State of Rust 0.11.0 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.octayn.net/blog/2014/07/15/state-of-rust-0.11.0/ <comment><USER2> That is very exciting. I like the direction the project is going.

But, one thing worries me -- performance. Anyone know a list or tracker of benchmarks to see how it roughly compares.

Or is it too ealry too talk about it? Am I pointing to the elephant in the room? I am ok with saying "we are not there to talk about it, stop stirring the pot". I understand that.

But looking at the future, if Rust is to compete with C++, it needs to perform close to it. Not necessarily in the "safer"/default mode, but it needs to have an unsafe, turn-off-all-checks-run as fast as you can mode.

C++11/C++14 improved C++ many enjoy and like using it. Many that don't are probably using it for performance reasons. That is a niche Rust will have to compete in.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rust's performance is competitive with clang and improving, even in the "safer" mode. We have benchmarks in many of the libraries (search for #[bench]) and some in src/test/bench. We're on the benchmarking game, but that is really just a game, not indicative of anything besides how much time someone has spent microoptimizing a specific program. Someone is working on a custom LLVM pass that will remove essentially every null check that Rust adds. On top of that, there are still a few more changes on the way that aren't easy, but should give a nice perf improvement.

<comment><USER3> Here is a link to the source code of the initial version of the custom LLVM pass to eliminate null checks. Hopefully this will be upstreamed to LLVM in the future.

[https://github.com/rust-lang/llvm/blob/rust- llvm-2014-06-28/...](https://github.com/rust-lang/llvm/blob/rust- llvm-2014-06-28/lib/Transforms/Scalar/NullCheckElimination.cpp)

<comment><USER4> There's a small typo in there: argumetns -> arguments

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I want a language I would enjoy programming in. Rust seems to have a lot of what I want (GC not mandatory, perf, etc, etc) BUT private-by-default is a terrible idea. I started writing a Rust program and I was just typing pub pub pub all over the place. Ugly. That plus the excessive markup the language requires for safety are enough to put me off it.

Video game programmers desperately need a new language to replace C++, but I think this is not it, because the amount of friction added for safety reasons feels very high.

I'll keep an eye on the language as it evolves, though.

<comment><USER6> I think your response is on point because Rust also seems to be a lot of what I want (GC not mandatory, perf, etc, etc, plus pattern matching). Private by default is literally a huge positive for me. But the terribleness of Rust strings is enough to put me right off of it.

I'm worried that all of us are waiting for something to replace C++ that can't happen.

<comment><USER7> When you say "terrible", are you complaining about having to write `.as_slice()` and `.to_string()` all the time?

For context for others who may not have a lot of Rust experience, Rust has two string types, the heap allocated `String` and the 'string slice' `&str`, which is a view of some string data anywhere in memory (possibly on the heap, possibly not). A little more info about these types: [http://stackoverflow.com/a/24159933/1256624](http://stackoverflow.com/a/24159933/1256624)

At the moment, conversions between them are via explicit method calls, which can result in verbose code when handling them. An explicit conversion is required even for the super-cheap `String` -> `&str` conversion (which is just repackaging the 3 words (length, capacity, pointer) of String into the 2 words (length, pointer) of the &str).

<comment><USER6> That is part of the problem. The bigger part of the problem is comparing String's with constants. It simply doesn't work easily.

Also, start trying to do pattern matching on Vec<String> vs Vec<str> (and the wide variety of static, ref, etc versions there in) and you end up spending a lot of effort to do what is very basic in most languages that support generic pattern matching.

Try a simple use case, parse a command line argument array via pattern matching in a Rust program.

<comment><USER7> Comparing a constant:

      string.as_slice() == "foo"

"Parsing" command line args (it's not as slick as it could be, but it's not entirely horrible... for me as an experienced Rust user anyway):

      match std::os::args().as_slice() {
          [] => println!("need more arguments"),
          [ref x, ..] if x.as_slice() == "-h" => print_help(),
          [ref a, ref b] if a.as_slice() == "-f" => write_to_file(b.as_slice())
          args @ _ => println!("unrecognised arguments: {}", args)
      }

Of course, using a proper parser like getopts or docopt.rs would be better:

\- [http://doc.rust-lang.org/master/getopts/](http://doc.rust- lang.org/master/getopts/) \- [https://github.com/BurntSushi/docopt.rs](https://github.com/BurntSushi/docopt.rs)

I think it gets smoother with practice (as in, with practice you're able to know intuitively when you need .as_slice and when a `ref` is required etc.), but yes, improving the ergonomics will be nice. Dynamically sized types will allow for String to be treated implicitly as a &str in many cases, so, e.g., my_string.trim() will work (it currently requires `my_string.as_slice().trim()`). And there is some loose talk about overloading pattern matching via the same mechanism, which would allow proper pattern matching on String with literals `"..."`.

 _> support generic pattern matching._

There's some subtlety here, e.g. Haskell doesn't support pattern matching on Data.Vector.Vector or Data.Text.Text (which are some of the closest equivalents to &[T], Vec<T> and String).

<comment><USER6> A) I understand how to make Rust do what I want with strings. B) Even with your examples, I think you've glossed over some of the even trivial use cases for dealing with Vec<String> vs Vec<~str> (or whatever the current nomenclature is). C) Even with your great comments you've pointed out that String manipulation in Rust is not "natural". Which is something that is a very high priority for me.

That said, easy string manipulation is a high priority feature for me. Non- private data access is a high priority feature for the original commenter. I worry that too many of us have expectations for Rust that are unlikely to be fulfilled.

That's not to say that the Rust team has set too high of barriers, only that we have elevated them to something they aren't. I'm less concerned with what the Rust team is delivering (which so far has been great) than with what people seem to be expecting (which is nothing less than a C++ replacement in all contexts).

<comment><USER8> The problem is that the string story is on two sides of a barrier erected in Rust very much by intention: _To make memory allocation explicit, and to enable allocation-free operations as far as possible_

This is why Rust will have you juggle String (a string with allocation) and &str (a "string slice"; a view into an allocation elsewhere) all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you want to check out Rust and are having trouble because the docs aren't close to done yet, Rust for Rubyists (rustforrubyists.com) just came out with an update supporting 0.11. If you're using the nightlies, the only thing in that book that isn't consistent (that I've found so far) is that the .to_str() method is now .to_string().

<comment><USER10> Hopefully, my re-write of the guide will fully eclipse Rust for Rubyists soon. :)

<comment><USER9> I really appreciate you still updating Rust for Rubyists even though you're working on the official guide.

<comment><USER10> You're welcome. <3.

0.11 was the first edition I _completely_ re-read all the text and fixed things, and I still had something like ~10 errors. Editing your own writing is hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Newbie taking a serious look at Rust here.

Any notes about non-blocking I/O in rust? Iron [1] is mentioned, but am not sure how I/O is handled in Iron yet .. or how it would be written to be non- blocking [2]. I hear "read the source luke" echoing in the chambers of HN and will do that, but some higher level info would be nice.

[1] [http://ironframework.io/](http://ironframework.io/)

[2] [http://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1v2ptr/is_nonblocking_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1v2ptr/is_nonblocking_io_possible_in_rust/)

edit: This ([http://doc.rust-lang.org/native/io/](http://doc.rust- lang.org/native/io/)) seems to suggest that the norm is non-blocking I/O which is automatically handled by the scheduler.

<comment><USER12> If you explicitly use the "green" runtime that ships with rust instead of the "native" runtime, you get green threads where the built-in blocking IO only blocks the green thread but lets the OS-level thread carry on executing other green threads.

Internally that is built on top of libuv for async IO, but as far as I know, Rust currently doesn't expose any interface for manually doing async or nonblocking IO.

<comment><USER11> It seems this issue was only recently closed (May 9) [1] .. and it seems a websocket library with full duplex support is still in the works.

[1] [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/11165](https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/issues/11165)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is welcome news.

Also, I wasn't sure that Vec<T> was actually ~[T], I couldn't find that in the docs. Thanks for spelling it out.

I see Rust as a language that could become the "next C" (only better), and I'm excited watching it evolve.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is there a capability or plans to be able to export a header file from Rust code that C code (or Python, Go, whatever) could reference? I couldn't find anything when searching for it but it seems that it'd be possible since Rust doesn't have a runtime, right?

<comment><USER7> Yes, you can expose C symbols from a Rust library:

      #[no_mangle]
      pub extern fn rustlib_increment(x: i32) -> i32 { x + 1 }

#10350 covers actually printing a .h file from Rust code. [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/10530](https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/issues/10530)

<comment><USER14> Awesome. I think the ability to write a nice .h file, in particular, will really be the killer feature for Rust as "better systems language". Exporting headers and symbols for higher level languages in a format that's universally understood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'll be more interested when they've found a way to work with native binaries on windows, and handle creating/using binaries that take full advantage of the PE's import/export functionality. In reality it's not cross-platform if it doesn't support the almost guaranteed necessary features of the platform -- utilizing compiled dynamic libraries.

<comment><AUTHOR> Open an issue. There is really only one contributor who works on Windows support. We need more people telling us what we are doing wrong on Windows.</comment></comment>


New WebKit Features in Safari 11.1 - <AUTHOR> https://webkit.org/blog/8216/new-webkit-features-in-safari-11-1/ <comment><USER2> One of the most interesting new features was detailed in a post a few months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15845114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15845114)</comment>


A formal kernel memory-ordering model - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/718628/ <comment><USER2> [cross posted from the article comments section]

I'm currently working on my PhD with an emphasis on formal verification (more specifically proofs of correctness) in the weak memory setting.

Some thoughts as I read through:

> Any number of compiler optimizations. For example, our model currently does > not account for compiler optimizations that hoist identical stores from both > branches of an if statement to precede that statement.

This has until very recently (POPL 2017) been a very serious problem for formal weak memory models. There is only one that I'm aware of for C++11 that avoids the "thin air" read problem that generally arises as a consequence of supporting these types of optimizations. See [1] for more.

> The memory model must be compatible with the hardware that the Linux kernel > runs on. Although the memory model can be (and is) looser than any given > instance of hardware, it absolutely must not be more strict. In other words, > the memory model must in some sense provide the least common denominator of > the guarantees of all memory models of all CPU families that run the Linux > kernel.

This sort of "lower bound" on bad memory behavior is normally why people target C11 or C++11, but if the author's happen to see this comment I would recommend checking out the work of Karl Crary at CMU [2]. In his model he has omitted the traditional total order on writes present on all modern architectures with the intent of future proofing his semantics.

As a further plug for his semantics, it is not "axiomatic" in the sense of the traditional memory models. Importantly it introduces the notion of programmer specified orders which fits more closely with programmer intuition (by my reckoning) when writing the algorithms than say, the C++11 approach of memory orderings for particular cross thread operations.

In any event an enjoyable read that I will have to come back to later!

[1] [https://people.mpi-sws.org/~orilahav/papers/main.pdf](https://people.mpi- sws.org/~orilahav/papers/main.pdf)

[2] [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~crary/papers/2015/rmc.pdf](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~crary/papers/2015/rmc.pdf)

<comment><USER2> I somehow just noticed that this article was partly authored by Jade Alglave and others who will certainly be aware of the papers I linked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Part 2 is here: [https://lwn.net/Articles/720550/](https://lwn.net/Articles/720550/)

</comment><comment><USER4> So it looks like you can run test code to check if memory ordering will cause issues in your code.

Is there something that will allow user space programs that do a variety of things to deal with concurrency to show up issues or potential issues?

<comment><USER5> Not sure if this is exactly what you are asking, but there's tsan (ThreadSanitizer):

[https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/ThreadSanitizerCpp...](https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/ThreadSanitizerCppManual)</comment></comment>


The Articles of Unity: A Patriotic Plan to Save Our Republic - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ArticlesOfUnity/the-articles-of-unity-f544f930d336 <comment><USER2> 5000+ followers [https://twitter.com/ArticlesOfUnity/followers](https://twitter.com/ArticlesOfUnity/followers) and counting</comment>


In a Subprime Bubble for Used Cars, Borrowers Pay Sky-High Rates - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/in-a-subprime-bubble-for-used-cars-unfit-borrowers-pay-sky-high-rates/?_php=true&_type=blogs&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <comment><USER2> > Rodney Durham stopped working in 1991 > declared bankruptcy and lives on > Social Security. > [borrowed] $15,197 to buy a used Mitsubishi sedan. > > topped making his loan payments ... only five months after buying > "I just > can't get around without my car," he said.

Far be it from me to mention it, but how did Rodney think it was going to work ?

<comment><USER3> _"I am not sure how I got the loan," Mr. Durham, age 60, said._

I don't think either he or the lender had any idea how it was going to work.

Subprime booms are "push" credit: there is so much capital around chasing decreasing returns, that it's being put into riskier and riskier loans.

<comment><USER2> But surely there's a moment when you see

"monthly repayments: $ nnn"

and say to yourself "I can't afford that"

I'd understand it if they kept the monthly fee down to something small but charged enough interest that he was paying for the rest of his life, which is how a lot of property loans were structured.</comment></comment></comment>


Science faculty's subtle gender biases favor male students [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2012/09/14/1211286109.full.pdf <comment><USER2> I'm reminded of the Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"</comment>


Game Programming Patterns now available in print and eBook - <AUTHOR> http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com

<comment><USER2> You beat me to it! Now you get all the sweet, delicious karma.

Author here (as some of you know already). I'd love to answer any questions you have!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for writing the book! I first learned about it from here awhile back. It's extremely helpful to get an expert's take on the what and why of organizing game code.

<comment><USER3> I also give my thanks. This was very helpful for me at the beginning of the year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm very much looking forward to read this, perfectly timed release for the upcoming Ludum Dare (December 5th-8th)

[http://ludumdare.com/compo/](http://ludumdare.com/compo/)</comment>


India's SMS GupShup Has 3x The Usage Of Twitter And No Downtime - <AUTHOR> http://anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/06/indias-sms-gupshup-has-3x-the-usage-of-twitter-and-no-downtime.html <comment><USER2> Such an utter lack of understanding of Twitter's service model I've rarely seen. Message delivery was never Twitter's problem; dealing with persistance (I want my messages when I'm good and ready thanks, not when the system wants to push them to me - READ: LIKE SMS MULTICAST!) is. Christ.

Downvote me all you like, but I'm embarrassed this story made 21 points.

<comment><USER3> Such an utter lack of understanding of SMS messaging I've rarely seen. Twitter is a joke compared to what it takes to do SMS properly. Not only SMS needs to be persistent, but they also need to be stored and accurately retreived for up to 5 years, which is a goverment regulation in most countries. Moreover, delivery rate needs to be 100%, period. SMS is not a time waster, even pacemakers send SMS messages from inside of human bodies when their batteries need to be replaced. You can't afford to drop those.

I know that the "culture" of Silicon Valley is not to criticize, so let me put it this way: HIRE CAREFULLY for your startup, especially when it comes to engineering. Even if you're solving a trivial issue.

<comment><USER2> Don't get me wrong, I don't think SMS on a truly large scale is trivial. I do, however, think SMS messaging is fundamentally different to what Twitter is doing. The former is unicast: I send you a message. It needs to be stored somewhere (your SMS inbox). Twitter is multicast: I send a message, everyone who subscribe to me needs to get that message.

Now, misunderstand me correctly; I don't think this is anything new. My former boss built tools (over 20 years ago) that ran such systems as the NYSE, Swiss Air-traffic control, etc that did fault-tolerant multicast. And the uptime there was somewhat better than Twitter.

What led me to post the original comment was this: They are not solving the same problem, but if they were their architecture would be just as flawed as Twitter's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It works..because the Indian cellphone companies don't cheat you into paying a fee for RECEIVING sms or calls.

<comment><USER5> you have to pay for receiving calls/sms in the USA? wow !!!

Fwiw, here in India, in the initial days of cell phone adoption, some phone cell service providers tried providing plans with "receiving charges", but no one used those plans so they (mostly) faded away.

I assumed something like that happened in the United States as well.

Another interesting phenomenon here is that (most) cell phones are not locked to a particular vendor. The cell phone manufacturers (Nokia , Samsung et al) compete (fiercely) on phones (almost every week a new phone launches) and the service providers (Airtel, Vodaphone et al) compete on service (bazillion plans with different mixes of features. You can shift a plan to another one i a few hours by sending a free sms to the service provider)

You get a sim card from the carrier you subscribe to and buy a phone from wherever you want, insert the card and you are good to go. You can change or upgrade the phone and/or service provider independently of each other.

<comment><USER6> What you are describing is the power of the open market; it's what happens when you don't have an oligopoly like we have here in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this post made by the Twitter team pretty much sums up their woes. ([http://dev.twitter.com/2008/05/twittering-about- architecture...](http://dev.twitter.com/2008/05/twittering-about- architecture.html))

"Twitter is, fundamentally, a messaging system. Twitter was not architected as a messaging system, however. For expediency's sake, Twitter was built with technologies and practices that are more appropriate to a content management system."

</comment><comment><USER8> """It appears that the biggest difference between Twitter and GupShup is 3-tier versus 2-tier. RoR is fantastic for turning out applications quickly, but the way Rails works, the out-of-the-box approach leads to a two-tier architecture (webserver talking directly to database). We all learned back in the 90's that this is an unscalable model, yet it is the model for most Rails applications."""

I remember having a discussion with DHH about RoR on IRC a long time ago. Probably somwhere in 2004 when RoR was still very young and not so much known. Coming from a Java/Spring/J2EE background I asked him about abstracting database access in a third tier. He said he had never heard of that and did not know and understand why people were doing that.

<comment><USER9> "He said he had never heard of that and did not know and understand why people were doing that."

Could you explain the advantage of having a middle man between the server and db? Does the middle man caches the requests? From what I can read up it seems too be just a logical layer that executes the request depending on some rules...

<comment><USER10> Let's say you have a 10,000 logged-in users on your website, of which 1000 are concurrently active. That's very difficult to do with a RDBMS, because (most) RDBMSs do a lot of work to start a session, and maintain an awful lot of session state (for example, Oracle pre-allocates a chunk of memory private to each session to do sorting in).

So you put something in the middle, that multiplexes those sessions down into say 100 session on the database, checking connections in and out of a pool as necessary, queueing requests asynchronously if there are no free connections in the pool. You avoid the expensive creation/destruction of database sessions, as you start the sessions when the middle tier starts and keep them, and you keep the session state the database has to maintain at an optimal level. Cleverer architectures add effectively another layer between the middle tier and the database to cache query results (because you the developer can _know_ what data you can cache like that, but the database can only make a best guess).

In "sharding" I suppose the middle tier also has to do some logic to figure out which "shard" to direct the query to. Note that _this logic must be done_ , whether you do it yourself in your code, or you let Oracle do it for you in the query optimizer, picking the right partition(s) to actually execute the SQL on.

<comment><USER8> This is not what is usually meant by a third tier. Personally I take database connection pooling for granted.

What I mean when I talk about a 'data-tier' is the code that deals with accessing data _without knowing in whatever datastore it is contained_.

If you properly hide for example Twitter#getRecentMessagesForUserById(userId) behind a (Java) interface then you can easily change from an implementation where you do direct database calls to a sharded solution or a cached solution.

Other tiers that use this API will simply work because the interface has not changed. One day your app could be talking directly to a single MySQL database and the other day your app could be talking to a 60 node PostgreSQL cluster. It would never know since the details are hidden.

This is totally against what you see in every Rails book or example app where the first thing that is done is direct ActiveRecord queries.

Yes it is more work, but it pays off in the long term. It also greatly reduces local hacks for caching. All that is done in the right place. And automatically for all users of that tier.

S.

<comment><USER11> Maybe I'm misunderstanding what your saying but I'd like to point out that I can go from MySQL to PostgreSQL in a matter of minutes.

Specifically, I would need to change my database.yml file with my new database info and run a migration.

Did I miss something?

<comment><USER10> A slight tangent, but I _never_ understood the philosophy of being database- agnostic. Every database has its own set of features and does things in a certain way. For example, in some databases cursor operations are expensive and temporary tables are the way to go. In some, the opposite. Remaining neutral means using only the most basic SQL and _still_ you might not get the expected performance...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if those techcrunch Twitter stats are up to date or accurate. 3 million messages a day is really nothing in terms of scaling issues. 34 messages a second.

Although it also depends how many destinations each of those messages has.

<comment><USER13> Sure, if messages were evenly distributed over the day. I think it's the bursty nature of the traffic that causes the scaling issues. A better estimate would probably assume that half that daily traffic is within 1 hour - i.e. 1.5 million/(60*60) = 417 messages/second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why do people think Twitter's problems are due to a lack of good technical design?

Twitter's real problem is that they've had a pittance of hardware until very recently. It's not my place to go into why this is (and I'm sure the version of the story I know is a bit biased by the teller), but suffice it to say that a lot of Twitter's problems were, until recently, more business-oriented that technology oriented.

</comment><comment><USER15> @tx claiming that SMS has persistence is wrong, once the SMS is delivered to the customer, and the buffer fills up on the SMSC oldest messages are cleared, a record is written to a file which is then transfered to some other server (That deals with the persistence) so SMS as it stands now is not persistent, since one App handles the messaging and another handles the persistence.

</comment><comment><USER16> You've gotta remember, Twitter is in a very sticky situation at the moment!

One one hand, they know their architecture isn't perfect and will be rebuilding it to cope with more users.

But on the other hand - they are a small team which is trying to keep it up in its current state, and cant just decide to close Twitter for a few weeks/months while they work on the new architecture, people will defiantly move to another service, and Twitter is dead.

</comment><comment><USER10> I laugh when people talk about "sharding". In what way is storing your users in different databases by username any better than calling your disk drives by letter? The major database vendors all tried shared-nothing, and most have rejected it in favour of single images (using partitioning to arrange the data in a form suitable for parallel queries)

<comment><USER8> """In what way is storing your users in different databases by username any better than calling your disk drives by letter?"""

Probably the fact that those drives are local while sharded databases are physically seperate (clusters) of independent machines?

Some apps totally suck at this model. Others are perfectly suited. I doubt Twitter needs complex joins, so it should be easy to partition their data.

S.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Man Indians are getting better at Web Apps too. Good read.

<comment><USER18> They spent a lot of time building them for others (outsourcing) and now are builing it for themselves (entreprenuering/producing).

The same model as the far east with cheap manufacturing of electronics goods in the previous decades. After a while of outsourced cheap production/manufacturing, these players learnt about the markets/products and how to actually design and build themselves and now many of them are major manufacturers and producers in thier own right.

<comment><USER18> Plus web apps will soon be big business in India as it allows them to compete in international markets with stronger currencies (i.e. USD/GBP is greater then Indian Rupee) without the associated export/manufacturing costs, and the benefit of their own homes/area/country.

Hence instead of working for $10k~20k (USD) on average in a multinational/call-centre, they will form tech/consulting startups. This is already been demonstrated in the macro-scale with names like InfoSys/TCS/MindTree/HCL and now will happen in the micro-scale too, especially after media coverage of people like the Scrabulous founders etc (who many media sources claim earn about $20k~$30k a month in just facebook advertising).

Only a matter of time till we see a web superhit from India, imho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Twitter has a better name.

<comment><USER20> GupShup is slang in Hindi for chit-chat or gossip</comment></comment>


The struggle to prevent aging advances another step - <AUTHOR> http://mathoda.com/archives/200

<comment><USER2> progeria is one of the things that makes me believe it may be possible to 'cure' old age

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

i have always wondered what the psychological effects of living hundreds of years might be

<comment><USER3> you know 2000 years back people might thought what would be psychological effect of living more that 40 years on average...</comment></comment>


Show HN: Browse Hacker News from the Comfort of Your Terminal - rafael-rinaldi https://github.com/rafaelrinaldi/hn-cli <comment><AUTHOR> Looks good from the screenshot, but for me, votes and comments is way more important than who submitted it. And: What happens to titles which are too long?

<comment><USER2> Yep, domain is also quite often very important, often the title does not mean much without the domain.

I think though two lines per item would be needed to display all that info

<comment><USER3> Well, it does depend on the width of your terminal, of course, but the title could be abbreviated, there's no need to repeat "ago" in the time column and, as others have pointed out, the submitter's name is pretty irrelevant. I'd go title, domain, votes, comments and try to fit that on one line. In fact, now I compare that to the actual web home page where it's impossible to easily compare things like comments or age, I just want to redesign _that_ ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm. If you're wanting to browse websites from the terminal, why not just use something like Lynx?

<comment><USER5> Presumably for the same reason that people prefer native applications on iOS / Android to using web applications in mobile browsers.

This approach allows you to tailor the controls and the display to the specific application, thus creating a more pleasant experience.

Have you tried using HN in lynx?

<comment><USER4> Sure - I tried it out just now, it's fine.

Like any feature rich application, it takes a little time to learn the ins and outs, time saving features and such - but it's very usable for a site like hacker news, you can even navigate via the numbered links on the site.

[http://brainstormsandraves.com/reference/lynx/lynxhelpforbeg...](http://brainstormsandraves.com/reference/lynx/lynxhelpforbeginners.txt)

<comment><USER6> I've tried HN on all the major text browsers in the past and they never seem to indent comments correctly. Without proper "spacial nesting" conversations are nearly impossible to follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice. Would be even cooler if you could view and add comments using the terminal.

<comment> rafael-rinaldi Glad you liked! I honestly just wanted something really simple to peak at HN.

Feel free to open an issue, though! Contributions are welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great! Now I don't need to alt tab to the terminal to pretend to work when someone comes over my shoulder!

<comment> rafael-rinaldi Haha well, that's an interesting use case!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can also browser Hacker News in the comfort of your favourite editor (Vim): [https://github.com/ryanss/vim- hackernews](https://github.com/ryanss/vim-hackernews)

<comment><USER10> I've deliberately avoided doing IRC or HN or anything like that from my editor (emacs), too much of a distraction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Want an alternative for some hacker hackers? Try HN for terminals written in assembly language: [https://2ton.com.au/hnwatch/](https://2ton.com.au/hnwatch/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I see these solutions a lot lately, HN browser, weather, etc, all in the terminal. Perhaps a silly question, but why the need for browsing it in the terminal instead of a browser like say, Chrome or Firefox?

<comment><USER13> Because it looks good on r/unixporn ;-)

But more to the point - it fits with many keyboard only work flows and/or tiling WMs (i3, awesome, etc). At least that's what it's good in it for me. One less context switch.

<comment><USER14> Don't those reasons also soy to browsers? My tiling window manager is perfectly capable of tiling browser windows. Browsers like Firefox and Chrome can be controlled fully by keyboard, even very comfortably with the right extension.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks pretty cool. I often open the website, but since I work mainly from the terminal, this will be useful. Hope to see this project grow.

Offtopic: What's the font in the screenshot?

<comment> rafael-rinaldi It's PragmataPro: [http://www.fsd.it/shop/fonts/pragmatapro](http://www.fsd.it/shop/fonts/pragmatapro)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Cool Project! I use w3m for hn, but what you've looks a bit cleaner!

<comment> rafael-rinaldi Thanks! Glad you like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wish the whole making-cli-programs-in-node fad would die.

<comment> rafael-rinaldi And I wish you all the best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd love something similar for Instapaper. For reading in the terminal with `less` or $EDITOR.</comment>


To Avoid Climate Disaster, Urban Transportation Must Change, Now - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/03/global-climate-strike-urban-transportation-shared-mobility/585010/ <comment><AUTHOR> It is interesting to read these two: [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/durham- light-...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/durham-light-rail- duke-gotriangle-transit-research-triangle/584839/) in conjunction. Depressing, too.</comment>


Sixty Symbols - Videos about the symbols of Physics and Astronomy - <AUTHOR> http://www.sixtysymbols.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, a danger to your productivity.</comment>


Overconfident Students, Dubious Employers - <AUTHOR> https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/23/study-students-believe-they-are-prepared-workplace-employers-disagree <comment><USER2> _But Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup 's higher education division, which also conducts research related to graduates and careers, said these sorts of definitions can vary

For instance, Gallup has found that generally an employer believes that "critical thinking" is coming up with new, original thought. But in an academic sense, it can mean more picking apart ideas in depth, he said._

Given that their definition of "critical thinking" (which is incorrect,) differs from the academic one, employers are probably responding on a completely different wavelength. That throws this whole survey into question.

<comment><USER3> "new, original thought" to the employers probably just means that they can deal with a problem that doesn't fit into the general workflow or one that they haven't been specifically trained to do.

As an example, the payment system at my pub went down a few weeks ago and the staff where clueless on what to do, the accepted short term solution (at my insistence) to write down who bought what (we all have accounts) so they can be put into the system later. This is a simple, trivial example, but in jobs like that it makes you manager material.

<comment><USER4> That's creative thinking, but not critical thinking.

<comment><USER3> The solution might be creative (in this case it might be more memory of how things used to work than creativity), but first you have to isolate the issue, theorize on how long it will be out and what the consequences of that are and determine if you should do something or just wait. Then you have to weigh several solutions which could include nothing or multiple solutions for different cases. There are many critical thinking steps involved and some very incomplete data to base them on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The AAC&U looked at some of the same measures as the association. > Specifically around oral communication, students ranked themselves highly -- > about 62 percent of students believed they did well in this area compared to > 28 percent of employers. That and written communication showed the biggest > gaps in the AAC&U report (27 percent of employers versus 65 percent of > students).

Kind of difficult to disagree with this one. I know it's passé these days to worry about trivial things like correct grammar, spelling, and usage. I've had fruitless discussions on this very site where people will argue that it doesn't matter how you use the language if, ultimately, the message somehow manages to get conveyed. Terrible language skills are not just found among new grads though, I've seen them across the workforce, including appalling spelling in communications from the SVP level. There's a non-zero cost, too: the cost of having to get people to repeat themselves, the cost of ambiguity when your manager poorly communicates their wishes, the cost of misunderstood information bubbling up the chain to decision makers. It adds up.

<comment><USER6> > I've had fruitless discussions on this very site where people will argue > that it doesn't matter how you use the language if, ultimately, the message > somehow manages to get conveyed.

Most of the time terrible language does manage to hinder the message! But the writer doesn't realize this, because for them it's obvious. I had a coworker (who is almost 30 and a college graduate) with this very attitude. A lot of his code comments and documentation had grammar mistakes and quirks (Random periods. In the middle of phrases.) that made it very hard to read and thus understand.

<comment><USER7> Agreed - I think the 'its how the message gets conveyed' only applies to really trivial things, like 'expresso', or whom vs who where the incorrect version is so clear that it doesn't affect the readability.

<comment><USER5> Here's the thing about the "expressos," "irregardless," "for all intensive purposes," and "mute points" out there: Even if the meaning is clear and the communication is successful, these convey a carelessness and sloppiness that, as a great engineer, _you don 't deserve!_ As someone who knows what you're doing and takes pride in your craft, things like bad spelling and usage needlessly undermine your credibility.

<comment><USER8> They do undermine one's credibility.

At the same time, a cursory study of German, French, Hebrew, even Japanese would suggest that English spelling is needlessly complicated and ambiguous. Part of addressing this problem for future generations is a push for spelling reform.

<comment><USER9> I've learned a lot of languages and they all have their problems. E.g. the horribly complicated broken Kanji characters in Japanese and Chinese. E.g. the almost completely pointless genders in German, and resulting requirements for other words changing in regular and irregular ways in agreement. Similarly verb tenses are insanely over-complicated. English is reasonably easy to learn compared to many other languages.

It is harder than it looks to fix spelling because in the written language different words that sound the same are spelled differently. Making the written language phonetic would create ambiguity.

<comment><USER8> Some things about English are easier than other languages, but it's spelling is uniquely complicated. There are roughly 55 phonemes in English and 1500 distinct spellings for them. In most languages the ratio is closer to 1:2, not 1:30.

Phonetic writing could increase ambiguity but in many cases will not because:

(a) Many of the weird redundant spellings only show up in multi-syllabic words that are quite distinctive, as for example _ti_ for _ʃ_ in _caution_.

(b) People often can tell apart many shorter homophones, which are frequently mis-spelled by being substituted for each other: _road_ / _rode_ , or _their_ / _they're_ / _there_. The fact they are frequently substituted for one another is a clue to the degree which context disambiguates them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm always a little skeptical of these sorts of surveys because it's hard to tease out what people believe about themselves because it's _true_ vs. what people believe about themselves because it's _useful_.

I remember that when I was a new grad, there was a very large part of myself that held a realistic appraisal of my abilities and was therefore scared shitless about my ability to make it in the working world. I was very careful to never let that part of me out in interviews - or, for that matter, to _anyone_. Confidence only works if you keep up the illusion so thoroughly that it ceases to be an illusion.

And it worked. I got a job at a financial software startup, and then was put in charge of projects that no new grad should ever have been put in charge of. I grew into the role. I left to go found a startup, which is also something that someone with 2 years of work experience had no business doing. That worked too - I may not have been qualified to found a startup, but when I folded it up, I was a lot _more_ qualified as an engineer than most of my other peers with 4 years of work experience. So Google hired me to work on the front page of the search engine, and I grew into that role too.

The majority of my classmates let their accurate perceptions of what they were actually qualified to do govern what they applied to do, and as a result, many were still struggling to get into a career 10 years later. By that point, your self-perception has become reality, and it's much harder to convince potential employers to take the risk that you'll grow into the position. Then they wake up and realize that _everybody 's_ faking it and their new manager isn't actually all that much more skilled than them, but (barring a career reset like going to grad school) it's difficult to reset people's perceptions.

<comment><USER11> "What is your greatest weakness?". Everyone is expected to lie or warp reality a bit on this question. Interviewing is just a game and people learn pretty quickly to give the answers interviewers want to hear. The alternative to overconfidence is not great.

<comment><USER12> I answered this in one of my first interviews with, "My greatest weakness is my inability to focus on things for an extended period of time." The interviewer told me never to do that, but appreciated my candor and extended an offer, though I didn't take the job.

Sometimes it actually works to be honest instead of treating it as a game. :)

<comment><USER13> This leaves me conflicted.

I've noted here (quite) a number of times that I have a disability that impacts my ability to absorb chunks of written material. I've had an occupational therapist tell me that I shouldn't work in CS or IT (I have a CS degree in spite of that), and several doctors have told me I should stay away from the field, while others have told me that just go with whatever works and don't tell employers I have this disability.

I prefer to be honest, but at the same time I also like to eat most days.

I have an interview for a job in a few days, and no clue what I should do. If they don't ask, do I bring it up? What do I tell them? Most employers in the city are highly discriminatory against people with a disability, even if it means they're not hiring the most qualified one.

(I'm not actually seeking advice here, just musing online.)

<comment><USER12> If the companies that you're interviewing for aren't accepting of the way you are, then it might be useful to question whether those companies are for you. Yes, it's difficult to think this way when the specifics of your circumstances are difficult, but it still might be a lifestyle worth pursuing. Lentils/rice/chick peas are a super cheap way of living on a budget ;).

It's exceptionally difficult having disabilities, especially when trying to relate it in a professional environment. Though, I've found my own disabilities have been very useful in figuring out what it is that I really want out of a career and life.

Cheers and good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Others have mentioned the vagueness and low value of the questions, but I'm particularly struck by the professionalism/work ethic one.

Professionalism is tough, because we define it (roughly) as seeking the common expectations for the role, but one of those expectations is "professionalism".

And "work ethic"...Im a gen Xer and I feel like millennials are getting dumped on more than the normal generational strife, to a very unfair level. (Example: I see a lot more snowflakes and need for "participation trophies" among those complaining about such things than among the millenials themselves)

Which leads me to wonder, particularly with work ethic, is it the students or the employer that have the unrealistic expectation?

<comment><USER15> I have a feeling that both have unrealistic expectations.

Graduates: I won't say all, but I do think many modern graduates allow themselves to be too easily distracted on a mobile computer they own.

Employeers: High expectations of engagement and 'loyalty', but low pay, low benefits, and lacking support in the environment at work. Somehow able to remain productive when in a highly distracting environment with no expectation of actual tranquility for focus. Is masochist the kind of professional they're describing?

Ultimately this is one of those issues where a clear set of expectations and some metric of measuring them should be set; then an independent review party should measure if just the metric was being met, or if things were normal but the metric was still being met.

<comment><USER16> _Graduates: I won 't say all, but I do think many modern graduates allow themselves to be too easily distracted on a mobile computer they own._

While I think there's some truth in this (and, ahem, not-so-modern grads...), it seems like measuring the wrong thing. If someone posts 50 times a day to whatever the current friendfaceinstabook might be _and_ delivers useful code (or whatever) on a regular basis, isn't that fine? Focus on the latter, don't stress about the former.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Implied in finishing university is the expectation that you have been taught what you need to make it in the work place. Its part of the social contract. Its what I paid you for right? Naturally, they answer with high confidence in their readiness.

People who have worked a long time are in part answering for themselves. They look back at how much they've learned, changed, and developed. How much they had to learn on the job that was never taught in school. Were they actually unprepared, or are they just judging new grads based on a viewpoint that's colored by several years?

When I was a hiring mgr, this could be one of the most frustrating things in a room. Trying to push to take a chance on a new grad, and having several others tell me they'd prefer the industry veteran who's lateraling. Even for "entry level" positions. Amazing how many people with really good CV's were applying for "entry level" jobs.

On a last thought, there also seems to be a strong lack of faith that people can learn on the job from hiring folks. Maybe its just the above mentioned flood of high CV talent. Software for example: You know: c, c++, java, javascript, haskell, and perl. Ah, but you don't know Ruby, and we're really looking for Ruby. But, I know 6 other languages, I can learn one more...

<comment><USER18> > But, I know 6 other languages, I can learn one more...

I doubt you professionally know 6 languages. There's a lot more to learn about the runtime, frameworks and tools of a language than there is syntax.

<comment><USER19> OK, I might have a couple more languages than the average mid-career developer, but I don't think I'm that much of an outlier. So here goes.

I have, in the past 10 years, professionally and successfully worked with C++, Scheme, Ruby, a couple generations of JavaScript and Rust. And I've written a whole pile of shell scripts. These were all "first tier" languages in which I was up-to-date at the time. I've also, as a consultant, delivered projects in C# and Java. In these cases, I didn't know all the tricks, but my code met specifications, it had tests, and it was reasonably clear.

Oh, and I also wrote a bunch of Haskell on my own time, and it was stronger than a couple of the languages that I got paid to use.

But no, I'm not professionally up-to-date in all these languages. My C++ is out of date, JavaScript frameworks change every year, etc.

But if you dropped me in a new job with a new language, I could be delivering business value and clean code inside of two weeks, and I'd be reasonably current on whatever framework I was using within a few months. Yes, it would take slightly longer for Elixir or Erlang, and longer still for something like Coq, because there would be new paradigms involved.

But there really does come a time when genuinely unfamiliar ideas in mainstream tools become rare and special. I'm always happy to learn something new like React's virtual DOM or Rust's borrow checker.

And I know plenty of people who are far, far better than I am.

And this is why I'm generally happy to assume that competent developers can learn on the job if they show any interest in doing so. You really don't need more than one person on a team who knows the deeper trivia of a framework.

<comment><USER20> > But if you dropped me in a new job with a new language, I could be > delivering business value and clean code inside of two weeks

This is one of the things I consider to be a trait of a senior developer, when making hiring decisions. I understand why places post jobs that want X years experience with Y stack, because they don't want to feel like they have to teach "the basics" to someone at a high level, but I've found "the basics" is just what you've described in that sentence. Good professional software developers are language agnostic - even if they've spent the last 10 years on a single language in practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Or the short version employers don't want to train new graduates even less than they did a generation ago.

The increase of degree required jobs means that organisations that used to take highschool leavers at 16 or 18 and train them now think that university should do all the vocational training - they are also not getting the top quartile of grads either.

</comment><comment><USER22> While I agree that a problem is exposed by these findings, let's not judge college grads by their ability to judge how well they fit employers' privately-held expectations of an entry-level employee. Companies suck at training, balk at its costs, but lament its effects on the sourcing of young employees.

</comment><comment><USER23> At the current job is the first time I have worked with young college graduates. It is interesting to see that some of the developers are humble and are completely ready for the corporate world while others are the opposite.

It really comes down to personality and whether a person's personality has allowed them to practice more and work harder to learn a skill. These people tend to be much better prepared without the delusions of their own awesomeness.

A college new hire isn't ever the rockstar their social reference group has indicated and the more humble personalities didn't need magic to figure this out. Yes, I have actually encountered college new hires who thought themselves as rockstars when in reality they seriously sucked. They cognitively knew they sucked, but somehow the arrogantly boasting rockstar self-persona was still there in very much a stereotypical millennial fashion.

<comment><USER20> I don't think the "rockstar" act is a millennial thing. There have always been people like that in any field, or social group. Some people will always compensate for their flaws in ability with their strength of personality, and with our industry that just means painting the "rockstar coder" persona, because there are some people that seek that out.

That's why good hiring practices have to be used, even when you feel like it's a waste. Give everyone the same critical evaluation and don't allow yourself to skip questions in interviews because you like the person, etc. (I'm not accusing you, just saying as a rule)

<comment><USER5> I like using the word "rockstar" to describe coders, because the word has similar negative connotations as in the music context. An actual rock star often doesn't (but sometimes does) have: classical music training, knowledge of the music literature, vision beyond their area of expertise, humility in the face of their equals or betters, a desire to learn and ability to change with the times, the temperament to fit well with the business side, etc.

If that's what you want to hire, go hire your rockstar coders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The pressure to be overconfident sometimes comes directly from employers.

One time, walking into an interview for an entry-level position, the interviewer completely ignored me and continued to stare at my resume for two minutes.

The first words out of his mouth were, "At Lehman Brothers, we only hire winners. Are you a winner!?"

In retrospect, I'm glad that interaction happened and revealed what the company's ethos was; otherwise, I might have been tempted to work there.

</comment><comment><USER25> "The easy solution: set students up in a more professional environment, Busteed said -- this could be internships or co-op programs. If students can't go to an actual office, then the environment should be brought to them so they have a better sense of how a workplace runs."

Because education is only about job training so that workers are pliant and ready to to be directed by the system of hierarchy. Thus, turn higher education into the same factory training that high school is. This, in an era when profits are already soaring.

</comment><comment><USER26> This means almost nothing without a baseline to compare it to. I'd suggest it's very likely that you'd get similar results if you surveyed any other age group - that individuals give higher estimates of their ability than someone else would is hardly surprising.

<comment><USER23> I disagree. There are unique personality traits that qualify the millennial stereotypes which are not present in older age groups. Young people will always believe they are ready for the world if all their elders tell them such no matter that this messaging is baseless and inaccurate.

The problem is a level of personal fragility and lack of contrary frame of reference. Fortunately there is a minority population in that demographic that either studied appropriately or with the correct personality traits to see through, or utterly disregard, the dotting bullshit.

<comment><USER27> Kids these days, amirite? [https://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical- complain...](https://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaints- about-young-people-ruining-everything)

<comment><USER23> Millennials - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's silly to ask a college graduate of 20-25 years old anything about professional conduct. Can't we just appreciate that they're young and excited? Anyone with a career a few years long knows exactly how professional to expect a recent graduate to act at their first job; it's everyone else's job to mentor them and set a good example of professional behavior.

<comment><USER29> As somebody younger (and more naive) that is only 2-3 years into my career, I do my best to remain professional. What's some things to look out for?

<comment><USER30> Your local public library will have a lot of quality career advice books. Nancy Barry's _When Reality Hits_ is a good one. Go to the shelf it is on and browse around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is this anything more than the general human trait where most people think more highly of themselves than others do of them? E.g. where 90% of people tend to consider themselves above-average, when mathematically it can only be 50%? Colloquially called the "Lake Wobegon effect" after the fictional lake area where "all the children are above-average". See [1].

There doesn't appear to be any evidence that this has anything to do with students and employers specifically.

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

<comment><USER32> that ("90% of people tend to consider themselves above-average") can mathematically be true if you have a skewed distribution.

suppose that 90% of drivers have no accidents at all, while the other 10% have 10 accidents per year. Then the average (mean) is 1 accident per year, and fully 90% of drivers are better than average!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Maybe it's because employers want >2 years experience from people straight out of college, and no one wants to train. Companies claim they don't want to train because you could just leave (at will) but it's relatively simple to draw up a contract that employees must pay back training costs if they don't stay at least a year or two.

<comment><USER34> Companies don't "want" to train because employees "don't stay" but companies also don't provide incentive for employees to stay for more than a few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I find it interesting the one outlier in this is in "digital technology". Is that the age difference in action?

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm not sure the word "dubious" means what you think it means. Are the employers dubious?

</comment><comment><USER36> "Proficient" doesn't mean the same thing for the two categories. For example, it probably means:

-> for student : "I will manage to have a job a do it"

-> for employer : "do the job as good as other employees"

So comparison is meaningless.

</comment><comment><USER37> When you give every kid a trophy, they all think that they are winners. We have raised a generation of children who have been infantilized and sheltered throughout their childhood and college years. The inevitable result, unfortunately, is a generation of adults that lack the ability to tackle adversity, think critically, or make valid self-assessments (something that is difficult even for the most enlightened). We have a system of social and academic promotion that has virtually no relation to objective metrics. Many universities (and law schools), even the most prestigious, are eliminating objective admission standards because so many applicants are unable to meet them. Its no surprise that those who have been conditioned since birth to believe that they are entitled to "achievements" have an inflated view of their abilities. The steady decline in literacy, critical thinking, and overall competence (from already low historical levels) mirrors the steady decline and atrophication of our society as a whole.

[http://college.usatoday.com/2016/07/18/columbia-and- barnard-...](http://college.usatoday.com/2016/07/18/columbia-and-barnard-are- the-latest-schools-to-drop-sat-and-act-requirements/)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade- point/wp/2017/03/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade- point/wp/2017/03/08/harvard-law-school-will-no-longer-require-the-lsat-for- admission/?utm_term=.cdf318624bbf)

[https://www.fairtest.org/schools-do-not-use-sat-or-act- score...](https://www.fairtest.org/schools-do-not-use-sat-or-act-scores- admitting-substantial-numbers-students-bachelor-degree-programs)

<comment><USER38> Of course, if your stereotype is correct, this does beg the question about who decided it was a good idea to _GIVE_ 'the kids' all these trophies.

<comment><USER39> The reality is, all of then knows difference between participation tropey and winning. Maybe trophies smooth over feeling bad for not being winner, maybe not, I dunno. Obsessing over them is ridiculous on its own sake.

Top schools are more competitive then ever. High schoolers need to adjust their whole life to have a chance to get in. Competitions are harder then ever.

Kids spend way more time in organized activities to get every bit of performance out of them - the only exception is likely football which is suspect of destroying their brains.

On average, kids have little time to just play around without working on something.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Google can't let you ban sites from results - <AUTHOR> http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22prioritizing+search+results%22&OS=prioritizing+search+results&RS=prioritizing+search+results

<comment><USER2> I just use -"whatever.com" in the search.</comment>


The computer model that once explained the British economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/08/bankofenglandgovernor.economics

<comment><USER2> Wow. I had no idea 'the Phillips Curve' (positing an inverse relation between unemployment and inflation) was named after such an interesting tinkerer/economist, who built a hydraulic computer in the 1940s.</comment>


26 innovations that have defined the last 20 years - <AUTHOR> http://howtosplitanatom.com/news/26-key-innovations-of-the-last-20-years/

<comment><USER2> Pretty good list, though I would replace Windows 3.0 with Mac OS, since it was really where the innovation was.

<comment><USER3> Xerox PARC

<comment><USER4> Douglas Engelbart

<comment><USER5> God.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cell phones?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cell phones are more than 20 years old. In fact, the first commercial mobile phone service is from 1978.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Pay per Use Pricing - <AUTHOR> I am making an application for one of my clients. Its a web based tool which helps my client achieve within a few minutes, something that would take them around a day if done manually. Client has proposed to pay for the development cost, anything after that would be on a per-usage basis.<p>How do i come up with an appropriate price range for my application usage ? <comment><USER2> is it something other companies can use?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it is.</comment></comment>


Publisher Closure Puts 2600 in Limbo - <AUTHOR> http://www.2600.com/?q=content/source-interlink-closure-and-rebranding-puts-2600-limbo <comment><USER2> The most exciting part for me: you can subscribe to getting digital copies of 2600 via Amazon: [http://www.amazon.com/2600-Magazine-The-Hacker- Quarterly/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/2600-Magazine-The-Hacker- Quarterly/dp/B004GB1WF6/2600magazi-20)

<comment><USER3> 2600 subscriptions are also available through Google Play: [https://play.google.com/store/newsstand/details/2600_The_Hac...](https://play.google.com/store/newsstand/details/2600_The_Hacker_Quarterly?id=CAow1KqPAw)

<comment><USER4> As a person not from US or any other large country, I keep discovering new products we do not have access to. Google Play Newsstand is a new addition to the list :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case it isn't obvious.. the #1 way to support 2600 is to subscribe (be it for the print or online version) and keep buying merchandise like the calendar, mugs, etc.

[http://store.2600.com/](http://store.2600.com/)

[disclosure: 2600 is not my full time job but I am on the magazine and web teams]

</comment><comment><USER6> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7958815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7958815) (it's still on the front page)

<comment><USER7> I'll keep voting any story about 2600 up. Unfortunately it looks like the magazine & distribution companies legally were completely separate and they just kept similar names for branding. Other companies in their bankruptcy filing are owed millions to tens of millions.

<comment><USER8> Worth noting that those other companies owed far more also have significantly more resources and assets then 2600. Adjusted for size, it is a terrible blow for them.

<comment><USER9> Indeed.

On the other hand, if 2600, not to mention the other small fry publishers, can survive the blow, they can essentially free ride on the legal efforts of the big fish in their creditor class. There's enough money at stake that Time Warner et. al. will expend plenty of effort, if they perceive there will be a sufficient payoff ("can't get blood out of a stone", sometimes the best you can do is force a Chapter 7 liquidation and get a few pennies on the dollar for your efforts).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If a judge permitted bankruptcy, I don't imagine there's much hope of recovering anything. Shaming isn't a legal maneuver, and accountants have a thick skin.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure the judge doesn't have much choice but to accept a voluntary filing for Chapter 11 reorganization as long as the company really does have debts greater than it can handle going forward.

That doesn't mean. however, mean the judge has to accept the company's proposed plan for continued operations, creditors can submit their own, can even take over the company, and he can for example reverse recent asset transfers. The company was split into these pieces last October ([http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2014/6/24/source_interlink_c...](http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2014/6/24/source_interlink_company_files_for_bankruptcy.htm)), that may be recent enough if they're trying to play these sorts of games.

The biggest problem for 2600 would seem to be the "limbo" part: all collection efforts are stayed while this gets hashed out---the whole reason for Chapter 11 reorganization is to try to do something less destructive than a liquidation---so whatever money 2600 will get from this process won't be arriving any time soon.

However Chapter 11 doesn't mean the company can simply stiff creditors like 2600, in fact the prospects for the creditors should by definition be better than for a Chapter 7 liquidation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >>Instead, we're hearing reports that only the part of the company that owes us money will be filing for bankruptcy, leaving the other part free to keep operating. This is corporate logic we refuse to accept - the two entities shared the same name until things went sour - they are most definitely related and we hold them fully accountable.

Welcome to America, where corporations are people when it is convenient (e.g. when they want to get their favorite politicians elected), but can restructure themselves to avoid paying their debt when they fuck up big time.

Maybe I should borrow a shitload of money from a bank, and then cut off my hand and say to the bank, "well, it was actually my hand that owed you money. The rest of my body doesn't owe you anything."

</comment><comment><USER12> This is effectively a hit order that doesn't make 2600 liable in any way.

I should be outraged by this cunning strategy but I guess corporations exploiting legal loop holes to do dirty business irritates me more.

<comment><USER8> A 'hit order'? Not sure what that means, especially from the completely reasonable tone of the article.

As you say it's the business getting dirty here, not hackers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Now this is terrible and with HOPE around the corner even worse!

</comment><comment><USER14> Operation shame TEN: The Enthusiast Network on every social network we can find?

Might work.

<comment><USER15> "Might work."

Not going to work and it can't work. If the strategy was to put the company in bankruptcy then they can't pay any debts out of bankruptcy period. It wouldn't be legal.

As a side note whatever chance you might have to getting money out of a bankrupt company on the sly (say they create a PO for some other goods and services to get you the money say it's your brother in law etc.) would never ever happen for obvious reason _because_ of all the publicity.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. E.g. they immediately had to file a petition "to pay claims of employees": [http://chapter11cases.com/2014/06/24/source-home- entertainme...](http://chapter11cases.com/2014/06/24/source-home- entertainment-llc-2014-bankruptcy-new-filing-alert-motion-for-authority-to- pay-claims-of-employees/)

I've read elsewhere over 5,000 were laid off, and they have less than 200 left. This would be to pay what's due to the former, and/or continue to pay the latter, so the company doesn't just shut down now, a worst case for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> oh, TEN, the same people who recently bought Automobile magazine and ensured that many of us would never renew because they fired the people we liked, that TEN. Best of luck.</comment>


Backyard telescopes and amateur eyes see where "pro" astronomers can't - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/amateur-astronomy/ <comment><USER2> Astronomy has a long and proud history of contributions from amateurs. Amateurs are probably best known (at least to me) for discovering supernovae. I mentioned in another comment to this article that a friend of mine from grad school worked on a project called ASAS-SN, which uses a network of small, cheap telescopes to monitor the entire night sky every few days. Their stated goal was to use this network to discover supernovas (hence the SN in the name), but, of course, they have discovered a bunch of other interesting things as well. It was only a year or two ago that they discovered more supernovae than amateur astronomers. Prior to that, amateurs consistently discovered far more supernovae than professional astronomers. Interestingly, the most prolific discoverers were in Japan, because they could discover all the supernovae that went off over the Pacific Ocean that had already set for observers on the West Coast of the US.

Another field that involves lots of work from amateurs is microlensing. In a microlensing event, one star passes in front of another, and its gravity lenses the light from the star behind it. This produces a characteristic increase and decrease in the brightness of the background star over the course of a day or so. If the lensing star (the star in the middle) has a planet, this will distort the brightness curve. These sorts of observations are extremely time-sensitive, and its critical that data is collected during certain, very narrow bands of time. Weather or other observing priorities sometimes prevent professional astronomers from observing these events, so it's not uncommon that data in some of the crucial times are provided by amateurs.

And there are lots of other areas that amateurs have contributed enormously to! Asteroid discovery, monitoring variable stars ([https://www.aavso.org/](https://www.aavso.org/)), and even exoplanet discovery! In many ways the term "amateur" does a disservice to amateur astronomers because their setups can be quite sophisticated --- the only thing "amateur" about them is that they don't get paid for all the great work they do!

<comment><USER3> Quick note on the word 'amateur', I understand that it originally connoted someone who 'loves' something. It would be nice to get back to that meaning in the public understanding of the word, particularly now global groups of amateurs are empowered by the internet.

<comment><USER4> Since the current usage means people who do something without being paid, emphasizing the "love" would shift meanings quite a bit. For example, I have to assume that many professional (paid, that is) astronomers also love what they do...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > But with limited telescope time available, their views of the planets only > come in snatches.

It seems silly that university astronomy departments don't invest in small arrays of these telescopes with automated tracking software deciding where to point each night. With a modest number of sites you could have global coverage of all nearby objects of interest regardless of foul weather in some spots.

But you know, they need more money to expand administration instead.

<comment> WD-42 That is basically what we have built at Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (lcogt.net). We have ~20 telescopes around the globe, all on a single network that essentially distributes a queue of observations to where and when they are most likely to be observed. The result is 24/7 coverage of the both the northern and southern hemispheres.

It's a lot harder than you'd think. There is no such thing as an off the shelf professional grade telescope, so we employ a large engineering team to actually build them. Scopes and their instruments are complex and made of many independent systems and require a TON of software to run without an human operator (and even with). Scheduling observations is another challenge, an np- complete one actually. Then there's the problem of analyzing and storing gigabytes of data a day.

As a member of the relatively small software team, we have a TON to do. But it's a really cool problem to work on!

<comment><USER6> Hey, that looks amazing! I was wondering about the software/hardware controlling the telescopes themselves, but cannot find any information on it on the website, is there any link, or that's more "behind the scenes"/non- public info?

<comment> WD-42 The software controlling the telescopes is a collection of java agents using JADE: [http://jade.tilab.com/](http://jade.tilab.com/)

There are many agents with different responsibilities,from driving the cameras themselves, to the mount, dome, autoguiders, etc. We use a pubsub based model to keep them all in the know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This extends to more than just planets, too. The University of Maryland Observatory runs a summer program for amateur astronomers that I signed up for this year, and we're learning how to do exoplanet transit detection. There are databases to look up candidates and ways to submit data to reinforce findings. It's doable with typical telescopes available to amateurs, and the observatory has a few larger scopes we're learning to use. One of the professors at UMD has written up guides on how to do it: [http://www.astrodennis.com/](http://www.astrodennis.com/)

Other efforts like this include: \- American Association of Variable Star Observers [https://www.aavso.org/public](https://www.aavso.org/public) \- Center for Backyard Astrophysics [http://cbastro.org/](http://cbastro.org/)

and I'm sure there are others I don't know about.

</comment><comment><USER8> In undergrad astro my long-term project was searching for eclipsing binary stars, which are paired stars that are aligned with us just right so that they eclipse each other as they orbit. We looked one by one at known variable stars that are easily found by taking a series of wide angle shots of the sky and watching for periodic variations in brightness. The reason we had to look at one star at a time was because we wanted to characterize the light spectrum as being either shifting (pulsing single star) or mostly constant.

It always blew me away that the reason we had a project like that to do was because not every star had been looked at.

This was before Kepler data came out and it will not really apply once LSST starts kicking ass.

<comment><USER9> "The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)

The LSST is a new kind of telescope. Currently under construction in Chile, the LSST is designed to conduct a ten-year survey of the dynamic universe. LSST can map the entire visible sky in just a few nights; each panoramic snapshot with the 3200-megapixel camera covers an area 40 times the size of the full moon." \- [https://www.lsst.org/](https://www.lsst.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Russell Williams Porter, one of the founders of "amature" telescope making and lead the movement to make telescopes affordable to the average person. He is an unsung hero of modern astronomy and general badass. For more info on him: [http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/a-root-of- amat...](http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/a-root-of-amateur- astronomy-unearthed/)

</comment><comment><USER11> _Seeing in the Dark_ is a great book on citizen science in astronomy.

[https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Dark-Astronomers- Discovering-U...](https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Dark-Astronomers-Discovering- Universe/dp/0684865807)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is an interesting trend, which is also happening in other fields such as genomics. Many sciences started off as amateur pursuits before they became professionalized. Technological advances are allowing some of these fields to move back in favour of the amateur. This opens up some nice possibilities for the serious hobbyist; it's surely more satisfying to conduct some original research than to waste time on the web or playing video games.

Personally, astronomy has always been an escape from the electronic world for me, so I've never been drawn to the imaging side with its CCD cameras and computer equipment. But I do know a couple of people who really love it, and they certainly find it rewarding. I'm happy to stick with my binoculars and 12" Dobsonian, but for someone with a bit of spare cash who wants the chance to make a contribution to science, the opportunities are there.</comment>


Gmail and Google Apps Accounts hacked - labnol - <AUTHOR> http://www.labnol.org/internet/gmail-and-google-apps-hacked/11799/

<comment><USER2> Well, at least there are some helpful tips in there. It sounds like his "secret" questions came with predictable answers.</comment>


Ask HN: Who's hiring for contract work? August version - <AUTHOR>

I'm available for contract work. development in html5, java, python, django, javascript, dojo, postgres, mysql, linux admin. <comment><USER2> See this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1586495> The poster, is looking for a quality developer to help guide him through the process of building an app.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm looking for someone with 10 years experience in html5.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's impossible for someone to have 10 years experience in html5 because the spec is recent, something you could have found out with a background check, which you you didn't, hence it's deducible you didn't used to do you homework after school.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> bump!</comment>


NES Graphics – Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.dustmop.io/blog/2015/06/08/nes-graphics-part-2/

<comment><USER2> Part 1 was discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9454670](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9454670)

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks. I love reading about this (even with very little coding experience) because you can see how these things affect gameplay when you're actually playing. Little tweaks here and there to get around rules and produce a compelling experience with extremely limited resources. Amazing what they were able to create on the early-gen consoles.

<comment><USER4> Part of it came from the cartridge based system.

I think part one touched on how later carts would have an arrangement of RAM and ROM so that what the NES thought was graphics ROM was actually RAM that would be fed from different ROM segments based on signaling from the game logic.

This allowed later games to have very complex worlds as the graphical elements were replaced over time.

The SNES pushed this even further by allowing carts to carry coprocessors that connected to the SNES board via a special row of pins.

I suspect the last hurrah of this kind of hardware over software thinking was with the PS3 and its Cell architecture.

Both the PS4 and Xbox One use "bog standard" AMD APUs (basically CPU and GPU on a single die) by comparison.

<comment><USER5> I thought something like the ROM/RAM mixing in cartridges must be the case. But then how on earth do people make _files_ of those games that can then run on emulators?

<comment><USER6> People have assembled lists of all known cartridge configurations (as many games tended to share the same overall configuration), and assigned them IDs. The ROM specifies, in its header, the ID of the cartridge configuration it needs. (In NES jargon these are called "mappers" [1].) The emulator is expected to hard-code support for every single mapper; this is, of course, a huge nuisance and source of complexity, but there's little that can be done about it.

[1]: [http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Mapper](http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Mapper)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wish I'd seen this two weeks ago, I was just covering how the computer stores graphics.

Thanks, I'll be sure to use this in the future!

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting... I wonder if an emulator could exploit the double wide nametable to get wide screen support

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately it's not that simple, as cool as that would be. Games generally don't expect the parts of nametables that are off screen to show up, and if you render them you'll see glitches. For example, the off-screen nametables in Super Mario Bros. contain partially unrendered parts of levels. Even for simple games like Lode Runner, the game won't draw sprites in parts of the nametable that are off screen.</comment></comment>


U.S. nationals born in American Samoa sue for citizenship - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/u-s-nationals-born-american-samoa-sue-citizenship-n860721 <comment><USER2> I was born in the Canal Zone when it was a U.S. territory. Both parents were American. By an act of Congress I am a natural born citizen. I've always been under the impression that it was well established that it is a power of the government to manage citizenship status for possessions/territories and whatnot. I'm surprised if there is any legal merit to the challenge. Though I do hope they win.

I went to American schools in the Canal Zone. I don't speak Spanish and I always thought of myself as American. When I came to the U.S. to live my expectations about America did not correspond to reality. As time goes on this chasm is increasing. I've been in the U.S. for 30 years now. Samoans may end up regretting if they win!

<comment><USER3> Yep, can run for president too as was determined when John McCain ran even though he was born in the Canal Zone.

And technically the Canal Zone was always part of Panama proper with the US leasing the land on a perpetual basis while US Samoa is "owned".

<comment><USER4> John McCain also had American parents, so he was a natural-born citizen anyhow.

<comment><USER5> I was looking up to see if that was true, and boy does it get complicated!

[https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through- par...](https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-parents)

<comment><USER6> The basic case (John McCain's case) is simple:

In general, a Child Born Outside the U.S. is a Citizen at Birth when the Child's Parents Are Married to each other at the Time of Birth IF... Both parents are U.S. citizens at the time of birth, AND... At least one parent lived in the U.S. or its territories prior to the birth

Canal Zone is a US territory.

OP's case is interesting because the petitioner's parents are not citizens.

<comment><USER7> So, if both of my parents are US citizens, but not married, and I'm physically born in India(which doesn't have birthright citizenship) - am I a citizen of no country?

<comment><USER8> Assuming your mother has ever spent one continuous year within the US, you are a US citizen from birth.

<comment><USER9> Which is exactly why Obama qualified as a citizen regardless of where he was born. Since his parents were not legally married, only the mother's citizenship mattered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The concept of citizenship is all super squirrelly in the U.S as a whole. Take for example rich foreigners who fly in their pregnant wives to give birth at XYZ hospital, and immediately confer their children citizenship.

How is that okay? Totally skip all laws and regulations by simply flying a couple weeks prior to the due date and voila! Screw everyone else waiting in line.

source: know people who have done this for each of their four kids.

<comment><USER11> > Totally skip all laws

What law are they breaking or skipping? This is perfectly legal (in fact, backed by the US Constitution) and IMHO one of the great aspects of the US (policy of _jus soli_ ).

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

<comment><USER10> Well back in the 18th century, travel across continents was longer than 24 hours. They are not breaking any laws, but the entire point of immigration is null and void if more people did this.

I'm actually pro free borders. But as it stands this is a weird way of abusing the current system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> huy-nguyen John Oliver segment on this: [https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE](https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE). The part about American Samoa starts at 7:30.

</comment><comment><USER12> @sykh: But a child of Panamanian citizens born in Gorgas Hospital was not be entitled to U.S. citizenship.And let's not forget that a child of a U.S. citizen father is treated differently from a child of a U.S. citizen mother. The Canal Zone was always half-in, half-out.

</comment><comment><USER13> > The local American Samoan government has before taken a nuanced view over > the issue, given concern about how aspects of Samoan life and culture "would > be jeopardized if subjected to scrutiny under the 14th Amendment," according > to court documents filed in 2014 by lawyers representing the government

I wonder why the government wouldn't want that, and what ways they think it would jeopardize the culture.

<comment><USER14> I was curious as well and I think I figured it out:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=e_tKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=e_tKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=fa%27asamoa+14th+amendment&source=bl&ots=MiAI5AUD_D&sig=_89O3HcHT4jICb6am-0AM- DAYbU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwialJ7-vo_aAhVO6mMKHcrPCw8Q6AEIfTAH#v=onepage&q=fa'asamoa%2014th%20amendment&f=false)

American Samoa has laws that say that only American Samoans can own land or be a member of their local government. What the 14th Amendment may give them in terms of US citizenship, the 14th Amendment takes away with regard to these exclusionary laws.

<comment><USER15> > What the 14th Amendment may give them in terms of US citizenship, the 14th > Amendment takes away with regard to these exclusionary laws.

Except it doesn't. Even if the term "United States" in the first clause might be argued to include the whole territory of the nation called the "United States" and not just specifically the constituent states (which is the crux of the citizenship argument), that doesn't imply that the word "State" in the remainder of the Amendment means something other than the individual states of the Union. And all the restrictions are of the form "No State shall..."

<comment><USER16> I know that Constitutional protections don't apply in their entirety in Puerto Rico, so I imagine there's ways in which it has been construed similarly in American Samoa. If it's not an incorporated territory (just an island the US happens to own), they are treated differently.

<comment><USER17> Puerto Rico is, like American Samoa, an unincorporated territory. Well, the government doesn't consider it incorporated, although some legal scholars suggest that Congress did end up incorporating it at some point via accumulation of various acts (the argument has not, to my knowledge, been tried in court).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Statehood for all territories.

<comment><USER19> We should be reluctant to grant statehood for many small territories.

Our senate is undemocratic enough, where a state with 1/7th the population of California, viz. Wyoming, gets the same numbers of senators.

Guam, including resident military personnel, has 1/4 the population of Wyoming. Does it make sense to grant 160K people all the powers of full statehood? American Samoa has 1/3 the population of Guam, so two senators for slightly over 50K people. That's 84 times the per capita representation in the Senate.

The Pacific territories should really just become part of the state of Hawaii. They can have special status within the state, so their needs don't get ignored by the larger Hawaiian population.

<comment><USER20> Then we should just fix or abolish the senate. It's incredibly undemocratic.

<comment><USER15> The Constitution prohibits that even by Constitutional Amendment (seriously, the one thing an Amendment _cannot_ do is mess with representation in the Senate), though it doesn't prohibit stripping the Senate of all of its functions and giving them to some new body.

<comment><USER20> Then we should just fix or abolish the United States Constitution, it's incredibly undemocratic.

<comment><USER21> Some individual rights need to be protected against the "tyranny of the majority." For example, a person with an unpopular view should still enjoy free speech. And of course, a majority should not be allowed to vote to enslave a minority.

<comment><USER20> That's a great argument for the 1st and 13th amendments. Perhaps those should actually be written in to the new document itself. We could even go further and adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

That doesn't change the fact that the American three branch bicameral system has not aged well and is profoundly undemocratic by design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I would point out that this article focuses on Samoans who work in Utah, home of the Mormon Church. Sure enough, Mormons have an odd zeal to convert Samoans and bring them into their church [1]. So while the actions of individuals can be taken at face value, it's also worthwhile to point out what organizations and other influences may be behind this, and consider whether that aligns with the interests of all who come from and/or live in American Samoa.

[1] [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1994/01/saving- samoans/](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1994/01/saving-samoans/)

</comment><comment> your-nanny In my ignorance I thought birth in any us territories conferred citizenship.

<comment><USER17> The US has a concept of incorporated territories versus unincorporated territories, with the difference being whether or not the constitution is meant to fully apply (It's effectively a legalistic distinction between "state-to-be" and "colony"). The only remaining incorporated territory is the uninhabited Palmyra Atoll (created by removing it from Hawaii when Hawaii became a state).

Since unincorporated territories are not meant to be thought of as the United States proper, provisions like birthright citizenship don't apply. I don't think all of the relevant claims have been litigated before the Supreme Court. Since the Insular Cases in the early 20th century, the Supreme Court has slowly walked back some of the distinctions. In addition, Congress has expressly granted many rights (such as citizenship, not mere nationality) to Puerto Rico, which is the substantial portion of the territories.

<comment><USER6> I mean the Declaration of Independence was pretty clearly a strong statement against the whole concept of "unincorporated territories", but what's obligatory on the goose isn't always accepted by the gander.

<comment><USER17> SCOTUS has more or less ruled that the Bill of Rights applies to unincorporated territories (and even extraterritorial jurisdiction, as Bush Jr. found out).

One complication is that, as the Declaration of Independence forcefully points out, the fundamental issue is the right of people to alter their government if they view it as destructive to inalienable, natural rights--and most of the people in these territories actually like the status quo political situation (cf. the several Puerto Rico status referendums which generally all signify a plurality preference for status quo, even if the legal viability of the status quo is questionable).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _> Around elections, "I sit quietly at my cubicle, and don't say a word"_

Now if only we could get citizens to follow suit.</comment>


Free web tool calculates optimal manufacturing processes and materials - <AUTHOR> http://www.decisivemfg.com <comment><AUTHOR> I thought this community might find this new free website useful. It helps you select the best metal manufacturing processes (including 3DP/AM) and estimate costs with an STL and just a few inputs: www.DecisiveMFG.com</comment>