Lumen – Elixir and Erlang in the Browser - <AUTHOR> https://underjord.io/lumen-elixir-in-the-browser.html <comment><AUTHOR> What I find the most interesting about it is that it doesn't try to rework the BEAM to fit in the browser but rather does the much more ambitious work of trying to compile something fairly optimized that won't bloat the frontend.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, I was happy to see this.

I like Javascript, a lot, but I would very happily see a future where people have more choices about languages to use on the front-end. My only fear was that everything was going to morph into a kind of Java Applets 2.0, where everything would just be a giant VM on top of another VM.

For the most part, languages aren't doing that though, they're putting in the work to do proper integration with "native" browser systems like the DOM/CSS. I'm optimistic about where language efforts like Rust/Erlang/C#/C are headed, I think these projects are going to be really good for the web overall.

<comment><USER3> > everything would just be a giant VM on top of another VM

this concern is real which is why we didn't just run BEAM c source through a WASM compiler and call it a day. The implementation here is to optimize compilation to WASM and avoid as much overhead as possible. We have footprint requirements for the compiled asset sizes in mind too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing I wasn't able to ascertain from the link: would this run your Erlang code with the semantics of a single-scheduler BEAM node (i.e. concurrently, but not in parallel); or does this use Web Workers to have multiple parallel schedulers?

<comment><USER5> Initially we're not planning to support multiple schedulers via WebWorkers, but the runtime has support for multiple schedulers generally speaking. Since the compiler can target other platforms, we didn't want to artificially limit all targets due to any particular target limitations. As far as Wasm is concerned though, once browser support for SharedArrayBuffer returns, then we'd be looking to take advantage of multiple threads.

<comment><USER4> Then, could a Lumen user do what pre-SMP Erlang did for parallelism, and

1\. run multiple nodes on one machine (i.e. manually create Web Workers each with their own copy of Lumen); and then

2\. write an erl_dist alternative-carrier protocol driver that uses worker.postMessage()?

<comment><USER5> Sure, I can't imagine any particular reason why that wouldn't work. That said, we don't have distribution implemented yet, since we are focused on a single node in the browser initially; so it depends on which comes first - SharedArrayBuffer being stabilized again in the browsers so we can enable multiple schedulers, or getting distribution implemented thoroughly enough to support the approach you mentioned as a workaround.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this project is a great idea but I think it's overly ambitious to be reasonably feasible in a near-term timeframe as it's basically talking about re-implementing 20+ years and thousands of man-hours put into BEAM dev into the browser.

It's also competing time-wise with simply "compiling Erlang itself to emscripten/WASM", since computing capability will still scale over time in speed and bandwidth and memory capacity to the point that simply "being able to get ALL of Elixir in the browser" will outvalue "being able to run some subset of Elixir in a single-threaded context only in the browser" (assuming performance is not an order of magnitude different).

I was just reading another HN article discussing the fact that OLAP is going away simply because computers have gotten enough memory and databases have gotten fast enough at querying columnar data stores that it's no longer necessary to add the "optimization complexity" of OLAP to get reasonable data analysis performance.

AMD has the Ryzen Threadripper now, 32 cores with 64 threads... If CPU development continues in that direction, this will be a BIG win for Elixir but only if it can take advantage of more than one thread.

That all said, I'm sure a naïve recompilation of Erlang BEAM to emscripten/WASM might not automatically take advantage of those threads properly out-of-the-box due to the abstraction layer, so there'd also have to be some work there to massage the scheduler to use "real" threads "on the metal".

</comment><comment><USER7> Am I understanding this right that it's actually implementing the actor model just like Erlang? It seems to have processes and you can send them messages.

The threads seem really lightweight, but how would some typical frontend benefit from this?

<comment><USER3> > how would some typical frontend benefit from this

At ElixirConf I built a simple supervisor DOM tree model. When we are ready to implement it for real we're going to experiment with mapping the DOM to a supervisor. Each node being an element. This way events and rendering take place in each node in the supervisor tree. Rendering would be diff based and merged its way back up. Events would be captured as messages in the idiomatic Erlang/Elixir way.

This is all guess work right now and we don't yet know what will be practical vs what sounds good in theory.

However, we are dedicated to the idea that the programming model of the BEAM is one that complex client-side applications will benefit from over what JavaScript current offers.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds pretty close to what Scenic does for OpenGL-rendered UI.

Scenic has some interesting properties in that if a specific component has a code problem and fails/crashes, the supervision tree will bring it back to life. I'm curious to see what similar things one could do with Lumen for the web.

Components are already a very popular level of abstraction with Vue and React, probably others. So maybe there are useful things to bring from Scenic.

<comment><USER3> Scenic is one area that I've looked to for inspiration on what a GUI can be like in Elixir

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> this is fantastic work. thank you and keep up the great work! The day JS becomes irrelevant will be joyous.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting project... I wonder does it have same kind of processes preemption based on reductions like BEAM?

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that the thing where after a number of reductions by a single process the BEAM will make sure another process gets its time in the sun? I believe so but I'm not familiar enough with the internals. They definitely spoke about reductions in the meeting I half-listened to.

<comment><USER10> Correct. It makes it so for(true) in other languages doesn't hijack the cpu and strive for the low latency goals of Erlang.

To be fair you can go about it by just filling up a process mail box with tons of messages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd love to try using a wasm interpreter to run this on microprocessors! Is the project at a point that'd be feasible to test?

<comment><USER12> There is also nerves which specifically targets embedded applications: [https://nerves-project.org/](https://nerves-project.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Uh, Lumen is already in use by the Laravel team for their micro-framework, maybe they're in time for a name change?

<comment><USER14> Elixir has had Mix since 2012, but Laravel made Laravel Mix in 2016 and hasn't changed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mandatory word of warning [1]. Don't use wasm magic like this in production until its ready.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/csharp/comments/ea5dnb/the_nightmar...](https://www.reddit.com/r/csharp/comments/ea5dnb/the_nightmare_before_blazor/faztnnk/)

<comment><USER16> That guy is using server side blazer which doesn't use wasm. And his experiences aren't normal.

<comment><USER17> But Lumen, if combined with Phoenix LiveView, is basically Blazor.

<comment><USER18> specifically which part of the comment touched on an issue you would expect to translate to lumen?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So you write it in elixer and web assembly converts it to Js that browsers understand. Cool. Just write it in JS and it will probably be faster.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not accurate. WebAssembly is a different beast than JS. As far as I've understood it is executed differently and can do some different things. I don't see any reason why it couldn't be optimized more than JS either, though that's bound to take some time considering the amount of tuning that's gone into JS engines.

More accurately, you write Elixir, it compiles down to Wasm. Wasm is run by your browser as a more machine-friendly format than JS. It may well be faster.</comment></comment>


Confessions of a Full Stack DevOp - <AUTHOR> http://www.ansible.com/blog/confessions-of-a-full-stack-devop <comment><USER2> Pet peeve: this URL is incorrect. When you're linking to an article on a blog, it's important to use the permalink for the specific entry (in this case it's [http://www.ansible.com/blog/confessions-of-a-full-stack- devo...](http://www.ansible.com/blog/confessions-of-a-full-stack-devop) which admittedly wasn't easy to find - you had to click the heading on the article which lacks any clear visual way to tell that it's a link).

If you link to the blog homepage e.g. [http://www.ansible.com/blog](http://www.ansible.com/blog) then in a few weeks time this post on Hacker News will no longer link to the correct content.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. We changed it.

We'll soon have a new way for users to suggest better urls, like you did, that is more reliable than a moderator happening to see a comment. I'll announce it as a Tell HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _The last time I looked for a senior sysadmin -- less than a year ago -- I didn 't get anyone who was comfortable programming in Perl/Python/Ruby until I started using the term DevOps._ [1] via TFA

Ah, now I understand DevOps. Well, the sysadmin who can personally automate his job through programming--this is very productive person.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7593681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7593681)

<comment><USER5> In my personal opinion this is what DevOps is, in fact "OpsDev" might even be a better word for it in most cases.

It's about carrying out what are traditionally "Operations" tasks (Provisioning, Configuration, Orchestration, Monitoring, ect) using tools and workflows with are traditionally used by Developers (Version Control, Automated Testing, ect)

In large companies this work is often carried out by operations people who have expanded their skill set to include things previously limited to developer roles. In startups this work is often carried out by developers, as in the original rant, who are tasked with maintaining infrastructure as well as developing.

<comment><USER6> In the traditional development/operations divide, developers often have no access to and little insight into the production environment where their code will be run. As such, they cobble together whatever makes it work, and then "throw it over the wall" to operations, where it has to run in a _very different_ environment. This makes for hellish manual deployments, done on multi-day phone calls with ops staff who don't understand how the code works talking to developers who don't understand the rules and procedures of ops.

If you see places where production code has to run in WebSphere or Weblogic because it's "enterprise", but want developers working in Tomcat to save money, _run away_.

This leads to situations where operations starts providing "developer resources" in terms of servers, dba support, maven repositories, etc, that turn into a tar pit where development gets stuck in incomprehensible bureaucracy, and "hack" around the system in order to actually get anything done. And then security or someone else in ops finds some little skunkworks dev system and has a fit because developers don't understand what they're playing with - or worse, they find out about the skunkworks because they get pulled in to fix what developers screwed up, with their own managers howling about who's gonna pay for it...

So to me, the beauty of DevOps is getting dev and ops working together in concert from the start to create a consistent development/production environment, where the same automation can be used to maintain both. This is a win for everyone.

<comment><USER7> And this is why DevOps has gained traction. Automated deployments, continuous integration, and software that functions identically whether in development env or production.

You can wax poetic about how it used to be, or complain about people being overworked all you want, but that's an issue of expectations. Personally I never want to go back to two week "integration" processes and multi-day manual deployments.

DevOps to me is an exercise in not making things more complciated than they have to be on the config/deploy side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a much better, more sensible article than yesterday. My good takeaway here is that DevOps means whatever you think it means - it's a lot of different things to a lot of different people. That's a much more positive spin on my frankly negative opinion that it's devolving into a meaningless buzzword to attach to resumes, recruiting, and PowerPoint presentations for management.

I know I came in to DevOps (the word, not the job - I've been doing the job since the mid-1990s) with a strong opinion of what it _ought_ to mean - cross- org cooperation between development and operations. This article has me rethinking that a bit.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, the word is only meaningful when the speaker and listener have enough shared context to pin down the meaning. In that situation, there's probably a better word anyway.

It's not quite the red flag that "ninja" and "rockstar" have become, but it definitely makes me wary when I hear it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's my unsolicited opinion:

Dehaan is pretty much spot on. Knupp's post seemed to first latch onto the idea that devops is about devs doing ops works. To add, I think Knupp should do a rewrite after listening to some devops cafe and food fight podcasts, if he really believes in what he wrote.

It's somewhat an unfair comparison though. If you're the author/creator of ansible you surely have spent a lot of time thinking and understanding what devops means. To be frank, I cannot tell if Knupps post is just link bait to sell his book.

The concept (and value) of the devops mindset & culture is less debatable in 2014 than in the past 5 years. Those who latch onto the totem pole model will simply get left behind while the rest of the industry moves on... or at least that's what they tell me!

</comment><comment><USER10> Knupps idea of the totem pole rubbed me the wrong way too. I've met great developers who didn't have a clue about how to scale or monitor their software outside of their framework. How to properly deploy across DEV, UAT and PROD without making code modifications. How to keep these environments clean and flexible to enable these deployments. Nor should they have to. Call me a Dev because I read and write code. Call me Ops because I do deployments and fix production issues. At the end of the day I solve problems and just plain make stuff work. With or without so called DevOps tools.

<comment><USER11> You've met _great_ developers who couldn't deploy code?

<comment><USER10> Sure. I've met great ones who could too. I don't think deployment is part of the development job description. Or is it?

<comment><USER12> To me, it seems like it makes sense that a great developer should absolutely know how his code is running, how his changes interact with the production environment in which the code runs, etc.

<comment><USER13> You'd take a hit if you visit any big company that's not centered around IT.

It's quite common for the developers to be forbidden from knowing the details of the production environment, and usually they have no easy way to get that info. But don't mind, a DBA will think about the interaction between the several programs, and the ops people will think about performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _When done correctly, automation tools are giving [developers] time back — > and helping out of this problem of needing to wear many hats._

I've found this to be the case both in my full-time job (enterprise/healthcare industry) and in my larger side projects. Using some simple tools to make sure both server environments and deployments are uniform/repeatable/known in a good state has given me much more time to focus on actually _developing_.

Additionally, there are times when certain features (especially surrounding performance and scalability) _requires_ a deeper knowledge of part of your stack. Being a good developer requires you to be a specialist (in your primary language/tools) and generalist (in almost all other areas) at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would also add that you just don't automatize stuff. Because the more you add layers, the more you'll have to dig into at 3AM with the customer screaming at you on the phone. It's using the complete stack and using the least technology required to do the task at hand. While having access to the whole picture.

I have heard too many times that something is complicated then we can automatize it. But automatization has to be debugged, so, if the task is not complex per se, try to find a simpler tool, try to limit your intervention in the config files, try to limit the number of tools etc. But you can make those tradeoff across the whole stack. And suddenly you're balancing between adding a library to the code or a program on the machine, or a function package in the DB. You have a wider view, and you have the pressure to do the right thing because your phone is connected to new relic.

<comment><USER6> The "Let Them Eat Cake" antipattern, that is. Maybe no one has written it and I just made it up...

<comment><USER15> I don't get it. Google turned that up: [http://robmyers.org/2009/09/21/free_software_debate_antipatt...](http://robmyers.org/2009/09/21/free_software_debate_antipatterns/) and I don't get it either.

<comment><USER6> Basically, the idea is that if something is hard to automate, then automate it and then it won't be hard to automate. Peasants have no bread? Let them eat cake!

I've encountered this a lot in the enterprise. Baby-step automations aren't allowed because they don't contribute to a Grand Unified Theory of Automation that will Solve All Our Problems. Worse, you wind up babysitting antiquated automation that should be replaced, and you're not allowed to replace it because it's already there and already works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is pretty much a good article on DevOps. In my words i see DevOps as a bridge spanning the kernel, systems, networks, qa, packaging, and deployment. for a highly optimal system all these need to be planned for with care and attention. DevOps is a tough and long learning to be good at.

</comment><comment><USER17> Great post. While I agree with this, "Automation shouldn't be about spending all your time with a tool ..." I wonder if employers are pressured to push you into more and more Ops work by this paradox? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)

This kind of situation, specifically (relative to other work): [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/JevonsPar...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/JevonsParadoxA.png)

</comment><comment><USER18> Back when I thought I was going to be a Mechanical Engineer, I had a summer course that included surveying along with machine design and robotics. I felt the latter were more relevant to me, but had I gone on to work in oil fields in SE Asia I probably would have appreciated my time tromping around campus taking measurements.

I see all of this as just 'engineering' work, but it's easier to delegate certain things than others. When I ask someone new to configure Postgres for secure remote administration, script or otherwise automate backups, and rough out a schema for some tool we're thinking about, they'll likely accomplish at least a subset those tasks. The remainder is an opportunity for discussion. Someone else might just ask me to build something, and we'll talk about usability when he's done with the physics side of things.

But if I leave, what does that physicist look for in a new hire? The skillset of an 'engineer' is frustratingly broad and vague from a hiring point of view. Getting so-called DevOps out of the way might give another new hire the chance to develop as a programmer, and vice versa. Hopefully one or both of those two will eventually develop into an engineer.

</comment><comment><USER19> I am a horseshoe crab. I am a sysadmin.

I can code, I do code, but I'm a much better sysadmin, mainly because I've been doing it as a dayjob. You want networking? I'll do that. you want multi gigabyte a second storage arrays? I'll do that. You want monitoring? I'll do that.

You want me to recompile python 3.3, naaa you can do that. I can, but you'll do better at it

<comment><USER20> Wow mate, don't get me wrong (I'm a SysAdmin/DevOps guy) but...

From where I came and from my background... RPM/DEB packaging is a SysAdmin job.

And... In a properly built infrastructure, what is recompile python 3.3 if not just repackage it?

<comment><USER19> because unless you work in a startup you have to support legacy, which involves recompiling python(or anything else for that matter) because someone previous did something stupid....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> DevOps is really the traditional Unix admin role, however the operator role has now be renamed sysadmin in most companies.

</comment><comment><USER22> "Full Stack DevOp", worst three words of 2013 in the same title.

<comment><USER18> It's just a euphemism for 'engineer'.

<comment><USER23> But you can't be an "engineer" without a Engineering degree from an accredited university, so DevOps.

<comment><USER18> Unfortunately, the profession is leading the credentialing at this point. I'd expect that to change in the next decade or so, ideally resulting in a useful PE designation (in the US anyway).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can't read this article. The font and spacing is horrible. Makes my vision shimmer and shake. Perhaps I'm just getting old.

</comment><comment><USER25> DevOps and "full stack" and Agile and the flamewars around them are just bikeshedding. None of this gnashing of teeth actually matters.

You know what matters? Writing code and making it work. Solving problems. Helping people. If the right way to do that is for me to make a system more reliable, then I'll do my best even if I'm not interested in being "an ops guy". If the best thing for me to do is read machine learning papers, then I'll do that.

The real problem: technology companies have terrible leadership. You know how small towns in the Midwest used to send their genetically unfortunate to San Francisco, where there'd be more social services and a warmer climate? Well, that's what the business world does with its rejects, too. Buses 'em to San Francisco. Except, in tech, they end up making $400k as VPs of HR at startups and get to boss nerds around.

"Agile" won't fix that. Nor will "DevOps". These terms mean too many different things to different people, and ultimately fail to address the real, core issues with technology.</comment>


Recursion Pharmaceuticals releases 450GB of Covid-19 microscopy images - <AUTHOR> https://www.rxrx.ai/rxrx19 <comment><USER2> This is the dataset behind Recursion's preprint paper _Identification of potential treatments for COVID-19 through artificial intelligence-enabled phenomic analysis of human cells infected with SARS-CoV-2_ [https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.21.054387v1](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.21.054387v1)

</comment><comment><USER3> Holy shit!</comment>


Proudcloud Ramaze (Lightweight Ruby Framework) Presentation - <AUTHOR> http://blog.proudcloud.net/2011/05/proudcloud-talks-2-dreinavarro-on-ramaze/

<comment><USER2> One of the nice things missing in the presentation is the fact that ramaze bundles a lot of non-intrusive helper modules for many things (user management, authentication/identity, commenting, captcha, pagination etc).

Since this are simple library elements they do not bloat the rest of the code, but they still allow quick development without chasing external libraries or snippets found on google that may be outdated, uncooperative with each other, or simply untested.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am in support of alternative ruby frameworks. My go to is usually Sinatra. Whether it's a tiny json api or a large feature rich application, I am always in favour of Sinatra over Rails. I like the simplicity and clean implementation.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would be nice to have audio.</comment>


The failure of Gran Turismo 5: the power of menus and UI - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/12/the-failure-of-gran-turismo-5-the-power-of-menus-and-ui.ars <comment><USER2> Honestly, the menu system does suck a little bit, but I don't find myself spending tons of time trying to find cars or remember the makes/models/years. I know "ok this requires 1970s cars made in Europe." ...nothing in the used cars section so I'll do something else. The author on Ars blew it out of proportion a bit.

What is frustrating is navigating around the dashboard page because sometimes the selector jumps to an area I'm not expecting based on the direction I pressed on the d-pad. Also, some shortcuts could have been implemented to make buying cars for races easier but it's not much different from previous titles in the Gran Turismo franchise.

My only gripe with the game has been that you can't invite someone into a game in online play. Call of Duty makes this very simple and GT5 missed it by a long shot. Hopefully an update will fix this but I doubt it.

Otherwise, the game has been great and I'm having a blast playing it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was actually considering getting this for my son, since we are huge fans of Top Gear (UK) and would love to drive the Veyron around the TG test track. Of course, I'd have to get a PS3 first, but this and his luke warm reaction to my suggestion of getting it... well, that clinches the deal. No thanks.

<comment><USER4> Get your kid a 360 (if you lack one) and Forza Motorsport 3 instead. The driving model is superior to Gran Turismo (at least as of GT5: Prologue, which really disappointed me as an old GT fan) and the interface is not the hell described in this article.

Gran Turismo is the grandaddy, and I still look back incredibly fondly to the old Gran Turismo games. But the place to get that game now is Forza. Definitely for the Top Gear fan that wants to drive cars as "realistically" as possible on a video game console (there's neat hardcore stuff in the PC realm to check out as well, but they're definitely not as accessible as a Forza).

<comment><USER5> In my opinion the driving model of Forza is not nearly at the level of GT5. Methinks this is highly subjective though.

<comment><USER4> Like I said, I've only gone up to GT5: Prologue, and not the actual GT5 release. But I found that I could take corners at ridiculous (for a simulation) speeds with street tires on and every available "assist" disabled in GT5: Prologue. It was _incredibly_ forgiving for the so-called "Real Driving Simulator".

I would be happy to hear that GT5 has taken the training wheels off and amped up the realism of the driving model. But with GT5: Prologue, I could easily demonstrate poor driving that was forgiven by GT5: Prologue that would spin me out in the more stringently realistic Forza model.

<comment><USER6> I played Prologue after having played a lot of FM3, and being a long-time GT4 fan, and found it to be terrible. There was a demo out at one point released some 8 or 9 months after Prologue that was leaps and bounds ahead of it. I haven't yet played the final product but I'd assume it's more in line with that demo that's no longer available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> this post would be a lot better if they actually had screenshots of videos of the menu system so we know what all the frustration is about.

<comment><USER8> See <http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-gran-turismo-5/17-3535/> for a video which shows some of this.

<comment><USER9> My favorite part of the video is how it takes them twenty-five minutes to start racing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Battlefield Bad Company 2 has one of the worst interfaces too.</comment>


Probable C# 6.0 features illustrated - <AUTHOR> http://damieng.com/blog/2013/12/09/probable-c-6-0-features-illustrated

<comment><USER2> I like the Primary Constructor shorthand update. C# (and the CLR) is a great language. It has always been more verbose that I preferred. Its nice to see that updates that reduce the LOC count.</comment>


US military UAVs migrate to Linux - <AUTHOR> http://linuxgizmos.com/u-s-military-uav-control-systems-switch-to-linux/ <comment><USER2> If we have flying killer robots they may as well be running software we can, more or less, trust.

<comment><USER3> We must build Skynet so that it is impenetrable and can be absolutely trusted...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now I wonder if the GPL license should have a "do not use for killing people" clause in it.

<comment><USER5> Then it would not be free... but I wonder if shooting a linux-powered missile counts as "redistribution" under the GPL, so that you would then be forced to give the target a copy of your software?

<comment><USER6> They'll send you another missile with the source code just as soon as they get your location.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Raytheon is converting the VTUAV TCS "block II" system from Sun's aging, > UNIX-based Solaris 8 OS to a "B2VL" version of Linux.

I wonder what this B2VL version of Linux is.

Also, it seems that USA is going full steam ahead with Linux adoption, what with NASA switching to Debian and similar stories. I wonder if it gives credibility to the (conspiracy) theories by some that Linux is systematically being made weaker by government agencies.[1][2]

[1]: [https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/julian-assange- de...](https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/julian-assange-debian-is- owned-by-the-nsa/)

[2]: [https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/biography-of-a- cy...](https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/biography-of-a-cypherpunk- and-how-cryptography-affects-your-life/)

<comment><USER8> Why would the government migrate to an OS they are making weaker?

If Linux was banned from use in critical systems that might lend credibility to that conspiracy theory, Linux being used in sensitive systems destroys any credibility that theory has.

<comment><USER9> If you want to go full on conspiracy, then you'd point out that perhaps all those critical systems are running a secret NSA branch of Linux, was all the backdoors removed and unannounced security holes patched.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> More like Slowaris, har har har.

</comment><comment><USER11> Will it have Adobe Updater pre-installed?

<comment><USER12> No, but the targeting software will include Amazon search results.</comment></comment>


Rdio: No REST for the wicked - <AUTHOR> http://developer.rdio.com/blog/read/No_REST_for_the_wicked

<comment><USER3> _our API, like most of the popular "REST" APIs, is not REST as defined by Roy Fielding_

Other APIs may be imperfect implementations of the ideal, but Rdio's made no attempt to look anything like REST. The complaint wasn't about adhering to a spec, but simply inaccurate nomenclature.

<comment><USER4> How is it any more inaccurate than: <http://www.flickr.com/services/api/request.rest.html>

<comment><USER5> Not to brag, but at least the Rdio API doesn't allow non-idempotent calls over GET.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kudos to the Rdio team for being responsive and thoughtful rather than defensive.

</comment><comment><USER7> _When I started working on the Rdio API I struggled to work out how to effectively expose our API through a more classically REST model, but ultimately there was too much functionality that would be significantly more ugly when forced into a document-oriented REST model than exposed through an RPC model._

Hi Ian, if it's not too much trouble could you give an example of functionality that didn't work well with REST?

<comment><USER5> Off the top of my head a couple of things that didn't map well were:

* search

* deleting songs from a playlist (safely)

* multidimentional stats queries (eg: [http://developer.rdio.com/docs/read/rest/Methods#getHeavyRot...](http://developer.rdio.com/docs/read/rest/Methods#getHeavyRotation))

Perhaps we could have modelled these in a REST-like manner, but it seemed simpler to make the functionality available through an RPC protocol - <USER2> for us to implement and simpler for developers to integrate into their software.

<comment><USER8> When I design RESTful APIs, I tyypically wind up with a collection resource for each of my resource types. (This is a common pattern, I think.) Searching and your getHeavyRotation are examples of "GET the collection resource, but filter the resources to include in the list". For this I use the path to identify the collection and query parameters to specify the filtering.

Query parameters are appropriate here because they're not being used to specify which collection resource to retrieve. They're being used to alter the representation of the collection. This is just like using start and count query parameters to allow paging through a large collection.

For your search, you would use a single query parameter, and for getHeavyRotation you would use one parameter for each field you can filter on. They'd be optional of course, and if none are specified you get the whole collection.

Regarding deleting songs "safely", I'm not sure what you mean but I'm guessing you want some confirmation or recovery. I assume each song has a playlist attribute; instead of allowing a DELETE method on the song I would have a trashbin playlist, and allow the song resource to be updated with the playlist attribute changed to the trashbin uri. That allows the songs to be recovered if they are moved by mistake. To really clear it out, you could allow DELETE on /{trashbin uri}/{song id}. Eg: the song resource can only be deleted via the trashbin.

<comment><USER4> Given then, how would you map a search that returns multiple types?

As far as deleting songs "safely", what Ian means is that for any given playlist (of which a user has an unlimited number) any given song can be in it any number of times. So when you delete a song, we generally ask for song_id and index to make sure that a) the playlist hasn't mutated (much), and b) we are dropping the right song. The DELETE on /{trashbin uri}/{song id} doesn't provide 2 of the 3 required bits of information, and DELETE /playlist/{playlist id}/{song id}/{index} isn't very RESTful (imo).

<comment><USER7> _DELETE /playlist/{playlist id}/{song id}/{index} isn't very RESTful (imo)_

Your opinion is a fact, imo. Songs can't be deleted from playlists using REST, full stop. Songs-in-playlists are values, not identities, so they can't be resources. I see it as analogue to words in a text file. A REST client would have to construct the updated playlist value and PUT the whole thing to the playlist resource. So "delete song from playlist" is a function that could only exist in the client.

Search on the other hand is just search. I don't think REST vs RPC has much to say about it. The only issue would be location: URL vs method.

<comment><USER9> > Your opinion is a fact, imo

This doesn't parse very well to me.

As far as your main point, I disagree. The /playlist/:playlist_id/:song_id/:index thing doesn't seem very good, no. But, if you kept an id that mapped songs to playlists, you could easily do DELETE /playlists/:playlist_id/:song_playlist_id and be done with it.

REST doesn't say you have to update the entire resource just because a member of that resource needs to be deleted.

<comment><USER7> I agree with you hypothetically. But my question was about their real world issues.

They could, _in theory_ , have ids for songs-in-playlists. But they don't in fact have them and their RPC api doesn't require them. That's what I'm interested in. Not how they could change their architecture to make REST work.

<comment><USER10> if it's a big deal to make that change then their underlying architecture needs a review.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm working on an RPC API that works with XML over HTTP. I'll be calling it an XML API. If it did JSON I'd call it a JSON API. Some customers seem to want to call it a REST API, but it would pain me to call it that when it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you are interested in music related APIs, my company (<http://www.audiogalaxy.com>) has a draft API that lets you browse and play your music collection remotely. We support mp3, aac, flac, wma, vorbis, and get your playlists out of iTunes.

We haven't publicized the API quite yet, but we would love get feedback from anybody who might be interested in it. Send me an email if you are: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER13> REST is totally useless since no one really knows wha it means and there are few if any APIs that come close to being "RESTful". REST's proponents, including Roy, have done a dreadful job educating on what REST is. As I commented on the Rdio thread, it would be nice if the complainers actually suggested how the API in question could be designed more RESTfully.

</comment><comment><USER14> I like the term POX, except, like AJAX, that has an X that can be mistaken for "XML" although it can also be X for "Unknown".

Unfortunately, the vernacular meaning of the word REST is "not SOAP".

<comment><USER5> Jens Alfke suggested PEST - Post Everything STyle: [http://jens.mooseyard.com/2011/03/dudes-this-is-so-not- rest/...](http://jens.mooseyard.com/2011/03/dudes-this-is-so-not-rest/comment- page-2/#comment-3962)</comment></comment>


Leonard Susskind on Richard Feynman and Unanswered Questions in Physics [video] - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/leonard-susskind-on-richard-feynman-the-holographic-principle-and-unanswered-questions-in-physics/ <comment><USER2> Tremendous! Thanks for this ;)

Link to Susskinds most recent lecture vids: Back Holes and Complexity

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJcrJE23Sls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJcrJE23Sls)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out!</comment></comment>


How Many Irons Can You Have in the Fire? - <AUTHOR> http://www.escapingthe9to5.com/business-development/how-many-irons-can-you-have-in-the-fire/

<comment><USER2> Anyone here with multiple irons in the fire who is satisfied with both the quality of their work and their income from it? I am trying to answer some hard questions for myself in this regard and hoping that examples will help.

EDIT: Or, alternately, people who failed at this and want to tell their story of how focusing on one thing worked. Pros and cons can be equally good food for thought.

Thanks.</comment>


More Details On LivingSocial's $110M Funding, Company Now Valued At ~$1.5B - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/21/livingsocial-ceo-provides-more-details-on-110-million-funding-round-now-valued-at-about-1-5-billion/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr they keep taking in massive amounts of investment but are still not profitable.</comment>


Opinion: Clipboard contents must be auto-encrypted, readable only by target app - <AUTHOR> https://techtudor.blogspot.com/2020/07/opinion-clipboard-contents-must-be.html <comment><USER2> What? Why can't iOS just prevent apps from automatically reading the clipboard without the user's private consent? It seems useless to encrypt the data when you can just deny its transmission. I'm jailbroken right now so I just installed NoClipboardForYou[1], I'm sure Apple could make something themselves to fulfill the same need.

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/hlabn3/free_rele...](https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/hlabn3/free_release_noclipboardforyou_prevent_apps_like/) (Normally I'd link directly to the GitHub repository but this Reddit thread has more info).

</comment><comment><USER3> The whole point of the clipboard is to transfer data between somewhat arbitrary apps.</comment>


Ask HN: Resources to get started writing user space over a (linux) kernel? - <AUTHOR>

I'd like to start hacking away at my own OS over the linux kernel, how do I get started? I've looked at tons of kernel hacking resources, is this it? I'd like a resource that distinguishes "user space" from kernel space. <comment><USER2> Assuming you want to start from scratch, perhaps as a learning exercise, without leveraging glibc and similar:

First, try running a kernel directly within a VM such as KVM. Then read about the initramfs format and how to construct one, and build a simple one with a single statically linked executable. Explore what you can do with that.

[http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/tiny/teensy.htm...](http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/tiny/teensy.html) might provide you with more insight into the syscall interface and the ELF format. From there, look into the ELF "interpreter" mechanism and the dynamic linker. Then, write a C program that doesn't link to glibc, and instead makes syscalls directly.</comment>


UMap: create maps with OpenStreetMap layers - <AUTHOR> https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/ <comment><USER2> The name UMap is a bit unfortunate, as that is also an abbreviation for _Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection_ , which is a kind of mathematically more robust tSNE. In fact, for a split-second I was kind of hoping someone had figured out an interesting way of applying that technique to OSM data.

Also, the demo doesn't load for me in any browser I throw at it - at first I thought it was my overly strict security settings, but I'm getting 404s even when running Chromium without any privacy plugins, adblockers.

[0] [https://github.com/lmcinnes/umap](https://github.com/lmcinnes/umap)</comment>


Rhizome Awarded $600k by the Mellon Foundation to Build Webrecorder - <AUTHOR> http://rhizome.org/editorial/2016/jan/04/webrecorder-mellon/ <comment><USER2> I'm curious how they'll mock apps that have web requests. Like, on a website I work on we give testers a button to "create to users"\--- it fills in the account signup form with the visa 4011 number and gives them an email/username/password based off of two randoms words from wordnik. (My favorite combo was: townwide-giardia.)

Would future users always get the same two words? Would they record the network request a couple of times?

If a web game had an endpoint to verify a solution, but the webrecorder only ever recorded the successful interaction, would it give success to any solution on the webrecord?

I suspect that a quick answer would be: "we won't mock apps with web requests", but that would painfully ignore how commonly 3rd-party apis are used.

//edit also you can play with webrecorder here: [https://webrecorder.io](https://webrecorder.io) None of my records are showing as Replays, but maybe that's because I'm an anonymous user.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's fantastic news, congratulations and make it rock!

</comment><comment><USER4> The first thing they could do with the money is hire a css expert to figure out why the date is upside down on their website. Very peculiar bug.

<comment><USER5> I'm the "css expert" you desire to know. No issues are open at the moment in regards the typography you're referencing.

<comment><USER2> Nice. I imagine this was intentional too? [http://imgur.com/6oZ7cmK](http://imgur.com/6oZ7cmK) Do your ad-buys suffer a loss in price because your logo overlays it?

I had the same knee-jerk reaction as thewronbiennale but after thinking about it, I like it. It's like saying: "sure, we're gonna sell ads, but our blog still comes first." Clever.

<comment><USER6> I hope Rhizome archives this thread.

<comment><USER7> hn pages are pretty easy to archive: [http://web.archive.org/web/20160105012618/https://news.ycomb...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160105012618/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10838985)

Rhizome is working on more difficult sites.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your Job Isn't Writing Code - <AUTHOR> https://hackeryarn.com/post/your-job-isnt-writing-code/ <comment><USER2> I like this article. I think it has been stated many time before in many different articles and books and is mostly common knowledge now. So I think we need some meta principles:

1) Don't think you are the only one who understands these principles and realize people are going to have differing opinions on what is the simplest thing that can be done.

2) Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it complicated. If you don't understand something another is talking about try to reserve your judgement as to how simple (or not simple) it is until you actually understand what is being said.

3) Don't over do it with this advice. Sometimes you need to add a bit of complication to make the big picture easier. "A thing should be as simple or as complicated as it needs to be nothing more".</comment>


Single-Sex vs. Coed: The Evidence  - <AUTHOR> http://www.singlesexschools.org/evidence.html <comment><USER2> Schools are structured environments for the socialization of youth, as much as they are learning environments. Attending a single-sex school might lead to knowing a little bit more about Plato or the Crimean War (let's just concede the point for the sake of argument), but they're kind of ignoring the negative impact it'll have on the emotional intelligence and gender-relations of the kids who will be stuck in a place where they never get a chance to learn from the perspective of someone of the opposite sex.

I would like the article to answer this: how well do the kids in the single- sex schools do later on in life, when they end up having to _work_ alongside people of the opposite sex? What are the relative rates of rape, spousal abuse, divorce, unplanned pregnancy, etc. between adults who came from the single-sex vs. the co-ed schools?

<comment><USER3> Would very much like to see data on this.

My folks sent me to a very good, private, single sex school from the age of 7-18. Came out with an awesome education and no idea how to even have a conversation with a woman. Women may as well have been aliens.

That was a good few years ago now and I'm fairly normalised I think, but it took a while. Would never do that to any kids I have, though that ain't looking exactly likely any time soon.

<comment><USER4> WRT anecdotes, you need to statistically correct for the vast number of guys who would agree with the same statement with "same sex" crossed out.

<comment><USER3> I agree, not knowing how to talk to women is hardly unique to people who went to single sex school, and I will never know how I would have been had I not been in a segregated school so it's very hard to make an absolute judgement.

Maybe it would have been worse for my academic career, but again, maybe not. But I can only think that it couldn't have been worse in terms of social weirdness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a dangerous idea. Why? Because it starts with the idea that single-sex schools are better, then proceed to attempt to prove that point with studies that show single-sex classrooms get on average better grades and are more likely to attend college.

But attending college and getting better grades is not the goal. In fact, one of the biggest employment and political problems in the United States is due to so many middle class parents conditioning their kids into thinking that going to college will solve their future and guarantee them employment. But, let's toss that aside for the moment.

The argument on this site begins with a study of South Korea, which randomly assigns students to coed or same-sex schools (we don't REALLY know how random this is), and shows data which these students are more likely to get higher grades and attend college.

But the real question is NOT can they get better grades - the question is whether there are educational systems that can better prepare students to be a success in LIFE, not just get to college. Do students who attend same-sex schools fare better in relationships, do they push society forward in the underlying principals of a better civilization? Do they make the world better, and are they happy?

The real result? South Korea is ranked 111th in the world in gender equality. (For comparison, the United States is ranked 22nd).

So let's ask something that SingleSexSchools.org will NEVER want to answer - are opportunities for girls in South Korea as good as those offered by men? Is the education of girls in South Korea equal to the education offered to boys?

The reality is that South Korea is not just a bad environment for women and girls - it's bad and getting worse. Their rankings in these categories were some of the lowest just a few years ago and have steadily declined each year.

I don't really have time for a point-by-point rebuttal, but the basic point is this: removing diversity never makes society stronger. Are there benefits for single-sex activities and education? Of course. Is it 'better' to reduce students interaction with the opposite sex to almost none in day-to-day education? The evidence says otherwise.

The issue is always when someone argues for widespread, radical change based on the wrong goals.

<comment><USER6> > This is a dangerous idea. Why? Because it starts with the idea that single- > sex schools are better, then proceed to attempt to prove that point with > studies

I'm sorry, someone who attempts to prove their point with studies will always be more persuasive than another's hand waving.

>But attending college and getting better grades is not the goal.

Again, there are many people for whom educational attainment _is_ important.

>Do students who attend same-sex schools [...] push society forward in the underlying principals of a better civilization? Do they make the world better

I'd say better education is a pretty big component of pushing society forward and making the world better. Why force everyone to attend co-ed schools? If some want to attend single-sex schools and this has proven educational benefits, let them do so.

>For comparison, the United States is ranked 22nd [in the world in gender equality]

A big part of which has been played by a well-known group of single-sex schools [1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(colleges)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_\(colleges\))

<comment><USER7> We're not actually measuring educational attainment (whatever that is) but admission into a 4 year college program. This is like measuring the effectiveness of the speed of your network by how many feet of cable you bought. Measuring _graduation_ from a 4-year college program would at least be a measure of attainment of _credentials_ , but this can be gamed simply by lowering bars. (The campaign against high school drop-out rates has largely consisted of making it easier to stay and harder to drop out (rather than actually improve any useful outcomes); the campaign to improve girls' science scores in Australian schools has largely comprised removing science from the science curriculum. Educational research is always plagued by these issues.)

Single sex schools clearly helped improve the lot of women in the US (and other countries). But it's not clear that it was because single sex schools are better than co-ed (which is at issue) or that they are better than no schools at all (which appears blindingly obvious).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Note for anyone ready to dismiss based on title alone:

The big idea is not that girls distract boys and boys distract girls, so they should be apart. The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high school age learn/are motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting them and teaching them in different ways could be more effective.

So this is not empirical evidence, but my mom who has been teaching high school for over 30 years strongly agrees with this. In her opinion the average boy just can't sit still and needs to be motivated more competitively, whilst girls benefit from more social engagement.

Of course that analysis is rather crude. There's subtleties there. Of course boys would benefit from being taught to be more social, and girls would benefit from being taught to be more competitive. But it's clear that there's efficiencies to be had here.

For me personally high school felt as a very inefficient time of learning, but I also had much fun and made many friends with both boys and girls. I wonder if the research has shown anything there. Do boys who graduate from boys-only schools work well with girls? What is their opinion on them? And vice versa?

Although I think high school could benefit from efficiency improvements, I also think high school is an important preparation for growing into a broad- minded adult. I hope they keep that in mind when the decisions are made.

<comment><USER9> > The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high school age learn/are > motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting them and teaching > them in different ways could be more effective.

This idea is even more harmful. The differences within the group are greater then the differences between the groups - but by trying to split the environments along enormously broad divisions, you're ensuring you marginalize huge swathes of people in addition to creating an unhealthy socialization environment.

The reality here is once you let in the idea that gender has something to say about people beyond what their genitals look like, you're letting in any number of other harmful ideas. It's no coincidence that girl's only highschools mysteriously lack shop-classes, for example but _always_ have Home Ec.

<comment><USER10> It concerns me when people confuse the idea of gender equality and rights (which I think most reasonable people agree is a good thing) with the idea that men and women's lives have to be the same in all aspects.

I think it is much more harmful to impose a dogmatic belief that forces everyone to lead identical, mono-cultured lives and denies individual choice.

What if I _want_ to go to a single-sex school? Who are you to deny me that choice?

<comment><USER9> Who's denying it to you? But the same thing you complain abiut ia also ehxactly what single-sex schools are doing - its not about looking at your interests and learning style based on your home envitonment, test scores, and social proclivites to tey and find an optimum learning environmwnt for you - its about seeing if you have a penis and declaring that _obviously_ you must 'learn competitively' and its very important we advocate you running around outside. Because _clearly_ girls don't do those things.

I'm sadly never surprised that the cinclusions people draw about gendered education just so happen to reinforce societal gender stereotypes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't like single-sex schools because I don't think they promote healthy gender relations. I recall reading that boys at single-sex schools had much worse success in relationships.

I also don't like them because they're hell for trans kids. Your education record will out you because your school was single-sex, and you can't transition in school or at least daren't try.

But the needs of minorities don't matter, right?

The thing with girls being more likely to study science actually applies to me. I dropped Physics this year partly because of grades but also I didn't like the male-dominated environment. Had I been to an all-girls' school, maybe that'd be different. But I'm trans, so I'd be stuck at an all-boys' school. That'd be awful.

</comment><comment><USER12> What if single- _race_ schools led to somewhat better outcomes, sometimes, according to some metrics, highly contingent on the skill of the instructor and highly variable depending on location?

What about schools segregated by political party or religion?

<comment><USER13> Indeed, which brings us to...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education)

I thought we, as a society, already concluded that separate cannot be equal. But I have to say, for some reason I don't feel the same negativity towards separation by gender as I do by race. I just think that if we've already decided that divide-by-race is a bad idea then how can divide-by-gender be good? I have a funny feeling that divide-by-political-stance, and race, is already happening due to divide-by-wealth via school fees. I wonder what the dominate race & political-affiliations are at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc. versus [http://www.csueastbay.edu/](http://www.csueastbay.edu/)

<comment><USER14> That struck down the doctrine of 'separate but equal' as a lie. But it wasn't the separate that was the problem, it was the equal.

If you could truly prove that you could have separate _and better_ , Brown v. Board of Education would not apply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this study misses a lot of the point. Sure, schooling is about grades, but it's also a huge part of childhood and teenagerhood, bonding and interacting and meeting people and having experiences. So whilst the grades went up, how well socially adapted were people and how good were they at bonding with the other sex?

Of course this also misses the colossal point of enforcing the gender binary, which is terrible and leads to a broken, sexist society.

Single sex schools are, quite frankly, unethical.

<comment><USER16> _Single sex schools are, quite frankly, unethical._

Teens will find ways to socialize with each other whether or not they're in a single-sex environment. It's not unethical to split based on "this group responds better to these methods of teaching."

School isn't the epicenter of all social interaction during a person's youth, nor should it be. Taking this view leads to teen suicide, because if teens are convinced that all of life is just like cruel highschool then they'd rather not live at all. (If your highschool years weren't cruel, then I'd imagine it's hard to understand why this is true. Take it from someone who was hunted.)

<comment><USER17> > School is not, and should not be, the epicenter of all social interaction > during a person's youth.

How can it not be the epicenter of social interaction for young people when it's where they spend the majority of their waking hours? How many people did you meet in high school vs. how many in extracurricular activities?

<comment><USER16> EDIT: The lack of compassion for outliers is an alarming indication of the general attitude toward education at large. Outliers are who advance the world.[1] If you don't help them, then you'll live in a poorer country. If splitting by gender is the most basic thing we can do toward that end with proven results, and "... But socialization! (except for those I don't care about)" is standing in the way, then the situation is pretty grim.

I'm going to bow out of this conversation now.

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/wisdom.html](http://paulgraham.com/wisdom.html)

<comment><USER17> > Outliers are who advance the world.

But everyone has to live in it. You're not asking for compassion, you're asking schools to do something that might be advantageous for a minority at the expense of everyone else. How does that make the world a better or more advanced place?

I sympathize with what you're saying, but surely there's better solutions here than single-sex schools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seriously HN - is this site incapable of ever updating its beliefs in even the slightest way based off of genuine evidence? Ignore the fact that this article is written on an obviously politcally motivated source - in fact ignore the whole article. You don't need it, since they're providing you with the actual studies backing up their beliefs. If you don't like this view, then your critiques had better be of the articles they cite, not of this sumamry article!

I can agree that seeing a grade improvement is not, by itself, enough to get me say we should separate classes by gender here in the US. But if this article didn't make you at least consider that option a bit more than it did before, then you're doing this incorrectly. These are large differences - 0.8 standard deviations increase in scores! They are verified over a large body of students and it was actually randomly assigned. This is great! There are so many questions that I'd pay to have an actual study of that caliber done to answer.

Again, it's not the whole answer. Not everywhere is Seoul and not all students are the same. (In fact, the given article agrees: "Our only concern with the article is with its underlying premise: namely, that either single-gender or coed must be "best." We believe that premise is fundamentally mistaken. The single-gender format is better for some students, and coed is better for others,"). I'm not saying you should be completely convinced by every article that gets posted here that happens to have a scholarly citation. But if this site continues to automatically and consistently dismiss these things just as a matter of course, then how can we ever hope to learn new things and change our views? There's something here. "Grades aren't everything" doesn't mean that "grades aren't important," which doesn't mean "this study is pointless."

</comment><comment><USER19> The studies carry evidence that confirms the hypothesis that single-sex school is more effective than coed schools in reaching some (I assume there are probably more) goals of basic education, which is academic achievement. Many comments noted that social achievement is not measured. Aside from the fact that more studies have to be done to further confirm the hypothesis or negate it, this one seems to focus completely on sex segregation. It does not take a closer look at why coed schools are worse than single-sex schools in academic results. What I think matters more is to find out the where, when, who, why and what of coed and single-sex schools before pointing out a how (to fix academic performance). With that, we will, for instance, be able to eventually adapt the coed model to provide the same or better academic results than single-sex. I prefer neither model. I was educated for 6 years in a single-sex environment and 8 years in a coed. I can attest that I had a better academic performance in single-sex than coed, but that should not (or could not) be the main point of discussion as I explained above. The goal is to understand de 5Ws and 1H of the education system and this article fails to do so.

</comment><comment><USER20> An article comparing single-sex vs. coed on a domain called singlesexschools.org? Without even looking into the background of this: Can we really expect the article not to be biased?

<comment><USER21> All humans and all of their work is biased in some way. You can never expect anything to be unbiased.

 _Without even looking into the background of this_

The fact that someone made up their mind on an issue doesn't by itself mean they're wrong though.

<comment><USER22> Unreliable witnesses can be right, indeed, but being correct doesn't make evidence a reliable source - you can be right for the wrong reasons.

Having a stated belief upfront puts your work in obvious danger of confirmation bias[0]. It can and should be assumed that you will promote results which support your belief and ignore results that don't.

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

<comment><USER23> Consider the following scenario:

1\. I wonder about the effectiveness of single-sex vs. coed schooling.

2\. I do a bunch of research.

3\. I conclude that single-sex education is significantly more effective, and that students are being harmed by the dominant paradigm of coed schooling.

4\. I establish a website to promote my views, and I call it "singlesexschools.org".

5\. I display, on my website promoting single-sex schools, the arguments and papers that convinced me single-sex schools were a good idea.

Pretty much anyone who possesses knowledge will be able to give you a "stated belief up front" if you ask them about it. That doesn't mean they started with the belief. Knowledge causes beliefs. In my five-step scenario, what should I have named my website?

<comment><USER22> Choosing the singlesexschools.org domain would be poor judgement on your part; as would publishing a biased report without reference to how you ensured its veracity. If your original research was complete and unbiased, you ought to be proud to show that in your work and in your choice of headline domain.

The idealist but misguided situation you describe is not the case here, anyway. This reaseach was published by a group formerly known as the NASSPE - the National Association for Single Sex Public Education.

<comment><USER23> > Choosing the singlesexschools.org domain would be poor judgement on your > part

No, it wouldn't. Someone more interested in dismissing my ideas than in learning what they were could just as easily say "Effective Schooling is a known advocate of single-sex education, and can therefore not be trusted to report on the issue" (indeed, people say this all the time). The fact that someone is willing to tell you what his ideas are doesn't automatically make them bad ones. And everyone choosing to talk about an issue is going to have an opinion on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'd be interested to see the poster's comment about this article: what did this bring you to think? While the site seems indeed very strongly opinionated from the onset, if the studies are right it's probably interesting to reflect about the topic and especially about the reasons behind studies' results.

If I had to put kids in a single-sex school I can imagine that some pupils would get more focused in their work and hence overall get a better mark. My worry though is for their emotional intelligence and ability to grow-up in a mixed world. School is quite a big chunk of kids' life nowadays, where they learn much more than math and history, but also socializing, playing, listening, collaboration, respect. If all those notions are taught only within their own gender, what would/will be their reaction outside this world?

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm shocked that research published by the "National Association for Single Sex Public Education" found that single sex education was most effective. Shocked.

Maybe this is a topic worth discussing; if that's the case, though, give me something not so clearly biased.

<comment><USER26> That was just a web page. The research was published in a journal _Demography_ , by 3 researchers from the University of Pennsylvania:

[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-012-0157-1](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-012-0157-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Considering the domain on which this was published we can safely presume that the author did his best NOT to mention any possible social/emotional side- effects. How well socialized are the kids from those two groups? How happy are they? How many emotional/sexual relationships did they have and how satisfied with their sexual life have they been? How many of them are suicidal (huge problem in South Korea)? And just for the fun, what's the ratio between hetero and gay people before and after the school? :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Aside from all the other points, I'm curious to see further longitudinal data on the comparative success of these students once they enter college compared to their peers at college.

Further, it'd be interesting to see their eventual success against those who went to the coed schools.

It'd also be interesting to run a self-assessment of the single-sex students vs the coed students asking them a broad array of well-being questions, e.g. their happiness, level of fulfillment and satisfaction in life, etc.

Interesting starting point, but like pointed out flawed to say single-sex schools are better overall purely based on this one metric. The only thing that can be said here is that single-sex schools drive greater admission to colleges than coed schools in Seoul, given the way these schools are administered there.

Things that definitely need to be addressed - what are the differences in the coed vs single-sex schools these people go to? Are the single-sex schools taught differently at all? And if so, how? Why does Seoul have a single-sex vs coed separation in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER29> So we're reducing children's lives to the pursuit of some bullshit test scores?! Maybe the absence of the opposite sex in their lives heightens their malleability? i.e. there's an implicit threat here, If you don't do well on tests then when you enter the real world no girl will want you(or vica versa).

<comment><USER4> Certainly, the modern education system is primarily focused on authoritarianism and conformity rather than skills training and education. It would be very interesting to add that as a dimension to the study, are SS grads more or less likely than coed grads to vote for a 3rd party or become an active member of a major party or support the militarization of police etc.

Its possible but unlikely there is a real difference in ability to learn based solely on genital shape. Probably more likely the SS grads are somehow less individualistic, more socialized, better indoctrinated, and more conformity oriented, tangentially including better academic results as one of many mere side effects.

In that case rather than opening a giant can of worms WRT segregation, it would be much simpler to increase nationalist movements. Mandate saying the pledge of allegiance, uniforms, (one single) youth psuedo-political organization, military marching D+C in gym class, institute the 5 minutes hate and two way telescreens, encourage the rewriting of history in writing class, bland conservative blather in lit classes instead of real lit, etc. Not saying the cultural effects would be an improvement, but if all you want is great test scores this might be a less controversial method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The bit about Fairhurst High School is one of those garbled things that you get by playing Chinese whispers.

In fact John Fairhurst was the well-regarded head teacher at Shenfield High School in Shenfield, Essex, a small town in the commuter belt east of London. You can read more in this article that I found on Google: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lNLliSZ...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lNLliSZ42EEJ:web.alfredstate.edu/library/English%2520Comp%2520Articles%2520Spring%25202008/Sax%2520article.doc+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

He has since retired but not before serving as president at the Association of School & College Leaders. And he has regularly been featured in the British press commenting on the need for more innovative ways to educate kids.

</comment><comment><USER31> From TazeTSchnitzel, who has been hellbanned:

BEGIN

I don't like single-sex schools because I don't think they promote healthy gender relations. I recall reading that boys at single-sex schools had much worse success in relationships.

I also don't like them because they're hell for trans kids. Your education record will out you because your school was single-sex, and you can't transition in school or at least daren't try.

But the needs of minorities don't matter, right?

The thing with girls being more likely to study science actually applies to me. I dropped Physics this year partly because of grades but also I didn't like the male-dominated environment. Had I been to an all-girls' school, maybe that'd be different. But I'm trans, so I'd be stuck at an all-boys' school. That'd be awful.

END

</comment><comment><USER32> I was really hoping for the article to have some pretty graphs.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage your learning? - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
I know a lot of articles and discussions have appeared on the art of reading on HN. But I had had this issue for a while now, and was hoping someone out there could help me out.
So for starters, I started to learn Haskell late last year from the Real World Haskell book. Being a new-comer to functional programming its taken me almost a month to read and digest 150 pages or so. Smack in the middle of January I landed a new assignment that involved a host of new (Java) technologies, so I had to drop Haskell for a while to catch up on those. I then had to review a book for a author friend.
This has been a regular cycle. I start something with great enthusiasm, I am thoroughly enjoying myself, only to have hit a situation where I need to drop it to learn something else. I have half a dozen of so books covering management, finance, self-help on my shelf right now, and I see no way of catching up.
I am sure several others out there have the same predicament. I don't have a problem learning, rather I would learn something new everyday. Its just commitments that keep getting in the way.
So the question is how do you manage your learning process? How do you find time to read, learn, digest all the varied interests that catch your eye (be it new languages, frameworks, technologies, other areas of interest, hobbies what-have-you).
Any suggestions will be welcome. <comment><USER2> Segment your time into tactical learning (in your case Java), strategic learning (for you, Haskell), and brain-recovery time (cheap fiction, meditation, whatever)

Trying to learn different languages at the same time, unless you are a Jedi, is going to be tough. But you could probably find some good functional programming with Java type books that would dovetail nicely into your Java work.

I actually split into three pieces, tactical, strategic, and Out-there learning. I find good ideas come from weird places, so my Out-there time includes philosophy, religion, history, and social sciences.

My Out-there stuff is done during morning workouts. Tactical stuff is done during work or in the evenings. Strategic and fun stuff during weekly airline flights.

You are what you read (and watch), so the most critical thing you can do in your life is actively manage what you consume, even if it means learning how to enjoy and digest what others would consider boring stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea! Quick question - It seems you find a way of doing all three during the day, is that correct? Also, and this may sound like a silly question, how do you divvy up the hours, how do you know how much time you can/should allot to each category?

I see from your profile that you are interested in all sorts of things (to mention a few Technology, Philosophy, Startups, Movies [I like these too]). Are these all in the Out-there learning category?

<comment><USER2> I don't divvy up the time. I just try to find time for each category.

It's a mistake to think of yourself as some kind of content consumption machine -- leads to splitting up your hours into 3-minute increments. Some folks love that kind of anal-retentive life. I find it gets in the way of being a human.

So I have these major kinds of reading goals that I think about when having some extra time. It's a general guideline. Kind of like using a compass instead of a stopwatch (apologies to S. Covey for the ripoff)

Most of these are in the Out-there category, but not all. I've found, for instance, that lots of philosophical concepts dovetail with software construction -- philosophy of language, of knowledge, of abstractions and generalizations, etc. No matter the topic, I've found there is usually some tangential relationship to strategic learning goals.

One of my current Out-there books is "Dummies guide to Songwriting" I've always been curious as to how a few guys can get together and make some wonderfully creative musical material. Who knows? There could be a lot of material in there applicable to my next startup effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I set aside an hour a day (on average) to "do stuff" that is of direct relevance to a project I want to complete. If I'm learning a new language, I have a small project to perform a small but non-trivial task. Then I make sure I spend about an hour a day on that.

Same goes for my reading. I allow 30 minutes a day specifically for reading about new stuff. That's usually last thing at night, plus a 5 minute mental review as I have my shower in the morning.

It's the consistency that counts. Small amounts of time consistently invested grow over time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I should try that. I tend to be single-minded, so if I have to review a book thats all I do, and hence loose traction on anything else that I have on the plate (this usually does not include non-tech reads/learning, but I have found that when learning a new language/technology/framework I need more focus). But I think keeping a small achievable task everyday should keep me from losing ground when learning something new.

Thanks everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I completed my BS degree several years ago. I carried a full-time school load and worked full-time. I got 90% of my school work done on the weekends. During the week I was too tired from work to do much more than the absolute minimum required of me for school. Not having a wife and kids helped too--no distractions at home.

Different people have different ways of coping. I am a morning person, so it's not difficult for me to get an extra hour in the day by getting up an hour early, but some people can't function like that. If you live in an "active" house, you may find it easier to set your alarm for an hour or two after everyone else is asleep, and get up and get some studying in (if your biological clock will let you). I find that four hours sleep is all I require for the short-term, so I could get up and get a little more work done and then get back to sleep. I sometimes do that when I have insomnia anyway--why toss and turn for an hour or two if I can get up and read for a while?

First thing to do is a little self-analysis? Are you the kind of person who can get a little bit of work done in various bits and pieces of available time, or do you need a sizeable chunk of time to set aside? Are you better in morning, afternoon, evening, or late night? Do you need as distraction-free a place as possible, or can you put up with household noise while studying? I bought a nature sounds CD set a while back, and putting one of those on while wearing headphones helps me to concentrate. Another thought would be a white noise generator (or pink, brown, etc. type of noise) to help block out distracting noises.

I've found that especially when learning something technical (programming language, data networking, etc.) the more different ways that I can approach the subject, the better. Reading is a passive activity and only activates certain parts of the brain. Writing is an active activity and activates different parts of the brain. I'll read a little bit of material, then re- write it in my own words to "burn" it into as many different neural pathways as possible. I also create mind-maps, limericks, stories, etc. to create as much mental diversity as possible for remembering the material. It helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks grouchyOldGuy.

You bring up a few good points. I have noticed that since I had to break away from a task for a few weeks at a stretch (like my Haskell learning) coming back to it means spending a few more days revising what I had learned! I like your suggestion of writing things down to leverage other parts of your brain. I do some mind-mapping, but probably not enough.

About me, I live by myself, so if I don't want to be disturbed, I put the phone off, and I am in complete solitude. I do have a full time job, which does take up a (fixed) number of hours everyday.

Thanks for the advice.</comment></comment>


Minefold (YC W12) launches Feed The Beast servers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.minefold.com/post/43513896459

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Chris from Minefold here. Why would HN readers love this? Well Feed the Beast is basically a programmable environment for Minecraft. It includes a mod called "Computer Craft"[1] which is _ridiculously_ cool. As an extra bonus we've open sourced the funpack[2] that we use internally to run this mod configuration. Read into that what you will :)

[1]: <http://www.computercraft.info> [2]: [https://github.com/minefold/funpack-feed-the-beast- direwolf2...](https://github.com/minefold/funpack-feed-the-beast-direwolf20)

</comment><comment><USER2> I used Minefold the other day and their trial experience was excellent. Even if you're just playing single player, having a server for a complicated mod pack like FTB is perfect, because you're offloading a lot of the world generation and various 'chunks' that you might want to keep loaded to a separate machine, freeing up the CPU to render your local environment.

I also recommend Direwolf20's excellent Let's Play series, where he's currently playing one of the FTB mod packs (curated by him): <http://www.youtube.com/direwolf20>

</comment><comment><USER3> This service is fantastic, and I've been using exactly this for about a week now with the Direwolf20 pack. I didn't really expect this going in (should have!), but my FPS shot up by offloading to a server. Easy invite of friends and family to play on your server. Amazingly reasonable prices.

They seem to spin up the servers from cold when somebody connects, which for FTB can take a bit of time. I don't know that I'd pay any more money for faster startup, but it is something I consider before starting MC.

A few minor problems that were completely a result of moving from my local Minecraft to minefold:

1) It took forever to upload my map. Nothing slow on their end, but when you have a map that's over 100MB, residential connections start to get sad. A time remaining on upload would be nice.

2) After the initial upload, the server wouldn't start. Minefold doesn't provide any logs (that I could find, at least) to help diagnose this. I ended up having to pull out a number of things related to Mo' Creatures, a third party mod not included in FTB.

Compounding this, Mystcraft got an update in the modpack at exactly the time I was uploading, so versions were mismatched between my local save files and the server's modpack version. I ended up needing to use an NBT editor to remove all kinds of references to dimensions that for whatever reason didn't play nice.

Having the server output logs available and having the ability to edit individual files in the save would have simplified this step.

3) I had gotten used to having Rei's Minimap display entity radar, but the modpack's SMP version doesn't support setting the MOTD the way it needs to be set to enable that. An easy way to install and configure additional mods on Minefold would be great here.

Huge supporter of these guys, they've turned playing Minecraft alone with fans blazing into a ridiculously easy social endeavor with slower fans.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the kind words! We are storing logs and metrics for individual servers, and we're working on ways for people to access them.

I'm sorry that you had a bad expereince with your upload. I'm overhauling the upgrade process as we speak to ensure that worlds like yours upload cleanly.

We have a few ideas about configuring and installing additional mods. However, FTB is our first open source Funpack ([https://github.com/minefold/funpack- feed-the-beast-direwolf2...](https://github.com/minefold/funpack-feed-the- beast-direwolf20)) If you poke around there, submit an issue or preferably a pull request, we'll publish your changes.

Thanks again for the support!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If anyone enjoyed minecraft but doesn't play anymore, I've been trying out feed the beast this year and found it reinvigorated minecraft for me.

A couple of questions for Minefold:

1) How does the hourly pricing scheme work with things like chunkloaders?

2) Where are the servers located? I'm from Sydney so if it's not in Australia it's unlikely I'm going to move off my mac mini if they have to be hosted offshore.

EDIT: Clarifications.

<comment><USER6> Could you briefly explain what FTB does? The website doesn't do a good job of explaining it. From what I can tell, it's a collection of mods and I'm not going to go read what all 30+ of them do.

<comment><USER5> You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with the collection of mods comment. Some add major new features and tons of content, others are add-ons to the bigger mods adding a couple of new items that fit in another mod's theme. My understanding is that it started off as a collection of mods that the curators managed to make work together.

In its current state, it's a launcher for clients, essentially a package manager for minecraft mods, with several public packages available (Mindcrack, ftb) and also the ability to add private packages, or make your own by editing the existing ones.

What makes the mods special I guess is a combination of the sheer amount of content they add (energy systems, different realms with different monsters and bosses, more armour, ores, different biomes, beekeeping aka pokemon) and the way they all work together either by design or by glue mods.

Rather than reading up what all 30 mods do, I'd look at the following mods and see if any interest you. Please note, a lot of these mods add new types of resources to the new game, e.g., copper, silver, tin, lead, uranium, rubies.

Buildcraft + forrestry + thermal expansion: Buildcraft is one of what I consider the base mods, which adds the idea of energy called Minecraft Joules (MJ) which is used to power their machine blocks. Also adds pipes to transport items, liquids and energy. You can use these mods to do things like automatic tree farms, beekeeping, quarries (autmoatically mines out an area) lava pump.

Railcraft: Adds a couple of things that interact well with buildcraft, steam boilers, more buildcraft engines (engines generate MJ), liquid tanks (for storage) and tons of different rail stuff than in vanilla minecraft, e.g., launcher tracks, high speed rails, locomotives.

IndustrialCraft 2 and optionally Gregtech: Adds its own energy system, EU, which is used to power its own machine blocks. These machine blocks are all about item processing, e.g., getting ores and turning it into 2x or 3x as many ingots as you would have normally received in vanilla minecraft. Gregtech sort of extends this processing technology tree, adds some new items but also 'balances' all of the mods in the pack, editing their configurations so that they don't enable, in Greg's mind, an unfair amount of resources to be generated for a given period of time. Whether or not you agree with such a viewpoint is one of the distinguishing factors between the modpacks.

ComputerCraft: LUA programmable computers and 'turtles' (think logo) that can interact with the environment. MiscPeripherals is another mod that adds more methods for computers and turtles to interact with the minecraft environment and other mods.

Mystcraft: Adds the ability to generate new worlds, with funky settings like, multiple suns, always-night, dense ores, only plains biomes, purple sunset, and many more. Lets you teleport between realms.

Twilight Forest: A new realm, like the end or the nether, which is a more fantasy/magically oriented realm than normal minecraft, with entirely new creatures, monsters and bosses. I believe the idea behind it is if you're looking for a more magical setting than normal minecraft you could play entirely in this realm.

Extrabees: Really a small mod but has so much playtime involved. Forrestry adds beekeeping to the game, and extra bees adds a hundred or so more bees to the original 10-20 forrestry bees, with bees further down the evolutionary chain producing more advanced materials, e.g., diamonds. It also adds some machines to aid in the beekeeping process.

There are more mods worth talking about, but I should get back to work :) I'd watch some lets play videos on youtube to get more of a feel for what's going on. Just jumping into the game can be kind of overwhelming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> w-ll Wow, love that YC is backing a game server startup. 1 suggestion, add in support for your slightly older brother coinbase and let me rent a tf2 or dayz server with bitcoin..... trust me. :)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is only tangentially related to the article, but maybe someone can explain this YC alum trend to me. Why is it that the home link (and in many cases the logo as well) of blog.company.com link to the base blog.company.com.

I would assume the primary purpose of a company blog, technical or otherwise is to drive traffic to your main site. Without a clear link, i feel this is ill served.

What am i missing?

</comment><comment><USER8> I think that a lot of gameserver admins recognize that for most of the day, their server runs empty, unless you're one of the top whatever percentage populated servers in your respective game. I'd be interested in seeing some statistics as to exactly how much people save from using a "pay-as-you-play" model from minefold.

nice site btw :P

<comment><AUTHOR> I just spend the day revamping our pricing page and worked out that roughly 90% of game servers are active for less than 20 hours a week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm gonna check this out as soon as they support FTB Mindcrack. The added complexity from Gregtech really makes the game a lot richer, despite the problems I have with that mod.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow I hadn't heard of FTB before now. Excited to kick off a server and check it out!

</comment><comment><USER11> My experience with FTB is good, but the savefiles get corrupted every month or so</comment>


Show HN: IOUmate.com works with any currency from dollars to drinks to bitcoins - <AUTHOR> http://IOUmate.com

<comment><USER2> ... and the kids appreciate that we now actually pay their allowances EVERY WEEK instead of every month and a half...</comment>


Windows 8 Survey - please tell us what you think - <AUTHOR>

Hi all, There is only one month left to release of Windows 8. We're conducting a short survey about how users have experienced the new Windows 8 operating system and 'Modern-style' user interface. We're seeking your opinion. Take the short survey and enter for a chance win a free Apple iPad 3: http://pok.ki/NqL1ec.
This survey will expire October 26th, 2012.Thanks for your time! <comment><USER2> Just want to say that not adding a "boot to desktop" option (and working to actually disable the task scheduler trick which enabled boot to desktop) was a dick move. As a keyboard only user, Win 8 doesn't mean anything to me because i basically use it exactly like Win 7. Congrats for finally adding proper support for multiple monitors (win+shift+arrow FTW).

</comment><comment><USER3> Who is "we"?</comment>


NASA Teases 'Psyche,' a Robot to Explore an Asteroid Worth $10k Quadrillion - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2020/07/07/nasa-teases-psyche-a-robot-to-explore-an-asteroid-worth-more-than-our-global-economy/#2190910f1c4b <comment><USER2> > The metals that make-up this one-of-a-kind asteroid could, according to > some, be worth $10,000 quadrillion.

Multiplying quantity with current price is not reasonable way to estimate value of metals in asteroids.

Based on the global mineral rents to global GDP ratio (0.45%) I would estimate that if you had large metal and mineral ingot warehouse that would satisfy all demand for next 100 years, you might be able to get $50-$60 trillion for it at tops. Probably less.

( _Mineral rents_ are the difference between the value of production for a stock of minerals at world prices and their total costs of production.)

<comment><USER3> Ok, but here's the thing: its not really an amount measurable in money. Let's use 'civilizations' instead. It's many times the metals that entire civilizations are built upon. Whatever 'valuation' we give it in a title, its undeniably a game-changer.

Whether its actually accessible or even profitable to mine, is another subject entirely. Remember, the Earth's core is quadrillions of times more iron than that tiny asteroid, and nobody is getting excited about that. Even though its a billion miles closer.

<comment><USER2> I gave an estimate for ready to sell ingots that are in warehouse. That sets the upper limit for the value.

<comment><USER3> In the existing economy, which would be blown away and completely remade in a new reality that includes teratons of cheap metal.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


UX: Google Chrome's and Apple Safari's Prompt on a Touch Bar - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jacobgorban/status/890610628842459136 <comment><USER2> I prefer the conciseness of Google's prompt.</comment>


Support Vector Machine algorithm threatened by patent enforcement - <AUTHOR> http://svmpatent.blogspot.com/2011/07/patenting-algorithms.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, I'm torn between laughter and sadness. Laughter because svm's are used everywhere, seriously google scholar returns 1.5 million papers mentioning support vector machines. Good luck suing everyone of those. And sadness, although unlikely, this could have a huge chilling effect on Machine Learning, Computer Vision, NLP, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyway, I think Vapnik owns a patent for SVM. <http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5950146/fulltext.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought mathematics couldn't be patented?

<comment><USER3> I guess the algorithm can be. According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale- invariant_feature_transfo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale- invariant_feature_transform), SIFT is already patented.</comment></comment>