NixOS Linux - <AUTHOR> http://nixos.org/ <comment><USER4> NixOS has been discussed many times on HN already. However, Nix 1.9 was released today (/yesterday for the some):

Release Notes: [https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-1.9/manual/#ssec- relnotes...](https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-1.9/manual/#ssec-relnotes-1.9)

Downloads: [https://hydra.nixos.org/release/nix/nix-1.9](https://hydra.nixos.org/release/nix/nix-1.9)

<comment><USER5> > nix-shell can now be used as a #!-interpreter. This allows you to write > scripts that dynamically fetch their own dependencies. For example, here is > a Haskell script that, when invoked, first downloads GHC and the Haskell > packages on which it depends:

Wow, that sounds super useful! I'm finding more and more default.nix and shell.nix files scattered through my hard drive, along with wrapper scripts for invoking nix-shells.

I can probably replace a lot of these with appropriate shebangs :)

<comment><USER6> This is a great idea. It would be cool if Docker supported something like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have been using it for a while as my main OS. So far it has been great. There are a few warts, like any distro, but with NixOS the fixes tends to get written in the main configuration file, instead of scattered among many files. That meant a lot when I had to install it in another machine. 1) Install NixOS with my configuration file. 2) Copy dot files to home 3) There is no step 3) !

<comment><USER8> How have you found package support? The quality/breadth of packages available in ArchLinux AUR would stop me from using any other distro.

Arch's primary package set contains the standard set - which I assume is similar to NixOS - but all of packages requiring tricky/custom configuration tend to be in AUR. Which has saved me on a number of occasions from having to follow pages of tutorials that you'd normally have to follow in order to install things when using Linux for a desktop.

For example, setting up nice fonts with great default settings in Arch is a single AUR package away.

<comment><USER9> Arch is great. The only reason I switched away from it were the occasional manual intervention updates which could just mess up your system if you weren't paying attention.

<comment><USER10> Eventually I kept the install ISO on a USB key for those situations. My main issue is how often I felt like I had to update.

<comment><USER11> I do have a rescue USB like you. We should write something for arch to get rollbackable system.

ps: while googling for it, I discovered [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Rollback_Machine](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Rollback_Machine)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just commented on one IT segment not learning from the past. NixOS deserves praise for doing the opposite: seeing various problem involved, identifying proven ways for solving them, and implementing them into a usable solution. Combining declarative and transactional properties into the package system as effectively as they do is _very_ smart. I hope to see more distro's follow suit.

<comment> vezzy-fnord I agree wholeheartedly. However, I sincerely doubt most distros will adopt it, for the simple reason that unifying the packaging infrastructure means more- or-less obsoleting the concept of a distribution.

<comment><USER13> A "distribution", at its core, is simply a (nominally curated) collection of software which works well together. The packaging system is, or should be, a red herring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Many people pointed out that NixOS has been discussed here many times already, but nobody mentioned Guix, so here it is, for reference: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9127679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9127679)

</comment><comment><USER15> See also GNU Guix and the associated distro GuixSD, which is based on the same underpinnings of NixOS: [https://gnu.org/s/guix](https://gnu.org/s/guix)

<comment><USER16> I'm much more interested in guix since it has all the same upsides but uses scheme instead of a weird NIH language, and it also has some standards when it comes to the licenses of the packages. (Nix disappointingly gives you the Adobe Flash plugin when you ask it to install Firefox, etc.) Still grateful for the solid foundation Nix provides.

<comment><USER5> > it has all the same upsides but uses scheme instead of a weird NIH language

The packaging language is great, but I agree that it would make more sense to embed it in an existing language like Scheme.

Is guix compatible with nixpkgs, or do all package definitions need to be translated into scheme first?

> Nix disappointingly gives you the Adobe Flash plugin when you ask it to > install Firefox, etc.

Really? I've had Nix refuse to install stuff, telling me to override the "allowUnfree" option if I want it to work (this happens when a Haskell project doesn't specify a license in its cabal file, for example).

I use NixOS, so maybe the defaults are different from standalone Nix.

<comment><USER16> > I've had Nix refuse to install stuff, telling me to override the > "allowUnfree" option if I want it to work

Oh awesome. My experience with this was quite a while ago; it sounds like they may have fixed it since then. Glad to hear it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Similar effort in debian : [https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds](https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds)

(one of the project lead, [https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/](https://people.debian.org/~lunar/blog/), is a haskeller, so no surprises)

Read his blog, very interesting to see how tiny things matter.

<comment><USER17> It's worth clarifying this a bit because there are a lot of subtle implications about what it means to be 'reproducible' or 'deterministic'.

To make the terminology clearer, I like to use the term 'deterministic' vs 'reproducible'. A deterministic build is one which, if it works, will _always_ work, and follow the same steps. A reproducible build is one that you can reproduce identically, down to each individual SHA1-hash. This is what Debian has spearheaded, and what they mean by 'reproducible build'.

At the moment, Nix packages are deterministic - but they are not reproducible.

If I have a specific git revision of nixpkgs (the repository containing all package descriptions), and I say 'install mutt', I'm guaranteed that I will always get the same build results. No matter when/where I do it. That means I'm always going to get mutt version x.y, with dependencies A, B, and C, all with their own exact versions, and features enabled. The same optimization levels. The steps the compiler uses to build everything will be the same, etc.

You can essentially think of a 'nix expression' as a program that gets compiled to a shell script, which does a build, and you run the shell script. So if you have git revision DEADBEEF of the 'nixpkgs' set, and you 'run the compiler', so to speak, to generate a 'builder' from a Nix expression - <USER2> seems very obvious it will do the exact same thing, every time, regardless if you run it today or next week.

The thing is, this is a pretty nice property. In Debian for example, if I 'apt-get install' something, I may _not_ get the same program if I do it today and then do it tomorrow, because it may get updated. This, in practice, is kind of a big deal actually. It means it's impossible (unless you use your own mirror) to actually have things like prod/development environments the exact same without imaging them like Docker. And of course, this makes rollbacks impossible because the set of packages on your system is really a bunch of mutable variables.

For example I used to do security research, and it was a massive pain in the ass when I would try to 'apt-get install' mysql and get a patched version already. I needed to write code to find this vulnerability, AND I want to regression test that code in the future. But I can't. It makes it very hard to do things like write automation to make sure you can detect if mysql is vulnerable (because where will you get the pristine package you originally tested with?)

Similarly, because of this property, you can be sure a developer's computer is _exactly_ the same as a production or staging environment for example. Because the 'state' of your whole computer is really a function of two arguments - <USER3> function of your configuration.nix and your nixpkgs package set. This is what it means to be a 'purely functional' distribution!

But the builds aren't reproducible yet. There's all kinds of actual 'non- determinism' in the build process for any one specific project that makes bit- for-bit reproductions difficult. For example people use `__DATE__`, or they do weird things like rely on build mtimes, or other crazy stuff. Debian has tracked tons of these down - so it's doable!

There is a branch of Nixpkgs that aims to fix this. Hopefully it will be solved for NixOS 15.10.

<comment><USER11> So reproducible is mostly bitstream equality ? One thing I liked in the debian effort, is, IIRC, they tried to define some form of equivalence classes to express binaries with or without debug symbols, etc etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have been thinking about switching to NixOS because of the great things I keep hearing about it. I would enjoy reading reviews from HNers, has anyone used it as a desktop?

<comment><USER19> NixOS is really nice, what I enjoy most about it is it gives you the tools to be explicit about the state of your system.

We know that implicit state and mutation are terrible in the programming world why not extend that philosophy to your entire OS?

You might be missing some packages so make sure to check this:

[http://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html](http://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html)

before installing.

It's still early for NixOS, the OS is solid but it's likely you'll need to package up a program or two (but it's not difficult)

<comment><USER20> Yep, I echo this experience. It is my main desktop OS, I am very happy with it. Myself + another developer at my company both use it, and it's starting to gain interest from others, seeing as it's mostly a panacea to all sorts of environment and configuration issues.

I was pretty unhappy learning how to write the strange config language at first, but I've made my peace with it. You will almost certainly need to write a package or two, but there's a lot of active development to learn from, and lots of example to cargo cult.

<comment><USER21> Other developer here. I've been running nixos as my main OS since about November after running Funtoo for a year or so before that. My tolerance for hacking on my distro is maybe slightly above average. ;)

On the cool side: Nix is the first linux distro I've contributed to, because it's the standard "hack, fork, pull request" process that most github-hosted open source projects use these days.

The biggest thing is that you absolutely have to drink the nix koolaid if you're going to run nixos. You can't really do the normal ./configure && make && make install, because paths to libraries are all non-standard. But once it all really clicks, it's pretty great.

As far as desktop goes, the rest of this thread rings true for me too: most of the important things are there, like desktop environments, window managers, browsers, etc. There are occasionally niche/older packages that are not available. If you're willing to learn a little bit of nix language, it's relatively straightforward to add most packages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm intrigued by the "atomic upgrades and rollbacks" claim. Let's say that deploying a package requires placing two files somewhere, e.g. vmlinuz and initrd. How can this be done atomically?

<comment><USER23> The package manager could just flock() a specific file before making any changes.

<comment><USER22> From svn's red book:

 _By atomic transaction, we mean simply this: either all of the changes happen in the repository, or none of them happens. Subversion tries to retain this atomicity in the face of program crashes, system crashes, network problems, and other users ' actions._

Does Nix mean the same thing? Is it atomic in the face of program or system crashes?

<comment><USER24> Yes. In many cases, switching to the new version of the package is nothing more than rewriting a symlink. Sometimes it's more involved, like restarting a service. Either way, the cut over happens _after_ building the new package has completed successfully. If building the package fails, it has no effect on the running system.

I suppose there _is_ still a window in which an error could leave the system in an inconsistent state, but it's pretty narrow, and the error would have to be a kernel panic or something like that.

<comment><USER22> Err, are there any systems that try to cut over to a new package before it's been built successfully?

<comment><USER24> Yes. Almost all of them, actually. By "build" I mean the whole package installation process, including moving the compiled files into their final destinations.

If you're upgrading an existing package, and that involves overwriting one binary in /usr/bin and another in /usr/lib, a crash in the middle of that process leaves the package partially upgraded, and very likely broken.

Nix never overwrites an existing package installation. Instead, it installs the new version in a separate directory, then overwrites a symlink that pointed to the old version with a symlink pointing to the new version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> NixOS would be awesome on the server, but I'm worried about security updates. Debian/Ubuntu have a lot of resources and protocols set up for this; for users like me, I can follow the mailing list where every package updated with security fixes is announced, and the updates seem to meticulously follow announcements about known vulnerabilities. How is NixOS in that regard?

</comment><comment><USER26> Has anybody here got the experience of running NixOS in production or on the desktop (as the main OS, not in a never booted partition)?

<comment><USER24> Yeah, I've been running NixOS on production servers for about a year. I'm at a small startup, so it's not huge scale (yet!) but it works great.

<comment><USER26> Got any problems with package availability?

I imagine those should be very easy to fix, is that true at daily use?

<comment><USER24> All the packages I need have been part of nixpkgs, except for node packages from npm. For those, I run npm2nix to generate nix expressions from the package.json files. That's occasionally tricky when npm packages do "clever" things that don't work when translated to nix. Generally, though, npm2nix works pretty well.

I also have about 3K lines of nix code for packaging my apps, configuration, cluster definitions for nixops etc. There's a bit of a learning curve, but I find it really pleasant, now that I have the hang of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does this not lose the major advantage of a traditional package manager? Namely that I update openssh in one location and all my packages are now secure. Rather than having to update every package that depends upon openshh separately?

<comment><USER28> Generally, all packages depending on that library will need to be rebuilt. But that is automatic when you do an update, it just may take time (either for packages to be rebuild locally, or by the build farm if you're using channels). But you can manually do a hack to substitute a patched version when you want the fix _right now_ : [https://nixos.org/wiki/Security_Updates](https://nixos.org/wiki/Security_Updates)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm really intrigued by NixOS, but I have to wonder if it's too much too fast, and the Atomic project isn't a better stepping stone.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have been writing a guide on how to set up a desktop system with NixOS, but I'm not quite finished yet.

I wonder how high the interest in something like that would be? I can throw up an unfinished beta version of it if people are interested.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is it better than ArchLinux?

</comment><comment><USER32> Is this proprietary? I can't find a link to the source anywhere.

<comment><USER33> [https://github.com/NixOS](https://github.com/NixOS)

<comment><USER32> That doesn't have the source code to the operation system on here. So, agin, I ask, is this damn thing GPL'd or is it on some prop. bullshit?

<comment><USER34> [https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/nixos](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/nixos)

If you had bothered looking in the wiki everything is listed there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> At the start of this year, I tried to install various Linux distros on my laptop using a USB drive. Only Ubuntu and OpenSUSE worked. Why is this? Is the desktop really that irrelevant? This is not a bug report. I'm wondering what the institutional reasons are.

<comment><USER36> This isn't really the best place for the question, and besides that you'd need to provide a hell of a lot more information for anyone to help you.</comment></comment>


Oculus Rift - <AUTHOR> https://www.oculus.com/en-us/rift/ <comment><USER2> I really want VR computer monitors so that I sit at a desk with no monitors so that I can run 4,5,6, any number I want or just 1 big monitor. Also it would give me a lot more privacy as no one else could see my monitors unless I shared the monitor to them which I imagine would be a little easier to do with virtual monitors than when physical ones (even considering screen sharing which is iffy sometimes).

<comment><USER3> Your use case is particularly apt for frequent fliers. I've almost had a tray table-supported laptop destroyed on more than one occasion by a reclining passenger in front of me. It would be amazing to just set up a small keyboard+trackpad on my lap and not have to even pull the computer out of its bag.

If I could do this, I wouldn't even care how ridiculous I looked.

<comment><USER4> You won't be able to see the keyboard though. So, how confident are you in your touch-typing skills?

<comment><USER5> Really? Is this actually a concern to anyone who's been programming for over a year?

The only remotely challenging part might be symbols on the number row (that's for me at least). And for those, there's actually NO reason you couldn't have a virtual keyboard you can look down at.

<comment><USER4> There's a bias here. Most of the users of this site likely use a keyboard as part of their daily jobs. Proficiency in touch-typing is essentially part of our jobs descriptions.

Can the same be said for all potential users?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Haha, thanks HN mods for changing the title to the uselessly generic "Oculus Rift".

<comment><USER7> what was it before?

<comment><USER6> Something like "Oculus Rift announces commercial availability Q1 2016"

<comment><USER8> So weird that they'd change that. Seeing the title now just made me think it was a throw back discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this the reason they stopped Linux development? [http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/11/oculus-rift- consumer/#.xwct...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/11/oculus-rift- consumer/#.xwctap:fWU7)

 _> The partnership with Microsoft will also see the Rift work "natively" with Windows 10, plus play Xbox One games in the headset._

<comment><USER10> They better not _dare_ making this Win10 exclusive and hosing people who plan to stay on Win7 for the foreseeable future.

People were all up in arms when facebook entered yet there was never an overlapping issue that would mean the Rift would be gimped or held hostage or anything. People who were suggesting FB login to use the Rift were quite frankly talking out of their behinds.

But this deal now with MS is awful. There was no need for Oculus to do that. None. It clearly wasn't a money thing. It wasn't for the controller as they clearly work on their own one. What on earth was riding these people to go with MS when it is clear that they are fully focused on their console and tablets. This does not paint a good picture to what the rift might be reduced to just to make it fit onto all of MS stuff. Pretty much like they are currently in the process of "consolification" of the desktop OS.

<comment><USER9> I bet backers who supported the project initially and expected it to be cross platform and not locked into some MS nonsense are pretty upset now.

Luckily there are other alternatives which don't try to force any exclusive requirements on their users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Xbox controller is really surprising to me. Years in development and it will ship with an Xbox controller. Oculus Touch didn't even get demonstrated and "prototype" was mentioned time and again.

<comment><USER12> Why reinvent the wheel? The xbox controller is widely considered the gold standard.

<comment><USER13> The gold standard is Nintendo's controllers, not Microsoft's.

<comment><USER12> Really? I certainly liked the N64 and Gamecube controllers, but they're not exactly ideal designs for a "universal controller". The wiimote had kind of crappy motion controls and was borderline useless for anything that didn't involve motion. The Wii U uses upgraded wiimotes that suffer the same problem, and the gamepad is more like a giant gameboy than a controller. Plus we can't use any of those controllers on a PC without additional adapters or significant hardware hacks. The Xbox 360 (and to a similar degree Xbox One) controller is designed to be universal, and if you look at what people are using for PC gaming it's pretty much just those two.

<comment><USER14> The Wiimote is just a bluetooth device, there's no hardware hack or adapter necessary to connect it to a PC, you just need a driver. Not that I ever used it outside of an emulator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was a little disappointed to not find the one thing i really wanted to see on this site: a buy button. But I want it NOW!

<comment><USER16> I was fairly disappointed by most of the keynote, but maybe my expectations were just too high?

I was hoping for some real innovation that elevated it above Vive, but it just didn't seem to deliver. The new controllers look great, but they aren't going to be around until mid 2016, whereas I will probably have the Vive ones in my hands by the end of year.

I think possibly Oculus are more focused on being consumer friendly than Valve, but the inner techy in me is certainly more in love Vive and their ecosystem at the moment.

The entire cinema mode integration with Microsoft just seemed like a total misstep to me - why would I want to play a game in a virtual living room? It just looked cheesy, gimmicky and silly. The fact you have to stream it over a PC as well and can't just hook the headset straight into the Xbox seems like it's just way more hassle than it's possibly worth.

<comment><USER17> I think the cinema mode is to ensure that you don't have to take the device off when you switch between a game that's designed to support the Rift and software that does not. With that it mind, it seems like a reasonable compromise. I mean, do you want to have to take the thing off every time you alt-tab to Windows Desktop, or do you want to be 2" from the Windows Desktop?

<comment><USER18> I think it's two fold. First, you can't just slap VR into existing games. It needs to be considered and implemented deliberately. Second, I don't think the XBox One powerful enough to drive an Oculus Rift. The recommended specs for the Oculus Rift are "NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD 290, Intel i5-4590" or better. The XBox One doesn't have that CPU power and it certainly doesn't have that GPU power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Separating the controllers into 2 devices for each hand is a natural way to do input in VR, but I feel that the hand and finger motion should also not be limited by the need to hold the controller. The pointing and thumbs up gestures are ok, but imagine if the computer could respond to the full range of motion a-la Leap.

Maybe it would look something like a cone that's at its base wrapped around your wrist but at its height contains Leap sensors that can recognize the full 3-dimensional range of hand/finger movements.

<comment><USER20> I really completely agree.

But I think the intention with this device is to make something 'more' than just gestures. They wanted to make a device that can understand gestures, but also gives you more fine controls (buttons, analog sticks, grasping). It seems like they really want to get the basics right, and then expand on all sorts of forms of input in the future depending on the reaction and ideas of devs and gamers. In their way of thinking you could buy a leap motion right now, strap it to the headset and have complete finger tracking. The only downside is the probable fact that there will be more applications using Oculus' Touch device and some few novel unpolished apps using something like a leap motion.

Maybe there will be a device like you explained in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone else disappointed that they announced a new interface controller (Oculus Touch), but did not show any type of demo?

<comment><USER22> Yes. Also lackluster considering cooler possibilities like leap motion[1].

1\. [https://www.leapmotion.com/product/vr](https://www.leapmotion.com/product/vr)

<comment><USER23> Leap Motion has been a pretty big let down, though I have not yet tried the latest tools they have released.

<comment><USER24> Hope you'll give it a shot; Image Hands significantly reduces the kinds of jitters that can ruin a decent user experience. In case you haven't yet, be sure to calibrate and optimize your tracking: [http://blog.leapmotion.com/troubleshooting-guide-vr- tracking...](http://blog.leapmotion.com/troubleshooting-guide-vr-tracking/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What's the news here? Is this just a press release of sorts or new look for the website?

<comment><USER26> The news was in the original title: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9701727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9701727)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> They missed the opportunity to get it out by Q4'15\. Would have been a great Christmas seller.

<comment><USER28> I think you overestimate the draw of device that isn't really market tested and doesn't yet have a lot to recommend it besides its newness. Christmas of 2016 will give it time for good games to have bubbled up and make the value proposition of the Oculus + supporting hardware much stronger.

<comment><USER16> This.

It appeals to a very specific market at the moment. Most consumers will probably never experience VR on a PC at home.

The real seller to mass market will be a combination of integration with phone handsets (a la Gear VR) or console (Morpheus/PS4) devices. The mass market doesn't want a big, expensive black box chugging away in their living room.

<comment><USER29> PC gaming may be bigger than you realize - it's twice the size of the console gaming market and growing. PC might not reach everyone, but it's where the money is.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2014/07/14/the-c...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcochiappetta/2014/07/14/the- console-war-is-over-the-pc-already-won/)

<comment><USER30> But how many of those PC gamers have large powerful computers adequate for use with VR?

<comment><USER31> Not many considering you really want a GTX 970 minimum to keep framerate high enough - crucial to reduce motion sickness. Those new MSI GTX 970 4Gb nvidia cards look nice. I'd put the $400 down for one if I didn't just buy a coffee machine.

BTW, these graphics cards are the first I've seen which spin down to a stop for normal computing, the fans only kick in for 3d applications, great stuff. PC gaming and graphics is more amazing than ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone know of a list of PCs that meet (or exceed) the recommended hardware specs for the Rift? Not that I'm going to run out and buy one of these machines in anticipation of the Rift's release next year, but I'm interested in knowing roughly what a premium VR experience costs today (excluding the headset, obviously)

Edit: To rephrase my question, can anyone point me to a list of PCs manufactured by companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. that meet or exceed these requirements?

<comment><USER32> > To rephrase my question, can anyone point me to a list of PCs manufactured > by companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. that meet or exceed these > requirements?

Buying a prebuild is a bad idea. Apart from being overpriced, they often have strange custom motherboards and cases which make upgrades complicated.

There's always those places where you select the parts and they assemble the machine for you, but I can't recommend them. I bought a machine from Cyberpower UK a few years ago and had nothing but problems with it.

Just grab the parts from Amazon and assemble them. It isn't difficult, you're simply buying it in 7 parts and plugging them together. That way you'll know it's been done correctly, all the parts are standard, and you didn't pay over the odds.

Anyway, your question was for a hard price. I would budget $900 USD for all the parts (including 4690K CPU and GTX970 graphics crad). For a really high end setup for Rift (980Ti), the next step up would be about $1200.

<comment><USER17> Prebuilds do work for users that

a) Want something that physically looks good enough to have in their living room - modern prebuilds are sleek and small while making a small-form-factor custom is super-hard

b) Have more money than time. Who has time to track parts compatibility and figure out the upgrade path for your device, only to drop half of the cost of a new unit on your upgrade? There's a reason Apple has been so successful while ignoring upgradeability: the hardware market has never made upgrading easy-enough to be in-reach of the majority of users. While physically installing the parts is simple, compatibility is always frustrating.

<comment><USER32> >making a small-form-factor custom is super-hard

Mini-ITX is easy enough. Micro-ATX is easy as pie. There are very nice cases for both. If you know of a sub-mITX OEM build that has 4690K+980Ti level performance, I'd like to see it.

>compatibility is always frustrating

Not really. A graphics card, for example, has two things to check to verify compatibility: * Will it physically fit in my case? (Check the length) * Is my PSU powerful enough and has the correct connectors?

That's it. Every graphics card has been PCI-E for a decade. If it fits and has power, any card will work in any motherboard.

CPUs are also not too obtuse. If you have an Intel 9-series motherboard, you can install any Haswell or Broadwell chip. This kind of stuff can easily be googled. It's no harder than getting the correct speakers for your home theatre.

<comment><USER33> _Every graphics card has been PCI-E for a decade. If it fits and has power, any card will work in any motherboard._

You do want to pay attention to the mobo choice if the card itself requires PCI-E v3.0. There are still a lot of v2.0 mobos for sale. Most mobos have at least one 16x slot, which is the one you'll want to use. Things get a little more complicated with multi-GPU card builds.

<comment><USER32> >You do want to pay attention to the mobo choice if the card itself requires PCI-E v3.0.

Nope. PCI-E 3 capable cards work perfectly in PCI-E 2 motherboards. In fact, no graphics card currently on the market can significantly benefit from the boost offered by PCI-E 3. This includes Titan Xs in SLI: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/7089/geforce-gtx-titan- twoway-...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7089/geforce-gtx-titan-twoway-sli- scaling-pcie-2-vs-pcie-3)

>Things get a little more complicated with multi-GPU card builds.

Sure, but I would speculate that anyone going that route is an enthusiast who knows what they're getting into and is happy to do the research.

<comment><USER33> _Nope. PCI-E 3 capable cards work perfectly in PCI-E 2 motherboards. In fact, no graphics card currently on the market can significantly benefit from the boost offered by PCI-E 3_

Ah, OK. When shopping for a GPU compute server, I was paying attention to PCI-E 3.0 vs. 2.0 on the server motherboards.

I had assumed that it was a similar situation with consumer graphics cards these days, given how long v3.0 has been out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I recently returned my Oculus Rift, not even two weeks after buying it. Dropping Linux support is not okay.

<comment><USER35> It's strange, but when I think about it, DK1 was a much more positive 'product-y' experience for me than DK2 was. Perhaps part of that is that DK1 was my first VR headset, so much of the initial awe factor had worn off by the time I got the DK2.

The DK2 was/is plagued with software teething issues. Totally acceptable as it's a developer kit, but still frustrating and a little worrying. The other thing I found disappointing coming from DK1 to DK2 was the vastly decreased field-of-view. I think it's a combination of things that contribute/contributed to that (over-zealous vignetting in the earlier SDKs being one of them), some of which may have been fixed since in software. I say this as, to me, the Gear VR FOV seems wider than DK2's despite having a slightly lower quoted value.

My DK2 is basically a brick now. There's been a compatibility issue with AMD cards running it in extended mode, which goes all the way back to September of last year which has not been fixed on my system by any driver updates or Oculus SDK updates since. Given that the cool stuff I'd like to use with it (specifically VR Desktop and VorpX) doesn't support direct mode and only does extended, I've almost given up on it (this affects dev too - I believe the latest Unity editor still doesn't support running stuff in Direct-to-Rift mode from the editor, for example).

<comment><USER36> That's an acknowledged AMD bug which is fixed but I don't believe it's available yet. Oculus v0.6 apps can always just run in direct mode and avoid that problem.

<comment><USER35> Do you have a reference? I'm really curious to read about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Off topic, but PHPBB would not have been the first forum software I would have expected Facebook to use.

[https://forums.oculus.com/](https://forums.oculus.com/)

<comment><USER38> They could've at least gone with Discourse. But I guess owing to the abundance of PHP talent at hand, they might've chose to stay with a widely used one.

<comment><USER39> I really like Discourse. But having looked into it quite seriously, it has a lot of gotchas, drawbacks, and limitations. The interface is very nice, but the feature set isn't as "mature" as other older forum software. It seems like if you're using it exactly the way they use it on the official demo/Discoure site, then you're good, if you need to use it in any other way then tough luck.

PHPBB is fine if you skin it well. Plus PHPBB's system requirements are extremely easy to meet (PHP and MySQL). Discourse requires a more niche tech' stack and requires a much more powerful machine to run. Good luck running it on a $10/month VM.

<comment><USER40> Many customers run Discourse sites on the $10/month Digital Ocean instance just fine. It is true that you can't go below that, though, as 1 GB RAM is the minimum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I am seeing a keynote mentioned in the comments, but I don't see anything about that on this website.

Could someone point me toward this keynote? I would very much like to watch it, thanks!

<comment><USER42> I found this on youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdM3jT5swRA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdM3jT5swRA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm curious to see how they intend to solve the glasses problem. Ideally, they'd partner with someone like Zenni Optical to provide $10 drop-in lenses for any prescription.

<comment><USER44> It isn't a problem.

Just like monitor manufacturers don't offer prescription glasses along with the purchase, Oculus won't offer lenses.

Corrective eye-wear is very individual and requires some amount of expertise( exam, specialist ), so it doesn't make sense, and it isn't very feasible, for Oculus to provide that for you. Also contacts are very cheap.

<comment><USER45> I thought the dev kit came with lenses specifically for near-sighted people.

<comment><USER46> It does but this is because you can't easily wear glasses under the devkit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm a bit of a sound nerd, but the on-ear headphones are really underwhelming. No noise isolation, most likely low quality drivers... this would make for a pretty terrible VR experience.

Simply upgrading them to closed back, over the ear headphones would make a big difference - you'd be able to use lower volumes (at which point even cheap drivers aren't oto bad), and you'd be more isolated from the environment, similar to how the rest of the headset works with your vision.

<comment><USER44> Palmer claims the headphones are very high quality. If you don't like them you can replace them with your own.

<comment><USER12> Oh yeah? I can't find where it says you can replace them with their own. That'd be cool though.

<comment><USER48> It was mentioned in the keynote event today that the headphones were detachable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Since Oculus sold to Facebook I dropped them like a hot potato, and am instead embracing Valve's main platform for SteamBox the HTC Vive. That being said, where I think VR will really take off is going to a combination of VR and human brain interface (including gaze tracking) in order to get past some of the limitations of human interface design we have been stuck on for so long (mouse/keyboard/joystick)

</comment><comment><USER50> What do the rings on the controllers offer that could not be put into the base of the handle?

<comment><USER20> The ring serves 3 functions as I understand.

-Tracking of the controller: There are leds on it that emmit IR light so the tracker can accurately track the controller. This accuracy is not achievable at the moment with just internal sensors (although the controller has these, presumably for even better accuracy)

-The inside of the ring has sensors to track your finger gestures. I can imagine this would not be possible with just the internals of the controller.

-The ring acts as a sort of extra handle. Imagine opening your hand totally (as in waving). This is a gesture you would maybe like to do in VR. The ring will hang between your thumb and index finger while you do this. Other more traditional tracked controllers would fall out of your hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I am still not sold on VR, but I feel that AR (Augmented Reality) really is the future.

1) AR seems to help in real world situations vs VR which actually makes you feel vulnerable due to lack of vision and impaired hearing of what is around you.

2) VR also has the issue with physical issues with nausea and 10% of people with lazy eyes or other optical issues that make them unable to see 3D clearly.

3) Star Trek Holosuite is AR and that is my dream one day.

4) If Wii motion controls didn't continue their popularity how will making a helmet make that physical exertion more appealing?

<comment><USER17> But AR requires several technological leaps beyond VR in terms of transparent screens and location tracking. So I'd expect to see usable VR headsets to appear in homes a generation two before AR ones.

I mean, the HoloLens is _additive_. That means if you want to show a dark object in a room with white walls, you _cant_.

<comment><USER52> > I mean, the HoloLens is additive. That means if you want to show a dark > object in a room with white walls, you cant.

You sure? Do you have a source you can cite?

<comment><USER53> [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see- hard-...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-ar- anytime-soon/)

<comment><USER18> I'm kind of delighted that the author of that article, Michael Abrash, worked at Microsoft (twice), at Valve, and is now at Oculus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> What are the specs of the display? Is it the same one than the V2?

<comment><USER20> They are better than V2 (also called DK2, as in developer kit 2). The total res is 2160x1200 at 90 hz. 1080x1200 per eye. You can find out more here: [https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/powering-the- rift/](https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/powering-the-rift/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> It needs a camera on the front so you can have a PIP view and avoid having to take the goggles off to see something in the outside world.

<comment><USER56> Agreed. Back in 2013 when I played with the original DK1, I wrote that it needed an external camera:

[https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/oculus-rift-first- impr...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/oculus-rift-first- impressions/#content)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Any data on the SDE of the new display?

I'm really excited about VR, have a DK2 and am really impressed with the experiences available already. But, I've found it very hard to use for long periods of time (more than 20-30 minutes) as my eyes eventually focus on the screen door and I can't seem to break that without taking some time away from it.

</comment><comment><USER58> Going to a page and the first thing I see is someone with their mouth gaping open and looking up. Horrible design.

<comment> aaron-lebo That was my immediate thought as well. Their choice of a scruffy looking guy (nothing wrong with it in and of itself) says a lot about their intended audience.

Hard to imagine Apple or Google marketing a product with that kind of imaging.

<comment><USER23> As a "scruffy looking guy", what does it tell you? I'm curious what you are able to glean about me and other "scruffies" by virtue of our facial hair

<comment> aaron-lebo I don't have any problems with you being scruffy looking :), I'm just saying a lot of people do have a reaction to it, which is why most companies go out of their way to use clean cut people.

It's not personal, just an observation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> They really didn't think about people with specs or is it just that they're not marketing that aspect?

<comment><USER60> They mentioned in the presentation yesterday that they've actually improved the ergonomics for people wearing glasses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Does anyone know if the issues people were reporting with simulator sickness have lessened with the version they plan to sell?

see: [https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=5127&start=20](https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=5127&start=20)

<comment><USER62> I used the rift with the full head tracking this year at PAX East and felt no motion sickness at any point. A lot of the issues in 2013 were fixed when they started tracking full head movement instead of just rotation.

Of course I don't think I'm prone to motion sickness and the demo lasted only about 20 minutes max but I believe that I could wear it for over an hour or more with zero adverse effects.

<comment><USER63> > I used the rift with the full head tracking this year at PAX East and felt > no motion sickness at any point.

You're one of the lucky ones. I've tried all the Oculus devkits as well as some other VR solutions and I get terrible motion sickness within minutes and it lasts for hours after I'm done with the game. This is a very personal thing but anecdotal evidence suggests that this is a major issue for a significant portion of people.

Oculus DK2 was a major improvement, though.

The Oculus is a very personal device, you'll have to adjust the lenses and the headgear to suit your eyes, and then it might be off for someone else.

This is a real issue they're going to have to solve, so far they've been excused because their products have been called "development kits". But if they start selling a final product that will make half or a quarter of people sick, they'll be getting bad reviews and reputation.

I'd really like to be able to use a VR solution, it's a competitive advantage in the kind of games I play (racing and flight simulation), but nothing I've tried so far works for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I heard Jaron Lanier speak about this 30 years at Xerox PARC. And the general principles of VR have changed little since then. Computers are at least a million times faster now. So you don't puke moving your head and the computer is a half second behind.

</comment><comment><USER65> Some observations and concerns:

1\. Oculus is a display, therefore it should work with almost anything (aka modern devices that put out HDMI, etc). A 4k monitor doesn't require me to buy a whole new computer to use it. I don't understand why Oculus (or any other VR display) _needs_ to be proprietary to the point that I may end up owing one device (Oculus) for PC and another (Morpheus) for PS4 gaming. This makes as much sense as companies launching nearly identical video formats (BluRay vs HD-DVD most recently). And again, this is a display not unlike a 4K display and should work similarly universally, I would think/hope.

2\. It seem too big to me to be truly immersive. To lose oneself you have to not notice you are wearing this, which at its current size seems unlikely.

3\. It needs to be wireless, any cables will detract from the immersive experience. I'm sure they are working on this.

4\. The controllers they created look pretty interesting but I don't see how they will be conducive to touching, picking up, grasping items which would seem to be a more important thing than re-inventing FPS controllers if VR is truly going to take off this time.

5\. I worry that too much focus is being placed on adapting FPS to this (and other) VR tech. While it would seem a 'natural', and probably will prove to be the easiest style of game to adapt, it's also lazy. It will be far more challenging (and I think rewarding) to adapt VR for other purposes such as viewing live events (concerts, sports etc), driving games/sims, sports games/sims and action adventure games such as Witcher and Dark Souls, just to name a few off my head. Maybe the new controllers will work great with those types of games/activities but my gut is these are really optimized for FPS, which is a shame.

It's exciting times for VR but I sure hope it doesn't get overtaken by FPS games because there are so many more potentially awesome applications out there to also focus on.

<comment><USER20> To react to all your points view with my points of view:

1\. It's not a display, it's a device that contains a display. It has motion and tracking sensors. What the rift wants to achieve is the latency from input (moving your head) to photon to be really really low. This problem is hard. And to solve it you need to create your own solutions first. In an ideal world everyone would work together to make the best "Rift" that works on all devices, but that is not how capitalism works. This does not mean that we will not see this in the future. Some companies will win the VR battle, and they will probably be the ones to provide the best HMD for multiple devices. Hopefully we will go to a world where we have a HMD standard, but that is just not how new technologies evolve.

2\. The Rift is lightweight, and people who have tried the Rift don't even notice the HMD on their head after a couple of minutes.

3\. The technology isn't there yet (or too new/not mature) to do it with as low latency as with a cable, but like you said it will be eventually.

4\. Agreed. Although they have a grasping button I'm not sure if it will mimick grasping convincingly enough. Playtesting with the actual device will tell us more I think.

5\. I think we will see a lot of games that are not FPS oriented to be honest. I didn't see any FPS announcements (except for the dogfighting in space game but that's not really FPS to me). I'm personally not too worried about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> When I finally tried OR DK2 last month it didn't meet my expectations. Latency was not an issue, but the fielf-of-view was simply to small to be convincing. It felt like looking through a toilet paper roll sawed in half.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm just waiting for some internal fallout in the company between execs so I can make a well-timed "rift" joke... It's interesting to see these images now in comparison to the leaked ones that came out.

</comment><comment><USER68> Has there been any news about the Zenimax lawsuit since last June?

</comment><comment><USER17> I like the split controller. I hope they sell those as a stand-alone device - I'd like a 1-handed controller for gaming on my phone, for example.

<comment><USER69> I've used a couple phone controllers, and the problem always comes back to no game really supports them because not everyone has one. The best games for a controller are the Modern Conflict games, and even then they have quicktime events that require me to drop the controller and touch the screen.

<comment><USER17> At the very least 8-bit era emulators will be able to capitalize on them well since those games just require 2 buttons and a D-pad, which a single hand of this controller supplies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> This really seems like something so personal I would want to try one on before buying, I wonder if in towns like Denver we will get the opportunity?

</comment><comment><USER71> Why does nobody make a noscript version of their site?!

There's absolutely no body text on this page unless you allow their JS

</comment><comment><USER72> It would be fun to fly a drone this way. How many cameras do you need? How much bandwidth?

</comment><comment><USER73> I love that the Oculus Touch controllers are positioned to look like eyeballs.

</comment><comment><USER74> I'm not going to buy this. Ever. Because I know if I do, I'm not going to come out of the rabbit hole.

</comment><comment><USER75> this is what M$ is good at. it's the heart and soul of the company.

</comment><comment><USER76> Somebody shoot the graphic designer for laziness. If you are making promotional artwork for a VR headset, try not to have the view in each eyepiece being the same picture slid horizontally. Surely it wouldn't hurt to do two renders.

<comment><USER77> It's a well-done site. I had to go back and look carefully to even notice that the views in the eyepieces were not rendered in proper perspective.

<comment><USER76> Perhaps I stare at 3d graphics too much, was the first thing I noticed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Years in the making and the final industrial design of the thing is just a slight step up from a cardboard box. Awful foam around the headset, crummy plastic on the headbrace, flimsy open headphones, and it looks like it will still be unusable for anyone that wears glasses. I'm still grateful to Oculus for kicking off all of the interest in VR, but I doubt I'll ever be buying their devices if this is the best they can do.

</comment><comment><USER79> [http://img.pandawhale.com/post-57522-oculus-rift-fat-guy- lik...](http://img.pandawhale.com/post-57522-oculus-rift-fat-guy-like- walle-2kqJ.jpeg)

Be aware, this man is who has bought and the OR type system, and is likely to buy another. I'm not saying this to demean, but to put color to the world where ORs are commonplace. If the OR is going to be common, then this picture will be a common sight as well. People complain about friends always texting and looking at their phones, if the OR becomes widely used, then this picture will be the new complaint</comment>


OpenBSD 4.8 Released - <AUTHOR> http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20101101163826

<comment><USER2> Theo still makes his own wheels with a hammer and a chisel. Rubber, store- bought tires are for pansies... only joking... I buy CDs and t-shirts and no matter what free Unix _you_ use, do buy CDs because the CD sales also support OpenSSH and we all use that!

<comment><USER3> The rubber store-bought tires all have huge holes in them that the vendors would prefer you ignore.

I am not a C fan, but I've read the OpenBSD code and it's solid. Instead of ignoring the details like integer truncation, string length, and error checking, they actually _care_ about this stuff. The result is a reliable system instead of a mostly-reliable system.

<comment><USER4> Any time people ask for C code to read, I recommend the OpenBSD userland. Between that, the outstanding man pages, and the thoroughly integrated memory protection ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD_security_features#Memor...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD_security_features#Memory_protection)), OpenBSD is an _excellent_ platform for C development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> OpenBSD is one of the BEST engineered Unix systems out there. It always amazes me at the quality and professionality they put into each release.

It's also very simple - an installed base system will have around 20 processes, all of which are instantly recognizable, and nearly everything is configured and documented in a straightforward manner.

Go build a firewall with OpenBSD. You will learn something new and be a better sysadmin afterwards.

<comment><USER6> keyword: engineered.

That's how Theo run the team. Like an engineering project. Less hacking, more engineering.

<comment><AUTHOR> i'm confused, are you saying that hacking is a bad thing?

while there is a certain "release engineering" process that goes on every 6 months to slow down development, stabilize the code, freeze it, tag it, test it, and ship it, all of the development work that is done between releases is just hacking. there isn't a roadmap of features and what gets worked on is whatever anyone feels like working on.

openbsd developers gather at hackathons (<http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html>) every so often to work closely with others on specific features or projects, hash out ideas, test on weird hardware, and just get to socialize with other developers that live in different parts of the world. nobody is told what to do at those events and unless it's a specific mini-hackathon for ports or pf or something, everyone is kind of doing their own thing independently or in small teams.

<comment><USER7> Not quite to a typical engineering process but I'm guessing it's much better than a typical open source project where people just keep hacking the code and do not care much the quality (security, performance, code quality, etc).

I think the idea is that developers should have some sort of SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). I know some people will moan when they heard that abbreviation, especially if people just want to "hack some code".

It comes down to discipline and professionalism really.

Interesting video:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7pkyDUX5uM>

"Twelve years ago OpenBSD developers started engineering a release process that has resulted in quality software being delivered on a consistent 6 month schedule -- 25 times in a row, exactly on the date promised, and with no critical bugs. This on-time delivery process is very different from how corporations manage their product releases and much more in tune with how volunteer driven communities are supposed to function. Developer and testing laziness is mostly circumvented and leader frustration is kept to a minimum. The reasons, mechanics and social workings of our process have never been detailed outside the project, but now will be, hopefully providing some insight to others who face delays and quality issues with their own product lines."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> if you're interested in what other kinds of changes happen in a 6-month release window, here is a full changelog:

<http://www.openbsd.org/plus48.html>

<comment><USER8> They're quite a productive little team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looking forward to checking out the Intel GEM/DRM support for the modern integrated gfx support.

edit: GEM reference -- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Execution_Manager>

OpenBSD inteldrm(4) -- [http://www.openbsd.org/cgi- bin/man.cgi?query=inteldrm&se...](http://www.openbsd.org/cgi- bin/man.cgi?query=inteldrm&sektion=4&format=html)

</comment><comment><USER10> The best part of every OpenBSD release: the release song.

<http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html>

<comment><USER11> I found the lyrics for 4.8 lacking, especially when compared with the lyrics from 4.3:

<http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html#43>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know of a well-supported equivalent to FreeBSD's NanoBSD build system (<http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/nanobsd/index.html>) on OpenBSD? I've been using a FreeBSD since '96 and love how easy it is to build, distribute, and maintain NanoBSD images in any number of places (embedded firewalls like Alix, VMs that support HVM, etc). Pf is a little outdated in FreeBSD now (patchable to 4.5), and having the original would be nice.

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with that package, but there have been several openbsd-misc threads about running on nothing but a CF card, particularly on constrained platforms like Soekris boards. That's probably a good starting point.

I haven't put OpenBSD on a real "embedded" system, but I've installed it on stripped-down, ancient attic hardware over null modems. I don't doubt that it would scale down even further. It makes an incredibly dependable firewall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The top-level summary:

      This release adds better suspend and resume as well as new IKE and LDAP
      daemons, a bunch of network and SCSI stack improvements and much more!

No new platforms, but there's a bunch of updated hardware support and network stack improvements.

</comment><comment><USER14> How much does Theo support OpenBSD?

If he got hit by a bus, would the project go on, or as smoothly?

<comment><USER7> Project will go on. Smoothly? judge is out to decide. Theo is discipline. Others? who knows.</comment></comment>


Anatomy of a code tracer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@oleavr/anatomy-of-a-code-tracer-b081aadb0df8

<comment><USER2> Looks like a version of valgrind but for reversing purposes.

The basic block stuff reminded me of this: [http://www.gtoal.com/sbt/](http://www.gtoal.com/sbt/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems to be a dynamic binary translator. If you like these types of things, then check out Valgrind, Intel PIN, DynamoRIO, or QEMU.</comment>


Farmeron, 'Google Analytics For Farms', Secures 500 Startups Investment  - <AUTHOR> http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/09/28/farmeron-google-analytics-for-farms-gets-investment-from-dave-mcclures-500-startups/

<comment><USER2> Silicon Valley has officially gone full retard.</comment>


LOLPython - <AUTHOR> http://www.dalkescientific.com/writings/diary/archive/2007/06/01/lolpython.html <comment><USER2> I guess intergrating this with LOLCode feeds will be a breeze

[http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=36...](http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=36998705@N00&lang=en- us&format=lolcode)

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe I'm just too old to get this, but why would someone waste their time on this nonsense?

<comment><USER4> Although it's funny, I think it's a waste of time and talent.

<comment><USER5> It's someone making an alternate grammar for the Python VM. There's no waste in a learning exercise, even though the (juvenile, topical) humor may have dated itself.

Note to self: in order to not piss off HN readers, make a tutorial/postmortem at the end of the project.

<comment><USER6> Worry not, it's just a small subset of people here. At least, I hope that most of HN sees the value in doing something just because you want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember porting my MapReduce clone to LOLPython. Three conditions had to exist in order for this to happen: 1) I was in a former cattle weighing town- turned-gambling nexus in northern New South Wales, 2) I was going to be there for 2 months, and 3) I was very, very drunk.

I think there exists a whole set of sub-explanations for each, but it shall suffice that severance pay, boredom and intoxication produce strange things.</comment>