WordTsar – A Wordstar clone - <AUTHOR> http://wordtsar.ca/ <comment><USER4> My dad, Seymour Rubinstein, created WordStar. It's amazing to witness this homage to its enduring legacy.

<comment><USER5> Wow, amazing - I worked for Micropro back in the early 80s - ask him about the Barnaby monitor throwing incident sometime...

<comment><USER6> In Sausalito? I worked at Autodesk down the street.

I don't remember when Micropro moved to Sausalito, but recall it was near the end of Wordstar's reign.

We had a phrase that described the value of the piracy of Wordstar. The "Wordstar Effect" held that the primacy of a file format was a huge boost to revenue even if you only captured 5% of paying customers.

<comment><USER5> Fourth St. San Rafael, also Northgate Mall

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Like other HN users, I like to do things myself.

So when G RR Martin was taking so long to write Winds of Winter, I thought I would just hack a copy myself. And by "hack", I mean I would write it.

I had a good sense of the characters, and I knew what I wanted to happen so I started writing.

It came out utter rubbish.

Wondering why, I realizes I was using Google Docs whereas George Martin used Wordstar.

This is all coming together.

</comment><comment><USER8> My dad was a professional writer for decades. He started using a computer to write when the Osborne computer first came out, using Wordstar, and swore by it until he died a few years ago. I too am constantly amazed by how WordStar had many advanced features on a system with no HDD and only two 5.25 floppy disks. It is a nice homage to recreate it, good job. I hope you continue to polish it, and provide a license

</comment><comment><USER9> This is just a ploy to ensure that George RR Martin doesn't stop writing once the original WordStar stops working!

</comment><comment><USER10> WordStar was the first word processor I used. I've lived in Vim for years now, but I still have WordStar manuals in the software museum section at the back of my bookcase. I haven't gotten them out in approximately forever:

[https://i.imgur.com/hFaFdgK.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/hFaFdgK.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER11> I need to hook up my old Okidata so I can use control-character-triggered physical backspacing to put double-quote "unlauts" on top of my vowels.

And "B" plus "p" makes a passable ß (well, in a different font).

Fun times.

By the way, with regard to other comments here about diehard users, I never had more than a passing relationship with WordPerfect 5.1, but I've heard of people who stayed with it for years and years (and years). For them, it was and remained the perfect writing tool.

<comment><USER12> You'll find that this system is still in use even today. GNU roff, for example, in non-UTF-8 locales with a terminal as the output device renders the bullets in bulleted lists as a "+" overstruck by an "o" to give a crossed circle.

And the manual systems on the BSDs and on Linux operating systems still use TeleType Model 37 overstriking semantics for boldface and underlining, even though (for starters) GNU grotty has been capable of the more modern (from 1976!) system of specifying character attributes on terminals for decades.

* [https://sources.debian.org/src/groff/1.22.3-10/tmac/tty.tmac...](https://sources.debian.org/src/groff/1.22.3-10/tmac/tty.tmac/#L22)

* [http://jdebp.info./Proposals/ul-manual-page.html](http://jdebp.info./Proposals/ul-manual-page.html)

* [http://jdebp.info./Softwares/nosh/italics-in-manuals.html](http://jdebp.info./Softwares/nosh/italics-in-manuals.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I recall two things about it: firstly, it did a good job of showing the control-format chars inline, for markup you knew had formatting.

Secondly, it consumed an outrageous amount of the screen to show the list of available commands, which was a design 'thing' at the time: p-code UCSD OS did this too, and if you had enough brain cells left from the life of beer at university it felt like this was tractable screen space being eaten in ways you'd rather have back.

So as an EMACS/Vi person, it didn't make sense: watching other people be phenomenally productive in it, was a bit of an "oh, ok.. that makes total sense now" moment.

The CP/M DOS crossover years, when this predominated were quite interesting. It was also a time of variable speed floppy drives, so they "sang" at you as they chuntered around the disk surface (constant linear velocity sectors == variable radial speed)

<comment><USER14> You could reduce the screen theft of the menus. It defaulted to a large menu for new users, as you became more proficient you could adjust the "help level" and reclaim the screen.

<comment><USER13> Yes, like spreadsheets, if you came from classic CompSci you could choose to not invest enough time in this stuff to become the expert, and take false- evidence reasoning (like me) to say "toy". I did this, with word* and with the first spreadsheets (my god, just use a pen and paper, or expr or BC) and other solecisms.

Maybe others were smarter. I think I excelled at being super-dumb about what I was seeing.

The shrunk-header bar, was fine. Actually, a pane of 'what can I do' is now a "thing" Google does, in its web apps. It reminds me of what wartstar was doing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's also WormStar[1], an expanded wordstar-mode for Emacs. Commit to GitHub 2 years ago, but recommends Emacs 19.34 (which was released in 1996).

Personally I was more a Brief guy in my DOS days.

[1]: [https://github.com/dfr62/wormstar](https://github.com/dfr62/wormstar)

</comment><comment><USER16> Wordstar was one of those programs back in the 80's that made me wonder how masochistic some computer users would be in order to try and remember all those dot commands and Ctrl keystrokes.

The along came WordPerfect and made Wordstar look like UX bliss... For the life of me I can't recall which maniac thought up Shift-F7 (IIRC) as the 'Quit' key for WordPerfect.

<comment><USER17> WordPerfect document formatting was and is total trash compared to Wordstar's.

<comment><USER18> Wordperfect was far more powerful than Wordstar, you just had to get used to operating in their strange kinda-sorta-but not really WSYWIG mode; and pull up the codes view to sort out occasional oddities. All in the most unfriendly set of shortcuts and codes imaginable. :)

WP had unbeatable table of contents, footnotes and index generation at the time - far better than Wordstar, and Word.

<comment><USER19> Do you mean WYSIWYG? I am not familiar otherwise.

<comment><USER19> I was genuinely asking since I couldn't find WSYWIG vs WYSIWYG, and thought it might be something else. Oh well...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Started my word processing with Wordstar (and spreadsheets with Lotus123). Those were the days.

</comment><comment><USER21> Anyone got a link to printed output produced by WordStar? I used it as a young kid on my Dad's computer. I imagine that most "real" users printed the stuff they wrote, but I've never seen an example!

<comment><USER22> A modern day usage of similar output is the screenplay format. So the output would look something like this:

[http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/A+Clockwork+Orange.pdf](http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/A+Clockwork+Orange.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What's the advantage of Wordstar over:

      - <USER2>
      - Emacs/VIM + Markdown + Latex + Pandoc
      - VScode/Atom + Markdown + Latex + Pandoc
      - <USER3>

Very cool otherwise.

<comment><USER24> The hot new thing this year is "no distraction" modes, running a single app full screen with no notifications or any extraneous widgets. OSX and W10 both have new features for it. I see this as capitalising in that theme

<comment><USER25> This is hilarious, given that the big drawback with DOS was single-tasking. Whats old is new again. I would agree that there are a ton of distractions now and sometimes I need to close my email/chat to get any work done.

<comment><USER26> Actually I disagree. This isn't the old becoming new again, it's just that the terrible modern web UX design has been slowly spilling over the desktop to the point that some people now want to reclaim their attention spans. Nobody objects downloading something in the background or compiling while you read a pdf full screen or playing some music etc. It's notifications from every social media and the lack of granular control over them that's killing "modern" multitasking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > WordTsar 0.1.73.17 released

Why do you use a four-component version number?

<comment><USER28> Since the first number is zero, i assume that the additional number is to express something more major than a major-update.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Always had a soft spot for WordStar. Last version used was WS 3. Took WordTsar for a spin... Fast comments: Seems to be missing N (non-document edit -- used that for editing program source). ^KH (hide block) is ^K> Not sure why (WS 4?). ^JH0 is missing (get rid of help). As are the other help levels. No pure console display. And its big. 16M for GTK3. One file, though, which is very nice. (compare to the original, 81536 bytes).

Congradulations! Very nice work

</comment><comment><USER30> Now I just need someone to service my daisywheel printer.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hrm, really cool but what is the licensing?

<comment><USER32> I dunno, what is the default license when there is no license? I made a good faith effort to find one, including downloading and running, hoping for a Help/About. Nope, no license.

Not that it stands a chance of being a daily driver for me. I appreciate the effort put into it, but it is _way_ rough.

<comment><USER33> If there is no license you have no rights to the software. If they are offering it for download there is probably an implied license to use the software but certainly not to modify or distribute it.

<comment><USER34> As far as I understand, the FSF's stance has always been that copyright law does not cover _use_ of a piece of software you have in your possession, and they have done a lot of thinking on the subject. You can use the copy you downloaded, no license needed.

Modification, distribution, making it part of another larger work -- you need a license for those.

<comment><USER35> The FSF certainly has well considered opinions, but their opinions are in many respects outside the mainstream.

People, even lawyers, often use reductio ad absurdum to argue that some behavior isn't infringing. In a famous draft opinion in the Sony v. Betamax Justice Stevens wrote,

      It would plainly be unconstitutional to prohibit a person
      from singing a copyrighted song in the shower or jotting
      down a copyrighted poem he hears on the radio.

All the other justices disagreed with Stevens on the second point--it's elementary law that to jot down a poem you hear on the radio is infringement of the reproduction copyright.[1] This sounds absurd (and, well, it is!) but copyrights and patents are a little absurd to begin with.

Usually the absurdity of the scope of copyright law is tolerable because of the impossibility of a plaintiff discovering or proving infringement in personal, private use. Other times courts may use Fair Use or other technicalities to avoid absurd outcomes. But many times the absurdity lies and people are penalized. In any event, courts aren't disposed to finding non- infringement. Modern courts have narrowed considerably traditional theories like merger and the idea/expression dichotomy that circumscribed the scope of copyright outright. And it's non partisan. If Ginsburg had her way copyright would see a considerable expansion in scope. (Her daughter is the author of an influential treatise on copyright, which propounds a radically expansive view of copyrights.)

[1] I forgot where I read the historical account about all the other justices disagreeing on that specific point. I think it was in one of my treatises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Maybe this can woo Anne Rice?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#Notable_users](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#Notable_users)

<comment><USER37> Or George R. R. Martin, who "still uses the MS-DOS version of WordStar 4.0".

I used WordStar briefly at school on (ancient, even then) MS-DOS 2 computers donated by a petrol station whose POS software was burned into the screens. I didn't think much of it - I'd already seen newer software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Clever name but if Wordstar is still owned by someone there is quite a risk of a trademark infringement suit.

<comment><USER39> According to USPTO trademark search, WordStar trademark is dead (cancelled on August 14, 1995). This is US-only, of course.

<comment><USER40> The trademark maybe dead but the product is not abandoned, nor has it been released into the public domain. The current owners are Houghton Mifflin Harcourt:

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

I'm sure if they felt like it they _could_ assert their IP rights over any clones or similarly named products.

<comment><USER41> What IP rights?

The trademark is dead. That's naming.

Patents? Seems unlikely.

That leaves copyright. It seems unlikely that anyone working on a Wordstar clone is silly enough to have even glanced at the original source, so that's not it.

Look-and-feel? Dead issues. And there's no API to copy, not that I believe an API is copyrightable as it is a functional spec. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit can bite me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I used WordStar. Thank goodness Turbo Pascal used WordStar keybindings for their commands, too!

</comment><comment><USER43> Screenshots are showing proportional fonts. Did that come in a later WordStar?

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm disappointed they haven't released the sources.

</comment><comment><USER45> WordTsar = Russian World Star

</comment><comment><USER46> Really want to read about this but the webpage keeps messsing with the scrolling on my phone and reader mode is unavailable.

For some reason the webpage keeps scrolling itself vertically. That's not a useful feature of a web page IMHO. :(

<comment><USER47> It does on mine as well. After I scroll down and start reading it begins to make small jumps in the opposite direction. Weird.

<comment><USER48> That's carousel or whatever frontend guys name it spinning at the top. Slides with different height. Not a big deal, since it could open a popup, three floating bars and gdpr warning after you explicitly accepted their tracking cookies instead.</comment></comment></comment>


Interplanetary superhighway - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/looking-up/8e3e734346ed

<comment><USER2> It's really nice to see a write-up of the story behind this. The bare facts have been submitted many times[0][1][2][3][4], although never provoked discussion. It's a fascinating idea, and the math and physics are subtle and intriguing.

Great story.

One previous comment[5]:

        It's not news, but the potential for using it is growing.
        By using fuzzy orbits and the edge of chaotic regions, it's
        becoming possible to do large scale movements in the Solar
        system with very little expenditure of fuel. As with the
        time/space computing trade-off, this is a time/fuel trade-
        off -- the movements take a lot longer to achieve.

           -- RiderOfGiraffes[6]

Finally, there's an excellent write-up in Discovery[7].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482985)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3414311](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3414311)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3889406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3889406)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4213525](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4213525)

[4] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6755954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6755954)

[5] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482987)

[6] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=RiderOfGiraffes](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=RiderOfGiraffes)

[7] [http://discovermagazine.com/1994/sep/gravitysrim419](http://discovermagazine.com/1994/sep/gravitysrim419)</comment>


Teaching kids to code is a stupid idea - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/willardfoxton2/100011290/the-government-wants-to-teach-all-children-how-to-code-heres-why-its-a-stupid-idea/

<comment><USER2> Kids shouldn't be forced to code, but find what they want to do and see if they like it. I myself, am 15, and I taught myself through various resources. I'd say that I've improved my life for the future by learning 5 programming languages already.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a developer myself, I don't think it's fair to be branded as a "dull weirdo" just because I write software. I seriously hope this article is link bait, designed to be offensive and provoke a reaction, otherwise this author is dangerously misguided.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a rant not worth entertaining.</comment>


Which programs are essential with fresh OS install? - <AUTHOR>

For me, a new OSX install needs:<p>- Textmate - Sizeup + Divvy - Chrome + Firefox w/ Firebug - Synergy - Adium - Alfred - Sparrow - Reeder - Things - Notational Velocity - TotalFinder - iStats Menu 2.0 (haven't bought 3.x yet) - Dropbox<p>Please share, I'm always looking for better tools for productivity. <comment><USER2> Vim, Xcode, Corona SDK, Hg, Graphic Converter, Pixelmator, TextExpander, CSSEdit, OmniGraffle, Soulver iWork, Cyberduck, 50+ more

</comment><comment><USER3> Emacs, git, Chrome, zsh, along with my development environment (gcc, pyhton, autotools and whatnot).</comment>


First arrests in Heartland Data breach - <AUTHOR> http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1210

<comment><AUTHOR> Why is this important:

Trojans/spyware was installed _inside_ the datacenter where this information was being processed. Heartland processes about 100,000,000 credit card transactions per month. They're being quite tight-lipped about how long the trojanware had been active inside their "secure zone."

Heartland thought that they could release the news _during_ Obama's inauguration and that no one would notice. Heh.

Here's a list of banks that admit being affected:

[http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1200&...](http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1200&opg=1)

Some industry comments: [http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1212&...](http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1212&opg=1)

While PCI-DSS is wild overkill for most of the folks here, it does give an idea of what sort of security measures that a business handling money needs to do. And as you move towards profitability and sale, meeting or exceeding the data security standards will become important.

[https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_...](https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_dss_download.html)</comment>


How Forensic Architecture Revealed Details of a Secret Military Prison in Syria - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcodesign.com/3068329/infographic-of-the-day/how-forensic-architecture-revealed-details-of-a-secret-military-priso <comment><USER2> I have problem with these stories. Mainly because I feel they're coming out in concert to form public opinion into taking military action in Syria.

There is a good analysis on Amnesty International faulty reporting on this. [0]

[0] [https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/amnesty- internat...](https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/amnesty- internationals-war-crimes-in-syria/)

<comment><USER3> I agree with you.

These types of reporting will continue until Assad goes the way of Saddam and Muammar Gaddafi. That's been the goal from Day 1. If we really cared about stuff like this, we need to hear about what's going on in Yemen courtesy of our friends over in Saudi Arabia, and in the Gaza strip. Even events in Bahrain deserve attention.

But no, it's about how hard the Syrian army's hitting the terrorist we're arming.

<comment><USER4> Amnesty International works tirelessly to document human rights abuses in all of the other conflicts you mention and has done for many years. What exactly is your point?

<comment><USER2> Amnesty Internation was duped into false reporting that got us into the first Iraq war. Amnesty later retraced their 84 page report[0].

How is it possible an organization that documents human rights could mislead the world? Any government PR firm, backed by CIA or MI6 can create a list of "witnesses" and have them testify to AI. My point is, just because AI is documenting it, it doesn't mean it's legit. Especially around Syria since there is a lot of documented story fabrication.

[0] [https://www.democracynow.org/2003/12/2/a_debate_on_one_of_th...](https://www.democracynow.org/2003/12/2/a_debate_on_one_of_the)

<comment><USER4> I think that's a reasonable concern to have. My question was regarding the parent comment's implication that AI themselves are deciding not to publish information on abuses in other areas. The user seems to feel that these things have not been publicised, when in fact there are ongoing awareness campaigns on all of the countries listed.

<comment><USER5> I think a more charitable interpretation of their point was that AI's information, which is already suspect, is cherry-picked when presented to the US audience(referencing the article in the thread, and many others by US newspapers) to form the narrative that Assad must be ousted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's sad, but the truth is that Amnesty International has had ample practice over many decades when it comes to the grim business of collecting and correlating detailed accounts of the depths of human misery. It's good to see that modern techniques and tools make it possible to put that to more use than just testimony of what a wretched species we are.

>To aid them with their campaign for independent monitoring of the prison, Amnesty collaborated with Forensic Architecture, a research agency at Goldsmiths, University of London that uses "architectural evidence" to work on behalf of international prosecutors, human rights organizations, and political justice groups. Together, they've created an interactive model of Saydnaya prison—a place completely closed off to outsiders—using only aerial satellite images and the testimonies of former detainees.

Imagine being able to do that with Birkenau or Dachau _while it was still in use_. If people still can't bring themselves to care enough to at least recognize what's happening, then it won't be for lack of trying or furnishing them with opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been following the Syrian Civil War for the last 5 years. The null hypothesis: every faction has done horrible things. That's what happens in war. It would be an exceptional civil war indeed if the central government (or any other faction of significance) _did not_ commit atrocities. I understand not wanting one's country to be involved in the war. I don't want my country to intervene in the SCW either. I don't understand the resistance to recognizing the horrible things done in Syria (by the central government or otherwise).

Is the idea that _if_ the Syrian government commits atrocities _then_ Western powers have to intervene in the war? So to prevent a probably-disastrous intervention people need to deny that the Syrian government commits atrocities? I don't think that is a logical chain of reasoning, if that is indeed what is going on. There are all sorts of horrors in the world where additional intervention by outside powers is likely to be worse than inaction. It doesn't mean that we should pretend that the horrors don't exist.

<comment><USER8> There's a false equivalency here: Only one side is barrel bombing people indiscriminately, torturing people by the tens of thousands, and systematically exterminating an entire group of people.

You're right, no war is without war crimes, but the Assad regime has given up on appearances and is simply playing for keeps. They're beyond the point of no return, they're going to end up like North Korea in terms of diplomatic ties, if they survive this rebellion.

<comment><USER9> > There's a false equivalency here: Only one side is barrel bombing people > indiscriminately, torturing people by the tens of thousands, and > systematically exterminating an entire group of people.

That seems blatantly false to me. The Assad regime is certainly guilty of all the things on your list, but ISIS are also murdering and torturing people by the tens of thousands and systematically exterminating entire groups of people (has everyone already forgotten about the Yazidis, if nothing else?). Insofar as differences in scale exist, they seem to exist only because ISIS doesn't have the capacity to kill as many people as they'd like. Both groups have institutionalized horrific violence as a matter of policy.

<comment><USER10> Syrian civil war has much more than just these two actors.

<comment><USER9> That's absolutely true, I merely mentioned the most obvious counterexample in terms of deliberate atrocities. Most of the other actors are also guilty of deliberate human rights violations on a fairly massive scale, but I thought my simple counterpoint was quite sufficient to rebut the parent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> See also their site: [http://www.forensic- architecture.org](http://www.forensic-architecture.org)

and this interesting movie by the same guy about the architecture in occupied Palestine: [http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelarchitecture/2014/0...](http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelarchitecture/2014/06/architecture- violence-2014629113556647744.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> It is certainly dangerous to play sounds to someone to try to trigger specific memories. This could prime them to give false information, entirely believing it was true.

Which is a shame, because it's really important to expose the sort of evil that happens at these places.

<comment><USER6> This is why single accounts aren't taken as gospel, because even at their best, they're not going to be entirely accurate. It's only when you're comparing many different sources who didn't know or contact each other that a pattern emerges. When survivors and guards, and all manner of witnesses all report the same details, those are the details you can have higher confidence in.

Of course, torturers aren't stupid... they've known for a long time that they might end up on the wrong side of a tribunal, or worse. These days you don't get names, you often stay black-bagged and bound, but people still remember voices, they see flashes during moments of struggle or when being "submarined". People remember smells and sensations that meant nothing to them, but which an experienced investigator is trained to recognize.

I'd recommend the book 'Torture and Democracy' to anyone interested in the topic, from any angle at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Assad wouldn't have been able to inherit the throne of the Syrian Republic in the first place if not for the green light from all western capitals. This green light lives on for his past and recent atrocities.

</comment><comment><USER14> This AI report is all about propaganda, Google maps and military satellite images make everything transparent"the Syrian regime committed and is committing and will continue to commit human rights violations but this is about the Amnesty International report on Syria. Western human rights organizations--specifically Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch-- don't have any credibility among most Arabs about human rights. Their reputation has sunk far lower ever since the Arab uprisings in 2011, where they have been rightly perceived as propaganda arms of Western governments. So I saw the report yesterday and read the Methodology section and immediately felt that it is not credible: given the mention of unnamed sources (not one of them willing to be identified and the reference to countries which host Syrian opposition groups). But I am not an expert on those details and specifics. I don't trust the Syrian regime (and its sponsors) and I don't trust the Syrian rebels and their sponsors in the West and East. How to judge the report? I asked a well-known Syrian dissident who, due to his leftist underground activities, served years in Syrian jails and was subjected to torture by the regime. His name is Nizar Nayouf. He wrote me those responses, and I can't judge the validity of the specific answers but given that there is no scrutiny by Western media to anything coming out which is in sync with Western government propaganda on Syria, I thought it would be useful. These are my (rush) translations (edited) of his answers: " The white prison is the one on the shape of Mercedes. It is the main building (the old and big). As for the red prison, it is the new and small [structure], and contrary to what is contained in the report--which it seems does not distinguish between the two. The first was inaugurated in 1988 while the second was not inaugurated until 2001. As for the main White building, it is quite impossible for it to accommodate 10,000 prisoners. We know it inch by inch, and know how much it can accommodate, at maximum, and assuming you put 30 prisoners in a cell like pickles (or Syrian style pickles, makdus), it can't accommodate more than 4500 prisoners (in fact it was designed for 3000 prisoners). The red building is much smaller and is exclusive to public defendants among the military members (traffic, desertion, various criminal offenses, etc), and can't accommodate more than 1800 prisoners, and even if you put 3 on top of one another. Yes, paying money to achieve release is true. I personally documented tense of cases, in which `Ali Haydar (minister of national reconciliation) was the mediator. The talk of rape is lie on top of lie. It has no basis in truth. I challenge them...to show once case, not only now but also from the beginning of the era of Hafidh Al-Asad, whether with women or with men. Yes, there were rape cases with tools (like raping around ten young women from Communist Action Party, and others, with soft drink bottles. There is nothing in official papers which prisoners sign something called Sidnaya prison. This is the popular name and not the official name _. And this reveals the lies about them signing papers indicating that they were "from Sidnaya prison". Prisoners are not moved from prisons to On-site Courts in Al-Qabun. The on-site courts move to prisons and hold its trials there, especially now as the Al-Qabun area is targeted by the fire of the rebels and is not safe at all. As for the length of the trials, it is one minute or two, and that is true since the 1980s till now. They admit that on-site trials' rulings require the signature of the president or the Minister of Defense and yet they say in another section that execution is approved only by the members of the court and officers with it. They claim that the second on-site court was formed to accommodate after the crisis, and this is a lie and show ignorance or fabrication. The on-site court (first and second) have been in existence since 1968, and the Palestinian colonel, Salah ad-Din Al-Ma`ani, was chief of the second on-site courts since the 1980s. He was the one who was in charge of trial of Muslim Brotherhood, along with Sulayman Al-Khatib. As for the requirement of confessions by prisoners while they are blindfolded, this was ended by an order from Hafidh Al-Asad in 1998 or 1999, as far as I can remember, but I don't know if this practice was resumed. There is no representative of the mukhabarat in the Hay'at Al--Mahkamah Al-Maydaniyyah, and thus he does not sign on any ruling, contrary to what is claimed by the report. There is a mess in what they say that the head of the on-site court is the military prosecutor, (p. 20) and this is real rubbish. The military prosecutor job is quite different from the chief of the on-site court, and is the chief military prosecutor in the military district administration. They say that those who are on death row are gathered in the red building (section B). But they said that the red boiling (p. 12) which is on the shame pf Mercedes, which is in fact the old building, and is thus baseless as I indicated above. And in the old building there are no cells except solitary confinement cells (one meter by two meters) under ground. And they are for punishment and is limited in numbers. As for the section B, it is like other sections (10 beds on the right and 10 on the left, three stories over ground). The thing that most got my attention was "the transfer of the prisoners form the red building and white building in trucks and cars". When one hears this one thinks that the distance between the two buildings is in kilometers when they are less than 120 meters apart. The report says (p. 2) that the "commander of the southern front group (firqah) attends the executions. There is nothing in the Syrian Army which is called "commander of the Southern Group 13 or northern or Western or any other direction. On page 32, it says that the picture is of the cemetery of martyrs south of Damascus. The report says that it was expanded substantially between 2014 and 2016 and that long tunnels were dug in them, implying that they were used to burry those who were executed. This is silly beyond silly. In the martyrs cemetery no one can be buried there except the martyrs of the army, even if there is an intercession by Muhammad or Jesus or Hafidh Al-Asad himself. And contrary to what they say, and the picture damns them, because it shows the increase in the number of victims of the army. On p. 35, and elsewhere, they talk about forcing "prisoners to rape one another". This is despicable fabrication which is baseless, and is psychologically impossible under those conditions. (Is it possible for any person in the world to get an erection to rape another person who is tied and is under torture?) If the lying witness were too say that he was raped with sticks, i would have believed it because this happened sometimes with public defense prisoners as I indicated above. On page 43, they is a copy of certificate of death which reveals that it belongs to the Minister of Interior, but the certificate says that death was in "Military Tirshrin Hospital", which belongs to the Ministry of Defense. This didn't happen, and can't happen. In cases of death in a military hospital or in detention centers belonging to Military Intelligence, the certificates show "Army or Armed Forces, Directorate of Military Medical Services", or hospital x. One of the most amusing--if there is amusement in tragedies--contents of the report is what appears on page 44, where it talks about "tens of thousands" (i.e. over 30,000 or at least 18,000) who died under torture or for other reasons in Sidnaya prison in five years but it says: "but we only were able to obtain the names of 375 people only". What the report says about the kinds of mistreatment and torture and criminality is generally true. The world has not seen more savage prisons than the 18 prisons of the Iraqi (Saddamist) and Syrian prisons since the times of Nazism and Fascism in WWII. And anything which is reported in this context can be simply believed. We have seen it with our own eyes and lived it personally, although there were orders to--to be fair--that the torture of leftists and nationalists be less severe than the savage torture of Islamists."

_ I pointed to Nizar this morning that the official Syrian regime statement issued today used the name of Sidnaya prison, and he said that it was the first time as they did not want to use the official name of First Military Prison. [http://angryarab.blogspot.ae/2017/02/amnesty-internation- rep...](http://angryarab.blogspot.ae/2017/02/amnesty-internation-report-on- syria.html)

<comment><USER15> This is incredibly hard to read, and is just a copy-paste from the blog post linked at the bottom. (The blog post is similarly poorly formatted, unfortunately.) Can you edit this to include just an introduction and the link instead?</comment></comment>


How to Appear Incredibly Smart During Meetings - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/weekdone/how-to-easily-appear-smart-during-meetings

<comment><USER2> only the guy on the first slide seems incredibly stupid</comment>


The US Government still recommends netscape - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/admin/fl/site_info/downloading.xml

<comment><USER2> Not surprising considering that website looks like it's from the early 90s.</comment>


A Texas Ranger got a prolific serial killer to talk - mighty-fine https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-25/texas-ranger-got-one-of-the-nations-worst-serial-killers-to-talk-this-is-how <comment><AUTHOR> I once got a chance to chat with a psychologist who worked for the Rangers. I ran into him at the Schlitterbahn water park south of Austin, and talked while we waited for family members to finish their rides. He was involved with tracking down members of MS-13, the Latino gang. They're known for being particularly violent, so he was pretty eager to find them and get them prosecuted.

One piece of Ranger history I didn't know was that their badges are made from Mexican 5-Peso silver coins.

[https://www.americancowboy.com/people/history-texas- ranger-b...](https://www.americancowboy.com/people/history-texas-ranger- badge-26798)

</comment><comment><USER2> There was recently an article about the alien-ness of octopi, but to read about a guy doing this, he seems more unhuman than even those. Someone who can find life that disposable just for a bit of fun, will always be utterly beyond me.

Just a note, I understand that serial killers almost exclusively stick with their own ethnic group. If you watch the (short) video, that becomes very apparent here. The photos in the article don't show that so well, the video does.

"were almost all prostitutes, drug addicts or those he didn't think would be missed."

Christ, the ultimate throwaway culture. Well done James Holland, you did a job I could not face.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Pressed about his life story, Little traced the urge to kill to his youth. He said he got his first erection in kindergarten when he watched his teacher touch her neck. Later in grade school, he dreamed of killing a girl who stroked her neck while teasing him._

He said it, but I have trouble believing that. There had to be something before that, perhaps something too far back to remember?

<comment><USER4> It shouldn't be that hard to believe. The reality is some people are born with biologically or structurally dysfunctional brains.

Is it hard for you to believe that someone could be born with schizophrenia? What about autism? What about poor impulse control?

When you think about the complicated interplay of social interaction in HEALTHY humans, which includes their innate capacity for violence (We definitely are part hunters with a propensity for war), and you compare the things we know that can go wrong and produce mental deficits of one form or another, it really shouldn't be that surprising that some people in the population would also be born with distinctly anti-social tendencies of one form or another.

Brains are complicated... there's all kinds of interesting things that happen too that may be related. For example, the disgust response of humans is typically lessened or even reversed during sexual arousal. So you can have almost a complete flip in behavior depending on context! The regions of the brain responsible for aggression and sexual arousal are also really close together and related. So is this really that much of a stretch?

<comment><USER5> You are not "born" with any of these. You are born with a genetic predisposition, for example with genetic variants that increase the risk of schizophrenia, but there are no certainties. It is an interplay between genetics and the environment, both genetic and environmental factors play a role in the development.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Causes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Causes)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics_of_schizophrenia#S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics_of_schizophrenia#Schizophrenia)

[...]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kind of sickening how he builds up his ego and tells him he loves him. Seems like that kind of treatment could potentially skew the accuracy of the confession.

"Hmm, I like being loved and praised and fed milkshakes here in prison, I'm going to keep talking, even if it isn't true!"

<comment><USER7> Very few details about the confirmations of the confessions here, and a lot of insistence that Little has a "photographic memory" a pseudoscientific claim which implies we shouldn't question whether these confessions are real.

There is a mutual relationship here: Little gets company, attention, and praise, police get to wipe 57 cases off their books that they have no intention of ever trying in a court, and this particular investigator gets lionized.

edit:

> After the confessions came the painstaking work — confirming killings. There > won't be time to prosecute Little for all the deaths, but authorities > believe they can sufficiently tie him to a homicide to consider the case > solved.

This is the entirety of the content detailing the confirmations that I can find in the article.

<comment><USER8> It's so weird to be deeply cynical about the detective's obviously cynical relationship with the killer.

<comment><USER9> This ranger is teaching his techniques to police officers.

These techniques may be useful for serial killers (although we don't know, there's no research) but we know these interrogation techniques have caused many miscarriages of justice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Totally unrelated to the article (which I enjoyed), but the LA Times website continuously jumped up and down on my iPad. I suspect ads reloading above or below the fold. Incredibly annoying!

<comment><USER11> On iOS and the reader mode makes long articles like this much easier to read. I don't use it enough myself but it's quite handy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's amazing how can a professional solve this cases where others couldn't. Why there is so much hate towards women in US? I mean, particularly, these serial killers. Cases like this are rarely seen in South America, where violence has other drives (many times much less psychological).

<comment><USER13> Unfortunately (I am South American) I think you are wrong. Some of the most prolific serial killers have been South Smerican, but serial killers are not such a popular topic on the news here so it's not as widely known.

I would think it's also logical that serial killers tend to focus on women and children because they are generally easier to overpower than another male. There is probably also a sexual component to killing and I would guess that most serial killers tend to be heterosexual, hence why they mostly target women.

For reference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_numb...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_number_of_victims)

<comment><USER12> Yes. Prolific, but I wasn't talking about the number of victims but the number of produced serial killers. I know that there were (and are!) many serial killers in other countries, but what I am asking is how and why did USA produce more serial killers as a cultural and sociological phenomenon. You could say "Ok, but you don't know that and your observation can be explained, because in US they caught more of these guys while in other countries they remain unidentified". That is really hard to believe because many LE and their corresponding Investigation Divisions in the world have the same level and resources that in USA and it is really hard to loose tracks of many linked murder cases, even when they seem unrelated at first. Given enough time, data, and evidence, someone will relate those cases if they were committed by a mostly psychological-driven serial killer. I also know that they look for the easy prey (as you said, it's logical), but there's something that seems out of that dimension in this issue. I also find really hard to miss that mass- shootings in USA are something far from logical (I'm not talking about accessibility to guns, or laws and policies about guns). I apologize if I offended someone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> He only talked cause he had nothing to lose. The ranger didn't really have much to do with it

<comment><USER15> If that's true, he would've talked a long time ago. He refused to talk to many investigators from various states who also could've gotten the same letter not seeking the death penalty (presuming the guy was already convicted for life), only Holland got him to talk. So, yes Holland is partly if not entirely responsible for getting him to talk.

<comment><USER16> I read the article, Holland definitely got the guy to talk through unconventional means. He has killers draw their victims. He seems unaffected by the flat way the killer describes his victims. It's almost like becoming the killers "advocate" (lack of a better word) instead of prosecutor.

<comment><USER17> I'm not claiming you're wrong; I'm just curious—are his methods actually unconventional? Once a person is serving a life sentence (nothing to lose), and there's nothing his cooperation can do to get him out of prison (nothing to gain), it seems pretty obvious to me that anyone wanting to work with him would need to try something like what Holland has done.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: SteadyMouse, Anti-tremor filtering for your mouse - <AUTHOR> https://www.steadymouse.com <comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty much the LiftWare spoon concept for your mouse, except the whole thing got started a lot earlier. The SteadyMouse 2 redesign has been my all- consuming-project for the last two years. There are two opposing forces: Cursor lag and tremor removal. The software finds a pretty great balance between the two so that the mouse feels normal, but still keeps tremor motion from getting through. It's a good feeling when folks with Parkinson's, MS, etc. say they can use their computer again. --Ben

</comment><comment><USER2> That is a great product! Good job!

</comment><comment><USER3> impressive! I can't even imagine the amount of time & math implied

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazing.</comment>


Ask HN: Is functional immortality possible? What are the blockers to longevity? - <AUTHOR> I'm finishing my master's degrees in CS and Biology, and I've become interested in longevity recently. I want to understand the field a bit more and contribute in some way. <comment><USER2> Want to bring it down to the biggest single issue? This is it: a tremendous fraction of the biological functioning of the human body is dependent on emergent complexity. This makes it very difficult to understand precisely how and why our systems work, and orders of magnitude more difficult still to figure out how exactly to make them work differently. When you're talking about "what multi-trillion cell bodies do", it's an enormous and chaotic possibility space where "make cells age in reverse so they don't die" could require vastly different initial conditions than "make cells grow".

</comment><comment><USER3> I think we'll get there one day via simulation. Black Mirror style.</comment>


Chalking tires to enforce parking rules is unconstitutional, court finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/ncna997326 <comment><AUTHOR> Seems an easy thing to move the chalking to an ARKit layer.</comment>


Show HN: Drag and drop sorting and reordering script for nested structures - <AUTHOR> https://supraniti.github.io/Lean-Mean-Drag-and-Drop/ <comment><USER2> IMO pre-drop feedback should be local, not global. Items might gently squeeze to the side to show a gap where an item would be inserted, instead of pushing things up/down rows and other distracting animations.

</comment><comment><USER3> Worked well on my desktop, but difficult to use on a phone, as dragging scrolls the page. Or am I doing something wrong?</comment>


Show HN: Cibarsi.com - Create a website for your restaurant - <AUTHOR> http://www.cibarsi.com/

<comment><USER2> I like the idea of a website builder for restaurants because the majority of their websites suck - they're either flash OR they want you to download a PDF. However, there are a lot of competitors in this space such as:

<http://www.happytables.com/> \- who are using a Wordpress Backend which I'm pointing out because

<http://en.wordpress.com/restaurants/> \- Wordpress are offering designs for Restaurants as well

<http://www.letseat.at/>

<http://www.bistrosquare.com/>

<http://www.restaurantors.com/>

However, I noticed that you actually launched on HN, 192 days ago - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4483473> \- which I'm assuming didn't give you a massive uptick in the signups that you wanted which is why I have a few suggestions:

First of all your website is a little bare, I would add more content etc onto the site, with additional pages etc. Likewise, I'd also make it clearer that you can click on the tablet etc to view the demo restaurant websites as well.

Have a look at your rivals (some of who I mentioned above) and you can see that they all have a considerable amount of content on their websites which encourage non-technical users (the ones with 100 toolbars on their browsers) to trust them more than you.

Likewise, you don't really have what I call an "Effective SEO" plan in place so you should start to get this going as quickly as possible - some of your rivals have been covered by high authority websites as well meaning, you need to get this started ASAP.

The "Effective SEO" plan goes back to the earlier point about lack of content on your website as well, which is something you definitely need to add. Once you have done that you need to focus on the following:

\- Advertising & Partnerships With Sites In Your Niche

\- Off-line Marketing (inc. word of mouth & traditional ads)

\- Bloggers & Other Webmasters Within AND Outside Your Niche

\- Online Communities e.g. Relevant Forums etc

\- Social Media Channels - Twitter, YouTube etc

\- Capture Future Leads (Newsletter Subscribers etc)

\- Effective Site Branding

<comment><USER3> Would you happen to know any such sites for NGOs?

<comment><USER2> It depends on the niche as NGO's still provides a large scope.

For instance if your NGO's is a non-profit I would immediately go to: <http://www.google.com/grants/> and apply for the $10,000 per month Adwords Grant.

After that I would start by reaching out to sites listed in: <http://nonprofit.alltop.com/> and [http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/05/08/the-worlds-best- non...](http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/05/08/the-worlds-best-non-profit- blogs/) I would reach out to them with the intention of getting a post written about the non-profit in them and/or offer them a guest post to post on their websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great. I was in Paris a short while ago, and it was impossible to find anything on the restaurants online. I assume things like location and contact info will show up in Google results as well?

If I could make a suggestion, a checkbox for "vegetarian food" or "vegan food" upon creation would be great, so I'll know right out of the gate whether I'll be able to dine there.

<comment><USER5> Second this. Or allowing owners to denote certain menu items as vegan/vegetarian/gluten-free, etc. So people with dietary restrictions can quickly scan the menu. Looks great though!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Essentially it's a site that allows small restaurant owners to build their own site, without any technical skills. Think of it as about.me for restaurants. The issue is that if you own a restaurant and you want to communicate and interact with your online users, you need a website.

But the whole "building a website" scenario sucks. You're stuck with having to contact professionals to build it, and you end up spending thousands of euros in the process. You end up with something that you basically have no control of, and every time you want to make specific changes to your menu or anything else, you have to waste time and energy to contact your "webmaster".

Cibarsi gets rid of all this extra boilerplate and puts you in charge of everything. With a very basic interface you can edit your menu, change the color schema, add new images, etc. And in the end you get this very basic webpage where you can show off your restaurant and make it visible to your online clients.

<comment><USER6> Any examples of what the sites could/would look like, without signing up?

<comment><USER7> Click on the phone and tablet image on the homepage to transfer to one of the example sites.

<comment><USER8> might be good if you made that more clear on the site

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Guys in your activation email replace 'attiva' with 'activate' in the url. Sorry am away from computer and can't push code changes right now. Yuk has to happen

</comment><comment><USER9>
        "Error
        Over Quota
        This application is temporarily over its serving quota.   Please try again later. "

Well then.

<comment><AUTHOR> My quota is finally reset. Sorry about that! Didn't expect to get HNed :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks great for restaurant owners who need a quick site. Well done for launching.

One of your competitors will be <http://www.happytables.com/> who are doing an amazing job with a Wordpress backend.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the mention Charlie, we've just done a huge iteration so we're really excited to release the final bits there. Cheers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My research shows that businesses, such as restaurants, are mostly focusing on social networks for their online presence. Reasons are obvious: direct interaction with regional client base, targeted advertising, free business page _with_ photo gallery, and comments/likes, and other minor stuff. I do t see how services like these can compete with that. Due to how they always end up having social widgets integrated into it. For $10 a month (which is $120/year), the owner can simply buy targeted advertising and get real tangible results.

<comment><USER13> I think restaurants would be ok with just $10/mo for a website. Most restaurant owners aren't too web savvy but I doubt they have a social-media- only policy when it comes to web presence. How you reach restaurant owners at scale is the hard part of this business. Same for any idea targeting local businesses.

<comment><USER12> Reaching SMB owners at scale is not reay an issue. Has never been. Problem is most startups only care about online marketing. Which in this case, is not the right choice. Offline is the magic bullet here.

Plus $10 may not seem a lot, but a Facebook page is $0. It also allows them to directly market to their niche. Try and achieve that with a stand alone website.

And next to the HN crowd rest. owners might not seem tech savy. But they can sure see the value in marketing where their customers spend about an hour of their lives every day. They will never get that kind of attention on a stand alone website. Plus you would be surprised how knowledgeable people in the restaurant business are when it comes to tech. I just had someone not long ago ask me for a POS system _with_ Facebook integration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great idea. The website is a little bare, so I don't have a great feel for _how_ you're solving the problem, but it's a problem that definitely needs solving, so at the least you've got step 1 down. :)

One minor pain point for me with many restaurant websites (maybe you're addressing this already), is I look at the menu, decide what I want, and then I have to hunt down the telephone number. I guess it's never a deal breaker for me, but it's annoying. The telephone number should somehow be within clear reach at all times.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a great idea, and I hadn't heard of any of the competitors others have pointed out (including UK-built happytables). It seems like penetration of these services isn't great yet, because I rarely come across a restaurant website that isn't terrible - PDF menus, contact details and little else. Hopefully that's a sign that this is a huge untapped market, and not that websites don't make much difference to restaurants' livelihoods.

<comment><USER12> It's not an untapped market. Facebook owns it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Though I want to like the idea (restaurant websites are incredibly broken as a species), your onboarding flow is really messed up. The confirmation email was in italian, though everything else up to that point had been english. The confirmation link (<http://www.cibarsi.com/attiva?token=gVngeWcA>) results in an error page.

<comment><USER17> got an error page too , my confirmatin link is <http://www.cibarsi.com/attiva?token=s1d4dkZy>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah sorry about that. You can just login with your credentials, I disabled confirmation for now. I was getting HNed I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How do you plan to get the word out to restaurant owners? Businesses targeting local scare me - they seem hard to scale... You need to find 1,000 local business customers to get a steady income of $10k/mo. Somewhat daunting.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's also appetas.com</comment>


Gun groups up in arms about Google's new anti-firearms policy - <AUTHOR> http://thedc.com/MXrM9v

<comment><USER2> I don't think Google should be doing this, but this creates a huge business opportunity. When eBay had a similar policy on firearms and firearm accessories it opened the door for GunBroker.com to take that entire business for itself. When PayPal started blocking any transactions having to do with firearms it opened the way for GunPal (which was admittedly a failure for reasons I don't understand - their site has an expired security certificate and I don't think they have been a going concern for 2 years now). That being said, there is now a better market for someone to provide both an integrated search portal and payment option for firearms transactions in the United States.

Just for the Californians and others outside the U.S., yes these sorts of firearm and accessory transactions are totally legal when conducted intra- state or when sent through a licensed dealer. The internet market for firearms is very important due to the incredible diversity in the marketplace compared to the very specific taste of the individual consumers.

<comment><USER3> Anything that pushes back against the insane gun lobby is great. Let them build their own sites, the more insular and backward they appear the better.

<comment><USER4> Great for what? The US has the largest population of private gun owners, and it has a far bigger problem with hamburger-related deaths and car-related injuries than gun-related crime. This just seems like a political or CYA move for Google.</comment></comment></comment>


Researchers Say They Caught an iPhone Zero-Day Hack in the Wild - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pken5n/iphone-email-zero-day-hack-in-the-wild <comment><USER2> All evidence says no they didn't.</comment>


Diary of an atomic bomb technician - <AUTHOR> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n15/mike-kirby/diary <comment><USER2> I love this article. Some people are surprised that I tried hard (and succeeded) to avoid army service (obligatory at the time), and that I'm not keen on people joining army by choice. It's hard to explain all the reasons clearly, but this post has the essence of it. The stupidity, the submission, the lack of responsibility, the disregard for life. The atomic bomb didn't even matter that much in this story.

<comment><USER3> "The stupidity, the submission, the lack of responsibility, the disregard for life."

This is absolutely nothing like my experience of life in the military (British Army). If you people think life in a modern western military is about stupidity, submission, lack of responsibility and disregard for your life you are so incredibly far off I don't even know how to start making you better informed.

My experience of military life was one of mutual respect, shared experience and delegated responsibility and at a level most civilians can't even understand.

You could have taken the squadrons and batteries I was in and put them anywhere in the world and asked them to do anything and we would have made it work no matter what. Try that with a group of civilians without the values the military has and see how far you get.

If you really think the military is like this, challenge your preconceptions and sign up to your country's reserves in your spare time for a year or two. See how far you get with stupidity, submission, lack of responsibility and disregard for people's lives.

<comment><USER4> I'll assume the parent poster is from the US, where conscription didn't end until 1975. In that case, the authors views are very much shaped by the Vietnam War. See [https://libcom.org/history/1961-1973-gi-resistance-in-the- vi...](https://libcom.org/history/1961-1973-gi-resistance-in-the-vietnam-war) for how the army then was quite different than your military experience:

> For soldiers in the combat zone, insubordination became an important part of > avoiding horrible injury or death. As early as mid-1969, an entire company > of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade sat down on the battlefield. Later that > year, a rifle company from the famed 1st Air Cavalry Division flatly refused > - on CBS TV - to advance down a dangerous trail. In the following 12 months > the 1st Air Cavalry notched up 35 combat refusals. ... Soldiers went on > "search and avoid" missions, intentionally skirting clashes with the > Vietnamese, and often holding three-day-long pot parties instead of > fighting.

A co-worker of mine, ex-Navy, said in the 1970s there were parts of the ship where officers wouldn't go alone, for fear of being attacked.

I think you can see how that experience leads to different views than yours in an all-volunteer, technology-focused military that isn't sending 10s of thousands to their death in an unpopular war.

<comment><USER5> > A co-worker of mine, ex-Navy, said in the 1970s there were parts of the ship > where officers wouldn't go alone, for fear of being attacked.

>

Apparently they had a real reason to fear attacks. At least 230 American officers was killed by their own troops in the Vietnam War, maybe many more. It become so common that it is even a word for it: "Fragging". Interesting read at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging) .

<comment><USER4> Since you found that interesting, you may be interested in the link I posted earlier. Not only does it cover fragging, but also near mutinies, strikes, and sabotage. Nearly 1/4 of the crew of the USS Coral Sea signed a petition against going to Vietnam -- something not mentioned on the ship's WP page nor a tribute page -- and the commander of the USS Constellation had to return to port or risk losing control of his crew and ship.

Edit: it's on the WP talk page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Portrayed by the author as taciturn and evangelical, Lt Com. Karlsven, a farm boy who joined the Navy, went on to become a teacher and pastor working with children. The rear admiral, identity unknown to the readers, commanded four months prior to the Cuban missile blockade, the height of the cold war, and a time when the nation's military credibly believed nuclear war was imminent. Kirby's beautifully written accounting of his own internal struggles with identity, faith and authority is a delight to read for its prose. But, still arrogant as he thought he only once was, the author finds fault with everything except himself. Karlsven deserves better than Kirby's depiction ( [http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/47643008/](http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/47643008/) )

<comment><USER7> > still arrogant as he thought he only once was, the author finds fault with > everything except himself

He did find fault in himself. He clearly described himself in a flawed disposition while he was working brainlessly on weapons of mass destruction.

<comment><USER8> That's the best part of the article to me. He had the ethics to ask for a discharge. He said he was close to detonating the heads.

Rationally speaking, if he had detonated a head and thus blown the warehouse (and possibly a part of New Mexico?), he might had weakened the US nuclear inventory and caused the domination of the USSR.

<comment><USER9> This was the early sixties. The US outclassed the USSR in nuclear arms by literally an order of magnitude. The US had tens of thousands, with thousands of those immediately ready to be delivered, while the USSR had thousands, with hundreds immediately ready.

For example, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US had about 170 ICBMs, 100 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and 450 shorter-range ballistic missiles based close enough to reach the Soviet Union. The USSR had 20-40 ICBMs and no SLBMs, and of course the whole deal with the Crisis was their attempt to base short-range missiles close enough to reach the US, so they just had those few. The USSR had 160 long-range nuclear bombers, while the US had well over 1,000. This doesn't even include the British and French forces, both of which were fairly substantial. (The British V bomber force outnumbered the Soviet strategic bombers all by themselves, and was in position to strike quickly.)

One guy blowing up one weapon in one stockpile wouldn't have altered this significantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're interested in reading a more extensive account of history of nuclear weapons in USA, I highly recommend Eric Schlosser's Command and Control: [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/29/command- control...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/29/command-control-eric- schlosser-review)

</comment><comment><USER11> > _" At night jack-rabbits electrocuted themselves against the security > fences: distant pops and small blossoms of flame."_

Yikes. I've never heard of a lethal electric fence before.

<comment><USER12> [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_of_Death](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_of_Death):

 _The name 'Wire of Death' is an English rendition of one of its popular Dutch names; Dodendraad which can be translated as either "Death wire" or "Wire of the dead". As the war continued and more and more victims fell to the electric fence it became known as simply De Draad meaning "The Wire". To the German authorities it was officially known as the Grenzhochspannungshindernis ("High Voltage Frontier Barrier")_

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm guessing its probably not possible to take a look at that training footage of the radiated guy in his last moments, right?

<comment><USER14> It was probably Harry Daghlian. I could not find any footage of him on YouTube.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian,_Jr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian,_Jr).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Prior Army EOD (7.5 years) (ATO for you Brits) and HN participant reporting in.

</comment><comment><USER16> Throwing a dummy bomb at someone who thinks it is a real bomb. Lol.

<comment><USER17> or throwing a [look a like of] high security key (strategic command communication in another country with big nukes) used punch card (which supposedly was just burned following strict procedure in the presence of 3 witnesses - birth of a king is witnessed less strictly :) into a toilet bowl of the commander - by his reaction he would prefer real bomb or even crocodile there than the card.</comment></comment>


How to make the perfect cup of coffee - <AUTHOR> http://markmaunder.com/2007/how-to-make-the-perfect-cup-of-coffee/

<comment><USER2> Ok. I hate to reply to this way off topic post, but I'm a coffee geek, so I need to.

Peets is crap. It's fresh, but it's way over-roasted - nearly burned. And 10 days in the store (especially because they store them in open air) is still way too long.

Find a local roaster. One that roasts light, to what they call a "city" roast. Buy beans every few days, tops once a week. It will change the way you view coffee.

Or, better yet, do what I do, and roast at home www.sweetmarias.com (not my site, just where I buy beans) And for god sakes don't put cream in it.

</comment><comment><USER3> For most people the big improvement is from just two things are 1. Use a French press. 2. Grind your own fresh beans. That puts you ahead of 99%+ of the coffee most people drink everyday.

<comment><USER4> I don't do the daily grind; I don't even by beans.

But I do use a french press, and it really does make a big difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a bit pricey but I recommend a Presso: <http://www.presso.co.uk>

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.lacolombe.com></comment>


Building Excalidraw's P2P Collaboration Feature - <AUTHOR> https://blog.excalidraw.com/building-excalidraw-p2p-collaboration-feature/ <comment><USER2> Basically implemented a CRDT set, even though they don't mention the term.</comment>


Big Data Gives the "Big 5" Personality Traits a Makeover - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/big-data-gives-the-big-5-personality-traits-a-makeover/ <comment><USER2> I like how they've compared ML clusters to US cities. Fundamentally, it's still a continuous distribution between the five variables with four "hot spots".

>>>Revelle likened the types to the location and population of cities. More people live in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston than anywhere else in the country, but most of the country doesn't live in any of those cities. And although you can easily lump someone in Newark into New York, a person in Pittsburgh is harder to classify because they are equally close to New York and Chicago.</comment>


Punctuated Equilibrium in the Large Scale Evolution of Programming Languages [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/14-09-030.pdf

<comment><USER2> Adding plots to nonsense doesn't make it any less so. Evolution / population genetics is probably the most abused paradigm in science -- perhaps Quantum Mechanics is a close second. Just because something changes based on stuff around it doesn't make it evolutionary, or punctuated. "Close enough" doesn't cut it. It's like saying rings, fields, groups, modules etc. are basically the same thing... or DAGs, binary trees, no big difference.

<comment><USER3> Is it necessarily a bad thing if evolution concept can manifest outside its origin field of biology?

I'd like very much to hear someone in technology to evaluate more specific about this paper. As I understand vaguely, they dont offer their method as an explanation of evolution of programming language _as is_ but _as if_. Which makes me kinda agree with your remark.

However, I really love to hear elaboration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice to see Santafe's work shown here. They have many interesting findings in different fields. Simulation as a tool provides a way to look into complex systems. Though not perfect, perhaps the best we can have at the moment.</comment>


Ask HN: When you think on success, who is the first person that comes to mind? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Elon Musk. If you read his Wikipedia article[1], it's amazing how much he's accomplished. Of course, he was lucky enough to be gifted with great intelligence, a strong work ethic, and a quite a bit of creativity. He's not someone to compare oneself to, but he is inspiring and I'm very glad he exists.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> My father, at least for a large time of his life.

He was 21 years old when he saw "The Hustler" in a theater and he went immediately to the pool hall. He fell in love with the game that day, and now, 50 years later, he still is.

He's managed for most of his life to make a living at it, or at least to be very active in that scene. He's a very, very accomplished player whose talent falls just short of the professionals.

He took care to ensure my sister and I were in a stable situation, and was a single father, raising us both.

Mostly I'm impressed just because on most of the days of his life, he's done just what he wanted to do. That's a well-lived life, I think.

</comment><comment><USER4> I know many people like to think of celebrities or the usual suspects... Honestly though, I think of my great grandfathers. They both survived World War II (one in Europe, the other in the Pacific), went on to raise families, and taught me many of the lessons that made me a better person than I'd probably have been without them around during my younger years. To me, success is the small things in life that most people either take for granted or fail magnificently at while pursuing fame and fortune.

</comment><comment><USER5> "This is why," Solon finally concluded to Croesus, "I cannot answer the question you asked me until I know the manner of your death. Count no man happy until the end is known."

</comment><comment><USER6> Linus Torvalds (just watched some of his talks on YouTube)

<comment><USER7> Link to those talks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fabrice Bellard

</comment><comment><USER9> none other than Sergey Brin & Larry Page

</comment><comment><USER10> Aristotle

<comment><USER11> what you mean by success then?, course not money nor stuff accomplished.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Einstein</comment>


Neural Translation of Musical Style - <AUTHOR> http://imanmalik.com/cs/2017/06/05/neural-style.html <comment><USER3> im glad to see someone talking about dynamics rather than pitch for once. its really what breathes life into music anyway. the results are impressive. one thing i worry about is that midi patches are often very sloppy about subtle changes to velocity- sometimes 60-70 sound the same, and then 71 is way louder, or the tone is much different. that means that even though you have a nice, dynamic range of velocities, it can get aliased in a way that robs it of some of that. not sure what kind of midi patches you are using for the sample generation. if you use a piano simulator, or a really high quality patch library you are probably ok.

the other thing i would note is that there is not a right or wrong way of coloring a piece with dynamics. its a huge area for artistic choice. there doesn't seem to be a great nomenclature for really detailed dynamics in the western music tradition, so it hasn't been able to be recorded on written scores, but i think it can be as much (or more!) part of the composition as the pitches are. a solo snare drum piece would be a good example of this. whats cool about what you did is that it gets away from monotonous dynamics that are the default when you write stuff on a daw by hand.

my own personal approach to this problem has been to treat dynamics as compositional elements independent from pitches or rhythms, and realize this though code. its a pain in the ass to explore dynamic ideas when you have to change all the note velocities by hand, like you said, so i decouple the dynamic curves / sequences / ??? and map them on to different regions of pitches and rhythms. its nice to add a breathing quality to a line by adding some kind of cyclical dynamic, then also being able to add a crescendo on top of that, or being able to decrescendo while still maintaining some kind of pattern of accents or dynamic phrasing. and then being able to change all that quickly, instead of by hand.

<comment><USER4> > im glad to see someone talking about dynamics rather than pitch for once. > its really what breathes life into music anyway.

So half of Bach's music was dead when he wrote it?

<comment><USER3> what do you think makes glenn goulds recordings so great?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For comparison, three other human performances of the same Chopin piece:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7SvQzkZmuM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7SvQzkZmuM)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOe670xcKhk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOe670xcKhk)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRqynzR_8Ts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRqynzR_8Ts)

Both of the performances in the demo do a mediocre job with the shapes in the music, including the phrasing and dynamics.

I suspect more people would be able to hear a clear difference if a more representative human performance was used for the comparison.

As is often the case with ML in music, the bar is higher than it seems to be.

<comment><USER6> as i understand it the human piece was chosen from the available dataset

your comment seems to imply intentional misrepresentations

the thing about recordings of performances of music from these periods and composers is that the music is public domain but the performer can copyright the performance

if the human performance midi recordings dataset used in the thesis was legally able to also include the performances by Valentina Lisitsa, Pollini, and Horowitz i am unable to see how the net would fail to make use of their contribution

also for the best results those performers would need to be involved in the production of those midi files because they carry with them a lot of a subjective meta information

i commend the human performers in the available midi files for their effort both in their expression of the piece as well as their desire to make music accessible in a verbose spec'd digital data standard

regardless i feel the real impressive part of the thesis is taking the droned midi and altering it to sound like the human midi.. which i believe is the point moreso than the lcd wow! effect of an, author defined, 'musical turing test'

i mean, really.. access to: the thesis, a full blog write up, repo containing code and a jupyter notebook, and the dataset used;

this work was excellent and the write up phenomenal

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really cool, but the difference between A and B was _immediately_ obvious to me.

I couldn't find it – did OP say whether or not respondents were musicians or not?

<comment><USER8> Yes, I'd say the most obvious tell was the strict quantization. If they can transfer some of the timing information it might be more convincing.

<comment><USER9> I thought the most obvious giveaway was that the melody was not articulated at all by the robot. Aside from that, the dynamics in the robot version were completely absent. I actually didn't think it was even a very good song until I listened to the human playing it, then I kinda liked it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Please compress your .wav files to mp3/mp4/ogg/whatever. And please only load the music when I want to play it. The size of that page is ridiculous.

<comment><USER11> Just (losslessly) converted the wavs into mp3s. Hope it loads faster now.

<comment><USER12> Slightly pedantic, but there is no such thing as lossless mp3 compression.

<comment><USER13> Also pedantic, but lossless mp3 compression is possible; it just requires the decompressed signal to be identical to the original.

<comment><USER12> More just having fun now, but I feel lossless compression implies deterministic decompression, i.e. there is one and only one signal which compresses to a given compressed signal.

Even if you had a signal which compressed to itself, it seems to me that there would likely be other possible signals which would compress to an identical compressed signal.

<comment><USER13> Good point, even if compressing and then decompressing does not change anything, you need to _know_ that nothing changed, otherwise you lose information about the compression error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could you provide a baseline case of a complete random musical style? I know it will sound terrible, but I may be too much of a musical pleb to even notice the difference.

<comment><USER11> That's a really good idea! I've produced mp3s with randomised velocities for the Chopin track and also the Yiruma track. I'll be adding them to the blog post. Thanks!

Chopin: [http://imanmalik.com/assets/audio/random_chpn.mp3](http://imanmalik.com/assets/audio/random_chpn.mp3)

Yiruma: [http://imanmalik.com/assets/audio/random_y.mp3](http://imanmalik.com/assets/audio/random_y.mp3)

<comment><USER11> I've added the randomised tracks to the blog :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know the focus is on neural networks and music, but there's an underrated art of data curation and preprocessing of which this is an interesting example.

</comment><comment><USER16> Really really cool, but anyone having some classical music background - <USER2> grandpa was a professional cellist, I did cello for 8 years - can _easily_ guess who the bot is in the A, B test

</comment><comment><USER17> > So the StyleNet model has successfully passed the Turing Test and can > generate performances that are indistinguishable from that of a human.

Not quite. There is only a ~2% chance that those ~72 people who made a choice got such a good result (62% correct) by random guessing. Still an impressive result.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is come cool stuff. >:(</comment>