Apple's Mac Chip Switch Is Double Trouble for Intel - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-09/apple-s-mac-chip-switch-is-double-trouble-for-intel <comment><USER3> Doesn't Apple already include an ARM chip in MacBooks with the Touch Bar?

I have three feelings:

1\. Apple will just enable the existing chips "today" and developers can ship ARM code to a sizable audience, with instant battery benefits.

2\. Cheaper Macs will start dropping x64 next year and continue running only ARM code, _maybe_ emulating x64 like Rosetta.

3\. Pros will keep having both processors for the foreseeable future, similarly to how they have "dual graphics", except that the OS will always run on ARM.

We should keep in mind that Apple just dropped a swath of 32-bit software which means they aren't afraid to do it again.

<comment><USER4> There is a legal slowdown for emulating x86 (and x86_64 I beleive), because of Intel patents. That's why Microsoft's first attempt to ARM was such a disaster, with no compatibility with Windows' huge ecosystem. That's why there is no commercial toolsuit who offers x86 compatibility on other architectures.

But maybe the situation has evolve ? Expired patents or a deal between Apple and Intel ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> (both of these are genuine questions, not rhetorical ones)

1\. If x64 wasn't already dominant and had the same market share as ARM, would you choose x64? Why?

2\. With x64's current dominance, would you buy a ARM system as your primary one, knowing that you'll have significant difficulties developing for the majority of current market share?

<comment><USER6> Seeing that most popular languages - Java, C#, Python, Javascript, etc. - <USER2> on top of VM and you can develop on one architecture and deploy to another, why does it matter?

I develop on a Windows laptop and deploy to Linux all of the time. I have some Python programs that have native dependencies. I still develop on Windows, push and the CI/CD pipeline runs on Linux and packages a Windows build.

But even with my first job out of college back in the 90s, I was writing C code that I developed on Windows and was cross compiled for DEC VAX and Stratus VOS mainframes.

<comment><USER7> Even with languages like C, targeting bytecode as distribution format is also an option.

Mainframes do it, as means to integrate C and C++ into their language environments.

Back in the early mobile OS wars, there was a company selling J2ME like stack, but using C and C++ instead.

Then there is the LLVM bitcode used by Apple on iOS and watchOS (which happens to be more platform neutral than regular LLVM bitcode).

Oh and WebAssembly and MSIL as well.

<comment><USER6> LLVM won't allow that type of portability. That was a myth that was dispelled by none other than Chris Lattner during an interview on ATP. The transcript of the interview is now returning a 404 though.

[https://atp.fm/205](https://atp.fm/205)

<comment><USER7> LLVM open source version, yes you are correct.

LLVM proprietary Apple own internal fork, as used in iOS and watchOS, is another matter.

As a matter of fact, there is a WWDC talk about how it allowed the seamless migration of 32 to 64 on watchOS.

<comment><USER6> Lattner also said later on Twitter that he was purposefully being vague during the interview. The 64 bit chip built for the watch and LLVM bitcode was designed in concert.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/104696072464...](https://mobile.twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/1046960724646465541)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, so we get into these kind of discussions, because everyone just talks about open source variant of LLVM.

Apple does whatever they feel like with their proprietary fork, to the point that Apple's clang also gets its own column on cppreference.

Just like Sony and Nintendo haven't contributed anything back to LLVM that would disclose any capability from their consoles.

<comment><USER6> I think Chris Latner has just a little insight on the inner workings of LLVM and it's capabilities - even the proprietary portions that Apple hasn't released in the open.

I tweeted @atp and let them know that the transcript was returning a 404. They have since fixed it.

[https://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview- transcript](https://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript)

 _John Siracusa: The same thing I would assume for architecture changes, especially if there was an endian difference, because endianness is visible from the C world, so you can't target different endianness?

Chris Lattner: Yep. It's not something that magically solves all portability problems, but it is very useful for specific problems that Apple's faced in the past._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I don't quite understand in the discussions here is the hardware focus.

No offense, but the libraries Intel is putting out there (IPP, MKL) for efficient parallel computing are really outstanding. It has been a fee years for me in the end-consumer high-performance market, but AMD chips would easily run 20% slower if you optimized the code w/ the Intel Libraries and OpenCL would Not get anywhere near.

A similar thing happened w/ Nvidia and Apple many more years back; E.g., Apple dropping Nvidia; fair amount of rumors went around that Apple did that so Adobe would be less competitive if they had to rewrite their rendering engine (which they just ported to CUDA) and Apple could sell their video editing solutions with an edge (they have been hand tuned for a while of course...).

Apple dropping Nvidia has been such a "non-customer-focused" bullshit decision. Not because the AMD hardware is bad - but OpenCL has simply been nowhere near CUDA. Same with Intel IPPs and OpenCL. But maybe that changed.

The differences in performance, ease of use etc. have been mind-blowing back in the days for CUDA and IPP. Hardware alone isn't gonna cut it. The machines are built to run software after all...

Maybe that has changed or maybe nobody needs any parallelised compute intensive applications on Mac (research anyone, image and video editing anyone?).

The fact aside that mayor software companies like Adobe et al. will probably have to staff entire departments for rewrites...

<comment><USER9> In my data science org, virtually NO ONE joining new prefers MacBook Pros because of the lack of CUDA. Yes production workflows run on cloud and you can spin up notebooks on the cloud but having the flexibility of CUDA in your laptop for dev is just really high. People who joined with Macs are trading in for more powerful Windows machines

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe this rumor is only half right and it isn't what everyone thinks it will be. Instead of replacing x86, what if it's just Apple adding their ARM chip to the laptop? Basically just take the current MacBook and stick a iPad ARM chip in there. And maybe make the screen a touchscreen too. It would make iOS development much closer to the real thing. And for non-developers they can run iOS apps natively. So you get a Mac that can run both x86 and ARM natively. But if you try to use more iOS (ARM) apps you get really long laptop battery life since it's optimized for that. And x86 is there when you need to run more power hungry applications. Seems like the best of both worlds in a single laptop if they do this.

<comment><USER11> Adding significant BOM cost, growing physical volume, reducing battery life, creating lots of complexity to get certain apps to run on one CPU or the other and the associated cache coherency issues? So that iOS developers can test their apps on a native CPU (But still plenty of differences like screen size, no cell radio, no GPS, accelerometers, etc) Seems dubious.

<comment><USER12> All Macs already have an ARM chip inside them in the form of the T2 chip.

<comment><USER13> But that's specifically for Secure Enclave work (disk encryption, biometric data). I don't think they'd want to risk someone running arbitrary code there and breaking the sandbox. (The SEP is also separate from the A-series chip in the iPhone for a similar reason, IIRC).

<comment><USER14> In addition to the secure enclave, they already have an A series core on there. That's what runs the touch bar.

There's a full XNU based OS on there called "BridgeOS" that's in the iOS/tvOS/watchOS family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And what about this other rumor? (Which is much more plausible). They could put everything T2, GPU and x86 in the same platform, bringing the cost down

[https://www.engadget.com/2020/02/07/apple-may-testing-amd- pr...](https://www.engadget.com/2020/02/07/apple-may-testing-amd-processors- internally/)

<comment><USER14> I've been saying this for a while, that a semi custom x86 (probably from AMD) makes way more sense. Those 8 Zen2 cores with 16GB with a very passable GPU in the next gen consoles show that it can be done for a remarkably low cost all things considered. Yes, Sony/Microsoft are probably taking a hit on those, and yes Apple would have to spend even more to get it running in a laptop form factor/TDP, but they also have MSRP headroom to make that happen with a decent margin.

Even more out there idea (with literally zero proof, it's just a good idea, IMO): Apple buys Centaur, and gets an x86 licence.

* Apple gets to have custom power efficient cores augmented by all the fabless firms they've acquired over the years.

* Mac stays x86, so Intel wins a minor victory when the alternative was a major customer switching to ARM.

* Intel wins a bigger victory because an x86 licence is effectively removed from products being on the open market. The great equalizer that is the end of Moore's law makes that licence sitting out there a long term existential risk for Intel.

* Apple doesn't have a costly transition with the tail end of Moore's law meaning they don't have the same perf gains expected from the other transitions.

* Apple also puts their hands on Centaur's newer inference accelerator IP.

* Centaur's parent keeping them on life support gets a payout.

Everyone wins except AMD (which is another win for Intel).

<comment><USER16> Tim Cook has said it: We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make.

So it would make no sense to trade Intel's poor schedule and performance for AMD's uncertain future performance.

And aren't all x86 licensee prevented from keeping that license if they are bought?

<comment><USER14> > Tim Cook has said it: We believe that we need to own and control the primary > technologies behind the products we make.

Tim Cook was talking about context nearly a decade old.

> So it would make no sense to trade Intel's poor schedule and performance for > AMD's uncertain future performance.

x86 is just going to become more of a commodity as time goes on. And currently, Zen 2 is hands down the best perf/watt combo currently.

> And aren't all x86 licensee prevented from keeping that license if they are > bought?

That was a the rumor, but centaur has already been bought and kept it's license, so at a minimum there there's some fine print to that clause. And my experience with B2B is that clauses like that are ultimately a product of the circumstances from when they're written. If circumstances change, those clauses can change. The most indelible ink is the most likely to have new semantics later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For my work, macs have never been really useful to develop on without additions. The whole "I can run virtualbox" and having a good out-of-the-box unixy setup is what has kept me coming back. Linux/others are not a realistic option as a daily driver for what I do.

No x86, no virtualbox. No virtualbox and I'd rather just get (with much sighing, complaining, and general ill will) a windows laptop. I mean, the terminal is becoming slightly more useable in windows, right? And sometimes you just need to run a windows VM, so you need x86 virtualization.

There are downstream effects to losing the "nerd" base and I suspect this move is a bad idea, but apple has a track record of pulling rabbits out of hats and knowing what really matters. Maybe this customer segment just doesn't matter.

<comment><USER18> The thing I like about macOS over Windows when it comes to the terminal is that it's a native part of macOS and I don't have to monkey around with as many things. On my Macs, things aren't that much different compared to when I'm working on my Ubuntu server.

I don't feel the same using WSL. It's not a seamless experience. Also, I've never found a terminal emulator I enjoy using on Windows. Maybe it's still way too early, but even the new Windows Terminal left me less than impressed.

<comment><USER19> what do you find lacking in the new Terminal?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just read the other piece about replacing mac by r pi. The potential is there. And with Apple control the chip ... it would be brutal.

<comment><USER21> My macbook has 2000 battery cycles, and thinking about acquiring. pi

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> [https://archive.vn/qbMuX](https://archive.vn/qbMuX)

</comment><comment><USER23> How is the developer ecosystem going to fair? I would imagine a lot of tools don't work on ARM (or aren't regular tested on ARM). Moreover, I feel like it's going to be a big problem that the architecture you're deploying your code to is different than the one you are developing on. Who knows what kind of crazy performance differences/bugs there are between ARM and x86_64. Also, what about the audio/video/modeling software? I can't imagine that there's any support for ARM at the moment in that space.

Also, is the Mac Pro going to switch to ARM? I'm not aware of an ARM chip that can compete with the super highend Xeons in the Pro. Having laptops run ARM and Pros run x86_64 doesn't seem like the best idea (also sounds like a lot of work on Apple's part).

Of course, maybe this switch is going to create a high-end ARM space, allowing ARM to make inroads into HEDT and the server market.

A lot seems unclear at the moment, but one thing is clear (to me atleast): there's going to be a huge fight over the next 10 years, x86_64 vs ARM. No one can possibly know who will win, but it's exciting to the say the least. I think we've all been a little tired of the x86_64 monoculture since the end of PPC.

<comment><USER24> > Who knows what kind of crazy performance differences/bugs there are between > ARM and x86_64.

A lot of code for demanding applications is often enhanced with SSE/AVX and JIT recompilation techniques. Those are inherently unportable, and I'm not sure how many developers will be willing or able to port that code over to Neon and AArch64, especially for a small 2-4% of the market.

Even if they do, it's quite a cognitive burden to have master and maintain two separate SIMD and recompilation implementations for the same applications.

This will probably further drive high-end gaming away from Macs, on the heels of OpenGL deprecation and the Mac-only Metal API. Combined with Cocoa and Swift, I imagine we'll end up seeing less and less applications that run natively on both Macs and Windows/Linux after the move.

<comment><USER25> Android is much more than 2-4% of the market, though.

<comment><USER14> Not in the desktop application space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have to say, I'm not sure how Apple can pull this off. Mac commercial software is pretty sparse and crappy as it is. I mean, if I can't run the apps I use on a daily basis there (Adobe stuff mostly), it's a complete non- starter. Introducing another arch is not going to help matters there. If they try to pull in software from e.g. iPad, that's also pretty crappy. How many note-taking apps does anyone really need? And besides what few good apps iPad has, they won't work all that well in the desktop context.

I guess we'll see soon enough. I doubt they're as naive as to believe that they can pull another massive arch switch without Jobs' reality distortion field, and without their current arch severely lagging (like it was in PPC->x86 transition).

<comment><USER27> Well Adobe will definitely support the new architecture, it would be stupid for them not to.

And additionally with the latest iPad becoming much closer to 'Mac' in terms of the browsing experience (eg with a touchpad) it makes total sense for Apple to start making some of their apps truly cross platform. Does the Spotify desktop app really need to be substantially different to the iPad app?

<comment><USER26> It took them quite some time to start supporting Intel Mac last time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I just bought a new 16" MBP earlier this year and I can't decide if it was the very best or worst time to do that.

</comment><comment><USER29> Apple is "preparing to announce" the switch, but haven't we heard these rumors for, well, years now? How much more reliable are these rumors now compared to a couple years ago?

I'm a little surprised to see Bloomberg basically cribbing MacRumors.

EDIT: Instantly downvoted? LOL

<comment><USER30> I always take these rumours with a pinch of salt. But I don't think that there having been rumours for years discredits them. There were apple tablet rumours for years too, which turned out to be because they _were_ working on a tablet for about 10 years before they released it (they ended up releasing the iPhone first as part of the same project, and I believe that was 7 years in).

<comment><USER31> When I worked at Apple I ported FileMaker to a Macintosh Tablet computer almost 20 years before the iPad.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I find a hacker roommate in NYC? - <AUTHOR>

Moving to NYC to take a job, and would like to find a hacker roommate. I have a whole email written out describing myself in case anyone here is interested, but can anyone else recommend a way to find a nice, compatible, like-minded roommate? <comment><USER2> Why not find a normal one? You can expand your horizons and make new friends.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really want to be around positive people who can serve as social reinforcement for my values.

<comment><USER3> What really matters is being around people who are active and creative. The specifics of what they work on, a minor detail.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree. I was in a fraternity in college and while it was a GREAT time to expand my horizons (I didn't party much in high school) I received almost no social support for my entrepreneurial/hacker tendencies. Most of it was mocked. So I learned valuable social skills and how to persevere without social support but imagine how effective I'd be if I had social support.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but what kind of activities were you involved with in the fraternity? Partying and athletics are _active_ certainly, and enjoyable, but not _creative_.

You want people who are motivated primarily to _make things happen_. As with what evandavid said, people with artistic interests or who are engaged with a professional career are good, but anyone with a hobby that's more creative than "going out drinking" and more active than "playing videogames" fits the bill--even that guy who spends thousands of dollars hand-crafting historical costumes and goes to a renaissance faire every other weekend is actually out doing something.

The important part is that, at least in my experience, people who are motivated, creative, and actively engaged with what they're doing will (even if only implicitly) support and encourage that mindset in each other, even with widely divergent interests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://groups.google.com/group/nyyc>

This is the group for our NYC HN meetups. Send a group email out and if you have a chance the meets are every last Thursday of the month. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> Craigslist. Create an ad or browse a bunch of them. I found a cool roommate with similar interests that way.

</comment><comment><USER6> You could try to contact meetup organizers or user groups in NYC for whatever it is that you do..</comment>


Unofficial Lego Advanced Building Techniques Guide (2007) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://joncraton.org/media/files/UnofficialLEGOAdvancedBuildingTechniquesGuide.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This is must-have handbook for advanced LEGO® MOC creators!

As I'm AFOL[0] & IT geek, I not use _proprietary physical bricks_ anymore ;-)

Instead I use FOSS tools — LeoCAD[1] with LDraw[2] parts library for design virtual Lego models, such as my MOC "Micropolis Locomotive"[3,4].

[0] [http://www.brickwiki.info/wiki/Adult_Fan_Of_LEGO](http://www.brickwiki.info/wiki/Adult_Fan_Of_LEGO)

[1] [http://leocad.org](http://leocad.org)

[2] [http://ldraw.org](http://ldraw.org)

[3] [http://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1041133890344247297](http://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1041133890344247297)

[4] [http://old.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/9g6ifv](http://old.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/9g6ifv)</comment>


3 reasons why 2017 will see massive cloud migration - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3155764/cloud-computing/3-reasons-why-2017-will-see-massive-cloud-migration.html <comment><USER2> I thought listicles were over?</comment>


Anti-Tracking Browser Cliqz Acquires Ghostery [German] - <AUTHOR> http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2017-02/cliqz-ghostery-browser-anti-tracking/komplettansicht <comment><AUTHOR> OP here: According to German newspaper Zeit, privacy-enhanced browser Cliqz [1] just acquired Ghostery for an undisclosed amount. With the deal, Cliqz wants to enhance its browser's anti-tracking capabilities. It also aims to enlarge its footprint of ~150.000 users and tap into Ghostery's 50m user count. The Ghostery team spinned of its business segment into Evidon, which is not part of the deal.

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated to Ghostery or Cliqz (didn't know about the latter until just now).

[1] [https://cliqz.com/us/](https://cliqz.com/us/)

EDIT: Added link to Cliqz-US URL</comment>


Big Lessons from HackFwd - <AUTHOR> http://hackfwd.com/kthxbai <comment><USER3> "European Geeks Are As Talented As American Ones. Innovative thinking is not the natural birthright of US-born coders alone."

Wow. It required starting an entire incubator to realize that? Given the number of European born innovators in the US it should have been obvious that being European itself is not a hindrance. If they'd looked to Y Combinator that would have noticed Paul Graham's heritage; they might also have noticed Paul Graham residence.

"3\. We Underestimated The Bureaucracy. We all knew that bureaucracy in some European states, and across Europe was high."

See above.

<comment><USER4> Interesting case study of a company that was a leading trophy company in the US in the 70's or 80's that had a model that worked. They had a single production location that shipped nationally across the United States.

They thought they could do the same in Europe, immediately running into problems as they quickly found they would need a distributor in each country which would take a rather large chunk out of their margin. They still proceeded and found that everyone had different tastes, the Italian's liked something flamboyant, the French preferred something classy, the English wanted something Iconic and the German's wanted something Minimalist. In the US, everyone wanted the same thing. In short, the company went bankrupt in both regions due to the errors made in Europe.

There are language differences, cultural differences, tax and regulation differences, additional costs of multiple companies to be setup during expansion and the list keeps going on. Startups stuggle to scale in Europe for very clear reasons, it's much harder to do so. With a small team and little resources, a company can address the entire United States, in Europe they simply can't (of course there are a few lucky exceptions).

So as a European, what has Europe needed for the last two decades to be competitive? Quite obviously, it is to level the playing field and remove those barriers to zero. Until that happens, European Startups will never be able to scale to the size or with the speed of their US competitors. While I think European founders are as smart as American founders, by the points above, does that even matter?

Easier translation such as [http://www.reverbeo.com](http://www.reverbeo.com) (Friends of mine) will take care of the language barriers on web businesses. Higher levels of customisation on both software and hardware will take care of the stylisic differences. But the regulation challenges require EU intervention and we've been waiting a long time for them to do anything.

<comment><USER4> Also HackFwd have an awesome public set of videos from their events. I really hope they keep them online! [http://hackfwd.com/pmm/](http://hackfwd.com/pmm/)

My favourites are by Tom Hulme, Rob Fitzpatrick, Mikko Jarvenpaa, Paulina Bozek, Mike Butcher and Florian Heinemann.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I did not expect this news.

When I first heard about HackFWD I thought it was the ideal program to join. They were well positioned as accelerator program specifically looking, optimized & engineered for techies.

I was not part of their program but in the last few years I learned to know a bunch of the HackFWD mentors and met a few teams that went through the program and only heard the best about it. So I was curiously following what they did and also encouraged a bunch of teams I met to apply at HackFWD if they fit their profile.

I still believe that their hypothesis to focus on technical founders is very smart for an accelerator program (it is way easier to teach marketing & business skills to engineers than the other way round). Also the better you can specify your target audience/hypothesis the better you can focus and build an environment around it and it felt like they did a great job there (even when they ultimately hit some (european) barriers that were hard to overcome).

On top of that (besides their focused hypothesis) Europe has an amazing pool of brilliant engineers that at the same time lack a bit of the business savviness if you compare them to founders in the US. So it's not only a great global strategy, I believe it especially works well for the local (european) environment, same with having Germany as the base rather than the UK.

HackFWD also reminded me a lot of philosophically aligned efforts like Fred Wilson's MBA mondays, what Google Ventures do with their lab and 500Startups with their amazing mentoring program/bootcamp on UX and distribution.

We ourselves (Blossom.io) ultimately were lucky to get into Seedcamp (one of the leading european accelerator programs) and we're very grateful for all their support but it is sad to see another bright star of the european scene gone.

Hat tip to Lars for sharing his thoughts and lessons learned. The great thing about building an environment/a community is that even if you 'fail' you leave something that lives on, and it definitely touched/helped/accelerated a lot of people in the european startup scene that certainly will continue to leave a trail and go on to do great things.

Would love to hear from others who were more tightly involved with HackFWD.

 _bow_

</comment><comment><USER6> While most of these seem reasonable learnings, some of them still show major holes in understanding. For instance:

       "Within the first couple of years, we realized that,
        on average, any exit required between 5 and 7 years
        to be worthwhile, longer than the average time we'd
        hoped and planned for. This stands in sharp contrast
        to the US, where exits commonly happen within a year
        due to talent acquisition hires."

Even a decade ago anyone could tell you that an startup will typically take 7+ years to IPO or make a decent size trade exits (Seven year is the generally accepted median time to exit for a US VC funded startup). They seem to be confusing "real" exits with talent acquisitions, most talent acquisitions rarely involve a significant amount of money being returned to investor. Almost never at the 10x+ levels that most funds are looking for.

Also missing from the discussion is the fact that they took a massive 27% in equity for a tiny investment which meant that many talented founders wouldn't even consider touching it. As the accelerator market has become more competitive taking that kind of equity is unviable even for below-average startups.

<comment><USER7> > ..they took a massive 27% in equity for a tiny investment...

Their website implies - <USER2> [http://hackfwd.com/dilution](http://hackfwd.com/dilution) \- that they invest a substantial amount, ranging from €91,000 for a single founder to €191,000 for three founders (although another document - [http://hackfwd.s3.amazonaws.com/system/documents/4bd586/e2e8...](http://hackfwd.s3.amazonaws.com/system/documents/4bd586/e2e8b66c7c32000034/hackfwd_offering_overview_final.pdf) \- says that they invest "up to" these amounts).

It would be interesting to hear from some actual HackFWD alumni how much they actually invested.

EDIT: If they did actually invest those amounts, taking 27% in equity would not be unreasonable. If, however, they were invoking the "up to" qualifier and offering to invest much smaller amounts in return for the same amount of equity, then that would raise a question mark.

<comment><USER8> It wasn't "up to". It was those amounts stated in the docs, using only the number of founders (from one to three) as the proxy.

<comment><USER9> Just as Mikko hinted, most startups took 191k for 27% of shares. The thing to remember is that HackFwd gets diluted in next rounds together with the founders, there are no anti-dilution clauses in Geek Agreement (which is public, btw).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> To be frank, I don't share the excitement (or now sadness about loss) either:

      I was hoping it would set an example for the European ecosystem (...)
     but [we] decided to join another incubator instead.

      We ourselves ultimately were lucky to get into Seedcamp

That's 2 for 2 against HackFWD - apparently, the setup wasn't as great as the marketing made it look?

      (it is way easier to teach marketing & business skills
      to engineers than the other way round)

Looking at the HackFWD companies, that doesn't seem to apply with the broadness that the statement suggests. Could it be that someone who actually went through the steps (Paul Graham, developer - built, founded and exited Viaweb) is in a better position to pass on knowledge on that than someone who didn't (Lars Hinrichs, business guy - hired developers, founded and excited Xing)?

While I find the passion, generosity and appetite for risk behind HackFWD more than commendable: it looks like it would have taken a larger vision (possibly even larger & more costly than YC) to carry a tech-focused EU incubator forward. I understand that the decision to cut losses is probably the right one, but if he's unwilling to stick it out for 5-7+ years - YC was started in March 2005! -, maybe he shouldn't have started HackFWD in the first place. The way it stands now, the one who benefited most seems to have been Lars through publicity and reputation (cf. European Commission etc.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Proof that hype alone doesn't cut it. HackFwd was one of the coolest kids in the block with enough press and attention.

I'd suggest 2 more why's:

1) Consumer Web is very difficult in Europe. It requires scale and scale isn't as easily achievable than in the US

2) Because of 1) Dev-centric teams only don't make the cut. In Europe more than in the US. Devs can make good CEO's but teams need more on the biz dev level

<comment><USER9> Actually half of HackFwd companies are tools for businesses or SaaS platforms, not straight-to consumer apps.

@michuk

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> HackFwd was the best thing that happened to us on our entrepreneurial road so far. The ability to meet and network with Europe's top entrepreneurs, investors and jounalists, the ongoing support from the staff and the general coolness of the programme and the people is what shaped me as a doer.

The programme was not without its flaws. Yes, the amount of stock HackFwd took was significant, and the communication between everyone involved could have been better between the Build events, but overall I cannot imagine a better place to start my first business than here and I'm very sad other young entrepreneurs won't be able to experience this anymore.

Europe is losing one of their best startup schools and I can't see on the horizon anything that will replace it anytime soon. Let's just hope TechStars grows outside of London and Seedcamp gets even bigger, or maybe someone some time will try to create a new geek-friendly accellerator machine without making the same mistakes. Fingers crossed!

@michuk

</comment><comment><USER12> Great article. I'm very surprised and disappointed by this news. I was hoping it would set an example for the European ecosystem. We actually got accepted into their program but decided to join another incubator instead. The amount of equity they would take upfront was quite big if I remember well.

</comment><comment><USER13> Who has insights on any of these HackFwd companies (YieldKit , Cobook, Infogr.am, Watchlater, To Be Honest, Outlander Studios, Filmaster, BeamApp , Sharypic, Starforce Delta, Dropify, Telety.pe , FlockOfBirds , Visualnest ) and is genuinely excited?

<comment><USER9> Infogr.am, Watchlater and Cobook have amazing consumer traction and will definitely be great exits for HackFwd in a couple of years. Some other companies like Yieldkit or my own Filmaster.TV have pivoted towards a b2b model and generate proper revenue in their niche (we help cinema exhibitors and television providers learn about their customers tastes, personalize marketing communication and grow their audience). Others like Visualnest and BeamApp are fascinating pieces of technology still looking for the right application. I believe only FlockOfBirds has officially closed down.

If you have specific questions about any of the startups, let me know, I'll be happy to help.

@michuk

<comment><USER14> As for FlockOfBirds, we had to pull our app from the App Store due to the rate limit changes in the Twitter API v1.1. However the company still exists, and we are planning a come back for next year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> HackFwd was one of the rare accelerators that was actually pushing the envelope instead of being copycats. Besides they had another rare trait in this space - integrity and deep commitment to companies they fund (disclaimer - I'm the founder of one of those companies).

</comment><comment><USER14> My project FlockOfBirds has been funded by HackFwd. I would not have missed it for the world – if I could turn back time and make the decision again, I would do it again. Lars, thanks for everything!</comment>


Learn to write a simple OS kernel with keyboard/screen support (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/arjun024/mkeykernel <comment><USER2> Like many people, I have started toy OSes, and like most such projects, all of them but my current one did not make it far past the booting stage.

The problem was that there was just too much to do: Booting, memory management, interrupt/exception handling, video output, keyboard, disc access, file systems, scheduling... most of those things are potentially interesting, but not all at once, and yet they are all pretty much necessary to get your OS to the "critical mass" where working on individual aspects starts being fun.

Until I had the idea to not just boot using plain old 16bit DOS, but too also keep DOS running _in_ my OS, _as a task_. The thing about DOS is that it is barely an "operating system" in the modern sense. Instead, it is more a crude collection of 16bit x86 routines that do most of the aforementioned things: Console input/output, file system access, crude memory management, a whole shell actually (COMMAND.COM)... and you can even load drivers for networking, sound, and almost everything else, provided for form of it already existed about 15 years ago.

My current toy OS is a modern message passing microkernel, but for everything that I did not feel like implementing yet, I call into the DOS task. The task runs as a vm86 task, essentially within a hypervisor (called the "vm86 monitor"), but specifically for 16 bit real mode code. (64bit x86 got rid of the now obsolete vm86 mode, so there you would have to actually implement something much closer to a modern hypervisor.) This is done using using a shim layer that receives messages using the message passing system of my OS and translates them into the (usually) soft-interrupt driven DOS/BIOS function calls.

This is possible with DOS, unlike modern OSes, because it's such a crude and conceptually simple OS, centered around direct hardware access and with essentially no own memory protection/address space separation, that it just does not get in the way of implementing my own OS.

<comment><USER3> So basically you do something like Windows 3.x?

<comment><USER2> Or early OS/2, yap!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just curious if someone has done OS dev in top down manner. That is, work within a modern multi-tasking OS like Windows or Linux and develop a collection of OS components (in the form of host OS modules?) that gradually replace functionality of the host OS? I imagine this would be much easier to do under Linux rather than Windows since the ABI/API for hooking into is open and documented. This way one can start developing just those components that interest you first, although I imagine key areas like memory management, scheduling and interrupts may not be replaceable from within a running OS?

<comment><USER5> That is what rich language runtimes are all about.

When you do Common Lisp, Smalltalk, Java, .NET, Go, D, ... the underlying OS kind of loses its meaning.

The standard library can bind to OS primitives, or you can implement your hardware abstraction layer that allows for the language runtime to run bare metal.

If you squint a bit, UNIX is C's runtime, and gets everywhere via POSIX.

<comment><USER6> That's a misleading comment, and I can't find a valid point in there. You can run C on a different platform than UNIX, or "run it on bare metal", just as well. If you write C, you make reasonable abstractions, to achieve some amount of OS independency, just as well. And typical usage of "rich language runtimes" is on one of the mainstream OSes, just as well. You even often have some OS specific code in there, because the OS is not entirely interchangeable.

So, the OS does not lose more of its meaning if you move to rich language runtime environments. Those language environments are mostly about garbage collection. Most other things that make the OS "lose its meaning" are just libraries (that you can write in any language).

<comment><USER5> Those language runtimes exist since the 60's, 10 years before C created the urban myth of being the first systems language, and many of them did not have anything to do with garbage collection.

Developing on Windows, and deploying across several UNIX flavours, mainframes and embedded targets has been pretty much OS independent for me during the last two decades, regardless how much OS specific code those runtime libraries might have inside of them.

Even if the CI/CD pipeline had to do OS specific builds.

<comment><USER6> > Those language runtimes exist since the 60's, 10 years before C created the > urban myth of being the first systems language

I don't know what's your point here, or why you keep repeating this on HN hundreds of times. I didn't ever hear anyone claiming it was the "first systems language". Nor do I care.

(We all want a better language. I haven't tried _many_ , but any other systems language I've seen I've found awkward, starting with Pascal with its mess of 1-based vs 0-based indexing, case insensitivity, weird mix of ref-counted / manually managed, weird syntax choices, mess of basic string types, requirement to create tons of typealiases... going to older languages that have upper-case only identifiers, for example).

As to rest - it's just a matter of libraries. Not runtimes.

EDIT: it seems some definitions of runtime include standard libraries. So, whatever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's x86, isn't it? I'd love to see something as small as this one that wouldn't rely as much on BIOS.

The way I understand it, the following code is based one of the assumptions you can't make without x86 BIOS, can you?

        /* video memory begins at address 0xb8000 */
        char *vidptr = (char*)0xb8000;

<comment><USER8> That doesn't depend on BIOS, it depends on the standard "frame buffer" address for CGA/EGA/VGA graphics cards (I'm not 100% sure they all use the same address, those three and Hercules were the standard back in the day, and it seems my memory has started dropping nearly-useless information from 30 years ago, not a bad idea).

I quote-unquote frame buffer because it's text mode, one byte for the ASCII code (extended to 256 characters in configurable and often confusing and incompatible ways, MS had "codepages" and ISO has the equivalent Latin-1 through Latin-14 or so), and one byte for the attribute.

Many modern cards used to keep the basic VGA compatibility upon boot, until you switch them into more sophisticated modes. I'm not sure if they still do these days. QEMU, which is the actual target for the minimal demo kernel above, pretty sure supports it.

BIOS used INT 10h for video operations, from mode setting to printing characters, code that calls INT 10h is actually relying on BIOS. IIRC next to nobody used it except for mode setting, you could much more easily and flexibly write the right bytes yourself (with a little bit more work for compatibility). Plus you could use DOS INT 21h to actually print output strings with a bit more of a concept of a terminal.

<comment> emily-c You're still relying pretty heavily on the BIOS to write to this region that you otherwise wouldn't be. Getting the legacy framebuffer region set up to be decoded to the graphics card is using some hacks to get it to work over PCI[e]. The memory controller/PCI root complex needs to be configured to forward transactions to the the legacy A and B segments to the PCI bus using a proprietary bit to enable that MMIO hole. To enable correct decoding of that, all PCI bridges on the path to the graphics device need to be specially marked in their config space bridge control as being "VGA compatible" so that legacy framebuffer hole requests and VGA IO ports can ultimately be forwarded to the graphics device. This needs to exist because the root ports/host bridges in the system base and limit need to encompass the addresses of their children as well as needing to exist in a hole that the memory controller/root complex knows to forward requests down to PCI.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the very complete explanation. It makes sense that this would work this way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there an 'Awesome' list of simple OS kernels somewhere?

<comment><USER10> It's far from comprehensive, but here are a handful of operating system projects that have caught my eye:

[1] MezzanoOS, an OS written in Common Lisp ([https://github.com/froggey/Mezzano](https://github.com/froggey/Mezzano))

[2] SerenityOS, a Unix-like OS ([https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/](https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/)). The primary author has a youtube channel ([https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling/](https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling/))

[3] RedoxOS, a microkernel OS written in Rust ([https://www.redox- os.org/](https://www.redox-os.org/))

[4] Nebulet, a microkernel based on webassembly ([https://github.com/nebulet/nebulet](https://github.com/nebulet/nebulet))

[5] It was never released by Microsoft, but Midori OS had some fascinating ideas like software isolated processes, asynchronous message passing and object capabilities. Nice write-up about the project by Joe Duffy here [http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about- midori/](http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/)

<comment><USER5> As addendum Midori was used by Bing in production.

> While never reaching commercial release, at one time Midori powered all of > Microsoft's natural language search service for the West Coast and Asia.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/project/singularity...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/project/singularity/)

And although not quite the same, at least Singularity's code is available.

The WinRT .NET 8.x compiler was based on Singularity's way of compiling[1][2] and UWP .NET Native kind of had some learnings from Midori [3].

[1] - [https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mani-Ramaswamy- an...](https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mani-Ramaswamy-and-Peter- Sollich-Inside-Compiler-in-the-Cloud-and-MDIL)

[2] - [https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-005](https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-005)

[3] - [https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-NET- Native](https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-NET-Native)</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook's web traffic has declined by nearly half in the last two years - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/08/youtube-is-about-to-pass-facebook-as-the-second-biggest-website-accor.html <comment><USER2> Why does this report have little to no data on Facebook's mobile app usage, which constituted 90%+ of all Facebook usage as of 2016 [0]?

The posted article says this:

> _Although Facebook 's app traffic has grown, it is not enough to make up for > that loss, the study said._

But the linked-to study says this [1]:

> _Yes, visits to the "flagship" website in the U.S. are down, but their > entire network continues to grow. Their app usage is large and increasing, > and they increasingly find growth from other parts of their portfolio, such > as Instagram and Messenger._

I don't see any part in which the SimilarWeb analyst attempts to gauge mobile app metrics.

[0] [https://thenextweb.com/facebook/2016/01/27/90-of- facebooks-d...](https://thenextweb.com/facebook/2016/01/27/90-of-facebooks- daily-and-monthly-active-users-access-it-via-mobile/)</comment>


A TensorFlow implementation of the Differentiable Neural Computer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/deepmind/dnc <comment><USER3> The way in which the brain solves classification tasks - a reactionary process that doesn't draw on deliberate reasoning ability - seems similar to how we recreate such abilities in ANN's. So in that sense it seems our AI systems are following the path laid out for us by our own brains.

However it seems to me (and I may be wrong) that the DNC tries to implement procedural, deliberate thinking in a way divergent from the method implemented by the human brain.

The brain is clearly capable of providing us with the ability to navigate through complex procedure (like interpreting subway maps), something beyond the abilities of modern AI which mainly excels at more reactionary classification. So the question becomes, why is Deep Mind diverging from the way the brain works in the case of the DNC?

Is it because we don't actually understand how the brain implements reasoning, or is it because in order to do so in the brain's own way it would exceed our technical capabilities? Or both?

<comment><USER4> > The way in which the brain solves classification tasks - a reactionary > process that doesn't draw on deliberate reasoning ability

Does this mean that when I see an animal my brain reactivity just knows "cat" instead of going "well it a small thing with fur and whiskers, fits cat"?

edit: A longer description I found helpful: [https://deepmind.com/blog/differentiable-neural- computers/](https://deepmind.com/blog/differentiable-neural-computers/)

<comment><USER3> I'd say that the classification of a cat as a cat is a fundamentally different process from, say, solving a complex math problem.

The main difference seems to be that the former is a subconscious process and the latter is conscious, but it's more than that because to solve the complex problem we're relying on explicit selective recall from our long term memory then transferring that knowledge to our short term memory for conscious processing. I don't think this transfer of information from long term to short term memory occurs when looking at a cat.

<comment><USER5> Subconscious: everything that has been abstracted away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate the format of the Nature paper. I have no idea how the algorithm is different than their neural turing machine

<comment><USER7> IIRC, the difference is an additional read head. Also they removed location- based addressing for the read/write heads in favor of a combination of content-based adressing and a dynamic scheme to figure out empty locations.

<comment><USER8> Could you expand on the removal of location based addressing? That's not how I understood it, but... I don't understand it very well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, I'll own up to it, I'm kinda dumb (or at least not read up on this).

Can someone explain what a DNC is?

Assume I know most CS undergrad topics -- or can at least google them; eg, I know what a Turing machine is but not what a neural Turing machine is.

<comment><USER10> Neural Turing Machines by Alex Graves, Greg Wayne, Ivo Danihelka

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401](https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5401)

A Neural Turing machine is a type of neural network with addressable memory - it learns rather than being explicity programmed.

The net also learns to boot, i.e. how to read/ write it's own memory from scratch.

Stochastic Gradient Descent learning relies on backpropagation of the error corrections to the individual weights to make a slight improvement - <USER2> requires a differentiable neural net.

This version innovates with content addressable memory. The authors demonstrate learning from big data sets and with reinforcement learning, (i.e. trial and error as an embodied agent).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't wait to start playing with this. The DNC is a big part of the initial inspiration for how I started modeling and reprogramming my brain!

A key difference between one of my models for how our brain works and the DNC: there's a mechanism for loading/unloading neural networks into the DNC. Also, the inputs = signals from the brain + body + mind + environment (physical & mental) = the outputs (though some outputs require iteratively applying the inputs a good bit before manifesting).

<comment><USER12> > I started modeling and reprogramming my brain!

How did you model and reprogram your brain?

<comment><USER11> I've developed a systematic framework for generating practices to change how my body, mind, and brain work. I haven't figured out a way to explain it in simple terms, but working toward it.

EDIT: Here are some basic thoughts...

Everything we experience flows through our perceptual sets (composites of relevant emotions, beliefs, behavioral strategies, and intentions), which we can intentionally craft over time. Each component in a perceptual set is processed with varying degrees of attention.

So to program your brain, the first step is to find a functional base line perceptual set to work from & learn how to direct/focus your attention on the different aspects of your perception.

To put it even more simply: go practice all the forms of Buddhism. All I seem to be doing at this point is systematically rediscovering stuff they've known for 2500 years and attempting to put a categorical structure onto it.

<comment><USER13> Sounds like you may have stumbled into the same ideas behind CBT more or less. It makes sense that they'd crop up in different places and times assuming they work well.

I'm certainly no expert on it, but if that's a decent assessment then you may be sitting on some very handy metaphors.

<comment><USER11> Correct! Some of my practices are specifically known things in CBT. Some of them are specifically known in physical therapy. And some are more related to mindfulness or tantra.

I find them incredibly handy & have been rapidly growing in weird ways since New Year's Eve. I realized I can leverage natural cognitive biases for pattern matching to start classifying each moment of my life as meeting some set of fundamental human needs of mine.

The skill of choosing one's beliefs (ie. shortening the time it takes for a belief to be internalized) is extremely useful and something we don't really teach in society. It's no wonder we're experiencing such divisive times, especially when we've developed all sorts of systems that fail to preserve human connection.

<comment><USER14> > The skill of choosing one's beliefs (ie. shortening the time it takes for a > belief to be internalized) is extremely useful and something we don't really > teach in society.

I don't follow... how is this extremely useful? What is an 'internalized' belief, as opposed to what? ...something you just want to believe but don't quite yet?

<comment><USER11> I think there's two skills here: the skill of choosing beliefs and the skill of internalizing them.

The usefulness of choosing beliefs stems from several applications: 1\. Choosing to believe things in order to intentionally set cognitive biases. (eg. believing every moment meets some needs of mine combines with an understanding of fundamental human needs to prime my brain to spot how my needs are being met in the moment...particularly helpful for painful moments, which can meet my need to learn how to better meet my needs) 2\. Choosing to believe the opposite of problematic thoughts. (discovered this one by choosing to stop believing an anxious thought that was plaguing me) 3\. Choosing to believe I can safely abandon my judgments. (which accidentally changed my food, music, media, and people preferences to be WAY more inclusive) 4\. Choosing to believe I can learn to identify as a woman in the future. (accidentally creating a second conscious voice in my head, ie. stumbling on the Buddhist practice of deity visualization)

Internalizing a belief is when the thought processes change based on the belief. Some beliefs are easier to internalize than others. I've got no idea what goes into determining the time required & am also uncertain if it truly is a skill we can learn.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Visual Tools To Aid Your Daily Inspirational Process - <AUTHOR> http://www.awwwards.com/visual-tools-to-aid-your-daily-inspirational-process.html

<comment><USER2> I really like mural.ly. It's a very good way to connect the dots among our distributed team.</comment>


RoutifyIT – Amazing route optimizations - <AUTHOR> https://routify.it/ <comment><AUTHOR> Recently started a start-up with some of my friends. Any recommandations regarding our landing page?</comment>


China Cracks Down on Churches - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/world/asia/china-christmas-church-crackdown.html <comment><USER2> > ...Christianity, which by some estimates is China's fastest-growing > religion, promotes Western values and ideals like human rights that conflict > with the aims of China's authoritarian government and Mr. Xi's embrace of > traditional Chinese culture and Confucian teachings that emphasize obedience > and order.

> But the government's heavy-handed efforts to obliterate several high-profile > churches have been met with resistance among Christians....

> "If you see the police, national security or community workers greet them > with gentleness," Wen Hongbin, an elder at Xishuipang, told the > congregation. "If they try to grab the microphone, I ask the brothers > sitting in the front row to please stop them." ...

> Independent churches like Early Rain, with more than 500 members, have > attracted large followings in recent years, especially among white-collar > workers seeking an escape from rampant materialism at the center of modern > Chinese life.

> While sermons at state-sanctioned churches are often tightly scripted, > independent churches boom with searing indictments of corrupt officials and > rousing calls to protect the rights of the poor....

> "I saw injustices in society," Mr. Gu said. "I saw that the government's > promotion of China as a just country that enforces laws in a civilized > manner was all a lie."

> Worried for his own safety, Mr. Gu recently closed his business, hoping to > avoid government scrutiny. He said he has grown fearful as he has watched > the police arrest his friends.

These people are much braver than I am, and I wish them peace and strength to overcome these trials.

<comment><USER3> > _...Christianity, which by some estimates is China's fastest-growing > religion, promotes Western values and ideals like human rights that conflict > with the aims of China's authoritarian government_

This is the part that confuses me.

I'm not sure what Christianity _intrinsically_ promotes (ask 12 Christians and I suspect you'll receive 13 conflicting opinions). But _practically speaking_ , governments and ruling classes have used it for nearly two-thousand years to promote social order and subservience.

It's been used to justify the Crusades, and slavery. Within living memory it's been used to justify Jim Crow laws, and the Salvation Army used as a tool against labor union organizing. It's been used to promote leftist regimes in Catholic South America, and the far-right "Protestant work ethic" class structure in the USA. It's been used everywhere to enforce a social order based on strict sexual norms and patriarchal gender roles.

Christianity became one of the Top Two religions on earth, precisely because of how malleable it is. In other words, _in practice_ , it tends to promote whatever the ruling class in a given place and time WANT it to promote. It's been that way since Emperor Constantine.

So why try to violently suppress it? That's never been an effective strategy. Just co-opt it, and _make_ it promote whatever Chinese/Confucian values you want like everyone else does.

<comment><USER4> You have a grave misreading of the history of Christianity. It was used as a control device when it was centrally controlled and delivered (like all religions)...the invention of the printing press changed all of that with the Reformation. Once the knowledge was spread through the people and open to interpretations, the general direction of Christianity (despite all the faults of modern movements) has trended towards equality and freedom, which is much in line with the Gospels. Martin Luther and John Calvin had a profound impact, and once you saw those movements you began to see all the modern western values emerge, from economics to political freedom.

<comment><USER5> In Chinese history it's a little different. The Taiping rebellion was a militant uprising against the ruling Manchus by a Christian Millenarian sect known as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, in the mid 19th century.

It was the bloodiest war of the 19th century, and the bloodiest civil war in history, with an estimated 20-70 million killed.

You don't have to agree with China's response to these chruches, but maybe you can understand why they get nervous when Christians start getting uppity.

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

<comment><USER2> > In Chinese history it's a little different. The Taiping rebellion was a > militant uprising against the ruling Manchus by a Christian Millenarian sect > known as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, in the mid 19th century.

> You don't have to agree with China's response to these chruches [sic], but > maybe you can understand why they get nervous when Christians start getting > uppity.

That's just a pretext, if anything. This oppression isn't some challenging but benevolent attempt by the Communist Party to protect China from a bloody civil war based on past historical experiences, it's part of systematic campaign to protect the personal and institutional power amassed by China's unelected leaders and keep the country submissive to them.

This is clear when you look these actions in context: the repressive actions against democracy activists before, after, and on June 4th 1989; as well as more recent actions against human rights lawyers ([https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/magazine/the-lonely- crusa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/magazine/the-lonely-crusade-of- chinas-human-rights-lawyers.html) ); and even Communist true believers acting outside of party control ([https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/world/asia/china- student-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/world/asia/china-student- activists.html) ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The fish is a symbol for Christianity precisely because of its long history of being forbidden. The Greek word for _fish_ is an acronym for, iirc, Jesus Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit. (That's from memory from taking two classes of Greek in the Bible Belt more than 20 years ago. I think I googled it recently and got something that did not include Holy Spirit.)

It seems to me the Christian tradition of being a persecuted religion makes it well suited to fostering an underground movement in an oppressive climate. I imagine this is the Crux of the issue, both a reason it appeals and a reason the government is trying to shut it down.

I'm seeing some remarks in comments that don't fit my understanding of the history. Christianity spread in part because it was very open to embracing local customs. This is why we have an Easter Bunny and Santa Claus associated with major Christian religious holidays. Jesus also said "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." Iirc, he was talking about paying taxes.

So, on the one hand, it's a subversive religion. On the other hand, it's a religion that is flexible and not absolutist. It can coexist with a lot of other things.

Jesus himself was subversive. Among other things, he overturned the tables of the money changers because he was offended that this was at the church.

The biblical stories thus contain information about how to engage in nonviolent resistance. Again, this may be a big part of the appeal. Is there much difference between saving your soul and saving you from tyranny and oppression?

</comment><comment><USER7> Regardless of your faith (or lack thereof), I hope you agree that this is pretty horrible from a freedom of expression perspective :/

<comment><USER8> (disclaimer, this is more of a FYI than my opinion about anything)

> From the article: The government requires religious groups to register.

China allows for the operation of pretty much all religions including the world's favorite Abrahamic ones. Unregistered religions pique the interest of countries founded on religious persecution, and ignore the operation of registered ones.

Registered ones are able to continue verbatim teachings, but obviously cannot be used to talk about "subversive ideas", in China.

The limitation about what can be discussed, and even the strings attached to the registration requirements (gov't officials part of the church) are things to criticize. Many proponents of any of their religions find registration to be an unfavorable condition.

The point is that this title could just as easily be "China's Christian registrations flourish". Because they do and they are probably the second largest Christian population in the world - simply because the rest of the world is less populated - while a non-registered minority also contains possibly tens of millions of people and it will seem like any massive civil rights crackdown because it also affects millions of people.

<comment><USER9> This is horrendously inaccurate. Yes, if you're a part of a sect controlled by the Communist Party, you're ok. The idea that this is a viable alternative ... I'm beyond words. The fact that you cannot purchase books at the heart of those Abrahamic religions says enough. You cannot even practice in the safety of your own home.

<comment><USER8> > This is horrendously inaccurate. Yes, if you're a part of a sect controlled > by the Communist Party, you're ok. The idea that this is a viable > alternative ... I'm beyond words.

I didn't say or suggest it was a viable alternative. I literally wrote it was unfavorable.

With that in mind, what is inaccurate about what I wrote?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is why it's frustrating when some make it seem that Christians are incapable of facing persecution, based entirely on their experiences in the US.

The Christians in China are very brave for standing by their faith, and I wish them luck and peace.

<comment><USER11> >This is why it's frustrating when some make it seem that Christians are incapable of facing persecution,

Literally no one does this. Western Christians are incapable of facing persecution in the current social and economic climate. This is because Christians by and large make up every pillar of Western society. It has nothing to do with someone being a Christian else where in the world. The sentiment you are attempting to inaccurately portray is rooted in the fact that you have silly things like the "War on Christmas" and actual citizens (who are Christians) complaining that obeying the constitution and not imposing their religion on others is somehow equivalent to persecution.

Your conflation of the two is your own error, not others.

<comment><USER10> I agree with you that the "war on Christmas" stuff is nonsense, but you'd be surprised at how many people write off Christian persecution, based solely on the fact that some of the most powerful nations in the world are "Christian nations".

<comment><USER11> I think you think people hold such opinions, not that they actually do. It's a really contrived point that comes up in these types of conversations.

Feel free to link any kind of substantial material backing up the frequency of such opinions.

<comment><USER12> The lack of awareness on display right now is astounding and borderline offensive, people just don't hold the "opinion" that Christians are persecuted around the world, they are pointing to actual current _events_ of Christian persecution.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/egyptian-church-hit-by-bomb- bla...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/egyptian-church-hit-by-bomb- blast-1491727099)

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/29-coptic-christians- mu...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/29-coptic-christians-murdered-on- route-to-a-monastery_us_592c632de4b0a7b7b469cc6d)

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/18/mosuls-christians- say-g...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/18/mosuls-christians-say-goodbye/)

[http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/10032018](http://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/10032018)

<comment><USER11> You have significantly misunderstood the context of the conversation.

No one has said that Christians aren't persecuted around the world. No one has even implied this was the case. Because people don't hold such opinions.

He is implying that people hold these opinions. I am asking for some kind of substantial material validating the frequency of such opinions.

It helps to respond to the actual conversation instead of contrived strawmans. You are very much proving my point.

+1 For self-awareness, it would have saved you writing out that post.

<comment><USER12> _I am asking for some kind of substantial material validating the frequency of such opinions._

What are the odds that I could go to ten different blogs from ten different Joe's from across the internet saying how bad it is for Christians in the world, come back here, link them, that you'll backpedal more to say that the sources provided aren't authoritative enough?

<comment><USER13> The problem seems to be conflating the notion that Christians in the US/Western nations are persecuted with the capacity for any Christian or Christian group to be persecuted elsewhere.

Because it's a common response to things like the gay wedding cake and "happy holidays," etc. It's not surprising those things evoke such a dismissal.

But such a dismissal is not all inclusive. Because we don't see, say, gay marriage as a persecution of Christianity doesn't mean we believe Christians are intrinsically incapable of being persecuted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Down at the bottom of the article:

>While sermons at state-sanctioned churches are often tightly scripted, independent churches boom with searing indictments of corrupt officials and rousing calls to protect the rights of the poor.

>Early Rain, which Mr. Wang founded in 2008, was among the most daring. Mr. Wang called Mr. Xi a sinner, held prayer sessions each year to mark the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations around Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, and organized a fund to support relatives of political prisoners in China.

So just good old fashioned suppression of political dissent. The fact that they were churches could be entirely irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER15> Underground churches are stronger every time they are persecuted. Success, prosperity are much more dangerous for most of the christian churches in the western world.

</comment><comment><USER16> I can't believe the people's names were exposed. I hope those were pseudonymns.

<comment><USER17> I was surprised by this and the amount of detail regarding the workarounds by the local dissenters. Nowhere in the article did it state that PII was masked.

I wonder if the assumption is that, all the descriptions in the article are already known to the CCP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a left wing atheist. While people like Dawkins and Hitchens may declare religion the root of all evil, I try to have some self awareness on the subject. I look at the 20th century and need only pick two names, Stalin and Mao, to find left wing atheism being drenched in blood.

Killing for a dogma is the issue. And those who claim that religion is responsible for all misery are precious few philosophical steps away from doing exactly that.

edit - for some perspective, here's Tony Benn on the many links between socialist ideologies and christianity. - [https://jacobinmag.com/2018/12/tony- benn-christianity-social...](https://jacobinmag.com/2018/12/tony-benn- christianity-socialism-neighborly-love)

edit2 - For another perspective, while the crackdown on christianity is harsh, the crackdown on muslims is next level. Which is odd on the face of it as muslims tend to be more left wing in practice than christians.

<comment><USER19> I dont think new atheism proponents like Dawkins and hitchens propose religious persecution like communists.

Looking for social change towards atheism, like a third-wave atheism is very different from imposing atheism on people.

<comment><USER18> They don't propose it explicitly, they just lead people to it. Once you have started believing that religion is the root of all evil, you do not have to travel very far at all to find yourself persecuting the religious. The position they espouse isn't just a serious logical mistake, it is a terrible moral one.

<comment><USER19> Then you also lead people to theocracy.

There are positions one can take between "all religions are peaceful, good, and true", and "kill the religious"

<comment><USER18> You don't lead people to theocracy by warning against killing for dogma. On the other hand, creating dogmas about religion being the source of all evil can have pretty awful consequences.

There isn't a simple road between the two positions you gave, there is an entire territory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The paradox is that the more the government cracks down on Christianity, the more it will likely flourish.

<comment><USER21> Why do you think that's true? China has cracked down on: democracy in the 80s, Falun Gong, Tibet, Islam, and now Christianity. None of the previous groups have "flourished" yet. Some have basically died, others had to go abroad to survive, none are mainstream in China l.

<comment><USER22> History is unpredictable, but Christianity has a long tradition of persecution, with even a lot of primary texts (Bible) supporting it, so it is an expected/welcomed experience. This can give the followers a lot of strength under persecution.

Examples:

2 Timothy 3:12 - "Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,"

John 15:18 - "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you."

Or just think of the story of Jesus; when the main character(s) in your religion gets beaten and killed, the followers really feel like they're on the right path when it happens to them too.

<comment><USER21> That's pretty convincing, christianity has been around for a lot longer than the CCP, so by the Lindy effect we would expect it to outlive the CCP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why was this kicked off #1 of homepage and now can't be found but by direct link?

<comment><USER24> Nationalistic and religious flamewar are not only off topic here, they give off toxic fumes that poison the community. We put a lot of effort into trying not to let such forces destroy this place.

When indignation goes into the red, intellectual curiosity is the first casualty, so the mandate of the site requires moderation here. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This statement by Wang Yi is instructive.

[http://www.chinapartnership.org/blog/2018/12/my- declaration-...](http://www.chinapartnership.org/blog/2018/12/my-declaration- of-faithful-disobedience)

</comment><comment><USER26> In Poland during Communism people would ask each other in church: "oh, I didn't know you were Catholic?", "I'm not. I'm against Communism".

</comment><comment><USER27> Are you surprised? China suffered 20-30 million deaths under the "Brother of Christ". It does not want another "Brother" or "Sister"..

<comment><USER28> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion)

For those not getting the reference,

<comment><USER18> I did not get the reference and reading through, this is something I know very little about. Thank you for providing a link.

<comment><USER28> The fact that I only became acquainted with this so late in life is a testament to how provincial my education (and most people's) is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does China have a state religion? Seems like the government clamps down on all of the major religions, is it a secular culture?

<comment><USER2> > Does China have a state religion? Seems like the government clamps down on > all of the major religions, is it a secular culture?

A somewhat tongue in cheek take is: China's state religion is Communism and it's state Church is the Communist Party of China. All of its leaders, officials, and people are required to study Communism and pay lip service to it, whether the believe it or not. However, no one there can take Communism too seriously, because the party's real religion is that of centralized power and submission to it: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/world/asia/china- student-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/world/asia/china-student- activists.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This hasn't started today, most forms of religious organizations were already heavily supervised in China

</comment><comment><USER31> Somehow it is easier to be ignorant and believe something happens to you you can't do anything about. There's no problem in that, everyone has a right to live his/her way as long as it doesn't disturb other peoples right to do so.

The problem are the troublemakers that set themselves at the head of those sects and mess things up for those who happen to choose a different mindset.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is why we need to sever economic ties with China. The more we support this the worse this type of thing will intensify, including beyond China's borders....and it won't stop at just Christianity, they have targeted Islam and, Buddhists etc. as well.

<comment><USER33> On the contrary. I think our leaders should spend more time together. Maybe they should even vacation together.

The US severed economic ties with Cuba in the 60s and look what happened (only recently celebrating Christmas became legal, and property that belonged to the church was returned). There are countless examples like that.

<comment><USER34> What exactly happened after the U.S. severed ties with Cuba? You make it sound like we lost something.

They are still stuck in the 1960s, their economy is absolute garbage and the people are dirt poor, they lost multiple generations of opportunity.

Have you been to Cuba? It's like going back in time 70 years.. the country itself is beautiful if they had taken a different path they could be incredibly propsorous. A small country like Cuba could get by on tourism alone and do much better than they do now.

Everyone needs to take their own path, if suppressing people's religions and no freedom is that path the Chinese want to take then that's their choice.

Our government and our corporations should not support that.

<comment><USER35> They make it sound like they lost something. As in, if they wouldn't have been isolated it might have turned out better for the average Cuban.

<comment><USER36> It's not certain that it would. But participation in the global economy is one way to get a country hooked on the economic crack that is the modern financial system. Once they're hooked, economic sanctions (sometimes just the threat of them) are much more effective in achieving desired behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> How does news like this even get out of the country with the information controls in place?

<comment><USER2> > How does news like this even get out of the country with the information > controls in place?

China isn't North Korea. There's a lot of travel of both Westerners and Chinese into and out of China, and free-ish communication between them. Within China, you can talk about many things _privately_ without having to worry about the police showing up. The government's big red lines are _public_ advocacy and _especially_ political organization.

[https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/randomized- experiment...](https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/randomized-experimental- study-censorship-china)

 _Fear No Evil_ by Natan Sharansky describes a similar situation in the Soviet Union: [https://www.amazon.com/Fear-No-Evil-Natan- Sharansky/dp/18916...](https://www.amazon.com/Fear-No-Evil-Natan- Sharansky/dp/1891620029/). (As in aside, is there a Chinese translation?)

<comment><USER7> News comes out of countries like North Korea as well, since it is incredibly hard to suppress the spread of information, even despite the numerous policies the government has put into place aimed at curbing propagation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> That's how the one party rule will eventually end. Chinese trolls will probably downvote this comment into oblivion.

<comment><USER39> I don't consider myself a Chinese troll, but I'm going to downvote you for trying to guilt people out of downvoting you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Good riddance.

<comment><USER24> Religious flamewar is not ok here. Please don't post like this to HN again. More generally, please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I participate in Christian festivities and find them quite joyful. It's a wonderful time of the year for most of the world.

However, whether countries should allow the propogation of religion and mythology is entirely up to them. Many countries have laws against various forms of deception - and religion straddles that line (of deception) so often. If action is being taken against the people who propagate "falsety" rather than against the "mislead", the ethicality of such action is quite defensible.

<comment><USER42> > However, whether countries should allow the propogation of religion and > mythology is entirely up to them.

This isn't a democratic country, so you should rephrase your statement justifying this as "whether an authoritarian cabal should allow the propagation of a religion and mythology is entirely up to them"

A person's beliefs are up to them not their government.

<comment><USER43> > A person's beliefs are up to them not their government.

How do you square that with the fact that most religious people were indoctrinated at an early age by their relatives and community, rather than developing their beliefs on their own? At the end of the day, it's not a struggle for freedom versus government control, it's a struggle over who gets to do the indoctrinating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The Western imperialistic view of the world is not the only correct one.

We should have a multi-polar world, where China and Russia also get to impose their views and values.

<comment><USER45> Impose? Is that really the word you wanted to use?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> "Writing from the perspective of a person who literally had a life ruined by religious ideology impairing the mental judgement of parental figures. This is literally one of the best things I've read in my life. Going to be unpopular opinion because of people indoctrinated into freedom of expression but why not. Religious ideology has done more damage than terrorism to LGBT people. The result has lead to suicides and the law has done nothing to remedy the people abused. The people running the "faith" systems are nothing more than celebs to people who desire their fix and when it develops into a mental illness of pushing upon others.. people look the other way. Since "who has all the money" gets to keep the show running. No compassion exists in this world. Just agenda pushing by who has all the finances." Shouldn't be flagged

<comment><USER47> Communists ruined (often permanently and quite fatally) lives of far more people. And they don't like the LGBT tribe much either. Short of this being a harbinger of the last communist being hanged with the guts of the last christian (with apologies to Voltaire) very soon, I fail to see how this could be "one of the best things I've read in my life".

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Why is this even on Hacker News? Does the majority of readers here have the expertise to comment on the matter?

<comment><USER49> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

"What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

<comment><USER50> But then look at the front page, look how it never applies to everything, not even close, and how trivial, cute subjects never get these complaints.

People are avoiding their own responsibility and don't like when others exercise it. Since I can only guess anyway, that's my guess. What I know for a fact is that the reasons against such a topic simply being where the interest of people puts it, do not hold water, that is, are always selectively applied. That in itself is intellectually interesting, but we are not allowed to personally question posters on HN too much, even when it's done it's barely rewarded with an honest reply, so we aren't intellectuals enough for that stuff. It's pointless to talk about the aggregate of a group when individuals remain opaque, so the whole subject is simply beyond our reach, as intellectually stimulating and important as it may be.

We should know what a double standard is though: If we can pretend wiggly lines satisfy our intellectual curiosity, we can take note of a country that already build massive concentration camps to "re-educate" millions of muslims now does this. We can also take note of the comments welcoming it, and ponder those. But again, that's mostly homework, we don't have the culture capable of doing this as a "community" apparently. That's a "flamewar" or whatever. We don't like growing pains, so we won't grow, that is pretty much settled.

<comment><USER24> The boundaries are not nearly as arbitrary as you imply. They are determined by what the community has the capacity to discuss while remaining within the site guidelines. If we did it any other way, HN would destroy itself.

<comment><USER50> > what the community has the capacity to discuss while remaining within the > site guidelines

Which is arbitrarily decided on a case by case basis. It seems stuff just gets flagged off the front page by users, and sometimes it has the [flagged] thing, sometimes it doesn't.

People can already hide topics from the front page for themselves, and blissfully ignore them. What is the point of flagging things, are there limits or can people just flag until you arbitrarily take that ability away, where is the accountability? How is taking away the ability of others to speak altogether _better_ than the _possibility_ of some cussing or other things that are harmful to good faith communication?

It may be harder for people to remain civil around lethally serious subjects, but it's not impossible -- and it's not fair to punish everybody, to let random people punish everybody, because you predict what would happen otherwise. It's like a stone that keeps tigers away, on steroids even:

> If we did it any other way, HN would destroy itself.

Any other way? That "way" is still a black box. So this is a super tight rope, and left and right is utter destruction? What does "destroy itself" mean, that the server would vanish? Or that it would "bleed" from one topic into another, and suddenly people are also more irate about wiggly lines?

And of course, if you actually believe that claim, then you can't even make _any_ changes, you can't try it out, because then HN would destroy itself. How perfectly circular.

How do you know the opposite isn't true, that if things are arbitrarily suppressed, it leads to a bad atmosphere and grudges, and people get tempted to bring up a topic when it's not actually the topic?

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure I understand the grievance here. HN is not all kinds of website, it's just one kind of website. Its mandate is defined by [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), most importantly the bit about intellectual curiosity. Everything else more or less follows from that.

Flamewars destroy intellectual curiosity, so we have to moderate them. If we didn't, they would grow until they consumed everything. That would drive away the users who are here for curiosity. That's what I meant about the site destroying itself.

Curiosity as a motivation on the internet is vulnerable—it doesn't scale. That forces us to intervene in various ways, some of which appear arbitrary at times, if only because providing full explanations of every case would take lifetimes. But people are always welcome to email email@example.com and ask for clarification. What we can't do is not intervene at all and just surrender to internet default, because that would be giving up on the site mandate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I see that the growth of China is driving Americans nuts, and they are trying to manufacture all kinds of ridiculous reasons to hate the Chinese, and not disclose that their reason number one is envy. The situation of religion in China is much better nowadays than it was ever before. A few decades ago the Chinese government would incarcerate anyone who propagated religion in the country, and nowadays must religions can be practiced as long as they orderly register with the government. The fact that a big newspaper complains about this issue after many years of progress shows that they are trying to feed the ideas of religious bigots in America who claim persecution daily, while trying themselves to persecute the ideas that they don't agree with. I find this completely appalling.

<comment><USER52> I dunno, the South China Morning Post reported on China essentially phasing out Islam [1], and that's on top of their ethnic cleansing with the Uyghur.

1: [https://m.scmp.com/news/china/policies- politics/article/2145...](https://m.scmp.com/news/china/policies- politics/article/2145939/how-china-trying-impose-islam-chinese- characteristics)</comment></comment>


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