Freeman Dyson Has Died - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/science/freeman-dyson-dead.html <comment><USER2> About 4 years ago, I was a grad student in astrophysics at Princeton. Dyson worked at the Institute for Advanced Study which, while not _officially_ part of the university was essentially an extension of the various departments (shared colloquiums, any researcher there was a valid thesis adviser, etc.).

The grad students have a tradition (or used to) called "Thunch" (Thursday Lunch) where they invite someone to come have lunch and hang out every week. It was by far one of the highlights of my life — maybe 10 people in the room max, eating pizza, shooting shit with some of the most impressive and accomplished people you could hope to meet — Nobel prize laureates, Neil deGrasse Tyson, famous authors, whoever would respond to our invitation (people tended to say yes). Dyson was one of them. At the time he was already like 92 years old, dressed in a suit, occasionally using a handkerchief, and this guy had just published a result in Nature. The guy was SHARP at 92. Nicest, most interesting person I have ever met. Knew Einstein from his early days at IAS. Worked on an early version of the space program that looked into launching people into space with large spring loaded contraptions _that were to be propelled with nuclear weapons_. Those were the days I guess...

So sorry to see he's gone, the guy was a living legend.

<comment><USER3> I've met him and his other daughter. They are/were wonderful people.

There were a lot of "solutions" using nuclear weapons looking for a problem. There was a proposal to blow a new canal through nicaragua, to blast harbors into Alaska, etc. My roommate's father showed me his paper that anticipated fracking: drill a deep well in oil shale, through a small nuclear weapon in the bottom, blow it up and watch as the pressure and heat extract the oil and have it flow through the fractured rock back to your oil well.

He almost got to test it.

<comment><USER4> In a similar vein there's a story and YouTube video of Russians plugging an out of control burning oil well with a small nuke.

Edit. It was a gas well here's the link [https://youtu.be/S57Xq03njsc](https://youtu.be/S57Xq03njsc)

<comment><USER4> RIP Freeman Dyson. Apologies for drifting from main thread, fell for the oldest trick in the HN book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "It is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are somehow directly aware of the complicated flow of electrical and chemical patterns in our brains. At the lowest level, the level of single atoms and electrons, the mind of an observer is again involved in the description of events. Between lies the level of molecular biology, where mechanical models are adequate and mind appears to be irrelevant. But I, as a physicist, cannot help suspecting that there is a logical connection between the two ways in which mind appears in my universe. I cannot help thinking that our awareness of our own brains has something to do with the process which we call "observation" in atomic physics. That is to say, I think our consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events in our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another. In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the processes of human consciousness differ only in degree but not in kind from the processes of choice between quantum states which we call "chance" when they are made by electrons." ― Freeman Dyson

<comment><USER6> That quote is mindblowing. I don't think I've ever heard an argument for free will on a sub-atomic level. It never crossed my mind that that was a position someone could conceivably hold. But it's weirdly comforting- it almost feels religious- and I'm now thinking about how that would affect emergence.

<comment><USER7> I don't know where I first heard that view, but I've long thought it was the only one that was plausible - where else could free will come from? is it supposed to sneak into physics somehow at a higher level?

<comment><USER8> Another plausible view is that it never sneaks in. Nondeterminism would only lead to free will if the mind somehow controlled the nondeterministic outcomes. We know the brain can't do that, so it's clearly a metaphysical question if you want to go further (the mind would have to be an agent distinct from the brain.) The answer to a metaphysical question is not always "no," but you will never be able to prove it.

<comment><USER9> I don't get this argument. If your mind deterministically makes a given decision in a given circumstance then that's what your mind decided to do. Another mind would make a different decision. That seems like your mind determined the outcome and that sounds like free will?

<comment><USER10> The decision is the result of mechanical interactions of the atoms your brain is made of. Unless the mind controls the atoms it's simply a projection of them. A lot of people are uncomfortable with that idea, but this discomfort is also only a projection and the atoms don't give a damn about it. Where is the freedom exactly?

<comment><USER9> I guess I think the atoms are the mind so if the atoms make the decision the mind makes the decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Started writing "later" in life:

"Life begins at 55, the age at which I published my first book," he wrote in "From Eros to Gaia,"

Never got his PhD. Taught physics at Cornell.

Thoughts on climate change:

"Relishing the role of iconoclast, he confounded the scientific establishment by dismissing the consensus about the perils of man-made climate change as "tribal group-thinking." He doubted the veracity of the climate models, and he exasperated experts with sanguine predictions they found rooted less in science than in wishfulness: Excess carbon in the air is good for plants, and global warming might forestall another ice age."

Lots worth reading in the NYT obituary.

<comment><USER12> >> Excess carbon in the air is good for plants, and global warming might forestall another ice age.

How is it not "rooted in science" that excess carbon is good for plants? We're already seeing significant global greening, and yields are up. Excess CO2 also reduces the amount of water the plants need.

<comment><USER13> He's gone, so this isn't really the place for this discussion at all.

However, I'm glad this is mentioned and how it shows that there are a lot of intelligent people who have concerns with the current science debate. Consensus isn't science, it's politics, and challenging ones ideas is how we both reinforce the truth as well as dispel myths.

<comment><USER14> There is a prize winning physicist in my area who was arrested for starting a major brush fire. He plugged multiple extension cords together to power an electric fence and the overheating of the cords started the fire. Intelligence does not apply to every possible topic. Trusting the consensus of people trained in an area is always better than discounting that consensus because someone with little to no expertise on the subject challenges their ideas.

<comment><USER12> > Trusting the consensus of people trained in an area is always better

That's what they said when Galileo Galilei was on trial for not trusting the "consensus" about geocentric view of the world.

To use a more recent example, that's what they said of Dr. Barry Marshall who discovered that it was Heliobacter Pylori, and not "stress" that's causing ulcers in the stomach. Dude was very nearly laughed out of his field, to the point where he had to take the unconventional step of infecting himself with h. pylori to prove the point, and then curing himself of it with antibiotics.

In a politicized field especially, it can very easily cost one their scientific career if they "disagree with consensus" if one is less prominent than Dyson, whereas "agreeing with consensus" is strongly beneficial.

<comment><USER15> I think you'll find those people were actually trained in their respective fields and not fielding essentially uneducated opinions, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _I particularly enjoyed being immersed in the ethos of engineering, which is very different from the ethos of science. A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering._

Dyson said this while describing his time working on the Orion project. It had a profound effect on me and it has always stuck with me.

</comment><comment><USER17> "When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories"

"We have no reason to think that climate change is harmful if you look at the world as a whole. Most places, in fact, are better off being warmer than being colder. And historically, the really bad times for the environment and for people have been the cold periods rather than the warm periods."

"...the computer models are very good at solving equations of fluid dynamics but very bad at describing the real world. The real world is full of things like clouds and vegetation and soil and dust which the models describe very poorly."

[https://www.azquotes.com/author/4275-Freeman_Dyson/tag/clima...](https://www.azquotes.com/author/4275-Freeman_Dyson/tag/climate- change)

<comment><USER18> the ridiculously hot summers in Australasia resulting in bushfires, famine and drought... seas taking over the cities are all _demonstrable_ effects of climate change.

Did he live in UK? Yea the winter was milder I guess.

<comment><USER19> There are plant species that are dependent upon fire for reproduction. Such species begin to die if all fire is suppressed.

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

[https://www.gardenguides.com/97493-eucalyptus-trees- australi...](https://www.gardenguides.com/97493-eucalyptus-trees- australia.html)

[https://www.bushheritage.org.au/species/grass- trees](https://www.bushheritage.org.au/species/grass-trees)

[https://www.nationalforests.org/our-forests/your-national- fo...](https://www.nationalforests.org/our-forests/your-national-forests- magazine/how-trees-survive-and-thrive-after-a-fire)

[https://www.quora.com/What-seeds-need-fire-to-germinate- like...](https://www.quora.com/What-seeds-need-fire-to-germinate-like-a- forest-fire)

[https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/why-the-giant- sequoia-n...](https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/why-the-giant-sequoia- needs-fire-to-grow)

When the Iraqis set the Kuwait oil wells on fire as they left, it was predicted that they would burn for years and be a global environmental disaster. They were put out in six months. This was never celebrated. The news just moved on to something with more drama.

In the aftermath of the fires, the combination of ash and water used to put many of them out caused the desert to bloom like no one had seen in at least twenty years. This also was not widely promoted as some kind of good news.

When I was pursuing environmental studies, there was a cartoon in one of my textbooks depicting microbes giving off oxygen and some of the microbes protesting that they were destroying their environment and needed to stop. Microbes that off-gassed oxygen are how we got an oxygen atmosphere on earth.

One of my professors once said "We're like fleas on the butt of a dog trying to figure out which way the dog is going."

The truth is we don't really know as much as some people like to pretend we do and we do present stories in a biased fashion. The people who are convinced we are hurtling towards our doom generally don't want to have a rational discussion of the evidence. They are too busy trying to insist that our lives are in imminent danger and there's no time for rational discussion, we must _do_ something to stop this.

<comment><USER20> > When I was pursuing environmental studies, there was a cartoon in one of my > textbooks depicting microbes giving off oxygen and some of the microbes > protesting that they were destroying their environment and needed to stop. > Microbes that off-gassed oxygen are how we got an oxygen atmosphere on > earth.

Yes, that is called the Great Oxidation Event [1] and it was the Earth's first major extinction event.

The microbes were absolutely correct that their environment was being destroyed. The Earth then shifted to a new atmospheric makeup and new life blossomed but it was still a termination event for most life that existed prior to the event.

> The truth is we don't really know as much as some people like to pretend we > do

Yes. Which means we shouldn't run a giant experiment with the atmosphere and the oceans. This is called the precautionary principle: if you're doing something that _may_ result in systemic disaster then it's better to not do it. People who say that this giant global experiment won't do any harm (or go further and say it will be beneficial) are pretending knowledge that they don't actually have.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event)

<comment><USER19> Thank you for the link to The Great Oxidation Event and for the name of it. Have an upvote for that perfectly chromulent information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A few years ago, I asked Freeman Dyson what we should teach our children so there would be more Freeman Dyson's. He gave a surprising answer.

He said we should teach children to genetically "play" with plants. He thought we needed that kind of creativity as a human species if we would ever be able to populate the asteroid belt. He said that most of the surface area of the solar system is in the asteroid belt -- but the only way we could really live out there was if we could create _warm blooded plants_.

<comment><USER22> Isn't the large total surface area of the asteroid belt overwhelmed by drawbacks like unusability of most of it for most purposes (uneven, unstable, unshielded, etc.), and the fact that humans do really poorly in microgravity?

<comment><USER23> That sounds about right. You should check this out of haven't yet [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_\(TV_series\))

<comment><USER22> Thanks for reminding me that I really need to get around to starting Season 4!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Infinite in All Directions is still one of my favorite science books.

"Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many common features. They share these features also with other enterprises such as art, literature, and music. The most salient features of all these enterprises are discipline and diversity. Discipline to submerge the individual fantasy in a greater whole. Diversity to give scope to the infinite variety of human souls and temperaments. Without discipline there can be no greatness. Without diversity there can be no freedom. Greatness for the enterprise, freedom for the individual- these are the two themes, contrasting but not incompatible, that make up the history of science and the history of religion."

<comment><USER25> "Infinite In All Directions" is right here in my current reading stack next to Loren Eiseley's "All The Strange Hours"... they live on through their written words and all the lives they touched.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Freeman Dyson exposed and explained Richard Feynmans genius to the world, but he had better blue thoughts (see my other links in this discussion) than Feynman had ("Plenty Of Room At The Bottom"), on a par with Alan Kay's blue thoughts.

He imagined the Dyson Sphere that set me on my path to Science, Carl Sagan just gave the last push.

He imagined the space chicken and the Kuiper belt/Oort cloud plants.

His carbon cycle ideas have still not been researched seriously.

His essay on the origens of life (started by Gödel) are still ringing in my brain.

His view of big Napoleon versus small tabletop science is a very valid analysis of our current crises in science and his solution is to be kind to the mad scientists and heretics.

By far his best interview is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBjVHLBEsHI&list=PLzLGaX_Jvm...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBjVHLBEsHI&list=PLzLGaX_JvmJoIGJFR_1M088pMz68qUtnc&index=6&t=0s). It is also on bittorrent and Peertube.

The rest of the Glorious Accident series is worth it as well, especially the group discussion at the end.

<comment><USER27> Blue thoughts?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. According to the Hay Theory of History, the invention of hay was the decisive event which moved the center of gravity of urban civilization from the Mediterranean basin to Northern and Western Europe. The Roman Empire did not need hay because in a Mediterranean climate the grass grows well enough in winter for animals to graze. North of the Alps, great cities dependent on horses and oxen for motive power could not exist without hay. So it was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York."

<comment><USER28> This appears to be untrue:

[https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/32538/was-hay- in...](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/32538/was-hay-invented- only-in-the-middle-ages-in-europe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A free and original thinker, who wrote well. An intellectual powerhouse with immense humility. He will be sorely missed.

Here are some of his most interesting tidbits (For a man like Dyson, I'm sure there's more)

1\. Birds and frogs: [https://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf](https://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf) (On two kinds of intellectual personalities)

2\. The Scientist as a Rebel (essay collection): [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51431.The_Scientist_as_R...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51431.The_Scientist_as_Rebel)

3\. He has been thoughtfully articulate in his perspective on religion. While I can't find an appropriate link right away, definitely worth checking out.

Quotes/Excerpts: [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson)

</comment><comment><USER30> What a loss. There's a fantastic and epic interview with him on youtube here[1]. He tells stories of famous people he knew, meeting Wittgenstein, arguing with Teller, going on a road trip across the country with Feynman etc. Solid gold stuff.

I've heard occasional attacks on him over the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg. But I think this is worth a read[2]. He speaks very frankly about what they did and his involvement. It's clear how he felt about it, but he never tries to make excuses for himself. That impressed me about his character in a way that's hard to explain.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzDA6mtmKQE...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzDA6mtmKQEgWfcIu49J4nN)

[2] [http://www.bible-researcher.com/dresden/dyson.html](http://www.bible- researcher.com/dresden/dyson.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> A couple of years ago I got interested in an old paper of his, "Continuous Functions Defined on Spheres", where he proves that for any continuous function defined on the sphere, there are four points forming an equatorial square (ie four points equally spaced along some great circle) on which the function takes equal values.

Interestingly, this theorem can be used to prove the Wobbly Table theorem, that any square table can be rotated on a (possibly bumpy) floor so that all four legs touch the ground simultaneously.

I found the theorem interesting, and it has the flavor of the Borsuk-Ulam Theorem (commonly explained as "there are always a pair of antipodal points on the Earth that have the same temperature and pressure"), but it bugged me that the proof was not at all similar to the standard proofs of the Borsuk-Ulam Theorem.

So I found my own proof of Dyson's theorem, in the spirit of the Borsuk-Ulam Theorem. Wrote it up but didn't publish traditionally — it's at [https://haggainuchi.com/wobblytable2.html](https://haggainuchi.com/wobblytable2.html) — but it never occurred to me to send it to Dyson or that he might be interested.

Too late now, sadly.

</comment><comment><USER7> My favorite thing about Dyson was that, in the middle of doing atomic research, he plotted a graph of the total number of nuclear tests done every year, and saw that it was increasing exponentially - which caused him to reverse his position on the use of nuclear devices, and argue to cancel his own project and all similar projects.

from Dyson's 1962 memo on the Test Ban Treaty:

"The choice, whether or not to accept a test-ban agreement, is thus not a choice between two static situations, one without testing and the other with testing at some constant rate. This choice seems rather to be, either to stop tests, or to continue to double the rate of testing every three years ad infinitum."

</comment><comment><USER32> What an incredible life Freeman Dyson had. The next time you have an hour free, I'd urge you to watch this autobiographical lecture he gave in 2011, "On living through four revolutions". In it, he describes his experience witnessing and participating in (1) the development of space travel, (2) nuclear energy, (3) molecular biology & the genome, and (4) computers. In addition to being absolutely fascinating and insightful, this talk does a fantastic job of showing off his wonderfully dry sense of humor!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq4p2qbE684](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq4p2qbE684)

</comment><comment><USER33> I guess it's time to reread Starship and the Canoe - a great book about Freeman's nuclear weapon powered spaceship and his son George's interest in building boats. I thoroughly enjoyed it 25+ years ago.

</comment><comment><USER34> Noted physicist slain by oldest foe, gravity:

"Mia Dyson says her father, at the age of 96 still regularly went to his office at Princeton University. On Wednesday, on such a visit, she says he suffered a fall and died of his injuries Friday morning."

TBIs and elder falling are a terrifying source of morbidity and mortality. So many old people start their terminal decline when they fall, for no particularly good reason. (Even when it doesn't immediately kill them, it can contribute to a downward spiral of ill health, less activity, and iatrogenics.) Who knows how much longer Dyson could have lived if his foot hadn't slipped?

<comment><USER35> I am not sure how long it'd take to become socially acceptable, but I would bet we could make robotic tails for the elderly to help with balancing... accelerometer, motors and a few counterweights, controller and battery.

<comment><USER36> A lot of people have psychological hurdles to even using a cane. Something like "I raised N children, I powered through my career, I have been a strong independent human being as far as I can remember, why should I use a cane?"

<comment><USER37> You occasionally see Richard Guy walking around our mathematics department with hiking poles. The man hiked a mountain in his 90s, but he's 103 now and it seems those days are past. It reminds me to watch where I'm going, lest I end a living legend.

<comment><USER37> RIP Richard Guy. [https://science.ucalgary.ca/mathematics- statistics/about/ric...](https://science.ucalgary.ca/mathematics- statistics/about/richard-guy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I love his "Web of Stories": [https://www.webofstories.com/play/freeman.dyson/1](https://www.webofstories.com/play/freeman.dyson/1). Rest in peace.

<comment><USER39> Yes, definitely marvelous. Also a Youtube Playlist. I'll put it on, go for a walk, and the time just disappears: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs1jGsn61p8&list=PLVV0r6CmEs...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs1jGsn61p8&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzDA6mtmKQEgWfcIu49J4nN)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> For fans of Physics Today, they have put up a link to articles authored by Dyson over the years: [https://physicstoday.scitation.org/action/doSearch?AllField=...](https://physicstoday.scitation.org/action/doSearch?AllField=freeman+and+dyson&startPage&ContribAuthorStored=Dyson%2C+Freeman+J)

</comment><comment><USER41> Freeman Dyson - Scientific bad-ass. James Dyson - Vacuum cleaner bad-ass.

source: [https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/diumi/has_anyone...](https://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/diumi/has_anyone_else_ever_confused_freeman_dyson/)

</comment><comment><USER42> For anyone else that couldn't access it:

[https://outline.com/Aw9mRN](https://outline.com/Aw9mRN)

[http://archive.is/oqumk](http://archive.is/oqumk)

</comment><comment><USER43> While at undergraduate studying physics, I once emailed Dyson asking about something he had written with regards to NASA, and what he thought the future of space travel was. I always remember he took the time to respond and email me back. Was really nice, especially as he gets no telling how many emails a day, and easily could've ignored it.

</comment><comment><USER44> I heard him speak in 2004, when I was 17. Here's what I wrote in my LiveJournal at the time:

On Thursday, I saw Freeman Dyson speak at Cornell. He was so amazing I can't even describe it. I didn't look at my watch once during the speech. Not long into the talk, the elderly gentleman next to me pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and began scribbling notes. He kept writing until the end of the speech. I glanced behind me during the question-and-answer period, and noticed that Schwartz Auditorium was so full that people were standing in the balcony and sitting on the railings just to hear Dyson.

The text of Dyson's speech would have impressed any English teacher. He structured it as seven short stories, with each one slowly building on each other. The style of his writing––the way he chose his words and structured his sentences––would have been impressive if he had been giving a lecture in the humanities, much less a field stereotyped for less-able communicators. The way Dyson was able to convey the sheer wonder of science was an orgasmic experience equivalent to reading my first Carl Sagan book.

An 80-year-old physicist who had the energy of a young assistant professor, who delivered his speech fluidly and responded deftly to the audience's questions––a scientist proficient in more than one science, and fluent enough in biology to give an entire lecture on biotechnology!!!! Oh wow...

</comment><comment><USER45> I think last week someone mentioned the dyson sphere with a link to wiki. It said he regretted they named it after him.

<comment><USER46> Huh, I'd be curious to see that source. I know he somewhat recanted the idea of a Dyson _sphere_ , as it is completely impractical even with unimagined technology (re: tensile strength of the materials, and preventing such a megastructure from falling into the sun whenever a rock hits it). But he later proposed the idea of a Dyson _swarm_ , an extremely large array of solar- sucking satellites orbiting the sun as an idea that's theoretically possible even with today's technology.

<comment><USER47> One thing that's slightly interesting about Dyson Sphere's is that spherical shells of matter exert exactly no gravitational pull at any point in their interiors. That is, the integral of gravitational pull over the whole shell is identically 0 for every point inside the shell.* This goes for any force that falls off by the inverse square rule, e.g. the electrostatic force.

In short, there's no practical way to stick an atmosphere, much less a civilization composed of life forms that depend on gravity, to the inside of the sphere, even if the other engineering challenges could be overcome.

* One thing that's suddenly more interesting to me now is if the _space_ at any point is being "pulled" equally in all directions, _resulting_ in zero force, or if the bends in space-time cancel out. In the limit, for example, could you "tear" space-time inside a dense enough and/or heavy enough shell of matter?

<comment><USER48> > there's no practical way to stick an atmosphere, much less a civilization > composed of life forms that depend on gravity, to the inside of the sphere

Why not spin the sphere? Given the immense surface area, it wouldn't even matter that the centripetal force would only be strongest around the 'equator'.

So, the plan would be:

1\. Create a giant rotating sphere around our Sun.

2\. Create a ring world around the 'equator' of the inside of the sphere (i.e. a ring of walls high enough to hold in the resident's preferred atmosphere).

3\. Install solar panels everywhere else.

4\. Profit!

<comment><USER49> Why not just a ring, instead?

It's been done, of course...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> His paper "Time without end : Physics and biology in an open universe" is worth a read: [http://www.astro.caltech.edu/ay1/RevModPhys.51.447.pdf](http://www.astro.caltech.edu/ay1/RevModPhys.51.447.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER51> A book called something like 'Quantum Mysteries for Bluffers' described his work on QED this way:

Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga independently discovered quantum electrodynamics. Then Freeman Dyson explained it -- to the first three!

</comment><comment><USER52> RIP.

Here's an article: [https://www.mainepublic.org/post/renowned-mathematician- and-...](https://www.mainepublic.org/post/renowned-mathematician-and- physicist-freeman-dyson-has-died-age-96)

</comment><comment><USER53> The Times obituary mentions two books that give a sense of what Dyson was like as a thinker and conversationalist.

> He appeared in John McPhee's book "The Curve of Binding Energy" (1974), a > portrait of Ted Taylor, the nuclear scientist who led the Orion effort, and > in Kenneth Brower's "The Starship and the Canoe" (1978). In a memorable > scene, Mr. Brower wrote of Dr. Dyson's reunion with his son, George, who had > turned his back on high technology to live in a treehouse in British > Columbia and build a seafaring canoe.

Both books are very much worth reading.

</comment><comment><USER54> May seem trivial but the Dyson Sphere was the most amazing thing I ever learned about though Star Trek, awe inspiring in that it really is theoretically possible for us to build in thousands of years.

</comment><comment><USER55> No! He was a hero to any aspiring physicist.

I can't even begin to list his accomplishments!

</comment><comment><USER56> The obit refers to him as "Dr. Dyson". Did he ever get a doctorate?

edit: I'll leave this up for posterity, but the answer is no. The article explains the discrepancy.

<comment> Iwan-Zotow "Freeman Dyson, renowned physicist and educator, today (May 17) received an honorary doctor of science degree at Clarkson University"

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Are they sure he's dead and that someone hasn't erected a shell around him absorbing all of his radiant energy?

</comment><comment><USER58> Bittersweet news -- but he lived a productive and long life.

I came upon parasitic numbers by researching Freeman Dyson one day. Very cool. Read up on them: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_number)

</comment><comment><USER59> Between ten and fifteen years ago I was at a colloquium featuring Leon Cooper, Craig Venter and Freeman Dyson (via video). At one point in the conversation, Dyson slumped over only to rouse a few minutes later. He rejoined the conversation without missing a beat.

</comment><comment><USER60> Worth watching, Freemon Dyson life stories -- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs1jGsn61p8&list=PLVV0r6CmEs...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs1jGsn61p8&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzDA6mtmKQEgWfcIu49J4nN)

</comment><comment><USER61> With the exception of his views on climate change, he was probably my favourite living physicist. 94 years is an extremely good (I realise this now that I have a single grandparent left, one down before I was born) innings, but what a shame.

</comment><comment><USER62> Orbitsville - Urbanization of a Dyson Sphere: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitsville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbitsville)

</comment><comment><USER63> Damn, I'm doing research involving partitions right now. I used crank/rank all the time -invariants that he introduced years ago. What a shame, RIP

</comment><comment><USER64> He was interesting character partially because he believed in God.

This is actually quite rare at the very upper echelons of the scientific community.

<comment><USER65> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#Science_and_reli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#Science_and_religion)

Seems more complicated than that

> I am a practicing Christian but not a believing Christian. To me, to worship > God means to recognize that mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric > of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our comprehension

<comment><USER58> I truly appreciate thinkers who are able to think about God in their own original terms. His particular description of the notion of God is quite similar to my own, so this is quite nice to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> [https://archive.md/4I0Lm](https://archive.md/4I0Lm)

</comment><comment><USER67> He should be buried in a spherical grave! then he would always be in his dyson sphere. RIP!!

</comment><comment><USER68> Rest in Peace. And amazing example of academic and intellectual success sans- phd.

</comment><comment><USER69> Why does Freeman Dyson earn a black bar, and Katherine Johnson not?

<comment><USER20> I think the answer to this is that it is their site and their honour to bestow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> He's in the Dyson sphere now.

</comment><comment><USER71> One for the ages.

</comment><comment><USER72> It would be great if the moderators could change the link to a non-paywalled link.

</comment><comment><USER73> Url changed from [https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1233434046266531840](https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1233434046266531840) to a more substantive article (via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22444492](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22444492)).

</comment><comment><USER74> I think it would be appropriate to break out the black bar for this one.

For those not familiar: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson)

<comment><USER64> No black bar for Dyson. The black bars overwhelmingly go to the titans of (digital) tech rather than titans of science.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I really feel like it's worth having this discussion: the black bar for Freeman Dyson, but not for Katherine Johnson who died earlier this week.

At the time I thought it was likely because she wasn't _directly_ involved in computing and tried to write it off, but Freeman seems to be as related to the page as her. I bring it up because it really does speak to how a community decides who they want to include or not. Unless I've missed some specific guidelines, it sends unwelcoming signals to me.

<comment><USER76> The community doesn't decide who gets the black bar or not, and there are no published guidelines. AFAIK it's entirely the personal preference of the admins, or possibly just dang.

Maybe Katherine Johnson just wasn't considered notable enough, or maybe the story just wasn't noticed. I wouldn't necessarily attribute it to sexism, though - there have been male obits that haven't gotten the black bar either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Here's a vote for an HN black bar. Dyson's work was incredible.

<comment><USER78> I think prevailing opinion here is that it should be left to the admins. The black bar is not a measure of the notability of someone's contributions, but rather is about their connection or impact to YC/HN (and the HN community).

Personally I agree with that. The newspapers will have great obituaries anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Love the man. May he RIP. He contributed greatly in debunking climate alarmism. One of the few scientists who were brave enough to go against the annoying PC culture around this issue. Good man. He did great work.

</comment><comment><USER80> He was the sanest mind on climate change: [https://e360.yale.edu/features/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_cl...](https://e360.yale.edu/features/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_climate_establishment)

<comment><USER81> > Dyson contends that since carbon dioxide is good for plants, a warmer planet > could be a very good thing. And if CO2 does get to be a problem, Dyson > believes we can just do some genetic engineering to create a new species of > super-tree that can suck up the excess.

Forever the optimist!

<comment><USER82> That is actually work-in-process. Biological engineers are trying to upgrade C3 plants to C4, improve rubisco efficiency, and other such performance enhancers for photosynthesis.

It's not so much driven by climate changes as by potential agricultural profits, though. If it were the former, they'd make an algae 2.0 and drop it in the ocean. But as C3 to C4 modification could make a hotter, drier rice with 20%-50% higher yield, that's worth a whole lot of money.

Of course, that work has been underway for decades--even before CRISPR/Cas9-- and golden rice got stomped for no good reason, so even if someone made a super-Sitka-pine exclusively for carbon fixation, it could still get blocked by politics.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which code collaboration website could you recommend? - <AUTHOR> I want to teach programming.<p>Looking for your best online code collaboration website. Preferably sketching/drawing pad integrated too. <comment><USER2> A bunch of IDEs/editors have remote pair programming add-ons now. Atom has Teletype and VS has Visual Studio Live Share.

Also, I'd recommend Glitch as a platform for letting your students host projects. It has a nice collaborative feel and lets them share their work in a "real" environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a bunch! :D</comment></comment>


Why China is leading the global rise of Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.coindesk.com/china-leading-global-rise-bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> What everyone needs to understand is that Bitcoin is a gift from heaven for every "productive" country's central bank.

Much of the world is trying to get away from the USD as a global "reserve" and trade-settlement currency, without the masses jumping into gold and without pissing of the US (govt, economy, Wall St).

Bitcoin is so much more "tolerated" by Germany and China than it is by the UK and the US, it's pretty obvious.

You don't really want the masses to rush into gold -- it needs to stay cheap so oil can stay cheap for whole economies, and central banks can acquire more of it for a future when intra-national trade imbalances may be settled in a proven, timeless, globally-accepted (at the central bank level) reserve asset that's not subjected to any one nation-state's (or state union's) wims or woes. You also don't want the savers to store their excess savings or retirement funds in USD or even your own currencies, because they'll be screwed over. You also don't want all the excess liquidity printed over the last 5ish years to end up as real-world price inflation on store shelves. Something like Bitcoin solves all these beautifully, and carries no diplomatic concerns because it's something that citizens are now just free to adopt as they see fit.

You think the Chinese want USD long-term? Why on earth would they? They wanna convert them into other wealth assets, even BTC if they like, asap. Think about the situation today or more so the last decade or three: they export something, take in USD. The producer takes those to their bank to convert into spendable yuan. Their bank takes those to the central bank for yuan. Their central bank doesn't wanna sit on them either so (traditionally) they buy treasuries for those USD, which sends the USD back home to the US where Americans go on the next shopping spree of buying Chinese (in our example) goods (circle repeats), and when the treasury is due, freshly printed USD plus a small interest "gain" go to China central bank and they're left holding the bag once again. What to do with those homeless USD? It's called reserve- currency privilegue and really the world would be happy to abandon it, but you can't just flip the switch or madness would ensue. Similar situation for the majority of producing-and-exporting countries.

Food for thought!

<comment><USER3> The Chinese are not acquiring USD and treasuries so that they can own spendable assets. They are doing so in order to push the value of their currency down, so that their export goods become more competitive.

This is done because while currency fluctuations and inflation can jump and fall hugely overnight, an industrial base takes DECADES to build up and decades to destroy. China is planning for the long term.

If there ever comes a point where the US industrial base has been effectively destroyed and China makes everything, they can stop the treasury buying and start cashing in. Inflation in the US will go NUTS and the US will have to build an industrial base from scratch -- starting essentially in China's position circa 1980. Not a happy place.

China will have lost trillions following this strategy, but the US will effectively stop being a strategic or military threat if it is followed through to its logical conclusion.

Bitcoin is not a godsend to the Chinese government, as it creates a means to let capital exit the country (which they are desperately trying to prevent).

<comment><USER4> This reminds me of a friend of mine who is Hong Kong born Chinese. I asked him if he wanted to go to a festival, but he said that he couldn't afford it. I knew that he earned quite a lot of money and pay day had just gone by, so I asked him if everything was OK financially.

His answer blew me away. He explained to me that Chinese families don't think like western families. He pays his parents a seriously large percentage of his earnings every month. If he wants to buy a house or a car or anything that has a large ticket price then he, or his siblings just have to ask his parents. They never have to go into debt and debt was very actively discouraged.

When I asked him why he explained to me that they see the extended family as a single unit or entity. Every generation is deeply involved with the next financially. Companies started by the family are seen as very long term investments. Those investments span more than one generation. In other words, he could start a company that is successful by the time his grandchildren take it over.

The idea that I personally would not benefit, but my grandchildren would, was nuts at the time. Now I have children I'm starting to understand this paradigm shift.

This is of course a generalization, but the Chinese appear to be very patient and serious long term investors.

<comment><USER5> I'm a native Brit but my wife is mainland Chinese. My wife and I have always shared our accounts anyway, and now we're completely plugged in to the family financial system.

It's a little different with us. Her sister has a family in China (Hohhot) and her parents sometimes live with us (for several years at a time) and sometimes over there. Whoever they live with supports them completely, and get their pensions. So the flow is reversed from what you describe, but the basic principle of shared financial resources and support is the same. e.g. My wife's parents own two flats in China and the revenue from them go to the Chinese branch of the family. We all know basically what everyone else earns and the money from the 'apex' of the family tree goes where it makes best sense. In contrast on my English side, every family unit is discrete. My parents helped us with the purchase of our first house, it's not that there's a lack of generosity in any way, but arrangements are on the basis of one-time gifts. The Chinese way is continuous real-time resource management but in service of a very long term view.

<comment><USER6> This is the most important reason why Chinese family members don't love each other that much. You never know if your relatives are just nice to you or they are after your money. It complicates everything and when things go bad they go _really_ bad.

If managed well it can be great though. My college roommate has a "college sponsorship" program within his extended family which helps pay his tuition.

<comment><USER5> I've had to think hard before replying to this. I don't think that's fair at all. I would agree that the Chinese put a premium on loyalty, and don't have as much of a culture of open expressions of affection, but that's mostly a matter of appearance and I've seen it break down many times. I'm not down voting you, because I can see how you might think that and in the general for all I know it might even be true, but it doesn't fit with my experiences of my own Chinese family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you look into China's real estate market they've invested billions to build cities...empty cities. They continue to build because citizens' investment options are limited, so real estate is one of the few "attractive" options. So they end up with ghost cities full of unoccupied office buildings, condos, malls, etc. Crazy, right?

And now they have bitcoin to put their money into. That's a large part of what's driving the boom. And you know what? It'll keep going. If they're willing to invest billions in ghost cities they're willing to drive bitcoin above $10,000.

I'm not bold enough to claim that bitcoin is a bad investment, but to me it seems closer to gambling than investment. As long as it's money you're not afraid to lose, go for it. But for me there are too many uncertainties and I'm not willing to invest the time. There are so many other opportunities.

Edit: Here's some info on the ghost cities [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/09/24/what- invest...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/09/24/what-investors- really-think-about-chinas-ghost-cities/)

<comment><USER8> Imagine a country where 1 million extra housing units only represented 1/1300th of the housing needs for the nation. Imagine someone having built 625 extra apartments in SF.

China is trying to urbanize 300 million people, a ghost city here or there is a drop in the bucket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Speculation excluded, currency controls would be a good reason for a Chinese citizen to "invest" in bitcoin (and cash it out on USD at the other side.)

<comment><USER10>
         #include <speculation.h>
             Why cash out on USD when you can avoid doing so?
             As BTC becomes more widely accepted the ubiquity of BTC acceptance will grow

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We'll looks like the Chinese govt will now have a huge motivation to thwart bitcoin's rise within its borders.

</comment><comment><USER12> Fun fact: btcchina is trading at ~5400CNY/BTC right now, which is approximately $880 while the average on other exchanges is $700. Good day for arbitrage.

btcchina: [http://bitcoinity.org/markets/btcchina/CNY](http://bitcoinity.org/markets/btcchina/CNY)

bitstamp: [http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD](http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD)

<comment><USER13> Good point. As I write this, BTC-China is at 5680 RMB, or 932 USD. Bitstamp is 655 USD, Gox is 776 USD.

Maybe China is driving the demand and other exchanges are arbitraging against China. Since there's a lag in transferring funds into exchanges, the 20% to 40% premium in China may just be a measure of latency in a fast-moving market.

If so, then we'll see the prices converge over time, and we should use BTC- China as a leading indicator of exchange rates.

<comment><USER14> FWIW, if you are seriously into arbitraging, you won't keep transferring funds between both exchanges to finish the cycle of buying-selling. What you will actually do is having half of your funds on both sites and execute both operations on both sites at the same time to have them match.

<comment><USER15> Yep, that's the only way to do it with zero risk. But since btcchina.com is consistently higher than the other top exchanges you'll eventually have to move CNY out of there and bitcoin in. Moving bitcoin there is trivial (which shows how great bitcoin is) but moving CNY out and converting it to USD for the other exchanges is trickier (need a Chinese bank account for example) so I would expect the lag in price to continue.

<comment><USER14> Exactly, that's the point I've raised in another comment. By the way, I've read that Bobby Lee (CEO @ BTCChina) is already dealing with Chinese authorities to see if he can expand the business out of China (read: accept €/$). Can't wait to see this happen as well as seeing Litecoin integrated there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> American economy will continue to slide till [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma) is resolved.

[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/13/bill- would-o...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/13/bill-would-outlaw- us-dollar-russia/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I am just getting a gray page here @ opera.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is the exact reason that people should avoid bit coin... I am serious...

<comment><USER19> Why do you say that? I'm not saying that mining bitcoin is a good idea anymore (even with ASICS, really) but I'm curious as to your rationale?

<comment><USER20> His slant seems pretty obvious... Even if he ends up being wrong the logic is self evident. Communist China is a totalitarian state, Communist China crushed another virtual currency that caught on a couple years back, therefore if the raise from ~$100 a bitcoin to ~$600 is due to chinese involvement you probably should assume its gonna go back to ~$100 as soon as the communist government flexes its muscles.

<comment><USER21> The real question is: can then even do anything about a decentralized currency?

<comment><USER22> China drove up the exchange rate 3x; what makes you think they couldn't drive it right back down?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I wrote yet another SQL tutorial - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@__dave/why-i-wrote-yet-another-sql-tutorial-c852eeb3d95d <comment><USER2> Nice tutorial. An off by one error in the quiz on the LIMIT/OFFSET part of the tutorial...</comment>


Import 10M Stack Overflow Questions into Neo4j In Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://neo4j.com/blog/import-10m-stack-overflow-questions/

<comment><USER2> Long time since i used neo4j last time and now i see it has a neat visual tool!

</comment><comment><USER3> GraphDB is not related to Neo4j.

GraphDB is an RDF database.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the title is incorrect.

Not sure if this is the right reason to do so, but I have 'flagged' the link for this reason.

<comment><USER5> We changed the title from "GraphDB: Explore StackOverflow with Neo4j".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> GraphDB formerly known as OWLIM is an enterprise grade semantic repository from Ontotext AD used for the BBC World Cup 2010 and Olympics 2012 Websites. [http://ontotext.com/products/ontotext- graphdb/](http://ontotext.com/products/ontotext-graphdb/)</comment>


The [Smart] Guns the NRA Doesn't Want Americans to Get - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/smart-guns-new-jersey-law <comment><USER3> This is a classic example of "consider the source". It is poorly researched and has some outright falsehoods:

1) "Even though smart guns are widely available overseas..." Really? I'm unable to find a _single_ production centerfire handgun approved for import by Obama's ATF from _anywhere in the world_. For example, see the references in: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_gun)

The lone handgun of any kind with any such a claimed "smart" implementation is the iP1. But what the article conveniently _omits_ (like the similar NYT article from last year omits) is that it is a .22 rimfire cartridge - <USER2> unusable in a police context. There isn't a single law enforcement organization (LEO) in the _nation_ that uses ,22 rimfire as its primary duty weapon.

2) "The palm-reading biometric gun that James Bond used in Skyfall represents the sexiest version..." that is a _movie prop_ , not a production firearm.

MJ is seeking to mandate something that _doesn 't exist_... which plays right into NRA claims that such a law is just disguised prohibition.

So, let's say such a handgun exists, in an appropriate caliber. What is the immediate, obvious market? _Law enforcement organizations._ After all, deaths due to perps gaining an officer's gun, or _fear that such is imminent_ , results in numerous shootings and deaths: e.g.: [http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lapd- shooting-...](http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lapd- shooting-20150302-story.html) [http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/michael- brown-autopsy-...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/michael-brown- autopsy-teen-ferguson-gun-report-article-1.1982854) [http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/10/cops_gun_stolen_from_hoo...](http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/10/cops_gun_stolen_from_hoover_ba.html) [http://articles.sun- sentinel.com/1997-01-08/news/9701070463_...](http://articles.sun- sentinel.com/1997-01-08/news/9701070463_1_officer-s-gun-sunrise-police- lauderhill-police) [http://www.kgw.com/story/news/local/vancouver/2015/09/14/off...](http://www.kgw.com/story/news/local/vancouver/2015/09/14/officer- involved-shooting-clark-county/72262324/) [http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/police-kill- unarmed...](http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/police-kill-unarmed- burglar-thief-gun-officials-article-1.852145) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Kathryn_Steinle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Kathryn_Steinle) etc.

Yet no LEOs, including Obama's own ATF, FBI, Secret Service, Border Patrol, nor any branch of the U.S. military has manifested any interest whatsoever in even testing such handguns.

LEOs are the obvious proving ground for such a technology, if it is in fact mature, safe, and reliable.</comment>


Is Sugar Killing Us? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-sugar-killing-us-1481303447 <comment><USER2> Starch molecules are chains of the simple sugar glucose. There is no difference between the glucose molecule in flour and the glucose molecule in cane sugar. Calorie for calorie, flour (100% glucose) provokes twice the insulin release of table sugar (50/50 glucose/fructose).

<comment><USER3> Well, yes and no. Refined carbohydrates, both sugar and starch, are bad. However, sugar molecules are more simple and so are digested more quickly. That means sugar makes for a bigger spike in insulin.</comment></comment>


DragonFly BSD 4.8 released - <AUTHOR> https://www.dragonflybsd.org/release48/ <comment><USER2> In case people are wondering what makes DBSD so interesting, DragonflyBSD is:

\- focused only on x64 architecture

\- has an extremely small but exceptionally talented team of developers (e.g. Matt Dillon from DICE and Amiga fame)

\- has it's own unique filesystem called Hammer (and work is being down on Hammer2 which is a complete rewrite)

\- Network performance is particularly good with Dragonfly and even better than FreeBSD which is known as being the golf standard for network performance [1]

[1] [https://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/~sephe/perf_cmp.pdf](https://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/~sephe/perf_cmp.pdf)

Edit: formatting

Edit2: it should also be noted in the release notes, it refers to detailed NVME disk performance testing the Dragonfly team performed. These results are largely agnostic of what OS you run. Really interesting to see the Samsung NVME device come out on top and Intel in last. This is a good read even if you don't run Dragonfly.

[http://apollo.backplane.com/DFlyMisc/nvme_randread.txt](http://apollo.backplane.com/DFlyMisc/nvme_randread.txt)

<comment><USER3> > \- has it's own unique filesystem called Hammer (and work is being down on > Hammer2 which is a complete rewrite)

You said "interesting", but superficially "a complete rewrite" WIP doesn't sound like a plus when choosing a production system OS.

If anyone is interested, this is what the DBSD man page says about hammer:

         HAMMER file systems are designed for large storage systems, up to 1
         Exabyte, and will not operate efficiently on small storage systems.  The
         minimum recommended file system size is 50GB.  HAMMER must reserve 512MB
         to 1GB of its storage for reblocking and UNDO/REDO FIFO.  In addition,
         HAMMER file systems operating normally, with full history retention and
         daily snapshots, do not immediately reclaim space when files are deleted.
         A regular system maintenance job runs once a day by periodic(8) to handle
         reclamation.

         HAMMER works best when the machine's normal workload would not otherwise
         fill the file system up in the course of 60 days of operation.

And what appears to be the original design doc for Hammer by Dillon: [https://www.dragonflybsd.org/hammer/hammer.pdf](https://www.dragonflybsd.org/hammer/hammer.pdf)

[& p.s.] Hammer2: [http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob/b93cc2e081...](http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/blob/b93cc2e0815ec1ad6d6f8e60cc0becbdee247679:/sys/vfs/hammer2/DESIGN)

<comment><USER2> In all fairness to Dragonfly, Apple themselves just _today_ released an entirely new file systems that was a complete rewrite as well.

With the advent of SSD and NVME, how you achieve maximum performance and ensure long term "disk" endurance has radically changed in recent years. You're no long write data to a physical platter anymore. Which radically changes huge fundamental assumptions in how legacy file systems were created 30-40 years ago.

So don't view a rewrite as a bad thing. It's Dragonfly being proactive and keeping up with the times.

<comment><USER4> > Apple themselves just today released an entirely new file systems that was a > complete rewrite as well.

Without CRCs or checksums on the blocks. Grr...

"Silent data corruption is real" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13851349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13851349)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I appreciate that there is so much operating system innovation coming from the *BSD's like the Hammer file systems in DragonFly and security concepts like the new pledge() system call from OpenBSD which informs the operating system that an executing program pledges to never use certain system calls. (i.e. if you say you'll never do something, the operating system will have the privilege of killing your application should there be some kind of buffer overflow/compromise.)

<comment><USER6> Re: pledge() in OpenBSD:

In FreeBSD for quite some time there is Capsicum and CloudABI has been included in FreeBSD 11. Definitely worth a look, especially the second which is also present in DragonFly.

[https://wiki.freebsd.org/Capsicum](https://wiki.freebsd.org/Capsicum)

[https://nuxi.nl/cloudabi/freebsd/](https://nuxi.nl/cloudabi/freebsd/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone using DragonFly BSD in production? Or as a desktop system? What is your experience? I love the BSDs, but never used DragonFly.

<comment><USER8> I wanna know that too. Never heard of anyone using it in production.

<comment><USER9> The hammer FS might be its main improvement. I think it's, right now, an exercise in maintaining options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Been looking for Skylake GPU support for BSD. Does it support Skylake OpenCL?

How compatible is this with FreeBSD? Can I test it alongside a FreeBSD distribution with minimal changes? Does it use the same Ports/Packages system? Do I need to recompile/reinstall all applications? Is there ZFS support?

<comment><USER2> Yes, Skylake is supported.

See [https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/supportedhardware/](https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/supportedhardware/)

Re: FreeBSD. Dragonfly forked from FreeBSD around 11 years ago (v4.x). So the two have diverged quite a bit of the years. E.g. Different file systems. Different kernel approaches to SMP. Etc.

The package management system is the same though.

<comment><USER11> to expand -

Shough package systems are based on the same code, syscall/binary level compatibility has diverged, so it does entail a separate installation on another partition/disk/etc and separate set of application packages, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Checking the release notes, it does include the recent fix mentioned at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13882171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13882171) .

</comment><comment><USER13> Awesome news, and props to the DBSD team for all the consistent hard work they put into it, usually without much fanfare. I'm a pretty hardcore GNU/GPL guy, but I have said before if I were starting an ISP I would probably be doing it with DBSD. The networking stack alone is top-notch, and once HAMMER2 rolls out I honestly expect it to get the momentum to compete with ZFS and BTRFS. (not much traction now though, so as others have said, probably years down the road).

</comment><comment><USER14> Strange that there is another dragonfly, a framework for newlisp.</comment>


'Mortal Kombat' and 'Solitaire' Among Video Game Hall of Fame Finalists - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/arts/video-game-hall-of-fame.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=2&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F03%2F28%2Farts%2Fvideo-game-hall-of-fame.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0 <comment><USER2> As great as Mortal Kombat & Street Fighter were, the greatest fighting game of all time was Soul Caliber on Dreamcast.</comment>


Microsoft now limits passwords to only 16 characters - <AUTHOR> http://www.finitepost.com/post/28424104808/outlook-com

<comment><USER2> Another innovation?</comment>


Readlet – The Newsletter App - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/readlet-the-newsletter-app/id1462990215?ls=1&mt=8 <comment><USER2> Great initiative. A much neeeded curated content reading source.

</comment><comment><USER3> God send for reading afficiandos like me !

</comment><comment><USER4> Very useful app.

</comment><comment><USER5> nice idea</comment>


How Does Kidz Bop Censor Songs? - <AUTHOR> https://pudding.cool/2020/04/kidz-bop <comment><USER2> I didn't look too much into this, but is it possible that the increase of censorship isn't just that Kidz Bop is stricter now, but that pop music today has more profanity?

>Kidz Bop is teaching gender role conformity and race identification and pushing kids to grow up quicker, a sociological phenomena known as "kids getting older younger" (KGOY).

This is another weird thing. It's assumed that we're all legally kids until 18 now, and that's being extended with more people attending college and it often being seen as a time to have fun, relax, and enjoy yourself without serious responsibility. Many of our ancestors were working jobs at 13 and some were having kids of their own. Not to say that's the way it should be, but recent trends make it feel like childhood has extended. I personally didn't really feel like an adult until solidly into my mid-20s.

Edit: It seems like "kids" here might be referring to smaller children acting like teenagers. Even in that case, I think little kids playing with toys and games all day is fairly new. Most were doing chores or actual work throughout history.

<comment><USER3> > Most were doing chores or actual work throughout history.

I have to disagree, the young of other social animals like dogs and lions all spend most of their time "playing". This, combined with the fact that a human child is comparatively underdeveloped compared to the young of every other animal makes it hard to conceive of any useful task a child could do in a neolithic society. It's not like toys are some recent invention, they're one of the oldest types of artefact we dig up. I believe "chores" are a modern invention that exists mostly to act as busywork. Washing dishes doesn't teach you anything important but many types of play exist as a sort of simulation of adult life.

<comment><USER4> Having summers off from school is so the kids can help out with the farm chores.

<comment><USER5> I thought the same thing until I was recently introduced to the Wikipedia article [0] that suggests it's actually for the purpose of family vacation.

[0]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_vacation#United_State...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_vacation#United_States)

<comment><USER6> Fine, spring an fall break for farming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Regarding the actual music, I actually love it. I was exposed to KidZ Bop as a parent with little kids ten years ago, and now I can torture them as teenagers BWAHAHAHA

As a technical style, consider how this is produced: Record every take many many different performances, then splice together the best in very short bits, usually one phrase at a time. Wouldn't be viable before , but perhaps easy enough now.

We take digital non-linear editing for granted now, but kids I dare you to try this on a Tascam 4-Track...

<comment><USER8> > splice together the best in very short bits, usually one phrase at a time

Max Martin does this for a single singer all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very cool site/presentation of a mildly amusing and thought provoking topic. The quiz was just the right length to leave me wanting more rather than bouncing. And it all works great on mobile.

<comment><USER10> until you want to go back from one list of censored words to the page you were on right before, and then you're back here at HN

<comment><USER11> When browsers give up control to web pages, we can't be surprised when a website's poor design decisions affect the browsing experience itself. (and not just the look of a page)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This looks cool, but unfortunately the text doesn't all fit on one screen on my iPhone SE and there is no way to scroll.

<comment><USER13> Same on an iPhone 11. Bottom is cut off and no way to scroll down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't imagine what they'd do with "Semi-Charmed Life." One of the radio edits cuts half the bridge.

I could also see some artists just saying "No, this song is about drugs and sex; you can't cover it."

<comment><USER14> There's almost zero-reason for a record label or artist to turn down a kids bop cover if Kids Bop thinks they can rewrite it to work for their exclusive audience.

<comment><USER15> I can barely believe I'm reading this.

I mean, of course many artists would allow it, but it should be obvious that many wouldn't consider it for a second.

You do realize there was a time when artists wouldn't allow their music to be used in commercials, and this kind of thing, right? Completely distorting a bit of art for the 'target demographic' is usually way out of most artists' area of interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> With advances in deepfake technology, it would seem possible that in the near future, this sort of thing could be automated.

If I ruled the world, I'd run all popular music through a deeepfake AI that corrects the grammar.

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting, but quite unusable on iPhone SE :( It'd be nice if they nice if they explained why certain things were censored as well; I couldn't figure out some of them. I wonder how Kidz Bop comes up with their replacements…

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a cool way to get people to label data and validate data models with a varied set of people</comment>


Glitch employees vote to form union, joining CWA - <AUTHOR> https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/tech-workers-app-developer-glitch-vote-form-union-and-join-cwa-organizing-initiative <comment><USER2> My highlights:

> 90% of the workers indicated their support for joining CWA and authorized > CWA to be their bargaining representative

> about half of whom work in the New York City headquarters and half of whom > work remotely throughout the country

> Employees at major American tech and game companies have grown increasingly > active and outspoken about workplace issues, including sexual assault and > harassment, ageism, unequal pay, "crunch time" (i.e. long-term overtime and > overworking), poor treatment of contract workers, inadequate racial and > gender diversity, and lack of transparency and inclusion in decision-making > around controversial contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and > Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

> "We appreciate that unlike so many employers, the Glitch management team > decided to respect the rights of its workforce to choose union > representation without fear or coercion."

> CWA was founded by telecom workers, and supports media workers through its > Newsguild-CWA and NABET-CWA sectors.

<comment><USER3> Game studios especially need this. I'm a conservative in most other labor- related things (liberal on social issues), but holy shit the devs are abused by the game studios.

<comment><USER4> Former game developer here. Game studios don't need unions, they need better management. Basically, an 18-year-old QA tester gets promoted to lead QA then associate producer then assistant producer and then producer. The producer manages by industry lore. And industry lore is terrible.

Unionization is not going to fix the management training problem.

<comment><USER5> > Game studios don't need unions, they need better management.

If workers unionize [1], they can force bad management out, or curtail its badness, or in extreme cases - replace management with collective ownership.

[1] - in an independent, non-corrupt union.

<comment><USER6> Or game developers can just hire non-union employees. The reality is that game development studios can get away with poor work life balance because there's people who are passionate about making games and are willing to accept poor working conditions to get a chance at their dream job. This Stage Actor's Guild exists, but aspiring actors still have to work second jobs to put a roof over their heads. When a job is a lot of people's dream job, conditions are going to be poor because the supply of potential labor is very large as compared to the demand.

Also, I have no idea where you get the idea that unions can somehow force collective ownership. The company belongs to the shareholders, unions don't magically get to take other people's property.

<comment><USER2> Employees usually receive shares as comp, don't they?

I will say that the horror stories and bad press coming out of the video gaming industry will possibly have a chilling effect for new grads who would otherwise jump straight into it. Eventually management will run out of non- union workers to hire. Or the non-union workers themselves will demand better treatment.

<comment><USER6> > Employees usually receive shares as comp, don't they?

Non-voting shares, yes. Voting shares are usually only given to very senior people, if ever, and not nearly enough to form anything close to a controlling ownership of the company.

> I will say that the horror stories and bad press coming out of the video > gaming industry will possibly have a chilling effect for new grads who would > otherwise jump straight into it. Eventually management will run out of non- > union workers to hire. Or the non-union workers themselves will demand > better treatment.

Decades of game development suggests otherwise. Like acting, it's people's dream job. And when the supply of labor exceeds the demand workers do not have leverage.

<comment><USER2> For decades there was no interest nor action towards unionizing in game development. Greater scrutiny into the industry from modern game journalism, and perhaps worsening experiences as the industry heads towards Hollywood-like AAA titles produced by monolithic studios, is surely causing _something_ to change.

<comment><USER6> Game developers' experiencing the misery of crunch time and layoffs is something I've heard about firsthand since the early 2000s at the latest. Reading accounts from earlier games' development cycles suggests that this has been common for even longer than that. Game development has always had cyclical labor demands and tight deadlines.

I think you need to qualify the claim that these experiences are worsening. In fact, from most of the veteran developers I've talked to report the opposite: before the proliferation of the internet crunch time was way more serious since patching was not a viable option. Nowadays it's pretty much the norm that games have significant bugs for the first week or two and still need to mature after release. This creates greater room for error and less pressure to fix every bug before release.

<comment><USER2> That's fair, perhaps conditions haven't been substantially worse than in previous console generations. But it sounds like there's something driving the push towards unionizing/organizing, whatever it is. And it sounds like the general public is more aware it being a brutal industry.

<comment><USER7> Despite the popular belief, game developers are pretty well paid. Not every indie or QA contractor, of course, but it's a rich industry with 6 figure salaries and profit sharing/royalty bonuses in successful studios. So, of course, any union would love to represent game developers for a share of their income. Likewise, you don't often hear of, say, restaurant workers needing union representation because they do not make much money and rarely interest unions. This is what's driving calls for unionization IMHO.

And I agree with manfredo, I started in the industry in 90s, and crunch was already there. If anything, the situation improved in mid 00s, with CA strengthening exempt employees classification and later 00s with ea_spouse lawsuit. E.g. mandatory crunches are gone, it used to be that people were forced to stay late and come in on weekends even if they had nothing to do but good luck pulling this now. Nowadays people mostly crunch either because their bonus comes out of the game's sales (and/or metacritic score, like in EA) or because they are paid OT.

<comment><USER5> > So, of course, any union would love to represent game developers for a share > of their income

You're talking about the large, collaborationist unions we know in the US - e.g. those in the AFL-CIO - where "the union" is an external entity to "the unionizing workers"; and often with the bureaucratic motivations you describe. I specifically mentioned that's not the kind of unionization I advise.

Also, payment is just one of many issues in a workplace. The basic need for a union is that the company's owners have the mechanisms for thinking, discussing, deciding acting collectively and concertedly, but its employees do not. That's what a union should be.

On that basis, employees may want to tackle issues like:

* Treatment by managers/management * Workplace culture * Physical working conditions * Workforce size vs. "squeezing" of existing employees * Advancement opportunities within the company/organization * Professional standards

and so on.

Finally, remember that a gaming development house has a lot of employees other than developers per se: QA, art, production, administrative etc.

> Nowadays people mostly crunch ... or because they are paid OT.

If people make a good salary, they don't work overtime because they don't need to. There must be some kind of psychological pressure in that direction. Overwork should be avoided.

\- who have joint interests and may wish to discuss things, take decisions, and act collect

<comment><USER7> I am not discussing whatever reasons you envisioned for unionization of our industry from the outside. I am just noting where the unionization effort is actually coming from. Pardon my cynicism, but I don't believe the big union care about anything other than payment, which drives their fees. Otherwise, as I said, they would had been pushing in retail with, at least, same effort as they do in the games industry.

>If people make a good salary, they don't work overtime because they don't need to.

Sure, they don't need to but, nevertheless, they like their fat bonuses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here is a question:

Why don't we have more smaller unions in America, but instead these GIANT mega unions?

I get collective bargaining is better with more numbers, but it feels like there is no way to have a "new" union exist?

<comment><USER9> Bigger union == bigger bargaining power

Other countries have much less liquid labour markets, or have bargaining powers of unions backed by governments, so they don't have to grow so much to make a difference.

<comment><USER10> Bigger Union == More Corruption

How does this bigger union give them any more bargaining power against glitch?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting development. Glitch used to be Fog Creek, where Joel Spolsky talked of treating developers well (latest hardware, private offices etc) and paying them well. I wonder if the culture has changed and that's why the developers felt the need to create a union.

[[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/07/a-field-guide- to-d...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/07/a-field-guide-to- developers-2/)]

<comment><USER12> Joel talking about the great care they took to build their offices (in a way that I felt was a huge mistake) was sort of the beginning of me realizing that he doesn't get everything right.

There's also an uncanny valley effect, where ignoring a problem entirely means that your employees may have needs they aren't aware of, and as soon as you shine a light on it, their job satisfaction is actually lower until you get it right.

I think a couple of my bosses understood this intuitively and would invite us to participate in developing solutions. We are much more patient with ourselves than with others.

<comment><USER2> What's wrong with how they built their offices, in your opinion?

<comment><USER12> There's a lot of crappy office politics that circles around access to daylight. You invariably have a mismatch between Valuable Employees and Valuable deskspace, jockying for position becomes a distraction and having multiple grades of desk just kind of beats the newer employees about the head and shoulders with how little they matter.

It is, in a word, fractious.

The best solution I've seen for this is to keep most of the windows in public spaces. If I go for water or to the bathroom, I should get daylight. Impromptu meeting spaces and lunch spots: daylight.

The thing is, developers say they want daylight at their desk, and then they realize that they can't actually work in natural light (this has gotten better in just the last few years, but I've been watching this happen for 20), and so the people who 'own' the windows end up closing the blinds to work in peace.

The worse this ever got, we had the top floor of a building and so many blinds were closed all day that we might as well have rented space in the basement for half the price/ft²

So now if I am to get any daylight it is at the sole discretion of someone already on an ego trip? No thank you.

Move the desks so that people can _see_ daylight but aren't _in_ daylight. All the windows stay open, your AC bills are a little lower, and the steepness of the pecking order is not quite so brazen.

<comment><USER12> I'm still trying to locate the iteration that bugged me, but from what I can see of their new-new-new offices, they seem to be more in keeping with the style I talk about above:

[https://medium.com/make-better-software/beyond-open- offices-...](https://medium.com/make-better-software/beyond-open-offices-the- new-fog-creek-headquarters-bc2f70d7c7dc)

... except that there is so little workspace that I had to stare at the picture for about fifteen seconds to figure out if they did, in fact, have any employees at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hope the CWA treats them better than they treat the SUNY grad students they represent.

All State University of New York graduate students are also represented by CWA. [1] Out of the lowly salary I earned as a grad student, I had to pay dues to them throughout the entire five years I spent in grad school. I never felt like they particularly cared about us or got to see a return on this investment.

They made a show of coming by the campus once in a while, especially when elections were happening, but other than that I can't recall a single time where I felt it was beneficial to be part of the CWA.

[1] [https://cwa1104.com/apprenticeship- program](https://cwa1104.com/apprenticeship-program)

<comment><USER14> This is the thing with unions they don't care about one persons issues at a workplace but general issues like pay when compared to other companies in the same field. If the company previously had toxic people in high places the people will just adjust to follow union rules while still being toxic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been hearing for a long time that there were attempts at making a union at Microsoft back in nineties.

Anybody privy to the info how it fared?

</comment><comment><USER15> Ignorant question. But how do union dues work? Is it a percentage of your paycheck or a fixes cost?

Also I assume there's a formation/founding cost. How does that work?

<comment><USER16> It's usually a percentage of workers' paychecks, between 1-2% is pretty standard.

Founding, organizing, and legal stuff for newly forming unions can be handled by the larger organization (e.g. CWA) using pooled dues from existing unions within that organization.

<comment><USER17> Losing that much per paycheck with nothing guaranteed in return would chaff me after awhile. I hope it works out for them.

<comment><USER18> I was a union HVAC guy for a few years. And one very nice thing was that there were union shops and they went through the union to find employees. So if work dried up at one place the union would take care of getting my unemployment going and then when work came up they would call and say that I was needed elsewhere.

This probably wouldn't translate well to software. But it works great if you are installing ducts. Same goes for plumbers and electricians. My sisters first husband was a union electrician. That is why I looked into getting a union gig. I hate job hunting.

In the years I did it I worked for five different companies. I didn't have to run around dropping off resumes and doing practice tests. I just got a call from the union and was told where to go to work. And I made significantly more than my non-union counterparts. Easily more than the dues I had to pay.

<comment><USER19> Is this one of the angles that unions use to sell themselves to companies? They can help by providing a well of valuable resources to draw on in an as- needed basis. When both hiring and firing would be an easier proposition, I could see more activity occurring as a result. These people would have experience at different companies and could provide their knowledge like many say is the benefit of people rotating jobs a lot in the SF Bay Area.

<comment><USER20> > Is this one of the angles that unions use to sell themselves to companies?

Unions don't sell themselves to companies in the first place.

<comment><USER19> Why not? I would presume that would help with regard to union busting, scabs, outsourcing, etc.

<comment><USER20> > Why not?

The same reason your criminal defense attorney doesn't sell themselves to the public prosecutor's office.

<comment><USER19> Are you implying that public prosecutors have the option to not interact with criminal defense attorneys, because companies certainly have the option to hire employees that do not work for unions.

<comment><USER20> > Are you implying that public prosecutors have the option to not interact > with criminal defense attorneys,

No, I'm implying that working for an actor's counterparty compromises your ability to represent that actor in adversarial interactions with the same counterparty, which is a core function of unions with respect to employers as it is with defense attorneys with respect to prosecutors.

> companies certainly have the option to hire employees that do not work for > unions.

Not in the US; even where union shops are prohibited by state right-to-work laws, adverse employment decisions on the basis of union membership or union- related activity by an employer are prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act. That is, in some cases, employers are allowed to hire employees who aren't members of a union, but they aren't legally permitted to hire employees _because_ (even in part) they aren't members of unions.

<comment><USER19> You're even more compromised if you are removed.

In the US, do you think companies have not moved manufacturing from union plants to non-union plants? Do you think they have not moved manufacturing out of US plants? Do you think this does not have to do with union membership?

I believe the adversarial view of unions and employers results in inefficiency and waste. I was suggesting an alternative view of unions and employers, but I believe I now understand you: you think this is impossible.

<comment><USER20> > You're even more compromised if you are removed.

Unions (or their leadership) perceived as serving management _are_ removed, invariably and swiftly, by their constituents, whether through decertification or leadership elections.

<comment><USER19> I cannot tell if you are intentionally misreading my statement. If you are not, what I meant is that the union would be removed.

<comment><USER20> That's what I am saying, too. I'm just saying that being beholden to management is a more certain way for them to be removed than being adversarial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Do unions (specifically this union) promote and standardize levels of craftsmanship or is that still an unsolved problem?

I kinda wish proper guilds would become a thing in tech. I feel they could solve both the craftsmanship and workers rights problems but oh well...

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder why they need a union. Is something currently not working in their favor?

<comment><USER23> Throwaway account because duh. Note that I am not a current Glitch employee, but am well-connected to Glitch née Fog Creek.

Management was basically incredibly incompetent, for a long time, and were so unfair to employees at the company that they felt this was the only option. There is a Tweet stream a couple months ago from someone who left the company who highlighted the amazing degree to which they were unfairly reviewed and unfairly criticized, alongside how much work product they were expected to produce (which was unreasonable). I have enough corroboration to say that the tweet stream as written is fairly unbiased, and that their experience was common. My understanding is the employees felt backed into a corner.

I think unions can be very, very valuable, but I think needing one at a small company that took a series A round quite recently speaks more to management failure than anything else. I'm happy that they unionized, because it sounds like they needed to, but I am so fucking disappointed that it was necessary.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the report, exactly what I was looking for!

This is something I wish had been in the article. Even something vague, like "Employees reported they were unhappy with management and the performance evaluation system. The union with CWA will work with management to blah blah blah".

Agree that it sounds like a management failure.

Thanks!

<comment><USER24> [https://glitch.com/glimmer/post/the-year-in- glitches/](https://glitch.com/glimmer/post/the-year-in-glitches/) > But as we rapidly grew our team, we failed to commensurately grow the processes and infrastructure necessary to support everyone properly. The result has been a lot of needless stress and tension and frustration. On its own, this is a significant problem, but when we've talked a lot about wanting to build a company that does these things better, a failure here is twice as painful for the people on our team who are affected. As the person who most often talks publicly about the positive ambitions we have here at Glitch, I'm also the person ultimately responsible for the times we haven't delivered on those promises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The recent flowering of union membership in the tech industry really warms my heart and makes me hope that this is the start of a pro-union resurgence nation-wide that reverses the conservative anti-union backlash that has dominated the US for decades.

Unfortunately, conservatives have been mostly successful in gaining control of the courts, so expect union-busting measures to be rubber-stamped by them.

There is likely to be much conflict between labor and owners.

<comment><USER26> My concern as a libertarian is that unionizing tech will lead to calcification, decline of agility and innovation, and diversity of business structure. There's no question that the U.S. has been more innovative in tech than other countries over the past few decades. That's thanks to an entrepreneurial culture that encourages risk taking. Unions attempt to limit risk to employees. In doing so, they limit the agility of organizations. That is a significant trade-off worth pondering and debating.

<comment><USER27> Funny, I feel the same way about MBA mills and slash and burn private equity firms.

<comment><USER28> That's a pretty universal viewpoint. Even the most business-friendly people would be skeptical of someone saying that private equity "warms their heart", or talking about how we need to stop MBA-busting and reverse the "liberal anti-MBA backlash".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER30> Six months from now we will likely be wishing we had union jobs.

</comment><comment><USER31> For a union, it's concerning when some things are more tailored to the whims, edge cases, personal niches of the most vocal, rather than shielding the common denominator of the cooperative from management's business decisions.

I'd like to explain what I like, and what I'm concerned about:

> Employees at major American tech and game companies have grown increasingly > active and outspoken about workplace issues,

Very union related, that's what unions are for.

> including sexual assault and harassment,

Already unlawful. They are addressable to the NLRB and civil legal system.

> ageism,

That's vague, but there are protections against this

> unequal pay,

Not sure what this means, pay between workers of the same level of seniority performing the same responsibilities? Overtime? A lot of things factor into equal pay. A junior employee isn't going to make as much as a 20 year employee.

> "crunch time" (i.e. long-term overtime and overworking),

Looks right. These are covered in union contracts

> poor treatment of contract workers,

If they have union membership? Wouldn't it be about defining a standard of what a salaried employee is?

> inadequate racial and gender diversity,

What does that mean? Inadequate to whom? What makes those characteristics worthy but other characteristics not?

I find it very hurtful and insensitive to people who struggle, suffer, overcome odds, from difficult upbringings, but not member of some class or facet. Why reduce the struggle, character, and worth of someone down to those things? Where does this come from?

What does this say to your colleagues who don't have these traits? Do they have life easy? Have you walked a mile in their shoes?

> and lack of transparency and inclusion in decision-making around > controversial contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and Immigration > and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

That is not the kind of decision I think employees should be deciding. Though if a larger organization wanted to allow someone to move somewhere else in the org, that seems fair

<comment><USER2> > Already unlawful. They are addressable to the NLRB and civil legal system.

> That's vague, but there are protections against this

> Wouldn't it be about defining a standard of what a salaried employee is?

Unions can be an additional safety net/layer of protection/tool against these discriminations and abuses. In a time when HR departments are often derided as existing to protect the company instead of workers, and it often takes either media exposure or self-publishing (as with Susan Fowler) for discrimination against protected classes to be acknowledged, a union could be a place for the discriminated to turn to where HR reps fail. At least then you don't have to hire your own lawyer.

> unequal pay,

This might be a gender gap criticism meaning unequal pay between workers with the same title but of different genders.

> That is not the kind of decision I think employees should be deciding.

Why? The stigma of culture war and political battles aside, why shouldn't employees take part in making business decisions in general?

<comment><USER31> > Why? The stigma of culture war and political battles aside, why shouldn't > employees take part in making business decisions in general?

Basically, no.

That's what's management is for.

They can become manager's if they want to impact that, though.

Are they qualified to understand what they're talking about? If they have a disagreement, is there a reason why they wouldn't raise it via proper channels rather than effect other things that are vital to the organization?

Are they big picture thinkers that have taken the time to digest the system, uninfluenced by social pressures? Some people don't care about their organization's goals, their coworkers, and decide to act out for their own vanity, at everyone else's expense.

And that is one reason why management exists. To answer your question, while they may be wrong, there's a purpose in shielding decision making away from those who lose sight of the org's goals.

The point of the union is when management makes decisions, which can be unfair and uncaring to the worker, that their rights, safety, and livelihood also are represented with fairness. The alternative I offered to you was, in an organization large enough, they could request to move to a different project.

<comment><USER32> Saying that they can become managers is like saying they can become the president of the U.S. The point is that you cannot become a manager at all if you disagree with management in the first place (and that doesn't mean you don't have the chops). Also the number of management seats are limited. The number of union seats has no upper limit.

<comment><USER31> > Saying that they can become managers is like saying they can become the > president of the U.S.

I don't think that analogy is proportional, since that'd make a manager at a furniture store on par with a head of state. But I get it, there isn't unlimited management roles. Because if there were, everyone would be on their own.

If you want to influence and shape business decisions - you want to be a manager.

How do you become one? By showing competence as an employee and joining a lower management position. Successes are how they climb the ladder. Yes, they definitely can innovate, and they can also play it safe.

People in upper management also hop between companies and have similar positions.

<comment><USER32> I think you don't understand what I said. You can't climb the ladder if you disagree with management. And that's not because you have no talent and management has the talent. There is no such correlation.

Is this clear now or do you need more help to understand?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Coffee Sabotaging Your Energy and Performance? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.myneurogym.com/is-coffee-sabotaging-your-performance <comment><USER2> This is a long-form sales page.

That's why it drones on and on in tiny paragraphs about stuff that's mostly common knowledge and with little cheerleader phrases tossed in on their own. It does give some actionable advice eventually (cycle on and off caffeine in a period of your choosing, less than 3 weeks). But, it's all a lead-in to the signup referral link at the very end.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article could be summarized in a non-lossy way as follows: "caffeine tolerance exists."</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think ETH could be as valuable as BTC? Why or why not? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> One is inflationary while the other is deflationary when it comes to supply. Additionally, one was arguably meant to be used as a currency - as the names suggest - while the other was meant to be used as a gas for non currency things. This doesn't answer your question directly but it does give some good food for thought.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know about ETH and BTC, but USeD would be certainly a thing!

[https://quant.stackexchange.com/questions/37036/why-do- ameri...](https://quant.stackexchange.com/questions/37036/why-do-american- government-not-create-a-crypto-dollar)

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends, a currency's value (if software is open source) might be the inverse of the amount of political b.s. one must go through to adapt a new protocol internally.</comment>