Collecting stamps from countries that don't exist - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/micronation-stamps <comment><USER2> I'm a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to stamp collecting, and only like the pre-WW2 ones when stamps were lovingly engraved.

After the war post offices realized they could sell stamps to collectors who wanted "uncancelled" stamps, meaning they were pure profit for the P.O. Stamps were sold from the P.O. directly to collectors who never used them for postage. Hence, the variety of stamps exploded, and the designs were cheaply done. In my not so humble opinion, they wrecked the hobby with this, and it shows in that stamps printed after WW2 have little to no collector value.

The same thing happened to coin collecting. For example, a US mint collector set from the 1970s is worth its metal value today. They look nice, but that's it.

<comment><USER3> Then there's people like me helping that problem by buying MNH stamps for 50-60% of face value and using them as postage.

Yes, my packages are covered in stamps, but I like working with the numbers.

The clerks at the PO must hate me, but I see it like using a gift card that was bought 10 years ago.

<comment><USER2> I surprised people sell them at lower than face value? I suppose they never mail anything anymore?

<comment><USER3> Not enough I guess. Even then, a lot of big sellers get a discount from Canada Post, so often not worth it for them to deal with stamps.

And our domestic shipping is kinda expensive: often cheaper to buy internationally...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> c-smile USSR' stamps should be there too I think.

Hacker News special: [https://terrainformatica.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/10/Stam...](https://terrainformatica.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/10/Stamp_Soviet_Union_1977_CPA4778.jpg)

This is the stamp featuring first (AFAIK) optical character recognition state wide implemented service - USSR's automatic postal cards and letters sorting by indexes.

</comment><comment><USER4> Also, you have countries that do not exist anymore; Norwegian author Bjørn Berge published a book (Since translated into English with the title 'Nowherelands') in which he briefly sketches the circumstances that brought countries like Tripolitania, Heligoland and Batum into - and out of - existence, accompanied by a selection of stamps from said countries. It made for quite interesting reading for me, who've always been a geography geek.

</comment><comment><USER5> Different, but somehow related, in the '90's in Italy there was a funny attempt to send letters via the mail with fake (completely invented) stamps, hand drawn, and satyrical, by three friends, the stamps were hand-drawn but passed just fine the checks (Italian, but not too bad with an online translator):

[https://corrieredelmezzogiorno.corriere.it/napoli/notizie/ar...](https://corrieredelmezzogiorno.corriere.it/napoli/notizie/arte_e_cultura/2011/7-dicembre-2011/grande- beffa-francobolli-finti-1902451148257.shtml)

<comment><USER6> Somewhat similar I remember various discussions/articles on various BBS and even sites like the former TOTSE.com (Temple Of The Screaming Electron, now redirects to a mirror [https://totseans.com/](https://totseans.com/)) that instructed people on how to attempt to reuse actual postage stamps.

It generally involved coating them with a common substance so that your recipient could remove the ink easily with others discussing solvent concoctions telling you how to remove ink on stamps you received.

Also I recall various posts telling you different ways you could defraud vending machines that had different levels of anti-theft devices. Some involved using washers a comparable weight and dimensions of coins that were cheaper than the coins, some involved building tape structures on paper currency and feeding it into the machine and knowing the precise time to begin pulling it back out with just the right amount of force to get the machine to accept the bill but still retrieve it.

Then of course all of the different phreaking boxes, some of which worked and some of which were pure fantasy.

While I appreciate this sort of thing at a hacking level "I wonder if I can do this", it always amazes me when people that would never steal from a store or a person are quick to try activities like stamp fraud, unlicensed violation of radio spectrum, system penetration/data theft, ripping off vending machines and payphones etc.

Mind you in my youth in the 1990's I tried lots of these things too.

<comment><USER7> > coating them with a common substance

Covering stamps in clear glue so that your correspondent could remove the cancelling stamp when steaming them off the envelope for eventual re-use was something that was commonly discussed during the heyday of the zine scene in the 1990s. Now postage has become so obscenely expensive again for anything beyond a letter that maybe I should get back into the glueing trade... :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The wonderful Robert Arthur short story "The Marvelous Stamps from El Dorado" is a great take on this theme.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly no mention of the diskworld stamps:

[https://www.discworldemporium.com/46-stamp-collecting-for- be...](https://www.discworldemporium.com/46-stamp-collecting-for-beginners)

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Discworld Stamps are not stamped?

The article features stamps that have been stamped by imaginary countries. This might make a difference to stamp collectors, I believe.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure but I think they have also special editions that are franked.

<comment><USER9> [https://picclick.co.uk/Lot-of-30-Franked-Discworld-Stamps- En...](https://picclick.co.uk/Lot-of-30-Franked-Discworld-Stamps- Envelope-124016421207.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> No an ex country; but I found this episode from 99% invisible about the Great bitter Lake Association (And it's stamps!) rather entertaining:

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-bitter-lake- ass...](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-bitter-lake-association/)

Disclaimer: I found it here in HN a while ago.

</comment><comment><USER11> Should append "anymore" to the title

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. I happen to have some Siamese and pre-partition Indian stamps and coins. I didn't think there was really a market for these anymore.

</comment><comment><USER13> The whole premise of Tuva or Bust! stems from a young Richard Feynman falling in love with the stamps from the short-lived country of Tannu Tuva.

</comment><comment><USER14> Gotta stop borrowing postagr from Jorge Luis Borges. My mail keeps getting returned.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the most valuable lesson you have learned in your journey? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Sharing all your learnings and not being afraid to not not something or be wrong. I think that plus ability to focus on creating over consuming have been the most beneficial lessons I learned.

I try to systemize my learnings in form of rules that I iterate on as I progress in life. Helps me be more clear. Plus I like building systems.

[https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/focusing/rules](https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/focusing/rules)</comment>


Stop Giving Out Your Phone and Email - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/stop-giving-out-your-phone-number-and-email-de39aed654e3 <comment><AUTHOR> We Need Apple Pay for Contact Info</comment>


Getting any Facebook user's friend list and partial payment card details - <AUTHOR> https://www.josipfranjkovic.com/blog/facebook-friendlist-paymentcard-leak <comment><USER2> Important last-line: "It took Facebook's team 4 hours and 13 minutes to fix the issue - the fastest report-to-fix for me."

<comment><USER3> That's because you should never have first 6 and last 4 in the same place at the same time, particularly to someone who is not the owner of the card!

That leaves only 6 digits to guess to obtain a valid card, and you're given the check digit to limit the search further.

<comment><USER4> First six and last four are the limits for display set out by the PCI Security Standards Council. The things you should never store _with_ the PAN are the PIN/PIN block or CVC/CVV.

[https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/pci_fs_data_storag...](https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/pci_fs_data_storage.pdf)

<comment><USER5> How does that work? If you can't store the CVC/CVV, how come I don't have to re-enter it when I re-order form say Amazon or Foodora? Or maybe I do have to enter it? Don't remember :|

<comment><USER6> Most MSP (merchant service provider) gives you control over the details you personally want to capture to verify someone. The minimum and most insecure is simply approving card based on valid number! (Not even expiration date). Then you can enable EXP, CVV and AV (address verification). Fun tip about AV: your adres doesnt matter. There is so many spellings of "oak harbour drive apartment 2" that industry pretty much gave up on some smart AI knowing them all, it and only verifies the zip code (typical gas station card usage for credit cards: verification is your zip code)

<comment><USER7> Address line 1 in AVS is still used, however, only the numeric portion of the address is checked. The AVS results will generally tell you the individual match results for the address line and the postal code, so you can have a full match or a partial match. Most merchants will allow you through with a partial match.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wait, why would facebook have CC info? I have never paid facebook for anything (except in terms of ad views), and I'm not even sure what I could pay them for? Posting ads I guess? But that's gonna be not a lot of people.

So if somehow their graph api has pulled up my credit card number into their database, _that 's_ the disturbing thing...

<comment><USER9> > Posting ads

Advertisement is Facebook's #1 revenue model, its literally _why_ they exist. I wish everyone who's used FB would sign up for a business page and place an ad; it's illuminating to see just how detailed their tools are.

Same with Google PPC and Bing etc etc.

I shudder to think at just how detailed the profiles are that FB, AMZN et al keep on each of its users.

<comment><USER10> > Advertisement is Facebook's #1 revenue model, its literally why they exist.

It's how they exist, not why.

I do agree that their data collection is very creepy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder what the `CSPlaygroundGraphQLFriendsQuery` query is meant for. It sounds like some testing/development thing.

<comment><USER12> `CS` in this context stands for ComponentScript. It appears to have something to do with React Native.

`CSPlaygroundGraphQLFriendsQuery` is a demonstration for Facebook engineers internally to show how to display a list of "oneself's friends with auto- pagination" using GraphQL and ComponentScript inside their Facebook main app

P.S. I don't work at Facebook. But this is something I stumbled across their app.

<comment><USER11> Like the demo was released and accessible in the app? Or did you see it in the RN JS code?

<comment><USER12> The demo is included as part of their main app (even in production) (at least in Facebook for Android), and was supposedly only accessible by Facebook engineers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What bounty did he receive for filing this?

</comment><comment><USER14> I thought Facebook considered the Friends list to be public? They removed the ability to hide the list years ago.

<comment><USER15> No, I can still hide my friend's list. Settings > Privacy > "Who can see your friends list?"</comment></comment>


Magnetic Fluid Pump With No Moving Parts - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedebate.com/science-blog/magnetic-fluid-pump-no-moving-parts-pumping-ferrofluids-no-machinery

<comment><USER2> That should be 'magnetic ferro-fluid pump without moving parts'.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few years ago, I saw an article about a steam-injection-driven water pump. Haven't seen anything further, and the prototype scale was too small, but it made me think e.g. of the oil and gas industry. For example, drilled tar sands oil production already needs steam; driving the required pumps with it might be a good use depending upon efficiency and durability.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I explain a resume gap after taking a sabbatical? - <AUTHOR> I've been off work for a year, and been doing minor projects/freelancing for some small companies as I backpack and travel around Asia.
Recently, I've been trying to find remote gigs/office jobs, and I've gotten feedback that my resume gap is troublesome.
I pass tech interviews, and I've gotten an offer or two that I declined due to not meeting salary/lifestyle requirements (but now looking back maybe I should've taken them.)
Should I just add a few projects I did on my resume? They're really minor and involve basic Windows sysadmin stuff that can be done in a week or two.
Or, alternatively, how do I re-word it so it doesn't seem like I'm desperate? I've had recruiters from the typical bucketshops of Apex, Cybercoders and misc say "you're a good candidate but that gap is troublesome" in not so nice words. <comment><USER2> It's easy for people to criticize. Ignore them. Recruiters want easy wins so they can get paid.

There will always be people who are negative about X, Y or Z. Find your own way. If you start believing them that is trouble because it'll come across in any interview.

Be proud of the time you took out to travel around Asia. "I had a fantastic time, learning about new cultures, broadening my mind, meeting new people from all over" etc. On top of that you were resourceful enough to pick up projects/freelance work over that period. Many people will be jealous of this. Speak to this part of them.

Not sure if you had prior experience or just graduated. Either way I would put it on your resume along with your travel. Something like:

2017 - Travel around Asia while freelancing. Here's a list of freelance projects I worked on: \- Sysadmin running servers.

2014-2016 - Software engineer, Midwest city - Regular software job

<comment><USER2> People who don't understand why you took time out to travel around Asia, are people you probably don't want to work with. Think of it as a culture litmus test.

If you're back and not currently working, you could pick up freelance work or work on your own project or open source. This will give you something to talk about when talking to recruiters. i.e. What are you doing now? "I take freelance work and am also working on this great project which does X, Y, Z".

Also believe in yourself. You are valuable. When speaking to potential companies interview them to see if there's a fit. Be like I am really looking for the right opportunity and X, Y, Z. I'm not willing to jump on anything....(even if it is not the case, play hard to get. People want things that are hard to get.... not things that come easily)

<comment><USER3> This is very true!

When you start interviewing you'll see plenty of recruiters who think it's awesome what you did and will want to know all about it And you'll meet those who look down on it for some weird reason ("what do you mean you want to be free/control your own life?").

But the inspired ones will help you all they can to see if you and the company are a match. The best recruiters (IMO) are your temporary & one-shot career counselors: if they're empathetic and highly intelligent, then they are information highways between you and the prospect employer. You all have only to win in a situation like that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Put it in your resume, include detail about everything you did.

Don't listen too hard to recruiters, when I got back I started wondering if it was an issue, and then something came along.

(That feeling of "will I work again" seems to happen every time I'm between contracts, after the first month or so).

Here's the section of my C.V. from when I went travelling + coding my own projects:

Dec 2014 – Jan 2016 Travelling + Open Source

Audiovisual work and creative coding - many improvements on the creative coding environment Shoebot.

Prototypes built included a midi mapper, music visualisers and simple VJ tools, culminating in using them to VJ for a band in Taipei.

Submitted fixes to OpenGL/Shader tutorials as I completed them. Implemented Vext to make it easier to use graphic and gui packages with virtualenv such as Panda3D, Gtk and Qt, it broke 100 downloads within 3 months of being uploaded to Pypi.

</comment><comment><USER5> Companies are looking for energy and experience, but by time with experience the energy goes down, basically you start to -at least slowly- burn out. So... after a sabbatical, you supposedly full with energy and a motivation to work better. And you have the skills and the experience.

If a company only cares of the lines written on the resume, it doesn't really matter you filled it or answered really good in the interview, there will be problems later on.

But if a company knows, it's not just sum of the parts but as a whole who you're and how you approach life and work is that all matters, then there will be no problem telling what you did in these times.

You don't have to go to Asia... maybe you just want to focus on some other stuff or have some time off. But also you went to Asia, so you use this time for yourself, in a way you thought would be better for you. I think this is very important aspect of a professional. If you don't know how to allocate your time and energy, you're not efficient.

You did something most people even can not dare to think of doing it. Don't try to please people, be yourself and this way you will eliminate all the pretentious people/companies and will find a better match for you. Don't settle for what people say to you, just because they can't do it.

</comment><comment><USER6> When bucket-shop recruiters criticize your resume, remember that they don't know crap about doing the work. They are just salescritters trying to sell you, and they don't know how to fit you into one of the boxes that they've got on a shelf.

As a hiring manager, I've stopped talking to bucketshops entirely. They may have a bunch of names, but they add zero value beyond that, and are certainly not worth the fee.

By all means, list the travel on your resume, list the small projects you've done.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would put Freelance / Travel Sabbatical as a "job" and then list some highlights of your learning / experience from them if you've also done that for the other jobs you listed.

</comment><comment><USER8> You are wasting your time with Cybercoders anyway. No quality hiring manager will give them the time of day, let alone hire them to get candidates for their company. They are literally the sleazy used car version of a recruiter and I wouldn't take their advice on anything.

Send me your resume (see profile) and I'll be happy to see what I can do to help!

</comment><comment><USER9> "I took a sabbatical." would seem like a good place to start and finish.

<comment><USER10> Agreed.

"1 year sabbatical, backpacked around Asia."

If I saw that on a resume I'd think it was awesome. (...and I've hired dozens of people).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > "you're a good candidate but that gap is troublesome. Only two weeks after > finishing an elite school you went straight to a corporate 9 to 5 job and > never demonstrated any personal initiative, ability to take risks or minimal > desire to understand the world around you"

There, fixed it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Instead of worrying about it, why not turn it into a strength?

Do you have any pictures or journals from your travels? If so, build out a long-form article or better yet a small site. Explore why you went and what you learned, how the experience changed you, etc etc. You can reference this new destination on your resume rather than leaving a blank spot.

<comment><USER13> And if related your job, make the site yourself so you have a technical project to show... put the code on github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes, it is good idea to add those small projects. More relevant they are to the job. More points for you. By not adding those. People reading your resume will wonder what you have been doing in this period?

You can also add some of your personal or side projects as well.

The idea is to show them that you were somehow active during this period, either by doing small gigs, or by doing your own stuff or even by reading books or taking online courses.

I will highly recommend you read these guides

[http://www.codespaghetti.com/cv-tips](http://www.codespaghetti.com/cv-tips) [http://www.codespaghetti.com/interview- success](http://www.codespaghetti.com/interview-success)

I really hop you will be able to find the kind of job you are looking for.

</comment><comment><USER15> I only took 5 months off, so it doesn't look as "bad" as yours, but I found spinning it as self-learning worked as a positive for me.

So in the interview (I only did one…) I talked about how I wanted to take a break to try new styles of software dev and learn things that you don't often learn in corporate environments to be a better dev etc. If your potential employer cares about "passion" (shudder) you can spin it pretty well, because you're clearly so passionate about software dev you want to forgo salary so you can concentrate on being a better dev.

FWIW while I did do a bunch of things like that (learnt clojure!), I also spent nearly a month watching YouTube 8hrs a day… you just fail to mention that bit in interviews ;-)

</comment><comment><USER16> If your less than 30 simply state you wanted to get your travel itch scratched before you make plans to settle down.

</comment><comment><USER17> The culture of being "employable" and fitting a certain mold is an enslavement strategy by a subset of the corporate world.

Unless you are poverty stricken, would you really want a role that says "Only willing drones wanted"?

Yes, being smart and getting things done is important. I have no idea how this correlates with a polished "employee" image.

</comment><comment><USER18> They're just jealous you've done that ;) Be proud of your sabbatical. I'm planning on doing similar.

</comment><comment><USER19> I did something similar twice. Once when I was younger where I traveled and lived in China and only did a little English teaching. And again 5 years ago, I took math classes in a new city where I moved to for my wife's job until her position was more certain and then I got regular employment.

I've changed jobs and interviewed some afterwards: some employers make a big deal (negative) about these gaps. While others seem mildly impressed that I did something somewhat different. They tend to pay less attention now that a few years have passed. I think it is also because such gaps are more common these days and because losing employees to other companies is probably bigger problem than sabbaticals.

</comment><comment><USER20> Talk about your passions and what you did to stay busy. Tell recruiters and interviewers about your passion to stay busy while traveling and how you didn't bulk at the chance to take a risk.

Be prepared to discuss any issues that arrose at your last job that encouraged you to take the time away.

Hopefully you have a positive reference or two from your freelance work or prior jobs.

A year of travel is an understandable and common activity in our field. A company who understands this is also a company that might understand when you need personal time down the road.

</comment><comment><USER21> You have been 'busy' all this while( even if it's a sabbatical). That's important, that is what you need to project to your potential companies on your application.

Create a personal website(if you don't have one) and put up your personal projects that project you in a positive light. Github is also great.

When a company receives a resume, there's no way to quantify and judge what the candidate has done in the past year. Give them something to think about.

I have marked Cybercoders as spam and you should too. They lazily bombard you with irrelevant jobs. There are other tech recruiting firms(Bay Area and LA) that have better reach and more understanding of candidates profiles. LinkedIn is great for networking and reaching out to recruiters and seeking out referrals.

Mark up your sabbatical period on your resume. Write in there "Traveled the world exploring new cultures, worked on personal projects, taught myself new skills to grow forward." Mention a supporting online link in this section. Nothing to hide here IMO

On your website, you can write down experiences you gained in detail, while working on your open source projects, what you learnt. This is a huge plus. Many candidates send in resumes without a proof of their past projects. You already got this, try to work it into an interview call + offer.

</comment><comment> d--b This is bullshit.

If it's a problem that you may put your life before your career, then you don't want work for them.

We need to change that culture little by little.

Here's what I would say: "This gap is troublesome to you? FUCK. YOU. I had some money aside and decided to take it easy for once, and not rush back to the petty corporate word where people roll their eyes when I take 3 weeks for Christmas. If you can't fathom that, I'm going to get my skills elsewhere."

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this a US thing?

Did this and found a remote job no problem here in Germany.

<comment><USER23> Where did you look for European remote work ?

<comment><USER22> I found my job 2015 at a startup in Frankfurt via AngelList. (I'm living in Stuttgart)

<comment><USER24> I found my job in Cologne. The language of my office is English. Did you have to know German for your job?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I'm hiring, I don't care about gaps - provided you've done something productive with yourself. _Unexplained_ gaps (or just stating "sabbatical" / "unemployed") are a red flag.

List it like a job, what you've done and achieved. How does that break make you different to the others?

All else being equal, I'd hire the one who's took a break from their environment, learned new cultures, and made the most of live.

<comment><USER25> Just out of interest, why is an unexplained gap a "red flag"? A red flag for what exactly?

The chances that someone working for 10 years non-stop needs a break and might be burnt out, is higher than someone who worked for 10 years, had a break, and is now looking for work again.

<comment><USER26> > Just out of interest, why is an unexplained gap a "red flag"? A red flag for > what exactly?

A red flag that work and being productive is not your top life priority. Obviously, an employer would prefer to only hire people obsessed about work if possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You should add the projects in your resume. It will people understand that you were still doing some work, during your gap.

</comment><comment><USER28> While reviewing CVs I would love to see "Took some time to travel through Asia", followed by a few lines amongst which was written "Helped small business in <some city in China> to improve their system administration".

And that would definitely lead to a interesting conversation while interviewing :)

But ofcourse, that could just be me.

</comment><comment><USER29> The key is to be open and transparent about what you did. One major reason that companies are rationally worried about resume gaps is that gaps could mean anything - for all they know you were running a criminal enterprise or locked up in a mental institution. It could also mean that you couldn't find a job for other reasons that may no longer be documented - there are things that wouldn't show up in your background search after a period of time for instance. Continuous employment history isn't desirable because it's important that you were always working, but because it is verifiable in a way that rules out certain possibilities. Other than explaining your situation in a transparent way that soothes these fears, if you worked for or with others on some projects during this time, you could offer them as extra references.

</comment><comment><USER30> Say you took a sabbatical? Lots of people take sabbaticals. I'm surprised anyone has cared. I'd maybe explicitly put "sabbatical" on your resume so people know it was on purpose rather than that time being due to being unwillingly unemployed.

</comment><comment><USER31> When reviewing a candidate, I don't think I've ever focused on the work timeline and making it complete. What matters to me is that you have experience in the thing I need help in. Everything else is a bonus. I would be asking about the things on the resume and trying to get more detail which would help me understand how much actual experience you have.

A recruiter's prime objective is to spend the least amount of time to get the person the highest paid job. That's how they get paid. I'm actually very annoyed that companies use recruiting firms so much, they are terrible and don't actually get you good candidates, just qualified candidates.

</comment><comment><USER32> I just went through a similar experience after a 2 year gap traveling Asia and Australia. Are you looking for work in the USA?

My experience in interviews in Europe is that employers were genuinely interested in my time abroad and wanted to learn about my experiences. I am applying for jobs in Europe where a gap year is much more common. If recruiters are telling you the sabbatical is a problem they are not connecting you with the right employers. Every person I've talked to entering the job market after a year traveling did not have difficulties with the sabbatical as long as you can sell it that you were not partying the whole time. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER33> Expressing what you did during your break without discomfort would demonstrate a confidence in your skillset.

A person like that comes out as someone who knows what he knows. and hence can take risks.

on the downside, most HR folks never get this. so sending resume/CV has lower chances of conversion.

A better way I have found is to go referral way. Find people or network with people in space and get referrals. Have them connect me directly with hiring manager. This opens up channel for discussion.

All the best. Hang in there!

</comment><comment><USER34> What's to explain?

</comment><comment><USER35> It's BS that this is a problem.

I have various breaks in my resume, including for layoffs, working on my own things etc.

Just have a reasonable narrative and you'll be fine.

</comment><comment><USER36> "I took a sabbatical". If the company has a problem with that they are not a good place to work anyway.

Given that, looking for jobs sucks, a couple of rejections can easily make people feel really down. So after some failed attempts I know it's hard to keep the mindset that you are also interviewing the companies, but do try to keep in mind that you deserve a good work environment!

</comment><comment><USER37> Fill the time honestly with what you were doing and how it made you a better person. It will make you stand out from the crowd and show a depth of character and introspection that some employers will appreciate.

Move on from the recruiters that want to churn you out. Find some other options with solo recruiters or go at the companies you're interested in yourself.

</comment><comment><USER38> Yes, put the projects on there. It shows that you are self-disciplined enough to complete things even when not in a regular job.

</comment><comment><USER39> The _gap on the resume_ is troubling because they don't know what you did during that time, so fill the gap. I would go with a combination of suggestions here.

"While on sabbatical to fulfill my dream of backpacking around Asia, I helped cover expenses by taking on small projects of limited scope, such as... "

</comment><comment><USER40> You don't even need to mention that you did small gigs. Just say you took the year off to travel.

From the recruiters POV, that should be sufficient. The only concern would be that you might want to do that again in the next couple of years, so assure them that this is not the case.

</comment><comment><USER41> Two questions: for any job with exceptional responsibility or skill required, has there ever been a candidate with a resume gap where the story behind it did not make them more interesting?

When you see a gap, what do you really think happened in it and what does it signify or mean?

</comment><comment><USER42> Ignore recruiters, There is nothing wrong with listing a one year sabbatical in your resume.

</comment><comment><USER43> Just say you were an independent consultant, and list a couple of those projects. Fluff it up a bit "network and server administration for small businesses..." It's pretty easy to talk around this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER44> So weird. I did this last year and people had nothing but great things to say about taking a sabbatical. Maybe the problem is you're going through the big enterprisey recruiter shops.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd avoid talking about your backpacking and instead talk about it as "got involved in the asian startup scene, offering my sysadmin services to foreign companies"

</comment><comment><USER46> Just say you freelanced during that period. You can come up with a few projects to list during that period.

</comment><comment><USER47> Fill gap with "consulting" and list impactful projects to demonstrate your expertise.

</comment><comment><USER48> Do you want to work for a place that would discount you because you took a sabbatical?

</comment><comment><USER49> Out of curiosity how much experience did you have before the sabbatical?

If companies are actually filtering based on a year off (what recruiters say definitely deserves a filter), that seems like it could be super troublesome if not legally, then ethically for sure. That's a filter that many parents would become trapped in.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm a rockstar ninja was in a cast and attending rehab.

</comment><comment><USER51> "I took a sabbatical to backpack around Asia."

</comment><comment><USER52> Lie, you owe HR and Recruiter-reps nothing.

</comment><comment><USER53> list yourself as a consultant for the time you took off.

</comment><comment><USER54> Mar 2017 - Feb 2018

RootSudo Ltd

Chief Architect

Blah blah

</comment><comment><USER55> Lie and say you went travelling in Asia. That's what I did.

</comment><comment><USER56> Its a red flag. If you are capable of taking of for an year, whats stopping you from taking off again. No one wants to hire someone who will leave after sometime. And there are probably other hires who dont have this red flag.

<comment><USER57> If you have more than one employer listed on your resume, what's stopping you from quitting the company that might hire you? No one wants to hire someone who will leave after some time for a new job.

<comment> V-2 It's not a good analogy the way you put it, because having more than one employer in and of itself is so very common that it's hard to be biased against it.

 _However_ a dinstinctly high frequency of changing jobs, say in the 90th percentile among candidates (and how many people take sabbaticals?), now that could be a red flag already. And for exactly that reason - it implies the candidate is _relatively_ likely to jump teams again.

Hence it is not absurd to assume quite a few employers would prefer someone who worked at 2 places throughout the past few years over someone who worked at 5 - all other things being equal, obviously.

I am not arguing whether it's right or justified - or to what extent. That's another story.

<comment><USER58> > It's not a good analogy the way you put it, because having more than one > employer in and of itself is so very common that it's hard to be biased > against it.

Your parent compared one (1) gap year in a resume being a red flag for the explicit reason that they might leave again, to someone else having switched employers _atleast_ once, for the exact same reason given by GP.

It's a totally apt analogy. Leaving is leaving.

Your further reasoning doesn't change this analogy. Many employment changes in a resume is no different to many gap years, in regards to the initially stated premise.

<comment> V-2 I disagree. Taking a gap year is a bigger career disruption than simply changing employers. It's not by coincidence that one is much more common than the other.

The willingness to do former indicates lesser degree of dependence (or sense of dependence) on an ongoing employment than mere willingness to trade one job for another. That's why the "leaving is leaving" line of argument doesn't speak to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stuxnet Virus Weapon Now Being Sold On The Black Market - <AUTHOR> http://cyberkooltour.blogspot.com/2011/06/stuxnet-israeli-state-computer-virus.html

<comment><USER2> Watch these in this order:

<http://vimeo.com/25118844> \- brief overview great animation

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS01Hmjv1pQ> \- ted talk on stux

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOwMW6agpTI&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOwMW6agpTI&feature=youtu.be) detailed analysis of stuxnet

the last one is long and Bruce appears to be an arrogant prick, but it is clear - cyber war has been here for a while.</comment>


MPC-HC: Call for developers - <AUTHOR> http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1799806#post1799806 <comment><AUTHOR> >MPC-HC status and the future

>As you may have noticed there was not much traction in the MPC-HC project in the recent months. We do apologize if you felt bad about that. Unfortunately, we were not able to provide as much development time as MPC-HC deserves. We believe MPC-HC is a very capable player and we want to keep it rocking for much more years to come. Sadly, currently, we don't really have the manpower to do so. But this does not mean we want to give up here. We consider this release as a new starting point and hopefully, we will slowly but steadily make MPC-HC great again.

>If you care about MPC-HC's future, please contact us. Report issues that you want to be worked on and most importantly send patches if you can; even small changes help us move forward.</comment>


100% JavaScript-Free - <AUTHOR> https://www.swiftbysundell.com/special/javascript-free/ <comment><USER2> Sundell's site is faster than any other tech blog I know. The lack of JS bloat is a huge bonus.

I hope this is a trend that continues.

99% of the time, you really, actually, don't need JS.</comment>


Chrome World Wide Maze - <AUTHOR> http://chrome.com/maze/ <comment><USER2> I think this is the first time I've been genuinely impressed with a Chrome Experiment.

They've recreated Super Monkey Ball entirely inside the browser, with the option of using a device as a controller. Certainly an interesting concept for multiplayer gaming, imagine Chrome running on a Smart TV(Chrome OS TV?) and a couple of friends can hook up their mobiles as controllers, and play some casual party style games like Monkey Ball or Mario Party.

<comment><USER3> Yes, that's what I've been dreaming of ever since I first saw a smartphone. I'm very surprised it isn't as obvious to other people how cool it would be. The smartphone is the perfect game controller.

For example a strategy game played on a TV together with friends where each phone is not only used for controls but also showing (private) game data and more!

<comment><USER4> No, it's not a perfect game controller. A convenient one maybe, but not perfect, not even good.

It has the same problem that you would encounter if you tried touch typing on an iphone keyboard. It has no physical feedback so you have no idea if you are pressing the correct button (or any button at all) on the phone screen unless you are actually looking at it. Which means you won't be able to look at the TV screen at the same time.

<comment><USER5> Don't you think the reality is some middle ground? It's a perfect game controller _for some games_.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, you're right. I was thinking in terms of a traditional console game controller. A phone has other features that could be used like speakers, microphone, accelerometer, etc. As a motion device it would be great, definitely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reason this is so impressive is that it brings together three technologies that people aren't used to even seeing _one_ good implementation of yet:

      * HTML5 accelerometer support
      * Sync between mobile/desktop using websockets
      * Web page slicing based (by the look of it) on DOM and image processing

…and of course this is in a nice responsive WebGL-rendered package, which people _are_ getting more used to thanks to the <http://www.chromeexperiments.com/> project.

<comment><USER7> It also uses

* Battery

Lot's of it on my iPhone. But it's worth it :-)

<comment><USER8> You know, that one also has yet to be seen with a good implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Works on Chrome only. Reminds me of the good old "Best Viewed in Internet Explorer (click here to download)" days.

<comment><USER10> It's an "experiment", which means it could be using some of the latest and cutting edge HTML5 specs. Chrome happens to be very good at supporting the latest specs. It's significantly more ahead than Firefox, and it's way, way, _way_ ahead even than the latest version of IE.

So if an "experiment" meant to use the latest technologies happens to "only work in Chrome", don't blame Chrome for implementing the specs much faster than anyone else, and then developers taking advantage of them. Blame IE and others for not implementing HTML5 specs fast enough.

Unlike in the IE6 age where Microsoft did _not_ follow the HTML standards, and made up their own new technologies, other browsers couldn't have implemented them even if they wanted to. In this case, if IE can't play this experiment, it just means it will be able to play it after one or two other major releases, once they get off their asses and get around to supporting the specs Chrome is support today. It doesn't mean they will never be able to support them (again, unlike with IE's tech in the "IE6 age").

<comment><USER11> > It's an "experiment", which means it could be using some of the latest and > cutting edge HTML5 specs.

That's fair.

> Chrome happens to be very good at supporting the latest specs. It's > significantly more ahead than Firefox, and it's way, way, way ahead even > than the latest version of IE.

That's not accurate. Chrome is ahead in some areas, but behind in others.

But the bigger point is that the site says

> "We're sorry, but World Wide Maze is an experiment that was designed with > the browser Google Chrome in mind."

If it said "with modern HTML5 in mind", that would be fine. But it says it was designed for Chrome, not for standards.

<comment><USER12> >Chrome is ahead in some areas, but behind in others.

Correct, but as a whole, it's _significantly more ahead than Firefox, and it's way, way, way ahead than even the latest version of IE._ What you said doesn't contradict that point.

<comment><USER11> I don't agree that it is "significantly more ahead than Firefox" - can you back that up? There is a long list of features that each of those browsers has, that the other does not.

As for IE, I don't run Windows, so I know less about it.

<comment><USER13> Firefox:

* No CSS shaders

* CSS 3D is still very buggy (<http://acko.net/#force3d>) despite the support being over a year old now. Also renders without anti-aliasing, which makes it really ugly.

* Both Firebug and the built-in inspector seriously lack compared to Chrome's dev tools which has a per-frame timeline, profiler, etc. Instead they added the rather pointless 3D tilt view of the DOM which doesn't show you the actual DOM layers (unlike this 5 minute CSS 3D hack: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-oQj9Y9I6I>) and hence is just a misleading gimmick.

* No in-browser code editing/saving

* No Web Audio API

* No desktop notifications

* No MP3, no AAC, no H.264 support (on OSX anyway), the three most common audio and video codecs.

* No date/time picker, no color picker, no number range field

Yeah, I know there are reasons behind this, but still, the picture is heavily skewed in Chrome's favor

As for IE... CSS 3D support is incomplete (no nesting), its dev tools are pretty crap, and they seem to be actively ignoring standards like WebGL and pushing their own spec for WebRTC.

<comment><USER11> Those are indeed features that are missing from Firefox, yes. Although several are already there in nightly builds (WebAudio, number range, for example).

As I said earlier, it is easy to compile such a list from the other direction, stuff Chrome is missing. A few off the top of my head:

* A wide range of ES6 features, see <http://kangax.github.com/es5-compat-table/es6/>

* Proper fullscreen mode (resized)

* OPUS codec

* Microdata

* Scoped style

* asm.js

* etc.

All those are in Firefox.

Again, both Firefox and Chrome are ahead of each other in various ways. Deciding which is "overall" more ahead means which features you care about - do you care more about JS language features or HTML forms? WebAudio or Opus? etc. There is no clear winner.

<comment><USER14> * asm.js is not a standard and was only announced 2 weeks ago. Hardly a fair comparison.

* ES6 features? All disabled on FF19.

* OPUS codec? Who uses that? Which codecs to support is not part of any standard. Browsers are free to support what they want. But at the same time, not being able to play the most common audio and video formats seems like a far bigger issue.

* What's "proper fullscreen mode?"

<comment><USER11> asm.js is not a standard, but neither are various things on html5test. I agree it and those other things are less important though.

Not all ES6 features are disabled? For example WeakMap.

OPUS would be used by more people if more browsers than Firefox supported it ;)

Proper fullscreen mode is fullscreen where the element has the right css, that makes it fill the screen as per the spec. Chrome does not do that yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What is it?

For me only a loading screen is shown.

Update: Found a video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AvTl9aU5D8>

<comment><USER16> I'm having the same issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Playing <http://theverge.com> with my Android phone - the final path just before the end of the level reads "Why Andy Rubin and Android called it quits".

</comment><comment><USER18> I see no reason why this should be a Chrome exclusive in PC only mode. Firefox supports WebGl.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're technically right (and I found it annoying too) - but it is a "Chrome" expriment... naturally it would only support Chrome.

<comment><USER19> Why "naturally", if other browsers also implement the relevant technologies?

<comment><AUTHOR> They create those demos to attract users to their browser - kind of defeats the purpose if you can run it using any browser. I actually downloaded mobile chrome on to run this - I usually run Firefox.

<comment><USER19> If your purpose is to attract users rather than advance the web, sure.

But they _claim_ that the purpose of these demos is to advance the web.

That's not to mention that claims like "only works in Chrome" when in fact it works elsewhere happen to be lies. I guess no one worries about that sort of thing nowadays...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Holy shit this is absolutely incredible. My mind has been blown.

</comment><comment><USER21> The first thing that showed up when I visited this page (in Chrome, no less):

"This page is in Spanish; would you like to translate it?"

Other than that, it seems to be just stuck on the loading screen.

<comment> k-mcgrady I got the translation suggestion too (no idea why). The load time took about 45 seconds for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So that's what the Google Reader team is working on now!

</comment><comment><USER23> I would love to see some apps better integrated - basic stuff like calendar and todo (BTW check out <http://drive.google.com/keep> \- it's a rival to Evernote)

That was solved and properly done tens of years ago on the palm. Why can't I have something at least as good right into the browser, synced with my google account??

(Edit: not the wrong place since you already do your mail with a browser... and keep your contacts... and your todos... just remove the middleman, the website, and put everything in the browser. My guess is end users might love that)

<comment><USER24> Eventually every software evolves to include email natively.

<comment><USER25> Including Common Lisp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Chrome, bringing back the "best viewed with Internet Explorer" banners...

(and now the kids have no idea what i'm talking about :)

</comment><comment><USER27> Mindbending.

Sometimes you have to actually play with something to appreciate its potential.

</comment><comment><USER28> How do they get other web pages, given cross-domain constraints? Are they downloading the page on the server into a headless browser like Phantom JS, and then delivering the result to your browser to be manipulated using WebGL and Javascript?

I get that there are capabilities like drawWindow() to turn parts of the dom into raster images programmatically, but how doe they suck the web page into your browser in the first place, given cross domain constraints???

<comment><USER28> I actually think I got it, and it's less impressive than I thought. Check this Screenshot: <http://snapplr.com/hb27> ...they're essentially rendering the entire site in a headless browser like Phantom JS on their server and taking a screenshot (i.e. basic stuff any intermediate javascript developer can do).

Next, they're manipulating a basic image with WebGL, etc.

...So this is NOT impressive because they have lost the dom, unlike Firefox Tilt which maintains knowledge of the DOM the entire time--for example you can continue to edit the web page as you're playing around with the rendering in 3D space. With this you could not do that.

Tilt is a firefox addon, which must be where they get access other domains. Without being a firefox add on (or Chrome Extension), I was imagining this Maze experiment rendering the dom of another site in a headless browser on their server, and then delivering the resulting HTML to your page with all the absolute and relative URL paths of images and files adjusted so that they would render on another domain. And then at this point, the WebGL stuff could happen, manipulating an actual dom.

That all said, there are a few things that happen in the game that suggest knowledge of the dom, such as the way the make text have a 3D bubble cloud style. Maybe they are in fact doing some analysis in a headless browser, aside from just making a simple screenshot. They also break up logical portions of the page. So maybe the find the coordinates and dimensions of these logical portions and then in webgl crop the large image of the page at these exact coordinates.

I'm sure someone else has done a more thorough analysis. Would love to know what anyone else finds here to figure out how they're doing what they're doing.

<comment><USER29> How are they aware of the DOM level though? Certain elements pop out, are you suggesting they just use path mapping? It would be easier to, along with the screenshot, send the DOM tree hierarchy with some coordinates no? Still kind of impressive, but true it's no Tilt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What awkward emphasis put on syncing your phone with Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER31> Literally just read [http://www.fastcolabs.com/3007250/open- company/boxs-65-year-...](http://www.fastcolabs.com/3007250/open- company/boxs-65-year-old-android-engineer-gives-your-startup-some- unsentimental-advice#) from HN and saw mention of "Maze Wars" for the first time ever...Then an hour later, a Chrome Project with mobile controller pops up. I love the future.

</comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone know if the websocket connection goes through the internet, or if there's anyway it can shortloop to using LAN if both devices are on the same network?

I got disconnected twice within 1 minute, so I'm guessing the former... That, and I suppose unless you literally give it the internal IP of a device, it can't really make any assumptions (i.e. it's meant to work over internet too).

</comment><comment><USER33> Unbelievable, my eyeballs were bursting out of their sockets when I saw this... Thank you Google for showing the way!

</comment><comment><USER34> The connect doesn't work for me. I tried using the TabSync method and by typing the code manually. It just keep saying "please enter the 6-digit code".

Does this try to do a direct connection? In my network, that probably wouldn't work because of our firewall. Or it might if the port it listens on is high enough.

<comment><USER35> No, it does not. It appears to be going back through googles systems as the in between. I was able to play it and I know for certain my pc and tablet have no direct connectivity

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> For me, the Screen just flickers when I'm ingame and I get a huge headache :(

It does pick up on the smartphone movement on the minimap, but the ball wont move… I can jump tho.

Any ideas? (OSX 10.6.8, Chrome Version 25.0.1364.172 // iPhone 4 10.6.2, Chrome Version 25.0.1364.124)

</comment><comment><USER37> This is the most impressive "experiment" I have seen come out of Google in a long time. Hopefully others will start to take advantage of these new technologies and we will start seeing more things like this. +1 to Google. Pun intended.

</comment><comment><USER38> Okay so before I even got to the actual experiment I was impressed that the music on the page only plays while you are currently viewing the page, so if you are on another tab the music stops! I want to know how to just do that!

<comment><USER39> I haven't looked at the source code but according to [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/DOM/Using_the_Page_...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/DOM/Using_the_Page_Visibility_API), you can simply register a onblur / onfocus event handler on the window object (this doesn't use the recent Page Visibility API, it's been possible for a long time)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The basic control mechanism was also detailed at Google I/O 2012 in this session: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lMcNPDR6uw>

</comment><comment><USER41> It tells me to use chrome while I am on chrome...

</comment><comment><USER42> Wish I could see it. Way too many passwords hoops to jump through to get everything setup. The idea is cool though.

<comment><USER43> Huh? Chrome on Android will auto-login to your Google account.

<comment><USER29> Had to enter my password here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> My PC is not fast enough, the intro lags very badly. And I don't have a ICS phone, so no way to run chrome :(

</comment><comment><USER45> Doesn't seem to do anything with a Nexus 7. And it does have an accelerometer and gyroscope.

<comment><USER46> Just played it with a Nexus 7 (wifi via tab sync) and it worked just fine. The accelerometer was a little finicky though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Does nothing for me, just sits there loading in both Chrome 25.0.1364.172 and canary.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is awesome! now lets get some sweet Tux Racer or Mario Kart going! (please?)

<comment><USER35> That is a killer idea! This could totally be made multiplayer too..

<comment><USER48> less talky talky more coding, I will supply coffee

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Super awesome. If this is why Google did some spring cleaning, then am happy!

</comment><comment><USER50> A combination of marble blast and pacman, using websites as stages. Love it!

</comment><comment><USER51> Hm, my Galaxy SII isn't compatible with Google Chrome browser. Odd.

<comment><USER52> you need ICS for Chrome

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Is there any url we could use to share a specific website?

</comment><comment><USER54> crashed my entire PC on chrome, mint-linux 64bit

edit - likely a webgl problem that I've brought upon myself by disabling the gpu-blacklist

<comment><USER55> Working perfectly with Version 25.0.1364.160 Ubuntu 12.10 (25.0.1364.160-0ubuntu0.12.10.1)

<comment><USER56> but i got directed to this page: <http://chrome.com/maze/pc/not-supported/> on Ubuntu 12.10 Chrome Version 25.0.1364.172

<comment><USER57> It depends on your video card and drivers whether WebGL will be automatically enabled / supported. I had to go to chrome://flags and enable the

 _Override software rendering list Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Android Overrides the built-in software rendering list and enables GPU-acceleration on unsupported system configurations._

Option to get WebGL enabled by default

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Hacker news stage is way too easy

<comment><USER59> Nah, Google is just way OP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> This is pretty damn cool....

</comment><comment><USER61> amazing. just wow. i havent been more impressed in a long time.

</comment><comment><USER62> doesn't load on my machine.

</comment><comment><USER63> not supported</comment>


When kings and princes grow old - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/16588422?story_id=16588422&fsrc=scn/tw/te/rss/pe

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised that in this day and age there are still 'better' people, it's not like we don't know that this is a fiction.

In the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, England and a whole pile of other countries the royal families are pretty well entrenched. There is a whole media circus around them and there are still special laws on the books giving the royal people rights that ordinary people do not have.

The most heard argument against abolishing these institutions is that 'you need a head of state' and 'a president costs money too'. I'm not really sure what either has to do with creating and maintaining a special class of people, and I can't imagine a presidency to be as costly and as messy as what we have today.

Besides that, 'our' royal family isn't even Dutch, but hardly anybody seems to care, as long as the fairy tale is allowed to continue it's all good.

<comment><USER3> > In the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, England and a whole pile of other > countries the royal families are pretty well entrenched.

But in most of those places royalty is _at best_ the nominal chief executive, with few if any factual power.

<comment><USER4> They're not chief executives, not nominally, not actually. They're chairman of the board. The only power they have is firing the executives and approving the next one.

<comment><USER5> Those powers were stripped along with virtually all others from the Swedish monarchy in the 1974's reform of government, and now sits with the speaker. Our royal family isn't a lot more than a well payed magnets for tabloid journalists, so that our real civil-servants can get work done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's the biggest problem for classical monarchy - you want succession that's crystal clear to avoid fighting, but you also want at least a competent monarch. Those two goals are often at odds with each other - very clear succession rules with primogeniture (first born son takes over) often means you get a weaker monarch - someone like Puyi, the last Qing Dynasty Emperor, or Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last Tokugawa Shogun. Sometimes you wind up with a monarch who is mentally ill, that happened notably a few times in Roman history.

That's the biggest flaw with monarchy - succession is hard to get right. Historically speaking, competent and well-run monarchies outperform republics in almost all metrics except maybe military, but republics are insulated from having a long terrible reign of government by having a bad monarch. In a republic, usually you can get rid of a poor ruler within 10 years.

The most effective monarchy succession plan is probably having the current ruler groom his successor and retire or alternate - that happened during the height of Rome with emperors choosing and grooming their successor before retiring, and it happened in Heian Japan with two branches of the Emperor's family alternating duties as emperor and jointly choosing the order of alternating a number of years in advance. Unfortunately, this system seems to be unstable - eventually someone can't resist the temptation to put their own child in power, even if they're not fit to govern. Then you get the despotic monarch again, and all the problems that entails.

It's a hard problem to solve.

<comment><USER7> Not to challenge you, but what do you mean when you say " Historically speaking, competent and well-run monarchies outperform republics in almost all metrics except maybe military"? The United States seems to have done pretty well as a republic in terms of average quality of life and gross domestic product. While it hasn't controlled as much land as the largest Roman Empire, I'd think that it has done more per capita than any form of nation in history.

<comment><USER6> > "Historically speaking, competent and well-run monarchies outperform > republics in almost all metrics except maybe military"

Gosh, this is an incredibly long discussion and I don't know where to start. I tried writing a reply and I'm just not accurately capturing it - my ability to articulate all the history I've read in a short summary isn't so good. Let me try, though.

First, yes, the United States is amazing, it was the most well-designed republic in history during the early years. There's been times when republican government was suspended and dictator/imperial leaders came to power. Since I don't want to make this overly political, without naming names I'll say there's been two American presidents that acted very much like dictator-type emperors. They took emergency powers, suspended civil rights including habeas corpus, drafted men into military service, seized industry, and conquered large tracks of land. Both of those guys were popular but quite brutal and oppressive to people who opposed them, including arresting people for peaceful protest. The first of these guys even arrested elected officials that didn't agree with his war! Both of them seemed poised to control the United States for a long time, but then they both died in office, and the next administrations quickly put more safeguards to make sure America didn't get a tradition of presidents doing whatever the heck they wanted.

It's a really strange case - these guys are generally seen as good guys, and were good guys in some ways, so history treats them favorably, but they were both very dictator/monarchy-like once coming into power, ignoring the Senate and Supreme Court. Prior to them, I think the early American federal government was one of the finest government designs in history, so yes that is pretty incredible. Though, the USA has been gradually sliding towards what tends to happen in republics with corruption, politics, factions, and all that.

Generally speaking, you get lots of politics, bureaucracy, waste in a republic, and lots of corruption once people come into power. There's corrupt monarchies, but a good monarch can almost completely end corruption and waste in a short time. I'm thinking of someone like Tokugawa Yoshimune -

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

Or more controversially, the Napoleonic codes of law:

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

It's very hard for a republic to get corruption, waste, and crime to zero, it almost never happens. It is very possible got a good monarch to clean house and get corruption, waste, and crime to zero.

Beyond that, my, where do I start? I'd recommend looking at comparable nations at comparable eras of history and see if republics or monarchies produced more art, science, architecture, trade, general happiness and health and prosperity, and things like that (admittedly difficult to measure). I'd read some thoughts by smart people on what happens in democracy through history, and monarchy. I'd look at the Federalist Papers to see how America was designed, I'd also strongly recommend Machiavelli's The Prince which has some analysis on the difference between monarchy and republics, and then I'd look at some of the Greek and Roman thoughts on the matter. The height of Rome came after Rome transitioned from a republic to an imperial monarchy, but this same transition sowed the seeds of its downfall with succession crises and the power of the Praetorian Guard. Likewise, the Ottomans and the Janissaries...

The most insightful eras for me is when there were a number of small states with similar resources and technology in a local era. The monarchic states in Renaissance Italy, the Greek city states, different eras of civil war in China and Japan... republicanism traditionally underperformed monarchy on average, but was less prone to catastrophically bad leadership, with the exception of rulers who came to power democratically but then seized power (that's what happened with the Chancellorship of Germany, there's been between 2 and 5 hardcore dictator American presidents depending on how you define it, etc). It's a large topic - if you have specific questions, I'll try my best to give a starting block of where to read and learn.

<comment><USER8> > It's very hard for a republic to get corruption, waste, and crime to zero, > it almost never happens. It is very possible got a good monarch to clean > house and get corruption, waste, and crime to zero.

Stuff like this makes me wonder if there is any hope in the practice of studying history or trying to recreate it. Your statements make sense (in retrospect and with your evidence) but, at least here in the States, it is almost 180 degrees opposite to the political consensus.

Your above quote reminded me of the Civilization PC games, especially the early ones that just have a simple "government type" instead of an attribute matrix. The older game consistently portrayed Monarchy as having corruption problems, while Republics didn't have as much and Democracy was immune. As if...

<comment><USER9> The best solutions to corruption is, often, making it irrelevant.

In the Saudi system, the rulers don't pilfer public money (like oil money) the way that most if it will be pilfered in Iraq, the just own it. They aren't corrupted into placing friends, family & allies in government positions, that how systems work and it's exactly what is expected of them. Filing to appoint a powerful ally might result in the weakening of the alliance and instability in the kingdom.

Similarly, capitalism doesn't have to worry about the corruption of greedy individuals out to make money for themselves without regard for the greater scheme, this is how the system works. If people didn't follow their own desire for personal prosperity, nothing would be produced.

Saudi Arabia is not a good example for anything though. The country itself (IE, the land) produces the wealth pretty much autonomously. The people do not have to be productive for the monarchy to have wealth. All government needs to do is provide government services and ensure stability. They don't have to be all that efficient because they can afford to do things the costly way. In other monarchies (EG, neighbouring Jordan) the people have to make the wealth. This creates a completely different dynamic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Yet the king is now thought to be 86.

Er... Interesting.</comment>


Homemade Liquid Nitrogen with the Joule-Thompson Effect - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2014/05/23/homemade-liquid-nitrogen/ <comment><USER2> Link to the actual project: [http://www.homemadeliquidnitrogen.com/index.html](http://www.homemadeliquidnitrogen.com/index.html)

I kept getting errors trying to show the video. Its a pretty cool project (no pun intended). Back when I worked at Intel there was a LN2 "generator" outside the building, you could walk out, hold up your Dewar and fill it up. The whole thing was probably 8' on a side and 10 - 15' tall. Later when the building was torn down to make it a data center I saw the remains of the generator where it had been dismantled for scrap and that made me a bit nostalgic, and I thought "I wonder how hard it would be to do this at home?"

And now this guy goes and does just that! Given his progression I'm wondering if his next step will be to build a liquid oxygen generator using the liquid nitrogen to liquefy it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Silly question - what can you really do with liquid nitrogen at home? I can think of cooking applications but I'm pressed to think of something else.

<comment><USER4> 1\. I've seen people overclock using liquid nitrogen

2\. Freeze off warts

<comment><USER5> > 1\. I've seen people overclock using liquid nitrogen

Heck, when I was at Intel we used to do that in the lab. A copper cup full of liquid N is a great heat sink!

<comment><USER6> How often did you have to top it off?

<comment><USER5> It only got used for short experiments. More of just one-shot use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The bloke at the Youtube channel Veritasium has a good video [0] where he makes LN2 using a Helium stirling engine chiller [1].

[0] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCXkaQa53QQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCXkaQa53QQ) [1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryocooler#Stirling_refrigerat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryocooler#Stirling_refrigerators)

</comment><comment><USER8> unless your goal is just to see if you can produce LN2:

> In most US cities, you can get LN2 for between $0.30 and $1 /liter. Just go > to an Airgas or whatever with a dewar and they will fill it right up for > you.

<comment><USER9> In Europe, both dry ice and LN2 are harder to get. They aren't sold at Walmart, and only seem to be available if you know someone at a university or industry using them.

<comment><USER10> Nah, you can buy dry ice commercially for about $1/kg in many places, it's used for shows, parties and food refrigeration. ln2 is only a little harder to obtain, but there are companies which will lease dewars and fill them with LN2. It's not like walmart level, but you can get them in bigger cities.</comment></comment></comment>


Eben Upton on the Pi's Industrial Crossover and Why There Will Never Be a Pi 9 - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/eben-upton-on-the-raspberry-pis-industrial-crossover-and-why-there-will-never-be-a-pi-9 <comment><USER2> Background: I'm building industrial HW based on their compute units. It's a really nice base to build on, in terms of software support.

1) I think their EE design team could use some talented QA professionals.

2) In that one-hour youtube interview they did recently ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyj-7mTnumI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyj-7mTnumI)), I was really surprised to hear how much emphasis they put on corporate customer requirements, like banks wanting two screens. That was a weird take; previously the message was always - "we're not doing this for the money, we want the kids to get an education". Messy commercial/"industrial" stuff was left to the compute modules. Did something change?</comment>