Switzerland "Should Become the Crypto-Nation" Says Minister - <AUTHOR> http://www.trustnodes.com/2018/01/19/switzerland-become-crypto-nation-says-minister <comment><USER2> Then replace the board of the Tezos Foundation and force Johann Gevers (foundation board president) to release the audit report investigating the self-dealing he is accused of.

FYI, Tezos (self-amending ledger, one of the largest commercial application of OCaml) has raised ~250 million dollars in July. The funds were supposed to go toward funding the ecosystem, development, and so on.

Unfortunately, the founders of the project made a terrible call early on and selected a bad apple (JOHANN GEVERS) to become chairman of the foundation holding the fundraiser/ICO proceedings. After some digging, frustrated community members found out that this guy has a long track record of failed ventures and what some would call very sketchy behavior. He's the self- appointed "visionary" kind if you want know what I mean (not kidding that's from his website).

The project is developed by an independent company owned by the founders so it is still under development ([https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos/activity](https://gitlab.com/tezos/tezos/activity)) despite that foundation issue.

The Tezos Foundation hasn't communicated in months. They are sitting on close to a billion dollars of donations and broke their fiduciary duty to spend the money on development.

Research this, it is completely nuts.

Some links to start:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/tezos/comments/7kzbm9/the_story_and...](https://www.reddit.com/r/tezos/comments/7kzbm9/the_story_and_voice_of_the_tezos_community/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/tezos/comments/7qt548/the_true_hist...](https://www.reddit.com/r/tezos/comments/7qt548/the_true_history_of_johann_gevers/)

<comment> 549362-30499 There's something pretty rich about asking the government to intervene in a project described as:

 _Tezos is a new decentralized blockchain that governs itself by establishing a true digital commonwealth._

Especially one that, according to your links at least, has been defrauded by its radical libertarian and Ayn Rand acolyte leader. Is this not the free market merely deciding that the people who donated have poor judgement?

<comment><USER3> Sounds like your left-wing bias assumes that libertarians and Ayn Rand supporters are inherently fraudulent and looking for any opportunity to steal money.

Gevers is fake libertarian, he is con-man who just made fake organizations to make visibility of high reputation. There is absolutely nothing from libertarianism or Ayn Rand philosophy in his actions. In fact, Ayn Rand is Atlas Shrugged specifically mention about fraudulent people.

I see your sarcasm about:

> Tezos is a new decentralized blockchain that governs itself by establishing > a true digital commonwealth.

They didn't launch project yet. Once they launch project, it will be exactly like that and it doesn't matter what's happen with foundation. But for now, the foundation cut off any funding of the project in critical development stage.

Yes, contributors are responsible to do their due diligence.

About asking government to intervene in order to remove Gevers. In some sense, it's government (more precisely the swiss law) who protect Gevers position.

<comment><USER4> > _Sounds like your left-wing bias assumes that libertarians and Ayn Rand > supporters are inherently fraudulent and looking for any opportunity to > steal money._

No, parent only assumes that libertarians/Ayn Rand supporters shouldn't go to the government to cry.

> _Gevers is fake libertarian, he is con-man who just made fake organizations > to make visibility of high reputation. There is absolutely nothing from > libertarianism or Ayn Rand philosophy in his actions._

Seems to me like a good case of a self-made man who saw an opportunity and took it, lesser mortals and common good be damned. What's more Ayn Randish?

<comment><USER5> Ayn Rand was very much about following through with commitments. If Gevers has a long track record of failed ventures because he aimed higher than he was capable of achieving then he is indeed a self-made man who saw an opportunity and took it in the fine Randian style.

If he is a con-man who said he is going to do something then took the money and ran without putting in a serious effort, he isn't an example of her philosophy.

Rand accepted people being selfish because in practice selfishness has been proven no barrier to creating prosperity for everyone. She didn't accept dishonesty.

<comment><USER6> I never understood this argument from objectivists.

If you use cold hard logic and take Ayn Rand at her word, then someone can totally screw others over as long as they were sure wouldn't personally get in trouble for it.

After all, the "as befits a rational being" is the only qualifier and that's so vague as to be a "no true scotsman" argument making her whole praise of selfishness moot. If selfishness is an amazing thing except when she doesn't like it, then her whole philosophy isn't objectivism at all, but back to the "subjective whims" and pronouncements of "mystics" she so derides.

You can't have it both ways. If altruism is criticized and selfishness is praised, then it can be perfectly rational for a person to screw others over as long as they know they won't personally get in trouble. I never got a good response from Objectivists about this.

<comment><USER5> If it helps; I agree with your assessment that someone could totally screw others over as long as they were sure wouldn't personally get in trouble for it. That is pretty much at the core of the argument.

I recall a case in Australia where someone mailed seniors saying 'you own shares valued at $X. I will buy them off you for half that. Please respond' and made a substantial profit from the scheme. Objectivism accepts that as a moral situation.

I can't see any elements of the No True Scotsman fallacy here however hard I look - the philosophy is that when someone is truthful and follows through with what they say they will do then they are being moral. There isn't even an objection to people being altruistic; the only objection is forced altruism.

It isn't a friendly philosophy but it is quite clear as far as moralities go. Nothing escapes from shades of grey.

<comment><USER6> Okay cool. So no matter who the mark is (an elderly person, or a child) you can just take them for a ride if you're honest and she finds that moral. Btw in your example, in order to make a profit the shares must have been worth more than $2X in reality so the person lied and they didn't check the lie.

But what part of her philosophy says you must be honest in everything? Selfishness may entail lying, especially in sales (if you don't at the least creatively omit things, someone else who does will eat your lunch).

In addition, if you didn't promise anything, you can go ahead an just steal or screw everyone as long as you don't get caught. Check out example #1 and #2 and tell me where Ayn Rand's theory says you can't do that:

[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20Got%20Mi...](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20Got%20Mine%20Theory)

<comment><USER5> I'll just remind you I'm not an objectivist, I'm just trying to explain how I see it working. It does seem pretty reasonable to me personally though so I'm happy to advocate for it.

> in order to make a profit the shares must have been worth more than $2X in > reality so the person lied and they didn't check the lie.

No, you misunderstand, he told them the market price then offered them half the market price. He basically straight up told them they could sell them on the market for twice what he was offering.

I don't know the details of why they accepted, I think they didn't understand how to sell stock. They guy was scrupulously honest, he just offered them a jaw-droppingly bad and unfair deal.

> Okay cool. So no matter who the mark is (an elderly person, or a child)

I see an implicit question there. Yes, the elderly and children have no special protection under Objectivism. The objectivist treatment of how that could be acceptable is:

* For children, their parents have rational incentive to protect and nurture them (otherwise why have them? They cost a fortune). If something happens to the parents, there are individuals who will rationally adopt to (or maybe just want to).

* For the elderly, they have to make provisions for their ageing while they are younger. Much like what self-funded retirees try to do.

The objectivist argument is that children and the elderly aren't protected very well by other standards of morality, which have not proven robust when tested. Stories of child suffering and taking advantage of the aged are not rare. Even extremely moral institutions (such as churches [1]) have committed atrocities. Objectivism doesn't promise better outcomes for the weak, but objectivists don't expect the situation to get worse for them.

> tell me where Ayn Rand's theory says you can't do that

#2 seems straightforward, workers have a supervisor who is paid to make sure they don't do that. He sacks them if they are uncooperative.

The worker isn't particularly immoral, just stupid. He will be out of work.

#1 is really a question of how enforcing property rights fit into an objectivist society. My understanding is that:

1) People agree rationally that they need an enforcement entity to protect property rights and personal freedoms.

2) This is either organised collectively through a government or individually through some sort of insurance-like mechanism.

3) Theft is dealt with.

There are some interesting subtleties here:

\- Yes, if old mate unionist can get away with it then in a sense maybe he gets away with it on the moral scale too. To some degree, it falls to property owners to enforce property rights.

\- Objectivists can actually work collectively if everyone is contributing voluntarily. The idea would be that anyone who doesn't contribute to the policing service wouldn't get protection but also wouldn't be prejudiced against.

\- Yes, in practice I can't see this working in a philosophically pure way. This isn't actually a problem for an objectivist any more than for anyone else who notices that their government doesn't always represent their own moral preference. If the world were run by objectivists, you'd get a very basic service where it is easier to see that people are receiving assistance in proportion to their contributions. Americans, for example, believe in a fairly radical freedom of speech but still prohibit some very specific restrictions.

\- Objectivists can indeed form armies. Old-school Athenian Greek democracy is probably a template for how they would like o see that sort of thing run.

[1] [https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-recommends- swee...](https://theconversation.com/royal-commission-recommends-sweeping- reforms-for-catholic-church-to-end-child-abuse-89141)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Switzerland has been searching for a new USP in finance since the end of banking secrecy, which, together with digital and regulatory change, will marginalize our private banking market position that was so incredibly profitable in the past.

So politicians look to either Fintechs (which are as weak as our startup culture in general) or the hype around the 'Crypto Valley' in Zug which wasn't homegrown and is primarely driven by a scam-friendly environment provided by government & regulator in combination with path-dependency.

Unfortunately, this will likely end even worse reputationally than being the token (ha!) money hiding place. See the Tezos debacle which is only a glimpse into what will happen when the cryptocurrency house of cards falls apart. Id rather have them be a bit more cautious now as is Swiss tradition and be ready for the more serious 'rebirth' afterwards.

<comment><USER8> I don't think being a safe place to store money is reputationally harmful.

<comment><USER9> It is when you get caught with (2017 USD$ adjusted) around $6B in stolen Nazi gold.

<comment><USER10> You're implying that Switzerland has stolen gold from Germany. Is that true?

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure no one thought that's what I was implying.

<comment><USER8> If you're trying to be a safe and trustworthy place to store money, your morality shouldn't have any effect on your customers.

If they can store stolen gold for Nazis without running away with it or telling anybody about it, then I'm sure they can safely store money for me as well.

<comment><USER9> This may be true for your individual reputational valuing of Swiss banks, but isn't for a worldwide one.

And worldwide reputation matter because functional finance, like networking, requires peering at some point.

Major countries have a lot of leverage they can bring when the public is on their side. Viz Swiss secrecy / tax evasion laws being forceably cracked by "terror money" pressure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To be honest, Zug as "crypto-valley" is more a thing they show to foreigners. Most crypto-events and meetups happen in Zurich.

Also fresh startups rather open an office in Zurich other than Zug to have access to talent from ETH and an actual city to attract more people.

Since years I know the crypto community rather well and people are indeed very passionate about making the world a better place. I know people in Zurich, who are invested both with money and time in Bitcoin since it exists because they believe in it.

>"Switzerland's strong support for crypto is seemingly in direct contrast to France's apparent distaste for this space with the French Minister stating regarding bitcoin: "I don't like it."

This is a great example how Switzerland is different. Contrary to the rest of Europe, the Swiss choose to be pragmatic about almost all important topics: Taxes, healthcare, education system take somewhat the best parts from socialist Rest-of-Europe and more cut-troat/capitalist America and leave out the bad parts.

If you want to know more about Switzerland, here a blogpost I wrote 4 years ago and which is still valid today: "Eight reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in tech" [https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i- moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to- switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90) (disclaimer: I am a recruiter hunting for tech talent all over Europe to join Swiss companies. If you look for a tech job e-mail me at email@example.com.)

<comment><USER12> > This is a great example how Switzerland is different. Contrary to the rest > of Europe, the Swiss choose to be pragmatic about almost all important > topics: Taxes, healthcare, education system take somewhat the best parts > from socialist Rest-of-Europe and more cut-troat/capitalist America and > leave out the bad parts.

Very interested in what is happening in Zug but I don't know how far are you going with the pragmatism. Just thinking about all the money that went there, including Nazi money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yay. Now that the bank money laundering game is drying up due to international regulation, Switzerland can find a new parasitic way to earn money helping corrupt oligarchs hide their stash.

<comment><USER14> Not to disagree with you, but aren't cryptocurrencies also working towards this same goal? I mean, what do you think would happen when you have a secret way to hide your wealth in such a way that nobody can tie it to your name? In fact, isn't that the point of cryptocurrencies?

I'm just trying to figure out, what you think cryptocurrencies are for, if not, for individuals to have a means of cash (and/or wealth storage) decoupled from the state.

<comment><USER15> not all cryptos are about that. many others put decentralisation first and are OK with transparency. but the latter, of course, clashes with the idea of a nation state trying to become _the_ crypto nation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tangential, not really important comment: As someone not immersed in the world of cryptocurrency, this article read very strangely to me. Like reading a cyberpunk's journal.

<comment><USER17> That's why I have a soft spot for Bitcoin/Blockchain, despite all the nonsense; it's one of the few things that gives me the felling of living in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Switzerland Cryptostory worth remembering: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG#Compromised_machines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG#Compromised_machines)

</comment><comment><USER19> I think Estonia is closer to being a Cryptonation.

</comment><comment> loup-vaillant I had to wait the third paragraph to read "blockchain", and the fifth to read "cryptocurrency".

And here I thought it was about the uses of cryptography, with possible mentions of ProtonMail (which is based in Switzerland).

</comment><comment><USER20> The title made me think of another kind of crypto - the Swiss company Crypto AG is infamous for selling backdoored-by-the-NSA cipher machines to many governments around the world.

</comment><comment><USER21> More interestingly, real world crypto one of the most important crypto conference in the world was held there a week ago. It's not always there, I believe they rotate between palo alto and new york. All the talks are available on youtube.

</comment><comment><USER22> The goal is to do away with physical cash to better monitor the flow of capital, with absolute control and oversight into every penny spent. Fight against digital only currencies at every vote.

</comment><comment><USER23> I might be wrong, but wasn't something like this in an early William Gibson book?

</comment><comment><USER24> Erm hard no on them (again) becoming the world's vault with no accountability.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm pumped to see the whac-a-mole govt's will try to do with crypto.

</comment><comment><USER26> I really hate that crypto currency enthusiasts are tring to hijack the word "crypto" for their ventures when they are actually only operating in a _very_ narrow field of cryptography.

Don't let this speak infest HN, please.

<comment><USER27> It's not a hijack, it's just how trends and language work.

If you want "crypto" to be used for something else, you have to make that something else. Crypto communication, crypto news, etc. If "crypto currency" is the only common term to start with "crypto" that most people know about, it's going to be shortened, and represent that one thing.

Crypto currency is more top-of-mind to the population at large, than cryptography as a general category. If there are more specific implementations of useful crypto that average people use as a product (like currency, not, say, SSL), then crypto will be detached from the concepts and come to represent all of them (cryptography) again.

<comment> loup-vaillant > _If there are more specific implementations of useful crypto that average > people use as a product_

Except that encryption is rarely used explicitly. We see this greed padlock, maybe. But encryption is rarely a product. It's _part_ of other products (web browsers, messengers…).

I doubt cryptography will become more visible through that venue. People need some level of education to even _notice_ they're using encryption, signatures, and certificates pretty much all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> And what cryuptocurrency is Swiss going to adopt? One of the 1000s listed here at [https://www.coingecko.com/en](https://www.coingecko.com/en)

Or we talking bout private chain cryptocurrency

<comment><USER29> I don't know why anybody needs any country to hide their stash at this point. Monero, Zcash already can do this.

<comment><USER30> You can stash the stash but can you cash the stash and spend the cash?</comment></comment></comment>


Reading About the Financial Crisis: A 21-Book Review (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.argentumlux.org/documents/JEL_6.pdf <comment><USER2> OP's link is for a draft version. Final version can be found in several places (e.g. Google Scholar). Here's one of them: [http://dspace.mit.edu/openaccess- disseminate/1721.1/75360](http://dspace.mit.edu/openaccess- disseminate/1721.1/75360)

</comment><comment><USER3> _There are several observations to be made from the number and variety of narratives that the authors in this review have proffered. The most obvious is that there is still significant disagreement as to what the underlying causes of the crisis were, and even less agreement as to what to do about it. But what may be more disconcerting for most economists is the fact that we can't even agree on all the facts[...]Many of us like to think of financial economics as a science, but complex events like the financial crisis suggest that this conceit may be more wishful thinking than reality. Keynes had even greater ambitions for economics when he wrote, "If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid."22 Instead, we're now more likely to be thought of as astrologers, making pronouncements and predictions without any basis in fact or empirical evidence._

I find it kind of sad that the author is more concerned with lamenting about what people think of him and his profession than he is preoccupied with synthesizing the most plausible set of causes and remedies for the financial crisis from the 21 different sources he has studied.

<comment><USER4> I think the point being made is that it's not straightforward to synthesize a plausible set of causes and remedies, despite the survey of 21 sources, and that economics as a science needs a bit of self-reflection in the light of this reality.

<comment><USER3> The author's main conclusion is that economists "need to collect, check, and accumulate facts from which more accurate inferences can then be drawn. Without the immutable hard platform of objective facts on which we can build an accurate narrative of the crisis that stands the test of time, there's little hope for scientific progress as the waves of public opinion toss our perspective in one direction or another."

I don't need a degree from Harvard and Yale, nor do I need to be a professor at MIT to tell you that.

If I were an expert in Professor Lo's position, I would probably make a greater attempt to present _my_ expert view of the events and _my_ expert recommendations based off of the 22 texts that I have just read on the subject, rather than just saying that we should collect more data on everything so that this won't happen again in the future.

<comment><USER5> If the data sucks, how are you going to present any other reasonable expert view than the one he presented? Manufacturing some grand view and recommendations based on untrustworthy data is something that needs to be avoided, however much we would want to hear it.

<comment><USER3> I'd love to hear the opinion and recommendations of the guy who read 22 primary/secondary texts on the subject and have him help shape policy now. You're not going to get better data than the expert views and analyses presented in these texts, barring the constant surveillance, recording, and analysis of every transaction ever made within and without the US economy, every email sent within and between banks/regulators/credit rating agencies/mortgage brokers/loan originators, etc. - data that is impractical and currently illegal to collect.

We'd all love to have more/better data, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't draw conclusions or act on the data that is available to us now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not sure why author is confused. Here's how it went down:

        - Congress needed votes
        - Easiest way to get them is to be a populist
        - The tool: Everyone should be able to buy a home
        - The approach: Remove red tape
        - Why demand that people actually prove income?
        - Both major political parties at fault
        - Lenders, well, start lending
        - Government guarantees any loan
        - A McDonalds worker can buy a $500K home
        - No-docs, zero down, interest-only loans invented
        - Wall street help is needed to write more loans
        - Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO) invented
        - Now we can loan to even more non-qualified buyers
        - Now people can invest in loans made to non-qualified buyers
        - Mutual funds jump in
        - What could go wrong?  It's a party.
        - Thanks US Congress!
        - The frenzied environment takes to new heights
        - Every institution working under the law
        - This is what Congress wanted
        - Happy people buying homes
        - Well worry about affordability later
        - Gimme your votes
        - Valuations went insane
        - And then the music stopped
        - Eventually the McDonalds worker had to face the
          fact that he/she owed $500K
        - People bought $1.5 million dollar homes and woke
          up to their mortgage payment quadrupling overnight
        - Chain reaction of defaults
        - CDO's were hot potatoes nobody wanted
        - Mutual funds imploded
        - Municipalities invested in CDO's went bankrupt
        - Strategic defaults were invented
        - Businesses and individuals went bankrupt by the millions
        - Hundreds of thousands of jobs are lost every month
        - The effect is international
        - The US government picks winners and losers
        - Banks and auto manufacturers are bailed out
        - Politicians start to blame bankers and "greedy"
          Wall Street brokers
        - The lynching mob focuses on them in complete
          ignorance of who truly triggered the entire mess
        - Politicians got their votes while imploding the
          world economy and came out looking good as they
          talked about going after the "evil bankers"
        - Of course, they didn't go after anyone because
          there was nothing to go after
        - Banks and Wall Street were operating under the
          rules and laws passed by Congress
        - It was a case of political collateral damage taken
          to an extreme
        - And almost every single one of them is still in office

The real cause was greedy politicians (not banks and Wall Street) and their use of populism as a tool.

A decidedly evil tool in the hands of politicians who take advantage of the uneducated masses for their own benefit.

Latin America is going through a bit of an awakening and a revolt precisely aimed at the massive destruction populism has caused in nearly every country south of the US. It's a disaster that will take decades, if not generations, to repair. While few seem ready to recognize it, we have exactly the same problem in the US.

A woman from Guatemala named Gloria Alvarez has emerged as one of the most vocal and intelligent figures in a multi-national effort to push back on populism.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkYEXS16dZA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkYEXS16dZA)

Don't be led by the nose by politicians who only care about using you for their own benefit. As we have seen and as Latin American has seen, allowing populism to reign unchecked can have dire consequences.

In the US both parties are guilty of populism but the left has taken it to "expert level" over the last few years. The technique is to divide us by race, occupation, educational level, income and any other criteria they can find. You appoint an "enemy" for each divided class: whites vs. blacks, rich vs. poor, blue collar vs. white collar, etc. You focus the masses on the enemies and promise you will find solutions for their grievances.

And, just like that, you have masses willing, ready and able to cast votes for you. Once in office, you drop them on your heads and ignore them. Why? You need the groups to remain at odds with each other in order to continue pumping them for votes. You give them just enough to feel OK but strategically keep them miserable for your own benefit.

Don't believe me? Look at how effective the various "wars" have been: drugs, poor, education, etc. Decades of promises that magically never seem to come true. Why?

Populism loves the poor so much they multiply them.

Don't be a tool.</comment>


A Competition Site I've Been Working On, What Do You Think? - <AUTHOR> http://www.foobity.com/ This is a site I've been working on with a friend. It's still needs a lot of work. However, we are at the point where it would be more productive to see how people interact with the site, instead of persisting in isolated development. News Ycomb has a very constructive audience. Tell me what you think. Thanks. <comment><AUTHOR> Foobity still needs a lot of work. But it's at the point where we think it would be more beneficial not to work in isolation. This community is always very constructive, so please tell me what you think. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome. This is the first thing someone put into the Foobity feedback form:

"Yellow white and blue

Foobitiy now what to do

I am hacker new"

Hacker Poems for the win.</comment></comment>


Something Meaningful - <AUTHOR> http://blog.coffeestrap.com/2013/05/06/something-meaningful/

<comment><USER2> Very cool, but I bailed on the signup: your Facebook login asks for my email, friends list, and public profile. Why is all of this necessary simply as authentication?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there, I apologize for delay: posting on HN before flying looks like a bad idea :-). We are not at all collecting your friend list in our DB. Just your name, gender, and email. We may have erroneously asked fb login to ask for friend list too, checking it right now. But again, I guarantee you we are not storing any information in DB apart from name, email, and gender!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you trying to combine dating, learning a language, and collaborating on 'work stuff'? It wasn't very clear to me.

Anyway, when I first moved to a new city, I tried doing the whole 'language tandem' thing, which, by the way, is not a popular phrase in the US. In fact, many people don't understand what that is. People usually call it 'language exchange'. At least in my experience.

Anyway, I used <http://conversationexchange.com>.

It _was_ frustrating. But it depends what you wanted out of it. I wanted to genuinely learn a language, but had heard a lot of people use it to date.

It didn't work out for me because I was a beginner, and I needed a little more structure. The people who I met just wanted to 'chat', with no real learning material. And many didn't even know what books to recommend.

I think it would've been better if there would've been two people who genuinely wanted to learn a language and were at the same level. But even then, switching back and forth from teacher to student is challenging, especially amongst beginners.

I think it worked out great when both parties had sufficient knowledge to not use a book, and were just learning vocabulary and a small set of new rules.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, you seem to summarize, in this post, the kind frustration we have been experiencing so far by language exchangers telling us about their experiences (commonly known as tandem learners in Europe). This also answer your question: We don't do dating. We do language exchange. For free, done right, and modulated upon your interests. Because you pick up a language much faster if you actually enjoy what you are talking about, and the person you are talking to. :-)

<comment><USER4> Hey Mahesh,

I'm still a bit confused too, but I think it's because I'm American: the terms "language exchange" and "tandem learners" don't mean anything here.

So is it like: say I'm fluent in English and conversational in German; I'd meet up with someone who's fluent in German and conversational in English, and we'd help each other learn? Is that the idea?

<comment><USER5> Hey mtowle, Alessandro from CoffeeStrap. The idea is exactly what you have said. We are still tuning the format so to deal with different levels of languages.

So far for example here in San Francisco we have a lot of people willing to learn Mandarin(or actually speaking! I am looking at you Zack! :) ) and fluent in English. Another trend here in the bay is about Korean/Japanese. And a lot of Spanish speakers and Portuguese as well. Those are the main languages so far!

<comment><USER6> Thank you for your explanation. The blog post didn't really detail that, so I mistakenly thought it primarily was about getting together to discuss Creating Things -- like a blind date for hackers to find coding/project partners -- rather than what seems to be primarily about learning languages.

Fortunately, your main page is VERY clear on this main goal. Well done! It makes me wish I were trying to learn a language, as I expect that there's not much use for someone who only speaks English.

<comment><USER7> I had the same impression from the blog post. I think it's a good idea, even in a blog post, to always say, "Our project is a tool that ______".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please, please, please, please: link to your website from your blog, in the header. Just do it!

<comment><AUTHOR> OK. Now it takes a double click. One click to blog root. Another click to website. But we'll do that. :-)

<comment><USER9> The thing is, once I've clicked the CoffeeStrap/blog header once, and it takes me to the blog index page, I'm not going to click the identical CoffeeStrap/blog header again because I expect it will just take me back to the page I'm already on.

<comment><USER7> I did the same thing, and didn't even realized until now that there even was a way to get to the their real site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really cool idea - I've already applied!

Two quick suggestions, though. First, In this blog post, every one of your images is a guy and a girl together. kafkaesque and others expressed confusion about whether or not there was a dating overtone. Maybe this is adding to the confusion?

Second, please get some new icons for the male/female indicators in the sign up process. If you need icons instead of text, just use the standard gender symbols with some pink/blue as an added indicator. Maybe I'm dumb, but it took me a long time to realize that the leaf-looking things on the side of the girl's head were pigtails.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Benjamin. Yep, we specifically focused on organizing male&female meetings in order to collect feedback and understand how to handle UX & UI in situations that would otherwise be prone for confusion!

<comment><USER11> > we specifically focused on organizing male&female meetings

Okay, so it's intended. I'm sure this will be followed by an explanation.

> in order to collect feedback

Doesn't really explain the male/female pairings.

> and understand how to handle UX & UI in situations that would otherwise be > prone for confusion!

Maybe I'm off my rocker today, but that doesn't really explain the start of the sentence. The only thing I'm getting here is that the pairings are intentional.

<comment><USER10> > Maybe I'm off my rocker today, but that doesn't really explain the start of > the sentence. The only thing I'm getting here is that the pairings are > intentional.

You're not off your rocker. I'd imagine that I'm just as confused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love this idea and have this bookmarked. The only things that make me hesitant to sign up are:

(1) I'm definitely not conversational in any language other than English. (I'm very slowly working on Japanese, but I haven't really built up much vocabulary or much of the grammar. I'm less driven about learning than I probably should be, but I figure I can continue to work on it this slowly until I get to a certain point.) Have you had any stores of people with differing relative skills doing a language exchange?

(2) I live in a not-quite-densely-populated area (Amarillo, Texas), so I can only wonder how vibrant the CoffeeStrap user-base here would be. There's really no solution to this one other than to sign up and try to start something myself. It's what really kills me about living out here and seeing all of these cool services, but I suppose it comes with the territory.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi IS,

(1) yes language proficiency is definitely one variable that inputs in our matching algorhitm (2) you never know, we are now observing CoffeeStrappers signing up form VERY remote areas of the world. of course more dense of CS is your area, more accurate matches you will have, but I wouldn't say you are apriori condemned to a Japanless CS future if you keep on living in Amarillo! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there any significant trend of people leaving academia for the tech world? I spent 4 years grinding away on cancer drug development. Between the billions of dollars it takes to commercialize such drugs and the single digit percentage that actually advance from human trials to clinical use, I wondered if the work I was doing was not going to be put to good use.

More importantly, I didn't feel like I was learning every day. Much of the work is absurdly repetitive.

I started learning how to build web applications and found it more mentally rewarding... but what are the ramifications of that for research? It's incredibly important but not seen as very exciting these days.

<comment><USER5> Hey asr2bd, Alessandro here from CoffeeStrap. I think that research in the field of web application & Co could, and should, be done way more than today. The whole architecture of the web is incredibly complex and we are using tools that could be improved a ton. Now I am rushing to catch a flight, if you want to share some thoughts on that give me a shot: alessandro at coffeestrap dot com

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You need to do some testing in Opera, the page looks pretty funny: <https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10190786/badfont.png>

Edit: In my Firefox it's broken too. Turns out only Chrome renders it legibly.

<comment><USER12> Same in IE9. The language list is nicer, but the instructional text is just as hard to read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Side note: What is it about graduate work that burns people out on their field? I've met quite a few people with masters and PhDs who switch fields afterward and basically run away.

<comment><USER5> That's a good question, I was too almost to the burning point. But honestly I still have to figured out which was the problem or which solutions we could adopt. I have that slight belief that there is a more general pattern over there, not sure yet about the whole thing.

As "defense" of PhDs program I could say that it definitely trains your mind to look at things with a deeper perspective.

<comment><USER16> Could this training effect of a PhD perhaps be the reason that people switch fields? When starting, one's field of research seems very promising and exciting. At the end though, one knows enough to see limitations in the field. In addition, PhDs are trained to approach problems differently. I think this knowledge and a different mental attitude can make other fields seems more worthwhile.

<comment><USER17> At this point in time, I would say yes. The start of a PhD teaches you a lot of useful research skills. However, the academic/research environment do not necessarily put them to good use.

This can lead people, such as myself, to investigate the value of a PhD itself and find that the career prospects, financial rewards, and even intellectual rewards, are difficult to align/justify.

I think that a reasonable conclusion is indeed that switching fields would generally be a good move, unless you know yourself to be an outstanding researcher within your field of expertise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Good luck and congrats on following your dreams...I remember when you first mentioned CoffeeStrap on HN and I thought it was some bastard product involving CoffeeScript and Twitter Bootstrap.

Hopefully you find the technical person you need to help execute your idea...it's not just tech expertise you need, but someone who understands and buys into your idea well enough to see how tech can make it uniquely (and practically) executable.

<comment><USER5> Genuinely thanks for the good luck. Day by day we are figuring out things over things. We got some attentions in this past months and we'll definitely need advise in a lot of fields. Hopefully you will hear from us again in future! (still not about a bastard mesh-up between CoffeeScript and Bootstrap! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So... it's like a real world verbling?

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

<comment><AUTHOR> In some ways, we can say this. I see it as a tool to allow language exchangers and tandem learners to meet people in one to one interactions, according to their interests. This, safely, for free, and over a coffee. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you Simone! :-)))))</comment></comment>


Amazon introduces the Echo Spot, an alarm clock with a 2.5-inch screen - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/27/16375186/amazon-echo-spot-alarm-clock-announced-price <comment><USER2> I have an alarm clock with a 5" screen - it's called a smartphone

<comment> King-Aaron I have an alarm clock with a 7" screen...

It's called an alarm clock

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It looks decent but I would never pay such a high price for an alarm clock.</comment>


SpaceX Live Webcast CRS-8 Dragon Mission - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/webcast?crs-8=true <comment><USER2> What an amazing job!!!</comment>


OfficeSnapshots.com - <AUTHOR> http://officesnapshots.com/

<comment><USER2> Glad to see my site submitted to Hacker News- the homepage might be a little boring so I'll take the time to mention a few items that might be a little more interesting:

25 Most Popular Offices of 2012 [http://officesnapshots.com/2012/12/27/most- popular-offices-2...](http://officesnapshots.com/2012/12/27/most-popular- offices-2012/)

Browse All Offices: <http://www.officesnapshots.com/browse/all/>

Hardware/Software companies: <http://www.officesnapshots.com/browse/hardware- software/>

Social/Web/Online companies: <http://www.officesnapshots.com/browse/social- web-online/>

Gaming companies: <http://www.officesnapshots.com/browse/gaming/>

Not sure if anyone would have office related questions, but feel free to fire away.</comment>


3 Tips For Students Looking For Internships At Startups - <AUTHOR> http://alexstechthoughts.com/post/66187827055/3-tips-for-students-looking-for-internships-at-startups

<comment><USER2> My #1 tip would be: Just Ask.

I work at an early-stage startup, and this year we got exactly one internship request. We weren't even looking for an intern, but we liked him and so we gave him a job for the summer.</comment>


Capacity and Trainability in Recurrent Neural Networks - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.09913 <comment><USER2> This is a really silly question, but why would you append [Technical] to a title? Isn't that implied by it being a link to arXiv?

<comment><USER3> Context: the submission was originally titled "Google Brain: Experimental Limits of RNNs [Technical]".</comment></comment>


Ode to J - <AUTHOR> https://zserge.com/posts/j/ <comment><USER2> I love J, APL and the array languages in general. I am always looking for exercises to practice my J skills. I found this article by Tyler Limkemann called "Modeling the COVID-19 Outbreak with J"[1].

I also follow tangentstorm and took some of this J-talks gui code[2], and mashed it up with Tyler's as a J learning exercise. I just put this up on my github. [3]

I highly recommend tangentstorm's YouTube videos too![4]

The concise J code, and the way it makes me approach a problem brings me joy! Given all of my coding projects in J fit on one page, I can revisit them later, and get right back in without worrying about having too many comments or documents to understand my code. I like refining the code over time for fun and learning even after it works, or somebody much smarter than myself shows me a different way to look at it.

[1] [https://datakinds.github.io/2020/03/15/modeling-the- coronavi...](https://datakinds.github.io/2020/03/15/modeling-the-coronavirus- outbreak-with-j)

[2] [https://github.com/tangentstorm/j-talks](https://github.com/tangentstorm/j-talks)

[3] [https://github.com/rpherman/JLang/tree/master/COVID-19](https://github.com/rpherman/JLang/tree/master/COVID-19)

[4] [https://www.youtube.com/user/tangentstorm](https://www.youtube.com/user/tangentstorm)

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems like array languages are really picking up steam on HN lately; It's a positive development. Every developer should learn at least one array language. They sound absolutely crazy before you start, but then you start writing some code and you realize there's a lot of wisdom in the coding style. It's not something you can appreciate only from afar, though.

<comment><USER4> Which of these languages has good materials and is suitable as an introductory language?

<comment><USER3> My first one, which I learned for Advent of Code 2019 was kdb+/q. There's a good book for it too: [https://code.kx.com/q4m3/](https://code.kx.com/q4m3/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've done a little J in the past and have been playing with APL a lot lately.

It is definitely a different way to think. My programs are taking a long time to write as I train my brain to think in this domain, but the code is very concise and generally not hard to follow afterwards. Everything is so interactive it's a joy.

In particular, I enjoy how the poster broke the code down as I can only understand some of C code. It's cool to think I could create my own little J interpreter this quick.

</comment><comment> jim-jim-jim It seems like this blurb of code has appeared on HN quite a bit lately, and it's cool to see a breakdown of it.

The next time I write C, I'm tempted to do it Whitney style like this. There really is something to be said about seeing everything at once.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. Be careful, though, many people find they can't go back to the level of verbosity they used to write (and which is often expected in a team)

<comment><USER7> Dyalog and kx are hiring

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since this flurry of APL/J/K/A+/Q articles started, I've been wondering about the relationship between APLs and literate programming.

They say that APL was developed to mimic mathematical notation, and I see the resemblance. But real works of mathematics consist of one or two lines of expressions separated by sentences and paragraphs explaining the goal of those expressions.

So far in K "advertising" I only see the expressions and not the explanations. The explanation is there, but it's not a comment in the codebase; it's in a blog post that explains it. The code has many lines of expressions on top of each other, and nobody writes math that way.

I feel like I'm missing something, basically. It's clear how to write K, but what are the best practices for making a large codebase readable? I shouldn't have to invent that myself, right?

<comment><USER5> Assuming you write your code for a certain domain, I think most of your colleagues could follow along after learning a little k.

I wrote a toy simulator for the domain I work in using something like 6 lines of APL code and sent it to someone good with APL. They replied back to the email pretty quickly with some tips on how to improve it and could generally get the gist of what I was trying to do while knowing nothing of the problem domain. It was really an interesting experience. I think with zero doc, a colleague of mine would immediately understand what I was doing after going through a short APL tutorial. It isn't magic, but not nearly as cryptic as people make it out to be.

Edit: people do comment their APL code. I think a million loc project would be pretty difficult in APL, but the beauty is that you should be able to do some pretty powerful work in a few pages I would imagine.

<comment><USER2> I think you're right. Aaron Hsu's work in APL is inspiring and awesome. The source code to his data parallel compiler hosted on the GPU is 17 lines of APL! Read the abstract to his paper here:

[https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/24749](https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/24749)

<comment><USER9> _The source code to his data parallel compiler hosted on the GPU is 17 lines of APL!_

The co-dfns source I've seen[1] is much longer. Do you know if there's a write-up somewhere of the differences between that and Appendix B from the dissertation?

1: [https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns](https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns)

<comment><USER10> I think its important to distinguish between something that is a core piece vs all the other things that make the system usable. For example once you start adding error handling, and good error reporting, the complexity goes up by an order of magnitude. And in many cases the approach for the core does not necessarily scale out to the other contexts.

<comment><USER2> The right tool for the job. If you are building a huge website with input forms, videos, data collection, ML algorithms, yes then you wouldn't do the whole thing in APL or J even if you could. Python is big in ML because packages for working with data in array language ways were developed. Pandas by Wes McKinney is one example, and he studied J or q, and even tweeted: IMHO J is the best APL for data analysis because of its broad suite hash table- based functions.

I like APL and J as a scratchpad where arrays are the basic unit and not scalars. J is functional and it turned me on to that world before I touched Haskell or F#.

Aaron Hsu has a lot of great videos that speak to a lot of the usability and scaling out you mention:

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aaron+hsu](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aaron+hsu)

I particularly like this one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8MVKianh54&t=2857s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8MVKianh54&t=2857s)

I am able to grasp concepts or own them after coding them in APL or J even if the code isn't as fast such as how well APL applies to Convolutional Neural Networks [1,2]. I really understood the mechanics of CNNs better after working through this paper a lot more than books I had read on ANNs in general since the late 80s/early 90s. By contrast, I have coded ANNs in C and Python, and I get lost in the PL, not the concept, if that makes sense. Anyway, I am a polyglot and find people criticize J/APL/k etc. from a brief look without really trying to learn the language. I learned assembler and basic back in 1978 to 1982, and I felt the same way when I first looked at opcodes.

[1] [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3315454.3329960](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3315454.3329960)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vIZ7d3-GBw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vIZ7d3-GBw)

<comment><USER5> Bahaha. It's a small world fellow HN user. As soon as ACM opened their digital library, I started looking for interesting APL papers and found that one and thought it was beautifully done. My takeaway is that you can make purpose- built AI in APL with very little code versus calling out to a large library like Tensorflow and having no idea what's going on.

<comment><USER2> I think someone has translated this to J, but I am trying on my own to practice my J-fu by implementing it in my own way. Then I usually open it up to the J experts on the mailing list, and my learning takes off. There are some awesomely smart people there who are generous with their time.

Yes, the takeaway is that with APL or J is that you can see the mechanics in a paragraph of code, and it is not a very trivial example. If the libraries or verbs are created to deal with some of the speed or efficiency issues, it is promising as a way of understanding the concept better.

The dataframes of R and Python (Pandas) were always a thing in APL/J/k/q, so it is their lingua franca or basic unit of computation upon which the languages were built - arrays, not a library.

More importantly, almost along the lines of the emperor has no clothes, is a tack to get away from the black box, minimal domain knowledge, ML or DL that cannot be explained too easily - see newly proposed "Algorithmic Accountability Act" in US legislature. Differentiable Programming and AD (Automatic Differentiation)applied with domain knowledge to create a more easily explainable model, and try to avoid biases that may creep into a model and affect health care and criminal systems in a negative way [1][2].

And then there are those who use DL/ANNs for everything, even things that are easily applied and solved using standard optimization techniques. Forest from the trees kind of phenomenon. I have been guilty of getting swept up with them too. I started programming ANNs in the late 80s to teach myself about this new, cool-sounding thing called "neural networks" back then ;)

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.10154](https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.10154)

[2] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.07587](https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.07587)

<comment><USER5> Neat and thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Am I weird because I have no interest in terseness that you have to tease apart. It feels counter-productive. The programming golf (Code golf) contests and obfuscated C contests just seem like a waste of time to me. The whole point of programming languages is to allow humans to produce machine code using a more natural language closer human language that we are all already fluent in.

<comment><USER3> That's not the point of programming languages. The point of programming languages is to be more productive, it has nothing to do with natural language. In fact, natural languages are a poor fit for programming languages (see Cobol).

<comment><USER12> Counterpoint: SQL is incredibly successful and its syntax uses natural language structures quite heavily.

The problem Cobol has is that uses some natural structures, but then becomes very verbose because it only uses a few, and they often can't be combined, so it is very repetitive.

It's not natural to say,

        I will buy eggs at the grocery store.
        And I will buy ham at the grocery store.
        And I will buy cheese at the grocery store.

> The point of programming languages is to be more productive...

But you should be productive not only in initially writing the code, but also in reading it later when you do maintenance.

And what you see with most languages is extensive commentary to help future authors understand what's going on, and that's partly because terse languages tend to be cryptic.

<comment><USER13> In my experience, SQL is successful _despite_ its syntax, not because of it. Wasn't it originally intended to be an end-user interface? It's failed at that. Now even programmers choose to use an ORM to insulate themselves from it. Even the programmers I know who don't use OO still use an abstraction library to avoid the need to touch SQL directly.

SQL isn't even one language. It's a family of incompatible dialects. I've never written more than the most trivial SQL that would even be valid (much less the same result) on any other SQL dialect. Even though it has ISO and ANSI standards, every database in the world requires proprietary rules and conventions and extensions. How do you quote identifiers? Are strings case sensitive? Is '' the same as NULL? How do you create an index? What data types are there? We can't even agree on the most basic aspects of syntax.

It's "incredibly successful" in the same way that early HTML and JS was. People wanted access to the underlying platform so badly they'll put up with a nutty design and gratuitous incompatibilities. They don't really have a choice, and many are going out of their way to build their own alternatives because the vendors won't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I like to play with array languages in my free time. I have a doubt regarding readability:

For me, it's easier to read APL with the symbols than to read J/K. Does it get better if you work a lot with J/K?

<comment><USER15> Long ago I was doing some analysis on a Sigma 5/CP-V machine. One of the few high level languages available was Xerox APL. For those without an APL keyboard they provided ASCII replacements (I don't rember what they were, but looked like $NDX, $ASG). After learning APL with the awkward mnemonics I was never able to read it with the special characters! J does a much better standard-character APL.

<comment><USER4> Why don't these languages support latex-style symbols in the way Julia does? Even in the Repl: type \alpha<TAB> and you get α. Even Σᵢ is possible. This makes symbols accessible without a keyboard and the code is quite close to mathematical notation.

<comment><USER16> Latex style is way too verbose, I would not want to type like that. And I think the input method should be a problem for your editor/OS to handle, not the language.

In any case, symbols were abandoned back in the day when everyone was still using 8-bit encodings. [1][2]

Nowadays you have e.g. Dyalog APL which does use APL symbols and you have short ascii-based sequences (easier to type than latex) for inputting them:

        `u`y gives you ↓↑

(You can try this online at [https://tryapl.org/](https://tryapl.org/))

[1] Remembering Ken Iverson ([http://keiapl.org/rhui/](http://keiapl.org/rhui/))

> For the first few months, the special APL characters and the ASCII spelling > co-existed in the system. It was Ken who first suggested that I should kill > off the special APL characters. I myself resisted for a few weeks longer, > until the situation became too confusing, for reasons described in J for the > APL Programmer.

[2] J for the APL Programmer ([https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/j4apl.htm](https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/j4apl.htm))

> J uses the 7-bit ASCII alphabet. It also makes non-essential use of the box- > drawing characters in the 8-bit ASCII alphabet for display. Using ASCII > avoids the many problems associated with using APL symbols. It allows J to > be used on a variety of machines without special hardware or software, and > permits easy communication between J and other systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Recently I've been dabbling in q and kdb+. Would there be any benefit to dabbling in J instead?

<comment><USER18> Shakti seems to be the new flavor

<comment><USER5> The creator of kdb+, the k language, and the q-sql DSL sold his share of Kxsystems (company that makes kdb+) to start a new venture called "Shakti" with a new version of his "k" language. Kdb+ is still around and developing, so I'd say they're forked at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone know what the dyadic verb 'find' (dyadic '~') is supposed to do? Its implementation seems to be empty in the little interpreter.

<comment><USER20> It's probably like k's find (`?`), which gets the indices of the found elements, or else the length of the list (or null, depending on the dialect) if not found:

         "abc"?"caz"
        2 0 3

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> We did J in university. I hated it. We also did assembly and I much ordered that instead

<comment><USER5> I think I would also hate J, APL, Prolog, Haskell, Forth, or Lisp in University.

The problem is that those languages require a completely different shift in software from the common imperative/OO style to something more declarative or in Lisp's case, just a bit different.

In a typical university course, there isn't enough time to focus on learning those things and you stay so shallow with the material that the language seems useless. It seems like 1/2 of the Prolog subreddit is about homework assignments on things like list reversal. If you can already do that in Python/Java with a single method call, Prolog just seems like a really bizarre and inefficient method. Now once you take another step and see how it can figure out how to solve Sudoku without explicit instructions...that is cool.

It's really the same thing with electrical engineering when the professor is trying to teach us microprocessors and assembly at the same time and it all seems like a waste when C is much easier. The assembly method probably teaches better, but I need more than just a few weeks to synthesize that information. Especially when you're getting slammed by other hard classes like differential equations at the same time. So perhaps you do hate J, then again, maybe you just need to learn it on your own schedule and not to answer arbitrary test questions about something you can already do in Java.

<comment><USER22> I don't know how it is in J, but having fielded Lisp questions from students learning Lisp (usually 1/3 or 1/2 of a semester class on "Programming Languages" or "Functional Programming"), the assignments tend towards _terrible_ questions, to the point where I don't think I could come up with questions that were better suited to making someone hate the language.

People come out of a class that used Common Lisp thinking that Common Lisp lacks any looping construct (it has several). It looks like the professor took a SICP (which uses scheme, not common lisp) based class as an undergrad, never looked at any language in the lisp family again, and then 20 years later made up a syllabus using the half-remembered information using Common Lisp because they remember SICP had something to do with Lisp and taught it without actually trying to do any of the exercises.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> About halfway through reading that, I was thinking -- it would be fun to try and write this in Rust, and then i got to the bottom, and he had aleady done it. Much easier to read in rust.

<comment><USER24> The C version is 41 lines, and 1749 bytes. The Rust version is 295 lines, and 8289 bytes.

The point of the Incunabulum is not really what it does (it's a REPL with a handful of half-implemented J verbs and no error checking), but the style it demonstrates. I think that rewriting a similar program in another language without even attempting to reproduce the style is rather missing the point.

If you're interested in Rust, why not figure out what a semantically- compressed style looks like for it?

<comment><USER25> How much of that is due to the C preprocessor though? In theory, you could run the same preprocessor for Rust code (if you figure out some sensible macro shortcuts).

<comment><USER16> Not much at all.

It's a completely apples to oranges comparison, with the rust version having some error handling, support for longer identifiers, tests, relatively idiomatic style with line breaks and indentation where you expect it, variables and type names longer than one or two characters, etcetra.

You could compress it massively before going for the preprocessor. In fact, a few of the preprocessor macros just make the C version longer (when measured in lines) than it would be without those macros if lines were allowed to be as long as in the rust version (<70 chars vs 100 chars). The printf macro (used only three times) actually makes the C code longer both in bytes and lines (or equal length in lines if you retain the 70 column limit).

There's really only one macro (DO) that expands enough to save lines, but just barely. The shorthand for return saves quite a few bytes (but not so many lines) given that it's used everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Are there any open source compilers for J (and similar languages)?

<comment><USER10> I'd also suggest looking at Pike's ivy as a simple example of an apl like system in go. [https://github.com/robpike/ivy](https://github.com/robpike/ivy)

<comment><USER7> I would argue that, being stylistically inconsistent with the way most apl is implemented, that's actually not such a great resource. I found 'whitney c' surprisingly approachable, with just a little patience; despite no prior experience with it, I was able to make an apl-ish interpreter in 7kb and a few hours. If you're curious about implementation details, that might be a more worthwhile exercise. Be sure to check out the parsing section[1] of the J dictionary.

1: [https://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/dicte.htm](https://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/dicte.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> gets() wont compile today.</comment>


Why Businesses Can't Stand Free Markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-22/why-businesses-can-t-stand-free-markets-veronique-de-rugy.html <comment><USER3> I think the lesson to learn here is that there is no such thing as a "free market" - all markets are constrained to some degree by the regulations that shape them. Markets are human creations just like languages, and the rules around them are designed either consciously or passively.

When you let special interest groups define the rules, they tend to define them in their own favor. In the modern industrial state, corporations have discovered a very successful tactic of evading conscious interference by proclaiming their desire for "free markets" and then lobbying behind the scenes to tilt markets in their favor.

When people wake up to this reality and smart businesspeople like those on HN stop pretending that a "free market" is some god-given natural state of affairs, then we will be able to level the playing field for small businesses against the corporate interests. Smart regulations are important to avoid abuse of power.

<comment><USER4> >"I think the lesson to learn here is that there is no such thing as a 'free market'"

That's a popular piece of rhetoric, but I don't buy it. Certainly a market with government handouts or regulations that bias the interests of some players over others is less free than a market without such interference. I think we can say that the transportation market was "more free" after competition killing regulation was removed from the trucking industry under the Carter administration, for example[1]. (People forget about Carter's libertarian streak, but libertarians don't. You can also thank Carter for deregulation of air travel[2] and delicious microbrewed beer[3].)

Rather than lobbying to bias the market in favor of our preferred people, as you suggest we do, it is perfectly possible to lobby in favor of less special- interest rules. In fact there is a significant minority of people in this country who do just that. We call ourselves "libertarians".

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Carrier_Act_of_1980>

[2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act>

[3][http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/How- Jim...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/How-Jimmy-Carter- Saved-Craft-Beer-1766)

<comment><USER5> _"That's a popular piece of rhetoric, but I don't buy it. Certainly a market with government handouts or regulations that bias the interests of some players over others is less free than a market without such interference."_

Really? What about a market in which a private entity behaves similarly or worse? The British East India company, for example, literally owned a country. With only the actions of a "private" entity, India's market were open primarily to ... British goods. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India> ("During the period, 1780–1860, India changed from being an exporter of processed goods for which it received payment in bullion, to being an exporter of raw materials and a buyer of manufactured goods." )

What I've said to the libertarians here is "when everything is private, I will invest in the tanks, I think they'll be a profit center..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every time this topic comes up, I wonder why lobbying is legal. Can anyone give me a good explanation? The only one I've really heard is "lobbying is free speech, corporations need free speech".

<comment><USER7> Lobbying is just a fancy word for talking to Congresspeople. Thanks to human psychology, it doesn't even have to look like the mental image many people have of the lobbyist walking in with a suitcase of cash for some major cash transfer in the law. All you have to do is spend time with the Congressperson until their hindbrain decides you are "one of theirs", and then even if they don't consciously steer things your way they will _sub_ consciously steer them your way.

How do you outlaw that? What are you going to do, cloister your Congressperson in their office and forbid them from seeing people? It's actually a big part of their job. Are you going to say that if a Congressperson is considering a certain regulation of a certain industry, under no circumstances should they ever talk to anyone with any connection to that industry? As stupid as law may sometimes be today, that would actually be even stupider.

Yeah, sometimes it does devolve into the suitcase scenario but really that's quite unsubtle.

<comment><USER8> I think the fundamental problem is that running for national office in the US is extremely expensive¹, so anyone who wants the job and is not independently wealthy has to spend a lot of time fund-raising. Even if the fund-raising does not involve outright corruption, it requires an aspiring Congressperson to spend a lot of time hanging out with people who can afford to make large donations.

The best solution I can think of is public financing of elections, but I am very pessimistic about such a law getting through Congress, even if the Democrats retake the House in 2012.

¹According to figures gathered by the Campaign Finance Institute, it costs about $1.3M to win a House seat and about $7.5M to win a Senate seat. (<http://www.cfinst.org/data/HistoricalStats.aspx>)

<comment><USER9> Why the assumption that Democrats are inherently more interested in campaign finance reform? Obama ran the most expensive campaign in history and took plenty of special interest money.

Seriously, nothing will happen if not even the comparably bright people on this site is able to digest the fact that politics in the US is more complicated (and, indeed more broken) than "democrat good, republican bad". They're pretty much all scum, and the few honest people seem to be pretty well distributed across the parties.

<comment><USER10> People assume that democrats are more interested in campaign finance reform because most serious attempts to reform campaign finance laws have been spearheaded by Democrats and opposed by establishment Republicans. Every senator who voted against McCain-Feingold was a Republican, and many prominent Republicans and conservative organizations (Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute) approved of the Citizens United decision.

Every politician does whatever they can within the rules (and then some) to get elected, but some want to change the rules because, for example, banning corporate donations would probably hurt Republicans more than Democrats.

<comment><USER9> Well, McCain sponsored and Bush signed McCain-Feingold. Second, Citizens United isn't about campaign finance _per se_. Since the people spending money under CU can't even talk to the campaign they support, this category of spending is at least a layer removed from the candidate, and quid-pro-quo becomes more difficult.

But finally, and my most important point: No, Republicans, to the extend they have a common position doesn't want campaign finance reform. But neither does the democrats (to the extend they have a common position). Most significantly, a very prominent Democrat broke his pledge to take public financing in the face of raising heaps of money and outspend his opponent 2:1.

I mean, perfectly honest, Democratic congress or not, is Obama going to get behind serious campaign finance reform?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ron Paul makes a very valid point about differentiating between capitalism, and what is described here, which he calls corporatism (somewhat at odds with the definition for this term offered in Wikipedia).

<comment><USER11> The real question is, does capitalism just inevitably end up in coporatism?

<comment><USER12> Antitrust law provides some interesting insight into the question IMO. It was established because laissez faire economics failed to prevent monopolies. Instead, a carefully crafted regulation supported capitalism.

I think true capitalism can't arise in a vacuum; it needs a regulatory support structure for enforcement.

<comment><USER13> "Antitrust law provides some interesting insight into the question IMO. It was established because laissez faire economics failed to prevent monopolies."

This is obviously false, both from a logical and historical view.

A monopoly cannot exist in a free market as no company, no matter how successful, can actually restrict entry into any given market without the government banning entry into that market. This is accomplished though various legal means including licenses, trade barriers, so-called "intellectual property" protections, and other tactics. Without the barriers for entry into any market provided by government, establishment of a monopoly on any desired service would be impossible.

Now, you might cite some historical examples like Standard Oil and the like as examples of why monopoly protections are needed, but this standard example only illustrates my case. The price of a gallon of oil, for example, was around 30 cents in 1870 and fell to around 6 cents at the time of the anti- trust trial. And their market share was continuously dropping despite their supposed monopoly.

<comment><USER6> So I take it you don't believe in natural monopolies?

<comment><USER14> I'm not going to speak for him, but I sense that he does "believe" in natural monopolies. He also probably feels like there's nothing /wrong/ with natural monopolies, and I'd have to agree.

A natural monopoly can and ought to be defined as an entity with monopolistic market share achieved WITHOUT government regulation, subsidies, and the like, AND WITHOUT the illegal use of physical violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Absent the political temptation (using the state to "regulate away" the competition), businesses have no choice but to appeal to their consumers with better services.

<comment><USER16> You mean they can't do things like slander competitors, disrupt supply chains through strategic purchases, strong arm vendors, and a whole host of other non-product based tactics that do nothing to show out the best product based choice?

edit: And I mean that's not getting into any of the ones that are currently illegal due to regulation. Ever heard of trusts?

<comment><USER17> > Ever heard of trusts?

Yes, my grandparents had one.

Oh, you were refering to the subject of "anti-trust".

Name three bad monopolies that didn't depend on govt power for their monopoly status.

<comment><USER18> What does "depend on gov't power" have to do with it? If you monopoly is raking in billions and the cost of a congressional race is millions, then of course you're gonna get the government on your side a bunch of the time.

The question is, is this a problem with "government" or a problem with "bribery".

<comment><USER17> > What does "depend on gov't power" have to do with it?

It depends. Do you think that we should treat orphans who kill their parents different from other orphans?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Dealing with this problem is the central problem for 'Fix Congress First'(<http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/>), the anti-corruption organization started by Larry Lessig.

It's focused on the pernicious effect of the revolving door between K St. lobbyists and Congressional staffs, and the way private election finance keeps these toxic exchanges alive and dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER20> Nice article. Differentiates between an Entrepreneur and a BigCo. The bigger picture is

        Chinese capitalism  = American capitalism - Human rights
        Indian capitalism   = American capitalism + Wage slavery

Hence American capitalism is _not scalable_ in globalized economy/free markets.

</comment><comment><USER21> This all comes down to psychology.

Society will be shaped in whatever way the powerful wish it to be shaped.

Right now power comes from the ability to control the minds of the masses - <USER2> lull them into sleep and avoid their wrath.

No system is ever going to solve this issue. The issue will be solved when enough people decide that they prefer to live in a society with free markets.

Right now the public does not enforce that.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is wrong (or at least incomplete) for the same reasons as the commonly heard "Businesses don't like Free Software". Yes, some businesses, usually the entrenched incumbents don't want free markets or free software, but the up and coming businesses that are trying to compete with those interests often _need_ them to make any headway at all.

<comment><USER23> This was touched on lightly in the article: "They lobby lawmakers to constrain the same free markets in which they originally achieved success."

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Seeing this puts most objectivist / libertarian arguments in a new light. I can certainly see how they're hot under the collar about government regulation and how it creates unfair market places. That said, I'm still far from convinced that an unregulated market is the answer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Who are these mysterious "consumers"?

They don't seem to be attached to businesses, since they seem benefit from the things we hear that the businesses hate.

They don't even seem to be ordinary worker, since most workers also work for these same businesses.

Who can answer this for me?

</comment><comment><USER25> The author wrote a sensible article, with a trollish headline. I refuse to bite.

<comment><USER26> This was a standard refrain of George Stigler and Milton Friedman, actually. Don't think they were trolling.

cf. "The Suicidal Impulses of the Business Community":

<http://www.nabe.com/publib/friedman_adam_smith.html></comment></comment>


A Personal Roadmap - <AUTHOR> http://www.mattmazur.com/2008/07/a-personal-roadmap/ This is a follow up to a question I asked several weeks ago on HN about how I should prepare for entrepreneurship. As always, I appreciate any feedback. <comment><USER2> Here's my feedback, and please take it with a grain of salt and a good deal of humility.

You're 23. Holy shit you're young. What the hell are you going to wait 4 years for? Do it now.

Quit your job and join a startup. There are probably a few in your area, and I'm sure a couple are using ASP or .Net, which is right up your alley. Working there will sort out a few of your learning finance & business issues.

Learn more skills on the side, and when you are ready (not 4 years dude), jump. In fact, jump with your own stuff as a means of learning. Learn while building.

You've got years before succeeding will really matter, to be honest. You've got a wife that can help with income in a crunch. Do it now. In four years, it will be harder.

As a 33 year old with a wife and child, trust me on this one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dave: Took a college scholarship with a few years of work attached upon completion ;)

I wish I could take your advice, but for now, I've got to make the best of the current situation.

<comment><USER2> Ah, fair enough... that's a bit of an important point!

Keep at it then, it looks like you're on the right path... I'm in the same boat in terms of working a "day job" and developing on my own.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> How does having a son affect it all? I barely have time as it is...

<comment><USER2> Lol... Since you've got some years, I would strongly advise against starting a family until you've scratched your startup itch. Having the little guy around removes all your free time, friend time, movie time and couple time and leaves you with kid time.

That's not a bad thing for sure, but it makes things a hell of a lot more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a follow up to a question I ask HN a few weeks ago regarding the road to entrepreneurship. As always, I appreciate any feedback.</comment>


Ask HN: [Meta] Popular/active political posts disappearing off the front page? - <AUTHOR> Over the past few months, I've seen a number of very popular and active political posts disappear off the front page in a matter of hours. Notable examples that come to mind are yesterday's various travel ban threads (such as this one[1]) and Sam Altman's blog post on Thiel[2] and Trump[3] — all with hundreds of upvotes and comments, but buried several pages down next to posts that are one or two days older. On one hand, I realize that the most likely explanation is that a large contingent of the site is rabidly opposed to political discussion and downvotes/flags these posts en masse. However, I've also seen convincing evidence on Reddit and elsewhere that huge throngs of far-right accounts — whether genuine, automated, or funded by outside political forces — tend to brigade these kinds of topics and swing votes in their favor.
First, does HN have the means to monitor and counteract this kind of vote manipulation?
Second, would the mods consider giving these kinds of contentious political posts more front page weight? I was stunned that the last two sama blog posts disappeared off the front page in a matter of hours (to the point where most people probably didn't even see them) whereas normally they'd stick around for a day or more.
These discussions are buzzing with activity and are absolutely vital to the future of our community! I strongly believe they deserve to be read more widely.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13509509
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12728249
[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13507993 <comment><USER2> When there's a deluge of political stories, as in the last couple days, users heavily flag most of them. But there have still been plenty of major threads spending plenty of time on the front page. That's the status quo for HN: most politics are off topic, but not all. It's a delicate balance and an important one. Letting politics overrun this site would kill it.

There's no satisfying anybody about this: not the readers who want more politics, not the readers who want less, and certainly not the partisans on an issue. When you see something you don't like, e.g. stories being flagged or not being flagged, the mind leaps to "the other side must be manipulating this" as an explanation, but that's almost never the case. What you're observing is the behavior of a large community—divided in much the way society at large is divided—plus randomness.

If anyone has concerns about a particular post being manipulated they're welcome to email email@example.com, but please don't post insinuations about that here. Unless you have real evidence, that's reliably an uncivil and unsubstantive move in discussion.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics

Probably related?

</comment><comment><USER4> _These discussions are buzzing with activity and are absolutely vital to the future of our community!_

Well, count me a non-right-winger who'd prefer my HN sans political crap. If I wanted yet another forum where I could be inundated by American political drama, I'd still be on Reddit (or Facebook).

I come to HN for posts about technology. Politics touches all aspects of our lives, so it can trivially cross over as "relevant" on a forum like this. But I'd prefer we set that bar very high. Because if this place turns into another /r/politics, I'll remove HN from my RSS feed and find somewhere else to frequent.

</comment><comment><USER5> Around the election there was a ban on political topics because the front page was almost entirely politics and flame-wars. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404) for details.

Now that politics is an open topic again and Trump is President of the United States, people seem even more charged. What dang originally called out during the politics detox week was this:

> A community like HN deteriorates when new developments dilute or poison what > it originally stood for. We don't want that to happen, so let's all get > clear on what this site is for. What Hacker News is: a place for stories > that gratify intellectual curiosity and civil, substantive comments. What it > is not: a political, ideological, national, racial, or religious > battlefield.

I agree with dang; I think a few political articles on the front page a day is okay, but It can easily turn into around the clock flame-war.

The sorts of stories that marry politics and intellectual curiosity are what I want to see on HN: anything about the technology behind fake news, research on fighting populism, using the internet as a tool against fascism, etc. Maybe less of "tech company takes stand X against Trump policy Y".

<comment><USER6> > I think a few political articles on the front page a day is okay, but It can > easily turn into around the clock flame-war.

It will always turn into a flame war because most of these threads are either posted by activists, or they attract activists. Activists are not interested in a 'conversation', they post to win control of the thread by calling in a brigade to out post and down vote the other side.

Anyone can put together a brigade of a few hundred people in a matter of minutes on reddit or irc.

You have two options in this environment. You can have a politically neutral technology focused board and remove the incentive for activists. Or you let them run a muck and turn your board into a signal booster for there activism and destroy the commuinity.

<comment><USER7> That's precisely how I see it.

Activists are trying to manipulate HN to disseminate their particular partisan point of view, and in the process they are manipulating this forum to focus on serving their private agenda and in the process ruining it for all of us who come here for the tech stuff.

And people like me come here for the tech stuff, not some activist's political agenda and their bile-spewing.

<comment><USER8> Coming for the tech stuff is a private agenda too.

<comment><USER7> > Coming for the tech stuff is a private agenda too.

The site is called Hacker News, not anti-Trump news.

<comment><USER8> First of all, I couldn't resist the childish double entendre.

Second, _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's intellectual curiosity._

not 'On topic: tech stuff'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From what I've observed and read from others:

\- Member flags push a submission further down in rankings even prior to the [flagged] tag appearing.

\- There's an "overheated discussion detection" algorithm which appears to take into account time, votes, and comment rates, which, when triggered, will further push down a submission.

\- On occasion, the mods will downweight a submission. Sometimes, particularly if it's a contentious issue related to YC, they'll purposefully override the downweighting and flagging to ensure the topic gets adequate attention.

And yes, I've observed a strong bias against political submissions, particularly those that cover well-trodden ground and are highly likely to devolve quickly if not immediately into flamewars.

'dang had a comment in response to a member the other day that I thought had a lot of truth to it ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13507993#13509167](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13507993#13509167))

 _> I want HN debating politics because of how HN debates.

That only works because HN mostly isn't about politics. There must be a name for this paradox._

From what I've seen, the HN community highly values the quality of its discourse and is fiercely protective of it, and rightly so, in my opinion. Figuring out how to maintain a vibrant, useful, civil, online community is very hard. While there's always room for improvement, I think HN manages a pretty good balance.

</comment><comment><USER10> edit: Ironically, I think this post got flagged off the homepage. Maybe that tells you all you need to know about the HN community's stance on political discussion.

While definitely controversial [1], many HN commenters dislike the vitrolic flame wars that the political threads create. I think it's the regulars doing the actual flagging, but if you read the comments themselves on some of these threads, the alt-right people definitely appear in the threads and make the quality of discourse significantly worse.

I do believe politics has a role on HN, I submitted the second HN post that the OP linked. I also enjoyed reading this thread [2] on election night as it provided hope. However, I think these threads will always continue to be flagged, because while HN moderation does a good job, with these political posts it will never be good enough as it causes some of the worst commenters on the site to come out of the woodwork.

Perhaps HN should give these posts more weight (and they do sometimes override user flags), but alas, it's probably one of the toughest editorial decisions this site faces.

[1]: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/silicon-valleys-most- po...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/silicon-valleys-most-popular- forum-bans-stories-about-politi)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12909752](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12909752)

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand how these are vital to this community, can you explain what we would be missing without them?

</comment><comment><USER12> I would rather people hid these stories than flagged them.

I understand why people are flagging them, they tend to bring out the worst in HN, but it's probably best to reserve flagging for truly bad threads, and hide the threads you simply don't feel the desire to engage with.

<comment><USER9> I understand the motivation behind your suggestion. I don't see it being ultimately workable.

Discussions tend to spill over across threads. If there's a population that tends to discuss politics, they're not necessarily going to keep the political discussions in the political threads, nor should they be expected to. And people have different definitions of what constitutes political.

And if this lends itself to allowing more heated debate (because the political threads are expected to be isolated in some way), that same heated debate form will likewise spill over into other threads.

<comment><USER12> Flagging political threads isn't stopping that either - that spillover is what flagging comments and downvotes are already for, and moderators detaching off- topic tangents.

But what hiding stories does accomplish is preventing people who don't want to see that content from being angered by its presence, especially when a topic threatens to overwhelm the site, and otherwise takes up most of the comments feed in a heated discussion, or most of the new topics page in the case of a popular story.

Although a more proactive approach would be to better curate the comments feed. It still seems that high traffic or volatile threads contribute a lot of low quality spillover there, and a lot of low hanging fruit for flamebaiting and drive-by comments.

<comment><USER9> _Flagging political threads isn 't stopping that either_

True. It doesn't stop it. I think it does limit it, to some extent.

 _a more proactive approach would be to better curate the comments feed._

Interesting. Do you think the community would bear more aggressive curation?

<comment><USER12> >Do you think the community would bear more aggressive curation?

As it wouldn't affect the rank of the stories themselves, I don't see why not. It might not need human intervention either, just apply a few rules before building the comment page such as not displaying comments from a certain depth (which tend to be tangential) or not displaying downvoted comments, and preferring upvoted comments.

<comment><USER9> Hmmm. I was thinking more along the lines of more aggressively flagging/downvoting. Though I think either would see (some) members complaining about censorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good, political posts should be flagged. We can get that garbage anywhere.</comment>


Apple avoids potential $9bn tax bill  - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2ac24238-b25c-11e2-8540-00144feabdc0.html <comment><USER2> Please don't post articles that require subscription in order to read them.</comment>


10 Upcoming Technology That May Change World - <AUTHOR> http://www.improgrammer.net/10-upcoming-technology-that-may-change-world/

<comment><USER2> I don't understand what is so radical about firefox os. Why the other thinks that Android and Apple are inhibiting innovation in mobile OS ?</comment>


V8 4.5 release - <AUTHOR> http://v8project.blogspot.com/2015/07/v8-45-release.html

<comment><USER2> Can't wait for io.js to switch to this version. It means that fat arrows are finally usable without Babel.</comment>


Optimal training strategies for dual n-back working memory training - <AUTHOR> http://www.iqmindware.com/iq-mindware/training-strategies/

<comment><AUTHOR> This article has been written as a response to those of you who are interested in how best to train your working memory using the dual n-back.</comment>