Ask HN: Is Visual Studio Code the Emacs of 21st century? - <AUTHOR> I would state up front that I'm a vim user and don't have much experience with either emacs or vs code. But as a product, both of them appear to be quite similar:
1. Programmable
2. Configurable
3. Can be used for programming in a variety of languages and frameworks
4. Bloated(?)
Hell, there's even an org mode plugin for vs code!
So, is it reasonable to view vs code (and atom?) as the successors of emacs, or as the emacs of modern day?
And if I'm thinking about jumping to something more feature rich than vim, should I jump to emacs or vs code(atom?)? I know that vim can be made feature rich with plugins, but you are lying to yourself if you say that vim can do anything an IDE can. <comment><USER3> Emacs is Emacs.

Does VSCode have something like Emacs' .emacs / .init file? In one file I can load all the plugins I want and write custom code for added functionality. Rather than having to rely on other people writing a function I need, I can just hack away on my .init file to modify existing functions / create my own.

Now of course in VSCode you can create your own extensions and load it into the program to add your own functionality - but the barrier to entry for any editor (besides Vim) is much higher than Emacs. Looking at the documentation here: [https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/extensions/example- hello-...](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/extensions/example-hello-world) \- that's a lot of code and things to do to get a hello-world application working in VSCode. In emacs, that would just be a couple lines of elisp in .init.

Even if VSCode has something like .init (I got this from someone on Hacker News) - it's better to think of Emacs as basically a framework for text editors. You're able to change every single part of the application - <USER2> and other editors don't hold a candle to the configuration of emacs.

VSCode isn't the successor to Emacs or a modern version of Emacs - it's just VS Code. Emacs is Emacs.

I've used both editors myself, really the best way to get what I'm saying is to use Emacs for a while until you get comfortable with it. My Emacs configuration is something I cherish and it's a joy to use everyday.

Besides programming, I use it for taking notes, a todo list, a journal, etc. Some people even use it for keeping track of finances, for drawing diagrams, for creating slideshows, etc.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad to see a sane comment here. Emacs is Emacs. Vs code is yet just another editor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Emacs is the Emacs of the 21st century. VSCode is not even close to an Emacs. Part of the difference is that it's trivial to modify and customize Emacs in Elisp -- so much so that in the 1970s, secretaries were using Lisp to customize Multics Emacs, an ancestor to present-day GNU Emacs -- because Emacs is a living Lisp image tgat happens to have editing facilities bolted on. You can adapt the editor to your workflow as you work. Developing extensions for VSCode, by contrast, is a bit more involved.

I've given VSCode several tries. It is slick, and fast for an Electron editor. But I've done all of my best work in Emacs for over a quarter century, and VSCode just doesn't offer enough advantage over Emacs for me to unlearn my Emacs skills and learn how to do everything under VSCode.

</comment><comment><USER6> VSCode isn't anywhere near "open" enough (plugin APIs may be lacking). For example: the VSCode vim plugin is one of the worst of any major editor, while the Emacs version (Evil) is arguably the best implementation of vim period.

Atom is much closer to Emacs; nearly all the functionality is provided through optional packages, and it's very open to little tweaks to make it just the way you want.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. I use Evil exclusively (effectively pretending that I'm using Vim, except that I get to use the awesome features that Emacs has for programming in Lispy languages) and would love to start learning Emacs proper, except that Evil is so good that I really don't need to.

Atom feels sort of like Emacs except that you have to deal with JavaScript instead of Lisp. I prefer using Elisp over JS, and Emacs is much faster, and Emacs works without an X server, and Emacs has a better Vim mode. Until one of the Electron editors can compete, I'll stick to Emacs with Evil.

<comment><USER8> ViM user here who used SpaceMacs for a while for Clojure development.

I'm not sure if SpaceMacs uses evil but it's a similar concept. That being said, I tried learning regular Emacs to see what the fuss is all about and much prefer modal editing to pressing control constantly even with caps lock mapped to control.

Your mileage may vary but if you're already editing quickly modally and have all the features you like in Emacs I'm not certain there's much upside to learning how to do a lot of the same stuff the Emacs way.

Tmux plus tmuxp was a much greater improvement for me. Being able to restart iTerm2 for updates and maintain all my sessions, no rage after accidentally quitting a session, and writing short and simple tmuxp yaml files to launch a whole environment with one command is really awesome.

I enjoy the ViM mode in IntelliJ which I assume is similar to the one in Visual Studio Code, but mostly I prefer the terminal. Everyone loves VS Code that's for sure, so they must be doing something right!

I'd probably actually write plugins for ViM if it used Lisp and in a way I'm kind of glad I don't want to learn ViMScript as I've already spent so much time over the years playing with my vimrc as it is.

<comment><USER9> Spacemacs does indeed use evil.

I found Spacemacs to be great starting point for someone new to Emacs, but after a while I highly recommend extracting your workflow from Spacemacs to vanilla Emacs.

Thanks to use-package[1] (that Spacemacs also uses), most of the extracting would be just copy and pasting things from Spacemacs repo. The hardest part would be figuring out which package is responsible for which functionality. A starting point would be just put this in ~/.emacs.d/init.el:

        (require 'package)
        (setq package-enable-at-startup nil)
        (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))

        (package-initialize)
        (unless (package-installed-p 'use-package)
          (package-refresh-contents)
          (package-install 'use-package))

        (eval-when-compile
          (require 'use-package))

        (use-package evil
          :ensure t
          :config
          (evil-mode t)

And now you got a working vanilla Emacs with evil auto-installed, ready to be put in VCS. After extracting work is done, it will open up a new world of customization (even a low-level things such as replacing package.el with straight.el[2] to enjoy configuration reproducibility) as you now know exactly how every piece fits together. :-)

[1]: [https://github.com/jwiegley/use- package](https://github.com/jwiegley/use-package)

[2]: [https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el](https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Emacs of the 21st century is undoubtedly Emacs.

Emacs has modes for every cutting edge advanced research programming language imaginable.

I wanted to use some languages from the High Productivity Computing Systems project and found that Emacs was the only editor with support for Fortress [https://github.com/stokito/fortress- langhttps://en.wikipedia...](https://github.com/stokito/fortress- langhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_\(programming_language\)) and Chapel (Cascade High Productivity Language) [https://chapel- lang.org/](https://chapel-lang.org/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_\(programming_language\))

Sadly, Visual Studio Code appears to be the Visual Basic of editors for the 21st century.ie: popular and easy to use, but used by a certain kind of developer...

</comment><comment><USER11> All this spotlight on VS Code and no mention of Sublime Text? I view Sublime Text (even though there is a license fee) as more emacs like than VS Code. I side with others to say its no where near Emacs because Emacs is Emacs. My most cherished Sublime Text plugins began as an Emacs extension (xiki). So I would say Emacs is important to the ecosystem but there's no way Product X will be an Emacs of the 21st century.

<comment><USER12> I've always been a huge fan of sublime, i use it daily as a text editor. It's largely a visual clipboard for me.

However as a development environment its lacking. The interface for installing and configuring plugins is needlessly arcane, and whilst it's fast I find myself defaulting to vscode for pure productivity reasons. I don't even particularly _like_ vscode - largely electron snobbishness tbh - but it's the best to for my particular job (frontend dweeb for a well known site with a very modern stack)

I've used intellij, visual studio, vscode, sublime and dozens of other apps extensively professionally as my day to day (eclipse and atom were low points) and all have their merits but as a fast, easy, cohesive environment that is easily setup a combination of zsh and vscode is absolutely my goto the days.

Edit. People calling vscode bloated does amuse me though. it's not exactly vim but it's a million miles away from its bigger brother.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the nice thing about emacs is that I can use the GUI with all modern features and still have the same keybindings and features when working on a remote server/computer. Even if emacs was huge before I was born, it is very lightweight for today. Atom and VS code are built with electron, which makes them much slower and heavier on RAM. Visual Studio is like a proprietary notepad++ with a gigabyte per feature it has over notepad++ (C++ compiler, Python tools, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER14> >But as a product, both of them appear to be quite similar

Not at all. Not even in the same league. Emacs is the Emacs of the 21st century. Vim is a text-editor and never claimed to be an IDE, so I don't understand the "lying to yourself" bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well some people claim that vim can do whatever an IDE can, which is just not true. That comment was directed towards those people.

<comment><USER15> I believe they're referring to the fact that vim + the OS itself (generally some flavor of *nix) can do whatever an IDE can do. From a terminal, one can call vim, gdb, valgrind, navigate file trees, utilize grep for searching codebases for a string, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Emacs has been around for over 40 years now, VSCode and Atom for less than 5 I think. There are many great things about VSCode et al, things that Emacs doesn't have and likely won't anytime soon (mostly envious about the Blink rendering engine).

I've considered switching but I'm not convinced it'll still be the best in a few years. I could totally see someone making another web-tech based editor that has a more universalistic design like Emacs.

I'm still hoping somebody will fork Emacs and figure out how to bolt a nicer renderer, threading[0] and better GC onto it.

That said if you haven't already bought into any ecosystem I think VS is a great choice.

[0] this one is not realistic I guess but whatever

</comment><comment><USER17> In am a fairly loyal Emacs user, having bought the manual from FSF decades ago when that was a meaningful source of revenue for the FSF.

Now, I only use Emacs for org-mode, and for Lisp languages (Common Lisp, Scheme, and Haskel - which I consider a lisp language).

For just about everything else I now use VSCode. Recently when I discovered how even the symbolic debugger works great for Python, Java, etc., I let my yearly subscription to all of the JetBrains products lapse next year when my subscription runs out.

Love VSCode (and Emacs).

</comment><comment><USER18> I use VS Code. Mostly for frontend stuff. It can bork on large files. Especially if they contain lots of inline binary data. And Intellisense works probabilistically across javascript dependencies. But generally positive the experience has been.

Tangential to IDEs are tools for data science and visualization. Having a shareable workspace, akin to Azure Notebooks, can be much more user (and scientist) friendly.

Another area where I think there is potential for innovation is branded cloud IDEs that actually understand cloud native development. Not just an editor, debugger, and console. But a single interface. Where you set load balancing, firewall rules, make data queries, analyze log traffic, etc.

<comment><USER19> > tools for data science and visualization Org-mode with code blocks could be > used to run code and display its results e.g., ob-ipython > [https://github.com/gregsexton/ob-ipython](https://github.com/gregsexton/ob- > ipython)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In 10 years, no one will remember VS Code. There will still be people using Emacs though.

</comment><comment><USER21> As others have said, it definitely is not. VS Code is somewhere between Emacs and Visual Studio. Not quite as configurable as Emacs, not as tied down as Visual Studio. VS Code is my editor of choice today and part of that is that they actively try to keep extension authors from destroying the editor, like what happened to Atom. Emacs does not do any sort of hand-holding and so it provides a more customizable experience at the expense of, in my opinion, ease of use. I only used Emacs for about a month before switching over to VS Code so take what I say with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER22> How exactly do they "try to keep extension authors from destroying the editor"?

<comment><USER5> VSCode extensions are sandboxed and can only call routines from the provided extension API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> 40 years from now, you will still have emacs and vim packaged, ready to be installed or installed by default. Not sure if any other of today's editors will be around.

</comment><comment><USER24> So long as 99.9% of vscode users are using a proprietary distribution, I wouldn't consider it comparable to emacs.

<comment><USER25> The only thing proprietary about the main distribution of be code, that i can tell, is the configuration. I'm not aware of any differing functionality or limitations on the open source code. MS states that their distro is the same code but with their own configuration in the product.json file.

<comment><USER26> It's not open limitations but about extra Microsoft spyware included and making you agree with Microsoft Privacy Terms [https://code.visualstudio.com/License/](https://code.visualstudio.com/License/)

"The software may collect information about you and your use of the software, and send that to Microsoft. Microsoft may use this information to provide services and improve our products and services. You may opt-out of many of these scenarios, but not all, as described in the product documentation."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's a big market gap between terminal text editors and GUI editors. For me, a GUI editor is a non-starter.

I do think that emacs, vim, visual studio code, et al. fall into the "not quite an IDE, but not just an editor" category.

Also through the power of LSP, vim can do anything an IDE or visual studio code can.

</comment><comment><USER28> for me vs code was easy, effective and efficient step from vs pro with notepadpp to something more like emacsvim. i do full time dev unity for dotnet core and dotnetcore for last month.

</comment><comment><USER29> vim/emacs + ssh - editing directly over remote file system. I think this use case is why people keep using vim/emacs.

<comment><USER3> There's also tramp mode for emacs - where you can set up a buffer in emacs to access code over ssh/whatever connection you want.

<comment><USER30> Yup, but I've had some issues pop up using that before.

I'm a longtime emacs user and this seems to be a common theme for me. I try some feature in emacs, it works great but breaks on some edge case or something, and then I have to find a workaround.

The advanatage of emacs of course is that you can basically always find and implement said workaround if you try at it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> comonad-colaboy You forgot it's lispy base</comment>


Suggestion regarding "Unknown or expired link." message - <AUTHOR>

It would be nice if the page did not simply "die" with that message, but instead render the home page and display the message somewhere on that site. That way it would be alot easier to navigate. <comment><USER2> I'm having it happen to me more and more often recently. There are situations.also, where it can be a huge hassle. I was reading over GPRS a couple of weeks ago and could barely get beyond the first page without hitting the error.

</comment><comment><USER3> Selfishly, I like the feature as is because it reminds me I just spent a lot of time on the front page--which could be good or bad depending on the situation.

<comment><USER4> Please. It's a bug, not a feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=190537>

Yep, I suggested that a few years ago.

</comment><comment><USER6> this problem is happening all the time for me now.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why does it happen?

<comment><USER8> Everything is done with continuations and if you wait too long your's gets GC'd.</comment></comment>


Computation Will be the Dominant Nexus of Power in the 21st Century - <AUTHOR> http://thoughtinfection.com/2014/01/26/computation-is-power/

<comment><USER2> Something is only valuable if you have it and the other guy doesn't. same with computation.</comment>


Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together at D5 Conference 2007 - <AUTHOR> http://vidinterest.com/video/4767/the-interview-with-steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-one-of-the-most The interview with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, one of the most important moments in the recent history of computing. A great teaching for people who love Apple and people who love <comment><USER2> This is a remarkable conversation. Never gets too old to watch.

Also I like how Steve Jobs tries to play down all the questions that he is asked about Microsoft.

<comment><USER3> Yes, this conversation motivates me a lot

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Both are my heros !!</comment>


Ask HN: interesting events/conferences in Sillicon Valley during June? - <AUTHOR>

I'll be visiting Mountain View (family visit) in about a week or so, and I'm interested in finding out about interesting events or conferences (programming-related) that might be worth attending.
Is there a site for listing such things?
Also, can I visit, say, Google? <comment><USER2> The Computer History Museum ( <http://www.computerhistory.org/> ) is a great stop if you can't find any timely events. (it across from one of the Google buildings... though I think for Google you probably have to call and see if you can get an appointment to visit Theres also a couple others in San Jose, the Intel Museum and the Tech Museum of Innovation.

Heres a link for you... <http://www.ageekstour.com/prologue.html>

Oh and make sure to check out some bookstores, the computers and programming sections of stores in the area are usually quite... satisfying. :-)</comment>


Why even mid-sized trading firms are hurting - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150228/ISSUE01/302289980/why-even-mid-sized-trading-firms-are-hurting <comment><USER2> Is there more nuance to this story than "a lot of players rushed into a sector, commoditizing it and meaning that only a few large players could ultimately survive the race to the bottom"?

<comment><USER3> No

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For companies who are paid to analyze and predict the future, it seems they should have seen this coming from the outset.

<comment><USER3> Trading companies (especially like the ones mentioned here) are not paid to analyze or predict the future. They are largely paid to accurately price short term risk of holding particular financial instruments.

This actually leads to some situations where they can be worse at predicting large trends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> When everyone does arbitrage, eventually the markets will become very, very efficient, and profits converge on $0. Of course, they'll never get there because market participants will drop out (as we're seeing), but this was always the likely end result.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's not about lack of funds to hire the bright minds, it's because that's how the system is designed in the first place. The problem is that technologies such a HFT have simply accelerated the removal of the middle men, because now that the uber-wealthy have squeezed as much money out of the proletariat, they need need a new feeding ground. That feeding ground is the middle-upper class, the ones who think they are one of the good ol boys but are gonna get bitten just as hard, they just don't realize it yet. This goes for "middle-class business" too. The SEC is flattened under the weight of regulatory capture and insider trading is the norm. How could any other outcome than referenced in the article be expected?

Class warfare is real and is going on right now, and the bankers and uber- wealthy (.01%) are winning.

<comment><USER7> Am I reading correctly that you think the elimination of middle-men in the market is a _bad_ thing?

<comment><USER8> Middle man has come to have such a bad connotation these days. I think majority of people imagine middle men like some crooks who make a phone call or two and take a 20% cut for no work at all.

This couldn't be further than the truth.

<comment><USER7> Ok but we're clear that _these particular middle-men_ , the human specialists that electronic market makers replaced, _were in fact crooks_ , right?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Monocle - <AUTHOR> http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/monocle <comment><USER3> > "quality content with a focus on... anything that appeals to the inquisitive > mind"

This is a source of a lot of uncivil behavior on HN. Startup founders/tech geeks are intellectually interested in a lot of topics but unqualified to discuss them in any detail. This results in comment threads full of knee-jerk reactions and bikeshedding.

<comment><USER4> It's fine for people who aren't officially credentialled experts in something to talk about it. The best insights often come from outsiders. The problem comes when people express their ideas intemperately, either by making extreme statements that should be more qualified and tentative, or by being uncivil to one another.

I believe I've finally come up with a solution for that, incidentally, after years of searching. It will require surprisingly little new code. I almost started implementing it during the 4th of July holiday, but I started writing a new essay instead.

<comment><USER5> > It's fine for people who aren't officially credentialled experts in > something to talk about it.

Sometimes this is true, but sometimes undertrained perspectives can be quite detrimental. The most clear-cut example is that of medical discussions; medical commentary or speculation from under-qualified individuals can do real harm. Many communities on the web have recognized this and have taken measures to protect users[1].

Medical advice is a pretty extreme example as far as detrimental discussions, but there are some shades of gray that I've seen show up on HN. As a biologist, the ones I've found most grating are those that reflect poor training in the the life sciences, where HNers make pseudoscientific or unscientific claims. It's easy to call these things "opinions", but they are actively harmful when most users will not be able to tell that they are incorrect.

There are certainly other cases where underinformed commenters end up doing harm, from legal speculation to "get your pitchforks" outrage attacks.

Note that I'm not arguing against free and open discussion in forums such as HN; people should be physically able to post whatever they want. My point is instead that the community should be sensitive to underqualified commentary in disciplines beyond its expertise. Less accepting, in a way.

Credentialing is but one way this has been done, but understandably not the best one here.

[1][http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/s4chc/meta_medic...](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/s4chc/meta_medical_advice_on_askscience_the_guidelines/)

<comment> __--__ > The most clear-cut example is that of medical discussions; medical > commentary or speculation from under-qualified individuals can do real harm.

The same could be said for credentialed experts, especially in the medical field. Taking steps to prevent users from freely discussing topics under the guise of protecting them can prevent unpopular but correct opinions from seeing the light of day. If somebody says something you can refute, then correct them in a civil way. That's how lots of people learn and grow - <USER2> put their theories out into the world and see how well they hold up to scrutiny. Making it "less accepting" to say something you believe is true because you're not sufficiently credentialed is actively suppressing free and open discussion.

<comment><USER6> A lot of unpopular opinions are terribly wrong. What are you referring to?

<comment> __--__ A lot of popular opinions are also terribly wrong. I'm referring to the fact that popular opinion should not prevent people from reading an alternate viewpoint to begin with. If all we're allowed to read and discuss are popular opinions, there's a lot of potentially valuable information we're missing. People here can read, discuss facts, debunk falsehoods and make up their own minds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Social accountability is provided by linking your Twitter or GitHub accounts

I never understood the reasoning behind this kind of social login. If you're dead set on being an ass, then you'll be one regardless, even if it takes creating a burner Twitter or GH account. Anything short of demanding proof of identity and linking your real name is useless (and now you have two problems.) All this achieves is forcing people to sign up to another service in order to use your own. A low barrier to entry with community moderation is enough to keep the value of the comments high, while keeping noise to a minimum.

<comment><USER8> > I never understood the reasoning behind this kind of social login. If you're > dead set on being an ass [...]

The purpose is to influence people who exist on the spectrum somewhere between angelic and dead set on being an ass.

<comment><USER7> I understand the purpose, I'm questioning its efficacy.

<comment><USER9> Is the offline version of this strategy efficient? By that I mean if we're standing in a room together are you less likely to be an asshole to me than when you're behind a keyboard?

This method is simply trying to replicate the offline version of the experience by adding a face to the name. I'm not saying it's the perfect solution, but it's probably a step in the right direction.

<comment> jack-r-abbit The offline version of this is requiring everyone to wear a "Hello my name is __________" sticker but not actually checking that they put their real name on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> At my default browser size I can see 8 items on Monocle at a glance and 21 on Hacker News. I'd suggest, at least, reducing the size of the information about the submitter, number of points, etc. When scanning HN I very rarely look at those.

I don't find avatars add to the conversation mostly because I don't first look to see who said something. If I read something interesting I might look to see who wrote it.

I'm not sure what the thumbnail graphics from the article are adding.

One thing I like about HN is the choice I make between reading the comments and reading the article with no framing.

<comment><USER11> Excessive attention to identity can really destroy a discussion site. There are communities where I know everyone, but knowing the topic being discussed I already know what each and every person is going to say. Zero information content there.

<comment><USER12> That's not because of the attention to identity, though, it's because there aren't that many people there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The application looks good with interesting articles at the time of writing.

As a note though, I opened the link because I thought it was related to Monocle magazine ([http://monocle.com/](http://monocle.com/)) which also provides high quality content (albeit not community-sourced). Maybe reviewing the name is in order?

Edit: phrasing

<comment><USER14> As a reader of Monocle, I thought the same. Being that they both play in the publishing content world, I'd think Monocle the magazine would come down on the OP legally. Aside from all that, I'm eager to check it out.

<comment><USER15> High five to my fellow Monocle readers (subscribers?) ;-) Just as a FWIW, I'd totally love a Hacker News-style site for Monocle-esque topics (i.e. the blend of culture, design, business)..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "an experiment in creating a friendly and intelligent community around sharing quality content"

Ugh. I'm tired of people trying the same old crap to curate content. They're all roughly the same and none are that good. Upvotes suck and we need to move past them.

If someone wants to take the next step in internet content curation then they need to adapt a netflix style algorithm. Anything short of that I just don't care about.

<comment><USER17> _Ugh. I 'm tired of people trying the same old crap to curate content._

I think it's hilarious this is one of the top comments about a site which has "Criticism is kept to the constructive variety" as one of it's goals.

<comment><USER18> I see that comment as being constructive criticism, without a doubt.

It concisely points out at least three very relevant ideas:

1) There's nothing particularly innovative about this proposed approach.

2) The past attempts haven't necessarily been successful, and taking the same (or a very similar) approach one more time also likely won't lead to any more success.

3) The lack of success in the past is very likely due to problems inherent to the approach itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand how using your Twitter handle will elevate the level of discourse. Twitter itself is full of trolls. Also, you can create anonymous Twitter accounts that don't use your real name, so accountability goes out the window too.

For what its worth, it looks like a modern tech discussion forum built using modern tools. Nothing wrong with that, but that's how it should be branded. The feel good aspect without any real technical backend to enable it falls a bit flat.

<comment><USER20> I wish I could log in, but I don't use Twitter or Github. Why would I want to set up an account on Site A when all I want to use is Site B?

<comment><USER21> It's like you don't even understand social. _God_.

<comment><USER22> it's more like social auth is a pain in the a __.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks like the emberjs tutorial got seeded with some articles and comments.

You might consider loading your scripts after the base html is rendered so the initial page-load isn't 2-5 seconds of nothingness.

Seems like the content div is blank as a default, you might consider placing the most popular or trending article there by default as you are loading it anyway.

I would recommend loading titles and thumbnails first, rendering and having comments load in the background so the initial load time is lessened further, unless you are side-loading comments for another reason.

Also, you can only sign up with twitter/github connect?

God, it's so negative here.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just remember that a CMS is not a community.

I hope the following posts will detail how the community is managed - not the back- or front-end.

<comment><USER25> Crucial point!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Am I the only one who don't like this new trend when every second website now is designed with the low contrast and native OS antialiasing disabled? I'm 24 and I just can't read the summaries on this site. Just compare the two versions on this screenshot [1]: default on the top, and native antialiasing on the bottom with the slightly darker text (#67707c)

1.[http://monosnap.com/image/OgCT8YKqEoHTAxAmgofKDxDNb.png](http://monosnap.com/image/OgCT8YKqEoHTAxAmgofKDxDNb.png)

</comment><comment><USER27> Looks / feels exceptionally similar to Potluck: [https://www.potluck.it/rooms/ee3db6e8](https://www.potluck.it/rooms/ee3db6e8)

</comment><comment><USER28> Does it strike anyone else as unfortunate that every new social news site has to be its own completely closed ecosystem? What happened to the age of the protocol?

</comment><comment><USER29> You may want to reconsider the name. There's already a (quite good) publication with the name "Monocle" if you hadn't checked.

Edit: A link to Monocle the magazine: [https://monocle.com/](https://monocle.com/)

<comment><USER30> Seconded. Especially because the "quality content with a focus on technology, startups and frankly anything that appeals to the inquisitive mind" is pretty close to what _that_ Monocle is doing :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> 1\. You reinvented Reddit.

2\. Eternal September will eat you too.

<comment><USER32> There is more to this than just Reddit. For one thing, there's a different approach to identity, and for another there's summaries and whatnot that get automatically pulled. And, for all we know, other additions that he hasn't shared yet. Plus, reinventing Reddit is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, the site you are using right now.

Also, your comment is itself a bit Eternal Septemberish -- you know, the belittling, and the intentional disregarding of differences between Monocle and Reddit. Not sure if that's meant as implicit metacommentary or if you aren't actually aware that you are contributing negatively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> With the way that infinite scroll currently works, I could effectively DDOS, or at least slow down the instance of Monocle I am interfacing with by just scrolling down, and once I got the first story just scroll up and down endlessly. I'm looking at Chrome Developer Tools' Network tab right now[1] and it seems you're sending a bunch of "ignore" fields in a POST request, and from that I gather that the farther down I go, the larger the POSTs get. So, at the very bottom, I'm sending a ton of huge POST requests. Point-being, this is probably not a good thing.

1\. Developer Tools – [http://grab.by/ohwa](http://grab.by/ohwa)

</comment><comment><USER34> I can't read the low contrast overly designed content area.

<comment><USER35> [http://contrastrebellion.com/](http://contrastrebellion.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I hope this comment is seen as observational rather than the sort of blind criticism that Monocle dreams to avoid.

The article discusses the design and performance of Monocle, which are definitely pleasant. However, the aspects of the community seem more like wishes than anything encouraged by Monocle (except for the Twitter/Github links) nor seemingly present.

Monocle is more interesting (though less ambitious) than Atwood's Discourse, but similarly misses the difference between community and charm, and performance and design.

</comment><comment><USER37> "There can be too much negativity in the tech community. It seems the average response to someone out on a limb, showcasing their latest idea or startup, is one of snark and derision. That is no way to foster an entrepreneurial spirit. Monocle is an attempt to remedy that."

So, back-patting and hi-fives, but no actual criticism? Because there are plenty of ideas in the tech community that deserve snark and derision.

Disagreement is absolutely the way to foster entrepreneurial spirit. What is an entrepreneur besides someone who disagrees with the way things are currently done. Besides, if good ideas are to filter to the top and learn to survive in the wild, then they need to be able to withstand people disagreeing with them and using colorful language to express that disagreement. Not every idea is good.

Friends can fight and make fun of one another. People who care about the same thing can loudly disagree. And I think communities where 100% of the people like one another are probably boring communities. And either trivially small or non-existent.

So, yeah. Monocle sounds like it could be neat, but if the idea is to shelter people from negative reactions to their ideas, it sounds like it's going to be kind of neutered and boring.

<comment> dorian-graph > So, back-patting and hi-fives, but no actual criticism?

I didn't see that in the blog post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This looks really impressive.

One note -- there is an established current affairs/culture magazine/media brand called Monocle. While Monocle (the magazine) doesn't focus on tech, monocle.io's remit of "anything that appeals to the inquisitive mind" could lead to some overlap.

Dunno if there could/would be trademark conflicts. May be worth checking out if you haven't already.

</comment><comment><USER39> The font rendering suffers greatly from the widely-known Google web font rendering issues in Chrome for Windows.

<comment><USER26> On Mac OS it's not ok either, thanks to `-webkit-font-smoothing:antialised` and low contrast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would consider adding who submitted the article to the list view. It sounds small, but on HackerNews I recognize names of people who have submitted past articles I enjoyed quite often and tend to always click on those. If you're trying to build a community I think this is pretty important.

My gut reaction when I first hit the site wasn't "Oh, awesome, there is a community of people here talking about stuff and submitting things", it was "Hmm, looks like a bunch of curated links or an RSS reader".

Also, if your username/profile is the same on Monocle as it is on Twitter, I'm even more likely to recognize submitters that I follow there as well.

</comment><comment><USER40> My friends and I have wanted a personal version of something like this for a while. We have several Facebook groups where we share links/ideas and comment on them but would like to move away from Facebook.

Does anyone know of any service that offers this?

<comment><USER24> Just make a subreddit on reddit.com. People tend to think of reddit as just a community, but it's also a convenient platform tool.

There's rarely much of a reason to overthink it - many people do, however, and even create start-up as a result!

Go with what's been tested properly and proven to work to a decent degree.

<comment><USER40> Thanks for the input! I was not aware that private sub-reddits could be made.

<comment><USER41> Indeed. Fun fact, there are almost 250k sub-reddits according to [http://metareddit.com/reddits/](http://metareddit.com/reddits/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Please, add target blank to the links. Its the most wanted feature in HW ( for me )

</comment><comment><USER43> Nice start for the interface, though only responsive down to tablet size.

Check out [http://qz.com/](http://qz.com/) for a similar interface that actually scales all the way down to mobile size.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is super slick, once loaded. I haven't tried commenting or posting, but as a reader, I'm pleased. My only criticism atm would be seeing a completely blank page with NoScript on.

</comment><comment><USER45> Layout really reminds me of [http://hn.premii.com/](http://hn.premii.com/)

<comment><USER24> Is there a term for this kind of design? I'm thinking "RSS reader design pattern" when I see this JS-powered stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Nice minimal design. I like the ability to read a summary before deciding to click through. I was confused at first when the main content frame was empty (like another commenter pointed out - maybe put something there on page load).

One bug, the summaries are missing apostrophes.

</comment><comment><USER47> Sounds like they were inspired, at least in part, by Thoughtly. "Quantifiably Good Content." But I'm partial.

[http://thoughtly.co](http://thoughtly.co)

</comment><comment><USER35> Where's the HTML data? Search engines aren't going to be able to crawl any of your content:

      $ curl -l http://monocle.io/posts/this-is-you-on-smiles

<comment><USER48> That's not a good test for it. See [https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax- crawling/](https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/) for details.

(I don't know if monocle is doing that, but simply checking curl does nothing for rich client side apps).

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Yes, we should ban all negativity. Looking for problems, vulnerabilities and holes, whether in arguments, suggestions or code is very bad and should be stopped immediately.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why does this app need to read my tweets and see who I follow?

<comment><USER51> They can't ask for less than that through Twitter's OAuth API. If you have a public account, they could do that anyway with just your username.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> wonderful! feature request: can the article open in an iframe in the main content area? or in a pop-up iframe? the back button sucks.

<comment><USER53> I was thinking of working on something similar and was debating an iFrame. I was worried it would mess up people's readability plugins (especially important for mobile devices). Also not sure what the ethics of iFraming other people's work is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Very hard to read grey text on a white background.

<comment><USER55> I agree. It needs a little more contrast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Reading on the right side of the screen is really uncomfortable. Goes to show we still haven't figured out this app-design thing.

</comment><comment><USER57> I don't see that layout as necessary. Can't you make it 1 layout, with the comments threaded under the link..

</comment><comment><USER58> Alex did his part by creating something interesting. Just look at the comments on this thread. This, right here is the problem. Everyone keeps complaining about stuff that they haven't done or not capable of doing. If you have a suggestion, just try to communicate with him or the other developers working on it. Any developer would like creative/helpful input. Stop bitching and support people who create stuff.

<comment><USER22> You are the one bitching about the comments here. a discussion thread is made so that people can state whatever opinion they want to state. Dont like it ? dont answer. We all are bitching,the issue with you is you dont understand you are actually bitching.

<comment><USER58> Dude, relax. I am talking about the discussion, not the actual product itself.

>a discussion thread is made so that people can state whatever opinion they want to state.

Since when did stating opinion become bashing the developer/creator? If _you_ have a problem, _you_ should probably not get involved in the discussion in the first place.

>We all are bitching,the issue with you is you dont understand you are actually bitching.

Haha, you have absolutely no clue to what I am talking about here. That's alright.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> POST to get more data? That's bad.

</comment><comment><USER57> The reason you have just re-invented reddit is because you like designing interfaces...

</comment><comment><USER60> I cannot register this using my personal domain email like @perry.asia...

<comment><USER61> Only Twitter or Github auth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Will you make it OSS?

</comment><comment><USER62> @macman, is this spine.js app? If not, why not?

</comment><comment><USER63> I only wish Hacker News could look that good.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'd love this UI for reddit.

</comment><comment><USER65> Would you mind adding a favicon?

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks like monocle.io is down.

</comment><comment><USER66> safe, friendly, constructive, and supportive is great!

and i suggest that you could award everyone a trophy!

-bowerbird

</comment><comment><USER67> Interesting idea, but I wonder if "niceness" is really that important when sharing ideas that may or may not be controversial. Being professional and constructive might be a good goal, but these don't necessarily entail "niceness." That is, you can still be professional and constructive while being a giant asshole.

Also, I'm not really sure making people accountable by making them use Real Names or whatever account tied to their real name will make them be nicer. It might seem like that because on social networks, you can selectively add people to talk to that you enjoy being nice to. When it is an open forum, the discussion might still turn sour because people have contradicting viewpoints and that's okay, especially in a technical discussion. Finally, tying people to their real names by default sounds like it lends itself to all kinds of Internet Detective-y stuff which will probably lead to more Ad Hominem attacks than discussion.

Source: I post on Something Awful where we can still have useful discussion and call each other out on our bullshit. Niceness isn't as important as the free discussion of ideas.

<comment><USER68> To me, Reddit has done a great job of letting me think of it as the kind of place that suits _my_ style of discussion. I hear stories about the atrocity exhibition in this-or-that group of subreddits but never encounter it personally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Hacker News - a nice Hacker News.

<comment><USER23> The original title to this submission was "Monocle - A Nice Hacker News?"

To give this comment some context.

<comment><USER24> Indeed. Thanks for the new, completely useless title.</comment></comment></comment>


New way to pattern specific preceramic monomers using either 3D printing - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/351/6268/58 <comment><AUTHOR> Here's a related article that covers a little more than the abstract available at the top link:

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a18801/3d-printed- wo...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a18801/3d-printed-wonder- ceramics-wont-shatter/)</comment>


Create professional prototypes with this in less than an hour - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupcafe.com/keynotopia/ <comment><AUTHOR> We still have two keynotopia bundles from Appsumo to give out for free. Just Follow @thestartupcafe on Twitter. Tweet: "I love @thestartupcafe for giving away 3 #keynotopia bundles (worth $120) courtesy of @AppSumo <http://bit.ly/eBjq8e">. Bonus points if you include a picture of your morning beverage of choice.</comment>


Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-25/bankers-ditch-fat-salaries-to-chase-digital-currency-riches <comment><USER2> Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction. I know some people who were paper millionaires based on their BTC during the days before Mt Gox collapse.

They lost their entire savings once Mt Gox collapsed, since then they have spent years working hard to recover their savings and now they are investing all of it in ICOs.

This won't end well. Seems to me like the story is repeating.

On a side note, the brigading/shilling here on HN is becoming quite annoying. I suppose it's a lot of computer nerds who are heavily invested in these tokens who are trying to get more new people invest their real money into these tokens so:

1) they can get rich quick

2) or recover their losses (lots of people heavily invested in crypto are underwater)

<comment><USER3> >the brigading/shilling here on HN is becoming quite annoying

Can you point to a single post where the top, say, 5 comments aren't completely negative toward crypto as a whole? They typically mention gambling, fraud, ponzi schemes and (like yours) Mt Gox, in a rant that isn't specifically tied to the post at hand. Look at the top comments on this article:

>Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction

>cryptocurrency is the new Gold Rush

>I remember the .com-bubble...But this one; it is just stupid

>It's hard not to think of tulips

If the shills are out there, they must not be getting paid very well.

<comment> aaron-lebo There are lots of negative comments, yeah, but that almost seems like a reaction to articles on crypto constantly showing up on the frontpage. Just over the last few days there was an Eth article with 392 upvotes and a "cryptoeconomics" article with 100+, which isn't unusual. Within the last 24 hours there have been at least three positive Eth articles on the frontpage, it'd be hard to find any topic so thoroughly covered especially considering how the real-world reach of this stuff is almost strictly limited to how much Eth is worth.

Someone intentionally or not is doing a really good job of that.

<comment><USER4> Occam's razor: Crypto tech works, & will be an incremental improvement to a number of areas.

<comment><USER2> Yes but that is completely unrelated to price of these tokens which is driven by speculation and has nothing to do with tech.

I believe blockchain will be implemented by industries where it is useful and can improve many processes.

<comment><USER4> The speculation is driven by the tech. It wouldn't be promising tech if it didn't work.

I believe it will change international capital allocation, via token sales. Worldwide investment in the best & brightest.

<comment><USER5> There is an inherent limitation of using proof of work to back up a store of value. Something needs to pay for that proof of work so either you have high transaction costs or inflation.

So, it's easy to have altcoin without speculation. Suppose your alt coin has 4+% inflation / year built into the coin. It could become the worlds main currency without making anyone rich. Adoption would increase because transaction costs could be extremely low promoting it's use for a lot of transactions.

EX: Initial adoption would be small purchases like vending machines where CC/other coins have much higher transaction costs. This could extend to things like cheap subscriptions etc, and then work up the value chain until people are using it to pay rent.

<comment><USER4> I don't see a problem with bubbles. As long as the tech works. If people can spend money on alcohol & drink themselves into an early grave, I can't see why speculation should be demonised.

'Value chain' has a specific meaning in business. It's a set of activities done to create a product.

<comment><USER5> Bubbles are beside the point. I just mean there is a trade off between value store and transaction costs.

PS: English is not that restrictive of a language. Speed limit is generally thought in terms of velocity, but you could use those same words to refer to the drug. 'With a dosage entering LD50 territory Jim was clearly approaching the speed limit.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So cryptocurrency is the new Gold Rush. As the story goes, the only people who reliably made money during the original gold rush was the people who sold the spades.

What are the "spades" here?

<comment><USER7> [https://www.thestreet.com/story/14190462/1/why-nvidia-and- am...](https://www.thestreet.com/story/14190462/1/why-nvidia-and-amd-continue- to-ride-the-cryptocurrency-mining-wave.html)

<comment><USER8> ^

These and basically anyone supplying them like voltage suppliers (Vicor) or even the more basic materials like silicon wafers (Shin-Etsu Chemical).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Who are these people spending real money in all these ICOs? Is this all just money made from bitcoin speculation being thrown around? Or is this real people spending real cash money?

<comment><USER6> And more importantly, how do I create an ICO and get these people to buy into it?

<comment><USER10> Copy an existing ICO website, change the name, the color scheme and the deposit address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if this will end with people going to prison for securities fraud?

<comment><USER12> I don't think so. All the information is out there in the public domain; in fact, most cryptocurrencies are entirely open source so it couldn't be any more transparent than that. Everyone should be aware of the risk and the reward potential. If ICOs are a fraud, then surely our entire financial system is a fraud because there is much less transparency there.

Right now a lot of people are making the mistake of investing in an ICO that they don't understand. Like with any kind of investing; it's their responsibility to do their research. What will happen at the end of this is what happens normally in the financial world; smart people who understand each currency are going to make money at the expense of wealthy but poorly informed people who are randomly pouring their money all over the place trying to make a quick buck.

Moreover, a lot of the money that goes into these ICOs ends up funding open source projects that are either directly or indirectly related to the cryptocurrency itself (and this helps the entire industry as a side-effect).

Sure, there might be some black market money involved but I think that at least much of that money will be put to good use. It's the government's job to track people who are using the platform for illegal means.

If somebody buys chemicals to make illegal drugs, it doesn't make sense to arrest the chemists for manufacturing the chemicals. The chemicals can be used for good and bad; if you sum everything up and the net result is a positive change for society, then overall it is a good thing.

<comment><USER13> > Right now a lot of people are making the mistake of investing in an ICO that > they don't understand enough. Like with any kind of investing; it's their > responsibility to do their research.

That's not how it works. Many kinds of securities can only be sold to accredited investors for just this reason; you may not like that law, but it is the law.

<comment><USER12> It's a silly law. The entire finance industry rests on the principle that well informed people are allowed to make money off of poorly informed people.

I think ICOs are more fair because unlike in mainstream finance, there is much less information asymmetry because the code is all there for anyone to see. Anyone can access all the information they need.

<comment><USER14> Whether some of these ICOs are a fraud or not has _nothing_ to do with how transparent the ledger technology is. Regardless of how well the ledger of what you "bought" is maintained, "what you bought" could still be a farce ... it could be some guy who set up a blockchain, and beckoned you from his white van with promises of candy ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Above all, I feel sorry for the small guy.

Sure, ICOers are _raising money for their dreams_. And the "whales" "investing" in those ICOs are mostly lucky tech-ish folks who behave _irrationally_ (like investing-1/4th-of-Whatsapp-in-a-service-with-a-few- hundred-users-irrationally). Whales will not suffer much in the end and ICOers will drive their Ferraris. It's those who believed in "invest in cryptocurrencies" hype in mainstream media who will loose the most.

After all, if we treat the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem as a blackbox, dollars come from those humble folks to ICOers. Just with an extra twist of BTC on their way.

<comment> FLUX-YOU That's pretty much what banks were doing with tech IPOs anyway (maybe other IPOs?).

<comment><USER16> IPOs have at least three pesky features that an ICO lets you avoid:

1) A functioning business.

2) Actual investors - i.e. people who own a portion of your enterprise, with all the obligations and expectations that go with that.

3) Regulation and oversight.

I suppose an IPO without 1) is possible in principle, but then it is hard to get 2) and you have to be careful of 3).

<comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I remember the .com-bubble; it kind of made sense that companies like Amazon were very valuable as they had the promise to transform whole industries.

But this one; it is just stupid.

Massive amounts of electricity and hardware wasted to keep a distributed ledger safe; an army of computer nerds facilitating fraud, narcotics sale and money laundry; and finally the bankers sensing bucks to be made on a large number of idiots.

<comment><USER19> That's a very one-dimensional view of things. Blockchain technology carries with it the possibility to change how we think about and use money. Bitcoin is a zero-trust system that still manages to hold $41 billion dollar in value.

However, I agree that almost all ICOs are cash-grabs. In my opinion we already have coins for all verticals that matter.

<comment><USER20> >Blockchain technology carries with it the possibility to change how we think about and use money.

That's the type of fluff I keep hearing coming from the bitcoin enthusiasts but I have yet to read a compelling argument about what it'll enable and how exactly.

"Bitcoin will kill the banks", "bitcoin will prevent the evil government from stealing your money", "bitcoin will cure cancer and polio". How it'll do any of that and why it's a good thing, that's left as an exercise to the reader.

In effect if we look at how bitcoin is effectively used today then the parent is fairly objective I think. There's speculation, more speculation, money laundering, black market stuff, gambling. Oh and did I mention speculation?

There aren't many legit use cases where bitcoin beats fiat nowadays, except maybe sending money to a foreign country (and even then it's not certain, what with the high fees and huge variation in the price of late).

I still don't understand how people expect it to become maistream. "It's like Visa, but if you make a mistake you may lose all your money with no hope of ever getting it back, it's not accepted everywhere and you have to wait for about an hour to get a confirmation. But hey, you can send money to Burundi super easily with it!"

I know, I know, there's SegWit coming, which might address some of these issues. In particular I hear that it'll cure the rabies too. To the moon!

<comment><USER10> > How it'll do any of that and why it's a good thing, that's left as an > exercise to the reader.

I'll give an additional hint to reader: who benefits from encryption that even law enforcement cannot break?

Who benefits from TOR?

<comment><USER21> > who benefits from encryption that even law enforcement cannot break?

People who live in countries with regressive regimes where law enforcement can be legitimately dangerous?

<comment><USER20> It's true that bitcoin might be useful in very unstable countries (venezuela comes to mind) when you can't really trust fiat and getting access to dollars or other foreign currencies is trickier.

It's still only really useful for relatively rich people who want to get money out or in, I doubt the average Venezuelian bothers with Bitcoin. And Bitcoin requires a widely available "free" internet connection to work correctly which would be trivial for an authoritarian government to disrupt. Turkey doesn't hesitate to block Wikipedia and Twitter, I doubt they'd have any problem blocking the bitcoin exchanges and the bitcoin peer-to-peer protocol if they felt the need to do it. Sure you can work around this and smuggle the blockchain somehow, but it becomes a lot less practical, especially if want something that you can easily spend for your day-to-day purchases like food and toilet paper.

I know there's a lot of defiance towards our governments all around the world and there are some good reasons for that. However I feel like we're having the bad engineer reflex, trying to find a technical solution to a societal issue and we might end up making things worse. I want to be able to trust the government that I democratically elect and I want this government to be able to gather taxes and even control the currency to some extent.

Instead Bitcoin will make it trivial to evade taxes, smuggle money overseas and makes bribery easier than ever. You can't seize it, you can't freeze it, you can launder it super easily etc...

At least when people open an illegal account in some tax haven it leaves some paper trail, there are intermediaries in the loop, you take some risks, you have to figure out a way to smuggle the money over there while keeping the books clean. With Bitcoin you click on "generate a new receiving address" and you're done. If the point is to make governments less corrupt and more accountable I don't see how that'll work. You can't have the Panama Papers or the Swiss Leaks if there's no paper to begin with.

The fact that it wastes an ungodly amount of energy to secure its ledger is just the icing on the crap cake as far as I'm concerned. And it's not even super successful because as far as I understand the majority of the hash power is currently in mainland China, so if the Chinese government wanted to take over they'd just send a dozen of military types in each datacenter and that'd be the end of it. Then you make a few double-spend attacks to make people lose all trust in the coin, the value collapses, nobody mines it anymore, game over, thanks for playing.

<comment><USER10> > However I feel like we're having the bad engineer reflex, trying to find a > technical solution to a societal issue and we might end up making things > worse.

Same is said for encryption.

My perspective is that tools empowering individuals is the solution to societal problems. Cryptography does that, whether applied to communication or applied to value transfer.

<comment><USER20> Encryption has legitimate use cases even if you assume that you completely trust the "authorities" like your bank and your government. It's about preventing your neighbor from reading your email over wifi.

Monetary transactions are already pretty well protected, which makes it hard for somebody to steal my credit card and use it without my consent. It's arguably even safer than Bitcoin since the bank and regulations offer me some protection if something goes wrong.

So bitcoin isn't about making secure transactions the way HTTPS is, it's about hiding my transactions from the bank and, transitively, from the government. It's about creating a completely free libertarian market.

Maybe you actually want that but I wish there were more discussions in the bitcoin world about what model of society people really want. I have a hard time believing that all the bitcoin enthusiasts are die-hard objectivists. I feel like many people saw the "get rich quick" scheme and didn't stop to think about the consequences.

<comment><USER10> > Monetary transactions are already pretty well protected

To borrow some progressive terminology: check your privilege.

Also let's not forget

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

[https://wikileaks.org/MasterCard-breaks-ranks- in.html](https://wikileaks.org/MasterCard-breaks-ranks-in.html)

Civil asset forfeiture

etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If this isn't a clear sign of a bubble I don't know what is.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's hard not to think of tulips at this stage

<comment><USER24> As someone who wrote a newspaper column for the Chicago Tribune in 2013 titled "Why Bitcoins aren't Tulips" this particular argument is starting to get a bit tiresome at this point.

Fine- Let's just call them "tulips" so we can all go home and enjoy the sunny weather today.

<comment><USER23> The main argument (tulips have substitutes) is very light. Just by looking at the number of alternative blockchains flying around, it's hard to treat bitcoin as something unique. And that's what makes me extremely sceptical.

Might be an interesting cryptographic concept. An asset class? Nope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Uh, isn't it also illegal to buy unlicensed securities? Couldn't the SEC also prosecute individuals who bought into obvious scams as unaccredited investors? IANAL, but securities fraud is securities fraud. Why even take the risk? Why, especially now, announce to the world that you're taking the risk like in the article?

<comment><USER26> _Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Don 't take investment advice from my Internet comments._

> _isn 't it also illegal to buy unlicensed securities_

There are "safe harbors" like Regulation D [1]. This is how private companies issue securities. There are still rules about to whom you can sell your securities and the minimum information you have to make available to them. Needless to say, I have not seen an ICO promoter make use of these safe harbours.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answers- regdhtm.html](https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answers-regdhtm.html)

<comment><USER25> I highly doubt most ICOs qualify for exemptions, let alone notified the SEC of their intentions to make a public offering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Most ICOs are worthless. Premature nature of funding and a lack of accountability = no attractive return.

</comment><comment><USER28> Can someone here please be a devil's advocate and convince me to invest in ICOs?

<comment><USER6> Buy into my ICO. I don't know what it is yet but it's going to be awesome. You can give me the money now if you like - you want to get in early after all if you're going to make the big bucks off it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Thankfully, Urbit isn't on that list... avoid success at all costs.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you've made a 7 figure salary for a few years, you can afford to take a gamble on an ICO with your pocket money. Who needs a second yacht anyway?

<comment><USER2> If I earned 7 figure salary, I would do the job for about 5 years and then retire. With savings after 5 years of 7 figure salary you should be able create a comfortable passive income.

Buy couple real estate properties and rent them out, invest remainder in blue chip equities and collect dividends. And you never need to work again.

<comment><USER31> I agree with you.

However, wouldn't somebody who makes say 9$ an hour have the same thoughts about developer salaries?

> If I made 200k a year, I would work for about 5 years and then retire.

I mean it's possible if you save a ton and live very cheaply, like somebody who today makes 9$/hour might be used to doing.

People always want more. Though, there is a sweet spot (~90k/year?) where more money means less and less to you.

<comment><USER2> The issue with this is that the best IT jobs are in places like San Francisco / New York / London which are very expensive.

So yes you make 200k (before taxes) but you spend 35-40k per year on rent plus bills (water, electricity, council tax, internet etc).

Throw in some social life and drinks once or twice a week, car plus insurance, supporting family financially.

So let's say after all that you end up saving 40k per year net. Times 5 is 200k. That is not enough to retire.

Now do the math with 1 million salary (the lowest possible 7 figure). Same living standard. After 5 years you can save let's say 1.5-2 million (I didn't do the math so if I am way off please correct me).

Now that is an amount you can retire on:

1) Buy two properties for 500k (live in one, rent the other one)

2) Invest 1 million in blue chip equities, this will pay you around 35k per year in dividends

3) You still have a nice sum of cash left on top of that

So you can see that 90k per year is definitely not a sweet spot. There are still massive improvements if you can make 200k, 400k, 800k and so on.

Yes perhaps going from 35k to 90k will improve your living standard much more drastically than going from 90k to 200k. So you could argue that there are diminishing returns.

But you are ignoring the fact that the higher you go the sooner you gain complete financial freedom when you can retire and live completely free.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Two Biggest MOOC Providers Adapt How Their Courses Work - <AUTHOR> https://www.class-central.com/report/coursera-paywall-edx-discontinues-free-certificates/ <comment><USER2> Personally I don't mind paying the relatively small fees that Coursera is charging for certificates. Right now I'm paying for the courses in the Johns Hopkins "Data Science Specialization" and the Stanford Machine Learning class. Those I like the idea of having some verification for, so I can mention them on my resume or whatever with no questions.

OTOH, I'm doing a Calculus class just for my own edification, and I'm not paying for any certificate or anything on that. Not sure one is even available, but I don't need it. Same for pretty much all the maths classes I'm planning to take. I want the knowledge, don't care about paper credentials.

I haven't used Udacity or EdX yet, but what Coursera is doing now seems pretty reasonable to me.</comment>


Wikipedia traffic statistics for Hacker News (or any other article) - <AUTHOR> http://stats.grok.se/en/201108/Hacker_News <comment><USER2> <http://toolserver.org/~emw/wikistats/> is an augmented traffic statistics tool that shows daily Wikipedia page traffic over arbitrary time periods. It also allows users to see traffic for multiple articles in a given time period, or different language versions of the same article, and gives summary statistics for each data set and some very basic automated inferencing on the cause of traffic spikes (e.g. Michael Jackson's). The tool gets its data from stats.grok.se.

[http://toolserver.org/~emw/wikistats/?p1=Hacker_News&pro...](http://toolserver.org/~emw/wikistats/?p1=Hacker_News&project1=en&from=12/10/2007&to=8/10/2011&plot=1)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is my favourite: <http://stats.grok.se/en/201107/Rupert_Murdoch> (it's amazing to think how influential Wikipedia could be at times like that)

</comment><comment><USER4> Woohoo! The page I started on Wikipedia has more hits:

<http://stats.grok.se/en/201108/Hessian_matrix>

</comment><comment><USER5> Too bad Wikirank has been shut down... it was a great way to visualize Wikipedia pages traffic.

<http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000998.html>

The stats data dumps are available here: <http://dammit.lt/wikistats/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Airbnb's traffic stats were interesting last month. See if you can guess when news of the incident became viral: <http://stats.grok.se/en/201107/Airbnb>

</comment><comment><USER7> For the Hacker_News article there seems to be a peak every Tuesday in July (and to some extent May). I wonder why?

<comment><USER8> Many B2B sites have peak traffic Tuesday or Wednesday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. This could be used as a detailed companion to Google's search numbers for market research.

<comment><USER10> Yes, this most certainly has a lot of potential for that aspect. This tool could serve as a way to validate your assumptions where for pages that are ranking well on Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's no data for 24th/25th Jan 2010. Any ideas why?

</comment><comment><USER12> What's the source of the data?

</comment><comment><USER13> Would be nice to see this on a monthly or weekly basis to track overall trends.

This page shows the most popular articles (Dec '10): <http://stats.grok.se/en/>

Interesting, though I can't figure out for the life of me what Special:Export/Robert L. Bradley, Jr and Special:Export/William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr are doing there.

(Robert L Bradley Jr: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Bradley,_Jr>. William Kurtz Wimsatt, jr: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kurtz_Wimsatt,_Jr.>)

<comment><USER2> You can view traffic for the last 30 days at <http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Hacker_News>.

I agree that seeing page view counts on a weekly or monthly basis would be interesting. I'll add a feature to <http://toolserver.org/~emw/wikistats/> so that users can "bin" view counts for pages into weekly or monthly (or arbitrary-time length) units. If you have other feature requests, please keep them coming.</comment></comment>


100 days of Growth – eBook - <AUTHOR> http://100daysofgrowth.com/

<comment><USER2> Wait I have to tweet to Read the preview... No thanks :)

<comment><USER3> I feel the same... Forcing me to de facto advertise the product before I had a chance to even read the sample puts into question the quality the content I would find inside the book. My steps were the following. I bookmarked the book. I learnt I would need to endorse it to peek into the sample. I didn't. I removed the bookmark of the book from my collection.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the feedback I've made changes to the site so you don't have to share to preview. Here's the preview: 100daysofgrowth.com/100DaysofGrowth- Preview.pdf</comment></comment></comment>


Building a Distributed Log from Scratch, Part 1: Storage Mechanics - <AUTHOR> http://bravenewgeek.com/building-a-distributed-log-from-scratch-part-1-storage-mechanics/ <comment><USER2> This is a really neat and good article! I did a talk in Sweden the other month about how to build a distributed database, hopefully it may also be fun/useful/informative for others: [https://youtu.be/5fCPRY-9hkc](https://youtu.be/5fCPRY-9hkc) (it uses CRDTs instead, so is a counter-part that isn't totally ordered and isn't append- only).

I like the OP article though, cause I learned about NATS streaming, which I hadn't heard of before - just Kafka. Will have to check it out.

<comment><USER3> NATS streaming was definitely neat. And thanks for sharing your video, always looking for new distributed database resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to admit that I only recently got familiar with logs. I was designing a B+Tree[1] in Python for fun and was struggling to make it survive crashes: a single insertion in a tree often results in multiple page writes which is not atomic.

The solution to this problem is simple and elegant with a Write-Ahead Log. Every page write is appended to the log and only merged back into the tree file when it's sure that the log is safely written to storage.

SQLite has an extensive documentation of its WAL file format, which is great for learning.

[1] [https://github.com/NicolasLM/bplustree](https://github.com/NicolasLM/bplustree)

[2] [https://www.sqlite.org/fileformat.html#the_write_ahead_log](https://www.sqlite.org/fileformat.html#the_write_ahead_log)

<comment><USER5> If you're interested in those, there are at least two other designs you should have a look at:

\- couchdb uses a single file for each db, which means the write ahead log _is_ the storage. The atomicity is guaranteed by saying that the latest root is the valid root. If writes are interrupted, everything since the last root is invalid and discarded upon restart. A simple design that just works, although it tends to be wasteful and requires frequent compactions

\- lmdb ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Memory- Mapped_Data...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Memory- Mapped_Database)) uses copy on write to make sure space is properly used, and atomicity is provided by sharing only the strict minimal pieces of information, so small in fact atomicity is guaranteed by the os. Follow the different links in the wikipedia page, there's a lot of interesting stuff

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a good introduction, and a very useful abstraction. At Morgan Stanley we have built a PL/compiler and tools around a method of logging like this -- logging algebraic data types and live querying out of them with Haskell-like comprehensions/pattern-matching/etc:

[https://github.com/Morgan-Stanley/hobbes](https://github.com/Morgan- Stanley/hobbes)

</comment><comment><USER7> One question about the index file, "in Kafka, the index uses 4 bytes for storing an offset relative to the base offset and 4 bytes for storing the log position." Isn't the relative offset to the base offset already pointing to the physical location of the message in the segment file? What's the purpose of the second 4-byte field log position?

<comment><USER8> I think that the offsets are both in terms of number of messages, whereas the log position is the byte in the file that the message occurs at.

<comment><USER9> Right, I think earlier Kafka it was actually the position as well, but then they moved to the current method.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft joins group seeking legal immunity from climate change lawsuits - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/01/microsoft-joins-group-seeking-to-avoid-climate-change-lawsuit <comment><USER2> A few days ago someone submitted the latest entry on Bill Gates' blog, gatesnotes.com. He has been commenting on climate change for years now, including plugging his related investments. It feels very much like he is trying to control the dialogue. In the latest entry he discusses the cement and steel industries. Strangely he never discusses the "industry" of which Microsoft is a part, which, like cement, steel or plastic, consumes massive amounts of energy, all in the name of producing/controlling intangibles that some of us would consider non-essential to modern life. For example, I can live a modern life without Windows 10 or LinkedIn. I probably cannot live a modern life without that bridge across the lake, however.</comment>


SpringRole – Everyone is a Recruiter - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kar2905/springrole-everyone-is-a-recruiter-a4ba7d1e0578

<comment><USER2> When they say they've "written 2,000 checks worth $45,000," they're basically saying they'll pay you, on average, ~$11 per referral? Most employers I've worked for pay at least $250 per referral for regular work, and much more if they have an urgent or very specialized need. I'm not sure I see the advantage of joining this network over just referring people to my current employer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I right in guessing that a "Passive user" is a user whom you collect information on without them opting in? E.g. By scraping public profiles or collecting connections from registered users?

Is it possible to view / check / correct any information about myself if I am a "passive user" on your platform?

Many eu countries and Austalia have privacy laws around these basic rights.

</comment><comment><USER4> Site: [http://springrole.com/](http://springrole.com/)</comment>


Little Things I Like to Do with Git (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://csswizardry.com/2017/05/little-things-i-like-to-do-with-git/ <comment><USER2> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14409269](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14409269)

</comment><comment><USER3> \--word-diff how the f __* I didn 't know that !

</comment><comment><USER4> I dig it, definitely some commands mentioned here I found useful, and the --word-diff is so nice. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Excellent article, and reader comments in the article's GitHub issue are good, too.

This post should have [2017] in its HN title.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like the "git recent" alias best. "vi ~/.gitconfig" I come!</comment>


A Big Result On Graph Isomorphism - <AUTHOR> https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/a-big-result-on-graph-isomorphism/ <comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505231)

Also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506476)

</comment><comment><USER3> This was also excitedly mentioned on BBC Radio 4 this morning.</comment>


Ask YC:  Links (rather than words) as forming a new language for higher level communication? - <AUTHOR>

Why not have conversations where the smallest unit is a link rather than a word?  These links would be to existing content on the web (i.e., you are not allowed to create new content and link to it).
To experiment with this form of communication, I propose trying such a conversation here starting with this link:
http://weblog.fortnow.com/2008/04/web-10-guy-in-web-20-world.html
The idea is not just to have people contribute related links, but rather to have a conversation where replies contain link(s) that directly address what is being replied to in the parent.  After all, almost anything that you would like to say has probably been said better by someone else on the web already... so why not just link to it? <comment><USER2> You're basically saying "let's communicate with entire concepts and ideas instead of words, and let's represent those concepts and ideas via links to articles."

The problem is that the links will contain words which represent an idea. You couldn't have an article that was made entirely out of links. Furthermore, the link does not immediately convey an idea, unless the reader automatically recognizes the link (not likely). Using the link to represent the idea is more efficient for the person providing the link, but not for the people being talked too, when compared to reading a summary of an idea with the link as a reference.

It reminds me of a Star Trek episode (TNG) where the captain is stranded on a planet with an alien who only speaks with references to his species' history (there was also some wild beast that was hunting them). The alien would only say things like "Gesh, from Torrock," which represented a story about a warrior who faced a similar situation to theirs. That short phrase was the link, and it represented an entire idea, but to the captain it had no meaning, because he didn't know the story.

I suppose I should have found a link that describes what I just said. That would be hard to find.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ultimately, the smallest unit of communication must be a representation of a cognitive thought. Pictures work for this, but words are more convenient. Generally, you can't have a conversation with the link at the atomic unit because the link is only as good as what it links to; that is, the words or pictures in the link are what is added to the conversation, not just the link itself.

Also, it would be really confusing to communicate in links as there would be a difficulty in providing context.

</comment><comment><USER4> "After all, almost anything that you would like to say has probably been said better by someone else on the web already."

Emergence != aggregation.

</comment><comment><USER5> You broke your rule by using words instead of just links.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html></comment></comment>


IBM has developed a computerised voice that is almost indistinguishable from a human. - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/technologynews/4420798/IBM-develop-most-realistic-computerised-voice.html <comment><USER2> Here's a page with some sample audio clips. There are some papers that are some credited to the guy mentioned in the article on the publications page

<http://www.research.ibm.com/tts/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Acapela Group's voices are already pretty good. I bought Lucy, the British one. She sounds almost like a voice-response automated phone system.

[http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive- demo...](http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html)

<comment><USER4> if you don't mind me asking how much was "Lucy" roughly? $100's, $1,000's, $10,000's, more? I couldn't find a price list on the site.

<comment><USER5> Lucy costs $35 USD, plus the cost of the text-to-speech program (e.g. TextAloud, which I think is <$50): <http://www.nextup.com/acapela.html>

(Acapela doesn't sell directly to consumers; they license their technology to resellers.)

<comment><USER3> As a caveat, if you are thinking of buying a voice like Lucy, it does not work with Windows' built-in Text-to-speech (for example - Adobe Reader's text-to- speech feature). It looks like Lernout & Hauspie has some kind of agreement with Microsoft to lock out other competitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here you go:

[http://www.patents.com/Generating-paralinguistic- phenomena-v...](http://www.patents.com/Generating-paralinguistic-phenomena- via-markup-text-to-speech-synthesis/US7472065/en-US/)

But that said, it mostly just sounds like a way to insert a bunch of annoying "umms" and "ahs" into artificial conversation.

<comment><USER5> So it looks like this system has people use simple textual markup. From the patent:

"For example, the developer may specify: <prosody style="bad news">Well, \sigh I cannot answer that question;</prosody>"

<comment><USER7> Perfect candidate for EmotionML? <http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/emotion/XGR-emotionml/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure I've spoken to a number of these computerised voices at some customer service call centres.

</comment><comment><USER9> IBM's new business plan: Run the works of the Clash through their software, crank it through Songsmith and make millions on the YouTube adsense.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like they still have some trouble with phoneme cadence and blending.

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone have a link for any further details?

</comment><comment><USER11> Um, I don't, like, want that, er, in my, you know, like, conversations with robots.

</comment><comment><USER12> No place to, uh, hear it?</comment>


RaaS (Reforestation as a Service) – Tree Planting API - <AUTHOR> https://sideprojects.net/posts/ASsJwqjfYbQH9A9kr/raas-reforestation-as-a-service-tree-planting-api <comment><AUTHOR> I found this side project the other day and it's an API that essentially helps connect apps to tree restoration organizations

Still looks like it's in an MVP stage but it's a really cool to see how tech can be used for environmental purposes!

<comment><USER2> Hey, thanks for your comment! The solution is now fully functional, and used so far to request the planting of more than 5000 trees (In Indonesia and Haiti so far). Working hard on it these days, trying to get tens of thousands more planted in the next few months.

What we need right now are more clients, please tell me if you know companies that would be interested in integrating the API. The solution is 100% free, only 1$ per trees n eeds to be paid directly to the reforestation organisations.</comment></comment>


How Nepal got the electricity flowing - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2017/0116/How-Nepal-got-the-electricity-flowing?cmpid=editorpicks&google_editors_picks=true <comment><USER2>
      But because she and her husband had invested $500 – two
      months' worth of his salary as a police officer – in an
      inverter, or power backup device,

      Their aim was to create a market for inverter importers
      and the alternative energy lobby

      The drain on supply is significant: Not only does the use
      of inverters increase the load when electricity is
      available, as people are using electronic devices and
      charging the inverters at the same time, but 30 percent of
      the energy is also lost between the time an inverter is
      charged and the time it powers light electronic devices
      during blackouts.

The joys of interpreting journalism written by nontechnical people. Reading between the lines, I'm guessing they're using "inverter" to mean big UPS systems-- a charger, battery bank, and output inverter. Calling the whole thing an "inverter" is like calling a car an "alternator".</comment>