Lispyville: a lisp-editing environment suited towards evil users - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/noctuid/lispyville <comment><USER2> I am genuinely surprised to see this on the front page. The author has done amazing work with Emacs packages, such as general.el [ [https://github.com/noctuid/general.el](https://github.com/noctuid/general.el) ], his Evil guide [ [https://github.com/noctuid/evil- guide](https://github.com/noctuid/evil-guide)], and many others.

I used vim for many years and like everyone else in a similar position, none of the touted "vim emulators" came close at all. They would always only cover a very superficial micro-subset of vim functionality, such as some thin approximation of modes and motions.

Inevitably you would come up against a brick wall by doing something which you would otherwise express in vim without giving it a second thought, due to one's fluency, and it would all come crashing down. Once you reach that point, it's very difficult to just "make do" because it becomes blatantly obvious that what you're using is not vim. In such cases I personally would just revert to the stock editor, because I'd rather use the well made stock editor than a half-hearted attempt at vim emulation that would keep me guessing as to whether or not certain functionality I've come to expect was implemented or not.

I used vim for a long time because I truly felt (and still do) that it was the best "editing language" or "interface," as in, the means by which one communicates their intentions to the editor. However, I always felt like it came short in everything else. Options, their names, and their documentation were terse and cryptic. Vimscript felt inconsistent and left something to be desired for me. Overall I _loved_ vim but I felt most people did so _despite_ many failings. When I would see beautifully crafted Emacs packages such as Magit [ [https://magit.vc/](https://magit.vc/) ] and how meticulously they were documented [ [https://magit.vc/manual/magit/#Top](https://magit.vc/manual/magit/#Top) ], I started to become interested in Emacs. The fact that Emacs has a culture of and encourages everything being self-documented is what pushed me over the edge. Every variable, function, keybind, syntax highlighting face, and _much more_ (truly pretty much everything) is and can be documented. Emacs Lisp may not satiate hardcore lispers, but I've found it to be amazingly powerful. I can interactively expand macros to see what's going on at each step with macrostep. There's a built-in interactive debugger. One can "advise" existing functions to add functionality to them (before, after, around, etc.). I've found that the vast majority of package authors are very receptive and accommodating, and in the absolute worst case where they're intransigent or I recognize that it's an edge case that only applies to me, I can confidently, consistently, and safely modify things myself without having to fork the package. I could go on and on.

Admittedly however, Emacs out of the box left a _lot_ to be desired for me in terms of cosmetics and keybinds. It's important to remember that many of the keybinds for example were devised back in a time before the now-more- conventional keybinds became, well, conventional. I knew not to be deterred by that though. IMO, the way to think of Emacs is as a language or REPL with which each person creates their _own editor_, _if_ they want to. I fully expect that if I were to sit at someone else's Emacs setup, they would have vastly different binds and modifications, and _yet_ I would feel confident knowing that I could count upon some core primitives such as describe-key and so on, again due to Emacs' self-documenting nature.

To call Evil a vim emulator or even a port is to sell it short. It continues to blow my mind how amazing Evil is at _being_ vim. I realize it's blasphemous, but I truly believe that it is a _better vim than vim is_. The ease with which anyone can (and does) define new operators, motions, and text objects is breathtaking coming from vim. Likewise, I worried about losing access to many of the vim packages I used. I quickly found that the self- purported "ports" of the packages (such as evil-surround) were actually _much better_ than their vim equivalents! They could be extended and configured in many more ways than their vim equivalents, and they would _compose_ with many other Emacs constructs out of the box. I continue to be amazed.

Despite how great I believe Emacs is, I wouldn't be using it if it weren't for how amazing Evil is. I have come to depend on both, the vim "editing language" and the Emacs environment, but if it came down to it, I would have to choose vim for its editing language.

But it's 2017 and nowadays we can have both. The war is over.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've used vim, and before that other vim clones, for well over 20 years. I felt the same about emacs' pre-evil vi emulators (like viper). I tried a couple of them, but kept going back to vim until evil came along. With evil, emacs editing is about as close to vim as possible, though it still has its not a perfect vim emulator (it lacks emulation of all of vim's ex commands, for instance, vim's help system, and vim's regexes).

Vim is also just plain better at certain things -- for instance, xptemplate (a plugin for vim) is about a trillion times better than yasnippet (which is embarrassingly primitive by comparison). In my experience, vim is much faster at working with large files. Also, some things that drew me to emacs (such as shell/terminal integration) turned out to be disappointingly ineffective and too convoluted for practical use (for my setup).

That said, I still wound up switching from vim to emacs, and don't regret the decision, because emacs has an elisp ecosystem that's way better than anything I can get in vim, and because all in all emacs can do more things than vim, as it can integrate just about anything (at least in principle). It did take a _lot_ of time and effort to make the switch, though, despite evil. The problem is that for many/most modes, the default keybindings are emacs keybindings, not vim keybindings. So I've had to rebind a ton of keys to make emacs useful (and still have way more keys to rebind if I wanted full functionality). I've heard that Spacemacs makes one need less such rebinding, as it has sane defaults for vim users, but I'm just not ready to make the jump to a wholesale new way of doing things now that I've invested so much time in configuring emacs the way I want (though if I had to start from scratch, I'd give Spacemacs a go).

In the end, I enjoy being fluent with two of the most powerful editors on the planet (though I admit I'd be lost in emacs without evil and all my keybindings). If there's something one editor can't do, or can't do well, I can just use the other. I see a really bright future for both editors, with things like neovim in the vim world and Scheme integration for emacs. Both editors are moving targets and developments in one constantly inspire developments in the other.

<comment><USER3> The skeleton dsl[0] in emacs is quite nice for snippets, but I've never really used snippets all that much.

[0]: here's my config for generating some useful common-lisp forms: [https://github.com/fiddlerwoaroof/dotfiles/blob/master/emacs...](https://github.com/fiddlerwoaroof/dotfiles/blob/master/emacs.d/lisp/lisp- skeletons.el) and here's where I use it with helm: [https://github.com/fiddlerwoaroof/dotfiles/blob/71500d002106...](https://github.com/fiddlerwoaroof/dotfiles/blob/71500d0021064f9328b3fbf29555fc31750041cc/emacs.d/init.el#L61)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know where these trials might take place, and if non-veterans would be eligible?

<comment><USER5> Emacs cannot dispense MDMA, yet.

<comment><USER4> God damn it. Time to switch to vim. /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everyone knows lispers are chaotic good. Evil users tend towards ML and similar.

<comment><USER7> Just in case someone wanders along and is confused, Evil is a vim motion mode for emacs.

<comment><USER8> Which seems a little bit like training wheels for a starship. But it has its fans.

<comment><USER9> No wonder it's so hard to talk about race, politics, etc. A conversation about editors is so quickly reduced to "my editor is superior to yours"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Power of Company Mottoes - <AUTHOR> https://mondaynote.com/the-power-of-company-mottoes-d57754146554 <comment><USER2> Some good ones:

Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, which builds most large US warships: ""We shall build good ships here, at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always good ships."

Microsoft mission statement through the 1990s: "A computer on every desk, running Microsoft software". (Slogan retired because mission accomplished.)

National Security Agency: "Anything is possible, the impossible just takes longer".

US Coast Guard: "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back."

<comment><USER3> They all sound good except for the last one. What do they mean by you dont have to come back...

<comment><USER4> [https://www.uscg.mil/history/faqs/LSSmotto.asp](https://www.uscg.mil/history/faqs/LSSmotto.asp)

Basically, you can't know for sure that the sea is too rough to do the rescue until you are already out at sea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So there I was. In the Army now. As a young adult I loved watching Stripes...the real US Army is nothing like that. In Stripes Bill Murray just got orders. In real life, you get orders and a commander's intent. When it came my turn to give orders, I learned that intent and vision were what people followed (assuming your troops have reason at all to follow the leader). Orders/plans are great, but people do best when they have something to rally around and fall back to for direction when everything else goes belly up (was going to use Aussie version, but not appropriate). Mottoes from a company mean almost nothing if they're not backed up by people who can grasp and believe in them. It's all about the leadership and the people who follow the leader, not the motto. Note: there are all kinds of leaders...don't always picture General Patton or Steve Jobs.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think most mottoes and mission statements are there because someone thinks, or was told, they _need_ one rather than because they actually have a mission.

So "Who Dares Wins", "Per ardua ad astra" and "Think Different" work because you can easily believe the group actually believes in it. It matters not whether you share the vision.

Things rapidly degenerate to sounding like they came from the Dilbert Mission Statement generator for most companies.

</comment><comment><USER7> I like the motto for a US waste collection company that operates in the Vail, CO area: "Satisfaction guaranteed or your trash back".

<comment><USER8> Works well until someone accidentally throws out a wedding ring and subsequently wants _their_ trash back....

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> At work we have a fairly long imperative, which is very nice but difficult to keep in mind at all times.

We also have a four-word internal "motto" of sorts which entirely encapsulates what we're aiming to do and is easily remembered at 3am when you need to make a critical choice. It's honest, and I think that's why it gets quoted so much.

</comment><comment><USER10> On the other hand, after the expensive consultants and off sites result in a motto, what happens next? It's told each new employee during indoctrination/onboarding and then forgotten. Quick, what's your employer's motto? How about your last employer?

Effective mottoes and vision statements may be the result superior management, but they don't make management superior.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is This Good for the _COMPANY_?

</comment><comment><USER12> Linking to a subpage of Google's "about" site enabled the jab about the "real mission" being advertising, but the true mission statement is clearly laid out at [1], and certainly passes the 3AM-in-the-rain test: Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

[1] [https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/about/company/](https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/about/company/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Speaking of company mottoes this reminds me on this[1] talk I was at.

It was quit a interesting insight into a small open source company.

[1]([https://media.ccc.de/v/emf2016-198-my-ubertooth- year#video&t...](https://media.ccc.de/v/emf2016-198-my-ubertooth- year#video&t=375)) at minute 36 ish.</comment>


How the NSA Caught Satoshi - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@amuse/how-the-nsa-caught-satoshi-nakamoto <comment><USER2> And it was pulled... what kind of click bait was this?!</comment>


Ask YC: Why build a solid product? - <AUTHOR>

So a friend of mine wants me to try doing a venture with him, selling merchandise in China. I'd be on the developer end programming what's basically a purchasing site like Buy.com but for China. As a RoR developer, I wanted to build the project out with "best practices" (TDD, agile, whatever)
There's another developer on the team however: he thinks it's a good idea to use PHP and to build a "crappy product, get some revenue, pitch to VCs and build a solid product later"
Of course I disagreed! But my reasons weren't the clearest -- it was mostly instinctual.
What are reasons for and against building a crappy product first and improving it later? To me, i guess my best argument was wasted time and money early on. Is there any more to it than that? <comment><USER2> I've faced this a couple times. Basically, they want something they can show off and dont really know or care about the quality of the work. The problem is that all of the corners cut early on begin to accumulate, and major design issues quickly become daily maintenance headaches once something is in production and up to the point of "pitching". What is more likely to happen is you will have a bunch of basic stuff that is relatively easy to implement and any advanced/killer features will become very hard to implement, and most of the effort will just go in to keeping it going, rather than improving it.

Chances are, taking the quick-and-dirty approach won't get to the deadline either, it will just show pieces of early functionality earlier, but wont have a foundation to get to the solid product.

The early development you do is laying a foundation, while you are in that phase, you can still scrap pieces of it wholesale and rewrite it, but once you start building on that foundation, you will not be able to make a skyscraper if you are building it on a tar pit lined with tin foil.

And "best practices" (TDD,agile,whatever) are no guarantee that you will get it right, either.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a PHP dev, so I'm a little biased. But still.

Use whatever will get you to a minimum viable product fastest. How you build the application should have little impact on your business. If you can build the PHP app 5 times faster, and you need to execute quickly (say, short runway upcoming?), using RoR (and the 5x longer dev cycle) would be a poor decision.

Don't get obsessed about your code. Get obsessed about your product. And the best way to do that is to build a throwaway, quickly, so you can talk to customers with it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the developer is right. Why don't you use something off-the-shelf?

</comment><comment><USER5> One reason would simply be you won't be at 100% if your heart isn't in it..

Also, there's a huge difference between building something bare bones to release with and setting out to build something 'crappy'.. The latter sounding like a recipe for disaster.

In any event, that's a pretty big disagreement to be having this early on...

</comment><comment><USER6> Vote me down, but RoR and solid Product don't go hand in hand for me.

</comment><comment><USER7> Simple, with the same amount of time you take to build a _crappy_ product with PHP, you can build a solid product with Ruby on Rails _Period_

</comment><comment><USER8> To me, it sounds like the developer doesn't want to learn RoR, so he found a convenient excuse.</comment>


Ask YC: Review my app (pycmds, a web-based command line) - <AUTHOR> http://www.pycmds.org

<comment><USER2> The auto-suggest gets annoying because it's always displayed. You should only display it when you have a partial match.

This query crashes the site: <http://www.pycmds.org/#youtube> search for miley

<comment><AUTHOR> I should mention somewhere that the inputs should be surrounded by square brackets. Try this: <http://www.pycmds.org/#youtube> search for [miley]

The auto-suggest is supposed to only display partial matches like you said. What browser/operating system are you using?

<comment><USER3> Or you should make it so inputs don't need to be surrounded by square brackets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bug report, when doing a search for 'albums by [muse]' (btw oops is not spelled opps ;-)):

Opps! You found a bug. Here's the skinny:

        Traceback (most recent call last):
          File "/base/data/home/apps/pycmds/1.34/main.py", line 36, in get
            out = self.dispatch(cmd)
          File "/base/data/home/apps/pycmds/1.34/main.py", line 59, in dispatch
            data = func(**kwargs)
          File "/base/data/home/apps/pycmds/1.34/pycommands/entertainment.py", line 67, in albums_by
            "type": "/music/artist"
          File "/base/data/home/apps/pycmds/1.34/pycommands/freebase.py", line 26, in mql_read
            return result['qname']['result']

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's DOM-injectable:

<http://www.pycmds.org/#albums%20by%20>['foo']%22%20onclick=%22alert(1)%22

It gives me Python stack traces on most funky commands.

<comment><AUTHOR> The stack traces are intentional. Since it's an open source project, I figured I would make debugging as easy as possible.

As for the DOM injection, I will look into that after I have fixed the major bugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did the same thing as you - <http://geeky.siong1987.com> . Anyway, I really love the way you layout your web application and it has better UI than mine. Work hard on it. My application does support API developed by developers. But, I implemented this feature in a very poor architectured way.

So, I really think that you should add the features that other developers can developer commands for you

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi siong, Your site looks nice :)

I'm going to be working on a developer sandbox once I fix most of the major bugs. This should let people write python code in their browser and have it run on the server. The API is very simple: around 5 minute learning curve once I have the documentation in good shape.

If you're interested in collaborating, check out the project page: <http://code.google.com/p/pycmds/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To be honest it's too slow to be of any use. It just feels clunky. I would use it if it were fast, but having to wait for the javascript to catchup is pointless. The autocomplete doesn't help when it pops up after I have paused for a second. If I type "you" very fast and hit tab, it won't always autosuggest in time. To make things worse, you are going to be directly competing against Ubiquity.

Another big annoyance is how dumbed down it makes a terminal. If I want to do a youtube search i feel like I should be able to simply write "youtube blue man group". I don't want to have to add in "search for" or add in square brackets around my query.

The main problem is that I can see that it's there. I use a terminal to avoid having to interact with an interface. I agree with Google's Chrome philosophy, that they don't want you to notice the browser at all. Spend your time figuring out how to make it faster and easier and then you've got something you can show off. I would be worried about Ubiquity though as a browser plugin can work so much faster than javascript.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's cool, but I don't see how it's useful at all. Some of the commands are even more verbose than going to google and typing in a search.

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently the commands that are available are there just for demonstration purposes. I think it will become more useful when users add their own commands, which will be pretty simple to do once I complete the sandbox.

As for the verbosity, it's there because once you read the command, you should be able to tell: 1\. what it does, and 2\. what type of input is required

Typing shouldn't be a problem with auto-complete. It should actually be faster than a normal command line!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You need to tell people to enable javascript.

Also please make the obvious commands like "help" or "info" do something useful.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think "bash for the web" is a cool idea. I think it might make more sense to see this as a firefox plugin, though.

One reason we see these things as hosted apps is because authors are excited about users doing a lot of the work for them and submitting commands. (I know, I've worked on something like this).

Mostly, I think the core language and interface are more important than the libraries, and these will run better client side (unless you connection sucks). The core has to be robust because only real nerds will use it anyway, and they won't use it if it won't save them much time.

So, make the core more important, run it locally, make the user submitted libraries easily downloadable/syncable, and always assume the core language is more imporant that library usage (so optimize keystokes for core operations).

my 2 cents.

<comment><USER7> Look up Ubiquity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I bet it's great, only it's almost utterly unusable in WebKit/Safari.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been testing it in the latest version of Safari on Windows XP, and there doesn't seem to be any major bugs. Could you tell me what isn't working?

<comment><USER11> When I type a key in the input thing, it's as if I hit PgUp.

I get completion, select an item and hit enter. Not only does it PgUp for every key, it also keeps the autocomplete visible after I hit Enter.

And otherwise slow. Try WebKit nightly on OS X.

<comment><AUTHOR> The scrolling bug should be fixed now, and I think the auto-complete bug should also be fixed.

I turned off box shadows in safari, so that might speed things up a bit. There's still a lot of room left for javascript optimizations after I get it working decently in most browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It would be helpful if you had, at minimum, at least a fraction of the 12k+ commands already available at YubNub.

<http://yubnub.org/>

<comment><USER13> _"... It would be helpful if ..._ "

Of course yubnub couldn't be improved or made easier? Having said that it does claim to be a CLI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> 1)Why require brackets? They seem superfluous. Unless theres something in the design of your code that requires them, I see them doing no good. 2)Shorthand versions of commands. "wiki stargate" instead of "wikipedia stargate" 3) The UI is nice. It took me a second to realize it wasn't a plug-in/extension like Ubiquity, but I had to type in commands at the bottom.

What are you reasons for making this app? I like it, but I can't see myself using it every day.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for asking :)

Adding the brackets greatly simplifies things for the implementation of the command dispatcher/suggester. In addition, in some situations it can be difficult tell what part of the command is an input and what isn't.

For example, let's say a user intends to use the command: translate [text] to [language]

They type:

translate hey buddy! i found this neat guide to japanese

There are two ways to interpret this, both of which are valid:

1\. The user typed a full command.

Bracketed version:

translate [hey buddy! i found this neat guide] to [japanese]

2\. The user isn't finished writing the text to be translated, and should get a list of suggestions.

Bracketed version:

translate [hey buddy! i found this neat guide to japanese]

I made this app because traditional command lines are often tricky to use. I don't enjoy looking up documentation for each and every command argument.

With this method, you get suggestions at every step of the way (try typing "films starring [").

<comment><USER15> Read the curses library implementation. You might find it useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi :] What part of it would be useful?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At first I didn't notice there's a command prompt at the bottom. At least you could point visitors to it.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use shortcuts on Firefox to do exactly the same thing, but without the need to open a web-page.

</comment><comment><USER15> Good work. We had a similar idea and we see potential in this. Dont stop!

</comment><comment><USER18> Why is your AuthDomain "gmail.com"?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an appengine app</comment></comment>


Show HN: inBoundio – Basecamp of Marketing (Single Founder and Bootstrapped) - <AUTHOR> http://www.inboundio.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not sure how much visibility this post will get still, I built inBoundio because I wasn't able to find a simple marketing software and the once available in the market were costing $2500/year so I thought to build one which is like Basecamp for Marketing costing $29-$49 and has less and simple features.</comment>


Insanely deep fractal zoom - <AUTHOR> http://kottke.org/10/02/insanely-deep-fractal-zoom <comment><USER2> Sounds like somebody needs to get themselves a copy of XaoS and have a play around:

        http://wmi.math.u-szeged.hu/xaos/doku.php

That said, most of my knowledge of fractals comes from poring over the (insanely complete) documentation of Fractint when I was a wee lad. I've forgotten most of it by now, but there sure was a lot to wrap my young head around.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very neatly done. What impresses me most is the way that the creator has managed to go so far in while scarcely ever finding any _interesting_ bits (and, when he did, zooming straight past them as quickly as possible).

The comments on Vimeo indicate that the creator is aware of this and is (or rather was, a year ago when it was posted) working on something more interesting. Here's a more recent one by the same person, which I preferred: <http://vimeo.com/1973524> and another, which traverses more interesting bits of the set than either but isn't of such high video quality: <http://vimeo.com/9522366>

<comment><USER4> Seems like staying too close to the real line was a lot of the problem-- spirals and asymmetric structures show up roughly in proportion to how imaginary the region in question is.

That and a lot of time zooming toward what I _think_ are Misiurewicz points-- if memory serves me, places on the boundary of the set where multiple "branches" meet, and tend to have very strong self-similarity along the branches and detail shrinking infinitely as the branch point is approached.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty awesome. The description is great, but there's one false note: _"If you were 'actually' traveling into the fractal your speed would be faster than the speed of light."_ 2 objections:

a) What is the speed of light in the mandelbrot set? What zoom level do you designate to be 1m?

b) The 'speed' the camera is traveling at is hugely variable. It's basically slowing down by an order of magnitude every constant window of time. So if the final image is 1m wide, you're travelling 10^n's of universes every second at the start. The above sentence doesn't come close to doing this idea justice.

 _Update_ : the sentence is from the original at <http://vimeo.com/1908224>

\---

I went over the video a second time to see how often the camera 'steers'. The entire second half drops pretty much straight down a radially symmetrical 'well'. There's 2 obvious changes in bearing between 2 and 5 minutes. In the first 2 minutes it's harder to keep count because much of the time there's no radial symmetry. I suspect the bearing is changing almost constantly.

Summary: the video was made by choosing a point about 2 minutes worth of zoom in, and then pretty much dropping straight down, except for a couple of tacks. Whoever did this was probably trying to maximize the diversity of views; at any point in the video a different tack may have ended up back at something like the starting point much sooner. It's mind-blowing to contemplate.

<comment><USER6> Travelling at The speed of light - approximated as 300,000 kilometres per second or 186,000 miles per second, It would take 8 minutes to reach the sun. After 8 minutes of the animation - the size of the original set would be bigger than that distance by a size you just can't comprehend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always wanted to create a similar fractal zoom into the real number space to illustrate the position of pi. Some sort of Flash or JavaScript thing that would keep generating more digits on the fly and could run forever. I never seem to get get that kind of free time anymore, though...

</comment><comment><USER8> It's strange that his computer would choke on high zoom levels; computing the mandelbrot set is proportional to the number of pixels on the screen -- the zoom level is not relevant. (You just run a set of computations for the coordinates of each pixel you want to know about.) I guess if you get past the point where a double can represent the coordinates, you'll hit a slowdown, but I doubt that is at "5x zoom".

<comment><USER9> The necessary accuracy keeps taking more and more bits, if you think about it. If you've only got, say, 200 bits of float to play with, then when your down at a resolution where things on the screen are closer together than that resolution can handle, you have to crank the bits up, or you'd just render the same color over and over. (Actually you have to crank it up before then, of course, I'm just reducing it to obvious absurdity for demonstration purposes.)

So, it's like the way adding integers is O(1), right? Sure... as long as your integers are always 32 or 64-bit and you don't mind a bit of light truncation. In general it's higher than that.

<comment><USER3> That's absolutely right, but it's not the only reason. The interesting bits of a Mandelbrot set plot are the ones that are on the boundary of the set itself. Remember that the Mandelbrot set is the set of points for which a particular iteration never diverges to infinity. So a point outside the set but very very close will diverge very very slowly: it will take a lot of iterations before you can tell it's outside the set. (The colours you see in a typical Mandelbrot set plot indicate how many iterations it takes.) So, if you zoom really close in then every point in your plot either lies outside the set but takes many iterations to determine that, or lies inside the set (and therefore takes as many iterations as you're prepared to do).

So you're doing more iterations, with higher-precision numbers, as you zoom closer in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That was pretty amazing. The end is a real "ah ha" moment.

</comment><comment><USER11> This site ("Dimensions") also has some great math-related visualizations (particularly the ones showing 4-dimensional objects):

<http://www.dimensions-math.org/>

Fractals are in episode 6 from ~8 minutes onward:

<http://www.dimensions-math.org/Dim_reg_AM.htm>

</comment><comment><USER12> I see a lot of "eight-ness" in there. Some other powers of two as well. I didn't notice any "prime-ness" though.

<comment><USER13> whuh?

<comment><USER12> :) Sorry about the vague "eight-ness" there -- I just mean I see lots of patterns with eight prominent features, or "spokes." I saw quite a few with sixteen spokes, and probably higher powers of two as well, though I wasn't in the mood to count the large numbers.

And regarding "prime-ness", I mean I didn't notice any patterns with 7, 11, or 13 features -- that sort of thing.

I suppose the prominence of powers of two has something to do with "period doubling" in chaos theory, I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Neat, though best seen at a couple times faster than it currently plays at. It drills down and down and down into long-repeating stretches, so it's somewhat monotonous at times, but the overall payoff of seeing it change is fascinating. And you can certainly trance-out in the last chunk.

<comment><USER6> someone has created a faster version at <http://vimeo.com/9403208> although this may have gone to far the other way at only 35 seconds long! there is also a four minute version with colour cycling found here

[http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1663241/a_very_cool_deep_fract...](http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1663241/a_very_cool_deep_fractal_zoom_to_e214/)

<comment><USER13> Yeah, 35 seconds is a _bit_ fast, though interesting in its own way. It really shows the repetition which was hidden in the original by sheer length.

And that color-cycling one is... I dunno, hallucination / head-trip inducing o_O I can't tell if I want to keep watching or not. It's kinda too much, but it's pretty...

* stare _

<comment><USER6> yeah the colour cycling one starts to look like ripples in water, kinda freaky!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hmm I would like to know on which number is he actually zooming on :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Loved it, thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER16> Incredible! Coloring is very 1970s. I'd like to get a T-shirt with some of the later patterns.

The ending is not to be missed.</comment>


What is the best video conferencing software? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/data-scope/10-best-video-conferencing-software-for-2020-bfe66126d20f <comment><USER2> Surprised they didn't mention Apache OpenMeetings. Or any other self-hosted alternatives. [https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome- selfhosted](https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted)

I know this isn't _video_ conferencing, but I will always have a special place in my heart for Ventrillo. It's been around forever, takes practically no resources to run a server or a client, and it's just really simple to setup and live with. The original program is closed-source, but there are open source clients and servers (like Mumble) available for every platform.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing, is good to have an open source alternative!</comment></comment>


7 Search Engines vs. Google = Fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.compuplus.com/blog/2008/05/27/7-search-engines-google/ <comment><USER2> yes the link fails...am i missing the point?</comment>


Stallman's final interview as FSF president - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/17/richard_stallman_interview/ <comment><USER2> This is a pretty interesting comment in hindsight:

" But I believe in judging each thing that a company does separately. So if a company is doing this thing, which is wrong and unjust, and this thing, which is helpful, I'd rather not add them up. If these two activities are separable in practice, in other words, if it's possible to look at each one, individually, and distinguish it from the other, if they're not tied up with each other, so much that that's a nonsensical thing to do, then I do that. Because that way, I can disapprove of whatever is bad and approve of whatever is good. That's more useful, just adding it up to get one total for a given company."

Treating people that way, and expecting to be treated that way, is part of the reason he's had to step down.

</comment><comment><USER3> > I never believed that Microsoft was the great Satan.

I suspect that the great Satan for RMS was mostly Apple. I don't think he and his organizations have ever advocated a boycott of Microsoft, while they have called for boycotts of both macOS and iOS at times — and notably at a time when MS owned something like 90% of the OS market, they advocated for a boycott of more or less their last PC OS competitor.

I never quite understood that focus. Maybe it was because Stallman thought that Apple, with its hippie roots, was the bigger disappointment for not aligning themselves with his values.

<comment><USER4> Or maybe it's because Apples values are significantly more hostile to FSF than Microsofts? Apples flagship devices are completely forbidden from running anything not approved by the corporation and their AppStore is completely incompatible with GPL software. It fundamentally goes against everything FSF stands for: being able to run any kind of software and modify it on your own machine. In a world of Apple, FSF is forbidden from existing by policy and hardware lockouts. Microsoft never came close to this kind of lockdown.

And Apple was always like that - even for Apple Lisa they developed a scheme where a floppy would be permanently bound to a single machine on first use practically forbidding resale. There are really not many large software companies that would be more hostile to FSF core values than Apple.

<comment><USER3> iOS development is not really compatible with the GPL; both the FSF and Apple agree on that.

But there was nothing in macOS that was incompatible with the GPL, and yet the FSF for a decade prohibited its maintainers from accepting macOS specific patches (So much for "freedom").

To Stallman, Apple's "Look & Feel" lawsuit was an unforgivable transgression, but Microsoft's various tactics to muscle out competitors were never a cause for concern.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meanwhile, blue checks with substantial mob following on Twitter are calling him a "literal pedophile rapist".

<comment><USER6> The medium article that was parroted by other sites was a hit piece that lied. And of course the people reading it believed every word without a shred of doubt, and other outlets republishing it failed journalistic integrity spectacularly.

Congratulations, to all those who fell for it.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/_/f0l50w4/?co...](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/_/f0l50w4/?context=2)

<comment><USER7> Wait, so the only thing that happened with Minsky was that she was told to proposition him (by Epstein), and that he turned her down? I'd like to here confirmation of that from the victim, but if that's the case then this whole ordeal is just an epic disaster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> rms writes and talks a lot. This gives many opportunities for his opponents to find ways to attack him. The main point of rms is freedom. Freedom is a right than can sometimes benefit to evil people. Defending freedom does not mean we defend evil people. I don't see anything reprehensible in the comments of rms, just opportunities for his opponents to use this fallacy.

</comment><comment><USER9> That's a hell of a travel rider.

<comment><USER10> He was our guest for a conference and stayed for a couple days. He ia an interesting person indeed. Preferred to stay at someone's house instead of a hotel. If that person has a parrot that would be a plus. And some other crazy stuff. He has a 3 page document that explains what he likea and what not (i am not saying it is weird or he is asking for too much, for a frequent traveller such as him i think it is perfectly ok)

Funny story. He "stole"/borroe my phone. He didnt have a phone so we lended him one. My phone was a dumb phone and we guessed that would be better. After the conference, he took my phone to another conference that was in our country. I got it back though

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "I was involuntarily self-promoted into management."

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm actually baffled that someone so tone deaf about so many things was able to create such a success.

<comment><USER13> I'm not a friend of RMS, although we have argued over email.

RMS has a unique super power I propose you admire: he is deeply committed to his convictions, and willing to construct his life around them.

He has autism so he finds himself in situations that you are politely calling tone deaf a lot; he has said in public that he can find the responses hurtful. But he still keeps on with his values, at times at great personal cost.

I think of him as a sort of national treasure; if we had 10 of him in the last twenty years the world would be a much better place.

<comment><USER14> I agree somewhat; having had dinner with him once with our local Linux organization when he was in our part of the world over 20 years ago, I think I learned a lot in that short time.

What I came away with was that _SOMEONE_ needs to hold the points of view that he holds, at least as far as they pertain to software development and licensing, since almost nobody else does.

Whether he presents as well as he could is a different matter. The recently reported on comments he has made could and will be perceived as quite distasteful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Stallman's post to the MIT mailing list argued, in a spectacularly INSENSITIVE fashion, that Minsky may not have been aware Giuffre had been coerced to have sex.

How is this particular statement by Stallman insensitive?

<comment><USER16> Because it's besides the point. It's a distraction from the actual topic at hand.

It's also naive. I mean... powerful billionaire brings you to his private island and presents to you a beautiful young woman who wants to have sex with you, a 70-something man. That sounds like the "plot" of a really bad porno. You'd have to be obnoxiously naive to believe the woman wasn't being coerced in some way.

<comment><USER17> Assuming the allegations that they had sex are true, I think the most likely scenario, and the one that Minsky believed, was that she was a completely willing paid escort. It's only in hindsight that you think it must have been obvious she was coerced in some way. Why would he assume a billionaire had not simply used some of his money to pay for escorts? Isn't that more logical, without knowing what you know today about Epstein?

<comment><USER16> Ah, yes, the "only in hindsight" defense. I don't buy it.

A paid escort is plausible, though, and I hadn't thought of that. However, the girl was 17. Obviously age isn't always obvious down to the year, but I would _hope_ someone in that situation would think twice before assuming everything was kosher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> John Lennon was a misogynist but wrote world changing music.

Churchill was a racist that (arguably) saved his nation from invasion.

Stallman is a Marxist ("from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs") when it comes to how the power of computing is used and distributed and arguably the GPL and Linus's choice to use it for Linux have had world changing effects.

But Stallman is a man that also has no clue about how to deal with people in general or in tolerating other views.

His defence of Minsky's behavior is unacceptable as the head of the FSF and damaging to CSAIL/MIT (as is the relationship of MIT to Epstein in general).

It is unfortunate for him that his defence of Minsky has had this effect on his career. However, the impact of the result of that defence on the institutions he represented is much more important to resolve.

Geniuses in one field are not knowledgable in others.

<comment><USER19> I've made this point elsewhere, but it is Minsky's _alleged_ behavior and Stallman did Minsky a large amount of harm by defending him as though it had definitely happened.

See also:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20992876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20992876)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> About time if you ask me. RMS is brilliant but also completely unpalatable to people outside the world of GNU.

Time for someone who is a bit more accessible and savvy to take the FSF cause onwards.

The question though would be, will the FSF mission change or it's cause be diluted without RMS at the helm?

<comment><USER7> > RMS is brilliant but also completely unpalatable to people outside the world > of GNU.

He just sacrificed his job and legacy to defend the honor of a friend.

What kind of person do you want leading the FSF, a mealy-mouthed politician?

<comment><USER21> > He just sacrificed his job and legacy to defend the honor of a friend.

He resigned after claiming that a victim of child sex trafficking, was "a member of (the trafficker's) Harem" and "entirely willing".

Defending his dead friends honour might be to raise the question of whether it was in fact his friend who was involved. He essentially gave the "but she wanted it" defence, for a dead man, who is accused of raping a child whom he had "borrowed" from another dead man, who is also accused of raping children.

> What kind of person do you want leading the FSF, a mealy-mouthed politician?

Most people would probably just be happy with someone who doesn't say the following about prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia (and I quote):

> All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are > illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.

<comment><USER22> What's adultery doing on that list? Why shouldn't it be legal? Prostitution is legal in many places. Legalising it everywhere would help get rape cases reduced. Unless you're a vegan it's hard not to laugh at criticism of justification of bestiality.

And regarding sex trafficking/rape - sex with a 17 year old is almost never seen as rape legally. That's a mostly US thing. The age of consent is 16 generally; lower than 16 in parts of Europe. Everyone's entitled to an opinion but criticising someone for defending actions which are legal and - subject to opinion - moral seems like a bit of a boring waste of time.

<comment><USER21> I simply copied the whole quote so someone who wants to defend him won't cry about partial quotes.

But sure, carry on as usual because there's always someone to defend RMS no matter how fucked his statements are.

<comment><USER23> You copied two words out of a complex sentence and now you simply lie. Or maybe you don't really know what he said and that's the reason you can't understand why people may be defending him in this case?

<comment><USER21> You need to read what you reply to. I quoted an entire statement made by RMS on his own website, claiming that amongst other things, child porn and fucking kids, should be legalised.

Another poster asked why "adultery" was in the list of things in the quote, and I explained that I quoted the entire thing he said.

So fuck you, read something before you want to claim people are lying.

<comment><USER23> As opposed to you apparently, I've done my share of reading already: [https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul- oct.html#14_September...](https://stallman.org/archives/2019-jul- oct.html#14_September_2019_\(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong\))

...and you just straight out lied there:

> He resigned after claiming that a victim of child sex trafficking, was "a > member of (the trafficker's) Harem" and "entirely willing".

<comment><USER21> > As opposed to you apparently, I've done my share of reading already

So, he says something a decade and a half ago, and then coincidentally 3 days after an email discussion where he defends a man alleged to have had sex with a victim of child sex trafficking, he suddenly "thinks adults should not do that".

WELL WHAT A REVELATION.

He called her a member of Epstein's Harem and said the "most likely" explanation is "she presented herself as entirely wiltingly"(sic)

A harem is a collection of wives or concubines. How exactly is a child sex slave either of those things?

RMS' theory is that a 70 year old man goes to a billionaire's private island and a 17 year old girl just happens to "present as willing" for sex and the guy asks no questions?

As other's have said, even if he didn't know she's 17, and somehow it never occurred to him to ask, it's the plot for a bad porno, it's not a plausible chain of events in reality, and it's definitely not the _most likely_ scenario.

<comment><USER7> Just so we're clear:

> "She was asking for it"

is very different from

> "I don't think my friend - who I knew well - was aware that she was coerced"

You, at least initially, argued that the former was the correct interpretation of his words, but to do so you did misquote him in a way that obviously altered the meaning of his words. Was that intentional or a mistake?

I don't have the context for the "harem" quote, but given how you presented the quote with regard to the victim's willingness, I think it's reasonable to conclude that RMS meant something other than what you insinuate.

In any case, it seems now that you recognize that the latter interpretation is correct, and you question whether RMS' position was reasonable. Fair enough. But tell me, would you know the difference between an 18yo prostitute (who is otherwise free to leave) and a 17yo slave?

Look, I think what Minsky did was wrong regardless, that he was foolish to let himself become entangled with a man like Epstein, and I think it's atrocious what happened to the young woman, but these two scenarios have vastly different legal consequences. Do you not think it is plausible that Minsky thought it was the first scenario?

For what it's worth, my initial thought when I heard that Minksy had been implicated in Epstein's ring, was that he was fully aware and complicit in the abuse. And Minksy may have in fact been fully aware, but RMS' words lead me to question that assumption because RMS _actually knew the guy_.

EDIT: _hold the phone_. Looking at some other sources suggests that Minksy may not have even had sex with the young woman. It sounds like she was coerced by Epstein to proposition Minsky, and that according to another witness _Minsky turned her down_ [1]. It does not appear that the victim is actually accusing Minksy of assaulting her (though I could be missing evidence. If this is the case, then why is this argument even happening?

[1][https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/richard_stall...](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/d5a4dz/richard_stallman_resigns_from_mit_due_to_pressure/f0l50w4/?context=2)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My requested Reddit AMA: I am an iPhone developer and I used to be a drug dealer - <AUTHOR>

In response to this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1409028<p>http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cd547/i_was_one_of_the_biggest_drug_dealers_on_my_side/ <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1409028>

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cd547/i_was_one_of_the...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cd547/i_was_one_of_the_biggest_drug_dealers_on_my_side)

clicky, clicky</comment>


President Obama: 'You Cannot Take an Absolutist View' on Encryption Issue - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2016/03/11/president-obama-addresses-encryption-and-privacy/ <comment><USER2> Sure you can.

The government either has a backdoor to our encrypted phones, or they don't.

This is really the gun debate all over again. But the same crowd seems to be on the other side this time.

<comment><USER3> > This is really the gun debate all over again. But the same crowd seems to be > on the other side this time.

I'm not sure what you mean by this line. I support the 2nd amendment and I think any backdoor or restrictions on encryption are insane. I'm very disappointed in leadership of both parties and encouraged by some outposts of sanity in both parties.

I would probably put it under the 1st rather than 2nd although I think a modern interpretation of the 3rd might have a slim shot.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure how you can't take an absolutist view on it. Either you have encryption to keep things secure or you provide these escrow keys / backdoors that, once your enemies know about, are going to concentrate all their effort into getting (either by breaking it or through other means).

Meanwhile those who would not be using this encryption would be perfectly secure.

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270745](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270745)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270529)</comment>


Theo Jansen's 3D Printed Strandbeests - <AUTHOR> http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/822-Theo-Jansens-3D-Printed-Strandbeests.html

<comment><USER2> In the video on the linked site, I think he draws too strong of an analogy to life. While you can think of the 1's and 0's that make up the code for the 3D printer file as a genetic code, the key difference is that every living thing carries its own genetic code within itself. If he can get the files to be quine-like,* then I'll be even more impressed than I am already.

That said, any possibility of getting the files so we can print our own?

* I see no reason this should be impossible or even exceptionally difficult for people used to doing such things.

<comment><USER3> Jansens's talk of genetic code is just an artsy guy gushing, which I don't mean to detract from his marvelous accomplishment, but it does plant the seed of an idea. In principle you could integrate cad/cam, a physics simulator, genetic algorithms, and a 3D printer...

<comment><USER4> I think he's making a valid point. Strandbeests are parasites which reproduce through their host organisms (human society). Its "genetic code" (the design) is not located within its phyisical structure, but it does exist, and its duplication method is carried out by another entity (people with computers); akin to a virus. "Toy" dogs are similar; I doubt any could survive or find mates on their own; they are alive because they have found a way to use humans to enable their existence (that is, by being cute). Far from "an artsy guy gushing", he draws a compelling analogy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To my fellow Dutchmen, or anyone else who wants to see a new strandbeest in action:

<http://www.strandbeest.com/events.php>

Try Out Animaris Gubernare May 26 to 29 2011 Strandpaviljoen De Fuut silent beach south of the harbor of The Hague (Den Haag) 250 m left of strandslag 10

<http://www.defuut.nl/routebeschrijving.htm>

May 26 from 4pm -7pm May 27 from 4pm -7pm May 28 from 7pm -9pm May 29 from 7pm -9pm

Try out of the new beast Animaris Gubernare (steerable strandbeest) Only when the wind is not stronger than 6 on the scale of Beaufort (cancelation will be announced on this website)

</comment><comment><USER6> Theo Jansen also did a TED talk[0] that featured some of his kinetic sculptures.

More videos of his sculptures are available on his site[1]. I find them entrancing.

[0] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b694exl_oZo> [1] <http://www.strandbeest.com/film_videos.php>

</comment><comment><USER7> Amazing. I was hoping you could print your own, it looks like he is just selling them already printed from Shapeways:

<http://www.shapeways.com/shops/theojansen>

</comment><comment><USER8> Very cool!

I was inspired to name some of my more fun Insectoid level designs after Strandbeests.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I find practical, no-fluff management advice? - <AUTHOR> Any books, blogs, podcasts,... would be helpful! <comment><USER2> Edit: Book is written by Andrew Grove who was a CEO of Intel

[https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew- Grove/d...](https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew- Grove/dp/0679762884)

Best book for management.

Also, we have platform where users can create collections from their favorite articles, videos etc.

Here's 2 different collection about Leadership

[https://jooseph.com/modules/91](https://jooseph.com/modules/91)

[https://jooseph.com/modules/69](https://jooseph.com/modules/69)

I like those collections but to be honest the book is must. Collections are just easy to access

</comment><comment><USER3> Obviously books:

[!] 1) The 360° Leader, John C. Maxwell

2) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel H. Pink

3) The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, Reid Hoffman & Ben Casnocha & Chris Yeh

[!] 4) It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy, Michael Abrashoff

5) Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, Frederic Laloux

6) Immature People with Power How to Handle Them, Larry Mullins

7) Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships, Eric Berne

In no particular order. That kind of list could be endless, but 1-7 I consider the most important ones (you can throw away (5) if you aren't interested in how to simplify corp structures) regarding shaping anyone into a reasonable leader. It's all about: attitude, values, understanding oneself and other people.

The only reason I'm putting all of this here is because it's a good investment. I hope you will read those, because I don't recommend stuff I know nothing about to random people ;) This world desperately needs better managers, not another infantile prick who thinks he gets it (I'm not pointing that to @OP directly, it's a more general problem). Again, I can only hope that the 10 minutes I've spent here are going to blossom in the future as at least one good guy who knows what he is doing because he thinks about what he's going to do beforehand. If that's not going to happen that's going to be on you (and I will find you and then we're going to have an unpleasant conversation). Meanwhile, I highly recommend the mentioned books and reading in general. This is how you can easily distinguish yourself from a herd of management sheeple who consider reading to be harmful for their egos ;) Howk!

A general tip: I've written "books, obviously", because management is on of those disciplines where there ARE good books, as well as good trainings available. The books route is far less expensive, it's as good as let's say expensive couching, and there's some space between the lines in books in general one can utilize for thinking for oneself!

All of the above comes form my own experience.

</comment><comment><USER4> The "Manager Tools Basics" podcast was not only helpful to me when I was looking to get into management but also taught me practical ways in which I could make my manager's job easier -- which is good because I decided against a life in management after getting a taste of it.

[https://www.manager-tools.com/manager-tools-basics](https://www.manager- tools.com/manager-tools-basics)

</comment><comment><USER5> Dan Kennedy has a bunch of books with this theme.

</comment><comment><USER6> Book: The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier

Bloggers: Lara Hogan</comment>


Fog-harvesting system could provide potable water for the world's driest regions - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/how-to-get-fresh-water-out-of-thin-air-0830.html

<comment><USER2> This title is a bit of an over-exaggeration. As the article says, "Systems to make use of this airborne potable water already exist in at least 17 nations." The title implies that it's relatively new technology.

For some historical background, an early fog harvesting project started in Chile in 1987, and the success from that kicked off projects in other countries. (Based on a cursory search I just did.)

The linked-to article then clarifies the importance of this new work: "But the new research shows that their efficiency in a mild fog condition can be improved by at least fivefold, making them far more feasible and practical than existing versions."

<comment><USER3> Fog harvesting's a lot older than that. The Bimbache people used a communal fog-harvesting tree to provide water on an otherwise uninhabitable island in what's now the Canary Islands. They led the drip lines to gravity-fed channels, which directed water straight to their dwellings. Clever systems like this demonstrate what we already knew — that indigenous people were (and _are_ ) no dummies.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garo%C3%A9](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garo%C3%A9)

[http://archive.org/stream/mobot31753002257217#page/152/mode/...](http://archive.org/stream/mobot31753002257217#page/152/mode/2up/search/Canary)

<comment><USER2> Interesting! Though in reviewing the second link I find very little that was definite. It recounts things second- and third-hand. Some claim a single tree could provide water for 8,000 people and their animals, another said for 80 families. Some say it was a single tree, others from multiple trees.

You say "otherwise uninhabitable land", but Brown's 1910 guide book points out that people lived there, grew grains, and pastured animals. As there are "practically no springs", people needed to build cisterns to catch rainwater. The translated Spanish document (from the last 1500s?) says there are three streams on the island, and that the tree (which was not seen by the Spaniard) is a third type of water source.

Since the 1910 inhabitants didn't use this tree as a water source, I presume that cisterns and those small springs were enough for them, and so would have been enough for the Bimbache.

For that matter, how did the first Bimbache live there if it was otherwise uninhabitable. Did they need to find the tree(s) before they could settle?

You write "which directed water straight to their dwellings" but Duret (1605) writes that the tanks of water were at the foot of the tree, and that the remnants from the 1612 storm were still there in 1753. But I don't see anything in those accounts about channels or pipes leading the water to people's homes. (The Wikipedia page says "The Bimbaches later filled water chaffs and water was transported to towns to all parts of the island", but as part of a legend, and without a citation.)

This is not me rejecting the idea that fog collection was done before the 1980s. Indeed, the Wikipedia page for 'Fog collection' lists several "natural or assisted" collection methods. Nor am I rejecting the idea that the Bimbache used trees as a fog collector.

What I'm commenting on is that the information I've read is suggestive, but not definitive, and that what I've read doesn't fully match with what you wrote here.

What I would like to see might include measurements of water run-off from one of those trees, growing in the same area and archeological evidence of an irrigation system, rather than carrying water from cisterns.

BTW, I really like one of the accounts in that second link about that sense of astonishment by the British scientists at Cape Town who, 110 years ago or so, found out that the fog around Table mountain provides a huge amount of water.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it seems I overstated their dependence somewhat. Obviously water is important, so you want redundant systems so you have water in both rainy and dry times. Multiple systems on different scales (family, village, and island) is a possible explanation for the disparate accounts. Even today most human systems come in different scales.

> _Since the 1910 inhabitants didn 't use this tree as a water source, I > presume that cisterns and those small springs were enough for them, and so > would have been enough for the Bimbache._

That depends on how many inhabitants and what they're doing. I can't find historical population numbers, unfortunately. Today's population of ~10,000 uses industrial desalination.

> _But I don 't see anything in those accounts about channels or pipes leading > the water to people's homes._

Check out pp 156: "It falls into a pond made of brick, floored with stones very tight, by pipes of lead conveyed from the tree to it, _and thence divided into several ponds through all the island_. They which dwell up-hill fetch it in barrels."

All in all, a fascinating technology. It's amusing how the western accounts attribute everything to luck/God, but that's colonialism for ya. ;)

(If you can't tell, I'm a fan of Clarke's [revised] Third Law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from nature." It's even been proposed as a solution to the Fermi paradox: [http://www.nextnature.net/2012/02/any-sufficiently- advanced-...](http://www.nextnature.net/2012/02/any-sufficiently-advanced- civilization-is-indistinguishable-from-nature/))

<comment><USER2> I discounted the telling on p156 because the population size (enough water for 8,000 people and 100,000 animals), the description of the tree (withered in the day and dropping at night), and being able to fill 20,000 tuns (about 1,000 L/tun) in a single day.

I also wonder how they were able to get the lead for those pipe. Other reports imply that there was little contact between the islands, so they likely didn't trade for all that material. Figure a 4 cm across, and 5 km of pipe gives 6 cubic meters of lead or 70 tons of lead, which is a full load on a Spanish caravel of the 1400s. And I think I'm underestimating that number.

I tried to find more historical information. The Spanish Wikipedia page points out that a well with brackish water was dug between 1702 and 1704, as part of a search to find drinkable water near the coast. It also commented that Columbus stopped there on his voyages to the Americas.

So I looked up a translation of the log of his first voyage. The entry for 9 Aug 1492 says:

> The Admiral says that many honourable Spaniards, inhabitants of the island > of Hierro, swore that they were on Gomera with Dofia Inez Peraza, mother of > Guillen Peraza, who was afterward the first Count of Gomera, and that each > year they saw land to the west of the Canaries

"Many" is not helpful, but at least a few hundred people on the island?

I looked backwards in time. Jean IV de Béthencourt conquered the Canaries for Spain in the early 1400. "There was no resistance offered by the scattered guanche population who were largely sold as slaves" says Wikipedia. Nice guy.

Your best bet I think is to look for records in Spanish. Oh! I found "Conquista y antiguedades de las islas de Gran Canaria y su descripcion: con muchas advertencias de sus privilegios, conquistadores, pobladores, y otras particularidades en la muy poderosa isla de Tenerife", dated 1676,

My Spanish is rather poor, but I think page 59 of [http://books.google.com/books?id=cKvrI2UF- LgC&pg=PA59&img=1&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=cKvrI2UF- LgC&pg=PA59&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U08RZ14esuFu7FPzYidt6kbigs3tg&ci=486%2C40%2C378%2C339&edge=0) says there were 1,800 inhabitants of El Hierro.

Here's what I could copy from that text (updating the syntax to more modern Spanish):

La isla del Hierro esta diez y ocho leguas de Tenerife, es pequeña, tiene su Villa con buena Parroquia, y dos Beneficiados, que acuden a toda la isla y algunos Capellanes; ay vn Conaento de San Francisco; cogese much trigo, y ganado; rendra la isla mil y ochocientos vecinos, y muchos principales.

Here's my+Google's translation:

El Hierro is eighteen leagues from Tenerife, is small, has its Villa with good parish, and two Beneficiaries, who flock to the island and some chaplains; (also a convent of??) St. Francis; grows(?) much wheat, and cattle; the island (has?) 1,800 residents, and many (bosses? people who can represent your business interest?).

So, a 1670 population of about 1,800 people, under the Spanish crown, and before the 1702 well. I think this find greatly weakens the hypothesis that fog collection was necessary in order for a group of up to 2,000 people, and that they could have survived on the limited springs and cistern storage of rain water.

<comment><USER3> I am unable to read the text you linked to. :(

Sounds like the Bimbache people could support 4x the population that the Spanish could (8,000 vs. 2,000), which makes sense (water being the limiting resource in that landscape).

Why discount pp156 again? The numbers are perfectly doable with a carefully placed tree that uses the surrounding landscape to funnel fog to it.

Lead pipes wouldn't be needed for the entire length — clay-lined spillways would more than suffice. I read it as using lead _just to the cistern_.

Great research, thanks!

<comment><USER2> Before starting, let me say that I've found this conversation very interesting. Thank you for participating in it with me.

I discounted it for several reasons.

1) There's no corroborating evidence that the population was that high. I haven't found anything more than "sparse", but [http://www.sharprazor.com/palma-history.htm](http://www.sharprazor.com/palma- history.htm) gives some of the history of La Palma:

> The Guanches named their island Benahoare, and divided it into 12 kingdoms, > each with its own ruler. Estimates of the Guanche population at the time of > the conquest range from 1200 to over 4000.

La Palma is over twice as big as El Hierro (708.32 km2 vs. 278 km2) and it seems to support better agriculture and easier access to the sea. I find it difficult to believe that the population density of El Hierro was at least 4x more than that La Palma, when the best I can find is that the population of El Hierro was "sparse."

2) The numbers I see for modern fog harvesting are about 5 liters per square meter per day. The account says that a tree could fill 20,000 tuns/day, which is about 20 million liters. This needs about 4 million square meters. Assuming an 80 meter high tree and 32 meters across (the size of a larger redwood tree) gives a cross section of 2,500 sq. meters. There's no way these numbers are close to compatible.

3) Let's assume the tree can capture an excess of 1 liter per sq. meter cross section, even though there's no evidence that any tree can do that. Let's assume also that a single tree has a cross section of 2,500 sq. meters. That's 2,500 liters per day. Not bad, but people need about 2 liters per day as a minimum - and more if they do much activity. Even in this unlikely and extreme case, that's only enough to provide basic water needs for 1,000 people.

The WHO says "a minimum of 7.5 litres per capita per day will meet the requirements of most people under most conditions", so that's 330 people. And no animals.

(Another estimate is to look at the amount of water in fog. A cloud has about 0.5 g of water/cubic meter. However, this is too complex for me to figure out, because I don't know how much water you can extract with fog mining, I don't know what a tree or other plant can extract, I don't the wind speed, and I don't know the capture area.)

4) Why use lead pipes to lead to the cistern? Since clay is good enough for the cisterns, what's the advantage of using lead for those pipes?

Since each individual detail is not trustworthy, I find it hard to put any faith in the overall account. How are you certain that it isn't a tall tale, with little to no basis in reality?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If used on a large scale, I wonder how this would affect the environment around the collection sites. As is now, the fog goes somewhere and I'm sure some organisms rely on it getting to where it's going.

If the water is collected with enough efficiency, there could be significant unforeseen consequences.

</comment><comment> Core-TX Hmmm, that reminds of Arakis. Are they called windtraps ? ;)

<comment><USER5> Or moisture vaporators in Star Wars, which Luke's uncle and aunt owned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If h2o is heavier than other components of air like o2 and nitrogen why can't we just run air through a giant centrifuge to get the water out?

<comment><USER7> Generally with these schemes the fog is from the ocean so you have unlimited saltwater to desalinate, the idea is to get water with little energy cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That would not be applicable in desert regions.

<comment><USER9> How so? From reading around a bit, I found several sources that indicate fog is present in the desert.

<comment><USER10> There's no basis for the idea that there is never fog in the desert, as long as there's sufficient water vapor. But a very dry desert climate cannot fog up for lack of water vapor.

Remember that fog forms when temperature and dew point collide. But without water vapor, there's no meaningful dew point.

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

Quote: "The dew point is the temperature below which the water vapor in a volume of humid air at a given constant barometric pressure will condense into liquid water at the same rate at which it evaporates."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tatooine</comment>


IBM Wins Most U.S. Patents for 21st Year in a Row - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-14/ibm-wins-most-u-s-patents-for-21st-year-in-a-row.html

<comment><USER2> If there was any doubt that the patent system was literally a game, this headline is it: "IBM _Wins Most US Patents..."

So did they earn them? File for them? Play some kind of hunger-games-alike game to win them?

it's a funny turn of language. It really does imply that IBM somehow didn't research them like they're supposed to...

<comment><USER3> I agree that it reflects some of the absurdity of the patent system, but only incidentally... language is flexible, and how people use it to describe something doesn't inform the nature of that thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> IBM does a lot of stuff that's really patent-worthy - materials, processes, semiconductor techniques etc. It's not like they patented the most FAT filesystems, double-tap-to-open or one-click-purchases for the 21st year in a row.

<comment><USER5> I'm an IBMer but I'm also personally disgusted with stupid patents. IBM does invent a lot of things. They also purchase companies that invent a lot of things. Though I have seen a few examples on HN where they were granted a patent for something that was already somewhat common (can't find the reference, sorry). Basically they aren't your typical patent trolls even though their business models relies on owning patents.

<comment><USER4> I'm quite sure that even if you removed the stupid/obvious patents from the total, there is a good chance IBM would still be leading the pack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _With inventors from 41 countries, more than 31 percent of the patents came from overseas._

This is a bit confusing to me. Is IBM acquiring patents through buyouts/purchases or are these inventors IBM employees? Seems like the former would be more likely.

<comment><USER7> only 1/3rd of IBM's employees are in the US... they have more employees in India than in the US

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9169678/IBM_stops_dis...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9169678/IBM_stops_disclosing_U.S._headcount_data)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Funny, I wasn't aware that intellectual property was a quantity competition.</comment>


SXSW Cancelled Due to Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/06/sxsw-cancelled/ <comment><USER2> One interesting tidbit here is that the mayor made the call to cancel the event, not SXSW themselves. I understand the organizers stand to lose _a lot_ from cancellations, but this still seems like bad optics.

Unrelated, but I have three big events I booked long ago that I'm either becoming weary of attending, or fear that they will be cancelled and I'll be on the hook for the hotel and other accommodations. One of them is at SF chase center (19K capacity) and SF recently announced infections. Not a good time to be a fan of live events.

EDIT: Here's an interesting twitter thread that gives an isight into what smaller event organizers are going through due to the coronavirus [https://twitter.com/jessiechar/status/1235685514667126786](https://twitter.com/jessiechar/status/1235685514667126786)

<comment><USER3> Here was SXSW's statement on the cancelation.

> The City of Austin has cancelled the March dates for SXSW and SXSW EDU. SXSW > will faithfully follow the City's directions. We are devastated to share > this news with you. "The show must go on" is in our DNA, and this is the > first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place. We are now > working through the ramifications of this unprecedented situation. As > recently as Wednesday, Austin Public Health stated that "there's no evidence > that closing SXSW or any other gatherings will make the community safer." > However, this situation evolved rapidly, and we honor and respect the City > of Austin's decision. We are committed to do our part to help protect our > staff, attendees, and fellow Austinites.

[https://www.sxsw.com/2020-event-update/](https://www.sxsw.com/2020-event- update/)

<comment><USER4> I find their statement a bit irritating...they're basically saying "if it weren't for the city, we would have still done it, screw any consequences".

<comment><USER5> I think when it comes to public crisis, decisions like this should be made by the public as a whole, and in a democracy that means the elected government.

Private individuals shouldn't have to parse health statistics or educate themselves to the level of virologists. Instead the government should do this work, and issue a decree. If not this, then when will government be useful?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> SXSW was really bent on going through with this massive event even though smaller events were being cancelled. The spread would likely happen through multiple contacts in airports and since there is a delay in symptoms if any, SXSW woould, in the worst case, been a super spreader event. You could bet lawsuits would have rained on them and likely the City of Austin.

Sometimes, you just got to say no, we will not contribute to spreading this disease inadvertently and take the hit. SXSW organizers are unbelievable.

To the people only thinking of themselves about this just being a "flu", I read this yesterday: [https://twitter.com/kumailn/status/1235015662117908481](https://twitter.com/kumailn/status/1235015662117908481) It is not just about you. He pulled out of events because he wanted to limit contact to avoid spreading it to a vulnerable loved one.

<comment><USER7> I thought they were waiting for the city to cancel it for insurance reasons.

<comment><USER8> That will be what seems to have happened.

<comment><USER9> Thank you, Dan Streetmentioner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Cancelling SXSW represents about $350M in lost revenue for the city of Austin. This is an enormous act of civic responsibility"

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm speculating their insurance coverage only kicked in if they were forced to close.

<comment><USER12> An article from "Variety" ([https://variety.com/2020/music/festivals/coronavirus- ultra-s...](https://variety.com/2020/music/festivals/coronavirus-ultra-sxsw- coachella-cancel-insurance-city-1203525667/)) covers exactly this and agrees:

> _But he understands the hesitance to cancel — because even if most major > promoters probably spent extra to have communicable disease provisions in > their cancellation insurance, it wouldn't likely kick in if they made a > unilateral decision to cancel without the city forcing their hand to do so._

In the above, "he" refers to an "entertainment manager" at an insurance company. Doesn't sound like firsthand knowledge, but it's still a very educated guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> No refunds will be given

"#SXSW replied me saying they won't refund me Frowning face or exchange for 2021. For Brazilian standards the price of the ticket is VERY expensive and I'm cancelling my trip due to concerns related to coronavirus. I think they should refund me and the participants that decided not to attend"

<comment><USER13> I'm sure if you used a credit card you'd have no problem getting an involuntary refund from SXSW. After a few thousand of those I'm sure their stance would change.

<comment><USER14> You only have a 3-6 month window with most credit card providers to be able to initiate charge backs.

So it very much depends on when you bought the retail ticket.

<comment><USER15> There's a myth that chargebacks are automatic or easy.

You have to make a chargeback complaint, have that investigated, get approval from your issuer, then wait for a refund.

<comment><USER16> Sometimes it is pretty easy (Chase). I did a charge back on my card with the click of a button 'Dispute Charge'. I received a refund almost immediately and the dispute was sustained

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It was only a matter of time and happening all over the country. F8, GDC, HIMSS, Ultra Music Festival, etc etc. Its for the greater good.

<comment><USER18> It's all about the greater good.

<comment><USER19> The greater good...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting that the official announcement makes no reference to refunds of tickets.

<comment><USER10> They are not refunding, saw few threads on twitter about that.

<comment><USER21> What? How can they do that?

<comment><USER22> Perhaps they will offer a choice between a voucher for next year's event, or some type of (partial) refund.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Can't wait to buy hospitality stocks in a few months.

</comment><comment><USER24> How does an article on _Techcrunch_ of all things get more upvotes than the official announcement?

</comment><comment><USER25> WWDC will also be cancelled.

<comment><USER11> Very likely, but, I don't think they have to announce that yet. We're 2 months out.

<comment><USER25> Nothing will happen in 2 months that suddenly makes it safe to hold an event of that size attended by developers from all across the world. It's over.

<comment><USER26> What about summmer? Honest question that I haven't seen discussed enough to form an opinion on. Flu and the common cold are drastically curtailed by late spring and it seems reasonable that coronavirus spread _could_ also dramatically slow until the season starts again this fall.

<comment><USER27> The only answer you're going to get out of someone that isn't talking out their ass is: hopefully it will be curtailed by summer, but we don't really know. And keep in mind that summer in some places is winter in others.

<comment><USER28> Relevant: [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/its-a-false-hope- coronavirus...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/its-a-false-hope-coronavirus- will-disappear-in-the-summer-like-the-flu-who-says.html)

No one knows.

<comment><USER29> There is data on the flu and COVID-19 from parts of the world that are in summer vs. winter. As the situation evolves further this data should enable making a better educated guess:

Influenza: [https://www.who.int/influenza/surveillance_monitoring/update...](https://www.who.int/influenza/surveillance_monitoring/updates/latest_update_GIP_surveillance/en/)

COVID-19: [https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5b...](https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd) (linked from [https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel- coronavirus-2...](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel- coronavirus-2019))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think it's very interesting the disproportionate reaction that a virus or disease gets versus any other number of things that people risk their lives doing on a daily basis. Particularly for lesser known viruses or diseases which our brains haven't acclimated to.

The CDC estimates that 31 million Americans caught the flu this year, resulting in about 200,000 hospitalizations, and between 12,000 - 30,000 people have died this season from flu-related complications. So as a rule of thumb you could say 10% of America infected, ~1% of those people are hospitalized, and 10% of _those_ people die. Every year.

Do we close events during the winter because of the flu? Of course not. We would never be able to have a winter-season event ever again. The flu _vaccine_ is not particularly effective, some years it's even almost entirely _ineffective_ , although most years about 50/50...

I'm still of the (clearly unpopular) opinion that the response to COVID is 1 part science, and 3 parts hysteria.

At the gym today I heard a great saying. Almost 3 million people die every year from obesity. Maybe instead of yelling at everyone to wash their hands, we should be yelling at everyone to eat a damn salad. SXSW is substantially less hazardous to the public health than McDonalds.

Why is the response to this coronavirus so hysterical? You could come up with any number of fatality stats that have taken more lives since January than COVID-19. Lower respiratory infections (not COVID related) kill approximately 200,000 people a month. Malaria kills 50,000 a month. Even just driving kills 100,000 people a month.

Rather than thinking SXSW organizers are unbelievable for not canceling, I think that the Mayor/City of Austin is unbelievable _for_ canceling. Anyway, I just got back from a trip to Orlando, and Disney World and Universal, while not packed, certainly seemed busy.

The CDC should do what they are setup to do; ensure that testing is both cheap, accurate, and readily available, that people are educated about how to reasonably decrease their chances of catching a virus, teach how to manage a mild infection and self-quarantine, and when to seek medical attention. IMO, we don't need to tank the world economy in order to do this.</comment>