Contrary to Trump's claim, Google is not building a Covid-19 website - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21179118/google-coronavirus-testing-screening-website-drive-thru-covid-19 <comment><USER2> "We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time"

yes, yes they are. They are building it for the Valley with the plan to expand nation wide.

Please stop with the politics. Trump can get something right.

Nobody was this pedantic with Obama. The difference is that Obama just wouldn't tell us what he was doing..and the press would ignore all of the terrible things going on behind the scenes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Trump implied during his speech that the site would be available nationwide by Sunday or Monday.

Also, people were pedantic with Obama all the time. Tan suit, anyone?

<comment><USER2> "implied"

Did he imply or are you implying now because you don't like Trump?

Kind of like when he made a speech about illegal immigrants and the press implied that he was talking about all immigrants?

"Also, people were pedantic with Obama all the time. Tan suit, anyone?"

Obama was adored by the mainstream press and anyone that said a single negative thing about him was attacked and deemed a racist. Fast and Furious anyone? How about when he used the IRS to illegally target conservative groups?

60 million people were infected with H1N1 during his presidency and 13,000 people died in the US. Most people don't even remember this.

If you can't admit when Trump does something right, I sure as hell won't believe you when you tell me Trump is doing something wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


Professionals are taking microdoses of LSD before work - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/article/lsd-microdosing-drugs-silicon-valley <comment><USER2> If your desire to create slightly more work units causes you to drop acid daily, maybe you should re-evaluate your relationship with creating work units.

<comment><USER3> Many people take another mind-altering drug, caffeine, daily to get them through the work day.

You are arguing taking acid is not good because you have already assumed that taking it is bad.

IMO there is not enough information to draw any conclusion because gathering such information has been made illegal (denying truthful factual information to your enemy is an effective strategy in any war, but most especially the war on drugs -- in this case the enemy is the curious citizen). but there is zero reason to presuppose minimal doses of this is either negative or positive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To hear Kary Mullis tell it (and yes, I've seen him do so in person), the change in perspective offered by LSD was worth a Nobel prize (which he was awarded in 1993 for devising the now-ubiquitous polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, used throughout molecular biology and forensics).

I can believe that low doses without the massive emotional upheaval could be useful for getting out of a rut and making progress on difficult projects. However, I can't imagine that daily use is a spectacularly good idea. Just my opinion, though, because thanks to prohibition, it's extremely hard to come by objective information at a population level.

I didn't see any examples of people with negative reactions, which is odd, because I've seen plenty of people lose their shit at the beginning or end of a low-ish LSD or psilocybin dose. It would be nice if we didn't have so many idiotic rules about victimless crimes in this country.

</comment><comment><USER5> Placebo much?

</comment><comment><USER6> Really SV doesn't have any real hippies anymore...tiny hits of LSD. phhhttt</comment>


Apple refuses to replace overheated iPad due to jailbreaking - <AUTHOR> http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19286?

<comment><USER2> I waited to jailbreak my original iPhone until I got my new 3GS. I wonder why that is?

Should we automatically believe the author of the post that he didn't try overclocking the CPU while tinkering with it? That the jailbreak didn't exploit a hole in a power management routine which ended up with a nasty side effect?

I'm sorry people, but I have to agree with Apple/Motorola and the corporate types on this. Software can impact the hardware, so yes indeed tinkering with the software can void the warranty of the hardware.

<comment><USER3> So if I install a screwed up program on my windows machine, MS may claim the warrenty was voided?

No? Then Apple doesn't have the right to.

<comment><USER4> Most desktops would be hard-pressed to cook themselves through a software/firmware hack unless significantly (stupidly) overclocked. In contrast, lots of mobile devices could cook themselves with such hacks even without any overclocking.

There's also a significant difference between firmware and just installing software. The PC manufacturer and MS expect you to install any old software on that windows boxen. Apple did not manufacture the iPad with that expectation, and they were up-front about this.

If you want a hackable tablet, there have been plenty of options around since 2001! I know, because I have one!

<comment><USER5> The only thing you could do is run a process at high CPU load for a long time, and you can do that in the App Store by plugging the device in and letting it sit there with a game running.

Please note that the iPad jailbreak (unlike the ones used on iPhones) does not actually modify the bootloader and only has minimal kernel access (changing things that, frankly, would make it use less CPU load as it no longer validates signature certificates on binary code it is loading).

(Also, there have been plenty of options since long before 2001, and I know because I have those ;P. Check out the Compaq Concerto running Windows 3.11 for Pen. Frankly, I wouldn't call the iPad a tablet, and neither does Apple: pens are a defining characteristic.)

\- Jay Freeman (saurik) [on the various jailbreak teams, developer of Cydia]

<comment><USER4> There's also Android tablets aplenty in the works. Thank you very much for your work on Cydia, I am a delighted user of it on my 1st gen iPhone.

The old tc1100 supports basically 90% of the use cases for my iPad, but the iPad is just more comfortable to use, particularly since it lacks the stylus. (With the one exception of drawing.)

Also, just because the jailbreak itself doesn't cause more CPU use, this doesn't mean that the jailbreak couldn't enable something thermally harmful. It's also not reasonable for Apple to have to determine forensically that you didn't harm anything -- it's impossible to prove a negative! Now, if someone was playing a game on an non-jailbroken device plugged into the charger and fried it, they would be entitled to satisfaction from Apple since they were running it on the terms Apple sold it. If you don't like these, either don't buy the device or take the risk of not having the warranty to fall back on. The similar physics of these two situations isn't the issue here, it's all about the legal terms of the sale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Admittedly, the warranty implications of jailbreaking iOS-based devices aren't a secret. However, blaming the user for hardware malfunction (and subsequent damage) seems a little out there._

Sorry, but I'm with Apple on this one.

For all we know, the unauthorized software is disabling the fan and churning the CPU up the yin-yang.

You want Steve's support on Steve's hardware, you play by Steve's rules. It's that simple.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't this fall under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act? Isn't it then on Apple to prove the software didn't cause the hardware malfunction?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act)

<comment><USER8> Yes, it may. Hasn't been tested in courts to my knowledge though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Apple refuses to replace dropped iPad with voided warranty."

Apple fans: you know that user experience you value so dearly? The slick interfaces and integration between applications and devices? The way you can take an Apple product out of the box and have it "just work?" The ability of Apple to bend over backwards to make you happy by doing things like immediately replacing devices that malfunction?

 _Those things are all possible because of Apple's walled garden_. If you take your Apple device that's only intended to run an Apple operating system that was specifically designed for it and make modifications, Apple will no longer support it. You don't get to have it both ways.

<comment><USER5> There are also people out there who aren't actually "Apple fans". People like myself, for example, who feel that Apple's "slick interfaces" are actually difficult to use (too much time wasted in animations and not enough time spent on details like putting the cancel button in a uniform corner of the screen) and that they don't know the first thing about integration between applications (and even seem to avoid it, unlike Microsoft).

The core issue here is that this guy /dropped his device/, a condition that Apple has /never/ claimed to do warranty replacements for. Even if you purchase Apple Care they do /not/ cover "accidental damage". You are completely confusing these two issues in your post and seem to be implying that Apple /would/ have "bent over backwards" to replace it otherwise.

(And to someone who is going to reply: "I once got my dropped device replaced", that is a single instance and does not happen for everyone, and is certainly not their policy.)

<comment><USER9> The guy's argument was that he only dropped it because it got so hot, and the fact that it got so hot is a fault in the design of the device, therefore he should get another one under warranty.

The bulk of my post was mostly a rant about people that expect Apple to provide products that have that Apple "magic" _and_ let them make modifications, _and_ have Apple support them if they do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I chip my car to increase boost until the engine grenades itself, I'm not sure I'd be headed to the dealer for a warranty replacement.

<comment><USER11> True, but if the rear lights suddenly stopped working then you'd expect the manufacturer to replace those under warranty regardless of what you did to the engine, wouldn't you?

Note that I'm not necessarily saying Apple have done anything wrong in this particular case, but making any modification (a sticker on the back?) shouldn't automatically void any warranty claim on the whole device. IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I jailbroke my 3GS a couple of months ago before getting the 4. It was by far the worst experience ever. The battery was garbage and it heated up like an oven. If it overheated to death, I would have not been surprised.

</comment><comment><USER13> This goes along with the story on Motorola / eFuse. Jail breaking a phone is not an exact science and can cause problems, especially in a situation like this where the person who jail broke it doesn't have the technical prowess to deal with problems. Even if the problem is not the new software, you are still on the hook and need to be able to deal with the situation.

Jail breaking cost companies support money (the staff people in this story) and they will try to minimize that money when possible (no repair for you).

<comment><USER3> Gee, then maybe they shouldn't make it so hard do fix in the jail break in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The bad move was taking the jailbroken ipad to the store without restoring it first.

<comment><USER15> Totally agree. The more you read through the story, the more you realize how big of an idiot he is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Apple replaced my jailbroken original iPhone when the battery died as a result of using a very very shady car charger from some Chinese company.

</comment><comment><USER17> > I asked for a hard copy of this decision for reference to a lawyer.

Whoa, going adversarial and implicitly threatening is never going to help you get what you want.

> Apple minion snatched up my iPad again and disappeared into the back [No > admittance!]. After another twenty minutes, he returned with "Robert H., > Store Manager". Robert explained to me that any unauthorized software was a > modification. All modifications completely void the warranty.

Totally predictable. When you're asking for a favor, ask for a favor, be meek, humble, beg and scrape a little maybe, and be gracioius. "Can I get a hard copy for a lawyer?" is going to get you stonewalled, especially when they don't have to help you.

> I asked if the iPad having been restored would not make this moot.

Too technical, and too late anyways. Stay friendly when you're asking for a favor. They might've even helped him out if he was really nice and cool about it. I bet if he'd said, "This is taking quite a while... is there any way I can get a lender iPad if you have such a thing while you guys try to give mine a fix? I'd mightily appreciate it, it'd mean a lot to me" - then maybe he could have been lent one while they put in some hours to try to fix his. The adversarial behavior means they starting going into CYA mode instead of trying to help you.

</comment><comment><USER18> So this person dropped his iPad, and cracked it and expected a new free one? Warranties are offered on products with certain limitations that keep the companies from having to replace hardware through negligence. Sounds like this person was pretty negligent.

Also I find it funny that he says "the refused even though I said I would do a restore on it" but also admits that the wipe bricked the system.

You take your fate into your hands when you jailbreak. If you're not smart enough to do the wipe before bringing it in then you're not a smart person to begin with.</comment>


A lightweight C++ signals and slots implementation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pbhogan/Signals <comment><USER2> They use templates like Signal0<>, Signal1<T1>, Signal2<T1,T2>, etc. with fixed argument length instead of a more uniform solution like variadic templates.

The code in the library is pretty old and I suppose that an update with regards to C++11/14/17 would make it much better in every regard.

<comment><USER3> Given that the comments talk about compatibility issues with DOS and some DSPs I believe it is not the direction pbhogan wants to take.

<comment><USER2> As long as you can use a recent compiler there shouldn't be problems. The resulting assembler code should be the same.

<comment><USER4> A C++11 compiler for DOS?

<comment><USER5> [http://www.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/mini- faq.txt](http://www.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/mini-faq.txt)

gcc 5.3 (& co) for DOS!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The original code and explanation:

[http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/7150/Member-Function- Poi...](http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/7150/Member-Function-Pointers-and- the-Fastest-Possible)

<comment><USER7> The author of this has been a long time contributor to D and brought these ideas (and many other things) to the language. He's probably the biggest reason D's CTFE (compile time function evaluation) is as powerful as it is, having done most of the implementation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you wanted to maintain C++03 compatibility, a dispatching macro might be useful to select the appropriate Signal template arity: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16683146/can-macros-be- ov...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16683146/can-macros-be-overloaded- by-number-of-arguments)

<comment><USER9> No need for a dispatching macro, the usual solution in c++03 was to have a template with a fixed maximum arity like this:

template<class T1 = default_, class T2 = default ..., class T10 = default_> struct Signal;

where default is a placeholder type, and then have it dispatch internally to the correct Signal/N/ via template specialization.

The template specialization themselves were generated either via preprocessor metaprogramming or by an external tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe someone can chime in on why the standard library's std::function can't be implemented as efficiently as this library purportedly is.

<comment><USER11> As with most things it boils down to scope...

'Class template std::function is a general-purpose polymorphic function wrapper. Instances of std::function can store, copy, and invoke any Callable target -- functions, lambda expressions, bind expressions, or other function objects, as well as pointers to member functions and pointers to data members.'

This clearly does more than the OPs code and therefore has more complexity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can the signal cross threads as in Qt's implementation?

<comment><USER13> this equally old and pre modern c++ implementation can: [http://sigslot.sourceforge.net/](http://sigslot.sourceforge.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had a ~ 6 month stint using Qt, after coming from iOS/OSX development. I found it to be a really cumbersome mechanism, particularly when concurrency was involved. I feel like there is a lot of momentum around functional reactive. Anyone know of a comparison between this and reactive approaches?

</comment><comment><USER15> What are signals/slots the best paradigm for?

<comment><USER16> Observer pattern. Say you have some event that occurs, and some objects that want to know about it. You make a signal and connect some observers to it. When you fire the signal the observers receive some parameters and do their calculations.

<comment><USER17> Why it's interesting alternative: regular observer pattern make observed code depend (at compile time) on the observing code. Signals/slots remove this dependency, and allow for external configuration of these.

It's a dependency injection mechanism when you think about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What does it do better than libsigc++?

<comment><USER19> This has got to stop.

Someone posts a link to A and immediately there is a comment - "How is it better than B? How is it different from C?" You know what, bud, if you know about B and C, excellent. Why don't you take a look at A and do everyone a favor and answer your own question. Otherwise it sound like a lazy-ass highbrow dismissal - "Pfft, A? Why bother? There is B, for chrissake, that even the last imbecile here is familiar with."

Please try and make a sliver of effort when commenting on other people's work.

<comment><USER18> Because my time is limited and I would like to know why I should spend time evaluating it, instead of using a battle tested library that exists since late 90's and that follows modern C++.

If the OP only wants to learn how to do it, or to build its portfolio for a possible job interview, it is fair enough and I don't need to bother with it.

If the author wants to do a kick-ass replacement of libsigc++, then it is probably worth my expensive time to look into it.

<comment><USER20> Everyone's time is limited, whether it's useful to you (or not), only you can say. You are basically implying that the time of other people is less valuable than yours when you say "please tell me why I must look at it".

<comment><USER21> Read it as "In case you have already compared A to B, I'd like to know what you observed", and suddenly there is way less to be upset about.

<comment><USER22> How is this better than 'How is this better than'?

:-) (joking, you are on the right track here, 100% agree)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How long will HN be relevant? - <AUTHOR> It seems that it should or will last forever but what is the chance of that? Think 5 years in the future or even 15, 20 or 30 years. Seems highly likely it will fade and be replaced by something else.  When will that be? What will cause it to happen? <comment><USER2> I think nowadays it is not relevant anymore. Around 2008-2012 were the hottest years, with a lot of people getting interested in Startups and the community was great back then. A lot of people from here that ended up being CEOs in Billion dollar valuation companies nowadays, and there was definitely a lot of tech in development.

Nowadays everything is more fragmented, people moved on.

<comment><USER3> Did people move on to something else or is there anything else?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What will cause it? The community changes into something else. It seems inevitable - most communities do. At that point the website will still exist, it will still get lots of posts and traffic, but what we love about HN will be gone.

What keeps that from happening now? The moderation, plus self-policing by the community. But I don't think self-policing would be enough without the moderation.

</comment><comment><USER5> What makes you think its relevant now?

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been reading HN for ten years or so, and I see myself still reading HN in ten years. Maybe something new and better will come along, but HN has so much momentum that it will take a long time to go away, even if it's not the hottest thing anymore. (unless someone decides to shut it down for some reason)

</comment><comment><USER7> Related: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect)

</comment><comment><USER8> Relevant to what/who? It seems that it's used by people in many ways and for many purposes. It doesn't seem very useful asking or answering this without being more specific.

</comment><comment><USER9> As long as Silicon Valley is relevant. The only trend that seems to threaten this is remote work.</comment>


Programmers: What To Do If You Get Fired  - <AUTHOR> http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/03/programmers-what-to-do-if-you-get-fired.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... Paul Graham's advice, that the best way to get a job is to start a company and sell it, is really just a particular instance of my advice, that the best way to get a job is to create assets and get them to people. ..."_

The guts of the article is in this quote by Giles after you read about being fired throwing creamy soda at other programmers and how to get arrested in New Mexico. I miss reading this kind of stuff.

<comment><USER2> I cycle between subscribing and unsubscribing to his blog all the time. He'll do a few high-quality posts followed by 10 links to youtube videos of cross- species mating rituals.

<comment><USER3> That's probably the marketing part of being rock star programmer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1176962></comment>


Ask HN: Best Programming Language For a Text-Graphics Game - <AUTHOR> My 13-year-old daughter wants to program. Specifically, she wants to create a text/graphics video game where all the graphics is done by text characters -- you know, like in the old games. She has a Win8 box.
So -- Is it C#? I gotta install that monster IDE and battleship of MS just for this?
I was wondering if anybody had any other ideas. Back in the days of dinosaurs, you'd just poke your graphics to the screen. Guess they don't do that anymore, huh?
The way she described it to me, she wanted to make her own game. (Cue exasperated sigh from father). But all she wants is to be able to press the arrow keys and have a little ASCII character move around on the screen. Hit the spacebar and have it shoot at some other ASCII characters representing the bad guys.
This seems like a very simple request, but dang if I can figure out how to simply set up a system to do it in. <comment><USER2> If you want to translate (well, transcode really) from existing graphics to ASCII art, your best bet is aalib [1,2].

I'm unsure if curses/ncurses [3] is suitable for game work, but it's another thing you might want to look at.

If she has an interest in the creativity of character based art, it would be best to talk to Jason Scott [4] but realize some of the archived art scene text might be considered unsuitable for a 13 year old (even though I'm sure some of it was created by 13 year olds). Also, Jason would be a good person to ask about how character based graphics were done in old games.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAlib>

[2] <http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/aalib/>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses>

[4] <http://ascii.textfiles.com/>

EDIT: It also might be fun to show her Star Wars in ASCII animation

telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl

</comment><comment><USER3> I would say that the best programming language for a simple game is TI-83 Plus BASIC. Unlike pretty much any programming language on a modern PC, the barrier to getting text on the screen is extremely low. The functions `GETKEY`, `OUTPUT`, and `CLRHOME`, with some loops and variables will get you 90% of the way to a the game your daughter wants to make.

There are some great simple tutorials available too:

[http://www.ticalc.org/programming/columns/83plus- bas/cherny/...](http://www.ticalc.org/programming/columns/83plus- bas/cherny/#disp)

Plus, there are _tons_ of example games to download and read the code for. Here are a ton of arcade games:

<http://www.ticalc.org/pub/83plus/basic/games/arcade/>

The other great thing about TI-Basic is that your daughter will be able to show off her work to friends at school. This is how I started to learn programming at about age 12, without any need for outside guidance.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you're ok with using JavaScript as a first programming language, ROT.js (<http://ondras.github.io/rot.js/manual/>) is a neat library for making roguelikes. It's not a framework so much as a set of utilities for simplifying tasks like rendering the display, generating maps, etc.

Some examples of small games made with it are <http://ondras.github.io/star- wars/> and <http://ondras.zarovi.cz/games/trw/> . I'm currently working on a silly project of my own using ROT.js: <http://alex.nisnevich.com/untrusted/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Text characters? Like all ASCII?

I would think the ncurses library might be appropriate for that, in which case C, or any language that has ncurses bindings (like Python) should be fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Except no scrolling of the screen when it updates.

Yeah I knew there was a route to this in C, but aren't we talking *nix here? Seems like a heckuva an install just for something she may only use for a few hours.

I really like the idea of starting her with C, though. There's a couple good books out there, and as long as she stays away from pointers and macros it shouldn't be too much.

Modern environments are just so complex. Geesh. I'd hate to be starting today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Use an interpreted language like python, ruby, perl, et al and run it in the interpreter. I write lots of stuff this way before I build interfaces. My first python program was a tic-tac-toe game. I created a game board using dashes and pipe characters.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would suggest that "using Ascii characters" rather than sprites is conflating design and implementation, and express my doubt that a 13 year old is actually thinking about ASCII, anyway. That sounds more like a translation done by someone a bit older.

Good luck.</comment>


S&P warns 1 in 10 US firms may default on debt - <AUTHOR> https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-sp-firms-default-debt.html <comment><USER2> They didn't save for the hard times? It was their own choices that caused them to default. They should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

<comment><USER3> Of course, companies should save to face possible hard circumstances. In ideal world.

In real world, conservative company that save large portion of their income will loose competition with a company that does not have this kind of infinite game thinking.

The events that really test and reward companies with infinite thinking are rare and far between, allowing those without that kind of constraint to flourish inbetween.

Now, it depends what is thought to be public good. It might be in public (US) good to give aid to those companies to keep being competitive against foreign powers. Even though you may not like the fact and you may think it is not fair to reward short term thinking it might still be in your good interest to pony up.

I don't have knowledge and mental model to decide whether this is in fact good or not. Somebody should probably do some kind of estimation of possible effects to figure out what is the right course here.

<comment><USER2> For the record, I'm not hating companies that live day to day, the race to the bottom forces them to. I'm mocking the idea that if you struggle financially, it's always your fault and you should have known better. There are always factors out of our control, company or individual, even if bigger entities have more factors under their control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's kind of amazing that 10% of our economy is basically living on the knifes edge of revenue and liability like this. It might just be a bad mentality, I know in Japan, they have a tradition of corporations building up a massive treasury, but the US is basically the exact opposite

<comment><USER5> I don't think 12 months without revenue is "living on knifes edge"

<comment><USER6> That's kind of the problem. We don't view companies that go 12 months without revenue as high risk and/or failed investments anymore. How long can companies like Uber continue to raise capital to operate when they're only generating a fraction of the revenue now and investors won't accept the long term risk?

<comment> o-__-o As long as money is cheap, the rich (VCs, Angels) will throw cash at you to satisfy their tax liability. A unicorn going public is just a side benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The source article:

[https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/200204...](https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/200204-coronavirus- impact-key-takeaways-from-our-articles-11337257)

From their earlier article:

[https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/200317...](https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/200317-economic- research-covid-19-macroeconomic-update-the-global-recession-is-here-and- now-11392265)

</comment><comment><USER8> Did they swap numbers by accident? I expect 9 out of 10 to default.</comment>


MIT cheetah robot lands the running jump [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_luhn7TLfWU <comment><USER2> Is it me or does it seem to have an easier time with the highest obstacle. I though it was a fluke but then it had the same behaviour in free range mode.

Is it a random result because of the phase of the obstacle in the run cycle?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is amazing.

I am so impatient though - I want to scatter bricks on the landing-side of the jump to see how it copes.

<comment><USER4> It would probably get annoyed and shoot you with its lasers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting the obstacles are always magenta.

<comment><USER6> In a war room somewhere: "Have you seen this video? We have to repaint the robocheetah obstacles as soon as possible!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would be funny to see a group of these performing synchronously at half time.

</comment><comment><USER8> That's not a cheetah. That's an electric sheep.

<comment><USER9> You'll scream this when that electric sheep comes after you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> To be fair, this looks more like a mountain goat jump. Impressive non the less !

<comment><USER11> My first thought :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Love that ingenuity on their camera dolly

</comment><comment><USER13> Love it that a PhD student had to push the camera guy at the end.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hopefully they'll put a saddle on it! What a way to commute...

</comment><comment><USER15> Is the goal here explicitly to mimic animal locomotion? Does this have unique advantages to something that rotates/rolls etc?

<comment><USER16> It's not the animal locomotion per se that's exciting. It's the balance control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, this is impressive! However I'm still eager to see the matchup against the MIT Antelope.

</comment><comment><USER18> I, for one, welcome our new cheetah robot overloads!

</comment><comment><USER19> Amazing algrotihms!

But seriously... impressive work :-)

</comment><comment><USER20> could skynet be too far away ?

\- with deep neural nets making ai advances in strides and

\- with robots/drones learning to autonomously navigate

we should start including skynet clauses into our source codes immediately!

</comment><comment><USER21> Robots are coming!

If Moore's law will apply to the progress of Robotics, we have very few years left before we will all be slaves.

</comment><comment><USER22> Terminator, the humble beginnings - looks and feels like rats!

</comment><comment><USER23> This reminds me of when i was learning to drive. In the beginning I was only aware of what was immediately in front of the car, and as such, drove very slow and had pay extra attention because a lot of important stuff was coming in to my field of view all the time.

Now, when i drive i look further down the road, i plan out how to follow the road, i see the intersection coming up, and try to anticipate the routes of the other cars/bikes and that requires far less energy, than only processing the immediate surroundings.

<comment><USER24> Well, all the sensory overload you experienced as a novice driver has become background noise that is handled subconsciously now. That lets you focus on more strategic planning of your driving. That's one reason I like countries that mandate a learner sign in cars for new drivers. It lets others around them understand that they are still getting to grips with that sensory overload and allows them to act accordingly.

<comment><USER23> I see, is there an equivalent for robots? Like putting part of the algorithm in to hardware or something? Or is my "algorithm" still "there", I'm just not as aware that I'm following it?

<comment><USER24> I'd say it's still there, it's just running on a background thread. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's only a matter of time until one of these things kills a person.

</comment><comment><USER26> All of this is neat stuff.

That said, for some reason I am still bothered by the use of laser range finders. To me it makes it all feel like a parlor trick. The easiest way to produce machines that can be used in "Oh, wow! Look at that!" videos that continue to bring in grants.

These robots should use binocular vision and nothing else.

Oh, wait a minute, that's hard, isn't it? Yup.

<comment><USER27> Why? Why should they be limited to the same hardware configuration as their biological analogues?

<comment><USER26> Because they have to interact with our world, not a lab or a factory.

If you are building a robot for a factory, put limit switches, magnetic sensors or whatever you want on it.

If, on the other hand, you want to build robots to live, work and interact with humans they need to be capable of understanding my world the way I do. Think of a robot interacting with a toddler or a bunch of kids.

This is monumentally harder than scanning in front of the robot with a laser to detect geometry, measure height and approach speed and then plan a jump. Much harder.

Not to diminish their work but the math and physics seem almost trivial. Figure out the x-intercept, width and height of a parabolic path that will give you enough margin of error not to touch the obstacle. Then do the math on the time delay between the front and rear legs based on approach speed. Then plan the gait in order to be able to have the legs at the right point at the right time. So long as you have a robot that can jump it's a done deal.

Again, I know it is more complicated than that, but it doesn't compare to the degree of sophistication a robot would have to have to manage the real world with binocular vision. My 9 year old kid can fly remote controlled model airplanes tooling along at over 60 miles per hour just using his eyes. You don't need millimeter accuracy laser measurement devices, you need to understand the world around you in some context.

Context: I built walking robots (not toys, research grade) over 25 years ago. Today there's virtually no difference in actuation mechanisms and sensors. A lot of these programs are grant-sucking machines that are reinventing the wheel rather than making true progress. Here are some of the things we need:

\- True binocular vision systems that can develop an understanding of the environment to various degrees of sophistication (this is hard)

\- Better actuators. The artificial muscle has yet to be realized. Make your arm limp on the table. You can't do that with a robot. You can simulate it. But it isn't the same thing. You'll actually consume power and spin gears/pumps very fast to be in "limp and compliant" mode. Real flexibility and real compliance are critical for robots that need to interact with people and animals. Every animal on the planet relies on this to interact with the environment.

\- Better programming paradigms. We are still typing "if" statements and "for" loops to program intelligent robots. A far greater degree of abstraction is required to truly advance the art. No, libraries are not a solution. We need to be able to express concepts to a machine in far more efficient terms. How do you teach a robot to tie a knot on a rope on a table and have that robot think about using that same knot on a sailboat or to restrain a dog to a post? Without telling it that these are options?

\- Better means of communication with machines. Buttons and knobs isn't how you communicate with your taxi driver or housekeeper. A 5 year old kid should be able to command a machine without having to rock the Linux command line.

etc.

I guess my argument is that we already know how to build "parlor trick" machines. We've known how to do this for quite some time. Any set of decent mechanical engineers can build a decent walking machine given a reasonable amount of time. Making it walk and even jump is almost just as trivial.

Because of the way these departments are funded the truly hard and interesting work might not be done or might not see the same degree of funding. Some of the items I listed above could require 10 to 20 years of solid dedication before the "Oh Wow! Did you see that!" moment is reached. Most of the funding out there isn't smart enough to support these kinds of projects. And so the money goes to the guy who can put a spring-loaded plunger on a little robot with wheels and show it can jump to the top of a building. You know, first year college physics, if not high school physics. This does virtually zero to advance robotics but it sure makes politicians write checks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> edit: Spoiler Alert!

I just watched Ex-Machina and for some reason, I just pictured the robot running out of the building after its last test without the safety harness and setting itself free.

<comment><USER29> I waited months to watch this and read your spoiler. I don't think your comment has added any benefit to mankind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Url changed from [http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/29/oh-no-mits-cheetah- robot-...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/29/oh-no-mits-cheetah-robot-can- jump-over-hurdles-while-running), which points to this.

<comment><USER31> I really like that this happens on HN.

A crap gif and half a paragraph add nothing to the video imho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The left and right front/hind legs moving in sync looks unnatural. I wonder if this is ultimately the best way to distribute weight and balance of a four- legged object, and why living four-legged creatures do not run like this?

Alternatively, would it be better if the robots also ran more life-like, or is there a benefit (besides the ease and simplicity of engineering the physics) to the robots running like this? I.e. will they ultimately have the robots running more life-like?

<comment><USER33> this is how cheetahs run [http://giphy.com/gifs/animal- running-7lz6nPd56aHh6](http://giphy.com/gifs/animal-running-7lz6nPd56aHh6)

<comment><USER32> Actually, if you slow it down, the left/right legs are stil not quite perfectly in sync (at least not in this case):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuyeVN7PuTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuyeVN7PuTM)

<comment><USER34> Correct, and it's clear the machine does a little correction cycle after it lands. Very cool though. Now they need to work this into the pathfinding algorithms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I for one welcome our robotic overlord

<comment><USER36> This is such an annoying and useless comment. This same comment is parroted EVERY time there's an article about robots anywhere on the Internet. How are you adding anything to the discussion at all?

<comment><USER37> S/he seems excited and wanted to reinforce that with something more than an upvote. Frankly if his/her comment adding nothing, yours took away from the thread because it has a negative and discouraging tone to it.

Be nicer my friend. We are all friends here.

<comment><USER36> That's fine, then reinforce it with a comment that is interesting, and not a useless cliche.

It's everybody's responsibility to ensure the quality of the discussion remains high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Well, it is very impressive, but still a very long way from what a real animal can do. What if the obstacle is at the edge of a canyon? It will suicide :D . Those tests are very restricted, but even after they will think the robot is ready, there will be cases they have missed in which it will fail.

<comment><USER39> _What if the obstacle is at the edge of a canyon? It will suicide :D_

Not to worry, the drone flying ahead will already have mapped the terrain :)

<comment><USER10> And tagged you as its next kill :p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> So they can spend millions developing the robot, but the best they can do for tracking while they film from the side is a guy pushing another guy in a big plastic box on wheels. Way to go geeks!

<comment><USER41> I don't see the problem. It was quick and easy and got the job done - a nice avoidance of over-engineering.

<comment><USER42> It's not a problem. It's amusing. Juxtaposition is a common form of humor, and whether or not MIT indented the humor, it is funny to see a multimillion dollar autonomous robot get filmed with such a primitive technique.

<comment><USER43> Next up: Throwing wrenches at the robot to see if it can play dodge ball.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> DARPA again. Great to see more money flowing into military research.

Irony off.

<comment><USER45> Military research is extremely important. The use of military tech in civilian applications is the reason for a lot of stuff we use daily, as I'm sure you know.

<comment><USER46> There's no reason that technological progress from the US government couldn't be driven by NASA rather than DARPA. I suspect many peace-loving people would prefer to see that.

<comment><USER47> "No reason", other than the massive budget constraints NASA faces, and has been facing yearly since the end of the Apollo program.

[https://static.nationalpriorities.org/images/charts/2015/tot...](https://static.nationalpriorities.org/images/charts/2015/total- desk.png)

See that Science heading there on the chart? It's hard making the world a better place on a 0.7% budget. DARPA, however has access to that Military heading, 16.3%.

<comment><USER46> Perhaps you're missing my point. I'm suggesting that money from the military spending budget could be moved over to NASA without losing any ability to drive forward new technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> No one seems to be discussing how this can be improved! Here are a few points:

1\. Real cheetahs don't run like that. The action of both pairs of legs is staggered for smoother motion and control. Check this out - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131wvVGjZUc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131wvVGjZUc)

2\. Looking at this jumping-over-obstacles video, it seems like the robot is lacking flexibility. The real life cheetah's hind legs go quite a bit underneath in preparation for push off. Contrast this with how the robot's hind legs are a little too behind and the robot stutters a bit after every jump. If the robot could put its hind legs further it would make for a smoother landing.

<comment><USER49> 1.The goal is not to build a cheetah, buy to learn from them. One thing to consider is that this team is constrained by materials. What works for an animal will likel not transfer directly due to the difference in materials. Harmonics are well absorbed by tissue but the robot may have issues with them.

2\. How did you come to this conclusion? Have you built a robot that mimics an animal? If so, may you provide some insight into your discoveries?

Robotics programmer/builder here. Always interested in learning about the work of others.

<comment><USER48> To your first point, wouldn't a robot like that benefit from staggering the action of the legs? Instead of X impact at one point in time, have X/2 impact at two points in time? Would that create too much strain?

For my conclusion in point two, my insight comes from experience of copying animal movement. When I trained parkour my friends and I would copy animal movement from across the whole animal kingdom[1]. Here's an example of quadrupedal movement[2]. A big problem for us bipeds in trying to run like quadrupeds is that our legs tend to be big, long and inflexible, while our arms tend to be much weaker than our legs. The effect of this combination is to make running properly like a an animal which evolved to run on all fours quite difficult. From my own experience, putting my legs more and more forward past my arms (i.e. copying the cheetah), made for a much easier time.

If you were to try to run like the robot, with symmetrical action, it would be extremely uncomfortable, because the impact is large at every step. Staggering the action allows for a much smoother run. Make any human run like that and they'll eventually automatically switch to the less impactful staggered run.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymg1-Fhl69w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymg1-Fhl69w)

[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8oh5Xuy7NA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8oh5Xuy7NA)

<comment><USER50> Having the back and front legs work as a pair makes the side to side balancing easier. I having them hit separately would require more control and degrees of freedom in the leg to keep the robot from oscillating side to side while running.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Aside from being a great development; I am really scared that robotics is improving this much. It feels like we are creating our own potential enemy.

<comment><USER52> Ugh, I really dislike this sentiment. Even assuming the most extreme possibility -- that we create a powerful, sentient machine -- this is no different than what every species on this planet has been doing for a few billion years now.

Creating life is what we earthlings do. And yeah, maybe that life form you create goes on to do horrible things. But maybe it goes on to do really good things. You don't know until you try.

<comment><USER46> Personally, I'm not concerned with that. I'd be more concerned about powerful robots controlled by governments/corporations/anyonewhohasaninterestincontrollingyourbehaviour.

Look at what's happening in Yemen. The population there lives under the fear of drone strikes by the US (that includes the civilian population). If governments are prepared to do that with drones, what reason is there to suspect they'll turn down using something that's ground-based to impose control?

<comment><USER53> I wish there was no reason for stupid warfare, but:

Aren't they better off than the Vietnamese who lived under the fear of Napalm bombardment? (or, for that matter, Japanese fearing the atomic bomb) I don't think that robotics has significant negative impact on warfare (and I wonder whether it has a positive impact).

<comment><USER3> Yes, in one sense people are better off with drones than they would be with land mines or cluster bombs or "shock and awe" style area-bombing.

Those are (pretty clearly, IMO) war crimes.

But still, it's useful to be worried about the potential "desensitising effect" of remote warfare. Is someone operating a drone subject to the same psychological pressure to avoid killing other humans as someone pulling a trigger? (Turns out that yes, that person probably is, but that their political superiors possibly aren't).

<comment><USER54> Drone operators have the same type of psychological pressure and results as ground troops: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found- to-g...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get- stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html)

In terms of their superiors, isn't that how warfare has always been?

My guess would be that ground troops replaced by robots would likely still have a pilot with a "finger on the trigger" for a long time. If the reaction is this mixed Hacker News, how do you think extremely conservative military commanders would feel about "AI" controlled soldiers?

<comment><USER55> It doesn't help that drone pilots are treated absolutely miserably by the command. I had a friend who transferred from our electronics tech job (which was extremely laid-back and stress-free most of the time) to work in a UAV command, where the command effectively viewed its pilots as machines to work until failure. "Oh, another one attempted suicide because his wife left him? That's cool, tell the monitor that we need an extra body and we'll replace him when the next boot drop hits. In the meantime, just increase everyone else's hours from 14 hours a day to 16 hours a day. We aren't the FAA, we don't have rest requirements."

Incidentally, air traffic control had this same problem in the 90s until too many people started taking the quick way off the tower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Stuart Russel of AI a Modern Approach fame ( with Norvig ) asks us to consider the ethics of AI research - killer robotics, & hunter drones.

[http://www.nature.com/news/robotics-ethics-of-artificial- int...](http://www.nature.com/news/robotics-ethics-of-artificial- intelligence-1.17611#/russell)

He calls for a moritorium until we can get a neural net to learn Asimov's 1st Law.

Should the self driving car swerve into you to avoid greater moral hazard ?

Humour aside as researchers and robotocists do we have a moral obligation to obey the 1st Law ?

<comment><USER57> > Should the self driving car swerve into you to avoid greater moral hazard?

The self-driving car's first priority should be to protect those inside it. Anything else is more complicated. I read an article a little while ago about this topic and it posed a question along the lines of "should a self-driving car do the thing that'll kill its own passengers, yet save a larger number of others around it?" Think about how difficult it would be for a self-driving car to estimate this. Even more importantly, how would two self-driving cars cooperate in the event of an inevitable accident? Would we allow them to directly talk to each other, or are they only allowed to interpret each others' trajectories?

I think the simplest directive is "save your own passengers". That is what human drivers currently do, and I believe in the long run this would be effective at saving the optimal number of lives. Besides, if choosing between a car with this directive and a car that's programmed to sacrifice you to save someone else, which would you buy?

<comment><USER58> I'm not sure about that. If your car had uncontrolled acceleration, for instance, would you consider use a crowd of people to slow you down or would you put it in the ditch? For the sake of argument that amounts to a left or right turn.

<comment><USER57> Say there are 10 people in this crowd. The optimal solution for the 11 of us is obviously to have my car drive off a cliff to the right, not into the crowd on the left. However, for me, the optimal solution is obviously to not drive off a cliff.

However, your argument omits a couple of interesting details. First off, if a car can have uncontrolled acceleration, it can likely have any number of glitches. It may for example _think_ it's accelerating uncontrollably, and try to throw me off a cliff. Or it may think that the cliff is a small ditch. Or it may think that a bunch of balloons tied to a mail box is a crowd. If you are a programmer, what would you rather debug: code that prevents uncontrolled acceleration or code responsible for killing the driver by recognizing crowds and cliffs?

The other details is whether the metaphorical crowd should even allow me to buy a car that has logic built into it to drive over them. What if instead of a cliff and a crowd it's actually two different crowds of different sizes? What would a human driver do in these cases?

<comment><USER58> As a person and a driver I'm willing to say the car should drive off the cliff.

As a developer I wouldn't buy a car that would drive off the cliff.

It's a tough problem. Personally I would make a quickly/poorly thought out analysis of how to do the least damage. Being human I'd probably get it wrong.

<comment><USER59> >> As a developer I wouldn't buy a car that would drive off the cliff.

What does being a developer have anything to do with it?

<comment><USER60> A developer knows, through hard-won experience, that the algorithm to decide whether driving over a cliff is better for everyone is _bound_ to have bugs, and will therefore gladly throw you off a cliff when it is the wrong thing to do ;(

Non-developers would assume the computer to be (somewhat) infallible.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is sublime text making any money? - <AUTHOR>

I know sublime text is not open source and its not free either. But most people still use the unpaid version, so how does sublime text support itself ? <comment><USER2> Who said most people still use the unpaid version?

Tons of people (from forums etc) use v3, which means they paid for v2 (or pirated it). I have paid for v2 and use v3 myself.

He also hired an extra guy during v2 development, which means he made enough money to have that. And in general, it's a hugely succesful project with Windows and OS X users.

If John saw that the unpaid version was an issue, he'd just cancel it.

<comment><USER3> It seems that you no longer need to have paid anything to use v3. [http://www.sublimetext.com/3](http://www.sublimetext.com/3)

I never downloaded or paid anything for v2, but I did download v3 (the official build, from the official site) to give it a try. I didn't end up sticking to it, but I was definitely able to run it without buying a license, albeit with occasional popups.

<comment><USER2> If so, it wasn't the case a year or so ago with v3.

If he was hurt financially with people using the free+popups version, does it make sense that he would open it this way?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > most people still use the unpaid version [citation needed]

Sublime text v3 requires a license to work. Unpaid version means you have to use older software _and_ to suffer frequent popups.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have never paid for it, so I assumed most people like around 80% would be using it free. What would be your estimate of people actually paying for the product.

<comment><USER4> I don't have any meaningful data to estimate. Sublimetext is used in countless videos/webcasts, some of them by Google or Microsoft.

A quick google search brings the post [[http://blog.leanpub.com/2014/01/leanpub-ebook-sales-guest- po...](http://blog.leanpub.com/2014/01/leanpub-ebook-sales-guest-post.html)] with sales numbers of a book about Sublime text I never even heard of. 1000 sales of a book about a text editor! My best guess would be that the text editor itself sold about a couple orders of magnitude more copies.</comment></comment></comment>


Paul Graham and David Hornik on Bloomberg West [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/video/breaking-down-billion-dollar-startup-valuations-1zxUEMyJTYeY8SEMC9Olew.html

<comment><USER2> Bloomberg West is surprisingly good for a financial news program; the contrast with CNBC is striking. (although CNBC Asia was pretty good, as I recall, at least a few years ago)

<comment><USER3> Totally. This is my first view of Bloomberg West, but I was impressed by the tone of the interview. Very unlike any financial TV-news I've seen before.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, interesting, researched and well paced. I hadn't heard pg speak before but this was 15 minutes well spent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whenever I hear pg speak, I always forget he's from Great Britain. There isn't a discernible trace of an English accent in his voice, at least to my ear. That suggests to me he must have moved to the US at a young age.

I also give big thumbs up to Bloomberg West. The pace of the discussion is usually just about perfect.

<comment><USER6> He moved to the US at age 2.

<comment><USER7> 3\. But tis true I got rid of that funny sounding accent pretty fast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seeing Paul speaks in video for the first time gives the impression that he is an interesting character, someone like interviewing Nikolai Tesla or Albert Einstein.

</comment><comment><USER9> Omg, her voice and the way she asks questions is so intrusive and annoying.

<comment><USER6> It was actually very good. She was engaging and it seemed like she not only knew what she was talking about but also really wanted to know the answers to the questions she was asking. She was leading the conversation even with 2 such heavy weights at her desk. Good job.

<comment><USER10> I agree. She got out of the way and let Paul Graham and David Hornik have a discussion.</comment></comment></comment>


This. Raises $610,000 Seed Round - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/12/link-sharing-site-this-raises-610000-seed-round/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> I like the idea. I thought of adding a feature in my app to allow a fixed amount of posts a user could make. Maybe in the future.</comment>


Thinkpad X62 - <AUTHOR> https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/ <comment><USER3> I love these Thinkpad mods but don't have the time or patience to do one myself. Instead, I did a little research and settled on the T470s as my new laptop. You won't read about it much on the Lenovo boards. It's not the fastest; that title goes to their huge desktop replacement beasts. It's not the sexiest and thinnest--the X1 beats it there. It is, however, well-equipped with a great display and fast-enough CPU, and it's quite thin. It has all the latest tech, including NVME disk and HiDPI display options.

I run Arch Linux and the i3 window manager on mine and it's just perfect.

<comment><USER4> The T4x0 is the star of the lineup. You can get last year's model dirt cheap through the Lenovo Outlet or refurbished ($500+ US). They finally give you a good screen (remember the T430 and earlier days? Or even the recent 1366x768 screens?), battery is great, the chiclet keyboard isn't as bad as people try to make you believe, and not only did they leave the TrackPoint on, the TouchPads are pretty decent even if they aren't to Apple's level.

Easily repairable or upgrade-able by the end user, thin and light...

<comment><USER3> You hit upon my very favorite thing about Thinkpads: they are user-repairable and user-upgradeable!

Lenovo has the most amazing website that tells you, step-by-step, how to fix almost every component of their products. For those that are considering one of their products, you have to check this out: [https://www.lenovoservicetraining.com](https://www.lenovoservicetraining.com)

<comment><USER5> I've made a hobby out of finding, refurbishing, and reselling Thinkpads since the late 90s. The Ts and Xs have maintained a reputation for serviceability across years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This X62 seems like a perfect machine. I'm impressed such a mod made by enthusiasts exists and can actually be bought today.

Meanwhile the Retro Thinkpad, made by Lenovo, seems to be quite a disappointment by just having an old keyboard put on a new thinkpad.

I'm on a x201s since years because I honestly can't find a better machine on the market today (trackpoint, 16/10, great keyboard, matte screen with decent resolution to work, solid as rock, easy to maintain).

Anytime a friend asks me for a cheap laptop buying advice, I tell them to get a used thinkpad. Just add some RAM, SSD and battery if necessary and voila, you have a solid machine that will last you years for less than 400€ total.

<comment><USER7> Is the retro available yet at your place? What's wrong with new tech with a real keyboard? Isn't that the point of the retro?

<comment><USER6> From the recent rumors it seems the retro will "just" be a 2017 thinkpad + old keyboard. Cool, but not enough for me.

I guess I got my expectations too high when Lenovo put out surveys asking about screen ratio, status led, thinklights, etc. a couple years ago.

<comment><USER8> It's sad that the only place to get a HiDPI 4:3 screen today is from ... Apple on the iPad Pro 2 12.9". They have no problem getting that aspect ratio from their panel suppliers. Now we need a Thinkpad Retro keyboard case for the iPP2. Until then, the Logitech Create Pro case has the best iPP2 keyboard.

<comment><USER7> Why is 4:3 so important to both of you and many others (I'm not trolling but genuinely interested)? I'm on an 13" XPS right now which has a 16:9, supposedly "consumer laptop" ratio, and I'm not missing anything, and I'm as much of a hardcore terminal, touch typist and vi guy as can be.

When I bought mine early last year, I had the luck that both the XPS 13 and the Thinkpad Carbon was in store so I could test it "hands-on". While the keyboard certainly was more elaborate, had more keytravel and all, it wasn't really subjectively better than the XPS's. The display on the Carbon, though, was really a POS compared to the XPS's. I'm guessing it was the TN display; it was just awful and not something I would tolerate on a notebook for the kind of money they're asking.

<comment><USER9> This I don't get either. Having an 1920 x 1200 monitor is nice of course but I am not getting bent into pretzels if the Anniversary 25 is "just" 1920 x 1080 or some other 16:9 res.

I have a T420s hacked to full HD (someone else did the hacking) and frankly, it's fine to this day, six years in. Looking into the far future, it won't be enough because the 16GB RAM will limit and it would be awfully nice to have Thunderbolt 3 so that I can play the occasional game or two. I really hope Mantiz will actually succeed in launching their MXM based external GPU, would be superb.

But the disappointment is understandable. Check the word cloud on [http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-survey- keyboar...](http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-survey-keyboard) \-- two years ago would be consumers of Lenovo (and surely past consumers too) have literally begged for a thinkpad with ... keyboard and ... screen. Now I hear on various forums from Lenovo apologists that a custom panel, status LEDs etc would've been expensive but really, if it is expensive, why not run a crowdfunding campaign to see whether there's interest? They might have been positively surprised.

But oh well. As I posted elsewhere, the keyboard winter has been upon us since 2012 and I am grateful for any little thaw. The last laptop with a usable keyboard layout was the 2011 ThinkPad generation with Sandy Bridge CPU , the last usable phone was the Droid 4. Late October this year we are getting the ThinkPad Anniversary 25 and a proper looking keyboard mod for the Moto Z. This is our last hurrah. The curtain has dropped, this is the last encore and then this era is over. I am sad, but it is what it is. I will get at least five years out of the Anniversary 25 (that's the longest warranty I can buy) but I hope for ten and if I am lucky then the Moto keyboard will last five years too. Maybe eye tracking grows up by then? Voice takes over? Let's hope.

<comment><USER7> It's not the end of the world. I really like Thinkpads of old, but can do without the clunky optical and legacy ports. And as I said, Dell's keyboard (on the XPS at least) are really working well for me.

My point of reference for what a keyboard can be is the Model M keyboard (no less!) I had the pleasure of using early to mid 90's. Compared to that experience the difference between a ThinkPad (any generation) and a good non- ThinkPad keyboard is gradual at best.

<comment><USER9> "The XPS 15's keyboard still maintains the same plastic keys with 1.3mm of travel, which is a bit on the shallow side."

I do not see dedicated Home - End - PgUp - PgDn buttons either. It's vital. Look at my chosen desktop keyboard [https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/61gEPhEChqL...](https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/61gEPhEChqL._SL1200_.jpg) see something next to the arrows? Matias Ergo Pro , mounted vertically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What drives me up the wall with all recent macbooks, besides the deteriorating keyboards, is how they need a charged battery to power on. Meaning, they have to constantly drain and charge the battery even with ac plugged in. Is is really that hard to provide what has been standard in laptops for years with an additional wall power circuit? Just planned breakage so you have to keep buying new ones? Apple in the passed stressed these kinds of details, now apparently you can't even tell whether it's charging anymore without looking at the screen.

<comment><USER11> Edit: I point out Apple failing to write drivers FOR THEIR OWN LAPTOPS and I get downvotes? :/

Apple just doesn't seem to care about build quality beyond the cosmetics of their Mac lineup. A great example of this is how they have dual connections from the keyboard & trackpad to the mainboard (USB and SPI), while the UEFI and Linux have drivers to support the keyboard fully, macOS has no driver for the built-in USB connection.

What this means is when your coffee spills on your Mac, the keyboard won't work in macOS.

Louis Rossman did a video demonstrating Apple's lack of drivers for their own hardware: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geGmC1xI4zo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geGmC1xI4zo)

<comment><USER12> Because it seems fair enough as en engineering decision?

Apple also provide firmware updates far longer than most manufacturers (there was a recent-ish CCC? talk highlighting this).

<comment><USER11> > Because it seems fair enough as en engineering decision?

Huh? Supporting hardware with drivers is purely a software decision, its not as though software adds noteworthy weight to a device.

> Apple also provide firmware updates far longer than most manufacturers

Only for iPhones, on Mac they leave your iCloud email in in plaintext on the UEFI after the computer is wiped. For computers, expect 6 to 7 years of macOS updates at most, meanwhile Windows & Linux offer support to ancient i386 systems still.

<comment><USER13> > on Mac they leave your iCloud email in in plaintext on the UEFI after the > computer is wiped.

You are probably referring to the "Find My Mac" token that's stored in the NVRAM. It's fairly easy to wipe it with one of these commands/procedures:

      - sudo nvram -d fmm-mobileme-token-FMM
      - sudo nvram -c # this one will wipe the entire NVRAM, use with care!
      - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

> For computers, expect 6 to 7 years of macOS updates at most

High Sierra can be installed on "Late 2009 iMacs", that right there is 8 years of security and feature updates. Those models will get security and point updates, at the very least, until the next version of macOS, for a total of 9 years (if not more, we'll see).

<comment><USER14> Last year's macOS Sierra won't install on my wife's 2010 Macbook Pro. Apple doesn't seem to always roll off support every year. I'm guessing some version adds new tech and they drop support for 3-4 years worth of hardware all at once (that hardware is usually at minimum 5 years old).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I went out shopping a few weekends ago to see what the current offering on laptops looks like. I ended up in an Apple store, and after only a few seconds fiddling with a MacBook, I walked straight back out again. That keyboard is _terrible_. I don't care how many other things Apple's line has going for it - if the primary interface to the device is that bad, I just can't imagine using it.

I wish there were more laptops out there with the old style ThinkPad keyboard on them :(

<comment><USER16> Counterpoint: I got a new Macbook Pro from my job and I'm really enjoying the new keyboard: very little travel but a satisfying click to every press and minimal actuation pressure.

<comment><USER17> I also really like the new keyboard. I use an older MBP for work and it used to be my favorite key design. Now it feels mushy.

For people who like to hit their keys hard, I can see it being a problem. For most though, give it a week and you'll be back up to speed and won't want to trade back.

<comment><USER18> The main downside is that mine got kinda mushy / misfire at the one-year mark.

I'm currently living abroad, but ideally I'd be able to bring my Macbook Pro into the Apple store next time I'm in the States and get all the keyboard switches replaced.

Is that possible?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _Despite its shortcomings, I ended up using the X61s more than my 12" > MacBook. The X61s convinced me that a much better laptop could exist. The > same chassis with modern components would be a very compelling product._

This is a good point and there and many people who believe it to be true. Only problem are the Lenovo executives that are not willing to provide such product (see Thinkpad Retro).

<comment><USER20> Rumor is that the Thinkpad Retro aka. the anniversary model, is due in October, celebrating 25 years of Thinkpad.

[https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Anniversary- Ed...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Anniversary-Edition- planned-for-October-release-Update-Teaser-Image.229782.0.html)

<comment><USER21> I've been waiting for it. I find it an awesome initiative from Lenovo, and it shows something many other big companies have lost. Making products for the hardcore geeks/fans. This used to be common 20 years ago.

If they execute this well, they'll score a lot of points in my book!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Had t40p for 10+ years. Dropped it from ~2m high several times. Got coffee over it numerous times. Kids of my sister left it drowning in a puddle of ice- cream ice.

I cleaned it with water a bunch of times, worked after drying. I even reflowed the motherboard after the housing got a little bit less stiff and random resets and freezes occured.

I think my sister still has it. I should get it back and hang it on the wall or something.

<comment><USER23> > I even reflowed the motherboard after the housing got a [...]

How does one do that? Did you do it in a professional shop, or at home? What is the tooling required? I am interested in all details.

<comment><USER24> Yeah my T41p had the same problem with the GPU (specifically ATI I seem to remember) popping out of its BGA socket slightly, sometimes (and in my case) caused by picking up the laptop by the corner of the palmrest (naughty but common habit that you usually get away with on Thinkpads)... was a common problem in those series with the oven reflow technique [http://www.computerrepairtips.net/how-to-reflow-a-laptop- mot...](http://www.computerrepairtips.net/how-to-reflow-a-laptop-motherboard/) working for lots of people. Didn't work for me but I think that was my failing. I fixed it with a folded up credit card inside under the trackpoint/palmrest, acted as a crude wide spring applying pressure over the heatsink/pipe of the gpu, horrific bodge lol but it worked and I carried on using the machine for years without problems after that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > I forgot how much I preferred 4:3 screens for work.

I didn't. I love 4:3 on laptops. I wish more people would rediscover it.

<comment><USER26> This was actually one of my reasons to abandon Android tablets.

I wanted 4:3, but all that was offered was 16:9 or 16:10.

<comment><USER27> The Pixel C had something closer to a 4:3, if memory serves.[0]

[0] The wiki page said it's actually a 1:√2 ratio.

<comment><USER26> It was priced absurdly high for a tablet on a platform with terrible in-app tablet-support though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is why I've been buying every well priced Thinkpad on Craigslist. From a couple T420's to the occasional T440 (for $70 to $100), with a few librebootable T400's and T60's thrown in for $10 to $20, I seem to hold these laptops for a short duration before friends or family buy them off me for $5 to $15 more.

Plus, when anything breaks, parts are cheap and plentiful. I even upgraded a T440 for my SO with a 1080p IPS screen and a few other bits, its an impressively nice machine all specced out!

<comment><USER28> > This is why I've been buying every well priced Thinkpad on Craigslist. From > a couple T420's to the occasional T440 (for $70 to $100), with a few > librebootable T400's and T60's thrown in for $10 to $20, I seem to hold > these laptops for a short duration before friends or family buy them off me > for $5 to $15 more.

Over here in Germany you unfortunately pay 100 euro for a T61 and 100-300 euro for a T420. If I could get a T440 for just 100 euro I would buy it in an instant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have one of these x62's in the i5 version, bought it prebuilt. The screen was quickly updated with the LED backlight mod as well. Honestly, coming from an x220 and x230, this thing flies. Highly recommend one. I also have an x61s that is nice, but the resolution and speed is not modern enough for me.

<comment><USER6> Hey, great. I'd think it would be on par with the x220 or x230 given the same SSD or RAM.

How hard was it to install the LED backlight mod?

<comment><USER29> Performance of the x62 is on par for sure. Mainly because the hardware is swappable between them. The relative gain in resolution for the size/weight between a non-fdh modded x2*0 and the x62 is the main takeaway. I also gained miniDP and usb3 which the x220 does not have.

Regarding the LED? Monty, who makes the kit, is an awesome dude and great resource. I emailed with him regarding installation and he quickly responded. Installation should not be for someone without a history of taking these machines apart. You must have the willingness to dig a little deeper than a RAM install, as you are disassembling the screen bezel and making permanent cuts into the plastic and on an expensive x62 prebuilt, this took serious consideration.

The cuts are easy, and the disassembly is easy. no soldering or real issues I can remember, other than having to do it twice because of dust. Do the whole thing in a clean area without a rug, vacuum everything around first.

I highly recommend the kit. Brightness is on par with brand new machines. Just shield your eyes from the LED kit turning out before it's in the screen. SOO BRIGHT

<comment><USER6> Thanks for all the info!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> For users wanting a stable laptop with secure boot in Thinkpad chasis, supplier list from Libreboot seems like a great place.

There are suppliers who will sell refurbished Thinkpads with Libreboot pre- installed at relatively decent prices.

[https://libreboot.org/suppliers.html](https://libreboot.org/suppliers.html)

<comment><USER31> Too bad that there is no model with a 1080p display available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm running an unmodified X220 myself (well, except for installing the webcam myself[1]). Rock solid running FreeBSD 11.1[2].

I'll probably keep running this until / if I (a) roll my own, or (b) Lenovo releases their much-anticipated retro ThinkPad.

[1] [https://duncan.bayne.id.au/blog/when-in- doubt.html](https://duncan.bayne.id.au/blog/when-in-doubt.html)

[2] [https://www.instagram.com/p/BXPY61pFkRK/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BXPY61pFkRK/)

<comment><USER33> Dusted off an several year old x220 that I had lying around that was suffering power issues (dodgy power management fixed with a BIOS update - from last year, so quite surprised they were still in service), also added an SSD and it's been a really solid machine. Coming back to a thinkpad keyboard after years of macbook use was welcome too, found myself typing much faster. Next step is to put coreboot on the BIOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm doing the 1080p mod on my x230 since I love it so much. Such a great design and keyboard. No it's not paper thin but it doesn't have to be.

<comment><USER35> You're in for a treat. Going from the crappy low-res TN panel to a FHD IPS feels almost like getting a whole new machine.

<comment><USER34> Mine has the IPS screen, but it ghosts so bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What are some up-to-date equivalents to the X60/1 if any?

I want something small with a nice keyboard and durable enough I can throw it in a bag without worry but I just can't seem to find anything better than my current X61 which is getting a little tired.

I'd be interested in going even smaller but netbooks don't seem to be a thing anymore.

<comment><USER37> I also have an X60, would recommend the X250/60/70\. It is surprisingly smaller than you would expect from photos, and runs cooler/longer than the X60. The downsides are that the keyboard isn't as good - and how acceptable it is depends on exactly which supplier you get. On the other hand the keys arent quite as cramped as on the X60. You can also get an extended battery which gives you more than 12 hours runtime. Plus you can get nice IPS 1080p displays which is a plus, and it still has ethernet.

Have a look at the gemini palmtop for a potential future arm linux machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I am more a fan of the X over the T.

I have gone trough several newer computers and still lean towards the x220. I actually think the keyboard on the x220 is better... bigger delete key and esc keys.. not backlit but has the night light thingy.

Yeah I miss the 4x3 screen....

Wish it had higher res screen, was a bit thinner and maybe an updated chip set... But

</comment><comment><USER39> I wrote to the guys in the original post. The price is not as cheap as I thought:

X62 with i5 - 780 USD X62 with i7-5500U - <USER2>

both setups no:ram/hdd/battery , new AFFS panel (1400x1050)

I will better consider buying a new Thinkpad or wait for the retro edition

</comment><comment><USER40> I dearly need to swap the backlight on my X200. Lenovo loves low contrast so much, to the point I believe it's an optician conspiracy :)

ps: AMD announced their laptop ryzen based CPUs, I hope nb51 try one board with it.

<comment> nils-m-holm Try an X220! I regularly use mine on the balcony in bright sunlight and even with bad vision the screen is a pleasure to read. Plus, the keyboard is fantastic, but I guess that's the same as on the X200.

<comment><USER4> You must have the tablet model with the IPS screen.

<comment><USER41> I'm typing this reply on an X220-4290-CZ2, a bog standard laptop. The 1366x768 screen goes very bright and I find it useable in sunlight on e.g. a train in a seat by the window when you can't move out of the sun. This is at 52 degrees North mind you, might be different further South.

I have an X60 with slackware on that just runs and runs and runs. It is the screen that I find the limiting factor as OA mentioned. I might summon up the confidence to have a go at the LED backlight hack...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Would love to go back to Thinkpads, but I've had bad experiences with the LCD panel quality (not resolution) being terrible. Maybe it's my eyes, but certain manufacturer LCDs have left a bad impression that I'm unlikely to even consider them - Ones in Thinkpads, Nokia devices, ASUS tablets, some Acer. Even to the point of giving me eye strain.

I think the only non-Apple display in a laptop I've really enjoyed is the 4k one in my Dell (heavy as all but plays games).

<comment><USER24> Swapping out the panel is fairly easy in most (all?) Thinkpads and they're pretty cheap to source especially if you don't mind buying used. A bit of Googling on the Thinkpad model number will reveal which manufacturer's panels are good and which are bad (often the same IBM/Lenovo part number is used irrespective of the supplier) for that model. Or sometimes another panel with the same dimensions and spec that matches the gpu/connector can be used (often Dell and Lenovo are using interchangeable panels in similar model ranges, used to be the case with Apple too but nowadays they seem to do exclusive deals with manufacturers and don't let anybody else play). Not a solution that everyone can be bothered with but I've vastly improved some cheap 2nd hand Thinpads with a nice new screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Part of me still misses my beloved IBM-made X31. But ultimately even if I could choose one with modern components/specs, the thing that would keep me on a MacBook (disregarding software) is the unibody enclosure. Much better to have a machine that dents instead of chips. Beauty so rarely bespeaks durability in design but a CNC machined chassis is really an evolutionary leap for mobile devices.

</comment><comment><USER44> I would love to have a similar upgrade path with the X220. I don't love the 16:9 display, but a higher res upgrade would take care of that issue. I definitely want to try out the power saving tweaks from that script in the article. I use a 9-cell battery currently and get somewhere around 6-8 hours of life out of it. Would love to extend that a bit.

<comment><USER45> I have an x220 still. My whole chassis is cracked, my fan grinds like crazy, my lid has been broken since day 1. the thing is tough even though it's pretty much broken in every possible way it still runs fine and since i have the 9 cell battery as well I still get 5-6 hours from it.

I think might next upgrade might have to be the x62

<comment><USER44> I'm considering the x62 as well. I'm not sure if the motherboard supports non- intel wireless chips and if the CPU requires firmware blobs to run the GPU. If either of those are the case then it isn't a good fit for me because right now my hacked x220 is usable without any proprietary software in the OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I use a Lenovo ThinkPad keyboard with my desktop machine. Model KU-1255. Love it and love not ever having to reach for a mouse.

</comment><comment><USER47> I really miss the keyboard layout of my T410. It's good news that the retro Thinkpad has the same layout, hopefully it will be popular enough that the main product lines go back to having the separate cluster of Delete,Insert,Home,End,PgDn and PgUp that I miss so much.

</comment><comment><USER48> I have a Dell E6540 for exactly these reasons. It feels like a real computer. It's 1080p, but I prefer widescreen personally. People are always making comments about how old my laptop is, but it's an i7 4810MQ with 16GB RAM!

</comment><comment><USER49> Apparently they are out of stock for the i7 motherboards, so you'll have to keep an eye out if you want one of those.

</comment><comment><USER50> I use one of these X62 systems as my laptop.

</comment><comment><USER51> Much love for the old thinkpads. You can practically drive over them with a car and they keep on ticking.

</comment><comment><USER52> And I'm over here like bring back the deep black PowerBook G3

</comment><comment><USER53> I really like some of the hardware from Lenovo, Microsoft and HP. As a developer I find the Windows 10 operating systems QDOS legacy to be annoying to, say the least.

</comment><comment><USER54> > _When commenting, remember: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?_

Great formulation and easy enough to remember, but... is truth ever kind?

</comment><comment><USER55> OMG I want this!!!</comment>


Will developers do Automated testing work for the right price? - <AUTHOR>

What would make you leave a dev team to join a QA testing team?  Is there anything that could tempt you? <comment><USER2> It's been my experience that once you have dev you don't go back. I was lead engineer for a pretty complex technical product that needed strong technical testing and money wouldn't win. I think it's part perception. I have seen using something like a performance engineer role work, in that it's technically QA but usually works in as a dev role and highly specialised and technical. We used our (small) technical consulting staff during their downtime a bit which helped. They'd get to train up and be involved in the product direction and we'd get highly experienced engineers which could give us feedback like if an API /felt/ right. One thing I have come accross that I thought was very successful was at small software company here in oz (now part of oracle). They'd get fresh software engineering grads or final year students and get them in as (paid, mostly part time) technical testers under the mentor of experienced testers and software engineers. They'd get them to write and develop automated testing systems and learn to test systems and understand what made a good system. They'd then go work in the R+D teams better prepared. So part apprenticeship learning product development, part recruitement and job selection filter.</comment>


Ask HN: How to sustain yourself with an open source business model? - <AUTHOR> Hey! I'm currently working on a social platform for developers with tons of cool features (hopefully one day you'll see it on hn) and I'm hesitating on whether I should go opensource. It would really make sense with this tech platform and I'd love to build this product with many other people but, I also want to be able to sustain myself.
I don't find it fair if other people contribute to the project and then I get the profits. How can I have an open source model that survives without profiting off other people's labour and that can sustain me?
Thanks for your help with this problem I am facing. <comment><USER2> Okay, I will bite.

What you need my friend is a strategy. Are there features that if delivered create outsized economic returns?

You need to invert your thinking. Nobody gives a shit about you, your product, your company, your mission, open source. Money is directly derived by delivering value to another party in a way that they could not or would not be able to create themselves.

Open Source software utilizes a confluence of patent law and hippy bullshit to create a safe space for collaboration and advancement and yada yada yada.

I didn't invent fire, but I can start a hell of a bbq.

Do shit that matters and everything will be fine.

The best thing that you can ever do is make a ton of money, hire a ton of people, pay your taxes, and be there when your are called upon.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're interesting blakewatters. Thanks for your advice!</comment></comment>


J.Crew declared bankruptcy. Three other famous stores may follow it - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/business/j-crew-bankruptcy-jcpenney-sears-neiman-marcus-retailers-coronavirus/index.html <comment><USER2> Asian copycats supplying a huge number of Amazon sellers and flea-markets caused this. It is no secret that precise copies of all manner of their products at 20-40% of their retail undermined them. In many cases the same Asian factories simply made another 50,000 copies of what they made for J.Crew, all properly marked and labelled -the exact same product (not authorized - of course). In many cases sewing machine copies of lower quality that look much the same. J.Crew had a cost structure, mall stores etc., and had no way to resist this unfair competition. Trump need to implement detailed customs inspections that involve J.Crew (and other companies) being asked to co-inspect. This would replace the common electronic document clearance process. Fakes found to be macerated or burned - or other form of true destruction. Heretofore many siezed shipments of various good were simply auctioned in the USA = a direct path to flea-markets etc.</comment>


MetaCall: Inter-language foreign function interface calls - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/metacall/core <comment><AUTHOR> I encountered this library while trying to embed node.js in a C program, but this is useful in all kind of contexts. As mentioned in the README:

\- Interconnect different technologies in the same project. It allows to have heterogeneous teams of developers working over same project in an isolated way and using different programming languages at the same time.

\- Embedding programming languages to existing softwares. Game Engines, 3D Editors like [Blender]([https://www.blender.org/](https://www.blender.org/)), among others can take benefit of __METACALL __and extend the core functionality with higher level programming languages (aka scripting).

\- Function as a Service. __METACALL __can be used to implement efficient FaaS architectures. We are using it to implement our own FaaS (Function as a Service) __[[https://metacall.io](https://metacall.io/)**](https://metacall.io\]\(https://metacall.io/\)**) based on __[Function Mesh]([https://medium.com/@metacall/function-mesh- architecture-c030...](https://medium.com/@metacall/function-mesh- architecture-c0304ba4bad0\)**) pattern and high performance function scalability thanks to this library.

\- Source code migrations. __METACALL __can wrap large and legacy code-bases, and provide an agnostic way to work with the codebase into a new programming language. Eventually the code can be migrated by parts, without need of creating a new project or stopping the production environment. Incremental changes can be done, solving the migration easily and with less time and effort.

\- Porting low level libraries to high level languages transparently. With __METACALL __you can get rid of extension APIs like Python C API or NodeJS N-API. You can call directly low level libraries from your high level languages without making a wrapper in C or C++ for it.

This is _amazing_.

</comment><comment><USER2> This seems like a good space to fill. Like an updated and expanded version of Swig ([http://www.swig.org/](http://www.swig.org/))

</comment><comment><USER3> How does it differ from libffi or Swig?

<comment><USER4> From a cursory reading of the README, I would say that Metacall allows any of the supported languages to call any other one, whereas Swig only allows calling C or C++ code. (Swig takes a `.h` file as input and then generates the bindings for the desired target language.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The README says:

 _For example, the bad design of NodeJS does not allow to manage the thread pool from outside, so it cannot be preserved after a fork._ ;)

<comment><USER6> I'm sorry but I couldn't help not commenting on this. That comment on the README is disingenuous at best, truly a shame as it now casts for me a different image of what I initially thought to be a cool project worth supporting.

node.js was not (of course!) planned to play nice with 'metacall' so I do not see why they were expecting otherwise. I have spent thousands of hours working with and contributing to libuv, V8 and node itself and I can tell you from experience that they are examples of extremely good software engineering and practice.

I suggest the authors of this lib (if they´re reading this) to actually spend some time studying the code infrastructure that makes node.js possible instead of just bashing out at it out of mere ignorance. You would be surprised.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, (I'm not the project maintainer but) I don't think the mention of 'bad design' in the README is ignorant; It is not what I would call a good design at best to one that tries to embed nodejs inside an app. Everyone has different views on what is 'good' and what is 'bad'; the internals can be (and is) beautiful but the external APIs for interacting with nodejs has grown organically(not really designed).

There are discussions for a better N-API for embedding in the nodejs issue tracker[1].

The author looks like he has studied enough internals to implement nodejs inside the library; he even (helpfully) explained how metacall has embedded nodejs successfully and improvements available in the nodejs part. [2][3][4] I wouldn't call that bashing out at it out of mere ignorance.

[0]: [https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265#issuecomment-427...](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265#issuecomment-427069095) [1]: [https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265) [2]: [https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265#issuecomment-452...](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265#issuecomment-452690239) [3]: [https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265#issuecomment-496...](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265#issuecomment-496878712) [4]: [https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265#issuecomment-496...](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/23265#issuecomment-496918901)

<comment><USER6> I am sorry but you do not understand what we are talking about. Do not worry, we have all been there at some point and it is on my best interest to explain to you what's going on :)

The sentence "the bad design of node.js does not allow to manage the thread pool from outside" implies two things initially, 1. that there is a thread pool, which is part of the architecture of node.js and 2. that this thread pool cannot be managed by an external program. On the same sentence, they then try to use these concepts combined as an argument to "the bad design of node.js".

What I wanted to convey is that this statement -> "the bad design of node.js" is a huge hyperbole and it is blatantly wrong, since it is actually a very good "real-world" example of good software design and practices. Anyone that has spent at least a couple days interacting with the developer community behind node.js and sister project can attest their level of knowledge, talent and commitment.

Also, just bashing on a project that you're building on top of is an extremely tasteless display of vulgarity ...</comment></comment></comment></comment>