Music industry welcomes landmark ruling in Google delisting case - <AUTHOR> http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/music-industry-welcomes-landmark-ruling-in-google-delisting-case/ <comment><USER4> Since we're talking about a case in Canada, it's also worth noting that the RIAA is also trying to exclude "fair use" from the renegotiation of NAFTA.

[http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2017/06/naftacopyrightcomments/](http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2017/06/naftacopyrightcomments/)

<comment><USER5> Also, the EFF has an article warning that this court decision might set a dangerous precedent for Internet Censorship in the future:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/top-canadian-court- per...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/top-canadian-court-permits- worldwide-internet-censorship)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is Google beholden to the Canadian court to perform actions outside it's jurisdiction? Surely the response from Google should be something like "Google.ca can comply in removing links from all web pages and databases it legally controls in the jurisdiction of the court but as this court has no jurisdiction over foreign partner corporations _will not_ comply with _ultra vires_ demands against third-party legal entities in other countries"?

I guess Google can choose to comply, what benefit is there for Google in that?

Aside OP lacks detail: it sounds naively like a company was butt-hurt because someone did marketing better than them and sold more re-branded product? Anyone got analysis of the actual harm committed?

<comment><USER7> > How is Google beholden to the Canadian court to perform actions outside it's > jurisdiction?

Jurisdiction doesn't work the way you think it does, so the premise of your questions is false, but Google is "beholden to" the court because the court has the legal and practical power to impose further sanctions which do not rely on Google's cooperation if it's orders are not obeyed.

<comment><USER6> Sanctions under what law? I'm interested in the construction of the law here.

Does Canadian law prevent Nestle from operating because they employ child (and slave) labour in West Africa for example. If not then why does Canada care more about a foreign SERP listing for re-branded products than for exploited children in the chocolate industry, why push their jurisdictional area of action to the globe in one case but not the other?

<comment><USER7> > Sanctions under what law?

Canadian law regarding contempt of court.

<comment><USER6> [IANAL corrections encouraged]

The court can't usually just make up international sanctions, it would be enshrined in the law passed by parliament. Fines, prison, material seizure, cease & desist, and other remediations are usually given in schedules.

Usually courts can't order action by third-parties in other countries - <USER2> that is available to then it would be bizarre in the extreme that it wasn't in s law passed by Canadian Parliament.

So I was hoping for details of that particular legislation; or an explanation of how Canadian law doesn't have a notion of _ultra vires_ and allows it's courts to demand international actions from third-parties, in order to punish display of a SERP.

Perhaps there some legislation at [http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/](http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/) that will shed light on this?

<comment><USER7> The decision itself explains it's reasoning and cites (though less directly then I am used to in US appellate decisions) the relevant precedent.

[https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/16701/inde...](https://scc- csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/16701/index.do)

<comment><USER6> Thanks, Fenlon J sets out the specious reasoning inadvertently in his analogy quoted in para 30:

>". . . a non-party corporation that warehouses and ships goods for a defendant manufacturing company might be ordered on an interim injunction to freeze the defendants' goods and refrain from shipping them."

The Canadian courts wouldn't make an order to a Lithuanian warehouse to hold goods being sold by a company in Moldova who happened to have the same name as a company previously the subject of a lawsuit in Canada, would they?! As part of an interlocutory injunction the stated aim of which is to close down that foreign business (it's said [albeit potentially erroneously] that without a Google listing the foreign seller won't be able to continue business) prior to a court judgement on the full facts of the case?

It's good to see that 2 of the judges agreed this was beyond the pale.

At para 53 Abella drops this clanger:

>"It does, however, make Google the determinative player in allowing the harm to occur."

The original harm was twofold. Reselling re-badged products and an allegation of reverse engineering, the selling of the new product "unfairly" leeching from Equustek's sales.

The first part is dealt with by the litigant not selling the product to Datalink to resell. The second part is accomplished by Datalink (incorporated in Canada) no longer existing.

>"Equustek's claims were supported by a good prima facie case, but it was not established that Datalink designed and sold counterfeit versions of its product, or that this resulted in trademark infringement and unlawful appropriation of trade secrets."

Equustek could proceed and have Datalink closed down by the courts; but apparently haven't bothered to do this for 5 years.

It strikes me the media companies have jumped on this in order to get a judgement allowing them to get interlocutory injunctions (with permanent effects) that force Google to, in effect, close down businesses/websites (by de-indexing) rather than having to get an actual court judgement on the full facts of a case. [See para 66] Datalink have yet to be shown to be guilty, the intended receiver of the Google Order is to shut then down completely - <USER3> seems like a loss for the rule of law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a very dangerous precedent. Will Google have to remove LGBT organizations and information from Google worldwide because Russia asks them? Will all links mentioning woman driving have to be removed worldwide because some middle eastern country tells them to?

I feel like nations should be only allowed to have providers block content based on GEO location from the visitors IP address. They have no right limiting speech in America.

Copyright protection is something I agree with like I think if Google gets a DMCA it's removed worldwide anyways since they host in the US too... So that's been the norm anyways. But just scary other nations might try to use this to further restrict non-copyright related things.

But then again not all nations view intellectual property the same. Doesn't some nations not recognize software patents? Like I heard they are harder to do in Europe than in the US before. Maybe you could get a US judge to order your European competitors website removed even if completely legal is their own country. Then same for trademarks, you may get a trademark in the US but someone might have a trademark in China. For example, iPad Apple trademarked in the US, but in China, they had to pay $60 million to settle a trademark dispute.

<comment><USER9> > Will all links mentioning woman driving have to be removed worldwide because > some middle eastern country tells them to?

Among "some middle eastern countries" that exist, only Saudi Arabia has that law, and they do not censor images of women driving.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if this will have a material effect on the value of Google. An ad firm / search engine forced to comply with these kinds of rulings is a new development in my opinion.

Reading the details of the case makes me insist "If you're a tech person (indie developer?), put yourself in the shoes of the person being ripped off, and tell me how you'd justify letting the scam continue" because it's pretty clear-cut to me. At least in _this case_ and it remains to be seen if there will be other _reasonable cases_ in the future.

<comment><USER10> The company was merely rebranding products they had purchased. Reselling rebranded equipment has a long legal history. No one was being ripped off as you put it, they were being paid for their goods.

We just had a Supreme Court win for the right of resale in the United States over rebranded refilled printer cartridges. Should Lexmark now be able to go to court in Canada and get the refillers delisted in the United States? It's literally the exact same issue.

<comment><USER11> My understanding is the company _started out_ by re-branding equipment but then stole some proprietary data so that they could create their own competing product.

"The case began as a dispute between two technology companies, Equustek Solutions and Datalink Technologies Gateways. The latter was accused of repackaging one of the former's products as its own, and then of nicking confidential files from Equustek and using the information contained within to produce and sell a competing product."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ugh. What does the court order actually read, anyone found it?

Is Google supposed to be able to somehow identify any web page operated by the named company, and de-list it? Any web page mentioning the infringing product? What?

<comment><USER13> More details here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14657061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14657061)

The article has a link to court documents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Something to note when discussing music copyrights.

The industry is much less focused on what it can gain through litigation, and much more focused on what it loses by not aggressively protecting their copyrights.

I recall a conversation with a friend who managed PR for the RIAA when they went around suing teenagers for using P2P (yeah, imagine that PR job). They knew the mess it would cause, but they had to do it, because it sent a stronger message if they did nothing. IANAL, but there's something about if you knowingly let someone use your copyright without demanding they license it from you, you give up or lose the copyright at some point? (Edit: apparently this only applies to trademarks, not copyrights)

Labels have invested a heap of cash buying these rights, we shouldn't all be shocked when they act lawfully to protect them.

<comment><USER15> > there's something about if you knowingly let someone use your copyright > without demanding they license it from you, you give up or lose the > copyright at some point?

You are thinking of Trademarks. In copyrights there is no such thing, and international treaties make it unlikely there will be.

In Trademarks you have to use and defend it or it is gone. Thus companies make efforts to be seen defending their trademark: if they can show the court that they have been careful about defending their trademarks they have a stronger case when someone is genuinely infringing.

The RIAA does not lose any rights by not protecting their copyright. However they also know sending a message to kids when they are only involved in small illegal act can prevent them from getting bigger, which is consideration they need to think about.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I think my friend was thinking of trademarks vs copyrights. I'm not arguing the lawsuits weren't a scare tactic... it was a spectacular failure of a plan. But I'm not sure what else they could have done at that point, as the sky started falling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The problem here is traceability. The court ordered them to stop but can't enforce that order because it can't find the people behind the infringing product. This is yet another reason for stuff on the internet to be traceable by default. It seems odd that Google can link to a website, but even the courts can't track down the owners of the web site.

<comment><USER17> > stuff on the internet to be traceable by default

Traceable by whom? This is a recipe for speech suppression by harassment on a colossal scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> fuck. the. music. industry. links are always gonna pop, google or not.

<comment><USER19> The question is - how're you going to find them?

<comment><USER20> Forums?

But really by the time a new link pops up, is indexed, found, recognized by infringed parties, then by court order delisted, 10 more will have arisen no?

As long as courts are involved and the process is slow, I can't imagine it having any substantive effect on these kind of links which seem to come and go.

This is different from the case in the article which is a longer term enterprise being delisted. And in that case a regroup, rename, new domain and maybe a new website seems it would be easy enough if the infringing party is determined to stay up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Uhh, so I'll use DuckDuckGo to find the site instead?

In other words, should this be for all the search engines?

<comment><USER22> Stuff that isn't in Google effectively does not exist on the web since that's how people get around these days rather than to follow links from one page to another.

The 0.001% (if that) that uses DDG can be safely ignored.

<comment><USER21> Heh, like that I'm in that 0.001%. I'm special.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Which site did they have to delist? There are so many of them though.

</comment><comment><USER24> First a frivolous €2.4B "fine" from the EU, now some insane global censorship attempts by an aggressive minority market. That's just this week!

How long until Google moves to a boat nation or something? I'd live on a boat if I could skip out on income taxes.

<comment><USER25> A nation state is not just there to collect taxes but to provide some guarantees that the company can survive and conduct business in a certain way.

If you or Google were to move to a boat, who is preventing some nation state from bombing you. Who is preventing nations to not just raid Google servers and ban them as they wish. Other nations currently don't do that because of the backing of the nation Google is located in.

<comment><USER24> Google has $64B cash reserves as of 2015. More than enough to purchase a decent military deterrent arsenal (up to the Samson Option, if they wanted) and/or the cooperation of some small money-hungry nation.

<comment><USER26> So, for the sake of avoiding taxes and penalties, you think Google should go into the 3rd-world, warlord business? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

<comment><USER24> Who said anything about the third world? The GoogleBoat(tm) would probably be very nice, especially without the overhead associated with paying taxes and "fines".

Even the €2.4B the EU is trying to extort from Google would be more than enough to purchase a heavily entrenched offshore presence.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


TikTok Caught Breaking Google Rules to Track Android Users - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/08/12/tiktok-google-android-breaking-rules-secretly-track-android-users/#44b61ead6359 <comment><AUTHOR> > In response to this latest report, TikTok has said "the current version of > TikTok does not collect MAC addresses."

... as opposed to saying "TikTok does not and has never collected MAC addresses."</comment>


Seedcamp Tallinn: making the Estonian president proud - <AUTHOR> http://www.eastist.com/2012/04/seedcamp-tallinn-making-the-estonian-president-proud/

<comment><USER2> Estonia is looking quite intriguing... the low/simple tax thing could be quite tempting for those of us sick of the high/ponderous western european taxes.</comment>


Jailbreaking: The community, the challenges and fighting Apple - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/09/18/jailbreaking-the-community-the-challenges-and-fighting-apple/ <comment><AUTHOR> terrific article by Matt Brian</comment>


How I became and un-became a manga translator - <AUTHOR> http://www.bemmu.com/how-i-became-and-unbecame-a-manga-translator

<comment><USER2> Yeah, he discovered the cruel truth that translation work isn't seen as cerebral at all by most people, and just thought of as factory labor, to be underpaid and forced to push as hard as possible.

I was once on a similar path, localizing MMOs, and am so glad i got out of that and into software development.

<comment><AUTHOR> The best part of it was that I was basically getting paid to learn Japanese. Had I continued on that path my language skills would be amazing at this point.

<comment><USER2> That actually makes me a little envious. :)

I only got the job at a point where i was already very fluent in english, and got into dev because i had enough learning time to learn programming skills to help the translations.

As for your language skills, does that mean you live in japan, have a business selling things from japan, but aren't fully fluent?

(Also, as a subscriber, i adore the service and hope you'll be doing it for some time to come. :D)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there's a standard Japanese test which has levels 1 to 5, called JLPT. 1 is the highest and 5 lowest, I was able to pass level 2. It's sort of exponential though, you need to know twice as much for each next level basically.

<comment><USER3> More information: [https://www.jlpt.jp/e/about/levelsummary.html](https://www.jlpt.jp/e/about/levelsummary.html)

I seem to recall that Japanese Universities require level 3 for exchange students to enroll in Japanese language classes. That's probably not enough to follow lectures, but probably enough to get to the level of being able to follow lectures after 3-6 months.

My literacy is pretty poor, so I don't think I'd be able to pass a level 3 test, but I think apart from the literacy part it's probably a decent description of my current level.

Coming from latin-alphabet languages, it takes some effort to get up to speed -- the primary school curriculum is 1006[1] kanji characters, along with 2*48[2] (depending of how one counts) kana. And that's just the bare minimum, general literacy is ~3000 kanji.

It's a fascinating language, and learning it gives some interesting linguistic perspectives because it's so different, especially from other big languages. It's also a rather simple language -- the main difficulty lies in how different Japanese is, due to the long isolation.

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

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As always it's supply and demand. Translating Mangas/Animes is considered so coool that way too many are willing to do way too much work for way too little pay. As a result the work sucks, considering it as a normal job.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've done some 'scanlations' work. I couldn't imagine doing it for a job though.

On one hand, there's some pressures and social issues to grapple with when doing scanlations. For example, You can essentially start turf wars by taking on certain projects, even if the 'maintainer' is grossly neglecting the project or non-communicative. Also, the readers are very passionate people, and they have a direct line to air their grievances with the translation/typesetting/rate of release/etc. There's also, of course, the moral issue of enabling what is essentially just piracy.

On the other hand, you're able to work on a manga you're passionate about, or at the very least interested in without worrying about licensing/etc. And being unbeholden to anyone on the level of accuracy-versus-fluidity and offensiveness is definitely very valuable.

Even just doing it for fun was pretty brutal though. I have a lot of respect for the ancient groups and members that've been plugging away at it forever.</comment>


Stackoverflow New CEO - <AUTHOR> https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2019/09/24/announcing-stack-overflows-new-ceo/ <comment><USER2> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062191)

<comment><AUTHOR> I see, why it didn't show up on submission.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia - <AUTHOR> https://gasoved.github.io/webbew/ <comment><USER3> This takes me back to the days when so much of web apps was tied to non-web things. Skeupomorphisms were pretty good UX, but also the fact that layouts looks like ads or newspapers, trying to conserve room and increase information density.

The websites themselves weren't much in the way of a destination, rather they tied you into other real world things: family, computers systems, hobbies. They were relevant only as much as they enriched real life.

Now the website is the full app and experience. No need to go anywhere else. In fact it's desirable that you stay on one property, such as Facebook for as long as possible. It's like a big box store.

But back to the point I wanted to make originally: the work has fundamentally changed. I remember coding a backend to get old scientific python scripts to run from commands via Sharepoint buttons. The web couldn't do anything so you had to tie it to systems that could. Now you have to get it all running in Javascript --- not sure how many people saw that coming :-D.

I wonder if anyone has any thoughts along those lines?

<comment><USER4> It's also become much less accessible to your average every-day person.

I remember in 2001 my brother's community college in rural America taught HTML and Flash development. Not only could you learn to make websites quickly, but you were learning technology that was exactly what you would be using when working at a company.

You could argue the technology is better these days, but it's certainly not more clear to newcomers. I recently described to my younger sister that she should learn React through FreeCodeCamp in order to make websites - <USER2> suddenly you are dropped into a world talking about declarative programming paradigms, unidirectional data flows, and lots of other foreign concepts described as magic (the virtual DOM, Babel, etc.)

If my experience had been this growing up I would have never gained interest in learning the specifics / details of what was going on when writing HTML/CSS/JS code. I would've chalked it up to "there are layers upon layers of magical things I don't understand, I guess I only need to interact with them and slap them together."

I also think the incentives have changed - it's less about making something cool and sharing it with your internet friends these days because there is money to be made - it's about buffing your GitHub profile to get a job, creating a startup that extracts $$$ from people, etc.

I feel it is very similar to early days YouTube vs. YouTube these days, and that saddens me.

<comment><USER5> _I would 've chalked it up to "there are layers upon layers of magical things I don't understand, I guess I only need to interact with them and slap them together."_

That's fine though.

If someone learns C++ today without knowing any ASM very few people would tell them they're "doing it wrong". If someone learns Unreal Blueprints without learning C++ senior game developers still see them as productive game developers. If someone writes a great GLSL shader on shadertoy without knowing how to use WebGL that's OK too. You don't have to understand all the layers in order to use them and make good stuff.

The web is no different. I see no reason why people can't just concentrate on learning the top level abstraction to make things until they encounter a problem that they need to know more about the lower levels to solve. They might _never_ have that problem.

All of this "You have to learn the underlying tech in order to use the framework on top of it" just sounds like gatekeeping to me.

<comment><USER6> > "You have to learn the underlying tech in order to use the framework on top > of it" just sounds like gatekeeping to me.

Possibly. But if you want to master your craft, you need to learn the "underlying tech." That's why we have computer science degrees, after all. Not all programmers have computer science degrees and in many cases, it shows. Someone who understands fundamentals is often more effective at debugging and problem solving when the s __* hits the fan.

If you just want to bootcamp it without a deep-dive, that's fine and I agree with you.

<comment><USER5> _Not all programmers have computer science degrees and in many cases, it shows._

Some programmers do have computer science degrees, and in many cases it doesn't show. In my experience whether or not someone has a computer science degree is a _very_ poor indicator of how good a developer they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> WD-42 I had a very similar homepage that is still up! I love the desktop in a webpage aesthetic. [http://toxiccode.com/](http://toxiccode.com/)

<comment><USER7> The header looks exactly like a bandicam watermark... which does capture a certain aesthetic

<comment> WD-42 I believe I was going for the Bluecurve look, which was the default GTK theme for Redhat 8. The first linux distro I ever installed.

[http://toastytech.com/guis/rh8.html](http://toastytech.com/guis/rh8.html)

<comment><USER8> I buy'd RedHat 9, and i walked home with that big package under my arm knowing that nobody knows what that is..a Unix a Operationsystem!! I felt like the a hero, everything was fine until i realized that i had a win-modem...

<comment> WD-42 Yes! What an experience. My dad brought me to circuit city somewhere near San Mateo to buy red hat 8. I remember holding the shrink wrapped box and thinking about how cool it was. I don't think I figured out how to get internet access working for a month. I'm glad you're still sticking with it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is remnants from the days when an interactive web site was called "DHTML".

</comment><comment><USER10> My favorite part is you can drag the portfolio image around when focused (this particular interaction feels pretty modern tho, reminds me of some fun interactions found on [https://cargo.site/In-Use](https://cargo.site/In-Use))

</comment><comment><USER11> Ohh if we're doing this, here's the intro to my personal site from 2007. Only the intro works, and requires Flash of course [https://cv- ppguyzgojs.now.sh/](https://cv-ppguyzgojs.now.sh/)

</comment><comment><USER12> there was a cool Desktop UI thread on here a few weeks ago... [https://simone.computer/#/webdesktops](https://simone.computer/#/webdesktops)

</comment><comment><USER13> The "No Javascript? :( Click here" link directs to a 404.

<comment><USER14> Same issue, though at least the author cares more to at least think of those who whitelist scripts enough to mention it.

Half the large companies today will present you with a blank screen instead of writing one line of a <noscript> tag.

<comment><USER15> It's a lot about not even knowing the <noscript> tag exists. I mean, who would block javascript, the whole web depends on it. (I block javascript since it came around the first time...)

<comment><USER16> JavaScript doesn't have to blocked to be unavailable. So many accessibility devices that don't have the capability to run it, and read noscript allowed, etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "standards" is misspelled "standarts".

</comment><comment><USER18> My eyes :D

<comment><USER19> ^^ the best part is that the first sentence starts with "This is home of user friendly [...]". That color-scheme is everything but that ;)</comment></comment>


Bill Requires Probable Cause to Search Electronic Devices at Border - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/new-bill-would-require-agents-to-actually-have-probable-1834960457 <comment><USER2> Wait, like the constitution requires? That's crazy!

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this effectively dead on arrival, or does it actually have a chance of gaining bipartisan support in the Senate?</comment>


Python: difference between datetime.datetime.now vs datetime.datetime.utcnow - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/62151/datetime-now-vs-datetime-utcnow

<comment><USER2> This is about datetime in .NET. Why does the title say Python?

</comment><comment><USER3> i guess it's the same in both languages</comment>


Walnuts Have Fewer Calories Than the Label Suggests - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.usda.gov/2015/12/03/walnuts-have-fewer-calories-than-the-label-suggests-ars-researcher-discovers/ <comment><USER2> TBH that's true for most foods (not necessarily less but not exactly what the label says).

The most common way of calculating the caloric value for food is by calculating the fat, fatty acids, proteins and carbohydrates by weight and assigning them the common caloric value this in itself is not accurate to begin with. The more accurate way is going to be by testing the overall caloric potential of the food before digestion and then checking the caloric value of the fecal mater after digestion, but that isn't something easy to do.

If you are selling a hand made sandwich that data might be available for most ingredients and you'll end up having quite an accurate caloric value. But with many processed and mass produced food products that's simply not the case as it's quite hard to estimate what exact caloric value your body would extract from each portion with so many ingredients from various sources.

The biggest problem is that not all foods are digested the same way this is both universal e.g. foods with higher percentage of non soluble fibers reduce the caloric value (10-30%) and non-universal per person specific metabolism, your personal digestive track biome and many other factors like how much activity have you done before and after eating.

Eating a more or less rounded meal on an exact schedule and a very mild exercise (like a casual walk) shortly after the meal can reduce the amount of calories your body extracts from the food quite considerably.

Now it's true that genetics and some other circumstances play quite a big role, but eating on schedule and not sitting straight after heaving your food can do wonders for some one who is trying to either lose or maintain weight. Yes burning a couple 1000's of extra calories a week at the gym can do wonders but in many cases it's not as effective as proper diet management and diet management isn't about counting calories is about finding a good combination of what your body will digest well but not over digest and teach your body that it doesn't need to hoard everything because it knows that the next meal will come on time.

When you eat regularly and induce a system in which your body would rather metabolize what it needs straight away and use that instead of hoarding everything and converting it to fat while burning your glucose reserves (which what induces the odd hour cravings) works better than just counting calories. You can have 2 people eating at exactly their BMR with the same caloric intake and outtake and one would lose weight and the other would gain it just because one eats regularly 4-5 times a day and the other eats irregular meals and snacks when they feel hunger.

<comment><USER3> > But with many processed and mass produced food products that's simply not > the case as it's quite hard to estimate what exact caloric value your body > would extract from each portion with so many ingredients from various > sources.

Generally speaking, processed foods are more likely to achieve the full thermodynamically available calories, because most of what we consider "processing" makes things more digestible. For example, if you create Cheetos out of corn, you grind corn into meal, then bake it or whatever. When it goes into your stomach, it readily dissolves into an easily-digestible soup of corn specks and oil. If you just eat corn, the kernels have much less surface area available for the digestion process and some parts remain (notoriously) undigested.

That means it's pretty easy to calculate the number of calories that highly processed foods contribute, since it's near the theoretical max.

<comment><USER2> In theory yes, but in practice it's much more complicated than that. During the protein crave of the late 90's early 2000's we added protein to everything because doctors said we aren't eating enough of it. Wheat protein was one of the easiest and the cheapest to work with which is now why we are now having to search for Gluten free dairy products which wasn't an issue 15 years ago. After proteins fibers became the biggest crave so the food industry found another cheap source for them - boiled saw dust from pine trees. Processed food isn't simply just ground nutrition it has some really really fucked up stuff in it (fucked up as in weird not indicatively bad).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The full text is online: [http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2015/11/18/jn.115.2173...](http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2015/11/18/jn.115.217372.full.pdf+html?sid=6785fd43-b687-408d-9d27-bf92ab7ca436)

Apparently studies have shown the same thing on pistachios and almonds too.

<comment><USER5> This is a study of 18 people.

Take that with a grain of salt, but also realize that many studies on people tend to have really small numbers of people.

<comment><USER6> That only matters if results differ between each person. If everyone has the same results, 18 people is plenty to prove that the results are the same for everyone. It depends on the sample variance and the number of people. If you have high sample variance, you need a higher N to make it less likely that you have a sampling error. If you have very low sample variance, just a few people is enough.

<comment><USER7> > That only matters if results differ between each person.

Well, we know that they do...

<comment><USER6> We actually DON'T know that. It could be every person gets almost the same result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Awhile back, I tried to find the actual studies that determined that sugar has 4 kcal/g and fat has 9. I failed. I couldn't even find a clear definition of what a kcal _means_. (Is it mechanical work you can do after eating it? ATP produced?)

Given recent results, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that fat, in general, has less than 9 kcal/g or that sugar has more than 4.

<comment><USER9> One calorie is the energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water at 1 atm pressure by one degree Celsius, it is equal to about 4.2 Joules. A kilocalorie, or a dietary Calorie, is one thousand calories, or 4200 Joules. All of this is readily available from an innumerable number of sources.

The calorie content of food is determined experimentally by burning the food in a calorimeter and measuring how much heat is produced (by, for example, measuring how much it raises the temperature of a water bath). This measures the energy content of the food, but does not measure the amount of energy your body can make use of as that is a very complex problem that would have a different answer in every individual due to variations in body size, metabolism, digestion, muscle mass, insulin activity, the ambient temperature, and about a zillion other factors.

<comment><USER10> We haven't done that since the 1990's.

Calorie content is calculated by measuring the amount of fat, protein, carbs in a food and extrapolating from that.

It's pretty damn close.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps I wasn't clear, I said that's how calories are determined experimentally, I did not say that's how all calorie counts are generated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The study was partially funded by the California Walnut Commission.

<comment><USER12> I mean yeah but on the other hand, who the hell else would bother funding calories-in-nuts studies?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I kinda feel like that too. I'd like to think they saw the results of other studies and just thought "Oh wow it would be great if we see the same results on our walnuts. On the other hand, the California Nut Industrial Complex could just be pretty evil.

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's because I lived there a couple of years, but if I saw that phrase in another context I wouldn't think of walnuts and almonds. b^)

<comment><USER14> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_(goddess)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut_\(goddess\)) ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Judging from the amount that just passes right through I would have expected even less than 80% of the calories absorbed!

</comment><comment><USER13> The tag cloud is hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if this applies to all walnut-like families, such as pecans.

</comment><comment><USER17> We need more studies like this. For instance, I'd like one that reveals that steak and beer actually have negative calories.

<comment><USER18> It's true, but only if your steak is well done and your beer is Coors.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with procrastination? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html](https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_personal_productivity.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know. What's the opposite of "immediately"?

</comment><comment><USER4> Slowly.</comment>


TSA Moves On From Your Underwear to Your Starbucks - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/tsa-moves-on-from-your-underwear-to-your-starbucks/ <comment><USER2> If I had the money and time to spare, I'd create a group who's job it would be to just buy random travel to random places and do nothing but screw with the TSA. We're talking millionaire levels here. I'd buy people tickets, walk them through how to jam the entire process start to finish (quoting the constitution works exceedingly well if the stories I'm reading mean anything), and hire lawyers to deal with fighting the inevitable legal challenges.

Call me childish, but I would like nothing better to but to make this system such a cost drain that it's dropped. Once airlines have to start rebooking people due to flights being missed by many, many paying passengers, _en masse_ , the corporate pressure that makes the government wheels turn will do the rest.

Most people put up with this fucktardery only because they have somewhere to be and don't want to miss their flight. And the security theater actors know this.

<comment><USER3> The TSA would probably arrest you andyour collaborators for obstructing the law or inciting fear or something. Either way you wouldn't be able to operate for long before something happened.

<comment><USER4> I thought the TSA has no arrest powers... ?

<comment><USER5> They don't need arrest powers. They have the phone number for the FBI.

<comment><USER4> Right. So the TSA won't arrest you. They'll call someone else in to arrest you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Speaking of the TSA, I am not sure how this didn't make national news:

[http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/politica...](http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/political- potpourri/2012/aug/30/tsa-detains-interrogates-ron-pauls-family-and-aids/)

<http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/331811>

HN completely bans his name being mentioned in topic titles apparently.

<comment><USER7> "HN completely bans his name being mentioned in topic titles apparently."

Is this actually true?

<comment><USER8> Given other common things I've seen filtered, I wouldn't be surprised. I don't think the intent is to sensor as much as it is to keep the news a little more focussed. Still, I wish there was a bit a transparency with a viewable list of what is and isn't filtered.

<comment><USER6> Turn on _showdead_ in your profile and you can see what is being killed.

But even that isn't the whole picture - for example this thread has over 100 points and has magically disappeared from the front page in only a few hours while topics with far fewer points stick around. So there must be an invisible gravity switch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So what happens when we hit two decades later, billions of tax dollars completely wasted and the TSA has not caught a single "terrorist" ?

Even worse all that and they MISS another terrorist?

Will they then get more funding or less? Move the searches into our homes?

Tell me where exactly we draw the line.

<comment><USER9> The TSA stops guns getting onto planes every week.

We have no idea if they miss any guns, nor if the guns they stopped were going to be used on the plane.

But TSA will point to the 20 or so guns they fund each week as evidence of effectiveness.

EDIT (after a bunch of comments): I should make it clear that I'm not defending TSA, I think they're mostly lousy and pointless security theatre.

<comment><USER10> And yet no terrorist attacks have occurred.

So either people got more violent after 9/11 and therefore brought more weapons, or people were always bringing guns onto planes. I'd bet on the latter, and yet how many terror attacks occurred? Hmmm…

<comment><USER11> Uh... there have been a number of terrorists-on-a-plane incidents in the past 11 years, even if you restrict your search to incidents where Americans were at risk.

<comment><USER10> Please give me some links.

Here is a nice debate with Bruce Schneier.

"In the entire decade or so of airport security since the attacks on September 11th 2001, the TSA has not foiled a single terrorist plot or caught a single terrorist. Its own "Top 10 Good Catches of 2011″ does not have a single terrorist on the list."

<https://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/820>

<comment><USER11> Your problem is that you require that the TSA be responsible for catching them. The two I know off-hand from popular culture are: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab>

Found a better list here:

      * American Airlines Flight 63 The "shoe bomb", a failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt in December 2001.
      * China Northern Flight 6136, a 2002 flight brought down by a passenger who had purchased life insurance, who set a fire in flight with gasoline
      * 2004 Russian aircraft bombings Islamist terrorist attacks on two domestic Russian passenger aircraft flying from Moscow. The bombs were triggered by two female Chechen suicide bombers. Shamil Salmanovich Basayev militant leader of the Chechen terrorist movement claimed credit.
      * 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot al-Queda terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada. It followed the same general plan as the Bojinka plot.
      * Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the target of a failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt in December 2009
      * 2010 cargo plane bomb plot, failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt on two planes in October 2010

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_at...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_attacks)

ETA: I want to note that my issue is only that you stated a factual incorrectness: that no terror attacks have occurred involving airplanes in the past 11 years. You can denigrate the TSA all you want; just do it based on factually correct statements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Articles like this just make me so mad that the TSA can just be bullies and do such ridiculous things.

Does anyone know the current state of the TSA, as far as upcoming funding, plans, or improvement goes? Is it Homeland Security making these things mandatory or what?

I just constantly hear insane stories like this and never hear any good coming from the TSA. How do we change this? Or is that even an option?

<comment><USER13> I dislike the TSA as much as the next guy but some of their employees are good people. My father-in-law commutes weekly from Austin. Once he left his laptop at the screening and remembered it the next day. He called and they had it waiting for him when he flew back through a couple of days later.

<comment><USER14> This is obviously true, and ultimately meaningless. All organizations are composed of people, and I guarantee you that within even the most 'evil' organization is quite a few 'good people'. It doesn't make the organization any less 'evil'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What if I were to quickly drink the coffee? Felony obstruction? This is a serious question; I'm not being sarcastic.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's not surprising this is at Columbus. I've had top-tier frequent flyer status for the past 5 years and Columbus is the worst airport in the country in terms of violation of your civil rights. The problem isn't the security checkpoint, it's stuff like this nonsense - they _regularly_ do additional screening at the gate or as people are getting onto the planes themselves. There's _no way_ this is constitutional, even in light of past rulings favorable to the TSA. I can't think of any other airport either in the US or abroad that has taken things to the extreme they have in Columbus. Perhaps the state of Ohio has forgotten what happened at Kent State? Must be something in the water.

<comment><USER17> Or it could be a funding thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt Columbus is one of the major airports in the US. However, I suspect that the more 'work' they do and people they employ, the more money they are given to operate in that airport.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "While TSA agents lack the authority to arrest or detain anyone, passengers cannot refuse screening once they have proceeded beyond the screening checkpoint entrance."

How does that work? You can't just waive your rights. I wonder what would happen if you said no. They may not let you on your flight but if you just landed and buying coffee there's noting they can do if you refuse.

<comment><USER19> The law as I understand it is, the 4th Amendment doesn't apply at and beyond the security checkpoint. You could be arrested (by police) for saying no. And of course you'll end up on the no-fly list and have to move to another country if you want to fly again. Not that I'm supporting any of this.

<comment><USER18> I hate that "no fly" list. Its a clear restriction on constitutional right on freedom of movement(article 4).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So, I smuggled explosives into the terminal and now I'm going to take it out of my premo hiding spot and put it in a cup? Sure...that's what I'd do.

Glad we got that scenario covered.

</comment><comment><USER21> The TSA is certainly going way beyond logic with this, but honestly, passengers need to start speaking up (specifically I'm referencing the placidity of the people having their drinks checked in the video).

Realize that while they may have a badge and a fun little uniform, these agents are people just like you and I. Sadly, in most cases, they're of a lesser intelligence too (yes that's mean and discriminatory but it's true). When something is wrong, call it out. Otherwise this sort of absurdity will continue to get worse. Civil liberties are more important than your meeting.

Don't be afraid of this crap.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is possibly the most absurd thing I've ever read.

The complaints about security theater are loud and frequent, but aside from bitching and moaning, what can be done?

<comment><USER23> Nothing, and that's fine. America has been voting itself into a police state for at least the last 30 years, arguably even since the start of the Cold War. Enjoy it, you've have earned it.

<comment><USER22> Here's the thing: this affects non-citizens too who have had no part in the voting process, particularly tourists and business travelers who have to endure this absurdity. These ridiculous practices spread to other countries too; it's a global issue.

<comment><USER24> Eventually we won't have either of those.

<comment><USER22> That seems very unlikely.

<comment><USER25> While managing a hostel in South American I met people from all over the world with horror stories about security and customs while simply transiting through the US for a matter of hours.

Hundreds and hundreds of travelers told me they would happily spent $1k extra on flights next time simply to avoid the United States. They don't want to go there ever again.

<comment><USER22> The numbers don't reflect this though. Just looking at the first quarter of each year from 2006 to 2012 (inclusive), there have been more inbound arrivals in 2012 than there have in any previous years.

2012: 14,195,321 [1]

2011: 12,839,980 [2]

2010: 12,635,880 [3]

2009: 9,762,932 [4]

2008: 11,388,763 [5]

2007: 9,871,406 [6]

2006: 9,045,854 [7]

Quite simply, people aren't voting with their feet. In fact, any declines in people flying into the US seem to trend with the general economic climate.

The reason I picked the first quarter is because we already have the first quarter's data for 2012 and I couldn't be bothered to deal with the second quarter because this is only a quick glance at the data. :-)

[1] <http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2012-I-001/table1.html>

[2] <http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2011-I-001/table1.html>

[3] <http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2010-I-001/table1.html>

[4] <http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2009-I-001/table1.html>

[5] <http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2008-I-001/table1.html>

[6] <http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2007-I-001/table1.html>

[7] <http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2006-I-001/table1.html>

<comment><USER26> Please compare your numbers against total global travel numbers, and let's see if they diverge, or track with one another.

<comment><USER22> I'm afraid I don't have time to. Perhaps this is an analysis you'd like to do though.

I will admit I haven't separated the entries by land/air/sea, as I didn't have that data readily available. The general trend still holds even excluding Canadians and Mexicans who may be more disposed to cross a land border. On the surface it just doesn't appear as though people are so turned off by the TSA that they're refusing to fly to the US.

It's quite amazing what people will tolerate in order to travel to and from the US. America's borders are sadly the most unfriendly I've encountered to date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > But the TSA says the practice isn't new — it's been going on since 2007 — > and is part of random screening techniques designed to catch liquid > explosives that might slip through initial screening.

Wow, who are these people trying to convince? A random sampling make absolutely no sense here. To have a 95% chance of catching the offending substance, you'd have to "randomly screen" 95% of passengers.

And that's assuming that the screening technique would actually catch a determined individual, which it won't, because he's a terrorist and he's thought things through.

<comment><USER28> >And that's assuming that the screening technique would actually catch a determined individual, which it won't, because he's a terrorist and he's thought things through.

This is the real head scratcher. Say someone did get an explosive liquid through the initial security screening. Why would they then be drinking it later while waiting for their flight?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is just the tip of the iceberg - for some time now, many international flights inbound to the U.S. have had a secondary screening of your carry-on bags at the gate. They won't let you take any liquids into the gate (beyond the 3 oz bottles) and go through your bags. They had this last month when I traveled from HKG to SFO. Other international flights not going to the U.S. did not have this screening. I think I remember an at-gate screening at Frankfurt as well, but my memory is fuzzy.

At least there were no X-rays or pat-downs...

<comment><USER30> I just flew out of FRA to the states last month and they don't screen at the gate (or just before) anymore. But they _have_ reconfigured terminal 1 so that all US-bound flights leave through section "Z", which used to be section "A". Everyone leaving through Z (since it's non EU/Schengen) gets a heavier screen than domestic flights leaving out of the other gates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If I encountered this (I usually fly up to six times a month) I would simply not buy the supposedly-offending food item at that airport ever again. If enough people do this, the businesses there will be less able to pay their expensive airport concession fees, and complain to the airport, or just close up shop. The airport has a lot more leverage with the Thousands Standing Around than I do.

</comment><comment><USER32> > While TSA agents lack the authority to arrest or detain anyone, passengers > cannot refuse screening once they have proceeded beyond the screening > checkpoint entrance.

What does this mean, then - will they just throw you out if you refuse? Or will they illegally detain you? My bet is on the latter.

</comment><comment><USER33> We are all living in a heightened sense of fear. It was apparent as I was waiting to board a plane over the Labor day weekend, one of the airline representative came over on the mic and said: "Calling Mr..Err Hmm..I rather not say this passenger name aloud, so I will spell it out..Will Mr. G..U...N please come forward? "

</comment><comment><USER34> We need to stand up against this shit. This is absolutely ridiculous. The TSA and DoHS as a whole are a fucking joke.

/soapbox

</comment><comment><USER35> I wonder what would happen if I just politely refused. On most occasions I would be willing to go to jail over this.

<comment><USER36> FTA, "passengers cannot refuse screening once they have proceeded beyond the screening checkpoint entrance."

More likely, you _can_ refuse, but you'll be escorted out of the terminal (and refused reentry).

I doubt you'll "go to jail" unless you assault the TSA agent, become disorderly, etc.

<comment><USER15> TSA can't arrest or detain, but they can call the police. I'm quite sure you'd be detained. I don't know on what grounds an arrest could be made, so you're probably right that you'd be removed from the premises after some holding period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> ... and this is why I'm Canadian.

</comment><comment><USER38> <sarcasm>The TSA is in BIG trouble when they start messing with citizens' Starbucks!</sarcasm></comment>


A Tribute to Alain Colmerauer (2001) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0402058 <comment><USER2> Just today, the papers we love bot on twitter showed us :

[https://www.researchgate.net/scientific- contributions/202968...](https://www.researchgate.net/scientific- contributions/2029689238_Kenneth_A_Bowen)

[https://www.researchgate.net/scientific- contributions/206983...](https://www.researchgate.net/scientific- contributions/2069837226_DL_Bowen)

enjoy</comment>


Ada holding up F-22 Raptor upgrades - <AUTHOR> http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6559166&c=AME&s=AIR <comment><USER3> Odd story, makes software development in Ada kind of a catch-22. The DoD has used Ada for so long because of the security and correctness constraints built right into the language and compiler. When you're talking about software that's flying a plane (passenger, war time, whatever) it HAS to be right, because if it's wrong, people die. When something HAS to be right, that by itself ensures longer development time and testing.

Now I'm not in this industry, but I know that planes these days are extremely complicated beasts and require a ton of code to run everything properly. I worry that if development is artificially sped up, that code problems that would have been caught in the testing get caught in production.

Of course the above kind of assumes a decent dev team and a good code base. What I said could be moot if what's really happening is the technical debt of some of this code is so massive that simple changes take months to make and ensure correct, which would be a problem for sure.

Either way, blaming the language probably isn't the right way to go about this.

<comment><USER4> I have no idea about their overall code quality but there was a famous F-22 bug found a few years ago where it lost all navigation systems when crossing the international date line.

[http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot- down-b...](http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot-down-by-the- international-date-line-03087/)

<comment><USER5> Date/Time code is notorious. It always seems simpler than it actually is. There are always corner cases you forgot about. None of it is rocket science. Instead, it's the stupid arbitrariness of it that gets you. (Commodity trading is often the same.)

<comment><USER6> My boss taught me that whenever the word date / time / etc creep into a spec double your estimation for completion.

He was trying to be funny to make a point... but there is definitely a nugget of truth to it. Time is hard. (I write embedded DVR software these days)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But I want the lolly NOW!!!!

But seriously, Ada is well designed and not difficult. Ada is not part of the problem, this would take longer and be less reliable in C++.

<comment><USER8> The article actually nails the real reason: the USAF bought far fewer F22s than it originally planned, so things like this that apply equally to 1 or 1000 have to have their cost spread over far fewer individual units. I'll bet that the F22 software is not actually that much more complicated than that controlling a modern car, yet Ford or whoever can spread the cost over a million units.

<comment><USER9> > I'll bet that the F22 software is not actually that much more complicated > than that controlling a modern car, yet Ford or whoever can spread the cost > over a million units.

I'll bet it is. A car is significantly simpler than a fighter plane (at all levels of resolution), even when you discount weapons and detection systems. Which you can't discount when you're building software for a plane.

Furthermore, the risks involved in a fly-by-wire avionics soft are much greater than in cars in case of bug or crash: there are no drive-by-wire production cars today, although there are many electronics systems.

<comment><USER8> We've had self-landing planes and autopilots for a long time. Self-driving cars are still a long way off. So I would say that don't underestimate what software you need in a car.

And even if the F22 is 10x as complex, Ford still has 100,000 cars to spread the cost across.

<comment><USER10> That's the result of a combination of two things: aircraft don't often have one of the major problems that cars have (dense traffic and other obstacles), and that the problem of dissimilar surfaces was solved, for aircraft, by making the surfaces more similar. Cars instead have to be able to negotiate a variety of terrain.

So, safely automating cars is a harder problem, but not because the car itself is a more complex vehicle.

<comment><USER8> A harder problem requires more complex software, no? The complexity of the vehicle itself is actually not a factor.

<comment><USER10> Oh, you're right. Somehow I misread your earlier statement as being about the complexity of the machines themselves.

I agree totally with you then. Even accounting for avionics, control surfaces, target acquisition, and so on and so forth, automating cars is a much harder nut to crack, software-wise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OK, everyone here who codes in ADA, raise your hand. Atlas?

<comment><USER12> I hadn't known much about Ada other than that it's very old (as programming languages go) and it has a kind of nonspecific bad reputation, but I looked it up on Wikipedia and it actually doesn't look like an unpleasant language at all from the article. I particularly like its built-in message-passing system for concurrency: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_(programming_language)#Conc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_\(programming_language\)#Concurrency)

On projects like this I would worry more about accumulated technical debt from decades of modification than the language they're written in. (I suppose the language can complicate the task of hiring programmers who are skilled with its idiosyncrasies, but that's hardly an insurmountable or crippling problem.)

<comment><USER13> From my defense software experience with Ada 83 and Ada 95, Ada's concurrency features made it much easier to work with than C. Tasks/processes were a top- level feature of the language, like classes in Java, and the "protected" keyword functioned somewhat like "synchronized" in Java (an implementation of the monitor pattern).

Our compiler package also came with an extensive concurrency API that offered a variety of threadsafe containers comparable (again) to java.concurrent - <USER2> this was software from the late 80s/early 90s!

What was bad about Ada was Ada 95. It strove to make Ada into an object- oriented language, but did a poor job of it with some very tortured syntax. _edit_ what Masklinn said - "bolted on" is a perfect way to put it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's used in place of Ada nowadays?

<comment><USER8> OCaml would be a great fit for this space, so would Haskell or Scala...

<comment><USER15> Oh hellz no! Most of the systems ADA is used for tend to be realtime stuff. The moment you utter the words "Garbage Collection" you throw your realtime guarantees down the toilet.

<comment><USER8> Tell that to Airbus: <http://www.astree.ens.fr/>

<comment><USER16> Hardly the same thing though. Astrée is a static analyzer used to help prove avionics code written in C, it's not used in any onboard avionics systems. So its lack of real-time processing is not important.

If you're writing real-time avionics software, your choices are really only Ada, C and C++. Most companies I know of, including Airbus, are using C. Typically, avionics software has to be qualified to DO-178B/ED-12B standards which specifies certain development, testing and proofing requirements. Software verification tools like Astrée are also governed by DO-178B/ED-12B, though they are subject to a lighter verification process.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Raytracer.el: a raytracer in Emacs Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/burtonsamograd/emacs-jit/blob/master/lisp/raytracer.el <comment><USER2> Another neat pair of raytacers that shows the performance boost from vectorization:

[http://www.excamera.com/sphinx/article- ray.html](http://www.excamera.com/sphinx/article-ray.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've also written a GPU tracer using the same style of calculation, and it just blows anything done on the CPU out of the water. It gets about 10fps with 100 spheres on a mid range Mac Pro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That code is so beatiful: clear, easily understandable. I don't think I've ever seen any C++ code which even comes close to this in readability. And it _just flows_.

Really, LISP gets way too little credit (and use) than it deserves.

<comment><USER4> Lisp gets nothing but loving praise from most people who've really looked into it. To me, it's a really good indicator of someone's quality as a programmer - someone who treats programming as just a job will probably never run into it in any meaningful way, but a true hacker will eventually encounter it and be able to appreciate its elegance.

Wanting something like lisp to gain mainstream popularity would be a naive wish - your average web developer wouldn't be able to appreciate it, and over time lisp would change to become more like PhP. No offense meant to such people of course, not everyone needs to have that kind of passion, and _someone_ needs to do web development - God knows it won't be me!

<comment><USER5> > over time lisp would change to become more like PhP.

A lot of things are so wrong in this statement.

First of all, PHP isn't bad. Don't get me wrong I don't like it (I also don't like Go but that's another story) but it has become so much better. Several of my colleagues use it (that's not the only language they use though) and believe me they are quite passionate about programming. Actually there is some zen in being able to use any tool life throws at you to solve some practical problems.

Second, you are comparing family of languages to the one particular language. This doesn't do justice to both.

Third, if the comparison with PHP was another way to say that Lisp would become worse then here is another thought. It won't. Every mainstream language I know is becoming better in a sense of better defaults and FP features. Java has got lambdas. JS ES6 is going to have TCO and strict mode which fixes a lot of old vague behaviour. Yes, there are a lot of crazy stuff in those languages because their features weren't well thought out back in the day and now it's impossible to fix everything without breaking the core semantics and behaviour. Basically you can fix some things but you can't evolve one language into another.

Getting back to Lisp now. It doesn't need fixing. It has very basic and clear core which doesn't need to be fixed and a lot of advanced language features can be built upon it (and actually was built and are being built). Taking in account both that languages are becoming better with time and that Lisp has awesome core I don't see at all how's popularity can make it worse.

I'd suggest reading some PLT books or taking some related courses. It helps to get the whole picture. You won't love Lisp less (probably the opposite) but you'll accept other languages more. :)

I have to add I'd prefer something Lispish over anything else any day of the week. I'm looking into Clojure(ClojureScript). It's not as elegant as original Lisps and Schemes but it's tradeoffs come from real world use cases (running on top of JVM and JS). Even with them it's an awesome language.

<comment><USER4> You're putting words in my mouth. I never said PHP was bad - it's reasonably good for common use cases on the web.

I'm just saying that if hypothetically lisp became super popular, it would inevitably change to fit the work flow of the mainstream. Maybe not directly (i.e. through the spec changing) but definitely indirectly, through changes in common practice, libraries etcetera, as well as the general culture of relatively CS-literate, experienced hackers surrounding it.

Of course, I'm not worried about this happening - what's happening instead is that lisp features are finding their way into other languages (a process that has been going on since the 70s).

<comment><USER3> _I 'm just saying that if hypothetically lisp became super popular, it would inevitably change to fit the work flow of the mainstream._

Being a functional language designed for _metaprogramming_ , it is _expected_ that it be extended: just by defining a new function, one defines LISP on the fly. That's the core idea of LISP! (:-))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If authors adds a lazy DAG transformation on eval and an ASCII dithered output, you could drop Autodesk Maya for Emacs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I get the ACSII part, but what would be the purpose/intent of the 'lazy DAG transformation on eval'?

<comment><USER6> Semi-live re-rendering avoiding too much recomputation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How do I run this? Opening raytracer.el and doing M-x eval-buffer doesn't seem to work. Guess my Emacs 24.3.1 is too old..

EDIT: Ah, I see. You need emacs-jit from the parent project.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's built to test the JIT but shouldn't depend on it.

To run:

        Open raytracer.el
        M-x eval-buffer
        M-: (ray-test 256)

Output will be in a buffer as well as in 'image.pbm'

<comment><USER8> ray-test requires an argument.

<comment><AUTHOR> D'oh. Can't even read my own code this morning :) Thanks.

<comment><USER8> It's fine :) How long is this supposed to take?

<comment><AUTHOR> At 256 I think about a minute or so...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome project. While going over it to figure out how it worked, I looked up the 'cl' package and noticed that it has been deprecated in favor of cl-lib. [1] Also, what license (if any) does this fall under?

[1] [https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CommonLispForEmacs](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CommonLispForEmacs)

<comment><USER10> I'm assuming you are asking what license cl-lib falls under.

From the top of cl-lib.el in Emacs 25.1:

      ;;; cl-lib.el --- Common Lisp extensions for Emacs  -*- lexical-binding: t -*-

      ;; Copyright (C) 1993, 2001-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

      ;; Author: Dave Gillespie <firstname.lastname@example.com>
      ;; Version: 1.0
      ;; Keywords: extensions

      ;; This file is part of GNU Emacs.

      ;; GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
      ;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
      ;; the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
      ;; (at your option) any later version.

      ;; GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
      ;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
      ;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
      ;; GNU General Public License for more details.

      ;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
      ;; along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

<comment><USER9> Oh no, I meant raytracer.el. Would it fall under the GPL by default? (Does running raytracer.el within GNU Emacs count as extending it?)

<comment><USER10> Sorry, here is the license for the project:

[https://github.com/burtonsamograd/emacs- jit/blob/master/COPY...](https://github.com/burtonsamograd/emacs- jit/blob/master/COPYING) (GPL v3)

I see nothing else which overrides this but I could be mistaken.

<comment><USER9> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's some additional information on ray tracing:

[https://github.com/melling/ComputerGraphics/blob/master/ray_...](https://github.com/melling/ComputerGraphics/blob/master/ray_tracing.org)

</comment><comment><USER12> Now if we could only embed a flight simulator in to Emacs...

<comment><USER13> Maybe you can be inspired by the flight sim written in PicoLisp RcSim back in 1991, and still included with the PicoLisp distribution. [1]

      [1] http://picolisp.com/wiki/?rcsim

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The whole "web developers can't be talented, passionate, _real_ programmers" narrative is very myopic, tired, and just down right flawed. "Real programmer" machismo, in general, has no place on HN or any community that thrives to be productive and constructive.

<comment><USER4> You misunderstood me. Of course there's plenty of good web developers. It's just that, in my opinion, the average programming language is less elegant than Lisp, and the average programmer is less passionate than the average Lisper.

This says nothing about individual programmers - there's just a lot of web developers (that's why I picked PHP as an example, because in my mind it's the standard example of a "mainstream language"), and many of them aren't particularly passionate about programming, it's just a job to them (which is, as I tried to point out, perfectly OK!). People who know Lisp, on the other hand, are almost exclusively passionate about programming, because there's no real reason to learn Lisp if you're not - it's not known to be particularly employable.

I never tried to make a value judgement of web developers as a group, it was just a matter of statistics. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

<comment><USER15> Your argument has merit, disregard the dissenters, just noise.

The same is true for other great languages. In my view, Erlang, FORTH, Smalltalk. I've yet to meet anyone well-versed in these that didn't turn out to be a good programmer. Moreover, this process is additive. I've met a few people over the years who are well-versed in subsets of the languages I mentioned, that turned out to be masters of the craft and helped me improve tremendously either through them commenting on my work, or me examining their output and their problem-solving approach. If I had one word to describe these persons, it'd be Artists.

In close to 20 years in this domain, I've yet to meet a single person whose primary expertise lies in {C, C++, Javascript, PHP, Java, C#, Python, Ruby}, that has triggered paradigm shifts in me that led to personal growth or re- evaluating programming. If I had one word to describe these persons, it'd be laborers. Of course the second group is also far larger than the first, and includes all the hacks [1], primadonnas [2] and mediocrats [3] one would expect.

[1] [http://www.morganstanley.com/profiles/bjarne-stroustrup- mana...](http://www.morganstanley.com/profiles/bjarne-stroustrup-managing- director-technology)

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

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum)</comment></comment></comment>


Spatial Interfaces (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://darkblueheaven.com/spatialinterfaces/ <comment><USER3> If you're interested in spatial interfaces it's worth looking at John Underkoffler's work (Minority Report and Oblong Industries).

[https://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_pointing_to_the_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_pointing_to_the_future_of_ui/up- next)

</comment><comment><USER4> Spatial Interfaces are highly underrated and misunderstood. In the field where I operate (UI/UX design) there are 2 loud camps: Pro skeuomorphism and Pro flat. IMHO, both miss the point. Spatial interfaces are under explored, even though it's how our brains operate. I'm currently studying the topic of spatial interfaces regarding how our brains work. Or at least, the little bit we know about how memories and thoughts are formed. Space is a centre piece in how our minds operate. If you haven't already, read about the memory palace and how spatial interfaces help our brains remember things better.

<comment><USER5> > _2 loud camps_

And more generally, there's another one: text-based.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sococo's overhead map feature looks really cool. One of those things that seem like they would be obvious after you see them but almost nobody thought of.

</comment><comment><USER7> This article speaks to me. For language learning and teaching, take a technology like Mumble(1) with positional audio and integrate it into a game so you hear those around you as in real-life?

Or what about taking a chapter from a textbook and making it into a level in a game? The spatial world would help players to remember and fix things in their memory, and they could always return to review.

Or a game tailored for language learning through real world situations, where a teacher sets up a 'lesson' and then the students bring it to life. Maybe that shopkeeper is a native speaker calling in and playing. The possibilities are endless.

And this sounds amazing; bringing physicality to ephemeral webpages that are here and gone the next moment:

"I could place my personal site on a street near the websites of my friends. We could form a little village. I could then go to my favorite sites and walk around nearby to find sites like them. This is a spatial interface that would give us a new and intuitive way for navigating the Internet and understanding how websites are related each other."

1: [https://www.mumble.info/](https://www.mumble.info/)

</comment><comment><USER8> The point of video meetings and "who goes next" is valid. Have actually had the exact issue. Simple fix could be to order the faces the same way on everybody's screen.

If I'm have one-to-one meeting, I prefer to site face-to-face with other person. Of course with multiple participants this is not possible. Wouldn't it be an example of "bad skeumorphism" if the video conferencing would take these real-life limitations to software? While the grid-of-faces is not natural, it allows you to see everybody at once.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you're certainly right about that. I often find that the gallery view in Zoom is the best possible interface. And the limitations of real life might not be better on a screen. But I'm still left wondering...isn't something more creative possible here?

<comment><USER9> specifically for standups: you can have a predefined list of people, displayed in fixed positions in the grids. guests can have another box displayed in the same order for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing about interfaces of graphic programs I recently realized is - <USER2> all force the user to decide up-front how big the image is going to be, and where it will be placed in the frame.

So if you "paint yourself into a corner and want to extend the image one way - you have to select everything, move it, and scale the canvas or the selection aproprietely.

This could be done automatically by the program every time you add new details. The canvas could just as easily be infinite.

<comment><USER11> Been a long time since I used it, but this is sort of how Illustrator works. You do setup a canvas at first, but you can draw stuff anywhere in the whole workspace. It's not infinite and doesn't auto expand, but it is huge.

The canvas is more of a way to group objects for export, you could resize and duplicate them all over the workspace.

I used to use them as an ad how version control system, duplicate objects to play around off canvas, and then "commit" to a new canvas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very interesting research domain, on the one hand computers are so powerful because they can decouple us from our spatial reality, on the other hand we need the spatiality to be able to navigate the computational structures.

If you are interested in this kind of stuff definitely also research Embodied Cognition theory.

<comment><USER13> Very interested. Can you recommend any seminal works?

<comment><USER12> This online entry is a pretty good starting point [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied- cognition/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/embodied-cognition/)

<comment><USER13> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> this website loads the text of the article, and then does some sort of reload and becomes completely blank. fyi</comment>