How would you sell water? - <AUTHOR> http://zellunit.com/2008/04/07/selling-water/

<comment><USER2> <http://www.ethoswater.com/> Click 'About' - Sell $1.80 bottles of water and 'give' $0.05/bottle to your own charitable foundation. They were acquired by Starbucks inside 2 years.

</comment><comment> craig-faber Water is actually the best re-hydration aid ever. Bottled water is really popular with construction workers for that reason. They like the convenience of being able to carry the bottles around with them, and the fact that they come pre-filled when you buy them (even though they re-fill them with tap water later). So you really can sell bottled water based on the fact that it's water and it's in a bottle.

</comment><comment><USER3> Market it as dihydrogen oxide skin cleaner.

<comment><USER4> <http://www.dhmo.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would sell carbon-neutral, zero-environmental-footprint water. A portion of the price of every bottle offsets the manufacturing/transport costs to the environment, so people are free to enjoy the water totally-guilt free.

<comment><USER2> I have carbonneutralwater.com/net/org (and have for awhile) - free to a good home if anyone wants to seriously pursue this idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a very longwinded way to say "sell the sizzle, not the steak."

You don't sell water. You sell rebellion.

<comment><USER7> I dunno, an awful lot of people seem to be making an awful lot of money by selling bottled water, and I don't see any of them using a rebellion-based marketing strategy. I see messages ranging from "Buy our water, it's cool and refreshing and comes in a pretty bottle" to "Buy your water, it's cooler and more refreshing, and it comes in an even prettier bottle!"

It's true that products don't sell themselves, but on the other hand some products are dumb enough that even a huge marketing campaign won't make 'em popular, and I'm pretty sure that five-spouted rapper-endorsed water is one of them.

<comment><USER6> The rebellion example came from the article. It suggested creating an alternate means to drink water that "rebellious" people would use.

<comment><USER7> I know, I thought it was a silly example. Sorry, I kinda convolved my reply to your comment with my reply to the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's one part of the article that states:

"Instead of getting caught up on the idea of creating the perfect product, settle for an okay one."

As hackers and creators here, I think we'll have a hard time getting over that point. The suggestion to release early can sort of apply here, but the goal is to build something better and better - perpetual improvement, and settling into the mindset of "why make it perfect when I can make it cool" is probably not the best startup advice.

Still, the moral of the story is still a great take away. When doing any sort of sales, be it to customers or investors, sell the benefit, not the features. People don't don't want A/C, they want comfort.

I loved the marketing thought put into this article. It really makes it easier to get into a consumer's mind.

</comment><comment><USER9> By targeting the right market....with the right strategy in place.

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone else concerned with zellunit posting a link from zellunit.com? Or does that happen a lot around here? Legitimate question.

<comment><USER11> No, I'm not concerned, there's nothing against it here:

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

Does it happen a lot? No, I don't think so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In bulk. Through a pipe. Cheap. Advertise that it never touches plastic.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wouldn't.</comment>


Ask HN: Pointless Spam? - <AUTHOR>

I've noticed that a substantial amount of spam that I receive doesn't make sense -- that is, I don't understand why spammers would even be motivated to send such spam since there seems to be no gain to them.
For instance, a spam I received just now contained only the following ASCII text:

    damps sonnet quaked.
    cols merged gage.
    sadism heroic silly.
    libyan tannic pagan.
 There weren't any URLs or tracking images as far as I can tell... just nonsense text. What's the benefit to the spammer? If there's no tracking image and no link to click... there isn't really anything the user can do other than be annoyed and delete it.
The only reason I could think of would be that they expect people to reply to the sender (to verify e-mail legitimacy), but that seems rather convoluted.
Unless some spammers just like to annoy people, rather than make money. <comment><USER2> a lot of spam nowadays is sent with the explicit purpose of pinging email names and bypassing filters, just to find out of the address itself has a person that checks it. war-emailing, as it were

perhaps that email had something like an embedded image or javascript that could/would dial out to tell the spammer that your email address is active.

other tactics i've seen are the "unsubscribe to this email" links on blatant spam which are social engineering attacks to trick the unwitting into telling the spammers that yes, someone is home at this address.

<comment><USER3> Even if you don't reply, typically the spammer will receive an 'undeliverable notice' from invalid accounts, so silence ought to indicate where an addresses exist.

<comment><USER2> right, and what better way to ping for active accounts than with a (in this case, pretty crappy and almost worthless) bayesian poisoning attack?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is designed to distort Bayesian filters. From an economic perspective, this is fairly interesting, because the spammer that sends this gets no rent, or direct profit, from it, but helps the spammer ecosystem.

<comment><USER5> So, spammers who altruistically help each other might gain some sort of competitive benefit? And this propagates the behavior in the spammer ecosystem. I find this highly ironic, since spamming itself is the opposite of altruistic behavior.

I guess what is "altruistic" is highly contextual. This reminds me of a quip from a Raymond Smullyan book. A friend of his did codebreaking in the Pacific theater in WWII. There was one code they couldn't quite figure out, but they eventually settled on "pro-Japanese" as the meaning, but nothing really fit for them. After the war, it turned out that the code meant "sincere."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe it's to throw the email system's bayesian spam filter off?

<comment><USER7> Very unlikely. It's almost certainly either to check if the addr is live or a broken spam in which the spammer forgot to insert the payload (not uncommon).

I've never seen evidence of spammers trying to poison filters. This certainly isn't. If you were trying to poison filters you'd want to include a lot more words.

<comment><USER8> If that is the case it would be cool if your email client had a "pretend bad email address" type function which sends a fake bounce email.

<comment><USER9> Many clients do have that feature. Mail.app has "Bounce" in the contextual menu. Another handy one in there that's not often used (or always duplicated) is redirect.

<comment><USER10> I forget where I heard this, but supposedly the Mail "Bounce" feature does more harm than good. Whatever method it uses to bounce is easily identifiable as fake, so it's only good for tricking humans who don't know any better.

<comment><USER11> It does way more harm than good.

Spam is sent mostly from forged addresses, so when you bounce the message it just gets sent on to the poor sucker who owns the mail address that was forged.

One of my domains was used as the 'from' address for a big spam run, and I would cheerfully strangle _everyone_ who bounces spam after recieving 90,000 or so returned mails that had not originated from my mail server in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's actually a coded message meant for only a dozen of its 3 million recipients - Al Qaeda's way of outsmarting the NSA.

<comment><USER13> You just have to use the 'bible code'. (Or was it the Quran code?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Did you check the headers as well? I've seen quite a few emails that had the "body" of the email in one while the real body was empty or contained similar noise - I presume there are some broken mail clients that will render them regardless.

</comment><comment><USER15> seems almost like <http://scrumy.com> 's url generator.</comment>


The Untreatable: The Spanish Flu of 1918 - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n02/gavin-francis/the-untreatable <comment><USER2> Last week, someone I know died of this year's influenza. He was 33 years old and reasonably healthy. He got pneumonia, and his heart failed.

This is the first time in my life I've experienced a healthy young adult dying of influenza. It's terrifying.

<comment><USER3> Pneumonia vaccine might have prevented such a death - depends on the individual, of course. This option appears to be less well-known than the flu vaccine (and is only reccomended for some of the population). [https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/pneumo/public/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/pneumo/public/index.html)

<comment><USER2> A health care system that isn't a cause of stark financial terror for the poor would have prevented his death. He didn't go to the doctor because he was poor and uninsured, until it was too late.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _Computer modelling suggests that if the 1918 H1N1 virus were to break out > of the facility in Atlanta it would cause around_ thirty _million deaths._

Considering the original death toll of 50-100M deaths, and today's increased population and rapid communication (air flight), that's actually a very impressive number in how _low_ it is.

Edit: I wonder how much of the improvement is due to the surviving population's natural immunity?

<comment><USER5> I would expect that a significant factor is that we both have better treatments nowadays and treatment is much more accessible.

In 1918 a lot of people, especially in rural areas, probably died before they even had a chance to see a doctor. A rural person could easily be a day's travel or more by horse drawn wagon away from a doctor.

It might take two people to take the sick person. One to handle the horse and wagon, and one to tend to the sick person. Having two healthy people away from work for several days, and having the wagon unavailable for that time, could be a serious hardship.

I'd thus expect such people to tend to wait until it was clear that what they had was more serious than any normal flu they had had before. News traveled much slower in 1918, especially in rural areas, so they might not know that there is an unusually deadly flu pandemic in progress.

So by the time they realize that they are going to need help, it might be logistically too late.

Even if our medical treatment was no better today than in 1918, we'd probably save a lot more just because news spreads faster and more widely, we have faster transportation, and we have faster communication.

<comment><USER6> "I would expect that a significant factor is that we both have better treatments nowadays and treatment is much more accessible."

If, by "treatment", you mean access to clean water, sanitary conditions and decent rest, then I would agree: we're certainly better off than rural populations circa 1918. I suppose access to IV fluids could be helpful if you're elderly, or otherwise immune-compromised.

Beyond that, not much has changed since 1918.

The flu is a virus and is not affected by antibiotics. Further, the two antivirals associated with influenza either do nothing[1] or almost nothing[2].

Very much like there is no such thing as "cold medicine" (contrary to what TV says) there is also no such thing as a broadly useful flu treatment. What you're most likely to receive from a doctor is relief of superficial symptoms.

Going to a hospital for the cold or the flu will potentially expose you to much more serious bacterial infection.

[1] "Overall the benefits of neuraminidase inhibitors in those who are otherwise healthy do not appear to be greater than the risks." ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Treatment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Treatment))

[2] "These drugs (M2 inhibitors) are sometimes effective against influenza A if given early in the infection but are ineffective against influenza B viruses" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Treatment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Treatment))

<comment><USER7> I hope you are not involved in public health because you are dangerously misinformed.

A major cause of flu death in otherwise healthy people is secondary bacterial infections and high quality home care would really help.

Your statement re: antibiotics is accurate re: the primary problem but not in terms of actual cause of death which is very often secondary infection.

I would choose hospital care over home care any day of the week, but if there were a serious outbreak then government paid time off for carers plus basically universal antibiotics would be a logical response.

I think you are being too directly logical and not thinking systemically.

<comment><USER6> "high quality home care would really help."

I am in complete agreement. Not only would high quality home care help, it is, largely, the _only thing that helps_.

"I would choose hospital care over home care any day of the week..."

I think that's a very bad heuristic that is widespread in the US - across a broad spectrum of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. If you _just have the flu_ a visit to the hospital is _useless at best_. At worst, that secondary bacterial infection you're (rightly) worried about is alive and well at the hospital. Hospitals are breeding grounds of such infections.

"I think you are being too directly logical and not thinking systemically."

I am indeed thinking systematically - as I have witnessed emergency rooms full of kids with colds and flu who will be given comfort and/or placebos and who are racking up healthcare costs and displacing actual emergencies. And then there's the exposure to bacterial infections ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I get the flu shot every year (I have asthma - otherwise healthy), and have only had the flu a few times in my life. This year, with all of the stories of healthy adults being felled by flu has me nervous.

Bah, my germophobic ways (I avoid touching door handles, my face holes, etc.) will hopefully protect me. Except maybe from those jack-holes who need to prove how 'hard' they are by coming to work with a fever. You know who they are because not only do they look like shit, they make sure to announce to everyone that they're sick so that they get 'credit.'

<comment><USER9> When you have children everything changes. Then your success depends on teaching them to adhere to the same countermeasures—there isn't much chance of that until they are older.

I had managed not to throw up for 20 years. That all went out the window when I had a child that attended school.

<comment><USER10> Same here. ...and while I can teach _some_ basics to my 4 year old, there is absolutely nothing I can do about my 2 year old in daycare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A few years ago I read 'The Great Influenza' by John Barry, which includes a historical perspective of US medical history leading up to the 1918 pandemic as well as digging into the pandemic itself.

I recommend the book.

<comment><USER12> This is a fantastic book - I can wholeheartedly concur with your recommendation.

<comment><USER13> Recommendation thirded. It's one scary and very informative book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's fascinating that we had the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics at the time, yet we don't know to this day why the Spanish flu was so deadly.

Another puzzling disease that appeared at that time and have disappeared since then was encephalitis lethargica: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica)

Some hypothesize that the two were in fact related.

<comment><USER15> Some years ago I got the flu and two days later I became unconscious, went to a coma for five days. It took atleast six month for the hallucinations and the body aches to stop. Doctor said it was Viral Encephalitis. Worst days of my life, but still lucky to be alive.

<comment><USER14> Wow, encephalitis is no joke! You're lucky to be alive. May I ask how old were you at the time?

<comment><USER15> I was 26 at that time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think anybody that got all conspiranoid about the bird flu and swine flu alarms of the last decade should read the accounts of the Spanish flu, a bird flu.

Young adults coughing blood foam. Towns where every single person died. Cities with bodies piled up on the streets because the undertakers died or wouldn't approach them.

The WHO raised the alarms because a bad bird flu _is_ alarming.

<comment><USER17> > read the accounts of the Spanish flu, a bird flu

The non-human source of the Spanish Influenza is still debatable.[1]

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

<comment><USER16> The article and the footnotes make it sound like the real debate is whether it went directly from bird to human, or jumped to swine first.

EDIT: The abstract of the paper that questions the origin asserts:

> In light of this alternative interpretation, we suggest that the current > intense surveillance of influenza viruses should be broadened to include > mammalian sources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Then there's this study, which contrasts with the author's anecdotal statements regarding aspirin use during the Spanish Flu Epidemic.

[https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/49/9/1405/301441](https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/49/9/1405/301441)

<comment><USER19> Doesn't aspirin also contribute to less Vitamin C absorption in the body? For example: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6811490](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6811490)

I also remember reading an article that mentioned the 1800s led to adoption of artificial fertilizers that contributed to higher crop yields, but less nutritious fruits and vegetables. I thought these factors, plus WWI, led to weaker immune systems and great conditions for infections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Plague was one of the major causes of the contraction of Eastern Roman empire. Never underestimate the ability of a disease to shift the balance of political power in the world.

</comment><comment><USER12> Bear in mind, another 1918 like flu will come - and even modern medicine is basically helpless to stop it - we just know better how to treat it.

<comment><USER20> There is a flu almost every year. And we're pretty good at making vaccines. A couple of years ago there was a "training" in Sweden where every citizen was called in for mass vaccination. You didn't have to take it, but most people did. First medicine personnel, then pregnant, children and elders, then everyone else. If there is a dangerous flue like the Spanish Flu again, this is probably what will happen.

<comment><USER21> Exactly, we have knowledge now and this knowledge will help us - everyone has heard of the swine flu for instance

<comment><USER22> The 1976 Swine Flu[0] is _not_ a vaccination success story.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza#1976_U.S._outb...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_influenza#1976_U.S._outbreak)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I read somewhere that the Spanish flu was basically what ended the first World War. Not sure if I believe it. In school, I had this history teacher who made a point of telling us - repeatedly - that major historical events can rarely, if ever, be traced to a single cause. But it might have played a significant role.

Also, I had _no idea at all_ that it had spread globally. And a lot more people died from it than I had thought.

What would happen if such a disease came along today? Are we just lucky that it has not happened, yet?

<comment><USER24> IMHO, no, I don't think it ended WWI, it was probably the end of WWI that spread it globally so fast (plenty of malnourished soldiers going back home).

Maybe a bit off-topic, I wholeheartedly agree with your teacher, but even if a historical event has several causes, it's very common for there to be a single trigger that starts the whole thing. Everybody "knows" that the first world war started with the assasination of the archduke Ferdinand, but the causes were many (the alliance between France and Russia, between Germany and Austro- Hungary, the problems in the Balkans between Russia, the Ottoman empire and Austro-Hungary...)

As for your question, it probably has happened a few times (avian flu a few years ago?), but medicine is much better now and, on average, the population is healthier. Just these two facts alone make it much more difficult (but not impossible) for something like that from happening again.

Another off-topic, but I find it weird that it's called the Spanish flu when, apparently, it started in France. Spain was not part of WWI and didn't have wartime censorship at the time, so it was the first place that started reporting cases of it, but it didn't originate there.

<comment><USER23> > Maybe a bit off-topic, I wholeheartedly agree with your teacher [...] it's > very common for there to be a single trigger that starts the whole thing. > Everybody "knows" that the first world war started with the assasination of > the archduke Ferdinand, but the causes were many

Yes! That is exactly what he tried to make us understand!

I _loved_ that teacher. To him, learning history was not about memorizing dates and places[1], but understanding causal relationships. Also that us Germans had kind of lost our historical memory after World War II.

Also, he taught me the important lesson that two people can have diametrically opposing opinions (I was very left-wing at the time, he was "conservative"[2]) and still respect each other as human beings and acknowledge that the fact I disagreed with him on some important issues did not make either one of us an idiot or a bad person. When I look at the people often "debate" on the Internet, I think lesson might be more important than anything else he taught me.

[1] Those are important, too, obviously. But knowing the exact date World War I broke out was not nearly as important to him as understanding _why_ it broke out, and why it would have broken out sooner or later, even if Archduke Ferdinand hat not been killed.

[2] Note that "conservative" in Germany does not mean the same thing as in the USA. My teacher was, for example, vehemently anti-Marxist, but he also pointed out to us that Marx's analysis of capitalism and its inherent contradictions was spot-on in many ways and still very relevant today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wow, I wish more articles were like this. Just two quick paragraphs of story time, then: fact, fact, fact, fact, fact.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is going to sound insanely insensitive, but did he get the vaccine?

Actually, it is insensitive, because I would like to either use it in my arguments against anti-vaxxers, or learn where I went wrong.

I honestly worry about friends who don't vaccinate their kids, and I'd appreciate either vindication, or piece of mind that I shouldn't look for goblins ;)

<comment><USER27> Anti-anti-vaxx is pure flameland of the most tedious sort, and therefore off topic on HN.

Although I appreciate the self-awareness in your comment, it's also a pretty uncivil thing to post; so while it's good that you phrased it that way, better still would have been not to post it at all. Moreover, the data point you're asking for would rather obviously not have the significance you're ascribing to it.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16190609](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16190609) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER26> I apologize if it was inflammatory, I didn't know that it was a flame bait topic (which I guess shows my own bias).

Thank you for your response and the info :)

<comment><USER27> Appreciated!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It might have been a biological weapon. I don't think anyone want to take credit for it though.</comment>


18F Guides - <AUTHOR> https://guides.18f.gov/ <comment><USER2> I have worked with many people who now work at 18F. Most, if not all, are of a very high caliber.

I looked at the "join" section, and at compensation.

You cannot earn more than $164,200 per year working for 18F, apparently.

It's truly a a labor of love, because I know without a doubt that each of those people could be earning far more in the private sector.</comment>


How fat went global - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/175954

<comment><USER2> The author laments about how America is a society that prefers to break things and then fix them later, the opposite of which should be to prevent things from breaking in the first place.

Ironic, considering that his solution to obesity is to tax unhealthy foods, which sounds very much like a bandaid solution to fix something that's already broken.

Why not suggest things to actually prevent obesity in the first place? Like fitness awareness campaigns bought to schools, health food awareness campaigns in corporate settings and so on, just to toss a few ideas up.

<comment><USER3> Why couldn't taxing unhealthy foods be preventative? It's not as though only obese people are price sensitive. Nicholas Kristof at least thinks taxing can be very effective:

 _Let's break for a quiz: What was the biggest health care breakthrough in the last 40 years in the United States? Heart bypasses? CAT scans and M.R.I.'s? New cancer treatments?

No, it was the cigarette tax. Every 10 percent price increase on cigarettes reduced sales by about 3 percent over all, and 7 percent among teenagers, according to the 2005 book "Prescription for a Healthy Nation." Just the 1983 increase in the federal tax on cigarettes saved 40,000 lives per year._

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/opinion/18kristof.html?ref...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/opinion/18kristof.html?ref=opinion)

That being said, I would be very skeptical of an unhealthy food tax, especially on the federal level, because I don't particularly trust the government to know what's healthy and unhealthy. Furthermore, such a measure would make it even harder for them to change their recommendations in the face of new evidence, for fear of looking stupid.</comment></comment>


Linda coordination language - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_(coordination_language) <comment><USER2> Utterly frivolous, but the Ruby port of Linda (given the language's Japanese origins) seems to me to have the funniest project name ever. I couldn't stop laughing when I ran across it:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinda_(Ruby_programming_languag...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinda_\(Ruby_programming_language\))

Perhaps this wasn't intentional, but I sure hope it was.

<comment><USER3> I'm not an English native speaker and asking from pure curiosity: What's funny about the name? Does it have some connotations?

<comment><USER4> I'm not gruseom, but I'm guessing it's funny because of the stereotype that Japanese people can't pronounce 'l' and will replace it with 'r'.

<comment><USER2> Yes, "Rinda" is "Linda" pronounced with a Japanese accent, which along with the fact that Ruby starts with an R makes it the perfect name for that particular project. Unfortunately these things stop being funny and start sounding kind of mean when you spell them out in writing. My comment is absolutely not in that spirit; I just think it's the quintessentially whimsical name, really the only possible name for a Ruby implementation of Linda, and I cling to the fantasy of a room full of people (or at least one) rolling on the floor laughing when they thought of it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, it makes sense. I just wanted to check if there's any connotations not on dictionaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have always thought that C-linda was one of the more elegant answers to distributed computing. It would be cool to see this make a come back.

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/tools/JavaSp...](http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/tools/JavaSpaces/)</comment>


Redwood: The Future of the FoundationDB Storage Engine - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlus1Z7TVTI <comment><AUTHOR> Key takeaways:

\- Higher write throughput

\- Key-prefix compression

\- Long-running read transactions

Additional comments about trade-offs of the new design:

[https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/discussion-thread-for- new-...](https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/discussion-thread-for-new-storage- engine-ideas/101/22)

</comment><comment><USER2> Anyone (apart from Apple and Snowflake) using FoundationDB in production? What are your use cases?

Seems to me like FoundationDB can be a good replacement to Zookeeper or etcd. Is that correct?

<comment><USER3> I think it would be more accurate to say you could build a basic Zookeeper on top of FoundationDB rather than use it as a replacement.

It depends on what level you're using Zookeeper at. Because it's fairly trival to slap together a consistent store on top of FundationDB because, well that's what it is.

But if you need ephemeral nodes tired to heartbeated sessions and sequentially consistent set of watches to be triggered... Well that's quite a bit harder.

I'm less familiar with etcd, but I suspect the devil is in the details.</comment></comment>


Managed Kubernetes service is the one that's made for you - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/best-managed-kubernetes <comment><USER2> One thing this article seems to mention only briefly is how different bandwidth (egress) pricing is. I think it deserves more attention.

With $0.01/GB egress, DO arguably is way cheaper what any of the other Big 3. This is not even taking into account a hefty "free bandwidth" that comes with every droplet (couple TB/month).

Compare this to $0.11—$0.23 that Big 3 charges per GB. On larger, production- grade projects, egress could get way more expensive than compute.

Kudos to DO for not doing pricing like it's 1998.</comment>


Nuclear Plants Cautiously Phase Out Dial-Up Modems - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/nuke_modems/ <comment><USER2> From the article: _"The use of modems inherently introduces cyber security vulnerabilities to the systems to which they are attached."_

I disagree. In a modem-to-modem connection, the system is as secure as the underlying physical infrastructure. If those phone lines are secure, so is the data being transmitted on them. And the government _does_ have guaranteed secure phone lines between strategic bases.

The minute you move from analog-based communication to digital, it is _then_ that you "inherently introduce" vulnerabilities to the system. Between the undetected buffer overflows, the sheer pervasiveness of digital interception/intrusion tools, and the dificulties in keeping data confined in a digital network; I'd say VPN systems are at least an order of magnitude more likely to be cracked than a modem-modem connection over secure phone lines.

<comment><USER3> and if those phone numbers were ever published it would be trivial to busy signal them to death.

<comment><USER4> Analog DoS attack?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I seriously thought this was a The Onion article based on the title. Gotta love incredibly dangerous things running on antiquated hardware.

<comment><USER6> Antiquated == "Well Tested" in many cases. They don't run stuff like the space shuttle on the very latest AMD chips, for instance.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. A few fighter jets still run on vacuum tubes, I believe.

<comment><USER6> That's nothing - there are a few Chinese jets left that have a little guy with an abacus crouched in the nose.

[ Sorry, couldn't resist, I liked the mental image too much. ]

<comment><USER8> There's an Asimov story about that too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They should use a muon based communication system. I hear they get 100 bits per second or something. Security by infeasibility.

<comment><USER7> Nah, use <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers></comment></comment>


Anders Hejlsberg Introducing TypeScript - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Anders-Hejlsberg-Introducing-TypeScript

<comment><USER2> Excellent short talk. The comments bring out the usual Microsoft haters and the usual "why do we need another language?"ers, but the ones that make sense to me comment on the tastefulness of the Javascript extensions. If "open source" actually means something I'd recognize as open source, I'll have to give it a try.</comment>


Cubiio: The Most Compact Laser Engraver - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/880456201/cubiio-the-most-compact-laser-engraver <comment><AUTHOR> Anyone know what's the regulation around laser devices that are not laser pointers is like? (for laser pointers to be allowed to be sold it's: US < 5mW, UK <1mW)</comment>


WSJ made to believe Google abandons strict net neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122929270127905065.html

<comment><USER2> The meat is buried at the end of the article:

 _Google's proposed arrangement with network providers, internally called OpenEdge, would place Google servers directly within the network of the service providers, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The setup would accelerate Google's service for users._

Akamai has been doing this for years. Is it a violation of network neutrality? The routers don't treat Google's packets any differently (as far as we know).

<comment><USER3> I'll bite - this strikes me as worse than Akamai, because anyone can get on those Akamai servers if you're a customer of theirs. Only Google will have access to these servers - I'd almost prefer that the Akamai arrangement would be against the rules.

I know, I know - this suggestion seems crazy. But maintaining dumb pipes is critical to maintaining the separation between content and carriage. We've already seen the cable companies get into fights over bundles of channels - and putting servers inside the networks would essentially turn websites into the new cable channels.

<comment><USER4> _this strikes me as worse than Akamai_

In what way is Akamai bad?

And if Akamai isn't bad (as I don't see any way to say they are), then how would Google doing this for their own use rather than paying Akamai rather astounding fees be "worse"? I'm failing to see how this is anything other than intelligent and efficient use of bandwidth. Bringing the content closer to users is _good_ for consumers. It doesn't cost the consumer anything, it doesn't cost the telcos anything (it actually saves them money), and it allows Google to provide better service.

The only argument I could see against it would be, when does it end? Does Microsoft have to build a CDN like this to keep trying to compete with Google? Yahoo, I believe, already has a very favorable agreement with Akamai, so they don't. But everybody else that has a very large web presence might want the same privileges. But, since it saves telcos bandwidth, and they're the only ones that would need to accommodate these new local servers, it's probably perfectly reasonable to let them decide who they want in their data centers.

<comment><USER3> You exactly see my argument correctly as "when does it end?" If this becomes standard practice, you'll have a selected number of entrenched sites able to be inside the network. That then gives the telco provider more power than they have as mere dumb pipes, replicating the carriage issue I raise with my cable precedent. There's no reason to believe that the telcos will take everyone willing to pay a certain amount; these will all be negotiated, bundles will be introduced, and you'll kill the promise of a free and unfettered internet where we all have equal footing.

I'd be OK with licensed CDNs, but not with content and/or web application providers. Again, this is me with my antennae at attention, looking at a worst possible case scenario, but I play the red pieces. (Yes, I coined that phrase, which is why you haven't heard of it. Yes, I'm mixing chess and war games metaphors. Yes, damn straight I think it's a cool phrase.)

<comment><USER4> _I'd be OK with licensed CDNs_

Who "licenses" the CDNs? That sounds scarier to me than adding more caching to an already heavily cached infrastructure.

You do realize this is all just a matter of degree, right? There are probably a half dozen caches involved in every request you make. Certainly DNS has multiple caches along the path to getting your data, your browser caches local copies of lots of data, and your ISP probably has a cache as well. A CDN is just a specialized form of cache that can be a little bit smarter than each of those caches.

 _these will all be negotiated, bundles will be introduced, and you'll kill the promise of a free and unfettered internet where we all have equal footing_

I think this assumes a difference in performance expectations that isn't reflected in reality. The difference between data coming from Dallas, or San Jose, or Chicago, or coming directly from your ISP data center is measured in the tens of milliseconds. I don't think this could realistically be expected to result in "packages". Who would sign up for a "Google/MSN/Yahoo/eBay" Internet that merely promised "30 ms faster!"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What an amazing press hit for the telcos. They just completely pwned the WSJ. So badly, though, that there's a chance the paper will turn against them once they realize how they've been used.

<comment><USER6> The way I see this, Google wants to put servers in the edge ISPs, aka the telcos, in an effort to save everyone money including those telcos. Google becomes a paying customer, the ISP in question uses a lot less Internet bandwidth and a lot more internal bandwidth, for which Google will pay. This is probably a power play by the ISPs to try to get the highest price from Google that they can.

I doubt it's a latency play, if you were already colo'd at the right places you're talking about sub millisecond benefits here. This is about money, and lowering the load on the Internet's backbone, which translates to time and money to upgrade it, which leads us back to money.

So I agree, the telcos used the WSJ here. But not to block Google, to command a higher price.

<comment><USER7> Akamai and Highwinds have been doing the same thing for quite some time.

Edit: Oops wmf noted the same thing below.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apparently Lessig is less than happy about their reporting too - [http://lessig.org/blog/2008/12/the_madeup_dramas_of_the_wall...](http://lessig.org/blog/2008/12/the_madeup_dramas_of_the_wall.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Really, it sounds more as if Google wants cohosting than a "fast lane" or other special treatment.

</comment><comment><USER10> I was just finishing my post on the topic of GOOG and net neutrality when I refreshed HN and saw this as the top link. When taken in the context of how GOOG arbitrates access to businesses via Ad Words, it makes it even more nefarious.

[http://www.manyniches.com/entrepreneurs/google-net- neutralit...](http://www.manyniches.com/entrepreneurs/google-net-neutrality- and-the-curious-case-of-lets-make-a-deal/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I for one knew the WSJ had become a PR dumpster when they published the favorable article on cutco knives. I haven't had respect for it since; I guess the buyout was fatal.

link: <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121789140861111649.html>

</comment><comment><USER12> Now the next argument is going to be what exactly is "Caching" and when exactly does "caching" intrude on "net neutrality"?</comment>


Blurring the Line Between User and Programmer - <AUTHOR> https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/042 <comment><USER3> Imagine we build the ideal programming language that both technical and non- technical humans alike can understand. What does it look like?

I'm thinking about Excel spreadsheets. Let me elaborate: a non-technical guy creates a monstrosity: one of those spreadsheets that "works", and tasks the programmer with maintaining it. At every level, the non-technical understands what's going on, because he is familiar with most formulas (that's the beauty of Excel IMO). He just wants the programmer to focus on making sure that everything works "just fine".

Forget for a moment about what "just fine" means. Let's say they can go back and forth until they can convey what they mean to each other.

My point is that the very first sentence of the post is not correct.

> "The world's been divided into people who can make software, and the people > who use software all day, and basically we think that that paradigm is not a > good one. It feels kind of broken,"

A non-technical person CAN indeed make software... he just can't make maintainable software, and eventually his incompetence backfires.

If I'm correct, then Corda and other tools aimed at "making the laymen build software" are solving the wrong problem. The spreadsheet, and before that a piece of paper, just solved that problem. What the laymen need are the mental tools that a programmer uses to "speak" about software, in the sense that what a human can see on the screen isn't the whole picture of what technical people mean by "software".

Hope I made myself understood. Can anyone assist? Am I wrong?

<comment><USER4> I agree with you, it's a basic problem for any skill. Anybody can draw, but drawing fine art requires the knowledge of the structure and tools used to draw it.

I suspect trying to build a programming language to stop having to think like a trained programmer, is a doomed project.

<comment><USER5> But, I can well imagine an art assisting program that I can feed my doodle to that can return a photographic (or other artistic) rendering of a person in that pose, even such that I can rotate the image, alter the pose, perhaps even animate it.

I still perhaps wouldn't understand why I should have chosen other poses, or why the lighting doesn't work, or why my material choice for the clothing fabrics hampers the expression I was seeking ... but it seems like an artist could come and touch up those elements.

Surely a similar level of thing could be done for programs (eventually)?

I'm a non-programmer in a new work environment where I'm feeling like I want to modify all the programs and add some functionality. In particular I've a lex-parse process I'd like to automate, relatively easy to describe sufficient to do it (with time I'll probably do it myself in PHP/python). But, doing that "doodle it" routine for such a simplistic app would be really useful.

<comment><USER4> >but it seems like an artist could come and touch up those elements.

I don't think you can have artists or programmers 'touch up' a generated model post-facto without making compromises on the valuable bit of the project. Programmers will always be needed to understand the program inside and out, so it can be tweaked and controlled. Artists will always be needed to define the piece from top to bottom, so it can be controlled.

Either that or lots of hair being ripped out trying to control why the top lip on the 3d model keeps moving up and down when technically there's no muscle in your top lip, and it makes the one scene your big dramatic moment look janky as hell so you have to spend nights trying to figure out why the ML program made that, and it turns out nobody knows except the guy who made it and he's off in the bahamas helping take care of his sick wife so you have to scour the tech support community for hours...

Or that perfect line you drew across the face of a landscape painting is now pushed off to one side from running it through an art-style-transfer ML program and that destabilizes all the hidden geometry you were relying on to make the piece feel alive and now you have to know why the program did that, if you want to change it.

>Surely a similar level of thing could be done for programs (eventually)?

Yeah I think so. It's coming quite rapidly. Two minute papers is a scary youtube channel.

Any generative painting, cg model or computer program is going to fill the "kinda good enough" category and change the job of the trained professional to be controlling all the assumptions built into the generative program. You will make a super-powered tool, which is awesome, but alas human knowledge/skill/brains remains different to computers.

<comment><USER6> It's very hard to do high-quality generative art/music/poetry/anything without a complete model of human cultural associations, perceptions, and metaphorical frameworks for conceptualisation.

As you say, most generative work is empty because it's just form. Human creators manipulate form to communicate content. There's a message, and art is judged as much on the sophistication of the message as on the form it's carried in.

Form without content can be an interesting technical experiment, but it's culturally massless and kind of boring. Not to mention _wrong_ in a destabilising way - like someone speaking random syllables that make occasional sense, but don't form a coherent message.

So the most successful generative work cheats by automating processes of cultural reference - like style transfer - or by adding levels of formal complexity that would be very difficult to handle by hand, but can at least produce something that seems a little original and surprising.

The less successful work doesn't even get that far.

Automated software generation is going to have similar problems. You have to parse intent, and then balance it against practicality. Getting that right is so hard humans really struggle with it, so I can't see machines being better at it any time soon.

<comment><USER7> > Form without content can be an interesting technical experiment, but it's > culturally massless and kind of boring. Not to mention wrong in a > destabilising way - like someone speaking random syllables that make > occasional sense, but don't form a coherent message.

Couldn't read that without being reminded of this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisencolinensinainciusol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisencolinensinainciusol)

As the composer says, "I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn't mean anything." If you haven't heard it, pull it up on YouTube — it's quite an experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tool itself is at [https://coda.io](https://coda.io), seems similar to but more powerful than Notion, ([https://notion.so](https://notion.so)) which I have used, with pricing to match.

Tangentially, it's good of Panic to link to the above at [https://www.panic.com/coda/](https://www.panic.com/coda/) \- or perhaps they were just getting fed up with dealing with people in the wrong place!

<comment><USER9> I'm a little bit obsessed with keeping up with solutions in this space, and I've been watching both Coda and Notion for a while.

Coda actually just released their v2.0 a few days ago which has brought some much needed bugfixes and stability improvements. I've had some time to discuss larger strategy with their team, and I can tell they're working really hard to "strike the right balance" between easy to use / discoverability and capability.

I definitely like their product, and am following them going forward. If you're at all interested in this space, you should check out Coda just for the sake of seeing where we are (as a field) in solving this problem.

<comment><USER8> > I can tell they're working really hard to "strike the right balance" between > easy to use / discoverability and capability.

That's exactly it, I was saying to a colleague earlier that I wish* there were an open-source self-hostable option, but the closest I've found - <USER2> Notes - is way further over to 'capability' than 'easy to use / discoverability', to use your spectrum. (I was a bit harsher, describing it as a spectrum from good UX to programmable.)

*(mainly because exports aren't that useful - Notion exports some but not all data, and then you've got to sanitise (or get lucky) the CSVs it does export for the new tool)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have not looked into Coda yet, but have a few observations on the user / programmer divide.

To me, spreadsheets are just another programming paradigm. I have seen business users build impressive things using Excel (excluding here VBA). I'd even say that in terms of raw productivity (i.e., just in terms of business problems solved over time, without any consideration for maintainability etc), the spreadsheet paradigm is vastly superior to the regular textual programming paradigm – as long as the problem is simple enough. And most of normal business is dead simple.

As soon as the process or problem hits a certain complexity, the Excel solution becomes painful to use, understand and change. I believe this is in part specifically fault of the tool - while Microsoft has been doing a great job in terms of power user features (Power Query, PowerPivot), they have apparently not been willing to extend the spreadsheet paradigm itself to meet the requirements we demand from business software, which is a pity and missed opportunity.

Secondly, what I have also observed is that most users, even users building complex workbooks, are not willing to make the jump to textual programming (e.g., VBA). I think programming in general requires a high level of frustration tolerance that most people are not willing to bring up except when they really have to (e.g., to use Excel, which is basically unavoidable in 99% of businesses).

To summarize, there is still room to come up with a system that makes building simple things as simple as Excel, while being flexible enough that it scales to meet production software requirements.

</comment><comment><USER11> I like going the other way where as a "Programmer" I don't need to program so many things. Most "things" can be declared: text, html, lists, trees, tables, databases, ...

For example in XFCE, I can add an "Applications Menu" to the menubar (panel) and use a custom menu file with a list (or tree) of programs to run. The icons, labels and how to run the programs are declared in .desktop files -- no "programming" required.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not terribly excited with the idea of making spreadsheet style programs easier, but I suppose it can't hurt, either.

Personally, I think programming languages becoming closer to spoken languages would be more useful. I first learned of that concept from this Reddit thread:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/da718w/i_think_the_f...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/da718w/i_think_the_foss_movement_should_want_to_maximize/)

There, the author of the thread talks about the benefits of Inform 7, a programming language specifically designed for creating interactive fiction games. It's an incredibly impressive bit of work, and is the most promising path toward getting regular folk into programming.

I also came across this interesting article from Wolfram:

[https://blog.wolfram.com/2010/11/16/programming-with- natural...](https://blog.wolfram.com/2010/11/16/programming-with-natural- language-is-actually-going-to-work/)

which goes into natural-language programming and how they will (hopefully) become dominant in the future.

<comment><USER13> Do you have an idea on how to solve the fuzziness and ambiguity problems in spoken language?

This IMHO is the largest problem with spoken language, no parentheses, lots of synonyms/homonyms etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> We've all seen incredible things built in spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are plenty powerful. I haven't met a clever+motivated person yet that couldn't build something incredible in a spreadsheet.

What I think is missing is a way to help the author (and other team members) make sense of the artifact as it gets more complex.

Much of the development in computer languages and toolsets in the last 50 years have helped us make sense of ever-increasingly complex programs.

With spreadsheets for example, you are basically forced to find a cell that seems to have data you like. Then you have to back-track formula references + check for macros/scripts and _hope_ that no references have broken.

I humbly submit this is a problem that a team like the Coda team should be solving.

<comment><USER15> Excel needs exactly one thing to blow open the doors on productive programming: a new "function" data type. Since it's just a data type, you put it in a cell just like any other data type. Have some way to call it, like `A1(arg1, arg2)` or something. Now you can leverage the full capabilities of Excel to manage it, name it (named ranges), etc just like other data.

A more sane expression syntax might be nice too, but isn't necessary to make Excel more productive for abstract programming.

<comment> jagged-chisel Sounds like you want to move VBA into the cell. I issue no opinion on doing that, just offering an observation.

<comment><USER15> Actually you make a great point (thank you!), but honestly I wouldn't want it to have anything to do with VBA.

For a feature like this to be successful imo it needs zero sandbox concerns; a user should never be prompted to downgrade to a lower security configuration, it has to be built in and available by default in every sheet. I don't see VBA ever being safe enough to enable by default everywhere. VBA is just an escape- hatch to a 'real' programming environment; my claim is that excel sheets & formulas alone could _be_ a 'real' programming environment in its own right, no escape hatches necessary. All just by adding one feature to the existing formula language. The reason why excel is so popular today is its simple and understandable expression language and a unified spatially-oriented layout for code and data. Just shoehorning VBA into a cell loses all of the understandability of the simple excel formula and brings with it all the baggage of the old way of needing to manage source code. I think we can do better than that for normal everyday excel documents and normal users.

<comment><USER16> I completely agree and have been thinking the same thing for a while now. Another reason you need the function language to be really integrated with the rest of the spread sheet (unlike VBA) is so that global variables are also visible in the dependency tree and topological sort. For instance, imagine a cell containing the following lambda function:

        function (x, y) { return A1*x + y; }

It's clear that if the user changes the value in the A1 cell, any other cell which calls this function should be updated to reflect the new result. In addition to the arguments to the function (x and y), A1 is also an implicit parameter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sometimes I wonder if the people of the 1960s (i.e the people who came up with lisp, multics, unix) had the right idea: to use a computer you should program it.There are many programs, each does a different thing, you program your final product by composing programs. Users of the final product are the programmers.

I found myself being frustrated recently at Lifx smart lights. I had wanted to put a slider widget on my home screen of my phone. There is no way to do that. The only way is for me to write my own program. I started work on it, then had to wade through ridiculous amounts of documentation on the lifx api site, android docs. I still haven't finished it.

Consider on the other hand, if android were a massive lisp environment where every API is available in the global scope - think emacs - how easy would it be to program the things you want!

Now I use Lifx as an example and I appear to be bashing them. I am not. At least Lifx publishes their API for consumption. Another time I tried to pipe an app that generates white noise for sleep to another program (TL;DR I was too cheap to buy a Sonos), but alas no publicly accessible API. I had to hijack the BT stream to do something remotely useful to it.

You may think the solution is to get people to publish accessible APIs. I think that's a band aid solution. The core issue is somehow programs have become less composable over time. Far from the original ideals. Programs become standalone products.

I think we as an industry made a wrong decision turning programs into products. We should have kept programs as programs - make them super composable, and then let the end user design their own products that fit them best.

<comment><USER18> > Sometimes I wonder if the people of the 1960s (i.e the people who came up > with lisp, multics, unix) had the right idea: to use a computer you should > program it.

It's the right attitude to take, but let's try to provide some definitions. What does it mean "to program"? Certainly we have contemporary ideas of what it all involves. But at the end of the day it's hard to come up with a more encompassing definition than "telling a computer what to do (and possibly what to do later)." This means that by merely "using" a computer (ie through a GUI or whatever -- manipulating it somehow) one is, by this definition, doing some kind of programming.

With that definition in mind, we now see that the systems we have provided users are completely hamstrung. We have given them limited environments and languages (languages here being mostly of a visual/UI variety) to work with.

What's worse is that we have goo examples from even recent history about how alternatives can work: Visicalc, Hypercard, Smalltalk, etc.

Insofar as these conversations rely on discussing "programming languages" \-- a loaded term, and only part of the picture really -- rather than whole "computing environments," then we tread further down a losing path for everyone.

<comment><USER19> > What does it mean "to program"?

Whatever definition you end up with, it must have equal representation of data and code.

Current GUIs are have the same problems as the 50's analog computers that required somebody inside them plugging cables all day long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What id love to see more is blurring the line between user and designer. Too often software gets in the way of the user and simple tweaking to an interface etc. can make a world of difference. Unfortunately this is usually either not possible or involves a user navigating endless configuration options or worse configuration files. Maybe that's not a big deal to us in the software industry but it is a huge problem for your average user.

<comment><USER21> I agree. There's no reason we can't have this, we've had tools like Delphi and VB for a long time now. Why can't I just choose widgets from a palette and make my own Outlook interface?

Maybe it could even be taken a step further and turn it into a UNIX pipeline composition equivalent in GUI form. Trying to imagine what a system could look like, I see a kind of tiling window manager in which you can place arbitrary widgets (list views, sliders, text entry, etc) and hook together their inputs and outputs, maybe with a little scripting glue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> According to my own distinction, _Blurring the Line Between User and Programmer_ is unpossible:

A user is someone who asks why a software is _not_ working (and even in the 21st century this is still far more common than it should be).

A programmer is someone who asks _why and how_ a software is working. Eventually this also includes failure modes, so the user's question above will not stay unanswered forever.

<comment><USER23> > Blurring the Line Between User and Programmer is unpossible

And why on earth do you believe that this difference in mindset cannot be taught?

<comment><USER18> This is (sort of) one of the sticking points people like Kay and especially Papert made. Because all computing is interactive, it is always an ongoing part of a more general "learning process." There are many types of learners and ways that they can internalize otherwise complex systems/concepts. It is the job of the computing environment to be flexible enough to take advantage of each person's particular method for learning how to properly (and powerfully) manipulate it.

Lots of talk about spreadsheets in here, and rightly so. See also Hypercard. These systems are (were) incredibly popular, and regular people were able to do things with them that they could not in other media. It's largely because the systems they represented were well designed -- not because people had some particular competency in "abstract thought" or "systems thinking." We are all human and, for the most part, we all do that stuff one way or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me a lot of Word. You can embed a spreadsheet and you can add code to the document (I even remember using VBScript back in the day). What's old is new again?

</comment><comment> zupa-hu Not directly related, but The Whole Code Catalog seems to be a really interesting collection.

<comment> zupa-hu To avoid confusion, it's from the same author: [https://futureofcoding.org/catalog/](https://futureofcoding.org/catalog/)</comment></comment>


Try emergent coding - <AUTHOR> https://codevalley.com/ <comment><USER3> I'm reminded of what Richard Dawkins had to say about the Bicameral Mind book: "either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between!"

This website is really rough, the writing is dense and the first rule of video club is don't get one of the founders to narrate the video unless your CTO is Morgan Freeman. That said, I think this is just so unbelievably audacious that it's worth a look anyway.

The concept seems to be to take hardware's supply chain model and use it for software development. So instead of having one company figure out your requirements, plan the project and build everything, you use a marketplace. Each part is put up for bidding by any supplier, meaning you get specialisation and competition.

Oh, and the suppliers are actually software agents. And "parts" includes everything from requirements gathering to opcode generation. In essence they want to build their own industrial revolution for software development, from scratch, using (basically) DAOs.

Is that possible? I have no idea. My first instinct (and second, and third) is no. But if it is, it could blow up the entire industry. Rubbish or genius, nothing in between.

<comment><USER4> I really wonder how software verification works in the case of Code Valley, e.g. if you order List.append a b, how do you know it won't return List.append b a?

This could perhaps be a great application for Idris-Style dependent types. For example, you could create an RFP for "List.append" with a few constraints, `len(append(a+b)) == len(a) + len(b)` and so on and then know that the market will create something you can automatically verify to a certain degree.

<comment><USER5> Hi, I'm one part of the Code Valley team. Happy to answer questions.

Any developer can vet suppliers before they automate an agent to contract them. For example, you could contract the agent you're looking to vet, hit 'build' and be returned a small program to carry out List.append a b. If the program works as you expect, you have then verified (in that instant of time) that the supplier is sound, and can proceed to building your own agent to contract it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me a lot of when Joe Firmage[1][2] created Many One as a portal for all mankind (and aliens) to access all Earth information by zooming around a globe. It was plagued with grand vision and hyperbolic prose when in reality it just wanted to be Google Earth with some plugins.

It looks like the guys behind Code Valley have been working on this for a long time with patents[3] dating back to 2003. There's probably some sort of Internet law at work here where the longer an idea has been worked on without traction, the more hyperbolic the prose becomes in order to maintain commitment from the founders.

[1] [https://en.wiki2.org/wiki/Joe_Firmage](https://en.wiki2.org/wiki/Joe_Firmage) [2] [http://academyofscienceandarts.org/videopage](http://academyofscienceandarts.org/videopage) [3] [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2006/0161888.html](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2006/0161888.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Holy fuck, that reads like something written by TimeCube Guy.

I guess the real example is this one:

"For example, the compare::bytesequence::lesser agent, when contracted, will design the code that will compare two strings. At first glance, a developer may see that title and assume that the compare::bytesequence::lesser agent will actually compare one given string against another, but in actual fact, the compare::bytesequence::lesser agent will return tailored code that compares two strings."

So, it's template metaprogramming but with confusing terminology? I'm trying to give this a fair shake, but it doesn't make an argument for why this is a useful abstraction layer.

<comment><USER8> it's like having functions, but with someone to write the function for you. The thing with the market is that you'd know that the code you get is _verifiably accurate_ and thus, your software will have no bugs.

<comment><USER9> So, if the signature is fixed, why not just write the function and ship it in something like, i don't know, a standard library? ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Code Valley envisions a world where all software projects are designed and built using a collective effort of developers across the globe, by automatically pulling in their expertise anew for every project"

Right...like...open source?

<comment><USER11> Like _automated_ open source.

<comment><USER10> like npm?

<comment><USER11> Errr, yeah sure - if npm allowed you to 'write' in any language you wanted (or even create your own), and if each function you called was also its own compiler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The video on the website is hilariously bad. Feels more like a parody skit than a real presentation of the service.

Here's a better one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCv696rMCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCv696rMCk)

<comment><USER13> That video feels like a viral ad for some new comedy TV show aimed at developers. You just "select features" then a "network of developer bots" contract out recursively until they contract developer bots to build individual bytes. Then they "join bytes together" into "one long string of bytes".

This has to be a scam, a joke, performance art -- something like that.

Edit: After reading the website more in depth, I am not sure anymore. I get the sinking feeling it's one of those situations where someone has an idea that might in some way make sort of sense but not really, but they somehow have a circle of support that funds or helps them do "stuff". Maybe even picking up some true believers as investors?

For instance, I was contacted about an opportunity to work on a firewall "that uses soundwaves for data so it's hacker proof". They claimed they could break AES at will (hence the need for sound-encrypted data). They had lots of promo materials built, and had spent years on the idea. Had a sales guy/evangelist getting people interested. Even had prototype hardware.

<comment><USER5> I'm part of the team at Code Valley and would be happy to answer any of your questions... and help allay that "sinking feeling" as best I can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That site needs an "Explain it to me like I'm 5" section.

And a little more detail than "Oh my god! where are your parents?"

<comment><USER5> Did you get a chance to check out this "How it works" ([https://codevalley.com/documentation#howdoescodevalleywork](https://codevalley.com/documentation#howdoescodevalleywork)) section?

<comment><USER7> At a short read, I still don't understand what the source code of an agent looks like. Do you have an example?

<comment><USER11> Errr... I can, but it will not be the 'source code' that you likely had in mind :).

I'll take what I said in another comment in this thread:

"This system bootstrapped itself (and achieved PoC at the same time) back in 2013. Agents are built by agents. There is a special agent that sits on top of this hierarchy of agents that is designed to specifically capture a developer's requirements for their agent (what it should ask its client, what decisions it should make, and who it should contract) and translate these requirements to contracts to agents which will ultimately build that developer his agent. (The recursion is a killer sometimes, isn't it?)

This special agent that sits on top of the hierarchy is called the 'Agent- builder' and will feel to a developer like an IDE or visual programming language (designed specifically to design agents)."

Out of curiosity, have you signed up to try your hand at building a few agents? I can personally guarantee you an invite, and once you have those login details, you will be able to see an interactive example expression of an agent. This expression is the closest thing this system has to the 'source code' you are referring to.

<comment><USER7> No, I have not. And I will aggressively defend my ignorance! I'm reasonably well-versed in, like, computers and stuff. So if I can't understand the idea with screenshots and examples, it doesn't invalidate the concept, but it is a bit...odd.

Anyway, I can give it a try if I have time, but surely you can provide a more concrete example than this. For example, what does the "string reversal" agent look like?

<comment><USER11> Sure, here are some examples: (Note, they use the old term for agent, which was 'vendor'.)

* Conceptual vs actual expression of an agent that will compile code that clears a string - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlwjHQQgNRQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlwjHQQgNRQ) (voiceover)

* Actual expression of an agent that will compile code that computes an exponentiation result - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmwcs1fu6wM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmwcs1fu6wM) (no voiceover)

* Actual expression of an agent that will compile code that adds a bit to a bit array - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCg8cOZyADE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCg8cOZyADE) (voiceover)

<comment><USER7> Thanks. So in terms of actual "programming," it's just a visual programming environment, right?

Do you have any examples of anything "complex" being written with this?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, a visual programming environment tailored specifically to 'capture' a developer's requirements for their agent; what it will ask its client, what decisions it will make, and who it will contract as a result.

> Do you have any examples of anything "complex" being written with this?

You could argue that an agent itself is a complex thing being created using this technology :). A developer expresses their requirements using that visual domain-specific programming 'language' that you saw, and then these requirements are translated to contracts to agents that will end up building the developer his agent. (Recursion... it's a killer sometimes.)

But for an example that you can actually relate to, here ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6jtCVOQiuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6jtCVOQiuA)) is a cut-down version of our corporate website (with back-end server) being built as a single program by contracting about 8 agents from the behaviour layer (the 'domain-specific' layer of the network). Please note that this example uses our old interface so it looks a little rough compared to the current interface.

(These agents exist in the previous iteration of the network, and are now defunct. We are working our way up to these agents in the current public- facing iteration of the network, so that the community of developers can join and build their own agents.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there a technical, non-commercial introduction that isn't filled with too much marketing hype?

<comment><USER11> Have you had a chance to check out the Interactive Tour ([http://marketplace.codevalley.com/use- it](http://marketplace.codevalley.com/use-it))? It shows only one side - <USER2> to _use_ agents to build software, but once you're familiar with that, you can request an invite to see the other side: how to build your own agents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This idea is crazy, and if distilled properly, could do a ton. This iteration is most certainly not going to be a part of it. I suspect we are decades to centuries off of this being realized.

Why one decided to make a completely new vocabulary that feels incredibly inaccessible to even the technical audience is beyond me.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you develop an app based on this network of contractors, how can you be sure they'll always be around to support your app? Do you make a local copy of the foreign app? What if they increase their fees and hold you up for ransom?

<comment><USER11> This technology allows developers to build agents that compete with each other for client business. If an agent disappears and it was the only one published under its classification and there is a client now without a supplier, that represents tangible demand. How long do you think it would take for another enterprising developer to come in and fill that void?

And you don't need to worry about suppliers increasing their fees and holding you ransom... again, that represents demand: another enterprising developer can come in and fill your need for a more reasonably priced service and undercut the exorbitantly priced supplier (who will likely go out of business quick-smart).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awesome idea, was thinking about something like that for a long time. Not sure about implementation though. You can define algorithmic problems in a declarative way, but what about the rest, ie. 99% of actual work? Like a website. To verify that a result is good would require a human-level ai.

Instead of a hello world example in a video I would like to see a high-level example for something really complex, like:

"The site you're currently viewing is served by a web-server that was designed and built by this network of agents in 12 minutes."

ok then, how high level and reusable that code actually is? Show it.

<comment><USER11> We do. Here is a cut-down version of it being expressed and built: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6jtCVOQiuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6jtCVOQiuA) (Note: it uses our old interface, so it is a little rough.)

<comment><USER18> All I see is a form-based code editor with autocomplete + templates. The underlying model seems very low level: eg. at 2:45, manual input of size in bytes - wtf.

Is that video really supposed to show the power of this thing?

<comment><USER11> Since there is no compiler, all maximums must be specified at the root client (or injected based on other information by suppliers on the way 'down').

That visual template you saw was actual contracts to agents in the network. As soon as the expression is built, these agents receive contracts and the hive compiler begins forming. Bytes return shortly thereafter.

This technology does still have a long way to go, but it has the potential to do some powerful things. Right now though, we (the Code Valley team and developers who have joined and are joining) are still in the phase of populating the lower layers of the network. We are working our way up... when the behaviour layer (the 'top' layer) is populated with agents, the 'power' you are looking for will be more clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really feel like there is something genuinely interesting here.

However I've read the main page, looked at 3 videos. Tried the demo... I still don't really understand what's going on.

Now, it is 6am and I've been up all night working on a project. But if I'm really trying to understand what's going on and it's not clicking /at all/ then it probably means there's a problem with either the description or the model itself.

<comment><USER11> I'm part of the Code Valley team. I really appreciate you spending so much time trying to understand the technology. If things aren't clicking, that is my fault, and I will do my very best to help clear up any confusion. Have you had a chance to check out the User Guide ([https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use- it](https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use-it)) or the Interactive Tour ([https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use- it/module0-step1](https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use-it/module0-step1)) at all? When/if you get a chance to check them out, please don't hesitate to email me with any further questions you have (firstname.lastname@example.com).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The slide deck is slightly less confusing.

[https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use- it/](https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use-it/)

<comment><USER21> ...but is hidden behind a login.

<comment><USER11> There are two sides to this technology: the users (those who use it to build programs - the demand), and the contributors (those who build the agents that build software - the supply).

The User side of things does not require a login. You can learn more about how to use the technology in the User Guide ([https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use- it](https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use-it)) and in the Interactive Tour ([https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use- it/module0-step1](https://marketplace.codevalley.com/use-it/module0-step1)). If you pick that up pretty quickly, you can request an invite to join the other side and become an agent builder ([https://marketplace.codevalley.com/signup](https://marketplace.codevalley.com/signup)).

The only reason we have the invite-only mechanism in place is to ensure the integrity of the contributors. The system is so new, and reputations are still being developed; new contributors must be assured of some measure of the calibre of other contributors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So is this something like numer.ai but for code?

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow- _love_ that snow graphic they've got there...

<comment><USER20> Ctrl-Alt-Down ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Functional Programming is a Lie - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@hartator/functional-programming-is-a-lie-d269c4240da2 <comment><USER2> > Or a small rant against Elixir.

Good article, but might not live up to expectations.</comment>


Marc Andreessen suddenly deletes all his tweets, goes on Twitter break - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/25/marc-andreessen-suddenly-deletes-all-his-tweets-goes-on-twitter-break/ <comment><USER3> There's a bot that's captured the last 70,000 of Andreessen's tweets: [https://twitter.com/pmarca_retweet](https://twitter.com/pmarca_retweet)

What I find a little bizarre is that the @pmarca account is still listed as having 189 tweets, yet only the Pinned Tweet showed. Earlier last night, his account was listed as having 100K+ tweets and still only showed the Pinned tweet: [https://twitter.com/2bluesc/status/779821454531497985](https://twitter.com/2bluesc/status/779821454531497985)

Is this just a caching issue on Twitter's side? I was hoping it'd be a new level of profile privacy: hide all your tweets, but allow for the publishing of the pinned tweet.

<comment><USER4> Yeah it would be nice if social networks had a 'lockdown' button so all your public stuff can be hidden mid-controversy or if you were a target of harassment and/or otherwise inquisitive folks.

The real question is, how did he do this without running into rate limits? What app did he use? Which portfolio company's elevated API access did he commandeer? #APIPrivilege

<comment><USER5> Can't you just make your account private as a "lockdown" feature?

<comment><USER6> I believe that existing followers will still see be able to see the timeline

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In case you're curious what tool he used to delete them: deletealltweets.com

The only reason I know is because that software auto-tweeted "I am deleting all my tweets using ..." and then got deleted a few seconds later.

<comment><USER6> interesting, apparently the software doesn't unlike "the likes", so we can still see all 267k likes [https://twitter.com/pmarca/likes](https://twitter.com/pmarca/likes)

<comment><USER8> Is deleting account the only option here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Either that or he has something to do with the possible upcoming sale/buy of twitter?

<comment><USER10> This is my guess. He probably knows a sale is happening and doesn't want to provide value to the new owner. Probably because he has a competitive portfolio company or something.

<comment><USER11> That sounds petty and spiteful in a way I wouldn't expect from him, especially so publicly.

Also, as valuable as his presence is, I can't imagine a buyer of the size needed to buy Twitter would be like "we'll give you n Billion, but only if pmarca stays on point"

<comment><USER10> > That sounds petty and spiteful in a way I wouldn't expect from him, > especially so publicly.

He was pretty notorious for blocking anyone with an opposing viewpoint on Twitter, so this seems in line with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I suspect he feels there's a conflict of interest with his business and twitter. I bet he's somehow involved in twitter's buyout/takeover. Twitter is going private or someone is buying it and Andreessen is somehow involved. My guess.

Twitter is here to stay they just have to figure out how to make it work better and make it pay. I think going private is the best way to innovate without having to look over your shoulder for unhappy investors. Just look at WeChat for ideas.

<comment><USER13> "Twitter is here to stay"

Want to take bets on that?

<comment><USER14> I def won't bet on "stay".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I liked that pmarca always retweeted @pmarca tweets that were positive and negative towards him. Basically unfiltered viewpoints from opposite angles.

I've heard that he has a large ego, but behaviour like that, plus the fact that he routinely 'likes' and retweets messages from people outside the tech elite circle (myself included) seems to disprove that... or is that just MY ego now kicking into conformance rationalisation mode?!?!? ;-)

<comment><USER16> He also blocked pretty much anyone who got under his skin. Those he blocked were no longer able to see the stupid shit he said without special effort. In that way, it was an effective way of silencing critics.

<comment><USER15> Ah yes, I forgot about his rapid blocking of dissenters. Then again, I don't allow particularly obnoxious people into my household either, so I can't really blame anyone for not electing not to put up with abuse/complaints/harrassment if they don't wish to.

Once again, I am guessing it is a battle of egos - nothing irritates the ego more than being silenced when it feels it has something to say. :) [NB - <USER2> directed at you directly, just a general observation of the Twitterverse]

<comment><USER16> I completely agree with you. I'm all for muting. The issue is the semantics of blocking in Twitter, which prevents those blocked from seeing subsequent tweets.

You end up with situations where public figures can limit their audience to only those who agree with them, which isn't healthy for anyone.

<comment><USER17> Especially pathetic are the blockers that continue to discuss the people they blocked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Right after last week's South park made quitting Twitter a plot point. Interesting.

<comment><USER19> And if I member correctly his profile pic its a South Park style drawing of himself[0].

[0] [https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/529529964178075648/7rgC...](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/529529964178075648/7rgC9uv__400x400.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've always liked the ability to "follow" anyone on Twitter. Unlike Facebook which I see as a way to communicate with friends and family, Twitter allows me to follow interesting people who might post interesting and insightful thoughts on topics I'm interested in. Then they limit it to the length of an SMS so I can get no more than a sound bite. I basically abandoned the platform as a waste of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have loved twitter for the same reason. It has allowed me to face conversations with and forge friendships with people that I otherwise would not have met in my daily life.

<comment><USER21> Is 140 characters enough to call them conversations? I would expound on the virtues of precise arguments and establishing context, but im@140

<comment><AUTHOR> You are not limited to one single tweet only. I've had multiple, meaningful conversations that span across multiple tweets. As many as needed to convey the message - not limited to just 140.

<comment><USER17> The fact one has to convey a thought over multiple tweets shows the stupidity of the limit.

<comment><AUTHOR> How is it different from having to convey a thought over multiple sentences?

<comment><USER17> Vastly different unless the multiple sentences has a character limit. Multiple sentences tend to get lumped together in a group, let's call it a paragraph, and is easy to read in total. A thought spread out over multiple tweets with spacing between each, and in some cases broken up by other tweets, is difficult to read and follow. We'll skip over the problem of actually following a multi-person discussion in this manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bummer that guy had some notably annoying tweets

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if those bots that preserve pmarca's tweets run afoul of twitter policy. Twitter previously shutdown a service that preserved tweets that were deleted by politicians.

<comment><USER24> I think that if you have a verified account, you shouldn't be able to delete tweets. This would be a decent tradeoff for being recognized as a public figure, of which I think deletion of content runs afoul of.

<comment><USER25> I'm sorry but I don't agree. In my opinion, everyone on a platform should have equal rights, within their user class (user, staff, admin, etc)

<comment> angry-hacker Your comment contradicts itself since mods themselves have more power than regular users.

Life is never fair and people are never equal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This bot used to archive his "tweetstorms" (whose origin coincides with the invention of that word)

[https://mobile.twitter.com/pngmarca](https://mobile.twitter.com/pngmarca)

but it looks like it stopped working some time ago.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if it's due to their censorship policy lately. Facebook seems to have been doing the same to a lesser degree, but not so openly.

</comment><comment><USER28> really? damn. one of the best. one time I replied to a tweet and he responded a few seconds later. it's like he was connected to the twittersphere 24/7

<comment><USER29> Sounds awful for him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not a bad idea if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER31> Marc is probably the only guy on Twitter who could get away with typing up a whole story in parts on that site.

</comment><comment><USER32> Last fall ( october 2015 ) twitter started mandating your real mobile number (sms confirmation) to logon, so I deleted my account. I think I had over a 1,000 followers, so what. The case of anonymity was taken away last year. I suspect with Twitter being for sale, that the sale of 'confirmed live humans' to target for their interest and profile is more valuable then millions of anonymous.

I deleted all of my facebook accounts more than 5+ years ago. About the same time they went to 'real id'.

These days you can't even open an account on google without your mobile phone. I was amazed running youtube on my samsung that it let me create a google account, which is mandatory to run youtube, without a mobile, then the next night I ran the youtube again and it asked for my phone number, so I deleted the android youtube,

Much of the developer tools now require your credit-card just to download, ... funny that they're going way beyond 'real id' to 'Real Orwell'. With the credit card, they can link your FICO, and that is worth some real money, to know a person interest, and net worth.

I suspect in time that people who refuse to give out their mobile numbers and credit cards will be denied developer privileges. I think the line of reasoning goes that 'code' is too valuable to give to the anonymous people.

Long ago Zuckerberg said "Only an idiot would use Facebook", I concur, using computer since 1960's, I started with punch card on OS/360 IBM, most mostly machine language, then jumped to APL in 1970, then Unix mid 70's. Since day one, I never used my real-name for anything online (tcp-ip), to this day I find it a privilege to google my own name and find nothing. I think that Marc has just joined this club, the club of freedom knowing that they know nothing.

Don't give them anything, not your real name, not your phone ( tracking device ), not your credit-card ( scores,IRS ). Now in China they give a number to every citizen indicating his worthiness, the FICO or credit score in USA is much the same, its always been an indication of a well behaved citizen, a lemming.

Let's hope now with all his money that Marc finds a life, maybe he can go live on some mountain and become spiritual and disconnect from all electronic device for a time, and learn the real meaning of being human.

<comment><USER18> I believe Google only requires a phone number if you're using a proxy, and for good reason: they've had a ton of abuse from proxies.

You can buy some PVAs from someone on Fiverr using bitcoin if you really want to stay anonymous, or if you try hard enough you could probably find an unblocked proxy, or use a library or something.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Twitter is losing its most valuable assets - those that drove the most engagement.

<comment><USER33> It was always just a fad.

<comment><USER34> Twitter revealed an unmet need for global stream-of-consciousness and lowered the bar for online participation to the lowest currently known setting.

<comment><USER35> I think it is a bit like that curse "May you get what you wish for". So now after people got the global stream-of-consciousness in tidbits of 140 character with lowest bar for online participation, they are thinking "This is a terrible. Who would want this..."</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why don't we dance anymore - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/why-dont-we-dance-anymore.html

<comment><USER2> Ballroom dancing evolved in a time when it was about meeting the opposite sex and being able to move confidently without having innate talent, extraordinary ability, unusual skill, or time. Steps that couldn't be done by average people were evolved out, and things that looked good without effort were kept and refined.

As a result, ordinary people can look fantastic if they learn the absolute basics. I know, my wife and I are repeatedly asked if we are professional. And no, we're not.

It's great exercise, and you meet some lovely people from a wide range of backgrounds. The side-effects include increased balance, body control, and style.

This sort of dancing is not dead, but it has, to some extent, gone underground.

</comment><comment><USER2> Single page:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/why-dont-we- dance...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/magazine/why-dont-we-dance- anymore.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all)</comment>


Topps Sports Cards Go 3D With a Webcam - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/technology/09topps.html?_r=1

<comment><USER2> Interesting application.</comment>