Update on the Swift Project Lead - <AUTHOR> https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20170109/030063.html <comment><USER2> Latest discussion of Chris leaving Apple to join Tesla: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13369510](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13369510).

</comment><comment><USER3> Good for him. He saw another opportunity he wanted to pursue, went for it, makes a smooth transition, communicates about it. 10/10

</comment><comment><USER4> Good on him. As others have said, well-communicated move. He is leaving Swift in an excellent position and has set up an outstanding structure where Swift is way more than just one person. He spent more than 5 years building Swift inside Apple, so I can definitely understand he is ready for his next challenge. Can't wait to see what it is!

<comment><USER5> Tesla

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> He went to Tesla as VP of Autopilot SW. Really interesting! [https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris- lattner](https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris-lattner)

<comment><USER7> This is seemingly quite a different technical skill set to have than his previous position. I'm curious as to whether Tesla wants to also transition to swift for automotive code, or whether Chris Lattner was already involved in apple's car project (project titan).

Either way, a big win for Tesla and quite a loss for Apple.

<comment><USER8> Tesla's AP is seemingly built ontop of Nvidia hardware, which is programmed using CUDA. CUDA is built ontop of LLVM, which Chris Lattner created. Seems like an obvious fit if you look at it from a purely technology perspective.

<comment><USER9> That is a bit of leap isn't it ? Improving the compiler has very little to do with automated driving vehicles.

<comment><USER10> No way is it a leap. Lots of people are doing stuff to llvm to do gpu work. Take mapd for instance. There is a LOT of untapped llvm -> gpu goodness to be had.

<comment><USER9> Yeah but not for automated driving which requires good algorithms more than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> purple-dragon Welp... there goes the last of the innovators I admired/followed at Apple.

Edit: perhaps the problem is that you assume I'm just tossing gasoline on the ever-loved and popular rag-on-Apple fire. I have been an active clang/llvm user for 6 years, I have written numerous clang plugins over the years, and I am an active swift developer. Every device I own is made by Apple and has been since 2004. I am genuinely puzzled why this comment is so unpopular (at least, considerably more so than goofy unfounded speculations about what Chris will do next—see above).

<comment> purple-dragon So... are you down voting my comment because you don't consider it a quality comment, or do you just not like what I have to say?

<comment><USER11> I suspect people don't see it as a quality comment. Generally short or insubstantial comments receive a more positive response when the tone is positive. Negative, insubstantial comments tend to be downvoted.

(I didn't up or down vote, I'm just echoing how it reads to me)

Edit: Had your original comment included that extra backstory/justification, it surely wouldn't have been hammered with downvotes. Without it, it just reads like snark.

<comment> purple-dragon Lesson learned; thanks!

<comment><USER12> I would have also liked to specifically know which other innovators you admired at Apple and what they moved on to.

<comment> purple-dragon Ah, sure. Below are a handful (off the top of my head) that I admire:

Sal Soghoian: automation engineering expert "relieved" of duties for whatever reasons; consulting now I believe

Tony Fadell: went on to Nest, acquired by Google; not sure what he is doing now/next

Mike Matas: Omni Group, then co-launched Delicious Monster, then co-launched Nest with Tony Fadell after leaving Apple; I believe he is a UI designer now at Facebook.

Scott Forstall: controversial pick I'm sure, but early NeXT engineer, martyr of skeuomorphism; last seen producing a broadway musical or a play I think

Steve Jobs: 'nuff said.

John Callas: While typing this I just recalled that this famed cryptographer joined Apple sometime last year. If he is still at Apple, then I was admittedly off by one in my original statement ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't use or follow Swift, but Chris was also instrumental in the development of LLVM, which has become hugely important in all sorts of areas. Has he still been active in that while working on Swifty stuff, or have other people taken over there already?

<comment><USER14> I went to the LLVM Developers' Meeting this year, and Chris seems still very much involved in LLVM (at least from a management perspective -- he serves on the board of the LLVM Foundation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Chris has been nothing but a pleasure to interact with every time we've met. Best of luck in his new endeavors. Really excited to see what he'll pursue next. :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Let's start speculating what he might do instead. I have a hunch that this might pursue some Bret Victor-esque product maybe something like Swift Playgrounds for the iPad but less educational and more dev oriented. But I'm basing that on relatively nothing.

<comment><USER17> If my understanding of the universe is correct, he's going to join a really high paying start-up gig working on a "revolutionary" new email app that's basically slightly cooler than what we already have now, and then Apple will acquire them in 3 years, and he'll get a big payout, and then retire, which means start his own start up making a revolutionary new iOS app for teaching kids to code.

<comment><USER16> That doesn't seem to be his style. He's been doing developer tools for a while now and I can't imagine that he'd be switching. And I think that he has better options than an email startup. LLVM is one of the most important software projects ever.

<comment><USER18> He's started and incubated it to what most considers as success. What's left to do is more research and evolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Windows support ever coming? I love Linux, but have to use Windows for work due to strict IT policies. It really frustrates me that almost all the new exciting tech can't be accessed by me outside of the hobby world. To me, C# just isn't very productive. Great language, just not for me.

<comment><USER20> It gets worse. My software has to run on my customer's computers. These can be any of RHEL 5, 6, or (rarely) 7. It'll be a few years before I can safely deliver C++ 11 software, and I snicker at the Pythonistas complaining about how people don't migrate from 2.7 to 3.x --- I frequently need to support Python 2.6.

Rust, Swift, C++14, Python 3, etc... are all several years in the future for me.

<comment><USER21> Can you compile a completely static executable and ship that? Or do you need to compile on distributions as old as RHEL 5?

<comment><USER20> It needs to compile (at least the C or C++ parts). Frequently the people who operate the software will want to make small changes.

<comment><USER22> I know from experience that it is possible to build Rust binaries that work on very old Linux versions. You could for example supply them with a Docker image with a new build stack which can produce binaries they could copy to the old machines. The same is likely true for Go.

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately docker couldn't be used on RHEL5, it requires 3.10 or newer. But a disk image/qemu could work.

<comment><USER24> You can just give a chroot. At a company I used to work for, our build system used a chroot with a bunch of rarely-changing binaries/headers that let us build binaries for old distros, and then the directory with the actual code you were working on got bind-mounted into that chroot. The build process didn't depend on anything at all from the host system except for the build tool itself that set up the chroot environment. Everything to actually do the build (compiler, headers, utilities) lived in source control and was put into the build environment from there, so builds were 100% reproducible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thanks to Chris for all his work on Swift.

I can't see this any other way than a big loss for Apple.

</comment><comment><USER26> Thank you Chris for your significant contributions to the Swift project, and good luck to Ted in the new role!

</comment><comment><USER27> Obviously he leaves for Tesla. [https://twitter.com/TeslaMotors/status/818941362171158528](https://twitter.com/TeslaMotors/status/818941362171158528)

<comment><USER28> (Interior) Apple HQ, One Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA...

COOK: JUST SAY IT ISN'T TESLA.

A chair suddenly flies across the room.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm wondering if this means that the major work on Swift the language is complete? I've avoided it since it seems every year the language or the API changes... has it now settled? I really didn't want to go back rewriting code every year.

<comment><USER16> > I really didn't want to go back rewriting code every year.

The changes are mostly syntactic and like API changes. And Xcode has an integrated migration tool that's not too bad. I ported approx. 23KLOC of Swift ([http://audiokit.io](http://audiokit.io)) from 2 to 3 in like 3 hours. And the changes are generally for the better.

<comment><USER30> It can also be utter hell though if you rely on lots of external dependencies that don't share the same lifecycle.

<comment><USER16> That is definitely true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's maybe too much to read into it, but I hope this isn't reflecting on anything internally on Apple, even though the kremlinology of it can get overly dramatic. 5 years at any one tech company is a long time, though...

<comment><USER32> Lattner joined Apple in 2005. That's even longer than 5 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very professionally done. Hope all goes well for everyone involved.

Anyone know what this "opportunity in another space" is?

<comment><USER33> Nothing mentioned in his Wikipedia page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lattner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lattner)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Perhaps slightly off topic, but relevant to the community—Hacker News comments on stories like this are now being "reported."

As one author mentioned at Business Insider, a site where people write about business stuff:

> 'As one person said on Hacker News, a site where programmers chat about > stuff: "He is leaving Swift in an excellent position and has set up an > outstanding structure where Swift is way more than just one person. He spent > more than 5 years building Swift inside Apple, so I can definitely > understand he is ready for his next challenge."'

[http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-lattner-swift- creator-l...](http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-lattner-swift-creator- leaves-apple-2017-1)

<comment><USER35> It would seem to me that the reporter should have at the very least reached out to the commenter they were quoting and asked for permission to use them as a source. If it were me writing the story I would have made very sure the source was also reputable and confirmable, as that is not always the case in public forums, regardless of the usually high quality nature of HN commenters.

<comment><USER34> What if you had only an hour or so to research, write, and publish in order to meet your daily quota?

"If they were writing five posts a day, one former employee recalled, Blodget [CEO of Business Insider] urged them to write six." [http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/29/media/business-insider- staff...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/29/media/business-insider-staff- exodus/)

These sorts of incentives (and the resulting "reporting" quality) are the natural result of the web we have created.

<comment><USER35> I agree with your sentiment. My feeling is however that the existing incentives are the problem, and they result in low quality journalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> He's joining Tesla as the VP of Autopilot Software: [https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris- lattner](https://www.tesla.com/blog/welcome-chris-lattner).

</comment><comment><USER37> Swift 4? Wow, they surely are iterating quick... How's the backwards compatibility in Swift between major versions? If I understood correctly, Swift 3 was supposed to be the first production-ready release. Or am I wrong?

<comment><USER38> Swift 3's goal was source stability, but Swift 2 and arguably Swift 1 were production-ready. Swift 4's goal is ABI stability, as well as source compatibility (via a compiler flag) with Swift 3 code. In any case, Swift is basically incrementing by one major version per year. Swift 1.0 was September 2014, Swift 2.0 was September 2015, and Swift 3.0 was September 2016.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Aouch... And there goes my enthusiasm for this language.

I already felt weird knowing Apple didn't use swift internally for their core product, and seing all the huge bugs and crashes remaining in the swift compiler, now i'm left wondering who in the company is going to have sufficient weight to push this language forward.

EDIT : well, on the positive side, he's now free to make the language evolve without caring about the huge objective-c bridging layer and iOS-specific troubles...

<comment><USER40> A programming language transition takes many years. The toolchain must stabilize. Once you nail things down you add ABI stability so the OS can ship with the standard libraries. Only then can you begin rewriting core components.

It is already publicly known that some components are written in Swift, e.g.: the macOS Dock is a Swift application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I wonder who will take over managing Xcode and the other tools now, which was his other role.

<comment><USER42> Hopefully, it'll be improved a lot by the next person responsible

<comment><USER43> Dude's lucky. Won't have to look hard to see where improvement can be made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Good for him. I believe he's gonna make tremendous contributions whether or not he's at Apple.

Now that without all the restrictions from Apple, he might be free to achieve even more.

<comment><USER45> I don't think he has had that many restrictions at Apple.

BTW I really admire the guy and I followed him closely as I used to do with others like Dave Hyatt.

People from the open-source world or researchers that have given a solid contribution to Apple over the years, and not only from the technical point of view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Hmmm, going from someone with a pretty big Wikipedia page, to someone with just a linkedin entry. Guess it's fine. But Apple seems to be in a bit of a tail spin as of late.

Sure they'll do amazing.

<comment><USER47> Having a Wikipedia means you're quite known. Not having one doesn't mean you're incompetent.

</comment></comment><comment> J0-nas Good for him. I'm excited what his next job is. I sincerely hope it's another project that sooner or later is accessible for the public.

</comment><comment><USER48> Maybe not too excited about Xcode for iPad?

</comment><comment><USER49> Lots of great people leaving Apple right now, not a good sign.

<comment><USER50> Who else?

<comment><USER51> Mark Gurman even mentioned a lot of good people were leaving the company. ([https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/how- apple...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/how-apple- alienated-mac-loyalists))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I didn't see that coming, very disappointing news. Definitely a loss for Apple and Swift. I really hope he will somehow stay involved with the project.

<comment><USER53> Did you read the email at all?

 _This decision wasn 't made lightly, and I want you all to know that I'm still completely committed to Swift. I plan to remain an active member of the Swift Core Team, as well as a contributor to the swift-evolution mailing list._

<comment><USER54> From the guidelines[0]:

> _Please don 't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even > read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article > mentions that."_

Not nitpicking, but we can miss things or we can be looking at different things.

Case in point, one time on a Python mailing list, I asked a question and one person pasted something from the docs. I had read the docs for what I was trying to do before asking the question, specifically the paragraph pasted and I just thought "How could I have missed that?". It turned out they were pasting the docs from Python 3 and I was reading the docs for Python 2.7. The paragraph was identical in every respect, _except_ for the particular thing I was talking about which was changed with Python 3.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER55> Except that doesn't apply when the "article" is all of 5 sentences.

<comment><USER54> You're not wrong. We don't know that the commenter has read that Lattner wrote he'll continue to be involved and wondered if he will in fact continue to be involved once Swift no longer becomes his main activity. Whether we like or not, it will have a smaller mind share than it did when it was his main priority and his job revolved around it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> this is the worst news ever. worse than all recent negative Apple press

</comment><comment><USER57> > Chris Lattner clattner at apple.com

And this is why one should not use @company.com email :)

<comment><USER58> Why is that? Anything he did for Apple is owned by Apple.

<comment><USER57> Including his contacts and reputation? What if someone wants to email him now?

<comment><USER59> Then he'll make his email or other contact information available in some manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Ted Kremenek doesn't seem to be a very active contributor of Swift.

[https://github.com/tkremenek](https://github.com/tkremenek)

[https://github.com/apple/swift/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/apple/swift/graphs/contributors)

<comment><USER60> And yet Chris still thought he was fit to lead the group. Maybe in a project leadership role it's not all about how many commits you make?

<comment><USER61> Number of commits != overall impact on the language/community. I think he will serve this role just fine.</comment></comment></comment>


We used to build steel mills near cheap power, now that's where we put servers - <AUTHOR> http://danluu.com/datacenter-power/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, the baseline assumption isn't correct.

Actually, we built steel mills near cheap _transportation_ , not cheap power.

Why? Because the main power source for primary steelmaking is coal (coke, actually), not electricity. And you need cheap transport for the power source (coal), raw materials (iron ore and such), and the finished steel. And cheap transportation, water, helps with getting rid of heat.

Electricity is mostly used in secondary steelmaking where you are taking already existing steel, remelting it, and adjusting its properties.

Now, _aluminum_ production is very much tied to cheap electricity. I seem to remember that Iceland does a tremendous amount of aluminum refining because of the cheap geothermal power.

<comment><USER3> > Unfortunately, the baseline assumption isn't correct.

To quibble with that quibble, though the steel mills thing is in the title, I wouldn't call it a "baseline assumption" of the longer discussion in the post: the post talks about how power affects datacenter costs, with one sentence at the end mentioning steel mills.

He links the "steel mills" phrase to a page on a Microsoft datacenter in Quincy, WA. I don't know much about the history of that area, but I did read that another Microsoft datacenter was built in The Dalles, OR, which had very cheap power and historically was home to aluminum manufacturers that needed a lot of power for the electrolytic process involved:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/technology/14search.html?e...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/technology/14search.html?ei=&_r=0) mentions the datacenter and that aluminum smelters were once in the area

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting) talks more about the process and how it takes "prodigious amounts of electricity"

<comment><USER4> Quincy, like The Dalles, is located near the Columbia River, and is an hour drive to the Grand Coulee, Chief Joseph, Wanapum, Rock Island, and Rocky Reach hydroelectric dams. Electricity in central Washington is very inexpensive. Since that article was written, Dell, Yahoo, Vantage, and Sabey have all constructed data centers in the Quincy area.

<comment><USER5> Also note that a very large reason for constructing Rocky Reach Dam on the Columbia was to provide power for an Alcoa Aluminum plant that is still heavily dependent on cheap energy prices. Chelan, Douglas and Grant counties all have nearly the cheapest power rates the the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I live just across the river from a recently-retired Ford plant in St Paul. The plant had its own dedicated hydroelectric dam on the Mississippi (before you're shocked, the Mississippi just isn't very big in Minneapolis as rivers go, and it was whitewater there before being developed).

I keep waiting for someone to buy up that location to build a giant data center - Amazon, Google, someone like that. It's a beautiful spot with clean dedicated power, in the heart of a metro area full of enterprise operations talent.

</comment><comment><USER7> FWIW, the site is blocked in Russia, though the most regular proxy works around it just fine, yet.

I wonder what _have_ the author written to trigger the censorship filter.

The halter of censorship is pressing ever stronger. Пора валить :(

</comment><comment><USER8> Solar panel prices have dropped to a point where we are about to enter an era of energy cost deflation. This is an incredible human achievement, and the climate and economic benefits will be enormous.

The US was muddling its way out the 2008 crash repercussions, with incremental improvement in the economy. It wasn't until the oil-choke collar on the economy was removed that we saw a return to the low unemployment levels we are seeing today.

Energy costs are a tax on everything we do, and we are in for a global energy tax cut.

The American Southwest has tremendous solar resources, and could be the cheapest place to run data centers in the states if we could develop:

1\. Lower cost electricity storage, compressed air, new batteries, or superconducting magnetic energy storage could do it.

2\. Develop economical solar thermal air conditioning systems. If you can generate heat, you can generate cold. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_air_conditioning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_air_conditioning)

<comment><USER9> Where can I source panels that cheap, if I'm not in the US.

Genuine question, I'd really want to know.

<comment><USER10> My parents in Australia just paid $10k AUD for 5KW fully installed including the inverter and "smart meter".

(the government later reimbursed them $5k of that, though that's not really relevant)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Actually that is still a pretty good location for steel mills, as well as other industries, like Bitcoin mining farms (perhaps those fall under datacenters...).

</comment><comment><USER3> ++luu for an interesting read.

One thought on hardware acceleration: it may be kind of happening, piece by piece. AES-NI, carry-less multiply, and CRC32 instructions are kind of like smallish (in gate area) accelerators of operations that go much easier in hardware. AMD talked about a compression accelerator for their (now-delayed) A1100 ARM server chip. These are marketed as performance features, not as power-saving, but if you can do something in fewer clock cycles without a ton of area, you are often saving on power as well.

It's also possible that some savings come through finding places where slower chips will do the job because RAM and/or disk and/or bandwidth is the limiter (storage, caching, maybe some proxies and scale-out DBs now running on faster chips). Intel has server Atoms (Avoton, Rangeley) and there are experiments with ARM servers (Baidu cloud storage tried them out: [https://gigaom.com/2013/02/20/first-arm-based-servers-in- pro...](https://gigaom.com/2013/02/20/first-arm-based-servers-in-production- support-baidus-cloud-storage/)). There's lots of work on ARMs and Atoms on the consumer side and some of the benefits may spill over to low-power servers. Don't know how widespread this will be, though; I've been rooting for the concept of servers on low-power chips for years and haven't seen much yet.

You also pay for higher power dissipation with lower density. If you're Amazon or some huge provider, you can be talking about a lot of space in absolute terms.

It's interesting to eyeball a latest-gen Facebook Open Compute server with high-wattage CPUs in it, and how much of its height seems to be due to those heatsinks and fans: [http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9138/leopard- mob.jpg](http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9138/leopard-mob.jpg)

SeaMicro sadly didn't succeed, but it's interesting they thought people wanted density enough to make it a key part of their marketing, and AMD thought enough of the idea to buy them: [http://www.brightsideofnews.com/Data/2012_9_11/AMD- Expands-S...](http://www.brightsideofnews.com/Data/2012_9_11/AMD-Expands- SeaMicro-Big-Data-Gets-a-High-Performance-Home/AMD_SeaMicro7_689.jpg)

Of course, companies using and selling blade servers and the popularity of <1U configs (e.g., SuperMicro's twin servers: [http://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/1UTwin.cfm](http://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/1UTwin.cfm), Microsoft's blade-y variation on the idea: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/9138/open-compute-hardware- tri...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9138/open-compute-hardware-tried-and- tested/9), even that Facebook Open Compute layout which fits 3 boxes in 2U) demonstrate some interest in density.

</comment><comment><USER12> Being near a river wouldn't hurt for heat dissipation either.

<comment><USER13> Using a waterway as a heat sink for a server farm may not sound as bad as dumping waste, but it's bound to have an impact on the wildlife there.

<comment><USER14> I think the heat alone would disrupt a river ecosystem.</comment></comment></comment>


Where did policing go wrong? - <AUTHOR> https://taibbi.substack.com/p/where-did-policing-go-wrong <comment><USER2> Possibly it's no more complex than power corrupting (per Lord Acton).

Genuine question: is there a measurable difference in how law enforcement officers of different ethnicity exert their powers? Any studies?</comment>


PayPal freezes ProtonMail's account due to legal concerns - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/politics/paypal-protonmail-freeze/

<comment><USER2> While I know nothing about the details of this case, the vast majority of these cases seem to be due to mistakes on how the companies set up their PP accounts. PP needs to deal with fraud, and it can be hard to tell the difference between donations for a product to be launched sometime in the far future and a scam. I think the best practice is to get in touch with PP _before_ accepting nearly $300k and make sure they're expecting the money and understand the situation.

Statements like "PayPal, which is ultimately owned by Glenn Greenwald backer Pierre Omidyar ..." which are pretty obviously false (Omidyar owns <10% of the company) make me further skeptical of this article.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a lousy article that adds nothing (but unsourced speculation) over the Protonmail page that it links to here: [https://protonmail.ch/blog/paypal- freezes-protonmail-campaig...](https://protonmail.ch/blog/paypal-freezes- protonmail-campaign-funds/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Stop using PayPal for fund raising already. Haven't we gone through enough of these stories yet?

</comment><comment><USER5> Why doesn't some company with a frozen account by paypal, sue the shit out paypal???

<comment><USER6> I've often wondered this too. It seems to me that more times than not Paypal freezes an account on a "whim". Almost like they are unsure if they would or wouldn't face legal ramifications later so they just freeze it to be safe. People backlash they unfreeze but at the end of the day they have suffered nothing except people being mad at them...

<comment><USER7> It seems to you like that because you never hear about the many instances where Paypal freezes accounts for actually fraudulent transactions.

<comment><USER6> No, no I surely know they do freeze for valid reasons. You are right, we usually dont hear about those instances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://www.cryptolaw.org/cls2.htm#us_exp_1101](http://www.cryptolaw.org/cls2.htm#us_exp_1101)

> On 7 January 2011, a minor amendment was made to the EAR (Federal Register > Vol. 76, No. 5, p. 1059). Publicly available mass-market encryption object > code software (with symmetric key length exceeding 64 bits), and publicly > available encryption object code of which the corresponding source code > falls under License Exception TSU (i.e., when the source code is publicly > available), are no longer subject to the EAR. The amendment includes some > minor specific revisions.

Since ProtonMail is javascript crypto, their encryption source code is available and therefore is allowed, right?

<comment><USER9> While I am firmly in the "ProtonMail is snake oil" camp, this is obviously a stupid move on PayPal's part (why are people even still using them?). Even if the old idiotic export control laws were in place (they are not, and Paypal should know that, since it uses TLS and doesn't check the physical location of the counterparties before negotiating an encrypted session with them), it's not even clear to me that ProtonMail would be subject to them, since they are based in Switzerland (assuming their technology was developed in Switzerland). Are they even US citizens?

<comment><USER3> See also Paypal blocking anything vaguely connected to Cuba.

I live in England. Let's say I want to go to see something about the Buena Vista Social Club, and that it is held in London. (London, England).

I am not allowed to use PayPal to pay, because Cuba.

People have tried and failed to buy dresses that are called "cuba".

<comment><USER10> That actually makes sense. Paypal is subject to U.S. embargoes of Cuba, Iran, Syria, etc. Yeah, it's kind of stupid to just do a pattern match, but until we invent A.I. strong enough to figure out when "Buena Vista Social Club" means London and not Havana, it's probably smarter to dedicate scarce resources to handling exceptions to the pattern match.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When people ask me why bitcoins are needed in this world, I will cite this as another example. Whether ProtonMail is able to provide what it claims is irrelevant, the fact that a few people decide how I spend My money is as outrageous as it could be. #Wikileaks

</comment><comment><USER12> Sure feels like money has been privatized by EMV & PP. I guess I'm going to have to go figure out Bitcoin and Dogecoin one of these days.

(I realise that the issue is actually money transmitting)

</comment><comment><USER13> The thing that bothers me is that a company would consider itself the enforcer of The Law. While it is incumbent on any company to obey said Law, it's the government's job to enforce it.

So, rather than shut down an account, since PayPal doesn't necessarily have the details, they should just bundle up what they think is the incriminating evidence, toss it over the wall to the US Attorney and ask "This legal, bro?" If yes, done. If not, then the government can toss it back over the wall and say "Shut it down, dawg."

We might have better-considered laws if the government actually had to deal with half the consequences of passing said laws.</comment>


Show HN: Accounts, a simple address book for iOS - <AUTHOR> http://accounts.ms

<comment><USER2> OP has provided a link where he explains what this app actually does: [http://benguild.com/2014/05/18/announcing- accounts/](http://benguild.com/2014/05/18/announcing-accounts/)

Calling it futuristic isn't very descriptive of what it does.

In short (but not the tl;dr) this application attempts to act as a "contacts backbone"* for all possible "social applications". Basically it's a contacts list that shows you what services your contacts are subscribed to and what services you are subscribed to. The value proposition towards the individual is that you don't have to figure out what apps they are using, instead "it's just there"™. OP also claims that this will improve efficiency and reduce social network lock in (SNLI).

However, the problem of SNLI is not a search problem. Figuring out which apps your contacts use, especially the ones…ya know…you care about (like 10% of your contacts list) is not that difficult. The problem is getting enough people from your social network to switch to the new platform and abandon an old and familiar platform. The only time this works is if the new platform is somehow better than the old one. That is to say, the problem is with the social network application itself. And that problem is not addressed by this application.

Instead this application attempts to solve a problem that has largely been solved through concepts such as "notification center" which efficiently display notifications from your friends from whatever app it is you have installed.

Apps need to be experienced for people to start using them, a simple list of all the applications that your contacts have is not enough.

* quoted from the blog post

<comment><AUTHOR> The App does somewhat offer a solution to getting users to switch to new platforms through notifying you when your contacts are engaging in a new service, ie. "Joe, Matt, and 4 others just added Yo to their profile."

That sort of notification AFAIK is not offered by anything else at this time. Accounts actively markets new services you may have heard of by notifying you when your friends actually start using them

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is it futuristic? What innovations does it include? From the frontpage, I can only see a meh-looking address book with features that have been in most for a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everyone updates their own cards, and it focuses on social networks and usernames of the future versus traditional email and telephone.

With that said, it also notifies you when your contacts' email and telephone numbers change... which is great.

<comment><USER4> Uhm... my contact list supports social networks, even integrates with snapchat, twitter, instagram, etc...

Maybe it's apple that is lacking in this notion, but it's something android has been doing for years?

<comment><USER5> What app are you using for this? Or are you talking about the stock Android contacts list?

<comment><USER4> stock, at least for me; applications can integrate with the contact list and the icon / link shows up in my list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I noticed a "Pat. pend." on your page... care to explain what part of this you are patenting?

</comment><comment><USER7> -Be notified when someone updates their information.

... then ...

-Don't feel obliged to post updates, or worry about privacy.

Does not compute? Maybe there is just too much missing info - definitely isn't clear what this is, how it works, and what information is "out there".

</comment><comment><USER8> This looks pretty interesting. I've never been contented with the iOS default contacts but haven't really found a way to replace that.

I think I'll download the beta and play around with it for a while. I do like the Android way of handling contacts.

I'd be more reassured by seeing a fuller privacy policy rather than a vague promise not to violate privacy, but perhaps that'll come in time.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have thought about this solution previously too. The main issue is, how do you solve the chicken and egg problem of getting critical mass for it to be useful?

Sidenote: Why did you pick the .ms sub-domain? It made me think of Microsoft, which obviously doesn't go with an iOS app.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was the only one available that Google doesn't penalize or geotarget. I agree the Microsoft connotation is odd but if the project is a success we'll be able to acquire another domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Doesn't Android have something similar, where various accounts can be added, and the contacts will appear accordingly in Contacts? Nevertheless, the design looks quite interesting and I'm looking forward to further updates

</comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of how the windows phone people hub works (which I think is a good thing).

</comment><comment><USER11> How or why did this get on the front page?

</comment><comment><USER12> We took the word "futuristic" out of the title since some of the thread was about that word rather than the product.

</comment><comment><USER13> Death 2 clean; death 2 flat.

<comment><USER14> Death TO not writing like an adult

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ugly and unnecessary. But good luck!

<comment><USER16> I downvoted you. If you're going to give uniformly negative feedback on something like this, I highly recommend taking another minute or two to make it constructive for the OP.

Regardless of the utility or lack thereof (perceived or otherwise), someone or some group of people spent a good deal of time building this product. Dismissing their efforts doesn't offer them anything, and makes them less likely to share their future creations.

a couple notes:

* I have no connection to the authors.

* The app looks really complicated (i.e. overwhelming).

* The value prop isn't clear to me.

* What's a suggested service addition? The language I see in the screenshots uses a lot of jargon.

* It concerns me, likely to the point that I'll never download it, that the app is free. Clearly, selling it will prevent it from ever getting traction. However, giving it away suggests that I (and my friends) are the product.

<comment><USER15> I see it as unattractive and, as I like the vanilla iOS address book as it is, unnecessary. There is no much else to say.

I am not dismissing anyone's efforts. I simply stated how I feel(about)/perceive the app.

<comment><USER16> I think that this: "I like the vanilla iOS address book as it is" makes a big difference on the tenor of the comment. Thanks for adding it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Are You Forcing MySQL to Do Twice as Many JOINs as Necessary? - <AUTHOR> http://www.tokutek.com/2011/09/are-you-forcing-mysql-to-do-twice-as-many-joins-as-necessary/#.ToSTQYE7gAU.hackernews <comment><USER2> The insight of the article is that indexes and tables are the same thing underneath. Using an non covering index costs like a join. I'm a tokutek fan, but this article is the clearest report of the pros of tokudb so far.</comment>


Twitter for email - <AUTHOR> http://toastio.com/?ref=1402360104 <comment><USER2> Like some of the other commenters, I remain a bit perplexed by this. I realize we all live busy lives, but the idea of long form communication going the way of the dodo seems counterintuitive to me. There will always be a need for someone to send me a message longer than 350 characters periodically. I don't understand how this actually changes that need.

I'm also not so much a fan of the fact that this service will auto respond to people saying they should send a shorter email. That's kind of... jerk-like to be honest. I can see how it would be desirable to someone who just gets too much email, but I would posit that the better solution is to reduce the amount of email you're receiving or exercise more aggressive filtering.

<comment><USER3> You can still receive long form emails as you always have, I think Toastio is just offering another option that's more appropriate for day-to-day routine communication.

I'd imagine auto-respond being an optional feature as well so you don't have to feel like a jerk if you don't want to. However, I'm not certain about this but it only seems natural.

<comment><USER4> > _You can still receive long form emails as you always have, I think Toastio > is just offering another option that 's more appropriate for day-to-day > routine communication._

How's that any better than getting your regular emails kept under 350 words (and retaining all the interoperabillity and tons of tools and support that email has)?

It's not like most people are emailing essays to my inbox.

Or that even if someone does, I cannot just skip his email or read just enough to get his point.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it's intent is to replace email but to supplement it with a new feature. Maybe one day the feature can become one of the tools you mention that regular email already has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I literally can't think of a single reason why I'd use this... Maybe it's the Next Big Thing but what's the target market?

* Who is the customer?

* What is the pain point?

* How do you make money?

<comment><USER6> The target market is presumably people who receive upwards of hundreds of emails a day, most of which are pretty short or could be short with no information loss.

I don't get that much email, but I've heard coworkers complain about coming back from a short business trip to find 450 unread emails.

I guess the idea would be to make this the default method of email, only resorting to classic email when you absolutely have to break the character limit.

What scares me is what happens if you're having a back-and-forth email thread, and then it reaches a point where you simply cannot fit your next reply into the character limit? You'd be forced to completely disrupt the conversation to move it elsewhere.

<comment><USER4> > _What scares me is what happens if you 're having a back-and-forth email > thread, and then it reaches a point where you simply cannot fit your next > reply into the character limit? You'd be forced to completely disrupt the > conversation to move it elsewhere._

I think you're overthiking it.

It's just an ill-thought "copy X service to Y domain" idea, with not many chances of going anywhere.

I mean "the idea would be to make this the default method of email". As if that will happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > all emails are shown in your feed with no need to open threads to read or > reply.

Do people just sit and read email all day, surely you then have to "action" them at the very least? In which case you then have to go merrily scrolling back up to see which ones you missed whilst you weren't intently staring at your news feed of emails.

I'd be interested to know who the devs are targetting here? Is there a certain business area?

</comment><comment><USER8> You mention on your site that you pull from my existing email accounts. What happens to existing messages that exceed 350 characters?

</comment><comment><USER9> I think there's some good ideas here, overshadowed by the the 350 character limit. A scannable truncated feed of all your emails is worth considering, and that's what they should be pitching.

The passive aggressive auto-responder is a massively bad idea though. Between clients, VIPs, and dear family members, I imagine the number of fuck you's sent to important people would massively outweigh the benefits of automated snark.

Let's also not forget that some companies have ridiculous email signature policies. Ours is fairly sane and I'm still looking at over 100 characters.

</comment><comment><USER10> Who on earth would ever want to limit characters in an email. Am I missing some subtle lampooning in the copy that explains this things existence?

<comment><USER11> Who on earth would ever want to limit characters on a blog. Oh, wait..

<comment><USER4> Twitter is not a blog, and tweets are not blog posts. If you were reffering to that.

That said, sure, many people would want to limit characters on a blog. But it's THEIR choice to do so (e.g keep a laconic tumblr style blog), not something forced upon them by the people they communicate with.

And a blog is not a platform for collaboration. Often it's not even open for discussion (close comments etc).

Each blog is its own universe, and you can eithe read it or not.

Emails, we get from tons of places, including people we don't work with directly or are not our close friends, and we cannot just shove "keep it short" to them.

If your Ph.D advisor or an interested VC sends you an email, would you like for him to get a "keep it under 350 words" autoreply? Or do you want your depressed friend, who wrote a 5-page email to explain his fears to you, to get that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is as good an idea as a Jump to Conclusions mat.

<comment><USER13> Was Office Space shown on a major network last night? That's the second reference in as many posts.

<comment><USER14> It made a million dollars!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why would they name it toastio and not own the toast.io domain? That seems like they're trying to be hipster but missing the point.

</comment><comment><USER16> Screenshots, even showing fragments of the concepts, would be helpful. The idea seems a little odd and not something I could see myself using, but I still want to see how it might look.

</comment><comment><USER17> Isn't this exactly what ShortMail was? [https://shortmail.com/](https://shortmail.com/) (only less characters)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not sure how this is different than [https://shortmail.com/](https://shortmail.com/).

</comment><comment><USER19> Late April fools joke?</comment>


In defense of wikileaks - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/In+defense+of+wikileaks <comment><USER2> I've come full circle on Assange as well. After being shocked and disappointed when he first came out with the propagandistic bias and spy-vs.-spy schtick, I realized that nevertheless, the guy is devoting his life and considerable intelligence to the cause of transparency and whistle-blowing. In an age where even so-called liberal governments continue to inflate the national "security" state and propagate fear and secrecy, we need this badly. Assange et. al. have moved the needle perceptibly in the direction of a freer society; that is no small achievement, and in return for it I've decided to cut him a ream of slack.

Besides which, even if he is a media hog, he's a media hog with a brain who speaks superb English and has no interest in dumbing or toning anything down. Who else can you say _that_ of? Listening to him on flaccid NPR the other day was a blast of fresh air.

</comment><comment><USER3> _That includes the old dogmatic 'access on need to know basis only' and items like that. You really have to wonder how a single individual gained access to 90,000 documents, he couldn't possibly have a 'need to know' the contents of all of those, in fact he couldn't have read that many documents even if he wanted to._

Yep field commanders don't need to know what is going on, guys back home doing intelligence analysis don't need to know what is going on in the field, Generals in charge of the situation don't need to know what is going on. Yep, no need to know there. And no one person isn't expected to sit down and read all 90K documents but they need to be available just in case some one who read the high level report needed more detail. They could go back to the original field reports that went in to the high level report. While wikileaks isn't the only responsible party their hands are not clean in this situation, innocent people are going to be hurt because they don't care.

<comment><AUTHOR> An informant is not an innocent but a participant.

<comment><USER3> An informant's wife, cousin, neighbor, any one who is hurt to get back at the informant besides the informant is an innocent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, and the informant carries full responsibility for putting his family members in danger.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Iran still on the Internet? Find out with a traceroute - <AUTHOR> http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Run_a_Traceroute

<comment><AUTHOR> Gotta love the end: "Several lines of timeouts mean the packets are being held up, clogged or lost somewhere along the way. Blame the terrorist group or national intelligence organization of your choice." :)

Test results:

www.president.ir loads fine in my browser, but I tried: "traceroute www.president.ir" 5 times, and I ended up with timeouts from the 23rd to the 30th hop. Close to the destination (destination's IP = 188.8.131.52), but not quite reaching it...</comment>


Silicon Valley's prosperity paradox: 76000 millionaires can't fix local poverty - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valleys-prosperity-paradox-explained-2016-12 <comment><USER2> >"The large rooms of which you are so proud are in fact your shame. They are big enough to hold crowds--and also big enough to shut out the voices of the poor....There is your sister or brother, naked, crying! And you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering."

Ambrose 4th Century

</comment><comment><USER3> I understand the libertarian ideal of being free to choose how to give away your own money, but how do they reconcile that with the ignorance of the elite as to the social problems they never encounter? Even given the inefficiencies of government, it's hard for me to imagine that the same amount of social spending could do more good from the hands of individuals than collective agencies.

<comment> compiler-guy There are plenty of governments that miserably fail to distribute very large amounts of aid in a way that actually helps the target groups [0] is one in the US, and internationally, things can be really, really sketchy.

One advantage about doing it via charity is that if a charity is ineffective, or fraudulent, switching to a new one is easy. Fixing a government full of corruption or inefficiency is quite a bit harder.

Government does have an important role, but it is no panacea.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-newark- schools-p...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-newark-schools- partially-squandered-a-great- prize/2015/10/20/ffff660c-7743-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html?utm_term=.eb85e0908ca4)

<comment><USER4> Umm.. you vote out the corruption?

<comment><USER5> This assumes that the elected officials are the problem, that better options are available, and that the system will allow change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My friend serves on a local educational non-profit.

He's encountered a lot of problems during his tenure there, that explain why they don't play nicely with many silicon valley folks.

First, the non-profit's goal is to continue to exist, and that means to appease donors, not to serve the needs of the community.

Second, a lot of the employees are volunteers, which means they don't act quite professionally sometimes and push their own agendas to the detriment to the non-profit's overall goals.

Finally, and sadly enough, many of the volunteers lack professionalism. They routinely disclose information they were asked not to reveal, and they forget to document possible conflicts of interest

<comment><USER7> > volunteers

> professionalism

Pick one

Are those non-profits financed by local companies? Yes, it's usual that they will try to solve their own problems, that's why you select good people and give them a reason to thing about the bigger picture (that is, you pay them)

<comment><USER6> > Pick one

Maybe I'm spoiled with who I've been working with, but even when you do something for free, you still try to do a good job while you're at it.

For instance, if you're a landscaper, and you're doing a yard for a neighbor for a favor, you still break out the edger to to the extra mile on what you're doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The "76000 millionaires" number might be a little misleading. I've lived in Silicon Valley since I was 3. I bet that a lot of those millionaires are home owners on the Peninsula who have nothing to do with "Silicon Valley" as we commonly refer to it (the tech industry). My Grandpa, for example, was a high school teacher all his life. He bought a home up in the Burlingame hills back in the 60s or 70s, and that thing is probably worth multi-millions now.

<comment><USER9> I honestly don't know, so I'm asking a genuine question: if someone has no money in their bank account but owns a house worth millions of dollars, are they considered a millionaire? Even though they've never realized that money and could never spend that money?

Sorry, your comment just raised an interesting question in my mind.

<comment><USER10> Well, they can still sell the house. Then they can spend the money.

<comment><USER11> But they don't have a place to live anymore.

<comment><USER12> Many people live in places without owning a $1M house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Silicon Valley and San Francisco need to learn from NYC about how to address homelessness and and poverty. The state of the Tenderloin is comparable to Times Square in the 1970s.

It boggles my mind why we cannot divert that valuable land towards productive use and use the tax revenue generated towards providing homeless services closer to the outer edges of the city and away from civil society.

I urge people to read this article: [http://www.city-journal.org/html/how-new- york-became-safe-fu...](http://www.city-journal.org/html/how-new-york-became- safe-full-story-13197.html)

<comment><USER14> SF already spends ~$250M a year on homelessness. I don't think more money is what is needed to solve the problem. I think a change in tactics is needed. I am not sure what the right answer is, but they already have ~$25k to spend per homeless person.

<comment><USER15> That ~$250M/year is spending on both homeless and homelessness prevention, only about $100 million of that is actual services for the homeless, of whom there are ~7000, so about $14,000/homeless person.

[http://sfist.com/2016/04/12/no_san_francisco_does_not_spend_...](http://sfist.com/2016/04/12/no_san_francisco_does_not_spend_360.php)

I think there's a strong argument for changing tactics, but if one of my friends anywhere in the bay area told me they were living on $14,000/yr I would ask if they have enough food, so it doesn't surprise me that this isn't really working.

<comment><USER16> I understand SF more expensive than NYC these days, but $14,000/year sounds like a reasonable amount of money to me. It's obviously not enough for each person to get their own apartment, but if spent wisely, it seems like it should afford them some safe modest shelter and a reliable 3 meals per day.

I assume some of the money goes towards rehabilitation, which cuts into these funds a bit. Maybe it does need to be bumped up. At first glance, $14k just seems like it should do a better job than it's doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have to admit, I have become a bit disillusioned with charity. After contributing many hours with Glide church, serving homeless people in SF, participating in many events and fundraising, I feel like we rarely move the needle. Charity seems to be designed to just maintain the status quo. Last month, I spent a week in a French village near Lyon and I was surprised to see the quality of life in a small village in France - supposedly a socialist country with stagnant economy and high unemployment. That made me wonder whether persistent poverty is simply an outcome of a dynamic capitalist system and the only way to address it is some form of socialism or universal basic income.

<comment><USER18> Charity is most definitely a tool to reinforce the status quo. It's not that charity is bad, but it is less good. Here is a fantastic article on the topic: [https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/peter-singer-charity- effe...](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/peter-singer-charity-effective- altruism/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't think "empathy gap" is a good way to describe the disconnect described. The gap isn't a lack of empathy. Nobody involved lacks empathy. It's a fundamental question of framing and measurements.

One group of people wants cares about how happy they make people and how moral their mission is. The other cares about the efficiency of how many people can be made that happy per unit of cash.

This is why CharityNavigator and similar have become popular.

</comment><comment><USER20> Somewhere in my brain is floating the figure of 40,000 for the entire homeless population of the entire greater Bay Area. There are twice as many millionaires in Silicon Valley as there are homeless in a greatly expanded "local area." There are about an order of magnitude more millionaires as there are homeless in Silicon Valley proper.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/06/22/silicon-valley- homeles...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/06/22/silicon-valley-homelessness- drops-to-its-lowest-level-in-a-decade/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Is this really a matter of donating? Shouldn't it be a matter of changing economies? Donating helps but it also keeps the status quo, where wealthy still have access to opportunities and the poorest still don't.

</comment><comment><USER22> For trickle down to work the rich need to buy sufficient amount of services. Unfortunately there is an oversupply of low skilled labor and thus not enough of these jobs (how much can 76000 people consume) and no bargaining power.

The middle class as a broad wealth transmission belt has been shrinking and is under pressure from low interest on retirement accounts, high educational cost and home financing costs.

As the money is pumped into the economy from the banking/financial side the gap is increasing continuously.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's no mystery. 76000 millionaires who care about their own interests and money instead of poverty aren't fixing local poverty. They could do a lot to address causes and symptoms to point of a great transformation. They just don't want to. End of story.

Now, knowing they don't want to or put in little effort, what's the next plan for people wanting to end poverty over there that factors this in as a base assumption?

<comment><USER24> I really don't think it's about money or lack of empathy, as you imply. SV is largely liberal -- witness climate change efforts. If there was a clear solution, I suspect they would back it with their money.

<comment><USER23> There's a difference between liberal and willing to put much of one's fortune into making others well off. They could be doing all kinds of investments, lobbying, etc that would reduce poverty as a side-effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The homeless problem is SF is so minuscle and the talent and funds available so extensive that the only reasonable conclusion is there is no desire to fix it. Contrast this with the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted by the government on the severely bloated security state and trillions on the banks bailout and one has to question the priorities and loyalties of the american state. There is no lack of money, it seems a lack of will.

I think few other countries if any display nearly the same visceral hatred of poor people or perpetuate a naive black white view of poverty as the US tends to do.

This binary view leaves little room for adversity, bad luck or downturns with commentators in an unholy rush to tar them all as criminals, addicts or mentally unstable. It seems the expectation is the homeless should be at their best behavior while in abject poverty.

Trying to 'help' these folks get back on their feet is 'unearned' and strikes at the identity of individualized americans for whom a bare decent life is a privilege to be earned. And resentment for 'freeloaders' reflexive and immediate. You can't have 'winners' without losers.

The problem is the 'losers' are now in plain sight and making things unpleasant for the winners, and the urgency is not to address their suffering for they must suffer, but to dehumanize and get them out of sight so the 'winners' can carry on uninterrupted.

</comment><comment><USER26> Could anyone else find where the stat came from on number of millionaires? I opened the linked PDF report the link ultimately led to, read the whole thing and couldn't find it.

I'm curious because the devil may be in the details and the headline may not be what it sounds.

Specifically...

\- What form does this wealth take? Are they only paper rich? If so, they probably can't access much of those funds. Same if they are tied up in retirement accounts.

\- What is the distribution of money in this sample? If it is closer to $1M for the majority vs much higher amounts, that isn't as much money as most people think it is out here when a crappy small house in a decent neighborhood costs more than that. Certainly not "divert your funds to solve poverty" levels of cash. If you have $1M and have a decently large mortgage out here, that money is likely not even enough to cover your retirement if you keep living here.

This sort of headline and math drives impressions and revenue for Business Insider but this is likely a non story.

Don't get me wrong... This is a big problem that we should absolutely be trying to solve. But this seems to point the finger at a group of people who may not really be worth pointing the finger at because they actually aren't that wealthy in reality if you factor in the form of that wealth, cost of living, mortgage, and saving for retirement. They may in fact look more similar to the upper middle class of 20 years ago, albeit with smaller, crappier homes.

<comment><USER27> > They may in fact look more similar to the upper middle class of 20 years > ago, albeit with smaller, crappier homes.

If the conjecture is true, it would be a really powerful example of how great wealth inequality has gotten, and how absolutely ineffective trickle-down economics is.

<comment><USER28> Wealth inequality plus trickle up economics plus inflation makes for millionaire wage slaves who can't afford their kids college tuition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If only we had an central organization that collected taxes to solve issues of public concern.

</comment><comment><USER30> Why would they want to "fix local poverty"? What does that even mean, writing checks in perpetuity? Why would they want to give their resources to other people? How culturally compatible are these "millionaires" with the people they would supposedly be helping? What does a Chinese expat engineer have in common with a schizophrenic black hobo that he would want to write them a check, their presence in the same zip code? Why would he do so when he's already taxed, heavily, to provide things like "homeless services" in SF to the tune of $250 million / year (IE, approximately $20K / homeless person) with apparently no effect? How much of a cut do these "nonprofits" take along the way?

Lots of unasked questions here.

</comment><comment><USER31> Off topic: I noticed the article cited Zillow as a "real estate database". That is troubling given how inaccurate the service has proven to be.

<comment><USER32> An "inaccurate real estate database" is still a "real estate database".

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It is easy to blame individuals, but let's face facts, everyone is busy dealing with their own issues no matter how poor or rich. Further, wealthy people aren't going to start shopping at second hand stores any sooner than the impoverished are going to start shopping Louis Vuitton to learn how other people live. Don't know, don't care. Besides government, we have these silly associations called corporations that are both tiny and enormous. There are tax incentives and brand awareness that all motivate them to get involved with these issues. Further, they have armies of people and other resources.

To owners, board members and shareholders: Is your company engaged with local community issues? Are employees and management encouraged and supported to do so? Awareness campaigns?

For employees and contractors: Have you bothered to see what your company is doing to assist with these programs? Have you signed up to learn more? Volunteer or donate money?

My 2c: It sounds like a much better approach to work with than trying to chase after 76000 individuals. More likely to herd cats.

Every year our local office adopts a family and donates household goods, food, gifts, and computers. Last year we worked at the local food bank, the community kitchen and last year repainted a community centre. It is a great opportunity for team building that doesn't involve stupid posters with lions and whales.

<comment><USER24> Many in SV are busy, but are also aware and empathetic.

I suspect many of us would pay slightly higher taxes to solve this problem, if that were possible. But we are less likely to invest time, or push corporations to tackle the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Contra the article, the rich in Silicon Valley very much know those poorer people exist. They're the maids, cooks, landscapers, restaurant workers, car detailers, construction crews, etc. They're not invisible. They exist, just not - to their clients or customers - as people. Replace them with robots, and the millionaires will only notice a difference in cost or service levels. The idea that somebody's livelihood just went _poof_ is of no consequence to them.

</comment><comment><USER35> The number of people in the area is greater than the number of homes. No amount of income redistribution can possibly fix this. If you rent a room for a homeless person, you are just going to price out the poorest person who can currently afford a room. The only way to fix this is remove people or build homes. The first option is better for the landed gentry, the second option is better for the nation as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER36> Every time I read something like this I think about all my rich friends in Silicon Valley who engage in armchair socialism. Gives me a good chuckle. ^.^

<comment><USER34> As another responder pointed out, there's nothing inconsistent about it. Just because someone believes _all_ of the rich should pay more doesn't mean they're willing to be the _only_ ones doing so while their more callous peers coast by.

You know what's inconsistent? Claiming to care about an issue, but opposing any means of addressing it. If you're going to preclude the government addressing poverty, you can't also go around undermining everyone else who tries. For example, in other comments on this story I see people complaining about volunteers' lack of professionalism, and about spending money on marketing. Clue time: money for marketing is a necessity for _any_ long-term enterprise. If the government got out of charity altogether, each charity would have to try even harder to draw attention to their cause among all the others. The marketing industry would love it, but from the standpoint of helping the poor it's a form of inefficiency. Those who rail against government inefficiency should admit and consider the inefficiency in their own chosen model, lest they seem dishonest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the article:

"For both sides to work together effectively, each has to recognize the challenges of the other."

Why? In order for both sides to work together effectively, the business (non- profit) has to anticipate and fulfill the need of the consumers (donors).

They're basically saying that not only aren't the donors giving enough, they need to be educated into changing their reasons and motivations for giving.

</comment><comment><USER14> It seems like some of the charities need to spend money on marketing to get their message out and attract/convince new donors. It's hard to raise money and get donations if people do not know what you do. Unfortunately, many people get angry when charities spend money on marketing because they say it's wasteful and doesn't go directly to helping people. But, sometimes you have to spend some money in order to make more money in order to help more people...

<comment><USER15> My sister has spent the last ~15 years in nonprofit management, she consistently says that marketing and outreach are 30-40% of the budget at the nonprofits she works with, many of which have annual donations in the 8 figures.

Socially it's really unacceptable to say "we spent $3 million on marketing this year" because people think you should have spent it helping people, but if you don't spend it this year your doors close next year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> If large numbers of poor people choose to live in silicon valley, that implies silicon valley is actually one of the best places for the poor.

<comment><USER38> They vast majority of poor in SF grew up there or in nearby areas, they didn't migrate there like the economic elite have.

<comment><USER39> We're talking homeless, not simply poor, and I'd love to see some citations.

<comment><USER15> 70% of SF homeless from SF: [http://sfmayor.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/...](http://sfmayor.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/455-SanFrancisco_HomelessReport_2015_FINAL.PDF)

Page 33, under the subtitle "Place of Residence"

<comment><USER35> I don't see any data about where people are from in that link. Just where they lived most recently. A good way to become homeless is to move into an unstable housing situation in a far away place with high rents.

<comment><USER15> "Seventy-one percent (71%) of respondents reported they were living in San Francisco at the time they most recently became homeless, an increase from 61% in 2013."

It's true, it doesn't measure length of stay, but they came from SF and claiming it's still an external problem with no evidence seems particularly disingenuous.

<comment><USER35> The original statement "They vast majority of poor in SF grew up there or in nearby areas, they didn't migrate there like the economic elite have." is simply not supported by this evidence.

Given historical population growth of California, I think it's not a winning argument. Very few of California's residents have moral ground to live here at the exclusion of others. Pretty much everyone moved here. The only way forward is to allow enough homes to be built for everyone who wants to live here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "can't fix" implies they're trying

</comment><comment><USER41> How about 760,000 millionaires? If we are going to invent a random statistic without any data to back it up. Pretty document by the way.

</comment><comment><USER42> You misspelled won't.

</comment><comment><USER43> You'll likely get downvoted for mentioning you expect downvotes. Please don't do this. It adds nothing to the conversation.

<comment><USER44> If you downvote somebody for mentioning downvotes in otherwise acceptable comment, you are a fool; please don't do this. Mentioning downvoting adds nothing to the conversation, but it also doesn't subtract anything.

(For the record, I think downvoting is a bad idea in general. Although GP kinda deserves it, because his comment is empirically untrue, as other comment stated.)

<comment><USER43> _" [mentioning downvoting] doesn't subtract anything"_

I disagree. It sets up the commenter as a martyr, and indicates they are commenting from an adversarial position. Thinking this, they're less likely to take the time to phrase their comment in a way that will invite further constructive discussion. It also encourages an "us versus them" mentality.

People respond reflexively to phrasing. It takes extra effort to reflect and respond well. Taking care to limit language that short-circuits reflection is important to constructive, positive discussion.

<comment><USER44> "I disagree. It sets up the commenter as a martyr, and indicates they are commenting from an adversarial position."

But why should I, as a responder or moderator, care?

Imagine a comment with 10 statements, 9 are great points but 10th is logical fallacy (in our case, appeal to emotion). Should such comment be downvoted? I think NO, because each comment should be evaluated based on its merits, not its flaws.

"Taking care to limit language that short-circuits reflection is important to constructive, positive discussion."

If you, in the above example, just downvote without commenting, how can the author figure out what he did wrong? It's like a punishment without an explanation - a stupid, medieval idea.

<comment><USER43> I think we may be talking past each other. I understand you believe downvoting in general is a bad idea, in particular downvoting without also providing an explanation. Further, I think it's likely that you'd rather there be little or no downvoting at all, with all interaction happening via comments. That's a viewpoint I've heard others espouse as well, and that's a discussion that interests me, though not one I'm interested in having right now.

In my initial comment, I've only described the voting behavior of some HN members, not expressed any opinion on it, in the hopes that the author can take that into account when commenting in the future. Separate from voting behavior, the HN guidelines specifically call out mentioning downvoting:

 _Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

My second comment is specifically in response to your assertion that mentioning downvoting is not detrimental to the conversation. You've continued to discuss downvoting mentioning downvoting, while apparently missing that I've been doing exactly as you recommend: commenting explicitly on what I believe the commenter has done wrong.

Thank you for sharing more of your thoughts on whether to downvote and how you think comments should be evaluated. I'm purposely not addressing them as that's too large a discussion which will go too far afield (even more so than this has already gone), and as I mentioned above, not one I'm willing to have right now.

<comment><USER44> > I think we may be talking past each other.

Ah OK, I understand. I actually agree that mentioning downvoting matters for the reader (it's an irrelevant thing that takes away his time), but I don't think it should matter for people who choose to participate, either by replying or moderation.

I also agree with the HN guidelines that you quoted, although of course without downvoting those wouldn't be neccessary.

> I've been doing exactly as you recommend

I appreciate that.

> I'm purposely not addressing them as that's too large a discussion which > will go too far afield

That's fine, I agree it's offtopic. Unfortunately, HN doesn't seem to provide good forum for these matters. Even in general I think this is a hard to solve problem, how to avoid discussions to turn into irrelevancy, which can be given by fleeting nature of these discussions.

I am thinking, maybe someone in the future will apply some NLP learning to automatically mark threads that become offtopic (and collapses them or moves them elsewhere); that could perhaps solve the problem for reader that downvoting intends to solve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> hash-set Crikey, speak the truth on here, get a downvote. Like clockwork!

<comment><USER45> Because it's an unsubtle polemic that misses its target. All government inefficient? Check. And wrong. Charity as the single solution to collective action problems? Check. And has substantial real-world limits due to the free- rider problem. Medicare inefficient? Check. And ludicrously wrong.

Dropping a standard-issue screed into a thread tends to attract downvotes because it isn't serious.

<comment><USER46> > All government inefficient? Check. And wrong.

Can you name an efficient government program?

<comment><USER14> Medicare is pretty efficient and a lot of people on the program like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Been working on this problem for awhile. We're currently in Alpha. Not saying a word about how we're fixing the problem on a public board, because peoples envy and jealousy leads to violence (imitative competition) Girard would postulate.

All I'll say, is it's _really good_ and _Gamified_ and will _emancipate human people from suffering_.

</comment><comment><USER48> Article chooses the slant that its a bad thing that there is disparity. One could claim that in a true dystopia the rich would just make it so insufferable that the poor leave as economic refugees.

While I would love for everyone to be "rich" today, it seems that eventual wealth is a good deal, if kind of harsh emotionally. Many of the "poor" (i know there are extreme cases) are richer than kings 1000 yrs ago. I would guess that in 1000 yrs the "poor" of then will be richer than our 1% today.

<comment><USER49> The "poor" you know are richer than kings of 1000 years ago? Well sure if you're measuring in dollars they are. Otherwise, what on Earth are you talking about?

<comment><USER50> Modern medicine, access to all the world's knowledge on a handheld device in your pocket, cheap clean/safe water and food from every corner of the world, entertainment (music/films/tv/youtube) cheap/safe transport over thousands of miles in a matter of hours.

There's not a chance in hell I'd want to swap places with a king of 1000 years ago.

<comment><USER49> You're just listing improvements to standards of living (that not all poor benefit from even today). Ancient kings still controlled land, armies, and food (they probably ate first in times of scarcity). They didn't have modern conveniences but they were still wealthier that today's poor. They also had power and most likely answered to no one.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you organise and find notes and files? - <AUTHOR> I store text in Markdown format, media (clipping from webpages & forums, images & video) & code snippets in dropbox. Searching and finding is the issue.
The matter/type of data ranges from rent in a neighbourhood that someone mentioned is paying that I want to store, food recipes I find, some interesting tips, quotes & facts. Digital copy of all important documents (passport, degree, receipts). Just every info I come across, I record it incase I forget it (I am rather forgetful). But now the issue is search my data.
Tried Evernote & Onenote, but it reduces the quality of files and I am not fully happy with the organisation method. Plus my data is stuck in the application.
I like the tag/label approach of Gmail. I think tags will be a better way to explore & find things needed.
I would love to know your method and hoping to learn an efficient method for organising my data. I am looking for an open standard. Org mode is interesting, but lack for media support is why I avoid it. <comment><USER2> I'm using [https://www.TagSpaces.org](https://www.TagSpaces.org) and I like it. It supports markdown and a bunch of other formats. You have the choice of storing the tags in the filenames or in sidecar files. I use the latter as I don't want my original filenames to be modified.

</comment><comment><USER3> What exactly is the issue with finding things stored on your local filesystem?

Does your OS not index file names and content, allowing you to search for a text fragment and get meaningful results?

<comment><AUTHOR> Its not the techs fallacy, its more of the user fallacy. Its just that it takes long to find, I forget the keyword I used to save it under. Sometimes I use a keyword to save it, but then I forget and only when I find the info, I realise that I didn't use the right term. I am think it will better instead searching, it will be better if I can browse around.

Basically, I feel that there is a better way of doing it and I am just checking around. My current system is something I just put together.</comment></comment>


Computer Chips Evolve to Keep Up with Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/computer-chips-evolve-to-keep-up-with-deep-learning-1484161286 <comment><USER2> Paywalled. Meh.</comment>


Google Acquisitions - <AUTHOR> http://itechtalks.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-acquisitions.html

<comment><USER2> From the top of the page: "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein"

How exactly are acquisitions inhumane? Any time I've heard of someone getting acquired by Google, they were happy about it.

<comment><USER3> That quote doesn't appear to be specific to this post. It's on every page of the blog. For example:

<http://itechtalks.blogspot.com/search/label/amazon>

<comment><USER2> Ah, then it's a bad idea because it seems to be casting judgement on it. (And probably many other pages.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This list appears to be lifted directly from Wikipedia.

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

<comment><USER5> This is rajeshvaya's hobby: <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rajeshvaya>. Flag away on his submissions!</comment></comment>


Database "sharding" came from Ultima Online? (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://www.raphkoster.com/2009/01/08/database-sharding-came-from-uo/ <comment><USER2> New sharding is but old partitioning writ large. Partitioning sounded too much like what grandpa did, so they gave it a jazzy new name.</comment>


Stalker Fear Over Phone App - <AUTHOR> http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2872019/Stalker-fear-over-facial-recognition-phone-app.html#ixzz0gsypsBQg

<comment><USER2> Ah - an almost perfect example of UK Tabloid reporting:

Moral panic over something that doesn't yet exist, and even if it does work is only going to give access to information people have chosen to make available.

But lets not let facts get in the way of fearing the internet.

</comment><comment><USER3> Face recognition is a _really_ hard problem</comment>


Discovery of pear-shaped nucleus rules out time travel? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-just-discovered-a-new-nucleus-shape-and-it-could-ruin-our-hopes-of-time-travel <comment><USER2> Original paper here [http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.01485v1](http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.01485v1)</comment>


The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume III - <AUTHOR> http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_toc.html <comment><USER2> [http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/29355/reading- the...](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/29355/reading-the-feynman- lectures-in-2012)

I do not think either of Ron Maimon's comments could be easily improved upon.

This stackexchange has been cleaned up as per the "I deleted some old and/or off topic comments" if I remember correctly this article used to have some hilarious deletionist rant about historical physics texts being off topic for physics SE.

<comment><USER3> I agree; his comments really do cover why I am a huge fan of them. Feynman's lectures are less about the actual physics, and more a tour de force in how he approaches problem solving and intuition of problems. He just uses physics to deliver it (and in doing so, gives you an excellent primer to a large amount of physics topics at a level that an interested party could find accessible).

Having done some tertiary level physics, I've covered much of the content but I still find the Volumes an excellent read not only as a refresher on the subject matter but also a demonstration of how to really nut out a problem and think about it in a way that supports a fuller understanding of the principles at play.

Feynman lamented that his lectures, in and of themselves, were a failure when he presented them to the Caltech classes. I think that misses their true worth of teaching the prospective student how to think through problems. That's a skill that is incredibly valuable to learn and improve upon no matter what your level of physics understanding or indeed what discipline you choose to pursue. To me, the material is largely secondary to that.

<comment><USER2> "intuition of problems"

I have read several of his books, both non fiction and the autobiography. Would you say intense focus on development of intuition is a Feynman thing or a physicist thing or a general trait of anyone who masters a topic (not mutually exclusive). He is the most persuasive author I can think of WRT his (correct) opinion that development of good intuition results in problem solving.

<comment><USER3> I think it's a teacher thing. All the best teachers I've observed, both in my life and famous ones, have mastered the teaching of intuition. This is not limited to physics or even the hard sciences. I'd also say that there's a causal link between those who can teach material _well_ and those who truly master a subject matter, so your latter statement is correct.

I've been doing 8.01x and 8.02x on edX - both are taught by Walter Lewin[1] and I have found him to capture the same principles of understanding intuitively the material. Indeed, reading the discussion boards of the subjects I routinely see people laud the homework material for being challenging but when they finally crack it, experiencing a deeper understanding of and insight into the fundamental nature of the subject matter.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dear Feynman Lectures Forum Members,

Since the release of the free online edition of FLP Vol. I in September many of you have written to ask whether we will publish the other two volumes of FLP online. Many have also asked whether we intend to publish PDF editions of FLP that can be read offline. In fact we originally planned to publish all three volumes online when our PDF editions became available, so we could use the release of the online edition to promote sales of the PDFs, which help support our activities. However, that plan didn't materialize for two reasons: (1) the people hired to do the LaTeX->HTML conversion only completed Vol. I, and (2) our publisher had some technical problems that delayed the publication of our PDF editions.

Today I am writing today to inform you that I have been working on the conversion of FLP Vols. II and III into HTML, and I finished Volume III yesterday, so I have just published it. Please check it out at www.feynmanlectures.info/flp. You may notice some new behavior in the floating menu's navigational controls, which now function as follows when the floating menu appears over a Volume's Table of Contents: the next/last buttons cycle through the tables of contents of the three volumes, and the "up" button takes you to the home page of the edition. (When the floating menu appears over a chapter, the navigational controls function as previously: "next/last" cycle through the chapters of the volume and "up" takes you to the table of contents.)

I also wish to inform you that our PDF editions have (finally!) appeared for sale online; you can now find them listed by our other publications, with links to retailers, on the Feynman Lectures Website Buy page (www.feynmanlectures.info/docroot/buy). Please note that while sales of the printed books benefit Caltech and Basic Books, only sales of electronic editions benefit 'The eFLP Group' (myself and Rudolf Pfeiffer), creators of the New Millennium Edition's LaTeX manuscript, who bring you the free online edition of FLP. So, if you want to help support our efforts, please buy the PDFs!

Finally, I want to give you a "heads up" to check out the Books & Arts section in the upcoming December 5th edition of Nature (International weekly journal of science), where there will be a very nice two-page spread about The Feynman Lectures on Physics written by Rob Phillips (Fred and Nancy Morris Professor of Biophysics and Biology at Caltech).

I hope you enjoy FLP Vol. III. It is my personal favorite of the three volumes! [Regarding Volume II: 10 (out of 52) chapters remain to be converted to HTML. I'm working on it as time permits, and am not sure how long it will take to finish -- hopefully not too long.]

Best regards, Mike Gottlieb \--- www.feynmanlectures.info

P.S. Caveat Reader: In converting a large and complex book like FLP from one format to another, inadvertent errors are inevitably introduced. Moreover, you are most likely reading the online edition on a platform I don't have (since I only have 3: an iPad, a PC and a Mac) so you may see things I don't. If you see anything that looks wrong in the online edition -- suspicious-looking text or equations, broken links, or other errata -- we would greatly appreciate it if you would push the "contact us" button on the floating menu, and inform us of the problem. (For this free online edition, we could not afford to hire proofreaders. So, you get to be the proofreaders ;->!

P.P.S. Once again the Simple Machines Forum Software's Newsletter Send function terminated in error, forcing me to re-send this message using gmail. I apologize if you received multiple copies.

<comment><USER4> I'd love to purchase all three volumes in a way that supports the group responsible for the free online version, but when its only $20 more expensive to get a really nice hardcover edition than it is for a set of .PDFs, that's a really tough sell.

If you gave a discount for purchasing all 3, for around $80, I'd be surprised if you didn't increase your sales volume enough to make more money than you would at a higher price.

<comment><USER2> I'm confused at the marketing where someone else paying for the download bandwidth means it costs quite a substantial sum of money only slightly less than shipping dead trees around, but a continuously updated live website means its free. I would expect for financial reasons the prices of the products would flip.

Expenses are much higher when I read the website than when I read a pdf.

Lets say there was an android app that basically downloaded and cached the entire website and periodically fetched updates / proofread changes. Basically a git client with a crude wrapper, assuming you're using git for source control (or Hg or subversion or whatever). Would I pay $10 for that app? Sure. I think you'd get lots of sales.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd love to be able to buy MP3s of his lectures for download. I have been unable to find them online, does anyone here have any pointers?

<comment><USER6> They were publish in audio CD format some time ago. They are available at the Santa Clara public library[1].

A subset of the collection is available on CDs from Amazon. [2]

I have found listening to them very interesting. I am just trying to grasp the concepts, so not being able to see the equations isn't that important to me.

[1] [http://s831.us/1duD3P0](http://s831.us/1duD3P0) [2] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Very-Best-Feynman- Lectures/dp/0465...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Very-Best-Feynman- Lectures/dp/0465099009)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for this, I finally succumbed to the 20th Century and bought the CD off of Amazon.co.uk. Just need to dig out a cd player to rip it.

I remain surprised there isn't anyone offering these as paid for MP3 downloads. Seems like the right audience for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> thanks for posting! We still teach out of Volume III in the quantum mechanics course I assisted, I can recommend the entire volume and great that it is available to the world.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does anybody know why do particles spin in the first place?

<comment><USER2> I vaguely remember reading that in his book and was inspired to see if anything has improved since then. My interpretation is "no" nothing has improved on that very specific front since the 60s.

Note that you'll get plenty of replies about completely different question, like "does the math work without spin?" and the answer being "no". And some defeatist commentary (if you've ever heard of the "shut up and calculate" interpretation of QM...)

It intuitively seems to have something to do with symmetry and the finite speed of light and maybe dimensionality and the quantization of angular momentum. I have no intuitive explanation of the peculiar behavior of a spin 1/2 particle as it rotates thru 720 degrees. At least not in three dimensions.

There's been several Nobel prizes for the "what" and "how" and whoever figures out the "why" will likely get a prize someday.

Traditionally in physics new theories require what starts out as weird math at the time. So it'll probably come from automata theory or cryptology theory or whatever rather than yet another real analysis discovery or yet another statistical analysis.

If you want a spooky smoke and mirrors faith to latch on to, I am a big fan of "every form of Math ever invented can eventually be applied to Physics, even if it takes a couple centuries to figure out how". Nothing wrong with having peculiar faith based ideas as long as they don't interfere with life.</comment></comment>