Linux on Samsung Galaxy smartphones - <AUTHOR> https://seap.samsung.com/linux-on-galaxy <comment><USER4> It's quite interesting that with the power of today's mobile devices (multicore 1GHz+ CPUs, GPUs, 2Gb+ RAM) we still don't have a standardized interface to plug them into desktop peripherals and launch a desktop OS/GUI.

One would thing that such an universal interface would quickly become a standard offering in airports, hotels, libraries, conferences, etc.

<comment><USER5> "One would thing that such an universal interface would quickly become a standard offering in airports, hotels, libraries, conferences, etc."

My favorite computing peripheral form factor has always been the PCMCIA card.

It seems to me that you could fit a minimum viable phone inside a PCMCIA card _and then_ insert that PCMCIA card into a normal sized laptop when you choose.

The laptop would have no CPU/RAM - it's just a big USB keyboard and monitor - and the phone would probably have limited battery life, given the size (although you could bump out the non-port end of the PCMCIA card with some extra battery, the same way that wifi cards had an antenna bump ...)

Something like this was proposed ... there was some minor project where they had built an entire PC (not a phone) into a PCMCIA card (although with different pin-outs) and proposed using it as a portable "guts" for any laptop "host" but I can't find the URL for that project anymore ...

I certainly would welcome a phone the size of a pc-card and a cable-less docking of the brain into the host laptop would be much better than either 2-3 USB cables or some weird, proprietary phone dock ...

<comment><USER6> I think you're thinking about the EOMA project. Boards are soon to go out for their production run.

[https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro- desktop/updates/pcb...](https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro- desktop/updates/pcb-and-3d-printer-progress)

<comment><USER5> Yes that is indeed what I was thinking of - it's a very interesting project.

Imagine if that device was a fully functional, standalone phone ...

<comment><USER7> I don't understand the desire for this. In this model, you're still carrying a laptop. It's just utterly useless without the phone.

<comment><USER5> The use-case is in the opposite direction: when I only have my phone, I have my _entire computer_ with me - including the storage and the files and keys and so on.

No syncing required. You only have a single computer. That's a big win, I think ...

<comment><USER7> If you care about the stuff on that computer, you really want it synced somewhere anyway.

I don't personally see the utility in having my phone be my computer. I don't need Visual Studio or Photoshop on my phone. If I don't have my laptop/desktop, I'm not going to work on the things I typically do with a full-power computer. The phone is just not the right form factor, so it doesn't help for that stuff to be on my phone.

<comment><USER5> "If you care about the stuff on that computer, you really want it synced somewhere anyway."

I disagree.

If you care about (stuff) you really want to _back it up somewhere_.

This is different than "syncing" which can mean anything, is usually a completely unintelligible process for the end user, is fragile, and _is actually a hard problem_.[1]

Much more intelligible and manageable is to have one single repository of data and carry that "kernel" of stored data everywhere. Yes, certainly you should back it up, but the backup is just that: a point in time backup that you do not operate against.

[1] Two way sync, dealing with new, but different objects on both devices ... this is not a "solved" use-case ...

<comment><USER7> > _This is different than "syncing" which can mean anything_

Then we should probably define it before asserting that it's "completely unintelligible", "fragile", or a "hard problem", right? Yes, full multi-way sync is not a simple problem. Most scenarios don't need this (and even ones that do tend to devolve into simple cases since single-actor conflicts are not that common).

The simplest case for "sync" is just "my stuff is in the cloud". Call it remote storage, since sync is ambiguous. Make the client dumb, put the data online, and most of the complexity evaporates. Of course, local storage with remote backup is also a reasonable solution that has different tradeoffs.

For me personally, I prefer the "remote storage" solution for most things. I greatly appreciate that my email is just "magically" everywhere I need it to be without me carrying a repository of email in my pocket. I love that all my important documents and photos are accessible everywhere even if I forget my phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I would like to do is use my phone as portable storage device and then plug it in to external processing unit and _boot_ from my phone. The external processing unit could be desktop computer, laptop or tablet.

The reason? When sitting behind my desk at home or office I don't like to be limited with the mobile CPU. I have the required kWhs to power a proper CPU, GPU and run 64GB of memory. I also don't want to run separate computers on each location, because keeping these in sync (OS settings, applications, databases etc) is painful.

Technically we are almost there. We can put reasonably fast flash storage to the phone. USB-C should provide enough bandwidth. On OS software side we would need some work to make plugging in/out convenient. I don't want to do a full reboot every time I "unplug" the phone from desktop processing unit and move it somewhere else. As I move between processing units I would like to keep my apps open, maybe just doing a hibernate/sleep and then waking the system up connected to a different processing unit.

This solution means double spending on CPUs and memory, but desktop hardware is relatively cheap.

<comment><USER7> > _I don 't want to do a full reboot every time I "unplug" the phone from > desktop processing unit and move it somewhere else._

How do you expect this to work? You can't hibernate an OS and swap out all the hardware and expect it to actually wake back up. You're going to have to do a full boot.

<comment><USER9> Actually, you probably could. If you write the hibernate image to a place using a machine-id of some sort. Imagine you have images like

        /hibernate/machine/5c76f5e0-9117-4e33-8093-9de2e2f1b6de
        /hibernate/machine/d755fe2c-2b13-4436-8a5b-ba3363b9c642

When your kernel boots up, it grabs its machine-id and looks for a hibernation image to map into its memory. If it finds one, great, you have an "instant wake". If it doesn't, you boot as normal. Now imagine that your kernel tries to mount a specific device to `/hibernate` prior to looking for hibernate images. Upon hibernating, it writes its image to its machine-id. You could easily share the disk between two machines (even of different architectures) and keep two separate hiberante images on disk. You wouldn't be sharing the processes, but you could share your data.

With a sophisticated enough setup, you could probably even dual-install binaries (although this would be much involved with ELF where you must have separate binaries compared to something like Mach-O) to something like /usr/bin_x86_64/ and /usr/bin_arm64/ and then use your shell to select your path. This might work on a system level, but would certainly work on a per- install basis manually.

<comment><USER10> Stick a hypervisor and (some sort of) NFS share in the mix to sidestep having to know about the layout of fs blocks on disk . Also, just extend the linux kernel ELF loader to know about fat-binaries to make the scheme work - <USER2> were proposed patches to accomplish this that were (unfairly) derided, but there's nothing fundamentally _wrong_ with that proposal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think termux ( [https://termux.com/](https://termux.com/) ) does most of what I need when I need a bit of emergency Linux on my phone.

Termux provides a recompiled debian distro which runs as a android App. It doesn't chroot or need root and it works amazingly well. No desktop apps though.

<comment><USER12> Termux is so bloody handy. That and one of the recent Blackberry phones and you've a tool rather than a toy

<comment><USER13> ...or a tablet and Hacker Keyboard (which is loads better than the Google or Samsung one, especially because it has arrow keys!). That's my setup.

<comment><USER14> Volume up button plus W A S D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Linux on Galaxy allows the _latest_ Samsung Galaxy smartphone users to run > their preferred Linux distribution on their smartphones utilizing the same > Linux kernel that powers the Android OS to ensure the best possible > performance. (emphasis mine)

I knew there was a catch somewhere. I seriously doubt there's a technical reason why older Galaxy models can't support running Linux as well. I don't understand why it's so difficult for Android manufacturers to allow users to install whatever they want– _I_ bought _my_ phone, now let me install what _I_ want. Sure, void the warrant or refuse to support it, but don't get in my way.

<comment><USER16> We're all used to having desktop computers with generic x86 compatible processors and highly standardized internal interfaces and components, and compiling our software and installing it on any x86 computer we want.

Smartphones with ARM SOCs aren't like that because they aren't just a CPU, they also include a crapload of additional system components. Even SOCs like the Snapdragon within a specific model will offer many variations to the manufacturers. Outside the SOC itself, phone hardware is far less standardized than on a PC. You can't compile your Linux distro for ARM then install it on any smartphone, the kernel needs to be tailored to the specific phone. That's why even though unlocked Android phones are around it really takes the manufacturer themselves to be able to do something like this because only they have the detailed understanding of the platform and the resources. Otherwise, other people would be doing it.

<comment><USER17> The Linux Device Tree infrastructure was created as a hardware description for hardware that cannot describe itself at runtime, which is mostly ARM SoCs. However that only works when hardware drivers are wired up to the device tree infrastrucure instead of being fully hardcoded. Given the usual bare minimum investment in software by most embedded hardware vendors, many/most drivers probably aren't.

Given a set of hardware with the same instruction set and drivers with full device tree support, one can now create one kernel for the whole set.

<comment><USER18> Device Tree Overlays come to rescue, but only if OEMs actually do care.

[https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/dto/](https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/dto/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I did something like this (shared kernel and chroot) on an old Nexus S back in 2012 with Gentoo. You can use a precompiled stage3 tarball which contains the fundamental filesystem layout and utilities (for the target architecture), and then for anything else that you need, you just use Portage (Gentoo's package manager) to compile stuff for you. Not super practical in terms of battery life and time if you're constantly compiling packages but a cool project nonetheless. This wasn't the exact guide I used, but it's the same idea: [http://thinkmoult.com/installing-gentoo-android- chroot/](http://thinkmoult.com/installing-gentoo-android-chroot/)

<comment><USER20> Very cool thanks for sharing!

> Not super practical in terms of battery life

Samsung avoided this problem by requiring that the phone is connected to the dock that is also charging it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe 2018 is finally the year of the Linux desktop. Wait... :)

Jokes aside, I can see how this would be useful for sysadmin and devs - <USER3> along your smartphone and you're set - but this would never fly for a general, even if geeky, public. Very nice approach though, curious to see where this ends up going.

<comment><USER22> I tend to agree with your sentiment, but

> this would _never_

From experience, I now pause and consider twice any statement I make using _never_. You know, I thought Facebook would never become dominant using such a one-size-fits-all interface where I can't even choose a theme or even my color, let alone which elements to be displayed and in which order (I keep thinking their UI is ugly to this day, if this was our 'home' it feels it looks like a housing project on internet to me). Or back in 2010 when I bought an iPhone 4 and later an iPad 2, I thought Apple would _never_ keep iOS so dumbed down compared to OSX (e.g. "Smart" features, a great first step into intuitive automation, the real graal of computers imho, lest one thinks it's OK to become a robot and click/tap thirty times to perform thirty times the same operation).

So... yeah, I don't know. Everything says you're right today, but with just the right tools/apps, a good Linux distro tailored to popular phones could reach the same level of popularity than, say, iPhones (currently ~10% of the market, roughly one in ten Android phones).

<comment><USER21> Good observation. I will keep it in mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've been using termux and a fold out bluetooth keyboard for django development & code review for quite a while on my pixel XL.

I absolutely love having my dev work on my phone, being able to hack away or do code review for 5 minutes wherever is incredible.

At home using a chrome-cast and have it on a big screen.

It would be nice to have a window manager I suppose - but i'll probably end up in a full screen terminal anywya.

When mobile the biggest problem for me is just plain old screen size - I'm tempted to get a cheap Chinese tablet and use it as a remote screen somehow - leaving my phone in my pocket.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, screen size sucks. Didn't Intel build some wireless screen technology a few years ago? Somehow I never saw it in action, but as far as I can imagine I would like to have a >24 inch screen which I could use as a normal Display Port monitor, but also via NFC (+ some magic wireless technology) as a wireless monitor for my smart phone.

Does anybody know where I can buy such a device or why it is not yet available?

<comment><USER25> It's called WiDi / Miracast.

It's in most Android phones. Many TVs support it, or you can buy an adapter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >> Thank you for showing your interest in the Samsung for Galaxy project

This should be Linux for Galaxy right?

<comment><USER27> Could also be 'Thank you for showing your interest in Samsung for the Galaxy project'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> We need phone drivers! To enable us to install any distro or OS. I would love to download X distro directly from their website > install on the smartphone somehow > boot > install phone drivers > make calls

I have nothing against Android. I would like to choose who creates the OS used on my smartphone

<comment><USER29> > _" I would love to download X distro directly from their website > install > on the smartphone somehow > boot > install phone drivers > make calls"_

Unfortunately it will never be that simple. First, the distro you want would need to have an ARM port targeting the same version of ARM SoC in the phone. ARM isn't like x86 with just two targets (32 bit and 64 bit), it's a quagmire.

Second, your distro of choice would need to stick with the exact kernel version used by the phone, and I guarantee if you take any three Android phones by three different manufacturers made in the past two years, you'll see three different kernel versions, each with tweaks made just for that device. Said tweaks would make it impossible to have a distro targeting all three devices even if they did have the exact same kernel version.

Third, your distro maintainer would need to own or have access to every Android device she wished to target, and while that works for a community driven project like Lineage OS, it's not realistic for the lone Linux distro developer or small team who wants to add phones as targets for their existing desktop class distro.

<comment><USER30> > Second, your distro of choice would need to stick with the exact kernel > version used by the phone, and I guarantee if you take any three Android > phones by three different manufacturers made in the past two years, you'll > see three different kernel versions, each with tweaks made just for that > device. Said tweaks would make it impossible to have a distro targeting all > three devices even if they did have the exact same kernel version.

Would this apply for the new Purism phone? i.e. if all the drivers are upstreamed into the mainline kernel, does thstnot mean you can use any kernel past the point where the drivers are included, without modification?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Samsung press release: [http://www.samsungmobilepress.com/stories/samsung- dex's-expa...](http://www.samsungmobilepress.com/stories/samsung- dex's-expanding-ecosystem-pushes-the-possibilities-of-the-smartphone)

<comment><USER15> > At Samsung, we continuously ask ourselves what else is possible, and what > else we can do to bring a better experience for our users.

Here's a tip: don't mess with my scrolling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Ubuntu wanted to do this but it never went anywhere... and they didn't open source their code. What an absolute shame.

I really loved the idea of it. You had the whole Android / Java / Bionic runtime sharing the same kernel as your GNU stuff. They had a way that you could even access your Android stuff from within your desktop environment like apps, contacts, text messages, etc.

<comment><USER32> It is open source and it is being continued at [https://ubports.com/](https://ubports.com/)

<comment><USER33> I think he might be talking about Ubuntu for Android, which was classic Ubuntu running on an Android phone, predating Ubuntu Touch.

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

It worked on Galaxy S4, and Samsung were really close to shipping it on every S4. It never did ship though, and the project was abandoned. A couple of people who worked on it tried to push for open sourcing it, but I don't think it ever was open sourced.

You could hook it up to an external monitor with an MHL-HDMI cable. Of course the SoC wasn't as beefy as ones we have now, but it was pretty OK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Given how Tizen has been managed thus far I am not having big hopes for it, but lets see.

<comment><USER34> Tizen on smartwatch is pretty awesome.

Imho its miles ahead of the other watch OSes

<comment><USER18> I guess you never bother to actually program on it.

Tizen already went through these reboots:

1 - Replaced Meego SDK with Bada OS SDK

2 - Replaced Bada OS SDK with EFL + C++ SDK

3 - Dropped C++ SDK and replaced a new pure C API alongside EFL

4 - Currently adopting .NET Core + Xamarin.Forms

Then there is the whole issue of code quality.

[https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened](https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/15001/enlightened)

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/12/samsungs_tizen_no_l...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/12/samsungs_tizen_no_longer_worst_ever/)

<comment><USER35> I never understood why Samsung didn't stick with Qt for Tizen. Was it because it was owned by Nokia back then?

Everything they've tried to do on the UI layer is something I wouldn't touch with an eleven-foot pole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I miss my N900, I could run full fledged Debian on it. The Maemo OS also had Terminal app with full SSH client & server app. I used to SSH into my phone from my laptop just for kicks. And then Nokia had to go and fuck it all up.

<comment><USER37> I had a N810. Great device, but once iPhone and Android smartphones came out, the market for these quickly shrunk to niche status.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Maybe I'm the only one that is getting tired of smart phones? I feel like it just takes over every ones life sometimes. I'm ready to go back to a $30 nokia that just f'n works for half a decade, doesn't die every day due to battery usage, and in general... doesn't spy on my entire life story for the supposed purpose of better targeted ads.

I think there's some serious room back in the mobile market with the way these devices are going. Outrageously expensive disposables aren't sustainable forever. At some point people get tired of throwing $500 in the bin for the exact same thing they had last year, just so they can have a full day worth of battery charge again.

<comment> blubb-fish would love to do that, too - but if you use the phone responsibly and maturely then its smartphone capabilities are pretty useful.

for starters - don't throw away the phone - throw away the crapps - FB, WA, IG, Twitter, SC, ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's already mentioned in sub comments but I'd like to mention GNURoot Debian [0] in a top level comment.

It is regular Debian (full repository of unmodified packages unlike Termux), and unlike variety of other chroot based solutions it doesn't require root access (utilizes proot).

0: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gnuroot.de...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gnuroot.debian)

</comment><comment><USER40> As often happens, I don't understand why one would want to subscribe in order to be notified when it becomes public.

I mean, I can understand subscribing in order to get a beta or pre-release, but if right now nothing is available and when it will be available it will be public, it seems to me nothing more than a personal data collection.

When it will be public there will also be a lot of publicity about it, so it's not likely that one needs to be notified.

<comment><USER18> The whole point is not to notify you, rather to get a feeling how much people would eventually buy it.

<comment><USER40> >The whole point is not to notify you, rather to get a feeling how much people would eventually buy it.

Sure, but I wasn't expressing a doubt on why Samsung put that on, I was doubting why an end user would want to give away his/her name/email/company, substantially in exchange of nothing.

<comment><USER41> Because he wants this to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Engadget article: [https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/19/samsung-introduces- linux...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/19/samsung-introduces-linux-on- galaxy/)

</comment><comment><USER43> I've been using for 4 years and old cellphone as my home server.

I run on it Nginx + PHP, OpenVPN, Samba, SSH, MiniDLNA, a git private server, AvaHi, python scripts...

To get extra memory (not that I need it) I turn off the android UI and to save power I turn off the LCD.

ping me if you want to know more!

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm surprised no one commented about this yet:

[https://maruos.com/](https://maruos.com/)

</comment><comment><USER45> I can hear Shuttleworth swearing right now.

<comment><USER46> Swearing? Don't you mean jubilating? Isn't Ubuntu on Samsung Galaxy phones exactly what he would want?

<comment><USER29> Who said it will be Ubuntu? If this is anything like past attempts at a Linux desktop running from a mobile phone, it will be a Samsung optimized (i.e. locked down) half baked chroot monstrosity with limited tools and locked to the phone's ancient, bastardized kernel with zero security updates from launch forward.

I think it would be awesome and amazing if I was completely wrong about all of that, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd rather wait for the Pyra to release and carry two devices than torture myself with an impossible dream.

<comment><USER47> Here's a photo of it running Ubuntu 16.04 at a Samsung booth with a 4.4. Kernel.

[https://twitter.com/TizenHelper/status/920507238485233664](https://twitter.com/TizenHelper/status/920507238485233664)

<comment><USER48> I spy a Virtual Box, no? The kernel looks too new for Android, as well.

I'm guessing users here don't want the emu penalty, just extend what's already there a bit.

<comment><USER49> 1\. That is the current Note8 kernel. 2\. That virtualbox is the info string of the machine that compiled that kernel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is amazing.

The reason we have high quality free software for desktops is that you can easily install anything you want on your laptops and PC's.

Significance of this is that it allows free software stacks to be built for phones.

Kudos to Samsung for such move. Let's hope other phone makers also open up the phones.

</comment><comment><USER49> [https://twitter.com/TizenHelper/status/920507238485233664](https://twitter.com/TizenHelper/status/920507238485233664) Some pictures from a demo booth. Runs Ubuntu 16.04.2 on 4.4.13-1.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is definitely interesting and I would be curious to see where it goes in the future.

In the meantime however anyone who wants to use Linux on their phone today should check out [https://ubports.com/](https://ubports.com/)

It works now!

<comment><USER52> I followed the link, but don't quite understand the product. Does Ubuntu Touch OnePlusOne replace the OS on the device? So I buy one of the supported phones listed, and then erase and replace Android with this in it's place? Or it installs on top of?

<comment><USER51> It replaces the OS, so you will lose everything you currently have on the phone. The installation process is similar to flashing a ROM and you can choose to reflash and move back to Android in the future.

<comment><USER52> Actually sounds good. I'm tired of Apple devices going in a direction that doesn't fit with what I want, and have never been impressed with Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> So can we go Samsung -> Linux -> Virtual Box -> Windows?

Or is that not how this works?

<comment><USER54> To get fast VMs, you need the guest OS (in this case, Windows) to be built for the same CPU architecture, and preferably to have virtualization features on the CPU. Since you're not likely to get either, you'd have to emulate the CPU. QEMU can do it, but it'll be _slow_.

On the other hand, if Windows 98 is enough for you, you can run it on your phone right now: [http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows98](http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows98)

That site is doing the CPU emulation in JavaScript(!). It's fast enough because, well, it's Windows 98.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> [OT] Does anybody have any idea when the Windows x86-on-ARM phones will come out? That's what I'm really waiting for and not seeing much information on.

</comment><comment><USER56> Will there be immediate driver support for the DeX docking stations? I have an S8+ and this might push me to purchasing one of the stations as well.

</comment><comment><USER57> Can Galaxy even run without Linux kernel?

<comment><USER18> In theory yes.

Android doesn't expose a proper Linux to userspace and Google has been clapping down what we are allowed to do with the NDK since Android 7.0 (edit: corrected, only started in 7.0).

So playing "what if", you can replace Linux with something else that is compatible the NDK APIs and no one would notice, other than the OEMs.

<comment><USER55> > Android doesn't expose a proper Linux to userspace and Google has been > clapping down what we are allowed to do with the NDK since Android 6.0.

Would you have a link to more details/reading on this? I wasn't aware.

<comment><USER18> Here are the official NDK APIs.

[https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html](https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html)

Here are the documentation entries related to clamping down unauthorized use of other on-device libraries or Linux Syscalls.

[https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/android- ch...](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/android-changes-for- ndk-developers.html)

[https://android- developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/improving-...](https://android- developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/improving-stability-with-private-cc.html)

[https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/07/seccomp- fi...](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/07/seccomp-filter-in- android-o.html)

[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-...](https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-7.0-changes.html#ndk)

[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8....](https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8.0-changes.html#security- all)

Small correction, it is actually Android 7.0, not 6.0

<comment><USER55> Great, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> If I understand this correctly, it's a LXC with a distribution built by Samsung?

</comment><comment><USER59> Just bought a Dex Station. If Emacs runs well enough then it will be a lifesaver.

<comment><USER60> If Emacs is all you need, you can run it today with Termux. Dex is of course nice for giving a bigger screen etc.

What this "Linux on Galaxy" thing will provide on top of Termux is X (or Wayland?) and probably a bigger selection of software.

<comment><USER59> I already tried Emacs in Termux but I was too slow and did crash while trying to do some things.

Nowadays I simply use JuiceSSH and mosh to connect to my main computer. I would like to have Emacs in my smartphone even while I don't have mobile signal though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> i wonder how it will compare to the "Complete Linux Installer"App project.

</comment><comment><USER62> Why does this link go directly to a sign-up page?

</comment><comment><USER63> chroot ftw!

(right?)

</comment><comment><USER64> No thanks! I'm not buying a phone that won't get updated with security updates. My trash box is littered with Korean Android phones that have no upgrade path or ability to clean with a fresh install.

I'm opting for a Pixel 2 and an iPhone X for work and personal. They're expensive at first, but way cheaper and far more convenient in the long run. They always have immediate security updates, and they update their OS for atleast 3 years. Korean phones are rip offs, they barely update at all. Every single one of my Korean phones are still waiting for security updates. It costs way more to own a Samsung or LG phone in the long run.

Don't buy Samsung or LG phones.

<comment><USER65> It doesn't matter who the OEM is. All Android phones are now wrappers around the Qualcomm snapdragon SOCs if they're sold in the US. They all have the update problem because Qualcomm has refused to work with other organizations or maintain their kernel forks.

<comment><USER66> It's been getting better recently as third parties have taken on the work of maintaining drivers for Qualcomm chipsets, there are now a lot of their chipsets which can run on upstream kernels, and if Android kernels were closer to upstream, AOSP kernels could probably be built to function on some Qualcomm chipsets today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> This has exactly the same problem as Microsoft's WSL: they're conflating Linux with "distribution built around GNU userland".

I'm not a gnu zealot. I think rms has many faults. But a major company saying "now you can run Linux on android" or "now you can run Linux on Windows subsystem for Linux" is beyond stupid.

In the case of Samsung it's Like saying you can make a sandwich out of a sandwich. In the case of Microsoft it's like saying you can make a real roast chicken out of a soy chicken.

<comment><USER68> And now you've just understood why the gnu zealots (whom I'm not a part of either) insisted on the proper GNU/Linux naming, because they saw it coming and now all of it got mixed up in the single name "linux" which can mean anything and everything.

The number of things I've spent decades thinking "wow, rms/they're borderline crazy" only to end up with "oh okay, they had a point" is kind of humbling. DRM, encryption, naming, ...

Yet I'm still not in agreement with the GPL and keep thinking MIT or BSD are better. Maybe only to be proved wrong again in the future.

<comment><USER67> I always kind of got their point, but if I say "I used to run Debian Linux in a virtual machine, now I can just run Debian under Windows subsystem for Linux" there is no ambiguity, no one should be confused.

Nobody just runs Linux + the gnu environment compiled from source themselves. People use a distribution, which has a name.</comment></comment></comment>


Las Vegas High-Speed Rail Venture Gets New Owner - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/las-vegas-high-speed-rail-venture-gets-new-owner-1537243260 <comment><USER2> _XpressWest has secured most of the state and federal approvals needed to develop a 185-mile route for electric trains to travel at speeds up to 150 miles an hour between Las Vegas and Victorville, Calif., a high-desert city on the outskirts of the Los Angeles metro area._

Getting to Victorville is one thing. But until someone figures out how to traverse Cajon Pass† in a high speed train, it's just not going to work.

Even at 150MPH, the journey will take longer than a plane. And why would I want to change trains between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, when I can fly direct in an hour? Las Vegas is compact enough that the traditional train advantage of terminating at the city center doesn't help, since that's where the airport is, too.

Until the train is one hop from Vegas to downtown LA, it's DOA.

†[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajon_Pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajon_Pass)</comment>


Git: A Designer's Perspective - <AUTHOR> http://www.viget.com/inspire/git-a-designers-perspective/

<comment><USER2> I started using Git about six months ago for tracking notes (i usually use TextMate) and have been adding much more things into version control since then.

Even when not saving the data on a remote server, Git allows me to quickly start a repo when required and branch quickly and easily.

Version control provides amazing new possibilities to many kinds of data. Currently I am using Git not only for tracking Python, PHP and HTML/CSS/JavaScript projects, but also notes, papers, sometimes todo lists and pretty much anything text-based.

Tried writing and using a tool that unzips a Word doc and then adds the XML files inside to a Git repo, but the XML history is quite useless.

If Google Wave like Robots are possible in Docs, then would be great to add Git functionality to Google Docs. Or maybe Google will just improve the history views in its apps.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish there were more merge extensions in git. For instance, I would very much like an extension that merged bitmap images in a fine-grained manner, such that I could specify if it's okay to merge two sets of changes or just select the latest one on a consistent basis. This would allow multiple devs to do touch-up work on a single large image instead of having to cut it up into pieces.

<comment><USER4> You can link Git up to use any mergetool you want, if you have a specific one in mind. I've seen it used with Perforce visual merge tool, opendiff, kdiff3, etc. If you have a tool you like, it's not too difficult to get it setup.

See: [http://progit.org/book/ch7-1.html#external_merge_and_diff_to...](http://progit.org/book/ch7-1.html#external_merge_and_diff_tools)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _To be honest, I haven't used branching yet. But from what I hear it's much easier to do in Git, and developers love it._

Branching is in fact one of the best features of git, but it's so powerful and loaded with features that the documentation has become a trial to use.

I think we're in need of some really simple documentation for git, created specifically for visual learners. Even coming from the svn world, it's a bit hard to understand what "decentralized" really means, in terms of usage.

<comment><USER3> This book is awesome: <http://progit.org/book/></comment></comment>


Automatic client-side form validation in Django - <AUTHOR> http://tabbedthinking.posterous.com/automatic-client-side-form-validation-in-djan#

<comment><AUTHOR> Reading <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2165751> got me thinking, so I started a little experiment</comment>


Ask HN: Book for creating really advanced iOS views? - <AUTHOR>

We've all seen iOS apps like Twitter and Facebook that have these astonishing views that do crazy things and are animated in ways that make you say "How did they do that?"
Stuff that makes the bone-stock iOS views look very static and plain.
Is there anything out there on how to create views that take things to the next level? I've searched in vain for a book or blog or anything that focuses on this. <comment><USER2> Check out Ray Wenderlich's iOS tutorials at <http://www.raywenderlich.com/store/ios-5-by-tutorials>.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know about Twitter, but I think that the Facebook app uses a Webkit view; one time it was acting a bit funny and the stylesheet didn't load.

</comment><comment><USER4> check out my site: <http://www.cocoacontrols.com>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Much appreciated!</comment>


IBM 360 Model 20 Rescue and Restoration - <AUTHOR> https://ibms360.co.uk/ <comment><USER2> that's a duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19956878](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19956878) which is 3 position above.</comment>


Ask HN: YC Hackathon rules? - <AUTHOR> I just saw the YC Hackathon, but I'm a bit unclear with its rules.
it says:
"This hackathon is for projects you're just starting. "
Does this mean that I can bring a project that I'm currently making? <comment><USER2> Hey Bill, I asked the same question about 10minutes ago, if you happen to find an answer can you please let me know as well.

Email: patrick.y.xie at gmail

alternatively, would love to reach out to you and anyone else attending the event.</comment>


Can viruses infect your music and other files? - <AUTHOR>

I got a virus (somewhat nasty one - RootKit.0Access.h) and I am going to clean install my computer. However, there are some files (mainly music) that I never backed up before getting infected. Am I safe to just back these up now and transfer them?
I'm just not 100% familiar with how/where the virus might spread and if your personal files can carry the infection to the newly installed system.
Help appreciated. Thanks! <comment><USER2> In theory malicious software could do that in some cases.

Lets take videos as an example. If you are using a media player with an error that could be exploited to execute program code that is embedded inside a prepared (read: modified by the malicious software) video file, this could be one vector of re-infection.

<comment><USER3> Just what I was about to put. Keep in mind however that this is pretty unlikely, though perhaps it'd be worth Googling the name of the malware to see if it behaves like this. Alternatively you could scan the music, etc, with a virus scanner - they can often find files infected in this way.</comment></comment>


Rackspace, Hostgator, Linode customers must file taxes in Texas from now on. - <AUTHOR> http://www.usataxaid.com/ustaxaid-blog/are-small-businesses-about-to-get-caught-in-texas-nexus-battle/ <comment><USER2> Slow down, people...

Here's part of an update from the Texas Taxpayers Research Association applicable to this matter:

"... This past week TTARA had extensive discussions with the Comptroller's office concerning the original intent and interpretation of the new language. The Comptroller's Office has acknowledged that the purpose of the proposed rule was indeed broader than what was stated in the preamble, but not so broad as to extend nexus to anyone using a server in Texas.

In order to properly clarify the intent of the rules change and more clearly state agency policy, the Comptroller's Office will issue a new rule proposal. William Hamner, Director of Tax Administration indicated that the agency's intent is not to extend nexus to a person simply using a third-party server in Texas for an activity such as webhosting. ..."

Move along...nothing to see here

<comment><USER3> Presumably this was beaten into the comptrollers office with a cluebat over the sound of uhaul trucks emptying all the data centers that had been built in Texas

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> the HN title here is a little FUD... The article states:

"The new rule states that if you use a server that is housed in the state of Texas, you have Texas nexus for sales tax. That means you must collect and pay sales tax from any taxable sales made to customers within the state of Texas."

So let's assume this isn't bunk _(I'm not convinced this is true, but anyways...)_ what she is saying is that you would have to collect sales tax on sales to other folks _who reside_ in Texas.

For a start, this wouldn't apply to you unless you are running a sales business and even then it has to be one that is selling goods rather than services.

So advertising, pro services and SaaS orientated businesses, this wouldn't apply to you. If you use a TX HQ'd host but run on servers outside of Texas it doesn't apply either - so Linode's hosted in London, Atlanta, Newark or Fremont _(dude, there's a fault line there, you know?)_ are ok too.

If this is in fact true, and you are running a sale of goods business, you would want to make sure your webhost never migrates you to a TX datacenter otherwise you could suddenly be liable for uncollected state tax :/

I'm going to look into this because we run a hosting business out of TX.

<comment><USER4> Further thoughts:

I wonder how they are defining 'servers located in TX'?

* Would a database server located in TX but web pages served to customers from California be ok?

* What about servers in California but you use Akamai for CDN and you serve most TX customers via an Akamai edge-cache in TX

It's not really HN subject matter, but don't forget this pales into insignificance compared to the new tax law which says you have to fill out and issue a 1099 to anyone you buy more than $600 of stuff from:

[http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/smallbusiness/1099_health_ca...](http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/smallbusiness/1099_health_care_tax_change/)

<comment><USER5> At the risk of going off-topic...

 _...the new [1099] tax law..._

There's a lot of noise being made about this but I think it's mostly FUD.

I ran a small business for about six years and had to file 1099s. Filing 1099s was really easy. If I had to, I could probably even do it retrospectively to meet this >$600 requirement without breaking a sweat: my business credit card aggregated all yearly purchases by merchant and by category. It would be a simple matter of looking at my year-end statement as all my business expenses were paid with that account. Also, the most basic Quicken-like accounting packages offer the same functionality. If there are market gaps for simple software (or bank statement reporting) they will be filled quickly. So I think this is much ado about a very small problem.

Still, there's a good chance the opposition to this relatively minor reporting requirement will force it to be repealed. If it does go into effect, I would expect the IRS to offer better automated filing for 1099s if for no other reason than to make their own jobs easier.

I have trouble believing those who complain so loudly about this requirement (thread parent excluded) because so often they are opposed to the health care legislation on other grounds. On balance, this health care law is designed to be a huge net positive for small businesses-- in addition to new tax credits to help them pay their employees' premiums, for the first time there will be public group policies available in the new health care exchanges with real competition. Costs should go _down_ for small businesses, _significantly._ Doing a couple hours of extra accounting each year pales in comparison to these benefits.

<comment><USER6> > Costs should go down for small businesses, significantly.

Obamacare's congressional supporters are not claiming that these days. If anything, they're saying that it won't reduce spending and wasn't intended to.

What do you know that they don't? (Note that they'd like to claim savings for political reasons.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Here's a response from Rackspace (my employer):<http://su.pr/2gCe3k>

"Rackspace comments on changes to Texas Sales Tax Rules

Rackspace has been in discussions with the Texas Comptroller's Office and its tax advisors to address the recent changes to the state rules governing Texas sales tax.

The new controversial language states, "A person is engaged in business in Texas if the person has nexus with the state as evidenced by, but not limited to, any of the following: [...] derives receipts from a rental or lease of tangible personal property that is located in this state or owns or uses tangible personal property that is located in this state, including a computer server or software;[...]"

The Comptroller's Office has indicated that the language was not intended to be construed as so broad as to extend nexus to anyone using a server in Texas. William Hamner, Director of Tax Administration indicated that the agency's intent is not to extend nexus to a person simply using a third-party server in Texas for an activity such as webhosting. However, since taxable items are subject to taxation in both electronic and physical form, the sale of data, such as music files, housed on a Texas server could create nexus for the owner of the data.

Because of the unintended confusion that has resulted from this change, we understand that the Comptroller's Office will issue a new rule proposal in order to properly clarify the intent of the rules change and more clearly state agency policy on this matter.

We will continue to actively pursue a positive outcome on this issue with the Comptroller's Office and will continue to monitor and report on any new developments that we believe to be important to our customers."

<comment><USER7> The Comptroller's response here is the exact opposite of the language, based on what I'm reading. If "the language was not intended to be construed as so broad as to extend nexus to anyone using a server in Texas" then why use the language "A person is engaged in business in Texas if the person has nexus with the state as evidenced by, but not limited to, any of the following: [...] uses tangible personal property that is located in this state, including a computer server".

The "sale of data, such as music files" is a specifically defined process, wholly separate from "using personal property, including a computer server."

IMO, the state got caught trying to overreach, and they're playing the innocent "oh that's not what we meant!" hand. If it's not what you meant, change the language.

Words have meanings - someone knew _exactly_ what he/she was doing when that was drafted. _Especially_ given the large number of data centers hosting servers in Texas, with its central geography, cheap land/power, etc. The pain of migrating away is too great and expensive - people will just comply with the new taxes and most will stay. Some may leave, but it'll take a long time. In the short term - few years, TX will get extra income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't really understand how this could work. How does purchasing a service from a Texas company give you a physical nexus in Texas? Maybe if Texas was arguing this applied to those who colocate physical servers they own in a Texas data center I could buy it. But merely being a customer of a hosting company, where you are being sold some storage space and bandwidth on a computer? Whether it's shared hosting, VPS or renting a server, you don't own any physical property in the state.

<comment><USER9> That's a silly argument. If I rent office space and rent an apartment, I don't own any physical property in that state either.

Obviously this isn't ideal, but it seems very reasonable from that point of view.

<comment><USER10> And if a company uses a service that happens to be hosted in Texas? e.g. a wiki. Do they have to pay taxes there as well? Why is a virtual server different?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yeah, right, and how exactly are they planning to enforce that on all those international customers? Seems like wishful thinking on the part of the tax department - and wishful thinking that isn't likely to last long, because if they do somehow try to enforce this, they'll just drive all their hosting businesses out of Texas.

<comment><USER12> Well, driving all their hosting businesses would be a very slow process if it happened at all.

First, the hosting companies would have to find/build enough datacenter space for all their servers that are currently in TX. This includes abandoning large investments into their TX datacenters, which will lose value if this exodus really occurs.

Once they've done that, they have to move the stuff. VPSes and shared hosting are probably fairly easy to move with minimal downtime (as long as you have enough extra hardware), but Rackspace would have one hell of a time getting all of their customers to move their colo-ed servers to another state.

Also, there are reasons that TX has so many datacenters. Land is pretty cheap, as is power thanks to all their wind energy. It's in the middle of the country, helping you have low latency to both coasts. It's a great place to put a datacenter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Susan Combs is responsible and she's up for re-election Nov 2nd. ([http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/general/2010...](http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/general/2010gensbs.shtml)) I doubt this will last for long.

<comment><USER14> Before attempting to unleash an internet mob, please take a look at this post:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1785593>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You're misunderstanding the blog post. It says:

 _That means you must collect and pay sales tax from any taxable sales made to customers within the state of Texas._

So if your servers are in Texas, and you make an online sale to a customer in Texas, you (apparently) need to charge that customer sales tax.

</comment><comment><USER16> The article claims that the standard is "if you use a server that is housed in the state of Texas". If I use, say, Google Apps, or Google App Engine, I have _no_ idea where the servers I'm using are.

</comment><comment><USER17> For as long as they still have customers I guess.

Way to go Texas, the rest of the US and Europe thank you.

Sales tax levies on server location, you have to give them points for creativity though.

What if I have multiple servers in multiple servers in different states or even countries?

How about I just pay sales tax on where my company is located and we'll call it a day?

The EU is getting more and more greedy too by the way, it used to be that you were VAT exempt for international sales but suddenly all sales to consumers within the EU are VAT liable.

But at least they go by corporate presence, not by where you've parked your servers this week.

<comment><USER3> Sure, my office and showrooms are in New York, my factory is in Texas but my company is a brass plaque in Grand Cayman - so I'm not paying any taxes!

<comment><USER18> For a while Citibank used to have a dodge where they'd try to get a desk in a NY skyscraper to be declared as part of the Cayman Islands embassy, and therefore Cayman Islands territory, so that the person working from there could more easily run their shell companies without being subject to NY law.

My understanding is that this was stopped a number of years ago.

<comment><USER3> It's quite common for the trades to take place in an off-shore location.

The dealers in NY aren't actually buying or selling shares - they are only making recommendations to brokers in an offshore office.

The fact that those recommendations are all automatically acted on in milliseconds by the offshore office just demonstrates how good the advice was!

<comment><USER18> Yes, that was their workaround when the IRS disagreed with them on the legality of the previous dodge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wait, does this mean that my earnings are in Texas where the state income tax rate is 0%? Woohoo. That sure beats paying tax in my state. I'm half-serious here. This might be worth looking into.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Texas corporation income tax is one of the highest in the nation. When Texas comes to tax your servers with the state income tax, you'll really be sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm getting "Error establishing a database connection" when trying to see this - does anyone have a mirror?

<comment><USER21> Google got it <http://bit.ly/cJtUzk>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't know about the other hosts but being a linode customer myself I know that Linode allows you to move your linode to any other data center free of charge.

<comment><USER23> Is this really the case? I think you can setup a new linode (at a new data center) and then clone your current one. Is there really a way to shut it down and move it? Just logged into my account to check and couldn't find the option.

<comment><USER24> Submit a ticket. If there's space in the datacenter you want, they'll schedule a migration instantly. If not, they'll put you on the waiting list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wow. This could seriously hurt Texas if people start pulling out of the TX data centers and those data centers are forced to shut down or move to a more friendly state. I personally use Linode and this freaks me out a bit.

</comment><comment><USER26> frankly I think this is b.s., doesn't interstate commerce fall under federal jurisdiction anyways?

why should internet companies have to deal with this B.S. for all 50 states?

Frankly i think this is just a way for them to soften everyone up for an internet sales tax. "Oh you don't like filing 50 different tax forms? Well good news, we now have an internet sales tax of 3%"

<comment><USER27> The point is that if part of your business is in the same state as the customer, it's not interstate. This is hardly a new rule. Mail order catalogs have extracted sales tax in states where they had warehouses since before there was an internet.

<comment><USER28> But someone still has to define what it means to have "part of your business" in a state. You own fixed property that's located there? One of your employees works from home and lives there? One of your employees worked 2 hours while waiting at an airport in that state? Someone rents something from you and takes it into that state? Your cloud provider keeps a backup facility in that state?

It seems like the _definition_ of what it means for a business to have nexus in a state (so, what business counts as "interstate") is a perfect thing for the feds to handle.

<comment><USER29> It's referred to as having 'minimum contact' with a state; it's not just for tax purposes, but would also matters for things like lawsuit jurisdiction and so forth. Here's a recent summary with good references that explains the basics: <http://www.picpa.org/Content/41763.aspx>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There's already another goods provider which seems to have been directly affected by this decision: [http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=2562075&sid=38561...](http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=2562075&sid=3856181a672c292c251f2dc325894820)

</comment><comment><USER31> This is why you should run even dedicated servers as a vps and use the portability to move the node to friendlier territory within an hour or two on demand.

So what if you are on a cloud that unknowingly uses resources in Texas?

Sheesh politicians never think these things out.

</comment><comment><USER32> Another consideration: if you sell desktop software and use a payment processor, many of the full service payment processors like Fastspring, Plimus, Avangate are resellers. So the customer is actually buying from the reseller and not you.

</comment><comment><USER33> Great, that will be 4 states I have to file taxes in now ... yuck.

</comment><comment><USER34> Server DoS'd. Google's text-only cached version:

<http://bit.ly/dA9Vbc>

</comment><comment><USER35> Linode has multiple datacenters, so I'm guessing this will only apply if you're using their Dallas, TX datacenter... right?</comment>


Show HN: Grrrid, an RSS reader focused on images - <AUTHOR> http://grrrid.com

<comment><USER2> Why would you ever post something on HN that doesn't have screenshots or even more than a single sentence of information? No, I'm not going to sign up; I have zero idea what this site does!

<comment><AUTHOR> A screenshot is on its way.

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreirobu/9175528523/in/photos...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreirobu/9175528523/in/photostream/)

<comment><USER3> the screenshot is still not on the site... I'm with @nilved Why would I want to sign up for a site that applies so little thought to its users that it doesn't even feel they are worthy of / need any details on what the site does, and just expects people to sign up because you told them to.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've just opened up the sign-up and we're now processing your feeds. Please bare with us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish there would at least be screenshots.

For instance, I read a lot of webcomics through RSS feeds, this is a service I could use, but I would need to see how it looks like first.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment, we'll post some screenshots in the following hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A demo would be nice. A message that tells you upfront that this doesn't work without importing stuff from Google Reader would be nice as well.

I've just created a new account and I'm stuck with the import screen. Now what?

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll roll out a new round of invites in the following days.

<comment><USER5> Who cares about the invites? I already have an account and I can't use it. May I know why?

<comment><AUTHOR> We've just opened up the sign-up and we're now processing your feeds. Please bare with us. Thank you!

<comment><USER6> I have never seen HN comments sound more like a Customer Service script than this.

I believe his issue is that he doesn't have a Google Reader account to import from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not knowing what I'm signing up for is a deal breaker.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here comes the screenshot! [http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreirobu/9175528523/in/photos...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreirobu/9175528523/in/photostream/)

We'll roll out a new round of invites in the following days. Last chance to import your feeds from Google Reader. Grab your username.

<comment><USER5> How do I use this without importing from Google Reader?

It seems that there's no way to bypass the import screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a first year CS student and I've been working on a very similar app as a pet project.

I've thought this was a great idea for a while now and I really like your execution. Cool name, nice design. Congrats on launching.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you Chris!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seems interesting for designers or for photographers who mainly subscribe to image centric content.

It definitely deserves more up-votes!

</comment><comment><USER10> Let's try and see how it works.

</comment><comment> andreea-reads Looks good - thanks for the tip

</comment><comment><USER11> seems interesting</comment>


Sergey Brin has a secret disaster relief charity - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/google-co-founder-sergey-brin-has-a-secret-disaster-relief-squad <comment><USER2> > But the use of ex-military personnel for humanitarian and conservation work > is also controversial, according to Rosaleen Duffy, a professor of politics > and international relations at the University of Sheffield.

No, Professor Duffy, the use of ex- or active - military personnel to render aid is not controversial. It's a widely accepted and successful practice.

<comment><USER3> Switzerland is a model for this. Given their neutral and famously anti- confrontational manner, their armies do a lot of civil construction and aid work. The US should do more of that kind of thing.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Corps_of_En...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Corps_of_Engineers) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unified_Response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unified_Response) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unified_Assistance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unified_Assistance)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Team Rubicon is another NGO that provides disaster relief.

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

</comment><comment><USER6> So he's just doing this for the 'gram. Even the NGO director stated they respond to exciting disasters: hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions. I wonder if they'll be equally deployed to the disasters that don't fit a 24 hour news cycle: drought, sea level rise, and pandemics. The kind of disasters that sneak in slowly and then overwhelm all at once.

</comment><comment><USER7> Truly commendable that he would do this, but deeply terrible that a private citizen, no matter how wealthy, can beat governments to the punch on this kind of aid.

<comment><USER8> _> can beat governments to the punch on this kind of aid._

Yes, exactly this. Not "can provide the aid", but "first to the punch". You really hit the nail on the head.

The morality of massive wealth accumulation -- and the morality of various mechanisms for changing that accumulation -- is definitely something that reasonable people can have a polite and respectable debate about.

But it is _absolutely unacceptable_ that wealthy individuals are beating government to the punch in disaster relief and preparedness. COVID-19 is the dry run, and the USA has absolutely failed on such a profound level that we should have actual existential concerns about how broken our government has become (and there's plenty of blame to go around).

I really hope the outcome is "competent government, regardless of size, and sabotaging implementation is treasonous" as a bipartisan consensus.

<comment><USER9> Is this really that surprising? Governments' advantage is crafting certain kinds of incentives that markets can't, but it's pretty much a guarantee that government will be more incompetent at whatever specific task they put their mind to, in large part because of the burden of democratic accountability. Conditioned on the resources and incentives being centralized (in Brin), why wouldn't you expect his organization to be more competent?

<comment><USER10> > _democratic accountability_

That's so far from what exists now in the US, it's doubtful that it's an inherent factor in our government's dysfunction.

There are many governments that aren't totally useless, so if you're looking at the US and thinking that we can't do any better, that shows a serious lack of imagination and perspective.

<comment><USER11> The USA sure seems to have a lot of mysterious problems that people throw up their hands as utterly unfixable, that no other country in the world does.

<comment><USER9> Because we're a massive, layered,diverse federal system. It's blindingly ignorant to suggest that the US has a literally uniquely dysfunctional government: other countries with categorically similar levels of diversity and scale (India, Brazil) face many of the same problems. And polities that have these characteristics in part face these problems in proportion: the EU is another source of signal here.

European govt's stability and relatively cohesive civic cultures come after centuries of world-spanning bloodbaths, genocides and ethnic cleansing to reach the status quo of relatively tiny, relatively ethnically homogeneous states. And there are plenty of dark sides to this cohesion as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This wing was donated by "anonymous". _All eyes look at Ted Danson_

</comment><comment><USER13> Tax billionaires and let democratically elected governments perform this public service.

<comment><USER14> The government already has infinite cash, yet Brin is faster in sending disaster relief. Would more cash somehow make the government's response quicker?

In my opinion, it is great we have ultra-rich people who decide to spend their resources in ways that help others in ways the government currently isn't able to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Besides monarchs in the past, for the first time in the history of Planet Earth we have many people and corporations that have more money than governments and so with that comes the responsibility of "acting accordingly". I believe that in a good light this will continue to assist humanity in ways never thought of before as human ingenuity is always more nimble than large bureaucratic organizations.

<comment><USER16> Who has more money than governments? Sergey Brin is worth about $65 billion. The US federal budget is ~$3 trillion _per year_

<comment><USER17> The US is the wealthiest country on earth. Sergei Brin's checking account would be the 74th largest GDP in the world.

<comment><USER18> Why are you comparing somebody's net worth to a GDP, which is a rate? That makes zero sense.

<comment><USER19> No, it does make sense: Brin could pay to run the 74th largest economy for a year.

<comment><USER18> That's not what GDP means, and also a person's net worth is not necessarily liquid.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Don't Support Information Architects - <AUTHOR> http://www.candlerblog.com/2013/12/23/no-thanks-ia/ <comment><USER2> For people waxing about what "Syntax Control" is, and coming to some over the top descriptions of clever AI, machine learning and what have you.

You're overthinking it.

It's the most naive implementation you can think of. It's exactly this: you select "verbs" and the verbs are highlighted. You select "nouns" and the nouns are. Same for adjectives, adverbs, prepositions (as, from, in, etc) and conjuctions (and, or, etc).

Nothing earth shattering, nothing you can't do with simply tagging words, nothing marchine-learning or AI about it.

Here's an example of Syntax Control in action: [http://imgur.com/NrseuZV](http://imgur.com/NrseuZV)

Beside the naiveness of the core functionality, notice also how naive the tagging is. As noted below by bosie, "programming" is marked as a verb in the phrase "in programming terms", syntactic context be damned. Same for "run-on" where run is highlighted as a verb too.

P.S Damn, it's even worse than that. All the hard work -- which was not that hard itself -- was already made by Apple in their CoreText API. According to the Verge:

"> _the heavy lifting is already baked into Apple's developer platform. Since iOS 5 and OS X 10.7, Apple has provided a class called NSLinguisticTagger that segments natural-language text and labels the text with various bits of information, including parts of speech_ ".

P.S 2 Now, since Apple itself added the capability to tag parts of speech in the iOS API, and since this is a very obvious example of using this (Apple themselves showed something similar in WWDC 2011 IIRC), isn't iA's patent application essentially like asking to restrict the use of Apple's very specific API? It would be interesting to see iA's lawyers fight Apple's lawyers.

P.S 3 This was part of a comment in a sub-thread, but thought it would be more useful posted at the top level to give everybody an idea of the feature.

<comment><USER3> Not to distract from the core of your argument, but "simply tagging words" is still a hard AI problem in general, with all those pesky "time flies like an arrow" vs. "fruit flies like an apple" cases. Of course you are not doing anything innovative in that area if you just call an API provided by someone who did the hard work.

<comment><USER4> Semantic checking seems far off, but would be an impressive accomplishment:

"Invisible pink bananas sleep furiously."

<comment><USER5> Don't you mean colorless green ideas?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IANAL.

The definition of "obviousness" in a patent is whether there exist two works of prior art that can be combined to create the invention. In this case, any prior art that stylizes text based on syntax could be combined with any prior art that determines the syntax of natural language to invalidate a later patent that stylizes natural language text based on syntax.

Whether the output feels different and non-obvious to a user is unimportant. Application to a different domain ("programming" versus "writing") is irrelevant. Patent law is very mechanical, and the rule is that it must not be any combination of prior art unless the means of combination is patentable on its own.

iA appears to be attempting to enforce their idea through pre-emptive public shaming of future competitors, which could be effective in a community of creative writers, but doesn't legally hold water.

<comment><USER7> Do you have a link / reference on that definition? I haven't seen it before.

<comment><USER6> Search for "legal conclusion of obviousness" in the Wikipedia page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non- obviousn...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousness)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Unless you're against all software patents on principle, I don't see an argument here for why patenting this feature deserves scorn.

If it behaves the way it's described, it sounds remarkably useful. Indeed it's obvious in retrospect, but that's true of many physical inventions worthy of patents.

Is there prior art? The example of Phraseology's "Inspect" doesn't seem similar at all. It's not a visualization tool; it's an analysis tool.

<comment><USER9> _If it behaves the way it 's described, it sounds remarkably useful._

It sounds like the syntax highlighting that every half-decent IDE and programmer's editor has had since forever. Which is odd, since there's no way that should take 4 years to implement.

<comment><USER10> You obvious know next to nothing about English syntax. Have you never wondered why you can learn python in a day or two, but not English or Chinese?

First of, you need a huge dictionary of all words and rules for their conjugations. Then you need a huge rule set for bound morphemes. Which adjectives can you add 'ly' to in order to make them adverbs? There are literally hundreds if not thousands of bound morphemes and they can sometimes only be applied to certain words within certain word-classes.

Then you need a huge rule set for when each word acts as a specific word class (is bank a noun or a verb? Is anime a noun or an adjective? Is like a verb or preposition? You know, "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana", actually like can behave like several wordclasses)

These are not solved problems yet, but we are getting very good at them now. We weren't 4 years ago.

Failing that, you could also take and annotate word classes in thousands of pages of text, and then use a machine algorithm to apply similar annotations in the the text entered into the program. Unless you are expecting people to write articles for the Wall Street Journal, this might not be such a good route either.

<comment><USER2> > _You obvious know next to nothing about English syntax. Have you never > wondered why you can learn python in a day or two, but not English or > Chinese?_

And you obviously know next to nothing about how this is implemented in Writer Pro.

We're not talking about AI-level intelligent understanding of english here (which not even MS Word has in its syntax check). We're talking about a ho- hum, "this word is a noun, this is verb" etc kind of tagging, which just needs some metadata (you can even scrap off of an online dictionary).

<comment><USER11> There is some context-awareness required, though. Verbs can almost always function as nouns, too. To determine which requires some reasoning about the sentence a word appears in.

      "Drive to the store." vs. "I'm going for a drive."
      "Don't punch Judy!" vs. "I gave Judy some punch."

You're right, though. It's not AI-level intelligence required for this.

<comment><USER2> > _There is some context-awareness required, though. Verbs can almost always > function as nouns, too._

Absolutely. And Writer Pro breaks down completely at such distinctions. Some words are always marked as verbs and others as nouns, context be damned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I was a happy user of iA Writer: loads fast, does what I want, prevents me from messing with settings for hours, etc.

Writer Pro is just BS. A half-assed product to make money off of people who already bought Writer.

The "workflow" involves just showing you the same text with a different font, depending on which step you selected (Notes, Write, Edit, Read). When you step into "write" mode, you're editing what you wrote in "notes" mode. If you step back to "notes" mode, you just see what you were editing in "write" mode -- that is, you cannot keep notes that are not part of the final output, something every writer does. Only the font chances, you're working with one document all the time.

As for the show syntax "innovation", it's just highlighting different parts of speech (verbs, nouns, etc). Nothing extremely worth your while.

Those 2 half-baked features (with several MIA from iA Writer) are not worthy of the "Pro" moniker.

Opinionated software I'm fine with (I like iA Writer). This is more: "software that has the opinion that it should scam you out of your money" (especially with the only way to check it out being buying it from the App Store).

</comment><comment><USER12> Since Apple provides the metadata tagging of the words via NSLinguisticTagger, then is this the web equivalent:

//dim non-anchor tags

$('*').not('a').addClass('dim');

//hightlight anchor tags

$('a').addClass('highlight');

If the browser provided the syntax metadata, then I don't see how this example with anchor tags is logically different. This appears to be obvious and trivial, where a patent requires non-obviousness and non-trivialness given the state of the art.

The linked demo at [https://github.com/macguru/SyntaxCheck](https://github.com/macguru/SyntaxCheck) also seems to show the trivialness of this.

</comment><comment><USER13> Articles linked to by this one are more informative regarding legal clout behind Reichenstein's claims: [http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/21/5234580/patent-pending- ia...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/21/5234580/patent-pending-ias-militant- stance-on-syntax-control)

It does seem a bit much to be making so much out of a feature that's 90% Apple framework.

</comment><comment><USER14> [http://travisjeffery.com/b/2013/12/implementing-writer- pros-...](http://travisjeffery.com/b/2013/12/implementing-writer-pros-syntax- highlighting-using-nslinguistictagger/)

Here's how to implement the feature iA's saying is such an innovation in < 20 lines.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd like to see iA being hit with their own medicine, to taste what it feels like.

Let some patent holders hit with other text editing patterns that they violated in iA Writer and Writer Pro.

The "font adjusting size to the size of the window" would be a good start. Or how about "word count based on text selection". Or "auto formatting markup syntax". Or "modal writing workflow".

</comment><comment><USER15> iA has decided to not pursue the patent on Syntax Control, and attributes decision to DHH.

[https://twitter.com/iA/status/416393539182796800](https://twitter.com/iA/status/416393539182796800)

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised nobody has written an emacs mode for "syntax control"

... yet

<comment><USER17> This raises a larger question about patents in software. If I can anonymously create a program or feature that violates a patent, and release it to the wild as free and open...the patent holders have nobody to go after.

<comment><USER18> They can go after everyone who downloads it, because they will be violating the patent too.

<comment><USER19> Haha, and then you wind up looking like the RIAA, suing your hoped-for audience. Only tone-deaf execs and greedy lawyers would sue their audience members.

And before you say, "but they were stealing and so weren't going to be part of the audience." I'm well aware of that, but the reality is that you're drawing out the ire of folks from amongst your hoped for audience. Just not a good plan.

<comment><USER18> the fact that it's not a good plan hasn't stopped others from doing it. It's not much of a comfort to know that the person ergo who sued you made a bad business move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's not too hard to find what seems to be prior art for this idea, even if it's not a feature you actually see in many word processors. For example this blog post from 2007 shows a screenshot of a text editor syntax-highlighting English:

[http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/](http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/)

Likewise this project on GitHub from a year ago shows NSLinguisticTagger being used in a similar way:

[https://github.com/adib/ColorizeWords](https://github.com/adib/ColorizeWords)

</comment><comment><USER21> 1\. Until we see what they're trying to claim, we don't know what the patent covers. At this point it seems it's just a provisional, which means they might not even have drafted the claims yet.

2\. The use of Apple's existing APIs to do the "heavy lifting" has no bearing on the "quality" of the patent or the novelty (if any) of the work. All inventions are built on prior work.

3\. As a corollary, the triviality of implementation is orthogonal to obviousness of an idea. As an extreme example, RSA is pretty easy to implement, but it was a breakthrough nonetheless. (Of course, patents very rarely cover anything as groundbreaking -- the bar is and always has been much lower.)

4\. If you are concerned that this leads to an unnecessarily broad patent, submit it to askpatents.com, along with any relevant prior art. This will increase the chances an examiner will find it, especially since it's highly unlikely that they're going to look at WWDC videos.

Unfortunately, as it's not even a non-provisional application at this point, you would need to wait for one to be filed and published. This could be as much as two and a half years from now, and I doubt anyone will even remember by then.

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part-of- speech_tagging](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part-of-speech_tagging) So the "new" "invention" they want to patent is "we can display the result" which basically is nothing more than syntax highlighting? Or did I get something wrong?

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't get what syntax control is. Is it just a count of different grammatical categories? Does it do some kind of sentiment analysis and tell you if your sentence structure is aggressive or something?

<comment><USER24> As I understood from the original blog post, it identifies bad syntax more easily, enabling you to correct them. In programming terms, it would be a macro that finds code smells and lets you refactor easily. The example he gave was identifying excessive adjective use.

Imaging writing a 100+ page document and doing Menu > Syntax Control > Adjectives and seeing all the places where you use unnecessary adjectives. Or really long, run-on sentences. Or extra semicolons. These may be correct grammatically but they might lower readability so you want to minimize their use.

I could be wrong but I think this is what they meant by Syntax Control - ability to detect syntax use in English and not highlight/fading text color. If it is the former, I can absolutely see why it took four years to create.

<comment><USER2> Actually you're overthinking it. It's nothing of the short (I've bought Writer Pro).

It's exactly this: you select "verbs" and the verbs are highlighted. You select "nouns" and the nouns are. Same for adjectives, adverbs, prepositions (as, from, in) and conjuctions (and, or).

Nothing earth shattering, nothing you can't do with simply tagging words, nothing marchine-learning or AI about it.

Here's an example:

[http://imgur.com/NrseuZV](http://imgur.com/NrseuZV)

P.S Damn, it's even worse than that. All the hard work -- which was not that hard itself -- was already made by Apple in their CoreText API. According to the Verge:

" _the heavy lifting is already baked into Apple's developer platform. Since iOS 5 and OS X 10.7, Apple has provided a class called NSLinguisticTagger that segments natural-language text and labels the text with various bits of information, including parts of speech_ ".

<comment><USER25> thank you for the screenshot. though i do wonder, what exactly is it highlighting? "in programming terms," \- why is programming a verb and what good does it do to highlight it?

<comment><USER2> Because it's as naive an implementation as it can be, as I said.

Programming can be a verb and a noun, and it just happens they have it tagged as a verb -- context and syntax be damned.

(Or actually, it's Apple's API that does the tagging. They just take advantage of it, and do the oh-so-difficult work of highligting the tagged words)

Unlike, say, Word's "syntax correct" feature, "Syntax Control" has very little to do with recognising syntax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Please put the update at the top of the article, felt a little mislead after reading the full drama then only being told at the end that it was no longer current.

</comment><comment><USER27> Somewhat off topic from the article, but are there any similar tools that work with TeX files?

</comment><comment><USER28> I doubt somebody that gets upset about a small company protecting their idea with a patent (that he hasn't even seen) would actually buy software from them anyway.

His example ("prior art") wasn't remotely relevant.

So many upset about something you have no information on. But go ahead, grab your pitchforks and go hurt another small developer.

</comment><comment><USER29> Screw you, bud.

Hindsight is always 20/20, especially when it involves obvious things that somehow nobody managed to combine in a certain very useful way before. You can slap a piece of fried squid on a bowl of risotto, but that doesn't make sushi an obvious derived work.

</comment><comment><USER30> I guess only big tech companies can have patents.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is an area where the downvotes are just waiting to crush you...but as per usual, I disagree with the premise that these guys have done something wrong.

Patents and copyright provide small businesses or inventors the means to monetize their innovation for a time. I don't see what's wrong with that. It could stand being reformed, like almost everything in American civil life...institutions are broken all over...but holding this small group of ira glass look-a-likes responsible for the larger system being broken is kind of lame.

They made something wonderful, they should be able to be rewarded under the terms of the law. Don't like the law? Take that up in the political process.

At this point usually everyone says that the political process is irreparably broken and the Republic is lost. If you think that's the case...I don't know...just kill yourself. There's nothing you can do and everything, everywhere, is bad. Woe is me. Oh. Oh, woe is me.

<comment><USER32> Patents and copyrights are more different than similar. Copyrights provide immediate protection with almost no up-front cost, and apply almost invariably to cases where people have deliberately and overtly derived value from your work.

A small business attempting to make use of the patent system can expect to spend many tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of waiting 5-7 years for the issuance of a document that entitles them to wait 2-5 years for the privilege of a hearing in court which only has a chance of being remunerative if the counterparty is a gigantic tech company that can afford to bury you in legal costs.

Aside from all this, flip a coin: heads you're in the "right" and have a "case", tails your patent claims are insufficient to keep anyone from realizing value from the idea underlying your patent: you lose, and we all breathe a sigh of relief.

Patents make sense for some industries, where inventions are clear (or at least justiciable) and product lifecycles are measured in half-decades. But they are decidedly unuseful for software entrepreneurs.

Patents are a pox on the software industry.

(I have a few, from earlier in my career; I've never been the one paying for them).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While information architecture is important, having a dedicated information architect leads to an "ivory tower" effect. This generates massive amounts of paperwork and unnecessary design artifacts and also decouples the resulting architecture from the needs of the application. These effects more than negate the benefit of having a specialized resource fill the information architect role.

Don't support information architects... hire multi-skilled developers who can do the information architecture themselves.

<comment><USER33> Did you even read the article? It's not about "information architects" in general, it's about the company Information Architects (iA).

<comment><USER9> Yes I did (some nut want to patent syntax highlighting). And then I thought it would be amusing to try to see what would have led to the headline meaning what I had expected it to mean. Apparently you people have no sense of humor. :)

<comment><USER34> It's not about people not having senses of humor. It's just that "successful impersonation of a dumb/annoying post" is still a dumb/annoying post.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The last living member of the German moon rocket team - <AUTHOR> http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2015/05/german_rocket_team_member_101.html <comment><USER2> Some points from a cynical aerospace engineering/web developer friend:

* Everyone who has been above low earth orbit was born before 1936.

* Everyone who has been above LEO was put there by Nazis.

<comment><USER3> I find your friend's cynicism... lacking.

Here:

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

 _Operation Paperclip was the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) program in which more than 1,500 Germans[1] primarily scientists but also engineers and technicians, were brought to the United States from Nazi Germany for government employment starting in 1945 and increasing in the aftermath of World War II.[2] It was conducted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) and in the context of the burgeoning Cold War. One purpose of Operation Paperclip was to deny German scientific expertise and knowledge to the Soviet Union[2] and the United Kingdom,[3] as well as to inhibit post-war Germany from redeveloping its military research capabilities. A related course of action was taken by the US with regard to Japanese human experimenters employed from Unit 731. The Soviet Union had the somewhat similar yet much more limited Operation Osoaviakhim.[4]_

<comment><USER4> Not sure what point you are trying to make? They brought over Nazi scientists and put them to work on rocketry for NASA.

<comment><USER5> What does it mean to be a nazi scientist? I would argue most of these people were pretty a-political and just happy that they got their science projects funded, so they were primarily german scientists that did their rocket science in germany during the nazi era and did not care about much else. That's a big difference to some political people like from gestapo or ss, which soaked up all of the ideology.

<comment><USER6> _" What does it mean to be a nazi scientist?"_

The FBI sure did a lot of background investigation on Von Braun. If you read the documents, [0] there is no doubt the FBI and the other agencies recognised Von Braun as a rocket scientist, Nazi party member and an SS Major (non-active & honourary) in the German Army. [1]

In 5/16/'61, a further background check was done on Von Braun by the FBI and passed on to the director.

There are lots of references to unsavoury connections such as the SS Horseback riding school (33-34), member of MDSAP (39-45) and working in German Army Ordinance (39-45). Met with Hitler twice and awarded the Iron Cross. Despite all this, the records continually note Von Braun to be a person who is _' loyal'_, _' discrete'_ and of high _' integrity'_.

Von Braun was moved to the US under protective custody in '45 and as long as he kept his nose out of any _political activity_ and wasn't a communist, he and his team was deemed _useful_ to the US Missile and Space agencies. So yes, Von Braun was an opportunist at best, and a Nazi and a scientist.

Here's a re-union of his Peenemunde _team_ at Marshall Space Flight Center in '87\. [2]

[0] [https://vault.fbi.gov/Wernher%20VonBraun/](https://vault.fbi.gov/Wernher%20VonBraun/)

[1] [https://vault.fbi.gov/Wernher%20VonBraun/Wernher%20VonBraun%...](https://vault.fbi.gov/Wernher%20VonBraun/Wernher%20VonBraun%20Part%202%20of%207/view)

[2] [https://archive.org/details/MSFC-8774200](https://archive.org/details/MSFC-8774200)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a German I am not proud of these guys. They knew exactly that tens of thousands of slave workers were working on their toys under miserable circumstances.

<comment><USER8> How many slaves make the clothes you wear and the cellphone you play games on?

<comment><USER7> Not to belittle the circumstances of workers in China and Bangladesh but they aren't kept with the explicit purpose of working them to death in 6 months like the plan was for concentration camp workers. this is a different level of evilness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have fond memories of the presentation von Tiesenhausen gave when I went to Space Camp back in 1990 (actually the version for high-schoolers called "Space Academy"). It was fascinating to hear about events that had seemed like long- ago history, when I read about them, from someone who had been there and been part of making it all happen.

<comment><USER10> I love going to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in Oregon because many of the volunteers there are folks who worked at NASA. Once I struck up a conversation with one of the Saturn V propulsion engineers - it's indeed fascinating to hear from the people who were actually there doing all this stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "As an engineer, it doesn't make any difference what you do," he joked last week.

..reminds me of Tom Lehrer's take on Wernher von Braun [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro)

<comment><USER12> The context of that sentence is that it makes no difference whether you work on cargo ships or rockets.

<comment><USER11> Some rockets are cargo ships, some are not.</comment></comment></comment>