Ask HN: Is there a "ground-up" explanation of PGP/GnuPG? - <AUTHOR> Understanding how git works internally "from the ground up" has been incredibly helpful in my everyday work; things like blobs, commit objects, hashes and how they connect to form the git experience as I know it. Where I had been cargo-culting along previously, it all became clear once I understood the fundamental model of what was going on underneath the interface.
I feel like the same thing could apply to PGP/GnuPG. I am cargo culting my way along but I feel like I would feel much, much, much more comfortable if I knew how it worked from the ground up.
I have loose ideas of asymmetric cryptography and trust circles and such, but nothing concrete to hinge my actions upon, so I mostly try different permutations of command line arguments until GPG appears to do what I want it to do.
Is there a "from the ground up" good guide to PGP that allows me to break out of this pattern? <comment><USER2> I don't know of any full explanations where they dissect the data. However you mentioned (in another comment) that you are familiar with RSA already, so assuming a basic code and crypto background, and from from what I know on a high level, PGP messages are something like this:

        print(number of recipients, algorithm used, etc.)
        for each recipient:
            print(RSA_encrypt(symmetric_key, recipient.public_key))
        print(AES_encrypt(message + hash(message), symmetric_key))

Typically if you send an email from firstname.lastname@example.com to firstname.lastname@example.com, it will find the two public keys from both parties and encrypt the symmetric key for both. The sender obviously wrote it, but they might want to read it back so the symmetric key is also encrypted with their public key, as well as the recipient's.

A random symmetric key is chosen to encrypt the message, since it would be silly to encrypt the whole message for each recipient again and again. And even if there's only one recipient, random key generation plus symmetric key encryption is typically faster than encrypting the whole message with asymmetric crypto (unless the message is just a few bytes, in which case it's fast regardless).

File encryption probably works the same way, except you're typically the sole recipient.

Signatures are done by encrypting a hash of the message with your private key, which everyone can decrypt with your public key to verify the hash. Since you're the only person with the private key, you are the only person who could have encrypted that hash, and since hashes are unique, you must have wanted to sign this text. (N.B. Both keys, public and private, can be used for both encryption and decryption, you just can't use the same key to decrypt if it was already used to encrypt and vice versa.) The hash is used rather than the full message for both speed and because it makes your signature a lot shorter.

Did I miss anything, at least from a crypto standpoint (since I don't know details of the file structure)?

</comment><comment><USER3> Dave Steele's blog:

[https://davesteele.github.io/gpg/2014/09/20/anatomy-of-a- gpg...](https://davesteele.github.io/gpg/2014/09/20/anatomy-of-a-gpg-key/) [https://davesteele.github.io/gpg/2015/08/01/intermediate- gpg...](https://davesteele.github.io/gpg/2015/08/01/intermediate-gpg/)

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends a lot on from which angle you want to understand it. There's a difference between "understanding the variety of command line options" vs. "understanding the meaning of the raw data structures". I learned quite a bit by looking up things in the RFC: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm hoping that by understanding the meaning of the raw data structures, I can ask much more educated questions when I am faced with a new operation I want to perform using GnuPG. The idea is that instead of asking myself "what happens if I set a new, future expiration date on a revoked key?" with no clear answer, I could just think in terms of (e.g., I have no idea how it really works) "since the expiration date is set as an optional header extension to the key data structure, and the revocation bit is maintained in the mandatory header, the revocation bit takes precedence over any other extension headers, including the new expiry date I accidentally set."

This way, knowing the raw data structures makes it easier for me to figure out which command line arguments I want, if you will.

<comment><USER5> That's like saying that if I understand the layout of the Ext4 filesystem, I can ask much more educated questions about how to write shell scripts or other kinds of programs to manipulate files in various ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I haven't read it, but "PGP: Source Code and Internals", by PGP's author Philip Zimmerman is worth a try. I've read his other book "Official PGP User's Guide" and learned quite a bit.

[https://www.amazon.com/PGP-Internals-Philip-R- Zimmermann/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/PGP-Internals-Philip-R- Zimmermann/dp/0262240394)

<comment><USER7> Apparently you didn't learn the correct number of n's in Zimmermann ;)

(prz is very particular about his n's)

<comment><USER6> Mea culpa. I could try to blame autocorrect, but the fault is entirely mine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Understanding how git works internally "from the ground up" has been > incredibly helpful in my everyday work;_

I'm a very competent git user and don't know how blobs work (nor care). I haven't hit a problem scenario so far in which I had to dissect a blob.

> _I feel like the same thing could apply to PGP /GnuPG._

If you don't know _crypto_ , the internals of GNUPG are a bad way to learn it.

I would recommend reading a book, such as _Applied Cryptography_ by Bruce Schneier.

Someone who reads that should be a much better informed, much more sophisticated _user_ of crypto, whether it be an application like GNUPG or a some cryptographic programming library or communication protocol. A developer who reads that book should have the know-how to implement some crypto and spot some crypto-related security flaws.

How GNUPG stores things in various formats is less important than the semantics of those things: like what is a private key, what is a signature and so on. You need to understand what is happening when you, say, verify a signature; just not necessarily at the bit level.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you have time and are fine with it being a bit dry, you can read RFC4880 [0], the RFC for OpenPGP.

This is something I have done some work on (I wrote a basic implementation in an attempt to understand a while ago [1]), but I don't have a nice writeup.

An OpenPGP file, whether it is a public key or encrypted file, consists of a list of packets. Generally it is a binary file, but an armored file consists of this binary in base64 and then a checksum. You can get these packets with gpg --list-packets <file>

Example output from a signed and encrypted file

      gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 09FBFEF359DD186F, created 2016-11-30
            "asdfas <firstname.lastname@example.com>"
      # off=0 ctb=85 tag=1 hlen=3 plen=268
      :pubkey enc packet: version 3, algo 1, keyid 09FBFEF359DD186F
    	  data: [2047 bits]
      # off=271 ctb=d2 tag=18 hlen=3 plen=377 new-ctb
      :encrypted data packet:
    	  length: 377
    	  mdc_method: 2
      # off=293 ctb=a3 tag=8 hlen=1 plen=0 indeterminate
      :compressed packet: algo=2
      # off=295 ctb=90 tag=4 hlen=2 plen=13
      :onepass_sig packet: keyid 0D3B106118D1EFBE
      	version 3, sigclass 0x00, digest 8, pubkey 1, last=1
      # off=310 ctb=ac tag=11 hlen=2 plen=19
      :literal data packet:
      	mode b (62), created 1480523012, name="file.txt",
      	raw data: 5 bytes
      # off=331 ctb=89 tag=2 hlen=3 plen=284
      :signature packet: algo 1, keyid 0D3B106118D1EFBE
      	version 4, created 1480523012, md5len 0, sigclass 0x00
      	digest algo 8, begin of digest 05 c4
      	hashed subpkt 2 len 4 (sig created 2016-11-30)
      	subpkt 16 len 8 (issuer key ID 0D3B106118D1EFBE)
      	data: [2046 bits]

The pubkey encrypted packets contain a key used to encrypt the data. The encrypted data packet includes that symmetrically encrypted data.

When I have more time, I may do a more useful writeup on my site, but currently I am too busy.

[0] [https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4880.txt](https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4880.txt) [1] All I could find was my file parsing code, I dumped it at [https://github.com/artemist/mupg](https://github.com/artemist/mupg)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you have some pointers to Git internals explanation, similar to what you're looking for PGP/GnuPG, can you provide them? That would be useful and illustrative :) .

<comment><USER10> Scott Chacon's videos are priceless. (He's the co-author of the git book.) They explain exactly how git works internally in the simplest terms possible. Either or both of these:

Introduction to Git - talk by Scott Chacon [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbLVvrb2-fY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbLVvrb2-fY)

Introduction to Git with Scott Chacon of GitHub [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDR433b0HJY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDR433b0HJY)

The latter is newer but a bit longer.

Don't be fooled by the video names, these are introductions to the internals not just the interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> An Advanced Introduction to GnuPG by Neal H. Walfield

[https://begriffs.com/posts/2016-11-05-advanced-intro- gnupg.h...](https://begriffs.com/posts/2016-11-05-advanced-intro-gnupg.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Although it doesn't have PGP/GnuPG, I found "The Architecture of Open Source Applications" to be very interesting and something that should be spread out more.

My work demanded me to read the ITK and VTK parts. Git and GDB are also very nice.

[http://aosabook.org/en/index.html](http://aosabook.org/en/index.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ooh, ooh, ooh they're partly by Greg Wilson! I'm a huge fan of him! Shame they don't cover GnuPG. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a great pair of videos that intuitively explain Diffie-Helman key exchange and then the RSA algorithm in a way that requires no previous knowledge of cryptography:

"Public key cryptography - Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBfamv- _do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBfamv-_do)

"Public Key Cryptography: RSA Encryption Algorithm" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXB- V_Keiu8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXB-V_Keiu8)

Good coverage of the fundamentals before attempting a deeper understanding of PGP specifically.

</comment><comment><USER13> I found _The Code Book_ a helpful read, though it's very much a high-level overview.

If you want to really understand what's going on at low level, one option is to just read the RFC and follow the references.

<comment><USER14> I was going to recommend Singh's book as well. I have an older edition of it, and some of it is certainly out of date (I think it has a whole chapter on Freenet, which may still be around but these days has been eclipsed by Tor), but the core principles are quite good. It's among the best explanations of asymmetric cryptography that I've read, anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The low-level is more than good covered, the actual use of the GPG in different scenarios is what's not discussed enough.

To understand the low level you have to learn enough of cryptography. For example, to understand the logic of RSA algorithm, read:

[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_(algorithm)](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_\(algorithm\))

<comment><AUTHOR> How RSA works belongs to those snippets of random information that I do possess, but can't reliably link together to get a full picture of the PGP experience.

<comment><USER15> So what do you miss? There are of course other crypto primitives involved: even when public key algorithms are used, the whole message is encrypted with the symmetric cipher, only the key for the message is encrypted with the public key cryptography. An example for symmetric cipher is AES,

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

but note that older GPG's used less strong symmetric ciphers by default.

There's the RFC about the format of the OpenPGP message:

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.nostarch.com/pgp.htm](https://www.nostarch.com/pgp.htm) for the command line overview from a sysadmin perspective then look at the PGP/public key crypto section here (or read the whole thing) [https://www.crypto101.io/](https://www.crypto101.io/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I wouldn't call it 'ground-up' but you may find this useful: [https://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html](https://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html)</comment>


The Impossible Music of Black MIDI - <AUTHOR> http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/sep/23/impossible-music-black-midi/ <comment><USER2> I immediately thought of a quote from the movie Amadaus (About Mozart)

EMPEROR: Of course I do. It's very good. Of course now and then - just now and then - it gets a touch elaborate.

MOZART: What do you mean, Sire?

EMPEROR: Well, I mean occasionally it seems to have, how shall one say? [he stops in difficulty; turning to Orsini-Rosenberg] How shall one say, Director?

ORSINI-ROSENBERG: Too many notes, Your Majesty?

EMPEROR: Exactly. Very well put. Too many notes.

MOZART: I don't understand. There are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required. Neither more nor less.

EMPEROR: My dear fellow, there are in fact only so many notes the ear can hear in the course of an evening. I think I'm right in saying that, aren't I, Court Composer?

SALIERI: Yes! yes! er, on the whole, yes, Majesty.

MOZART: But this is absurd!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU)

This certainly is an interesting area to explorer musically. Want can we do with a piano if we had more than ten notes to play at a time. Right now it is HOW many can we play and still sound musical from the samples I saw.

<comment><USER3> It has been proved that the subconscious finds more pleasurable musical simplicity or pieces that despite having _many notes_ can be reduced to simple patterns:

 _There is a long held theory that the subconscious mind can recognise patterns within complex data and that we are hardwired to find simple patterns pleasurable. Dr Nicholas Hudson used 'lossless' music compression programs to mimic the brain's ability to condense audio information. He compared the amount of compressibility of random noise to a wide range of music including classical, techno, rock, and pop, and found that, while random noise could only be compressed to 86% of its original file size, and techno, rock, and pop to about 60%, the apparently complex Beethoven's 3rd Symphony compressed to 40%._

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110120073507.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110120073507.htm)

Music is very complex, you need to master harmony to make many notes sound as a whole and interconnected piece. That's the secret:

Less is more. "More notes" is not necessarily better.

<comment><USER4> Random noise cannot be (on average) loselessly compressed, not even by 0.0000001% of the original size. To see that it is the case it is sufficient to notice that a compression algorithm is essentially a way to reorder all possible inputs, all at once, and then apply the pigeonhole principle. Kind of similar to the proof that if a loseless compression algorithm shortens at least one input, it must also extend at least one.

Claiming that there exists an algorithm that loselessly compresses random noise to 86% of the original size is just wrong.

<comment><USER5> It could have been pink noise rather than white (an argument for using it here would be it has a more similar spectral content to music). Pink noise definitely compresses more though still maybe not that much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The weirdest thing: my son who is autistic is fascinated by this music and can't seem to let go. He keeps watching/listening to every "black MIDI" out there on youtube.

<comment><USER7> Isn't some of the autistic spectrum attached to complexity and organization?

Maybe you son is fascinated by the complexity and order of those pieces.

<comment><USER6> I think you're right. he finds order in what i perceive as disorder. I love that he loves that.

<comment><USER8> :) I'm a little curious if your son would like this tune by Mats & Morgan Band.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di9xaUBKY5I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di9xaUBKY5I)

<comment><USER6> i'll have him listen to it tonight and let you know. :)

<comment><USER6> So i made him listen to it and he didn't seem interested. He instead turned to his staple videos instead, some black midi and lot, lot of "Klasky Csupo."

<comment><USER8> Haha, alright!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Has anyone ever created an "inverted" song? For example, take the Ode to Joy melody and play every other note BUT that one. Maybe limit yourself to one octave so it's at least somewhat listenable. Wonder what that would sound like.

<comment><USER10> Yes, it's been done by some prominent composers. It doesn't always sound good without some tweaking!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_%28music%29#Melodies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_%28music%29#Melodies)

<comment><USER11> > When applied to melodies, the inversion of a given melody is the melody > turned upside-down.

That's a lot different from what the original comment was asking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I guess the "speaking piano" could also classify as black MIDI:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4)

<comment><USER13> Seems like black MIDI could also speak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's facinating!

If you are reading this comment watch this [Black MIDI] Synthesia – "Nyan Trololol" | Rainbow Tylenol & Nyan Cat Remix ~ BusiedGem

[https://youtu.be/zqan54VUSq0](https://youtu.be/zqan54VUSq0)

You are welcome ;)

<comment><USER15> Holy shit that is gorgeous. It's like the song is its own visualizer when played back this way. Those rotating rainbows...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is fascinating! They took a medium I had always classified as a cheap imitation of a real piano, and accentuated its strengths to make it something incredibly! Blocks of notes for percussion, impossibly fast trills for a different timbre of sustained notes, melodies that are detectable aurally but not visually... Awesome!

<comment><USER17> > They took a medium I had always classified as a cheap imitation of a real > piano

It's all down to the sound generator at the other end of the MIDI cable though. Electric piano's are pretty amazing sounding these days. Lots of music creation software uses sampled, live instruments and some of those are recorded at very high quality. All of which can be driven through MIDI too, although there are obvious limitations to the way a professional can play a real piano, most people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference in a blind test.

Awesome indeed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Pretty cool, but the note-counts are a bit less impressive when you realize they're using big blocks of notes to simulate percussion and noise/pads.

</comment><comment><USER19> Mmmm. Reminds me of some of the most interesting Drum & Bass that I come across in my listening / purchasing. From what I can tell, it has about the same appeal haha.

I've been legitimately impressed by the abilities of certain artists to really push the boundaries and limits - in my opinion - of packing in musicality in the D&B platform. One I can point to would be Camo & Krooked[0]. Another that sort of crosses into bass music would be Knife Party[1]. What they have in common, to my ears, is that they're able to embrace the full spectrum of available sounds. High peaks and really, really deep bass. Then, with so much digital control, they can go up and down, place certain sounds in certain tonal areas...it's just amazing to me.

One of the things that infuriates me about music commentary is the tired refrain of "rock is dead" or "music isn't original anymore" because frankly, they're not true. Rock continues to be a broad genre, and I really see electronic-production tunes like Skrillex an extension of rock and metal in that it appeals to a younger audience (predominately) and is very abrasive to 'traditional' ears.

Music is really going through a metamorphasis of innovation thanks to software like Ableton and the numerous brilliant synths out there. It's one thing to say "I don't like that music" but it's completely dishonest to say nothing's original anymore. Yes, there will always be 'trend jumpers' and some formulaic stuff (it goes for all genres, and specifically anything Max Martin touches), but now and then, BAM. Something shows up and moves the needle.

[0] Camo & Krooked - Let's Get Dirty - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL5H38bpvFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL5H38bpvFA)

[1] Knife Party - Resistance - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwqUGkR9yh8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwqUGkR9yh8)

<comment><USER20> You are not mentioning the whole drill'n'bass era/subgenre.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y7DVbFado0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y7DVbFado0)

4 minutes in... there were a few people/groups that did this style for a while. Aphex Twin was the most popular artist that crossed into this territory, but Venetian and others took it a bit more "purely" into the drill area.

Sonically and technically, compared to the black MIDI thing, it's more open- ended.

The limitations to this area are the focus on percussive elements vs. tearing apart other pieces of the palette with as much care.

<comment><USER21> I'd say Autechre - Gantz Graf[1] was a closer match as it has the dense production while still having some essence of a melody (albeit in the less traditional sense of the term).

But since we're talking about Aphex Twin, Mt Saint Michel[2] deserves an honorable mention. (bonus points to anyone who's familiar with the Tate Modern exhibit that was based on this track and a video of a cyborg monkey drumming)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev3vENli7wQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev3vENli7wQ)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlr8duyToKo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlr8duyToKo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The potential artistic value here doesn't appear to be so much in the pure number of notes, which is not particularly impressive in itself, given that MIDI files are easily auto-generated. But the examples given remind me most of all of the old early days of overdriving vacuum-tube based amplifiers till you got the crunching of the waveforms and created an entirely new sound.

Here, the folks creating these files are creating new kinds of sounds by overdriving their MIDI synths, essentially. By providing more notes than can actually be generated at once, or at rates faster than the chosen synth patch can coherently render, you can achieve new and unplanned sounds and effects.

Essentially the same idea as getting the explosion-type of sounds out of old 8-bit PCM synths in game consoles by overloading the input beyond spec.

</comment><comment><USER23> Lubomyr Melnyk does something similar by hand on a real piano.

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

</comment><comment><USER24> The music looks incredibly dense, but I wonder what would happen if you took a symphonic score and put all the notes on the same staff. (and also wonder if they could get significant reduction in note count by using different instruments besides a piano)

</comment><comment><USER25> As much fun as the black MIDI is, you should also check out the music of Conlon Nancarrow, who was mentioned prominently at the beginning of the article. Unlike black MIDI, which tends strongly to the metronomic behavior of drum machines and modern computerized music, Nancarrow's music _swings_. His heart wasn't in 8 bit video game sounds, but rather in 20th century avant- garde classical and jazz.

The closest tonal reference for most people would be certain kinds of soundtrack music, especially older mystery movies and kaiju films from Japan. But it's more musically _interesting_ , and more _human_ , than the relatively simplistic sounds of black MIDI.

Dig it, man.

</comment><comment><USER26> If these were in the form of player piano rolls, they'd probably have a similar effect to this:

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

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm synesthetic and this is AMAZING! How did I not know this genre existed before now?

</comment><comment><USER28> Along the same lines, but perhaps more accessible, and played with a Yamaha Disklavier player piano:

[http://www.kylegann.com/BudRanBackOut.mp3](http://www.kylegann.com/BudRanBackOut.mp3)

Kyle Gann - Bud Ran Back Out (Mechanical Piano Study No. 6) (2001) "The question was whether I could make the Disklavier respond as fast as Bud Powell played. Doubting that I could surpass him, I added some tricks that I hope Powell might have envied, such as playing his ultrafast melodies in chromatic sixths and triple octaves, and simultaneous melodies in tempo ratios of 7 against 8 against 9. It was time for technology to provide a new spin on Thelonious Monk's composition _In Walked Bud_. The piece is dedicated to Thurman Barker."

More here:

[http://www.kylegann.com/Gannmusic.html](http://www.kylegann.com/Gannmusic.html)

[http://www.kylegann.com/DisklavierStudiesnotes.html](http://www.kylegann.com/DisklavierStudiesnotes.html)

</comment><comment><USER29> A normally electronic musician, Dan Deacon, has used some very complex player piano arrangements. When he recorded his album Bromst, they set up multiple MIDI player pianos to play the midi arrangements. What I found very interesting is that the density of the notes actually builds up to a very full and soothing (to me) sound, when played on the analogue instruments rather than on a computer. This is an album I play when driving through the woods or staring at the stars. There is texture to be heard from all of the hammering keys, but the notes all combine to a smoother and very meditative, calming, uplifting sound. I feel like like that fullness of sound from the analogue instrument allows the listener to here the overarching melodies, rather than focus on how many notes are being played.

Here is a link to a documentary about the recording of the album linked to a visual of the pianos playing:

[https://youtu.be/TPg4Vcr56F0?t=785](https://youtu.be/TPg4Vcr56F0?t=785)

</comment><comment><USER30> There's a "too many notes" version of Bad Apple? Hmm... I think I'll stick with marasy8's incredible cover[1] of the song.

Not that there is anything wrong with noise. As a fan of CCCC (Mayuko Hino)[2], I have often thought noise is best when it is played directly (analog), instead of the digital perfection of MIDI. I like my digital noise when it's written in Fourth[3].

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7uwOp0Yck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7uwOp0Yck)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXbb-e0RRc0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXbb-e0RRc0)

[3] [http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/](http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/) (warning: turn down the volume - raw square waves at the beginning!)

</comment><comment><USER31> This isn't particularly novel. Two good historical examples besides Conlon Nancarrow are:

* Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilGthRhwP8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilGthRhwP8) (music + animated score)

* George Crumb's Black Angels - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11o8nHk-l_o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11o8nHk-l_o) \- (images from the score via [https://goo.gl/2rHYAc](https://goo.gl/2rHYAc))

</comment><comment><USER32> It's interesting how this sort of blurs the line between composition and sound design. At some point I would only really call these "notes" in the strictly technical sense that they are encoded as such in the MIDI stream, while the compositions themselves seem like relatively straight forward songs. In that sense, songs like Circus Galop (written for player piano) are more interesting compositionally.

</comment><comment><USER33> Their examples reminded me of listening to a modem going all out. At points it simply turns into a hiss.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's amazing how complicated you can make something look with very low midi velocities...

</comment><comment><USER35> What I find particularly interesting to watch is the patterns drawn by some of those YouTube videos when the notes are struck. A visual art as well as the sound.

</comment><comment><USER36> Even more notes:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Less is more" \- Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

<comment><USER8> "More is more" \- Yngwie Malmsteen

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHZ48AE3TOI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHZ48AE3TOI)

<comment><USER37> And his amps definitely go to 11...

I was a huge Yngwie fan back when I was into guitar music...his "Rising Force" album simply blew me away.

"Icarus' Dream Suite Op. 4" has to be one of the best guitar songs ever written and executed.

I actually stopped trying to be a guitar-hero after studying that album.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It is a little rough to see this on the front page for so long when I submitted the exact same link and title 3 hours earlier. :-(

</comment><comment><USER39> Not really fundamentally interesting from a musical standpoint. Only 'interesting' part of it is looks funny on paper...

<comment><USER7> To mee, it seems like they arrange a song for several instruments, like an orchestra, and just put all notes on the same midi instrument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Too many notes? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_UsmvtyxEI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_UsmvtyxEI)

(To clarify - I feel the clip from Amadeus is somewhat amusing in this context, but to those who critique black midi as music, I don't think it is really ... it's art).

</comment><comment><USER41> It's a shame that none of this music is ... well... _enjoyable_.

<comment><USER8> Sure it is. It just depends on what you enjoy. It's called subjective experience and it's a pretty big deal for art. In my experience, that "Bad Apple" tune in the article is sublime, strange, beautiful, funny, and novel, all enjoyable characteristics.

<comment><USER41> >It's called subjective experience and it's a pretty big deal for art

Yes, I know. What I did was called a quip, and I thought the fine people of Hacker News had a sense of humor.

Surely you'll admit that this is far less accessible, in terms of enjoyment, than a lot of other music.

<comment><USER8> You may have noticed that my rejoinder was not entirely serious either.

Of course it's less accessible. In terms of enjoyment though, I actively seek out non-accessible music, because some of it seems to tickle a particular funny-bone and I don't find that in accessible music.

The music I put on to really enjoy on a visceral level is stuff that I can't even play ten seconds of in public settings without people yelling at me.

I dunno, people seem to find even this stuff inaccessible, but it's some of my favorite music ever:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di9xaUBKY5I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di9xaUBKY5I)

<comment><USER42> Thank you for posting that video link! I'm listening to the album ProgXprimetal now for the first time and it's incredible.

<comment><USER8> I haven't even heard of that! Oh, it's another project with the drummer, Morgan Ågren. He does a lot of cool stuff (including the educational drumming TV show from which that link was a clip).

While googling I found a kickstarted documentary about him from 2013.

[https://vimeo.com/ondemand/morgan](https://vimeo.com/ondemand/morgan)

I think I'll watch it right now. :)

Mats Öberg, the keyboardist, is also an excellent jazz pianist and seems to play on loads of new Swedish jazz records. Here's him with his own jazz trio. He also has two very beautiful solo piano albums (they're on Spotify and iTunes).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tOykrVfIgc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tOykrVfIgc)

While I'm geeking out... that Mats/Morgan song "Hollmervalsen" is named for Lars Hollmer ("Hollmer waltz"), a composer who played accordion and keyboard and was an important part of the Swedish progressive music scene in the 60s/60s. That scene split into a more political part and a more freaky part, and we're talking about the freaky part.

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

His band Samla Mammas Manna ("Gather Mother's Manna") made some truly remarkable music. They took influences from Swedish folk music and combined it with Zappa-ish jazz rock. With the song "Musmjölkningsmaskinen" ("The Mouse Milking Machine") from 1974 you can understand they were an influence on Mats & Morgan.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhDbgp1RX4M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhDbgp1RX4M)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So, it's like the high-frequency trading of music then.

</comment><comment><USER44> There's a bit of discussion from 2 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6640963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6640963)

<comment><USER45> There is also another post from 3 hours before this one: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10544633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10544633)

<comment><USER46> How is that even possible?

Edit: OK, since someone's going to downvote me for asking that question, I'll add a bit more context:

Duplicate submissions are supposed to be ignored. The URLs for these two submissions appear to be identical, so my question stands: how has this happened?

<comment><USER47> Perhaps both submitted URL's were different but resolved to the same URL by HN's software?

<comment><USER48> So wouldn't HN's software detect "identical resolved URLs"?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


French pensioner ejected from fighter jet after accidentally grabbing handle - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/09/frenchman_ejected_fighter_jet_retirement_jolly/ <comment><USER2> The potential for disaster was enormous, but in the end everything went well. In retrospect it was so goofy that the humorous tone of the writing was fitting and made it a much more interesting read.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22816075](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22816075)

</comment><comment><USER4> Some poor accident investigator had to write that up.

<comment><USER5> Considering it sounds like the ejection seat failed to work properly, I don't blame them for writing it up</comment></comment>


Teletext Bootstrap Theme - <AUTHOR> http://code.steadman.io/telestrap/

<comment><USER2> I'm usually wary when I see new accounts voting stuff up, but this one is done really well. Bookmarked.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tidy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very nice.</comment>


Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/car-company-gets-u-loan-builds-cars-finland-172441546.html

<comment><USER2> A good example of why companies should avoid taking government money if they can: even if the government doesn't impose a lot of restrictions on you upfront, the press will retroactively.

<comment><USER3> Does it matter? I mean sure some people will hate you but properly not enough to lynch you. I would it imagine it would be worse for a start-up to be unknown that to have free publicity, even if it was negative.

<comment><USER2> I don't know how much it matters, to be honest. Depends how big a distraction it is for the company. E.g. I'd guess this news story is not the last they'll hear about it. Republicans will presumably use this as a stick to beat the administration with.

<comment><USER4> Should they not?

<comment><USER2> I don't know that either. I don't know any details of this case. My point was just that it will be a distraction for the company if they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have moderately high hopes for Tesla, but I really can't see Fisker being a success.

It's weird-looking, expensive ($100K), has a very limited electric range (32 miles) and is incredibly fuel-inefficient (20mpg) once the battery runs out.

Furthermore, unlike Tesla, they don't seem to have a firm plan to proceed from a low-volume luxury model to a higher-volume cheaper model.

Besides, Tesla seems to have the rather limited "I'm a rich dude who wants to show how much I care about the environment by driving around in an expensive electric car" market sewn up pretty well. And the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt are far cheaper, generally better, and I'd trust 'em a lot more.

The only real question is how many Karmas will get built before Fisker goes bankrupt taking $528 million of US taxpayer money with it.

Car manufacturing is a really hard business to break into. If you look at the world's big car companies, they've practically all been around since the 1920s, and possibly slightly before. Kia was founded in 1944. I can't think of any companies (aside from offshoots of existing car or related motorized equipment companies) that have been sucessfully founded since the end of WW2.

<comment><USER6> I am willing to stand up to be a customer of Fisker, but not of Tesla.

I have places I go that are > 200 miles from home. I want to drive my fun car to these places. The Tesla can't do this. I can never be a customer of Tesla's with this restriction.

I will be buying the convertible Fisker Karma if they ever get to the point of selling it!

<comment><USER5> You'd be much better off getting, say, a Nissan Leaf for local journeys and a Porsche Boxster (or whatever fun car you like) for longer trips.

You'll have better fuel economy and about $20K in change.

<comment><USER7> I wish you could just rent a generator on a trailer. A single-speed turbine should still win for highway efficiency.

<comment><USER5> Well, you can rent a trailer and you can rent a generator, so I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work!

Could be fun to try driving a Tesla transcontinentally with a trailer and... however many generators it would take to keep it running.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ish. According to a response article* , the DOE loan is earmarked to only be used for spending within the US. The company in question also has a Delaware plant that they bought from GM and are in the process of hiring for and upgrading.

* ( [http://www.grist.org/cleantech/2011-10-21-the-facts-on-fiske...](http://www.grist.org/cleantech/2011-10-21-the-facts-on-fisker-the-medias-latest-faux-scandal) )

</comment><comment><USER6> This headline could be changed to be: Car maker builds cars in Finland, gets US loan _guarantee_ to build cars in US and create US jobs

Maybe it's a bit long for a headline

This _news_ is also 2 years old!

<comment><USER5> What _is_ a loan guarantee, anyway?

Oh, I looked it up. Apparently it's an assumption of the risk if the company defaults. So if I'm understanding this correctly, from the US Government's point of view it has all the risk of giving them a loan (we're on the hook if they default), with none of the upside (if they pay it back we don't get the interest). Right?

<comment> brown9-2 Well the upside is that the lender develops successful technology that has a big impact on the economy and the movement away from reliance on oil.

It's subsidized research.

<comment><USER9> It is corruption, a form of "venture socialism" where politically connected donors get money with no-strings-attached. It's heads I win, tails, the taxpayer loses. This form of government-driven investment is a dramatic departure from 200 years of American tradition. Nobody really noticed because a lot of these programs were created by George W Bush, with Democratic support, and the media cheerleading anything "green".

<comment><USER10> There are plenty of examples of these types of government backed deals. Disneyland being one of the most famous that nobody talks about but the tradition predates 'corporations' with the 'East India Company' being the both the first example of a large multi-national company and probably the most blatant example. Some of this is infrastructure like oil pipelines, but homestead land grants are both classic American expansionism and free handouts at the same time.

<comment><USER9> You are mistaken. Disneyland is a classic private entrepreneurial tale. Walt Disney sold his home to finance the park.

<http://www.mackinac.org/7164>

Homestead land grants cost taxpayers nothing and went to small family farmers. That's nothing like half-billion dollar taxpayer loans directed by politicians in Washington.

<comment><USER10> Homestead land grants cost taxpayers _LAND_.

After the film, it was explained that for Disney World, including EPCOT, to succeed, a special district would have to be formed: the Reedy Creek Improvement District with two cities inside it, the City of Bay Lake and the City of Reedy Creek (now the City of Lake Buena Vista). In addition to the standard powers of an incorporated city, _which include the issuance of tax- free bonds, the district would have immunity from any current or future county or state land-use laws._ The only areas where the district had to submit to the county and state would be property taxes and elevator inspections.[1]

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Considering this, I think it is a good move, "He said the decision, ultimately, was to help prevent his company from following the path of Solyndra, which exhausted nearly all of its loan money on a high-tech solar manufacturing plant in Freemont, California. "

<comment><USER9> Fisker's other plant is in Joe Biden's Delaware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd seriously consider getting a mid-sized electric SUV, but these small sport cars are just plain useless. However, I understand that for novel products like electric cars it's best to start by marketing them to people who can afford them and who can influence others to buy them...

And the headline is just misleading (like most headlines on Yahoo News): not only did the company say they've spent the money in the US, they actually can't spend them outside the country...

</comment><comment><USER12> Yahoo. More work here for vehicle builders!</comment>


Gild to donate $5 to EFF fo each coder that solves our programming puzzle - <AUTHOR> http://fightsopa.org

<comment><USER2> Clever idea to generate buzz while making an impact.

Edit, took a shot at it:

Is there something wrong with how you're running the scripts? My Python script seems to die saying:

        No such file or directory: '/opt/puzzles/*.in'

But your example on how you're going to run it on the bottom says you will specify an actual file rather than a wildcard. Running it locally on my machine on all your tests results in this:

        $ python test.py d.in > d_me.out
        $ md5 d.out
        MD5 (d.out) = c6dc722a7020baacebd876d4377065ad
        $ md5 d_me.out
        MD5 (d_me.out) = c6dc722a7020baacebd876d4377065ad

So I doubt it's a silent failure in my code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, your script should receive the path to a single file, not a wildcard. I'll take a look at the logs. :) Thanks for your feedback.

<comment><USER2> Works now, thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How long does it take? I earn an hourly rate such that $5 is not a lot of my time - perhaps it'd be more efficient simply to send them $5.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a fairly easy puzzle, for an average programmer it should take at most half an hour. Give it a shot :)

<comment><USER3> That's valuing my time at $10 an hour. No grazie:-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure in this case you better send them the 5$, nevertheless please share this with friends or colleagues that may want to give their contribution while having fun for half an hour.

By the way, if you're an experienced programmer the solution is quite obvious, it should take less than 15 minutes. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I solved the puzzle :) $5 to EFF for my solution

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


When you're redesigning something, make sure you're not missing the point - <AUTHOR> http://images.vfl.ru/ii/1324249540/ec4cc693/239504.jpg

<comment><USER2> When you're submitting something with a cryptic title, make sure people can understand it.

<comment><AUTHOR> that picture is quite self-descriptive

<comment><USER2> Then explain. I don't get it.

<comment><AUTHOR> they decided to redesign the christmas tree but didn't get what was wrong about it?

<comment><USER2> can you please explain further? You are making me feel like an idiot. I don't see anything wrong with the tree. What exactly is the joke in here? Also, i'm even more confused because it doesn't even seem like a "redesign" at all. Not even sure if these two pictures are from the same location. The backgrounds are different.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon may delay Kindle shipments, say sources - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120711PD216.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Essentially ...

"there have been recent reports indicating that Amazon has stopped certain parts shipments for the new Kindle and there is a possibility that orders from Amazon's electronic paper display provider, E Ink, will be stopped throughout July and August in order to tackle issues with the device's front light"</comment>


Radial NCAA Bracket in D3.js - <AUTHOR> http://billmill.org/roundbracket/ <comment><USER2> I love the look of this, but I have one suggestion to make. If the probability for a particular round is < 1%, I would at least leave one decimal place or show "< 1%" instead of having 0%, since obviously there is still some chance of the team making it to that round, even if it's a fraction of a percent.

<comment><USER3> A bit off topic, but I find it odd how the 16-seed teams are calculated at between 1-4%, even though no 16-seed team has made it past the first round in the entirety of the 64-team tournament (1985: 29 years x 4 teams = 0 for 116).

Not sure how any of these have more than a <1% chance, let alone 4%.

<comment><USER4> The usual method for calculating these percentages is to calculate a power rating for each team, then to use the log5 formula[1] to arrive at the percentage chance of a team winning.

So, the 1-4% chance of a 16 winning is the result of applying the log5 algorithm to their power ratings.

Also remember that there's only 80 16-vs-1 games in 20 years, and only expanded to 64 teams in 1985, so it's totally possible that there is a 1-4% chance for a 16 to beat a 1 and it just hasn't happened yet.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log5)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love the presentation.

If I can be a complete jerk, but improvement is based on feedback, etc., a couple of modifications:

* edit the lower values (2% or less, especially at the center) to reflect unlikely but possible events: most people (rightfully) assume that 0% means: not possible, as in, against the laws of nature. Very unlikely is more 0.1 or 0.01%; it's a huge hassle, but from experience those are worth all the days spent on that -- I've done it enough times in LaTeX, R and D3.js to know…

* use the team colors for the tone; it's cheesy, but fans would love that;

* use the likelihood to reach that point as an opacity factor: opacity is a fairly intuitive way of expressing something.

Finally, if you want newspapers to re-use it, make version with a black and white background. Yes, I should do all that myself, rather than comment… Yes, it would be easier for you all to comment before I gather the courage and try.

<comment><USER6> D3 has a nice formatting helper functions:

        > d3.format('.2%')(.223)
          "22.30%"

[https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Formatting](https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Formatting)

It'd also be cool if mousing over the inner circle updated the coloring of teams, showing their probability of reaching a certain game.

<comment><USER5> Indeed — but the thing is to make that conditional with the size of the number and not mess up with the layout. Doable, but it's the kind of thing that makes a great presentation hours away from a usable one.

As for the highlight… Yes, I though about that, but it makes things complicated: you have to decide what threshold to cut, and sport team fans are very passionate, so that would ostracise the remaining teams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only one that was hoping I could fill in the bracket by clicking on a team to see the probabilities of different matchups (vs. the overall probability of each individual team for each round)?

<comment><USER4> Nate Silver doesn't make that information available... I'm considering writing code to calculate that information from the odds he gives.

<comment><USER7> please do. would be awesome to see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cal Poly at 0% ... _So you 're saying there's a chance!_

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks awesome, but there are a few simple questions this makes really hard to answer without experimenting with mouseovers.

"Who are the likely contenders?"

"What are some of the closest games between big contenders we will enjoy?"

</comment><comment><USER10> Great stuff. I wish this was posted yesterday before I filled out mine.

</comment><comment><USER11> Textual explanation would be helpful...</comment>


Squirrels listen in to birds' conversations as signal of safety - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-09-squirrels-birds-conversations-safety.html <comment><USER2> We have chickens, and they do the same thing. They listen for cues from other species, and rightly so. We have an adopted (just showed up one day) guinea hen who has a jungle type squawk she makes whenever a predator, including a local sharp-shinned hawk is present. When she pipes up, everyone takes cover. Ironically, when she makes the noise, our barn cats look to start hunting/ crouching. They are fantastic predators.

</comment><comment><USER3> I suspect the most distracted, hormonally frenzied squirrel is more aware of his environment and present in his moment than the majority of humans can achieve with concentrated effort.

Go sit in a forest clearing and be still and quiet long enough for everything to decide you're staying and work around you. That place on that day will have a story of more detail, drama and character than any soap opera could hope to get. Tomorrow there'll be another epic there. The next clearing over has a different show.

<comment><USER4> Isn't that just by nature of the fact that the squirrel lives in an environment in which he has to actively search for food when he's hungry and one that has other entities actively trying to kill it?

<comment><USER5> This is correct. When I'm riding my bike it's easy to stay in the moment. I have to be alert for busted infrastructure, innatentive drivers, impulsive first responders and all manner of other threats. If I'm driving a car it's mostly boring. I have to actively work to keep my mind on task. I suspect others are like me, and that's why distracted driving is such a big problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Other birds do as well. They all pay attention to each other. I have a very active set of bird feeders in a rural area (so many species of birds and other animals use them at the same time). I am within sight to it for much of the day and it's very clear that they all cue off of each other. Some are more brave, others more timid but they all pay attention. A chipmunk or bird fight won't phase the others but a cat (or person or hawk overhead) will cause the birds to make what is, for some of them, a very clearly different call (usually loud and abrupt) and they all react at the same time.

<comment> mkr-hn I've watched birds land in front of me, turn their backs to me, and keep looking back. I wonder if they were assessing me as a potential threat for other birds. They do seem to let me get closer now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Over 100 years ago, in _Wild Animals I Have Known_ (1898), Ernest Thompson Seton describes this behavior in rabbits.

One of my favorite books.

<comment><USER8> "though the bluejay often tells lies for mischief you are safe to believe him when he brings ill news."

It is my favorite book. :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the birding world there's a thing called pishing. If you get it right you're basically alerting them to predators in the area and they come by to see what's up (and potentially mob the predator if need be). Great for taking pics.

[1] [https://www.thespruce.com/pishing-to-attract- birds-386698](https://www.thespruce.com/pishing-to-attract-birds-386698)

</comment><comment><USER10> While in Africa on Safari, it quickly became clear that everything was listening to everything else, including us. It didn't take long to understand the various alert calls and use them to find big predators to shoot (with a camera!)

</comment><comment><USER11> Excellent book on this topic:

[https://www.amazon.com/What-Robin-Knows-Secrets- Natural/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/What-Robin-Knows-Secrets- Natural/dp/054400230X/)

</comment><comment><USER12> The graphic at the top of the article with the thought bubble is just fantastic

<comment><USER13> I like that it's helpfully titled "Listening grey squirrel" just in case there was any remaining doubt of the subject.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm always surprised how, in my experience at least, people with less exposure to animals usually underestimate their ability to understand their surroundings and even feel emotions.

</comment><comment><USER15> Might it be that birds just fly away immediately in the presence of a predator and for the same reason we humans find the sound of birds chirping so relaxing?

<comment><USER16> It is not always the case, it is not unusual that they change the way they sound. "Bird chirping" can roughly be divided into bird song and bird calls. Bird songs are for the most part relaxing, while bird calls are often used for warning purposes. Bird watchers learn to look out when the birds in an area change from the first to the latter. For example, I once looked around in this circumstance and soon saw an owl with a dead bird in its claws. I am not surprised that other animals, such as squirrels, learn to make the association too.

<comment><USER17> To add to this, songbirds also sometimes engange in mobbing when predators show up. Different species will all flock together and bombard the predator. I've watched it happen to my cat before when he was chasing chickadees around. All the birds in the yard ganged up on him and chased him off. He's not a very good hunter, so the birds weren't really in danger either way. One of my biology teachers mentioned if you make the right noises while walking through the forest, you can trick the song birds into thinking you're a predator and see the phenomenon for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> But do cats make that chattering sound to lure birds with a false sense of safety?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plPcu0Le1Ts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plPcu0Le1Ts)

</comment><comment><USER19> It works in reverse. I remember reading ravens and wolves cooperate to hunt. The crows alert the wolves to prey, the wolves take care of it, then the crows share the spoils afterwards.

<comment><USER20> Sounds like what I learned from Ravens in Winter ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/122665.Ravens_in_Winter](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/122665.Ravens_in_Winter)) an excellent read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fascinating. This particular behavior is somewhat widely known but it does serve as a hint that there are depths of animal behavior we haven't yet perceived. Billions of years of evolution have created fantastically complex interactive systems on the microscopic level, but we sometimes forget it's had just as much time to work on animal behaviors as it has their physical makeup. I suspect there's many more surprising things to find.

</comment><comment><USER22> We have a bird feeder, which squirrels cannot (usually) get to but they hang out nearby to eat what falls out. We also have the occasional feral cat or two that swing by. I can attest that they are all listening to each other sound the alarm, so it makes sense they would also listen to the "all clear".

My wife also does, because if they sound the alarm that means a cat is nearby, and she comes over to the window to see if she can see the cat. This may have caused me to pay more attention to the whole interaction.

<comment><USER23> What bird feeder? Because every one I've ever tried has been promptly ransacked by squirrels immediately after filling it.

<comment><USER22> Sorry, didn't see the reply until now. I have a nothing special bird-feeder, but two things make it harder for squirrels to get to: 1) it is suspended, from high above, by a rope around a tree branch; it is high enough that they cannot jump up to it from below (well, it is high enough now, anyway, since I saw them doing that) 2) just above the bird feeder is a dome, with a hole in the center, through which the rope passes. There is a stick which the rope is tied around, which keeps the dome just above the bird feeder. If the squirrel climbs down the rope from above, the dome keeps them from getting to the bird feeder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Off topic, this does raise the question of who _we_ listen to to not be terrorised by squirrels.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-45150298](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45150298)

(Sorry mods)

</comment><comment><USER24> Why are they so distracted, paranoid, and cute? Squirrels are truly my spirit animal</comment>


What Makes This Song Great? Everything She Does Is Magic, by the Police - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZavJLr5Otq4 <comment><USER2> First of all you have three amazing musicians and an impeccable performance.

The song starts nice and easy and quickly ramps up to the chorus. The chorus is upbeat, forward-thinking, borrowing from the trends of the day of ska/punk stylings.

The bridge is a nice musical breather that lifts up --- even has a synth riser sound and stop before a drop. This technique is used a lot in dubstep today. Back into a chorus with more elements tossed in adding more energy.

The tag and outtro are a nice, afterglow, kind of feel with new melodic and lyrical content. As if the climax had been reached and it's time for a cigarette.

That's what makes it great. It's musical sex.</comment>


Halfway There: Our Startup Road to $1M ARR - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@marianorc/halfway-there-the-road-to-1m-arr-d572ba4144a7 <comment><USER2> As a startup guy myself, this is relatable</comment>


Instagram Face: The rise of selfie make-up and quest for hyper-perfection (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5c237a34-7a47-4deb-a5b4-a23e77cc88f7 <comment><USER2> The key takeaway here isn't that "Instagram face" exists or what it looks like, but that it's a product of two factors: the emergence of less invasive plastic surgery techniques, and of software specifically dedicated to producing these faces. This being HN, the existence of the software is the really interesting bit.

It's called FaceTune:

 _> FaceTune, which was released in 2013 and promises to help you "wow your friends with every selfie," enables even more precision... "I think ninety- five per cent of the most-followed people on Instagram use FaceTune, easily," Smith told me._

It's a phone app. More information is available here: [https://www.facetuneapp.com/](https://www.facetuneapp.com/)

Click the "watch video" link on that homepage to see a good visual example of what the software can do. (Warning in advance, the video has an obnoxious, loud techno soundtrack. Mute the tab before you hit play.)

<comment><USER3> My favorite FaceTune example:

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BmnSLiIF- Rl/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BmnSLiIF-Rl/)

<comment><USER4> Warning: if you click that link on some browsers it will remove your back button history by opening a new tab and killing the previous one.

Instagram is aggresively user-hostile and if you work there you should feel bad.

<comment><USER5> When did it become ok to target individuals who work at companies? The last week I've seen an uptick in these attacks on HN, they come off as very "I'm better than you" SJW'y, totally oblivious to a person's situation.

Let's not turn this into a thing people do.

<comment><USER6> I mean, as a society we agreed "I was just doing my job" isn't any sort of ethical defense about a century ago. It really just comes down to whether or not you support what these companies do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember being a popular, outgoing, friendly kid from kindergarten until 5th grade when I got my first pair of glasses.

The glasses were not fashionable, and I went from being popular to being an introverted and isolated kid for the next 15 years. I eventually ditched glasses for contacts and suddenly became outgoing again.

While having glasses wasn't the only factor for my behavior, there was a noticeable difference to people's reaction to you based on how you look. I consider myself confident regardless of appearance, but I have to admit that the activation energy required for being sociable greatly increases when you don't have the right look.

Many people don't have high levels of confidence from within themselves and outward affirmation influences them a lot. Even if you have high levels of internal confidence, you'll still feel the dopamine of affirmation noticeably, and there's definitely a temptation to fall into milking that affirmation to very unhealthy levels.

Affirmation is not the same as social acceptance, but they are close proxies. Many people seek after social acceptance and mistake social affirmation for it, leading us down the wrong path.

But social acceptance cannot be pulled out of people; it must be pushed. You can compel someone to compliment you, but you can't compel someone to accept you. Instead, active communication of acceptance is a trait that needs to be fostered in our culture in order to have a healthier society.

</comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I can't say I find "Instagram Face" to be attractive at all. It looks ridiculously unnatural, and evokes the same feeling as those ultra-SEO'd mostly contentless sites that flood search results.

<comment><USER9> I wonder if that's true for people who end up spending more time on Instagram than elsewhere, and start finding the IG Face to be more "natural" and get weirded out when they see people with wrinkles and stuff.

I'm assuming here that "natural" is a result of what you (and I, since I feel similarly) are just used to.

<comment><USER10> > and get weirded out when they see people with wrinkles and stuff.

Well someday they will have to look around them and see people with wrinkles... in real life.. unless they are too hooked to their phones to even realize this.

<comment><USER11> AR facetune will save them.

<comment><USER12> You probably said that tongue in cheek, but that's probably where we're headed. People value their social media intensely, and the combination of the two will naturally happen as a consequence of VR/AR becoming ubiquitous in our lives.

<comment><USER13> A bit of a side-topic, but I believe there are even more interesting consequences/applications of future AR when it comes to looks.

Why bother with only "fixing" certain things about your looks, whereas you can look like something/someone completely different? With AR advanced enough, I believe we will get to the point of multiple "realities" overlaid on top of the real one, which opens doors for so many interesting possibilities and applications. Don't like that pesky skyscraper blocking view of the lake from your apt? Luckily, there is a reality server you can subscribe to that has it removed. Or another reality server that acts like ad-block for real life.

When the AR tech matures and gets in the hands of an average person, I expect life to change in such a crazy way, that changes brought by wide smartphone adoption will look like a tiny blip in comparison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I one time let a friend edit a photo, blurred my skin, etc and posted it to social media, and it got way more likes than any of unedited, unfiltered photos. I never edit photos (rarely do I post any for that matter) but man that was a real disappointment.

There's no question social media has to be bad for our self-image.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've really improved my happiness ever since I uninstalled these apps (IG, Snapchat, etc) and never looked back. I suggest everyone do the same. They get you hooked on a dopamine drip feed, instill feelings of inadequacy, and otherwise do nothing to improve your life.

<comment><USER16> Good for you. I never had any of those types of services except for Facebook and I never used that much at all. So, I don't know what it's like to "unplug" in that regard, but I can imagine how much it must suck to be in that spiral. I think in addition to the dopamine addiction, there's also some sort of neurotic or narcissistic aspect to it as well for many. I see it all the time with people everywhere. Women on the bus are constantly on all of that shit taking selfies. Like, who the fuck needs to see you making a wannabe cute/sexy face on the bus on the way to work? And that, amazingly, isn't limited to just women in their 20s, but it does trend heavily to them.

I'm married but the concept of dating in this modern world is terrifying to me. First thing I would do would be to lookup a woman on social media to see if she's one of these crazies.

<comment><USER17> I think it's funny how 90% percent of these 'selfies' are taken in bathrooms. Used to be you went to a nice place and took a photo to show where you went. Now I think the average selfie taker doesn't even realize they are in a toilet, it is completely self focused. There is a fitting metaphor in there somewhere.

<comment><USER18> The way I remember early selfie culture is that it actually started in places like bathrooms and only spread to include location later. But those details do not matter, the real story is how bathrooms apparently became places of public representation.

<comment><USER19> All bathrooms usually are private places in the house + have one or multiple mirrors, real selfies weren't made with a second lens/selfie mode in your smartphone before 2008 lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> my little sister is (or wants to be) one of these, my wife watches them on instagram. I heard one woman talking about 'instagram brows' and she was just so fucking excited about how great her face and eyebrows looked. Here is this lady with the face (i've never heard it coined like in the article but I know it) and she has (tens?) of thousands of folks staring at her reinforcing the vicous cycle. More views, more facial contours, more stimuli, more ads, more money, more searches, more ads, more views

<comment><USER21> I've found it subtly unnerving and in some way boring how women are beginning to look exactly the same, it's almost like something of comparable virality to the whole flat minimal UI design meme now exists in fashion.

<comment><USER22> To grossly generalize: Differentiation does not benefit females in the way it benefits males. Being "average" is a safe mating strategy for females, but not for males.

<comment><USER23> The existence of persistent cultural tropes around "not being like the other girls" is at least one piece of evidence to the contrary.

<comment><USER24> I think that comes from misogynistic stereotypes concerning personality traits. "Women, ugh, they're all so x. Not you though, you're different."

<comment><USER25> Funnily enough I only ever see women using the phrase to shit on other women for not staying in line. Woman actually likes tech/cars/whatever and doesn't like makeup and fashion? Ugh, she thinks she's "not like other girls", she's looking down on us, she's just trying to impress men.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's so much fakery going on, you'd might as well just assume that what you see is not real.

See [https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagramreality/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagramreality/) (Warning: may include slightly NSFW images)

<comment><USER27> Thats a decent sub that generally mocks terrible photoshop work for Instagram! LOL

The pinched waist with huge ass look... done badly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Related story in the New Yorker today: [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the- age-o...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the-age-of- instagram-face)

<comment><USER29> The author of that piece, Jia Tolentino, has a collection of essays called Trick Mirror. This quote pretty aptly describes the transition to the social- media-driven internet:

"At ten I was clicking around a web ring to check out other Angelfire sites. At twelve I was writing five hundred words a day on a public LiveJournal. At fifteen I was uploading photos of myself in a miniskirt on Myspace. By twenty- five, my job was to write things that would attract, ideally, a hundred thousand strangers per post. Now I'm thirty, and most of my life is inextricable from the internet, and its mazes of incessant forced connection — this feverish, electric, unlivable hell."

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think the most interesting thing here is the comparison between these hi- tech options we've got now (FaceTune, cheap and low-invasion surgery) and their lower tech analogues (ie. makeup, haircuts). These hi-tech options may be way more quotidian 10/20/30 years down the line - according to the article, the stigma around the procedures is already diminished to the point where celebrities are willing to promote it. It still doesn't feel like something I'd want for myself, but it's not hard to imagine a reality not too far off where this becomes much more common, especially considering what we know about the positive correlation between conventional attractiveness and fame/money/career advancement.

</comment><comment><USER31> There's an analogous drive for men in western masculinity with the resurgence in gym culture and elevation of muscularity in media, particularly driven by physiques portrayed superhero franchises.

We're rapidly shifting from Brad Pitt fight club "ottermode" bodies into some bignorexia territory. Though, it's much more self limiting, since you can't simply "buy" a well built physique, even with drugs unless you're an exceptional genetic outlier. It still requires years of dedicated training and continued maintenance. Though the fact that steroids are scheduled drugs makes pursuing these standards literally illegal in many countries, which is a separate topic altogether.

<comment><USER32> It depends on the person, but many people's bodies tend to be catabolic which makes gaining muscle hard - the so-called hard gainers. These males also tend to have feminine qualities in facial structure. TRT will probably help those individuals more w.r.t to muscle gain than steroids. Or RHGH.

<comment><USER31> I think somatypes like hardgainers have been debunked, the explanation being that predominantly, these folks are habituated to not eating enough, GOMAD etc. There's edge cases of medical conditions or training non-responders though.

My main point is that western aesthetic standard for muscular men is increasingly moving towards more mass to the point where most individuals are below the bell curve for what's attainable naturally even with consistent training. It's reaching a point where achieving these bodies require either both elite genetics and conscientiousness, or good genetics and conscientiousness and illegal drugs. It can't simply be bought by 30k worth of plastic surgeries.

Theoretically most men can diet themselves down to Brad Pit fight club, there's an attainable amount of muscle mass, the trick is mostly diet and fat loss, which may still be prohibitive for some. But much less men can be Chris Evans Captain America, or more obviously the Rock. At some point drugs enter the picture. There's also VFX that adds muscularity in these productions, so we're also dealing with filters at the end of the day, but most people do not know that muscularity is just as easily edited in live action as facial features or de-aging.

<comment><USER33> Habitually not eating enough sounds like something that can be influenced by genetics.

<comment><USER31> Everything is, but in terms of factors, eating enough is more within control, i.e. the excessive GOMAD prescription, gallon of milk a day. Mostly diet genetics becomes an consideration when you're at the extreme ends of weight goals, like dietting down to unhealthy bodyfat levels or trying to cram 8,000 calories a day to maintain in the heavier weight classes (250lbs+). Compared to genetic propensity for gaining muscle or one's training response, conscientiousness to train consistently - eating habits for most "hard gainers" is current diet + a few spoonfuls of peanut butter a day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus)

<comment><USER35> The concept in comic form: [https://www.sparringmind.com/supernormal- stimuli/](https://www.sparringmind.com/supernormal-stimuli/)

<comment><USER22> Here's a weird idea: is music a supernormal stimulus? I mean, I listen to music constantly, every day, and I become irritable if I must go without music for long periods. It would not be a stretch to label this an addiction. Furthermore, music does not exist in our natural environment. You might protest that birdsong qualifies as music, but even granting that, birdsong bears no relation to the highly rhythmic, bass-heavy music that humans seem to prefer. Where did this preference come from? And if music really is a supernormal stimulus, is that necessarily a bad thing? Can a supernormal stimulus be morally neutral, or perhaps even good?

<comment><USER36> It depends on what your threshold is for supernormality.

I would say no; bone flutes are among the oldest human artifacts, we may have been making music for as long as we've been using language.

There is, on the other hand, a clear supernormal 'vibe' to pop music, which has been tuning in since the 80s. If you look at the waveform of a contemporary pop song, it looks like a brick: everything has been compressed and condensed to fill the available audioscape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The one comment that stuck out to me in this article was the coworker who said she felt anxious whenever she saw the author of this article. Personally I am not someone who likes to wear a full face of makeup on a daily basis but the pressure to do so feels more present every day. A lot of this is because you never know when you will be photographed and end up on any social media platform. Even simple tasks like heading to the grocery store seem to require at least some mascara and eyebrows drawn on.

</comment><comment><USER11> I saw a similarly titled article in the New Yorker[1] twice before seeing this link. For some reason that author saw fit to only use words (outside of a drawing at the top of the article) to describe the effect which did nothing for me. Kudos to this author who actually included pictures.

[1] [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the- age-o...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the-age-of- instagram-face)

</comment><comment><USER38> People use to strangle their feet to keep them small in order to be attractive for men. This is harmless by comparison?

<comment><USER39> One of the trends that's directly related to "this" is the trend of getting plastic surgery. That's a pretty ugly, disastrous road.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I just don't think this kind of thing is good for anybody. Thinking, that a perfect face and body can exist or even should is unhealthy. It adds up to a lot young people, who are still trying to figure out, who they are and trying to get comfortable with their own bodies.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's supposed to be a veil you unveil to those you want closer in your life. That's part of the fun, getting to know people better. The idea that you have to become the veil you are projecting out is the illness.

</comment><comment><USER42> The "before/after" images are uncanny! Before, she looks like a normal, approachable person; after a scary seller of shady stuff that you would nothing to to with.

</comment><comment><USER43> Because it's The New Yorker, there are no photos in the article. So if you're hoping to learn what "instagram face" actually looks like, you'll have to dig somewhere else.

<comment><USER44> I think this BBC article about the same is good for people who need the actual visuals:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5c237a34-7a47-4deb-a5...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5c237a34-7a47-4deb-a5b4-a23e77cc88f7)

<comment><USER45> Ok, we'll change to that from [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in- review/the-age-o...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/decade-in-review/the- age-of-instagram-face). Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Git 2.9 released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/2188-git-2-9-has-been-released <comment><USER2> "In 2.9, Git's diff engine learned a new heuristic: it tries to keep hunk boundaries at blank lines, shifting the hunk "up" whenever the bottom of the hunk matches the bottom of the preceding context, until we hit a blank line. "

I like the new diff improvements

<comment><USER3> In a few (relatively) short years, git's diff has improved on all the other diffs out there.

<comment><USER4> I didnt even know about the mentioned diff-script: [https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/diff- highligh...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/diff- highlight/diff-highlight) It gives pretty nice output :-)

I should definitely learn more about extending git!

<comment><USER5> There's also this [https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so- fancy](https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy)

<comment><USER6> Requires Node though. Not sure that many people have that installed.

<comment><USER7> It does not:

> For convenience, the recommended installation is via NPM. If you'd prefer, > _you may choose to do a manual installation instead_. (highlighting by me)

It is written in Perl.

<comment><USER8> Wait, what? A perl app distributed through NPM? What's next, a node app on CPAN?

Color me perplexed.

<comment><USER9> There are a lot of non-JS packages in NPM. The Closure compiler, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bitbucket[1] also mentions a few other new cool stuff in 2.9, like making the `--verbose` flag to `git commit` default:

        git config −−global commit.verbose true

[1] [https://blog.bitbucket.org/2016/06/13/git-2-9/](https://blog.bitbucket.org/2016/06/13/git-2-9/)

<comment><USER10> Maybe I'm missing something, but that link doesn't say commit.verbose is true by default, it just documents the new setting you can set.

<comment><USER11> by default it is false. but commit.verbose is introduced by git 2.9. setting it before 2.9 didn't have any effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hidden at the end of the changelog is the addition of the the new config entry: "core.hooksPath" which lets you specify globally or per repository where hooks should point to.

In the Git-hooks project we have been using the init.templatedir which this replaces (as it is better), but for those that can't upgrade to 2.9 you can use init.templatedir and some variation of what Git-Hooks does to obtain similar results.

[https://github.com/icefox/git-hooks/blob/master/git- hooks#L1...](https://github.com/icefox/git-hooks/blob/master/git-hooks#L165)

<comment><USER13> Sweet. I implemented that feature vaguely fearing that nobody except me was going to use it, in my case to ease setting up "auditing" hooks on a centralized Git server. Awesome that you find in useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The new "rebase -x" seems really useful. It runs a test script on all patches in the history, making it useful for getting a bunch of patches tested for merging at once.

This makes it easier to not have broken commits (e.g. ones that don't build) in master, which in turn makes git bisect more useful.

<comment><USER15> Can someone say how this differs from 'git rebase -i --exec' ?

<comment><USER16> It can be non-interactive now. Think "git rebase master"

<comment><USER17> git rebate... I wonder if there's also git refund, git coupon and git discount?

<comment><USER16> Sigh. Why can't all autocorrects handle git verbs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> OT

The new diff script ([https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/diff- highligh...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/diff- highlight/diff-highlight)) is juicy indeed.

It is written in Perl. The Perl interpreter is available on most UNIX systems, so that's handy. I wonder if there is any Lisp-like language that is as common, that you can write scripts and expect them to run on most systems. Would be nice since Lisp languages have very few concepts to learn...

<comment><USER19> Guile may be the closest, but it failed to gain much traction despite support in some popular GNU tools like GDB. It's certainly not installed on most systems, but it at least has a tiny chance of being present.

<comment><USER20> On Arch Linux it's a dependency of both gdb and make, but it seems that other distributions go out of their way to avoid shipping it (Debian e.g. builds gdb without a hard dependency on it, and you need to install a separate make-guile package to get guile-enabled make).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 'git' is the name of the command line interface. the VCS is technically called "git's monster"

<comment><USER22> You're joking, right?

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure how anyone could find version control funny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What is the algorithm of heuristics diff? Is it comparing longest-match?

        So, if i originally have
        x
        b
        n
        then adding x a n on top of it, it will become
        x
        a
        n
        x
        b
        n

How can i know that i add x-a-n? Basically, isn't it comparing x-b-n and detect it has changes on 'b' block, so the 'b' block become a-n-x-b?

Edit: My bad, didn't see this [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11915351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11915351). It has been explained there.

</comment><comment><USER24> > Faster and more flexible submodules

I have a big, monolithic repository which I'm looking to break up in a migration to Git.

If I run;

        git submodule split -P <path_to_sm> -b <name_of_branch> --jobs=4

Will I see the same improvements, as documented?

<comment><USER25> > I have a big, monolithic repository which I'm looking to break up in a > migration to Git.

Why?

<comment><USER26> Not the OP, but if it is big enough, common tasks such as 'git status' can take seconds to complete, which is annoying.

That said, I won't be using git submodules again on another project, it was a bit cumbersome for my taste.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I haven't been following releases for a while, it's nice to see that submodules can now (2.8) be actually used.

Just curious, were there any changes to sparse-checkout? It had abysmal performance in pre-2.x if you threw more elaborate paths at it, or more paths in general.

<comment><USER28> We've been using submodules for almost a decade. It's easy to make mistakes, which is bad, but they're hardly unusable.

<comment><USER27> Well, I might overstated how slow it was to check them out in serial. They are still PITA thanks to specific behavior, missing features (both in git and in 3rd party tools such as bitbucket), etc..

The benefits oftentimes overshadow the issues with them, but there are drawbacks to using them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Are they planning to simplify standard day to day command from flag nightmare to something that mortal can actually remember?

<comment><USER30> What flags do you have particular problems with and what could you see as a replacement for them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is there already a pre-built package for MacOSX?

<comment><USER32> Homebrew has it.

<comment><USER33> I sadly usually wait for the official AppleGit Xcode tools release for the Keychain integration I'm so sadly dependent on.

<comment><USER34> The 2.9 git install from homebrew prompted me for keychain access and then just "worked", this morning. My first time using brew git. So you may want to give it a whirl.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Oh I should compare the new coloring with DiffSoFancy. I think DiffSoFancy still wins!

</comment><comment><USER36> Over/under until git supports emoji in commit messages?

<comment><USER20> Why would it need dedicated support for it? It's already unicode aware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Great release. Submodules are bad practice riddled with problems, I think it wouldn't be bad to remove this feature at all, that way no-one will be have an option to use it.

<comment><USER38> I use submodules and they work fine. What is so bad about them that I shouldn't be using them?

<comment><USER39> Here's some good posts about submodules and alternatives, so you can make up your own mind:

[http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/05/alternatives-to-git- submo...](http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/05/alternatives-to-git-submodule- git-subtree/)

[https://codingkilledthecat.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/why- your...](https://codingkilledthecat.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/why-your-company- shouldnt-use-git-submodules/)

<comment><USER38> From what I've gathered skimming the numerous blog posts venting about submodules, it seems that people have trouble with submodules because they are trying to integrate them into a workflow they work poorly in (i.e., rapidly changing modules). There seems to be room for improvement for that type of usage, given what people are saying, but I wonder if there have been any changes to submodules since those posts (many of them are dated around 2011-2012).

My own positive experience with submodules involves dependencies that only occasionally change; I can always point to a specific tag that should be used.

<comment><USER40> Yes.

One should avoid to extract a component from the repo as a submodule too early, i.e when the interface of the component is not mostly stabilized.

If each commit in your "main" module is paired with a commit in your submodules, then you might be missing the point of module separation.

<comment><USER41> Even if the interface is stabilized, when you update implementation of a submodule you will still have to recursively update all submodules from main down to the changed module.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why is Haskell so popular? - <AUTHOR>

Lisp has been around for much longer, and is the same paradigm. So why has Haskell captured all the attention in recent years? <comment><USER2> Static type systems are evolving rapidly and becoming so powerful they are close to merging with algebraic specifications (e.g. OBJ, CASL). They will (soon) have type/proof systems that will become the foundation for all future engineering of large reliable systems. Why would you make an application author write unit tests on the outside of a weak language, when you can verify from inside of a strong one ? Why would you even wrap a weak language with an incomplete informal poorly specified unit test generator, when you can verify it rigorously inside the type system of strong language ?

Along with convergence of languages and tools, there is also a recognition that isolation of side effects and composition of operations are the fundamental mechanisms for building large software systems from reusable components, and Category Theory is the formalism for describing composition. For example, in the Haskell community there is an ongoing exploration of the compositional properties of isolation primitives like Monads, Arrows, Applicative Functors and Comonads (yeah, Category Theory terminology is a barrier to progress). Haskell is not the final language, but it is the medium in which the correct path is being discovered. I would also say the move from Java to Scala is also a step in the right direction of more powerful type systems and a (more) functional approach.

On the Lisp side, there has always been a cacophony of variations, and people might have had high hopes for Arc, but the future is Clojure.

Interesting that the two most innovative recent languages, Scala and Clojure, have been built on the JVM.

</comment><comment><USER3> Lisp is not the same paradigm: it's imperative and eager where Haskell is lazy and pure functional.

The languages support different means of abstraction. e.g., Lisp has macros, Haskell has all that type inference enables. I can't honestly say that being able to (effectively) use the return type of a function as a parameter to that function is _better_ than being able to invoke macros with the same syntax as a function call --- but it suits _me_ better.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, Haskell isn't a lisp clone. But it is functional nevertheless. More 'purely' functional too. So why do people, who have ignored functional programming in lisp for all these years suddenly taken to lisp? Is they Hype- field around Haskell really that strong?

<comment><USER4> Read a program that's at least a few hundred lines long in Haskell. Now read it in Lisp.

Readability counts!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is Haskell popular? Static typing done right.

</comment><comment><USER6> You're begging the question.</comment>


Foudnational Tech - <AUTHOR> What does this mean? Like blockchain or can it be an application that creates a new way of doing things that aren't social media, etc? <comment><USER2> Sounds to me like tech from the nation of Foud, wherever that is.

<comment><AUTHOR> haha foud</comment></comment>


Alcohol and Inclusivity: Planning Tech Events with Non-Alcoholic Options - <AUTHOR> https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/alcohol-and-inclusivity-planning-tech-events-with-non-alcoholic-options <comment><USER2> This article seems to be a little hysterical about the issues tech has with alcohol, and I say this as someone who has hasn't been drinking for about 2 years, but all the suggestions are extremely reasonable steps I wish people would take, even when I did drink having to stand in a long ass line for water was annoying.</comment>


The Antique Cannabis Book - <AUTHOR> http://antiquecannabisbook.com/ <comment><USER2> Cannabis is truly a wonderful and amazing plant. There are many strains that can cure both bodily and mental ailments. Moderation is important, as heavy use of phytocannabinoids will downregulate your body's production of endocannabinoids.

Anecdotally, _C. Indica_ dominant hybrids (Gorilla Glue #4[0] is my favorite) put me in a trance that allows me to focus on a coding task for hours. The only side effect is that my eyes are half-closed. The increase in mental acuity is on par with substituted phenethylamines or eugeroics.

The usual disclaimers apply: IANAD, don't listen to Internet strangers for medical advice, etc.

[0] [https://www.leafly.com/hybrid/gorilla- glue-4](https://www.leafly.com/hybrid/gorilla-glue-4)

<comment><USER3> "Cure" is a strong word with little medical science backing up the claim, but "treat" is completely different notion and cannabis is a wonderful drug with very few side effects for treating a variety of conditions, both physical and mental.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For anyone that doesn't remember websites ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631565)), this is one of them.

<comment><USER5> related, [https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/6xe8lc/photogr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/6xe8lc/photographic_memorabilia/) (direct link [http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/](http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This site inspired me to make my own medicine for common cold. It's more or less a green dragon tincture with Rum. I like to think that it really helps me, because it puts me to sleep, raises the body temperature and I drink more water.

I also recognized that it helps my digestion. If you know the Bristol Stool scale, my score is perfect the days after I used my medicine.

<comment><USER7> I've been using coconut oil or butter infused with (mostly CBD) ABV cannabis.

There is no better cold relief in my opinion than a spoonful of this and a steady supply of freshly-squeezed organic lemon juice with a pinch of salt.

Restful sleep, relief from body ache, improved appetite for Phase II; chicken soup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember when I was much younger, when I would hear or read something about how cannabis has been used by humans for a very long time, I thought that it was like a kind of "conspiracy theory."

<comment><USER9> See India.

[https://www.google.nl/search?q=sadhu+chillum&num=100&source=...](https://www.google.nl/search?q=sadhu+chillum&num=100&source=lnms&tbm=isch)

That's some old culture in those images, but how old exactly is hard to say for me. I'm no historian, but 1000s might well be true.

<comment><USER10> [https://www.thestar.com/business/tech_news/2008/11/27/2700ye...](https://www.thestar.com/business/tech_news/2008/11/27/2700yearold_marijuana_found_in_chinese_tomb.html)

Don't know if this is the latest news, but they dated this two pound bundle of weed to 2700 years ago.

<comment><USER9> Wow 2 pounds can get you in serious trouble nowadays, pretty much all over the world. Death penalties and all.

<comment><USER10> Apparently they had to get special permission to move it from China to the UK for study.

<comment><USER9> Pppplease... We promise we will not consume it. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It'd be great to find out more of the cannabinoid profile of older cannabis. Recent times have shown such a focus on THC, and then finally an interest in CBD. I have a friend who finds CBD incredibly beneficial and calming of their symptoms, but really dislikes and cannot take THC as it aggrevates psychotic episodes for them.

<comment><USER12> If samples were around and we measured them, I would guess it would have a lower amount of both CBD and THC compared to today's 'standards'. There are no standards with cannabis though. It's one name for a multitude of species and strains which are aggressively bred and hybridized with many family trees. Now with our modern understanding of the plant, CBD high and THC low species, and THC high and CBD low (more prominent) are bred, along with everything in between.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap5/Prices.htm](http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap5/Prices.htm)

1 pound bulk went from about $2 in the 1910's to $10 in 1920s back to $2 in 1930s. Adjusted for inflation and the chart data for years ending in 7's that's $34.49 in 1937, $136 in 1927, and $72 in 1917 per pound. Right now if you are a licensed producer you can sell bulk marijuana for processing for about $100 trim, $200-250 flower, in Oregon. So it sounds about right. It sells for $15 a gram retail, which is an incredible markup ($15 * 454g/pound = $6810 per pound) but the processors only get between 5-15% THC/CBD extraction yield per bulk pound, and for whatever reasons the retailers sell it at 100% markup.

<comment><USER14> Isn't 100% markup pretty common for retail in general?

<comment><USER15> Yes. There's no other way to get it legally.

<comment><USER16> In Oregon at least you can grow up to four plants for personal use [1], I assume Washington and Colorado have similar provisions.

1: [http://www.oregon.gov/olcc/marijuana/Pages/FAQs-Personal- Use...](http://www.oregon.gov/olcc/marijuana/Pages/FAQs-Personal-Use.aspx)

<comment><USER17> You would assume wrong about WA, much to my chagrin. I think CO allows it, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>