TechSender - <AUTHOR> http://techsender.badsender.com <comment><AUTHOR> By subscribing to TechSender, you will receive by email, every 6 hours, the latest news from Techmeme.com, a site referencing all the news in Silicon Valley. When you receive an email, you will receive the latest news published on Techmeme after receiving the previous email, so you do not have redundant news. It is a simple and practical way to read the latest technological news from your mailbox!</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do if another dev intentionally leaves a bad review? - <AUTHOR>

What are some things you could do if you suspect another developer has left a poor review of your app on purpose?
Some background: I opened the google play dev console this morning and noticed that there was a new rating on my app. ( I don't get a ton of them but they're usually around 4-5 stars for this specific app )
So when I noticed that it was a 1 star rating with a somewhat angry sounding comment and a link to another competing app, I was a little concerned, but I thought perhaps there was a bug I wasn't aware of. So I began checking into the person that had left the comment, to maybe get in touch and see if it was in-fact a bug.
I opened the google plus profile associated with the comment I noticed it was full of posts for apps from the company that made the app the user had suggested, and a link to the website of the company in question.
Long story short, Although the name of the account on the comment is not the company I have a high level of suspicion that this person has put this rating to send traffic to their app instead.
What sorts of things could I do? I think android play store has a spam button, should I respond to the comment? Maybe contact the "developer" through email? I'm not sure I could be 100% certain to actually accuse them of doing this, so what might be the best course of action? <comment><USER2> People farm reviews all the time unfortunately. [http://fiverr.com/gigs/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=googl...](http://fiverr.com/gigs/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=google+play+review&order=&x=0&y=0)

That is just the tip of the iceberg.

</comment><comment><USER3> If one review worries you, you probably have too few reviews. I'd say, get in touch with users of your app and ask them to leave reviews.

<comment><USER4> I respectfully disagree. No matter that review is from another developer or a real user. Ignoring it is worst course of action you can suggest to anyone.

I am actually in favor of taking each and everyone of them seriously and work on them till your bandwidth can accommodate.</comment></comment>


Show HN: ChatStats, generate and share 22 different statistics from WhatsApp - <AUTHOR> https://chatstats.app <comment><AUTHOR> I've been developing ChatStats for the last couple months.

It's a new iOS app to generate up to 22 different statistics from WhatsApp chats' histories.

With it, it's possible to find out who sends more photos and videos, who nags everyone with voice messages, who is crazy about sharing links and who writes more emojis than actual letters. Also, who we'll finally discover who's winning the Sticker Battle?!

ChatStats also analyses time of the day groups gets more attention or on which days of the week they are more active.

Privacy has been a core value of ChatStats since the beginning of its development. Even though the user must export his WhatsApp history file and import it on ChatStats, the app does not store the content of the messages or any related metadata in its database. Also, no information ever leaves the user's phone, since the whole process is perfomed locally and the imported history file is removed after the statistics have been generated.

Currently, it's available on all countries that have english, portuguese, spanish, french or italian as a primary language. I'm working hard on adding new languages to v1.1.</comment>


Profitable social network for people with curly hair raises $1.2M - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/social-network-for-curly-haired-people-raises-12-million-2011-6

<comment><USER2> It were sites like that which made my realize we are in a bubble back in 2000.

On the other hand they were far from being profitable back than so it might really be different this time around... ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a lot of money in haircare products and a lot of advertising cash.

</comment><comment><USER4> Please tell me this is a joke.</comment>


How MDMA Went from Club Drug to 'Breakthrough Therapy' - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mdma-went-from-club-drug-to-breakthrough-therapy-1508332237 <comment><USER2> Funny because it started as a breakthrough therapy drug which Shulgin and a few psychiatrists and escaped to become a club drug, especially in Texas. This lead to it being placed in schedule 1 by the DEA, against recommendations by doctors and scientists, that it should be allowed to be researched. The DEA did this by passing a special law giving them emergency powers.

[http://www.maps.org/research-archive/dea-mdma/](http://www.maps.org/research- archive/dea-mdma/)

Having had experience with MDMA I can attest to it's near magical therapeutic powers. But no drug is a panacea and it can certainly have drastic side effects, particularly when abused but even if not.

<comment><USER3> It can be a nice experience, but I wouldn't call it therapeutic. I mean, it won't change your personality or anything like that.

<comment><USER4> False. When used in the right set & setting MDMA can have profound impacts on people's lives.

The book Trust Surrender Receive has 40+ accounts of people use did underground therapy with amazing results.

[http://bit.ly/mdmabook](http://bit.ly/mdmabook)

<comment><USER4> Update: author website: [http://AnneOther.com](http://AnneOther.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you are unable to observe a thing directly, and instead could only see it through a distortion lens, would you want the opportunity to look at it through multiple different distortion lenses instead of just one?

The world we know is largely constructed by semi-conscious and sub-conscious processes, from world building processes (such as how the mind filters and modifies information to construct our reality), to conclusions we make about the world, ourselves, and what is possible (emotionally motivated reasoning, decision heuristics, predictive modeling).

Google deep dream provides interesting insight into psychedelic phenomena, and hints at what is changing in the mind's world-building process when on those substances.

When it comes to MDMA, because it so dramatically changes emotion, it can also dramatically shift reasoning and thinking heuristics that unconsciously originate from emotion. This can transform beliefs that you once took for self-evident fact, into things that you now realize represent how you feel more than reality.

Some further reading that I found very valuable: World Building Process: [https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucina...](https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality) Deep Dream: [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/07/goo...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/07/google_deepdream_it_s_dazzling_creepy_and_tells_us_a_lot_about_the_future.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It is absolutely shocking to me that research into MDMA and classic psychedelics isn't swamped with funding. I'd imagine that some wealthy people must find this stuff extremely intriguing - Yuri Milner is spending $100 million on space exploration, and an MDMA phase 3 research trial needs ~$15 million and finds it really hard to raise money?

Both have extremely high therapeutic potential, classic psychedelics in particular are interesting in the same way that space exploration is interesting.

And as diogenescynic noted elsewhere, it's even more shocking that we as a society put up with it.

<comment><USER6> Maybe it's due to fear of social stigma? Something like, "Yuri Milner spends $100 million on psychedelic drug research" —could be reputation changing.

<comment><USER7> I think that might have been true a couple of decades ago, but I'm not sure if it's the case today.

A good recent example is ketamine. The drug, or, rather, the mechanism behind it, has gotten a large push research wise of late, since it was discovered that ketamine relieved depression using a mechanism that current anti- depressants do not utilize. Until further drugs are developed, "ketamine clinics" for off-label treatment-resistant depression also exist. And there really doesn't seem to be a huge issue made about them.

I would hazard a guess (unfortunately) that one of the barriers here regarding fundraising among more commercial interests is the lack of the ability to patent, which means that the rewards for making MDMA as a treatment are not as great, as far as commercial backers would be concerned. In the case of ketamine, drug companies are trying to develop chemicals that use the same mechanism, but do not have the hallucinogenic side effects (an example currently in Phase III would be Rapastinel). These efforts are able to get corporate funding. Also, MAPS is more "advocacy group" than "medical industry", not that there is a problem with that, but they might be outside the circle of what the typical drug trial fundraising process goes through.

If MDMA even remotely has a chance (the fact that it passed Phase II trials suggests this is the case), I definitely think it would be worth exploring, as current medication options for PTSD seem to largely be limited to anti- depressants (SSRI etc.). Ala ketamine, this would be a new approach.

<comment><USER8> There's still many opportunities to patent, they just aren't as "easy" as novel target drugs. E.g. MDMA is known to have some serotonergic toxicity at higher ends of the therapeutic window, so there are opportunities to patent a delivery system which controls the peak plasma concentration, or a co-drug to block some of that toxicity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Please Donate to MAPS (the organization coordinating this research) if you can -- they need funding now more than ever: [https://store.maps.org/np/clients/maps/donation.jsp?campaign...](https://store.maps.org/np/clients/maps/donation.jsp?campaign=11)

<comment><USER10> Thank you for the link. I donated, and probably wouldn't have if you hadn't.

<comment><USER9> Thank you :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's good that people with serious issues can get some help via drugs like MDMA, but I do think people should be careful.

I feel that certain groups of people are a bit flippant about drug use, and seem eager to promote them as these great things.

As an example of why we should still remain vigilant - studies have shown MDMA users to literally have shrunken bits of their brain. [http://www.maps.org/news/media/2462-media-reports-of- ecstasy...](http://www.maps.org/news/media/2462-media-reports-of-ecstasy-and- brain-shrinkage-overblown)

I remain cautious of people that promote these things - we should know about the side effects so we can make informed decisions.

Overall, I think it's good to open up laws to allow usage of this, but let's not forget the people who suffer from or may be prone to suffer from drug abuse, and maybe think twice before promoting these things to friends.

<comment><USER12> > studies have shown MDMA users to literally have shrunken bits of their > brain. [http://www.maps.org/news/media/2462-media-reports-of- > ecstasy...](http://www.maps.org/news/media/2462-media-reports-of-ecstasy..).

I only had a chance to skim that article, but it is equating tablets of ecstasy with MDMA, which is a false equivalence. "Ecstasy tablets" _usually_ contain some MDMA, but can also contain a whole bunch of other shit, including cocaine, heroine, speed, MDA, etc. I think the jury's still out on whether pure MDMA has the same downsides from frequent use.

<comment><USER13> And even then, there's a huge difference between "frequent recreational use" (and it's not uncommon for recreational users to take 10+ pills in a night, and to use every weekend) and "theraputic use". Habitual club users do tend to get pretty fuzzy after a while but they're not using the drug in any remotely responsible way. Taking them as a reason to keep MDMA illegal is like saying that drunks exist and so doctors shouldn't be allowed to use alcohol swabs.

<comment><USER14> I dunno about other places, but in Europe the average dose in a single tablet is ~200mg. This is largely due to a stupid law in the Netherlands where getting caught with a single tablet got you a slap on the wrist, but getting caught with multiple would have them try to pin "dealer" on you. The result is that in the past 10 years or so, the average dose per tablet went from 30mg to 200mg and I've even seen pills of 270mg (we have free, anonymous testing labs). On the bright side, they are much less often contaminated with amphetamines and caffeine nowadays...

AFAIK, the LD50 of MDMA isn't known, but as a frequent recreational user I can tell you that taking over 2000mg in a single night is definitely not common. I know a lot of people who use recreationally on a frequent basis, and none of them will go over 400mg on a night, and even 400 is considered pretty bonkers. Most folks who use every weekend are probably pretty new to the experience and haven't noticed the side effects when using more than once per month.

<comment><USER13> Wow, that's way larger a dose per pill than used to be common when I got my information. Goes to show how much local scene knowledge you need in order to have a chance of trying these substances safely, which is one of my big gripes with the 'war on drugs' phenomenon. Prohibition is definitely a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think a lot of the psychotropic drugs can help us unlock new treatments. IMO, if we can remove the morality issues from some of this research, we'll see greater progress. I'm also hopeful that cannabis will make its way into more research.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone is wondering how they can help make sure this research happens, the single most helpful thing I'm aware of is helping MAPS find people interested in large (6 or 7 figures) donations. You could reach out to email@example.com or via another channel if that describes you or a friend

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm very interested in this stuff. See my submissions for other interesting articles on the potential of MDMA and classic psychedelics (magic mushrooms, LSD) to help both unwell and healthy people be happier & healthier: [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=anythingnonidin](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=anythingnonidin)

This site has an overview of where MDMA and classic psychedelics may be useful, and the most effective things you can do to help the science + safe access progress: [http://www.rethinkpsychedelics.org/](http://www.rethinkpsychedelics.org/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The "MDMA Therapy" subreddit has some decent info: [https://www.reddit.com/r/mdmatherapy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mdmatherapy/)

</comment><comment><USER16> We're slowly realizing that there's not actually a difference between dangerous drugs and miraculous medicines. The dose (and the circumstances) make the poison, always.

<comment><USER17> LD50 vs effective dose still matters. Some drugs are inherently more dangerous than others. (This is not a jab at illicit substances — tylenol is problematic.)

But yes, we're very much realizing that DEA scheduling is not based in evidence (and actually prevents gathering of further evidence).

<comment><USER18> Tylenol/acetaminophen/APAP/paracetamol immediately came to mind for me as well. It's flat-out amazing to me that shit is still allowed on the market.

It hammers your liver really hard, especially in combination with alcohol. In fact, it's the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the entire western world.

The kicker: it doesn't even work very well. Other pain relievers are much more effective, and have a much higher margin of safety.

<comment><USER19> The funny thing is that if you ask the average American whether Tylenol or aspirin is safer, they'd probably say Tylenol unless they specifically know about the liver issue. I think this ultimately comes from acetaminophen having remarkably few interactions, but has been spun by marketing into a general sense of "safety".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> MDMA as a tool for treatment has always been obvious to me. Any drug which can give you such a massive high, taking you so completely out of that low is a method bringing a person more in-tune to a place they should be.

But of course and critically at the same time the user should have the right thought processes in place for it to be effective and not something they cling too in a recreational cycle, in my mind it should only need to be one-time event.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wish I knew who (realistically) was against this, but supports the ability of pharma companies to ship opiates. And why?

<comment><AUTHOR> As far as I'm aware, there isn't really anyone strongly against it, there just aren't enough (wealthy) people who are strongly supporting it.

The main barrier by far is funding, which my understanding is mostly comes from large (6-7 figure) funders.

So, some "opposition":

\- Apathy

\- Desire to not spend money / pass on majority of wealth to future generations

\- Lack of knowledge

\- Belief that donating to MDMA/psilocybin research isn't an effective way to donate money

I think the biggest one is just wealthy people, understandably, are hesitant to donate their money. Logically it seems many of them understand that they won't be able to spend through it all and will still have substantial resources for future generations, but emotionally I imagine it would be hard to cut a $5 million check to a non-profit.

I don't think it's a lack of billionaires aware of MDMA - there should be more than enough billionaires from the burning man crowd alone.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I recommend reading or listening to the book Acid Test if anyone here would like to learn more about the therapeutic potential of MDMA and classic psychedelics (e.g. psilocybin/magic mushrooms).

</comment><comment><USER22> Paywall bypass: [https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/920703548115046400](https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/920703548115046400)

<comment><USER23> Also: [http://archive.is/kOj9S](http://archive.is/kOj9S)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> They put it on everything here in the Netherlands. Just ask for "Friet met MDMAyonaise".

</comment><comment><USER25> Paywall . . .

</comment><comment><USER26> Paywall, but I'm going to go ahead and assume the real answer is that some drug company will get monopoly rights to sell it, and has outlined an effective strategy to get it overprescribed at the expense of US taxpayers. That's how it became a 'breakthrough therapy'

edit: I'm not saying it's bad to treat MDMA as a useful therapy. I'm just saying what force was at play to change the cultural opinion.

<comment><USER27> I don't think you can patent and steal a monopoly on a drug synthesized in 1912.

<comment><USER28> Sometimes this is true, however there are many tricks that biotech companies use to prevent generics.

The first is the very high cost ($ billions) of getting through FDA approval for a drug. Once a company has done this approval, then other companies must show drug equivalence in order to produce generics that can stand in. They have to wait for the patents to expire, or figure out how to get around existing patents, but that's still not enough. They must show that _their_ drug is equivalent to the existing drug. But this is not easy task, because the incumbent will do everything they can to prevent anyone else from getting the drug for research purposes. (e.g. the incumbent will claim that a particular company trying to get the drug does not fit their safety protocols, and thus refuse to provide the drug. Because the company cannot get access to the drug, they can't prove equivalence.)

Another method is that a prescription for one drug does _not_ always guarantee that the prescription can be used for a generic drug of the same sort [0]. The incumbent company will spend lots on marketing by buying lunch for doctors, giving them notepads and pens, etc. Then, the doctor will write a prescription for that drug as write "Dispense as Written." This prevents the pharmacist from providing a generic alternative, even if they're biologically equivalent!

A final method is to develop a drug with a particular injection mechanism. For instance, if a drug company puts MDMA in a patch, then they can get a patent for the combination MDMA + patch, get approval, and then get doctors to prescribe it. (Maybe it provides a small dose over a long period?) This can occur even if MDMA was first synthesized a century ago. The prescription for the patch cannot be used for a pill form, or vice versa. This guarantees the drug company revenue as long as they can convince doctors to prescribe it.

So, to make a long story short, there are a lot of ways that drug companies guarantee their $$$ and prevent competitors from eating their lunch.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/some-doctors- insist-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/some-doctors-insist-on- brand-name-drugs-even-when-cheaper-generics-are- available/2011/06/13/gIQAmC0L9H_story.html)

<comment><USER29> You're ignoring how hard it is to do a lot of those things.

First off, getting a new drug approved is not "preventing generics". Generics _need_ a new drug approve before they can get their generic approved (since they based their application off the original drug's data). This is a feature, not a flaw of the system. Without some guarantee of market exclusivity, nobody will spend on R&D to get approval.

Second, yes, a doctor can write "DAW - dispense as written", however most insurance companies won't cover the originator drug if a generic is available. The patient is then on the hook for the entire cost. That's a strong incentive to go generic.

Finally, unless the new administration method (patch, etc) has some benefit over the generic, doctors won't prescribe it and insurance company's won't cover it.

<comment><USER30> > Second, yes, a doctor can write "DAW - dispense as written", however most > insurance companies won't cover the originator drug if a generic is > available. The patient is then on the hook for the entire cost. That's a > strong incentive to go generic.

I've heard rumors of the insurance companies backing off of this stance in the past few years. Essentially, since the ACA puts a hard cap on profit margins, insurance companies are looking for ways to spend more so they can have the same margins on a bigger pie and still increase real profit year after year. Policies like relaxing generic vs proprietary let's them achieve that in a controlled manner.

<comment><USER29> Wouldn't that take collusion between insurance companies? If I'm Google and United says "you're premium went up 20% this year", but Aetna is only 10%, Google is going to change insurance companies.

<comment><USER30> Proving collusion in the modern environment is an uphill battle.

Just look at the telecommunications industry.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Who Are Nerds - <AUTHOR> https://popula.com/2019/04/04/what-are-nerds/ <comment><AUTHOR> Found this interesting, although frustrating.</comment>


Will reading text/programming on a 40" TV reduce eye strain? - <AUTHOR>

I've been noticing that programming has quite unpleasant negative effects for the eyes.
Do you think its worth it to get a large monitor/TV for reading/writing text?
Second, do any of you spend 1 hour hacking, take a 5 minute mandatory break, rinse & repeat, etc?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I'm guessing that a 40" tv is going to be lousy quality as a monitor.

Better would be to:-

* Get an eye test, and wear suitable glasses * Get a GOOD monitor * Use a good font; use a large font * Use suitable lighting * Take regular breaks * Fix a mirror behind the monitor, so that you can allow your eyes to change focus every now and then.

I used to work 55 minutes, take a 5 minute break, on top of my legal minimum breaks. (I'm in England.) Obviously, I'm not a doctor.

<comment><USER3> I'd also add that just a good monitor isn't enough, make sure you calibrate the brightness, contrast, and colors. It makes a big difference to your eyes. You'll have less eye strain and see more details at the same time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ignoring the aspects of finding the right model that your eyes like, possibly tangential to your question.

All other things being equal (including resolution) - bigger displays (same resolution in the study - just bigger) - increased productivity. Something like 15" -vs- 40". That was for joe average office worker - but the point was that simply having a larger screen at a reasonable distance made it easier for the brain to process stuff (not so much see better as process better)

If you are having negative effects on your eyes see an opthamologist, get your eyes and prescription checked, etc.

Ignore comments about perfect colour calibration - that matters if you are doing design or print, but if it's just code, I can't see how that matters. Sharpness, the rest, matter.

</comment><comment><USER5> The 20/20/20 rule

Every 20 minutes, look at least 20 feet away to unfocus your eyes, for at least 20 seconds.

Also, if you already have prescription eyeglasses, ask your optometrist about a weaker "computer work" Rx to get day work eyeglasses.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've used a 26" TV, set to a relatively low resolution (1366X768), as a primary screen for a few years now. I have a secondary 19" monitor next to it.

The low-res and relative large size of text, etc. allows me to sit further back from the screen, reducing eyestrain.

If you're going to do this, make sure to confirm the _native resolution_ of the TV/monitor you're buying is exactly what you want. Or bring a laptop to the store and plug it in and try it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would not recommend using a 40" television to reduce eyestrain. I have in fact made a funny video relating to this.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSZMn-s3NZs>

The issue isnt so much the size... its the brightness associated with a screen that big especially a tv.

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to get sore eyes from looking at a computer all day. I went to an optician and they said it's cause by focussing on things that are really close all the time. You must focus on far away every so often (every 10/20 mins) to relax your eye muscles

</comment><comment><USER9> HDTVs I've used like this have all had a harsh visual feel to them and have been less comfortable than standard monitors.

I wouldn't recommend it unless you can get in there to tune the settings to a T and possibly calibrate it.

</comment><comment><USER10> My twin-thirties are pretty easy on the eyes - so I'd expect a 40" monitor to be even better.

After a couple decades of staring at code, my eyes want 26-point menlo...</comment>


Ask HN: Are there colorblind people here? what are your challenges? - <AUTHOR>

Are there colorblind here? I am a red green colorblind. The bar head of hacker news is unreadable to me right now (actually i can read it, but after I focus my sight on the black text a little bit more) and it made me wonder. For colorblind people here what is usually your challenge in everyday life? For me when I was in school and university when the teacher or lecturer are a kind of a hip person and use a colorful presentation some of the slide would be difficult for me to read. And is this kind of color deficiency regarded as a disability in your place? <comment><USER2> My 3D modeller is colourblind. His day job is working for a big mother of a sourcing company that has no idea about this challenge. We work together by using codes for colours. It forces me to be very specific on designs and I think it makes him a better modeller because he sees form first.

Fyi apparently mark zuckerberg is colourblind too, hense blue logo. Good luck amigo!</comment>


Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, and procedurally generated story telling - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/HenriBrouard/20191009/351783/Rimworld_Dwarf_Fortress_and_procedurally_generated_story_telling.php <comment><USER2> I actually enjoyed Rimworld. I tend to only play AAA games (I'm a big fan of graphics) but given the high amount of reviews for Rimworld, I gave it a go. It was pretty interesting to see how the "story" played out. To start you build a party of randomly generated characters (single or multiple) that have both positive and negative stats and attributes and pick a spot on a map to begin. The world location adds different difficulty elements to your game - northern regions are cold (heating and outside exploration will be challenging), jungle regions are hot and characters are more prone to sickness.

Once you crash land on your chosen location its all about building shelter, farms for sustainable food, temperature control, power generation, protection from raiders, etc. Every so often a random event would occur such as bandit raiders which you need to combat to survive, or traders roam by, or even space debris may fall for materials to harvest. Sometimes the bandits will even kidnap one of your party members which can be crippling if that happened to be your doctor or carpenter.

It's a fun experiment to see how long the characters survive against all odds. Sometimes they have mental breakdowns and turn on each other, other times the raiders outnumber you and you perish, or even a harsh winter comes and your characters freeze to death. The game can be both fun and brutal!

<comment><USER3> Somehow after a while playing Rimworld, it started feeling like one of those restaurant games where you have to serve food to customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If Maxis was still around, perhaps this niche would be fulfilled by the Sim games. Paradox grand strategy titles can also be story generators, particularly Crusader Kings II.

</comment><comment><USER5> Rimworld is great, and easy to sink dozens of hours into. I tried it after getting into FTL, which has some similar aspects of randomness. Cranking the difficulty in rimworld also produces a very different gameplay experience.</comment>


Glyphter: The SVG Font Machine - <AUTHOR> http://glyphter.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Useful for creating fonts from SVGs. Supports multiple paths/shapes and even has an editor to make changes to your SVGs when uploaded.

</comment><comment><USER2> Love the idea. Not sure how the editor should work. It says select a path, but when I select a path, nothing happens.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're not handling SVGs with initial transformations right now. Will have that out by the end of the week though. Check back then!

<comment><USER2> Awesome! Thanks. Love this whole interface and idea

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Pretty sweet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> love it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We're hoping to do a lotttt more with this :)</comment></comment>


Facebook Connect - fatal blow for OpenID? - <AUTHOR> http://identity20.com/?p=151 <comment><USER2> Facebook is the LAST person I want handling all of my logins. I like that with OpenID I can use my own domain, or any of a host of providers and not have to worry about Facebook knowing every site I use, and how I use it.

<comment><USER3> concerned with Beacon 2.0? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry, no OpenID nor FB for me.

My on-line identity does not need to be a complete, consolidated mirror image of my actual read-world identity for the sake of convenience for myself nor for others.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=199784>

<comment><USER5> OpenID does not mandate consolidated identity. In fact, Clickpass uses separate OpenID URLs for each service by default.

<comment><USER4> _OpenID does not mandate consolidated identity_

By default, consolidated identity is the end result.

The reality of OpenID will surely fall short of it's aspirations.

 _mechanical_fish_ has a pretty good comment on this:

 _"You'll have your choice of big corporations to trust with your identity."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are people who don't want to use Facebook.

<comment><USER7> There are way more people who don't know what openID is.

<comment><USER6> Maybe they don't have to, you could just as well write "log in with your Yahoo account" or something like that.

<comment><USER8> "Log in with your yahoo account" - See that's the fatal flaw. What you describe, is called phishing, and is why this sort of thing is destined for failure.

<comment><USER6> OpenID doesn't work that way. Anyway I don't really care about OpenID, but there is no way I am going to use Facebook.

<comment><USER9> I kinda hope that is more like when someone said "I don't want to use betamax" than when someone said "I don't want to use the telephone".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ugh. Every large internet company _tries_ to become the world's identity provider at some point. It's like you're not considered part of cool kids until you do.

Microsoft tried it years ago with Passport. Google has their proprietary one. Now it's Facebook's turn, apparently. At least Yahoo and AOL use OpenID, even if they are only providers and not consumers.

This will not be a fatal blow any more than Microsoft Passport or Google Account Authentication were.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have a strange feeling this will catch some wind but end up lost. Great idea, but it's just the status quo for something that's been attempted time and time again.

No sane person is going to run their site and say, "Get a Facebook account if you want to sign up for ours." Would you? They'll have an option: Login/register (or login through Facebook) if they really want to support FC.

</comment><comment><USER12> fatal blow, no. is this definitely the best effort though and what's scary is how well they've implemented the idea. genius.

</comment><comment><USER13> I really dislike facebook (the new walled garden) so I'm still all for OpenID which is far more open.

<comment><USER14> See, here's the thing - no disrespect to you, but you voiced the opinion most succinctly. Most people don't care about walled or not walled. They care about easy. And because Facebook is easy, and because OpenID sounds like sawdust in your mouth, Facebook has a vast advantage. Especially once most sites add Facebook Connect over OpenID, because it has more users.

A noble statement, but it's not one that carries out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if they could've (should've) somehow integrated OpenID into Facebook Connect.

<comment><USER10> Sure, Yahoo and AOL did it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: UCLA or UCSD for Computer Science? - <AUTHOR> I've visited both campuses and looked at the course descriptions and catalogs of each, and am stumped. I know an equal amount of people going to each, each confident in their choice, and an equal amount of students already there at each, telling me how great it is there.<p>If anyone here has any experience with their CS or life there, and wants to help me out, I would really appreciate it. As for criterion, I'm not 100% sure, but I'd like to meet people who would be interested in, say, something like YC. <comment><USER2> I'm a recent graduate from UCSD CS program. You'll hear a lot that the UCSD campus isn't very social, it's true. This has to do with the focus on "academics" so we don't offer any scholarships to athletes and we don't have frat houses on campus (no parties on campus). On weekends, the campus is pretty much dead.

If you do go to UCSD, I hope you picked Warren college. You'll live right next to the computer labs. It was pretty awesome, I lived @ Black Halls which was a 30 second walk to the CS building & labs.

The CS classes are pretty easy, I managed to graduate in 3 years by taking 16-20 units a quarter and I know a guy who did it in 2 years.

I never met anyone who was interested in YC or doing a startup. The mentality seemed to be get a good job in the corporate world. I regret not meeting more CS students, especially looking harder for people who want to do their own startups. Luckily, I live in Silicon Valley and there are a lot of us here =].

A lot of the CS professors are pretentious, I got the feeling that they didn't care about teaching students. There were some awesome teachers though, like Rick Ord who teaches assembly and compilers. Plus there's a great "Games Class", where you're given a quarter to make a 3D network game.

If you're interested in getting some real world experience there's AIP (Academic Internship Program). They will hook you up with an unpaid internship but it counts towards your credits.

Also, the sweetest jobs in the world are at ACS (Academic Computer Services). It really helps when you have a full course load to have a job where you can study most of the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I had to make this exact same decision (among others) five years ago.

Background: I was born and raised in Los Angeles, living less than 20 minutes from UCLA. My mother attended UCLA and my father works at UCLA as an accountant. As you can see, we were very tied to UCLA and LA.

I chose UCSD and am very happy I did.

A major factor for my choice was location. I wanted to get out of LA and didn't like the UCLA area at all. Visiting UCLA always makes me feel frantic and a little unsafe in areas. I absolutely love San Diego, though. There is a lot to do and I unfortunately don't have time to write a detailed post about the social life. As a quick note, though, I have decided to stay down in San Diego and hope to live the rest of my life here -- it's really that great.

As for academics, UCSD and UCLA are very comparable for Engineering and Computer Science. I would personally rank UCSD higher because many of my engineering high school friends that went to UCSD have started successful careers while a few UCLA friends have had trouble, but this is only a small set of people.

Finally, everyone will tell you UCSD is not a social school, you'll have problems meeting people, etc, etc. I was a pretty anti-social guy in high school and was a little worried about this. As for my actual experience, it couldn't be farther than what everyone said. UCSD seems to offer a much more casual, relaxed social experience while UCLA (from my visits) offered a much more party-like atmosphere. Personally, I prefer the former and never had a problem meeting new people.

Overall, I am very happy I chose UCSD. It gave me a great education, I met a lot of wonderful people, and I have a great career ahead of me.

If you do choose UCSD, go to Marshall (for the best on-campus housing and dining at OVT and pretty easy GEs) or Muir (for the easiest GEs but crappy on- campus housing)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm currently a UCSD comp sci undergrad, and overall my experience here has been great.

Academically, our curriculum is one of the best (although, IMHO it is getting a bit dumbed down, focusing more on Java than C/C++ as it did when I was a freshmen). We're in fact one of the few schools that requires you to take the compiler construction class, which is perhaps one of most grueling (yet intellectually stimulating) classes in the CSE curriculum. We've also got Dasgupta, the guy who practically wrote the book on algorithms, teaching algorithms here (<http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/~dasgupta/book/index.html>). For research we've got Calit2 (<http://www.calit2.net/about/buildings/ucsd/index.php>) which has a bunch of cool projects going on at all times (just pop on in and ask around, people there are always happy to show you what they're doing)

Socially, I'd have to admit that if you're the "bustling" city sort of guy, La Jolla doesn't really cut the cake. But if you like the laid back "chill" attitude that comes with being practically right next to the beach, then we're pretty much the place to be. Picking the right college is also an essential part of the equation. For comp sci (and engineers in general) Warren seems to be the best choice, and basically surrounds you with students in similar majors, which really helps when you're on those late night study/hacking sessions because they'll be people across the hallway doing the exact same thing.

As for students with interest in YC, I think there's plenty. In fact I'm one of them. The trick is getting into the right circles, talking to the right people. Joining orgs on campus that have especially dedicated/passionate students is the best way by far. I recommend orgs like TESC (<http://tesc.ucsd.edu>) for engineers in general or CSES (<http://cses.ucsd.edu>) for comp sci. Both these orgs are filled with people who like doing what they're doing, and usually have fun projects/events that enables you to meet the right kind of people.

Now, I don't really know what life is like at UCLA, but hopefully my post gives you an idea of what its like to be a current comp sci undergrad here at UCSD.

<comment><USER5> It was actually a UCSD cs professor, his name was something like Rohan Preturi, who introduced me to YC!

I think at the time, my friend and I were probably the only two at that school to know about YC, but it's great to know a little community over there is sprouting. SoCal YC'ers need to get together.

Email is in my profile if you guys wanna chat!

<comment><USER4> Haha, i think you mean Mohan Paturi! That explains how he knew his stuff when it came to new startups, especially web 2.0ish companies.

<comment><USER5> Yes, that's him. He was pushing rails and all that stuff a good 4 years ago. Seemed like a sharp guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was a double major in CS and Mathematics at UCLA, finishing in 2004. The campus is fantastic, Westwood is awesome, but the school of engineering administration left me with a nasty taste in my mouth. They were the most bitter, unhelpful academic counselors I have ever encountered. It started when I attempted to change majors into CS from a major in the letters & science school, having to apply and appeal to the dean more than 4 times, despite being extremely qualified and doing everything I was asked. It continued on well through my fifth year, due to bad advice I was given by a counselor regarding credits needed to graduate (I could not graduate as scheduled due to that).

It very well may have been that I got unlucky, but I can't in good conscience recommend the school of engineering to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER7> I lived in LA for 2 years, and attended meetings for the LA chapter of ACM Siggraph. They really have some kick ass presentations in graphics. When I was there, pretty much every month, there were VFX supervisors talking about the effects done on a movie that was just released.

It's a great resource if you want to learn about graphics, and cutting edge parallel processing environments (huge render farms). There's a lot of great graphics/CS work that's done in LA. If that's the route you're interested in going in, it's a great option.

It was those meetings + Hackers and Painters that got me to switch from being a design/animation geek to studying software engineering.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just finished my CS degree from UCLA a few months ago, and I have to say that it's a much better choice.

College is not all about the academics, it's about the complete package. UCLA has a crazy sports history with lots of school pride, there are a bunch of activities to do everywhere, and LA is much more fun the SD.

With that being said, the curriculum at UCLA is rigorous and be ready to pull a lot of long nights finishing projects.

And if nothing else, UCLA is ranked higher than UCSD. Why sell yourself short?

Here are some tips:

1\. ALWAYS look up your professors on bruinwalk.com

2\. Get out of engineering, do more with college.

3\. Do NOT get a gf.

<comment><AUTHOR> None of those seem difficult; in fact, I'm doing one of them right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> UCSD has much better theoretical computer science folks, on the other hand, UCLA has awesome applied math and math.

I'd say figure out what style of socialization is best for you, where you'd find that, and also where in the blend of engineering, theory and math you're intellectual style is, and go with the blend that you know you'll be happiest with. Err on the side of the school which has more classes you'd definitely take, all other things being equal

<comment> mark-t Full disclosure: I'm a math PhD student at UCSD.

UCLA is probably better overall for math, but UCSD is better for graph theory and combinatorics in general, the most likely kind of math CS students would be interested in.

In my opinion, there will be very little difference between the schools in terms of education, quality of peers, or job potential upon graduation. I would choose based on which location I like better. Personally, I hate LA, although UCLA's campus is beautiful. There's probably a lot more to do there, too, depending on what activities he enjoys.

UCSD has a great zoo, Sea World, and Lego Land nearby, but not much for drinking establishments. Many CS and math majors go to the pub on campus regularly; I haven't heard of anything else.

<comment><USER10> no drinking establishments??

Downtown San Diego is packed with nightlife spots... too many to count ....

Then there's that street that Pacific Beach is on ...

<comment> mark-t Downtown San Diego is a long trip for nightlife. Most students probably won't have a car (parking is ~$600), so it'll be over an hour on the 30 each way (150 doesn't run at night). I don't even know how to get to PB by bus. My friends who live there all drive or bike to school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a computer science undergrad at UCLA nearing graduation. Although it may not be much help to you for deciding, but I must say you will probably be happy with either choice from an academic standpoint. I think the UC system has done a fabulous job gathering talent and creating an excellent and competitive curriculum at a very affordable price.

Now let's get a little more practical.

I've never been to the UCSD campus so I can't speak about that, but I can tell you that I've been very pleased with my experience at UCLA. I'm from Northern California and, to be honest, was very reluctant to come down to LA. In fact, I kept telling my friends and family that UCLA was my last choice simply because of that. I was mistaken.

The campus is not the most beautiful I've ever seen but it definitely has its charms, and it's in a very nice area. I used to live near the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Westwood Blvd, and I had problem walking home from school (about 40 min walk) late at night, even with my backpack and computer. Some may call me crazy but I honestly never once felt unsafe or threatened. Now I live in Brentwood which I also really enjoy. If you're interested, here are some pictures taken at the UCLA Hannah Carter Japanese Garden behind UCLA in Bel-Air (you can walk there from campus): [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tacomanator/sets/72157614068382...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/tacomanator/sets/72157614068382987/)

The Santa Monica bus system has been really great, and you can go to a LOT of places for 25c (regular fare is 75c, but UCLA students ride for 25c). Anywhere you can't go on the Santa Monica buses, you can get to on metro for a little bit more. There are a TON of things to do around here. My girlfriend and I often walk down to Santa Monica and the beaches around there, there's lots of interesting places to go inland, and you'll never run short of places to explore.

I have not forgotten you plan on studying computer science, but please do at least consider getting out of the nest every once in a while ;)

I can also tell you that overall I've had a very positive experience at UCLA in terms of classes and academics. There have been a few black sheep, and bad classes, but overall positive. At the undergraduate level, I honestly don't think you will be able to differentiate the schools too much, except that perhaps UCLA is a little more well known. I may be biased, but I've noticed UCLA's name come up in quite a few articles posted to Hacker News even in the last few weeks, but I only recall seeing a few for UCSD. Of course, I think this is perhaps a superficial comparison at best.

Whatever choice you make I hope you have a great time and make the most of it. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know :)

<comment><USER12> Brentwood, Westwood, and Holmby Hills and Bel Air (the areas that surround UCLA) are some of the wealthiest areas in the nation and _world_ , right up there with Palo Alto, Woodside, Stanford, etc.

I have no idea where you or any of your friends got the idea that it would be dangerous there.

<comment><USER11> Hi octane, just the opposite. I meant to say I had no problem walking home late at night but somehow I left out the "no." The next sentence is correct, however (that I've never felt unsafe or threatened).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> UCSD has a nice 5 year master's program.

I get the feeling that the social life is a little lacking for undergrads. The campus is in La Jolla, a rich suburb removed from San Diego proper. It is not a college town.

San Diego does have some cool places, but you will want to have a car to get to them.

The hacker spirit (i.e. open source and entrepreneurs) isn't very strong at the grad school. I think the undergrads do more. There's an iPhone programmers club and a CS organization that has, among other things, built a Lisp RPG.

</comment><comment><USER5> I went to UCSD for my first two years, majoring in biology, and transferred to UCI, not because it was tough, but because I HATED the school.

Please, please, please consider campus and social life. I held the belief prior to entering college, one probably inherited from my traditional familial roots, that social life and location really doesn't matter - it's all about the academics and doing well. It's not true.

I was admitted to UCSD's Sixth College, and I was even given a student apartment, which as a freshman was pretty amazing. Problem was, I got it in some forrest-like part of the school. I felt like I was going hiking every time I'd walk to the bus stop. I started off on a bad foot.

I tried looking past that, though, and tried to find the social scene. The school is very very disjointed, having 6 separate 'colleges,' all with their own dining hall, etc. You don't feel like you're part of one big amazing school. Come 6pm, the campus is pretty empty, as the main hubs where students are supposed to be hanging out are quite far from their dorms. Everyone hangs out in their dorm building. It's depressing. Very very depressing.

Sure, La Jolla is a beautiful city if you're a 35+ moderately wealthy individual who likes to kick back on the patio of an Italian restaurant and watch the waves go by, or if you're a surfer. Me, I'm a city guy. I wanted a bustling city, where there was always something to do. The closest 'city' to La Jolla is downtown SD, which is nice, but you won't find yourself hanging out there too often. La Jolla just isn't a college town.

I couldn't bear it any longer after two years. Home was an hour and a half drive away, all my friends were at UCI, there were more things to do in Orange County and at UCI, and at UCI, I just felt like I was part of one proud campus. Although I do commute from home now, I often stroll into campus with my friends late afternoon, and attend lectures, free movies, etc., that are always happening on campus.

My brother, and good friends attend UCLA and from what I've experienced there, the social life is quite amazing. If anywhere you feel proud of the school you attend, it's UCLA. You're a Bruin. And although I hate the school and everything about it, due to some residual hatred from being rejected, I can say that UCLA/Westwood, compared to UCSD/La Jolla, is magnitudes upon magnitudes more bustling, exciting, and social.

I can't speak to the CS part of your question, but I can definitely give you some info on campus life with respect to UCSD. I had such a crappy experience, and really advise people not to go unless they are that type of individual that enjoys the laid back, surfer type lifestyle.

Campus and social life matters. Big time.

BTW: Since some SoCal HN readers seem to be popping up in this thread, we should really network and maybe throw a little get together. I've been trying to find people on here from SoCal for ages, but no one really responded to any of my inquiries.

<comment><USER10> Just a quick +1 to this post. Had some friends go to UCSD. Visited them on many occasions, and there is an undoubtedly strong sense of SEPARATION you get there. That's about as best as i can describe it. To put it another way, when you walk around campus, nobody really looks at eachother, and its weird because you get this sense of how not only are they not looking at you, but as if they do not recognize your existence.

I've visited, UCR, UCI, UCLA and have never felt the way i felt at UCSD.

Just one guys opinion, but have to agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In computer system/networks field, nothing good at UCLA these days, apart from LA itself.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone. I'm going to UCSD.

<comment><USER15> Care to share how you decided in the end?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I went to UCSD and did a shitload of drugs and lost my sexual innocence and had a great time for 4 years.

Just remember there are no campus parties at UCSD, but plenty of house parties thrown by campus orgs. You probably won't go to any until 2nd or 3rd year. In the mean time, steal liquor from the 24 hour Ralphs supermarket by campus and sneak them into the dorms. If you want to go to campus parties just drive to visit your friends at UCLA.

Every quarter there is an on-campus festival where everyone gets SHIT faced drunk on campus. Sun god festival is one of these - honestly I've never seen anything like it at any other college. It's kind of ridiculous how far people take it since they don't get to party on campus. There are 2 bars on campus though if you feel like getting a beer. Make sure you have a real good fake ID though.

The cliffs by Blacks beach is a good place to bring a girl at night. Just don't fall into the ocean. If you get kicked out of the dorms for smoking pot or drinking, don't worry, it's not a big deal. They can't even tell your parents. I had a friend who got kicked out so far into the year he just didn't even move out, they refunded his money too. He bought BBQ for everyone for the rest of the year.

Teach yourself CS on your own time and major in something that is less demanding academically. Learn how to surf. Use RIMAC to work out so you don't get fat. Spend your meal points at the convenience store in warren instead of the dining halls.

Here's a tip for when you live off campus: instead of buying a parking pass, park in the Ralphs parking lot and ride the shuttle 2 stops to the top of the hill. They may have started cracking down on this.

One more thing - STUDY ABROAD FOR HALF A YEAR.

I'm getting sort of choked up writing this post.

</comment><comment><USER16> My girlfriend is a Bio Engineering major at UCSD, I go to SDSU. There's definitely much more of a social life at UCLA than at UCSD. She's in a Sorority at UCSD and always says that without that, it would be very hard to socialize at that school. Academically I think they're relatively equal, UCSD might even be a little higher, not sure though.

UCSD is a 10 minute drive from Pacific Beach, where I live, where pretty much everyone in San Diego goes out once they're 21. Plus, there's a good Ruby Programming Club down here that meets at UCSD.</comment>


Arthur Coga's Blood Transfusion (1667) - <AUTHOR> https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/arthur-cogas-blood-transfusion-1667/ <comment><USER2> If anyone else is curious why he didn't die, according to Wikipedia it wasn't enough sheep blood to kill him.</comment>


Ask HN: Programmers - from Good to Great. How do you make it? - <AUTHOR>

After working on numerous projects, with a bit less of actual theoretical knowledge how will make your way from being a good programmer, to a great one? <comment><USER2> I think you become great by accident, as a side effect of solving difficult problems with great tenaciousness and energy.

<comment><USER3> It helps to hang around with people smarter/more skilled than you.

One risk with doing things in isolation is hitting a local maxima. That is, getting really good using an approach that will only get you so far before super-human effort is required. For example, mastering VB 6.

It really helps when there are others who have gone ahead and made assorted mistakes to tell you when you may be following a poor path.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely this. Being around people smarter and more experienced than you will result in you constantly learning, trying to keep up, expanding your world view and understanding, and being reminded that there are things beyond your ken.

If you want to become better, but do not find yourself periodically challenged (or at least stretched a little), look for additional opportunities to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The first thing to think about is most "great" programmers wouldn't call themselves so, they always feel like they can get better.

I feel that I'm good but nowhere near great, I have a comfortable job in a Sydney based startup and the times where I make the biggest leaps in skill is while I'm chatting to more senior devs in our office. They always have something to talk about and give me something to strive towards.

Hope that helps, if even in the slightest.</comment>


Who Gets the Highest Ad Rates Online? - <AUTHOR> http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=141153

<comment><USER2> This "article" is in a horrible, Forbes-like, turn-the-pages-for-you presentation format. But, it's still an interesting read. My summary (knowing little about the ad world).... To get high CPMs, either (1) sell lots of eyeballs in one batch or (2) sell the eyeballs of people who decide to spend lots of money.

It's pretty hard to create The Economist from scratch, but is it possible to identify long-tail opportunities with niche demographics of influencers? And, if so, how would one go about selling his advertising space?</comment>


Sweden's 'man-free' festival was discriminatory, rules Swedish ombudsman - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelocal.se/20181218/swedens-man-free-festival-was-discriminatory-rules-swedish-ombudsman <comment><USER2> The article mentions "sexual assault" as the motivation. In recent years, the rate has spiked in Sweden, from almost nothing to being really common.

The situation is pretty weird, because the cause is obvious but discussing it is considered unacceptable. Living in Sweden does not make a person follow the norms of traditional Swedish culture.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am curious, aren't we allowed to identify as whatever we want these days? As a male what would happen if I went up and told them I identify as a female?

<comment><USER4> Yes, but once you start toggling your "identity" for whatever suits the occasion, it's not really an identity anymore.

<comment><USER5> What if that is my identity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I couldn't care less about this festival. Let them do what they want to do.

Anyway, from what i understood, "cis-men" was allowed, they needed to be due to construction, technicians etc, but they where "held" in what by the organizeres was called a "man-pen".

<comment><USER7> They were _allowed_ , but clearly discouraged, and that's enough to be in breach of the law. From the article:

> "No differentiation based on sex was made between visitors at entry," the > ruling said. However, it added that "public statements which clearly > discourage" a certain group from attending an event amounts to > discrimination, and therefore the festival was in breach of the law > prohibiting gender-based discrimination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The DO said that no individuals had been discriminated against, and noted > that the festival had not in practice enforced the ban on cisgender men

Alrighty then.

<comment><USER7> Meaning what? The law extends to _public statements which clearly discourage_ , even if they aren't enforced by denial of entry on the day.

Seems clear enough why this is the case: advertising with, say, _No blacks allowed_ is prohibited, even if you don't enforce this policy on the day.

<comment><USER8> Meaning what you've pointed out is clear; the problem was the statement and not material discrimination. "No blacks allowed", in America at least, was no idle threat.</comment></comment></comment>


Video of the new bike-sharing program in D.C. - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/video-smartbike-dc-bike-sharing-bicycles.php

<comment><USER2> This is pretty cool; that's what we need in Cambridge, MA</comment>


Tinkerbell, a Provisioning Engine by Packet - <AUTHOR> https://tinkerbell.org/ <comment><USER2> Page not found on clicking through on any of the microservice Github pages. Not ready?</comment>


A crash course in compilers (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://increment.com/programming-languages/crash-course-in-compilers/ <comment><USER2> > The decision to adopt or avoid a language is always a mix of their perceived > formal power ("Does this language even have this particular feature?"), > employability ("Will this language get me a job?"), and popularity ("Does > anyone important use this language anymore?").

I'm a statistician. I've always wondered what it's like to grapple with the question of what programming language to use. In statistics, the choice is very obvious: use R. If that's not fast enough, use Rcpp. This is definitely a good thing, because all academic statisticians in a certain age range speak R, so interfacing work is not so painful, but maybe a bad thing because statisticians don't really understand the pros and cons of many languages? If Julia blows up, maybe we will have to get smart on these differences.

Granted the workflow is probably the same in any language: clean data, model data, graph data.

<comment><USER3> A big drawback of R is that you can't embed it into a commercial application due to the GPL licensing (without releasing your source code). It's a fantastic language ecosystem though.

<comment><USER4> > A big drawback of many commercial applications is their being non-free > software, for which reason they cannot embed R.

There, fixed that for you...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article's introduction includes:

> Diving deeper into program language theory is a great way to grow as a > developer.

But does anything in this article really count as programming language theory? I've always considered PLT to mean things like type theory and formal semantics, which are quite separate from the practical implementation of compilers.

I've been put off designing a programming language, even a dynamically-typed scripting language, because I'm just not that interested in PLT. I'm much more interested in the subject of this article (the implementation of compilers and interpreters) than in the math behind type systems.

Do you think it's possible to design a successful language without knowledge of PLT? Or should I stick to working on compilers for existing languages?

<comment><USER6> Programming language design for humans is a completely different thing from PLT. It's more about usability, HCI, psychology. And if by success you mean popularity or any metric that includes productivity of the language, understanding of usability will definitely help you there, but knowledge of PLT will almost certainly hurt it, since it makes you think that a lot of PLT ideas are acceptable and usable.

<comment><USER7> If you look at the trajectory of most popular languages they are incorporating more "PLT ideas". Lexical scope, type systems, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had no idea Stripe had this sort of technical journal - in print as well? Extraordinary.

<comment><USER9> The idea of a software magazine is very cool. We need to go back to 70's era when magazines were extremely high quality (atleast the ones we remember - BYTE magazine, for e.g.).

I find the excessive design a bit offputting. It's beautiful, nevertheless.

<comment><USER10> I remember poring over BYTE issues desperate for any technical detail! Issues that stood out: one on data compression and the one about the Taos Operating system.

MSJ (Microsoft Systems Journal) was another good one!

<comment><USER9> This is for you! : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6113561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6113561)

<comment><USER10> Thank you so much!

Data Compression:

[https://archive.org/details/byte- magazine-1991-03/page/n375/...](https://archive.org/details/byte- magazine-1991-03/page/n375/mode/2up)

Taos: (the article seems to only have been in the international edition of Byte)

[https://sites.google.com/site/dicknewsite/home/computing/byt...](https://sites.google.com/site/dicknewsite/home/computing/byte- articles/the-taos-operating-system-1991?hn)

Taos discussed previously on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15527936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15527936)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9806607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9806607)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is the first time I've heard of Increment. Is there a way to financially support them without having dead trees sent to me? Really impressed by the quality and thought that's gone into these articles.

<comment><USER12> It's funded by Stripe. Probably the best way to support this work is by sharing it and upvoting it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm almost done with "Writing an interpreter in Go"[0] which I highly recommend. Even though it's less theoretical than the usual books in this area I learned a ton of practical stuff and a lot of things I "knew" from more theoretical sources make now much more sense. Looking forward to work through the second book of the series [1] which is aimed at compilers.

[0]:[https://interpreterbook.com/](https://interpreterbook.com/)

[1]: [https://compilerbook.com/](https://compilerbook.com/)

<comment><USER14> They're really good books specially if you want to program in a "modern" language but I personally couldn't stomach the code style nor the TDD focus. I'm probably being really unfair to the author, so please don't let this be a deterrent!

I personally enjoyed `Modern Compiler Implementation in ML` and Crenshaw's tutorial [0] There's also a Forth translation [1] if you're into that :)

[0] [https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/](https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/)

[1] [http://home.vianetworks.nl/users/mhx/crenshaw/tiny.html](http://home.vianetworks.nl/users/mhx/crenshaw/tiny.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Good stuff. One minor issue I had was that the GitHub links don't point to specific commits, so they've decayed: either they point at different code now, or the files they referred to are gone now :(

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this is exactly what people need. That is, something quick and a bit humorous yet informative; something that gives you a high-level overview, so that you don't get baffled by the 1000-page thick Dragon book or whatnot.

<comment><USER17> A significant chunk of what the Dragon book covers is state machine theory, what you need to know if you're writing a compiler-compiler like yacc. The state of the art in code generation had moved on even for the edition I read in college back in 2004 or so, so the tail end of the book isn't super relevant. IMO it was never a good book for practical compiler implementation. It's better as an academic reference for compiler theory, especially DFA, NFA, PDA etc. construction.

</comment></comment><comment> joatmon-snoo I'm thoroughly entertained by seeing "ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: It doesn't have to be Turing complete to be useful" right next to "The decisive factor in what makes something a programming language (or not) is known as Turing completeness."

</comment><comment><USER18> Has anyone taken the Stanford Compilers MOOC? Worth it?

<comment><USER19> Would highly recommend it if this sort of thing interests you.

<comment><USER20> "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."

<comment><USER21> "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> These covers look great and fun. I would love to buy PDF version of these. Is this an option? I'm jus totally out book space at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is such a great website.</comment>


Aggressive Chess Openings (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/75/very-aggressive-openings <comment><USER3> Blitz online chess is one of my vices. To encourage wild games, I play the _Fried Fox_ as black and the _Wandering King_ as white, sacrificing soundness for excitement. Both involve moving the King's bishop pawn ahead one, and then moving the King into that spot.

It probably chops 100 points off of my rating, but who cares? It gets away from book lines and thwarts boring drawskis.

Should enough people migrate to chess960 that opponents could be found readily, I might not have to resort to such silliness.

<comment><USER4> Chess master and bullet addict here. It sounds like you're as into avoiding book lines as I am. May I recommend my secret opening weapon: the Hippopotamus. It is quite possibly one opening to rule them all:

\- play it with both sides

\- guaranteed to get people out of book

\- successfully deployed to defeat none other than super GM Etienne Bacrot (in blitz, but still): [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1479768](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1479768)

[edit] it's not a particularly sharp/aggressive opening. Tends to be more slow positional grinds. But not always - there are lots of possibilities for breaking things wide open with center pawn breaks.

<comment><USER5> That opening is amazing! I've never seen it before. Super aggressive and very aesthetic!

<comment><USER4> Yes on the aesthetics. More of a counterpuncher choice than overtly aggressive IMO. Usually lines don't open up until move 10-20.

As an aside, cool to meet the person behind ironworker. I used your service many years ago to launch my first startup. Helped me with some cron job shenanigans that otherwise would have caused me a lot of grief. Nice work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I played chess at a low level for about a year. I very quickly learned to despise the Fried Liver Attack. It's the cannon rush of the Chess world: very easy to execute while relatively difficult to defend against. There's a huge, complex world of chess strategy, but before you can get to that you have to learn like every Fried Liver variation because beginners will use it over and over.

<comment><USER3> The dominance of formulaic application of opening theory over improvisation is a problem at all levels of chess. Bobby Fischer crafted chess960, a variant on shuffle chess, to deal with it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960#History)

> _Fischer 's goal was to eliminate what he considered the complete dominance > of openings preparation in classical chess, replacing it with creativity and > talent. His belief about Russians fixing international games also provided > motivation. In a situation where the starting position was random it would > be impossible to fix every move of the game. Since the "opening book" for > 960 possible opening systems would be too difficult to devote to memory, the > players must create every move originally. From the first move, both players > must devise original strategies and cannot use well-established patterns. > Fischer believed that eliminating memorized book moves would level the > playing field. _

<comment><USER7> I think this is not really true at all. Yasser Seirawan has written and lectured extensively about playing variations of the English & 1\. Nf3 openings as white, and King's Indian Defense and various Pirc / French / Caro- Kann lines that allow either player to pretty much veer out of theory-heavy variations and reach early positions in which there are no sharp tactical edges to the game and your opponent could not generally have forced any without entering a dramatically losing position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm quite partial to the Bongcloud opening myself.

[http://www.chessmastery.com/bongcloud.pdf](http://www.chessmastery.com/bongcloud.pdf)

<comment><USER9> This is hilarious. I lost it at "Again, Black harasses without development. He has violated nearly every opening rule – frequent pawn moves, lack of development, pointless checks, and moving the same piece repeatedly."

<comment><USER10> Also, on page 14 Black has mate in one. It reads "In this arch-typical Marijanezy Bind position, a clever Black player might be able to delay the inevitable with some tactical wizardry, but positionally, he is lost."

<comment><USER11> > Also, on page 14 Black has mate in one

I think that's true of all the examples (isn't it?) - they all end at the move where Black has mate, but they admit nothing in the commentary. It's beautifully done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I played for my school, town and county back in the 70s in the UK the Sicilian Dragon was very fashionable so the teams I played in learned to take back the initiative with white via the then little-known Morra Gambit - 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cd 3. c3. We also had a line in the Ruy Lopez which took our opponents out of the books early - 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.d4. My other, more recognisable favourites were the Benko Gambit (Benoni) and Marshall Attack (Ruy Lopez). All very effective at club level prior to the computerisation of chess.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone else recently get into the timeless game of chess? I find it meditative and a great way to distract my mind that doesn't involve a device (although I play a lot on my phone :)

Can anyone recommend a good chess book for a 1000 rating player who's plateaued?

<comment><USER14> 1\. Review your mistakes after each game - lichess.org (which is the best online chess platform by far) has an option to look at your sub-optimal moves at the end of a game and find a better move than the one you made originally.

2\. Obligatory shoutout to ChessNetwork who has a great youtube channel - <USER2> guy is just a pleasure to listen to and his beginner series, which teach important general concepts, will be really useful if you've plateaued around 1000.

<comment><USER15> +1 for chessnetwork. Somehow this guy can provide live commentary on GM vs GM bullet games. It feels like you're watching a tennis match and he's providing comments on every stroke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's a variamt of chess created by GM Yasser Seirawan wherein he seeks to stoke the heady flames of tactical attacking chess where he introduces two new pieces: the hawk (which moves like a bishop + a knight) and the elephant (which moves like a rook + a knight). The problem is, there's absolutely nowhere to play it online! I wish I had the skills to build a site/mod lichess to make it work, but lichess isn't interested in adding new variants. If anyone's looking for a project...

<comment><USER17> I've been thinking about contributing a certain chess variant to lichess, but I haven't reached out to them or done any research yet - what makes you think they aren't interested in adding new variants? Have they made any statements about that in the past?

<comment><USER16> I hung around #lichess on freenode (where the wonderful dev team exists, including the founder Thibaut) a lot at the time (and I still do) and I was more or less definitively told about concerns of further splitting the userbase. The most recently added variant (Racing Kings) is not terribly popular, and they've made a commitment not to remove variants once they're added, so I appreciate the caution, but something in my bones told me then (which was about two years ago now) and still does that S-chess would be SUPER popular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you enjoy tough games, i encourage you to take a look into crazyhouse ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazyhouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazyhouse)). It is the analogue to shogi, captured pieces can be redeployed as a single move. You can play crazyhouse on lichess.org for free, just a email is required. GM Yasser Seirawan is the most prominent crazyhouse fan playing on crazyhouse([https://lichess.org/@/yasser- seirawan](https://lichess.org/@/yasser-seirawan)). As is internationally common, pieces _can_ be dropped with check, this makes the game extremely violent. Considering that your opponent can use captured pieces against you, a material loss feel twice as hard as in normal chess, in the long run. Nevertheless the game of crazyhouse is completely dominated by dynamic factors. E.g a queen is barely worth two pieces and (in high class games) often it is sacced for a single piece and a tempo. If you have black you will have a hard time to survive the opening against a good player, some even believe that the game is winning for white and i think this is not way off. If your oppononent is 200 Elo points stronger, expect to get mated until move 30 or even move 20. A single slip and you can get mated in move 15 or earlier. I hope i have wet your appetite :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> Fascinating. I am just starting to study chess seriously this year, and devoured that thread with interest.

A question for the chess experts on here - is it possible to take your rating from around 500 as a rank beginner to around 1000 within a 12 month span? I kind of set that for myself as an ambitious goal once I've finished the study phase but have no idea how difficult a task that would be.

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't worry too much about your elo, if you're enjoying it you're gonna get a lot better. For the longest time people didn't even have the internet to get better and had to spend big $$ to get coaching.

To get better you need to first master the endgame so you don't throw won games, then learn what kinds of midgame positions (tactical vs positional) you enjoy best so you can then pick a few openings you like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For black, I play the Black Lion system, which can be used against e4 and d4 which is the reason why it appealed to me, besides not being so well known.

In many lines black goes for a crazy attack on the king side (called the Lion claw) where Black does not castle, but also black just castles and it becomes the Philidor Hanham, with equal chances for black.

Anyway, you get a lot out of it without severe downsides: similar game against e4 and d4, equality for black in many lines and the possibility for going for the win with black with a king-side attack.

</comment><comment><USER22> I love gambits. I play the King's Gambit, Smith Morra, and Benko. I also like the Wing Gambit in the Sicilian, but haven't looked too closely at it. But perhaps my favorite, in response an attempted Fried Liver Attack, is the Traxler Counter Gambit as black. Here's one of Traxler's games: [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1224609](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1224609)

</comment><comment><USER23> Unrelated, but perhaps someone here can point me in the right direction.

Which chess services or apps would people recommend for iPad? I bought one for my dad to replace his old Android tablet and struggled to find an app that fits his needs.

He basically wants ranked matches that are fairly quick paced; a simple UI would help too (he's in his mid 70s). Would rather pay than have ads. Thanks.

<comment><USER24> Lichess, it's free and should be very easy to learn even for seniors. It got awesome feature such as free computer analysis for played games etc.

Edit: and no ads! You can support the developer and get a cool icon, but all the features are free for all the users.

<comment><USER23> Excellent, I'll set him up and see how he gets on. Thank you.

Edit: I just installed and signed up myself, this looks perfect. Thanks again

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think certain lines of the Scandinavian defense can be considered aggressive, though the way you're supposed to play it involves moving your queen back to the back rank eventually (this loses tempo, however). Good opening as black to get into an opening sequence you probably know better than your opponent

</comment><comment><USER25> I got into playing more aggressive openings after watching analyses of Paul Morphy and Tal and never stopped!

<comment><USER16> People particularly love attacking chess (possibly because expert, constricting, prophylactic chess is a slower burn and takes more skill in a lot of cases to appreciate), and with that being said, it's interesting because chess is sort of the opposite of that Sun Tzu quote: "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

If you're a strategic chess master but you can't see tactics, that mastery doesn't matter and your opponents take all your pieces. If you're likely to get ground down in an eighty move game but you can sniff out an attack on your enemy's king, you can usually at least get a shot at doing that and crush your opponent.

<comment><USER26> >Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

Tal wants a word with you on that one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I will take this opportunity to recommend agadmator's chess channel on YouTube, I'm thoroughly hooked and have learned so much already from it!

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR](https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR)

</comment><comment><USER28> I am surprised nobody mentioned theax Lange attack 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4 exd 5. 00

It leads to pretty wild position but unfortunately it was studied a lot and with perfect play Black gets a drawing position.

<comment><USER28> Too late to edit! I meant to write "the Max Lange attack".

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Reminds me of a "DuoLingo for Chess" someone posted a while back: [https://www.chesscademy.com](https://www.chesscademy.com)

<comment><USER30> Is it still online somewhere? The heroku app in the link os broken.

<comment><USER29> Oh crap, not that I know of :/

Thanks for pointing that out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> My current favorite is

1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 5. g4 :)

<comment><USER28> Oh I play that line too! It was used in the 80s by GM John Nunn to score many victories (yes, I know, it's old).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I play a deadly london system.

</comment><comment><USER33> great post</comment>


FbStart from Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://developers.facebook.com/fbstart/ <comment><AUTHOR> A global program designed by Facebook to help startups build and grow their businesses.</comment>


Apple vs. HP, a difference in hardware design - <AUTHOR> http://bradwallen.com/2010/11/03/apple-vs-hp-a-difference-in-hardware-design/ <comment><USER2> Apple's solution does not allow a person to determine conformance to the standards without turning the device on...should the device not conform to local regulations a violation may have already occured,

In addition,the HP isn't locked to an operating system. The assumption by Apple that specific software will always be installed on a piece of hardware is dubious.

> _"Maybe you're paying more for that little pull-out tab thingy?"_

Two cameras, faster processor, a desktop operating system, usb, sd, a smaller physical footprint, and widescreen format.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another difference: HP doesn't directly work with manufacturers on a lot of their hardware, instead opting to rebadge/rebrand products that also exist under other companies' names. Many low-end HP printers were made by Samsung.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have had experience of a couple of HP laptops and an HP mini-tower PC. HP follows best practices. Apple relies on good design.</comment>


Diplomats suffered "concussion without concussion" and we still don't know why - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/the-mystery-of-the-havana-syndrome <comment><AUTHOR> More references: [1] semi-recent nytimes article on same topic [2] physiological effects of microwave radiation

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/science/sonic-attack- cuba...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/science/sonic-attack-cuba- microwave.html) [2] [https://www.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/jappl.1918.104.22.168...](https://www.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/jappl.1918.104.22.1689)

</comment><comment><USER2> I keep reading this story but I have not seen any offical attempt to use pressure sensors, low and high frequency microphones, and em spectrum analyzers to trace what this alledged effect is being transmitted by.

<comment><USER3> If they did that, they're not going to talk about it if they couldn't figure it out. The US government is not going to announce that they took a billion dollars of their best equipment down to Havana and still can't figure out what's going on.

<comment><USER2> It shouldn't take millions of dollars worth of gear to rule out the above possiblities. If not sonic or EM then what could it be?

<comment><AUTHOR> Wouldn't be surprised if someone has determined the cause and just hasn't publicized it.. There were some comments on an older ars technica article which I thought made a pretty good case for EM.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Google of Domain Names - <AUTHOR> https://dofo.com <comment><AUTHOR> \- Search more than 350 million registered domain names in seconds.

\- Use 15+ magical filters to find what you look for.

\- Explore curiously every registered domain name on its special page.

\- Find 40 million domain names on sale with the power of 15+ marketplace partners.

\- Follow domain names to catch every update about a domain name.</comment>


How and why the leap second affected Cloudflare DNS - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-and-why-the-leap-second-affected-cloudflare-dns/ <comment><USER2> Time smearing should be standard. It's not perfect, but when Google, Amazon, and Microsoft all evaluate and accept that a unit of time may differ by 11 ppm for 20-24 hrs every number of years; maybe people can stop being so anal about smearing and end up with bugs like these.

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent postmortem. They blame their code and Golang, but another problem is that their kernel ran time backwards to implement the leap second. That's really not the right way to do leap seconds, but is a common kludge because POSIX defines days as always having exactly 86,400 seconds. Details on that: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time#Encoding_time_as_a_n...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time#Encoding_time_as_a_number)

<comment><USER4> It's not the kernel's fault. The kernel provides several clocks, one of which is defined to be monotonic. However Go does not expose that clock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I habitually do <= checks for things that should never be below 0 because I'm paranoid like that. I don't think it's good practice, but I keep doing it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Alex Forster wins:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13294746](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13294746)

The Golang bug discussion is kind of lame. The Cloudflare post-mortem doesn't really get into the root cause issue which is that mission critical infrastructure appears to be written in a language that isn't actually suitable for it. Isn't this the _exact_ use case Go was designed for? And yet design problems with the standard library led to an outage on a major, important service?

The conclusion simply says they are "inspecting their service" to find other leap second bugs. But leap second bugs are not a new or unanticipated problem. I'd have liked to see a deeper analysis that gets to the root of why an apparently immature language that doesn't provide basic systems programming tools was chosen for something as vital as a DNS server.

</comment><comment><USER6> An experience that, I assume, a lot of developers have made: massive amounts of code and a complex systems architecture and when things go wrong it's because of a single line of code or even a single character (< instead of =)!

</comment><comment><USER7> Leap seconds must go before they cause real damage.</comment>