Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document - <AUTHOR> https://latex.now.sh <comment><USER4> Sadly, css/html hyphenation is still pretty awful. And AFAIK on mobile kerning is pretty far off too. So to me it feels more like a latex parody than homage, unfortunately.

Additionally, it took a long time for Chrome to even implement:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/CSS/hyphens](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/CSS/hyphens)

[https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5642121184804864](https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5642121184804864)

Sadly, even with auto, there's way too much ragged right in html, or too irregular word spacing. Even with tricks like inserting soft hyphens.

A list apart long held up the pretty much gold standard, but it's still not as good as plain latex (not sure about plain tex, as I've never had occasion to use it).

See also:

[https://alistapart.com/article/the-look-that-says- book/](https://alistapart.com/article/the-look-that-says-book/)

Unfortunately it appears the current ala styling is worse than it used to be (probably due to a move to use modern css, which is understandable - but only highlights the problem).

<comment><USER5> The problem is that CSS uses greedy line breaks. In theory, this should improve once browsers implement CSS Text Module Level 4, specifically the `pretty` value for the `text-wrap` property [1][2]. Until then, we're stuck with poor-quality typesetting, or JavaScript solutions [3].

[1] [https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-4/#text-wrap](https://www.w3.org/TR/css- text-4/#text-wrap) [2] [https://github.com/w3c/csswg- drafts/issues/672](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/672) [3] [https://github.com/robertknight/tex- linebreak](https://github.com/robertknight/tex-linebreak)

<comment><USER5> This had me wondering about whether it was possible to use pre-calculated line breaks to implement improved text justification in current browsers. I was able to come up with a demo [1][2] that does so, although it falls back to default line breaks in Safari due to lack of support for `text-align-last`.

[1] [https://mpetroff.net/files/pre-calculated-line-breaks- demo/](https://mpetroff.net/files/pre-calculated-line-breaks-demo/) [2] [https://mpetroff.net/2020/05/pre-calculated-line-breaks- for-...](https://mpetroff.net/2020/05/pre-calculated-line-breaks-for-html- css/)

<comment><USER4> Ho-hum :) I'm slightly torn between admiration and horror:

> The key is to wrap all the potential line breaks (inserted via ::after > pseudo-elements) and hyphens in <span> elements that are hidden by default > with display: none;. Media queries are then used to selectively show the > line breaks specific to a given column width.

Doesn't look like you compared with simply inserting soft hyphens - last I looked, that made columns bearable in browsers, although still not as good as proper line breaking.

<comment><USER5> I have `hyphens: auto` set for the browser default comparison in the demo, which is roughly equivalent to inserting soft hyphens for Firefox (where I was doing most of the development), as well as for Chrome on Android and macOS.

While browser hyphenation (either auto or soft hyphens) is definitely an improvement over no hyphens for narrower column widths, I think it generally makes things worse for wider columns, since it frequently adds unnecessary hyphens.

Edit: I updated the demo to use soft hyphens for the browser default comparison so the text is hyphenated in all browsers.

<comment><USER4> OK, I suspect Firefox hyphens auto may have improved since I last checked - <USER2> that time whatever I used (aspell?) seemed better at finding potential word breaks than whatever Firefox did (and getting Firefox to do sane word splitting on non-English was a bit of a quest).

Anyway, thank you for this - it's sad that we don't have anything really usable in the browsers still - but also nice to be able to work around the issue somewhat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hated the look of LaTeX documents when I first started university, especially the font. I don't know what happened, but I eventually fell in love Computer Modern. Something about it just looks great. Maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome.

<comment><USER7> The problem is that it's much too thin and therefore hard to read on computer screens. I'm sure it looks great on paper printed with the old Xerox laser printers that were around when it was made, but in its current form it's just way too thin to be read on a screen.

Someone on a German forum made a wider version of it which (imo) looks much better [1].

[1] [https://www.typografie.info/3/topic/22238-ist-die- computer-m...](https://www.typografie.info/3/topic/22238-ist-die-computer- modern-wirklich-zu-d%C3%BCnn/) Translated: [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.typografie.info%2F3%2Ftopic%2F22238-ist- die-computer-modern-wirklich-zu-d%C3%BCnn%2F)

<comment><USER8> I strongly agree on the "too thin" point. On screen I find it an _awful_ font, almost as bad as half the 300-weight sans-serifs too many people love to use on their websites. Computer Modern does look better printed, especially on less-accurate printers that thicken what they print.

Related: the serif font Equity comes in two grades to compensate for such types of printers (though both grades are thicker than Computer Modern), and discusses the rationale for this feature: [https://mbtype.com/pdf/equity-type- specimen.pdf#page=5](https://mbtype.com/pdf/equity-type-specimen.pdf#page=5)

<comment><USER9> I had no idea one could link directly to PDF pages. Thanks for the tip!

<comment><USER10> Chrome & other browsers have had PDF reading capabilities for a long, long time. I actually can't remember a time when you _couldn 't_ view a PDF inside Chrome/Firefox.

You might also be interested to know that Google indexes PDFs. For example: [https://www.google.com/search?q=graph+theory+pdf](https://www.google.com/search?q=graph+theory+pdf)

<comment><USER11> I think they were referring to the #page=5 part of the URL.

<comment><USER9> Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

<comment><USER10> Ohhh, that makes a lot of sense -- sorry if my comment came off as patronizing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I noticed two big omissions:

1\. No automatic numbering (and no automatic table of contents generation).

2\. Latex will indent the first line of each paragraph (except the first one in a run). This is the reason why it gets away with very little padding between paragraphs.

Having written my share of Latex, I have always wondered why people are focusing on math and formulas. That is the least of what Latex brings to the table. Most documents have no need for formulas but are massively underserved in the "proper typesetting" department.

I remember hacking a Latex CSS many years ago when CSS was only half as powerful as it is now. I had to use some Javascript for the table of contents generation though.

Personally, I find the Computer Modern font the least attractive thing about TeX. I always substitute either Times Roman if the size of the resulting PDF is important, or Linux Libertine or so if not.

<comment><USER13> Times Roman was designed for narrow newspaper columns. If you're not writing/printing in narrow newspaper columns, there are many other choices out there.

How about a nice Janson?

<comment><USER14> Is that font available for free?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One bit of irony: LaTeX.css can't display math without... JS.

(However, there is a solution if you're using Pandoc! Compile via texmath and then [https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax- node](https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax-node) can create a static HTML+CSS+fonts page, which aside from looking the same, runs far faster than loading Mathjax. This is what I do on gwern.net. It's very nice. texmath doesn't support all of LaTeX, of course, but if you need a block or a diagram, there's lots of Pandoc plugins to call a TeX install of some sort and generate an SVG or PNG.)

</comment><comment><USER16> So then if you use a html2pdf tool you can generate a pdf people will think was done with LaTeX! Here I wasted all that time learning LaTeX to impress people.

<comment><USER17> I write solely in markdown and use pandoc with other tools to generate the best file-type for the audience. Business folks get .doc or .pdf. For technical folks it varies on the situation: anything from the raw markdown, to LaTeX styled pdf, to HTML pages with various css applied (I often use github's).

<comment><USER18> > _to HTML pages with various css applied (I often use github 's)._

Mind sharing the subset of GitHub CSS that you use?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've spent a not insignificant amount of time trying to make my LaTeX documents _not_ look like LaTeX documents. To each their own!

</comment><comment><USER20> There is an ocean of CSS that mimic off the shelf LaTeX or journal-specific layouts. They're almost entirely one-off attempts depend on a particular HTML structure to have the CSS work. Introducing new CSS layouts to work on the same HTML generally doesn't work well.

In [https://dokie.li/](https://dokie.li/) , HTML is key - semantic and sufficiently "flexible". CSS is secondary. That is why we can generally throw different CSS at it without touching the underlying HTML pattern. Examples:

* [https://dokie.li/acm-sigproc-sp](https://dokie.li/acm-sigproc-sp) (ACM - authoring guidelines)

* [https://dokie.li/lncs-splnproc](https://dokie.li/lncs-splnproc) (LNCS - authoring guidelines)

* [https://csarven.ca/linked-research-decentralised-web](https://csarven.ca/linked-research-decentralised-web)

* [https://csarven.ca/dokieli-rww](https://csarven.ca/dokieli-rww)

* [https://linkedresearch.org/ldn/](https://linkedresearch.org/ldn/)

* ...

You can dynamically switch the CSS view from the dokieli menu (top-right) or from your browser's native controls eg. view the ACM authoring guidelines using the LNCS CSS and vice-versa.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you're a fan of this, you might like; _" WordTeX - A WYSIPCTWOTCG Typesetting Tool"_

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlX_pThh7z8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlX_pThh7z8) (video)

<comment><USER22> WYSIPCTWOTCG = What You See Is Pretty Close To What Other Tools Can Get

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is neat!

One small thing I noticed is that in the Binomial theorem, "k=0" is hidden by sigma, unless I zoom in a little. If I zoom back out afterwards, it's fine until I start scrolling again.

I don't know anywhere near enough css to guess what's going on.

<comment><USER24> That part's actually not the .css stylesheet, but MathJax's conversion result. I run a website with over 150 formulae, at which point client-side MathJax becomes impossible (unless you're okay with a page taking 2 minutes to fully load due to formula-by-formula conversion) so I actually use _real_ LaTeX (XeLaTeX, technically) to convert maths to .svg files and include those instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks great, though I wish the table style followed the recommendations of the \usepackage{booktabs} documentation [1] more closely.

[1] [https://texdoc.net/texmf- dist/doc/latex/booktabs/booktabs.pd...](https://texdoc.net/texmf- dist/doc/latex/booktabs/booktabs.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER26> This is pretty cool.

However, I do agree with some of the other contents that the style is a little dry for a webpage.

I think it would be very useful as the "print" style for articles or blog posts, without having to pipe through pandoc: most browsers support print to pdf.

</comment><comment><USER27> There is also a Jupyter Notebook theme that uses Computer Modern: [https://github.com/neilpanchal/spinzero-jupyter- theme](https://github.com/neilpanchal/spinzero-jupyter-theme)

</comment><comment><USER28> Nicely done - it instantly reminded me of that feeling of deep dreading when coming across a latex document so it looks like this is fairly spot on :)

Not sure what it is, perhaps PTSD from uni but something about latex docs bring on really bad feelings...

</comment><comment><USER29> It is a bit dishonest to call it "css" when most of the heavy lifting (the math) is done by javascript.

<comment><USER30> Agreed, the CSS is basically just importing the Latin Modern font and doing some spacing and font-size specifications. Not wanting to be mean, but there's nothing special about it. The credit should go to MathJax [1] which is rendering the math.

[1]: [https://www.mathjax.org](https://www.mathjax.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Hey, nice work. As a webdev who has had to do designer work, I just noticed a small minor thing you could maybe change to make the style better. I myself too sometimes trip on the correct use of borders, and in this case I don't think you need one for the pre-tags. Just use a stronger background color and it will look a lot less "blocky" if that's the correct term.

Eg.

      padding: 1rem 1.4rem;
      max-width: 100%;
      overflow: auto;
      /* border: 1px solid hsl(210, 15%, 49%); */
      border-radius: 4px;
      background: hsl(210, 28%, 93%);

I think that grey was kinda neutral. But anyway, that's just my opinion. Otherwise it looks nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, changed [https://github.com/vincentdoerig/latex- css/releases/tag/v.1....](https://github.com/vincentdoerig/latex- css/releases/tag/v.1.0.2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One brief note on the markup: please specify the width and height attributes on the <img>, _especially_ if you want to use the loading=lazy attribute, so that the browser gets its aspect ratio right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, it should be better now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I always liked the standard appearance of monospaced type in LaTeX, but not the regular proportional serif text. It's a kneejerk reaction, but thinking about why, I notice that one not so subjective issue is that parts of the letters are just too thin for a relatively low resolution screen, presumably because they were designed for laser printing...

If you really want serifs, why is it better than Times?

Also, has anyone ever tried doing scientific papers with a sans-serif font?

</comment><comment><USER33> how is it different to [https://github.com/davidrzs/latexcss](https://github.com/davidrzs/latexcss) ?

</comment><comment><USER34> This is great!

Putting anything mathematics-related on the Web and making it look half-decent is such a chore. Thank you for making it easier!

MathJax and KaTeX are a great thing, but there's a contrast between formulas and the rest of the document unless you use something like this.

The comments here as of now fall into two groups:

\- "Who needs it and why?"

People who want to present or discuss mathematics and proofs on the Web. If you ask, you're not one of them.

\- "This does not exactly like LaTeX!"

Duh. It does not. Only TeX looks like TeX.

You know what else TeX does? It takes forever to compile, and the nice-looking result is a PDF that most people will be too lazy to download.

So, we have the ArXiV. And if your website is not the ArXiV, linking to PDFs is far from ideal. Static generation is a chore.

This is a compromise.

TL;DR: great work, much needed and appreciated

<comment><USER35> > You know what else TeX does? It takes forever to compile

What are you compiling, and what are your expected and actual times? It's certainly fast enough for me, although I mostly compile article-length documents.

<comment><USER36> Indeed. I remember the first time I ran TeX on an SGI workstation in the 90s. I thought it didn't run because the compilation ran so fast the screen didn't scroll.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Related: [https://github.com/AndrewBelt/WiTeX](https://github.com/AndrewBelt/WiTeX) or my modified version here: [https://gist.github.com/devsnek/9689917c8095febbf48b91c2f8f5...](https://gist.github.com/devsnek/9689917c8095febbf48b91c2f8f5a9af)

</comment><comment><USER38> Some years ago, I tried to replicate the ACM paper style in LaTeX: [http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/acm_html/test.html](http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/acm_html/test.html)

The biggest problem is floating figures. ACM papers have a copyright notice on the first page at the bottom of the left column. I have no clue how to do that with CSS.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why do some of the equations show up as rendered by MathJax, but others still read `$\mathbb{R}$`?

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, I really don't know. MathJax has been very janky for some reason. I have tried using KaTeX ([https://katex.org](https://katex.org)) but couldn't get it to work properly and some equations just looked "off".

<comment><USER24> I had to give up on both: they seem great until your page needs more than 10 formulae and it starts to take quite a lot of seconds for your page to finish loading for folks. Instead I switched to preprocessing my pages to extract latexy blocks, literally _run them through latex_ and pdf2svg to turn them into clean SVG image and replace the on-page latex code with presized <svg> elements: now your content doesn't jump around while loading (because the browser already knows how much space the image will take up), everyone sees the same thing (no browser quirks around MathML etc) and because it's SVG, positioning and scaling is trivial.

<comment><USER40> That's actually pretty cool. Do you have an automated setup to do that, or is it manual for every "post"?

<comment><USER24> I could trivially automate it so that it runs as part of CI/CD, but that's honestly more work than just running `npm run build` ever time I write a new chapter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The line-height is higher than I'm accustomed to with most documents typeset in LaTeX.

</comment><comment><USER42> Needs more bitmap fonts for that authentic metafont look. The Windows 95 font rendering theme on HN recently used a technique of rendering then recapturing the render.

</comment><comment><USER43> Not bad, though the spacing and kerning are notably inferior. LaTeX would never have that many hyphens, though I suppose it isn't your fault. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER44> There is also [https://davidrzs.github.io/latexcss/](https://davidrzs.github.io/latexcss/)

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm a bit biased since I worked as a Research Lead a while back, but I LOVE ITTTTTTT.

I'm gonna try and build a proper webpage like a personal blog using this.

</comment><comment><USER46> Yes, the familiar tables-reduced-below-functional outcome. Why did latex hate TBL so much?

</comment><comment><USER47> I also wastes space on both right and left, just like plain LaTeX!

</comment><comment><USER48> hmm i wish i weren't so shit at webdev or i would take this and turn plug it into jekyll's markdown compiler. i guess it shouldn't be that hard.

<comment><USER6> I don't know too much about Jekyll, but I assume you can just find a template project and swap out the style sheet this this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> What so it just styles your site to look like a dry academic paper? What use case does this have? I imagine someone out there really needs this and the target audience is small.

<comment><USER50> But don't most academic papers actually look very different from this? Usually, conferences and journals provide style files that look very different from this website.

I see out-of-the-box latex looks mostly in shorter student reports - <USER3> even there, you often get more modern looking styles.

<comment><USER51> On a side-note, I made a thing a few years back that does academic papers with CSS, with examples of ACM and IEEE format:

[https://thomaspark.co/2015/01/pubcss-formatting-academic- pub...](https://thomaspark.co/2015/01/pubcss-formatting-academic-publications- in-html-css/)

[https://thomaspark.co/projects/pubcss/demo/acm-sig-sample- we...](https://thomaspark.co/projects/pubcss/demo/acm-sig-sample-web.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Devs: Make Capistrano Your New Friend - <AUTHOR> http://cmj.io/#/posts/devs-make-capistrano-your-new-friend

<comment><USER2> Page is blank owing to it trying to load socket.io (!) from [http://localhost:3000/socket.io/socket.io.js.js](http://localhost:3000/socket.io/socket.io.js.js)

And [http://cmj.io/posts/devs-make-capistrano-your-new- friend](http://cmj.io/posts/devs-make-capistrano-your-new-friend) just doesn't work.

This just seems like a really poorly put-together custom blog. #-only routes, websockets for loading content, hostile error pages, etc. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> seems to load ok for me.</comment></comment>


A Taxonomy of Privacy (2006) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.law.upenn.edu/journals/lawreview/articles/volume154/issue3/Solove154U.Pa.L.Rev.477(2006).pdf <comment><USER2> >Privacy is a concept in disarray. Nobody can articulate what it means. As one commentator has observed, privacy suffers from "an embarrassment of meanings."

So true of many things we discuss, but it doesn't stop us from assuming everybody knows what we mean.

This is a great paper.

<comment><AUTHOR> A ... disappointingly large number of what should be definitive or at least clear sources fail to define privacy: at all, precisely, or in any way that corresponds even vaguely with the sense I have of the term.

Solove is the first sharp exception I've found to that, and is writing of the current, highly technological and pervasive landscape.

His observation is accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "When we contemplate an invasion of privacy–-such as having our personal information gathered by companies in databases–-we instinctively recoil. Many discussions of privacy appeal to people's fears and anxieties.9 What commentators often fail to do, however, is translate those instincts into a reasoned, well-articulated account of why privacy problems are harmful."

I came across a practical discussion of this on reddit -> [https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/ez1tyo/how_do_i_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/ez1tyo/how_do_i_convince_people_that_privacy_fing/..). it's helpful but also befuddling.

<comment><USER4> I find most of the discussions on r/privacy befuddling.

That comment by /u/DocMorp gets it right:

"The problem is abstract. So you have to find examples where they are actually directly negatively affected."

Online privacy IS an abstract concept. To the layman, digital privacy != physical privacy. Even on forums dedicated to the subject, its importance cannot be explained simply in plain words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a seminal article. I remember reading it in Law School, and while it was not quite 'enjoyable', it's certainly very readable.

<comment><AUTHOR> It combines two of my favourite things. Privacy, and making taxonomies.

The general structure seems quite sensible, at first glance.

<comment><USER6> Lots of case law studies. Great read and reference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. Online, there are differences between say privacy and anonymity. TOR allows ads & trackers but standardizes/blocks a lot of things to provide anonymity (a kind of blending in). The Epic Privacy Browser blocks ads, trackers and lots of things to provide privacy (a kind of hiding).</comment>


My first six months of programming: from man-rodent to partyman - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitakerblackall.com/blog/first-six-months/

<comment><USER2> This is a great write up on the experience! Truly inspirational.

I especially like the following quote:

 _It truly is amazing how much practice helps. Every time I write a new program, I run into a ton of unforeseen problems and bugs. While frustrating at the time, I usually plan around them the next time I program. This makes me feel like I'm in my very own while loop:_

      while (stillPrettyBadAtProgramming) {
      programmingPracticeTime++;
      Program *newProgram = [Program programWithType:ProgramTypeGame];
      if (
        newProgram.isReallyGood == YES && programmingPracticeTime >= A_HUGE_AMOUNT
        ){
          stillPrettyBadAtProgramming = NO;
         }
      }

<comment><USER3> Isn't there a huge memory leak? Creating a new pointer on each iteration without keeping track of them.

I might be wrong I've been doing games in CL for some time now.

<comment><USER4> With a few exceptions, pointers returned by methods in Objective-C are assumed to be autoreleased. That means their reference count will be decremented at the end of the event loop.

But if OP is expecting a lifetime of learning, he might want to push a new autorelease pool for each iteration.

<comment><USER5> Or just release it. If you're sure it's autoreleased then retain/release it. If you're not sure, just set it to autorelease before you retain/release it.

<comment><USER6> retain/release on an autoreleased object won't make it get destroyed any faster. You still have to wait for the event loop to cycle (or push/pop your own autorelease pool).

<comment><USER5> That's correct. That's something I read, have repeated but never bothered to actually test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a mechanical engineer and don't know anything about coding except basics of C. This has inspired me to learn programming. I just downloaded Python and that free ebook mentioned in the post. I've finished the 'guess the number' program and 'dragon realm' program. Interesting stuff.

</comment><comment><USER8> Fantastic! Shows you that good motivation is the key, in his case game programming. Also, encountering good books and some expert early on is a big boost. This is what a lot of professors lack: a sense of direction where you're headed so you get motivated.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a great article to show business cofounders who might be reluctant to learn how to code. Wonderful evidence that even folks with 0 experience can increase their coding knowledge (and thus ability to work effectively w/ hackers) by great strides in a short 6 months.

</comment><comment><USER10> You've had some amazing progress, and really impressive for a beginner after only 6 months. Wow, keep it up!

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the encouragement!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Best submission title I've seen on HN in a long time. The actual article isn't bad, either. I salute you.

<comment><USER11> Haha I know it was fun writing that title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fantastic progress - keep it up and thanks for sharing! I'm looking forward to buying one of your future games on the app store.

</comment><comment><USER14> How did you decide what type of projects to work on (ie how did you come up with your man-rodent game / what was the inspiration)? How much time did you spend every day programming?

<comment><USER15> From the comments on his article:

 _Some days I code for an hour or two, some days none, but sometimes all day long. Actually last weekend I pretty much never left the house. I coded the entire Friday-Sunday basically._

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The games are still quite rudimentary, but it's nice to see him coming along. I wonder how far he will have come another six months down the line.

<comment><USER11> Yup, I'm hoping to get into more complex stuff the more I learn.

<comment><USER16> Have you tried reading other people's code?

There's Knuth Literate Programming version of the classic Adventure [0] which you can read almost like a novel, and the source code for Spelunky [1] has also been released [2]. (I don't know whether Spelunky has good code, but it's a good game.)

Good luck!

[0] <http://www.literateprogramming.com/adventure.pdf> [1] <http://www.spelunkyworld.com/> [2] <http://spelunky.wikia.com/wiki/Source_code>

<comment><USER17> Spelunky is made in Game Maker, which lets you script on top of a pre-existing engine and IDE. It's hard to apply to "bare-metal" coding.

I would point to open source games such as Nethack, Stepmania or Battle for Wesnoth for some ideas.

<comment><USER16> Nethack is probably a mess. Battle for Wesnoth sounds like a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yes, this is truly inspirational (and a kick in the pants for me as well). Would love to see your progress in another six months.

</comment><comment><USER19> Congratulations. You've certainly accomplished a lot in 6 months. Can you tell us how much effort this took? hrs/day days/week.

<comment><USER15> From the comments on the article:

 _Some days I code for an hour or two, some days none, but sometimes all day long. Actually last weekend I pretty much never left the house. I coded the entire Friday-Sunday basically._

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> After 15 years in the corporate world I've almost forgotten those exciting early days of programming. This article brought back the joy I felt when I figured out how to make the bad guy "home in" on the good guy - that was a turning point for me!

I need to do some true recreational programming again - just for the pure joy of it.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is great. I'm working on learning objective-c in pursuit of making ios stuff as well and i can relate to many of the hurdles you've faced since I'm going through them now. It's frustrating but it's good to see someone come out the other side.

</comment><comment><USER22> Welcome wblackall to HN. Inspiring journey. I hope you keep up with it and go far with your efforts. Inspires me to look at all the things that we coders are not familiar with and approach it with the same enthusiasm as you do.

</comment><comment><USER23> I had a lot of fun reading through and seeing the progression of the games. I hope to start something like this someday. Keep it up!!

</comment><comment><USER24> I took a course on iOS dev with Ray Wenderlich (mentioned there for his Cocos2d tutorials), and highly recommend his work.

<comment><USER25> link?

<comment><USER24> it's in the OP. But also <http://ray.wenderlich.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Seems like you had a lot of fun and good progress. Keep it up!

Did you submit any game to the app store, yet?

</comment><comment><USER25> So you can program, but you should hire a designer.

Edit: this is not a barb at the OP, just a recommendation. I think his drive is in building, so why not make it easier on yourself by getting some help?</comment>


Einstein's most effective life hack wasn't about productivity - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/work/1494627/einstein-on-the-only-productivity-tip-youll-ever-need-to-know/ <comment><USER2> > Simply block out a few minutes each day to be alone and do nothing at all. > By doing so, you'll tap into your inner genius and uncover the most > effective ways to take action.

Sounds like a productivity hack to me.

<comment><USER3> The author is describing mindfulness[1] in that quote. The author also produces no evidence Einstein ever practised or espoused it, besides Einstein saying cruises are conducive to uninterrupted thought and work. The violin example sounds apocryphal, and even if true, it is also not an example of "doing nothing".

Clickbait.

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

<comment><USER4> I think the concept can be applied in context at a broader level. In Einstein's time, there was no Internet full of distractions, apps, notifications, email, etc, and TV and radio was there but not nearly as compelling as it is today. So one could argue that the activity of sitting around thinking about nothing for a while (aka being bored) was baked into the normal daily experience. It's only in modern times do we need to invent the "activity" of mindfulness to regain that pattern.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> See also Rich Hickey's, 'Hammock Driven Development' \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc)

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a young daughter and the last year of walking around with her in the dark while I try to put her to sleep has lead to me thinking of and understanding things that always seemed a lot more complicated than they are.

If she's crying I don't get any thinking done but those 30 or so minutes after she's fallen asleep and I'm still walking have become very productive in their own way.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think that people who look at Einstein as a loner in present times. Even today it's well known that people like Bill Gates and John Carmack will take time away from it allot think and learn new things.</comment>


Airbnb, Edging Toward Possible I.P.O, Names Ken Chenault to Board - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/business/dealbook/airbnb-ken-chenault.html <comment><USER2> Uber is next? :))</comment>


Show HN: The Cryptominded Coin wiki – Research tokens and their purpose - <AUTHOR> https://cryptominded.com/coin/aragon/ <comment><AUTHOR> The aragon page is just an example of course, you can visit the overview here: [https://cryptominded.com/coins/](https://cryptominded.com/coins/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice, I like it! Keep it up, Dylan.</comment>


Last Week's "Back to the Mac" in 104 seconds - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5iZyN7Ir3Q&feature=player_embedded

<comment><AUTHOR> This makes me wonder if this is really the key to why everybody always seems so enthralled by any Apple presentation...</comment>


The Pseudo-Time Arrow - <AUTHOR> https://qualiacomputing.com/2018/11/28/the-pseudo-time-arrow-explaining-phenomenal-time-with-implicit-causal-structures-in-networks-of-local-binding/ <comment><USER2> I've done LSD and thought this was particularly interesting and insightful.

I was skeptical of the idea of trying to apply a formal framework to it, but the results of the model are the closest I've seen to an explanation of my experience.

I was particularly fascinated by time. At some point in my first (and only) trip, my unconscious 'timeline' stopped working.

The tricky thing about time is that it is always exactly right now. Conscious experience, as the author recognizes, emerges from processes that happen some time before the experience happens - e.g. I looked around the room to understand my environment, but right now, I can only see my phone and a narrow cone around that - my experience of everything else is an echo of my previous experience.

I'm concerned that the article is pseudo science bullshit - I'd love to hear other opinions from more experienced folks. Any neurologists around?

Edit: I took another look and am also very interested in the briefly mentioned memory trackers. I got the distinct feeling during my trip that I could experience my thoughts 'refreshing' themselves. It strikes me that there must be data structures encoded in the brain, and that these data structures might need to be kept alive through repetition (similar to how you might do to consciously remember a long number, for example). Feelings!= fact, so I'd love to hear other thoughts as well!

<comment><USER3> Its a bit of a loose tour of theories, but certainly not bullshit. I spot things I disagree with like the widely held idea that Einsteins physics rules out an "absolute frame", the sense of that depends on a certain restriction of what absolute means in relation to a time/space frame. We are in a local time/space frame which is connected to and consistent with nearby and all connected frames. It is absolute in the sense that it is continuous, its just hard to visualize the 'superframe' which is the product of all the local frames. A satellite experiment successfully confirmed the Earths rotation causing our nearby frame to "shift", or rather rotate.

Many would disagree with that contention of mine, the depth of my understanding, and language used - it surely could be improved and occasionally is by an experienced experts advice. Similarly, this article I think will be full of such potential disagreements and corrections but that doesnt mean its not a well written and valuable exploration of the extensive subject of meanings and perceptions of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Its a good article with stimulating ideas I should take the time to read properly, but it seems to omit this feature of the arrow of time which I have noticed: In a basic gravitational simulation time would be completely reversible except that quantised integration is lossy.

If data could be recorded to infinite precision it would be possible to integrate the simulation back and forth between any two points in time and thus re-calculate separate states precisely and repeatedly, there would be no irreversible arrow. The only reason I see that for example, a simulated glass will not perfectly reassemble itself after being virtually smashed is that quantization noise accumulates on every iteration, and in accordance with the 'butterfly effect' the noise which enters at the units of least precision, also trickles upward in significance on every iteration. But if a simulation was run using enormous word lengths for all its data then the noise would have longer to travel (up the word-lengths) until it made a significant difference to the virtual model. The model data might also be clipped at intervals in an attempt to remove this 'direction dependent noise'.

Theoretical ideas about time which consider analog system real numbers or values of matter might not notice this effect, that the state of things becoming more intertwinned with each other through time, which ever direction viewed from, requires more and more precision to represent. It would not be a problem with infinite precision math.

I dont know about the precision scheme of the physical universe, it sounds like quantum physics does find limits.

</comment><comment><USER4> The more slowly decaying past makes the appeal of trance music much easier to understand. It's a series of loops, every beat a kick, every other a snare, every 4 a baseline, and so on. Everything reinforcing the past until it all locks together. I've had experiences where I felt like time stopped entirely on the dance floor — even completely sober, but especially on mdma or lsd.

</comment><comment><USER5> This reads like Sokal's fake psychology article [1] - is this a prank? I'm sure there are many interesting concepts in here, but the author is going to have a really tough time reaching people with the article's current usage of vocabulary. I'm sure a lot of the text could be rewritten in a clearer and more accessible form; if not, at least a summary, abstract, or conclusion could help.

[1] [https://physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgre...](https://physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html)

<comment><USER4> I think it's pretty accessible? Not sure what you had trouble understanding.

Though I think it would be better without all the stuff about psychedelics. It makes people doubt the whole thing.

<comment><USER6> That's people's problem then, because if you're trying to study consciousness and the borders of it, the only realistic way to do that is modifying it and seeing how things change. Then theories can be made and tested etc. Psychedelics are naturally great for this as they change consciousness in such radical ways, and many have the feeling that during psychedelic experience they are exposed to the inner workings of their mind rendered in various ways. If there's truth to it, then psychedelics are quite seriously the best scientific tool of the mind we have available.

Reasonable arguments can be made as to how psychedelics are discussed and used to test theories, but the involvement of them in the first place in studying consciousness seems trivially obvious. All other psychoactive substances are applicable as well, but psychedelics seem to be most revealing and applicable.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I'm breaking up with Google Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/05/14/why-im-breaking-up-with-google-chrome/ <comment><USER2> The loss of NPAPI is what's going to drive me away. If they stick to their guns and drop NPAPI in 42 including the flags, then I'll finish my transition to making Firefox my new main browser. I've heard the arguments for why it shouldn't be present, I've heard Google's argument for a more pure web experience, but quite frankly _I don 't care_.

I don't like Google's "our way is the only way" vision for the internet, where Chrome has morphed into an operating-system like amalgamation of resource heavy proprietary features, while simultaneously shutting down flags, features and settings that power users rely on to wrestle back any control at all of our own personal browsing experience.

Chrome was a great step forward and I will remember it fondly, but it really is post-peak on the technology adoption curve. Google is focused _only_ on that giant laggy late adopter side of the curve and simply could not care less about early adopters and bleeding edge users anymore. If you feel like Chrome and Google actively design against our use cases -- you're right, because the laggard phase of adoption is in full swing and we're, once again, pointless nothings and easily ignored voices, drowned out by Google's Master Vision.

Oh well, Firefox has really solidified into a nice product these past few years, even if they are following Google down the stupid proprietary forced- bundled of useless features (here's looking at you, "Hello", which I ironically am not allowed to say "Goodbye" to).

<comment><USER3> NPAPI is insecure and dates back to Netscape 2.0.

Abandoning a 20 year old technology is _really_ the final nail in the coffin for you?

<comment><USER2> >Abandoning a 20 year old technology is really the final nail in the coffin for you

Abandoning a useful technology with zero alternatives, telling the world to "simply get over using those previous functions and adjust to a new reality where you cannot do what you used to do" is the nail in the coffin for me.

This is not a case of a legacy technology being dropped for which there are modern superior alternatives.

This is a case where a core idea in web functionality has been rethought, and the powers that be have decided that we should not use web browsers in this way at all, and we will not be able to do so moving forward.

And if we are given the ability back, it'll be a proprietary, non-standard, vendor hack solution that, in 20 years, will occupy the same space as NPAPI.

<comment><USER4> > This is not a case of a legacy technology being dropped for which there are > modern superior alternatives.

On the contrary, that's actually _exactly_ the reason that _all_ browser vendors are phasing out NPAPI (or, in MS's case with Spartan succeeding IE, ActiveX) plug-in technology: it is legacy technology for which there are modern superior alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is so misguided that I am actually surprised... here's a the same search for the browsers:

[https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=chrome%2C%20firefox%...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=chrome%2C%20firefox%2C%20internet%20explorer%2C%20safari&cmpt=q&tz=)

We can clearly see that each browser's "slow" search mimics similarly the browser's popularity. If they could provide a "browser's slow" / "browser" graph that would be a much more useful graph.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm probably dumping Chrome soon too. What gets me is the random crashing. I can count on Chrome to still be running maybe 50% of the time when I re-open my Macbook in the morning.

Note to Chrome engineers... stability is a must-have feature, not a nice-to- have. Being a good battery citizen is a must-have. Performance is a must-have.

<comment><USER7> Chrome's stability greatly improved for me when I disabled Flash.

I'd really like to switch to Firefox, but there's a few things I just can't seem to get used to every time I try to.

<comment><USER8> Like?

Most of my annoyances with FF were fixed by moving to a fork (Pale Moon).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I switched off of Chrome on all my personal PCs for Firefox about a month ago and I'm happy I did.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would love for Chrome to spend an entire version's development focused on reducing memory. I haven't heard of any focused effort in this area from the development team, has anyone else? I know computers are coming out with increasingly large memory, but I don't want that taken up by a sluggish browser.

For all my complaints with Chrome, there's not an alternative that's attractive enough to entice me to switch (yet).

<comment><USER11> There is a memory team formed for Blink[1]. Also, soon they will start rolling out a garbage collector mechanism (code name Oilpan) which would make Blink more stable, safer and faster. But I am not sure about the overall effect of these on Chrome. Presentations in the link has more details.

[1] [https://www.chromium.org/blink/memory- team](https://www.chromium.org/blink/memory-team)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is anyone on the chrome team lurking here and want to comment?

I believe I remember reading that the chrome team had tons of automated tests that get run on every change list measuring compatibility, performance, memory usage, battery usage(?) etc. So either these tests are broken and they don't know there's a problem or they are ignoring the problem (to work on other features) or there is no actual problem and ours in our heads.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm an accidental convert. Since upgrading to Fedora 22, I've found myself using Firefox almost exclusively for both normal browsing and webdev. Previously I was 100% Chrome, and I've somehow transitioned without really thinking about it nor meaning to!

(IMHO Chrome's developer/debugging tools are more pleasant to use, but Firefox is getting there...)

<comment><USER14> You ever use Firebug on Firefox? So awesome.

<comment><USER15> I been a Firefox user since 2004 I think, and used Firebug till something like 2012 .. when the dev console was launched --I haven't touched firebug since then.

nowadays the native console works great! you should give it a try

<comment><USER16> Agree with this. The dev console in Firefox is better than Firebug now for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm in the same boat: I've been a Chrome user and advocate since 2008 and I definitely feel the bloat they've added to it over the past few years.

Vanilla Safari with zero extensions has been completely satisfactory for me for quite some time.

I have Chrome installed, but nowadays I only use it for a kind of "Flash Browser", where I only use it when there's a flash-requiring that I'm convinced is worth my time (most flash-requiring sites definitely aren't.) Occasionally I'll use Chrome's developer tools, which I find to be more robust than Safari's too.

Safari is by far the faster browser in my experience, it scrolls faster, it uses less battery, it has nicer OS integration on OSX (swipe-to-go-back feels much more natural in Safari, for instance), and it just seems _simpler_ than Chrome (the UI gets out of your way better, IMO.)

<comment><USER18> Yep. Chrome had its moment in the sun, helped push some vital changes in the web ecosystem in its day, but now it has become a parody browser. When it is not crashing it is a fragile thing that seems to break every page, despite the fact all the web gurus try to optimise for it. And how much system resource does it want? Makes me miss simple browsers like Dillo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I suspect disabling Flash, etc. plugins and removing extensions will make battery life closer to Safari.

And Google Trends shows increasing amount of 'Chrome slow' searches because it mostly depends on browser market share, which is still rising for Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER20> I haven't gotten to that point yet, but what really gets me is the random high CPU usage that kills batter for things that other browsers can render with virtually no CPU usage. The main offender that I've noticed is animated GIFs.

Chrome seems to handle huge, complex DOMs and piles of JS just fine, but throw a few animated GIFs at it, and CPU usage rapidly spikes, fans spin up, if it's a laptop, it'll get noticeably hotter and the battery life remaining will drop fast. On OS X, Safari can render lots of animated GIFs like it's nothing. I have no idea how they let such an old and widely used piece of web tech get and stay so bad for so long. WTF Chrome?

</comment><comment><USER21> It would be interesting to see the browser usage stats for HN...

</comment><comment><USER22> In my experience, Firefox is slower than Chrome when it comes to expensive "javascript stunts" like JS games or interactive js experiments. However, as a browser Firefox consumes WAY WAY less memory than Chrome. On Windows, just opening the process manager helps confirm these facts. So it's a trade off.Personnally since I usually limit the amount of paginated memory available on my computer, Firefox seems like a better Choice.

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands I go in cycles and use Chrome for a while and then switch back to Firefox. The last few months, I've found myself using FF Developer version a lot more.

The dev tools are much better than Chrome's, and it uses a fraction of the memory and tends to be much more stable. I have an HP Elite book with 8GB of RAM with an Intel i5 processor. If I leave Chrome open long enough, it will bring my system to its knees.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've had issues with Chrome consuming tons of memory for quite some time. I found a single tab with gmail consuming ~700MB. Seems like a common issue: [https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/86yzpx...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/86yzpxX7aws%5B1-25%5D)

</comment><comment><USER24> I was seeing some of the problems discussed in the article. Chrome had slowed over time, and tabs were frequently hanging or crashing. I usually have around 30-35 tabs open across several virtual desktops on my linux machine, and the whole browser would hang for around 5 minutes whenever they were restored on a browser restart.

Deleting my Chrome data (I mean deleting _.config /google-chrome_, not just deleting the profile through the browser settings) and purging then reinstalling Chrome fixed everything, even with the same extensions and settings restored and all the same tabs open. Data syncing meant this process was very quick.

Everything is working great on my linux desktop now, and my Toshiba Chromebook 2 gets 8-9 hours on a charge and has never had any problems. Maybe the OSX version is particularly poor?

Maybe some problems are plugin-related? I set 'Let me choose when to run plugin content', rather than having plugins automatically run.

</comment><comment><USER25> > Maybe something like Vivaldi, which builds on top of Chrome's rendering > engine, could be the answer?

Not likely if the main complaint is power usage. The browser engine is likely to be the main driver there, and switching skins won't help, especially for an engine as tightly coupled to its shell as Blink is.

<comment><USER26> Just tried Vivaldi on Mac and it shows roughly about the same process and thread usage for tabs as Chrome so probably not the answer to battery life. It does feel quite snappy so I'll continue using it instead of Chrome for other reasons.

Generally I use Safari because it renders text better than Chrome (Yosemite) on external displays, but for developer tools still use Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I never did switch to Chrome or Chromium, simply because it doesn't integrate as well with the XFCE desktop compared to Firefox/Iceweasel. So maybe I don't know what I'm missing. Regarding the author's comment, "The problem is that the Web is now optimized for Chrome users and that means alternatives often provide a terrible experience." What are some examples of sites that provide a terrible experience to non-Chrome users?

<comment><USER28> I'm not aware of any non-Google sites that are optimized for Chrome, but Google's Search and literally every single one of their products was optimized for Chrome using the SPDY protocol. This was the major one.

[https://developers.google.com/speed/spdy/](https://developers.google.com/speed/spdy/)

<comment><USER29> Firefox has supported SPDY for quite a few years. Did any of Google's sites perform badly on Firefox?

I use a few of Google's services; for browsers I mainly use Firefox and sometimes Chrome. I've never noticed a big difference between the two browsers when it came to performance, on Google's properties or otherwise.

<comment><USER28> Didn't know that. I just remember reading on a lot of scattered reports that Chrome performed better than Firefox. I wouldn't know because I never did move from Firefox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For me, it wasn't just desktop chrome crashing. Mobile chrome also crashed and lost all my tabs occasionally.

But on desktop chrome, what really drove me away was how bad it got using on Ubuntu running in a virtual box. I'm unable to drag to do anything in chrome any more, making it very inconvenient to use. I've been forced to switch to Firefox, and chrome still isn't fixed even though I've seen this issue reported online many times.

</comment><comment><USER30> I was having the same issue, until I enabled "click to play" for flash etc. Currently with 8-10 tabs open 1.4 GB of memory. YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't use Chrome, but I installed Chromium to test websites on webkit, and, amazingly, it still manages to crash after a few hours of uptime despite being a fresh, barely used install. It's beyond me how people are using such buggy software regularly.

</comment><comment><USER32> I am of the opinion that one should use multiple browsers, not just one. I stick with Chromium for certain things (with uMatrix), and I refuse to install Silverlight or Flash. I don't have any issues with crashes or memory consumption.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm surprised that privacy wasn't even mentioned here.

(As in: most people switch to DuckDuckGo not to be tracked at all times. And if a browser wants you to sign in, that implies quite some volume of data being collected.)

</comment><comment><USER34> i dont have any issues with chrome. love my chromebook and my browser it is synced to all my devices.

</comment><comment><USER35> oh man just tried Vivaldi I think I'm switching just for tab stacks alone.

</comment><comment><USER36> thenextweb.com has just lost Javascript privileges in my browser for using a dirty trick to push ads. As a matter of fact, after disabling Javascript, I didn't read the article and I won't be talking about the article or sending other users to the site by linking to it.

I would have liked to talk about the actual article here, but instead I'm talking about this horrible advertising technique and that should be OK with anyone who supports Internet advertising because that seems to be what you want. Let's start off talking about something else and then _maybe_ we'll get to the article you came here for.

<comment><USER37> I know. When this: [http://i.imgur.com/AwG4AMr.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/AwG4AMr.jpg) is what you get when you load a page, I ain't sticking around for long.

<comment><USER38> A screenshot doesn't do it much justice. What other people don't see is that the article is moving in a bit and a hover or 'c' key moves it in completely. If you think the ad looks too big, pick up any paper magazine and look at those ads. In my Wired magazine it takes 7 pages to get to the content. We show you ONE ful page ad that is easy to ignore and generates revenue that enables us to hire writers and provide you with free content. Not such a shitty deal after all? Boris (CEO TNW)

<comment><USER37> It may not be a shit deal for some people, but it is for me and I wont be visiting your website again.

I'll give you credit for getting around my adblocker though, although that just pissed me off more.

<comment><USER38> I think adblockers will catch up soon enouygh, and that's fine.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter suspended ScraperWiki's API use - <AUTHOR> https://blog.scraperwiki.com/2014/07/twitter-tool-update/

<comment><AUTHOR> And it looks like the suspension is permanent per the update today at [https://blog.scraperwiki.com/2014/08/the-story-of-getting- tw...](https://blog.scraperwiki.com/2014/08/the-story-of-getting-twitter-data- and-its-missing-middle/)</comment>


Ask HN: Why HN does not have categories for news - <AUTHOR> I'm tired of reading about non-Hacking news, such KGB double agent, volcanoes, etc.
why not having categories like:
Hacking
Tech
Business
Startups
Politics
Environment
and an article can fall under multiple categories
Make it simple, no more than 7-8 categories <comment><USER2> Or just go to lobste.rs instead.

To save you time, here's the link: [https://lobste.rs/](https://lobste.rs/)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's really become a knee jerk to post whatever news they find interesting here.

It's annoying as hell.

<comment><USER4> From the guidelines:

What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.</comment></comment>


Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console - <AUTHOR> http://www.goldminemag.com/news/auctioneer-pink-floyd-console <comment><USER2> Fun fact, my dad installed this.

<comment><USER3> Nice. My old boss Mike Grimwood worked for Neve in the 60's and 70's and told us loads of tales about making bespoke desks for the likes of Led Zeppelin etc. Would have loved to have been around then, but I suppose they say the same about the digital era.

<comment><USER4> It's pretty interesting how bespoke much of this gear was. It's also interesting that lots of the better known studios like EMI/Abbey had their own in house electrical/audio engineers designing and making the house gear rather that purchase off the shelf.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

<comment><USER6> One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason. Yes, everything this machine can do can be done in a laptop. Sure there are small differences related to audio signal paths and headroom and distortion, but for the most part those can be simulated or ignored.

The big reason working with hardware like this produces unique results is more about the layout and workflow than the tech inside the machine. The workflow makes the sound. The lack of automation forces you to make choices. Forces your hand, literally. The sound is in the physical design.

Another example is the MPC sampler, which has a workflow that can be heard in hip hop music. Of course software samplers can do everything the MPC can do, and more, but you can hear the signature sound of someone working on an MPC.

<comment><USER7> > The workflow makes the sound. The lack of automation forces you to make > choices. Forces your hand, literally.

You raise an excellent point here. A full-blown DAW is practically without limits: hundreds of tracks, unlimited effects on every track, any signal chain is possible.

But making art is about _working within constraints_. Most of the best art derives from the constraints as much - or more - as the capabilities of the devices or instruments used.

However there is a technical reason why these devices _do_ sound different, and that is that they all impart euphonic distortion. Bass sounds "bigger." Treble sounds "clearer." Mixed tracks "glue together." Vocals "pop out." A sense of "depth of field" may be imparted. Technically speaking this is all "distortion" of the original signal.

<comment><USER6> > However there is a technical reason why these devices do sound different, > and that is that they all impart euphonic distortion. Bass sounds "bigger." > Treble sounds "clearer." Mixed tracks "glue together." Vocals "pop out." A > sense of "depth of field" may be imparted.

Digital advocates are quick to point out that all of those phenomena can be perfectly modelled in the box. We have convolution reverbs and tube amp models and emulation that can be scientifically proven to match the analog gear.

By point is, you _can_ do all that, but will you? You have a world of possibilities, and so the likelihood when working with a digital / software workflow is that you'll stick to the relative strengths of that setup.

Another thing to note about the hardware console interface is the nature of a classic design. Consoles like the Neve or SSL are familiar to engineers, they are instruments with a hand feel. A recording or mixing engineer can go into a studio and get similar results from similar gear. The listeners ear can pick up a je ne cest pas familiarity from it, what you call "good sound" in another comment, without quote knowing what they're hearing. The same way the Telecaster just "sounds good". It's not better, it's just familiar. Digital workstations are all different and don't achieve the same familiar sound.

<comment><USER7> > all of those phenomena can be perfectly modelled in the box

Nope.

How you gonna model the interaction between a microphone and the preamp load it's driving, and the compressor _that 's_ driving, and the EQ _it 's_ driving, and the nonlinear summing bus _that 's_ feeding, when all of these are interacting in a live signal chain, and all entering various forms of nonlinear behavior based on the age of components, their tolerances which vary from box to box, heat, etc? It might be theoretically possible, but past a certain point, to model these devices requires modeling physics at the materials level. In point of fact most digital "simulations" of these sorts of devices are not simulations at all, but _approximations_ that impart similar EQ, dynamics, and harmonic distortion.

I'm a dev by trade, been doing audio for decades too. I used to believe this was all modellable too. I think there's a tendency for people who are strong in digital signal processing but naive to what these devices are really doing to the signal to be overconfident in our ability to simulate them in realtime.

You can definitely achieve a reasonable facsimile! But if you want the sound of _this console_ then you're going to have to make one or buy one.

<comment><USER8> This is all true, but there's a point beyond which it stops being musically/artistically relevant.

I've probably been doing this stuff as long as you have, and I'm not actually sure where that point is any more.

I actually hate the sound of most of the Beatles albums. I think they sound crap by modern standards - tinny, rattly, clogged-up, mid-heavy mixes with no deep bass.

Put them up against a modern trance single mixed ITB and the latter sounds huge, dynamic, cinematic, and infinitely more polished.

Which is better? It depends...

The Pink Floyd albums hit a sweet spot by being musically ground breaking while also being the first examples of hifi multitrack recording in its modern form.

Now I tend to think ITB is fine for electronica and dance, because sometimes you want polish and a slightly unreal shine. But for rock, country and maybe even hiphop the older hardware is going to give you more character, bite, and depth.

Ultimately they're just colours you can use. If you have talent, it doesn't matter if you mix ITB or not.

If you don't, it doesn't matter either.

<comment><USER7> > I actually hate the sound of most of the Beatles albums. I think they sound > crap by modern standards - tinny, rattly, clogged-up, mid-heavy mixes with > no deep bass.

Of course the whole point of bands like the Beatles was that they stood "engineering" on its head, as it was understood at the time (actual scientists wearing actual lab coats attempting to capture sound as accurately as possible).

EMI engineers making classical records were trying to create photographic style recordings. The early Beatles records sound, mostly, like you're standing at the Cavern club in front of a late-1950s sound reinforcement system. Photographic.

The Beatles helped to change the idea of making "photographic" records into making records like painting on canvas. Together with the other influential artists of the time (Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, etc) they transformed modern music.

When yo

>Put them up against a modern trance single mixed ITB and the latter sounds huge, dynamic, cinematic, and infinitely more polished.

>Which is better? It depends...

I think you make my point here.

If I were making a Crystal Method record, of course I would use a different signal chain that if I were making a Dawes record.

That's the whole point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A link to the auction with amazing pictures of the details. True nerdporn.

[http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23878/lot/35/?category=list&...](http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23878/lot/35/?category=list&length=10&page=4)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I know....and I'm usually so anal about getting or linking to original sources. Hopefully a mod will update.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is certainly capable of making a good album.

</comment><comment><USER11> What a goofy headline; why emphasize auctioneers like that? "Pink Floyd recording console at auction" would be better.

</comment><comment> m-i-l Don't have space for it, couldn't get it up the stairs, and got distracted reading the linked article "How to view 'The Wizard of Oz' with 'Dark Side of the Moon'... Urban legend claims that if you play Pink Floyd's classic album while watching 'The Wizard of Oz,' there's an incredible synchronicity. Well, we've tried it! Here are the results." [http://www.goldminemag.com/features/how-to-view-the- wizard-o...](http://www.goldminemag.com/features/how-to-view-the-wizard-of-oz- with-dark-side-of-the-moon)</comment>


Show HN: realitome, an encyclopedia for the real world. - <AUTHOR> http://www.realitome.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a side project I've been working on the last month or so. It's still in its early stages, but I'd appreciate any feedback nonetheless.</comment>


How I Learned to Love Farmed Fish - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2015134,00.html

<comment><USER2> This makes sense to me. The problems with fish farming are mostly just problems with farming in general: animals in close quarters transmit disease more easily, farmers combating that with mass quantities of antibiotics risk causing other problems, poor waste management leads to a gross-at-best and toxic-at-worst environment of farmed animals sloshing about in their own waste, meat from animals fed on diets very different from their natural diets might not have the same nutrient profiles, etc., etc.

But none of those are really fish-specific. Perhaps opponents realize that, and it's mostly a tactical move to keep what they see as an already bad industry (commercial meat farming) from expanding to a new ecosystem (coastal waters). Maybe that's even the best tactical move, given political realities. But I can't help but thinking that I'd rather have some attempt at a real solution.

What that solution is I'm not as sure about. There are regulation angles, especially with things that have large potential for collateral damage, like overuse of antibiotics. There are encourage-the-free-market angles, like better labeling, or better third-party information sources, that make it easier for consumers to decide what kinds of farms they want to buy from. And possibly other angles. I suppose we could all become vegetarians, too, but that's unlikely.</comment>