What sparked your inner hacker? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering what first interested you all in programming.
For me?  My cousin showed me how to use AOL Press back in the day and I started making random fan/rom/emulator websites.  It was on from there and I haven't closed notepad since. =P
How about you? <comment><USER2> Shortly after my parents bought a new Macintosh, I found a program on it called Hypercard. It was a RAD tool that included a scripting language with flexible, English-like (verbose!) syntax. I starting digging around in the source code of the demo apps, and it kind of snowballed from there.

I took quite a while off after being taught that "real programming" meant C or C++ ,and later Java. The thought of trying to write interesting applications in those languages was unappealing. I discovered PHP when I needed server-side processing on a web page, but didn't find it very satisfying.

A few years ago, I heard that some guy had created a spam filter that actually worked. I read some other articles on his site, and he kept talking about a programming language called Lisp. I had heard of it, but thought it was dead. I decided to give it a try, and I haven't turned back since.

</comment><comment><USER3> I object to the overuse of the word "hacker". You're all like a bunch of freshman coeds in English class talking about the day they became poets.

<comment><USER4> How would you define it? My definition of a hacker is someone who creatively and safely overcomes or circumvents limitations and enjoys the challenge.

<comment><USER5> Why qualify it with "safely"?

<comment><USER6> to disqualify malicious hackers, probably

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A big influence on me was the hacker culture on AOL. This was around the time AOL 2.6 or 2.7 was current, and there were many ways to modify the AOL software to do very cool things.

After AOL released version 3 of the AOL client (which closed a lot of the hooks for illegal addons), I wrote what might be the world's first searchbox for web browsers. This was when I was a teenager and AltaVista was still the largest search engine. The program I wrote was a small AppleScript application that registered an "av" protocol with Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer so you could type "av:knitting patterns" in the Location bar and have that string sent to the AppleScript applet. The script received the string, looked for what came after the "av:" and computed a full URL to send it back to the web browser. The whole process was invisible to the user, as long as the AppleScript applet was running in the background.

It was a very simple script and I released it as shareware. I later built a search plugin architecture so users could add their favorite search engines, and the whole experience was a huge lesson in programming, testing, documentation, distribution, customer support and marketing, and I was suddenly buried in work.

Then Apple developed a plugin architecture for Sherlock and I started getting fewer and fewer shareware registrations. That's what essentially killed my shareware product, but the entire experience was very exciting. I was hooked and have been hacking ever since.

<comment><USER7> It's interesting that the style of searching you're talking about has remanifested 12 years later in the form of Firefox 3's smart bookmarks. <http://ptaff.ca/smart/>

What was the name of your program? Does it still work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was six years old and sitting in my father's lap reading while my mother video-taped. At some point I playfully smacked my dad, he playfully smacked back and I began to cry. Afterwards, my mom said something about editing the video. In my mind, I understood her to mean she could somehow alter the video... you know, change my crying into smiles, laughs and lollipops. I still can't get over how much influence that single misconception has had on my life.

 _Cut to three years later._

A good family friend gave me an old Apple IIe in 1994 (I was 9). I would break it, and then watch him fix it. It was fascinating, and I finally had my chance to figure out how to make machines do what I wanted.

</comment><comment><USER9> I started on computers since before my earliest memory -- my parents got me SimCity and I played it every chance that I could. My inner hacker spawned in stages, though, I'm not sure there was a specific event. There were more general things, like loving to read, but there were also situations where I had to figure out how to let the library let me have an adult card. It's these that make the better anecdotes.

Here are some examples. I used the computer so much as a kid that my parents used to try to stop me. First they put a password on the boot-up. I read everything I could until I learned to flash the BIOS. Next they installed this enuff computer time restricting system, which I spent a ton of time breaking. Over a period of two or so years, my actions provided the first line of bug testing for the Enuff programmers. Boy were they furious. Eventually I built a keystroke recorder, and that stopped that for a while. They couldn't keep me out.

Other hackerly things I liked to do included turning the scripting languages in games into other games. I wrote a really cool RPG in Starcraft, for example. I also learned how to automate tasks in 3DSMax, which was really fun.

At some point I hacked college entry, and I was in there way earlier than authorities thought that I should have been. By this point a 'hacker' identity was already written for me, but most of the interests started way, way earlier.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's Bill Gates' fault.

I had an Atari ST. It had a simple, elegant GUI desktop and there was no reason for me to ever stop playing Uninvited or drawing in DeluxePaint. I would have been about 9. I'd save up my pocket money and buy $20 imported ST Format magazines with headlines like 'ATARI VS AMIGA: WHO WILL INHERIT THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING', and read about MIDI and DTP.

Everything worked so I had nothing to fix.

Alas the ST broke. And it turned out neither Atari nor Amiga inherited the future of computing - nobody made games for Atari ST anymore. I got a 286 12 running DOS 3 from my mum, and was plunged into boot disk hell trying to free that precious 640K of RAM for my games. I started editing batch files and using 'errorlevel' to make little menus so I could use less floppies (they were expensive). Then I had a 386 where the video card slipped out all the time. So I opened the case and slipped it back in. I eventually got a feel for hardware.

The computer teachers at high school were terrible. I didn't like logo, as I couldn't see anything practical. We learnt Pascal later, but the teacher was always away, so we learnt from the internet and another kid who showed us.

I read a lot of computer magazines. I wanted to write for computer magazines.

I finished high school and did a certificate in business management the same year. I did an MCSE at 17, got into tweaking a lot, then found Linux, the tweakers dream. Tweaking lead to scripting, scripting leads to hacking.

I'm actually really glad I got into Linux then, and I'm glad I stuck with it. At that time, everybody was talking about Win32 and Visual Studio. It seemed like you had to have an MSDN subscription to make software that was considered desirable by the masses. Now the internet is considered the biggest part of computing, and more often or not it's based on OSS toolsets and languages.

PS. Atari rocks all over Amiga. :^P

</comment><comment><USER11> When I was two years old my dad bought an 8086 and installed ChessBase on it. I loved pushing the arrows keys and watching the pieces move. Then the summer after kindergarten my mom bought me a QBASIC book. I had only recently learned to read so it had to be read aloud to me at first, but I understood it. I pretty much didn't get up from my terminal all summer. By the time I started first grade I was comfortable with nested loops. I still have a friend whom I met in fourth grade who started programming as early as I did, but in REXX. I don't put much stock in Piaget :-)

It wasn't until around 1999, though, that I was really able to start becoming a hacker. That was when I finally got my own computer rather than sharing one with the family, and immediately put Linux on it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wanted to make video games.

<comment><USER13> I remember in my 4th grade class trying to convince my teacher that I would be able to deliver a shooting game by the end of the week for an oral presentation on how to construct things. Though I had no idea what to do, I did it.

<comment><USER6> That's a great challenge. I'm curious how you implemented this.

The Zapper (or Famicon Light Gun): <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NES_Zapper#Technical_overview>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I was a kid I loved playing Dark Castle. It was a game for the Mac written by Jonathan Gay (I still vividly remember the splash screen). A friend of the family noticed my growing interest in computers and showed me how to decompile the game. After giving me a few glimpses of the source code he recompiled the game and then left the room.

I think he was fully aware how fascinated I was and anticipated what I'd do next. It was probably what every kid would have done in my shoes: I decompiled the game, made a few changes, recompiled it and was exremely pleased to see "Dark Castle - programmed by: John K" on the splash screen.

</comment><comment><USER15> I took some computer classes in junior high school (BASIC with numbered lines, flow charts, etc.), but it never really grabbed me. My teacher's dream job was to be a mainframe programmer for IBM. Imagine a fat guy that sounded like Ben Stein (and wore an actual pocket protector!) dreaming of IBM mainframes...we called him Mr. Excitement. I just didn't see the attraction. The teacher told me programs were like executable math, which turned me off even more. I hated math.

Then I became somewhat of a science geek...Westinghouse, ISEF, etc. At the science competitions, there was a large number of stereotypical nerds (socially awkward, overly interested in grades, suck-ups, etc.) and a small group of people that were into 'hacks.' The smaller group tried to outdo each other with 'applied science pranks.' They always had informal competitions and awards programs that ran alongside the actual competition events. I wanted to compete, so I started learning how to program and how to do some chemistry- oriented pranks. I was goal-oriented.

My first year at one of the international competitions, I won my event at the real awards program, and then I won the 'hacker' competition. (I programed all the hallway, elevator, and atrium lights in our hotel and convention center to strobe. It was the largest hotel in the city, so it was...noticeable. It made the evening news on all the local channels, and one of their national channels had a human interest piece about "What happens when you put a couple hundred science geeks in a single hotel.") I was hooked.

</comment><comment><USER16> Thinking about it, I may not be a hacker in any sense of the word, except obsessive focus on solving a problem; computing for computing's sake was burned out of me within a year of my starting, but what got me going was:

The mystique of this computer programming stuff done by other high school scientists in a NSF Summer Science Training Program (SSTP) in the summer of 1977.

Coming back home to a high school computer programming course (punched card "FORTRAN IV" on an IBM 1130 (numeric IFs, but, hey, it fit in 8KB and didn't require a disk)) taught by ... a coach.

A coach who gave us a not in the book no notes that I remember blackboard lecture on two's complement representation and arithmetic that I now realize was _invaluable_ , even though I've never written a line of assembler in my life (useful for debugging (especially before dbx :-), but the wrong level of abstraction for me).

And the above by then a decade obsolete computing environment sending me straight to the library stacks to e.g. learn about Structured Programming, which was all the rage then.

What truly set the hook was Harvard Summer School in 1978: a PDP-11/70 running a very well hacked up V6 (command name and argument completion and hinting!) which was a rich environment with the good Peter Langston games of the time (except Empire) and of course Adventure.

Buying a DECTAPE then because it was cool. Learning "rm -rf" and being very glad I had bought it ^_^ (to this day I'm a fanatic about backups).

And then getting introduced to MULTICS, ITS (including Zork) and Lisp Machines ---and wondering whey UNIX was winning and MULTICS was all but dead, leading to a life long study the determinants of success in the area discussed by The Rise of Worse Is Better. Even as a serious scientist (chemist) who can't play games any more due to mild RSI, this stuff is just too damned fun to ignore.

<comment><USER17> extra points for nested parentheses in english sentences.

ONLY a coder would do such a thing ^-^

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wanted to resolve the 'Einstein' or 'Cabins' puzzle so I got an Aim65. I went through Pet, CPM, bubble memory, Forth, Dr Jobs, Turbo C, Smalltalk and was very near to a solution with microProlog (it came as an 8"floppy). Then Winston and Mellish ruined it for me. It's done even better now with amb and monads but life has never been quite the same.

</comment><comment><USER19> Acorn BBC Micro and Sinclair Spectrum. BASIC. Various Usbourne books. I wrote a text editor on my Spectrum in BASIC. It was too slow at keeping up with your typing, so I figured out enough about Z80 assembly to write a little routine to speed up the slow bit. Later I made a sort of GUI front-end for my Spectrum, inspired by the Macs at school.

</comment><comment><USER20> I thought programming was a way to understand how these neat machines worked, so like many other 10 year olds, I tried programming BASIC on an 8 bit (Atari 600XL with the awe-inspiring (not) GTIA chip).

But my first real taste of hacking came in grade 7: understanding and implementing a 1-99 counter using seven segment LED displays, a 555, and some 7447 BCD->7 segment LED driver was lots of fun.

And then in high school, it was all about understanding the Amiga.

Looking over the Amiga schematics in the Hardware Reference Manual and figuring out how the low pass filter circuitry worked was fun.

Writing my first 68k asm program to do sine waves and programming the Amiga's coprocessor chip to do on the fly scanline colour changes was really cool too.

PS - for all you Atari ST lovers, here's 25 cents - buy yourself a real os :)

</comment><comment><USER21> I was playing with my dads IBM 5150 PC back in 1988 when I was 6 yrs old, I remember that. I was too young to do much though, mainly just play a spelling game.

My introduction to hacking was in 1992 when my dad purchased a 486DX2 PC. I was writing batch file menus in DOS to load files, etc. It didn't take very long before I started trying to overclock it and stuff.

Looking back on it, I'm very surprised my dad trusted me to mess around with his computers like that, given how much they cost back then... Honestly, I dont think he had a clue as to what I was doing. But I'm grateful at the same time as I learned a lot. I think kids need that freedom to experiment when it comes to hacking.

</comment><comment><USER22> Discovering how Phish tapes were being shared through the internet was my first hacker experience. I was 15 when I got into this scene thanks to an AOL account my parents had. This was pre-napster and it was the only way to get a copy of live music that was not available in the record store. Learning about the whole process of taping a show and distributing it with trees of people who made copies of the show for people underneath. A lot of it was social networking since the tapes were sent through the mail, but it was all coordinated over a newsgroup and email.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wanted to draw the Mandelbrot set -- as fast as possible. This led to an interest in code optimization, which led to an interest in numerical algorithms, which led to an interest in parallel computing, which led to an interest in computer security, which led to an interest in string matching and data compression algorithms.

I haven't done much in the way of code optimization lately -- I pretty much gave up once the P6 core came along and started aggressively pessimizing my code by executing instructions out-of-order -- but I'm still quite interested in all of the rest.

</comment><comment><USER24> Legos.

<comment><USER25> Funny! Me too. Build what I want with limited types of tiles. Assembly was the most fun and the closest to playing lego. I built a 2x1.5m city in legos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I always liked taking things apart, putting things together, and putting things together to make them do things they weren't originally intended to do. I liked to draw, paint, make stuff.

When I discovered programming, I saw it as the much the same thing, only better; being digital, you have fewer arbitrary constraints than the Real World. Imagination was the only real limit.

Software is opinionated reality, the ultimate playground and toy chest. I'm still surprised that more people don't find it intrinsically fascinating. Go figure. :)

</comment><comment><USER27> Being given a Sharp PC-1500 pocket computer at age 6, and messing with it enough to learn BASIC via "brute force". A few months later being given a manual that filled in some of the blanks.

</comment><comment><USER28> Initially? Learning Basic from a really motivated teacher who said in 20 years that everyone would need to know at least basic programming since everyone would be working on a computer for their job. He wasn't that far off.

What crushed my inner hacker? University computer science where everything was very strict and restraining, or perhaps it was my focus.

What re-sparked it? Lisp briefly for inspiring me to code in a better way. Then Python :)

</comment><comment><USER29> I read a lot of science-fiction as a kid. For me and my brother computers were just as fascinating (and unattainable) as space travel and aliens. When it actually became possible for ordinary people to buy a computer (the ZX81!), of course we saved up for it. When we got the computer, of course we had to learn how to program it, since it didn't have any software.

</comment><comment><USER30> I always thought about hacking as breaking into other peoples computers.

It had to be one of these two:

the AOL Homepage maker(the wysiwyg) or

the homestead pages(ex:whateveryouwant.homestead.com).

I made a homestead page about the origin of mankind for my History class in the 7th grade. This made me think that almost anything could be done on the web, and it has become a reality since then.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wanted to break security. I never wound up learning much about it because I got too interested in other things.

</comment><comment><USER32> Commodore PET and Commodore 64. I don't remember exactly why I wanted to program them... just that it was fun.

</comment><comment><USER33> Having access to a computer (a DEC Rainbow). It's strange, but as a kid it's quite difficult _not_ to be drawn to hacking if you've got the environment and tools for experimenting. By the time I was 15 I've already done some Logo, Prolog, Basic and Pascal .. from there it was impossible to stop.

</comment><comment><USER34> Writing calculator games on a ti83 during freshman math courses. I still remember that my programs all used single letter variable names -- I think there was a technical reason, but maybe I was just incompetent -- and I had a piece of paper for each program that tracked which meant what :)

</comment><comment><USER35> Wow, do I feel old.

Using the DOS command line with my Dad's Compaq luggable with _dual_ 5-1/4" floppies, baby!

The first true coding that I did was making a graphics program in basic. I thought it looked like Star Wars hyperspace scene. No one else agreed with me, though.

</comment><comment><USER36> When the physics department got their own computer, a DEC VAX/VMS. I was a post-graduate with more-or-less unlimited access. It was love at first sight.

</comment><comment><USER37> Seeing a little text based graphic game called "lunar landar" running on a commodore PET that a teacher had brought in when I was in middle school.

</comment><comment><USER38> Geocities...God rest their souls...

</comment><comment><USER39> I have to thank my HP 48GX calculator.

I just love RPL! ;)</comment>


A faster Python sort - <AUTHOR> http://dpb.bitbucket.org/a-faster-python-sort.html <comment><USER2> Adding an option to shoot yourself in the foot is bad API design and a premature optimization.

For the most part, it is rare to have both fully randomized data and a need to sort it.

One way to test the quality of a psuedo random number generator is to count ascending and descending runs [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diehard_tests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diehard_tests). This suggests that runs are hard to get rid of even when your trying to do it on-purpose. The Timsort algorithm expends a little effort to see if runs are present (which is common) so that it can dramatically reduce the effort required to sort. Taking the check out is likely to be a bad idea in general -- "Hey, I'll speed things up by a few percent by removing the check for a high-speed shortcut. Now, give me a raise."

In a way, this micro-optimization isn't much more interesting than adding a flag to indicate that the data is already sorted. "Hey, I sped-up the sort routine by 100% because I already happened to know that the data was already sorted. Another raise please."

Lastly, I question the benchmarking procedure. One uses numpy arrays without any object overhead and the other timing uses plain python lists. This is an apples-to-oranges comparison that doesn't allow you to draw any meaningful conclusions about the relative speed of the two algorithms.

Very few people have crossed light sabers with Tim Peters and won. I'm amazed at how many people think that the first ideas that pop into their head will be better than decades of experience, deep analysis, and careful design. This is mature code, widely studied, and adopted in multiple languages.

<comment><USER3> The difference between merge sort and tim sort is not "removing a check"; timsort is actually a different algorithm. In the ordinary sense of the word, there is no check. In fact, the use of insertion sort is most important to speed up sorting _random_ data, because the real advantage of insertion sort is that for small enough chunks -- anything that fits in a few cache lines -- the amount you save on comparisons vastly exceeds the amount you spend on swapping. Most well-written sort functions use insertion sort at small enough sizes.

The adaptive speedup in timsort does not come from adopting ideas in insertion sort; rather, it comes from strand sort.

[http://](http://) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strand_sort

As to the speedup, who knows? As you've stated, this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. It depends on the Python vs NumPy object model, and it's pretty suspicious to see mergesort beating quicksort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you know the structure of your data (or lack thereof) a priori, of course you can select an algorithm that outperforms one that is strong in a more general sense. An insertion sort is O(N) for nearly sorted data (hence why it's used as a part of many hybrid sorts) and, on data that's already sorted, will outperform ANY sort you throw at it. However, you would never use it on data that you know is reversed.

In other words, calling a merge sort a "faster sort" is a complete misnomer. Saying it's faster for a certain sequence of data is far more accurate (and also a bit of a "no shit" statement since one could construct a multitude of sequences where the opposite is also true).

<comment><USER5> That's why the best sorting algorithm is to generate sorted data, if that's possible without too much overhead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe it's me but I feel like sort is an overstudied problem. There are much more interesting challenges with datastructures and algorithms.

EDIT: the blog post presents a benchmark on two completely different datastructures (numpy matrix vs python list), it is unclear if any conclusion can be drawn.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are good reasons Timsort is used by the stdlib, namely that real world data is often partially sorted. Of course you can manufacture cases in which sorting a numpy array via mergesort is faster than timsort on a stdlib list, but that doesn't make this headline appropriate. The author literally has one example. That's not how you characterize an algorithm. Is he unaware of big O? I wouldn't mind seeing a thorough review of the implementation and behavior differences between these two algorithms, but this article isn't it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Okay, this is a bit of a side issue, but a few details about the NumPy Quicksort are bothering me.

First, we've known since 1997 how to improve Quicksort's worst case number of comparisons to O(n log n) for an n-item list. (Track the recursion depth and switch to Heap Sort on the current sublist if the depth exceeds 2 log_2(n); this is usually called "Introsort".) This optimization is pretty well known. For a front-line library like NumPy to include a quadratic-worst-case sorting algorithm in 2014 is ridiculous.

Second (and rather less important), we can't write Quicksort with constant extra space usage, since, when sorting a small sublist, we need to remember the pivots in the larger sublists we are in the middle of sorting. So Quicksort's extra space usage is going to be at best O(log n) subscripts/pointers for an n-item list. However, the docs say 0 work space required. This would be correct if the sort were written in "C" and NumPy only counts Python objects in its space usage, but I can't find anywhere this is stated.

Third (and perhaps _very_ important), I don't see anything in the docs about locality of reference or any other is-this-algorithm-friendly-to-modern- processor-architectures issues. There are good reasons Quicksort is largely being abandoned for standard-library sort implementations.

<comment><USER9> >>There are good reasons Quicksort is largely being abandoned for standard- library sort implementations.

Maybe I am not up to date on that but there was some fuss lately about implementation of dual pivot quicksort in Java standard library which was to replace the old implementation ([http://www.docjar.com/html/api/java/util/DualPivotQuicksort....](http://www.docjar.com/html/api/java/util/DualPivotQuicksort.java.html))

My experience is also that quicksort smokes all merge-sort hybrids on partially sorted inputs but of course that might be because my inputs had something very specific in them when I tested it. Quicksort is very cache friendly (pivot sits in a register, and you keep comparing to what is already in cache assuming you sort small structs with key in them).

My intuition is that mergesort hybridgs being faster in some languages is very specific to implementation of those languages and they will lose once you are down to sorting C structs.

<comment><USER8> Well, perhaps I'm not terribly up-to-date on the issues I mentioned third, either. FWIW, there is a comment on why GNU libc defaults to Merge Sort for qsort() on Reddit:

> The reason we made qsort() default to using merge sort was, indeed, that it > always makes fewer compares than quick sort. We thought that in the common > case, people would sort small objects (numbers, pointers) rather than large > objects, and that therefore the performance would be dominated by > comparisons rather than data movement.

Link to full comment: [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1jxq4/ask_reddi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1jxq4/ask_reddit_why_does_the_gnu_libc_use_mergesort_to/c1k07v)

Since you say "pivot sits in a register", you're also talking about very small data. It looks to me like the two of you disagree. (OTOH, that comment was 7 years ago.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My intuition about sorting in Python is that by far the fastest way would be to calculate keys first then call an optimized C quicksort on arrays of structs {handle, key} and copy it back to Python. That would require more than 2n memory (and exactly 2n for things like ints or chars) but the speed-up should be huge because well implemented C quicksort on small structs really shines when it comes to exploiting characteristics of modern hardware (cache hits are more important than number of comparisons).

<comment><USER10> Timsort doesn't have n^2 worst case performance. Also, CPython's sort is implemented in C, no need for copying: [http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/be77b213ace0/Objects/listo...](http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/be77b213ace0/Objects/listobject.c#l2037)

<comment><USER9> It is implemented in C but it doesn't sort small structs without any pointer dereference. That quicksort have n^2 worst case scenario doesn't matter in practice at all. First you can make it nlogn (by either running heapsort at some point or taking median out of 3-5 random elements instead of once at predermined positions).</comment></comment></comment>


On Linus Torvalds, technical and corporate communications - <AUTHOR> https://ds9a.nl/articles/posts/linus-communications/ <comment><USER2> This is actually a pretty good writeup. I think the best teams are more aggressive than what the author suggests.

The only thing you don't need to do is swear and the only thing you need to really add is a better solution:

"That's a terrible terrible idea! It's bad design because of x, y and z. Instead, why don't we do a? We can write tests for it and we'll need to refactor the module, but it's a clean solution. We could also do b as a quick fix. I mean if we have to, we can do c, but I think we should try to do a."

You should not be afraid to say ideas are terrible. On a corporate team, just don't swear (in slack, you can in person. It's about professionalism) but if you say something is terrible, say why, defend your argument and be prepared to offer a better solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think my main message is that by being so definitive in the rejection of things, you close down the possibility there is something you don't know. For example, the moveFile() thing, maybe this is some kind of fingerprinted DRM library where "nothing can change". Just leaving open the possibility there might be a reason removes a lot of friction. And btw, this moveFile example is so horrible it probably does require some yelling :-)</comment></comment>


A Micropreneur's Perspective: Selling Physical Products vs. Digital Products - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2009/05/04/selling-physical-products-vs-digital-products/

<comment><USER2> "Though I haven't acquired anything yet (I have my eye on a few), the return on those funds will be much higher with a software product or SaaS website"

so he's basically assuming 'digital' is better because your experience with 'physical' didn't sell enough? What about thousands of purely digital sites out there that don't sell anything? Would that disprove the comparison in any way?

imho, the assumption that the margin is higher on digital ignores one simple fact: most 'digital products' on the web are free anyway...

<comment><USER3> No, digital is better because you own the IP, the distribution and take home almost 100% of the gross. Returns are not a factor because there's no physical product to worry about. He is sharing the bulk of the revenue (40%) with the dropshippers, and if he didn't do that, he'd tie up a lot of capital in inventory and warehousing, plus have to pack and ship orders. None of these are problems with a digital business.

<comment><USER4> pigs are better then cats

I don't mean to be snarky, but any comparison between digital and physical products that's weighing them up in abstract is just silly. There are good and bad business models doing either one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My problem with this article is he mentions that to avoid being a commodity, you need to build your own product, then ignores the rest of that path.

There is obviously lots of money to be made that way, even by 1-man shops. I do it (sell custom/semi-custom electronics) and my fulfillment and inventory costs are minimal.

Sure, reselling most products is relatively low margin (but profit is profit!), but it's not like the only choice is "digital" vs. "resale."

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/auctions/55207>

</comment><comment><USER7> Key point here: When you sell physical goods, unless you manufacture the goods yourself, you are a commodity, therefore, margins will always be low.

<comment><USER4> _One major benefit of selling a physical product is you don't have to build anything; the work is all in finding a supplier and putting up a site. This is great because you avoid the 200-400 hours to build something._

I don't know where to start.</comment></comment>


UK startup scene needs a confidence boost - <AUTHOR> http://www.carsonified.com/web-apps/the-problem-with-web-mission

<comment><USER2> There's recently been a debate at Cambridge University (UK) about Silicon Valley vs. Europe as the future for start-ups. Hermann Hauser, a very successful entrepreneur from Cambridge, argued that Europe will catch up when it comes to new technology (I think he mentioned mobile phone chips). I find his point quite interesting and I am willing to believe that Europe has a chance of winning when it comes to new inventions.

On the other hand, Silicon Valley is where the money is. Much more importantly, however, seems to be the willingness to take risks and embrace failures. This is something that cannot be found in the UK and I dare say it is vital.

<comment><USER3> "I think he mentioned mobile phone chips..." - that would be ARM, one of the (sadly too few) UK technology success stories:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's all well and good saying that we have everything here in the UK, but where? I want names, places and events.

Where is the UK start-up school with an illustrious list of speakers - including SV ones?

Who are the VC's with some balls to back some risky, yet exciting start-ups?

If we are to catch-up with SV, shouldn't we be doubling, or even tripling, our efforts, like having Seedcamp run twice a year in a similar vein to YC, etc., etc.

There is good reason why the UK/European start-ups have gone to the sates, and that is because they don't believe we have everything here. If we have everything here, then make it more evident.

</comment><comment><USER5> A package tour for a bunch of nerds to stay in the tenderloin and commute to Oracle during the day? I don't foresee many important deals being made during this trip.

On a certain level, this is a bit disturbing, as I distinctly remember the number of silly conferences and mixers increasing to a critical mass right before the dot-com bust. Lately, in SF there has been a Web 2.0/TechCrunch/Valleywag event every other night.</comment>


HoursForEquity matches startups and job seekers - <AUTHOR> http://hoursforequity.com/index.php

<comment><USER2> So back in the dotcom days there was this thing where Startup A would give Startup B some product or service "valued at" some number in exchange for Startup B giving them some product or service "valued at" and equivalent kind of amount. They did this because both A and B could report "sales" of $x revenue with a moderately straight face, even though no money changed hands and it was entirely unclear if either A or B would have paid $X for the service/product they got if they were actually exchanging real money. So for example the startup I was working at got a $120,000 data base installation in exchange for $120,000 worth of banner ads on our site.

There were two problems with that, first the investors were somewhat misled (seeing only the 'sales' numbers and not the actual dollars in the bank number) and two the IRS went after folks who were saying "millions in revenues" for taxes on those revenues which, since they were in trade goods rather than dollars, the companies didn't actually have money to pay the taxes.

Its this latter bit that worries me about this idea. If you give equity for work you have to provide a value for it. You have to give the person a 1099 form (if its over $600) and they may end up owing income tax on an illiquid asset.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting idea but think there will be a huge adverse selection problem here. Any startup giving out equity for tasks but which as no cash to pay may not be all that valuable to have equity in.

And I wonder if the same can be said of the job seekers who use this. Really great people get paid for their work and perhaps get equity as well.

Part of me hopes I'm wrong about this as it is an interesting idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> We agree with you, however, this is a way to turn an idea into a minimum viable product without spending money. This may not be the best way to build a full product, but our philosophy is the more hypotheses you can test without spending cash the better off you are. Thoughts?

<comment><USER3> With this comment, I lost any faith in this idea as it's clear this is not about both sides deriving value in the process. In your scheme, startup "founders" or really wantrapreneurs get to try out half-baked ideas by giving away worthless equity to folks that are ultimately being duped while idea guys ultimately talk about their MVP and pivots and other bs that people who fancy themselves as startup founders think they should talk about.

On a related note, the "founders" participating in sites like these give a bad name to business people with legitimate biz building skills.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious about why you think that? Most of the startups that have used our service so far have been started by engineers (including myself) that need help building a product they actually believe in... not just idea people going after the first thing that comes to mind.

Also, when equity has been issued it was typically in the 10-30% range. Essentially, businesses are using this as a way to find partners - not to dupe engineers.

Thoughts?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What kind of job seeker is this looking to attract?

Equity's great if that equity turns out to be worth something, but it doesn't pay today's bills. If I've got money saved up and I'm looking to take on a labor of passion, chances are really good it's going to be with one or two other people I already know, respect, and trust. If I don't have money saved up then I need cash now, not equity with an uncertain payday.

I get why entrepreneurs would love this, but what's the use case for job seekers? What am I missing?

<comment><USER5> The problem with most recruiting sites is the lack of (competent) candidates.

And this is because highly competent candidates are never deliberately looking for a job. They get recruited to a pretty good job before they have even started thinking of jobs from college, and then get recruited to other companies by an old friend. It's extremely rare that they are ever considering themselves to be a "job seeker" at all.

These people don't bother reading recruitment-only sites in their free time. And they certainly don't want to create a job-seeking profile, and get in trouble with their boss who thinks they may be leaving.

But what they are very interested in is reading about their field of speciality. When I was sourcing candidates, the only online places where I found qualified engineers were the StackOverflow and 37signals job boards. These two are successful because they built the _community and content_ that competent candidates want to visit daily first, and added a job board second. I have no expertise in mechanical engineering, but GrabCad seems to be doing it well in that area.

So my theory for running a successful recruiting site is:

1\. Choose a single profession, skill, or field. 2\. Create seed content yourself to attract initial experts in that field. 3\. Add community features to let these initial experts contribute more content. 4\. When you have become a well-known site for most experts in the field, add job boards.

<comment><USER6> I see geekli.st taking this exact approach now. Another approach is what betacave.com is doing (disclaimer: I'm a co-founder)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting idea but I would have a huge aversion to giving anyone equity who I haven't had some experience working with in the past or I don't see as having a long term role in my company.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would anything change your mind about that? If you wanted to test a hypothesis for a risky business idea and didn't want to sink cash into it, would it be worth it?

Would you prefer a method to pay cash for labor instead?

<comment><USER7> I think in any potential business venture the team is so critical that I'd go out to people I know to help, even for early prototyping. Admittedly I might not be your target demographic because I can code myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. I'll think about that and see what we can come up with... thanks for sharing your opinion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If your company's "most precious resource" is capital and not equity, that's indicating that you are expecting to fail. Equity is already far more risky than a salary in companies that think they'll succeed. I hope you are successful, but I think you might need a pivot or two on this idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> What did you have in mind? We hear from the community that some combination of equity and cash would be helpful, but I'm curious what other ideas you had?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The website look and feel is good.But I would like to see if you have talked to few startups interested to work with you. Put their logo at the bottom of your sites mentioning that these are the top startups hiring job seekers. That way you can attract more user(job seekers) to your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea! Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The video on the home page is surprisingly polished and professionally produced but the script is an obvious piss-take. The home page on the other side is a quick & dirty job - looks like it's been thrown together in a couple of hours using some free website template.

I vote for an end-of-year project by media students made for fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> How would you suggest we improve the script and home page?

<comment><USER10> If you guys are actually real, then here is why my first impression was this was a piss-take / joke project:

\- The presentation video is slick and has obviously been professionally produced. First impression of the home page on the other side is that it's a very quick & dirty job based on some generic website template. At first sight, it also looks like the site is just the home page and nothing else (tried to fill in the registration form on the home page and it didn't do anything).

So first impression is that you've spent an awful lot of time, energy and money into creating a fancy presentation video but haven't spent any time or resources into the product itself. Which is strange and doesn't give a great deal of confidence.

\- The video is essentially a collection of every startup cliché you can think of: "we're creating a social network", "the possibilities are endless", statements about how your product is somehow going to revolutionise local communities, which, to be honest, sound like your typical pure bullshit PR- speak, etc. All filmed in the most stereotypical way I can think of. I'm sorry but my gut feelings here were that none of this was real or genuine.

And then there's those really weird clips of the founder playing guitar or browsing records in a record shop that don't really make any sense. I can only interpret them as taking the piss out of the stereotypical startup founder, who sees himself as a rock star and spends his time faffing around, bullshiting about how he's building the next Facebook, while expecting people to work for him for free / equity.

If this is a real project, then the way to improve this would simply be to focus completely on the product. At the stage you're at, the product is the one and only thing that matters. Fancy videos and big promises only come when you have a product that matches and delivers. Otherwise, it comes across as bullshit. (my personal opinion obviously - others may differ).

<comment><USER4> Perhaps it's a minimum viable product of the "landing/signup page only" form. Or maybe that's part of the parody.

<comment><AUTHOR> The site is our MVP, however, the product is functional. Feel free to sign up and let us know what you think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It looks great.

I think you should state clearly before the "Register" step / button that it's only available in the US at the moment. I looked around, I liked the idea, I wanted to see more so I signed up and ended up having to chose a location in the States (which I can't, obviously, being in Europe).

</comment><comment><USER12> Very interesting! A friend and I chatted about building something like this due to the fact that the JOBS act makes it much more feasible legally. I was thinking about crowd-building entire companies, though. I think your execution is much more practical.

Best of luck! The site looks pretty good!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man, much appreciated. Let us know if you'd like to get involved!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So... I've tried to sign up as a 'job seeker' 3 times in the last hour and it simply doesn't work. The sidebar targeting arrow just jumps down to the 'startups' tab after clicking 'register'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, were working on it. That happens when blank cells are left the form. I apologize.

<comment><USER13> np, but i had no blank cells in the form. there's only 4 - username, email, password duped, and i filled out all 4. Looks like you got it fixed now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You need to add error info on your "Add a Resume" form. Just wanted to check things out, but couldn't get past that page (presumably because I omitted a field for personal reasons).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We noticed that it wasnt working yesterday and will fix it ASAP!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the support guys!

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks like I and everyone else had this approximate idea.

Oh well. There's room for lots of businesses. Let one hundred flowers bloom.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please let us know if you'd like to get involved!</comment></comment>


California wealth tax could become first of its kind in the U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/California-lawmakers-propose-a-15482011.php <comment><USER2> Introduce income tax. Use the tax money to build infrastructure that allows for concentrated mega growth which kills off traditional economies and destroys thousands of years of crafting knowledge, and then introduce increasingly severe policies in order to manage the unexpected side-effects. The new policies create more side-effects and lead to more policies. Repeat Until you have so many laws and taxes are so high that the majority of people can't compete in the economy because they can't afford lawyers to navigate the law in the way the entrenched can, so they either start living off the government, or if their mental state didn't survive the humiliating degradation of the whole process, they live on the street. New policies are introduced etc... The situation can't continue. How does it end?

<comment><USER3> This is an excellent comment. Thinking about laws or policies as dynamic processes with various feedback loops and side-effects offers a better model than the usual static approach. Side-effects are critical, so critical that they often often work against the intended goal. Yet side-effects are almost never mentioned when people advocate for a certain policy.

How does it end? Probably with brittle systems that are unable to survive exogenous shocks.

<comment><USER4> I think this concept could lend to a pretty interesting and unique game. The engine would be a city simulation, the more realistic and complex the better. However rather than build directly, the player would enact policies (laws + regulations) for the city and see how things evolve.

<comment><USER3> I would play that. Your comment makes me wonder why policy simulators don't already exist, or maybe they do and I am unaware of them. Such a simulator would have to be able to handle the "cobra effect" which could be quite a challenge.

The Cobra effect, by the way, is a great illustration of the problem with static thinking. Problem: too many cobras, Solution: pay a bounty for them, Unintended side-effect: people raise cobras for the bounty so now there are even more cobras.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How are they proposing to account for someone's networth, vs say things in family member's name that they really own, or things in trusts that the person controls, etc?

I dont know how high end finance works, maybe its an already solved problem, but it seems a lot easier to define incoming income (which is already challenging) than it is to define net worth.

<comment><USER6> The state takes a cut of growth already either as income tax or capital gains tax.

They take another cut when you spend it, in the form of sales tax.

Now they want another cut even if you've already been taxed on making money and prior to you then spending it.

New taxes are a scourge on democracy. They implement yet another confusopoly designed to hide details and trick voters. Just add a new, higher income tax and CGT bracket already.

<comment><USER7> > The state takes a cut of growth already either as income tax or capital > gains tax.

This is true, but capital gains tax is only assessed when assets are sold. So, asset-rich individuals can acquire massive wealth, and instead of selling it, just borrow against it and sidestep any capital gains taxes. A direct tax on wealth is an attempt to change this in a way that income taxes and capital gains taxes can not, no matter the rate.

<comment><USER8> How does borrowing sidestep taxes ? You still have to service the debt... so now you owe interest and taxes on interest.

<comment><USER9> Your cost of borrowing can be much lower than the cost of taxes you incur when you sell your assets to finance your needs. As an example, Zuckerberg secured a 1% mortgage for his house[0]. Assuming his house was worth 15M, to procure that much cash by selling his FB stocks, he'd have to pay 20% capital gains tax (and state taxes on top). A nice explanation here[1].

[0] [https://www.cnbc.com/id/48220824](https://www.cnbc.com/id/48220824)

[1] [https://themortgagereports.com/21788/why-mark-zuckerberg- has...](https://themortgagereports.com/21788/why-mark-zuckerberg-has-a- mortgage)

<comment><USER8> Taxes are 1 time, mortgage interest is annual. You still have to pay off the principal + interest... at some point you will have to sell shares and pay capital gains anyway... leverage comes with its own risk. That's why you don't gamble with borrowed money.

<comment><USER9> But you can invest those one-time taxes and generate far more returns than the interest costs. Historical S&P500 returns are 6% per year, where as we are looking at only 1% mortgage rates for a billionaire.

<comment><USER8> Suppose there were no taxes. When would you stop taking on additional leverage with a 1% loan given historical returns of 6% ? I guess kelly criteria puts it around 2.5x. Now suppose you are already there, but now you add back taxes. Do you pay taxes or lever up ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is easy for a high net worth person to change primary residence. This is going to backfire and cause a reduction of revenue.

<comment><USER11> People making over 5M a year, are going to move in order to pocket 3% more?

<comment><USER12> 3% of 5M is $150,000. Not shabby.

One percenters often have multiple houses to move to so this isn't some major obstacle.

<comment><USER13> I heard a rumor that governor Cuomo wants the 1% back but mayor De Blasio told them to fuck off. _scratches head_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > People subject to the wealth tax would report it to the Franchise Tax Board > along with their income taxes. They would have to report all assets > including stock in publicly and privately traded corporations...

Does this mean that if you have paper wealth in the form of illiquid founder shares in a startup, you'd be subject to the wealth tax? There's a nontrivial number of people that have more than "$30M" in stock in their name, but that wealth only exists on paper.

If you are a co-founder with 20% ownership of a $500M company, that's an extra $280k a year of personal taxes even if your company doesn't make it to an exit.

This could kill the startup industry.

<comment><USER15> Give the state the requisite number of shares in-kind. Or pay cash, since you own 10% of a unicorn, and if you can't extract enough cash from that, you might as well burn your shares.

<comment><USER14> In many cases you can't extract cash from non-public common stock shares with sale restrictions.

I am, on paper, a multimillionaire from my last company because of the restricted common stock I hold. However I cannot sell those shares, and the current CEO seems determined to run the company into the ground. My actual liquid assets are just enough to cover rent for a few months and I still work for a living. A wealth tax would kill me (although thankfully my paper wealth is below the $30m threshold).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > The tax rate would be 0.4% of net worth

Rich people have most of their net worth in assets afaik.

So, even "just" 0.4% of the net worth would be quite severe. Add to that, that the stocks of certain companies are inflated atm due to corona, they would have way more "net worth" than usual. So if they have to pay taxes on the inflated price and then the price falls they are gonna lose quite a bit of money.

If they can't cover it with liquid assets they would have to sell other assets at a, probably, below market rate.

This is gonna backfire so very hard.

</comment><comment><USER17> America has had a form of wealth tax for a very long time now, but oddly only applied to real estate (property tax), this isn't as Weird as it sounds, nor is it a novel idea - many countries have a wealth tax.

<comment><USER18> I agree that property taxes are wealth taxes, but they're particularly pernicious ones.

The big issue is that schools are primarily funded by property taxes, which creates a system by which the children of rich Americans get better educations than poor children, reinforcing existing economic positions.

That being said, a state level wealth tax would go a long way to smooth these things out compared to property taxes.

<comment><USER19> > The big issue is that schools are primarily funded by property taxes, which > creates a system by which the children of rich Americans get better > educations than poor children, reinforcing existing economic positions.

This funding disparity isn't the case in California, yet it sees similar outcomes in terms of educational achievement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love this state but man, it is so hard to start a company when you're poor. The FTB alone will gut you, and god forbid you're just a tiny Etsy shop trying to grow. You really can't afford to try to make more money on the side when you're poor unless it's slaving away in the gig economy.

I wish there was a threshold of ARR that you can stay under and not have to pay the FTB fees. That would really help tiny businesses.

</comment><comment><USER6> Dreamt up by the same people that retroactively increased income tax in 2012?

Every time CA's pension funds look shaky, why not just go back to 2012 and bump the rate again for that year, but only if your income is over $99M and your surname is Zuckerberg.

I don't condone the practice at all. I think it's shameful behavior from the state — I remember at the time it felt pretty scurrilous that CA were targeting Zuckerberg et al, albeit quite passively.

</comment><comment><USER21> I see more dark times ahead for California. If more of the tech industry allows permanent remote work, I have a feeling many of those highly paid jobs will go elsewhere. California gets a large chunk of its budget from income tax.

</comment><comment><USER22> Of course it exempts real estate...

<comment><USER23> Real estate is exempted because it is already taxed by value at a higher rate.</comment></comment>


The Value of Self-Enforcing Protocols - <AUTHOR> http://www.threatpost.com/blogs/value-self-enforcing-protocols

<comment><USER2> any book I can read on this fascinating topic?</comment>


The military secret to falling asleep in two minutes - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/national-napping-day-2019-fall-asleep-fast-military-trick-sleep-a8817826.html <comment><USER2> FTA: Here's how to do it:

Relax the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the muscles around the eyes

Drop your shoulders as far down as they'll go, followed by your upper and lower arm, one side at a time

Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from the thighs and working down

You should then spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about one of the three following images:

You're lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear blue sky above you

You're lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room

You say "don't think, don't think, don't think" to yourself over and over for about 10 seconds.

The technique is said to work for 96 per cent of people after six weeks of practice.</comment>


Silk - <AUTHOR> http://weavesilk.com/ <comment><USER2> Silk inspired my Christmas Postcards project. It's now offline, but I have displayed best drawings on my site:

[https://lekevicius.com/projects/postcards/](https://lekevicius.com/projects/postcards/)

At the time it was discussed quite a bit on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6966004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6966004)

<comment><USER3> > and have been developing a different online experiment each year until 2017. > The 2013 experiment was by far the most successful. It allowed visitors to > draw their own postcards with 6-axis symmetry, creating a snowflake-looking > drawing almost no matter what was being drawn.

Nice. What were the other experiments you tried doing besides snowflakes? Any reason they didn't work out?

<comment><USER2> Went back to the archives to actually remind myself all the ideas.

2012 - Virtual snowy field to plant trees and post a wish on them. A couple hundred trees planted.

2013 - This one, drawing postcards. Thousands drawn.

2014 - Live streamed a Raspberry Pi printing wishes posted on the site. 8 wishes posted. Great ROI.

2015 - Creating animated swirling "stars" drawn using spirograph patterns. A couple hundred created, later adapted to my app Spiralflow: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spiralflow/id1086402345](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spiralflow/id1086402345)

2016 - Cutting out snowflakes from paper. Less than a hundred made, experience of making them wasn't great.

2017 - skipped. Had an idea of making a Christmas-themed game similar to [http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/](http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/) but couldn't build it in time.

2018 - One last experiment: "baking" and decorating gingerbread cookies. A couple hundred made.

That was it. I don't plan to build anything this year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Original Show HN from 2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2089615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2089615)

2012: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797236](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4797236)

2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9593507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9593507)

<comment><USER5> Very similar to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17600629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17600629) (always makes me think of Deluxe Paint)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I present to you, __The Mortal Warrior __-

[https://imgur.com/a/ucFexc8](https://imgur.com/a/ucFexc8)

<comment><USER7> I, for one, welcome our new overlords

[https://imgur.com/1pqfvOA](https://imgur.com/1pqfvOA)

<comment><USER8> These two reminded me of the UNITINU meme: [https://i0.kym- cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/002/423/UN...](https://i0.kym- cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/002/423/UNITINU.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's odd that on Android you can play with it, whereas on iOS you are only prompted to download the 3,49€ app.

<comment><USER10> It seems to work on iOS if you 'Request Desktop Site', although it's not that responsive (likely by design).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interactive gyneacological art.

<comment><USER12> I'm glad I'm not the only one that saw that.

<comment><USER13> for some reason, i only ever draw skulls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminds of of Mr.doob's creations: [https://mrdoob.com/#/120/harmony](https://mrdoob.com/#/120/harmony)

<comment><USER15> Krita has incorporated precisely this toolset. It's one of those rare instances of what seems like a cheap gimmick actually being a great tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was just messing around with this and experimenting with the features, when a human shape slowly started coming out of my unconsciousness. At the end when I realized what was coming out, I strove to finish, and it turns out quite angelic.

[http://r.weavesilk.com/?v=4&id=dwz2p4vwngg&fbclid=IwAR3Z4W8Y...](http://r.weavesilk.com/?v=4&id=dwz2p4vwngg&fbclid=IwAR3Z4W8YXbLdBzLTWFxq2Kpupwi2AMewpZBSYpQVhXXJGmvNoKuqDjqIC1Y)

<comment><USER17> I found if you pressed and held the mouse in one spot often a human-like head would form. Really neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Silk: Interactive generative art

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow that's pretty cool. This was the first thing that came out: [http://r.weavesilk.com/?v=4&id=drz2p5fz9r9](http://r.weavesilk.com/?v=4&id=drz2p5fz9r9)

</comment><comment><USER20> I just created this and it turned out good. [http://r.weavesilk.com/?v=4&id=yvy2p5dc8o7](http://r.weavesilk.com/?v=4&id=yvy2p5dc8o7)

<comment><USER21> I had a similar idea. I guess face shapes are natural given the vertical symmetry, and since the outcome is a bit random our bias towards seeing faces even in vaguely face-shaped patterns helps.

[http://r.weavesilk.com/?v=4&id=zmb2p5d9l1f](http://r.weavesilk.com/?v=4&id=zmb2p5d9l1f)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is great! If I had a way of using it to create animations for my iOS lock screen I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

</comment><comment><USER23> I remember seeing this and a ton of similar sites on StumbleUpon nearly a decade ago.

</comment><comment><USER24> Most produced pictures look more like an X-ray of alien insectoids than silk.

</comment><comment><USER25> I just spent 30 mins on this site... It's mesmerizing!

</comment><comment><USER26> Would you consider adding multiple touch points? Why (not)?

<comment><USER27> Hi, the app does support up to 11 multiple touch points. I'm not sure if the API was around to implement it on the web at the time this website was made, or if it was I wasn't aware of it. Multitouch on the iPad works with both fingers and the pencil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Whenever I try something it looks like an X-ray image :|

</comment><comment><USER29> Love how smooth it is on mobile as well. Great project.

</comment><comment><USER30> I made a satanic pentagram :3

</comment><comment><USER31> I was still in school when I first found this :)

</comment><comment><USER32> umm, what is this? The randomness defeats the purpose, i think</comment>


The True Costs of Driving - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Here's the painful line:

 _...Subsidizing of car ownership costs the typical household about $1,100 per year—over and above the costs of gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees._

(This is for the United States)</comment>


I Finally Understand Closures - <AUTHOR> http://www.iode.co.uk/blog/pdrummond/i_finally_understand_closures.html <comment><USER2> This example demands that you understand some domain-specific needs (of a text editor), so it's a little annoying.

But, the main idea is right on the mark. The point is that the natural structure of the code (that uses closures) is completely impossible to achieve without closures.

Great stuff! I think the author gets it. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> A closure is an implementation technique for representing procedures with free variables. -- SICP @ [http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-15.html...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-15.html#footnote_Temp_154)

</comment><comment><USER4> To be honest, I still don't get it. He says, "Such and such will help you understand closures" and then a few lines of python, then suddenly, "because start_pos is a closure".

Which, really, still doesn't explain what he means. That and for the love of god, I hate things such as Clojure. Call me a stick in the mud, but I like languages in which I don't have to mentally expand 80% of words.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why are there so many of these "I finally understand [cloures | pointers | misc CS concept]" posts? I mean these are pretty fundamental concepts that any first year CS student should be able to grasp pretty quickly.

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's so much "I finally understand X", but more of "I finally have found an application for X".

I think it's interesting to see how other people solve problems.

<comment><USER7> "I've finally found an application for closures" is almost as daft as "I've finally found an application for variables".

If you haven't found an application for such-and-such basic programming concept yet, chances are that's because your experience is so limited that you should probably spend more time coding instead of writing ejaculatory blog posts.

(not directed at the parent directly, more at the article, which wasted a minute of my precious life)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe now he also understands why objects are often preferable. Closures are liked handicapped objects. Names are resolved when the closures is created, not when it is called. This is not nearly as flexible as an object, where names are resolved when the function is called.

<comment><USER9> The venerable master Qc Na was walking with his student, Anton. Hoping to prompt the master into a discussion, Anton said "Master, I have heard that objects are a very good thing - is this true?" Qc Na looked pityingly at his student and replied, "Foolish pupil - objects are merely a poor man's closures."

Chastised, Anton took his leave from his master and returned to his cell, intent on studying closures. He carefully read the entire "Lambda: The Ultimate..." series of papers and its cousins, and implemented a small Scheme interpreter with a closure-based object system. He learned much, and looked forward to informing his master of his progress.

On his next walk with Qc Na, Anton attempted to impress his master by saying "Master, I have diligently studied the matter, and now understand that objects are truly a poor man's closures." Qc Na responded by hitting Anton with his stick, saying "When will you learn? Closures are a poor man's object." At that moment, Anton became enlightened.

<comment><USER8> I've never seen an implementation of closures with dynamic lookups. Perhaps you can't point me in the right direction.</comment></comment></comment>


Project Contour — a new and innovative usage paradigm for digital devices  - <AUTHOR> http://transloid.blogspot.com/2011/04/contour-joins-plasma-active-track-get.html

<comment><USER2> The screen shots are too tiny.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you follow the link to Contour wiki you will find Screenshots and Videos page → <http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Active/Contour/Screenshots></comment></comment>


Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-manufacturers-in-china-breaking-up-is-hard-to-do-11566397989?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> This tariff situation is quickly becoming an amazing opportunity for developing countries. The labor shortages being talked about can only be resolved through higher wages, which means that the people at the bottom will get a cut of the new money. In the end the world will be a lot richer and the money will be in the hands of relatively livable countries like Vietnam. (The Vietnamese government is actually pretty good in terms of freedoms.)

It's also politically preferable for the US to depend on a hundred small countries instead of one big competitor. It may also help cushion the next global recession, as each of these international markets will be less correlated with each other than one company in China is with another company in China.

Chinese companies are very tightly integrated with the government's balance sheets, meaning that you can't diversify within China. If one company goes under that means the subsidies ran out, and that means all the other subsidies are running out, which means the economy is toast.

<comment><USER3> > The Vietnamese government is actually pretty good in terms of freedoms.

Wait, what? They recently kidnapped an ex-party member in germany. It was 2017 or so. I can't believe that a country which honors you freedom would do something like this.

<comment><USER4> The US assassinates its own citizens without trial occasionally.

Don't judge by the anomalies, judge by the everyday life for regular people.

<comment><USER5> US police are the 6th leading cause of African American deaths.

I watched an HK detainee get tortured in a hospital in horror, then remembered we kill thousands of unarmed people every couple years without any trial (many of whom are innocent) and 50-60% of victims are either mentally or physically disabled in some way. Many of them get tortured in similar ways if they make it to prison.

In a different framing, the US looks pretty horrible in comparison to China. It's just that we have gotten used to our own brand of stink.

<comment><USER6> >US police are the 6th leading cause of African American deaths.

No it's not.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/233310/distribution- of-t...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/233310/distribution-of- the-10-leading-causes-of-death-among-african-americans/)

Only 215 black people were killed by police last year.

>[https://www.theroot.com/here-s-how-many-people-police- killed...](https://www.theroot.com/here-s-how-many-people-police-killed- in-2018-1831469528)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm from the bay area and moved to Vietnam 3 years ago. I'm watching all of this happen in realtime. I've recently completed a 8500km motorbike trip around all of Vietnam, southern Cambodia and Northern Laos.

In the south of Vietnam, HCMC, there is massive growth. Huge amounts of construction. The city is over populated and growing rapidly. Millions of kids work for $200 a month.

In the north of Vietnam, there is many illegal roads being cut through the forests and jungles to ship things from China. I've ridden these same dirt roads on a motorbike and seen the trucks. Did you know that Vietnam is also building a wall between themselves and China?

All over Vietnam, people are making babies in huge numbers. There is a lot of family pressure to do so. They may only have 100m people now, but every single shack and house has 2-3 babies in it. It will be very interesting to see what happens to all these humans over the next 20 years as this country grows at a rapid pace.

Cities in the north like Hai Phong are expanding rapidly. It is a massive port city that does trade with China and elsewhere. There is a road leading to the airport where all the super wealthy old vietnamese guys spend their 'retired' days riding their bicycles. Anyone who thinks Vietnam is poor should see the absurd size of the mansions here. This is where Samsung has their factories. A massive car factory (Vinfast) was recently built here as well.

In Cambodia and Laos, the Chinese are building a trade route directly through the two countries. Literally cutting a huge freeway and railroad from north to south. Buying up all the land and stripping it. Zero concern for the environment. Even cutting holes through mountains. In return, China Power is also building hydro dams, which are causing lakes to dry up and rivers to flood in the wet season. Google 'china Sihanouk' to see what's happening there. My guess is that if you look on a map, this will give China a great water route directly to Africa. Here is an example of the roadway: [http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/28/c_138264471.htm](http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/28/c_138264471.htm)

I feel like nobody is talking about this, but it is happening. I've seen it first hand. This tariff situation is making huge waves that will affect this whole planet.

Edit: I just noticed the overhead image of the factory complex in Binh Duong. I've been to those same buildings!

<comment><USER8> I work for a Japanese automation company and we've been getting a huge surge in projects in Vietnam. Some things here are definitely exaggerated.

Birth rates in Vietnam are already below the replacement rate and dropping.

Poverty is a colossal problem. People get paid a couple hundred bucks a month at major internationals. Cost of living is massively lower, but downtown apartments for average people (and not mansions for foreigners making average foreign wages) aren't in a great state. Rather dilapidated, in fact. Streets are sometimes torn up and left wide open while construction is going on, turning on high energy electronics might trigger a localized blackout (had this happen with an AC at a restaurant near Hanoi), and outside urban cores, you'll see many homes with 4 plain concrete walls and makeshift doors and ceilings. Dirt floors aren't surprising. Roadside restaurants and cafes are just tents and shops are shoddily built shacks.

That said, Vietnam is full of great people who are hopeful about their future. Progress is evident, but the poverty there is very real and the improvements aren't equally distributed.

<comment><USER7> The amount of wealth here is absolute bonkers massive. Nobody realizes it. Sure there is a majority population living in shacks by the side of the road, but there is a huge huge huge number of people (and growing) in big houses and driving fancy cars. Even some of those shacks are owned by really wealthy people. They just haven't learned to show it off and they don't care about upgrading.

I've seen it all, really. I've stayed in the fanciest hotels and the only place in the smallest village. I've been in such remote places that you don't see a single foreigner for _days_ on end. What you describe is everywhere here. But fact is, you can't drive 100m _anywhere_ in this country without seeing a house/shack with a baby (or ten) in front of it.

The issues you point out about infrastructure is simply that the govt doesn't care about those things. The rich get richer and the poorer get poorer. I don't know of any other society that revolves around 'me me me me' as much as this one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Currently opening a nontrivial manufacturing facility in China. I've been flying to Vietnam at least once a month for the last 3 months. There are definitely people moving production there, eg. I know one guy for a German group moving factories from China to south Vietnam. We had a chat, and it turns out we're getting cheaper industrial facility leasing here in Zhuhai than they get outside of Ho Chi Minh City. Additionally, we have immediate access to the world's largest industrial supply chain, are only 1 hour from Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, etc. and ~200 million people. Marginally higher cost of living, but it's not a bad deal. Less crazy motorcycle road deaths and more nature here. IMHO Vietnam's big draw versus China is cross-border transactional banking - that stuff's a hassle here. On balance we'll stay put, thanks.

<comment><USER10> Same for quite a few of our clients. Many companies were asking us for the "Vietnam option" lately, and are surprised when manufacturing in Vietnam comes out more expensive than in China even with tariffs, and usually results in them moving from a Chinese factory in China to Chinese factory in Vietnam that will still be ran by Chinese engineers, Chinese know-how and use Chinese parts.

The thing is that labour _is not_ a big part of manufacturing costs even even for fairly low value goods, and are truly microscopic for higher value electronics. 30 years of Chinese manufacturing already drove out nearly all labour intensive processes out for production of light industry goods.

Chinese companies have moved to heavily mechanised manufacturing quite long ago. Unless somebody can master custom tooling making as well as Chinese companies, they are not going to catch up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1) For anyone wondering, yes, many of these companies would have the same (or worse) problems if they tried to manufacture in the US. Our domestic supply chains for a lot of industries have dried up (or never developed). US factories also usually have higher minimum quantities and take much longer to tool up.

2) I'm surprised the article didn't mention Africa at all. A lot of Chinese industrialists are investing in Africa, and I suspect that Chinese-style supply chains have a good chance of developing there. If I was looking for a country to for long-term manufacturing strategies right now, I'd be taking a hard look at African countries.

<comment><USER12> The "natural" distribution of manufacturing capacity roughly mirrors the population distribution, and Africa is definitely under-provisioned in this respect.

Respect for property rights and political stability is definitely a downside, though. The first industrialists that manage to build out after the last land war or socio-political upheaval are going to get some really nice returns, though.

<comment><USER5> The underdevelopment of Africa is/was a deliberate decision of the west that China is undoing.

Smart investors realize China/India's future economic status depends on being able to offset loss of western demand/trade with direct trade with African markets.

This is generally better for the whole planet but not if you have a "zero-sum game" mentality (seems more common in the West than East).

<comment><USER12> The decisions made by roughly 1800 C.E. industrialists to concentrate development in Northern Europe and the United States can be made on a purely geographic basis. African rivers are generally not navigable to the sea, and to this day the cheapest way of transporting goods is to barge it down the river. The US, on the other hand, has _the_ most extensive network of navigable rivers, with the Mississippi and the connections made to various smaller rivers on the Eastern Seaboard via Chicago, the Great Lakes, and the Hudson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A big problem no-one seems to talk about is 'consistency'. This is undervalued variable to capital intensive business.

All these supply and other issues are readily solvable with time/money but why would you when you don't know if these tariffs will double tomorrow, go away or stay as is for the next 6 years. Who will invest huge capital when a political whim seems likely to change the landscape at any point.

</comment><comment><USER14> Low tech manufacturing isn't the only thing they're exporting.

Japanese IT firms have been training offshore dev teams in Vietnam/Myanmar for ages and sometimes on-shoring those entire devs team back into Japan.

Some of the larger companies even recruit directly in Vietnam.

</comment><comment><USER15> Who is starting, building these factories in Vietnam? Who is lending for capital projects and providing industrial expertise to local enterprises.

I'll give you one hint, the name of that country starts with a C.

<comment><USER16> Actually it doesn't start with C.

China is #4 in FDI flows into Vietnam. Every factory I've been to here is South Korean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not even the US can match up with China. In terms of manufacturing China is the leader both in cost and tech.

<comment><USER18> You're joking, right? They only recently figured out how to make a proper ball-point pen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I live in Vietnam, people here say Trump's Chinese tariffs have built many people's new houses.

<comment><USER5> China, I expect has a bigger picture view. Our small brain framing "Move Manufacturing Good", doesn't play out when you realize China is an Asian power, not just an isolated country.

China's economy benefits from most business that enters the Asian continent, either directly or indirectly, and this "economic proximity" benefit only increases as they develop infrastructure (domestically and internationally) that streamlines trade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It took China almost 30 years to cultivate economic development zones into the logistics chain to build the first iPhone. That kind of development can't be replicated in a few years, is likely out of reach for smaller nations (read anyone except India) or viable in a geographically distributed fashion. The problem isn't just moving factories but have a geographically centralized logistics chain where thousands of components are within hours of each other, supported by millions of specialized high skill labor, preferably with similar language proficiency, where new production can be rapidly iterated to meet market demands. A "small" country with 100 million people are not going train a large proportion off their entire population to fill football fields with tooling engineers and other specialists. It's just not demographically in their cards. And it's that level of centralized scale that enables China to manufacture high end electronics in the timescales that modern business cycles require.

That's why all the outsourced electronics production so far are low end assembly in countries adjacent to China where components made in China (other than very high end IC) can be quickly shipped to them have locals can be trained to assemble processes that has been matured and figured out in China. If all Chinese manufacturing magically shifted across ASEAN countries, I don't think there would be the collective capability to organize logistically to produce and iterate a new annual Apple product launch - the entire Tim Cook screw anecdote. The nature of manufacturing has changed. Maybe India can replicate that, they are not starting from zero, but I don't know if Indian democracy can make the extremely unpopular changes Chinese state directed capitalism / SEZ went through. This isn't an issue that can be solved by funneling money / FDI, these things take much longer time than a few years and still can't replicate the advantages of Chinese scale on things where scale matters. There's a qualitative difference in different governance models ability to execute policy and realize capabilities. Distributing Chinese manufacturing among bunch of competing countries with inevitably expensive and inefficient physical and regulatory interconnects just won't produce the same capabilities.

Even if we ignore the fact that countries like Vietnam are reaching infrastructure and labour limits, i.e. they literally at land, road, port, worker capacity which will optimistically take decades to cultivate - generations in terms of expertise that can't be rushed. Or that a lot of the factories that moved out of China are Chinese owned so money and control is still tied to CPC. Or China might undercut ASEAN by setting up parallel manufacturing in Chinese influenced Africa. There's still the matter of automation. Shorterm, China is targeting to increase automation from 68 industrial robots per 10,000 employees (14th in the world) to 150/10,000 employees (9th). For reference, top4 is Korea 631 /Singapore 488 / Germany 309 / Japan 303. China is not stopping at 150 long term, their poor demographics lack of youth due to family planning means labour heavy manufacturing is on the way out, but automation will potentially enable China to retain all their manufacturing advantages in terms of logistics and expertise in long run. And once China learns to make advanced integrated circuits and airplane engines, maybe software, they'll more or less have no western dependencies.

<comment><USER21> I agree with most what you analyzed. However this is somewhat debatable,

       their poor demographics lack of youth due to family planning means labour heavy manufacturing is on the way out...

I am not sure if you are aware that the family planning policy (aka 1-child policy) has already been lifted years ago. The declining birth rate has to do with the young urban population don't want to have offsprings as much as their parents (social-economical changes, education cost etc.)

<comment><USER20> I'm aware, lifting restrictions doesn't mean increasingly urbanized population will have 2+ children. Chinese women are marrying and starting families late, if at all. Or that new generations will want to work in factories vs air conditioned offices as China pivots towards service driven growth and internal consumption. And as wages grow it becomes infeasible to compete on labour with less developed countries. Automation means most manufacturing doesn't have to leave China for the same reasons why manufacturing never left the US. It just won't be done by people anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can someone post the full article, as I don't have a WSJ account anymore. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER23> Gosh, what a click-bait title. I guess this is a politically biased article, trying to attack Trump. It's not that I like the tariff nor the fight b/w the countries, but it's just that the title is straight wrong.

"China Exodus" has been a thing for almost a decade, meaning that there has been good reasons to leave China other than that little tariff thingy. Rising labour costs, ever-increasing regulations, unexplained government actions, a large number of Chinese (copycat) competitors, government-backed industrial espionage, corruption, lack of justice, etc. It has been like this since mid 2000s, and many global corporations have either already moved their critical production lines or set up backups outside of China.

Quitting is impossible? Nope. Totally possible and many have already done that since years ago. The actual problem is small businesses who can't afford to build new suitable production lines in a hurry. China is indeed the best factory right now, since it's almost a grab-and-go. But that doesn't mean it's going to be the best for everyone nor forever.</comment>


Senator Rand Paul is suing the National Security Agency - <AUTHOR> https://www.defendthe4th.com/

<comment><USER2> As far as I can see, this site consists of a single page that tries to collect your name, email address, and zip code. There are no links to anything describing whatever organization is behind the site. Nothing to show if this is affiliate with Senator Paul, or approved by him.

This simply looks and acts too much like a scam site trying to capitalize on concern over the NSA to collect people's information.

I signed (with a fake name, email address, and zip code, of course) just to see if maybe that was the point and the site would give me a lecture about giving such information to such an obviously sketchy site, but no.

(Note: I'm not saying that it IS a scam, just that it looks like a scam)</comment>


Google Chrome 6 Beta Is Right Around the Corner - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/07/google-chrome-6-beta-is-right-around-the-corner/ <comment><USER2> Chrome might just be the best piece of software that I use daily, and I didn't have to pay a dime for it. Big kudos to Google. Chrome is my second favorite product of theirs after Google Search (hmm, and Gmail might be tied in second place - hard to decide).

<comment><USER3> Google Search is slowly becoming less and less useful. I find it harder to find the things I'm looking for than it was 2-3 years ago.

<comment><USER4> Is there anything better?

<comment><USER5> Someone will suggest duckduckgo I'm sure but it doesn't really work well for me and my usually obscure searches

I must agree however that google is getting harder and harder to find what I want and more often than not searches are returning way too many blogs with minimal content and excessive ads just fishing for views.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, I actually thought it was already out. That's what I get for using the dev release for every day use.

<comment><USER7> The amazing thing about Google Chrome dev releases is that they're unusually stable.

Occasionally a tab will crash, but thanks to the multi-process architecture I barely even notice that I'm using the dev release.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, usually it's really stable. Although the Chrome 6 beta segfaulted on me a few days ago on Linux, killing all the chrome processes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hrm, the built-in PDF viewing must not be on the Ubuntu PPA (Didn't see an option for it anywhere either)

Also, I'm not sure how the bookmark sync works. I set it up on one instance of Chrome, then on my other computer, it over-rides the first instance, removing some and merging others. I don't really know what it did, but it seemed kind of inconsistent. But of course, I was using a daily

<comment><USER10> Are you using Chrome or Chromium?

libpdf.so isn't free (as in speech), so it's not bundled with Chromium.

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/07/use-google-chromes- native...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/07/use-google-chromes-native-pdf- reader-in.html)</comment></comment>