Show HN: My site is up against NASA for a webby - <AUTHOR> ... or a brief history of ReefTracks.org
Back in 2018 I was chatting to some shark researcher mates about their GPS tracking efforts, and how they were using video to manually animate their tagged sharks' movements across the Great Barrier Reef. I love maps, and I thought I could speed up their workflow with a web-based animation they could screen record. I think they were dubious at the time, but I spent a few hours knee-deep in mapbox and codepen and sent through a rough demo anyway [1].
We didn't really discuss it again until January 2019 when one of their whale sharks (GBR1), who I'd included in the demo, started pinging in frequently while tracking north towards Papua New Guinea. It was a real thrill to watch and became one of the longest recorded tracks for a whale shark.
I run the tech side of things at a very "4 people" small conservation network on the Great Barrier Reef. Our role, as we see it, is to engage people in all things Reef, to educate and inspire them, and hopefully lead them into taking action towards its future. And a marine-life tracking platform suddenly seemed like a very interesting proposition.
I spent two months in design and build, my wife (and co-worker) wrote copy, and our CEO Andy put on his spruiking shoes, and in March 2019 we launched ReefTracks.org with a number of sharks, some green turtles, a manta ray, GBR1 the whale shark, and a focus on conservation. A month later the BBC were on the Reef to broadcast a live turtle release to the world, and tracked it using our platform [2]. Then Uber lent us a sub [3]. After which everything went quiet until early this year when, through a strange twist of fate ...
... continued: https://gist.github.com/theprojectsomething/70a207ba05cd385b7c328cffd390113e

  [1] https://codepen.io/theprojectsomething/full/pxXNwd
  [2] https://twitter.com/BBCEarth/status/1111361530451374080
  [3] https://citizensgbr.org/explore/reef-tracks/scuber-agincourt-reef
 <comment><AUTHOR> ... as I was saying, a strange twist of fate saw us enter ReefTracks.org into the Webbys.

You read a lot of gripe about awards outfits like the Webbys. Paid entries, category cash-grab, tilted towards the big end of town. It's the same in every industry. I'm not sure exactly how much we paid to enter two categories in this year's awards, but it was north of AU$1000 with the exchange rate. To put that in perspective, it's around 0.3% of our annual operating budget as a charity [4].

And was it worth it? Well, we lucked out and picked up a nomination for 'Best Science Website'. Which dropped us in the green room alongside @NatGeo (23 million followers) and @nasa (infinity) … with a site built out of cereal boxes and borrowed time, in a council-donated office in Cairns (a small reef town in the middle of nowhere), Australia.

Our bandwidth is way up (Cloudflare reports over 18GB served in the last 24 hours), people are engaging more than ever with our educational (snore) social channels [5], and it's already opening doors we thought were walls. And all thanks to a highly-predictable, sure-loss, paid-for-the-privilege, semi-public poll (ahem).

Most importantly it has the potential to put an international spotlight on the Reef and its inhabitants at a critical time in their history.

So if you'd like to know how Fletcher spends his afternoons (as a 4m, 500kg tiger shark), or investigate the rank and file of a mysterious whale shark congregation in the northern GBR then please take a look. If you want to back us for the win (ha!) please do - there's a link below [6]. Or if you have any suggestions, requests or massive criticisms please let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading.

      [4] https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/90a518adbdc2023bf192f43b6ca80eb7
      [5] https://twitter.com/citizensGBR
      [6] https://reeftracks.org/webbys</comment>


If you ever wanted to know the lengths of most US city longitudes & latitudes - <AUTHOR>

Right before I ran a database migration to create the tables to house the lat & long information for US Cities I realized that longitude and latitude strings could never be over 100 characters long. Instead of blindly using 24 characters or even 20, I wanted to know what I was working with for US Cities ONLY.
The small gist below shows the very small range of length for the lat & longs.
https://gist.github.com/2698035
spoiler: It's between 9-11 for latitude, and 11-12 for longitude <comment><USER2> I recommend using six decimal places for best accuracy, so 34.100912, -121.187176

<comment><AUTHOR> I concur, the data I'm using is coming from one of the free databases out there, so whatever the lengths are, i'll use for now.

Luckily ~90% of the geocoded records are 6+ decimal places

Thanks mapster</comment></comment>


Universities can't fulfil the myth, but can't become vocational schools either - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/universities-cant-fulfil-the-myth-but-they-cant-become-a-vocational-school-either <comment><USER3> _I have no complaints about the modern standard of education_

Here's the thing, which I've written about before ([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the- part...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party- elizabeth-armstrong-and-laura-hamilton) and [http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/beer-and-circus- how...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/beer-and-circus-how-big-time- sports-is-crippling-undergraduate-education-%E2%80%94%C2%A0murray-sperber)): _universities are actually bundles of very different things_ , especially in terms of major. People who do hard science, CS, or engineering have very different experiences and earnings outcomes from people who do some of the majors that have evolved for those who don't want or need to do much (think majors like tourism management, sociology, some of the weaker business schools), and even they have different experiences from people who major in the real liberal arts (history, philosophy, English—the ones Lee cites).

Lumping all those "college" degrees together makes very little sense, since they're actually accomplishing very different purposes.

I wish more articles on the subject would emphasize this point, and I wish I could explicitly tell every incoming college student this, instead of waiting for them to figure it out on their own.

 _Universities have never met the ideal that we hold them to but, on balance, I think they are better than the alternatives_

What "we" really need is less stigma against vocational schools and related college alternatives. Not everyone likes sitting still at a desk and doing abstract symbol manipulation ([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/the- problem-with-ju...](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/the-problem-with- justifying-college-involves-cost/)). And that's okay! Right now we don't have very good systems for those people, and vocational schools are stigmatized.

<comment><USER4> "What "we" really need is less stigma against vocational schools and related college alternatives. Not everyone likes sitting still at a desk and doing abstract symbol manipulation"

Amen. Not everyone is good at it, or suited for it, either. Some of the 'blue collar' workers I know are earning more than the college-degree holding workers in my circle, but societally somehow we 'look up' to the office-y professions, regardless of the value/merit of the job.

<comment><USER5> It would also help to reduce the "path dependence" problem by increasing the ability to tranfer courses between "vocational" training and "academic" training. Not to say you should necessarily get credit towards a B.S. degree for, say, a Welding course... but to the extent that it's possible, the English, Math, etc. should be as easily transferable as possible.

Why? So if you chose one option you aren't so tightly "locked in" later in life, if you desire a change (in either direction).

<comment><USER6> I happen to be a boiler-maker / welder by trade. My last non-fabrication job was at an ISP doing project management, programmed maintenance, and fault response. I got the job because of my trade background. I've had to move to a ~100k population centre in another state so I'm back doing fabrication and getting paid a lot more for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Might be worth bringing up that fact that a significant portion of kids who do go to college don't go to learn, they go because it is the next step in life, often the first step where they are away from their parents. This is a societal problem with goal setting and inspiring the next generation to be motivated by something other than the nebulous idea of 'success' (read: money for most people).

Also worth recalling that the Oxford riots of 1355 started because the local townspeople were pissed off with the Seminary students for chasing women (among other things). Some things never change.

<comment><USER8> Yup. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7814120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7814120)

Luckily for me my aptitude made college easy. The majority of my uni experience was about the first time freedom and responsibility of living on my own.

<comment><USER9> Yea--I had a friend who used to say the same thing, but he went to UC Santa Cruz and did too many drugs. He would come home on breaks, and the damage was very noticeable. He's fine now, actually a programmer I think, but I miss the dude he left in Santa Cruz. (I think he did too much acid? I'm pro drugs, but thought I would pass this along as a cautionary tale.)

<comment><USER10> Prohibition solves nothing, as we can all see. I wonder what other mechanism might instead prevent this kind of thing from happening. Education? Psychologists? I wonder if we spent all the money used in law enforcement of drug laws on therapists instead, how would that turn out?

<comment><USER11> Wonder no more:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/portugal-drug-policy- decrimin...](http://www.businessinsider.com/portugal-drug-policy- decriminalization-works-2012-7)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm going to upvote this, but it was a muddled bit of rambling. In parts I could almost feel the author pull his punches in a sad effort to try to make as many people happy as possible.

The key problem is this: whatever a university is, it's too expensive for the ability of the average student to pay back. That means it's a bad deal for both the student and society. Paying for more of it is just going to continue the spiral.

I have a different question. We know that training for future jobs is a requirement of some post-secondary institution. That's just a given for many fields with the complexities of modern life. So what about a good, solid, liberal arts education? The one thing that universities were supposed to be masters of for centuries? The one thing that allows each of us to participate in and enjoy life to its fullest? Where does society go for that?

We can't go to the universities, because we'll end up in a long, pointless argument about what the purpose of universities are. And, frankly, there's a lot of jumping on the bandwagon going on at most institutions, just google silly college courses.

Can we offload that to local tutors? Teach online? Is there some delivery mechanism for a liberal arts background that we haven't considered yet?

<comment><USER13> >So what about a good, solid, liberal arts education? The one thing that universities were supposed to be masters of for centuries? The one thing that allows each of us to participate in and enjoy life to its fullest? Where does society go for that?

Europe. Reduce your university fees by an order of magnitude or two, study for longer with less emphasis on grades, and enjoy a bit of culture on the side. I'm only half-joking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Speaking as a parent of kids who are headed towards being college age, you can imagine that I've got mixed thoughts about college education. It's going to be expensive. An outcome is not guaranteed. There are a lot of problems with higher education.

On the other hand, there's an anti-college "movement" that itself could just be a fad, or even fueled by a political "wing" that has always relentlessly attacked public education and higher education. The skill area that's often mentioned as accommodating of people with alternative training (Internet programming) may very well be a major bubble right now.

Edit: Removed gratuitous snark.

So while I'm willing to give lip service to experiments in alternative education for 18-22 year olds, I'll probably hedge my bets and advise my own kids to attend college while offering them a dose of realism about what they're getting into.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's always seemed odd to me that we send kids through 12 or 13 years of school, then say that it's university where they're expected to get their critical thinking skills, exposure to new ideas, and other "mind-expanding" experiences.

It's kind of silly, really. For one, it seems an awful waste to not take advantage of 12 or 13 years of opportunity to expose kids to these elements. Secondly, compressing such important experiences into only 4 years seems insufficient, especially given that they are supposed to also be preparing for a vocation during this time and not just "mind expansion".

Finally, it's a very expensive time in a kid's educational career. Why wait until then to impart these "soft skills"? Economically (i.e. from an "ROI" perspective), it makes more sense for such an expensive education to focus solely on the skills that would make them viable in the labor market.

<comment><USER6> I'm all in with this. Is there something about year 9-12 students that makes them unable to understand university level education? I left school in after year 10 because I was having a terrible time of it and went back to studying when I was 23, but there were plenty of other students who were doing really well, or well enough, to go way beyond the meagre intellectual offerings of high school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This was my impression of undergraduate university: cognitive dissonance. Why? a) why do we have this ridiculously inefficient model of pedagogy, and b) why are all these people here who don't express/display any real interest in their subject.

You have been through primary and secondary school, where the function is pretty clear: you are children, so you need to be somewhere supervised by adults; you need to learn to socialise with other children; and you need to learn basic skills like arithmetic, reading, composing essays, studying, punctuality. Then you go off to university which doesn't seem to make any sense. I think it depends on your course - it will be much better if you already have a strong, realistic idea of what you want your career to be, and find yourself among like-minded students.

</comment><comment><USER17> _In short, any student who emerges from university with good critical thinking skills has achieved that by accident, not by the university 's design. I would also argue that the courses that come closest to achieving the ideal are history, English, and philosophy._

How about abstract mathematics? I would argue that these days those might be the _only_ courses where you learn those skills.

<comment><USER18> I suspect the author would argue that training in abstract mathematics is comparable to the other sciences in the sense of 'data analysis within a framework', subject to the problem of under-training in the ability to recognize the limitations of the framework. I suspect s/he chose History, English and Philosophy because they are fuzzier than the sciences, including mathematics, and so they require understanding how to choose - or define - <USER2> set ground rules to apply in a given situation.

<comment><USER19> > _understanding how to choose - or define - a set ground rules to apply in a > given situation._

Which, of course, perfectly describes abstract mathematics... just not the sort that non-majors ever get to.

Many of the interesting parts of mathematics (and, I should add, computer science!) are all about coming up with the mental framework and abstractions needed to look at a problem, give you a new perspective and ultimately come up with a solution. Choosing or coming up with the logic to treat a situation is _exactly_ what you'd be doing.

It's also particularly good at illuminating the underlying structure of different domains and giving you tools to recognize similarities between them that may not be readily apparent. This goes well beyond what most non- mathematicians regard as "mathematically accessible": just look at all the various modal logics[1] both for the breadth of their applications (belief, knowledge, time...) and their internal similarities.

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

Moreover, I would argue that mathematics goes further than most fields in talking about and working with its own limitations. Metamathematics and logic as fields are all about this—with greater clarity than the fuzzier subjects, in the usual mathematical style. Mathematics is also great for consistently and rationally accounting for uncertainty and limitations of other systems, fundamental to probability and any sane treatment of risk.

Mathematics, as practiced by mathematicians, also teaches another really important idea: having _different_ levels of rigor, as appropriate. Often, an argument only needs to be convincing, and many of the important details can be left out. However, in math, this is always done with the understanding that those details _can be_ filled in, and the understanding that _you_ should be able to fill them in given enough time.

I figure the focus on clarity, thorough introspection and different levels of rigor, abstractions and logic all make mathematics _qua_ mathematics one of the ultimate "humanities". The problem is that classes for non-majors (and, perhaps, many undergraduate classes _for_ majors) often don't teach mathematics for itself; instead, they teach mathematics as a tool for engineering or solving specific problems or getting a specific result. And that, certainly, could be fairly described as "data analysis within a framework".

But mathematics in general? Much deeper!

<comment><USER18> Though I am no mathematician, I deeply respect mathematics, and appreciate your defense of it as a humanity, and the importance of its rules for choosing rules to suit the situation.

That said, as I understand it, mathematics in the deep sense you describe gives great tools to specify patterns and how they repeat, but it breaks down somewhat when specifying exceptions to those patterns. For example, consider the debates around 'natural kind' in modal logic (Is a cat with three legs still a cat? How about Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat?). Wrestling with what becomes part of the 'data analysis within a framework' is essential. As it turns out, philosophy has lately turned toward the tools of mathematical logic to specify these things, while its concerns remain essentially human. That's at least one reason why I think the author preferred philosophy to mathematics in the choice of majors suggested.

Without recognizing the limits of mathematics and its abilities to describe what occurs in the real world, mathematicians are prone to being caricatured as the physicist is in the XKCD cartoon the author links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Basically > 90% of my year at school in the UK went on to university. A lot of these people IMO were never really of the inquisitive mind or drive that I thought would be the type to go to university. However for one reason or another it was pushed by my school that pretty much everyone in the final year should go to uni. Most were of middle class and I think, at least within the UK, it is the done thing to do if you are middle class or above to go on to uni. We don't really encourage or present alternatives.

My own experience with university has been a mixed bag. I've loved the lecturers who have challenged my ideas and not just presented solutions. However others I feel encouraged wrote learning through the way they presented courses and a lot of exams are question guessing to gear up to pass. However on the whole I think I have come out of it with more logical basis and reasoning for things, it's definitely been at least beneficial intellectually and I love that. I think that part is wasted on quite a lot of people though who go to uni merely as the done thing.

</comment><comment><USER21> The timing of this post is impeccable. A very exhaustive new study came out showing that the value of a college degree is higher than ever.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/upshot/is-college-worth- it...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/upshot/is-college-worth-it-clearly- new-data- say.html?action=click&contentCollection=N.Y.%20%2F%20Region&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article&_r=0)

Basically, you go to college in America or you risk being poor for the rest of the your life. Sure, some coders / entrepreneurs can do it without college. And maybe college is the selection process for these success traits. But with this size of differential on a very large sample size, I think its pretty hard to say, at least in earnings power, universities are not fulfilling the myth.

<comment><USER22> On a stats blog I just saw that article cited as a classic example of mean vs median propaganda.

The average is ridiculously high because a very small percentage of people get most of the income in our society, and all of them do higher ed and send their kids to higher ed. So all the Doctors, lawyers, MBA exec types, pro (post college) athletes, engineers...

WRT the median, its a lottery ticket purchase. It turns out that the lifetime financial value of a PHD Divinity degree is negative in the pool of potential seminary students, and its not a terribly high number for most students in general. If you (or your parents) win the lottery ticket of life, you probably went to university, but the vast majority of people not only aren't going to win, but are going to take on enormous debt. This is probably not a wise long term societal policy.

The point is there exists a pro football player who earned $100M thus the average "value of a degree" for him and 99 philosophy grads is $1M on average, but that doesn't mean a philosophy degree is automatically a ticket to unlock uncountable piles of gold coins. It merely means rich people (and this is almost certainly not going to be you) did get a degree.

Necessary but not sufficient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> While his history of higher education in old England is interesting, my view of current college education in the US is quite different from his:

In short, my view, from my experience as a student, is that the best teacher is essentially always the best researcher. Why? Because he (she) knows the most about the subject, thus, has the best judgment about what's important in the subject, has the deepest and most mature view of the subject, likely knows where the subject is headed for the next 5-10 years, and is likely one of the brightest and hardest working guys around. For his ability at 'teaching', I learned not to care: It's just not very important for the learning. That is, I didn't really need the polished, practiced, proven, trained, highly developed 'pedagogical techniques'; instead, what the best researcher brings is much more important and, really, enough for 'pedagogy'. Sorry 'bout that.

Next, the universities are the source of crucial parts of essentially all important research in our civilization, and research has a long history, back at least to Newton, of being by a wide margin the most valuable activity for civilization, the economy, standards of living, return on investment, etc. So, for anyone who wants to learn, apply, or add to such research, start at a good college and get for teachers the best researchers can get.

I've seen 'teachers' who were good with pedagogy, and I've seen good researchers; the mere teachers far too often just didn't know the subject well enough, and hands down the researchers were the much better deal. Or, it's (A) high quality pedagogy of low quality content or (B) high quality content from someone who really understands the subject and is a good teacher because of that understanding; I've seen both, and I'll take (B) any time. Or, to heck with the pedagogy; instead, I'll just study some of the best texts and papers; in that, a good researcher can help me pick the texts and papers and help me find the most important points, and a mere teacher just can't, especially for material close to the leading edge of research.

</comment><comment><USER24> One approach I've heard is to create more "engineering technology" degrees with a focus on practical, industry engineering. These would lack the coverage of theory of traditional degrees but would be cheaper and better suited for engineering in the real world. The purpose of traditional engineering degrees would be to prepare future professors and researchers to advance fundamental theory.

<comment><USER25> How would those be different from existing engineering technologist degrees? They sound the same.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra It is interesting that continental european higher education IS mostly vocational schools. You go there to earn a grade in specific skillset. I imagine this is most pronounced in central and eastern europe (including of course Germany).

Yet somehow US and UK universities seem to beat continental schools by most metrics and ratings. They don't set on teaching skills and science but that they also do successfully.

</comment><comment><USER26> As things constantly change, especially in post secondary education, I think it's important to look at the landscape objectively. If you know what direction your want to take your life and career, a university isn't always the right answer, and it shouldn't be the default.

</comment><comment><USER27> People that go to college likely put more value on their degree to in order to defend the fact that they haven't wasted their time.

People that didn't go to college likely put more value on not going to college in order to defend the fact that they don't have a degree.

Anecdotal of course. But college will increase your chances of success due to the connections you make. It will not, however, by any chance in freezing hell, guarantee it.

</comment><comment><USER28> The title is misspelled, it's "fulfill" but it's wrong on the original post too.

<comment><USER29> It's the correct British spelling - [http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fulfil?...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fulfil?q=fulfil)

The author lives in Netherlands so he uses the UK spelling 'fulfil' instead of US 'fulfill'.</comment></comment>


Raiders of the Lost Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/raiders-of-the-lost-web/409210/?single_page=true <comment> vezzy-fnord

        "At this point, if you mean the web when Tim Berners-Lee
        invented it, right now that web does not exist," Scott
        said. "Not really. News organizations kill old articles,
        YouTube's old videos go away. And while the Archive and
        other entities are saving—quote-unquote saving—these sites,
        even those will go to new URLs. They won't be in the same
        place. You'll have to search for them... There are success
        stories. But meanwhile, silently, thousands of useful things
        are disappearing. As time goes on, I have even less and less
        hope for how long it will last.

I can't find any evidence of TimBL ever having any particularly grand intentions regarding the WWW, especially not anything in the like of content replication. In fact, if you read TimBL and Robert Caillau's 1990 proposal for the "WorldWideWeb" [1], you will find it to be a textbook example of worse-is- better with a limited scope, mostly a way of unifying CERN's documents from a physical hierarchy into a minimum viable networked web of nodes. The project objectives were indeed rather humble, and it overall appeared to be a way of bringing the general gist of TimBL's earlier hypertext research with ENQUIRE over the by-then established TCP/IP and DNS in the absolute quickest way possible.

Compare and contrast with Ted Nelson and Xanadu.

[1] [http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html](http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html)

<comment><USER2> You make a good point by showing that worse-is-better is probably the way to get there rather than trying to solve everything at once, but I bet when all is said and done we have something that looks a lot closer to Xanadu than the WorldWideWeb!

<comment> vezzy-fnord _You make a good point by showing that worse-is-better is probably the way to get there rather than trying to solve everything at once_

I did not make any such claim, and I do not advocate for any view resembling that in the slightest.

 _I bet when all is said and done we have something that looks a lot closer to Xanadu than the WorldWideWeb_

If you have read Nelson's writings (e.g. _Xanalogical Structure_ ), you will know the two models are fundamentally irreconcilable.

<comment><USER2> Or perhaps the web has always been a broken model and in practice it has begun to turn in to a hypertext systems more along the lines of Xanadu!

I see projects like Open Publish and IPFS as piecemeal attempts to build Xanadu-like systems on top of the existing web infrastructure.

[https://github.com/blockai/openpublish](https://github.com/blockai/openpublish)

[https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs](https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs)

 _" The lesson to be learned from this is that it is often undesirable to go for the right thing first. It is better to get half of the right thing available so that it spreads like a virus. Once people are hooked on it, take the time to improve it to 90% of the right thing."_ \- The Rise of "Worse is Better"

I've always thought that Xanadu was the "right thing" and that the web was "worse-is-better", and that's why the web was successful, but I'm sorry that I put words in your mouth, I was just trying to be agreeable!

<comment> vezzy-fnord IPFS looks good, but it's quite antithetical to Xanadu. It's more akin to a Plan 9 or Gopher idea of networked file systems, but backed by content addressable storage and a name service. Xanadu is the very anathema of that.

OpenPublish just looks like a simple insertion tool for a distributed public ledger (i.e. the blockchain). There's not an actual "system" to it.

Worse-is-better is (ironically) hard to get right, because, as it turns out, designing systems so that they can be properly evolved from 50% of the right thing to 90% of the right thing is almost as difficult as building it correctly in the first place.

(I don't think IPFS is even about hypertext or hypermedia per se, so much as content distribution which then would be interpreted by whatever local reader is relevant. I do not think it has any intrinsic understanding of hypertext.)

<comment><USER2> Open Publish has a lot more going on that just that single repo!

There's a whole suite of supporting services for interfacing with the blockchain, parsing the blockchain, creating transactions.

[https://github.com/blockai](https://github.com/blockai)

One piece that we're using in production and hopefully publicly releasing soon is the state engine that turns blockchain transactions in to a state of asset ownership. We run our own public access state engine endpoint behind this module so anyone can query about published documents or ownership here:

[https://github.com/blockai/openpublish- state](https://github.com/blockai/openpublish-state)

We built another service called Bitstore, a content-addressable cloud storage web service that uses Bitcoin public key infrastructure for authentication and payment, and it pairs nicely.

[https://github.com/blockai/bitstore- client](https://github.com/blockai/bitstore-client)

I'm on Freenode as "williamcotton". You can msg me and I'll give you a link to our staging server to show you the full system.

As for how IPFS relates to Xanadu, IPFS is very much interested in the "permanent web":

[https://neocities.org/permanent-web](https://neocities.org/permanent-web)

 _" Where links do not break as versions change; where documents may be closely compared side by side and closely annotated; where it is possible to see the origins of every quotation; and in which there is a valid copyright system-- a literary, legal and business arrangement-- for frictionless, non- negotiated quotation at any time and in any amount."_

[http://www.xanadu.com.au/ted/XUsurvey/xuDation.html](http://www.xanadu.com.au/ted/XUsurvey/xuDation.html)

Open Publish is an attempt to build a content-addressable copyright system that pairs with the content-addressable delivery system that IPFS is building with the hopes to create something along the lines of what Ted Nelson was envisioning.

BTW, BitTorrent is another great example of a related content-addressable delivery system.

Content-addressable systems are at the root of Xanadu-like systems and it seems like the web is headed that way!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > "The interesting thing is that, at that time [in the 1990s], it was easier > to archive the web because everything was flat web pages," said Alexander > Rose, the executive director of the Long Now Foundation, an organization > dedicated to establishing a framework for long-term thinking on a scale of > 10,000 years. "So if you did save something, your chances of being able to > see it and use it would be vastly better than if a company folded today, > with deep back-ends of content-management systems like Drupal and Ruby and > Django and all these things. The pages are not actual pages."

This right here is something I wish all the folks building web-apps-to- display-pages would think about. It's straightforward to archive HTTP resources; it's not at all easy (nor, really, practical) to archive every API response used in building these dynamic sites. Web apps are fine, for what they are, but please, _please_ , for posterity's sake: don't use dynamic content if you can use static content instead.

<comment><USER4> I used to be all gung-ho about dynamic websites for my personal projects (I made a custom CMS for my site once), but then I started thinking about what would happen if I disappeared and if I wanted to leave my projects for other people to maintain in an easy way (assuming they even want to), and realized static content is the way to go.

Now I try to do things client side and powered by data in JSON format instead of creating relational databases and requiring web servers for everything. If I can't copy it to a DVD and have it run in a browser without connecting to the internet, I don't consider it to be good enough.

I do have a lot of flash games I need to figure out what to do with now that it's being phased out, though :/.

<comment><USER5> As best i recall, the first time i ran into HTML was as a content index on a demo CD attached to a magazine.

Basically each demo was presented with a screenshot, a text blurb, and a link that would start the installer.

All of it static pages using frames.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would love it if news orgs agreed to at least contribute to Pulitzer.org and put their winning entries online, even as PDF format...Just reading the brief summaries of the winners, it seems like the proper nouns might differ, but the best journalism back then is still as relevant today. There a few entries from 1986 that I've been trying to find for research purposes but are nowhere to be found...it's hard not just to find the full text content, but sometimes the actual headlines and bylines for the team projects:

[http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1986](http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1986)

I've thought about going to the library and getting things off of microfiche, but the thought of having to deal with a takedown notice kind of makes me less enthusiastic to try.

</comment><comment><USER6> Link rot is pervasive. A study found more than 70% of the URLs within the Harvard Law Review and other journals, and 50% of the URLs found within United States Supreme Court opinions, do not link to the originally cited information. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2329161](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2329161)

A year or two ago I was doing a project about late 1990s gaming and so many of those sites are gone and were around before archive.org was around. And even if they are on archive.org it is often in a broken state. For example, there were all these Real Audio interviews with people like John Carmack and John Romero and they are just gone. (I actually tracked down one of the people that owned the site in question and he said he had them on a computer in storage and wanted to post them some day...)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think comic book scanners, especially those scanning long out-of-print work, can be the perfect example of the trials and tribulations of digital preservation:

-The works they are trying to preserve are copyrighted and still trademarked, making it illegal to make copies and distribute them, but a lot of the rights holder themselves see no value in preservation or even reprinting them.

-They use P2P technologies to distribute the scanned copies, since it does not require them to host their content on a server. However the tech they use primarily is DC++ a stopgap between Gnutella and BitTorrent, which has a pro that as long as people keep connecting to each other(even momentarily) the comics can be distributed. However it requires a network of 'hubs' to connect users, creating pseudo-centralization. The secondary tech is of course BitTorrent, which is far more widespread and quite easier to use than DC++, but as with every torrent, there is a huge attrition rates and a lot of preservation comics are sitting with very few or no seeds at all. Most of them have even lost their trackers, Demonoid being the biggest one.

-There is tertiary level of distribution; Cyber-locker sites. People upload these scans to zippyshare, tusfiles, Mega, etc. and post them on forums. Most of these forums have blocked crawlers in their robots.txt. The biggest source of these is the 4chan board /co/. 4chan threads have very short half-lives, doubly so for threads with these links, because the admins want to pay lip-service to copyright holders, and to be frank, most of the links posted there have no preservative value, but are really a source of pure piracy. 4chan does have third-party archives, but just last week I learned that the archive I used to use has folded. Most cyber lockers themselves don't have long life-spans, and Link-rot is more prevalent in their case.

-The fourth level of distribution is imageboards/chans themselves. Some user would 'storytime', post each jpeg in a scaned comic in sequence, a comic if they feel like it, but they too are subject to the imageboard thread half-life.

Despite the effort and complexity, DC++ remains the best way to discover old comics lost to time, but one day maintaining a hub would be too expensive or the imminent crackdown on IP infringement would shut them down.

This is just for American comics. French/Franco-belgian comics, a far more bigger market, face similar problems. Same goes for Manga.

<comment><USER8> This is the frustrating thing, right?

 _We have the means and mechanisms to save all written work, for everyone, for forever, for negligible cost, and yet we aren 't allowed to do it._

:(

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even in the short term, link rot can be so maddening. For example, does anyone know where to find the demo described in this article? [https://www.unrealengine.com/news/epic-games-releases- epic-c...](https://www.unrealengine.com/news/epic-games-releases-epic-citadel- on-the-web)

Nevermind the technical challenges, there seems to be hardly a culture of this even mattering; other than for transferring page rank to the new location of pages for SEO purposes :/

<comment><USER10> It only took one click to find that demo from your link.

[https://www.unrealengine.com/showcase/epic- citadel/](https://www.unrealengine.com/showcase/epic-citadel/)

<comment><USER9> I know that, but it links to an app, not the WebGL browser version that the page I linked, and numerous articles all over the web, all are referring to. The words "WebGL" don't even appear on the page.

<comment><USER11> [https://web.archive.org/web/20141024042516/https://www.unrea...](https://web.archive.org/web/20141024042516/https://www.unrealengine.com/news/epic- games-releases-epic-citadel-on-the-web)

Has the article, but the link seems to be to different content (Tappy Bird, not Citadel)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon QuickSight – Fast and Easy to Use Business Intelligence for Big Data - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-quicksight-fast-easy-to-use-business-intelligence-for-big-data-at-110th-the-cost-of-traditional-solutions/ <comment><USER2> Based on just looking at the screenshots and limited amount of text, it looks like more of a report writing tool with basics such as filtering, rowcolumn pivoting, etc. Therefore, it would be fine for KPI dashboards and sales charts for the customers' dataset residing in the cloud.

For some, "business intelligence" would emphasize data-mining algorithms such as identifying clusters (k-means, etc), dimension reduction, etc. If QuickSight also has these capabilities, it doesn't seem like Amazon is advertising it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Odd choices of data visualizations for a visualization-focused product.

Especially the last two: the second-to-last contains the "Sales Amount by _Count_ of Subcategory", and since count is an numeric aggregate, the plot should be a labeled scatterplot and not a bar plot; the fact that it isn't a scatterplot gives me skepticism of the software. The last chart is plain _unreadable_ with that many labels.

Normally I would not nitpick data visualization, but data analysts are the _target demographic._

</comment><comment><USER4> Other discussion from the front page, which links to the product marketing page rather than the blog:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10346811](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10346811)</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do for physical exercise? - <AUTHOR> I'm a programmer becoming increasingly aware that my desk life is doing bad things to my body.<p>What kind of physical exercise do you engage in to counteract the effects of sitting at a desk for 7+ hours a day? Curious as to whether you engage in no activity, smaller activities throughout the day or a longer single daily exercise session. <comment><USER2> I love doing bouldering. It has the benefit of being both a physical and mental challenge. It's no coincidence that climbing routes are called "problems" and making it to the top is referred to as "solving the problem".

Look around and see if you can find a climbing gym near you. They often have a decked out set of free-weights and bars as well for any other workouts you may want, so you can get away without needing a regular gym membership too.

<comment><USER3> I recommend this as well. The bouldering community is also great. It's really easy to make friends and people are incredibly helpful. It's really cool to see really experienced climbers go out of their way to give tips and help someone who's struggling with even the easiest problems. And if you're tired and want to take a break, you can watch other climbers approach problems and learn from them.

I will say that as someone with moderate to severe social anxiety it was tough for me to get into at first, since some bouldering gyms get pretty busy and crowds will actually form as folks wait for their turn to try a problem. But realizing how nice people are helped me break through that barrier and stop caring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Go for a run ! Or if you can, swim at lunch time.

Time is scarce, especially if you have kids, however there are a lot of options. I recently started to run from work to home and I just don't belive that I didn't have this idea before! I'm home in almost the same time that when I commute by metro (around 1h), but you disconnect immediately from work and you feel like you have a second day starting fresh once you are home ! (this of course depends where do you live, I assume most live in urban area where distance is not that long)

<comment><USER5> What kind of bag/backpack do you use when running?

<comment><USER6> You want one of the small trail running packs. They are a snug fit to the upper body as you don't want something flapping around.

I mostly cycle to work and take the approach of leaving a change of clothes there so I have minimal stuff to carry. In that case you could maybe get away with a small waist-pouch-belt for Id cards/keys/phone etc.

<comment><USER4> Exactly - same here.

Most of the time, I just take the keys, phone and some cards, leaving the rest of the stuff at work. I'm running every 2 days, so on the days I'm not running I just bring everything home.

When I need to take something, I have a small trail running pack (5L).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What worked for me:

#1 - choose something you will enjoy. You may not know what that is (see below) but if you don't enjoy it you will not continue.

#2 - Do it in a _routine_. Some people can bike to work; that's great since you have to go anyway, but you still have to (probably) leave earlier and plan for what you'll do when the weather is bad. Of course if you don't like biking or can't bike, choose something else (see #1).

#3 - you may be surprised what you like. I paid for an expensive, 6-person "boot camp" at 6 AM four days per week. This should be the kind of thing I would hate: I don't want to get up that early, I prefer solitary activities (coding, backpacking, etc). Surprise! I liked the solidarity of the group; it got me to work harder than I could on my own and I liked it so much I worked out 6 (actually, usually 7) days a week, with other group members on the non-"boot camp" days. Then I stopped paying extra, just paid gym membership, but work out almost every day. I used to take gym clothes on business trips and found I was always too busy to work out; now I don't and just do bodyweight exercises naked in my hotel room (nothing that would disturb the people in the room under mine).

#4 - as with so many things: just start. Don't set ambitious targets, because it's a lifestyle change, and because you don't even know now what targets are appropriate.

#5 - get professional help. Honestly, if you can afford it a trainer can help you do that exercise correctly and teach you new ones. You don't have to see them regularly, but it's even worth it if you're also doing classes/group sessions.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like scheduled classes, they help me keep a rhythm and I can hide in the crowd when I need to.

TRX ([https://crufit.net/pages/trx](https://crufit.net/pages/trx) and [http://www.flying-studios.com/strength](http://www.flying- studios.com/strength)) -- Core conditioning, I like the structure and the ability to dial the difficulty up/down depending on what my body's up for.

Circuit training classes ([https://crufit.net/pages/circuit- training](https://crufit.net/pages/circuit-training)) -- strength and cardio.

Yoga ([http://www.flying-studios.com/yoga/](http://www.flying- studios.com/yoga/)) -- Flow and Happy Hour.

Indoor Cycling ([https://crufit.net/pages/cycling](https://crufit.net/pages/cycling)) -- find a place with bikes that measure power output and heart rate so that you have an objective measure how hard you're working. Subjective measures are sneaky....

All of that supports telemark skiing, mtn biking, surfing (aka, falling, swearing).

</comment><comment><USER9> I do a variety of things but commuting on a bicycle is the fallback. It's not just for my body, it's time to think, I like the speed at which the world goes by on a bike, and it's a way to stay in touch with the changing seasons and the elements. Driving makes my stress levels go up, and cycling makes them go down.

</comment><comment><USER10> I started taking this stuff seriously back in November last year. The things that worked for me:

1\. Got an Apple Watch. Set a daily target of 630 active calories. Aggressively pursue that target, and get on a "streak" of hitting it. The longer the streak, the more incentive there is to keep on hitting it. My personal rule is that I have to average 630/day over the course of a week, so I'm allowed to dial my daily target down to keep my streak going provided I hit that average by the end of the week.

2\. Joined a gym, took some personal training sessions to learn how to use it and then started going 3-4 times a week (mainly to help me hit my calorie goal described above).

3\. Signed up for a half marathon. Used a training plan from the internet to train for it. I ran a full marathon about 7 years ago but I hadn't run much since then.

<comment><USER11> I've been trying to decide if I want an Apple Watch or not. Really tired of carrying my phone to the gym with me (thinking about the LTE version). Are there good weightlifting apps?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I take a 3 tier approach:

1\. Bike to work, every day. Where I live the traffic is so miserable that it's comparable to driving in terms of time. It's the single thing that makes the biggest difference in how I feel.

2\. Every other day, do some basic body-weight strength exercises (pull-ups, push-ups, and the like). Bicycling is great for cardio and it works your legs a little, but that's it. It's good to keep all your major muscle groups engaged on a regular basis.

3\. Use a standing desk, to encourage small movements throughout the day. Standing all day doesn't feel good and isn't good for you, either; I aim for about 50/50 standing and sitting.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was swimming before. It got old in NYC because the pool just gets so crowded at the predictable times and you end up behind slow people, but if you have your own lane, it's an amazing workout!

I cancelled my gym membership. Now I just do 3 sets of: \- 1m30s plank \- 20 situps \- 5 leg lifts \- 15 pushups

I try to add a few reps to the sets every week or two and another exercise was a recent innovation. I started out at: \- 1 minute plank \- 15 situps \- 10 pushups

In addition I walk 35-40 minutes to and from work every day.

I know it's not perfect, but to me this routine has really helped! Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER14> Weights. I followed the 5x5 Stronglifts program and got to the point where I was doing 140 lbs squats, 110 lbs benchpress, 150 lbs deadlifts, 65 lbs overhead press, 75 lbs barbell row. 3 days a week at the gym, around 1 hour each. The phone app made it easy to track progress.

I could see huge improvements in muscles and overall wellbeing. But a large part of it ensuring that you consume sufficient proteins, around (0.8 * body weight)g. I supplemented my diet with whey protein shake (2 scoops on gym days and 1 scoop on non).

I started with a pretty unremarkable body and desk job lifestyle. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER15> I started boxing in 2012 and haven't looked back since then. I love the sport, and you end up meeting people who are very different in terms of careers and social status, from what you (we) are. There is also a "brotherhood" type vibe to Boxing in particular (I think this is also true for other combat / martial arts type activities) and I've made many close and interesting friends (male and female).

When I first met my trainer (a current professional boxer), the 1st question he asked me was "Are you a Computer guy?". I asked how he knew and he said "You crouched shoulders are a dead give-away. We can straighten that in 3 months".

I do strength and conditioning 2 x a week, weights 1 x a week and boxing training (drills) 3 x a week and sparring with headgear 2 x a month.

5 years later, my shoulders are very straight, my hands and wrists have become stronger from punching. I've totally lean-ed out -- was healthy BMI to begin with, still lost 15 pounds in the 1st 3 months of beginning boxing. I'm also able to focus more at work.

I tried doing things separately (ex: running outside, going to 24 hour fitness just for weights etc) and it didn't work.

With this, there is 1 place I go to - my boxing gym - and get everything in the same place. My gym has TRX classes 2 x a week for strength and conditioning, in-house trainers to learn boxing 1 on 1 if you want to as well as group classes for boxing drills and heavy bag workouts.

If you do end up starting with physical exercise, be sure to also watch your diet. Also start slow and build up otherwise you may not stick to it. I started going once a week for 1 month, then 2 x a week the 2nd month, then 3 - 4 x a week the 3rd month. Now I go 5 to 6 x a week.

Exercise + Diet = Lifestyle.

<comment><USER16> Boxing is the best. It changed my life physically and mentally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Workout days: T/Th/S/Su

5/3/1 strength training consisting mostly of Deadlifts, Squats, Overhead Press, Bench Press, Pull Ups, Seated Rows

Off days: M/W/F

Mobility Work, stretching and/or cardio

Diet rules: Count calories No sugary drinks 1 coffee per day 1 or 2 alcoholic drinks per week Drink only water besides coffee/alcohol At least .8 grams of protein per lb of body weight

</comment><comment><USER18> Weightlift daily but only work out one muscle group.

So Mondays - Chest, Tuesday - Back, Wednesday - Biceps etc.

Also running 1.5mi after the weightlifting. Full workout takes about 1hr 30min.

I've been following this routine for the past few months and its the best I've ever felt.

Running helps dramatically reduce my stress and anxiety levels about deadlines.

Highly recommend running daily if you work at a startup.

</comment><comment><USER19> I do Gracie Jiu-jitsu. It's the most logical, efficient form of self defense (close-quarters submission grappling). Sparring is a calm, chess-like process. It is like solving real-time life-or-death body mechanical problems. It leaves you with a lean and strong body and gives you enormous confidence around other people.

</comment><comment><USER20> "A Linear Progression Based PPL Program for Beginners" (Strength Training)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5/a_linear_pr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5/a_linear_progression_based_ppl_program_for/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I opt for dedicated workout sessions. I got into bodybuilding style workouts a few months ago (while being ~50lbs over weight) and started eating sensibly and it's done wonders for me. I currently workout 6 days a week: 2 days purely weights, 3 days are weights+cardio after, and 1 day of pure cardio.

</comment><comment><USER22> Skateboarding, walking, stretching, daily push ups.

Also these back stretches at least a few times a week. They help with preventing hunchback from sitting in a chair on a computer all day.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTV6UCh- yhs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTV6UCh-yhs)

</comment><comment><USER23> Run 6 miles 2 - 3 times per week. BEFORE eating dinner. If I am short by Sunday, I run both morning and night. (It started with 2 miles per day, but before I know, I was running 6, perhaps the body just keeps pushing itself)

Weights 2 times per week.

Bike to/from train station and to/from small distances.

</comment><comment><USER24> I noticed the same thing. Without physical exercise, my posture gets worse, I have random back pain, and realized I am more prone to injury when I do go and do something active.

Currently I exercise every morning for about an hour. 45 min of lifting weights, followed by running 1 mile, and stretching. I have more energy at work, I'm in a better mood, and It motivates me to be conscious of what I eat throughout the day if I start the day off right.

The biggest impact on my posture and back pain has been doing the yoga-like stretches every morning. I highly recommend it.

Also most office chairs will really mess you up. I've resorted to sitting on a yoga ball or standing. For me, the yoga ball is actually the most comfortable desk chair I have used.

</comment><comment><USER25> I walk as my primary mode of transportation, including to the grocery store. I occasionally take the bus occasionally when the walk is more than 20-30 minutes. Even then, I still have a walk to and from the bus stops. I literally use the car about once every month or two. I do this in sun, rain, snow, cold, daylight or nighttime. I live in Norway and the terrain here is mountainous, but the city is convenient to walk.

The grocery stores are more convenient than when I lived in the US and public transportation is decent enough for this to generally be doable. It was a lot harder to do when I lived in the US.

</comment><comment><USER26> Ideally you want both exercise sessions and "smaller daily activities".

For exercise, a great way to spend your time is the bike. It's great transportation, great views, and makes you feel good. If biking outside or to/from work isn't an option sign up for a spinning class.

It's high intensity, low impact, easy on your body, but demanding enough to give you a great workout.

For smaller stuff throughout the day, just go for small walks around your work building. A Fitbit/Garmin/fitness tracker also can come in handy and also help you track your heartbeat and sleep over time as well as give you motivation.

</comment><comment><USER27> For the past couple years I have been training in Pro Wrestling - it's real intense but a lot of fun!

It gives me a new set of skills that I feel complement my career, eg. I spend most time writing software trying to be thorough and spend time thinking things through (sometimes to a fault), whereas being in the ring with someone else requires you to make decisions quickly and trust your instincts. While the training itself is a great workout, it also gives me motivation to do additional work to improve conditioning / strength / etc.

</comment><comment><USER28> Weight training. Some friends come to the house 3 nights a week (one of which was a personal trainer in a former life) and we lift weights and walk down to the taqueria after we wrap up and get some good protein. Been doing it for a year now and I feel far more energetic than before, it's an excellent feeling.

Next big problem is to get rid of the gut. Weight training is great to get strong but not particularly great at helping one shed excess fat.

</comment><comment><USER29> Poledancing.

Try it, it's great! And it forces you to counteract a lot of the desk job muscle imbalances in a way that many other exercises let you skirt.

</comment><comment><USER30> I work from home. I built a treadmill desk in my basement. Each work day I carry my laptop down there and walk 6 or more miles while doing my normal job. I can work effectively up to about 3 MPH, but I usually stay around 2.6 MPH.

I've been doing this off and on for about 3 years now. I wish I had done it much sooner. (I've been working from home a lot longer.)

</comment><comment><USER31> Commute on bike 5 miles each way. Try to go fast. Not every day but a lot of days. It is my only exercise though. I am lazy by nature, without biking I think I would be sedentary and deeply depressed.

I need to be doing more for core, range of motion, strength, explosive movements. Biking is good for cardio and legs but that's it.

</comment><comment><USER32> [https://www.trainerroad.com/](https://www.trainerroad.com/) on rollers every morning before breakfast, tough to get on your bike at 6-6:30am but very rewarding seeing your FTP inch up as you keep doing it...

</comment><comment><USER6> Currently:

Biking 7 miles to and from work along country lanes, only danger is from rouge sheep.

Around 1 mile roller skate at lunchtime most days (depends on weather).

2 - 4 mile run 3 nights per week, longer 6 - 8 miles run at weekend.

Planned:

Take up yoga again (I had begun to master the head stand).

Take up weight training again.

Up the running distance in preparation for half marathon.

</comment><comment><USER11> I go to the gym to do weight training for 3x a week, and then on Sundays I do 500 kettle bell swings for cardio.

3x a week to the gym just means getting up a little earlier or going after work. It's very doable.

Waking up on Sunday for 500 kettle bells before my coffee is a good way to wake up.

</comment><comment><USER33> For basic cardio fitness, I do stair climbing. It's as risk free as it gets and it raise your heart rate a good bit. I used to do it 20 minutes non-stop every other day and it kept me quite fit.

Rock climbing when I can be bothered going to gym. Not lately.

</comment><comment><USER34> I use an app called Freeletics which provides you with a personal workout without requiring any machines. The app makes it hard but always manageable which is nice because I feel like the static programs don't motivate me.

I do it three times a week before work.

</comment><comment><USER35> I walk too and from the train station that gives me about 30 min of walking a day during the week.

I would like a 20 minute home program that requires very little machines. I did get some books to that effect, but I need to go through them and put it together

</comment><comment><USER36> I love CrossFit. I go usually twice a week. What I like about it is 1) it's a different workout every day, and 2) if left to my own devices, I just don't exercise. Having the obligation to go to class makes the difference.

<comment><USER28> I have reservations with CrossFit - the exercises are done at such high weights, speeds, and reps that it's almost a certainty that you'll injure yourself if you stick with it long enough. The intensity and accountability are both good, but it's hell on your joints. I have trouble truly recommending it because of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I skateboard the halfpipe pictured here: [http://vertramp.org](http://vertramp.org) It's good intense exercise, but can be hard on the knees. The people are also cool!

</comment><comment><USER38> With my brother we do some of the BeachBody.com videos. I think the P90(x, x2, x3) series is the best overall. The good is we can do it at home. None to do? Workout!

</comment><comment><USER39> A kettlebell is great at home, you don't need much room and it's a good workout balancing cardio and strength.

<comment><USER40> +1 for kettlebells. I've always hated strength training, but kettlebells just make me feel awesome---with only minimal soreness the next day, unlike what I get from squats. It's been about a year since I started doing kettlebell swings and get-ups 2-3 times a week, and both my wife and I have noticed serious changes in my physique.

If you're not sure what kettlebell training even is, I recommend "Strength Training for Non-Athletes" ([https://joshkaufman.net/strength-training-for- non-athletes/](https://joshkaufman.net/strength-training-for-non-athletes/)). If you're interested enough to buy your first kettlebells, I recommend the book Simple & Sinister for an explanation of the form and a training plan. (It's easy to hurt yourself with the wrong form, so you really want to read the book before working out with any significant amount of weight.)

One more tip: I found the suggested starting weights to be _way_ off from my personal ability. As a guy who hadn't done any weight training in years, I needed a 15-20 lb weight for get-ups and a 25 lb weight for swings when I started off. (But over the last year, I've worked up to 35 lb get-ups and 55 lb swings.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Stand up desk, walk for an hour before work, some yoga. Plenty of water and walking around the office.

</comment><comment><USER42> CrossFit 3x a week, rucking 2-3x a week with 30-40lbs

</comment><comment><USER43> Walk/bike to/from my commuter train.

</comment><comment><USER44> Boxing!

</comment><comment><USER45> salsa dancing</comment>


The Futile Pursuit of Happiness (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DEFD61538F934A3575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all The tinyurl goes to this article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DEFD61538F934A3575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all<p>HN was bouncing me to some old NYTimes submission when trying to post that original link. <comment><USER2> I read a theory once that happiness is designed to be fleeting because otherwise we would eat one meal and then starve to death or procreate once and then die.

Also, related article I read in Newsweek recently:

"If you want to test yourself, take a quick look at this domain name sometimes used by stress researchers: www.opportunityisnowhere.com.

What do you see? For many people, the web site seems discouraging: opportunity is nowhere. But others see the exact opposite: opportunity is now here. When it comes to hidden messages, lucky people perceive more of the world around them. "It is not that they expect to find certain opportunities, but rather that they notice them when they come across them," Wiseman writes in his book "The Luck Factor." This ability (or talent) "has a significant, and positive, effect on their lives."

<http://www.newsweek.com/id/181290/output/print>

</comment><comment><USER3> You want the TED talk. Stunning:

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html)

<comment><USER4> the first thing I thought of after watching that was to do a study on how applying happiness study findings to your life affects happiness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you haven't read his book, I highly recommend it.

Also, he gave a great speech at sxsw a few years ago: [http://server1.sxsw.com/2006/coverage/SXSW06.INT.20060311.Da...](http://server1.sxsw.com/2006/coverage/SXSW06.INT.20060311.DanielGilbert.mp3)

It changed my life

<comment><USER2> > It changed my life

Without being too nosy hopefully, could you go into that a little? I find I read a lot of books and the imparted wisdom/motivation decays exponentially.

<comment><USER6> The lesson I took away from the book was not to take my plans too seriously, which may sound defeatist. But if the book is to be believed, we may end up quite happy even if things go seriously wrong, or even _because_ of it.

<comment><USER7> Happiness is an attitude, not a score.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> happiness research is chilling. Do you want an optimal life imposed on you? A large part of what makes people happy is self determination and I do not believe that that is being accounted for. The hack for that is to give people the illusion of free will but make all the important "happiness maximizing" decisions behind the curtain. But this too is scary. What is the happiness researcher made a mistake? Or is calculating via averages? My happiness is not other people's happiness.

<comment><USER8> Yudkowsky's eudaimonia essays might ease your fears. Truly rational approaches to happiness maximizing don't involve monkey's paw type unintended consequences.

[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/fun-theory- sequence.ht...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/fun-theory- sequence.html) <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/fun-theory-laws.html> <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/12/devils-offers.html> \-- to start

<comment><USER4> and you think the people adept at getting the job of government regulator are also the ones adept at avoiding such bias? Happiness research will be seized upon by socialists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Still hard to believe the usual things (health, love, money) don't affect one's happiness much.

But maybe something else matters more. I wonder if the researcher has the data on: 1) Does a sound marriage affect one's happiness? 2) If attitude is everything, does that make real difference?

<comment><USER10> After being out of college and working full-time as engineer for two years, I've discovered that money doesn't buy happiness.

It was quite a discovery. I really don't like my job and performed a simple thought experiment one day: what would change if they doubled my salary. The answer: nothing! How would I magically like my job? The last thing I think about when I'm in my cubicle is my salary.

Having discovered that money doesn't buy happiness, things get more complicated. I now have to figure out just what will make me happy.

I've recently applied to several PhD programs. I like to learn new things and think that I will gain some satisfaction from going to class and performing research. I still have trouble deciding what I want to do, however.

<comment><USER11> I'm a bit in the same situation, altough after only seven months. I had a case of buyer's remorse after a few months, after being very excited at the beginning (company logo as background and all). I soon realized the only new thing I learned is not to put on lightly-colored tshirts under dark pulls. And some PHP, which I tend to consider a negative asset.

I'm now looking into PhD too, for the same reasons. And being in Europe, I think the lifestyle change (young software engineer -> PhD student) won't even be that big.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've only scanned the article, but it seems a lot like Buddhism in a nutshell.

<comment><USER13> You should go back and read it, then, as NOT looking for the Zen seems to be the conclusion for the article....

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I read this article in 2004 and its even more relevant now.

</comment><comment><USER15> I just listened to this book. It made me happy.</comment>


FCC: Nearly half the calls you receive this year will be spam - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/politics/fcc-robocalls-report/index.html <comment><USER2> I would be delighted if less than half of my phone calls were telemarketing spam. My ratio is north of 80%.</comment>


Java Serialization: A Practical Exploitation Guide - <AUTHOR> https://www.rapid7.com/research/report/exploiting-jsos/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/b43631/java_seriali...](https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/b43631/java_serialization_a_practical_exploitation_guide/)</comment>


DOOM 3 BFG Technical Note [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3_documentation/DOOM-3-BFG-Technical-Note.pdf <comment><USER2> I love reading about the development of the doom series. One of my early exposures to reading non-trivial code came from studying the (very surprisingly complex) damage output of the BFG9000:

[http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/bfgfaq/#3A](http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/bfgfaq/#3A)

<comment><USER3> I used to play competitive DOOM (was in the ZDaemon top 10 almost a decade ago), and while the BFG9000 was certainly the most powerful weapon in the game, it was also the most seriously misunderstood.

New players would always attempt to spam the BFG in a crowded room, then duck behind a corner or run away. Due to the mechanics of the BFG, this is the opposite of the correct strategy.

A short time after a BFG impact with any surface or object, the game basically performs a cluster of hitscans radiating from the _player_ in the direction the shot was fired. Thus the most effective BFG strategy is to stand to the side of an entrance to a crowded room, shoot the BFG at a wall, and strafe toward the entrance until as many enemies as possible come into view.

Get the timing right, and you turn the room into an uninhabitable no-man's land until your six shots run out (ten if you grab the ammo backpack).

I miss those days :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's really interesting is the section on linked-lists: author seems to suggest that yeah, arrays of pointers have much better performance.

I'm curious what sort of performance they run into in MT environments-- lockless applications are handy with linked-lists.

<comment><USER4> I only clicked to see the comments because it said Doom 3.

Thanks for posting the article and thanks for pointing out the section on linked lists. I agree that that section is really interesting. In what sense do you mean lockless applications - applications built around compare and swap primitives or something else?

I can't really follow what:

"byte otherMembers[64]" is used for.

What useful data is stored in there? If pointers are 32bit and cache lines are 64bit, the comment:

"// over a cache line worth of other members"

doesn't really make sense because you can only fit two full addresses per cache line.

It's a shame that the idList type he is suggesting in favour of the other types, a resizeable heap array, is not declared in the body of the pdf. Might be worth looking it up.

The distinction between non-intrusive and intrusive linked lists is new to me, I didn't know there was a word for that!

This is the best "link" I've found on them:

[http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2011/12/06/intrusive- lists/](http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2011/12/06/intrusive-lists/)

<comment><USER5> Cache lines on modern architectures are usually 64 or sometimes even 128 bytes, not bits.

<comment><USER4> Thank you, I misread this from the article as saying 64 bit cache lines: "(assuming 32 bit pointers and 64 byte cache lines)"

So:

byte otherMembers[64];

is 512bits of addresses to other members, that will hold 16 32bit addresses.

From the article: "In the case of an array with pointers there may still be a cache miss when reading the 'valid' flag but there will be at most one additional cache miss every 16 pointers"

so idList must use operator[] to sensibly iterate over otherMembers.

class idMyClass {

        bool valid;
        byte otherMembers[64]; // over a cache line worth of other members

};

idList< idMyClass * > myObjects;

for ( int i = 0; i < myObjects.Num(); i++ ) {

        if (myObjects[i]>valid ) {
        }

    }

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting. I'm just sad they dropped Linux support in the process, just before Linux gaming is taking off.

<comment><USER7> Oh really? What makes you think Linux gaming is just about to take off? Something to do with Valve?

<comment><USER8> Between that and the humble indie bundles (or just indie games in general), I think it's fair to say Linux gaming is looking much more exciting and healthier than it has ever been in the past (at least the recent past).

Does that mean it's "about to take off?" I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I certainly hope so. Games have always meant pushing technological boundaries, so if games get big on Linux it will hopefully move the whole OS forwards. Finally, the year of the Linux desktop is upon us! (...don't worry about those pesky locked-down mobile devices)

Well... a man can dream, at least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I swear, as a C#/Java/Javascript developer, reading stuff like this just makes me feel like a shitty developer. I know I'm a very competent programmer and architect but I feel like I could not grasp this kind of low level optimization even if I tried.

<comment><USER10> Trust me, if you're really a good developer you'd be able to swap all this stuff in your head in a reasonable amount of time.

For example: I'm not generally a Java guy and I'm not an Android expert, but I once had to create an android touch interface to some custom hardware... and it had to run on one of the first "embedded tablet-like" systems available (this was 2009-ish).

In a month or so, I went from knowing nothing about Android and being extremely rusty with Java to:

\- Doing nifty tricks in Java to make code DRY and maintainable

\- Writing a fancy flashy Android app

\- Using the NDK to write a native component that integrated the app with a couple of device drivers

\- Deeply investigating the performance characteristics of the Dalvik VM and tuning all sorts of things (both in the OS and in my code) to keep things working smoothly

Could I do any of this again right this second? Nope. I've moved to other projects and other technologies and all this has been swapped out of my head. But the point is that I could get back there again if I needed to.

As a "good developer", you would no doubt experience something similar in this situation. If someone sat you down with a poorly-performing game, some C++ code, and pointed you to enough reference information and profiling tools, in a few weeks you, too, would be talking about cache misses and alignment boundaries and SIMD intrinsics, and...

The funny thing about tech jargon is 99% of it sounds like gibberish even to those of us who've been there before! Don't be too hard on yourself :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> the newer virtual texturing stuff is much more interesting

[http://s09.idav.ucdavis.edu/talks/05-JP_id_Tech_5_Challenges...](http://s09.idav.ucdavis.edu/talks/05-JP_id_Tech_5_Challenges.pdf)

edit:

[http://mrelusive.com/publications/presentations/2012_siggrap...](http://mrelusive.com/publications/presentations/2012_siggraph/Virtual_Texturing_in_Software_and_Hardware_final.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know the purpose of the self-assignment on page 3? (in the body of _IsWriteCombined_ )

      DWORD error = GetLastError();
      error = error

<comment><USER13> I often do that just to have a statement on which to place a breakpoint. It gets optimized out, but in debug builds it works fine. Putting a breakpoint on a line that just deals with the error code immediately after the error code will reliably display the error in the Auto Variables watch window in VStudio maligning it very convenient for rapid debugging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> No need for the scribd link, Firefox's built-in PDF reader has taken all the Pain out of PDFs for me :)

<comment><USER15> I think that those are added automatically, scribd was in YC after all.

<comment><USER16> That is correct on both counts.</comment></comment></comment>


Hubble's star refuses to fade - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31499061 <comment><USER2> The deliberate use of the word "observable" when referring to the Universe, is perhaps one of the most profound changes in human thinking the Hubble Space Telescope has contributed.

One falls silent contemplating the images this machine has produced.

<comment><USER3> I don't think the Hubble Space Telescope has anything to do with that term. We use "observable" because the Universe is far larger than what we can ever physically see or interact with (there's a growing body of evidence that it's infinite and "flat"). The observable part is an upper bound on the part of the Universe that will _ever_ be relevant to us. Kind of makes me feel insignificant in a weird way :)

Also, the Hubble can't even see most of the Observable Universe; it can see ~15 billion lights years away, whereas the radius of the observable universe is 47 billion light years.

<comment><USER4> How is that the radius of the observable universe? I thought the observable universe was bounded by the age of the universe, which why the furthest distant observations show the universe close to the time of the Big Bang. Shouldn't the radius of the observable universe = the number of years light has been traveling toward us?

Edit: Wikipedia says I'm wrong about this. What's new?

<comment><USER5> The universe has been expanding.

So the distances now are vastly larger than they used to be when the light left its sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sound engineering often trumps sexier approaches. Legacy systems should not be under rated.

<comment><USER7> Ya. That said, flying a repair mission to install a corrective lens on a space telescope is/was totally in the realm of 'sexy solutions'.

<comment><USER8> The problem here is that messing up the mirror on such a project in the first place was not very sound engineering.

<comment><USER6> Professional engineering practice admits the possiblity of errors and ommissions. Insurance is the technique used to address it. In ordinary practice this is something that is purchased from agents with an associated cost. In the case of Hubble, it was purchased for the cost of making the telescope serviceable. Infallability is not an engineering practice. "Don't screw up" is not an engineering heuristic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My PhD was made possible by the great HST. True testament to the infinite science made possible by great Space telescopes. Here's hoping JWST [1] is considered in a similar light 20 years from now.

[1] [http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/](http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/)

<comment><USER10> I am very excited about the prospects of the JWST and the LSST.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of my favorite Hubble images is the eXtreme Deep Field, which shows galaxies from 13.2 billion years ago. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_eXtreme_Deep_Field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_eXtreme_Deep_Field)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a product... What one produces when you have the commitment and dedication of the brightest minds. Precision hand crafted, every piece installed by hand and custom made.

Nanometer precision and dedication, ownership produces a top notch product like this that just keeps working... No pun intended to the Kepler team.</comment>


How a stained glass window is made - <AUTHOR> http://beyerstudio.com/blog/ <comment><USER2> Thanks! I have been around stained glass folks quite a bit,but while they repair using the h shaped lead, most used the copper foil method. I had never heard about the putty, so I am off to research that a bit.</comment>


FancyForm as a checkbox or radio-button replacement - <AUTHOR> http://lipidity.com/fancy-form/ <comment><USER2> The styling of an active radio button is too inconspicuous.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I explain my 3-4yr employment gap due to a nervous breakdown? - <AUTHOR> I have been battling with clinical depression for a few years now, and after getting treatment, now find myself in a better place. I have been slowly working on  my portfolio and applying for jobs, however I've been struggling with how to answer if someone asks about the 3-4yr gap in my employment history. Any suggestions? Cheers. <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm alone in this. But I think be honest, you don't have to go into details. I have family and friends that have been (or still are) in bad depression. Based on the stats nearly everyone you talk to will as well.

I have being on the hiring side too, and if I asked you about that gap and got an honest reply about depression, that would tell me a lot. 1. you have identified an issue and worked to resolve it. 2. you are aware of it and may see it "coming" early next time (if it comes again).

I have been burnt too many times from people misrepresenting themselves in interviews (not being real to themselves to "sell" themselves) that I really value open and honest people. I think they know themselves, better, therefore their weaknesses and strengths too.

Could you hit rock bottom if I hired you? Sure, but it wouldn't be a complete surprise, and we could work together to prevent it and make sure you have the help needed before things got bad. (As if I hired you, it was for your skills and drive and fit and I'd want you to stick around to continue that).

Employers and employees can work though a lot if we both are honest and both are bringing something to the party (a job someone wants and the skill/desire to learn/perform).

Note I do not work in the US, and this is my experience.

<comment><USER3> Definitely be honest about it. I would focus on the courage it takes to confront the condition and the stigma associated with it, and get the help you need. If you can frame the conversation to focus on management and positive outcomes I think that will help.

A hiring manager that is human, that can relate and empathize will be your ally. You're only going to connect with those people by engaging them honestly.

You might be surprised by the number of people that share a similar experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REPLIES! This has been very enlightening. I've been learning the last couple of days that opening up to people is not so bad. Ultimately, I think I'll give more details if my gut deems it necessary and the gap comes up. Otherwise, I'll just state that I was burned out and that I had to take some time off for some medical reasons. Cheers everyone!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just say "medical issues" and refuse to elaborate.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you think that now you are ready to work, I don't think a smart lie will be unethical to move forward. Fill the gap with the help of some friendly company who can help you on that.

</comment><comment><USER6> hopefully you can be honest about it -- if you are discriminated against because of this then that company is not a good fit for you anyway.

I personally would be honest about why you took the break including calling it what it is but framing it as managing stress and looking after yourself, and move on to how that terrible and isolating experience for you might actually increase your value as a co-worker. Eg, perhaps you now have better skills for managing stress, know exactly how much overtime you can handle, have a better idea of what sustainable pace you can work at, be willing to stand up against ridiculous deadlines that you know can't be met even if just for self preservation, will be more caring and compassionate and tolerant to co workers and perhaps recognise symptoms of burnout/depression in them before they do.

Best of luck, look after yourself!

</comment><comment><USER7> You know, there's at least a chance that noone will ask. A lot of employers won't read your CV too carefully, and then at interview, if they like the look of you, will only hear what they want to hear.

Of course you could argue that such an inattentive employer is unlikely to be a good employer.

</comment><comment><USER8> do you have any kind of side projects that you could list as projects while you were "self-employed?" When I was a consultant the consulting company took projects that I worked on for friends and family and listed them as projects under self-employed.

<comment><AUTHOR> No substantial,finished or deployed software projects. I was working on a game design spec and some fiction though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm in a similar boat. I'm considering to strike out on my own. The market doesn't care about your employment gap or something. It only cares if you solves a problem. Though I have to learn nontechnical skils like marketing..etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> By striking out on your own, you mean launch a business? Highly suggest checking out The Personal MBA, Art of the Start, Fogcreek's Software Management Reading List and a book called SPRINT by Google Ventures! GOOD LUCK!</comment></comment>


95-Year-Old Smashes 200m World Record: 'Bodies Can Be Rebuilt at Any Age' - <AUTHOR> http://www.awaken.com/2015/03/95-year-old-smashes-200m-world-record-bodies-can-be-rebuilt-at-any-age/ <comment><USER2> Note that this is the record "for his age group", as opposed to an absolute world record.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am a somewhat serious runner and I started to not only compare myself to the World Records as in I can do 70% of the WR for 400m but also to the age groups. It is fascinating that I cannot beat any under 70 record at all although I am very fit compared to the general population. So while old age is definitely a decline the achievable levels are still quite impressive. World records for 60 year old men are so good they might as well be the real WR for me

</comment><comment><USER4> Misleading.. The record he broke is "for his age group", which isn't even specified in the article.

<comment><USER5> > A 95-year-old former dentist has set a new world record for his age group in > the 200-meter indoor sprint, knocking a massive 2.4 seconds off the previous > record…

It is in the first line of the article.

<comment><USER6> I believe the parent is referreing to the fact that the specific age range is not specified. Eg. is this 90-99 (my guess), 70+ or "exactly 95", etc.

<comment><USER7> A caption on the video says it's the over-95 age group.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there a video of his run?

EDIT: Well that's embarrassing... I didn't see the video the first time I checked on my phone, but looking again there are a few videos in plain sight. Mea culpa.

<comment><USER9> It's literally in the article linked...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome! For reference, the current 200m men's indoor has only improved 1.41 seconds in the last 64 years (from 20.6 to 19.190).

<comment><USER11> Just to be precise, while his feat is incredible, you can't really make this correlation with the WR in 200m (any age), and even less use the absolute difference. The main reason is that the pool of people able to participate is way smaller as age increases.

Also, you are using outdoor times as a reference (the best time for indoor 200m is 19.92, Frankie Fredericks). Frankie Fredericks is the only person that ran 200m indoors under 20 seconds.

And I am extremely impressed by the feat that this man just did; most people would be happy to just reach 95; and those that do reach 95, being able to walk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well done for this guy, but the headline seems somewhat redundant.

Only someone who is older than 95 can break the record for the 95 and over age group. Ie that's like saying '2-legged man broke an Olympic record for X'.</comment>


Copyright Holders Want Netflix to Ban VPN Users - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-holders-want-netflix-ban-vpn-users-140917/ <comment><USER2> Here's an idea. Start a group of ISP users and give each group member a router that also acts as a vpn point. Have that router contact a command and control type service that sends traffic data and such. Have vpn subscribers connect to that command and control service that then directs users to whichever vpn point is available. Maybe use some firmware like dd-wrt or something similar.

</comment><comment><USER3> If they are only banning VPN users by ip address range then you can avoid that easy enough. My issue is I use VPN all day long for work. If my internet provider decides I'm using it for some nefarius purpose and disables it I'm out of work. That doesn't seem right. Do I need to plan for that scenario?</comment>


What would a Trump victory mean for the EU? - <AUTHOR> https://euobserver.com/foreign/135819 <comment><USER2> They were talking about it on the radio just an hour ago. Merkel and her government would consider it a catastrophe. However with the election being uncertain they are not communicating this clearly.

The german finance Minister (Schäuble) just said something along the lines of "he hopes common sense prevails."</comment>


Intel's Exascale Dataflow Engine Drops X86 and Von Neumann - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2018/08/30/intels-exascale-dataflow-engine-drops-x86-and-von-neuman/amp/?__twitter_impression=true <comment><USER3> > a new architecture that could in one fell swoop kill off the general purpose > processor as a concept and the X86 instruction set as the foundation of > modern computing.

Do you want me to think you're a credulous idiot? Because this is how you acheive that.

Okay, so laying aside the bizarrely stereotypical tech journalism. From what I understand there are a number of problems with this that need addressing:

If you create a custom compute unit layout for a specific data flow diagram it's very difficult to identify which layout is most efficient, and then when you want to optimize for higher performance it's almost impossible - <USER2> you don't know what you're targetting. It may be your optimization pushes your design to a different layout completely and all the cost functions are impossible to know. You end up with too many free variables to optimize for. We're very good at taking a fixed design like a CPU and then taking a program and jamming it in to that paradigm.

The second problem is that either you need 1 architecture that will dynamically reconfigure to different graphs or you needs lots of architectures. They seem to be going for the 'Spin 100 designs' path -so firstly, how is a customer meant to know which of those designs to actually buy, what happens if their design evolves from 1 design to another? Secondly, how is this cost effective? There's a good reason why Intel only spins a handful of designs per CPU generation.

The third problem is that if you have a custom compute unit layout and your program doesn't fit to it well it's not like a CPU. You can't re-order operations to maximally use the units, the bits that aren't useful are just dead silicon - and from history it seems like the killer is that dead silicon tends to be a LOT of silicon for any given program.

To be honest, this is a very well understood problem, and there are good reasons why it hasn't worked so far, and this article doesn't really give us any information on why it would work this time.

<comment><USER4> > it's very difficult to identify which layout is most efficient

Don't worry. The compiler will figure it out. And this time the compiler will have AI™.

> the killer is that dead silicon tends to be a LOT of silicon for any given > program

Part of the idea here is that the cost dynamic has changed. Silicon is cheap compared to power so even if you have lots of chips not being used at any given time as long as they can be fully powered off total system cost (capex+opex) is still better.

> why it would work this time

The difference is scale. If you are running millions of CPUs and adding 100k's per month then something like this could work, assuming the AI™ magic that figures out which new chips to build.

Intel is talking up their grandiose vision but practically this is the same as AMD's chiplets on active interposers ([https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech- talk/semiconductors/design/am...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech- talk/semiconductors/design/amd-tackles-coming-chiplet-revolution-with-new- chip-network-scheme)).

The physical technology is real and probably coming soon but it will be limited to incremental improvements to the existing CPU/GPU compute architecture from increasing bandwidth and decreasing latency until the magic compilers arrive.

<comment><USER3> If I'm understanding you right, what you're suggesting is that the individual silicon modules will be fixed, but they will be contected in a single package in lot's of different ways.

If that's correct I'd love to see the cost of making the trip between the modules. I've got to imagine the cost of that is just huge. The interconnect is also crazy - it's easy to do complex routing tasks on silicon at high performance. I don't know how you acheive that in a scalable fashion between silicon.</comment></comment></comment>