White House announces 25 percent tariff on Chinese tech goods - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/15/17467864/china-tariff-trade-war-trump-white-house <comment><USER2> > It includes a broad range of components used in electronics manufacturing, > specifically naming touchscreens, batteries, and electric motors. General > components like transistors are also named on the list as well as more > specific components used in televisions, cameras, and radio receivers. [..] > Notably, the list does not include cellphones or completed televisions.

So, this will, er, serve to discourage companies from making consumer goods in the US, with buying consumer goods from China becoming relatively more attractive? Doesn't seem very well thought out.

<comment><USER3> Another reading is that the thought going in to the tariffs was not directed toward helping Americans, but rather creating headlines big enough to crowd out reporting on the various scandals of the administration.

Ever seen "Wag The Dog?"

<comment><USER4> Trump has been talking about the need for tariffs and industrial policy since the 1980s. This is not some scheme he's cooked up on the spur of the moment.

<comment><USER5> When it comes to Trump (as a non-American) the old saying "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity" breaks down.

With him and the people he surrounds himself with, inept would be an improvement.

He managed to piss off the Canadians ffs, Thats the diplomatic equivalent to punching a friendly puppy.

Also is anyone during or after Trump ever going to trust anything with a US signature on again... I can't see it.

<comment><USER6> There's an extension to Hanlon's Razor that too many forget:

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, but don't dismiss malice."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess my earlier comment was too long, so let me provide a shorter version: this action actively harms anyone attempting to design, prototype, and manufacture electronic devices in the US. There isn't a single component in the projects I'm currently working on which isn't impacted by this. My cost of goods just went up by 25% across the board today in an effort to help "protect" American businesses.

I don't feel like I've been protected by this.

The full list: [https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investig...](https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/List%201.pdf)

Earlier comment (now hidden) with a list pertinent to hardware developers: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320653)

<comment><USER8> NO!! Don't you understand??

Yes, we'll suffer for 50 years, BUT in that time the supply chain will be created in the U.S. and our grandkids and their children will be able to benefit from having all that industry in the U.S. instead of China.

And if I'm wrong, I won't be alive to be able to say I'm sorry to my grandkids who are now living in a barren wasteland.

The best solutions are the ones you won't be around to see fail.

By the way... this strategy will work as long as the entire rest of the world doesn't figure it out, keep their tariffs low, and have the supply chain move to them instead. So PLEASE don't let anyone in the EU, Africa, South America, Canada, Central America, or Indonesia see this comment! We only have to keep this secret for another 49.9 years!

P.S. I'm not joking. That's is the strategy he's following.

<comment><USER9> But isn't the reason these products are made in China because it's inherently both more efficient and cost-effective?

You're saying we should make products in a less efficient and more expensive way to avoid relying on other countries?

And by the way isn't the bulk of our imports raw materials anyway?

<comment><USER10> >You're saying we should make products in a less efficient and more expensive way to avoid relying on other countries?

In this case yes. This is competition between nation-states we're talking about, viewing the entire relationship through the narrow lens of economic efficiency is missing the forest for one specific tree.

<comment><USER11> And viewing "this" through the extremely more narrow 19th century lens of competition between nation states completely ignores the entirety of 20th century economic and geopolitical thinking.

<comment><USER12> There's no need to bring mercantilism into "this". If you go to France, for example, most people there buy nicer clothes but less often than consumers do in the US so there is a large industry of artisans whose jobs don't depend on the global competitive landscape. Unlike in the US, these artisans make products that almost everyone has access to instead of catering to the rich/super rich. It's not a question of efficiency but desire to support local industries with livable wages - an efficiency of regional wealth distribution if you will. In this sense, France is competing for the money that the industry generates with other nation states but it's not a zero-sum game where France's gain is China's loss.

Unfortunately, American consumers are unwilling to pay the higher prices such a culture requires so instead economic nationalists try to push the mercantilist bullshit in the name of protecting domestic industries and national security.

<comment><USER11> This is a very confusing comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, to encourage manufacturers in the US to build more stuff in the US, they will increase tariffs on components so that it will cost even more to build something in the US than to build it in China.

Good plan, hello Canada!

<comment><USER14> I am in the middle of starting a business around a product that will get slammed by this. I was going to import the components and have the boards built here.("Made in the USA" labels are huge for my target market.)

Assuming I am parsing all of this correctly it will end up being better for me to have the PCBs assembled into the products in China and not create jobs in the USA.

<comment><USER15> You can't use the "Made in the USA" label like that anyway. It must be all or virtually all made in the USA. At best you could label it "Made in USA from Imported Parts" or "Assembled in USA."

[https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business- center/guidance/com...](https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business- center/guidance/complying-made-usa-standard)

<comment><USER14> My intention was that the casing and PCBs would be made in the USA. The only China sourced parts would be the PCB components.(Not finalized/assembled PCBs.) As far as I know that would qualify for "Made in the USA".

<comment><USER16> By that reasoning a frozen meal could say "made in the USA" meaning the cardboard box was made in the USA.

<comment><USER14> * Case (Plastic) - USA Origin

* PCB (Milled, Drilled, Components Soldered) - USA Origin

* Connectors - USA Origin

* Firmware - USA Origin

* PCB Components (Items affected by the tariffs) - China or Otherwise

As far as I know that would qualify as "Made in the USA" or at the minimum "Assembled in the USA". Over 75% of the components have USA origins and the final transformative step is done in the USA.

Please note that I am not trying to be deceptive in my future product's labeling.(6+ months until launch.) However, with political changes like these tariffs they are something that can basically change my stance on how I decide to source in the USA.

<comment><USER17> I think he said that at best you could say "Assembled in the USA", don't think he was arguing that piece of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A family member who's been an electrical engineer for many decades made an interesting observation: the United States industrialized China. When labor got too expensive in the US, manufacturing moved overseas. Capital became available in China to build and build and build because they knew that American business wouldn't be able to resist the competitive pricing.

I still remember overhearing my engineer family member on the phone with an American supplier 15 years ago and the supplier saying "all my factories are in China - the last competitive place left!"

<comment><USER19> It's even worse. In order to do business U.S. companies had to partner with a Chinese company, and U.S. compnay willingly transfered their IP to their Chinese partner, their Chinese partner then transferred that IP to their partner. the Chinese Government, who then transferred the IP to any other Chinese company that could benefit from the IP.

That's how the U.S. supercharged China'a manufacturing while simultaneously destroying the USA's manufacturing. Also the U.S. companies never got the access to the Chinese market they sold their souls to get.

<comment><USER20> And now the same people responsible are extremely upset that someone's trying to reverse the damage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For the anti-protectionists: Can you direct me to extensive empirical evidence that protectionist policies are harmful in the medium to long term?

I often hear that Asian countries have followed protectionist policies for decades, and they seem to be doing well. Norway is also highly protectionist at least with regard to agriculture and as far as I know they have achieved their desired results. When does it work and when does it not work?

<comment><USER22> Wikipedia is always a good place to start: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism#Impact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism#Impact)

Edit: It's also worth mentioning that it is unlikely these tariffs are meant to last in the medium-to-long term. This is a trade war so knowing what's a long term strategy vs a short term tactical maneuver is intentionally obfuscated in order to maximize leverage against the opponent.

Each side is just trying to rack up bargaining chips before sitting down and coming up with comprehensive trade agreements.

Or... that's how things could work. You can never know anymore.

<comment><USER23> This wikipedia article is a lot more biased than the french version. Here, it's clearly anti-protectionism by defending the age-old myth of "comparative advantage".

<comment><USER24> Wait, I didn't realize the basic principal of comparative advantage was in doubt. I'm a bit confused by your worldview - do you think that every person should produce exactly what only they need and never trade with others? What is the purpose of trade between individuals or groups?

<comment><USER23> Except if the others countries are flooding yours with cheap goods to destroy your industry and economy.

Like I've said, the french version put at least some criticism on this neoclassical point-of-view of the perfect market: [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avantage_comparatif#Objections...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avantage_comparatif#Objections_au_principe_de_l%E2%80%99avantage_comparatif)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I used to do a lot more embedded systems work. I've been 100% software lately and, looking at this list, I'm glad I started on that transition. I don't know what the exact BOM impact would have been on past projects, but it would have been rough.

I can't get over this Don Quixote-esque crusade. This just hurts American competitiveness.

<comment><USER26> That is Putin's point. That's why there is a lot of investment in influence of the awful sources of information used by the President.

Hopefully, when this guy is gone we look at reigning in the power of POTUS, which is clearly too strong now.

<comment><USER25> We'll see. The reason why the president has this power is congress also abused it. The ideal countermeasure for this is an educated electorate who doesn't fall for the false promises of trade barriers. As long as people buy into the lie of protectionism, there will be someone selling it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is insane. The ppl it is going to hurt the most are the tinkerers and innovators. As long as you assemble your completed phone / tv in China it doesn't matter. But for hackers trying to build cool stuff or develop ideas into products, they have to pay 125% more...

<comment><USER28> 25% more, 125% total.

<comment><USER27> sure... price * 1.25 :) still... crazy.

<comment><USER29> You said "125% _more_ ", which is incorrect.

If you had said "125% of the price", then that would have been correct.

<comment><USER27> yes, i don't disagree. this is all beside the point though -- the tariffs will have the opposite of the desired effect though: pushing more assembly to China and making it harder for innovators in the US.

<comment><USER30> It's important to be accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> [https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press- office/fact-s...](https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact- sheets/2018/june/section-301-product-list-fact-sheet)

"The 284 product lines being proposed will now undergo further review in a public notice and comment process, including a hearing. After completion of this process, USTR will issue a final determination on the products that would be subject to the additional duties.

USTR will provide an opportunity for the public to request exclusion of a particular product from the additional 25 percent duty. USTR will publish the details of this product exclusion process in a subsequent Federal Register notice."

</comment><comment><USER32> Try to understand it strategically.

If there's a 25% tariff on Chinese components, it makes Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean, developing-economy players more competitive. If the tariff is projected to last it will cause a sizable diffusion toward other players. Consider also that tech goods growth is projected to continue and China wants to start fabbing silicon. China doesn't want the brakes pumped on that exponential curve.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm by no means a trump supporter, but let's play devil's advocate here. Suppose that China's leadership had a long term plan to build up their manufacturing base while wrecking ours. So they set up a monetary policy to keep their own wages suppressed and their goods cheap and they heavily subsidize the industries that they want to establish. American corporations go along with this since in the short term it allows them to bust their unions and reduce labor costs. And it's still US companies that own many of the Chinese factories, so from the CEO's point of view they haven't lost anything. Then years later when the job is done and the industries in question have been captured, the Chinese government kindly informs the us companies that they no long own the plants, they have been nationalized. How else could the us respond other than by its own protectionist policies?

</comment><comment><USER34> A lot of argument against tariffs seems to assume that prices in the US will rise and stay increased permanently assuming production stays in China.

Wouldn't the downsides of tariffs actually only remain until production moves to say, Vietnam, etc.?

<comment><USER35> No. It's not that easy to move. Factories don't work in isolation. One of the major advantages of China is that all the suppliers are located very close to each other so you can get very fast turn arounds. Some people have the mistaken notion that it's only because of cheaper labor, which is only partly true. But in the area where a lot of the manufacturing is happening, Shenzhen, labor cost isn't that cheap because the cost of living has skyrocketed.

This is an old but really insightful article on why manufacturing happens in China: [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america- an...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a- squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&ref=charlesduhigg&pagewanted=all)

It's similar to why tech startups largely start in or move to Silicon Valley. It's the ecosystem of VC, pool of talent (Stanford, Berkeley, the other UCs, and tech companies), and existing large tech companies.

This all can change but not overnight.

Wendover Productions did a nice video on manufacturing in Shenzhen: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Jfrzkmzyc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Jfrzkmzyc) (Highly relevant to the big picture and issues around the tariffs)

<comment><USER36> This is similar to the the original dynamic that allowed Silicon Valley to be Silicon Valley and produce ICs, then computers, home computers and game consoles, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Can anyone speculate as to how this changes the landscape with respect to Foxconn and their new electronics manufacturing presence in the United States? They do manufacture a lot of technology. What might be different after the tariff vs before for this new United States presence? Will it work just like other United States corporations or is it different because it is international with a Chinese presence?

</comment><comment><USER38> Does this apply to small quantities imported for personal use?

<comment><USER13> Yes.

<comment><USER38> Where can I verify this? As I understand it, we already have a bunch of tariffs in the 5% range that only apply to commercial/industrial imports.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is there a list of which American companies directly benefit from this?

<comment><USER40> Trump's ego.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> What's more likely:

\- other countries ramp up their cheap, robust manufacturing capacity to compete with China \- design and prototyping moves to other high knowledge worker, high innovation countries without a 25% import tariff on Chinese tech goods

<comment><USER42> Now items will be completely assembled in China before they are imported. This will just shift even more production to China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> If we assume that this sort of thing is of short-term detriment and long-term benefit, isn't _now_ the best possible time for it? Admitted unemployment is lower than it has been in a long time and admitted inflation is still quite low. Complaining about protectionism now and calling for it when the economy is in the crapper would be reminiscent of the _Arkansas Traveler_...

Of course we don't have to make those two assumptions, but they're built into common arguments for protectionism.

</comment><comment><USER44> Surely this will just encourage closer ties between those outside the tariff area?

</comment><comment><USER45> The idea is to get the US making their own stuff. If you can tip the scales to the point it's cheaper to make it locally, somebody will...

... Eventually. That takes a lot of time, and raises prices across the board leading to inflation and unemployment. It's a very risky roll that could easily backfire in the most spectacular way.

</comment><comment><USER46> Not sure how long this can last. But factories need time to be built. If the tariff got repealed in less than a year, it's just net negative for US economy and nothing will be really changed.

I think generally trade war makes sense as a short time lever for something else, but may be a bad idea for long term growth .

<comment><USER47> lol you would need 800% tariffs for it to be worth it to build US factories to make these things

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wonder how Apple is taking this

EDIT: Interesting, didn't know Apple manufacturing policies until now.

<comment><USER49> Apple doesn't assemble their devices domestily. This tariff does not include complete phones. I'm sure they are perfectly fine with these tarrifs, they are a barrier for potential competitors who don't already have established supply and assembly facilities in China/Tiwaian.

<comment><USER2> They assemble Mac Pros in the US. They've also apparently been considering assembling some other stuff in the US; I assume those plans have come to a screeching halt.

<comment><USER49> Thanks for the clarification. As you say though, this will likely stop further domestic assembly operations from being established. It will be business as usual for the big players who do assembly in China, the rest will be encouraged to move them back there. In no way does this seem like it could have the intended effect.

<comment><USER50> Could this policy actually be the result of Chinese politicians and/or businesspeople engaging in pay-for-play with Trump?

Or is there another explanation for why this policy doesn't affect certain completed products from China? I just don't get that part of it at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Question:

What effect does domestic tax policy have on international trade, and is it a bigger or smaller factor than tariffs?

For instance, if you have very high taxes on things required for production (e.g. wages, etc.) and low taxes on consumption (e.g. sales tax, etc.) then it seems to make sense to try to produce elsewhere and import even if there is no comparative advantage and you have to pay a tariff. Does that explain the U.S. trade deficit at all?

</comment><comment><USER52> The strategy he is following is hitting them hard and making them come to the table to actually negotiate.

The chinese have abused us for quite a long time.

</comment><comment><USER53> So what happens with the tariff when it is collected? Does it go to subsidize the industries hit adversely by this?

</comment><comment><USER54> This is the thing I was least looking forward to with trump. So disappointing.

<comment><USER55> I thought the normalization of Nazi principles while debasing the U.S. government was pretty bad. But electronics costing more does really suck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I guess its harder to make a rationale that a tariff on TV's is for national security - that said, you need to return the assembly work, before you can return the component lines.

</comment><comment><USER57> Can someone explain the motive behind something like this?

</comment><comment><USER58> If your company relied on some sort of margin related to commodity electronic components: congratulations you were doomed anyway, this just hastens it. Let's face it, hardware is not where the money is. Hardware is a tool of software now and forever. If you can't figure out how to make the money with software to pay for the hardware then forget it! I hear Amazon is hiring again.

</comment><comment><USER59> Just wait until China imposes tariffs to services from US headquartered companies.

</comment><comment><USER60> A Chinese tariff would have been great policy 40 years ago. Now it is just stupid.

</comment><comment><USER61> Sure does smack of tossing ol' Briar Rabbit into the briar patch. "Punishing" them by making their finished goods a ton more competitive by kneecapping our own industry? Wha?!

Forget Russia, should we maybe be looking into what _China_ may have done to get this guy elected?

<comment><USER62> > Forget Russia, should we maybe be looking into what China may have done to > get this guy elected?

You don't think they could be related?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It's punishment for stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of IP, illegally subsidizing businesses to steal market share, and general national security by not outsourcing knowledge and infrastructure critical to national security to save a few bucks.

It's easy to let someone push you back inch by inch instead of fighting back, but eventually you're on the edge of a cliff and have nowhere else to go.

I'd take short term pain over one day waking up and realizing that China has total control over manufacturing for everything essential for modern life and in exchange we got cheap consumer goods for a few years.

<comment><USER64> I don't know why you're being downvoted; China absolutely does all of those things. They are not playing fair in the global market and never have. One can debate whether or not the tariff is the right approach, but let's not pretend that China is a victim.

<comment><USER65> Whereas the US has always played fair in the global market and never used its dollar position, tarriffs, sanction, invasions etc for market advantage?

<comment><USER66> You're comparing apples and oranges. When has the US government stolen trade secrets from foreign companies and then bootstrapped new domestic companies to compete against them?

China has surely done all the things you're accusing the US of, but they aren't being punished for that.

<comment><USER65> [http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/30/news/airbus-germany-nsa- spyi...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/30/news/airbus-germany-nsa- spying/index.html)

(I'm not sure anything has been proven definitively in the open, but I'm not sure that applies to all these China allegations either)

<comment><USER66> So you would have had a problem with the EU retaliating if they'd felt they had enough proof for a case?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I wish that congress would stop delegating authority to the executive.

<comment><USER68> I wish countries would sanction Trump's companies.

<comment><USER69> Canada appears to be considering it. [http://thehill.com/policy/international/392281-canadian- fore...](http://thehill.com/policy/international/392281-canadian-foreign- minister-wont-rule-out-sanctions-targeting-trump)

<comment><USER70> FWIW this is exactly why Presidents are supposed to divest themselves of business interests. It is a very bad thing that foreign powers have the ability to apply leverage specifically to his private interests. He's suppose to act in the interests of Americans, but if he were to exempt Canada after they threaten to sanction the Trump organization, that would be the very definition of a conflict of interest.

<comment><USER68> Exactly. And this would be an excellent test just to see how much he has actually 'divested'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> You're considered a consumer of the things this targets

Their real concern is protecting the supply side folks. Basically themselves

You should only be buying from an American supplier, even though we just spent 30 years shutting them all down

Because no one in this admin has a damn clue

Factories won't be growing up out of the grown churning out parts in 6 mos because of this

The ignorant are shooting themselves in the foot as the ignorant do

<comment><USER72> > You should only be buying from an American supplier, even though we just > spent 30 years shutting them all down

> Factories won't be growing up out of the grown churning out parts in 6 mos > because of this

If you wanted to reverse the trend of all the American suppliers getting shut down, and re-build the American manufacturing base, what actions would you take to accomplish that?

<comment><USER73> What's with this "rebuild the American manufacturing base" part? The US is already one of the top manufacturers in the world.

<comment><USER74> Then why are people in this thread so convinced they can't compete with China on components even with 25% tariffs?

<comment><USER75> Likely due to the reasons they have outlined numerous time in their comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a basement hacker selling goods on Tindie this tariff schedule covers nearly every tool, consumable, and component parts I use in everything I do. My cost of business just went up by 25% today across the board.

The full schedule: [https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investig...](https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/List%201.pdf)

Example items of interest to people designing electronic goods in the US:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

8532.10.00 Fixed electrical capacitors designed for use in 50/60 Hz circuits and having a reactive power handling capacity of not less than 0.5 kvar

8532.21.00 Tantalum fixed capacitors

8532.22.00 Aluminum electrolytic fixed capacitors

8532.23.00 Ceramic dielectric fixed capacitors, single layer

8532.24.00 Ceramic dielectric fixed capacitors, multilayer

8532.25.00 Dielectric fixed capacitors of paper or plastics

8532.29.00 Fixed electrical capacitors, nesoi

8532.30.00 Variable or adjustable (pre-set) electrical capacitors

8532.90.00 Parts of electrical capacitors, fixed, variable or adjustable (pre- set)

8533.10.00 Electrical fixed carbon resistors, composition or film types

8533.21.00 Electrical fixed resistors, other than composition or film type carbon resistors, for a power handling capacity not exceeding 20 W

8533.29.00 Electrical fixed resistors, other than composition or film type carbon resistors, for a power handling capacity exceeding 20 W

8533.31.00 Electrical wirewound variable resistors, including rheostats and potentiometers, for a power handling capacity not exceeding 20 W

8533.40.40 Metal oxide resistors

8533.40.80 Electrical variable resistors, other than wirewound, including rheostats and potentiometers

8533.90.80 Other parts of electrical resistors, including rheostats and potentiometers, nesoi

8535.10.00 Fuses, for a voltage exceeding 1,000 V

8535.21.00 Automatic circuit breakers, for a voltage of less than 72.5 kV, but exceeding 1,000 V

8535.29.00 Automatic circuit breakers, for a voltage of 72.5 kV or more

8535.30.00 Isolating switches and make-and-break switches, for a voltage exceeding 1,000 V

8535.90.40 Electrical motor starters and electrical motor overload protector, for a voltage exceeding 1,000 V

8535.90.80 Electrical apparatus nesoi for switching, protecting, or making connections for electrical circuits, for a voltage exceeding 1,000 V, nesoi

8536.10.00 Fuses, for a voltage not exceeding 1,000 V

8536.20.00 Automatic circuit breakers, for a voltage not exceeding 1,000 V

8536.30.40 Electrical motor overload protectors, for a voltage not exceeding 1,000 V, nesoi

8536.41.00 Relays for switching, protecting or making connections to or in electrical circuits, for a voltage not exceeding 60 V

8536.49.00 Relays for switching, protecting or making connections to or in electrical circuits, for a voltage exceeding 60 but not exceeding 1,000 V

8536.50.40 Electrical motor starters (which are switches), for a voltage not exceeding 1,000 V

8536.50.90 Switches nesoi, for switching or making connections to or in electrical circuits, for a voltage not exceeding 1,000 V

8536.69.40 Connectors: coaxial, cylindrical multicontact, rack and panel, printed circuit, ribbon or flat cable, for a voltage not exceeding 1,000 V

8536.90.40 Electrical terminals, electrical splicers and electrical couplings, wafer probers, for a voltage not exceeding 1,000 V

8541.21.00 Transistors, other than photosensitive transistors, with a dissipation rating of less than 1 W

8541.29.00 Transistors, other than photosensitive transistors, with a dissipation rating of 1 W or more

8541.30.00 Thyristors, diacs and triacs, other than photosensitive devices

8541.40.20 Light-emitting diodes (LED's)

8541.40.70 Photosensitive transistors

8541.40.80 Photosensitive semiconductor devices nesoi, optical coupled isolators

8541.40.95 Photosensitive semiconductor devices nesoi, other

8541.50.00 Semiconductor devices other than photosensitive semiconductor devices, nesoi

8541.60.00 Mounted piezoelectric crystals

8541.90.00 Parts of diodes, transistors, similar semiconductor devices, photosensitive semiconductor devices, LED's and mounted piezoelectric crystals

8543.20.00 Electrical signal generators

8543.70.60 Electrical machines and apparatus nesoi, designed for connection to telegraphic or telephonic apparatus, instruments or networks

8543.70.80 Microwave amplifiers

8543.70.95 Touch screens without display capabilities for incorporation in apparatus having a display

8543.90.65 Printed circuit assemblies of flat panel displays other than for reception apparatus for television of heading 8528

8543.90.68 Printed circuit assemblies of electrical machines and apparatus, having individual functions, nesoi

8544.11.00 Insulated (including enameled or anodized) winding wire, of copper

8544.19.00 Insulated (including enameled or anodized) winding wire, other than of copper

8544.30.00 Insulated ignition wiring sets and other wiring sets of a kind used in vehicles, aircraft or ships

8544.49.30 Insulated electric conductors nesoi, of copper, for a voltage not exceeding 1,000V, not fitted with connectors

8544.49.90 Insulated electric conductors nesoi, not of copper, for a voltage not exceeding 1,000V, not fitted with connectors

8544.60.20 Insulated electric conductors nesoi, for a voltage exceeding 1,000 V, fitted with connectors

8544.60.40 Insulated electric conductors nesoi, of copper, for a voltage exceeding 1,000 V, not fitted with connectors

8544.70.00 Optical fiber cables made up of individually sheathed fibers

9011.10.40 Stereoscopic microscopes, provided with a means for photographing the image

9011.10.80 Stereoscopic microscopes, other than those provided with a means for photographing the image

9013.20.00 Lasers, other than laser diodes

9013.80.70 Liquid crystal and other optical flat panel displays other than for articles of heading 8528, nesoi

9014.10.70 Electrical direction finding compasses

9026.10.20 Electrical instruments and apparatus for measuring or checking the flow or level of liquids

9026.20.40 Electrical instruments and apparatus for measuring or checking the pressure of liquids or gases

9026.80.20 Electrical instruments and apparatus for measuring or checking variables of liquids or gases, nesoi

9026.90.20 Parts and accessories of electrical instruments and apparatus for measuring or checking variables of liquids or gases

9030.20.05 Oscilloscopes and oscillographs, specially designed for telecommunications

9030.33.34 Resistance measuring instruments

9030.33.38 Other instruments and apparatus, nesoi, for measuring or checking electrical voltage, current, resistance or power, without a recording device

9030.39.01 Instruments and apparatus, nesoi, for measuring or checking electrical voltage, current, resistance or power, with a recording device

9030.40.00 Instruments and apparatus specially designed for telecommunications

9030.90.68 Printed circuit assemblies, NESOI

9031.90.54 Parts & accessories of measuring & checking optical instruments & appliances of subheading 9031.41 or 9031.49.70

9031.90.59 Parts & accessories of measuring & checking optical instruments & appliances, other than test benches or profile projectors, nesoi

9031.90.91 Parts and accessories of measuring or checking instruments, appliances and machines, nesoi

9032.10.00 Automatic thermostats

9032.89.20 Automatic voltage and voltage-current regulators, designed for use in a 6, 12, or 24 V system

9032.89.40 Automatic voltage and voltage-current regulators, not designed for use in a 6, 12, or 24 V system

9032.89.60 Automatic regulating or controlling instruments and apparatus, nesoi

9032.90.21 Parts and accessories of automatic voltage and voltage-current regulators designed for use in a 6, 12, or 24 V system, nesoi

9032.90.41 Parts and accessories of automatic voltage and voltage-current regulators, not designed for use in a 6, 12, or 24 V system, nesoi

9032.90.61 Parts and accessories for automatic regulating or controlling instruments and apparatus, nesoi

9033.00.20 LEDs for backlighting of LCDs

9033.00.30 Touch screens without display capabilities for incorporation in apparatus having a display

<comment><USER76> This is the true story here. How does putting tariffs on parts that hackers/innovators use to prototype new products help the American people? If you don't have enough funding, and a large enough customer base to get your electronics manufactured offshore, you get hurt by the tariffs.

I feel like China may welcome this with open arms, bolster their own manufacturing by cutting out DIY'ers.

<comment><USER77> > How does putting tariffs on parts that hackers/innovators

Who said tariffs were supposed to help hackers / innovators? It is to protect manufacturers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Since my prior comment was downvoted into obscurity, I'll jump on yours and reiterate my point and ask...

What do you manufacture? Would you be interested in a startup that offered you a waiver of these tariffs?

My prior point was you will start seeing start ups pop up left and right offering "tariff free imports/importing for US manufacturers as a service". Somehow that is controversial enough to be downvoted without a reply I'm not sure why.

<comment><USER79> How on earth could a startup provide that service legally?

<comment><USER80> by manufacturing in the US, perhaps

<comment><USER81> How does that dodge the tariffs? (Legally)

Let's say I'm Apple. I make MacPro's in Ft. Worth, Texas. The parts come from China.

I now have to pay 25% more on those parts.

However, since I'm Apple, I have manufactures making iPhones in China.

So rationally, my best bet is to shut down my US based plant in Texas and move MacPro manufacturing to one of my factories in China.

That way I legally dodge the tariffs since the finished MacPros are NOT taxed.

While this is good for China, and a net zero for Apple, it kind of sucks for the poor American workers in Texas who are now out of a job.

<comment><USER78> Say you are Apple...

You create a Foreign Trade Zone, ship your components there and manufacture there...you don't pay tariffs on those Chinese components.

Now the idea with political cronies/tech start ups that can raise SV funding, they will create one and turn around and offer manufacturers the opportunity to use the zone for their manufacturing (a la the Uber of Foreign Trade Zone/Free Trade Zone)

Edit: Just checked, and as one might expect Apple already operates out of Foreign Trade Zones

<comment><USER81> That is actually rather clever, and will probably work for many smaller US manufacturers but it will still cause them to have to raise their prices slightly, as there is now another middle man they have to pay.

However enterprises like Apple will still find it cheaper to move to China.

VC may be reluctant to invest in such startups due to the fact that the current administration has been, how shall we put it...inconsistent? They are just as likely to revoke the tariffs in a month as they are to change the goods covered under it or expand it. Either change could make such a startup completely obsolete in no time at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Surprisingly, I'm okay with this.

</comment><comment><USER83> Americans have been told that globalization was the key to prosperity. And yes, today we have wondrous cheap smartphones and all manner of goods made overseas.

But if you ever visit the Rust Belt, you'll quickly realize that entire local and regional economies have been shattered by the decline of US manufacturing and haven't yet recovered.

Donald Trump won the election in part by recognizing and promising to address this economic problem. This move is an attempt to do exactly that: Fix things by reversing the free trade policies that got us into this mess.

Almost everyone here seems united in saying that this attempt by Trump to cure our economic problems will only make the situation worse.

If you were the PoTuS, you want to help the Rust Belt become economically viable again, and you have both houses of Congress and the American people behind you, what would you do?

Bashing Trump's solution is all well and good, but what's the alternative? Do nothing and let the American heartland's economy rot for another 30 years?

<comment><USER84> >If you were the PoTuS, you want to help the Rust Belt, and you have both houses of Congress and the American people behind you, what would you do?

I wouldn't lie and tell people we can force the world to give a damn about American cars like it was the 1950s all over again, because the world has moved on from that economy, and thanks to automation, even if we brought the factories back, there would be few if any jobs for human beings. We can't look back, we have to look forward, and prepare for the actual future. The coal mines aren't going to open, the days of lifetime employment at the steel mill or auto plant, two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot are dead.

Beyond that, I don't know. It's a complex problem, but failing to recognize complexity, as the President seems to, doesn't actually make it simpler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Great list - industrial, mechanical, electronic equipment and finished products - they frankly should have put 100% tariffs on that or require manufacturing in US.

</comment><comment><USER86> On the bright side, at least MAGA hats are made domestically...

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-made-in- america_u...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-made-in- america_us_596f9be6e4b01696c6a24918)

</comment><comment><USER87> Here is the list [https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investig...](https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/List%201.pdf)

Tractors, fork lifts, agricultural equipment

Lathes

Milling Machines

LED's

Lithium batteries

Touch screen

Not a lot of electrical "tech" goods besides these three above, maybe PCB and GPS equipment.

About the tractors, milling machines, and lathe. I like this, because the new products that are available ... are chinese crap. But they are so cheaply made, and impossible to fix. Every small farmer knows you want an old one, and rebuilt. They built the Massey Ferguson 35 , which came out I think in 1955, made up until 2002 a great small 44hp tractor. You want a new small tractor, it'll come from India or China and it'll break down fast with electrical issues. Maybe not a Japanese one, however. I was asking my mechanic why we don't just start building the old ones here, they said they just can't compete. It would be great if we started making them here again. The same goes for Lathe and Milling machine, if you want a good one, you need to find "old iron" and rebuild it (if it needs it). It doesn't appear that CNC parts are on this list, so you can still buy cheap chinese CNC parts to upgrade it.

The other stuff on the list, coincidentally, I am very interested in. Basically I am getting into hemp products and wanted to, at a hobbist level, build some of these machines for personal use. Now I want to investigate if there is a market for american made agricultural machines for hemp.

I don't see a lot of "tech" on this list, might be overblown. These are things we need to make here, make them right, and of high quality.

<comment><USER7> Did you not read the list, or are you unfamiliar with electronic components? Every single component commonly found in consumer electronics is covered in that document. That includes the individual components (passives, actives, everything), the circuit boards, the wires, the power supplies, the connectors, displays, switches, fuses, sensors... everything.

<comment><USER87> that stuff is not on the list. I re-read it three times. Can you point out the cut and paste? PCB, cases, and LED for displays and touch screens,yes I did see. I guess next time you go to harbor frieght for a $900,000 industrial PCB it'll be 25% more. Better use the 20% off coupon

<comment><USER87> the stuff isn't on the list. downvote this doesn't put it on there.

<comment><USER88> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17320653) already made a list of a bunch of interesting ones. It might not literally cover "everything", but it's a lot of common parts.

<comment><USER87> I was hoping for a list like this, but again it isn't specific to what he said. Reason is, I wanted to do an emergency last minute order on Aliexpress if it was. I was sincerely worried that it was true. But the reaction is totally overblown. That and I already have a large inventory of touch screen displays, and LEDs -- the only things that were on the list. So I am not worried.

<comment><USER7> It is specific to what I said, and the link goes to my post.

<comment><USER87> Thanks you are correct</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alarm as study reveals world's tropical forests are huge carbon emission source - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/28/alarm-as-study-reveals-worlds-tropical-forests-are-huge-carbon-emission-source <comment><USER2> This was a little vague... does anybody know how exactly degradation and disturbance cause carbon emission at such high levels? Is it just decomposition of dead organisms? If that's the case, this doesn't seem much different than other forms of carbon release due to human activity in rainforests, like burning the forests down.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article seems to explain things a little better:

[https://www.sciencenews.org/article/tropical-forests-have- fl...](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/tropical-forests-have-flipped- sponges-sources-carbon-dioxide)

Also actual study, Guardian's link is/was broken:

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/09/27/scien...](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/09/27/science.aam5962)</comment>


When Binary Code Won't Accommodate Nonbinary People - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/gender-binary-nonbinary-code-databases-values.html <comment><USER2> "cisgender"

Who gets to decide when a person should use the word 'cisgender'? I'm being told what I have to call you, yet this word is thrown around as if I had any choice in the matter.

</comment><comment> core-questions This article, if read like it's satire, is absolutely hilarious. The only shame is that it's not satire.

> "programs can only have two genders and you can't change your gender and how > people changing their gender broke the university's system…as though trans > and enby folx are an inconvenience to code."

Any change is an "inconvenience to code". If I have to start accommodating _any_ new fields or _any_ new values in an enum, it's an "inconvenience". Obviously that's relative to the database in question; in some a change would be as easy as ten minutes work, in others such a change would need to be threaded through a thousand different places and so it wouldn't be as easy.

This has nothing to do with the meaning of the field itself.

> The reason for this has to do with both hegemonic heteronormativity and > math. Everything you do on a computer is secretly math, and that's the > trouble.

This is a bizzare statement. Computers only work at all because of math; you could not design a functioning computer without something math-like being involved.

Heteronormativity (well, probably what the author means is "cisnormativity", if that's a word either) - I take this to mean the implicit assumption that a 'gender' field in a system only needs to have two values.

> Let's say that you have an old system where you have a field name Sex, of > type Boolean.

This is actually very unlikely to be stored as a boolean, though under the hood a minimal amount of space will be used to store the information. An enum would be more appropriate, or a single-character field perhaps. Otherwise, my gender would be "true"... or would it be "false"? Maybe we can label the field is_male....

Technical quibbles aside, though, the more important thing to note is that it was a completely safe, politically correct, reasonable choice to implement such a 'gender' field until literally only a few years ago. This article castigates and demonizes the "heteronormative" programmer for simply implementing things with what seemed like common sense to everyone then and still many people now, and goes further to insult the entire foundation of, well, everything.

> The messiness of the "real" world and people's shifting identities are > rarely consistent with the sleek empiricism required to effectively do the > math that is under the hood in computers. This is most obvious when it comes > to the gender binary and binary representation in computer systems.

There's not that much math involved here, though, is there? This really touches more on the "phallogocentrism" concept ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallogocentrism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallogocentrism) ):

> In post-structuralist, especially feminist, theory: a structure or style of > thought, speech, or writing (often considered as typical of traditional > western philosophy, culture, or literature), deconstructed as expressing > male attitudes and reinforcing male dominance; phallocentrism implicitly > communicated in or through language.

which is essentially a rejection of deterministic meaning in any real sense, combined with a bunch of the typical babble from Derrida that serves to do little more than to attack the very foundations of logic in an attempt to replace it with hand-wavy bullshit.

> "While issues of identity, data, and information systems seem to be—on one > level, at least—an interesting conceptual or philosophical problem to > ponder, they also expose the urgency of recognizing the very real and lived > challenges these tensions and the rapid rise and adoption of data-intensive > technologies and platforms generate for already vulnerable trans and queer > populations,"

Like, honestly, if your biggest problem in life is the value recorded about you in a database somewhere, and this is causing you "lived challenges"... well, sorry, but get over yourself. This implies to me that a lot of bigger problems have been solved, and it's time to work on smoothing off the last remaining edge cases; surely if there are still big problems to be solved (like, actual social exclusion, or access to medical care issues) these sorts of minor concerns can wait, and don't need the entire structure of programming, mathematics, logic, and basic epistemology to be attacked in order to justify adding a field to a database.

It would be one thing if an article like this was just written to say "Hey! People with non-standard gender labels want to have some freedom in your database! We don't like it when we have to pick! You can make us feel better easily by planning your database a little bit differently!", then fine, sure, whatever.

Instead of doing that, the author has to blow the wrong thing out of proportion, likely due to their lack of understanding of how these kinds of systems are built and how implementation decisions are made. The entire thing is chalked up to malice, specifically malice committed by the evil men who build everything.

> trans and gender nonconforming people are excluded from or subjugated to > information systems is a phenomenon she labels data violence

There is no violence here.

It's a tired argument, but using the word "violence" in conjunction with extremely minor perceived slights that cause no measurable harm makes people tune out, and having tuned out, when _real_ violence happens they're less likely to care. We educate children about this concept by telling them stories like "chicken little" and "the boy who cried wolf" \- don't abuse your personal ability to summon everyone for help or it will not work when you really need it.

If you must have a concept of "data violence", it seems like it would be much more applicable to someone hacking into your personal data and violating it, changing it, or exposing it to others. Having to select an option on a form that doesn't completely describe your existence is not even remotely comparable to this.</comment>


Reading Files in Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://lethain.com/entry/2009/nov/15/reading-file-in-clojure/ <comment><USER2> The difficult thing about file I/O in Clojure is that there are not many Clojure primitives for doing it, except for slurp and duck-streams (which is only in contrib): you actually have to learn a bit about Java and its interfaces and libraries. For example, line-seq takes a BufferedReader.

Clojure especially embraces interop with Java in favor of wrapping Java features into Clojure functions, so it's part of the official pain.

Can't say it was as easy as in Python but on the other hand, I can't say it hurts to know a bit Java, too. At least it's for a good cause :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Too much duct-tape, imo.

SPIT and SLURP are just one argument functions without much control. If the language was a bit more Lispy, they wouldn't even be standard functions, but something left to the programmer. For example:

1) There is no control over input file character encoding.

2) No provision for reading from non-file streams; say, you want to "slurp" input from a socket stream, N octets or up to a certain EOF delimiter. You have no control with clojure in that regard, at least with SLURP/SPIT, you will have to use Java modules with weird dot and bracket syntax.

3) What happens if the file you're attempting to read doesn't exist? what happens if there is no input in the file yet (should you block or return an error or return EOF?)

4) What happens if the file you're writing to doesn't exist? create? err? What if it exists? truncate? append? err?

Separate between files, streams, sequences, and I/O methods and you will have a clean user-extensive framework for I/O.

      (defgeneric slurp (stream
                             &optional &key
                             element-type
                             external-format
                             if-exists
                             if-does-not-exist)
        "Reads contents of element-type from stream")

And now in haste, implement that for files, reading back character input in the given external-format encoding.

      (defmethod slurp ((path pathname)
                             &optional &key
                             (element-type character)
                             external-format
                             (if-exists :supersede)
                             (if-does-not-exist :create))
        (with-open-file (file path :element-type element-type
                           :external-format external-format
                           :if-exists if-exists
                           :if-does-not-exist if-does-not-exist)
           (let ((buf (make-array (file-length file)
                         :element-type element-type)))
              (read-sequence buf file)
              buf)))

We have provided sane defaults for file existence conditions, and we can call it as this:

      (slurp #p"/etc/passwd")   ;; read file in default encoding

      (slurp #p"/home/mahmud/sales/mideast2009Q2.txt :external-format :utf-8)

      (slurp #p"/var/log/hunchentoot/access.log"
             :if-does-not-exist :error)

Then, you can just write more methods for any new stream you need to deal with. You can refactor the GF signature to take length as an argument, then for socket streams:

      (defmethod slurp ((stream socket-stream) .. length)
        (let ((buf (make-array length .. :element-type '(unsigned-byte 8))))
          (read-sequence buf stream)
           buf))

None of this is new ground, btw, the API has existed for 25+ years, just USE IT.

<comment><USER4> I don't entirely agree. In CL, people pass around slurp-file snippets like: [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/89501db253...](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/89501db25399ea73?hl=en)

Further, Clojure's slurp has an optional encoding argument. (I'm glancing at its sourcecode, in the same emacs buffer that I'm typing this post in.)

If I understand your argument, slurp's too unlispy to include in the language. But at least in the CL world, the user is constantly adding to Lisp as she codes away. And there are many things in the CL spec which often considered unlispy. (Take loop and format. Loop is even criticized for being not well- defined, as well as being incomplete in ways you wouldn't expect, as you start pushing its limits. Though I should mention that I love both loop and format.)

What you wrote was beautiful and more complete (I'm not being sarcastic; it looks like the High CL style, which I consider very aesthetic and good, though that's not the only aesthetic style I appreciate), but I think you're comparing a Clojure feature with something which exists mostly as a CL snippet passed around informally. (And is maybe now in some opensource library.)</comment></comment>


After Prime Proof, an Unlikely Star Rises - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150402-prime-proof-zhang-interview/ <comment><USER2> A writeup by his doctoral advisor about his memories of Yitang Zhang: [http://www.math.purdue.edu/~ttm/ZhangYt.pdf](http://www.math.purdue.edu/~ttm/ZhangYt.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I skimmed it, but in the intro why does he say:

      "The most natural conjecture is that the prime numbers appear randomly..
      If the twin prime conjecture is correct, then we may conclude that the
      [primes] are not constructed randomly"

why does he say a random distribution of primes would imply the twin prime conjecture is false?

My intuition is the opposite: a random distribution of primes implies the twin prime conjecture is true. Because suppose there are finite twin primes, set them aside; then test pairs of numbers above the largest of them. Since we assume the twin prime conjecture is false, the chances that random pairs above that number are both prime is exacty 0; but that would mean the primes are _not_ distributed randomly...

<comment><USER4> I thought about this for a second, and it seems that you are right: if the primes were distributed randomly, the twim prime conjecture would be true (see below). Are there any analytic number theorists in the audience to explain what the quote in the parent post is supposed to mean and/or fix my mistakes?

The prime number theorem [1] states that the probability that a natural number N is prime is approximately 1/log(N). So, the probability that N & N+2 are both prime is about 1/log(N)^2. If they were distributed randomly, there would be about

integral(1/log(x)^2 dx) from x=2 to x=N

twin primes between 1 and N. This integral converges to infinity as N grows large[2] (wish I remembered enough caclulus to do it by hand). So, there is some N for which you'd expect to have 10^100 twin primes less than N, etc.

So it seems that if you decided by a coin toss whether a number should be prime (where you'd make it prime with probability 1/log(N)), there would be infinitely many twin primes.

Wikipedia seems to confirm it's a reasonable estimate [3].

 _UPDATE:_ By the way, the same argument implies that if primeness was decided by a coin toss, there would be infinitely many N such that N and N+1 are prime. There is, however, only one such N (namely 2). So, primeness is not decided by a coin toss, and the above is not a proof of the twin primes conjecture :).

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem)

[2]: [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Integrate[1%2FLog[x]^2%...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Integrate\[1%2FLog\[x\]^2%2C+{x%2C+2%2C+Infinity})]

[3]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_prime#First_Hardy.E2.80.93...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_prime#First_Hardy.E2.80.93Littlewood_conjecture)

<comment><USER4> Another UPDATE:

I a cousin comment, Retric proves that the integral of 1/log(x)^2 diverges. The point is that log(n)^2 < n for x > 2 (you can prove this by calculus: the only maximum of the function log(x)^2/x is at x=e). So, 1/log(x)^2 > 1/x, and the integral of 1/x diverges.

The most fun way to prove the last statement is that the integral of 1/x from 1 to infinity is greater than 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + ... > 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ... = 1/2 + 2 * 1/4 + 4 * 1/8 + ... = 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 + ....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yitang Zhang brings up the deep question of why does someone like him suffer in the world today. He is not showey at all but quiet and unassuming. In particular he is not un-confident but he's not showey in his confidence.

I suppose we don't value those traits.

<comment><USER6> I think it's more straightforward and less depressing than that. For most people it's simply hard to tell the difference between someone with those traits ("still waters run deep"), and someone who just doesn't have much to offer[0]. We do tend to correct those misperceptions given enough exposure and investment in the relationship, but it takes time -- and there's only so much time in a day.

[0] modulo subject X or situation Y -- we all have talents

</comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      Still in the field of number theory,
      I may not have only one problem to think about,

      but a couple of problems, like the distribution
      of the zeros of the zeta functions and the L-functions.

Interesting to hear that he seems to be working on the Riemann hypothesis.

<comment><USER8> Interesting yet unsurprising. Proving the Riemann hypothesis ( _ie_ all non- trivial zeros of the zeta function are distributed along the line _x_ = 1/2) is equivalent to proving Riemann's explicit formula for the prime counting function, which defines the distribution of prime numbers.

In the end, the Riemann hypothesis is a kind of sacred Graal for anyone interested in prime numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there any way to view the film Counting From Infinity online?

<comment><USER10> Probably not; canistream.it comes up empty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good to read a story about an underdog.

</comment><comment><USER12> >Andrew Granville "There's no way that somebody I've never heard of has done this."

What an asshole.

</comment><comment><USER13> > "Never heard of him. Absolutely never heard of him," said Andrew Granville, > a number theorist at the University of Montreal, in Counting From Infinity. > When Granville heard about the result and the techniques that Zhang used, he > recalled saying, "There's no way that somebody I've never heard of has done > this."

Fuck that guy.

<comment><USER14> When you are an expert in an academic field, you typically have spent many, many years reading about the problems in the field and the main ways to attack them. The same authors, will typically pop up again and again. Through conferences and collaborations one gets to know the main contributors in the field. On top of this, it is very rare for someone to break into a field with a major discovery. Normally people tend to hone their skills on more minor problems over time and obtain a deep understanding of the material. To top all of this off, academics quite regularly receive emails from crackpots claiming to have found a solution to p=np, etc.

I am not saying that Dr. Granville was right to immediately dismiss the concept of an unknown solving such a problem. I am just trying to provide some background for why he may of reacted as he did.

<comment><USER15> Hmm there is a difference between a unknown and a crank. Zhang was a trained Ph.D. mathematician with an academic lecturing position. Now I didn't even finish my Ph.D. in physics but I know enough about how to do research to not submit a proof that is not rigorous enough to warrant peer review. One should not refuse to peer review a unknown researcher with the right credentials/trainings who make serious arguments in line with academic practices.

Same as you this is not a comment on Dr. Granville. I wrote in response to your comment on how the field is typically cloistered among a few insiders. I don't think that justifies refusing to review an unknown (as in not famous) researcher who demonstrates training and seriousness (which fortunately they didn't in Zhang's case but Zhang also was extra careful in making his ideas crystal clear). This happens too rarely for the insiders to claim undue burden. Cranks are very obvious to identify (a lack of literature review and understanding of previous works is a tell-tale sign).

<comment><USER16> Cranks and unknowns often look alike. Heck, researcher who diverge just a bit from accepted doctrines often look like cranks until either they repent or their approach bears obvious fruits.

<comment><USER17> Hmmm, that is plausible, but I can't think of any modern example where some deviation has resulted in a qualified researcher being categorized as a crank-- ignored maybe, or perhaps dismissed but definitely not called a "crank". Actual cranks are very very easy to spot and people won't bother wasting effort addressing them.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure. Crank is often used as an ad hominem in science, so it is difficult to tell mudslinging from real crankiness, it depends on the sincerity of the one applying the label, and also on the severity of the crankiness. And many people have trouble with groking more benign eccentricity.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone actually make any returns from AngelList? - <AUTHOR> For years now I've been investing in AngelList funds and companies. Dozens and dozens. 2 have exited measly returns. A few failed. Nothing else to show for it. The average investor seems to be throwing their money into the AngelList black hole of no return.<p>So I'm curious to know if anyone actually has made any returns from AL or is it just smoke and mirrors on paper? <comment><USER2> welcome to how angel investing works. you should think of those investments as buying a lottery ticket + being able to help some entrepreneurs succeed, not as a near guaranteed way to make money. For that, doing a stock investment might even be better.

<comment><AUTHOR> My returns from angel investing have been stellar. Individual companies, private round, etc. my question is about AL specifically. I have yet to meet a single investor on the AL platform who says anything other than they've zero or negative returns.

<comment><USER3> The one's that had good returns, were they done using SPV ? Could you please expand on that

<comment><AUTHOR> Not particularly. Best have been SAFE's early rounds which have been the easiest. As an LP in early-stage funds.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


On Collusion - <AUTHOR> https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/04/03/collusion.html <comment><USER2> the technologies for perfect abundance were transferred to humankind by people who co-inhabit our galaxy in the 1940's. no further need for competition, money, or the gamification of things. nevertheless i applaud your efforts!!

[https://www.youtube.com/user/SDisclosure/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/SDisclosure/videos)

</comment><comment><USER2> with infinite supply, prices drop to zero. the end of money. no further need for the gamification of everything. advantage structures cease to exist with no competition. the advanced technologies which avail such abundance were transferred to humankind by the people who co-inhabit our galaxy in the 1940's. [https://www.youtube.com/user/SDisclosure/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/SDisclosure/videos)</comment>


The failure of Davos - <AUTHOR> http://fusion.net/story/257568/the-failure-of-davos/ <comment><USER2> I don't believe for a second that a global consortium can centrally direct the world economy (for the better). But how exactly is the "state of the world [...] getting markedly worse"?

Exhibit A: [https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/689829766569050112](https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/689829766569050112)

<comment><USER3> I came to make the exact same comment. Globally inequality and poverty are dropping rapidly, we live on the safest planet in history...can't cite it, but it wouldn't be hard to find the stats.

<comment><USER4> Inequality has been increasing over time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#World_income_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#World_income_Gini_index_since_1800s) Especially recently in the US [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States#2009.E2.80.93present) and Europe [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oecd-inequality- interview-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oecd-inequality-interview- idUSKCN0S126S20151007)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I knew Davos was dying when some model girls I know who are big in the "party circuit" of Ibiza/Tony Robbins seminars/Superbowl/Burning Man started adding Davos as a stop on their party tour circuit.

It seemed like major players stopped going and the people who go now are just scenesters who want to feel important, see and been seen.

</comment><comment><USER6> This negative article doesn't really qualify the statement that the world is getting worse - is it, really?

And if the goal of an organization is to make the world better and they have a bad year (or many bad years), does that mean they should pack up shop and say it's unachievable?

Crime rates in cities can rise year after year, sometimes for periods of a decade. The police don't just give up - they change, adapt, find new ways, and eventually they (or some external factor) lower crime rates. Why should Davos be any different?

</comment><comment><USER7> I thought the failure of Davros was the result of Dr Who. Wow, was I wrong!

</comment><comment><USER8> Bitcoin has died 93 times already[1]. Maybe this time is different?

[1] [https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/](https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Bitcoin doesn't seem to be dead.</comment>


US actually has no response to Sony Hack - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-struggles-for-response-to-sony-hack-1418950806?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

<comment><AUTHOR> Author's Blog (full text without paywall): [http://johnib.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/u-s-struggles-for- res...](http://johnib.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/u-s-struggles-for-response-to- sony-hack/)</comment>


ShotPut (YC S15) helps fulfill product orders at a price that works for startups - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/31/y-combinator-backed-shotput-helps-fulfill-product-orders-at-a-price-that-works-for-startups/ <comment><USER2> Love the ShotPut crew. Some of the hardest working founders I've met.

Admittedly we were damn pretty terrible on the shipping and fulfillment side of our business early on and they've been a huge help getting everything figured out for us.

You definitely want to work with these guys.

<comment><USER3> How do your customers handle inserts in your boxes? Seems that many products need some really custom insert to keep from rattling around.

<comment><USER4> Generally we call inserts: marketing messages companies put in each shipment.

There's another material called dunnage i.e. fill that is placed such as air packs, bubble wrap, paper, cardboard, mushroom (yes a product made from mushrooms!), etc. are used to keep the product tight.

Another method is to use a smaller box which cuts down on both shipping costs as well as is a more secure way of securing products.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is Praful another co-founder of Shotput. Happy to answer any questions regarding tech or operations of our company and the fulfillment industry as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER5> Amazon offers FBA, which allows you to store your inventory in their warehouses, and ship products to customers via an api. How sets you apart from this? I'm guessing simpler user interface (Amazon's leaves a lot to be desired)?

<comment><USER6> FBA is literally 2-3x industry standard pricing and is used almost entirely in order to increase the value proposition to buyers from/in the Amazon markerplaces exclusively. Pretty much no one sells through other channels and ships from FBA. Many sellers maintain a non-amazon warehouse.

Having said that, I am guessing this startup is not attempting to compete on pricing.

<comment><USER7> You hit it on the nose. People rarely decide between us and Amazon, usually it is between some random fulfillment centers their friends heard of and us. We have been pretty competitive on price so far, but mostly our benefit is we give total pricling upfront. Seemingly cheaper warehouses will give a low rate, but what is the true cost of using them? Are you hiring people or paying for mistakes they make?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ok, I just tried to use your website. I have no idea what you are going to charge me to ship the orders.

I put in one pallet, 960 pieces at 12 per case, 80 cases. 3 pounds each, ship as one, no special work needed.

I got a price for move in easily, but then what?

<comment><USER7> Hey Greg, the third step page is where we tell you the "move-out" or basically shipping and handling pricing. Why don't you give a message at firstname.lastname@example.com though and I can give you a quote. You took the time to sign up on our site, the least I can do is take the time and answer all your questions.

<comment><USER8> Ok, will send

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is anyone else concerned about all these startups catering to other startups? When the VC bubble bursts, the majority of them are going to go up in smoke.

<comment><USER10> The shovel-sellers only make money as long as the gold rush lasts.

<comment><USER4> Shovels & Levis still seem to be doing well ;)

<comment><USER11> The whole point of a gold rush is that the big players haven't moved in yet, so there's still room for a single operator to get rich.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hey there, it's James one of founders of Shotput here. Feel free to ask any questions about product fulfillment or going through y Combinator!

</comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of Dave Jones, an electronics engineer that runs the EEVBlog on YouTube.

He created a little product, a small electronic tester, and sold them on KS/IGG.

I remember a whole bunch of tweets and youtube videos about how much of a PITA the fulfilment was.

I remember that he had some particular problems with international shipping too.

ShotPut's website doesn't explicitly say that they cover international shipping, but they do, right?

<comment><USER7> A fulfillment service that can't ship internationally is pretty lame, don't you think? Of course we cover international shipping! We don't mention it because it should be a standard!

<comment><USER12> Haha, my apologies!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Do you handle fulfillment to Canada as well? Or US only? How about Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands?

<comment><USER7> Yes, we can ship to those countries.

Our fulfillment centers are all over the US and coming to Canada soon! But again, they can ship internationally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Where is the scale in the business? How does it get better when it's 1,000x bigger?

<comment><USER7> We are able to use our growing volume even now to lower the costs all around (freight, fulfillment, shipping). At 1000x growth, we could push those prices much lower. This is huge for start-ups.

Since we only deal with fulfillment once it enters the country, we have people we would love to pass to your service too. It would be beneficial for both of us to talk and set something up soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cool to see other companies in the fulfillment space!

How do you differ from a company like Shipwire?

<comment><USER4> Shipwire is a fantastic company, however, their prices have been historically high and their customer support has lacked recently. Though their international warehouses are a huge boost to small companies that need that capability.

Our biggest differentiator is that we give you an upfront invoice and once you pay you'll never see a penny increase. Even your shipping is upfront (we're working on fixing it now as we speak).

<comment><USER15> Awesome, best of luck beating the big guys. Theres lots of room to innovate here.

Small suggestion: an easy pricing calculator would definitely help on the site before capturing email

<comment><USER4> We had one before but the types of products varied so wildly the ultimate cost was different. Currently we capture all that data and give our final price which uses our calculator.

Though we'll discuss this issue and if it keeps coming up we'll act on it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Climate Action Tracker - <AUTHOR> https://climateactiontracker.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Shows the purported state of each country's response so climate change.

I'd be interested to see how Australia made insufficient status, and how Morocco is doing so well.

I believe the USA is the key country though.</comment>


How to Ace Your Kickstarter Campaign - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailymuse.com/entrepreneurship/9-tips-to-ace-your-kickstarter-campaign/

<comment><USER2> Thomas Biskup, the guy behind roguelike game ADOM has been fundraising on IndieGoGo to help free his time and hire others for updates after not updating the game for 10 years. It's been a really well run campaign, impressive to watch it unfold.

Even half way through it wasn't looking like reaching the target of 48k, but he kept adding updates, new minigoals, then stretch goals complete with artist illustrations. He reached out to the community around the game to figure out where to reach even more of the community, he fielded questions and complaints on reddit, and kept updating his blog throughout ([http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-crowd- fu...](http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.com/2012/08/adom-crowd-funding- final-race-towards.html)).

Now with 24 hours to go he's managed to keep up the enthusiasm, and even had two people volunteer to donate 5k if the community can match the donations.

From what I've seen, what he's done matches the guidelines in this article, and it really has worked out very well. It could be a textbook example of how to run a campaign. One thing he's done not in the article was adding time- limited "minigoals" to encourage people to donate early and get momentum. For example, adding new software features for every 1k raised over a few days in the middle of the main campaign. Another is allowing people to personalise in- game items if they donate enough.

Now the only thing is to see how well he can match the hype once the excitement has died down. Even if it doesn't work out it's great to see he has finally found a way to monetise this game that so many people have enjoyed playing.

</comment><comment><USER3> To be complete though, we also need a "what not to do" list. in many cases re. funding that is equally important, IMO.</comment>


Hello, declarative world - <AUTHOR> http://codon.com/hello-declarative-world <comment><USER2> This is a well-expressed defense of declarative concepts but the title itself highlights the Achille's heel of these ideas: how, after all, do you simply make the computer do something, like print "Hello, World" at a particular place and time? Declarative techniques are great for the things that they're great for, but programmers who hate side effects have the problem that every program that does anything observable does it through side effects. So I continue to sit on the declarative fence.

<comment><USER3> I think us programmers have a tendency to see things as all or nothing, even while we work daily with a number of technologies and languages that do things differently. There is no reason that everything has to be declarative while benefiting from the advantages of declarative/functional languages.

Most programmers use SQL on a daily basis and we don't hear arguments that it should be procedural to be inline with our other languages.

<comment><USER4> I ranted a while ago on HN about how I don't believe in the existence of declarative: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3507281](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3507281)

As I re-read it, read this article, and pondered some more, I'm revising my view a bit, and beginning to think of "declarative" as something like probability. This is debatable, but I tend to agree with the idea of probability as a measure of knowledge of a given agent, and all probabilities must be understood in the context of some agent for whom those are the correct probabilities, as opposed to being free-standing numbers.

Similarly, declarative can be seen as relative to the programmer. Haskell code that looks like

        map (+1) . filter isEven . map (*2)

may be declarative to one programmer while writing it, who doesn't care about the details, yet be essentially imperative to someone who, say, is tasked with optimizing that, and cares about exactly what the compiler does with that code and how. It's not a characteristic of the code, but the programmer's relationship to the code, which may even change over time.

From this perspective, most things that proudly wear the label "declarative" can be seen as over-forcing you to be ignorant about their implementation details by making this unnecessarily opaque, for the purpose of wearing that label. Still not a tradeoff I like, vs. the same tech except transparent.

<comment><USER5> Another way of looking at this, which is well loved in the PL community, is that there is no one exact interpretation of a fragment of syntax. Haskell is interesting because it has both operational and equational semantics and you can choose which you'd like to apply at any given time.

What's nice about this is that it removes the "programmer" from the equation and instead augments language with a bouquet of interpretations. Another Haskell interpretation, e.g., is the static nature of its typing relation.

This is a good way of "understanding monads" as well. They're an algebraic structure which captures just enough to let us talk about a variety of sequential/operational semantic choices for our syntax. At the end of the day, though, they're just data and we can imbue them with all of the semantic notions we enjoy via the interpreter pattern. This is even more emphasized with the "Free Monad" pattern which lets the structure of the monad be very, very close to the syntactic notion.

<comment><USER4> "What's nice about this is that it removes the "programmer" from the equation and instead augments language with a bouquet of interpretations."

Implicitly, I'm invoking the idea that a programmer is looking at a particular runtime.

I feel like I have to put that in, or the whole distinction between declarative and imperative completely collapses anyhow. "X.sort()" conceptually simply invokes sorting behavior, possibly with a certain set of guarantees, but in practice, it's very unusual for that to be running so abstractly that the programmer can not penetrate down to relevant runtime details. And when that does happen, generally forces are created that start pushing all the switchable runtimes towards bug-for-bug compatibility, e.g. the web browser's Javascript runtime.

It's not a "bad" thing that it collapses in that case, it just does, that is, consider this the mathematical "collapses" rather than the architectural. You have to have a certain amount of specificity in my opinion or there is no reasonable way to discuss "declarative" vs. "imperative".

<comment><USER5> I think you do need "bug for bug" compatibility between semantics—because the other choice is worse—but that drives home what it takes to genuinely have alternative semantic choices: sufficient concision of definition to be able to _maintain_ the choices! This is standard for programmers, though. It's architecture like any other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems bizarre to me that someone could write an article about relational programming without even _mentioning_ miniKanren, which can do things like find quines, given a relational specification for a language interpreter: [http://webyrd.net/quines/quines.pdf](http://webyrd.net/quines/quines.pdf) — and it's in the Clojure standard library as core.logic: [https://clojure.github.io/core.logic/](https://clojure.github.io/core.logic/)

miniKanren solves a lot of the limitations that systems like Prolog had, at the cost of some performance. The old miniKanren web page explains, "KANREN is a declarative logic programming system with first-class relations, embedded in a pure functional subset of Scheme. The system has a set-theoretical semantics, true unions, fair scheduling, first-class relations, lexically- scoped logical variables, depth-first and iterative deepening strategies. The system achieves high performance and expressivity without cuts."

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28467011/what-are-the- ma...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28467011/what-are-the-main- technical-differences-between-prolog-and-minikanren-with-resp) talks a bit more about the differences.

(Also, the article didn't mention Prolog. What's up with that?)

(I don't have any experience with miniKanren myself.)

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure whether you read the article or not, or if the author updated it in between the time you read it and posted your comment, but I finished reading it before your comment was posted and the author did, in that frame of reference, in fact mention miniKanren.

<comment><USER8> I'm fairly sure I perused the article before this comment was added here and they already had that reference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is pretty well done. I've always been a bit lost on the differences between imperative and declarative programming. Each time I've asked, I've gotten incredulous "You mean you don't KNOW?" And then they start off with technobabble buzzwords that are meaningless to me.

I appreciate this post, because it works from first principles (close enough) and moves toward more abstract concepts. Good storytelling guide here.

</comment><comment><USER10> > We're still stuck with mostly "von Neumann style" languages that talk about > state and assignment and memory and stuff — computer things, not idea > things.

Maybe there is a good reason for this beyond something simple like inertia? On the other hand I sure don't want to be stuck doing backward things—wait a minute—is this more pop culture masquerading as insight?

<comment><USER11> 1.With "von Neumann style" you are closer to the metal.

2.With "declarative", (e.g. SQL) you're preparing input data -NOT describing an algorithm- for a runtime or a compiler or a server, which in turns will run "von Neumann style" algorithms composed from your declarations.

If you need to optimize the last drop of resource usage and speed you use 1).

<comment><USER12> Maybe. There were LISP machines developed that did all that natively. The metal was a high-level language of incredible power with good implementations doing low-cost abstractions via macros. Almost all investment went to the other architectures for sheer price/performance and backward compatibility. Reliability, maintenance, integration of 3rd party code, security, etc weren't a concern at all. Now they are: even mainstream is tossing much of the old stuff where possible. Your same argument might have worked in reverse had several billion dollars of engineering gone into hardware designed to implement ML, Scheme, Haskell, and so on.

Besides, there's little debate to be had on what's the best model: all of these are built on hardware that's interacting functional programs (combinatorial logic) and finite state machines (sequential logic). How they're combined varies on a chip by chip basis. Underneath, though, everything boils down to a careful combination of functional and semi- functional programming implemented in silicon. Except analog which is purely functional. ;)

Note: This brings out another angle whereby we use tens of thousands to billions of circuits running concurrently in a functional way to simulate a sequential, imperative machine that does way less in a clock cycle. This is why porting the algorithms onto FPGA's almost always has significant speed-up unless the imperative machine is insanely optimized (i.e. Intel/AMD/IBM). It's also why even prototypes like SHard produce efficient, better-than-generic hardware from functional language specifications of algorithms. Maybe we should just go functional all the way and invest money into CPU's which do _that_ with utmost efficiency, eh?

<comment><USER10> > Besides, there's little debate to be had on what's the best model.

Are you saying there is no debate that functional is the best model because that is what is going on in the hardware?

I haven't heard that point of view before.

Does Knuth's use of MIX in the AOCP mean he doesn't share that view or does it mean something else?

<comment><USER12> I'm saying it's a path worth exploring. The research on LISP machines, synthesis, splitting of apps between CPU and FPGA's... all this showed functional approach got the job done better with less hardware and the well- known software benefits. Even the workhorse instructions of the imperative processors operate in a functional way when you look at how the processors actually work. There's so much overhead in supporting the illusion of sequential, imperative programming that it might be better spent utilizing hardware to support concurrent, functional programming more efficiently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've always found 'declarativism' in general to be very hard to understand. I was terrible at maths until I became a programmer and was able to concretely explore the mechanics of number using imperative programming languages. For many years, post-high school mathematics was incomprehensible to me and languages like Haskell seemed like absurd contrivances when placed next to the concrete reality of C compilers and CPU clock cycles.

It was only by butting my head against mathematics again and again, and by easing my way into functional programming via Javascript that I began to understand declarative thought, and what it meant to perceive logic in a static picture rather than as the expression of some concrete action. I still don't _get it_ it's foreign to my way of thinking, but I know what it looks like now.

I enjoyed this article a great deal, but my hackles did rise somewhat at the author's assumption that declarativism is somehow closer to human thinking than imperativism. It is more abstract, yes, and maybe more familiar to a natural mathematician, but I do not believe declarativism has a special status with regard to human thought.

I don't think it would be a poor hypothesis to suggest that many people reason using a much softer, more "narrativ-istic" kind of thinking than is represented by mathematics. This kind of thinking is closer to imperative programming which often seems like you are telling a story about how to solve a problem - the details of the computer's memory and CPU being the indispensable forest and woodcutter's axe of the tale.

I think that a lot of the proponents of declarative programming (and functional programming for that matter) are mathematically talented people who are cognitively inclined to understand things in that way - just as the positive features of imperative (and object oriented) languages are similarly attractive and seemingly fundamental, to other kinds of thinkers.

<comment><USER14> I'm a mathematician and I'll be the first to say, this "declarative = mathematical" meme is completely inaccurate. If you look at most mathematical theorems and proofs, they are mostly imperative.

Take for example the proof there are infinitely many primes. "Assume there are only finitely many primes (assume: imperative). Let them be called p_1,...,p_n (let: imperative). Let q=(p_1 _..._ p_n)+1 (let: imperative). Then q is not divisible by any of p_1,...,p_n, so q is prime (this is the only non- imperative line in the proof). Contradiction, discard the assumption and conclude there are infinitely many primes (imperative)."

The biggest "non-imperative" feature of mathematics is the way functions are first-class objects. But that's only considered to be "non-imperative" because of a historical fluke, there's no intrinsic reason why "first class functions" = "non-imperative", it's just that the early languages happened to be that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I thought this was interesting and very well put together. Can anyone with more of a CS background provide any additional context here? I gather from the article like there is a small but growing domain of these "relational" languages.

<comment><USER16> Like the author said, this is an old idea that's recently been revived. (I agree that the article was quite well done.) Most of the ideas he described, like goals and unification, have been a feature of logic programming for ages. Prolog is the classic language in logic programming --- it attracted major interest during the AI bubble in the 1980s and survives mainly as an educational language today. It's worth a look, particularly since there are so many educational materials available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is a very insightful post: "What, If Anything, Is A Declarative Language?" ([https://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/what-if- any...](https://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/what-if-anything-is- a-declarative-language/)).

Written by a functional programming fellow, Robert Harper, this post is not a rant around the claim we can't escape the procedural effectful world. It's rather a call for the awareness that the "how" is a fundamental issue in programming.

</comment><comment><USER18> This looks like it's effectively Prolog, and the problems with this way of programming can be found in criticisms of that class of programming languages.

I haven't written a Prolog program of any complexity myself, but it seems a common complaint is that the programs can be hard to reason about and debug. Your solutions are always running on top of a unification algorithm.

<comment><USER8> Much of the criticisms that I've read about prolog are very specific about prolog (I am not an expert here, though).

Further, the fact that prolog-like languages (be kanren-like languages part of those or not) have issues should not be a basis for discarding all of them. Useful niches can be found, and their problems might be solved.

More in general, the idea that I can take a function, and provide an argument less, and a result, and the function is inverted (in a mathematical sense) for free, seems very, very powerful. The main alternative is to have two functions, one the inverse of another, that use the same building blocks for reuse, but that puts a cognitive overhead to the program, whereas a person understands most inversions quite easily.

<comment><USER12> I agree. Prolog isn't logic programming: it's a specific approach to first- order, logic programming. So, it's failures can't be considered failures of first-order or other logic programming by default. One has to look at the nature of the failure to determine where the blame is. Then see if there's a way to fix that. And if not, only then say "This appears to be a weakness of X that justifies using a different tool."

That said, most work that's successful avoids first-order logic in favor of tools such as Isabelle/HOL or Coq. They also support extraction to Ocaml, etc w/ certified compilers in works for them. _Maybe_ better to use those for logic programming. I'm not a domain expert in that field so can't be sure.

For people doing first-order, though, the Mercury language and Visual Prolog app are best I know of with plenty examples.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Now, go pick up The Reasoned Schemer! [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/reasoned- schemer](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/reasoned-schemer)

</comment><comment><USER20> I think the best way to move away from the way computers think, is just to build higher level functions and utilities. For example: [https://github.com/timothycrosley/hug](https://github.com/timothycrosley/hug)

</comment><comment><USER21> Instead of the declarative/imperative paradigm and the ongoing shift to more functional flavoured languages and more abstractions crammed under the hood, I prefer instead multi-paradigm languages like JS to be the languages of the future.

Multi-paradigs languages, if done right, combine the best of two imperative & declarative worlds beside they're very friendly to beginners and they don't have this intimidating quality that other "pure" languages like Haskell have.

Also, procedural coding is easy to do and carries low mental overhead in writing and not every programming problem has be modeled in functional terms or worldview to be solved. Sometimes, it's economical and efficient just to get the work done in two lines of code without going through all those functional hoops just to capture a field value in some form.

<comment><USER22> Even multi-paradigm languages need to choose a dominant paradigm.

Javascript supports functional style programming, but it is still in the context of an imperitave language. In the same way, Haskell supports imperitive programming, but it has to be done within the context of a functional language.

Also, in my opinion, the intimidating part of Haskell is not its purity, but rather its type system.</comment></comment>


Atlanta Startup Weekend Company List - <AUTHOR> http://atlanta.startupweekend.org/2009/11/15/and-the-atlanta-startups-are/

<comment><USER2> if anybody wants to vote on these companies, i've put them on pikk:

<http://www.pikk.com/stories/stories_by_tag/Asw3></comment>


[ask] Why you should borrow me your spare computer for 2016? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gernest/talk/blob/master/why.md <comment><USER2> Looking at [https://twitter.com/gernesti/with_replies](https://twitter.com/gernesti/with_replies), seems like there are some offers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, I didn't even check if he had a twitter account. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am not the one asking, but seeing the community on HN, I thought it might be a good fit.</comment>


If your phone gets stolen, chances are they can log into your Paypal account - <AUTHOR> http://gregschlom.com/misc/2017/01/29/hacking-paypal-accounts.html <comment><USER2> Who gives their real, current phone number (or any text-capable phone number) to Paypal in the first place?</comment>


Reverse indentation of code for better readability(?) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Andy_Makes/status/1283403913035755522 <comment><USER2> I assume from the post and the followup comments that this is just some sort of weird joke.</comment>