in your country is because you ask uber to follow your laws.

</comment><comment><USER63> Oops accidentally clicked into the comments of an HN post regarding economics. Nothing of value here.</comment>


First results from psychology's largest reproducibility test - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-largest-reproducibility-test-1.17433 <comment><USER2> It would be interesting to know how reproducible the reproducibility test turns out to be.

Edit: Just to expand a bit --

Suppose I flip a fair coin 100 times, and publish each result as its own god- given Truth. Now somebody comes along and questions my 100 Truths, so they flip a coin 100 times; The expectation value is that 50 of my Truths reproduce. Naturally there is a sigma (of about 10 I think), so the reproducibility study shows 50 ± 10.

The linked reproducibility study is right around expection - sigma. I realize that's numerology, but kinda funny. Nevertheless, my original point: The reproducibility study should be run several times to understand the random nature of the results. (Do the same studies reproduce their results? Or is it a different 50-ish results?)

<comment><USER3> What you're asking is basically the concept of statistical power. Assume the original study found an effect size E, and we take that as the truth. How likely is the replication attempt to find a statistically significant effect?

The Reproducibility Project calculated the sample sizes necessary in advance, so if the effects are the size the original researchers claim, they'd have good power to detect them.

Their power could be worse than they expect, though; pioneering studies tend to overestimate effect sizes, because their sample sizes are too small and they filter for statistical significance. I call the problem truth inflation: [http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/regression.html#truth- inf...](http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/regression.html#truth-inflation)

Anyway: understanding the random nature of results is exactly the job of statistics, and the Reproducibility Project researchers are being very careful with their statistics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> tldr; Efforts to reproduce 100 psychological findings. Only 39 were reproducible. And 61 were not.

Hal Pashler, "A lot of working scientists assume that if it's published, it's right," he says. "This makes it hard to dismiss that there are still a lot of false positives in the literature."

<comment><USER5> Thanks for that. That's Psychology in a nutshell for you folks, this amazing "science". Now let's wait for a similar study for economics, the other amazing "science".

<comment><USER6> How do you define "science"?

<comment><USER7> Not like this "scientist" at a reputable university. [http://wjh.harvard.edu/~jmitchel/writing/failed_science.htm](http://wjh.harvard.edu/~jmitchel/writing/failed_science.htm)

> · Recent hand-wringing over failed replications in social psychology is > largely pointless, because unsuccessful experiments have no meaningful > scientific value.

> · Because experiments can be undermined by a vast number of practical > mistakes, the likeliest explanation for any failed replication will always > be that the replicator bungled something along the way. Unless direct > replications are conducted by flawless experimenters, nothing interesting > can be learned from them.

{edit: read the link. It's scary to read this stuff coming from a science PhD.}

Other psychologists have realised that there's a "crisis of replication" in psychology. But it's not just psychology, it affects other sciences (albeit to varying degrees) too.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is- ou...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of- control/)

<comment><USER6> Ok, but one thing is to say that there are bad scientists in the field of psychology, and another one is to say psychology is not a science at all. It's not (and it can't be) an "exact" science, but it's science all the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great to see psychology going after this in an open forum. The current publishing systems are likely to generate some false positives even assuming no bad actors. Replication by independent 3rd parties is a great way to confirm important results. I wish the nutrition community would do this for diets and nutrition before changing the guidelines all the time.

</comment><comment><USER9> IMO, Publishing results before peer review seems like a much worse issue than just reproducibility problems.

<comment><USER3> They've been transparent from the beginning, by posting study protocols and analysis plans. You can think of this like posting a physics preprint on the arXiv before peer review. Nothing wrong with that.</comment></comment>


Lingua::Romana::Perligata — Perl in Latin - <AUTHOR> https://metacpan.org/pod/Lingua::Romana::Perligata <comment><USER2> You won't believe me, but my current GF and I kissed for the first time four and a half years ago while we were in university, and I had just finished showing her this very Perl module.

In retrospect, maybe that meant something. Still, I can't complain.

<comment><USER3> I believe you. She either wanted you to quit droning about this nerdy thing, or she finds it attractive when you speak passionately about something.

Many such cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This was always a classic example of how flexible Perl was -- that you could even rewrite the language to use Latin. I wonder if anyone's working on something similar for Racket, given that being a language construction set is one of its strengths.

<comment><USER5> for those wondering, perl has this source filter feature [0] that allows implementation of these things, see also bleach [1] and ook [2] modules.

0\. [https://perldoc.perl.org/perlfilter.html](https://perldoc.perl.org/perlfilter.html)

1\. [https://metacpan.org/pod/Acme::Bleach](https://metacpan.org/pod/Acme::Bleach)

2\. [https://metacpan.org/pod/Acme::Ook](https://metacpan.org/pod/Acme::Ook)

<comment><USER6> Ook isn't a source filter, it's just the interpreter. But building a source filter on top of it would be pretty easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And there is also Lingua::tlhInganHol::yIghun -- Perl in Klingon ([https://metacpan.org/pod/Lingua::tlhInganHol::yIghun](https://metacpan.org/pod/Lingua::tlhInganHol::yIghun))

Qapla'

</comment><comment><USER2> Well one could say that we can finally program computer using a natural language.

The spec didn't also require the natural language to be currently spoken.

</comment><comment><USER8> The original is gone, but there is this:

      sup
      {
        a be 1 bitch
        slongas(a fearin 100)
          b be 2 bitch
          c be 0 bitch
          slongas(b fearin a)
            if (a videdby b time b sameas a)
              propsta c bitch
            fi
            propsta b bitch
          nomo
          if (c sameas 0)
            putou a bitch
          fi
          propsta a bitch
        nomo
      }

[http://compsci.ca/v3/viewtopic.php?t=8253](http://compsci.ca/v3/viewtopic.php?t=8253)

</comment><comment><USER9> When somebody asks me why I consider Perl to be one of the greatest languages ever created, I am always showing this.

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks amazing, I'd love to see a program written in this.

<comment><USER11> The demo[1] page has a few examples!

[1]: [https://metacpan.org/source/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana- Perligata-...](https://metacpan.org/source/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana- Perligata-0.601/demo)

<comment><USER10> Thanks! My favorite [1]:

                          maximum tum val inquementum
                    tum biguttam tum stadium egresso scribe.
                                 da meo maximo
                            vestibulo perlegementum.

                maximum comementum tum novumversum egresso scribe.
                                  meis listis
                       conscribementa II tum maximum da.
                           dum damentum nexto listis
                               decapitamentum fac

                   sic lista sic hoc tum nextum recidementum
                           cis vannementa listis da.
                     dictum sic deinde cis tum biguttam tum
                             stadium tum cum nextum
                   comementum tum novumversum scribe egresso.
                                      cis

As I understand it (I don't understand it!), a sieve of Eratosthenes.

[1]: [https://metacpan.org/source/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana- Perligata-...](https://metacpan.org/source/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana- Perligata-0.601/demo/demo_eratosthenes.pl)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Two languages with one stone :D

</comment><comment><USER13> Damian Conway is a beast.</comment>


Best Y Combinator Summer 2011 Companies  - <AUTHOR> http://raunk.com/list/2297,2298

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone. Last week I posted a bookmarklet I made that showed you the rankings of your Facebook friends (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2897740>). This is the startup I've been working on this summer with four friends. It is a site where you can rate anything and see best of lists from different perspectives.

I got a lot of good feedback on the bookmarklet, and was hoping to get some constructive feedback on the site. Since everyone loves YC here, I've shared the list of Best Y Combinator S11 companies, which you can vote on and review.

If you have any comments, let us know! You can visit the site at <http://raunk.com></comment>


Tinder for a11y color palettes - <AUTHOR> http://www.randoma11y.com <comment><USER2> The page should probably hide the score of the color palette you're currently rating. After you notice it, you can easily be influenced by it. Showing it after voting would be interesting though.</comment>