Surprisingly undervalued books - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nabeelqu.com/post/33557680375/surprisingly-undervalued-books <comment><USER3> Undervaluing Wittgenstein isn't really consistent with what I've read in American philosophy at least. If you go by objective metrics (which would be the _Moneyball_ approach), he consistently tops the citation counts, and beyond that, is considered central to many areas. Probably only Heidegger gives him a run for most broadly influential 20th-century philosopher (though it's hard to compare directly, because they've been influential on quite different groups).

He's been particularly influential on analytic philosophy via Saul Kripke, among other interpreters. In popularity contests, he routinely gets voted #1 most influential philosopher in polls of academic philosophers as well, e.g. in a 1999 poll of mostly UK/US academic philosophers ([http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/Lac...](http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/02/Lackey-What-are-the-modern-classics.pdf)) and in a Brian Leiter straw poll ([http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/so- who-is-the-...](http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/so-who-is-the- most-important-philosopher-of-the-past-200-years.html)). The former one concludes that _Philosophical Investigations_ is "the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations".

An interesting question might be who is undervalued on those lists: is there someone halfway down, or not on the list at all, who should be near the top?

<comment><USER4> I'd be interested to see a list of the best philosophy books for non- philosophers. I'm not a philosopher or close to the field, but I always thought Thomas Nagel's Mortal Questions was a big hitter. Not so much for an individual essay but the combination of essays - What Is it Like to be a Bat? and The Absurd are both classics in my mind. Basically every essay in that short book is great, completely understandable to the lay-person, has the potential to be deeply influential to one's everyday beliefs, and is philosophically rigorous.

Philosophical Investigations is beyond my ability to follow as is Heidegger (I think it's a common complain against continental philosophy in general). Kripke's Naming and Necessity is something I can understand, but I don't really feel the 'oomph' to the insight that there can be a posteriori necessary truths and apriori contingent truths. Obviously it's a deeply important fact, and an astonishing breakthrough. But it doesn't hit me in the same way as Nagel's Absurd, which attempts to break down and dismiss existential dread. I don't think he succeeds, exactly, but it feels important and deeply insightful.

<comment><USER5> If you enjoyed Nagel, pick up 'The Mind's I', an anthology edited by Douglas Hofstadter, which includes a few of Nagel's essays and many others of value. If you're interested in things like crime and punishment, Leo Katz has written several highly accessible books on moral philosophy and law, though his arguments sometimes trike me as glib. Reading Plato, especially the dialogs of Socrates, can be a little indigestible at first, because he takes a long time to get to the point. but there's a reason that Whitehead said most philosophy consists of 'footnotes to Plato'; once you get used to the style you'll find the weighty matters leavened with a surprising amount of dry humor.

<comment><USER6> Since you mention Hofstadter, I simply have to bring up _Godel, Escher, Bach_. Especially for anyone who's interested in computers and artificial intelligence, this is a must read. It is brimming over with philosophical issues, and is very accessible even to someone without any previous exposure to philosophy.

I'd also recommend "The Cyberiad" by Stanislaw Lem. It's an anthology of hilarious science fiction stories, many of which deal with deep philosophical themes. Also, along those lines is Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, which is also hilarious and very philosophical.

These aren't exactly the first books most people think of when asked for intro to philosophy books, but I think books like these are quite perfect as very easy, gentle, funny and fun intros to many philosophical themes. Their humor and wit also put the vast majority of "real" philosophy books to shame.

<comment><USER3> A colleague of mine with a background in semiotics recently read _Godel, Escher, Bach_ , and said it was, among other things, to his surprise a good introduction to something very similar to semiotics, but independently derived by Hofstadter from first principles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll pipe up for _Impro_. One of my favorite books. Well, the first half is – it's a meditation on life and the universe as much as it is about theater, and it changed my mind in some cool ways. It's useful for anyone doing creative work, especially collaborative creative work, definitely including programmers. It's also very funny. The second half is about mask work and trance, which I was expecting to be fascinating, but it fell short of the sparkling magic of the first half. The material isn't as generally accessible and probably depends more on knowing how they use masks in production. Johnstone says that the masks have their own personalities, which actors take on when they wear them, and that's probably why he relies on them so much. His tastes in theater run away from personal expression toward simple universals. He's always telling actors to be more boring, and that the worst thing you can do is try to be interesting or clever.

Johnstone lives in my town in Western Canada. I ran into him in Safeway once. He's very tall and his eyes go in two different directions so he looks down at you rather quizzically from two different angles with his head tilted like a bird. I told him I loved his book, and he grunted "Good" and turned around and walked away. A few paces later he yelled "I'm glad it's useful!" and then went out of sight.

He's probably a genius. He was known in the London theatre scene of the 1950s, but felt stifled because he couldn't try whatever ideas he wanted without worrying what somebody famous would think. Then he went to teach at some remote place on Vancouver Island and discovered that he could think and do whatever he wanted. He liked that so much that he got a position in my town and stayed there permanently, presumably because there was nobody there who mattered!

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome. Although such a shame he's in Canada, because now I can't meet him. He sounds brilliant.

<comment><USER7> You can meet people in Canada :)

I don't know if he's still doing it but a few years ago my wife took a workshop with him called "Ten Days with Keith". She loved it, and him. But it took a few days. He is an odd duck whose brilliance is not immediately apparent. Pretty amazing to be around someone who can tell stories about Beckett and Pinter though.

I think of Johnstone as in the spirit of Lao Tzu. He is all about the unplanned and unthought. And about creating conditions favorable to its arising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A lot of great books, but it's unclear to me that most of these are actually "undervalued." Check out the blurb on the back cover of Philosophical Investigations, for example:

 _Immediately upon its posthumous publication in 1953, Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations was hailed as a masterpiece, and the ensuing years have confirmed this initial assessment. Today it is widely acknowledged to be the single most important philosophical work of the twentieth century._

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has had a huge impact. From Amazon: " _Translated into more than seventeen languages, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the world's most widely used drawing instruction book._ "

Same with The Inner Game of Tennis -- it was groundbreaking when it came out in 1972 and had a huge impact not just on tennis, or even sports generally, but on musicians, artists, performers, or anything with a critical mental game. Back when I was working on my music degree it was required reading.

Is it possible that the author thinks these books are undervalued simply because many of them were released a while ago (when he was young or not yet born) and thus they aren't currently being hyped and/or in the limelight? That, or perhaps they're simply not that popular within the author's social circle?

<comment><USER9> If it weren't for Hacker News, I would not have heard of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which I'm currently reading. I had also never heard of The Inner Game of Tennis despite playing tennis for four years in high school.

To your point, some of the books were hugely successful when released, but don't receive much attention today due to the newer books in the spotlight. We all live in different worlds so some books will be wildly popular to some groups and foreign to others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> +1 for _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_. It's superb.

I'd add _A Pattern Language_ to the list. It's actually been very appropriately valued by the programming community, but _massively_ undervalued by its intended audience of architects and urban planners. Should've been _the_ architecture and planning book of the 20th century; instead most design professionals have never heard of it. Their loss!

<comment><USER11> _A Pattern Language_ is often a required text for at least one studio course in US architectural schools. There are, however, practical issues with Alexander's approach at a professional level. Some are perhaps subtle to a layperson - most architectural projects are typically driven by the client's commercial concerns, e.g. a firehouse apparatus bay is designed for trucks not human habitation and a restaurant is designed to turn over customers not cause them to linger for six hours. On the other hand, some are obvious - <USER2> do not have the ability to limit existing communities to a few thousand people.

This isn't to say that Alexander cannot inform a design. In fact, many architects look at his work during the process. But the kind of project which will look like the images in his book is rare simply because many of these patterns are best implemented "at run-time" by the user, rather than at "compile time" by the architect or planner.

Finally, I would say that what the programming community got from _A Pattern Language_ is not Christopher Alexander, but Richard P. Gabriel. [<http://www.dreamsongs.com/>]

<comment><USER12> I've had this conversation with architects and city planners and they all say this. Only a narrow band of the patterns are in the architect's area of practice; as an obvious example, the architect does not organize the whole world at once a la Pattern 1. Most of an architect's income depends on perpetuating the poor design of modern communities with each individual building. There is just no money in refusing to build anything but a useful space except when being commissioned by an eccentric or some other rare project. That leaves only the arrangement of the interiors which is hampered by code and depends on the taste of the building's occupier in respect to the uses of rooms and selection of furniture. Alexander's patterns must be adopted by the occupiers of buildings so they can work their way backwards to the architects and city planners that don't or won't consider them.

<comment><USER11> " _I've had this conversation with architects and city planners and they all say this."_

Now you are having a conversation with one who isn't.

The analogy between architectural patterns and software patterns is more akin to the way in which software patterns are not relevant to an application programmer in regards to the structure of black boxes such as third party libraries or the OS kernel. Architectural design depends on OPM (other people's money) to execute.

Urban planning not writing a web app. It's maintaining legacy spaghetti code in within an institution with entrenched interests. Brasilias only come along every hundred years or so, and your average joe doesn't get appointed. But just about every one of the major urban planning patterns is standard consideration in most contemporary municipal planning departments [in the US]. Politics and money of course tend to have an influence over outcomes, of course.

On the architectural side, a lot of _A Pattern Language_ is not directly applicable to most architectural commissions because it is focused on domestic architecture rather than commercial. Banks don't offer a place to apply, "The couple's realm."

Incidentally, complaining about the impact of building codes has probably been going on for nearly FOUR millennia.

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

<comment><USER12> Yes, I agree with you. I actually didn't have software in mind when I wrote my post, but the differences you note are important.

Planning is indeed a mess. However, there are 'breaks' between 100-year plans and building-scale architecture such as neighborhood development, block-level revitalization projects, etc., which don't offer a greenfield opportunity but do allow a planner to make some important choices. Ideally, well-designed rooms would create an opportunity for homes, clusters of homes, streets, clusters of streets and business districts, and up and up. Obviously it is unlikely.

The reason it's unlikely is the patterns are so opposed to how things are done. You mention the bank. Commercial is actually addressed, but there is no place in Alexander for an isolated, cold, commercial bank branch that requires a commute for its employees. Alexander's vision for our work is too radical to happen right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's a good list for cherry-picking a couple reading ideas, but the amateur comments about philosophy weren't well-received by this individual.

> I find that it's thoroughly undervalued by philosophers

Doing okay so far...

>though, who see it as an arcane and eccentric work of little value

Not so sure about that...the timing for Wittgenstein's work might've been unfortunate, given that people were starting to become infatuated with existentialism around the same time. That was as more of a pop-culture phenomenon than an academic fad though.

>it's a difficult thing to read

Okay again...

>Ironically for a book ignored by most philosophers, it contains the answers to a lot of their questions, and the method for answering all of them.

Hrm, no. A lot of the questions concerning philosophy and the method for answering all of them?

I sincerely doubt any work that could described in such terms would be as obscure as he proposes. This borders on the illogic of conspiracy theorists believing they've found some secret truth.

A bizarre flash of irrationality in an otherwise great post.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

You question whether it's really seen as that eccentric: I've actually corresponded with a bunch of UK philosophers about Wittgenstein, all of whom regard his earlier work as vaguely interesting if subsequently outmoded (a more or less accurate assessment) and his later work as eccentric and mostly irrelevant to serious philosophy (a totally wrong-headed assessment). I'm happy to send you email extracts if you still doubt that.

I should note that I studied philosophy here in the UK (at Oxford), so perhaps I'm biased towards the UK. But I think this applies to the US too: Wittgenstein sort-of influenced the American tradition via Rorty and Kripke, but he's still not central to modern American academic philosophy. Kripke got him totally wrong anyway, and Wittgenstein's only a piece of Rorty's outlook.

As to your last comment - what you seem to be saying is that this is highly improbable based on 'well if it's that good why doesn't everyone believe that' considerations. To which I'd respond: (a) it's not a totally obscure work. In fact, it's regarded as the main late Wittgenstein work. But (b) late Wittgenstein is totally undervalued by the mainstream of academic philosophy, mostly because (I think) he renders it irrelevant; and (c) you're better off actually reading the thing and deciding for yourself. Otherwise you become a sort of 'efficient market theorist' w.r.t. academia/books. Not a position I'd want to hold, personally.

<comment><USER13> >As far as I know, Wittgenstein sort-of influenced the American tradition via Rorty, but he's still not central to modern American academic philosophy.

Ahhh, you're coming from the perspective of an analytic philosopher. The part about the UK I can't really incorporate except to take your word for it. I've assumed they were independent of the "continental" zeitgeist.

I don't come from the analytic family of philosophy. I could never really get past Frege. OTOH, I don't care for the hippies on the other side of the fence either.

I'd be happy to peruse material/readings if you have any. I'll add my email address to my profile now.

Thank you for replying!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah interesting - are you a philosopher? What family of philosophy do you tend to focus on?

<comment><USER13> I let philosophy consume my life for a few years to the detriment of everything else.

I'm a values/ethics/aesthetic/desert/metaphysics nihilist with a keen interest in epistemology. Most recent relevant read I've enjoyed of late has been Popper and his work on falsifiability.

I've been trying to work through Marx recently too, but I find reading him to be a lot like reading Ayn Rand.

Insufferable and they expect you to swallow the bitter pill of their ridiculous foundations they use to prop up the philosophy they work backwards from their personal preferences to justify. I'm going to continue for the sake of trying to extract some sense of analysis with respect to Capitalism, but it's slow-going.

<comment><USER14> > I've been trying to work through Marx recently too, but I find reading him > to be a lot like reading Ayn Rand. > Insufferable and they expect you to > swallow the bitter pill of their ridiculous foundations they use to prop up > the philosophy they work backwards from their personal preferences to > justify. I'm going to continue for the sake of trying to extract some sense > of analysis with respect to Capitalism, but it's slow-going.

I'm sorry, but what on earth are you reading? Ayn Rand was a rambling novelist, while Marx' Capital is a brilliant work of economic analysis. Parts of it are completely outdated, and some predictions proved drastically false, but it's nonetheless got some brilliant insights at its core. If you happen to be reading The Communist Manifesto, it's a political pamphlet for agitation and not a work of philosophy.

<comment><USER13> I'm reading Das Kapital, not a pamphlet. Try to lend other people a little more intellectual credit than _that_.

With regards to Ayn Rand, in a similar spirit, I'm not talking about her crappy fiction work (which is similar in purpose to the Communist Manifesto), but rather her more deliberate and directly philosophical tracts.

Interestingly, as a result, I can only assume you committed the mistake you _thought_ I did, judging the philosopher on the basis of their secondary output rather than the core subject matter.

I don't adhere to objectivism and I think they're fucking cultists, but I do know their philosophy well and the basis for it bears a _lot_ of resemblance to how Marxism is grounded and justified philosophically speaking. Marxism is somewhat more empirical but not by much.

My perspective on the similarity of the bases of each may be colored by the fact that I come from a strongly skeptical and deconstructionist background.

In general, I'm willing to entertain a priori suggestions for the sake of exploring an interesting thought. An example would be that I'm willing to suspend disbelief long enough to discuss the subject of "desert" with a philosopher who isn't a nihilist if it leads to interesting conversation.

What I am not willing to do is suspend disbelief long enough to swallow an overarching socio-political theory on how the whole world should be run regardless of social context (Marxism and Objectivism) based on some ridiculous presumptions about truth and human nature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _Operators and Things_ , a (supposed) first-person account of a schizophrenic who recovered from the condition and wrote about her experience. The second half of the book is where it really shines, since the author attempts to analyze her experience as a window into the inner workings of her cognition: how it broke down, what she experienced when it did, how it recovered itself, and what led to it. Since the author is anonymous, and talking about one's mind is very introspective, it's hard to take away real science from the book but I found it fascinating nonetheless. While I really dislike pseudoscientific explanations of brain functioning, after reading this I took up the idea that the conscious mind is more of a time-slice scheduler and message-passer than where the actual computation is done. So concentration is about controlling your unconscious indirectly, like training a puppy how to play fetch: you give it suggestions of what to do, and ignore it when it doesn't do that :).

I'm linking to the Amazon page, but IIRC the book is old enough to be in the public domain and there is a free text version somewhere.

[http://www.amazon.com/Operators-Things-Inner-Life- Schizophre...](http://www.amazon.com/Operators-Things-Inner-Life- Schizophrenic/dp/0615509282/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350244808&sr=8-1&keywords=operators+and+things)

</comment><comment> mck- For me, the most undervalued book is The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian y Morales.

It's a small book of very condensed and timeless wisdom in the form of maxims, written very poetically. It's not a self-help book, the kind you might picture. (any book is self-help in some way).

Perusing 5-10 maxims a day about 5 years ago heavily influenced the way I live my life, and still defines my character today.

<comment><USER16> <http://archive.org/details/artofworldlywisd00gracuoft>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had a very similar thought one year ago - for me one of the undervalued books back then was "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie. The title was so smarmy and offputting for me (yeah, it's 70 years old...) that I skipped this gem for way too long, when it's basically everything you will ever need to deal with and manage people in a few hundred pages...

</comment><comment><USER18> The interesting thing about Money Ball was that Billy Beane pioneered an analytic model for evaluating the true value vs subjectively perceived value of players.

This list was purely an opinion piece. It was the result of a subjective appraisal of both books, and the public opinion of them.

I'm quite disappointed.

<comment><USER19> I'm really curious how you would suggest to measure the "true value" of books.

I think there may be no such thing. Base ball is a clearly defined game with conditions for winning and losing, which gives you objective information on these true values.

But aesthetics (here book appreciation) simply isn't objective to begin with.

<comment><USER20> You can analyze the "true value" of books relative to whatever particular aims you have in mind. Just because there's nothing intrinsic to the books that specifies what those aims should be does not mean the effect of the books isn't in-principle measurable, and couldn't be judged for effectiveness once you _have_ specified your goals.

<comment><USER19> You write "true value" and "whatever particular aims" in the same sentence. That seems like a contradiction to me.

I agree that you can define things to measure objectively about books. However, I submit that in the end judgment of quality will always remain a subjective matter.

<comment><USER20> It's not a contradiction at all. Remember that the original context was "Moneyball" - sussing out the "true value" of baseball players using statistics as opposed to basing decisions on less accurate gut (or social) assessments of value.

This use of "true" merely means "accurate" - corresponding with reality. The aims, in the case of baseball, are implicit, of course - the aim of any manager is to win games. In the case of books, people's aims will differ more. This means there's no _single_ "true value" but for any given aim there will be some amount that book will contribute to it. This is usually hard to determine, but that doesn't make it subjective; it makes it that much more interesting if you _are_ able to get at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 6\. 'Principles' (pdf) by Ray Dalio.

Tried reading it. His life storey reads like an entrepreneur who started by trying to fit in (held several corporate jobs), failed (fired for insubordination) then started his own company.

The rest reads like a self-help book written by an amateur. Some gushing about physics and natural history (which a HBS graduate probably finds unfathomable and mysterious). Then some deep discussion of his own inner psyche; why do successful people assume its their own uniquness that made them succeed and not, for instance, market conditions or good advice?

Then I gave up. Is very wordy, very very wordy, and not many of the words worth slogging through. At least the part I saw.

<comment><USER22> _Some gushing about physics and natural history (which a HBS graduate probably finds unfathomable and mysterious)._

Yeah, cause all those HBS grads are just idiots, right? They could never fathom something as complex as _physics_ or _natural history_. That's probably just black magic to them, even though a big chunk of them got their undergrad degrees in science or engineering.

EDIT: Some examples of those idiot HBS grads: <http://www.hbs.edu/news/releases/kaplanfellows2010.html>

<comment><USER21> Sorry; painted all business school grads from my experiences. You have some good examples there; I've never met those guys.

I'll repaint it: this guy (who wrote the book) was a high-school failure and not in your list. Just read his stuff if you can, to see his level of physics understanding.

<comment><USER23> So, you judge a book about management principles by the CEO of a company not by how well he articulates those management principles or how true you think they are but by his level of physics and biological understanding.

<comment><USER21> No, because it reads like a self-help book written like an amateur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Ironically for a book ignored by most philosophers, it contains the answers to a lot of their questions, and the method for answering all of them."

I find this illuminating - philosopher's aren't concerned with answers. They are concerned with the questions. An interesting contrast between the scientific/engineering mindset and the philosophical mindset.

<comment><USER25> Very true, once you start understanding how to approach the _right questions_ , the problem moves to the scientific domain, e.g. natural philosophy--> physics, philosophy of mind (partly) -->psychology/neuroscience/cognitive science, etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also see:

"Ask Slashdot: Most Underappreciated Sci-Fi Writer?"

[http://www.ask.slashdot.org/story/12/08/08/2135246/ask- slash...](http://www.ask.slashdot.org/story/12/08/08/2135246/ask-slashdot- most-underappreciated-sci-fi-writer)

Slashdot has many problems, but this was actually a pretty interesting and informative thread.

<comment><USER26> Not sure where that "Slashdot has many problems" statement came from, but I enjoy Slashdot every bit as much as HN. Actually, I like /. more because there's a lot less shilling and gaming votes there.

<comment><USER27> There is? What about all those lengthy "first posts" published in the same minute as the story, which are curiously always advocating the same companies against others?

Though, I'm still not sure if it's shilling or subtle trolling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Happily read your blog post but the assertions about Wittgenstein rang alarm bells. It may be that his works are ignored in the UK right now, but paraphrasing Brian Magee: "Philosophy is subject to fashion". So it may just be a question of trend in philosophy.

> it contains the answers to a lot of their questions, and the method for > answering all of them.

For me that sounds like "Node.js contains the method to solving all programming problems.".

<comment><AUTHOR> "I would say that this has been, unfortunately for philosophy, the central fact of philosophy. Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by "free." Do abstract ideas exist? Depends what you mean by "exist."

Wittgenstein is popularly credited with the idea that most philosophical controversies are due to confusions over language. I'm not sure how much credit to give him. I suspect a lot of people realized this, but reacted simply by not studying philosophy, rather than becoming philosophy professors.

How did things get this way? Can something people have spent thousands of years studying really be a waste of time? Those are interesting questions. In fact, some of the most interesting questions you can ask about philosophy. The most valuable way to approach the current philosophical tradition may be neither to get lost in pointless speculations like Berkeley, nor to shut them down like Wittgenstein, but to study it as an example of reason gone wrong." - PG

Not an appeal to authority, mind you, just a way of saving myself time.

<comment><USER11> It's a bit of a mistake to classify Wittgenstein as a philosophy professor.

He studied aeronautics originally - bleeding edge in 1908 just after the Wright brothers flight - to the point of starting a Phd as well as holding a patent, and only then became interested mathematics and logic. It was as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army that he wrote _Tractatus_ not cloistered in Cambridge. He then worked as a rural elementary school teacher and architect (he was friends with Adolf Loos, and his family had been patrons of the Secessionist movement).

He only began teaching at Cambridge when he was 40, and was not a professor until he was 50.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> +1 for Stephen Booth. I was fortunate enough to take his 17th century English poetry class at Cal. He's the only lecturer who could make poetry resonate with my geek brain.

It's funny how some classes stay with you over the years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, you took his class - that's incredible!

Do you have any class notes / resources you could share? I love the guy.

What was he like as a teacher / in person?

<comment><USER29> He was very smart, and his lectures were a lot of fun. What made him a great poetry teacher was that he didn't care about what poems "mean"; what mattered was the effect they had on the reader.

I can't tell you how liberating this was. For years I had felt that I just didn't understand poetry, but Prof. Booth told us that poems are just candy for the mind. All the rest is just pretense. And he meant it too.

The final paper was a eight-page analysis of the last four lines of Paradise Lost. So you'd take the phrase, "The world was all before them," and you'd see that this line suggests several meaning to the reader. E.g., the world (God's creation) was complete before Adam and Eve; or that the world (the entirety of human history) was in front of Adam and Eve; etc.

More than anything, he taught poetry as a kind of game. It was so much fun.

The last class was truly great--he did a close reading of the children's book _Go, Dog. Go!_. So entertaining. Sadly I don't have my notes anymore, but you should search for other people's write-ups of the _Go, Dog. Go!_ lecture online. It's honestly one of the top five lectures I've ever seen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This post made me happily spend ~$100.

Quick tip for anyone trying to get older editions of some of these books: use Abebooks

For example, some of the drawing on the right reviews mention that the 1989 edition is better. I find this happens with many new editions of older books.

You can find near good as new editions of older books on Abebooks, at very reasonable prices. I used it to get a great copy of SICP, and just now ordered a version of How To Win Friends And Influence People published during Dale Carnegie's life, as Paul Graham recommended.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad - hope you enjoy them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've read Impro and it's a great book.

There is another book that I want to recommend to other Hacker News readers and that is 'Language in Thought and Action' by S.I. Hiyakawa[0]. Honestly, reading that changed my life.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth- Edition/...](http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth- Edition/dp/0156482401)

</comment><comment><USER32> The Inner Game of Tennis is very widely read among classical musicians. Probably other types of performers as well.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't think a typical sampling of the HN crowd would be familiar with the work of J.D Salinger outside of Catcher and the Rye, but as someone who's loved these stories intensely since my mid-teens, I can't recommend them enough. In fact the mere mention of Seymour: An Introduction in the article sent shivers down my spine, reminding me of the amazing originality and artistry of this writer that I haven't experienced for several years now (I very rarely read fiction now). I won't bother summarizing the stories here, but if you have even a passing interest in zen, religion, literature or (at the risk of sounding pretentious) life itself then this is required reading in my book.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, this is exactly how I feel about the book. It's a shame you've stopped reading fiction - why is that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The book "Mastery" by George Leonard is a distilled version of "The Inner Game of Tennis." Highly recommended, and it can be had for a few bucks shipped on Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have read Impro and found it quite good yet can't remember anything related to newtonian mechanics... but I wanted to read it again anyway :)

<comment><USER36> I think he was saying that there are certain things that once you learn them, they change how you view the world. For him, Newtonian Mechanics and Calculus both did this as well as the knowledge he gained from Impro. Not that Impro had anything to do with Newtonian Mechanics.

<comment><USER35> oh, that makes sense :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Baseball is largely zero sum. Reading isn't. Finding good books regardless of reputation is the way to go. But knowing what is good is hard, so you should trust persona recommendations first and ten reputation.

<comment><USER38> why is baseball zero sum? it's like rounders isn't it? so how does one side getting round (or whatever it's called in baseball) mean that the other team cannot? does the sum of the scores of the two sides always sum to the same value? i imagine not. so what an odd thing to assert. why?

<comment><USER39> For a team the score for a single game in meaningless it's simply win/loss.

Think of it like this. If simply increasing the score was of value teams could simply walk the first 3 batters each inning. I mean it's within the rules and just think how much more exciting the game would be if each inning started with bases loaded.

<comment><USER38> oh, ok, sure (sorry).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> 2 thoughts - "under appreciated" is a better way of thinking of it. And, there's no accounting for taste.

</comment><comment><USER41> 'The Olduvai imperative'. Especially the introduction and the first couple of chapters.

</comment><comment> lr--rw-rwx I will add:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig

<comment><USER42> This book is pretty well known. However the sequel to it "Lila" is IMHO better and really undervalued.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> +1 for Wittgenstein</comment>


Show HN: Bookbinder – Create beautiful eBooks within minutes - <AUTHOR> https://bookbinder.co <comment><USER2> I wish that the screenshots had the ability to click one, while open, and go to the next. Or, possibly little left right arrows. I only looked at 1 and then scrammed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Strange. You should be able to do that. I'll look into it.

<comment><USER2> I'm on Windows 10, Chrome if that helps :)</comment></comment></comment>


Neutron star seen forming exotic new state of matter - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20084-neutron-star-seen-forming-exotic-new-state-of-matter.html <comment><USER2> The opening paragraph is misleading: what we can not make in a lab is matter dense enough to be just a "neutron condensate". The fact that some of it is superfluid is irrelevant: superfluids produced in the lab are likely very similar to those believed to have been observed.</comment>


Writing Bug-Free C Code (1995) - <AUTHOR> http://www.duckware.com/bugfreec/index.html

<comment><USER2> I've read the processor docs and programmed x86 assembly in both real and protected mode, so I know a thing or two about segments. People eventually decided segments are no good, and compilers and OS's universally use paging instead to give each process its own address space.

But the "memory model" concept used by DOS and early Windows compilers was incredibly confusing. Did anyone here ever understand it?</comment>


SpaceX: No One Laughs Anymore When We Talk About Colonizing Mars - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/spacex-no-one-laughs-anymore-when-we-talk-about-colonizing-mars/?hn

<comment><USER2> Perhaps the joke is stale? I mean, I'm tired of explaining why I disbelieve it. (Short version: Sterling's Gobi Desert observation. Longer version: why do Greenland and the Antarctic colonies need subsidies; and wouldn't self- supporting bunkers scattered around the Earth be cheaper and have a better chance of surviving a world disaster?)</comment>


Thumbnail History of RDBMSs - <AUTHOR> http://freedb.schemamania.org/history.html

<comment><USER2> Yet another anti-SQL rant with precious little history (just enough to give a context to the rant).</comment>


Ask HN: What to do with $1 million - <AUTHOR>

Posting from a fake account...
My friend has just about $1 million (inherited) in cash (well, it's being managed by a money manager right now, so it is being invested in I believe index funds and bonds, but it could become cash quickly).
He's in his early 30s. Good job-- $125k/year or so in bay area. Not a hacker, but generally interested in computers. No family yet. He is somewhat risk-averse, however.
The question: what should he be doing with his money? <comment><USER2> Assuming he wants to invest it but has little experience with money he should keep most of the money where it is, for now.

Maybe take $20,000 out and put it into a brokerage account and start learning to trade with it. _IF_ and only if he's able to successfully trade that $20K and turn it into $40K or more, over a 2 year period then should he even attempt to trade with larger amounts. You need the discipline, and the experience of being wrong to truly understand money management.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would definitely pay off as much debt as possible...hopefully with a $125k/year job he has kept debt to a minimum, but just in case he has credit card debt, student loans, car payment, etc., I would pay these off.

If he's risk-averse, he probably has little experience with investing, so the money is probably fine where it is.

<comment><AUTHOR> He has no debt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> keep the money invested (maybe in lower risk products) and enjoy life? ;-)

</comment><comment><USER5> He might want to use some of it to buy a nicer house. Real estate is low priced right now. If he waits, the house prices may outstrip his after tax cash gains from investing.

</comment><comment><USER6> That is so dependent on what he wants to do. Does he want to quit his job and shoot for the stars? Does he want to retire in 10 years? Does he have a family?

Being risk-averse and getting a 10 year income windfall really says to me, fucking live it up. You can retire on that in some countries, keep and orchard and live like a king.

Personally I'd buy a small estate in a nice part of a shitty country with decent prospects for getting back and forth to the states. I'd look to buy things that are simultaneously fun/useful and investments. I would definitely quit my job unless i _loved_ it and spend years and a couple hundred k figuring out how to make a living what I love doing.</comment>


Ruby Poetry - <AUTHOR> http://blog.andrewmcdonough.com/blog/2012/02/23/ruby-poetry/

<comment><USER2> Nice little hack. My favorite find of that sort came from a verse-finder in Python run over the text of The Lord of the Rings -- it was looking for _scansion_ , not rhyme -- i.e., blank verse like Paradise Lost:

        One turned to stone. A brief vision he had
        Of swirling cloud, and in the midst of it
        Towers and battlements, tall as hills,
        Founded upon a mighty mountain-throne
        Above immeasurable pits; great courts
        And dungeons, eyeless prisons sheer as cliffs,
        And gaping gates of steel and adamant:
        And then all passed.

I suppose it's not a coincidence the longest passage the program found came at the climactic moment of the story.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is off topic, but the code highlighting with slight background noise seems like a good idea in general. Has anyone tried this in their editor of choice?

</comment><comment><USER4> Clicked expecting a poem that is also valid Ruby, like what people used to do with Perl. Was somewhat disappointed, but LOL'd at the Eurozone Bailout poem.

<comment><USER5> Bit like _Black Perl_ written (supposedly!) by Larry Wall - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Perl>

Perlmonks has a list of Perl Poetry (<http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=Perl%20Poetry>). Also on Perlmonks there is a perl5 update of _Black Perl_ (<http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=237465>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> See also Haiku.rb: <http://timelessrepo.com/haiku></comment>


Quick question re Apple and Microsoft - <AUTHOR>

Isn't what Apple doing with the iPad/iPhone and iTunes/AppStore/iBookstore almost the same thing Microsoft did when it bundled InternetExplorer with Windows? <comment><USER2> Not really. MSFT basically destroyed an existing competitor (netscape) by putting IE in every copy of windows. They used their monopoly in desktop OS to get a near monopoly in web browsers. They also did fun things like make OEM's pay for windows licenses for every machine sold or would raise the price of licenses OEM's did want. So... you bought a machine to put Linux on, you still paid for windows.

Apple on the other hand, makes a phone that has a controlled market for applications. There isn't a pre-existing competitor there that they are destroying, so it's not really the same.

The success of other smartphones actually works in Apple's favor here. There's nothing wrong with Apple having a monopoly on Apple products. What is wrong would be having a monopoly on all smartphones, then abusing that monopoly to corner the smartphone web browser market.

What Apple is doing, is pretty much the same thing that all of the game console makers do. You can't easily get software for a Wii that Nintendo doesn't approve of... Same with Sony, and, of course, MSFT on the XBOX. [yes, you can buy a Wii game at walmart... just not one that Nintendo doesn't want to license.]

</comment><comment><USER3> Some tips to help you get an answer to your question:

Use a more descriptive title starting with "Ask HN:" and phrase your question in a way that will lead to a discussion rather than a yes/no answer.

I'd suggest: Ask HN: Is Apple following Microsoft's antitrust practices?

It seems to me that by restricting the iPad/iPhone to the iTunes/AppStore ecosystem Apple is acting similarly to Microsoft when they bundled IE and Windows. Am I wrong? What makes them different?

There is a number of different ways you can ask your question, that is just mine and I advise you to checkout the 'ask' page for more, probably better, examples. Also if you haven't yet you should read the guidelines page. <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow! Apple certainly gets a free pass when it comes to scrutiny. Apple is definitely playing in the gray area when it comes to anti-competitive practices. google voice rejection and a whole lot of apps that got rejected had no good reason except to main control of the platform.

Is Apple letting the better technology win? Or does it let customers vote with their wallets w.r.to their eco-system? Plenty of evidence sites the opposite. They instead want to be the guardians/gatekeeps of content/apps and many times it crossed the line to dictatorship</comment>


Ask HN: Is This Enough to Get a Job? - <AUTHOR>

Greetings everyone! I am self taught web developer and I am wondering if my two latest projects demonstrate enough skill in building web apps to get an entry/mid level web developer job(specifically rails). I would greatly appreciate any and all input on what I should be doing in order to land a nice rails developer job.
1. OpenRecipea(http://openrecipea.com/) Brief Info: Finding & Sharing Recipes Has Never Been Easier! I developed and designed a small social media website centered around cooking at home. Users of the website are able to create and share recipes. Other users can then review and like the recipes. Users are also able to follow other users in order to have any new recipes that user posts appear in their timeline. Each user is also given their own cookbook which organizes the recipes they have created and liked by category. Detailed Description on functionality and what all was used to build it: http://heydidyahear.com/index.php/post/open-recipea/
2. 2-Do. A better todo list(http://my2-do.herokuapp.com/) Info: 2-Do is an app I created in order to provide users with a better to-do list based on Convoy's Time Management Matrix. The to-do lists users can create fall under 4 important categories based off a lecture given by Randy Pausch. The goal of this app is to help users make their day to day lives more organized and productive by telling them what needs to get done in which order. Detailed Description on functionality and what all was used to build it:http://heydidyahear.com/index.php/post/2-do-todo-list-app/
Do these apps that I built 100% myself demonstrate enough skill and understanding in web development to land a entry/mid level job? If they do not please let me know on what skills I should be working on and should be demonstrating in order to give me a better shot.
Thanks in advanced to any one who gives some input, I really appreciate it! <comment><USER2> Your demos might be good... but I can't see without logging in. One suggestion... if you are trying to showcase your work, don't make people set up an account to try it out. Maybe have a demo site specifically for that purpose that doesn't require login or has a demo account for people to use so they don't have to sign up themselves.

EDIT: BTW, this is exactly how I got my first job... I wrote a demo app and showed it to a potential employer. It was enough to get my foot in the door at a place where I had the privilege of working long hours for low salary until I had enough experience to apply for more desirable positions. Confidence and shoe leather can be as good as an formal education... good luck :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not consider how having to log in to view the functionality would prevent people from actually clicking around the website and will work on changing it so people can see everything on the site, they just can't follow/like/post etc unless they are registered. Thanks you for the criticism, It is truly appreciated. Hopefully by demoing these 2 apps I will be able to squeeze my foot in the door!

<comment><USER3> Stuff like logins are extra work the user has to do and it increases your bounce rate -- people seeing it, and then just leaving because of it.

You might want to try comparing how many people show up vs how many people register. Then you'd know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes. The market is full of uninterested, uncaring, 9 to 5ers. The bar is really really low. Just show up with some excitement and a "can ship" attitude and you will be snapped up in no time.

</comment><comment><USER5> To answer your question, which nobody else seems to have done:

Yep, they're plenty to land you a job.

</comment><comment><USER6> > "Do these apps that I built 100% myself demonstrate enough skill and > understanding in web development to land a entry/mid level job?"

Like others have mentioned, this in particular is hard to evaluate without a. source code, b. demo login. Otherwise, all I can glean from this is that you know how to make landing pages :P

But I wanted to point out some design issues I found in your sites. This may or may not actually affect your candidacy, but I thought you should know about them in general as it might signal a lack of attention to detail:

a. Ex: [https://i.gyazo.com/205c90719b7e16c19d29fba8b27006c9.png](https://i.gyazo.com/205c90719b7e16c19d29fba8b27006c9.png) \- the error messages are unstyled.

b. Ex: [https://i.gyazo.com/fa23a197fa0adb4f8fc0a9aa88ae3797.png](https://i.gyazo.com/fa23a197fa0adb4f8fc0a9aa88ae3797.png) \- the error message here is too small for me to read.

c. Ex: [https://i.gyazo.com/fa3dcbe0c61735b8f958d4d556f57526.png](https://i.gyazo.com/fa3dcbe0c61735b8f958d4d556f57526.png) \- This is nearly impossible for me to read.

Basically this would signal to me that you're likely not too design-inclined and I would probably focus more on your backend abilities (if given source code). These would be red flags if you were applying for a position that involved design or UX though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for constructive criticism! I appreciate it all! I should have noted in the question these apps are more to show my developing skills as I am not looking to be a designer. I just want to focus on development for the time being. I will style off the pages you mentioned and try to make them easier to read. Thanks again for the input!

<comment><USER6> No problem. I recently wrote a book ([https://kokev.in/hired- fast](https://kokev.in/hired-fast)) that helps junior devs get jobs, I'd be happy to send you a copy if you email me (you can find my email in my profile)

<comment><USER7> I wish there was an option to just buy the ebook for $10 or something. I would very likely have bought it instantly if it was an option. As a college student $39 is a bit steep, especially when I can't find any external reviews.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the feedback! I settled on that price for a lot of reasons, but mostly because: 1. it helps you get better jobs, faster. That to me is worth thousands, much less $39. 2. I share techniques that lose a bit of their value if every applicant knew about them, so pricing high protects my readers in a way.

It's hard to find a balance, I'm not 100% positive if this is the right pricing for it. But, like the sibling poster mentioned, I offer a full refund and you can always sign up for a free sample—it also adds you to the mailing list wherein I share some useful info for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think it's definitely enough to get you hired. It's also exactly how I landed my first job. During the interview, the senior developer that did the hiring made a point of mentioning that having a demo project showed what I could do and made me stand out from the other applicants he was looking at. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER9> The logging in is a bad practice for demos, like the other person said.

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't see sh!t. I really, really wanted to read what to do list app is all about but I just can't. Light Blue and White just don't work well together.

As far as landing a job. I see you already got a lead. I feel like dumbass now. These kind of apps I made just for fun with web.py and felt it's way too simple to pitch similar demos for a job. Even entry level ones.....I think I am suffering from imposter syndrome.

Good luck to you and thanks for reminding me of some things....

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted! I completely understand how the color contrast on the 2-Do app can be very hard to read, especially closer to the top where the background gradient is lighter. I will try to make a better text color so it is easier on the eyes. Thank you for the input! I really appreciate it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is the source for these projects on GitHub?

<comment><USER12> not the OP, but yes, he has put them on Github:

Open Recipea - [https://github.com/ipbyrne/rails-OpenRecipea- webapp](https://github.com/ipbyrne/rails-OpenRecipea-webapp)

2 Do App - [https://github.com/ipbyrne/rails-2-Do- webapp](https://github.com/ipbyrne/rails-2-Do-webapp)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Alright guys for any one who made comments about the landing pages I have removed them for demo purposes so you can now see more of the app with out having to be logged in or sign up. You just need to be logged in if you want to post,like,etc. I hope this enhances the demo experiences!

</comment><comment><USER13> I am self taught web developer! <\---- Awesome.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-on- programmers-20...](http://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-on- programmers-2013-3)

</comment><comment><USER14> Confidence and (this part is tricky) the _ability_ to show your willingness to learn is often more than enough to get yourself any job :)

Best of luck! I think you'll do just fine! :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Checked out your demos and your blog, sent an email.

</comment><comment><USER16> In case you don't have any/significant prior work experience, apart from demos, which is must anyways, doing some internships with start ups may be more helpful.

Start ups are always in need of extra hands, so any help with no/little/moderate expectations is generally always welcomed.

Gain some experience developing real world applications, working in teams, understanding developer workflows in teams, etc.</comment>


Create your own game engine but don't use it (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.zeroequalsfalse.press/2017/07/12/engine/ <comment><USER2> I started in 2012 by making a 2D game as a university assignment using Allegro 5. Some time later, when I started game jamming, I decided to reuse some of its code. After a few games done this way I've separated the common code into an engine.

Now I'm at 36 games made with it, and I even have proper CI and containerized toolchains for cross-compiling on GNU/Linux for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux (using either Steam Runtime or Flatpak), Android, Maemo 5 (Nokia N900), PureOS (Librem 5), Emscripten (asm.js/WebAssembly) and Steam Link. The engine also works fine on Raspberry Pi and FreeBSD (there's just no toolchains yet), and I'm looking forward to port it to iOS, DragonBox Pyra, Sailfish, Nintendo Switch and UWP (Windows 10/Xbox One), neither of which should be hard, I just need some time and/or devices. The only significant platform that would need some larger effort that I identified is Playstation.

Some of this stuff wouldn't be possible at all when using Unity or Unreal, or would have been much harder when using Godot.

Having said that, I probably wouldn't start writing a full-blown 3D engine if writing a 3D engine wasn't actually my end goal.

BTW. This "Lonely Cube" game could be easily written in a simple 2D engine using perspective transformations ;)

<comment><USER3> > The only significant platform that would need some larger effort that I > identified is Playstation.

Is that a technical issue or just conditions you have to satisfy to get a development environment up and running?

<comment><USER2> All the other platforms I listed are already supported either by Allegro or SDL (which I can also use via Allegro's SDL backend), while it doesn't seem to be a case with PS4. Also, so far I've used GLSL and relied on Allegro's OpenGL (ES) renderer. In case of UWP I can use ANGLE, but PS4 seems to require more effort there (most likely renderer implementation and separate shaders). Nothing impossible, but it moves it out of "I'll eventually do it when bored" status to "I'll only do it when there's strong business case behind it".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah yes.

I think I started my "game engine" as such a few years ago when I got interested in ECS and SDL and wanted to see what it would take to make a "simple game." It's been a constant, almost pathological, cycle of deletion, fence-painting and restarts. Fun, and educational, but I've come to terms with it likely never leading to anything productive.

But, even if it goes nowhere, it can be liberating to work outside the constraints of a framework, in a "chop wood, fetch water" kind of way.

<comment><USER5> The saying goes: "Teach a man to use a game engine and he'll ship a game, teach a man to build a game engine and he'll never ship anything".

That said they sure are fun to build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't take the title too literally. The article talks about full featured 3D engine which took them year to build and it was still lacking features.

For 2D engine, it's actually a couple of weeks to build one. I have built my own in 2013 and have released 4 games using it so far, two of which were very successful:

1\. [http://sonofawitchgame.com/](http://sonofawitchgame.com/)

2\. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/949790/Rogue_Bit/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/949790/Rogue_Bit/)

<comment><USER6> What resources did you use to guide the creation of your engine?

<comment><USER3> I read a bunch of articles on game loops and other more general C++ stuff like design patterns, memory management, etc. It's just knowledge I picked up over the years while programming general software (mostly desktop applications), so it's hard to pin-point any specific resource.

For some particular game related tasks on top of the base engine, I found [https://www.redblobgames.com/](https://www.redblobgames.com/) very useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I did not read the post, but the title reminded me of "Limit Theory". People have been waiting years for him to release the game, then in September he said he would release the source code, but sadly nothing happened ever since. I hope we will not have to wait years for that, too.

That being said, the game already looks amazing as it is, the graphics are phenomenal. I am pretty sure people would be willing to pick it up after he open sources it.

As far as I can tell, everything is written from scratch, in C++.

[http://ltheory.com](http://ltheory.com)

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshparnell/limit- theor...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshparnell/limit-theory-an- infinite-procedural-space-game/posts/2270873)

<comment><USER8> He was making Star Citizen but with $187,000 instead of $400 million and 1 guy instead of 500.

<comment><USER7> I know. He has done a great job considering those facts. I do not know if you followed the reports, but it seemed to me that he has been obsessing over minor details. His inability to make decisions, and his depression probably contributed to the outcome we are seeing now. Still, he promised to release the source code, and I wonder what is taking so long. Is he trying to polish it up and ending up with the same kind of indecisiveness and problems he had before? I hope not.

<comment><USER8> He probably thinks there is stuff that can be done to make the source code actually usable for people. However that stuff is causing him anguish in his current mentality, leading to procrastination and unwillingness to actually accomplish things.

The screenshots are pretty though and he's obviously talented. Things would probably be completely different if he had a steve jobs-esque figure to guide him. There's a lot of consternation on HN over business guys trying to find a tech co-founder but in this case we have a reverse. What a shame. Ultimately I see this as a logistical problem in society, our inability to pair people up effectively.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, he is definitely talented and it is a shame that it ended up this way. I hope he will release the source code (if he really wants to do so) as soon as possible so other people can pick it up and potentially finish it for him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think there's a difference between "creating your own game engine and then building a game in it" and "creating your own game without a game engine."

The former is much less focused and you're much more likely to build things that are not exactly what you need, more general than you need, or just because it's some feature a game engine usually has.

</comment><comment><USER10> As a counterpoint, I wrote a game engine, and proceeded to release 18 games over 9 years using it exclusively ([http://www.mysterystudio.com](http://www.mysterystudio.com))

I wrote a SDL based software renderer for the first game, then extracted some reusable code for the second game, and just keep using it and adding stuff.

It started as a Linux/Windows SDL thing. Later became OpenGL/DirectX. Then came Mac support. Near the end I added iOS and Android backends.

It was good fun. I'd probably not do it again today.

</comment><comment><USER11> Mike Acton has some pretty common sense views on this: [https://youtu.be/qWJpI2adCcs?t=2796](https://youtu.be/qWJpI2adCcs?t=2796)

Basically if your making your own game engine then use the context in which you are working. If you are going to end up with something generic like Unity maybe you should just use something like Unity from the start.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Create your own software X but don't use it".

The reasons provided - actually, one reason - is that whenever you need another feature (the second reason provided is the ability to run on another platform) it's easier to just use whatever is there already in the existing software rather than making that feature yourself.

This is a pretty general problem of writing your own parts or taking external pieces, often called "dependencies".

There are problems (and benefits) with those external pieces, not mentioned in the article - cost of learning (vs. cost of creating), cost of bugs (you usually know bugs in your code better), ability to fix bugs (sometimes external teams take forever to do that...), weight of features which you don't need but which exist anyway in the external software (that code takes space, time and sometimes require you to work with that a certain way when you'd maybe prefer another)...

I fully agree that educational value of creating such a system from scratch is quite significant though.

</comment><comment><USER13> I started development of my own 3D-graphics engine in 2005 as I wanted to create a 'simple' 3D modeller, refusing to learn the industry packages. My first prototype was able to create convex hull meshes over half-edge geometry. Then another revision, starting from scratch, to implement a scene-graph. Another revision for undo-redo functionality and I was sitting already atop 40k loc. 14 years and 12 revisions later have turned my pet-project into a full blown 3D graphics package I am quite proud of. Development has slowed down ever since I became a father but the lesson learned is that developing a 3D-graphics engine (and a game engine ie logic later on) leaves no techique stone unturned. Would I do it again? Certainly, if one would rewind my age back to the day I was as h0rny as 10 apes together ;-)

</comment><comment><USER14> Tangentially related, is there an open source game engine that's recommended for building games?

My experience in game development pretty much amount to an incomplete multiplayer tetris game.

<comment><USER15> I've heard good things about Godot, MIT license written in Go I think.

I've seen it's praises on HN, but I'm not a game dev so YMMV.

<comment><USER16> > written in Go

In C++ and their python-like language with bindings to other languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cross compatibility is a poor excuse to not use your own engine. You can use cross platform libs that give you exactly what you need, for example SDL for basic graphics or QT if you want GUI support.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sadly, their game doesn't seem to be available in my region on iOS.

<comment><USER19> Same here - Why would you region restrict a game and give up on sales?

<comment><USER4> It's usually to prevent consumers from one region buying it more cheaply in another region.

There may also be issues of asset rights, censorship and copyright involved.

<comment><USER19> Uh, what stops you from setting the same price in all regions?

<comment><USER4> If I had to guess, differences in currency value and return on investment in different markets, to get as much value out of each region as possible, while limiting the effect of trade between markets to drive prices down.

<comment><USER19> Note that we're talking about the iOS app store here, not physical goods... kinda hard to trade app store purchases between regions isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I went to Blind Mystics and the website doesn't work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Works for me - [https://www.blindmystics.com/](https://www.blindmystics.com/)

<comment><USER20> It's just a spinning ball for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Also rings true in "create your own php/JavaScript/python framework but don't use it"

<comment><USER22> Or compiler, or interpreter, or crypto library...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think of our demo website? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN!
We're working hard on our very own high-performance cache engine.
As a proof of concept/demo/test, we built an URL shortener service built around it.
The URL of the demo server is http://wrp.me/
What do you think about it? Especially, what do you think of the speed?
More generally speaking, would you be interested (read: ready to pay for) a high performance cache or this need is just the fruit of our imagination? <comment><USER2> _would you be interested (read: ready to pay for) a high performance cache or this need is just the fruit of our imagination?_

You mean instead of just using memcached, redis, varnish or squid? All of which are peer reviewed, battle tested, free, and optimized to perform about as close to the metal as it gets?

Sorry, but I'd lean towards "fruit of your imagination".

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, compared to all the products you named we're...

\- faster

\- designed for 64-bit from the ground up

\- scalable on multi core machines

\- portable - Windows, Linux, FreeBSD - out of the box

\- persistent out of the box

\- very easy to install and deploy (ok memcached is very easy to install and deploy as well)

\- secure by default

\- come with support

Redis, varnish and squid aren't really equivalent products. Memcacheddb is our closest equivalent.

What do you think?

Of course we're very keen on hearing more from you as we will offer a beta for download.

<comment><USER3> I'm going to be honest, and say that I've probably got no use for your product. Memcache is _plenty_ fast enough (200k ops/sec without tuning) for our needs, is open-source, well-tested, free, and has bindings for a lot of different platforms.

That said, you may want to look at the Windows market, as they don't have a native memcached, so that might give you some leverage.

Windows shops are also more likely to spend money.

I also read your FAQ, and it left me with a lot of questions:

You claim to be faster than memcached, but don't provide any benchmarks to back those claims up.

What evidence do you have to support your scalability claims?

What language bindings do you offer?

What do you mean by 'secure by default'?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comments.

memcached is a competitor, as is Oracle Coherence and Gigaspaces.

memcached is a decent open source product, which appeals to a certain type of customers.

We realize that there is a competition, but we think there is room for improvement.

\- no benchmark for now, we think it's too early, we'll do that during the beta. Our preliminary tests show we're at least twice faster and up to ten times faster.

\- we tested our cache's performance on a 12 cores machine, so we can only say "it scales up to 12 cores"

\- we offer out of the box a C language binding, PHP, Java, Ruby and Python

\- wrpme has been designed from the ground up with security in mind, the default install is secure, you need to manually activate the remote and administration features (if you need them)

<comment><USER3> Fair enough; I can understand why you'd want to (a) tune, and (b) make sure your benchmarks are going to stand up to scrutiny.

Regarding 'secure by default', though, your answer is very hand-wavy. Do you employ cryptography for your network protocol? On-disk crypto for persisted data? Authentication? How are credentials stored, assuming you do provide authentication? What steps have you taken to avoid buffer overflow attacks?

These are all questions that customers will ask; be prepared to answer them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually I was more referring to the hard work we do to avoid that kind of vulnerabilities by design:

<http://securitytracker.com/alerts/2010/Apr/1023839.html>

and

<http://securitytracker.com/alerts/2009/Apr/1022140.html>

Everything we do we consider security first and do threat modeling.

All remote connections are done via TLS, we don't cipher the database on the disk but if there is a demand for it we'll add the feature.

We've been extremely thorough to review the code an reduce the possibility for buffer overflows to occur. We use only safe API and validate input thoroughly. Buffers are encapsulated by a class in such a way that unsafe writing is difficult to do.

I'm not claiming we'll never have an exploit, just saying we're doing the best we can to avoid it.

<comment><USER2> I would say those are non-issues in most deployments.

Application caches are normally deployed within an isolated, trusted environment. TCP connections from untrusted clients simply don't happen, so hardening is not needed at that level.

I'm confused about what use-case you have in mind with this.

Is your cache meant to be exposed to the general public, sort of like the things you can do with couchdb?

<comment><AUTHOR> We want indeed the software to be usable as a high-performance key/value storage system, which is why we think about security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From your FAQ:

"Will wrpme be open source?

No, users will need to purchase a license to use the software except for evaluation and educational purposes."

Sounds like you guys must have done something pretty impressive to warrant such a statement! Can you tell us a bit about what differentiates your offering enough from memcached? Are performance comparisons available?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we're much faster but I don't want to commit any benchmark yet, we want to be 100% sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the look of the site, and I found it to be quite speedy as well.

I use memcache on one of my sites, and never found the need for anything else.

Clearly, you felt there was an opportunity in that space, and maybe there is. But to me it wasn't obvious.

That may be a bit of a stepping stone. you're like memcache but...!

I don't know that 'faster' is the main target (though I could be wrong). Lots of sites seem to be quite happy with memcache. But if you can show a savings of x over memcache due to server resources or speed, etc. you might be on to something.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's our thoughts, if you read my other replies to the comment I list what I believe we offer compared to memcached and equivalent products.

<comment><USER6> I think the speed is always a feature, but at the same time, caching always feels more interesting in terms of a proxy. For example, where I work, we're able to use one server and proxy massive amounts of traffic to a cluster of services. I know we paid for this tool and it has proved to be worth the money. That said, it does a great deal more than just caching where even if there were a faster caching solution, I'm not sure it would be worth paying for.

I hope that makes sense since simply stating "there are already those kinds of programs available" does mean that there isn't room for improvement. The evolution of lighttpd, nginx and cherokee all suggest that people found apache limiting in some way.

As for the service it did feel pretty darn fast, so kudos for that. More use cases or a more general caching proxy/load balancer might be something more people could consider worth paying for but that is just my own thought.

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would be hard to pay for something that I know very little about. There isn't much information about the cache engine itself on your website. How does this compare with memcached? Numbers on the performance would give us more insight.

</comment><comment><USER8> Boring. There are hundreds of sites like that already.

I also tried submitting the same URL over and over again, and I get new shortened URLs. Seems like a waste.

<http://wrp.me/99Jaa>

<http://wrp.me/99Maa>

<http://wrp.me/99Oaa>

<comment><USER9> Links above go to test.com

FYI: <http://www.example.com> (<http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It sounds like you keep the URLs in memory. What do you do if the power goes out?

<comment><USER11> From the FAQ:

 _wrpme is an ultra fast _persistent_ cache engine_

<comment><USER10> Also from the FAQ:

 _How long is a wrpme URL valid? An URL is valid - at least - thirty (30) days from its last access. In other words, an URL will be kept alive as long as it's acceded once every thirty (30) days ._

If it is persistent I wonder why they have this rule. Just to save RAM?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's saved to disk but then it gets evicted after 30 days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks nice. If I try and shorten the URL "<http://wrp.me/>, it actually enlarges it to "<http://wrp.me/999Ea>.

</comment><comment><USER13> How is this better than redis? I can't imagine needing something higher performance than redis, especially if I had to pay for it and it was closed source.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually Redis is probably better than our product when it comes to "database" features. Redis offers semantics we don't offer, if I'm correct with redis you can get list of objects and the like. We're lower level than that, we focused on one thing: speed and scalability.

<comment><USER13> So you are faster than Redis? Can you back that up?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious how this will stack up against free, open-source libraries such as memcache and redis.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does it only work on a single machine? Or can it be used distributed across multiple servers?

<comment><AUTHOR> It currently only works on a single machine but we will implement consistent hashing soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> clickable link: <http://wrp.me/></comment>


Handy Keymaps in Vim - <AUTHOR> https://aonemd.github.io/blog/handy-keymaps-in-vim <comment><USER2> Since I can't control the mouse so well anymore due to health reasons I grew to hate Kanban boards and Trello. Nowadays, the following goes into my init.vim along with vimwiki and it has made my work much more enjoyable :)

""" KANBAN BOARD

" Close board tab

map <leader>bc :tabclose<CR>

" Main board: soon, doing, today, done

map <leader>bb :tabnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/soon.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/doing.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/today.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/done.md<CR>

" Full board: triage, later, soon, doing, today, done, archive

map <leader>bf :tabnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/triage.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/later.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/soon.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/doing.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/today.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/done.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/archive.md<CR>

" Triage board: triage, later, soon, doing

map <leader>bt :tabnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/triage.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/later.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/soon.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/doing.md<CR>

" Archiving board: done, archive

map <leader>ba :tabnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/done.md<CR>:vnew /media/datanix/code/mdwiki/wiki/kanban/archive.md<CR>

<comment><USER3> I loved this but wanted to generalize it a bit to clean it up and make it portable across different computers.

By no means am I a vimscript expert so any improvements welcome. (I've defined g:settings.kanban_board_path above).

        function! g:Kanban_file(stage)
            return g:settings.kanban_board_path . a:stage
        endfunction

        let $KBsoon=g:Kanban_file('soon.md')
        let $KBdoing=g:Kanban_file('doing.md')
        let $KBtoday=g:Kanban_file('today.md')
        let $KBdone=g:Kanban_file('done.md')
        let $KBarchive=g:Kanban_file('archive.md')
        " Close board tab

        map <leader>bc :tabclose<CR>

        " Main board: soon, doing, today, done

        map <leader>bb :tabnew $KBsoon<CR>:vnew $KBdoing<CR>:vnew $KBtoday<CR>:vnew $KBdone<CR>

        ...

<comment><USER2> Lovely, it was a bit of a hack I came up with that I was trying out, but your cleaned up version makes it look wonderful so into my init.vim it goes! Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've found a system wide mapping of 'Caps Lock' to 'Esc'(and vice versa) a much better use of keyboard estate / ergonomics.

Although the mapping was prompted by Vim usage, it's surprisingly useful for general computing as well.

<comment><USER5> IMO making it a control key is a better choice (I tried both at some point) because chording with awkward keys is worse than just pressing them, and the control keys are placed awkwardly on most keyboards. Since you can end insertion mode with ^[ you then have a pretty comfortable chord that doesn't stray far from the home row to replace the escape key.

I had a tool on a mac that would make caps lock equivalent to escape if it was pressed and released alone, and control if it was chorded. Sounded great on paper but I underestimated how often i press control before realizing I don't want to perform a chord.

<comment><USER6> Karabiner Elements is great for doing this kind of remapping on macOS

[https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/](https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/)

The equivalent for Windows would probably be AutoHotkey

[https://www.autohotkey.com/](https://www.autohotkey.com/)

<comment><USER7> OS X can natively set Caps Lock (or any of the other modifiers) to CTRL,ALT,CMD,Esc,Caps. in the Keyboard Pref Pane at least as of 10.13.

Of course Karabiner can do quite a bit more than that. But if you can't or don't want to install more software it's a choice available to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> By far my favourite remap in (Neo)vim is to map : to ; and ; to ,

I don't know how many thousand key presses I've saved by not having to hit "Shift" for every command.

        " Use ; rather than : for commands
        nore ; :
        nore , ;

<comment><USER9> I just switch ':' and ';' along with '-' and '_' in insert mode, cut's out probably 90% of shift key presses. Swapping the numbers and their shift counterparts would probably save another 90%.

<comment><USER5> YMMV depending on what you are actually typing, though. I think I tend to spend significantly less time issuing ex commands than I spend actually typing things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As far as Vim split navigation goes (and especially for those of us using Tmux), check out [https://github.com/christoomey/vim-tmux- navigator](https://github.com/christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator).

It simply allows you to use Ctrl+{h,j,k,l} to navigate across Vim and Tmux splits as if they all were part of one cohesive IDE. Additionally, it spares you from having to maintain a configuration blob in your .vimrc thanks to being bundled as a plugin.

I don't think it auto-creates splits, though.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've noticed that there are not as many Vim/Emacs related posts on HN during the past two years than before. And the discussions and upvotes have been less enthusiastic.

If it's indeed the case (I might well be off the mark), I can think of a few possible reasons, Maybe because VS Code has won. It is much easier for beginners than Vim/Emacs (duh) but still powerful, so less questions and issues are raised. Its default setup is very good so customization is minimum, its plugins system are both vast and easy to use, etc.

Or, Vim itself has become easier to operate since version 8, tutorials are better than before, plugins are better,

Or on HN people these days have much more interests in talking about other topics. What do you think?

<comment><USER12> Maybe everything to be said about vim has already been said. You can look at those threads from 3 years ago and read about it if you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really like how his website displays so well in mobile. Beautiful work

</comment><comment><USER14> Is there any reason for not using Tmux instead of using panes in Vim?

<comment><USER15> Utilizing cross-window copy/paste, cross-window repeat, opening a new file (window) with a single command vs new tmux pane then initializing vim. Those are just a few of the many reasons. IMO, using a new tmux pane for each vim instance would be a HUGE anti-pattern. Most people with the tmux/vim setup will use a single tmux pane for vim, then N number of other tmux panes for other required needs (compiling, tests, etc...).

<comment><USER16> Do people usually have multiple vim splits open? At least I usually just have one terminal with new tmux splits and usually one vim with multiple buffers I switch between if needed.

However if I'm looking for something or doing something in another split and I need to view a file or edit a file I don't go back to my vim split and open it there I just open vim right there where I am.

<comment><USER5> I typically split if I have some interrelated code that I need to cross- reference, e.g. when refactoring. Especially if this code is in the same file, in which case windows into the same buffer have the added benefit of synchronized editing. Another example: when programming C, it is useful sometimes to have the header in one vim window and the definitions in the other. Or you're navigating via ctags, and it's convenient to view a tag in a new window rather than change the buffer for the current window.

If I'm just editing two completely unrelated files I don't see any advantages to this workflow over opening multiple instances. Maybe if you have plugins that are slow to start up?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Washington Post Hacked: 1,270,000 Emails and User IDs Compromised - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/jobs/product-pages/fraud-email.html

<comment><USER2> They don't see the potential impact of associating a particular username from a jobs website with an email address?

I would be concerned about more targeted phishing attacks: I tend towards using my real name as my username on job websites, and given a list of usernames and emails, I'm very sure you could produce some more believable phishing emails than regularly received.

Edit: Thinking more on this, it would be reasonable in any of these email + username exposures to simply apply a filter of common names, and then use them in a more legitimate looking email. I don't see much of this in my spam (my email address is email@example.com, and my first name is common), so I would take a stab and say that perhaps the number of people likely to fall for this would not significantly increase with improvement in the quality of the initial email.

<comment><USER3>
      From: email@example.com
      To: [your email]
      Subject: Washington Post Vulnerability Update

      Dear [name],

      Our initial investigation revealed that an unauthorized third party managed
      to retrieve the list of user IDs and email addresses associated with
      Washington Post Jobs accounts, of which yours was one.  Our security team
      has performed a more thorough audit of the attack which resulted in the
      exposure of your information and has determined that the unauthorized third
      party was also able to gain access to encrypted passwords.

      Because the passwords were encrypted, it is unlikely that the attackers will
      be able to access your Jobs account.  However, due to the very small chance
      that this unauthorized third party may be able to decrypt your password, we
      are requiring every Jobs account holder to change their password within the
      next 48 hours.  Failure to change your password will result in your account
      being permanently locked out.

      To further enhance the security of our Jobs site, you will need to specify
      your existing password as well as your new password.  Your new password must
      be at least eight characters long and have one or more upper case letters,
      one or more lower case letters, and one or more numbers or symbols.  Please
      change your password at the following URL:

      [link to phishing site that looks like Washington Post's Jobs site with a
       realistic password change form that will dutifully accept your email and
       current password and enforce the new password requirement for good
       appearances]

      Sincerely,

      Washington Post Jobs Customer Service

<comment><USER4> Wow. That looks legitimate.

      we are requiring every Jobs account holder to change their password within the
      next 48 hours.  Failure to change your password will result in your account
      being permanently locked out.

That's the bit that got me thinking, but more on the lines of "WTF?!" than recognizing this as a phishing attempt.

<comment><USER3> I figure most people might think if changing the password is optional, why bother? That line provides timely motivation to do so immediately. On further thought, I'd also remove the part which mentions supplying the current password and just focus on the new password requirements. The form on the site would naturally ask for their current password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not comforting that they didn't take this seriously enough to pass it by an editor before making the disclosure.

SPAM is a trademark of Hormel. A synonym for junk email is 'spam'. Whoever wrote this doesn't even recognize the difference. Hell, the author turned 'junk mail' into a proper noun! ("SPAM, aka. Junk Mail ...")

Granted, the WP has a newsroom that is probably entirely separate from whatever org runs their jobs site, but reputation is shared both ways. They're an editorial power-house and should know better.

</comment><comment><USER6> Anyone know any details? From the description, this sounds like the kind of thing where there's an INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN or a cookie with an integer userid, and the attacker just rotated it and crawled profile pages. Sucks, but not the end of the world.

<comment><USER7> I'd definitely like to know, since the WaPo guys use a lot of django. If (big if, I don't acutally know) the jobs site was built on django, and if they could figure out how it was compromised it would be beneficial for the wider django community to know. I hope they share when the dust settles.

<comment><USER8> I used to be one of the WaPo Django guys. Jobs was a separate team on entirely different technology stack on different hardware, though probably in the same data center. I know they happened to use Java (and probably still do) but have no more info (nor did I want any - c'mon, Java).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I received one of these emails. What I don't understand is why - I've never used the Washington Post jobs site. I live in Sydney...

<comment><USER10> Yeah me too. I don't remember ever signing up for WaPo jobs. I've never used it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, are these massive leaks of user information happening more and more often, or are we just hearing about them more often?

</comment><comment><USER12> This is very interesting. I was wondering why I got spam through to my Gmail account this weekend. This is the first time I can definitely see the

</comment><comment><USER13> "How can I reduce or avoid SPAM?"

\- Do not sign up at sites with poor site security

<comment><USER14> That not a solution, you can't know if the site impement good security measures.

Every site will be hacked (eventually). Just use _strong_ passphrase, maybe a password generator like: SuperGenPass when you can, multiple emails, and you should be (relatively) safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Clearly it's not this simple, but are spam honeypots a tool utilized by these big boys as an insurance policy against these attacks?

EG - seed your DB w/known email addresses, see what junk hits them all, follow the money?

</comment><comment><USER16> Don't they run Django? Is there something we should know about?

<comment><USER17> No, they don't run Django for the entire site. Django is mostly used for one- off apps, like:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/politics/electi...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/politics/election-results-2010/exit-poll/)

or

<http://apps.washingtonpost.com/highschoolchallenge/></comment></comment>


If you are software developer, the future looks very interesting.  - <AUTHOR>

So I was checking out the latest TED publications :
and these two posts really got me thinking :
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense....
and
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want...
the first post is about enabling tech (see also www.microvision.com and what they are doing with upcoming phones for how this ties into the now)
The second - i like the concept of the quality of the consumer experience as being important (back to basics),
So is the iphone just the beginning.  not a beginning of phones, but a beginning in how we integrate computers and services into the real world using on demand services + physical gestures and environment.
What would this then mean - is there going to be opportunities to extend the reach of software into almost everything we do ?
How much of what we do today with software is going to have to be changed or redeveloped ?
Is the 6th sense demo above a good example of the semantic  web ?  ie. not just key words but also applications and services about your current context ?  is this going to need other search tech (ie. how do I know I am looking at a plane ticket , and what operations can be done around this ticket).
Will it be an app store model ? If not what model for getting the apps to the user when they need it ?  Who will provide such search technology ?  ie. how does the system know what it is looking at ? how do we add meaning to gestures in our context.  ie. when reading a book - can we download new gesture - action maps on demand and then present them using cool ajax+ type services ?
Services that work with product vendors to develop  and publish meta data for their products and then get that data into the hands of the consumer.  what and how to deliver ?  who to partner with ? what competitive advantage can someone get by using this tech and how best to present their brand/products and services - i think we are moving beyond just "shopping carts" now, but to the next generation.   its now more than web development - is web development going to become part of every product (since the web and the real world are going to join ?).
(okay, i am on a bit of TED binge but this also ties in : http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want...
- the ability to combine software with sound zones ?  ie. a voice appears in you ear while looking at a product ? )
Mashups start to take on a whole bigger meaning.
What about custom apps / services that can tailor the customer experience to a users immediate context.  These are some pretty exciting opportunities.  And it can be done by 2-4 guys in garage - that's US  (ie. the collective us) by the way.
With all the bad news we see, just thought a different view point may help. <comment><USER2> The links you wanted to include (but were truncated), are:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html)

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consu...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want.html)</comment>