Ask HN: Out of ideas, what to do? - <AUTHOR> I am having a lot of free time during this period but I don't seem to get any good ideas into my head like it used to be when I was busy.<p>What do you guys do when you don't have any good idea? How do you look for inspiration? Have you guys faced similar situations? <comment><USER2> In my personal "going out, meet people" was not such an effective strategy. I tried this when I first moved to New York, I went to all kinds of parties, events, galleries, festivals, met lots of new people, etc. But in the end it didn't really help much. I had a great time, but as for ideas not so much, since I'm mostly focused on enjoying when I'm doing these activities. To be fair, these activities _do_ sometimes give you ideas but it's not as effective as I expected.

On the other hand, reading lots of books, reading lots of online papers and articles, learning new things, watching videos of people experiencing stuff, etc. have been effective for me. First, these are all "indirect experiences" and they give me inspiration without me having to directly experience them. Second, I do these things not directly in search for ideas but use them as inspiration to come up with new ideas myself. For example, you watch someone do something on a video, you can be like "what if?" => That's an idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> I learned this from James Altucher - force yourself to write down 10 ideas every day. They can be terrible and impractical ideas, but don't worry about it. The exercise is meant to help you exercise your creativity muscle. After a while, you start to see your creativity muscle improve. After all, you just need a single good idea.

<comment><USER4> That's what I was going to say. I used to do this as a daily drill. It doesn't have to take long. You might feel a little silly doing it, but do it anyway. It does work, and makes it easier to start getting ideas. :) Have fun!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't look for ideas, look for problems to solve.

</comment><comment><USER6> I always break this down in to two tasks:

1\. Identify The Characteristics of a Good Idea

This is a little bit like product/founder fit. What works for you may not work for others. Typically good ideas are not complex but quite simple. They are often comprised of other good, simple ideas (good artists copy; great artists steal).

With respect to ideas for a product, I would say it depends on your experience and resources: have you done this before, do you have a team, do you have the skills? In general, I've seen too many people take on projects that are too large. The most common result is that they never ship. Even when you have ruthlessly stripped all features to the bare minimum, you will still suffer from Hofstadter's Law (even when you know about Hofstadter's Law):

"Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

Start Small. Launch. Charge. Grow.

-

2\. Find Good Ideas Where You Least Expect

There are a few strategies that may jolt you in to a fit of inspiration. You may find that ideas are all around you, waiting to be found.

Ship. Exercise your idea muscle by coming up with lots of ideas. Most of them won't be great ideas - that's ok. You're looking for quantity, not quality. Allow yourself the chance to fail (they're just ideas, you haven't implemented them) enough times so that you can find one good idea.

Don't Rush. Don't try to force it: Rovio struggled and struggled to find a game that the mass market would like. They launched over 50 games before Angry Birds.

Work Backwards. Start with what a good idea looks like when it's complete and then work backwards to the smallest origin of that idea. Implement and iterate.

-

I've written more about these subjects here:

[http://startupclarity.com/a/find-profitable-product- ideas/](http://startupclarity.com/a/find-profitable-product-ideas/)

[http://startupclarity.com/a/good-product- idea/](http://startupclarity.com/a/good-product-idea/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the in detail answer, no I didn't know about the Hofstadter's Law, I will read more about it.

Also about the second part of the answer, when you ship something and fails I feel disappointing about the time and effort that I have put for it and gaining nothing in return, especially about the time which could have been put for something better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum ... Too many ideas.

What I'm working on now: 1\. www.ghacklabs.com 2\. www.paypress.co

Other domains that I bought and want to do something with: (not online)

1\. www.pitchgems.com 2\. www.startupjail.com 3\. www.startuppimp.com 4\. www.airaccelerate.com 5\. www.ycdinners.com

\+ a few more ...

I used to find it hard to get ideas for new projects. Now, I see problems OR something just cool I'd like to do. I don't have the bandwidth to handle everything so I've had to put put some things on the back burner.

I've actually written about over 200 startups in the past few weeks, and one thing I really like about this - working out trends i.e. seeing overcrowded places and knowing not to even bother about going there (ex. 50 food apps - menu app, delivery app, food marketplace etc ....)

<comment><USER8> I'd love to hear more about the startupjail and startuppimp ideas ! :)

<comment><USER9> One comes after the other...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Go outside. Exercise. Meet new people.

Inspiration always comes when you least expect it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I kinda understand it now, because when I was busy I used to get lot of ideas but now nothing... blank

<comment><USER11> Meeting with new people makes you think and generate ideas for what this people needs in their life, in a startup way.

i dont meet new people much, but my mind generates lots of ideas when meet someone new, specially other area of expertise than mine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the absence of some driving good idea, enjoy not being driven by some single good idea.

Enjoy your free time and make yourself a better person. Here are some ways to do so.

Learn things. My last big learning project was mathematics (spent five structured years on that one). Now I'm learning Japanese. No purpose other than that I want to know more than I know now.

Read more. Read some history. Read some classics. Binge read Murakami.

Pick a couple of discrete technical aspects of some tool you never really understood, and hit them hard. I did this with C++ move semantics, and the shiny new template concepts. It's very satisfying to hit hard something you know you don't understand, and come away a few days later knowing it backwards.

Get more exercise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi. Yes that is exactly what I am doing at the moment.

I am learning German, also I am learning machine learning these days.

But haven't you felt at the end of the day doing all this spending time on something like that is worth it? What's the outcome in putting your time in to something like that?

Haven't you felt like that??

Because I feel like that at times :¡

<comment><USER12> Perhaps you spend too much time on HN and other such places, and been infected with the idea that if you're not hammering away on the next Uber all the time, you're not worth a damn and you're wasting your life.

It's not true. If you spend a few hours learning a foreign language, purely for the fun of it and because it's nice to learn, and at the end of it feel like you should have been using your free time to make an app instead, the problem is _not_ that you should have been making an app instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It looks like everyone is assuming you are looking for an idea for a startup. You might want to be clear about that?

You can find problems to solve, or find things you or someone else are interested in. On some occasions, there is nothing wrong with looking at other people's ideas for inspiration. Even better if you can iterate their idea and make it better or find a different permutation of that idea.

Get feedback from friends, family, or intended audience.

I usually have hundreds of ideas at a time. If you ever have those moments just pick 10 to prototype out of 100 ideas and 1 to actually build.

PS. always write your ideas down somewhere

</comment><comment><USER14> If you are into data:

\- Some content on self-service BI vs normal standard BI

\- Some content how to get proper analytics requirements from business users

\- Implementing cool analytics on Tableau using superstore data set

\- Check Quora for more topics to write about

Basically, write content first, figure out who likes it (profile your fans), sell something to them once you have some traffic.

That's what I would do at least that's what I am doing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Some options: \- Learn a new language \- Solve something that annoys you \- Automate something that wastes your time \- Explore a different area. Programmer? Try working with hardware instead (build something on Arduino) \- Read some books

Above all, appreciate the chance to stop, relax and think. These opportunities become increasingly rare as you get older.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I am doing exactly that these days, I am learning German and also learning machine learning, but I feel like all these things are not helping me to achieve anything. Like even if I learn machine learning now the machine learning standards at the moment is miles away. So what's the purpose, because of all this I decided to ask from you guys :)

<comment><USER15> You don't have to be the best at something to get use out of it. Sounds like you need to think a bit more about what you actually want to achieve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good food for thought on getting unstuck, Jay Abraham's Sticking Point Solution > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6515635-the-sticking- poin...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6515635-the-sticking-point- solution)

</comment><comment><USER17> I write one page pitches for notable ideas I have, it's also good to force yourself to elaborate on it while also being concise.

Feel free to steal any of them: [http://munfred.com/pitches.html](http://munfred.com/pitches.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> I find going to a conference not only helps keep me current but actually feeds a lot of ideas. I think most of my ideas are actually derivatives of someone else's ideas, so hearing what other people are doing in the field starts me thinking about things that I could be making.

</comment><comment><USER19> Less "ideas". More "actions". Actions -- interaction -- beget ideas.

For me, finally getting back to taking glass blowing classes. Something that will fully engage me and take my mind off of all the ideas and life experiences I'm not having nor fulfilling.

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER20> What sort of ideas are you looking for? What happened to all the good ideas you had in the past?

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of the time the ideas that seemed good felt not so good after sometime, other ideas that tried ended up failing to gain traction and ended up in GitHub or dead files folder.

<comment><USER20> So in other words they weren't such good ideas after all :)

Don't be do hard on yourself since contrary to the conventional wisdom here, true good ideas are rare [1].

So are you looking for startup ideas or just project ideas?

1\. [https://www.tillett.info/2015/08/30/ideas-are-not- cheap/](https://www.tillett.info/2015/08/30/ideas-are-not-cheap/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I was thinking of a project idea that I can later turn in to a business if it goes well.

Yah the thing is even though you think it's a good idea you never know until you try it only after trying you realize it's not a good idea after all

<comment><USER20> If you do come across a new startup idea you think is good then you might want to run it over my good idea checklist [1]. If you do have one that hits at least 16 on this list then get in contact with me so I can steal it from you :)

1\. [https://www.tillett.info/2016/01/27/a-good-idea- checklist/](https://www.tillett.info/2016/01/27/a-good-idea-checklist/)

<comment><USER21> [redacted]

<comment><USER20> I am hardly "spamming" my blog - I am trying to help the OP with posts I have written that answer exactly his questions.

Apart from your comment being totally against the ethos of HN, how exactly am I making a living out of my personal blog?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Enjoy the free time!

</comment><comment><USER23> Just try to read something, or do what you like than you can feel the inspiration.

</comment><comment><USER24> How about creating a resource for people needing help finding good ideas?

</comment><comment><USER25> Go for a long walk.

</comment><comment><USER26> Read more books, turn off the phone.

</comment><comment><USER27> Screw having an idea. Go play video games.</comment>


Microsoft paying Nokia $1 billion to use WP7? Cheap at twice the price - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/03/microsoft-paying-nokia-1-billion-to-use-wp7-cheap-at-twice-the-price.ars <comment><USER2> Microsoft, feel free to send a hefty bribe my way and I'll start using Windows.</comment>


The Puzzling Paradox of Sign Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24521/ <comment><USER2> This is only interesting if one doesn't realize that sign language is its own language, rather than simply signed English. Syntax and word order are entirely different, and much information is encoded in what one might call 'tone'—eg, the energy or rhythm with which any sign is performed—that in English would be communicated with full words or suffixes.

These facts are patent to anybody with a passing acquaintance of American (or any other sign language). The 'paradox' they're discussing here is tantamount to saying, 'Japanese words tend to be longer than English words. So how do the Japanese communicate as effectively as we do?'

<comment><USER3> Good comment. That said...

> 'Japanese words tend to be longer than English words. So how do the Japanese > communicate as effectively as we do?'

I speak some Japanese. Japanese is actually a bit harder to communicate in than most other languages. The emphasis on social unity and modesty has evolved to make the language incredibly nuanced and complex. Nowadays, there's some factual statements that are almost literally impossible to say in Japanese because the words/phrases/grammar to say them don't match up.

Feynman touched on this in "Surely You're Joking" - there's different verbs for the exact same action based on the social situation and how well respected the person you're talking to is. So if you want someone to look at your garden, you say something like, "Would you please take-a-pasing-glance at my barely suitable garden?" But if you want to look at someone else's garden, you might say, "May I look-with-admiration upon you're beautiful garden?" If it's an official figure or a temple, it'd be something like, "May I quickly-glance- my-eyes-over-reverently on your most majestic of gardens?"

Different verbs. All mean "view" - but with different levels of politeness and appropriateness. One of the HNers who lives in Japan could probably comment more, I haven't spent all that much time there. Fascinating and beautiful language, but tricky to say things sometimes.

<comment><USER4> > Nowadays, there's some factual statements that are almost literally > impossible to say in Japanese because the words/phrases/grammar to say them > don't match up.

Care to elaborate? As a English/Mandarin/Japanese speaker, I am certainly acutely aware of the limitations of translating from one language in to another, but find such an assertion hard to accept without concrete examples.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sufficiently familiar with Japanese, but I can relate two specific stories from my own experience.

While travelling and working in Sweden I picked up enough of the language (alas, now gone) to converse reasonably well over dinner with people I hadn't met before. They were fluent in English, my colleague was fluent in Swedish.

I asked about the word "varsågod." It seemed to have many translations, often different for different contexts, and I was wondering how they all perceived it. The consensus came only after about an hour of back and forth. There is no translation, even when the context is known.

The best I've come up with is "All is well," but that really, really doesn't cover it. Sometimes it means "You're welcome," sometimes it means "Here you are," and there are other contexts.

And the English translations don't carry the extra meanings, the baggage. It just feels untranslatable. No translation I've seen or heard carries all of the meanings and nuances.

Another example is from French. The phrase "Je vous en prie" is often translated as "You're welcome," but it's also very, very formal. You'd hear it from staff in hotels, perhaps, and perhaps in the very best restaurants.

But the point is that while it effectively means "You're welcome" it actually carries more information. It also says: and our relationship is a formal one, such as staff to employer, and I'm in the subordinate position.

There is no way to say that in English without spelling it out explicitly, and once you've done so you've lost the sense of the original anyway.

It's like explaining a joke. Once you've done so you've given the understanding needed, but lost the humor.

Similarly with so many things in translation. To carry all the meaning properly sometimes you have to explain or describe the meaning, and then it's no longer actually a translation.

The thing I find most interesting is just how many monoglots claim that this can't possibly be true and give many excellent reasons, while so many polyglots simply accept it as fact. My wife is fluent in French and works copy-editing translations from German (and other languages) into English. I've seen this problem "in action" as it were, and it's why good translators cost so much, while mediocre translators don't.

EDIT: corrected the Swedish word - thanks. My spoken and reading Swedish was always better than my written.

<comment><USER6> I think you meant to type the composite word "varsågod" (and not "Be so god" ^^), it's not a phrase. A similar problem exist with "lagom" which roughly means something like: "enough, not to much or to little.", with a strong positive meaning. It also goes the other way too as computer engineer doesn't have a good exact translation as the English "engineer" is more nuanced than the Swedish "Ingengör".

If you feel like procrastinating and want to have a laugh at how ambiguous and strange Swedish can be I recommend Mastering Swedish by slay radio: <http://www.slayradio.org/mastering_swedish.php>

<comment><USER5> Thanks - corrected. My written Swedish was always lousy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One obvious point that somehow isn't mentioned in the article:

The speed of human language isn't limited by the ability of "the language" to encode a stream of information. It is limited by the human ability to create and understand the bits of language information.

And that limit is _much_ lower than the human ability to take in other streams of information. Vision lets you take in mega-bytes of information in seconds. Speech processing involves far less because language processing is such a hard problem for the brain.

Luria's the "The Working Brain" mentions that _most_ brain damage degrades speech in some fashion and that's because such a large portion of your brain works on the speech recognition problem when you are speaking or listening.

And processing language is a hard problem for people (and computers!) because a language statement involves answering (at least implicitly) global questions about your store of information - "are all men are mortal", "do black swans exist" etc.

<comment><USER8> "Vision lets you take in mega-bytes of information in seconds. Speech processing involves far less because language processing is such a hard problem for the brain."

I've read that people with extraordinary memory or mental arithmetic ability often visualize shapes and perform operations on them to get at the answer. And I guess "normal" people use "subvocalization" instead. In light of your comment, that makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Calling asl "signed english" is usually a good indication that the writer doesn't know much about the subject. Then they go on to say:

> "It turns out that the information content of handshapes is on average just > 0.5 bits per handshape less than the theoretical maximum. By contrast, the > information content per phoneme in spoken English is some 3 bits lower than > the maximum."

Talking about the information content of speech symbols is likely to be entirely bunk, but I'm going to go read the full article and try to find out whether the summary is bad or if the research is really this confused.

<comment><USER9> Just read the full article. It's no good. Analyzing ASL in terms of hand shapes only, on the grounds that they're the only feature that all linguists looking at ASL seem to agree on is really problematic. Computation of entropy is heavily dependent on the alphabet. If you say english has an alphabet at the syllable level, you'll get a very different amount of entropy than if you say the alphabet is phoneme level. If you go a level below phonemes and look at distinctive features (voiced/unvoiced, aspriated/unaspriated, front/back, high/low, ...) you'll get yet another entropy number altogether. These numbers will be wildly different from each other. Entropy calculations between languages must use comparably derived alphabets which cover the whole communication channel, or they will be meaningless. Argh. Junky article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I too find information theory a fascinating subject. Several commentors are disappointed by the trivial nature of the study (which I assume none of us have read). That is a problem with trying to apply theory to real world problems, You often have to make compromises in the quality of your interpretation of the problem in order to rigorously apply the tools of theory. I'm guessing the researches picked up some understanding of ASL during their research (if they didn't have some to begin with), but chose to frame their study so the parameters were easier to quantify.

</comment><comment><USER11> There's a very nice sign in ASL to describe this article. It uses two hands, and one of them is a fist with the index and little fingers extended, like the horns of a bull.

(1) I'm pretty sure it was Klima and Bellungi's book _The Signs of Language_ that pointed out that arm muscles are slower than vocal muscles, and therefore ASL does things that spoken languages _can't_ do in order to maintain the same communication bandwidth. (That book was written _ten years ago_.)

(2) The handshape is only a very small part of what conveys meaning in sign language; _one of the classic newbie mistakes in learning ASL_ is to look at your conversation partner's hands, rather than his or her eyes. A great deal of _grammatical_ information is communicated purely by facial expression; for example, raised eyebrows can indicate a yes/no question, lowered eyebrows can indicate a wh-question, and just looking in one direction or shifting the body slightly can substitute for a pronoun. There are also movements of the mouth that act as adverbial modifiers for a sign, to indicate things like "almost", "carelessly", "with difficulty", "distant in time or space", and a whole bunch of other stuff.

(3) With regard to the hand and arm movements themselves, the location and movement of the signs are as significant as the handshape. The signs for "father" and "mother" differ only in location. The signs for "paper" and "cheese" differ only in movement. Skimming the article, it appears that the authors didn't bother taking location and movement because linguists disagree on how to categorize those other features. But that's no excuse for _completely leaving them out_ of your analysis. That's methodological laziness.

(4) Modulation of movement also has grammatical significance which in English would be conveyed by modal verbs or adverbs. For example, a change in how you make the sign for "to be red" turns it into "to become red". The Klima and Bellungi book above has more of this kind of thing.

(5) There's also the ASL classifier system, which provides a concise way of using the relative position and motion of hands to indicate the relative position and motion of objects in physical _or metaphorical_ space. I once saw a lecture at which a woman very eloquently used this to describe herself advancing through all four years of her college education while a friend of hers kept repeating her "prep" year. (Gallaudet has a pre-freshman year for students who, thanks to the ocean of suck that is the American deaf-ed system, don't arrive with adequate college preparation.)

There have been _over thirty years_ of serious linguistic research into ASL, and judging from the references, these jokers didn't do more than strip-mine it for a list of handshapes. AAARRRGGGHH!

</comment><comment><USER12> Along similar lines as the article, I've always thought about how we can be more efficient when speaking. If you notice, there is a tendency to be more and more efficient on the web, with abbreviations/acronyms. Imagine a world where we say "lol" just as though we type it (not hard to imagine). Now take it a few steps further, by considering the vast amount of different sounds/tones our vocal chords can create, imagine if we keep simplifying the spoken language to a point where it becomes like one of those star-trek civilizations with their clicking sounds when they speak.

I believe the trend is inevitible.

<comment><USER13> Based on how I, like, hear many people, like, talking, I'm, like, not so sure it's, like, inevitable.

<comment><USER12> Like, such as, like, Miss Teen USA South Carolina, such as.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What did they study? The accompanying photograph shows the alphabet, but I assume they aren't just considering using sign language to spell out words. Then they mention phonemes, but those letters aren't phonemes. Are there signs for phonemes? And ASL has signs for words.</comment>


Computer program 'perfect at poker' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30718558

<comment><USER2> I'm a bit curious how dealing with different opponents is dealt with. It seems that to prove such a model "optimal", some quite strong assumptions have to be made regarding the encountered opponent strategies? Or it's provable there is some optimal exploration vs exploitation tradeoff in discovering them?</comment>


A 'revisited' guide to GNU Screen - <AUTHOR> http://linuxgazette.net/168/silva.html

<comment><USER2> Oddly, it doesn't mention tmux (<http://tmux.sourceforge.net/>), a newer project that implements a similar terminal multiplexer. It was redesigned from the ground up to more cleanly accommodate several features that have been grafted onto the screen codebase. (It also has a BSD license, FWIW.)

After years, screen _still_ doesn't do vertical screen splits. It turned out to be faster to just start from scratch.

<comment><USER3> Honestly, it would be odd for a tmux article to go without mentioning screen but there is nothing odd about a screen article not mentioning tmux.

Speaking of which, I would like to see an article on tmux. Every now and then a screen article pops up and a few people chime in with the vague advantages of the BSD-licensed tmux, but I haven't seen any actual articles on tmux.

<comment><USER4> I use both. The only big difference? Besides the license? Screen uses 'Ctrl+A' while tmux uses 'Ctrl+B' and screen -r (to reattach) is replaced by tmux attach. That's it, for me at least. tmux seems to have a lot more features, but I only use 10% of them.

<comment><USER2> The biggest difference as far as I'm concerned is that it has vertical screen splitting and xmonad / dwm-style automatic tiled layouts built in. I've also looked into the codebases for both, and if I were working on new features, I would far rather work on tmux's - it's much cleaner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That was a good writeup. I use screen so often, that I don't think much about it, so this article was a good refresher.

A little off topic, but: I should spend about 5% of the time I devote to exploring new programming languages to revisiting command shortcuts, etc. for tools like Emacs, Idea, Rubymine, Eclipse, etc. A few days ago, I set up Emacs for Rails development (involved learning a bunch of new keyboard shortcuts) - now depending on what aspects of a project I am working on, I use either Rubymine or Emacs (or TextMate if I have my MacBook booted to OS X)

</comment><comment><USER6> I almost welcome the bimonthly screen article. I adore that program.

<comment><USER7> Same here , when i discovered it i couldn't understand how i had been working without it for so long , suddenly i had 1 large terminal rather than "n" different terminals.

The only thing i miss now is vertical splits , i think tmux solves that problem as well.

<comment><USER8> "The only thing i miss now is vertical splits , i think tmux solves that problem as well."

Ctrl-A+S or Ctrl-A+| ?

<comment><USER9> Just checked in ubuntu, those two commands will enable a horizontal split and a vertical split, respectively. Thats great, screen has been amazingly useful since the day I discovered it and have split windows working fully is just icing on the cake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The screen handling of vt100 emulation is badly broken, based on my recent experience with it. A valid vt100 sequence was completely borking the terminal session.

I've unfortunately not had the time to chase the bug down, and the boxes that are generating the vt100 sequences are not where I can make them available to the screen developers, either.

For those that are looking to achieve (better) vt100 compliance, there is a reasonable test suite available at the <http://vt100.net/> site.

</comment><comment><USER11> Screen doesn't do vertical splits. That's a dealbreaker for me. Tmux does.

But tmux has another problem: very rapid scrolling in one window will make the program completely unresponsive. In the same situation, screen doesn't have this problem. I posted to the user list and the developer very quickly sent me a patch, but it didn't fix the problem for me, although it worked for the developer. Still working with the developer on this.

<comment><USER12> There is a port of screen that includes vertical splits. Its nifty, but requires the source to be patched:

<http://fungi.yuggoth.org/vsp4s/>

<comment><USER11> I read the README/blog post somewhere that vertical scrolling in one of the subwindows is very slow. Hence I have not tried it out. Do you have any experience with this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> gnu screen is the reason i find terminal tabs obsolete.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. screen is one of the single most useful tools I use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ratpoison - <http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/>

<comment><USER2> Could you explain why this is relevant, rather than just linking to it?

<comment><USER16> It's not really that relevant IMO, but maybe fans of screen want to extend the screen approach to their whole computing experience? That's basically the goal of ratpoison, which is a window manager based around the idea of tiling and complete control via the keyboard, overall much simpler than KWin, etc.

<comment><USER2> I knew why, but I've actually had much better luck with dwm (<http://dwm.suckless.org/>) * . The automatically-tiled / multiple desktops interface style works verrry well with a keyboard-centric usage style, but also more gracefully accommodates programs that expect a more conventional UI - ratpoison just seems to give up. (I used ratpoison exclusively for probably three or four years.)

* Other people have also had good experience with XMonad (<http://xmonad.org/>) or awesome (<http://awesome.naquadah.org/>), though the former requires Haskell (I got burned by GHC's portability issues, and requiring GHC for a window manager strikes me as a bit silly), and awesome strikes me as a bit dodgy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why are some of the greatest thinkers being expelled from their disciplines? - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=cjtGhcnt3vYPDhDdjtvfySgdzkqpzShC <comment><USER2> "Freud is not taught in psychology departments, Marx is not taught in economics, and Hegel is hardly taught in philosophy"

Modern academic psychology and economics aim at being scientific; the works of Freud and Marx fall very short in this respect, according to contemporary standards.

Both are, of course, very important in the history of ideas. And their _ideas_ are not necessarily irrelevant to the psychologist (childhood traumas _can_ cause persisting psychological problems) or economist. But their actual works probably are irrelevant to the work of most psychologists and economists.

Hegel expelled from philosophy? First, his works are particularly difficult to read and understand (and difficult to translate into English). So he isn't popular with philosophy undergraduates. So not many courses are offered on his work. (But some are: [http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/ug_study/ug_honours/documents...](http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/ug_study/ug_honours/documents/EarlyContinentalsCourseOutline.pdf) )

Also, Hegel fits on the 'continental' side of the 'analytic' vs. 'continental' philosophy binary opposition. That is probably the main reason for his lack of presence in English-speaking philosophy departments, which are overwhelmingly analytical in bent.

<comment><USER3> yes, you make the good point. the author of the piece is a historian. he's not only bemoaning the eradication of freud, marx, and hegel from their respective disciplines, he's bemoaning the scientific-ization of those disciplines themselves, ya dig?

take economics, for example. it didn't always have such a "rigorous" mathematical foundation. and though economics has sought to be more and more scientific, it's unclear whether that's the "true" nature of the discipline of economics. in other words, the way, say, undergraduates are taught intro programming might have more to do with contemporary trends, e.g., object oriented programming, rather than other important things endemic to the discipline of computer science.

from my point of view, economics/psychology/philosophy (maybe less so) seek legitimacy in the present moment through the scientific-ization of their processes/thought. i'm with the author of this piece that history of thought, as in philosophy, is an important part of the discipline if not the discipline itself.

<comment><USER4> History shouldn't be a single subject in school; it should be an aspect of every subject.

<comment><USER5> Does that mean you are actually going to test on history? I was pretty mad when the physics professor actually put in a question about history on the exam. Its fine if they want to put sidebars in the textbook, but really if it is not tested it is going to have to be up to the student to take on an interest in the history and learn it.

<comment><USER4> Ack, I'm talking about education, not literacy and certainly not about _passing tests_. Let's get a little bit idealistic here. If you had a child what would you want it to know by the time it left high school, and what's the best way to teach it those things? I want my child to know not just about the major theories and processes and so on, but the historical context that caused them to arise.

What you think of some test is hugely about implementation details. Would you be less mad if you didn't have to deal with history as a separate subject? If the notion of tests didn't exist, and there were more positive motivations for students to study? If you already knew a more wide range of human history than most grad students today by the time you entered college, so you didn't have to study history anymore?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To be a little bit snippy, why isn't Genesis taught in evolutionary biology courses? I mean, Darwin wrote "On the Origins of Species", but Genesis was there before Darwin and wrote about the origins of all life on earth so clearly Darwin should be put in that context. How can someone understand Darwin without knowing creationism?

As the anti-intelligent-design folks would say, science is a harsh place for ideas and ideas need to prove themselves over and over and be verifiable. You don't get to be taught just because you wrote about something earlier.

There are places where these things should be taught - because they are important to our history and culture. They don't belong in the sciences anymore for varying reasons. Freud wasn't scientific in his studies (meaning things like double-blind, verifiable results). He has influenced a lot, but the field has moved past him. Marx worked under economic assumptions that were held as true by economists of the time that were later proved false (and which greatly affect his outcomes).

However, there are some things that have held up over time. Ricardo's Comparative Advantage (from the 17th century I believe) is still taught. The Pythagorean Theorem from over two millenia ago is huge in math. And I believe both Newton and Einstein still hold in their fields. At the same time, as we learned about the universe, Plato/Aristotle went from astronomy (they did write a lot about what was in space) to philosophy - because they were simply wrong. Thinkers who thought the earth was flat might be mentioned in a history course, but not in a science one.

And sometimes there is still value there. I'm a religious person myself, but I think it would be stupid to teach it in a history or science class - its ideas just have no place there. Maybe they did at one point in human history, but not today. Likewise, I think a lot of psychology today is going to fall into nothing as we learn more and at that time, the authors of today will cease to be taught in psyc.

Science moves forward. It's unforgiving. Once something has been proved false, it can remain, but more in the "history of ideas" way.

<comment><USER7> Er -- philosophy is not science. It's outside of science. So it cannot be wrong. It either is more or less appropriate for various circumstances (just like science, but we won't go there)

So Hegel is not wrong. Heck, Freud and Marx weren't even scientific, so they really can't be wrong either.

I know what you're saying -- we wouldn't take time in chemistry to go over alchemy -- but there is a difference between a person, a time, and the best way of thinking for that time and the current state of the scientific model. Lots of times we can use heuristics and methods of thinkers who ended up in wrong spots in current problems. Likewise, not being aware of old ad beaten- to-death canards like Marxism means we end up going over the same old ground again.

Or looking at it from another angle: wouldn't you want to remember Carl Sagan a thousand years from now? Even if he appeared no smarter than a primitive cave man worshiping the sun? You see, everybody wants to throw away the old guys -- they're so obviously wrong. It's much harder to take the good with the bad.

To ignore thinkers from another age because the current scientific belief has changed deprives the current generation of everything else those thinkers had -- their powers of deduction, observation of human nature, the ability to put various disparate pieces together in synthesis, etc. It's throwing the baby out with the bath water. Over and over again we see thinkers trashed and the later parts of what they had turn out to be extremely useful. Plato missed the boat in certain ways, but who the heck could predict forms would turn into OOAD?

This is not a boolean question. (to quote another dis-remembered scientist who eventually gave us something useful) In most human affairs, there is a give and take of ideas, a dialectic. But there I go again.

<comment><USER8> _It's outside of science. So it cannot be wrong._

p and ~p

<comment><USER7> "Wrong" does not apply to extra-scientific statements.

"Ice Cream is nice" is extra-scientific. It is, strictly speaking, nonsense. "There might be a methodology for association various ice creams with personal tastes, and this methodology might hold up to the scientific method" is the beginning of an area of study for science. Philosophy generates science -- it moves from quasi-true and tenuous connective statements into fields of further study that can be joined with better-defined and more rigorous logic.

Hegel made some great observations. Some of which are provable and might involve some creation of a scientific discipline at some time, and some not. Some were along the lines of "ice cream is nice". Since nonsensical statements have no logical evaluation, any formation of predicate logic is non- applicable.

Or maybe I missed something. Seemed like you were being flip.

<comment><USER9> You're using the word "philosophy" in it's everyday sense. My life philosophy might be to take risks, live it to the fullest, and enjoy ice cream, because ice cream is nice. Those are extra-scientific statements.

Philosophy, the discipline taught in academic departments, is something else entirely. It's a bit ironic that you contrasted philosophy to "better-defined and more rigorous logic", because the formal study logic is a sub-discipline of philosophy. At least at my college, if you're a math major and want to learn about logic, you take a course listed in the Philosophy department.

Now, sometimes philosophy does rest on premises which are either extra- scientific or which should be scientifically testable but are not proven rigorously by a philosopher. For example, I could make an argument about whether or not free will is compatible with determinism. In doing so I might make some assumptions about "free will" and the nature of mind which probably should be sanity-checked by a neuroscientist sometime down the road. But those are just problems with my assumptions: whether or not my argument is good Philosophy depends on how well I make the argument, in other words whether it is valid, in the technical sense of the term. Hagel and other Continental Philosophers get a bad rap for being light on rigor, and we can have a whole separate debate about that _, but to say that philosophy consists of quasi- true statements that can't be logically evaluated is just insane.

_ (I'd be particularly interested in which of Hegel's arguments you thought were "nonsensical" or "along the lines of ice cream is nice"! Although I admit I only have any familiarity with Philosophy of Right, anything I know about his other works is secondhand)

<comment><USER7> No. I am using philosophy in its historical sense. The heavy use of predicate logic is a very recent occurrence dating to early in the last century or so.

Hegel's a bit thick for me, but I'd make the argument that Popper did with Marx that Hegel failed to provide a bold, falsifiable prediction. From what I understand, he made some great observations about how spirit evolves, but there was nothing you could hang your hat on -- not enough definition to make useful predictions or prove one way or another. No matter what happened, it could be explained as part of the historical dialectic. Hey that's great philosophy, but it's not science. It is not provable in any fashion.

You're right that the use of predicate logic has grown so in philosophy departments that one would think that philosophy is based on it. The jury is still out, in my opinion. The problem of induction (particularly Nelson Goodman's take) raises questions about whether predicate statements like if- then or a or ~b have real, applicable meaning.

Oddly enough, this is exactly the point I am making -- that a knowledge of the people and history of a subject bears direct relation to current problems in the field. That by saying "oh we don't teach X anymore, he was wrong." -- especially in philosophy -- we're acting a bit foolish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hegel is still studied if the philosophy department requires a historical survey of Western Philosophy. It is hard to understand the historical context of Marx, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard if you don't know anything about Hegel. Not many schools approach it this way anymore. Coursework now is more pick and choose. Medieval thought and the 19th century are the first to be ignored.

The reason Hegel is not taught in depth in philosophy departments anymore is because he was an intellectual fraud. In other news, medical schools no longer teach leeching or phrenology. Consider it progress. However, if you disagree with progress, you can still get leeched from an alternative medicine quack or pick up Hegel from the literary criticism department.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. There are very active communities of philosophers that work on non- fraud 19th century thinkers; Leiter's blog is probably the center of philosophy on the web, and he's a Nietzsche expert. Anyway, it seems like criticism of "logic-chopping" always evaluates to "why do these philosophers' papers make me think so hard instead of just spouting the politicized nonsense that I expect from 'intellectuals'?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For the same reasons that universities stopped teaching Fortran and Pascal: They've been replaced by newer, better alternatives.

<comment><USER13> You are too kind. Two of the names he listed, Freud and Marx, were wrong. His third "forgotten man" is Hegel and while you can't call a philosophy wrong he certainly is harder to read than similar alternatives.

The author might have had more luck finding Marx if he hadn't been looking for him in the Economics Dept.

<comment><USER9> Agreed with the rest of the replies here about Marx and Freud, but what's with the detraction of Hegel because he's "hard to read"? Lisp is pretty hard to read too when you've only read C-style syntax before.

And I think you can most definitely call a philosophy wrong, philosophers do it routinely! At its core philosophy is simply making good arguments, something that HN posters should be striving for. And while it's hard to "prove" a philosophy wrong in the sense one can prove that an algorithm doesn't work, you can certainly prove its arguments to be unsound.

There is the ongoing strict separation between "Continental" and "Analytic" philosophy, which is both relatively new and quite tragic. I will say that in a discipline like philosophy, which when it is at its best treasures subversiveness and independence just as much as entrepreneurs do, it's all the more important to read thinkers from different schools of thought. Hegel is not just any "Continental" philosopher but one of the most important pillars of the field

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For that matter, I don't know of any biology classes that teach Darwin or economics classes that teach Adam Smith, except in a passing, general sort of way.

I'm sure everyone knows about Darwin's finches and Smith's reasoning about the butcher's benevolence but that's a far cry from making a detailed study.

Fields move on. Ideas are refined and re-expressed in terms not available to the originators of those fields.

These texts are all valuable as historiography but it shouldn't be surprising that students learning the material don't go to them first. More often that not they were wrong about a great many things, Smith and Darwin included.

</comment><comment><USER15> _Freud is not taught in psychology departments, Marx is not taught in economics, and Hegel is hardly taught in philosophy_

I don't know much about Hegel but there's a simple reason that Marx and Freud are not taught anymore: because we know that they were _wrong_.

<comment><USER16> _because we know that they were wrong_

About everything? Or just something?

What about thinkers who are still being taught? Was Descartes "wrong" or "right"? How about Nietzsche?

<comment><USER15> Well, for instance, Marx believed that all history could be understood in terms of conflict between the working, middle and upper classes. But that simply isn't the case. Freud believed that a persons personality was shaped by their relationship with their mother. We now know that that is only one of many variables.

Time will tell on Nietzsche :-)

<comment><USER16> So they were wrong about something. By that definition, who isn't "wrong"?

Edit: Since my point seems not to have been obvious, let me make it explicit. Putting a binary label of "right" or "wrong" on the entire work of Freud, Marx, or anybody else is so crude as to be useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an interesting question. I think the main reason is time -- universities only have so much time. But yet these were major icons on the world stage: surely some classroom time should be given to them.

As another possibility, it may be the way humans think of science that is at issue. If we believe that science is always progressing forward towards some idealistic picture of reality and that exceptions are rare, what's the point in studying old dead guys who were obviously wrong? If, however, we believe that science is always progressing forward towards some idealistic picuter of reality and that exceptions are NOT rare, then we should pay attention to each little turn in the road we took -- we may have to go back to there.

I hear a lot of Marx in the political arena -- lots of times by people who have no idea they are channeling him. It might be useful for our universities to at least provide students with a good background on Karl. Likewise, to fail to understand historicism and the dialectic of the spiritis to miss out on some great ideas -- even if Marx took those ideas way too far later on.</comment>


Cliff Johnson's Fool's Errand (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.filfre.net/2015/11/cliff-johnsons-fools-errand/ <comment><USER2> Amazing to see here that he was friends with the Firesign Theatre and considered collaborating with them.

Just imagine how surreal a a Nick Danger game by Cliff Johnson might have been!

</comment><comment><USER3> You can download "The Fool's Errand" for free from the author's website. [http://fools-errand.com/02-FE/index.htm](http://fools- errand.com/02-FE/index.htm) You'll need to use an emulator to run them; the author provides links to free emulators, too.

It's totally worth it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow,nostalgia overload as I recall how I used to play Fool's Errand on my Mac SE as a kid.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Fool's Errand is indeed a gem. A very long time ago I played the low-res color version on my PC, but I understand the proper way to play it is in its original, hi-res monochrome glory.</comment>


Rare Color Pictures Show How People Dressed for Easter in the 50s - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/these-rare-color-pictures-show-easter-1950s <comment><AUTHOR> The cool thing about these is the quality of the film scans. There's a lot more resolution and detail than in today's cellphone pics.</comment>


MangoPay: Payment for Marketplaces – Accept online payments and manage e-money - <AUTHOR> http://www.mangopay.com/?gclid=CKKewbDZ6LYCFfQetAodrjQAqg

<comment><USER3> This could work if the seller is located outside europa (like latin america)? I'm looking for a solution that work for startups outside USA/UK...

</comment><comment><USER4> If I were running an online marketplace in the United States and cared about protecting the sellers in my marketplace from fraud:

<https://www.balancedpayments.com/>

<comment><USER5> Love how YC backed companies get free reign for spamming around here. Balanced has been particularly notorious in both submissions and shill comments.

<comment><USER4> I apologize if my comment came off as spammy; I don't work for or represent Balanced. When someone launches a product that is similar to an existing product, particularly a YC startup's product, the existing product is relevant to the discussion. There are so many payments startups right now, each with its own niche. I think MangoPay and Balanced share a niche (online marketplaces), but Balanced targets the US while MangoPay seems to be targeting Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone here used them? It looks very good for a few ideas I have up my sleave that I was waiting for balanced to launch in the UK for.

I'm quite astonished at there rates, its very good! There must be a catch.

<comment><USER7> I got in contact with them for one of my projects. They don't have £ support yet, which they say will be available in June. I'm looking to use this service if its as good as they say it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How's this different from Balanced Payments? Other than the supported countries. Do they do ACH? What's the holding period?

<comment><USER9> Well they have some method to facilitate the "marketplace" usecase - <USER2> to members of a defined group. So if it's not ACH, it's something very similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone know the pricing for this within the US? 1.8% + €0.18 (23 cents) sounds too good to be true...

<comment><USER11> Sounds too good to be true for Europe also since credit card fees are included apparently.

<comment><USER9> Where did you see that CC fees are included? I really cannot see how they'd be viable if so. But if, man, that's a deal.

<comment><USER12> Hello, i'm developer in the IT Team of mangopay, and the Credit card fees are included in 1.8%.

<comment><USER9> Wow!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Have you guys looked into Bitcoin at all? Any plans on integrating it in the future?

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice idea. Can I use MangoPay for a betting platform?</comment>


Color 'hack' allows users to spy on anyone from anywhere - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/color-hack-allows-users-to-spy-on-anyone-from-anywhere/

<comment><USER2> So, I'm confused about this one. Actually, I read about this somewhere else a few days earlier, and its been bugging me since... Wasn't the big thing about Color that they didn't use GPS to pinpoint you? They had some cool tech (that apparently justified $41M) that located you using bluetooth, audio input, lighting, etc, etc and Bill Nguyen basically flat out said GPS sucks and they don't use it.

So... Why does this hack work? Apparently they are still using/collecting GPS data? Anyone have a better idea than I do on this?

</comment><comment><USER3> How is that a vulnerability when pictures are public inthe first place anyway? (the geolocation filter is a mere convenience)

</comment><comment><USER4> Just wait until this is used to put in picture ads or more subtle product placements everywhere ...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> just imagine using this hack in foursquare...

<comment><USER5> Download the script here: [http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/how-to-become-mayor- for-any-plac...](http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/how-to-become-mayor-for-any- place-in-foursquare-in-9-perl-statements/)

It's back from August 2010, but probably still working.</comment></comment>


What Killed Adobe Flash - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/03/28/what-killed-adobe-flash <comment><USER2> Can someone explain the technical cause for flash sites crashing so frequently?

I think that is what killed flash. Everything else was just a symptom.

Because they crashed, the developers moved on, the community moved on, Jobs moved on and so on.</comment>


Ask HN : Does AWS has anything like this? - <AUTHOR> https://azureheatmap.azurewebsites.net <comment><USER2> Are you asking if they have something like this for their managed services in various Region/Zones? Or if you can configure something like this for your personally hosted services/resources?

<comment><AUTHOR> If they have it , then yes would love to use it, else thinking of setting up one, not just for personally hosted, a "one place get all kind of information " kind of portal for aws services, uptime etc..</comment></comment>


Real-World Haskell: Carnival, a Blog Commenting Service - <AUTHOR> http://robots.thoughtbot.com/ship-you-a-haskell

<comment><USER2> A nice read.

Seems that most of the problems involved deployment on Heroku, suggesting that Heroku is not a good platform for deploying Haskell. Perhaps if you're changing language the rest of the process should change as well?

</comment><comment><USER3> Great article, I really look forward to future blogs about Haskell and web development. I'm also interested in how Haskell can improve my software for myself and my clients.

I've found the type system combined with using the repl to do iterative development to be a huge productivity and stability win.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting, I always thought thoughtbot as a Ruby Shop.

<comment><USER5> I have used Ruby (and Sinatra, Rails, Merb in the old days, etc.) for many years, and I found my own transition to developing in Haskell to be refreshing.

I find Haskell development to be fun and interactive in the spirit of Lisp and Ruby. I have professionally programmed in various Lisp dialects since 1981, and I find that Ruby, Lisp, and Haskell feel like the same party.</comment></comment>


Google Wave Preview Opens to the Public on September 30th - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/2009/08/16/google-wave-preview-opens-public-september-30th/ <comment><USER2> Hm, looking forward to seeing if it's as misunderstood ( _under_ -estimated) as I think it is. I'll write this up as a full post later, but is it just me who imagines that Wave is sort of like Alan Kay's original vision for OOP - objects which "exist" across computers, respond to changes, etc.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. Between your comment, the REST post, and that object store OS, Daiken I believe, it just clicked what objects were supposed to be. Though I'll still need more practice before I really get it.

<comment><USER2> Feel free to post your understanding once it clicks, I still don't get it completely myself. REST definitely has something to do with Kay's objects. Wave does some neat things with diffs/merging REST doesn't, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been on the early access for a month, and it is indeed a very interesting technology, although one I think will initially at least see more use in the enterprise than with consumers. However, it's very much a walled garden at the moment, so I'm interested in seeing how it'll integrate with other tools we use on a daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER5> While the technology and idea behind Wave is indeed exciting, the implementation of it as a product (in the Dev Preview) is sorely lacking.

It's one of the most buggy and frustrating user experience I've ever forced myself to go through. To be honest, I don't know how they'll pull it all together in six weeks.

Having read all the positive reviews about Wave that don't mention its glaring problems, I wonder if the Reality Distortion Field around Google is worse than it is around Apple.

<comment><USER6> I agree whole heartedly with you on this. There are some real problems with Wave and unless they are waiting to push out some big changes it will not be ready for public consumption at the end of September.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> for those who hear only hype and fluff about google wave taking over the world. here is something factual: <http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> I am so eager to give it a try. I love gmail and am on it 24/7 (ok, almost).</comment>


An entrepreneur has built a one-metre-long stretch of motorway in Romania - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47582694 <comment><USER3> He's fed up and so are lots of people rallied behind him, because the problem is that bad. The Romanian road network is deficient and overburdened. Aside from commuters stuck in traffic, there's also lots of trucks. Most roads are undivided and overtaking is allowed. Safety culture among drivers is poor, deaths are high [1]. Sadly, road fatality rates in non-EU countries in the same region are even higher.

The EU is a critical source of funding for major infrastructure projects, especially for newer members who also have access to convergence funds. Road projects are expensive not only because of costs in design, land acquisition, and construction materials, but because they require large amounts of labor over several years. While it's often the same multinational consortia who bid on and win such construction projects, these firms aren't set up to do everything by themselves, and partner with local subcontractors for much of the work. The way work gets subcontracted makes this process vulnerable to corruption and graft. But sometimes it's the big consortia that get themselves into a problematic situation: just read up on Bechtel and Viaduct at Suplacu de Barcău.

EU transport and convergence funds might be a big help, but they do come with a few strings attached: they have to be used for projects that can be justified though a regional or EU-wide lens. On top of the slow pace of progress on the matter, Moldavia has an unfortunate geographic situation that puts it far away from the most important transit corridors -- the TEN-T corridors -- that EU desires to prioritize. In Romania's case, this means that connections towards Hungary and Bulgaria have so far made more progress than connections towards Ukraine and Moldova.

[1] [https://www.euronews.com/2018/12/07/which-countries-in- europ...](https://www.euronews.com/2018/12/07/which-countries-in-europe-have- the-deadliest-roads)

<comment><USER4> Moldova was an eye-opener (in 2012) - crossed the border from Romania at Giurgiulești, and almost immediately found myself driving down a cobbled road with gas street lights, and horse-carts. They make Romania look extremely wealthy.

It's understandable that the EU is prioritising corridor connections between member states and wealthy trading partners. I am sure Moldova will not be forgotten, but as long as they still have the last vestige of the USSR within their borders (Transnistria), it'll be hard to extend them membership or the benefits of new infrastructure. Furthermore, extending east from Moldova into Ukraine is also challenging, as there is an awkward area of disputed territory around the border with frequent checkpoints, diversions, and razor wire fences. Oh, actually, that was seemingly resolved after my visit - <USER2> Transnistria remains.

<comment><USER5> Wow, I'd never heard of Transnistria. Fascinating.

Transnistria: A land in limbo: CNN: 3m 22s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAReDKkT9TA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAReDKkT9TA)

Transnistrian Independence Day 2017: A travel blogger who doesn't over-do it with commentary: 3m 9s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28ZONQIHK0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q28ZONQIHK0)

It has its own "borders, police, military and currency"!: Another travel blogger, well narrated and short: 8m 15s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m-9Q5CkEvE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m-9Q5CkEvE)

<comment><USER6> I have a friend who visited it and came back with one of the funniest post- Cold War stories I know. It's representative enough of this stuff that I'm going to recount it, even though most of its value resides simply in being funny.

So my friend is a very nice and friendly guy, who travels all over the world. He speaks Romanian well, but not too much Russian. The border checkpoint, naturally, was manned only by a few friendly folks who spoke nothing but Russian.

He shows them his papers, and they manage to understand each other only to the extent that he explains he wants to visit Tiraspol, and that he's a tourist. All of this mostly in sign language.

So this guy apologizes, tells my friend to wait, and goes off through a door in the back. Almost an hour later, he returns with someone who speaks a little Romanian. My friends explains the whole I wanna visit Tiraspol, I'm a tourist thing all over again. More discussion and paper checking ensues.

Another hour later, the two guys leave again, and return with a third soldier. This time, someone who speaks excellent Romanian. The whole explanation gets repeated. They finally give him the visa, wish him good luck and safe journey -- and one of guys pats him on his shoulder and apologizes.

Sorry, man, he says, you look like a nice guy and I'm sure you really are a tourist. But you have to understand, when someone shows up at the border and claims they're a tourist, we usually find out he's definitely not a tourist.

Edit: every other event of his trip was equally funny, except it involved no public authorities :). From what I've heard, Tiraspol isn't too bad a city -- but do remember this is basically still a Soviet state. I'm sure it's very bad if you piss of the wrong person.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that was my experience going in too - took about six hours at the border to get two cars through - and if it hadn't been for my wife who speaks fluent Russian, it would've been no dice.

Tiraspol feels like many post-soviet cities, and reminded me of Volgograd - the only real difference is the ubiquitous and contemporary soviet imagery.

<comment><USER7> You reasly need to bring presents. Otherwise you could wait hours.

Interestingly the same descriptions of Moldova today I experienced when I visited Romania in the late 90ies.

<comment><USER4> Oh, we did - had a box full of pot noodles, and various Union Jack branded tat - you'd be amazed at how far a touristy biro and tiny tin of biscuits will get you.

On the other hand, it sucks when you've spent six hours buttering up an entire border station, and then the shift changes, as happened when trying to get into Uzbekistan just after a bombing in Tashkent. Ended up having to sleep in a brothel in a Kazakh border town, as the border was truly closed, and after 30 hours of wakefulness we were ready to drop - and the nearest hotel was in Shymkent.

Travel is great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems less like "shame" and more like "create a symbol of a public policy desire around which people can gather and signal to politicians in the hopes that the politicians will see construction as a action to get votes."

<comment><USER9> They get the votes anyway. The worst ones. People who vote for them don't care much about highways, they care about their pensions and public sector salaries not being cut. Otherwise you're right. I tend to view the one metre of highway as unintended contemporary art.

<comment><USER10> > I tend to view the one metre of highway as unintended contemporary art.

Can you elaborate? Sometimes I distract myself so much from my country politics (Romania) that I even (guilty admit) I forget I live there.

<comment><USER9> The autor intended a protest but he did more than just that in reality. His work would easily qualify as contemporary art if announced in a "proper" context: open air art exhibit with wine, pastry, a sophisticatedly worded brochure and invited art critics. I'm not saying he should have done that, but it is art, regardless. This stunt hints a bit at the Russian Voina performance art group, but they're even more radical and labelled as hooligans by the state media.

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

Add to that the country wide 15 minute strike that followed. That one was _huge_. Cars stoped dead in the street in major cities, big companies stopped work. Wow. Just think: a protest art event with hundreds of thousands people participating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> According to Wikipedia Romania has:

22,247 km (13,824 mi) of railroad tracks

And 807 km of motorways

In contrast the UK (similarly sized, within 2% of area) has 16000 km of railway and

3688 km of highway

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_road_ne...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_road_network_size)

<comment><USER12> Does the UK have no highways or equivalent to Edinburgh or Birmingham? Cause Romania has barely connected 2 out of 6 of its bigger cities.

And it definitely does not even have the strategic highways.

Plus you wouldn't want a be stuck in one of our trains going at 60kmph for 6-8 hours, trust me ;)

<comment><USER13> We have motorways that go to every major city, why on earth wouldn't we?

<comment><USER14> There are a few major cities that have no motorway anywhere near them. Of course it depends on what you think is a major city, but Aberdeen for example, the third biggest city in Scotland, has no motorway closer than a hundred miles or so.

There are highways between every mainland settlement though, obviously.

<comment><USER15> As an Aberdonian who hasn't been back for a while - does the A92 ever get clogged enough to the point that a motorway is required? Or is there some suggestion that linking Aberdeen-Dundee-Edinburgh/Glasgow with motorway would stimulate the economy?

I'm pretty disconnected from this stuff back home so this is an honest question :-)

<comment><USER16> Aberdonian here. Not sure about the A92, but the A90 between Aberdeen and Dundee does carry enough traffic to warrant a motorway, and really needs to lose the unsafe junctions, tractors and cyclists. The state of the dual carriageway has been atrocious for 10+ years (at times dangerously so).

Also, the A96 between Aberdeen and Inverness is still not even dualled, something that has been slated for decades, and will likely come as no surprise to you.

Something that perhaps will come as a surprise is that Aberdeen now has a bypass. The Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR) was finally opened recently - although after something like a decade and incredible costs.

<comment><USER15> Oops I mixed up the A92 and A90. But that's interesting, and I figured Aberdeen-Inverness would likely be mostly single carriageway. I also remember A9 from Inverness to the south being a bit hairy at times

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This was built to shame the politicians, not the nation (although we can extrapolate that a nation has the leaders it deserves - the ones it voted for).

<comment><USER18> And the PSD will continue to not do anything, extend the pensions and bank holidays for public sector workers to get the votes, and then continue to do nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Rode across Romania from Hungary to ride The Transfăgărășan Highway and if I never go back to Romania it'll be too soon. The roads were HIDEOUS. The Transfăgărășan was pretty awesome though.

<comment><USER18> Judging by the username, I can't imagine you had a great time on the roads as a biker, but don't write the country off on other merits. There's scenery more stunning than Balea Lac all over, and the food is on-point (plus, comparatively cheap).

<comment><USER19> It was more than worth it, I am happy to say, but we didn't have the greatest experience overall in Romania, but it was very enlightening and interesting, very interesting indeed. I was amazed to see so many people still with a horse and cart, then BMW X6s come past. The difference between rich and poor was vast for an EU country. I came away thinking how hard the EU's job was to reconcile countries as far away as Romania and the UK, both geographically and culturally, and whether it was even possible. I was also told that the region of Romania has been punished by governments for various uprisings and protests. Shamefully, I have not dug down much further into these stories, but I am reminded to now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've considered doing something like this in my own city. Northern Virginia counties and cities routinely get listed as some of the richest in the country, often top 5 or top 10. Yet basic municipal services like roads and schools are in shambles. It's ludicrous to think that we can't fund _basic_ infrastructure, in a town with property taxes on _personal vehicles_. We are a DC bedroom community, with some of the highest property values in the country, the likes of which rival or sometimes even top Silicon Valley. Yet somehow, even with a Democrat majority in our city and state legislatures, we can't fund shit.

<comment><USER21> I don't know about the schools, but my impression of NoVA, from spending time there occasionally over the last two decades, is _not_ that it needs more roads...

<comment><USER20> That's correct. There isn't anywhere to build new roads, anyway. But the roads we do have, especially in town, are very potholed. To the point that it is causing damage to cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In the US part of the reason for the Interstate system is for defense purposes. I believe that height of bridges somehow relates to what is needed for missiles to travel underneath.

[https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/brainiacs/eisenhowerinte...](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/brainiacs/eisenhowerinterstate.cfm)

[https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/50vertical.cfm](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/50vertical.cfm)

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting stat in the article that Spain has orders of magnitude more motorways than UK or even Germany, while having a lower population. Any insight on why that is the case ?

<comment><USER24> Huh? Spain definitely does _not_ have orders of magnitude more motorways. It has only slightly more than Germany and France, and a little less than 4X more than the UK. A lot of this is explainable by differences in size; Spain also has over double the land area of the UK.

And keep in mind that "motorway" is specifically referring to what we would call interstate highway spec in the US. There's plenty of high quality roads that don't meet this spec that nevertheless would get you where you need to go quickly. In the US we have state routes and similar, and the UK has their own thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My maternal grandfather was very happy to leave Romania, after his family had been there, as near as we can tell, about 600 years, pushed east over the years after coming up from the Mediterranean. In 1923

Here's a song he used to like to sing that sarcastically reminisces about it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3ljx1roqto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3ljx1roqto)

</comment><comment> black-tea Building roads is a never ending battle. Notice how half the comments in here are people complaining about UK roads. I wish some countries would see this and just stop it. Invest in the railways.

<comment><USER26> The funny thing is the UK had a good rail network but threw it away at the behest of the road lobby. The transport minister at the time (Earnest Marples) owned a road construction company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting fact about Romania is that the population is rapidly shrinking in size (due to emigration). Lot of people are fed up with the status quo.

<comment><USER28> I'm Romanian and I haven't left.

This phenomenon is natural for countries relatively poor compared with their neighbors, but if the quality of life improves there's always a plateau. Other European countries that are now considered to be well developed by us, like Ireland, went through the same process.

Also the Romanians that are leaving still have family here and many send money home or have plans for returning later.

Because as a matter of fact, buying a villa in Romania in a nice area is much cheaper and actually achievable, compared with any of the western countries, where it is next to impossible without winning the lottery. Or in other words, Romania is a nice country to retire to, if you have some money.

Also between you and me, if I were to choose between Romania and the US, I'd choose Romania any day of the week, because I actually have a nice life here, whereas in the US you can always end up on the street, with no safety net and your children forever condemned by not being able to attend an Ivy league university.

I think Romania made great progress since the '90s. The problem is this wave of populism that allowed PSD, our ruling party, to start destroying the great progress that we've made. And if nothing changes at the next elections, I think we are doomed.

However the wave of populism isn't unique to Romania. Notice UK's Brexit, notice US's Trump, notice the far right rising in Europe. Our situation is not at all dissimilar to what is happening in Hungary or in Poland.

But it too will pass. All we need is another economic crisis, because populists spend other people's money and at some point whatever source they have will dry out, at which point the government will be taken over by people that are actually competent. I just hope that this happens before it's too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Driving or riding in a car in Romania is often a harrowing experience. Many cars don't have seat belts or they are intentionally disabled, especially in the back. This includes taxis. Most people don't wear them. Drivers are often angry as it's generally a very uptight culture in general. The fatality rates reflect this. The culture needs changing. I want Romania to get more roads, but it will likely be at a preventable cost of many lives.

</comment><comment><USER30> What's the state of art road building tech available now? I know that buildings can be made in a fortnight.

Does similar tech is available for building roads which hopefully last?

</comment><comment><USER31> In Norway they have reduced the width of several roads to extend with one lane more, this way they get more mileage of highway.

The downside is that they have to reduce the speed, and this is on roads that never have problems with congestion. So there is no reason to extend the roads or reduce the speed.. "You get what you measure."

</comment><comment><USER32> something is telling me there is going to be a lot of alleged construction work being carried out in front of his businesses for the next months to come blocking the traffic to his businesses

</comment><comment><USER33> I spend enough of my life pining for better public transit that it's hard to be sympathetic here. If you have such a "blank slate" and can noepay for better infrastructure, don't fuck it up like the US!

<comment><USER34> It only a blank slate on the surface. What happens is there's huge corruption and incompetence in the local and central administration which means bad planning, huge cost overruns, refusing to use E.U. funds because those imply higher scrutiny, and bad execution.

Also corrupt officials who have inside information buy land that will be crossed by infrastructure then delay it with lawsuits and astronomical prices for the land that has to be expropriated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Based on what I have read recently on HN this surely means that Romania is a veritable paradise where automobiles are rarely seen or heard and people happily commute everywhere on foot, bicycle, and mass transit.

</comment><comment><USER36> I can understand why Romanians would be upset, feeling that they are "behind." Their roadways may feel crowded and unsafe, but if the roadways were improved that would just encourage much more traffic and congestion. And all the other attendant problems, like pollution, public debt burdens, private debt burdens, accidents, sprawl, atomization, and an ugly (sub)urban monoculture.

On the other hand, with enough vision and willpower their lack of roadways could be an opportunity to create a development model that is not so dependent upon car infrastructure. They could devise tax policies, zoning, and regulations that promote walkable communities. They could build out light rail, or Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) for intra-urban travel. And high speed rail for longer distances.

Cars aren't all they are cracked up to be. Don't just copy everyone else. Learn from their mistakes.

<comment><USER37> If you cant gather political will to build roads, then you can imagine the immense obstacle it would be to bring high speed trains on the table. Consider that there is no country in the world that has good train network without having good road network. Its intertwined.

<comment><USER36> Solving the collective action problem is a universal issue that is much bigger than the roads issue, and I agree that this is the main issue. But, were it to be solved, that wouldn't necessarily mean going down the same path of every other nation.

Some modern societies, like Denmark, have moved towards a less car-centric model, and it has worked. And just because prior societies that have developed high speed rail have done so after developing cars, that doesn't mean everyone else must do so in that order.

The concept of leapfrog development is that developing nations can save all the expense and trouble of intermediate solutions and skip right to the good solutions.

Cars are a failed god.

<comment><USER38> To use your example: Denmark is not really a huge country, Romania has 5 times the surface area and ~4 times as many people, not to mention the huge economic difference between the two. It's much easier to focus less on cars and build high speed rail when you are a smaller and richer country.

> Cars are a failed god.

This is a hyperbole, people still want to own cars and have the comfort of leaving home whenever they wish and going directly wherever they want to go instead of exchanging buses and trains as well as waiting in between these in order to get from one place to the other.

Specifically for Romania, though I'm sure this is true in other places as well, public transportation inside cities needs to be nailed down before looking at things like high speed rail systems - companies have an interest in their employees getting to work on time, the state would spend less on healthcare if the cities were less polluted, and people would rather wake up a bit later in the morning.

I believe that in the future we'll still see roads being developed alongside rail and high speed rail or other solutions, regardless of how many people think roads are a failing concept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> From another perspective Romania is on the right track. They haven't over built roads that suit individuals, rather they are focusing on mass transit.

This is just a wasteful stunt. The only shame is on himself.

<comment><USER12> WTF? What "mass transit" are you going on about?

Our railways are decaying and the average speed is around 60 kmph. Air transport is super inefficient in super expensive for the average Romanian, for internal flights.

A whole region of the country is cut off from development because on a 400 km radius the fastest you can go, legally, over long distances, is an average of 70 kmph.

<comment><USER40> So if I understand it correctly, the railways need improvement?

I'd put the effort there, mass transit is much more sensible than cars.

<comment><USER12> Dude, we're not talking about California-style "save the world" here. We're talking about providing a EU member non Third World infrastructure.

Trains would be awesome, but they need to be correlated with the local needs. Romania is poor and has low density. High speed trains are super expensive and only serve cities, basically. We need decent roads and highways.

<comment><USER41> This sounds just like California-style transit planning: they have a road network that's so screwed up you can measure the economic drag, and laughably slow / disfunctional trains.

The article estimates the problem is only a 2% drain on the Romanian economy.

The SF Bay Area economy is surely burning more than 2% due to multi-hour commutes, distorted property values, lack of non-tech workers to support basic infrastructure (like schools and fire stations) etc, etc.

<comment><USER42> To keep things in perspective, California has a GDP per capita of $74,000. There are only two nations that can compare to that: Norway and Switzerland. It's nearly 100% higher than France, the UK and Japan.

Romania's GDP per capita is ~$10,700. They've made great strides in building up their economy in the past two decades. Their 21% GDP growth since 2007 is among the best in Europe. Per capita they rank above Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, China and will pass Russia this year or next.

California's problems aren't due to lack of income or economic output to tax, and it can afford a bit of drag on its economy from mediocre roads given the extraordinary output levels in question (which isn't to say CA shouldn't fix its terrible roads). California is a case of mismanagement of riches over decades, which isn't a position that Romania has (yet) found itself in.

<comment><USER10> >Their 21% GDP growth since 2007 is among the best in Europe. Per capita they rank above Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, China and will pass Russia this year or next.

Can you elaborate. AFAIK after privatization in '89 (fall of the communist party) we kind lost a lot of industry in metallurgy, marble extraction (got owned by big guys) etc..</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building a Single-Molecule Transistor from Scratch - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/biomedical/devices/building-a-singlemolecule-transistor-from-scratch/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=073015

<comment><USER2> Cute & impressive, but about as far from application as any research can get. Basically using an entire scanning-tunneling microscope (STM) as the source lead of a single transistor. This does not scale well.

<comment><USER3> A similar thing was probably said about the 1st transistor which was the size of a book or so.

If you can build a basic gate out of molecular transistors without leakage or capacitance issues you'll make quite a breakthrough even if you need an entire electron microscope to power it.</comment></comment>


ReStructuredText vs. Markdown for technical documentation - <AUTHOR> http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/restructuredtext-vs-markdown-for-technical-documentation/ <comment><USER2> A big difference between ReST and Markdown is that it's very easy to accidentally write ReST that is either invalid or doesn't mean what you think it means. The Julia manual used to be written in ReST and even people (or maybe especially people) who were pretty deep down the ReST features rabbithole, regularly committed ReST that was just wrong – quotes where code was intended; incorrect hyperlinks (why is the hyperlink format in ReST so damned complicated and non-uniform – it's basically impossible to remember); bullets or lists that aren't actually bullets or lists. This is possible in Markdown, but it's much harder: by design, things almost always mean what they look like they mean. That's a huge benefit. The Julia docs are now in Markdown and accidentally broken markup is hardly ever a problem anymore.

<comment><USER3> I agree that ReST is needlessly complicated. But Markdown isn't really that much better. Maybe it's because I'm more used to Wikipedia-style link syntax. As for bullets: Since some Markdown implementations annoyingly insist on four spaces, while others work fine without that, I'd say it's about even.

But these are all minor annoying details of either. The win of ReST is standardized extensions for anything. The win of Markdown is there's half an implementation running anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neither is any good for technical docs, Asciidoc/Asciidoctor is by far the best. You get automatic numbering, conditional includes i.e you can pull in specific pieces of code into your docs when you tag them. Look it up, it's extremely powerful and as easy to write as reST if not easier because it's more consistent.

<comment><USER5> I just read some articles on why Linux went from asciidoc to RST. Interesting read.

<comment><USER4> I guess you meant this - [https://lwn.net/Articles/692704/](https://lwn.net/Articles/692704/)

"When comparing the markup formats for the purposes of kernel documentation, only the table support, which is much needed for the media subsystem documentation in particular, was clearly identified as being superior in AsciiDoc. Otherwise, the markup comparison was rather dispassionate; it really boiled down to the tools themselves...

... In the kernel tree, there are no tools written in Ruby, but there are plenty of tools written in Python. It was fairly easy to lean towards Sphinx in this regard."

As I read it, Asciidoctor is still superior, but their decision was to go with something written in Python that they could adapt for these specific needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really want to love ReST. Part of that is that I like writing in text but having it look good. Part of it is non-technical; I've known the ReST developer forever. And if you need to do something complex, ReST is definitely the way to go.

If I was writing a technical book, I'd probably use ReST.

But, 99.9% of the time, my needs are much more mundane and fit well within the limitations of Markdown. Usually I can just sit down and write Markdown, sometimes I need to bring up a cheatsheet. When I just need to add some documentation related to my work, Markdown is perfect.

What I'd really like is something where I can write Markdown, but if I run into needing something it can't do then switch over to ReST. Because of the overlap, that seems like it should be doable. I was looking at some static site generators that might do that, but I had limited time to evaluate them and couldn't get my existing ReST documents directly to render there so I had to get back to work.

If anyone has had any success with that, I'd love to hear about it.

Oh, that and a way to see the results without having to render and load the results (which currently involves mercurial, fabric, sphinx, and a browser for me). I don't need WYSIWIG, but a quick render would be nice.

<comment><USER7> If you're writing a book, I would strongly recommend Asciidoc syntax and the Asciidoctor toolchain.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I'll take a look, even though I have no plans of a book. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good article, but I couldn't help stumbling over the thumbnail history of markup languages in the introduction -- in particular the assertion that Markdown, "in 2004 ... really pushed the concept over the brink of ubiquitousness". I would say that the concept of markup languages truly became ubiquitous in the 1990s, with the extremely widespread popularity of a markup language that the author didn't even mention -- the Hypertext Markup Language.

<comment><USER9> That history was supposed to cover _lightweight_ markup languages like MD. Otherwise of course the history goes way back :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I use reST daily agree that reST itself a bit too complicated; it would be much better to have a conceptually simpler syntax, closer to that of Markdown. Also, some of their syntax choices look too artificial for a plain text format.

Yet for me reST is a clear winner, because it's extensible; it's relatively easy to a) write your own directives, substitution directives, and text roles and b) hook into the parser. For example, in my workflow I only use their parser with a few of my own extensions and only to get the parsed text as XML; once I got this, I continue with XSLT to transform it into what I need. (I use Python and lxml with my own extensions to XSLT as well, so I can, for example, manipulate files and update a whole directory tree right from XSLT.)

I think most of these tools would benefit if their parser was a separate component that could save the resulting tree into XML. (It would be ideal to have a configurable parser where you can tinker with the grammar.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting article, i had the same thoughts on MD vs RST when building commenting on RhodeCode. That's why it supports both, and i find it the most flexible solution

</comment><comment><USER12> I took a shot at using Markdown for a docutils/Sphinx "competitor" just to see if it could be done. My solution for extensions that don't require parser modifications was just to use custom HTML tags. Existing parsers know how to deal with those!

As soon as I finished it, I quickly realized that lobbying for its adoption and supporting it would be painful, but you might find it interesting.

[http://steveasleep.com/computerwords](http://steveasleep.com/computerwords)

</comment><comment><USER13> While it's technically correct that Markdown has a mishmash of implementations (and technically correct is the best kind of correct, after all), it's worth pointing out that MultiMarkdown has both a well-defined feature set that includes things like tables, footnotes, and citations, a standard way to express metadata, and has a reference implementation in C.

[http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/](http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/)

And, you might say, "But I've never heard of MultiMarkdown," but the reality is that if you've used Markdown for creating, well, tables, footnotes or citations, or used a YAML metadata block for a Jekyll blog, or any number of things that weren't in the original Markdown spec but that people in practice do all the time, then you've used something that was either influenced by MultiMarkdown or something that MultiMarkdown adapted.

And that last point is larger than MultiMarkdown, specifically. I'd argue that Markdown _as commonly implemented and used_ can do an awful lot of things that are necessary for technical documentation work. This isn't to say that ReST or AsciiDoc aren't more powerful, but in practice, there's very little I've had to write that can't be written in (Multi)Markdown.

</comment><comment><USER14> If by technical documentation you mean a readme page, or a few internal pages, then either are fine, as are AsciiDoc, org, etc. There's no huge advantage or disadvantage to any of them; use the one that is easiest for you to write in without having to look up cheatsheets.

A lightweight markup language is designed to for the user to quickly write something, and most of them have been designed with the goal of having programmers document their work without having to learn a complicated tool. If you need to write extensions for a lightweight markup language, you're using it wrong.

For anything more than that, I'd use something designed for technical documentation (DITA and DocBook come to mind).

Lightweight markup languages seem easy, and, in the beginning they are, but over time, as revisions pile up and more people work on it and you find you have more requirements than you thought you had, they become a huge hassle. You spend more time fiddling than writing. There's a reason professional writers tend to use richer tools - they make their jobs easier and they make the result better.

</comment><comment><USER15> I find that markdown is good for 'simple' human readable things, but that parsers can often fall on their faces.

A particular issue I have with markdown is the bold/italic issue. However this is probably indicative of a broader issue. Markdown either does not have, or does not commonly make users aware of, an escape character which will always invoke a control-word boundary and which will never be rendered in the final text.

I've also often had different websites variations on features fail when they are nested (sometimes at all).

</comment><comment><USER16> Latex...(drops the mike)

<comment><USER11> imho latex is too complex, it's hard to sell on this when introducing it to organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You're not gonna show me the syntax? Or how easy it is to extend?

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER18> This is not a Markdown or reStructuredText tutorial, it's a comparison on some higher-level technical grounds. It's pretty easy to find syntax examples for both Markdown and reStructuredText, and very simple googling will lead to docutils documentation on extending reST.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a Stripe-like API for pulling credit reports? - <AUTHOR> Our team is building personal lending software that can pull a consumer's credit (probably soft credit check to start), pre-approve them and show rates.
It seems very painful to have to go through a contracting process with credit report resellers or the bureaus themselves. Also the API documentation from what I've seen is very painful to use. Needless to say the actual APIs themselves as well.
I would love to use a simple RESTful API like what Stripe/Plaid has. It'll be even better if it was easy to do some KYC.
Has anyone else tried looking for a solution like this / found one? <comment><USER2> This is a real problem. Transunion told us they wanted $500 upfront and would take 3 weeks to approve us and as part of the process they wanted to do an on- site inspection. The API documentation is in XML and 600 pages long!</comment>


Programmers discussing the unethical and illegal things they've been asked to do - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com.au/programmers-confess-unethical-illegal-tasks-asked-of-them-2016-11 <comment><USER2> I've oft thought about creating an organization (kind of like EFF?) that can help programmers when asked to do something unethical. Maybe they could provide re employment assistance or cash to help pay bills while looking for another job.

</comment><comment><USER3> NSA employees, this is your chance to shine!

<comment><USER2> One wonders how strong the cognitive dissonance must be to think they're doing the "right" thing.

<comment><USER3> There's a reason they put a big office in Utah...</comment></comment></comment>