Google power: 900,000 servers, uses 0.01% of world's electricity - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/google-runs-900000-servers-uses-0-01-of-worlds-electricity-2011081/

<comment><USER2> Articles like this are hilarious, especially for those of us that helped design, build and manage Google's datacenters at one point or another.

First, the number of servers may be impressive, but anyone that's done large scale computing can quickly point out that it's one of the least important measures. Much more important are how they are connected, the performance and ease of use of the distributed software infrastructure, resource utilization per machine, etc.

Second, these numbers are almost always wrong.

<comment><USER3> I just like the power requirement %. Knowing how much power some servers put out and their overall utilization would be more impressive stat-wise to me. I've seen far too many systems sit with a sub 1 load average that sucked up way too many watts of power needlessly.

But you're 100% right about what matters is the overall application and its performance. The devil is in the details. At my job we only have 5ish k linux boxes, so an order of magnitude smaller. But still fun. Except the z-series nodes. /shudder

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The key sentence from this article: "Realistically though, this is just a best _guess_ made by Stanford professor Jonathan Koomey."

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder how many unnecessary car trips Google prevents. It certainly spares me from going to the library for an hour searching for a single fact.

Exercises like these seldom take your most valuable resource into account. Your time.

</comment><comment><USER6> Tagline (Spin): Google Uses .01% of the World's Electricity to Directly Impact 50% of the World's Population

</comment><comment><USER7> It must be cool to apply a performance patch that lets you decommission thousands of servers.

<comment><USER8> Realistically what happens is that you apply a performance patch that delays the purchase of the next thousand servers.

<comment><USER7> They're still decommissioned for the current project. Or whatever the opposite of requisition is. I think decommission is right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another stat is that they use less than 1% of the energy of all datacenters on Earth. That's pretty impressive for _the_ Internet company.

</comment><comment><USER10> How on earth do you manage nearly a million server?

I can barely deal with a few of them. Always something going on.

I guess it helps theirs are all identical images?

</comment><comment><USER11> Yeah, we had this discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2832164>

</comment><comment><USER12> Actually I thought "that is too much", given that electricity is consumed inefficiently in the developed world by individuals, while Google has the ability to do massive optimization.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why not link to the original? blog: <http://www.koomey.com/post/8323374335> article: [http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/08/01/repor...](http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/08/01/report- google-uses-about-900000-servers/) nyt: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/technology/data-centers- us...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/technology/data-centers-using-less- power-than-forecast-report-says.html?_r=1)</comment>


On Rackspace Cloud you can't link to offensive content - <AUTHOR> http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/legal/aup/

<comment><USER2> "relates in any manner to non-consensual sex acts" Better not make a bad joke involving dropping the soap.

"is defamatory" Better not insult anyone.

"exposes trade secrets" Why?

"promotes illegal drugs" Better tell the white house petition site it's too offensive for rackspace.

This is a pretty overboard CYA script.

</comment><comment><USER3> _may result in retaliation against the Rackspace Cloud by offended viewers._

This seems excessively broad. E.g., recursively: I am offended by this passage. Other viewers who are similarly offended _may_ retaliate, ergo Rackspace cannot _publish, transmit or store on or via the Rackspace Cloud's network and equipment any content or links to_ its own Cloud Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

<comment><USER4> The most regrettable bit is really the euphemism. It's not like there's a huge and diverse population of viewers that, if offended, will engage in retaliation.

Of course, as a private company Rackspace is free to deny service to those that may bring harm to their employees. Though, it's still sad that refusing to take a stand for that most simple and basic freedom (speech) is so uncontroversial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fortunately hosting is a commodity and you can get what rackspace sells from any number of providers. Don't like the terms? Don't do business with Rackspace. Vote with your feet and your dollars and make sure you tell them you're leaving because you don't like their terms of service. If enough of their customers do that they'll get the message eventually.

And if they don't get that particular message they'll have to move on some other metric (perhaps price) to get people to continue to host with them in spite of their terms of service.

Personally I wouldn't have a problem hosting with them under these terms, I'd simply ignore the terms and factor in the risk of being kicked out by spreading whatever I was hosting there across multiple providers. That's a good strategy anyway, even when you think you're in compliance with the terms of service where ever you host your stuff.

<comment><USER6> If your content is such that Rackspace closes your account, reliable hosting probably isn't nearly as much a commodity as you describe. _All_ hosts have clauses in their TOS to let them close your account if you become an inconvenience.

<comment><USER7> You can often approach hosting providers out of band and arrange deals for sites that are normally against their TOS. I've seen it happen on multiple occasions.

<comment><USER6> If you could let me know any specific hosts that do this (in private if necessary) I would much appreciate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks fine to me. I would hope they would issue takedown requests rather than e.g just pullin the plug.

<comment><USER9> Rackspace Takes Koran-Burning Church Site Offline[1] : "Dove World refused, and Rackspace gave the church _several hours_ to migrate the content." (emphasis mine)

I guess that's better than just pulling the plug, but not much.

[1] <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368948,00.asp>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't get the Excessive Use section. Don't you pay for what you use. If your VM has 7g ram, are you not allowed to use all of it all the time?

<comment><USER11> I believe they are mostly talking about maxxing out your CPU usage since I am sure they oversell their CPU availability. This could really be fixed with affinity settings, but that may also interfere in peak moments. Im sure they have that in there so that they can kick you if you start holding you CPU at 100% load 24/7

<comment><USER5> If they advertise with certain features then you should be able to use those features.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> On a related note, Hetzner's terms of service say "material not deemed in good taste is not permitted" <http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/legal/agb/>

</comment><comment><USER12> For about $2500/month you can put a rack of machines into a colo connected to the peering net. Depending on how clever you are that's like 1/2 PB of disk space and plenty of CPU to host what ever you want.

You can do it for less than that if you're willing to rent an 'office' near a tie point. Just takes a bit more work, and of course you are always going to be threatened with the government coming in and taking all your servers if they don't like you but, that's kinda the way it is.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm going to venture a guess that hosting controversial clients is more trouble (in cease and desists) than its worth. I don't think Rackspace is hurting itself by not servicing the controversial/illegal content market.

</comment><comment><USER14> It looks pretty reasonable to me... They don't want child porn and rape videos on their servers.

I honestly don't see the problem here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Citing the whole thing and highlighting the problem in italic:

===

You may not publish, transmit or store on or via the Rackspace Cloud's network and equipment any content _or links to any content_ that the Rackspace Cloud reasonably believes:

\- Constitutes, depicts, fosters, promotes or relates in any manner to child pornography, bestiality, or non-consensual sex acts;

\- is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence or contains harassing content or hate speech;

\- is unfair or deceptive under the consumer protection laws of any jurisdiction, including chain letters and pyramid schemes;

\- is defamatory or violates a person's privacy;

\- creates a risk to a person's safety or health, creates a risk to public safety or health, compromises national security or interferes with a investigation by law enforcement;

\- improperly exposes trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information of another person;

\- is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protections;

\- infringes on another person's copyright, trade or service mark, patent or other property right;

\- promotes illegal drugs, violates export control laws, relates to illegal gambling or illegal arms trafficking;

\- is otherwise illegal or solicits conduct that is illegal under laws applicable to you or to the Rackspace Cloud; or

\- is otherwise malicious, fraudulent or may result in retaliation against the Rackspace Cloud by offended viewers.

===

For example, publishing this comment would be a violation of these terms, because it links to exposed trade secret ([http://web.archive.org/web/20080404222417/http://cypherpunks...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080404222417/http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1994/09/msg00304.html)), to content that infringes trademark (<http://www.apple.com/iphone>), violates export control laws (<https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher/network>), and content that is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protections (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime>).

<comment><USER15> That's not the only part. They have complete discretion by their use of the following words:

        excessively
        risk
        interferes
        improperly
        intended
        promotes
        malicious
        may result

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How does this compare to Amazon? Does Amazon permit unauthorized scraping, etc? I'm guessing that they do.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://aws.amazon.com/aup/>

The wording is "You may not use, or encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to use, the Services or AWS Site for any illegal, harmful or offensive use, or to transmit, store, display, distribute or otherwise make available content that is illegal, harmful, or offensive. Prohibited activities or content include...".

No "linking" mentioned here, although, "otherwise make available" is a broad definition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> That means that a XSS attach, or just a comment, and you can shutdown any company hosted at Rackspace?

<comment><USER18> Sure, if Rackspace completely ignores the context of the infraction. It's save to assume they don't.

<comment><USER19> >It's save to assume they don't.

Never assume anything with regards to your entire companies infrastructure being in the hands of a third-party.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I get started with open source? - <AUTHOR> How do I start contributing to open source? How do I find a project and get to the stage where I can add value? <comment><USER2> 1\. Filter projects by two criteria: do I know the stack? Am I a user? If you don't know the stack or aren't a user, you'll find the project to be inaccessible.

2a. Identify a bug or missing feature. You may do this yourself, or you may look at the issues list for the project. Fix the bug or add the feature.

2b. Or, if you prefer, you can write tests. Many projects have less than 100% test coverage, or their tests haven't been updated for the latest version. Writing tests for alpha or beta versions is _really_ helpful in getting those versions finished.</comment>


Cyborgs will rule the planet within 80 years – with one surprising caveat - <AUTHOR> https://www.foxnews.com/tech/scientist-claims-cyborgs-will-rule-the-planet-within-80-years-with-one-surprising-caveat <comment><USER2> The guidelines ask to try to submit original sources. In this case the foxnews article says it's based on [https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/9550647/cyborgs- rule-planet-80...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/9550647/cyborgs-rule- planet-80-years-wont-kill-us/) which tells us it's based on [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7268387/Why-...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7268387/Why- Britains-eminent-scientist-convinced-cyborgs-rule-planet-80-years.html)

The dailymail article has much more content.

Foxnews "with one caveat" in the headline is linkbait. Here it's best to change the headline.

All three publications get regular dismissed for low quality, one-sides or hyperbole content in comments. The interview with the author of "Novacene: The Coming Age Of Hyperintelligence" looks good IMHO (when ignoring the various stock photos of cyborgs).

</comment><comment><USER3> Fox News? No thanks.</comment>


Op-Ed Contributor - ThE I.R.S. vs. Tech Workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21shulman.html?ref=opinion <comment><USER2> "The immediate effect of these audits is to force individual programmers ... to abandon their dreams of getting rich off their high-technology skills," reported an article in The Times on Section 1706 more than a decade ago. "But the broader impact is that small businesses started by one entrepreneur do not have a chance to grow into mighty enterprises that can create jobs and generate more taxes."

I agree that this is a terrible law, both in its enactment (special treatment for IBM at our expense) and its results.

However, what's to prevent an individual from selling a product or service, growing that business into a multi-partner/employee business, and then if they want, contracting out? Their contracting focus could be related to their base business, or just raw general talent.</comment>


How I investigated Uber surge pricing in D.C - <AUTHOR> https://source.opennews.org/en-US/articles/how-i-investigated-uber-surge-pricing-dc/ <comment><USER2> Not to state the obvious, but surge pricing is simply the most efficient way to motivate people on the platform (read: drivers) to flow into an underserved area (read: where the customers are). The macro take-away on this is that we should celebrate the fact that Uber is trying to incentivize its driving population to serve its riding population by implementing surge pricing. The opposite would be Lyft, which I doubt has any reasonable way other than asking nicely to try to encourage its drivers to venture into these underserved areas...

And yes, I understand that this opinion (read: "interpretation of the laws of supply and demand as they affect reality as it exists") is likely to be unpopular, and am prepared to be labeled all sorts of nasty things and downvoted.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why did the author choose Washington, D.C. rather than NYC for which there is a public data set of 1 billion yellow cab trips and partial data on 19 million Uber trips? [1]

[1] [http://toddwschneider.com/posts/analyzing-1-1-billion-nyc- ta...](http://toddwschneider.com/posts/analyzing-1-1-billion-nyc-taxi-and- uber-trips-with-a-vengeance/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's because the author is based out of Maryland...and the historical Uber trip data doesn't provide much insight on surge pricing, at least in the way the API can in real time and by specific vehicle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> cool! another approach to that task: [http://conferences2.sigcomm.org/imc/2015/papers/p495.pdf](http://conferences2.sigcomm.org/imc/2015/papers/p495.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> > This was a practical decision made to reduce our story space, as there were > some Uber products that had very different surge pricing patterns, and > including these would convolute the narrative we were telling.

There was data that contradicted your narrative so you excluded it? That Is Not Science.

<comment><USER6> 'convolute' != 'contradict'

Convolute means (in this context) to making something more complex to explain or difficult to follow. It does not mean that they excluded data that contradicted their analysis.

In this case, they focussed only on UberX since the surge pricing mechanism is different for the other Uber products - there is nothing wrong with that.

<comment><USER7> It seems like important information is missing with regards to their conclusion.

Their conclusion is "But how effective can they be if they fail to reach 15% of a population?".

However, if they are excluding all other Uber services other than UberX from their analysis, then that's problematic since those other services could be covering that 15% of the population.

Do the totality of Uber services provide coverage in the areas that this analysis highlights? I don't know, and given the analysis as written, I don't know how anyone else can either (without doing another analysis). So it seems at least worth considering whether convoluted vs contradicted is the case since we're missing a key piece of information.

<comment><USER8> "But how effective can they be if they fail to reach 15% of a population" was in reference to the fact that almost 15% of the DC population doesn't have a bank account which the author took to mean they can't use UberX or any other Uber service. This isn't strictly true but the barrier to entry without a bank account is high enough to dissuade most of this population from using Uber services.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


TTIP Leaks - <AUTHOR> http://www.ttip-leaks.org/ <comment><USER2> So business groups and lobbyists for companies like IBM, Apple, Google et al. are deeply involved in the US side of negotiations (far more than any public interest groups).

Then on the EU side, business groups and lobbyists for companies like IBM, Apple, Google et al. are deeply involved in negotiations to the detriment of all public groups.

So this is really lots of big US companies negotiating with themselves on how to screw over Europe.

This is a takeover attempt through the backdoor.

<comment><USER3> > _This is a takeover attempt through the backdoor._

In case it wasn't already immensely obvious, the third world war has been underway for some time. This one isn't a war fought with guns and bombs, it's a war fought with information, deals and economies.

See China's massive economy and ownership of the US, the massive drop in oil price and what that's done to the world economy etc.

The citizens of the world wouldn't tolerate full-scale war - they'd vote out their leaders, so this is what we get when countries still want to dominate each other.

<comment><USER4> >this is what we get when countries still want to dominate each other.

The most peaceful, prosperous, and healthy period known in human history?

<comment><USER5> You're repeating propaganda.

May be there's less violence, but the amount of suffering has skyrocketed over the years. A more than significant amount of people are dependent on tranquilizers and anti-depressants to make their life bearable, because for them it has become mundane and meaningless without.

Statistiscs may tell a story of less violence, and people getting older and having more material possessions, but these do not reflect the actual well- being of people, and also these numbers don't show how much exploitation and environmental damage our alleged 'prosperity' causes in other parts of the world.

<comment><USER6> What you're saying is "statistics might tell one story, but let me tell you, without citing sources or evidence, those statistics are wrong".

<comment><USER7> No, what he's saying is "your metrics are measuring the wrong things and so it does not matter what numbers pop out of them; they are completely meaningless when it comes to answering the question which is actually important".

<comment><USER8> But nobody can answer the important question except for themselves.

<comment><USER9> You can measure the amount of ability to choose and answer your own questions though. Also, this all very idealistic nonsense- until 300 years ago, we lived basically in tribal community, and people yearn for that, no matter how futuristic they dress up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This leak once again shows the importance of transparency in negotiations that will impact the lives of 800 million people (and the rest of the world indirectly).

If TTIP were ratified, it would be out of the control of any subsequently elected democratic governments as it would be part of international law.

Regardless what you think of TTIP it seems like the very least to ask is that a contract of such importance is discussed in the open where the public can have a voice in their own future.

<comment><USER11> What I'm now wondering is, can the WTO bully US and EU states in the way it can bully third world countries?

What if renegade states across both sides of the Atlantic decided to disregard the treaty and the fines that will follow immediately? What will the WTO do then? Sanction them?

<comment><USER12> I need help in argumenting: What's the difference between the EU-US WTO agreements and the TTIP, apart from the former being from the XXth century. Aren't we happier and wealthier since the WTO exists?

Please don't tell me about how a treaty should be voted on by the people, because I already agree about this part.

<comment><USER13> > Please don't tell me about how a treaty should be voted on by the people, > because I already agree about this part.

Direct democracy in diplomacy and trade negotiation sounds like a really terrible idea. It would just be constant protectionism, xenophobia and probably ruin economic growth and everyone will be the worse of for it. Sometimes giving more people a voice does not result in positive outcomes.

<comment><USER12> That's the difference between signing and ratifying. There's a story that USA's Congress never ratified the end of the war with Europe. A lot of countries voted No to the European referendum. Most of them voted Yes. Ultimately, the citizen should decide when they give up power, and they must repeat it regularly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Instead of complaining into the echo chamber of comments, do something actionable and call your representatives, it takes 2 minutes. Cynics will say that calling has no value but they forget how we beat SOPA in 2012 and protected Net Neutrality in 2014

Call your Reps: [http://TryVoices.com](http://TryVoices.com) (it takes 2 minutes)

</comment><comment><USER15> I hope somebody who speaks Lawyerish will create a human-readable, per- paragraph annotated version of this (rather than the sensationalist editorial things that the media will publish).

</comment><comment><USER16> Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner for Trade, on the documents:

> First of all, and contrary to what many seem to believe, so-called > "consolidated texts" in a trade negotiation are not the same thing as an > outcome. They reflect each side's negotiating position, nothing else. [...] > In that sense, many of today's alarmist headlines are a storm in a teacup. > [...] No EU trade agreement will ever lower our level of protection of > consumers, or food safety, or of the environment. Trade agreements will not > change our laws on GMOs, or how to produce safe beef, or how to protect the > environment.

[http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/malmstrom/blog/nego...](http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/malmstrom/blog/negotiating- ttip_en)

<comment><USER17> This is probably the most important takeaway

In most cases TTIP raised the level of consumer protection to the highest on whatever side of the pond was already best (for example Americans see European chicken as raised in shot basically do our chicken farmers will have to up the game (assuming battery hens is something we think is a high standard anyway)

As for beef, Germans think the US do beef like we do chickens. And so there will be a cost to the US cattle industry.

But consumers win

Are there parts of TTIP that are frankly dumb and will be damaging for years? Yes. Would that have been fixed by an open process. Meh.

So if we the people don't like this, then we the people need to write our MPs and congres people and say "start a new WTO round and don't stop till you get something good - keep it open and don't let people like trump comment on it at all"

<comment> tech-no-logical > This is probably the most important takeaway

although this is important, I can't see how you reach the conclusion that

> But consumers win

from that. you see, the EU negotiator also said :

> "In #TTIP, we will not agree on anything that will imply lowering of > protection. Full stop."

also, we can conclude from the leaked documents (both these and older ones) that the US proposals in some fields differ wildly from the current EU regulations, and I can't see the US giving in to EU demands on all of these (like GMO's, chlorine chicken and less stringent environmental rules).

so, with these powers combined we can conclude that further negotiation is useless, and TTIP is dead. so why are we still negotiating ?

fear is that a compromise will be reached somehow, and the EU citizens draw the short straw (I say that as a concerned EU citizen)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not that it's _still_ not all documents, and already out of date:

> _The documents that Greenpeace Netherlands has released about half of the > draft text as of April 2016, prior to the start of the 13th round of TTIP > negotiations between the EU and the US (New York, 25-29 April 2016). As far > as we know the final document will consist of 25 to 30 chapters and many > extensive annexes. The EU Commission published an overview stating that they > have now 17 consolidated texts. This means the documents released by > Greenpeace netherlands encompass 3 /4 of the existing consolidated texts. > Consolidated texts are those where the EU and US positions on issues are > shown side by side. This step in the negotiation process allows us to see > the areas where the EU and US are close to agreement, and where compromises > and concessions would still need to be made. Of the documents released by > Greenpeace Netherlands, in total 248 pages, 13 chapters offer for the first > time the position of the US._

So politics will probably pull the "your complaints are all addressed in the still secret parts / were changed after the leak, we pinky-swear" card.

<comment><USER19> _> So politics will probably pull the "your complaints are all addressed in the still secret parts / were changed after the leak, we pinky-swear" card._

Maybe, but I deeply hope that the public reaction to that will be either:

"Yeeeaaah, sure ..."

Or, the more diplomatic variant:

"How do you plan to reestablish the trust needed to make your promise credible?"

<comment><USER20> there were 250k ppl on the street in berlin. marching against ttip.

the first thing spiegel.de did, while the ppl were marching, was releasing a polemic article basically saying "it's all nazis".

days later gabriel went public: "we don't care. we'll do it anyway."

now, nobody try telling me shit about public opinion's worthiness!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's the preview for relevant section for the TTRIP with regards to the Internet:

[http://www.ttip-leaks.org/agamemnon/doc4.pdf](http://www.ttip- leaks.org/agamemnon/doc4.pdf)

The actual preview function seems to be broken, it only opens in a tiny iframe.

<comment><USER22> First page: "Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to: ... (b) require a Party to compel any enterprise exclusively engaged in the broadcast or cable distribution of radio or television programming to make available its broadcast or cable facilities as a public telecommunications network."

Which means, if your cable company is in monopoly somewhere, you cannot have any regulations to force sharing the network to foster competition. This is basically just going against what is making Internet great in most Europe. Just right on the first page. Ouch!

Update to be clearer: "public telecommunications network means telecommunications infrastructure used to provide public telecommunications services;"

<comment><USER22> Reply to myself, effectively I was wrong, page 11:

"[EU: 4. Each Party shall ensure that a major supplier in its territory grants access to its essential facilities, which may include, inter alia, network elements, associated facilities, and ancillary services, to suppliers of electronic communications services on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions (including in relation to rates, technical standards, specifications, quality and maintenance).]"

You have quite some anti-competitive safeguards so, this is not that bad. The general tone here is pretty libertarian. Note that it only concerns the telecommunication services, this section is not about IP etc..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand this FAQ:

> None of the chapters we have seen reference the General Exceptions rule. > This nearly 70-year-old rule enshrined in the GATT agreement of the World > Trade Organization (WTO), allows nations to regulate trade "to protect > human, animal and plant life or health" or for "the conservation of > exhaustible natural resources" [1].

as point 2 in agriculture states

> In this regard, nothing in this Agreement will restrain the Parties from > taking measures necessary to achieve legitimate policy objectives such as > the protection of public health, safety, environment or public morals, > social or consumer protection, or the promotion and protection of cultural > diversity that each side deems appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER24> The #2 and #3 stories are both links to ttip-leaks.org. The only difference b/w them seems to be the presence of a "www" in one case. Doesn't HN dupe detection handle something as basic?

<comment><USER25> Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't dupe protection.

edit: looks like I was wrong.

<comment><USER26> There is, but it is not coded cleverly intentionally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There is little excuse[1] for such a website to not employ TSL encryption of all traffic.

I can't even imagine the size of the TLA database containing <"evil" page visited>: <ip of visitor> records at this point.

1\. [https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/)

<comment><USER28> I agree that TLS would be nice, but it doesn't hide the fact that you've visited www.ttip-leaks.org

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "The original text has been typed again and obvious spelling and grammar errors, possibly put there deliberately as markers to identify the origin in case of a leak, have been removed. Other apparent textual or formatting- related markers were removed as well. None of these adjustments have altered the content of the text in any way."

This statement is leading me to rethink my conception of how steganography might be applied In The Real World.

</comment><comment><USER30> Respect to Greenpeace for sourcing and distributing these. They tend to get a good amount of news coverage. The more organisations that get involved in this, the more pressure we can place on our respective governments.

</comment><comment><USER31> The Europeans are socialists. In the sense that (anglo-saxons aside) they like to socialize access to justice, thus the codefied law system. Having to switch to abitral courts which decisions cascade into laws and juresprudence, comes in detrimental to european legal cultures. TTIP is thus even more disliked than the European Union itself is, with its regulations and directives.

</comment><comment><USER32> i get the idea but it's not true. the tables enumerating the tariffs and such on different classes of products alone can take thousands of pages, and there generally isn't anything so malicious in there. they get incredibly specific. for example in the section of the TPP relating to Chile, there are three subcategories of "articles for Christmas festivities." Another example of how specific they get is a class "Endless transmission belts of trapezoidal cross- section, of an outside circumference exceeding 60cm but not exceeding 180cm"

edit: I should clarify that it's a tariff elimination schedule, so it's thousands of pages describing exactly how quickly the tariffs drop to 0. Most lines of the table are "Year 1: 0%." As to why some products have a more gradual decline over a few years, I don't know, probably some special interest influence, true. A small change in tariffs can mean life or death to certain businesses.

</comment><comment><USER33> Can we make it clear that we will not reelect any politician who supports this?

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

</comment><comment><USER35> My reading of this situation so far is that the TTIP is to increase free trade?

To me that's a good thing....</comment>


IBM Goes to the Racetrack With Super-Speedy Memory - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/12/ibm-racetrack

<comment><USER2> I thought racetrack memory required titanium dioxide? How can you fab a chip with "standard CMOS" process then?</comment>


'Stay away from China,' White House top economist tells U.S. businesses - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stay-away-china-white-house-top-economist-tells-us-businesses-144248286.html <comment><USER2> Ah yes, the great economic minds of the current administration.</comment>


MySQL 5.6 released with innodb fulltext search and performance improvements - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/oracle-cranks-up-mysql-5-6-features-and-speeds-7000010847/

<comment><AUTHOR> More technical details here <https://blogs.oracle.com/MySQL/entry/mysql_5_6_is_a>

I really hope MariaDB folds in the innodb FTS into their 10 release.

They are starting to diverge.</comment>


Online marketing tips for beginners - Helium - <AUTHOR> http://www.helium.com/items/1259967-three-easy-steps-to-increase-website-traffic <comment><USER2> Something is going wrong with the HN ranking algorithm for this to get to the top with one vote. What's going ON?</comment>


Microsoft announces new Surface devices - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2018/10/02/meet-surface-pro-6-surface-laptop-2-surface-studio-2-and-surface-headphones/#YoWwwpADZgESRgJb.97 <comment><USER2> I remember the first Surfaces, not the best machines on the market; however, they have really come a long way. Would love to give one a try.</comment>


Ask HN: Hiring post on front page with no ability to comment or upvote? - <AUTHOR> This is on the frontpage currently:
Flexport is hiring software engineers in Amsterdam (we can get you a visa) (flexport.com)
17 minutes ago | hide
Any idea why the comment and voting icons are not present? How does it get to the front-page if upvoting isn't possible? Just wondering, havent seen something like this before. <comment><AUTHOR> Apologies found the answer in the faq

>> Another kind of job ad is reserved for YC-funded startups. These appear on the front page, but are not stories: they have no vote arrows, points, or comments. They begin part-way down, then fall steadily, and only one should be on the front page at a time.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)</comment>


Rules of Thumb for HTTP/2 Push - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K0NykTXBbbbTlv60t5MyJvXjqKGsCVNYHyLEXIxYMv0 <comment><USER2> Anyone who uses CloudFlare for their web site can experiment with HTTP/2 Server Push. [https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-support-for- http-2-se...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-support-for- http-2-server-push-2/)

It's simply a matter of adding appropriate Link headers to responses and we can push stuff to clients. This makes it easy to run experiments without having to have a server that already supports push.

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/http-2-server-push-with- multiple...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/http-2-server-push-with-multiple- assets-per-link-header/)

We rolled this out precisely so people can experiment and we are very interested to understand how people are using it and what performance improvements and problems they run into.

<comment><USER3> That image there seems strange. Did you run it by your PR and Legal team before posting it? You wouldn't want offend anyone.

<comment><USER4> Are you offended by pictures of brown people?

<comment><USER3> No, I'm not. But, it might take on a different meaning to other people. Most blog posts are run by the PR and Legal team and big companies because they could be a liability to the corporate image.

<comment><USER2> What meaning could that image take on? I'm baffled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I reduced Server Push to these rules for my HTML pages:

* Push only when I can guarantee that they don't have it in cache

* Push only assets included in the <head>

Which, for me, means I push a single CSS file for a page when I know that the visitor is a new visitor. After that, I never push again.

The implementation is essentially:

* For a HTML page request

* Check for the existence of a pushed=true cookie

* If cookie does not exist (new user/session) push the CSS needed

* And add a Set-Cookie for pushed=true with the same cache expiry time as the CSS resource

That's it.

Of course... if we could move away from sending the CSS for a whole site when people just request a page then I'd revisit this, but until then a single CSS file needs a single cookie and a single push.

<comment><USER6> Thanks. I haven't explored HTTP/2 Push yet and this example looks like a good starting point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wanted to note that iOS 10 will support HTTP/2 push for apps too. iOS will internally cache the pushed content and requests for them will appear to respond instantly.

More details in the NSURLSession WWDC talk: [https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/711/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/711/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I am a bit surprised that client side caching seems to be an afterthought of http2. It was the first thing that jumped to my mind the day I first heard of http2 push.

And this caching can become a privacy issue. The client producing a list of what it has in cache can become a new form of cookie. The cache would have to be cleared at the end of each session to mitigate this risk.

<comment><USER9> > And this caching can become a privacy issue. The client producing a list of > what it has in cache can become a new form of cookie. The cache would have > to be cleared at the end of each session to mitigate this risk.

Is this really a significant privacy issue? Server can deduce which items (I use word "item" to refer to a resource cache entry) are missing from client cache just by monitoring follow-up requests by the client. Of course this way server can't know anything about the items client has but are not present on the page.

Maybe some cryptography can be used here, so that client can tell the server items it has, but in such a way that server can't know anything more than what it strictly needs.

Client could for example hash each item signature with salt and send this information to the server, salt + a list of hashed items. This would prevent direct lookups, but of course the server could still compute same value (hash of signature + salt) for all items in a database.

Maybe it's somehow possible to have even stronger privacy guarantees while still allowing server to compute which items have a high probability to be needed by the client based on some information client included in the request?

Another idea: client could send a bloom filter [1] of the related items it already has plus random hashing data to compute it. Server would use client provided hashing parameters to compute bloom filter bit index for each item and push it if the bit wasn't set. Of course this would sometimes cause server not to push needed data. Frequency when this happens would depend on the bloom filter size the client chooses versus number of potential items.

Because the client chooses bloom filter hashing parameters, this would mask the set of items the client possesses. This makes the data about already cached items almost useless for fingerprinting purposes, while still keeping _some_ of the server push performance gain. Client can pick the tradeoff between performance and privacy with bloom filter size.

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

<comment><USER10> > Is this really a significant privacy issue? Server can deduce which items (I > use word "item" to refer to a resource cache entry) are missing from client > cache just by monitoring follow-up requests by the client.

Conceivably, a server could generate random null resources which are cached by the client and can then be used, as the GP indicates, to identify it — yet another supercookie.

<comment><USER9> I think the only way not to leak any information through caching is not to cache _anything_.

What do you think about my bloom filter idea?

<comment><USER10> > What do you think about my bloom filter idea?

It sounds interesting, but I suspect that you're right that caching leaks no matter what — I wonder if it's almost like compression in that sense (and we remember how compression impacts HTTPS!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have very fast mobile internet (4G, so I can download megabytes of traffic in one second) yet this traffic might cost a lot. And my pings to US server might easily be second or more. So basically I risk to download an entire website which is already in the my cache for each HTTP request.

Honestly I'm not sure that I like this server push. I think, the only appropriate use is: server push if client misses some cookie and set this cookie immediately.

<comment><USER12> We're working on a draft that will allow clients to signal what resources are already in their cache. This should allow us to reduce the bandwidth risk of unnecessary pushes.

<comment><USER13> What about a header to tell the server to not push anything?

<comment><USER7> Clients can always disable push using SETTINGS_ENABLE_PUSH. They can also reject each pushed resource (stream) [https://daveyshafik.com/archives/69603-http2-server-push- you...](https://daveyshafik.com/archives/69603-http2-server-push-youre-doing- it-all-wrong.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wrote about using a bloom filter and HTTP2 push for loading modules (instead of bundling them), and implemented a PoC using service workers: [https://mariusgundersen.net/module- pusher/](https://mariusgundersen.net/module-pusher/)

<comment><USER15> Bloom filter would make sense here. Efficient way to tell the server what files you already have

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone have a good HTTP/2 web server that supports Push as well as WSGI?

NGINX doesn't support push it seems, and looking around for an HTTP/2 server that does support push, the only one I found was h2o ([https://h2o.examp1e.net](https://h2o.examp1e.net)) but that doesn't support WSGI, for dynamic python apps.

</comment><comment><USER17> I appreciate in-depth analysis, the numbers, and the actual case studies, and resulting recommendations. This is a very good resource that puts actual numbers to the issue.

In my opinion, this reveals that HTTP/2 Server Push is essentially one huge microoptimization, proper use of which requires even more effort from both the server (and the client):

[1] watch and aggressively respond to network utilization

[2] construct a dependency graph of resources (presumably by actually parsing the HTML on server-side, or beforehand out-of-band and store it some other place)

[3] have the client communicate the state of its cache! [ref-1]

[4] have custom, conditional logic for cookies

\----

[ref-1] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-cache- digest-...](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-cache-digest-00)</comment>


Brocade CEO: Why a free and open Internet is pointless - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/03/15/why-a-free-and-open-internet-is-pointless/

<comment><USER2> Interesting but the article does not really explain the thesis statement at all...</comment>


The world's most fantastic, imaginary server start-up - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/06/millions_server/

<comment><USER2> Wow, that is exactly how it works with VCs. This guy nailed it. You just go in, mention the fact that you're building a Facebook App (showing investors that you're far ahead of the curve, because not many people are doing that yet) and then namedrop Google. Voila, check for $30 million.

If you mention the iPhone you also get to skip the due diligence.

<comment><USER3> That happens to be exactly what I'm doing. Can I get some introductions?

<comment><USER2> You don't need any. Just email your business plan into Sequoia.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Browse ridiculous myths about the EU - <AUTHOR> http://eumyths.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> There are many myths about the European Union, so they released a list¹ recently where these are debunked. This was such a ridiculous read that I decided to make a small website that highlights the tone of these headlines a little more.

The thing is a small sideproject so before somebody complains: it doesn't really work w/o javascript : /

Edit: little explaination: the 455 myths are randomly stepped through without repetition and in the end it loops over. I toyed with the idea to play the european anthemn to those who make it all the way through, but left it out for the moment.

I also tried to make the myths permalinkable via location hash, but the counter will start again at [1/455] for new users.

\--- ¹ [https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z- index/](https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/)

<comment><USER2> Hey there. Loved it and will definitely share it.

My only complain is that the switching of the colors of the background is really quite annoying IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh. I thought is was funny, but maybe I can add a switch to freeze the theme.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Implemented it right away, see footer

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the quick reply. Much appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What about the myth that toilet seats exist in all bars? That would be a good addition. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now my choice is limited to to myths with a official response and it is already too much to take in in it's totality, but I will note it down</comment></comment>


Das Keyboard is crowdfunding a cloud-connected mechanical keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/7/1/12078000/das-keyboard-mechanical-keyboard-5q-kickstarter-cloud <comment><USER2> Dear Das keyboard, mind updating your firmware so we can install that cloud keylogger on this and this keyboard, courtesy of all writs act.

Thanks,

FBI</comment>


Show HN: Just released the Beta of CraftStudio, my coop game-making platform - <AUTHOR> http://craftstud.io/?beta

<comment><AUTHOR> I spent the last 4 months redesigning and improving CraftStudio and I just launched the Beta last night. It comes with a physics engine, a HTML5 Web player (<http://store.craftstud.io/games>) built with Three.js and Lua.js, a completely redesigned user interface and initial (though still a bit buggy) Linux support, among other changes.

CraftStudio is my real-time multiplayer "game to make games". I built it out of my own frustration with existing game-making tools and a desire to let everyone (gamers, most importantly) make their own games. Minecraft was an obvious inspiration to its blocky, pixelarty nature.

If you guys have any questions, technical or otherwise, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

</comment><comment><USER2> Wow, this actually looks very impressive. Do you have any idea why most of the "simple" game-making platforms are using Lua nowadays? Is it just because of its ease of embeddability into other systems, or is there something else at play?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :). Yeah, embedding and exposing functions to Lua is very simple. Sandboxing it too: the I/O functions are confined to a few modules you can easily disable, which is a huge plus.

And it's a fast, small language with no "complicated" symbols to type (no C-like braces and stuff) and a nice learning curve, great for beginners / less-technical people.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Discrimination based on education? - <AUTHOR>

Could turning away job applicants for their lack of college education be considered discrimination? <comment><USER2> No because education is standard practice, and the water mark by with proficiency with the absence of experience is measured by.

While I'll admit a lot of CS courses, security courses, etc. are complete and total garbage. I've had community college professors tell me Object Orienting programming was a fad, and really not worth dwelling on. Because if your going to earn any money in software it'll be with COBOL or FORTRAN which don't have those fancy things.

</comment><comment><USER3> Assuming a US jurisdiction, no, according to the EEOC. See: [http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/index.cfm](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/index.cfm).</comment>


Open Source support for modern ARM GPUs soon upstreamed - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/memcpy_io/status/1045618699548405761?s=19 <comment><AUTHOR> This support is entirely pursued by the open source community and not ARM.</comment>


Chris Crawford on Mortality - <AUTHOR> http://www.erasmatazz.com/Personal/page70/page453/Sixty.html <comment><USER2> I know OP meant well, but I hated this. I hate the beads. I hate the jars. I hate the thinking behind all of this.

For the record, I'm almost as old as OP and this is all the opposite of how I think. I cherish every day. I can't wait to get to work. And to play. And to eat good food, drink good beer, and hang out with good friends and family. Yesterday, I jogged through the woods, emailed 15 friends, had cake and ice cream with my mother, hung out on hacker news, and wrote some really cool code. Today will probably be even better.

Moving a bead from one jar to the other is not only depressing, it's sick. Throw out those jars, OP, and get on doing what you love.

I don't care how old I am or how old anyone else is. I don't even want to think about my death, I just want to keep on living my life.

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather did, not screaming and yelling like everyone else in the car.

<comment><USER3> _I don't even want to think about my death, I just want to keep on living my life._

Aging is ridiculously unfair, but ignoring it doesn't stop it from happening. The Reaper keeps track of the beads whether or not you do. People get old. Their bodies and minds slowly break down. At some point they have to stop working, stop driving, stop doing lots of things they love doing.

This accounting of days sounds depressing at first, but I can speak from experience: you soon go back to your normal level of happiness, but with a more accurate view of reality. I think a similar thing happens with terminally ill patients, although the time scale is shorter.

The terminal illness analogy maps pretty well to aging. So much so that I encourage people to donate to anti-aging research such as the Methuselah Foundation (<https://www.mfoundation.org/?pn=mj_donate>) or SENS (<http://www.sens.org/donate>). I just donated $50 the latter.

<comment><USER4> How is aging ridiculously unfair?

<comment><USER3> It's likely that many people who are alive today will be around to take advantage of future anti-aging treatments. So if you're young enough, you win the birth lottery. Hooray, indefinite life span is yours. Otherwise, you wither and die.

How is that _not_ ridiculously unfair?

<comment><USER5> Who said life was fair? Why should death be?

I look at it this way: the near-eternity that occurred before my birth didn't bother me. So I won't be bothered by the eternity that occurs after my death. I won't be around to contemplate it.

You can take this line of thinking to either of its natural conclusions: the morbid one or the "seize the day" one. I'm somewhere in the middle. I try to seize the day, but I'm a realist.

Some days I grab life by the nuts. Some days I count the beads.

<comment><USER3> Life _isn't_ fair but it _should_ be.

 _I won't be bothered by the eternity that occurs after my death._

Would you mind if you died tomorrow? What about in a year? 10 years? 100? 1,000? If you had a choice in the matter, would you _ever_ want to age and die? Would you condemn others to the same fate?

I want to be alive tomorrow. Tomorrow I will want to be alive the next day. And so on. So I want to be alive indefinitely. This may or may not be possible, but it doesn't change the fact that it is desirable.

<comment><USER5> Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't mind an eternal or greatly extended life. But seeing as how I will not be cognizant of my nonexistence upon my death, I don't think it's worth getting too hung up about. I am probably too old to make the cutoff for the singularity -- or whatever similar event might kick off the path to eternal or thousand-year lifespans. So I find that it's best to maintain a cautiously optimistic attitude about my mortality. I am not expecting immortality, but it would be nice.

 _Would you condemn others to the same fate?_

I don't think that's a fair question, given that I haven't said anything of the sort. I would love for everyone to live as long as they could and prosper to whatever extent they could. I bear no animus to anyone who will win the birth lottery and be born into the age of 1,000-year lifespans. Similarly, I do not revel in the unfortunate fates of those who were born in the dark ages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At the risk of proving that I am immature (since these words can be read as me rejecting my mortality, which he mentions in the article) I wonder why so few of these posts acknowledge the possibility that new technology will allow life to be extended?

A lot of people seem to have a mental block regarding the possibility that our biological clock, like almost everything else, may eventually be changed by technology.

I am especially surprised by science fiction writers. Why are there old people in so much sci fi? Why are there old people on shows like Star Trek? Does anyone seriously think we will grow old and die 500 years from now? And isn't sci fi suppose to lead the way in this area? I mean, what is the point of sci fi, if it doesn't help people imagine how the future might be different? (Obviously, I'm talking about that branch of sci fi that avoids fantasies and dystopias)

Virginia Postrel has sort of hit on this theme in her writing, where she wonders why sci fi tends to be less optimistic than it used to be. The future is no longer what it once was:

<http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/archives/002834.html>

A lot of things that used to be sci fi are now real: space travel, global communication devices, computers that can fit in your pocket, medical treatments for once untreatable illnesses, etc.

It would be interesting to have a poll on Hacker News and ask people how long they think they will live. Since Hacker News is a community of forward looking individuals (and pro-technology too), such a poll would give a sense of how much a forward thinking group thinks medical technology is going to change in the next 60 years.

<comment><USER7> "Does anyone seriously think we will grow old and die 500 years from now?"

Absolutely. Here's a few reasons why I think that way:

A)Even if we somehow solve the problem of aging, some people (quite possibly many or even most) will still choose to live a "natural" life for any number of reasons.

B)History suggests that we will not continue our current rate of progress indefinitely. Who knows how long it may take to recover from the inevitable disruptions.

C)I suspect that, like cancer or practical flying cars, aging is a harder problem than we think it is. Just because we can envision the end result does not mean we can achieve it.

D)Based on current medical trends, any effective anti-aging treatment is likely to be so expensive that the vast majority of people will not be able to afford it.

E)In the end, entropy always wins.

My apologies for all the pessimism. :)

<comment><USER6> I assume you are just joking with the reference to entropy. It is only relevant to closed systems, and organisms are not closed systems. We can remove entropy from a system using energy. That is what food is for - it gives us the energy to remove entropy from our bodies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An excellent example of how blinkered most people are by the world in which they grew up - people are indoctrinated to live the life their parents lived. But we don't live in that world, and the number of beads in the jar can be radically increased through the application of biotechnology over the decades to come.

[Ob reference: <http://www.sens.org> ]

If we choose to do that of course. But if everyone walks through life with blinkers, assuming that it can only be the same as that of their parents, then nothing will change.

The future depends on people who break their indoctrination and work to make things different. Acceptance of what you saw as a child is death and stasis.

<comment><USER9> If you're 60 now, you don't necessarily have "decades to come", so the author's sense of urgency is understandable.

<comment><USER8> You could focus on supporting the cryonics industry instead, if your judgement is that you're on the wrong side of the line no matter what. The same point stands: if you are blinkered, you will not do this.

<http://www.longevitymeme.org/topics/cryonics.cfm>

<comment><USER9> The author is not going to single handedly push forward the cryogenics or life extension industries.

Maybe life will be significantly longer in the near future, maybe not. In the 60s we expected moon colonies around now and in the 50s top researchers considered AI almost around the corner. Science predictions are meaningless. From what I see right now my parents at their 60s aren't much different from my grandparents at the same age.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Putting a finite number of beads in a jar to represent your mortality seems like one of the most harmful psychological priming effects you could undertake. Short of hiring an assassin, I don't know of a better way to ensure that you'll die within a month of some specified date.

If someone recommended that you prepare yourself for your failures by repeating to yourself 50 times a day "I am certain to horrendously screw up everything that I undertake", would that seem like sage advice? All I can say is "don't be surprised when you're right".

Terrible idea.

<comment><USER11> The beads represented years of productivity. How many 80 year olds do you know that are not retired from their life's work? Not many.

<comment><USER10> I wonder if this is related to the number of 40 year olds convinced that being useless at 80 is unavoidable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This post brings up the connection between desire for achievement and mortality. The book "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker is an excellent perspective on this phenomenon. The central premise of the book is that, in order to feel comfortable about our own inevitable mortality, we seek achievements that make us feel "heroic" and offer the potential to outlive our physical bodies, thereby diminishing the impact of dying.

I wholeheartedly recommend the book to anyone, Mr. Crawford in particular. What he describes in this post is clearly in line with Becker's concept of an "immortality project."

<comment><USER13> And that is properly why we have a standard of living today that is so high as it is.

<comment><USER12> Quite likely. I'm not trying to say that this phenomenon is a bad thing (neither is Becker, really), merely that it's a way to look at an individual's motivations. If you accept the premise, then your conclusion is absolutely right. Becker's point, in fact, is that it's a driving force behind much of what we'd call progress and it affects, whether consciously or not, most of the significant decisions we make.

<comment><USER14> The implications on life extension are interesting. If people could live forever, would we just faff about? There's always tomorrow, after all.

<comment><USER11> Reminds me of the HPLD Civilization from Lem's The Cyberaid: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberiad>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not to seem crass, but one would think if his goal was to change games, he might have spent more time actually making them. Being inactive for 20 years (or two stripes in his vase), probably hasn't helped. For all his talk of making sure he doesn't waste a day, it seems he's wasted a lot.

I see this more as a warning story than anything. If you truly love something and want to contribute: Never stop.

The irony is that during his time of not contributing, others have risen and passed him, contributing more to games than he ever did.

The reality is that I had to google him to find out who he was. That is not someone who is committed to his craft.

<comment><USER16> His games pushed them limits and set the standards for what was possible with a computer game in the early 80's.

He literally wrote the book on how to write games for the Atari 800 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Re_Atari>

I don't think he stopped -- he tried to pull the industry in a direction he wanted to see it go and has not (yet) been successful.

When Java first started appearing on cell phones in the early 00's I tracked him down and sent him an email asking if he was interested in porting some of his old hits to a phone as they were about as powerful as a 80's PC. He responded with the source code of one I said I enjoyed, Eastern Front 1942, and said go for it. I spent a couple hours trying to make sense of the 6502 Assembly code and quit.

<comment><USER17> That's what 6502 emulators are for! Do you still have the source?

<comment><USER16> It is now online: <http://www.atariarchives.org/APX/showinfo.php?cat=20095>

Porting it was a good idea when the Motorola RAZR was the new hotness, but it doesn't hold up as well now that the processor in my iPhone is almost as fast as the one in my laptop: [http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe- eastern-f...](http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-eastern- front-1941_5986.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here is his page on the Le Morte d'Arthur project that he references.

<http://www.erasmatazz.com/page78/page397/LMDNotes.html>

<comment><USER19> That is actually for a very old version. You can run the current version using the SWAT tool. Open"LMD.stw". Run "Lizards->Storyteller Lizard". The download link is here: <http://www.storytron.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=1428>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just out of curiosity... A nano-poll. How many people have spent significant time playing Chris's actual games, like "Balance of Power" (my personal favourite)?

<comment><USER16> I played Balance of power for too many hours until I finally figured out the only way to win was to not play.

I also wasted tons of time on Eastern Front 1942. A great game because UI was so well thought out

<comment><USER20> I really enjoyed "Guns or Butter," it really taught me something about economies and infrastructures

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My grandfather continued to breed horses until he was 87. He didn't make a decision to stop, he simply had a stroke and has been restricted to a wheelchair.

Now he's 94 and he avidly reads books in English, German and Danish. He's trying to learn about the internet, but hasn't really gotten down the concept of "surfing the web".

Yes, you can be productive past your 80s. I plan to be, but I also have six decades until I'm there.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm a little disappointed. The title of the post and the beginning of the article had me expecting an interesting piece on mortality and life and regrets, but it ended up being an explanation of interactive story telling and an almost non sequitur story.

I loved the bead idea though. Pure genius to really nail in how finite life is. It hits home for all.

<comment> alan-crowe The post takes an individualistic view. For an alternative look at <http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/index.php>, the Mathematics Genealogy Project, which traces the tree from supervisor to PhD student.

Life is short and you cannot expect to achieve much, so be sure to provide a proper write up of the hacks that were hardest to discover. Teach them. Then they will not be lost and progress can accumulate.

<comment><USER14> Crawford has extensive writings at his website, and written a couple of books, and I think taught some, so he's arguably made the effort to pass his work along, in addition to keeping track of where he stands wrt mortality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if the iPad and e-readers will provide s better platform for Chris's Interactive Fiction ideas than the Desktops/Laptops. It always seemed like IF was books++ and reading the tablet/e-readers are far better suited to this.

Maybe he was just 20 years ahead of the tech?

</comment><comment><USER24> The journey is the reward, though it may not seem like it.

</comment><comment><USER25> There are hundreds of games that revolve around stories, and always have been. Not sure what is so special about the OP's approach.

<comment><USER19> In those games, the plot is either pre-written, or based on fixed branching trees, like the choose-your-own-adventure books. In Storytron, the plot is dynamic, based on the user' actions in a dramatic environment.

<comment><USER25> Ah ok. Sounds interesting.</comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus can cause blood clots and may lead to strokes - <AUTHOR> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-23/research-suggests-coronavirus-can-cause-blood-clots-and-strokes/12176826 <comment><USER2> The virus inflames the blood vessels, which makes diffusion of gases between the lungs and the bloodstream more difficult. This leads to hypoxia. The hypoxic cascade it causes leads to hemes detaching, becoming free hemes, which has to bind to nitric oxide. As time goes on, nitric oxide gets depleted, and you end up with pulmonary embolism or clotting, which is a natural consequence of low NO. If people went to the hospital at the first sign of stroke, and received NO treatment, this would be avoidable. The young people who died in NYC ignored stroke symptoms for a day or more on average, so while education is important, it is treatable if caught.</comment>


AWS Apache Kafka - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/kafka/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, this is not a managed Kafka service by AWS. It's a marketing page that says, "Operating Kafka is hard, have you checked out Kinesis?"</comment>


Huawei's race to overcome American aggression - <AUTHOR> https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-05-17/Huawei-s-race-to-overcome-American-aggression-QyLhAXMgeI/index.html <comment><USER2> This website eerily smells like a CCP propaganda outlet. Treat with caution.

<comment><USER3> Just checked Wikipedia[wiki]:

CGTN (China Global Television Network), formerly known as CCTV-9 and CCTV News, is an international English-language news channel based in Beijing and is also referred as a mouthpiece of Chinese government.[1] A part of the China Global Television Network group, it is owned and operated by China Central Television (CCTV), a state-owned media organization of China, under the control of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China.[2] The service is aimed at the overseas market, and it was launched on 25 September 2000. Coverage includes newscasts, in-depth reports, and commentary programs, as well as feature presentations. Its free-to-air satellite signal is received in over 100 countries.

[wiki]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CGTN_(TV_channel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CGTN_\(TV_channel\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> China can only trade thanks to the global security the US provides (for FREE), and The US is now probably going home (and COVID could rapidly accelerate this). China cannot and is not even close to being able to provide security on the open oceans. Because of this China may not even be a unified country in a decade. They may soon have _much_ bigger problems than Huawei.</comment>