Notes on watching "Aliens" for the first time again, with a bunch of kids - <AUTHOR> http://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/watching-aliens-for-the-first-time-again-with-a-bunch-of-kids <comment><USER2> I first saw _Aliens_ when I was 12 or 13 on cable in the late 80s and it blew me away. Perfect movie in every way. I could watch it every day and never get tired of it. Funny thing was that our local cable network showed the "extended version" (with the sentry turrets, scenes with Newt's parents, etc) and for years I thought I'd imagined some of those scenes because the extended version wasn't available on video until much later.

Fun fact: Jenette Goldstein (Pvt. Vasquez) runs several bra stores in the Los Angeles area that cater to women with difficult-to-fit sizes. She is a total sweetheart. If you have a small group and contact her via email ahead of time she may be willing to make accommodations for your group. We had about four couples and she opened the store a bit early for our group. The women got fitting sessions (she personally fitted my wife) and she chatted with us for a bit afterward, including answering some questions about _Aliens._

Please be respectful of her time and the fact that she's running a business, obviously. The bras are fairly expensive (but worth it, according to the women in our group) and they don't carry anything smaller than a D cup. So if you're not a potential customer, this is not the way to meet "Pvt. Vasquez!"

<comment><USER3> > Funny thing was that our local cable network showed the "extended version" > (with the sentry turrets, scenes with Newt's parents, etc) and for years I > thought I'd imagined some of those scenes because the extended version > wasn't available on video until much later.

Wow. So there WERE sentry guns. For years (pre-Google years) I used to argue that there was a scene with sentry guns, though I don't think that's what I had called them. Those guns were awesome and they had made a huge impression on me. Problem was, no one else could remember seeing them. My family and friends swore I was crazy. So I asked for the uncut version of _Aliens_ for Christmas one year (probably around 91 or 92) and I was so disappointed. No sentry guns. So I just figured everyone else was right. I must have imagined it or was mixing up my films. A few years later I purchased a "special edition extended version" on VHS which, sadly, also had no sentry guns. So that was that. I was wrong, there were no sentry guns, and that was the last I thought of it until now. I knew I saw those damn guns!

<comment><USER4> sentry gun clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDy-5IQvuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDy-5IQvuU)

<comment><USER5> Holy crap! I'd never seen that before! For its time, that's masterful! It also makes the sci-fi facet of the screenplay much more intelligent. (Of course the Colonial Marines are going to use lots of automated weapons!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In Germany the film is rated 16+, so this story strikes me as really odd. I wouldn't have thought of showing the film to children any younger than 14, personally.

But I guess this is a cultural thing. We tend to be more prudish when it comes to violence but are a lot more relaxed when it comes to nudity or sexuality.

I do remember watching Alien under age (no idea at what age exactly) and thinking it's the scariest thing I had ever seen, though. However I think it's difficult to tell whether that did me any harm or not. We tend to overestimate our own psyche, just as we tend to overestimate how "adult" our children really are.

<comment><USER7> For all the "think of the children" commentators here and in the blog - why is it that kids who have parents that hide them from everything "bad", wind up so messed up, narcissistic, and are generally unable to cope with life?

The answer is of course right there, by putting them in a "safe place" you've removed every adversary and every challenge - right when the mind needs those things the most so it can form abilities necessary to deal with and move forward in life (a life that will throw all kinds of issues, disasters, and curve balls at you).

Its kind of like the peanut allergy study that was posted here a day or two ago... The infants and children that don't get exposed to peanuts at an early age - so their systems can get familiar and use to it, are most likely to end up in the highly allergic group. _[this is just an analogy]_

edit:

This isn't about movies (that word is not mentioned in my post). Some of the replies so far are red-herrings ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring)).

I'm not suggesting that children should be constantly exposed (or made to watch) graphic and horror movies to prepare them for life.

And I'm sure there are cases of children who just can't handle these things at the age of 10-15... Though most will be fine - and won't need therapy, will not have their lives ruined, nor will their well-beings be negatively impacted.

I am also not suggesting that they should have no supervision.

What I am suggesting is that there are too many over-protective and helicopter parents who are making "special children" that can only live and function inside bubbles.

And if the child get's broken by watching "Aliens" at the age of 11, then the problem is with the parenting - rather than the friend's dad who let them watch it.

In which case, please, attach a note to the child with all the rather available things that he/she should not be exposed to or is allergic to (like peanut butter).

We live in a society where a child would have to sit on a park bench for 700,000 years before he/she would get kidnapped, but if you leave him/her in a car to pay the gas station clerk, someone can take a picture of that child being untended and send it to the police, which will then charge you with a misdemeanor.

<comment><USER8> I tend to agree. The biggest problem I have is that movie ratings for all practical purposes carry the force of law even here in the US, despite the lack of anything resembling valid evidence of harm that kids under 16 or 17 might undergo by exposure to a movie. The Germans in particular are ridiculously overprotective in this sense. Um, guys, I'm pretty sure Hitler never saw _Aliens_. Lighten up already.

The second, more serious criticism I have is that the moral panic associated with exposure to children to onscreen violence, sex, and drugs can only diminish the real outrage that we ought to feel when kids in war-torn countries, inner-city slums, and refugee zones actually _experience_ real-life violence and horror beyond anything Hollywood can conjure, and on a daily basis. If most of those kids don't grow up to be serial killers, I somehow doubt a movie is going to do it.

<comment><USER9> > If most of those kids don't grow up to be serial killers, I somehow doubt a > movie is going to do it.

That's not why most people want to restrict the amount of violent content their children watch.

See, for example, the "You've been Tango'd" ads in the UK. There's a soda called "Tango". One advert showed someone drinking the can, than a fat near naked man painted orage runs in, and slaps the drinker's face with both hands. Children imitated this, causing several perforated eardrums. [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Man_%28advertisement%2...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Man_%28advertisement%29) (see controversy section). That's one example of children imitating what they saw on tv, and other children being harmed as a result.

EDIT: i'm not saying children copy everything. But this example proves that children do imitate some behaviours; that children are influenced by some things they watch. Ask any parent about the children's show "Caillou" and the change of their children into whiners. Parents realise that some content will cause mild behaviour changes or nightmares and they want to be prepared.

<comment><USER7> So how are half of the children, who play violent video-games all day long, not imitating the behavior they see and do in those games?

We should be at least overrun by car-jackings at this point thanks to Grand Theft Auto.

<comment><USER5> _So how are half of the children, who play violent video-games all day long, not imitating the behavior they see and do in those games?_

A lot of those games involve hardware the children do not have access to. The games also often portray consequences in a way which the kids still know to be very bad. (As much as children play "war," they know viscerally that being in pain and bleeding is generally not fun.

 _We should be at least overrun by car-jackings at this point thanks to Grand Theft Auto._

There was one young man who enacted a GTA scenario and shot his way out of a police station with a gun he stole from a police officer. However, he is very much the exception.

What the orange advert did was to portray an activity with bad consequences as a trivial and harmless one, in a way that specifically worked around the built in understanding that otherwise deters kids from doing things like that. (Unless they mean harm. That's also within the possible range of behaviors of children. However, it's not so common in many places for children to want to really harm their playmates.)

<comment><USER10> > A lot of those games involve hardware the children do not have access to.

You mean things like fists, feet, pipes, kitchen knives, crowbars, hammers, that kinda thing? Like others said, if video games made normal people violent you'd see a lot more violence.

That anecdote about the 'enacting a GTA scenario' would also have happened just like that without the GTA link. Then it becomes a guy with a gun in a police station.

<comment><USER5> _You mean things like fists, feet, pipes, kitchen knives, crowbars, hammers, that kinda thing?_

Yes. Actually, there was an incident I was personally witness to involving someone's 8 year old son and an ordinary clawhammer. There is clearly such a thing as "desensitization," and opposition to the notion is usually the kind of unconscious bias one generally sees in politics. < [http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/) > Note that my position is not so simpleminded as to be simply placed on one side or another of the typical Internet argument.

If you believe that widespread gun ownership generally increases the incidence of gun injuries, then you are subscribing to the same general theory, that availability increases likelihood. Do I believe that's a justification for banning things? No, but we should be honest about the existence of such effects. (Also, fists and feet are an entirely different category, as they are naturally part of your body. And while I said it wasn't common in some places, in others kids do use those to enact violence.)

 _Like others said, if video games made normal people violent you 'd see a lot more violence._

I would put good odds on your repeating what lots of people angrily repeat on the Internet in defense of their hobby. In the grand scheme of things, people _are_ violent! We are extraordinarily violent as animals. In particular, we have an ability to band together in groups and murder each other in a coordinated fashion, one that probably predates our getting language! We also accomplish fantastic things living together, so we also have fantastic mechanisms for coexisting. Seeing things in media does have the effect of reinforcing the portrayed actions and scenarios in our minds. However, human minds are very complex and robust. We have mental defenses, much as we have homeostatic mechanisms.

 _That anecdote about the 'enacting a GTA scenario' would also have happened just like that without the GTA link. Then it becomes a guy with a gun in a police station._

Read up on the incident and honestly tell me that GTA had nothing to do with putting the idea into his head. Of course, one could also find other pieces of media he was exposed to conveying much the same message. The systemic problems resulting in his violence are probably more serious and of greater import to society than the content of some video game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's almost a crime to be a writer on RogerEbert.com yet not reference Ebert's classic review of Aliens, so well written that I can still remember his characterization and nod my head at it:

[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/aliens-1986](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/aliens-1986)

> _It 's here that my nerves started to fail. "Aliens" is absolutely, > painfully and unremittingly intense for at least its last hour. Weaver goes > into battle to save her colleagues, herself and the little girl, and the > aliens drop from the ceiling, pop up out of the floor and crawl out of the > ventilation shafts. (In one of the movie's less plausible moments, one alien > even seems to know how to work the elevator buttons.) I have never seen a > movie that maintains such a pitch of intensity for so long; it's like being > on some kind of hair-raising carnival ride that never stops._

> _I don 't know how else to describe this: The movie made me feel bad. It > filled me with feelings of unease and disquiet and anxiety. I walked outside > and I didn't want to talk to anyone. I was drained. I'm not sure "Aliens" is > what we mean by entertainment. Yet I have to be accurate about this movie: > It is a superb example of filmmaking craft._

It sounds like all of the kids were boys...It'd be interesting to hear the perspective of girls watching it for the first time. Aliens was one of the first action movies I ever watched (and remembered) and I don't remember ever, at all, thinking that it was odd that a woman was in charge (in fact, all of the strong characters are female). Only years later have I realized that Alien and Aliens (never watched the other Alien movies) were unique among blockbuster movies in how the heroine is both the savior and not written as an object of romantic interest (beyond a brief flirtation with Cpl. Hicks)...Unlike movies like "Kill Bill" (which I love), the woman isn't written as an oddity, but a down-to-earth character who happens to be strong and resourceful. I never even thought Sigourney Weaver was beautiful until seeing her in other non-action movies.

Edit: speaking of watching Aliens as a kid...I think it's the movie that caused the longest-running movie-inspired-phobia in my life...hearing something under my bed, and then not wanting to look under my bed for fear of a facehugger attacking me.

<comment><USER12> > Aliens was one of the first action movies I ever watched (and remembered) > and I don't remember ever, at all, thinking that it was odd that a woman was > in charge (in fact, all of the strong characters are female).

That's because the Ellen Ripley character was originally a man named Martin Roby.

<comment><USER13> > That's because the Ellen Ripley character was originally a man named Martin > Roby.

That doesn't make sense to me. Martin Roby was the original character for "Alien" and in the first movie, for the most part Ripley wasn't the bad-ass character she would be throughout the second movie.

But the OP was anyway talking about "Aliens" and there Roby could no longer have been an influence for her character.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _The biggest challenge was dissuading kids from trying to predict every single thing that was going to happen. This is a generation of talkers. They have to comment on everything. No thought can go unexpressed._

This is, unfortunately, why I so rarely go to the movies anymore. I honestly don't remember if it was this bad when I was a kid, but I don't think I've seen a movie in the last 2 years where I didn't want to (or actually have to) tell some kids (late teen or younger) in my radius to stop talking. A few times other people even had to chime in when they scoffed at me, like I was somehow out of place telling them to not talk _during a movie_.

<comment><USER15> For what it's worth, I worked in the cinema industry (as a projectionist) for a few years, and even the old-timers had spotted this trend over time.

Apparently it's much more common to need staff to intervene with talkers in shows than it was thirty years ago. One memorable case had a staff member explaining to some kid that he couldn't record the show on his phone. The kid seemed confused by this, taping things on the phone and sharing them with friends was just normal, how they engage with every experience.

Another fun thing I noticed from the vantage point of the projection booth: if you look down into any screening more than about one-quarter full, at any time during the show you will always, always see at least one mobile-phone in use. There is never a time when the full audience is giving the film their full attention.

<comment><USER16> That phone one might be true because phones are becoming more interesting, not because of shifting social norms.

<comment><USER15> Maybe a bit of both.

But why go to the cinema if not to pay attention to the film? Maybe they were dragged along to crap films by their friends I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _And as we watched, I realized again that while unfortunately you can 't see a great movie again for the first time, the next-best thing is to show it to people who've never seen it._

The third-best thing is reading a well-written account of that fresh showing of the movie. Now I want to watch Aliens again with my kids.

</comment><comment><USER18> > "This movie has so many cliches in it," a boy said (...) My son told him, > "This movie was made in 1986. It invented all the cliches."

The first boy was right. It felt full of cliches even then. I watched it in eighties as soon as it was distributed to my place and I all the time I had that feeling of "boring 'we're the marines' movie." And I still can't understand why would anybody consider Aliens an interesting movie. The first Alien is however something else. And I was always amazed to later watch "The Dark Star" made before the Alien and find it (among the other things) an Alien parody made before the Alien(!) It's really so thanks to Dan O Bannon. Now that's something. Aliens... not even worth mentioning.

Watch Alien, watch The Dark Star. Forget the boring Aliens.

Disclaimer: I'm old enough that I've watched the Star Wars in seventies in my movie theatre. And Mad Max. And and and.. Of course Aliens were already cliches and cliches.

<comment><USER19> I'm old enough that I saw Aliens in the theatre, with my Dad. I remember he had a similar perspective to you. His comment was how the original alien was smarter than than the crew, but in the second movie the aliens are just dumb animals. This may be true, but for me the second movie is one of my all-time favourites.

<comment><USER20> Don't forget the instances where they display intelligent behavior. Such as turning off the power, operating elevators, the alien queen telling the drones to back off.

<comment><USER19> I don't think operating an elevator (etc.) compares to hunting down and decimating the entire crew (almost) one by one. Such behavior is so far more advanced than anything we see in the second movie. There is a real sense that the alien is just plain smarter than everyone in the crew, and in the end ripley just has to run for it. None of this happens in the second movie, where it's just a slaughter fest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was born in 1980, I didn't have an awesome home life but some of my fondest memories are watching films like Aliens (and Blade Runner and Terminator) with my father.

There was and is something undefinable about movies of that era (maybe everyone feels the same about the movies of their era) that modern films rarely capture for me.

<comment><USER22> Sci-Fi movies of that era - the good ones, anyway - used to have great atmosphere. And they were about telling a story.

These days, many movies seem to be about expensive special effects and little else. While there is nothing wrong with special effects, using them as a substitute for a story or atmosphere ruins a movie.

<comment><USER23> Blade Runner is one of the best for atmosphere I think.

Also the Dark City -- the Matrix before the Matrix if you wish.

<comment><USER24> Absolutely when they run that opening credits with Vangelis's music thundering out I thought finaly some one really really gets SF.

<comment><USER23> Yes yes yes! Absolutely breathtaking. One of the best intros to a sci fi movie. And that is with 80's special effects!

Looking back at it, special effects, the mood, is still so distinctive and well done. And that was probably the pinnacle of non-digital special effects. And we'll probably never get back to it but even after so much investment and so much advancement in computer technology, digital effects are still not quite there (thinking of modern Star Wars, Avatar...). At some point they'll be outmatched but we are still not there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great write-up. But why did I read the comments? Immediate conjectural descent into the harm inflicted on the children without parental consent. This is a more egregious reality today than kids needing to verbalize all the things.

Personally, if I'd sent my 11yo over to _Roger Ebert 's_ house I'd expect him or her to watch whatever movie was on offer and thoroughly thank me for the experience years later.

I just watched _Aliens_ for umpteenth time last week. The harsh language line still gets me. And I always am just a little more on edge when I walk outside after watching.

<comment><USER26> Watching a movie with a corpse is something any parent could fairly object to.

<comment><USER27> Oh come on. Even Disney movies have corpses in them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Aliens is one of my most lived movies of all times. But if you plan on buying a copy of it, please, please make sure you are not buying the Director's Cut edition. The ones with 20 minutes added to it. Most of the additions are useless (or just plain bad) and spoil all the surprises the movie had in its first cut.

Many, many times I find that Director's Cut is just synonymous with "take the best cut and fill all the crap we did not think was worth it in the first place".

<comment><USER29> That certainly wasn't true for Bladerunner, IMHO.

<comment><USER28> True, but Blade Runner had a different story. The producers forced the Director to add the voice-over for the final cut of the movie before release because they would be worried the audience would not "get it" otherwise (if I remember correctly). The Director's Cut was the true version of the movie originally planned for theaters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The second episode of the excellent "I Was There Too" podcast features Ricco Ross, who played Private Frost in Aliens.

It's an excellent episode (and show) filled with cool trivia from the cast and film shoot.

[http://iwastheretoo.wolfpop.com/audio/20250/aliens-with- ricc...](http://iwastheretoo.wolfpop.com/audio/20250/aliens-with-ricco-ross)

Also, Aliens is the 2nd greatest action movie (after Die Hard) of all time, and #1 sci-fi action movie ever.

</comment><comment><USER31> Neill Blomkamp, director of "District 9," is going to direct an "Aliens" sequel! It seems that first he said he'd ignore "Alien 3" and "Alien: Resurrection," but it seems like he's taken that back.

[1] [http://www.avclub.com/article/neill-blomkamps-alien-movie- wi...](http://www.avclub.com/article/neill-blomkamps-alien-movie-will-ignore- alien-3-an-215808)

[2] [http://www.avclub.com/article/actually-blomkamps-alien- movie...](http://www.avclub.com/article/actually-blomkamps-alien-movie-wont- ignore-alien-3-215905)

</comment><comment><USER32> The first time I saw Aliens, I was on acid, and to me, in that state of mind, it seemed like the best movie ever created.

I remember sweating a lot watching it, and all the meta-references that psychedelics enhance seemed to work perfectly within the framework of this story and show.

More to the authors point, I have two grown sons and a 13yo daughter, and always, the best way for me to relive my (often misspent) youth is with and through them, by sharing the same or very similar experiences.

</comment><comment><USER33> Some movies will leave beautiful scars in your minds. The atmosphere of Robocop and Alien still pull me back.

<comment><USER34> Yes, Robocop did do this to me. It was one of the weirdest movies I had watched at the time. It's been a long long time since I've seen it though, I'm probably due for another viewing.

I watched the remake a few weeks ago. It was _ok_ but it didn't leave an impression on me like the original did.

<comment><USER35> > I watched the remake a few weeks ago. It was ok but it didn't leave an > impression on me like the original did.

What bothered me was that they completely removed all the satire of the original. Robocop had a very dark sense of humor throughout—I love the scene where they're shooting the cans of baby food, and the one where the all news cameras follow the man falling out the window to his death[1].

Oh, and all the news reports and commercials. The new one played it really serious, where the original didn't take itself seriously at all.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md14H_qD8iQ?t=1m47s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md14H_qD8iQ?t=1m47s)

<comment><USER9> There's a bit of footage where the filmakers talk about the death of the executive after the new robot malfunctions, and how censors reacted.

The original clip showed him dying, and the machine just keeps firing and firing and firing. It becomes darkly funny.

Censors didn't like the scene but their suggestion was to cut down the length of time the gun fires. That turned the scene into something less funny and more brutal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I watched Aliens with my 10-year-old daughter a few weeks ago. We had watched Alien a few weeks before. She had wanted to watch a real horror, but couldn't make it through the first few minutes of Scream, so we settled on Alien. She thought the alien bursting out of John Hurt's character was really funny. And it is. She thought the beginning of Aliens was too slow and it wasn't all that scary for her, but she enjoyed the film overall. I don't know if I would watch Prometheus with her - I'm sure she'd agree that film was terrible.

<comment><USER23> Prometheus wasn't bad I think, I just never compared or put it in the same league as Alien(s).

<comment><USER37> Ripley would have just ran sideways.

<comment><USER38> Right. And she wouldn't have acted all butt-hurt about just having had a c-section without anesthesia.

<comment><USER27> That c-section was simultaneously the best and worst part of the movie for me. The scene itself was great. Thematically and artistically, it was on-point. It felt like _exactly_ the kind of scene that belongs in an Alien movie.

What I hated is how the rest of the cast failed to react after it was done. They had been trying to capture her, she gets away, gets it cut out of her, and then everyone seems to forget or forgive just because that old guy was coming out of cryo-sleep. They should not have been so easily distracted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I love how the kids think action movie cliches date back to 1986. Every sang froid action hero is copying Clint Eastwood from the 60s who was copying Toshiro Mifune from the 50s who was copying Humphrey Bogart from the 40s. You can pretty much follow the trail back to Gilgamesh.

</comment><comment><USER40> I saw Aliens when it opened and I was about a week from turning 16. I had seen Alien when it came out (my Mom was a movie lover), and had been about a month from turing 9. I had not even seen the trailer so I was expecting another creepy horror film. I was totally blown away, it really felt like an action adventure with some horror. Since then, they released an extended edition with the auto-cannons and it seems like a different film.

Funny thing is the first movie was scary when I saw it, but not something I dwelled on. I did get the big Alien that glowed in the dark for Xmas, and that scared the crap out of me when my Dad hung them by their tails in the basement.

Plus, for how many times you hear: "Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" or the actual quote "Nuke the entire site from orbit--it's the only way to be sure", it had to have a bit of an impact.

<comment><USER41> I actually heard the phrase in a programming shop before I'd ever seen the movie, and it made sense. It was a fun moment when I finally saw the movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I watched the first half of War Games (1983) with my 6 and 8 year old boys tonight, and they were both totally into it. The movie holds up incredibly well, especially the back-and-forth of Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy choosing targets to attack as the officers in NORAD are running around panicked.

I can perhaps imagine showing Aliens to my sons when they're 11, but it seems overly aggressive to show their friends, without getting explicit agreement from their parents first.

<comment><USER43> Agreed - wargames holds up really well, even now in 2015. It's a fantastic movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> My son (just born Friday!) has a named influenced by Aliens. The special edition is one of my favorite movies. Even as an adult I could watch it continuously. I can't wait to watch it with my boys (quite a few years to go).

What a treat to see such a great dad and movie story on an exhausted morning. Joeri's comment about practical effects is spot on.

<comment><USER45> It's a lil' baby Facehugger! (congratulations!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Very fond memories of watching Aliens, Predator, & Leviathon with my dad on weekends when mom was working. Fun read.

</comment><comment><USER47> I remember being horrified by Alien when it was shown on TV - I disappeared upstairs after the chestburster scene because I couldn't handle it. It haunted my dreams for weeks.

11 year olds must be hardened wee bastards these days.

</comment><comment><USER48> The early 80's were a truly special time for action cinema, and sequels in particular. There were several sequels that stand out for both putting a completely different spin on the movies that preceded them while offering relentless and tight pacing.

Aliens is just one example. Consider also, "The Road Warrior" (a.k.a. Mad Max 2). It took the faded and failing civilization of the original and pushed that out to every extreme possible. Total collapse. Anarchy. Barbarism. Post- apocalyptic wasteland. It also featured some of the tightest editing, most impressive stunts, and most relentless action of any film ever made. However, it was far from alone.

"The Empire Strikes Back" took the light, fun, and somewhat corny adventure of "Star Wars" and turned that into a dark, brooding character driven film that was a non-stop roller coaster of tension. Empire is the film that makes people take Star Wars seriously no matter how much zany Ewok slapstick and standup- droid-comedy Lucas put into ROTJ and the prequels (I refuse to even type the full J-J word). The 2001-derivative "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was followed by the "The Wrath of Khan", which itself focused on character development and featured a climactic battle between both leaders and star ships. This film, despite being made on a shoestring budget when compared to the first Trek film, defined Trek movies for all time. Arguably, the franchise has suffered as Trek film after Trek film tried to recapture the magic of "The Wrath of Khan" instead of blazing their own paths.

When you watch these films and compare them to today's action flicks, one thing that stands out is that the action is anything but non-stop. All of these films feature extended sequences of slow, careful character development that are punctuated by action scenes. Compare the most recent Superman film to Aliens for example. Aliens may have felt relentless and draining in its last hour, but the first hour is relatively slow. That slow, building action sets everything up. It made us care so much about the characters and appreciate how utterly alone and vulnerable they were that it was tough watching them go through the meat grinder of the second half.

"Man of Steel" on the other hand, begins with action, continues with action, and ends with action, taking only brief breaks to string along a flimsy plot and barely flesh out stereotypical characters. Halfway through the city- wrecking final action sequence one finds oneself wishing the film would just get to the point! Both the magnitude of destruction and sheer volume of film expended in "Man of Steel" dwarfs that of Aliens, but there is only a fraction of the tension. You could take your time going to the bathroom at any point in "Man of Steel" and, odds are, all you'd miss is some CG mayhem that has no lasting effect on the plot. Does it really matter how many buildings Superman and his foes level without resolving anything?

Today's film makers are too often afraid of boring their audience and too frequently sacrifice developing what makes the action matter for the sake of giving their audience non-stop action. Non-stop meaningless action is like eating nothing but ice-cream for dinner. Sure, ice cream is great, but it simply isn't satisfying on its own. Today's film makers should look to the early 80's as an example of what can be accomplished when you don't underestimate your audience's attention span.

<comment><USER49> > "Man of Steel" on the other hand, begins with action, continues with action, > and ends with action, taking only brief breaks to string along a flimsy plot > and barely flesh out stereotypical characters. Halfway through the city- > wrecking final action sequence one finds oneself wishing the film would just > get to the point!

It's like the cinematic equivalent of "the loudness wars" in music production. In music, the idea is that people like volume and it makes songs stand out on the radio, jukebox, or a test screening so the only way to compete with loudness is more loudness. The fear is that compared to competing tunes your offering will seem too quiet and boring and some ADHD-addled listener might (gasp!) change the channel.

In movies you also see this sacrifice of pacing and careful buildup of tension for wall-to-wall action and destruction. On the surface, more volume, more energy, more destruction, and more action seem like a sure way to ensure something memorable since you've maximized the "peaks" and avoided those dull, boring "valleys".

In reality, the whole thing is mentally exhausting and you end up with no stand-out moments. When you start off at 11 and stay at 11, you miss the buildup. I'd argue that in music and in film, it's the "contrast" between high and low that elicit the most memorable experiences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> When I was about 5 I wandered into the room just in time to see my slightly older cousin watch the opening scene of An American Werewolf In London. That convinced me I wanted nothing to do with "scary" movies.

A few years later I saw an advertisement for Aliens and declared "I never want to see that movie!"

When I finally did watch Aliens at about 15 it immediately became my favourite movie. AAWIL is also pretty awesome :]

</comment><comment><USER38> This is perfect. Watching _Aliens_ at exactly that age was a rite of passage for me. I had been _really_ scared of scary movies up to that point. When I saw _Aliens_ , it definitely freaked me out but, after the movie was over, my mind had been blown and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Totally cured me of my scary movie phobia too.

</comment><comment><USER51> The Aliens series of sci-fi films is my favorite of all time. Even though I watched the first two on tv, they were still amazing, and I have the 5 DVD set. I enjoyed them all, even though one or two of them weren't as popular. The story lines and arcs were pretty original and well thought out. Just an awesome series.

</comment><comment><USER52> This movie inspired an entire generation of Video Game developer aesthetics. You can see the influence of this movie in literally every single game that is SciFi with human soldiers in it.

The most obvious examples are Natural Selection and Halo ... but there are many others.

</comment><comment><USER53> Based on the title I thought it was going to be about kids freaking out and that one should pay attention to "kid's friendliness" of movies. But no. I also wouldn't be very amused if someone showed it to my kid without asking me first.

</comment><comment><USER54> Hilarious kids, thaks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER55> Showing that movie to 11 year olds is totally inappropriate.

<comment><USER38> Not all the time. I saw it when I was eleven and I consider that to have been a formative experience for the better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I don't know what slumber party means but it seems completely crazy to have a bunch of kids together and play video games, eat pizza, watch horror movies. Do you want spoiled fat bored and boring kids? Because that's how you get that.

I don't mean to mean that my 5yo boy and I never eat pizza or play video games or watch anime. But when we do it's because we are on our own, a Sunday evening, after having gotten outside with friends, and I'm too tired to play Lego.

Also, alien is really a horror movie, playing hard with the nerves of the audience. Way too hard for 11yo kids if you ask me.

<comment><USER35> > I don't know what slumber party means…

A slumber party is a party where the guests spend the night at the hosts house. This typically involves pizza, movies, and the kids trying to stay up as late as possible. I seem to remember going to maybe 1 or 2 slumber parties a year.

It's definitely a special occasion and the late night aspect of it lends itself to movies, since by the time the movies come on it's typically too late to make a bunch of noise outside.

> Do you want spoiled fat bored and boring kids? Because that's how you get > that.

No, actually, slumber parties are _not_ how you get that.

<comment><USER56> Ok, if slumber parties are late night parites then my point need to change a bit:

\- Getting 11yo kids to officially stay up as late as possible is a weird idea. They will stay up late anyway but why make it official?

\- Many games are suitable for some kids together in the evening. I mean non- video games.

\- Watching a movie can be useful to cool down the atmosphere but watching an horror movie just before sleep seems not very advisable. I do not buy the argument that these kids did already see all suitable cartoons and movies. Did they really see all of Miyazaki, Chaplin, Buster Keaton, old Disneys, etc? If so,they clearly watch too much movies.

\- I do not think pizza is a good diet for kids (and adults), and it is better, if possible, to not link in their mind fast-food and "having nice time together". I guess it is not convenient to cook a three courses meal with many kids around, but there are other, better possibilities including bbq, picnic, salads, etc. (My reasoning is that having a nice time together is in most culture synonym for having a nice meal together, and so the food can be more important than we think in these occasions.)

<comment><USER57> The staying up late portion of the slumber party is more like tolerated/permitted rather than encouraged.

Almost every slumber party I went to/heard of watched an action movie or a horror movie that wasn't too hardcore for our preteen selves. I'm pretty sure it's cultural at this point. Also these kids are friends of Ebert's kid. I'm pretty sure they'll be much more movie-literate than the average kid.

We were a bit too old for nintendo and too young for n64 to be part of the culture where we lived, so no comment on video games. We did run around the backyard pool for quite a while.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Search for monuments and share photos - <AUTHOR> https://maps.wikilovesmonuments.org/ <comment><USER2> This is an interesting way to encourage people to contribute to Wikipedia. The "get out and explore your city" motivation reminds me of Pokemon Go... but this time you're sharing what you find with the world via Wikipedia.

In my immediate area (Williamstown - a suburb of Melbourne) the only monuments listed are train stations, but once you get into the city it looks more interesting.

One suggestion - add a big tagline at the top of the page. If I scroll down and read the text I understand what is going on, but it would be great to make it obvious right up front. "Explore monuments in your city and share your photos on Wikipedia".

[edit] it's not very usable on my phone - I can use a map but when I click an icon it opens a list that is off to the right of the screen, and I can't scroll to it. A mobile first interface would be ideal for getting me to go out and participate. A big "monuments near me" button that opens the map to my current location, and then the ability to take a photo from my camera. Should be a pretty easy fix/feature that would make this way more spontaneous and fun to use when on a phone.

<comment><USER3> Hi joneil, author of maps.wikilovesmonuments.org here.

> I can use a map but when I click an icon it opens a list that is off to the > right of the screen, and I can't scroll to it

If you are referring to map on mobile, you can tap or swipe left on the part of remaining list to see the full list on the screen ([https://imgur.com/a/NhPyJ](https://imgur.com/a/NhPyJ)). I will add more intuitive switcher.

> A big "monuments near me" button that opens the map to my current location

Sure, definitely doable. Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I applaude you. This is a pretty impressive work. I could not find an 'about' link to explain to me how you guys put this together.</comment>


Project Tofino – A browser interaction experiment by Mozilla - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mozilla/tofino <comment><USER2> There is no concise summary on what Project Tofino actually is and the readme file is of no use, but here's my guess: modular browser UI. Firefox is probably long overdue for some fresh set of features, though I'm not sure how far the traditional UI can be pushed and still remain usable. I highly recommend Jacob Nielsen's website [0] for an analysis of pros and cons of customization and usability in general.

I see Project Tofino as a way for Mozilla to explore different customization paradigms, strongly implying that the one shipped with Australis didn't take on.

Now, is it possible to create an algorithmic, dynamically adjusting browser UI? I can only speculate but I'm sure Project Tofino will be a very valuable experience.

[0] [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customization](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customization)

</comment><comment><USER3> Though it doesn't sound like the team leader even has a clear idea of what they're trying to do [0], Tofino seems interesting.

One part of this "reinvent the browser" they're looking at is tab grouping, potentially with heuristics. However, it does give me pause, as usually when Firefox comes up, HN talks about how they always have 20+ tabs open at once. (Anecdotally, many of my friends and family are the same).

[0] [https://medium.com/project-tofino/tofino-project-goals- updat...](https://medium.com/project-tofino/tofino-project-goals- update-f667f6082858)

<comment><USER4> I really like Firefox's current tab groups and wish that Chrome provided similar functionality. For me a better method would be to have the tab itself be the group "parent" and expand when clicked.

For example: I'm on reddit's front page. I'll open links in new tabs, then go to them later. It'd be great to have those auto-group under the parent front page tab and hide out of view until later.

Are there videos, or any screenshots of what this current implementation looks like? Like you said (and the GitHub readme explains) they don't really know what they're doing yet, but it'd be nice to see how it differs in its current state from traditional browsers, and might even convince me to give it a try.

<comment><USER5> Opera had tab group behavior like you describe when it introduced tab groups ahead of the other browsers. I'm not sure of the situation now since they based their browser off chromium.

You can get the right kind of behaviour using the Tree Style Tabs extension in Firefox, which is highly customizable. I've had a vertical tab bar for about a decade now and I couldn't imagine using a "traditional browser interface".

<comment><USER6> +1 for Tree Style Tabs; combined with "suspended" tabs, it provides exactly what I need: a lightweight, integrated system for short term bookmarks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pyp – Easily, magically, run Python at the shell - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp <comment><USER2> Mario is a very featureful application of similar ideas, and includes multiple built-in transformations, concurrency support, user-defined commands, and extensive documentation.

[https://github.com/python-mario/mario](https://github.com/python-mario/mario)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing! I hadn't seen Mario before. The async support is super nifty! From a quick look, it looks like pyp might be a little quicker for some use cases since it doesn't need subcommands, but I'll definitely be updating [https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp#related- projects](https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp#related-projects)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My cousin helped create xonsh ([https://xon.sh](https://xon.sh)), a POSIX- compliant "python as drop-in shell replacement", years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> xonsh is great! I'm a fan of your cousin's work :-) I mentioned it in [https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp#related- projects](https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp#related-projects) for if you want even more Python in your shell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. I made something similar, but for JavaScript [https://github.com/jeswin/basho](https://github.com/jeswin/basho)

It's very useful to be able to automate with a language you already know. I use it quite a bit now, for instance to figure out which of my git repos need a push or a pull.

</comment><comment><USER5> This made me nostalgic for a utility I wrote back in 2005 called `pyline`:

[http://code.activestate.com/recipes/437932-pyline-a-grep- lik...](http://code.activestate.com/recipes/437932-pyline-a-grep-like-sed- like-command-line-tool/)

I'm sure I wasn't the first to scratch that particular itch. It always seemed odd, back then, that Python didn't have better support for the Perl one-liner style of programming.

<comment><USER6> It still seems odd to me. While these projects are nice, if the functionality is not supported in the core system, it is rarely worth the additional trouble (imho). Situation is similar to gitless - git's cli interface sucks, but it is available on every dev machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is fantastic -- I will certainly turn to this instead of awk/sed in many instances. I expect I'll use this in place of particularly tricky greps too. Really nice that you can seamless interleave standard bash commands with pyp commands, if e.g. an existing bash tool can get a piece of the job done more simply.

I already turn to Python in place of Bash whenever any nontrivial amount of complexity is needed or if any reuse is expected in the script I'm writing (I do this with Python Fire). Now I think I'll be making that Bash->Python switch at even lower levels of complexity, and even when no reuse is expected at all.

</comment><comment><USER8> Here's the ruby equivalent:

[https://github.com/thisredone/rb](https://github.com/thisredone/rb)

<comment><USER9> Was hoping to find a comment just like yours! Thanks!

I use Ruby from the cli frequently for stuff that exceeds an easy jq expression or if jq is not availabel but Ruby is (which happens a lot on RHEL systems when EPEL is not enabled, which is the case in a lot of banks) Ruby's awk -> perl -> ruby heritage endows it with a pretty good cli mode, but sometimes it's verbose. For example parsing json:

        curl https://something \
          | ruby -r json -e "puts JSON.parse(STDIN.read)['data']['ip']"

But obviously that's wordier than it needs. (To pre-empt the "just use jq!" people, I agree. For simple examples I would just use jq. This example here is just an example).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There exists a very similar tool for several years with the exact same name

[https://opensource.imageworks.com/pyp.html](https://opensource.imageworks.com/pyp.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, that was the inspiration for this project and its name. See [https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp#related- projects](https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp#related-projects) for more discussion. By no means is this a new idea, but I think this iteration has some convenient twists :-)

<comment><USER11> Yanking another projects name is more than just 'inspiration'. I would consider it a very hostile action.

<comment><AUTHOR> Given that the original project has been unmaintained for several years and is Python 2 only, I think it's not unreasonable. There's very little reason to have both installed, so I don't think it's a problem for users either.

It's also just the perfect name! It's punny, it's short and it acknowledges prior art. And of course, if the original author took issue with it, I would change the name.

<comment><USER12> Not piling on but - did you pop him an email to check?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Brilliant, just the right amount of magic. The explain feature is what really sold me that you thought about users! I wonder if I can put a bit of humanfriendly support in there with a pr.

</comment><comment><USER14> Very cool! I'm the author of sh.py, and seeing projects that use just the right amount of magic to accomplish something unique and powerful is inspiring. Great work and good luck with pyp!

<comment><USER15> [sh.py]: [https://amoffat.github.io/sh/](https://amoffat.github.io/sh/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Also related is pythonpy[0], which added a similarly named command 'py', but apparently that project has died.

This looks like a big improvement, with math functions auto-imported, and the --script option is a fantastic idea.

Good job.

[0.0] [https://pypi.org/project/pythonpy](https://pypi.org/project/pythonpy)

[0.1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8158976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8158976)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is very cool. This is faster than postman for me if I was to use something like you showed in the jq example for quickly playing around with a public api's json response.

</comment><comment><USER18> Something like this should be baked straight into CPython itself. There are so many similar projects, there clearly is some demand for this. This could boost pythons usage for shell-jobs significantly if people have a reliable installation of this behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is going straight into the toolkit. The main thing that keeps me from doing more inline python is all of the printing boilerplate.

Well, two things, the second thing being performance.

How's the startup time? I find it hard to get python utils under a few hundred ms just to spin up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking pyp out!

Startup time hasn't been particularly perceptible in my use of it. Just ran a quick benchmark on my (old, not powerful) laptop:

      ~ λ hyperfine 'pyp x'
      Benchmark #1: pyp x
        Time (mean ± σ):      75.9 ms ±   1.2 ms    [User: 55.9 ms, System: 15.1 ms]
        Range (min … max):    74.5 ms …  79.0 ms    36 runs

Since there isn't any input, this should just measure startup and AST transformation time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I saw this and just made this real quick - a JS equivalent.

[https://github.com/realrasengan/jpipe](https://github.com/realrasengan/jpipe)

<comment><USER21> Thanks! This will make things a little easier for me as I move in to sysadminning and JS development.

Surprised it didnt exist already

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everyone who checked pyp out!

Not sure if this comment will ever get seen, but I just added the ability to configure pyp with statically analysed Python, so it's easy to define your own functions, import aliases, or use libraries like pipetools to make your life easier! More details at [https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp#pyp-is- configurable](https://github.com/hauntsaninja/pyp#pyp-is-configurable)

</comment><comment><USER22> Ok, I've been looking for something like this. Very cool indeed!

</comment><comment><USER23> A lot of these projects remind me of the Smalltalk image concept - I used to develop on Digitalk Smalltalk/V on Windows 3.1 in the mid 90s.

</comment><comment><USER24> Pretty cool!

How would one accomplish the following with pyp?

* Wait until one sees a line with a start marker (say 'start:')

* Perform on an operation on the lines until an end marker ('end:') is reached.

Would you do a whole-input operation on stdin to extract the relevant lines first and then operate on the individual lines? Or would you maintain boolean conditionals within the loop?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a number of possible options! And remember you can always pipe pyp to pyp. Here are some ideas, in order of what came to mind, where the operation is incrementing.

      pyp 'lines[lines.index("start") + 1:]' | pyp 'lines[:lines.index("end")]' | pyp 'int(x) + 1'

      pyp 'start = lines.index("start"); end = lines.index("end", start); map(lambda x: int(x) + 1, lines[start + 1:end])'

      pyp 'dropwhile(lambda x: x != "start", lines)' | pyp 'lines[1:]' | pyp 'takewhile(lambda x: x != "end", lines)' | pyp 'int(x) + 1'

      pyp 'map(lambda x: int(x) + 1, takewhile(lambda x: x != "end", islice(dropwhile(lambda x: x != "start", lines), 1, None)))'

      pyp -b 'cond = False' 'if cond and x == "end": break' 'if cond: print(int(x) + 1)' 'if x == "start": cond = True'

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ubercool. There's a similar project called "pythonpy" which I had used in the past.

It seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth, the only thing I found is this fork: [https://github.com/fish2000/pythonpy- fork](https://github.com/fish2000/pythonpy-fork)

</comment><comment><USER26> I was going to ask "isn't this basically just awk" but the README quickly cleared that up! Excellent documentation.

One thing I'm wondering is how's the startup time/performance in general? awk is kinda slow overall, but Python starts a little too slow to be used in shell scripting.

<comment><USER26> Looks like there are no dependencies, so it should start pretty fast.

And sure enough, it's both easy and reasonably fast to run:

      $ time seq 1 10000 | awk '{a+=$0}END{print a}'
      50005000
      seq 1 10000  0.00s user 0.00s system 91% cpu 0.002 total
      awk '{a+=$0}END{print a}'  0.01s user 0.00s system 95% cpu 0.008 total
      $ time seq 1 10000 | python3 pyp.py 'sum(map(int, lines))'
      50005000
      seq 1 10000  0.00s user 0.00s system 80% cpu 0.002 total
      python3 pyp.py 'sum(map(int, lines))'  0.06s user 0.01s system 99% cpu 0.070 total

I wouldn't run it in a loop, but it's definitely a contender even in high-ish performance situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I remember using this waay back in the day when this was still hosted on google code, and having a really good experience with it, despite some performance issues. I thought the project was dead, but I'm glad it's still going on.

</comment><comment><USER28> Along similar lines: [https://github.com/geophile/marcel](https://github.com/geophile/marcel)

</comment><comment><USER29> An older attempt at this is piep

[https://github.com/timbertson/piep](https://github.com/timbertson/piep)

</comment><comment><USER30> Yet another similar project: [https://github.com/edk0/spy](https://github.com/edk0/spy)</comment>


Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Fundability - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2012/08/27/imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-fundability/

<comment><USER2> A big plus about being an imitator, especially in a space where people pay (!) for goods or services, is that the questions "does anyone want it?" and "will anyone pay money for it?" have already been answered in the affirmative.

It's not a guarantee - they still might not want _your_ stuff. But it's a great vote of confidence in that general category of goods or services.

<comment><AUTHOR> In the case where the product is similar to the competitor I agree. It decreases the "market" risk, since you know the market's there, but it increases the "execution" risk, since you have to out-execute someone who's already in market with a proven solution.

In more abstract cases, though ("AirBnB for dogs") it just helps the listener to understand the company and doesn't really speak to market size.</comment></comment>


Dear Hacker Community - We Need To Talk. - <AUTHOR> http://zacjszewczyk.com/Structure/Dear%20Hacker%20Community.htm <comment><USER2> I don't know what this person is talking about. Did you mean to submit [http://asherwolf.net/dear-hacker-community-we-need-to- talk/1...](http://asherwolf.net/dear-hacker-community-we-need-to-talk/101/) instead of a one-paragraph gateway page?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a repost, already been talked about to death.

[http://normanconquesttech.blogspot.com/2012/12/dealing- with-...](http://normanconquesttech.blogspot.com/2012/12/dealing-with-trolls- and-women-in.html)</comment>


Blind camera comparison: Vote for the unidentified cameraphone you like best - <AUTHOR> http://www.phonearena.com/news/Blind-camera-comparison-Vote-for-the-unidentified-cameraphone-you-like-best_id47934

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem with this poll is that there is no baseline image to compare with. They should have also taken a photo with a high end camera/lens so we can compare how accurate the color reproduction is. Also it seems that they are not all shot at the same time or exact same spot, lighting appears different from image to image.

Its a good idea so hopefully someone will make a similar poll taking care of these considerations.</comment>


Use "Admin Templates" for great looking web application MVPs - <AUTHOR> http://geekfactor.charrington.com/2011/03/use-admin-templates-for-great-looking-web-application-mvps <comment><USER2> I discovered these admin templates about a month and a half ago when I was redesigning my site. I did the original design for my MVP but I wanted a more polished, compliant design. I considered hiring a freelancer and even looked into 99designs for a full site template before I found an amazing admin template for $20. It took some customization on m part but I'm extremely happy with the result and the savings.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this up based on the response to my comment on <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2346350>.

tptacek - "The 'Admin' templates on Theme Forest are really kind of blowing my mind right now. Every front-end-challenged web app developer on HN should know about this."

edenm - "WOW! If anyone hasn't seen these, seriously, check them out."</comment>


Amsterdam Airport Launches API Platform - <AUTHOR> https://developer.schiphol.nl/ <comment><USER2> If this (eventually) leads to the possibility of one -1- properly designed and implemented airport app rather than me having a couple dozen different apps installed, all buggy and crash prone and with hardly any common UI features at all - then I'm all for it...

<comment><USER3> Random thought: Millions of people used to fly all over the world just fine before apps and smart phones.

To this day, I print my boarding passes at home and just go. I have never used an app of any kind to assist in air travel nationally or internationally. Never missed a flight or had any issues transacting changes or any of the commonly encountered issues while travelling.

And I do have an iPhone in my pocket at all times.

Same with taking a bus, train, subway, checking into a hotel, etc.

I'm curious. What has changed that someone might need a couple dozen different apps?

How many of these are solutions chasing problems? Or "just 'cause we can"?

<comment><USER4> In the Netherlands many people who take a bus or train have an app (9292 or NS). It's one of the most useful apps on my phone.

\+ It tells me when my stop is coming up and I have to press the button to get out of the bus.

\+ It reminds me to checkout.

\+ It tells me where to find the bus when I arrive at a train station I don't know.

\+ It helps me plan my travel so I can leave on time.

\+ It helps me to know when the latest train goes home.

\+ It helps me to find the shortest route.

\+ It tells me if there are still public bikes available at the station of my destination.

Of course, flying is quite different. Nevertheless I regretfully "did have issues" with flying.

\+ I have to buy and print ESTA forms every two years.

\+ I have to print boarding passes.

\+ I have to print how to go to my hotel after arriving at an airport.

\+ I have to look at dumb displays to find my gate.

\+ I have to have this paper document called a passport that can be lost and gets you on Interpol if you're unlucky, but that's another story.

\+ I almost never get a vegetarian meal because these booking agents are terrible.

\+ Try to do the paperwork if you travel with something fancy, e.g. robots. "That doesn't look like a laptop, Sir!"

\+ Even making a picture of a carry-on to check if it's the right size might be helpful, because that's the current attack on the passenger.

\+ If you travel so often, can you take a bottle of coke with you? No, you're a terrorist.

There are many issues with air travel.

<comment><USER3> Not convinced. If your phone is dead or stole you can still move around just fine all over Europe. I have spent a pretty decent amount of time in the Netherlands in particular over the last fifteen years.

I understand having information conveniently available at your fingertips. That's great. My confusion had more to do with someone saying they need over a dozen apps to be able to travel. Sorry, travelling --by any medium-- predates apps and, for the most part, you don't need much more than a few pieces of paper.

I would not dare get on a flight while fully depending on data inside a phone. If anything happens to that phone you are screwed.

<comment><USER5> Welcome to 2017. I know where you are coming from, and I feel the same way, but we are part of a shrinking group. I pride myself on being able to find my way around unfamiliar places by simply studying a map beforehand (digital or paper) and having a basic grasp of the public transport options available there. When I drive a car, I can get where I want to be by simply using the signs and essentially just knowing the rough outlines of the topography.

I'm Dutch by the way, and I only ever use the 9292 service to check my itinerary and look for alternative routes if a delay or service cancellation occurs (although usually these are announced and/or provided for).

It's great that I am able to open up a web browser or some app before or during a trip to figure out if my itinerary needs changing or if a connection can be made, but I can't imagine having to depend on a dozen apps to figure out something as basic as where my gate is or when I should get out of the bus — buses announce there stops via scrolling text and usually voice, and why would you even get on a bus without knowing how many stops you'll be riding or even which direction it should roughly be heading?

There is a whole generation out there (severely generalizing, but it does feel this way sometimes) who completely lack the skills for even basic navigation. Their awareness shifted from actual to digital surroundings, their dependency on technology gradually increasing.

If people want to live like that; fine. But I find this increasing dependency on information _fed to you_ rather than actively _sought out_ worrying.

<comment><USER3> I made it a point to teach my kids how to familiarize themselves with their own city or a city they travel with using a map before allowing them to use Google/GPS for anything.

I know so many people who have absolutely no idea where they are and how to get places simply because they use a navigation app on their phone. Even simple concepts such as "this is approximately x distance south of our current location" escapes people who lose all positional awareness due to reliance on navigation apps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Dutch railways have an API as well: [http://www.ns.nl/en/travel- information/ns-api](http://www.ns.nl/en/travel-information/ns-api)

<comment><USER7> And it will happily tell you train X departed from Y when in reality you're in that train and stuck at two stations before Y. I have a logger running, but I'm pretty sure the data will turn out useless as I've noticed this was not unusual to happen. Note: the trains have GPS and you can follow them in the official NS API (or if you reverse the app, or use a site that did that).

NDOV is much more up to date, though not perfect either.

In short: no API gives you actual truth based on GPS or something°, and the NS API itself is unreliable and unmaintained (their app is way beyond what is provided to the public).

° you could say this is nearly impossible, but one could use their GPS and align trains to a track within 15 meters of the reported location, then determine whether it's on schedule. Train tracks are pretty much perfect in OSM data (and I think there are official sources in some weird format from the 80's it seems, designed by HP of all companies) so that's a fine source. There are also sites that interpolate expected position based on schedule and delay data with surprising accuracy (50 meters on a good day I'd estimate, or 500m or so on average), so it's not hard to compare expected vs. actual and determine a delay.

Source: worked on rpln.nl since they killed their mobile site in favor of 5 megabytes of "responsive javascript". Came across a lot of stuff while doing that, and we're still working on features and feature parity with the official stuff (we're feature compatible with the old mobile site, even bookmarks work if you just update the domain, but not as far as the official site because of the unmaintained api).

<comment><USER8> The UK NR API is pretty awesome. It is a STOMP feed of every train passing location. So it is pretty much exactly accurate, as the train physically has to pass the reporting sensor for it to update. If the train hasn't passed that sensor, it doesn't move.

While not 15m accuracy it's pretty damn good. Probably <500m in urban areas and ~1-2km in rural areas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Vaguely related: the security of airline passenger data is atrocious. [https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7964-where_in_the_world_is_carme...](https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7964-where_in_the_world_is_carmen_sandiego)

<comment><USER10> Insanity. This is so ripe for fraud it's unreal. I don't know of a single person who would not fall for the targeted phishing attack that was highlighted in the video.

If I got an email from someone who looks like the airline I just booked with with all my info (email, name, date, departure, arrival airports, etc) that said I need to update my credit card, I would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reading this headline (as a Dutchman) my brain went "Amsterdam has its own airport?" before going "Oh right, Schiphol…". (Compare this to a New Yorker reading about New York Airport instead of JFK.)

<comment><USER11> Schiphol's IATA code is AMS, therefore it's the Amsterdam airport. :)

<comment><USER12> It also officially named Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, has the words "Amsterdam Airport" in its logo, and appears as Amsterdam (AMS) in flight searches. It's not like there are any real alternatives for flying into Amsterdam

<comment><USER13> Flying into Bijlmer is not a viable alternative.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al_Flight_1862](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al_Flight_1862)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find the use Aircrafts as the plural of Aircraft kind of sweet [https://developer.schiphol.nl/apis/flight- api/aircrafts](https://developer.schiphol.nl/apis/flight-api/aircrafts)

<comment><USER15> Seems like an intentional pluralization miss to keep "consistency". I'd prefer to closely reflect the clients terminology though.

<comment><USER16> Seeing as they also use APIs and API's, I don't think it's intentional, but badly written.

<comment><USER17> In Dutch, 'API's' is correct. This is probably a mistake while translating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice, great first step.

It would be great to start this experiment and eventually come to an API spec that all airports could implement. There is a lot more incentive to build great apps if they can be used at all (or many) of the hubs.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there a standard for this? If not, are they trying to make one?

Seems it's of pretty limited value to have an app for _one_ airport, so what you want is an app that can show info for multiple airports. Such an app would be a lot more likely to exist if at least a subset of the API was standardized.

<comment><USER17> They've joined the Dutch Open Hackathon for the past two years. I don't think the main goal of this is a third party Schiphol app, I think they want to enable people to use their data in different services. For example:

A Hotel app that checks when your flight departs and shows you the best time to take the shuttle bus. When you get a delay, it could give you the option to get a last-minute late check-out, or to book a dinner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> As someone who works with a lot of flight data and has to buy it from third parties, its amazing how poorly this data is distributed usually.

I hope they license their data to third parties so we don't need an api call for each airport though.

<comment><USER21> What 3rd parties are offering it for purchase?

<comment><USER12> The likes of FlightStats and OAG Flightview will supply flight status information (amongst other aviation data like schedules databases). I think the codes for when bags are unloaded are proprietary and unlikely for most airports to share.

<comment><USER20> yeah OAG's api is VERY inconsistent though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nice. I have recently figured out that Lufthansa has also a API [https://developer.lufthansa.com/docs](https://developer.lufthansa.com/docs)

</comment><comment><USER23> Also worth checking out in this area is the Amadeus API! [https://sandbox.amadeus.com/api-catalog](https://sandbox.amadeus.com/api- catalog)

<comment><USER24> There seems to be a degree of overlap between this Schiphol API, the Amadeus API and [https://www.developer.aero/](https://www.developer.aero/) which is from SITA. I wonder how they all relate.

I would not be surprised if this simply exposes data that it passes through from the SITA or Amadeus APIs, or vice versa.

I'm not entirely sure how Amadeus and SITA relate BTW.

<comment><USER23> Definitely. Disclaimer that I'm temporarily working at Amadeus. SITA is a similar company. It's likely that the Schipol API is powered in some way by Amadeus or SITA, or both.

Really cool tech and there's a lot that can be developed through the open APIs but they're not very well known about...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone know why they won't let you store their response data for more than 24 hours? Seems like you're not really allowed to do any analysis on it, only present it.

<comment><USER26> How would they even check?

<comment><USER27> I would imagine it's so that they could pull your access if they found you publicly sharing comparison data(rg how often a flight is delayed due to loading) or some such.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder what other data centers would benefit from having an API available. Imagine an API to access container movements at the Port of Singapore, or Port of New York.

<comment><USER29> Having watched season 2 of The Wire last week, that brings up some interesting ideas...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think this is revolutionary and opens the door to new kinds of applications.

No airport that I know of offers some kind of API.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder if you could use APIs like this along with some pattern matching to detect rendition flights.

</comment><comment><USER32> Cool! I live very close to the airport, right under the 'Polderbaan' landing/takeoff strip. I think I can use this to write a microservice for fun that will tell my when planes are going to fly over my house, causing the earth to shatter.

</comment><comment><USER33> This looks like it's using Swagger under the hood.

I've never been a big fan of including source and documentation in the same files, because it makes the code harder to scan/understand.

<comment><USER34> Yep. That's a .NET application serving up that API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> but... why though? what use would just one airport be?

</comment><comment><USER36> Title should be "Schipol Airport...", I had to make sure it wasn't April 1 yet!!!!

<comment><USER37> Does Amsterdam have multiple airports, if not the title is correct.

<comment><USER38> The full English name is 'Amsterdam Airport Schiphol', in Dutch everybody calls it Schiphol (which is also the domain name). The title is incomplete.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> [https://developer.schiphol.nl/apis/flight- api/conditions](https://developer.schiphol.nl/apis/flight-api/conditions)

Has some serious restrictions in its use. You are not allowed to "cache" the data for more than 1 day? Strange.

And of course you need an "API key". It is public data, just make it public. HTTP/HTML is also an API, just a bit more cumbersome to parse than JSON.

<comment><USER40> > HTTP/HTML is also an API, just a bit more cumbersome to parse than JSON.

No it's not, HTML can change anytime. It is meant for human consumption. "API" has the word "Interface" in it because there is a well defined interface to a service, and is documented, and is meant for machine use predominantly.

> API key

While I agree with you, I also think it is important to be able to disable applications that might be misusing the API quickly.</comment></comment>


Out of the loop in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/technology/18women.html

<comment><USER2> (Separate comment because it's a separate point.)

The problem with articles like this is the constant tension between the idea that women are equally qualified as men and the idea that the startup culture is inherently unfriendly to feminine personalities. Example:

"Later, when Ms. Vijayashanker joined Mint, she also wanted interaction with other people, but, she said, "the guys went into their rooms and coded all day." So she started a weekly group lunch and hired an intern so she could write programs with a partner."

I'm not saying that women are inherently more social than men, nor am I saying that a software startup inherently has to have a work environment where coworkers don't talk to each other. But this article seems to make both of those assumptions and put them together to conclude "startup work environments are unwelcoming to women" while totally ignoring the fact that the same two assumptions lead to make "women are inherently unsuitable to work in a startup".

<comment><USER3> It is particularly odd that they use Mint as an example of a (slightly at least) unwelcome environment early on for a woman in particular as they had an amazing woman as CMO (Donna Wells) until being acquired. Throughout their growth and since acquisition they have hired many women in leadership roles that require them to be social. However, the piece that stands out to me is that Ms. Vijayashanker didn't just complain about it at first (and doesn't honestly seem to be complaining a whole lot now), she proactively made a way to interact more socially to shape the work environment to meet her preferences/needs (not to mention the fact that Mint let her bring in her own intern to make her work environment more suitable). I'm not an engineer, but from my limited experience any original, core engineering team is somewhat insular and its probably a good thing if your coders are coding rather than shooting the breeze around the water cooler, although I'm sure they didn't all have their mouths sewn shut. In that example at least, it sounds like it is more of a reflection on how engineers interact with one another (as compared to say, the marketing/PR leadership) than a reflection of the startup environment in general being hostile towards women.

I was at a conference recently and a few women were on a panel talking about the challenges facing women in founding a startup, and continued to emphasize and call attention to inequalities, without realizing that they were perpetuating the same stereotypes they bemoaned, until one woman raised her hand and said "please just tell us about your company, what is next, how are you innovating? how did you raise VC money? we don't care about your kids" (and i gave her a silent slow clap)

When women participate with strength and confidence in their merits, the gender differences are not the emphasis of the relationship (and if anything they can potentially have an advantage over men in some industries or occupations). In my experience working with a lot of intelligent and successful women, the ones who succeed the most are able to utilize the benefits of the obviously different female perspective at times but you come to just interact as humans working towards a common goal, not as two separate species that are cautious of each other.

Lastly, men and women alike should sometimes consider that the dynamic in the workplace might not have anything to do with how you look or whether you are black white or magenta, it might (gasp) have something to do with who you are and perhaps you might just completely suck at your job and annoy the shit out of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Articles like these always make the same inference, and then lead to a similar conclusion: If a woman CEO gets rejected over and over, then it _must_ be sexism (and/or racism); and, then a gender- (or race-) biased investment firm steps in to promote business based on the gender of the CEOS/Founders, and a moral transgression is set straight.

The article asserts that the recession somehow makes investors stupid and frightened, wherein they think via 'templates' or some archetypal response. I think the word they apply is something more like 'scrutiny' -- at least I sure hope so.

It's 2010 -- let's start focusing on merit. I don't care what letters the woman carries from name-brand institutions. It just might be possible that her business ideas don't attract investment. Has that been considered? How many males from these fine institutions also fail in business? I know the number isn't zero.

<comment><USER5> #1: I agree with you. We can't just _assume_ that it must be sexism. Discussions about gender would do better to have more hard data and scientific thinking.

#2: I'd like to suggest you give room to the idea that sexism may be both _powerful_ and _subtle_. The _power_ expresses itself in symptoms like "98% of open source software contributors are male". The _subtly_ shows up in the large number of male programmers who don't notice that there is a problem. For example, an assertive woman in a workplace may be viewed as a "bitch" but an assertive man in a workplace may be viewed more positively. They can each be sharing ideas of the same merit, but our cultural conditioning evaluates them differently. That's the subtlety of it.

<comment><USER6> Since women aren't making it into the industry in the first place, the assertive bitch phenomenon probably isn't the cause. It's an important phenomenon to recognize in general so it can be avoided, but the reason discussions about this go nowhere and never have much of an effect is because the causes are less identifiable and harder to constructively assign blame for.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I agree with you here. I would say that much of the causes of low numbers of females in tech jobs can be traced back to middle school/high school years. I don't think that sexism at work is a large part of the problem, but I do think it's out there to some extent.

This is actually a very touchy problem. On the one hand, it would make matters much _worse_ if we all started walking on eggshells around female programmers. On the other hand, I don't think it's good to act like there isn't a problem. In some respects, discussing it makes it worse, because it brings the matter of gender to the forefront, when ultimately where we need to go is to make the gender aspect of this all _less_ salient. _sigh_

<comment><USER7> If the problem originates in school where math and science are perceived as the boys areas, then changing the attitude of venture capitalists isn't any solution. If men outnumber women 10 to 1 with the qualities that are needed to start a tech startup, then I'd expect any tech company to reflect those ratios.

It's like saying there's a shortage of tech startups from equatorial Africa. It's not because venture capitalists are racists. It's because you're unlikely get the education and experience when growing up in a screwed up society.

<comment><USER5> There are two separate problems. One of them is the shortage of women in tech fields and the other is women being treated poorly in the workplace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> "Women own 40 percent of the private businesses in the United States, according to the Center for Women's Business Research. But they create only 8 percent of the venture-backed tech start-ups, according to Astia, a nonprofit group that advises female entrepreneurs."

There's a whole host of companies which popped up in the 20th century in America that were designed to give increasingly bored[1] housewives a means of earning a supplemental income for the household--Tupperware, Avon, and the like. All these statistics about how many private businesses are owned by women are usually talking about these. The statistics about private businesses _with more than one employee_ are not nearly as heartening.

[1] Because of labor-saving devices such as laundry machines and dishwashers being invented.

<comment><USER8> It bugs me. You know, here's somebody pulling words out of his ass, "Oh, yeah, that 40 percent--it's all Avon ladies, and here's why..." and he pulls some reason out of his ass, "Because in the 20th century the vacuum cleaner revolution was a direct cause of...the Avon company... _and the like_. And that's where the 40 percent number comes from."

Citation _not_ needed.

Obviously, it doesn't matter why or how the number actually came from, but would it really have killed you to research for 2 seconds to find out that the Avon company was started in the 19th century? And that if you looked into your numbers, Tupperware _and the like_ would be a negligible cause of female startups. I mean, has anyone even had a Tupperware party in the last 30 years?

<comment><USER2> While your quibbles are true, the numbers for female-founded more-than-one employee businesses _are_ much smaller than the numbers of female-founded one- employee businesses. (And no, a single-employee business is not a "startup", and neither is a ten employee business unless there is some expectation that the business will be worth millions of dollars in less than ten years.) The phenomenon of otherwise-housewives starting single-employee small businesses _is_ where a large part of the numbers come from. My mother, for instance, was a Kumon instructor.

I think there are huge market opportunities for women to start actual startups, of course, but statistically that's not happening for whatever reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some of the complaints are contradictory. Women are "pushed into management positions" and not allowed to be "individual contributors", yet find actually sitting down and writing code unbearable, and apparently desire lots of human interaction. Isn't that what the management job offers?

However, I have found some of the things mentioned to be true, particularly the bit about women placing a lot of weight on their academic success.

</comment><comment><USER10> I entered the software industry during a recession and far before the dot-com boom. I didn't think it was going to be much of a career. Geeks were much more ostracized. But I didn't care--I _have to do_ what I'm doing.

> There's a really strong image of what a computer scientist is[....] It makes > it hard for people who don't fit that image to think of it as an option for > them.

If anyone with a computer can be dissuaded by such trivia, programming is not their calling, and they should go find it rather than waste their time doing mediocre work.

<comment><USER11> Ding! We have a winner!

If you are so blind as to think that looking around and seeing nobody like you for values of you in minority groups in a position doesn't discourage qualified people, well, then you're not only ignorant of the last 30-40 years of social science research, but also live a life so self-unexamined as to not be aware of your own privilege. Thank you for the demonstration.

Queue the downmodding... now.

<comment><USER10> Qualified people don't dip their toes in to see how welcome they feel, or how the money is, or anything else that happens offscreen. They live and breathe this stuff. Before PCs were available, some used to commit petty crimes just to score some computer time. And nobody regarded this compulsion as any kind of privilege until the pay improved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was expecting an article on how being out of the loop in Silicon Valley affects your business and funding potential. Unfortunately, that's not what this is.

Personally I believe Silicon Valley doesn't necessarily discriminate against women, but rather, discriminates against anyone not in the relevant Silicon Valley social circles and cliques. This is sometimes obvious when a valley startup garners significantly more attention, press, and funding than a similar startup outside of the valley.

</comment><comment><USER13> This was a bit obvious and yet surprising:

> That may be because data show that people are more trusting and comfortable > working with people of their own sex, says Toby Stuart, a Harvard Business > School professor who studies the topic. > He says that some men are > reluctant to invest in women's start-ups because "there are enough things > that can go wrong with a high-risk, early-stage venture that if you're > worried about any interpersonal dynamic issues, why not do a deal that takes > that out of the equation?"

From what I've seen in some large companies though, women get far more easier into middle management, while coders are mostly men (that also don't really want to be into management, mind you). But upper management is male-centric.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious if the 8% number is related to the fact that only a small percentage of women start tech starups in the first place? There was an interview with Jessica Livingston a year ago in which she stated that 7% of YC founders are female, and it corresponds very well to the application pool (citetation: [http://thenextwomen.com/2009/05/01/interview-y-combinator- fo...](http://thenextwomen.com/2009/05/01/interview-y-combinator-founder- jessica-livingston/))

It's possible the 7% and 8% numbers are a coincidence, but I'm hoping that as the number of women creating tech companies increases, so will the 8%...

<comment><USER15> I'd be curious if these figures are similar to those found at universities for these industries?

As an anecdote, I know that in a first year class of around 300 for engineering at my uni, there were 2 women. This was in `99.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> (I'm a little concerned this may be too outspoken for my own good, but here goes..)

The first two stories at the start are horrible. Why are they being anonymized? She should just reveal identities (and compromising photos/emails) and make an example of them.

I know people are afraid of seeming like trouble-makers. Silicon valley can seem awfully small. But you know what, it can also be small for investors. Certain kinds of behavior are so unambiguously bad that with documentary proof nobody should (would?) fault the whistleblower. To do otherwise is to abet sexism.

(The third is obviously not interested in funding her. Who knows why. Just post to thefunded or something.)

<comment><USER17> Even if the source told the reporter the names, all she's got is her word, and that's not enough evidence for the New York Times to print something like that. (And for good reason: it shouldn't be possible to smear someone without evidence, not to mention that the paper would be vulnerable to a libel suit.) You mention 'documentary proof,' but there's no suggestion in the story that she has any.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that she's not telling the truth -- just that reasonable journalistic standards sometimes result in important information being withheld.

<comment><USER18> "Even if the source told the reporter the names, all she's got is her word,"

and maybe a photo of a naked guy on a boat.

<comment><USER17> "Another potential backer invited her for a weekend yachting excursion by _showing_ her a picture of himself on the boat — without clothes." [emphasis mine]

Sounds like the creep was smart enough not to give her the picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > At Stanford, female graduate students in computer science are encouraging > freshman women through a group called Women in Computer Science.

We have a Women in Computer Science club here at Arizona State. The current president is a man.</comment>


Nasa: Why the World didn't end on 12/21/12  - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY_Gc1bF8ds&feature=player_embedded

<comment><USER2> Easier explanation, yesterday was 12/12/12 != 12/21/12</comment>


Show HN: Stock Up – The best free stock photos in one place - steve-benjamins http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a good site, you have a lot of competition. At least a dozen of these on Show: HN in the last 1 year.

Just an FYI, the search term: "stock photo websites in one place" has over 7000 results.

[https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22stock+photo+websites...](https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22stock+photo+websites+in+one+place.%22)

Which is the tag line here. I personally have about 10 of these bookmarked, and they are all exactly the same, short of different frameworks etc.

<comment> steve-benjamins 10 of these bookmarked? I'd be surprised to see that there are 10 sites doing this already. I know of one other- but they do not get permission from the stock photo websites (which I do).

</comment></comment><comment> steve-benjamins Hey everyone! This is not just another free stock photo site. This is an aggregation and search engine of several free stock photo websites :)

I built it because I'm a big fan of stock photo sites like Unsplash, but am always bummed that they don't have search. Instead you have to browse through all their photos.

Stock Up fixes that by making Unsplash (and others) completely searchable :).

I launched this about two weeks ago. I built it with Kimono (which crawls the stock photo websites), Paperclip/Open URI (to download thumbnail of every photo), oDesk and me (for tagging each photo) and Algolia (for the instant search).</comment>


Using a Time-Of-Flight LIDAR Sensor - <AUTHOR> https://mcuoneclipse.com/2016/12/03/tutorial-stmicroelectronics-vl6180x-time-of-flight-lidar-sensor/ <comment><USER3> Neat. I'm curious about why the sensor init code looks the way it does though. It's a very long sequence of repetitive register writes. Why not do it like this instead? Table-driven code is underappreciated, I think.

        static const struct {
            unsigned address;
            unsigned value;
        } inits[] = {
            { 0x207, 0x01 },
            { 0x208, 0x01 },
            { 0x096, 0x00 },
            ...
        };

        for (size_t i = 0; i < ARRAYSIZE(init_writes); ++i) {
            uint8_t res = VL_WriteReg8(i2cDeviceAddress,
                                       inits[i].address,
                                       inits[i].value);
            if (res != ERR_OK) {
                VL_OnError(VL_ON_ERROR_INIT_DEVICE);
                return res;
            }
        }

        return ERR_OK;

<comment><USER4> Indeed, their init routine seriously violates the DRY principle. At the very least, each section could be implemented by a macro, but I prefer your 'table- driven' implementation.

<comment><USER5> I have a feeling writing is that way is mostly habit because you often end up with init routines where the device barfs during init for various reasons[1] and you need to execute 'plan b'. That said I'd consider using macro's to be a distant third option.

[1] Classic is the uP resets and re-runs the init code on I2C bus peripherals that have already been configured.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used a time of flight sensor in an attempt to measure the specific gravity of beer - [https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/zymeter- simple/](https://www.anfractuosity.com/projects/zymeter-simple/)

[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12784](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12784) \- Is the little board I used, and used a logic level converter.

I attached a little polystyrene circle to the top of the hydrometer, for the IR to bounce off.

Unfortunately the approach didn't work too well because of yeast krausen pushing the hydrometer about.

<comment><USER7> That's neat! Regarding your temp sensor issues, I used the same sensor for beer monitoring. Not sure if is is the same issue, but I was able to resolve it[1].

[1] [http://www.blog.pyoung.net/2015/01/28/ds18b20-crc-check- code...](http://www.blog.pyoung.net/2015/01/28/ds18b20-crc-check-codes/)

<comment><USER6> Ooh thanks a lot for the heads up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The data sheet is frustrating. It's not clear whether this device is a carrier-modulated device or a pulse timing device. I think it's carrier- modulated, like most low-end LIDAR devices. Multiple carrier-modulated devices in the same space can interfere. Pulse timing devices, not so much, especially if you randomize the pulse schedule a bit.

[1] [http://www.st.com/content/ccc/resource/technical/document/da...](http://www.st.com/content/ccc/resource/technical/document/datasheet/c4/11/28/86/e6/26/44/b3/DM00112632.pdf/files/DM00112632.pdf/jcr:content/translations/en.DM00112632.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's crazy, I've totally missed the point at which these things stopped costing thousands of dollars and instead you can get them for $13.95 now.

<comment><USER8> I know. I went through the hell of trying to build one in the 1990s. I've used the huge SICK LMS line scanner. Now these things are tiny and cheap, at least for short range.

<comment><USER10> I have a couple of the SICK LMS units (picked them up cheap off ebay) - <USER2> I like the fact that these tiny and low cost sensors are available (and great for small-scale robotics) - they won't match up to a SICK unit in the near term.

There's nothing like the range, 180 deg scanning speed, and general industrial robustness of the SICK LIDARs.

Then again, these chips aren't the size of a small coffee maker, and don't weigh a ton, either.

I think these devices will occupy a nice niche for when you want something with a better resolution than either the Sharp IR sensors or some ultrasonic pinger - but don't mind the limited range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pololu has published some libraries for both the VL53L0X and VL6180X that make them a lot easier to consume.

[https://github.com/pololu/vl53l0x-arduino](https://github.com/pololu/vl53l0x-arduino) [https://github.com/pololu/vl6180x-arduino](https://github.com/pololu/vl6180x-arduino)

I've been playing around with the VL53L0X.

[http://i.imgur.com/KFezaqU.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/KFezaqU.jpg) [http://i.imgur.com/YM5KLRw.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/YM5KLRw.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know if this works in sunlight (at noon outside)?

</comment><comment><USER13> Range is 10/40/60cm with accuracy 1/2/3mm (apparently there is some kind of scaling factor). I wonder where such short range measurements with such a low accuracy are useful.

<comment><USER14> I could imagine this for collision avoidance in a very small UAV, e.g. a vacuuming robot.

<comment><USER11> The 3m range with ~3mm accuracy is more than enough for large object alignment as well. I've got the VL53L0X being used as a car park sensor in my garage, it's a very complicated version of a tennis ball on a string.</comment></comment></comment>