Czech Republic proposes the highest digital tax rate in Europe - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-03/the-czech-republic-s-new-digital-tax-is-the-right-approach <comment><USER2> We can do this in Europe because we are great at killing innovation through our taxes and regulations. This way we can safely tax innovative tech giants without hurting our own tech giants. Because they don't exist here.

We don't like that thing that you do. So we'll just apply taxes and let you continue doing the thing we don't like you to do.

<comment><USER3> As opposed to the billions tech giants dodge taxes

<comment><USER4> Surely there is a balance between overly taxing and letting them get away without paying them?

<comment><USER5> I'm guessing a 2-7% tax is on the low side of such balance.

<comment><USER6> > _2-7% tax is on the low side of such balance_

A 7% tax on revenues is a 50% tax on a business with a 14% margin. It's even more damaging when one considers start-ups, who run negative profits in their early years. (Seven percent is thus eleven months of runway in the Czech Republic for every 12 months a German competitor gets.)

Seven percent is generally prohibitive to low-gross margin business, _e.g._ any tech company producing physical devices or doing anything next to retail. It thus compresses an economy's accessible tech sector to enterprise businesses.

If these taxes remain confined to ad-driven businesses, that's a fair tradeoff. But given Europe's penchant for over-encroachment, it could very easily be over-applied.

TL; DR Top-line taxes transfer wealth to high-margin businesses over low- margin businesses and from start-ups to incumbents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Intermediary platforms such as Airbnb and Uber exacerbate cities' housing problems and weaken worker protections._

Its interesting that this line has no support and just treated as fact for this article. Is there a source to explain the reasoning?

<comment><USER8> Full time AirBnB rentals almost certainly exacerbate any housing shortages that might exist. A tourist in general is willing to pay _far_ more (maybe 5-10x) per night of temporary lodging than a resident is willing/able to pay for 365 days per year. This is especially true in beautiful but inexpensive, tourist magnet cities like Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and the like.

Taking otherwise available rentals off the full-time rental market and moving the "up" the economic return ladder to AirBnB rentals makes the housing situation tighter for residents and would-be residents.

(I'm a happy user of AirBnB platform and am "OK" with the conversion of real estate to its highest and best use, but I understand the opposition argument and think it has some merit.)

<comment><USER9> Airbnb is highlighting a zoning problem that governments are unwilling to admit to themselves. Sublets and short term rentals existed long before before and most cities on Earth didn't care, but once a frictionless platform came along it suddenly was a problem.

My landlord kicked us out to run an airbnb fulltime after seeing how much a neighbour was earning. (Around New Years /Christmas you could easily bring in 2 months rent). Despite all this I hold no illwill towards Airbnb.

If any other basic need was chronically undersupplied due to government inaction people tend to riot, yet somehow housing gets a free pass.

<comment><USER10> It's not a "zoning problem." It's much simpler than that.

* Airbnb flophouses are not obliged to conform to fire, health, or safety codes, and they don't pay taxes. Right off the bat, they're scads cheaper than hotels because they don't bear those costs.

* Visitors and residents have very different incentives. Tourists may wish to stay in cute residential areas, but they are not necessarily interested in being neighborly -- they're not particularly invested in the comfort and safety of the people around them, because they'll be leaving soon.

* People do a lot of gross stuff in a hotel that you probably don't want to encounter in your apartment building. Drugs, prostitution, loud parties.

No amount of "zoning" is going to make the commingling of apartments and hotels attractive to full-time residents, nor will any change in "zoning" make flophouses less profitable.

<comment><USER11> > Airbnb flophouses are not obliged to conform to fire, health, or safety > codes, and they don't pay taxes. Right off the bat, they're scads cheaper > than hotels because they don't bear those costs.

Because Airbnbs aren't flophouses. They're holding usually just a couple or family, maybe a dozen people tops unless the place being rented is a really big detached house. Expecting them to be held to the same standards as hotels is not necessary. If this lack of compliance is so dangerous, then why are letting people live in these places full time?

> Visitors and residents have very different incentives. Tourists may wish to > stay in cute residential areas, but they are not necessarily interested in > being neighborly -- they're not particularly invested in the comfort and > safety of the people around them, because they'll be leaving soon.

Tourists also spend more money while on vacation, especially on small businesses like restaurants and bars. More importantly, they bring this money in externally. More tourism attracts the ire of residents that now have to deal with out-of-town people walking around their neighborhood, but I have rarely seen someone complain about negative economic impact of tourism let alone make a coherent argument about why it's bad.

> People do a lot of gross stuff in a hotel that you probably don't want to > encounter in your apartment building. Drugs, prostitution, loud parties.

Plenty of people do these things in their apartments, condos, and houses, too.

> No amount of "zoning" is going to make the commingling of apartments and > hotels attractive to full-time residents, nor will any change in "zoning" > make flophouses less profitable.

Tourists generally don't want to visit residential areas. Airbnb-ing instead of renting a hotel is usually less convenient because the former are further from the city center. When I used an Airbnb in Iceland it was more of a hassle because I effectively needed to rent a car (and then subsequently park a car) to get to the center of the city. It was worth it because of cost. If there were hotel rooms available at the same cost of Airbnb then I would have used that.

However, the number of hotels is usually kept artificially limited. This drives up the cost of renting hotel rooms, which benefits hoteliers. This is the main reason why Airbnb is so much cheaper than hotels. Hoteliers don't want to build more hotels because that would drive their costs down and their expenses up.

<comment><USER12> > More tourism attracts the ire of residents that now have to deal with out- > of-town people walking around their neighborhood, but I have rarely seen > someone complain about negative economic impact of tourism let alone make a > coherent argument about why it's bad.

Tourism is an economic curse similar to the curse of resources. It makes most unrelated economic activity less viable.

<comment><USER11> > Tourism is an economic curse similar to the curse of resources. It makes > most unrelated economic activity less viable.

Got any source to back up this claim? Plenty of regions with strong tourism industries have other viable industries. San Francisco, LA, and New York are all heavy tourist destinations but no reasonable person would say that this tourism has made unrelated economic activity less viable. Same with London and Paris. Large tourism industry, but plenty of other industries.

It may be true that as other economic opportunities are exhausted, communities try to use tourism to bring in money to the community (e.g. Leavenwoth, WA [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leavenworth,_Washington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leavenworth,_Washington)). Underdeveloped countries that don't have the ability to participate in many industries lean on tourism more heavily (especially eco-tourism since the lack of development is actually an asset for that industry) which makes tourism take up a larger proportion of their GDP.

But I am highly skeptical of your claim of a causal link between growth of tourism and inability to sustain other industries.

<comment><USER8> I don't know that it's a negative overall, but in general the most economically lucrative sector of commerce in an area does tend to out-compete the others. Much of Silicon Valley used to be farmland. Tech surely disrupted and ejected many farming uses of that land. Gambling disrupted the previously sleepy area of Las Vegas. Disney disrupted parts of Orlando. The auto industry disrupted much of Detroit.

I think it's generally a good thing overall, but if I were a buggy whip manufacturer around Detroit in 1920, I wasn't as happy with my lot in life 20 years later...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "It has helped malicious actors during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Brexit referendum, arguably helping to subvert democratic institutions."

Wow, it seems clear to me that some people only respect democracy when they win. I don't like Brexit but if people in UK vote for it, let them be.

The malicious actors and those that try to subvert democracy are the billionaires that buy Media in order to propagate lies that at the current time remain unproven.

A tax on absolute income is a very dangerous thing in any gobertment. But we already have it, with inflation.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think they should raise it to 30%. Any given country provides a much better platform to these companies compared to what google play provides to app publishers.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why single out Google and FB or tech in general? Is the belief that these companies pay less taxes than non tech companies? I don't have the breadth nor depth on this topic, just wanting to learn.

<comment><USER16> Because politicians attack things perceived as bad by the public. If there's a time to implement such a tax it's after a year of sensationalist (and largely fake) news about FB and Google, from exaggerated data breaches to helping terrorists.

<comment><USER17> I don't know about (any) Google data breaches but the Facebook data breaches are neither fake nor sensationalist.

<comment><USER15> I agree but taxation and data breaches are orthogonal. To be clear, I'm not defending their practices (or lack of security).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This reminds me of the Estonian business startup thing that BBC covered, has anyone actually used this to a success?

What would be the point of starting a business in countries like Czech and Estonia vs the US?

<comment><USER19> Do you mean e-residency ([https://e-resident.gov.ee/](https://e-resident.gov.ee/))? I work there, happy to answer questions if you have them. The value of starting a business in Estonia vs. elsewhere depends on a number of factors - we mainly focus on folks from outside the EU (or citizens of the EU but living outside it) who want an EU based company they can run remotely in English which is tough in some jurisdictions

<comment><USER18> Ah yes! Pleasantly surprised you'd follow up on here.

Does Estonia offer any anonymity through its e-residency program?

A lot of us have stereotypes towards EU regulations as being restrictive, wonder if you could address this one glaring fear in the back of our minds (ex. GPDR).

What should folks on HN know a thing or two about Estonia? I've literally only heard of the country 4 years ago when I played Arma: Cold War with an Estonian gamer, which ironically is a military simulation of gorilla warfare against a USSR invasion of the Baltics..... (see OF: Resistance)

<comment><USER19> Haha I'm a big HN reader so I was happy to jump in :) Sorry for the delay, I'm actually on vacation back home (I'm an American from SF)

It depends what you mean by anonymity - if you're just an e-Resident (eg. you've applied for the status and gotten the card) then it's not public to anyone except you and the Estonian government. If you open a business however, then there is a large amount of transparency. Estonia is very very transparent, I can even see things like the age of the owner of a company if I'm so inclined to look it up.

To be honest, I haven't seen much in terms of restrictive policy in Estonia specifically with the exception of banking - Estonia is a small country of just 1.3m and most of the banks are foreign owned. That means there's not much sway we have domestically over policy and it's dictated from outside (mainly from the parent banks in the Nordics) and it can be tough to open a bank account as a foreigner if you don't have strong ties to Estonia. That said, this is getting tighter just about everywhere as banks try to comply with Know Your Customer regulations (however, my impression is that this is mainly brought on by the US rather than the EU and banks are so stringent because they don't want to lose their US dollar payment capabilities from correspondent banks)

There are a lot of interesting things about Estonia - I'll skip the Googleable things and say that from living there the most interesting thing is on one side how closed and yet how open the people are. To give an example, in my apartment complex I don't believe I ever spoke one word to any of my neighbors in a year, but for the people I met via some group activity or was introed by Estonians I knew from work, they are incredibly open and friendly (basically if you don't have a reason to speak with an Estonian they think you're incredibly strange if you try to initiate a conversation, but if there's a reason, they're very friendly people). The other really interesting thing I've found is the Russian/Estonian dynamic. There's still a large Russian minority of people in Estonia from the Soviet days and some communities are not integrated at all, there are constant political debates about forcing schools to only teach in Estonian (there are currently ones that have all Russian courses). So you have a situation where there are people born and raised in Estonia but who don't speak the language and live pretty much only in Russian communities and have a different worldview of many Estonians.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > The potential disparity between the value of personal data and what users > receive in return creates space for governments to seek reimbursement on > society's behalf.

Is there a way to leverage competition to reduce this disparity instead of taxation? If there were proper competition, would there be a disparity?

<comment><USER21> The problem here isn't a lack of competition.

This happens because tech companies are well-equipped to siphon user data at massive scale and have been given the luxury of embedding these services into our daily lives without sufficiently educating the public around their business models. Ultimately, the public has very little control over what these companies do with this data, so there's a perverse mismatch of incentives here.

Tech companies are incentivized to collect user data and not explain how it's used. Tech companies are incentivized to pay lobbyists to discourage the government from placing a market value on data. The public doesn't have that kind of lobbying influence.

<comment><USER20> > Ultimately, the public has very little control over what these companies do > with this data, so there's a perverse mismatch of incentives here.

That's what I'm getting at.

See for example: [https://stratechery.com/2016/antitrust-and- aggregation/](https://stratechery.com/2016/antitrust-and-aggregation/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Once again the former eastern block is implementing smart reforms that are pro-market and anti-globalist.

<comment><USER23> How is increased taxation pro-market?

<comment> rvp-x At least for my own country, if you buy advertising from Google, you pay 0% VAT because it's not a local purchase. With a local company there's 18% VAT. The local companies are starting the competition at a huge disadvantage.

An even playing field is a healthier market, without megacorps that can run at a loss for decades to crush out any chance competition in a field.

<comment><USER23> In accordance to Article 44 of EU Council Directive 2006/112/EC, you're supposed to be reporting your spend with Google and paying VAT taxes on it.

You don't have to pay it right away at the time of purchase, but you _do_ have to pay it. You might want to talk to your company's accountant...

<comment><USER24> If you do business with VAT registered company from different country, you do not pay VAT upfront with purchase, but you report it at the end of quarter (monthly if you are big enough). You will actually never pay this VAT if you are VAT registered company as you will report it and ask for refund at the same time. On the the other hand, if you are doing business with local company you pay VAT with payment for service or goods and ask for refund at the end of quarter. Long term cost is same, but it blocks your resources (paid VAT) and it may be difference for some companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Relatedly [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/opinion/tax-facebook- goog...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/opinion/tax-facebook-google.html) [https://paulromer.net/faqs-on-targeted-ads/](https://paulromer.net/faqs-on- targeted-ads/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Could SF and other cities like Vanc, BC, Miami, London, etc., levy a significant tax and use that tax to build affordable or subsidized housing to counteract pricing out of the affected people.

<comment><USER26> The reason construction of affordable housing isn't happening has nothing to do with those city's lack of revenue.

<comment><USER25> Wouldn't this be a fairer tax rather than diverting general funds?

<comment><USER26> The pricing out of existing residents isn't caused (much) by local taxes either.

<comment><USER25> So if AB&B are reducing the supply of housing to locals who don't own, then this tax could be used to build or subsidize housing costs for those who because of the reduced inventory and commensurate price increase can't afford the housing they were once able to.

<comment><USER27> AirBnB is not "reducing the supply", they're increasing the demand. The supply is limited, both artificially and naturally, and the demand is growing mostly normally (AirBnB or no).

The local governments get more revenue from high demand (since it increases assessments), and limited supply, so they generally do not have the right incentives to make housing affordable. The public is pretty ignorant in these places, as they should perhaps be allowed to be, so they do not put any pressure on politicians to stop this gambit.

<comment><USER25> I think that's two sides of the same coin. If someone's rent budget meant they had in theory access to say 10% of the units for rent, but AB&B's additional demand means now their budget only puts 5% of the units available within their range, that effectively reduces their supply (or in other words access).

<comment><USER27> > _that effectively reduces their supply_

No, importantly, it does not reduce the supply. If you want to apply terms like this, pay attention to how they are defined.

Access is not supply, and supply is not access.

There is an immense _supply_ of housing in Vancouver, and as much as is possible, AirBnB-facilitated demand (although it's really a tiny fraction of the total demand) puts pressure on the market to _increase_ supply (even if the circumstances make that unlikely to succeed greatly). Whether people living in Vancouver are buying their housing through rental agreements, purchases, or short term rentals like AirBnB, the supply will only tend to increase (just not enough that some of it is "cheap").

For an example of high supply with poor access, just look at the tremendous number of low-quality developments across China with few or no legitimate residents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The way to tax the corporations is to have a minimum base rate they cannot escape and rules tightened on what qualifies to reduce their rate to that point.

the value of personal data can only be quantified if you can follow the path to its eventual sale. If they are not selling it but using to expand their own presence I have no issue. However buyers should be easy to identify along with the transaction value.

i just find it odd government and some who don't like what these companies put so much value into this data when the vast majority really assign it no value. people willfully give up so much and its not going to change because people want to be noticed more than they want to notice others

<comment><USER29> Base rate of what? The problem is that their profit is artificially low.

<comment><USER30> Why humans have AMT, but corporations don't?

<comment><USER26> What? Corporations absolutely have an AMT.

<comment><USER30> Hmm... Looks like you're right.

How do they manage to pay zero taxes then? I thought AMT assumes that once you're beyond a certain level of income, your lose most deductions and essentially pay a certain percent of the income.

<comment><USER31> The tax code taxes wins, not revenue.

An org that invests all their margin into growth doesn't pay (as much) tax.

The best way though is to create an offshore subsidiary, and then have the subsidiary invoice the main office for "services" or "IP licensing". The invoice becomes a cost and is deducted from revenue. "Everyone" (all the big players) do things like that. It's 100% legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Targeted advertising is not the only or even main space in which global giants avoid taxes. So not sure why such a focus on FB and Google.

<comment><USER33> Selection bias. HN community tends towards disliking Google/FB, and will tend to show articles that target those kinds of tech giants.

In all honesty, they do have monopolies and it seems that the same type of anti-trust enforcement that was used to help Apple/Google in the browser war against Microsoft just isn't there anymore. Now Google/FB really do have a monopoly on user data.

I think properly regulating instead of just taxing is more useful.

<comment><USER34> > HN community tends towards disliking Google/FB

HN community also understands better Google/FB business model and what actually happens with their data when fed into Google/FB.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It is important to know, that our ruling party is a populist left wing all the time promising one. So whatever might be proposed might not have enough push to be implemented.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have a feeling that this won't work. The only robust way to implement fair tax is to tax corporation 1%, but everyone in EEA has to do it. I know that taxing revenue is not optimal, but how much money corporations spend on gov audits, accounting what is profit and what is cost etc.

<comment><USER36> I'd appreciate a reason why I was downvoted.</comment></comment>


Open HUB is dead – or worse, it's a zombie - <AUTHOR> http://erack.org/blog/archives/57-Open-HUB-is-dead-or-worse,-its-a-zombie.html

<comment><USER2> Well I think I know why.

I checked there just the other day and wanted to update my project because some information was out of date. After logging in _successfully_ , it wouldn't let me change _anything_ without my PHONE NUMBER. Not even the tiniest detail.

Sorry. I won't do that. Your web site is not my bank, I just don't care about it that much.</comment>


Building a secure password reset - <AUTHOR> http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/05/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know.html

<comment><USER2> This is already an active post on the front page of HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4280440>

<comment><USER3> Yes, but only because this original item got flagged for some unknown reason(s) and so I re-submitted it to find out why (unsuccessfully) and to bring the article to HN's attention.

I'd ask that you read the comments on the submission you reference. In particular read this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4280460>

If you flagged this item, I would ask that you unflag it, as it was the original.

Thanks.

<comment><USER4> Apparently people who flagged this article reference didn't read the article. It is an excellent and very informative article. Flaging it was indeed abusive.

They would probably bomb the Musée du Louvre in Paris.</comment></comment></comment>


$10 million for Project 10^100 winners - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/10-million-for-project-10100-winners.html

<comment><USER2> $2 million for Khan Academy is one of the best investments for improving education ever made.

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised this never occurred to me. K-12 education is mostly the same stuff every year, and it's not that sophisticated. You'd pretty much only have to compile it once. I'm surprised nobody in the free software or creative commons movements thought of it.

<comment><USER4> There's a huge interest in education material in the free software and creative commons movements. The idea of putting free education material on the web isn't new at all, and there's tons of material available out there (and has been for quite a while).

Khan Academy stands out because it's just really, really, really (really) good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For a while I thought Google would be sweeping this under the rug.

Great call on Khan Academy.

But the $1M spent on schweeb could have done more good elsewhere. Nobody wants to go pedaling upside down on a suspended monorail. The bicycle has solved this problem pretty elegantly.

<comment><USER6> Oh really? I do. I ride a bike 3 miles to work every day through Cambridge MA. This Shweeb idea would solve the weather problem, as well as the unshakable "oh god I'm going to die" feeling (since cycling with cars around is pretty damn dangerous), and probably be faster to boot.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, here (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxVtUFZVzk>) they claim 2x the efficiency of bicycling, thanks to aerodynamics. There are some serious logistical challenges - e.g. to address the problem of slow people & free riders you might have to detect and incentivize/reward contributing (human) power to the system.

But the low-weight, self-powered approach means it's probably the lowest-cost system to mount above the current din of street life, which could end up being a big benefit.

I'd file it under strange/interesting, rather than crazy/ridiculous

<comment><USER8> I think the worst problem is breakdowns. Given a bunch of complicated mechanical devices zooming around the place all day long being pedaled by people with no incentive to be careful, how often is one going to get jammed? I'd say pretty often. And then your entire line is filled with angry commuters dangling in plastic tubes above the ground while you have to go get a crane to fix it.

Still, a small-scale deployment might work. I can imagine it on a university campus. I can't imagine any city installing it, simply because there are too many voters who would say "damned if I'm going to get into a little plastic tube and pedal while everybody looks at my legs".

<comment><USER9> I don't think breakdowns would be much of an issue, for one they aren't complicated mechanical devices in the slightest, they seem to be even more minimal than a bicycle.

The difference between waiting a couple of hours for a crane one day every few months, seems like a good tradeoff against sitting in gridlock everyday or the risk of being run down by a car imho.

But yes I agree that humans are not rational and would not do it for petty reasons. Can easily solve the 'look at my legs' problem with opaque tubes :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That shweeb thing must be one of the most stupid things I've seen. On the other hand, giving Khan Academy money alone is worth every penny given to him for the great work he has done.

<comment><USER8> I hadn't heard of shweeb, but after a look at the website, it _does_ indeed sound like a remarkably unworkable idea. Still, maybe there's some kind of possible idea for human-powered public transportation that doesn't look like a haven for system-destroying minor breakdowns and upskirt photographers.

There's also a lesson in there somewhere about how if you have an idea which seems silly, you should avoid _also_ giving it a silly name.

<comment><USER11> I think you hit the nail on the head - it really just sounds unworkable. Just getting civic approval seems unsurmountable, the system seems frail (breakdowns, capacity, misuse) and all it is going to take is one person to have a serious medical issue with no chance of early responders being able to address the issue for this to get shutdown.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm so thrilled that they gave Carl Malamud/Law.gov $1 million. His tireless devotion to shining sunlight on government has dramatically changed the way we interact with our government (i.e. SEC EDGAR, which started off as a skunkworks project he turned over to the SEC under threat).

If you'd like to donate, go to <http://public.resource.gov> and scroll down to the PayPal Donate button. I just gave $100.

<comment><USER7> FYI, that's: <http://public.resource.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Make government more transparent_

They could have sponsored wikileaks.

</comment><comment><USER14> Props to Google for doing this. When we look at scale, though, it's like me giving $1 to a bum in San Francisco. I don't deserve props for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Google's net income in 2009 was 6,500M 10M/6500M = 0.15% So if you make $100K a year, this is more like giving $150.00

If you gave $150.00 to a homeless person, you deserve props. If you gave $150.00 to Khan Academy, you also deserve props.

<comment><USER15> _If you gave $150.00 to a homeless person, you deserve props. If you gave $150.00 to Khan Academy, you also deserve props._

A homeless person might not teach himself to fish using 150 dollars, but Khan Academy will teach lot of people how to fish with 150 dollars.</comment></comment></comment>


More compute shaders - <AUTHOR> https://anteru.net/blog/2018/more-compute-shaders/index.html <comment><USER2> I'm not an expert, and in my opinion, I'm hoping the industry focuses more on the software tooling to utilize hardware accelerated compute power better. In my limited experience, the "tool chain" is overly complicated.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice post! Is there a way to directly use uniform variables in e.g. OpenCL, or is it up to the kernel compiler to determine that some variable is wavefront- or group-invariant?

<comment><USER4> I'm only skim-reading but it tastes like OpenCL's '__local' address-space qualifier

[https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenCL/sdk/2.1/docs/man/xht...](https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenCL/sdk/2.1/docs/man/xhtml/local.html)

<comment><USER5> __local is meant to describe memory shared across the whole workgroup meaning each operation is visible to all SIMD lanes. Uniform are variables that have are only visible to one lane but can be proven to have the same value for all SIMD lanes.

In general it is up to the compiler to decide what variables are uniform as it is pretty easy for user to get it wrong. Metal shader language as a uniform marker: uniform<int> i = …;

Metal spec: [https://developer.apple.com/metal/Metal-Shading-Language- Spe...](https://developer.apple.com/metal/Metal-Shading-Language- Specification.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>


6 Lessons I Learned as a Crappy Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> http://mumblemunki.com/the_pit/6-lessons-learned-from-a-failed-bootstrapped-site/

<comment><USER2> I would add three more lessons (from my failed startup):

1\. Cash is King

2\. Get feedback early

3\. Business = Trust

3.5 Design is just as important as functionality.

The first one I learned the hard way - I put off monetization in the hopes of advertising revenue picking up [See Footnote 1]. The second one I realized was probably more crucial to attract and retain evangelic customers [Footnote 2]. And the third was went my server crashed and I lost everyone's data [3]. The last I learnt a lot more recently when I launched my book: Ice Cream Startups: <http://sellfy.com/p/9j2z> The reason for this was explained in great length here: [http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/26696517701/design-a...](http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/26696517701/design- and-copywriting) and Joel's take on usability: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/NotJustUsability.html> Short version: Affordance is the user being able to intuitively use your software/product through it's shape/design/etc. One example is how horizontal bars on doors suggest a "push" action, and a vertical bar suggests a "pull" action. Developers, myself included, often ignore this only to eventually learn: _if a product feature requires a user manual, scrap it._

\--

[1] [PDF] Case study on Tivo - Freemium vs Advertising models: [http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/emplibrary/ModelingTheEffectsOfAdAvo...](http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/emplibrary/ModelingTheEffectsOfAdAvoidanceTechnology.pdf)

[2] Guy Kawaski's The Art of Being a Mensch - Chapter 11 in The Art of the Start, Richard Branson's advice on freebies: [http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/74952--good- customer...](http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/74952--good-customer- service-means-keeping-freebies) and Zappos: Delivering Happiness: <http://deliveringhappiness.com> on creating evangelic customers.

[3] Not everyone get's it right: [http://www.geek.com/articles/geek- pick/500000-gmail-accounts...](http://www.geek.com/articles/geek- pick/500000-gmail-accounts-go-offline-some-users-lose-all-their- data-20110228/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree. The part that I found extremely difficult was actually getting users that COULD generate feedback. Granted, I'm sure a lot of that stems from the design part as well. Although, it's challenging to get users to go past the 'let me just take a look around' where they see early stages and are put off from the project.

<comment><USER2> #2 was originally "Listen to users." And it skipped my mind on how hard getting users to give feedback was (this was 10 years ago). What I did instead was check out my reference competitor's forums for threads like "bug fixes" and "feature requests." I wasn't listening to what users said they wanted, and I built my product anyways, without their requests in mind. In retrospect, it seems obvious that users were dealing with problems with existing solutions, and there was a pain point I could address. If I didn't address these points, it would mean my product would drop to just as much irrelevance as my competitors were doing at the time. This leads me to another lesson: _Establish a reference competitor._ It shows validation for a product/market fit, and is less expensive for you to copy+improve than innovate from scratch (I call it the _first mover disadvantage_ ).

Girish talks about addressing pain points here: [http://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a- simple-c...](http://blog.freshdesk.com/the-freshdesk-story-how-a-simple- comment-on-h-0/) coincidentally from a user comment he discovered on our very own hackernews, and then built a profitable business out of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really good move - listening to the problems that users have with competitors. It's humorous how we'll start things because we experience a pain point, yet keep our noses down in the work and ignore everyone else's problems afterwards, or at least not actively look for them.

At what point do you consider the first mover disadvantage to become irrelevant? For instance, Google Search and DuckDuckGo - DuckDuckGo aims at the anonymous search pain point, but the algorithm is not (and probably will never be) better than Google's. Unless it's a massive flaw in the core product it seems as if it'd be difficult to migrate users from competitors to your own product.

Thanks for all the insight and the good articles - it's a lot of material that will help me currently and in the future. I experienced a 'I never noticed the kettle was black all these years' kind of enlightening on some of the information, which is always nice when you realize you're just blind in some regards. I actually remember reading that post by Girish a long time ago, but had forgotten about it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What is the purpose of this "red room" in "Stranger Things"? - King-Aaron https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/102266/what-is-the-purpose-of-this-red-room-in-stranger-things <comment><AUTHOR> It's a dark room for exposing film to photographs, from way back when you did it by hand using pans of chemicals. The light allows you to see enough to work without exposing the photo sensitive materials and ruining your work.

"When making black-and-white prints, a safelight is commonly used to illuminate the work area. Since the majority of black-and-white papers are sensitive to only blue, or to blue and green light, a red- or amber-colored light can be safely used without exposing the paper" \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkroom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkroom)</comment>


The American Press Is Destroying Itself - <AUTHOR> https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23509195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23509195), which ended up being the larger thread.</comment>


Internal Data Transfer Objects - <AUTHOR> http://fragmental.tw/2008/12/22/internal-data-transfer-objects/ <comment><USER2> Another rant. :-) I think the pattern is sufficiently broken that it is an anti-pattern. Look at the Sun definition <http://java.sun.com/blueprints/patterns/MVC-detailed.html>. It tries to encompass J2EE and swing. What happens is the pattern gives no good guidance to a programmer. The pet store example is even worse because it gets tangled up in EJBs. My personal pattern is to write the model as a POJO (Plain Old Java Object, no framework cruft) so I can write simple unit tests and to package the result as a HashMap. The view part is also very simple, variables, loops, and ifs, no calculations, no Struts goodies. Life is so much simpler.

</comment><comment><USER2> Worth reading. DTOs are an example of class myopia that is all too present in the Java world. really, you don't need to invent a class for a bunch of data. The DTO doesn't do anything except pass a bunch from one component to another. It doesn't have any inherent functionality. Worse yet, it is a tight coupling between the the components in an MVC pattern. If you change the model, you are forced to change the DTO. If uou delete a field from the DTO, you have probably broken the view. It is much better to use a HashMap or JSON as a data transfer. It's much less fragile.</comment>


Qt 5.9 LTS released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/05/31/qt-5-9-released <comment><USER2> Testing shows that it works better than Qt 5.8.0, but that's rather easy.

Some regressions introduced by 5.8 (some wayland related) aren't fixed yet and Qt WebEngine does not build on AArch64.

There is a bug that breaks applications using kdialog horribly and in the 5.9 branch (to-be 5.9.1) there's already a change that changes behaviour in a (incompatible with the 5.9 doc!) way that breaks some existing applications.

At least they can't make any excuses to not release 5.9.x releases this time...

<comment><USER3> > There is a bug that breaks applications using kdialog horribly

That was fixed in the 5.8 branch. I wonder why the fix isn't in 5.9.

<comment><USER2> That's a different bug then, the one I'm referring to was introduced in 5.9...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing unfortunately (still) missing is validation of server side HTTPS/TLS/SSL certificates on OSX.

eg if you've built a client application which runs on OSX, calling the verify() function on the cert returned by a server just prints "Unimplemented code." on stdout/stderr.

[https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-56973](https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-56973)

Not totally sure how to work around that before its fixed, but kind of thinking maybe running some openssl (etc) commands on the client might do the trick. Focused on other stuff atm anyway, so haven't really thought about it in depth. ;>

<comment><USER5> Looks like there are a couple of other functions in the Secure Transport backend that aren't implemented. Pretty irresponsible to put that kind of insecure-default code into a production library. The workaround is to compile Qt to use OpenSSL instead of Secure Transport.

<comment><USER4> Oh good point. Thank you. :)

If we do that, we'd be able to make OSX versions of our app instead of having to do some dodgy "validate the cert using direct openssl calls" approach. That definitely sounds workable.

<comment><USER5> Also, you're using the "verify" function incorrectly. Take a look at the documentation for that function; it doesn't do what you think it does anyway. So even on non-Mac platforms, you weren't verifying the peer certificate.

I'm going to stop looking at that QSsl API. It looks very poorly designed.

[http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qsslcertificate.html#verify](http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qsslcertificate.html#verify)

<comment><USER4> Thinking about this more, that's not clear. When you say it doesn't do what we think it does... what are we misunderstanding?

Our desire is to make sure the server we're connecting to is "one of ours". eg to validate the cert provided by the server against a cert chain we've bundled with the client just for this purpose

The docs for the function seem to indicate that what it's for.

Er... suggestions/assistance (etc) on what we should be doing instead are definitely welcome. :)

<comment><USER5> So the way you're using it:

      auto verificationErrors = reply->sslConfiguration().peerCertificate().verify(m_sslConfiguration.caCertificates());

implies that you want to see if "peerCertificate" validates under "m_sslConfiguration.caCertificates()".

That's a reasonable (and necessary) thing to do, but the "verify" function doesn't do that. It's a static function, thus it ignores "peerCertificate". The way you're using it, it simply verifies "m_sslConfiguration.caCertificates" using the system's default CA certificates (I think; the docs are somewhat confusing about this).

Also, further down in that code, you ignore self-signed errors. Well that pretty much negates the point of checking in the first place doesn't it? Because if someone MITM's your connection with a self-signed certificate, your code will say that's fine.

 _However_ , according to the docs for "QSslConfiguration::setCaCertificates", those CA certificates are used to verify the peer certificate during the SSL handshake. So do you even need to be doing any kind of verification manually? I'm not a Qt programmer, but it seems to me that since you're using the appropriate "QSslConfiguration::peerVerifyMode", it should verify the server certificate during the handshake using the CA certificates you set (it happens in the Mac code at [1]).

 __Bottom line: __your "RemoteDatabase::gotEncrypted" function can simply be eliminated. This would both provide proper peer verification and eliminate your problem on the Mac platform.

[1] [https://github.com/qt/qtbase/blob/dev/src/network/ssl/qsslso...](https://github.com/qt/qtbase/blob/dev/src/network/ssl/qsslsocket_mac.cpp#L1121)

<comment><USER4> > Bottom line: your "RemoteDatabase::gotEncrypted" function can simply be > eliminated. (and the rest)

Awesome! Thank you. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just a bit off topic, but are there many people still using Qt to write desktop software ? I mean, Qt's not React or Angular, but I find it very easy to work with as long as there is not much asynchronicity required...

<comment><USER7> I'm using PyQt to develop a file manager [1]. Pretty happy with it so far. I chose it over Electron because of performance [2].

[1]: [https://fman.io](https://fman.io)

[2]: [https://fman.io/blog/picking-technologies-for-a-desktop- app-...](https://fman.io/blog/picking-technologies-for-a-desktop-app-in-2016/)

<comment><USER8> thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a shame I'll never get to use features past Qt 5.4 after their insistence on LGPLv3 and royalties per device sold..

<comment><USER10> What suggestion would you make for them to be able to make a living off of open source software?

EDIT: also, it's LGPL _or_ $80/developer-month, not _and_. I don't see anything about royalties. And considering the GPL doesn't apply until you start distributing the software, you don't need to spend that money during development. You can wait to license when you release and start getting revenue.

<comment><USER11> I don't know whether this has changed, but they used to forbid you from developing with the open source edition and then releasing under a commercial licence. (They did this with a term in the commercial licence that specified that it couldn't be used with code previously developed with the open source edition.)

This was quite a confusing policy in some ways. I think in practice they expected to resolve such situations by backdating payments for the commercial licence to cover the development period.

(Edit: from [https://www.qt.io/faq/#_Toc_3_13](https://www.qt.io/faq/#_Toc_3_13) it looks like the policy is unchanged but the wording around it has been softened a bit to encourage negotiation)

<comment><USER12> 3.13 (and 3.12) sounds primarily for avoiding that a company has 30 developers with only the 1 developer (or CI bot) that does the release having a Qt commercial license.

Or that you develop for 12 months and get a commercial license the last month,, when its going to be released.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Qt Lite is commercial only right?

Edit: Ah yes it does say:

> For the time being, the Configuration UI Tool is a commercial only tool, > that adds value for our Device Creation customers.

<comment><USER14> Configuration tool may be, but Qt Lite is just a bunch of new configuration options. Try ./configure -list-features

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > The OpenGL paint engine does now work with OpenGL Core profiles as well.

Oh, this is pretty awesome! I was running into issues updating an old Qt program with QPainter a few days ago, this is super timely.</comment>


Plot Predict (before you watch it) - <AUTHOR> http://www.plotpredict.com

<comment><USER2> Holy cow, can we please format that post better.

<comment><AUTHOR> done</comment></comment>


Apple Watch Teardown - <AUTHOR> https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Watch+Teardown/40655?utm_content=buffer129cc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> Mandatory: the other Apple Watch. (Posted on April 1st. Title of the page was changed only a few days ago.)

[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Watch+Teardown/38659](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Watch+Teardown/38659)

</comment><comment><USER3> I never cease to be amazed at Apple's willingness to pour custom details into their products' internals. Even though it looks like a luxury car engine, there's no way to just pop the hood. Most normal consumers will never see the black PCB in their MacBooks or the tiny imprint in the resin of the S1.

</comment><comment><USER4> The classic mechanical watch is a beautiful object created carefully by mainly one person, while the Apple Watch is a craftsmanship on industrial scale. I think it's fascinating. A utilitarian object can also be a work of art.

<comment><USER5> Initially, the two look similiar, [https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/5PKNgxhkWXHEC1Dd.h...](https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/5PKNgxhkWXHEC1Dd.huge), but as they tear in, I find the internals of the classic watch to be a lot more beautiful than the Apple Watch: [https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/VSgtiKlDfQ4LTGLK.m...](https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/VSgtiKlDfQ4LTGLK.medium)

<comment><USER4> True on the hardware level, but Apple Watch should be viewed as an integrated hardware AND software. I'd further argue that the software running the watch is actually comparable on craftsmanship level with the gears on mechanical watches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The big news here is that they are not upgradeable like some had hoped.

<comment><USER7> i wonder how could someone spend money on the most expensives models then. i wished that could make a beautifull present, but now it would only be a stupid one.

<comment><USER8> Because expensive is relative.

Explain to someone in Bolivia why people spend $2 on a bottle of water.

<comment> saiya-jin in 1st world countries, I would like this to be explained too, especially people drinking at their homes

<comment><USER8> I know ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The size of those screws will forever amaze me.

<comment><USER10> You'll be flabbergasted when you see what a specialist micro-machining shop can produce. (I am!) Unfortunately there's only one picture on their website [1], but here's an example of a shop that produces _really_ small bits.

[1] [http://www.russellsymes.com.au/](http://www.russellsymes.com.au/)</comment></comment>


Can a Corona test detect antibodies after you are cured? - <AUTHOR> I don't know where to ask this. Can a Corona test detect antibodies after you are cured? If negative, how can you know that you are immune after being cured or not even seeing the symptoms? <comment><USER2> The antibody titre, a test to see if you have antibodies against a number of antigenic molecules that your own immune system used to defeat Covid-19 can be done. It is not a Covid-19 test.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody_titer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody_titer). A Covid-19 test has been created to see if you have RNA from the virus in your blood OR other molecules that are given off by cellular lysing as the virus reproduces and breaks open infected cells (killing them) and releasing infectious virus particles as well as many defective particles (DIPs) and excess functional viral subunits that were also made in the cell but were not used in building a virus. The virus does not have an inventory control mechanism and keeps making virus building particles as well as completed functional viruses as well as partially build particles - until the cell is lysed(broken apart and killed, releasing the whole mess) There are several tests that look for your titer as well as several Covid-19 tests that look for Covid-19 infection indicators. If you knew the exact test you took, you can read about what it tests for and this may help you. In theory, if you have antibodies they will resist a future infection by the same virus - the titer fades with time and the rate of fade varies,

</comment><comment><USER2> [https://www.google.com/search?q=Immunoassay+for+COVID-19&oq=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Immunoassay+for+COVID-19&oq=Immunoassay+for+COVID-19&aqs=chrome..69i57.4974j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

and ELISA

[https://www.bosterbio.com/protocol-and- troubleshooting/elisa...](https://www.bosterbio.com/protocol-and- troubleshooting/elisa-principle)

</comment><comment><USER3> the current test is a determination for presence of RNA sequence complementary to a molecular probe.

you need an immunoassay such as ELISA [enzyme linked immunosorbent assay]

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

</comment><comment><USER4> Look up the ELISA method. And Immunoassay for COVID.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you survive the tech hub market with no contacts? - <AUTHOR> Whereas some people want to jump right into a big company like Intel or Google right off the bat, with no room for "stepping stone" companies in between, I took the other route. Since I graduated in something other than CS or STEM related, I assumed that high-profile companies won't look at my resume for entry level work.
Now I've worked at five different small, local companies, taking on different kinds of projects and facing different challenges. Ten years later I want to finally move to one of the large tech hubs, either in SV or Seattle.
I have no friends or contacts there and generally speaking, I don't use referrals to get any of my job interviews, and people don't really vet for me. However the cold approach doesn't seem to work as well over there. Sending in applications to large SV places is falling on deaf ears. I know the competition is high. What is needed now to survive without referrals? <comment><USER2> Professional Recruiters / Recruitment agencies</comment>


Russia and the Curse of Geography (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/russia-geography-ukraine-syria/413248/?single_page=true <comment> Const-me Before Russia attacked Ukraine, there was no NATO treat that side. Before the war, vast majority (60-70%) of Ukrainians were against NATO: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Popular_opinion_in_Ukraine)

NATO is already directly at Russian borders: Norway, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The distance between Moscow and closest point in Latvia is about 600 km = 375 miles. Between Moscow and closest point in Ukraine 460 km. Not a big difference.

Finally, the Crimea is not the proper warm-water port for Russia, because Turkey controls the straights at the exit of the black sea, and Turkey is a NATO member state.

The main reason why Russia attacked Ukraine is internal. The two countries are very close historically and culturally, and the number of immigrants is millions both directions. Ukrainians were able to forcefully remove their corrupt leader from power. This was extremely scary for Putin, as he knew he's likely the next. He started the war to teach Ukraine a lesson, and to alienate Russians against Ukrainians so Russians will see Ukrainians as their enemy, not the role model.

</comment><comment><USER2> Another thing Russian leaders know pretty well -- every invasion from the West ultimately failed. Invasions from the East, that's a different story.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Rus%27](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Rus%27)

</comment><comment><USER3> Good article.

I would just add that Russia's geography has had an odd impact on its culture. It is close to Europe, so it has had to modernize to have the economic and military strength to resist invasion. But it is so vast and hence hard to conquer that it could without going all the way and becoming a free market liberal democracy. So the country is always going back and forth between modernizing and returning to its authoritarian traditions.</comment>


The Grace Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://gracelang.org/

<comment><USER2> Ignoring the numerous typos and the lack of a working implementation, this stands out:

" _Give the last 20 years experience with C, Java, and other "real" languages, perhaps it is time to reconsider, and instead create a language designed for novices._ "

Such language exists, and it's called Oz.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oz_(programming_language)>

It's the most mind-expanding, most diverse in the paradigms it supports, and certainly one of the most interesting languages out there. And it's a tiny kernel language the size of Scheme that one can learn piece-meal. You can use it like Pascal, or Scheme, or Prolog, or Self, or Java, or Erlang ..

Mozart/Oz can teach newbies, no doubt. But it can't be taught by anyone. It requires an open mind and someone who is a competent programmer, not just an assignment pusher. I don't think most profs and TAs will be able to teach it as well as they should, but students can learn it on their own.

<http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/paradigms.html>

Click on the PDF poster there and see how broad the language is.

<comment><USER3> > and the lack of a working implementation

This is great news, I don't actually have to download and play with this one :)

<comment><USER2> Not even a specification.

By the way, I know a few of the names there and I know how completely different their computing tastes and personalities are. I would love to see the archives for the discussion mailing-list for this one, will be very entertaining .. and informative :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand how "suitability for teaching" and "suitability for industry" differ, except that industry naturally wants to stick with whatever it already has.

But if you can design a language that serves as an excellent medium for teaching all of the important ideas in Computer Science, why wouldn't you go on to build the libraries and infrastructure you need to make it viable in industry?

<comment><USER5> It's simple. Designing a language that clearly illustrates CS fundamentals and a designing a language that supports maintenance of huge codebases by teams of programmers of varying ability are two very, very different problems. It's no accident that CS profs love Scheme and banks love Java.

What really matters is how well your language supports your primary level of abstraction. The turtles-all-the-way-down nature of elegant languages like Smalltalk or Lisp doesn't really make that much difference when you're mostly manipulating high-level third party APIs and where mature tools and predictable, easily readable code count for more than the ability to roll your own new object system in the core language.

<comment><USER4> First, I am under the impression that a great many CS professors teach CS using Java.

Second, are you suggesting that _since_ banks love Java, _then_ Java is a language that supports maintenance of huge codebases by teams of programmers of varying ability to a greater extent than Scheme or any other language?

Third, I am confused by the suggestion that "elegant" languages are somehow unsuitable for writing "predictable, easily readable code." Can you expand on this?

Update: Fourth, I forgot the essential point I was implying in my original question. What is there about "maintenance of huge codebases by teams of programmers of varying ability" that _isn't_ a CS fundamental?

Sure, if you are talking about Computer Science as a study of the properties of a formal system, this is irrrelevant and lost amidst talk about category theory and turing equivalence. However if you look at CS in a wider context you have professors teaching things like encapsulation, which has certain important implications for the study of formal systems but also has important implications for "maintenance of huge codebases by teams of programmers of varying ability."

This is part of the motivation for Wirth expanding Pascal into the Modula family of languages: To create a language that was useful for teaching and practical for the construction of the Lilith workstation.

I can't imagine _anything_ about "maintenance of huge codebases by teams of programmers of varying ability" that isn't a suitable topic for teaching and especially research.

<comment><USER5> My impression is that most CS profs teach Java because they've been forced to and that they're not very happy about it. Which makes sense, because Java is a terrible language for teaching fundamentals.

And yes, I do think Java is much better than Scheme for the kind of software a bank wants. The rigid syntax, static type system, and built-in OO, and lack of macros make it easily to build very powerful tools, which you need when you're wading through a huge, unfamiliar codebase. These same features make it pretty easy to jump into an arbitrary codeblock and understand what it's doing. Scheme, for example, is so flexible that you can design your own exception- handling and iteration constructs, which nobody but you can read.

As far as elegance goes, it counts mostly in the small. Quicksort in Haskell is a thing of beauty but most production code looks nothing like this. The vast majority of real production code is just API glue and simple iterations and elegance just doesn't enter into the discussion.

<comment><USER4> Your arguments appear to be of your own construction, not of mine. I never said Scheme is an ideal language for teaching, you did. Yet in the same thread, you deride "elegant" languages as only being elegant in the small. This thread is about devising a new language for teaching. If the Scheme is only elegant in the small, why would we use it for teaching? We would devise a language that isn't anything like Scheme if we believed what you profess to believe.

If "rigid syntax, static type system, and built-in OO, and lack of macros make it easily to build very powerful tools," why wouldn't we teach with a language featuring "rigid syntax, static type system, and built-in OO, and lack of macros?"

Overall, I get the strong impression that you like Java and don't like Scheme. Have at it, you are not alone. But there is no reason for me to debate that with you, since at no time have I said that I prefer Scheme to Java for teaching or for industry.

My claim is, essentially, that if we are designing a single new language, then whatever characteristics we think are appropriate for demonstrating CS concepts will also be appropriate for business. I voiced no objection to static typing or rigid syntax or lack of macros. You did.

<comment><USER5> _If "rigid syntax, static type system, and built-in OO, and lack of macros make it easily to build very powerful tools," why wouldn't we teach with a language featuring "rigid syntax, static type system, and built-in OO, and lack of macros?_

Because the point of CS education is to teach concepts, not tools, and all of those features actually obscure the core ideas. It's the same reason that code examples in textbooks aren't littered with the kinds of error handling code that real production code requires. It's the same reason that medical students work on cadavers before getting anywhere close to a real operating room and all the extra risks and distractions that entails.

 _Overall, I get the strong impression that you like Java and don't like Scheme._

No, I'm just not one of those people that tends to assume that industry programmers are either stupid and/or ignorant for hesitating to build commercial apps in research languages.

<comment><USER4> You equate "teaching language" with "research language." You believe that a language with rigid syntax, static typing, and built-in OO would obscure the core ideas of computer science. Fine. You believe that. I'm sure you grasp that others, especially the list of people mentioned in the post, do not share your views.

So, what we have here is that you have certain beliefs about what makes a language suitable for teaching and what makes a language suitable for industry, and on the basis of your views, you do not believe that the same language would be suitable for both purposes. I accept logically that your conclusions are compatible with your beliefs.

I don't understand your last sentence. It seems to be some sort of axe grinding, as I certainly don't recall saying anything about industry programmers being ignorant or stupid.

So all together, I can't think of anything new to add to this thread. I feel like a foil used for you to set up and demolish your own arguments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having taught/TA'd first-year university programming courses in both Scheme and Java, I find the idea of a teachability-oriented imperative OO programming language quite appealing.

Our first-semester course used DrScheme, and the simplicity of language and IDE helped us focus on teaching a structured approach to programming, with unit tests first etc. Also, whenever the program did not behave as expected, we could go through the program with Scheme's eyes and mentally apply the evaluation rules.

In the second semester, students are supposed to learn Java, and that was challenging because you really have to understand static methods and String arrays just to write a Helloworld program of which you can explain every line. Also, Java rewards using public field accesses instead of getters&setters (in the short term), which is just the habit you don't want your students to adopt. I could go on with arrays vs. collections, classes in the io package which should be interfaces etc...

So if there was a clean statically-typed modern OO language, I'd look forward to using it.

</comment><comment><USER7> > (sometimes by way of C or C)

> New languages such as C and Scala have learned lessons from Java's design > (... blah blah ...), and also retain or duplicate many features for > backwards compatibility with C or Java.

drunk blogging ftw.

<comment><USER8> I think that somehow a few special characters disappeared here; maybe they were eaten by some kind of text processor or something. I think the first line should be "C or C++", the second one "C# and Scala".

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW, I'm just being a messenger here - I got this link off Twitter and thought it'd be of relevance here.

I can't muster much enthusiasm for the initiative myself. My gut reaction is "oh no, as if we needed one more", and I winced at the blog post which said "the most important thing in a new language is that you can println 'Hello world'". I can't find any evidence of design thinking that strives to achieve the lofty objectives set out in the PDF paper.

But I'm looking forward to the discussion :)

</comment><comment><USER9> The lack of innovation in the design principles (see the abstract) is well reflected in the name:

\- <http://freshmeat.net/search?q=grace>

\- <http://www.google.at/search?q=grace%20software>

Could be a case of the NIH-syndrome. The jury is waiting for some sort of implementation.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not a fan of Teaching languages, teach algorithms and clean concepts. It takes much time to get good at a language you might as well be using one to learn your algorithms with.

And not just the language but the Version Control, Libraries, Documentation Tricks, Culture, and Relationships that come with truly learning a Language.

<comment><USER6> At least version control and writing good documentation are orthogonal to the choice of language.

<comment><USER11> However version control is never taught in school.

<comment><USER6> Isn't? Both my Java course and the competing C++ course used Subversion.

(Well, at least for submissions).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here, the simplest language that works:

      $ 'Hello World!'

      @ 10
        $ 'Hello world'

      @ 1:10 as i
        $ i*i

      ? 2>1 $ 'Two is greater than one'
      | $ 'No it is not'

      # fact(n)
        ? n<2 -> n | -> fact(n) * n

      $ fact(5)

If you can guess its basic constructs then you are already proficient in it. As in python, white space is important.</comment>


Enhancement of human color vision by breaking the binocular redundancy - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04392 <comment><USER2> I couldn't help but remark on this. I posted the following comment 418 days ago. I am sure this is a case of simultaneous ideation.

3 points by louprado 418 days ago | parent [-] | on: Life in Technicolor – One month wearing color blin...

While many of us are not "color-blind", we are all color challenged. This is because we only have three cone-types, assuming you aren't a tetrachromat.

I had a thought experiment: Suppose you breakup visible light into six bands. You then create two filters based on these bands. One filter would pass only bands 1, 3, and 5. The other filter would pass bands 2, 4, and 6.

Now suppose you put one filter over your left eye and the other filter over your right. Over time, could you learn to see the world in hexachromatic color ?

<comment><USER3> By the way, that's exactly how the Dolby 3D system works. You could try this out just with their standard glasses. Maybe you would have to create custom ones with more pronounced frequency differences, though. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_3D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_3D)

<comment><USER4> maybe this explain why some of us can't handle 3D movies, they might be partial tetrachromats?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't there some trick where you don't consume the usual type of vitamin A but instead only consume one of the other three types of vitamin A? The one that's slightly different and somehow you get night vision?

Actually I don't think it was night vision I think maybe it was to see UV light.

Maybe I only dreamed this not read about it I tend to do that sometimes.

edit: It was vitamin A2 and it was for night vision actual IR not to see in the dark but to see IR light. [http://www.popsci.com/article/diy/can-we-hack- our-vision-see...](http://www.popsci.com/article/diy/can-we-hack-our-vision- see-infrared-naked-eye)

<comment><USER6> Interesting.

Carrots/Vitamin A were credited with the RAF shooting down enemy planes in WWII - Apparently a cover story for radar.

[http://gizmodo.com/carrots-improve-your-vision-is-a-wwii- lie...](http://gizmodo.com/carrots-improve-your-vision-is-a-wwii- lie-1633939494)

<comment><USER7> So the cover story could have been right in this respect and we could have unwittingly given the Nazis a minor advantage? Weird.

<comment><USER8> The cover story was a cover story!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I already see in slightly two different colors in each eye. One is more of a blueish hue, the other more ruddy. I'm an artist and in color tests, I get the best marks. My friend who's a photographer also has the same condition and excellent color acuity. Anyone else experience this?

<comment><USER10> I often notice this effect when lying in bed with one eye open, and the other closed on the pillow.

The closed eye will be bluer, the open redder. My own theory (backed up by nothing but a hunch) is that the closed eye adjusts its white-balance to compensate for the red light coming through the eyelid by becoming bluer.

<comment><USER11> This. You can try it on a bright day easily by alternating your open eye, and closing both with hands over them for a while to reset the phenomena. I discovered it decades ago on an extremely bright day where I couldn't keep both eyes open without discomfort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's really really cool. I thought it might be related to how glasses for colour-blindness work (eg. [http://enchroma.com/technology/](http://enchroma.com/technology/) \- just the first one I found) but apparently they just use lenses with a specific transmissive spectrum to let through mostly lower frequency reds and higher frequency greens to improve differentiation.

I wonder if you could combine the two to give even more spectral resolution?

<comment><USER13> These filters were already optimized so the sum of their stimuli would match the tristimulus. (So you still perceive the same baseline as normal trichromats but with another asymmetry on top.) By removing a frequency range, you're just losing information and deviating from the standard perception, so I don't think it increase resolution, unless you were proto- or deutero-weak and needed the distinction boost anyway.

They do touch on expanding this by splitting all 3 photopigments, but that would be a much more challenging filter to make.

I was thinking that an active display could add more resolution by adding some time-dependent dimension to colors. Say, "high" reds/blues/greens would pulse quickly and "low" ones would pulse slowly... sort of a fourier transform aspect going on that could get you some scalar gradability rather than a straight up "left blue" vs "right blue" contrast.

It's all really cool though regardless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does the result of wearing such a filter match, in differentiable metamers, the type of vision natural human tetrachromats have, or is it different? If a natural tetrachromat wore these glasses, would they then be effectively a pentachromat?

</comment><comment><USER15> Just so I understood correctly: both eyes would see slightly different images and the brain would merge them to one coherent image with "new" colors? How long does it take for the brain to adapt?

<comment><USER16> "Subjectively, we observed that, by looking at a particular color through both filters simultaneously (e.g. filter 1 over the left eye, filter 2 over the right), a "meta-color" is observed, which appears to be different from the original perceived color and both individual filtered perceived colors. This meta-color is a manifestation of the "extra" effective cone type created by the pair of filters, and demonstrates the increased information relayed to the visual system resulting from the partitioning of the S cone."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I get that color resolution would be increased, but wouldn't everything viewed get a green/red cast since the amount of blue signal to the eyes is cut in half?

You can even see in their sample images that blues become different shades of teal.

</comment><comment><USER18> On a scale of $.99 mail order "X-Ray" glasses to cyborg, how significant is this?

<comment><USER19> Sounds like butterfly level vision (4 cones)

<comment><USER20> Seems like it could be expanded to a total of 6 cones, three per eye? what a time to be alive :)

<comment><USER21> Curiously, it seems hexachromacy is already within the realm of biological possibility for human females.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentachromacy#Animals_that_are...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentachromacy#Animals_that_are_potentially_pentachromats)

<comment><USER22> I'm holding out for dodecachromacy like the mantis shrimps have.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp#Eyes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I once made glasses that made me see polarization. It made plant leaves look beautiful.

<comment><USER24> I came here to suggest this. Great to hear that someone actually tried it and found it to work.

Did it take long to get your mind to 'get' it? Did the effect fade? What polarization filters did you use?

<comment><USER23> More or less immediately, as far as I can remember. I used polarizers from an old LCD display.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting, I'll have to do some experiments with this. I thought I knew about color from years of working with photoshop and video editing, but working with the pigments and medium of paint is vastly more complex (and satisfying despite the unpredictability). I've wondered about the spectral components I can't see quite a bit, since I like to work outside when the weather is good and some color decisions attract lots of insect interest.

</comment><comment><USER26> I didn't realize we have so much red-green overlap; like we barely qualify as trichromats.

That Cyanistes Caeruleus sensitivity graph is beautiful, even without the fourth cone.

<comment><USER27> I think that overlap just means we are _very_ sensitive to color variation for radiation around 550nm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This doesn't work when looking at infrared images in the dark: only one eye will be able to focus, and getting a coherent 3d image will be impossible.

</comment><comment><USER29> I used to wear glasses with polarization filters - with a different axis (by 90 deg) for each eye. That way I could see polarization.

Though, it was fine for exploration, for longer exposure it was "blinking" and overstimulating.

</comment><comment><USER30> Reminds me of this paper I found a few years ago : [http://caoxiang.net/papers/chi2012_beyondstereo.pdf](http://caoxiang.net/papers/chi2012_beyondstereo.pdf)

</comment><comment> nikita-leonov So where can I buy one?

<comment><USER13> Here's filter #1. [1]

Filter #2 was custom-made. Not sure if that's orderable in small quantities outside of academia. But you could try to find a filter that fit their "naive approach", which would be simple bandstop (aka "reject" or "notch") filter that blocks approx 450-510nm. Just looking around the same retailer, maybe something between these two ([2] & [3]) might suffice for experimenting? Ideally it would fit that range precisely AND have a rather absolute cutoff. I have no idea if that kind of arbitrary range selection is available to one-off buyers, I'm just a fan of color theory. :P

The issue with the naive approach is that it skews the white balance of the results a bit by affecting the M&L cone stimulus as well, but that's a lesser issue for playing around with the idea.

[1] - [http://www.omegafilters.com/450lp- rapidedge.html](http://www.omegafilters.com/450lp-rapidedge.html)

[2] - [http://www.omegafilters.com/products/filters/500rb.html](http://www.omegafilters.com/products/filters/500rb.html)

[3] - [http://www.omegafilters.com/products/filters/460-od-0-4-notc...](http://www.omegafilters.com/products/filters/460-od-0-4-notch.html)

<comment><USER7> Couldn't you achieve the same thing in VR with a camera as long as the camera was sensitive to the full spectrum and the screen could produce the relevant frequencies? Just show the limited colour scheme to each eye?

I guess having passive tech is better in a lot of (most) applications.

<comment><USER24> I think this is how some 3D projection systems work. They have 2 frequencies for each color, and the glasses filter out one of each frequency. You could then achieve the same thing semi-passively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> An interesting result, although their design turns white into yellow. On the other hand they do maintain the white balance, which is good.</comment>


The Power of Incentives: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior - <AUTHOR> https://fs.blog/2017/10/bias-incentives-reinforcement/ <comment><USER2> intermittent reinforcement is a good argument for why the pandemic is going to destroy our economy from a behavioral standpoint. one more shutdown and you can say goodbye to extinction of reduced mobility.</comment>


Http://www.codesounding.org/indexeng.html - <AUTHOR>

The primary goal of CodeSounding is to make it possible hear the sound of execution of a software, assigning instruments and notes to Java programming statements (if, for, etc), so that the flowing of execution could be played as a flow of music. <comment><USER3> This is called Sonification. Have very old history, starting from listening to RF noise produced by logical elements switching from 1->0 or 0->1\. I used this technique before when debugged software for Atmel AVR. Put your PCB inside the AM antenna of the receiver and you can hear (and guess) what is happening inside.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting! Is available any video? Maybe you could also enjoy the "Institute for Algorhythmics" - <USER2> <http://www.algorhythmics.net/en/?page_id=2></comment></comment>


Pioneer: a game of lonely space adventure - <AUTHOR> https://pioneerspacesim.net <comment><USER2> Just reading the discription of this game and it reminds me of Escape Velocity Nova[1]. I spent a long time playing this game in high school. It felt so epic in its scope at the time. I have no idea how popular it was. Did anyone else play this?

[1] [https://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/](https://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/)

<comment><USER3> Dude... I played every story line and eventually wrote some mods. This game is likely the reason I'm a dev today!

Definitely check out Endless Sky for a modern engine! [https://endless- sky.github.io](https://endless-sky.github.io)

<comment><USER4> Currently trying to capture robot-controlled ships to replace my human-crewed ships, to bring down my expenditure on crew salaries.

If I might digress for a minute, Endless Sky inherits Escape Velocity's very 20th-century American approach to economics and labour. The primary money- making activities are commodities arbitrage and freelance gigs (cargo and passenger transport). Crews are paid a fixed rate and can be sent to their deaths in a boarding party without mutinous consequences. There is no concept of anyone's welfare besides the player-captain.

Where's the fully automated luxury gay space communism? It suffers from a slight lack of imagination.

<comment><USER5> I've toyed with a sci-fi novel, and while "worldbuilding" what quickly becomes clear if you're going to do "space opera" type environments that are even somewhat realistic is that you have relatively few sets of choices that drastically constrain your setting.

You're right there's a lack of imagination there, but it's also limited by the setting.

E.g. you have to choose FTL or no-FTL. If you choose no-FTL you're basically limited to a single solar system at most, so whether or not you believe FTL may become possible, for a space sim it's pretty much a requirement.

You need to rule out the singularity or people opting to "upload" to a computer in any significant proportion of the population.

You also have to decide if you believe scarcity will still exist. If you decide we'll all automate everything, then the only route to scarcity is that someone is hoarding everything or is running out of raw materials.

That's a potentially interesting setting, but has significant impacts on space sim type trade: Nobody would be hauling [insert whatever] manufactured goods from Earth to Mars if it can be manufactured by robots right there. Refined materials, maybe, or people. Mining asteroids, certainly. But not shipping foods of all things, for example. But such a setting would also need e.g. significant costs of raw materials and difficulty obtaining tech to automate manufacturing, or the chokehold would slip fairly quickly.

If you rule out automation you've made a choice that's decidedly anti-tech: it presupposes technological stagnation at some point, or that it is slow enough that scarcity is still there at whatever point in time you've chosen, in which case you accordingly need to reflect that in an environment that does not have all kinds of super-fancy technology.

Most space sims end up in that last category: Automation, if it exists, is limited and doesn't affect manufacture and trade enough to be worth mentioning to the point where there are still arbitrage opportunities for small ships; FTL exists, but most other tech seems to have largely stagnated.

Part of the problem, I think, is that these choices makes it easiest to create a frontier feel, and space sims tends to very much be westerns in space (incidentally, "space opera" is derived from "horse opera": a term for a very cliched western).

Exceptions mostly come when you add story elements that let you add e.g. large capital ships and the like and armed forces, such as games like Terminus, that lets you join military units or be a rebel etc.

Thinking outside that box and still have a compelling story is difficult, because it means overcoming a lot of barriers. E.g. let's say you drop FTL. Now we're stuck, unless you find some way of setting your game in the kind of accelerated timeframe that it would take for non-FTL travel to be viable, but hen you also need a setting where that "works" which would be decidedly non- human.

Let's say you admit to people "uploading". Now you need a compelling reason why people stay human, or you'll have a Clifford D. Simak "City" situation on your hands (a bunch of dogs tell each other stories about humans, who have long since left Earth behind, not to "upload", but the effect being the same).

No scarcity? Now you need another mechanism than basic commodities trade.

But the "trade plus occasional piracy" model is very simple. Thinking up variations that doesn't immediately seem flawed and idiotic that solves the above issues is a _lot_ harder.

Don't blame these games for it; blame sci-fi authors who _also_ have not explored this very well, with a few exceptions.

E.g. Iain M. Banks is one of the few authors of what you describe with the "fully automated luxury gay space communism" meme. I'd love to see someone adapt ideas from that into a game. But it also presents a lot of difficulties because his solution to make it interesting is alternatively go up in scale (e.g. the Idiran war, described with destruction of entire habitats housing billions) and down in scale, focusing on specific conflicts involving specific people that might suit e.g. a more complex graphical adventure type game, but that'd be hard to adapt to a space sim. Notably his books have a lot more scenes of people conspiring or doing stuff on the surface than they have of people flying space ships. Because why would you fly a space ship when you can hitch a ride on a Mind controlled ship the size of a city in according comfort? There are reasons, but again they require a lot more thinking and making that work in an open world game as opposed to a story led one would probably be tricky.

One interesting other approach is Frederik Pohl's Gateway. It's set on an alien space station far from earth in a future where _humanity_ does not have FTL, but this alien race that mysteriously left thousands of years ago did have FTL. The lack of FTL + Gateway's distance means there's a lot of scarcity _on Gateway_ irrespective of conditions on Earth. At the same time, Gateway is the literal gateway to a massive number of alien locations via FTL ships that humans haven't figured out to control other than to start them, wait for them to reach their destination, and trigger a return trip. Which means it's basically prospecting where the lucky ones bring back untold fortunes in alien artifacts.

Creative thinking on introducing constraints the way Gateway did is, I think, something that has great potential for more interesting variety in space sims (since I mentioned Banks above, two of his other novels demonstrates this: In "the Algebraist" the setting is a solar system that has been cut off from its surroundings from a century after their local jump gate was destroyed; they're waiting for a replacement sent from the nearest system at sublight speeds - the tech is implied to use entanglement, so they can't just build a new local gate; in "Against a Dark Background" the system is isolated far away from any nearby galaxies, basically crushing any fantasy of interstellar travel)

<comment><USER6> Bravo! I'm going to check out some of these.

Huge fan of the culture series. It's very interesting to see how Banks portrays humans in a scarcity-free society. A lot of the conflict centers on what you're supposed to _do_ with all the free time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> ok... don't use a new URL for each image in your slideshow please. You're just breaking browser navigation.

On topic: cool idea, but heard it before. The amount of effort it would take to _truly_ pull this off is just enormous. I wish them the best, but I've been burned before (you know who you are... Sean.)

<comment><USER8> To be fair, the game you referenced improved with several free updates, not to mention an extensive ARG that hyped up the first anniversary update, essentially delivering the game that was expected on launch day.

I am of the opinion that it was Sony's fault for rushing development of an indie game (the studio had 10 ppl max working on the game at any given time).

<comment><USER7> > To be fair, the game you referenced improved with several free updates

To be fair, it _still_ doesn't have the totality of features they promised at launch, even with all of those updates, and Sean blatantly lied while promoting the thing right up to launch day. "Fair" is the reception they got.

Besides, the game is still boring.

<comment><USER9> (I'll take your point.)

<comment><USER7> That is not at all what happened. Sean was on television and streams telling people that NMS contained features which simply didn't exist only days/weeks prior to release. No one knew it was BS until they bought the game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For those who wonder, the great music is by Wagner (Siegried's march) : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uka8ykFDw2U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uka8ykFDw2U)

This was used with great effect in the movie Excalibur by John Boorman

</comment><comment><USER11> Ah, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier:_Elite_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier:_Elite_II) was a great game... one of many that I've forgotten about, so it is nice to see a reminder like this.

</comment><comment><USER12> This looks awesome! The graphics remind me of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Legacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Legacy) which was one of my favorite games!

</comment><comment><USER13> One of my favorite space simulators was Netwars by Novell (3D, multiplayer, from 1993):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a30Fwd- gisI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a30Fwd-gisI)

</comment><comment><USER14>
        /home/your_username/.pioneer

Hm. They'd better use XDG base directory spec.

</comment><comment><USER15> Noctis 4 was a game I played extensively when I was a bit younger. No Mans Sky is one I thoroughly enjoyed for the same reasons more recently, and still pick up everyone once in a while. Unfortunately, that means that unless a game brings something new to the table, the "market is saturated" from my perspective, and the site provides very little to go on.

</comment><comment><USER16> So this is to Elite Dangerous what FreeOrion is to Stellaris?

<comment><USER17> Oolite is a closer match for Elite Dangerous. Also FOSS and 500+ mods available. One of the devs made a one-click install for Windows featuring a selection of the main eye-candy mods but I'm on mobile now; will provide the link later.

Oolite is more like the original Elite while Pioneer is more like Frontier. Although I'm a former flightsim player who likes "realism", I find Oolite and its non-newtonian physics more enjoyable because you don't spend your time on autopilot and time acceleration. Space is just so big that, in a way, it disolves agency so it's better IMO to compromise and switch to a "believable" rather than "realistic" universe.

<comment><USER17> The link to the "demo" distribution is here: [http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=260064#p26006...](http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=260064#p260064)

Or else the official distribution can be found here: [http://www.oolite.org/](http://www.oolite.org/)

Also, the mods are scripted with Javascript (including most of the AI for NPCs). The API is documented here: [http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Scripting_Oolite_with_JavaS...](http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Scripting_Oolite_with_JavaScript)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Think about accept Bitcoins as donation. Thanks for creating games for Linux!

<comment><USER19> I thought the same! I was like: Cool I will them send some satoshi, but then... :(

<comment><USER20> While much appreciated, we don't need money so much as helping hands ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Off topic but your website needs serious work. Some type of mobile friendly format and some type of lightbox for your images.

I promote and curate indie game projects and couldn't get past the front page of your site.

<comment><USER22> I was just thinking that it had a nice, kind classic feel. I guess I can see why it might be annoying on mobile, though.

<comment><USER23> It's a complete disaster. If this is what HN brutalists, who normally complains about animations and modern UI, think is a good site I rest my case.

<comment><USER24> No one said that it's going to win a prize, but it's not like it's particularly terrible either.

Also, it's the webpage of a game. You go to the webpage, you download it, and then you're probably not gonna see the webpage again for a few months.

It's also free. If you can't get past some flaws in the webpage to grab your free copy, frankly just bugger off.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Would you agree to receive up to 6 ads per day on your phone in return for a free service? - <AUTHOR> http://uk.intruders.tv/Essential-Mediatech-Antti-ohrling-and-Jonathan-MacDonald-of-Blyk_a245.html

<comment><USER2> Yes .. its worth 40$ a month. I'm a student. But i'll ignore them.

<comment><USER3> "users get 217 free texts and 43 voice-call minutes"

Would you limit yourself to this?</comment></comment>