My Senior Design Project: Node.js WiFi-Extending Robot - <AUTHOR> http://glench.com/make/nodejs-robot/

<comment><USER2> Why JavaScript? This is not a flame, I'm sincerly interested.

I have made several robots from small hobby projects up to an autonomous driving car (college team). For all of those we used C or C++, with one exception that used Java. For the Java controlled robot I built a web interface that allowed you to control it remotely over wifi (similar to this, without the repeaters).

I have been thinking about using Python or Ruby for the high level logic while using C/C++ down low controlling motors/sensors. Or maybe running a JVM and doing the high level logic in Closure or Scala with JNI over the drivers.

Either way, I see why you want a high level language for the logic, but why JavaScript/Node.JS? I guess this is more remote-controlled rather than autonomous, but for autonomous systems I don't see what JavaScript brings to the table.

<comment><USER3> I guess there are some interesting results as a result of this effort:

* Javascript can be used to program these things and is quite capable of handling low-level kind of stuff

* Since it's easier to write js code than c/c++ code (for me), I would personally prefer it; assuming that the performance degradation is within allowable limits

<comment><USER4> What do you define as low-level stuff? It seems that Node.js was used to communicate with the components running on a regular Linux OS, not really the low-level stuff that you would be able to do with, say, C.

<comment><USER5> Right. I'm not very familiar with Arduino but I assume its microcontroller was programmed in C or assembly. Probably it listens for simple commands such as "activate/stop left wheel", "activate/stop right wheel".

edit: Apparently, Arduino uses its own programming language: "Arduino hardware is programmed using a Wiring-based language (syntax and libraries), similar to C++ with some slight simplifications and modifications, and a Processing-based integrated development environment." <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Unfortunately, cheap, off-the-shelf WiFi repeater units are not available and the network configuration for the devices we did find was extremely difficult, so we decided to use consumer-grade Linksys routers loaded with the open- source dd-wrt firmware."

Did you look at Ubiquiti devices? Their PicoStation would be perfect for this.

Also, and this depends on what you consider cheap, I would have used 900Mhz for the connections between repeaters, base station, and robot since it will go further through rubble. Use HWMP for mesh across the repeater links & use 2.4Ghz "access" at each repeater for access/interop with other devices. This could be done for under $500 per repeater with Mikrotik router boards and Ubiquiti mPCI cards in 900Mhz & 2.4Ghz.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. Ive done a similar project (just the repaters, not the self deploying robot) and we used picostations wired to car batteries. They work great, and if you want more range you can switch on their proprietary AirMax thingy with one button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Time to go into disaster and bomb disposal robotics by the looks of your work.

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial- robot...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial- robots/fukushima-robot-operator-diaries)

Very nice build

<comment><USER9> Agreed. Very impressive. Fukushima was the first thing to come to my mind as well.

Feature Request: Rocket Launcher.

<comment><USER10> Nuclear work is a whole different kettle of fish - you need to harden all of the sensitive parts of the system. Cameras will fail (or their lenses will frost over), circuitry will fail, and your robot needs to be able to be decontaminated when it gets back.

Fukushima has lots of problems for robots - hard radiation, not enough in air bandwidth to support radio communication and control, and terribly difficult maneuvering and communication conditions.

<comment><USER11> > your robot needs to be able to be decontaminated when it gets back

unless it's disposable

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> not to be picky, but why is it called a robot if it is remotely operated? Isn't a robot supposed to be autonomous, at least in part?

I confess that I just gave a quick look at the article, but it seems like a small remotely controlled radio tank. Is it possible to give the thing instructions on what to do (e.g. follow a path along some infrastrucutre while taking pictures of it) and then let it do the job on its own?

<comment><USER10> Actually, that's an excellent question:

Does the robot actively seek WiFi weak spots in the communication mesh or does it have to be driven to a certain locations?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Love the idea of dropping repeaters and back-tracking if the wi-fi connection is lost. I guess you could also extend it to remember where the repeaters were dropped and try to navigate to one of these spots if the backtracking fails (imaging some debris coming in the way after the robot has moved ahead, making backtracking impossible).

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm eagerly awaiting the armies of Mechanical-Turked WiFi robo-mops and robo- vacuums. Why hire real people to clean your buildings when you can get some Indian to control twenty cleaning bots at once?

Let me know when one of you hackers starts it up.

<comment><USER13> why state Indian specifically? Just curious.

<comment><USER12> Any cheap 3rd world labor force would work, I guess.

Not that I support such exploitation. But that's 'outsourcing'.

<comment><USER4> I'd argue that India is not really a 3rd world country anymore. Besides, this terminology doesn't make much sense now that the soviet union is gone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While the whole project is rather interesting, the most immediately applicable item might actually be the WiFi repeaters in a ruggedized box.

</comment><comment><USER15> Please make it fly.</comment>


Why Libraries are better than Frameworks - <AUTHOR> http://tom.lokhorst.eu/2010/09/why-libraries-are-better-than-frameworks/#

<comment><USER3> _Using sufficiently powerful programming languages, we can create better libraries that use lazy evaluation and higher-order functions._

Well, yes. But the whole point of using a framework is that it's _already created_. The next time I go to a client who wants a scalable international web application that needs... well, the same stuff that's in pretty much every other scalable international web application. Why _shouldn 't_ I run it up on a framework that provides all that and save myself (and the client) six months of building, glue code, integration, and all the other testing?

One of the arguments against frameworks is that they're hard to learn: _On the upside, while frameworks often need the be "learned", this is less so the case with libraries. People read whole books on how to use a particular framework, but they usually just start programming against a library._

Right. So I go and learn a framework, _once_. In a few weeks of not being visibly productive, I front-load the next 2-5 years of my life and my actual day-to-day job of creating the unique stuff -- the business logic, data tier, front end -- becomes much more productive.

<comment><USER4> Using a framework is great as long as you only want to do the things it's designers planned for. As soon as you want to do something else, unless you're very lucky, it sucks. If you're using a library you generally have more options when you get into this situation.

As with anything, choose whatever's most appropriate for the job. But, as a single data point, every framework-based project I've worked on - <USER2> every single one - has ended up in that situation.

<comment><USER5> I have worked on all kind of project - lots of libraries, internal "framework" on top of lots of libraries, and plain framework.

The comment "As soon as you want to do something else, unless you're very lucky, it sucks." applies to pretty much all the situations.

To give my single data point I'm currently working on an application that is more libraries than framework, and the way we used libraries is clashing with what the application has been repurposed to do. In our case, the library can do it, we could have coded in a way that would have solved our current goal, however 5 years ago it did not make sense to do so, so here we are.

More basically, the reasons you cannot chose the right framework that will meet your future need are going to lead into making the not-future-proof design decisions. That even happen when you do not use any library or framework.

The difference with a framework is that it starts with its own history while you start fresh with a bunch of libraries. Initially you have a lot less chance to run into complex refactoring when you roll your own ( conversely, as parent said, you do not get any of the benefit that using a framework brings you: like enabling some powerful feature by configuration or with very minimal effort) The more code you commit however the less it starts to matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "No matter which you choose, whether to use a framework or not to use a framework, you are destined to end up regretting your decision." \- A smart ex-colleague of mine.

<comment><USER7> "The grass is always greener" is a cliche for a reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Frameworks _are_ libraries with inversion of control.

2\. It is harder to write a library than to write a program, because you have to design an API for the calling code. This is a higher order task than just writing a program, because the library has to generalize to all applicable use cases. It is easy to get it wrong (Java Calendar API for example).

3\. It is even harder to write a framework, because not only will the framework provide an API to the calling code, it will also take control of the program flow to some degree. If not done correctly, then there will be cases where the calling code could be unable to satisfy some reasonable requirement because they are unable to influence the control flow in that area of the framework. This is an even higher order task than writing a library.

It's akin to the difference between solving a specific problem in math (solve this particular quadratic equation), or solving the whole class of problems at once (derive quadratic formula) or showing that two apparently unrelated problems are actually isomorphic (Galois theory - linking theory of equations to permutations).

The alternative, writing lower level code that you understand, is also bad once scaled out team wide.

It's one thing to write you own bespoke code for everything in your basement, but when scaled out across a team of developers, if there is not a lot of attention paid to consistency of the various parts of the application, then you can get into nightmare codebases that become big balls of mud.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't even think this is like a thing to debate about. They're not the same thing.

I've been a developer for near 10 years. In that time I've worked on a heck of a lot of different applications. The funny thing, is in that time I've written the same code time and time again. A bit different each time, but none the less similar function.

That code though, it's not something that can be replaced by a library. That's because it IS the code calling the library. If a library is a water heater, the framework is the duct work.

So frameworks to me give me a way to write a lot less of that code, and to write a lot more of the code that makes my application useful.

I've been brewing my own framework, for doing a very particular type of application that I tend to somehow write quite often. I wouldn't tell people to use it for everything. But for the things I use it for, it is perfect. The speed that I can iterate at has given me a name at my various employers.

</comment><comment><USER10> Some advantages of libraries:

\- they stimulate more clearly defined APIs

\- allow each component to be easily replaced by another component

Some disadvantages of libraries:

\- every library typically needs some "glue logic" to fit in the total program, causing performance overhead and/or code ugliness

\- every library maintains state in a different way, making it difficult to atomically control or save the state of the complete application (a similar problem exists with microservices)

\- (related) also garbage collection over objects in different libraries may become a nightmare if every library implements its own garbage collector (try mixing V8 and a Java VM, for example)

</comment><comment><USER11> Some programmers want to draw a line in the sand and say that on this side is "my" code and the other side is acceptable third-party code - without really considering each project itself.

Frameworks are really just a collection of libraries that are already connected together and organized in a specific way. If it doesn't add value to the project then don't use it. If it does, then use one.

You could make the same argument about any level of abstraction, from the OS, to the language, to a web server, to a client-side framework, etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think this discussion could benefit from some examples. I can readily think of Rails and Django as frameworks, but what are the library counter-examples? And what are the actual pros and cons of those particular examples.

I find it hard to think of these in the abstract.

Additionally, I suppose that the workflow around the library or framework should be taken into account.

For instance, if there is a large team, a framework might be better because you already know the conventions? But what if the team changes a lot? What if you have great on-boarding tools?

This debate needs more context.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would like answer the same question much more simple: Because libraries can retain backwards compatibility much easier.

It's not always true, but enough so to be something you can reason about. Because of how the call flows (a framework calls you, you call a library), any non-trivial change in the structure of a framework requires a corresponding change in the application. A library has more degrees of freedom to change while retaining compatiblity.

<comment><USER3> ..but you can't just use one library to replace the functionality of a framework.

While a library has "more degrees of freedom", this means your application (using many libraries) has many moving parts that don't really care about each other, so your application -- already octopussy because of having to glue libraries together in the first place -- now gets even curlier as you tweak it to fit library changes.

Framework developers, one hopes, at least try to keep their changes-over-time a bit consistent within the framework. Library devs have no such obligation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >There are, of course, a lot of definitions of frameworks and libraries. I don't want to get into those, rather I'd like to illustrate my view on the differences by means of this picture

Kudos to this... it is the clearest visual expanation I have seen regarding the differences between a framework and a library

</comment><comment><USER15> I really enjoyed this post. It's more on _how to design libraries_ , rather than on why libraries are better

[http://tomasp.net/blog/2015/library- layers/index.html](http://tomasp.net/blog/2015/library-layers/index.html)

<comment><USER16> and the more recent one: [http://tomasp.net/blog/2015/library- frameworks/index.html](http://tomasp.net/blog/2015/library- frameworks/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In one sentence: you can mix-and-match libraries, but you can only use one framework.

<comment><USER18> That's not correct. For instance, when I was programming Java Server stuff, we've used the Acegi Framework for security and the JSF Framework for MVC. You could've even used JSF together with another MVC Framework if you really wanted. But you couldn't wrap either of the two and thus making them swappable behind the wrapper.</comment></comment>


"But It Doesn't Mean Anything" – A demonstration of the value of computer code - <AUTHOR> http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pete/but-it-doesnt-mean-anything.html <comment><USER3> Paxman's point about code being 'meaningless' was to emphasise that the _end goal_ of this initiative is stupid. It's not "learn to think analytically", it's not "learn to express your ideas precisely", it's not "learn to instruct a computer", it's not even "learn to use a computer", it's "learn to code".

Computers are clearly important, and Paxman would not deny it, but that doesn't make school IT classes any less pointless. They are terrible because they teach what buttons to click to make Microsoft Word 97 display text in bold, rather than the ability to think about problems; arguably they teach _against_ thinking about problems (like "how do I make text bold?"), in favour of rote learning and hand-holding. Likewise, teaching kids which punctuation marks to press in Notepad to make a HTML element turn green is also a terrible idea, because it's focusing on the code. This is also the most common complaint I've heard about undergraduate computer science courses (teaching one particular language's syntax rather than how to solve problems).

I saw this summed up best on /. [http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4771525&cid=4...](http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4771525&cid=46205325)

"The problem here is that "code" is being used as a synonym for "computer magic"."

This captures the essence of this interview exactly. Paxman made a provocative remark, and did Dexter argue against it? No, she agreed with him and said some nonsense about code being for computers:

"It doesn't mean anything to you, or to me yet, but it's the set of instructions that you type into a computer to get an output."

In other words "computer magic". What Dexter doesn't realise, probably because she's not spent a significant amount of time programming, is that _code is for people to understand_ and only incidentally for machines to execute. If programming was only about satisfying the computer, our keyboards would only have two big buttons: 0 and 1.

Now, this was essentially true in the early days of computing (punching cards) but we've progressed beyond this. The reason we use code is to allow _people_ to discover, understand and build on _ideas_.

<comment><USER4> "The reason we use code is to allow people to discover, understand and build on ideas"

The reason we use WORDS is to do the same thing...

But somehow _nobody_ will ever insist that:

"Likewise, teaching kids which letters to press in Notepad to make a sentence is also a terrible idea, because it's focusing on the characters."

or that teaching spelling, punctuation and grammar are "meaningless".

<comment><USER5> spell eng

Punch You! Hey Sean

and granma

ain't meaningless but take a backseat to phonetics and typography, and contemporary pedagogical practice in language arts emphasizes the act of writing rather than compliance with standards from the Victorian age.

<comment><USER6> Sometimes we keep standards for a very long time because they're really effective. Written English is one such example.

<comment><USER5> Poiesis does not require standards. Shakespeare is from the age before standardized English and "Poiesis" fails my browser's spell check. It's not just e e cummings and Ginsberg's howlings.

The obsession over standardized spelling in particular is an accident of the English language. There aren't spelling bees in German or French because phonetics is the important point of reference in ordinary human language.

The standards of English language are useful but for matters of taste and social differentiation not communication, e.g. the tenses of "read" which is about as important as a word can get in the context of written communication.

<comment><USER7> There aren't spelling bees in France, but there are dictation competitions, graded on spelling, punctuation, and accents [grave, acute, etc]. And the French (at least the Academy) are notoriously sticklers for the purity of the language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Paxman's whole shtick is that he argues with the people he interviews. Usually it is quite effective, because mostly he interviews politicians who are full of shit and he points it out in a way that more reverential interviewers don't. However, he probably doesn't mean everything he says: he just takes a contrarian view to whatever the interviewee says.

<comment><USER9> My issue is that if you're going to play devil's advocate then you should come up with stronger arguments than "it doesn't mean anything". If there are legitimate questions about the program that isn't one of them

<comment><USER10> I don't think his job is just to argue against the theory; that remark - <USER2> the fact that the interviewee was unable to confidently rebuke it - shows that the people responsible for it are ill prepared, and _that_ is a good argument against the practical implementation of the program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I recently spoke to a guy who sells swaps for a major investment bank.

The basic idea is that he comes up with some trading strategy, and writes the code that computes the profit/loss associated with that strategy if it was executed at market fixing prices (typically the market open or close each day).

The bank sells a total return swap on this strategy, which means that in return for a fee from the client, they pay the client the stream of profits (or losses) each month that would have resulted from trading this strategy. Behind the scenes, the bank trades the strategy (or something like it) in order to hedge the risk associated with the swap, so that they can earn the fee approximately risk free.

There's an obvious problem with this, which is that the client basically has to take the bank's word for what the profit/loss of the strategy is. To counter that, the guy who came up with the strategy now has to write a 100+ page document in legalese, which outlines exactly how the profit/loss on the strategy is calculated. This has to be sufficiently detailed that someone couple re-implement the code themselves to check it. The guy I spoke to said that this documentation takes up >50% of his time.

I'm sure everyone here will appreciate how incredible it is that a bank will pay someone six figures every year to spend more than half their time writing documentation that literally does nothing more than _reproduce a piece of code_ , except about 50 times more verbosely.

 _Different symbols, but it doesn 't mean anything._

</comment><comment><USER12> It's important to remember that the "year of code" initiative is _not_ related to the new curriculum coming into force in September 2014. My wife is writing a book for the new curriculum and, from what she's told me, it sounds quite good.

At Key Stage 1 (ages 5 to 7) children are taught about algorithms, that they are a way of breaking tasks into a sequence of steps that can be reused to solve problems.

They will also be taught about the pervasiveness of software - about the different kinds of devices and appliances that rely on software.

Finally, they will be taught about privacy. I'm not sure of the content but I assume it'll be about managing information about themselves.

<comment><USER13> When good books written by knowledgeable and well-meaning subject specialists are taught by teachers who do not and do not wish to understand the material, the result is a predictable disaster. Doubly so since most teachers are not particularly smart.

I know that sounds mean, but look at [http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq- estimates-by-intended-colle...](http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by- intended-college-major/) and notice how students going into education strongly tend to have lower IQs than most college majors. Smarter than the average adult, sure. But well below most people who get to college.

<comment><USER14> I agree with you for a middle or high school level course, but I would hope a teacher could wrap their heads around a 5-7 year old level explanation of algorithms if they're capable of teaching math.

<comment><USER13> Based on informal asking, most teachers who are supposed to be teaching fractions cannot figure out whether 2/3 is bigger than 3/5 or vice versa.

Given that fact, I am not optimistic about what you hope.

<comment><USER14> If that's the case, I don't believe dumbing down the curriculum to the lowest common denominator of teachers is the solution to the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So much of that is hard to watch.

Particularly the teaching of jQuery to people who are just starting out. And the multiple assertions that one can "pick it up in a day", whether it be programming or teaching skills.

Seems to be about throwing together a web page in a day rather than learning to code.

And it seems the usefulness of computer programs doesn't extend beyond ecards, web sites, and "apps".

</comment><comment><USER16> "Code" is a horrible word.

I prefer "source documents", or, if pressed, "Formal descriptions of the program".

Using the word "code" implies that the document is "encoded" somehow, which is plainly undesirable and wrong.

With some notable (1) exceptions, the primary consumer of a "source document" is a human being, not a machine.

The machine's purpose is to ensure the formal validity and correctness of the document - but the majority of the informational content of the document (variable names, structure, comments) is exclusively directed to human developers.

We will never program in a "wild" natural language, but many programming languages (2) make a deliberate effort to support expressions which simulate or approximate natural language usage, albeit restricted to a particular idiomatic form.

There will always be a tension between keeping a formal language simple enough to reason about and permitting free, naturalistic expression - but this is the same tension that makes poetry and haiku so appealing as an art form.

So many source documents appear to be "in code", not because this is a necessary part of programming, but because it is very very difficult to write things which combine sufficient simplicity for easy understanding, and the correct representation of a difficult and complex problem. In most of these cases, clear understanding is baffled not by the programming language, but by the complexity of the real world.

The rigidly deterministic nature of the computer forces the programmer to deal with a myriad of inconsistencies and complications that the non-programmer is able to elide or gloss over with linguistic and social gymnastics. The computer forces us to confront these complications, and to account for them.

In the same way that Mathematics isn't really about numbers, but about the skill and craftsmanship of disciplined thought, programming isn't really about computers, but about what happens when you can no longer ignore the details within which the devil resides.

(1) Assembler & anything involving regular expressions. (2) Python

</comment><comment><USER17> >What angers me here is Paxman's attempt to make a virtue of his own ignorance.

It's important to be aggressively ignorant when interviewing people who are making a case for something. It's a hand-waving and "common sense" repellant.

You can't just say that everyone should learn to code because coding is important and everyone needs to know how to do it.

Other than the central argument, though, I actually love this post:) Paxman shouldn't mind being made a strawman for a pretty exploration like this. More, please.

</comment><comment><USER18> This made me realize just how much the media's visual portrayal of computer programming is a problem. When he said "It doesn't mean anything" he's gesturing over to a stereotypical background image representation of code which is all tilted, blurred, overlapping, clashing colors, etc. It's purposefully skewed in every dimension to make it incomprehensible, and he actually uses that as evidence about something.

</comment><comment><USER19> The interviewer is partly right, and students who have a natural aptitude[1] for programming often recognize this: Code is meaningless. At the application level, you may have something that looks like an image. Underneath, you may represent it with numbers. Numbers, however, are also a fiction represented with bits. The meaning is based entirely on one's interpretation. Creating a mapping between meaningless formalism and meaningful interpretation is the principle obstacle to learning to program.

I understand the point the author is trying to make, and the interviewer in the video has not grasped the above. To answer his concern, ask him what meaning does the letter 'd' have? Next to none, but in composition it can provide quite a lot of meaning. (This is an argument from Hofstadter.)

[1]: I had a study/source for this, but I can't find it.

</comment><comment><USER20> So, they are teaching people to code, so they can make ecards? It is probably much easier to use something already written to create an ecard... And that is my whole point with this "learn to code." People think that everyone in the future will need to know how to code. No, in the future it will be important to know how to use the computer, but not everyone needs to know how to code. Just like not everyone needs to know how to do everything else in the world. You can teach people how use computers, without teaching them to program. And teaching them to program won't necessarily teach them how to use computers.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't think that Paxman's comment was as flippant as this article is making out. If you watch the video, his comment follows Lottie Dexter vaguely waving at the graphic of code behind him in desperate attempt to describe what code actually is when she quite sure herself. What he sees is a blurry mess of code pulled from who-knows-where that blatantly isn't of any use in it's current form. I'm not trying to downplay some of the awesome things done with code in the article, but I think the comment it's based on has been misunderstood.

</comment><comment><USER22> Since the interview is seen by general population, he was just asking questions that an average computer illiterate person would ask and at the same time challenging and testing her on the subject.

<comment><USER23> Two of the most common questions I get asked when someone's curious about coding are:

1\. So is it all just 1s and 0s?

2\. So do you know how to hack?

Sometimes I cynically answer the first question with "Yes, 1s and 0s all day. Sometimes I don't even use 0s, just 1s" which I'm pretty sure I stole from a Dilbert comic, but its funny seeing the expressions I get.

<comment><USER24> wait wait wait your company can afford ones?!

<comment><USER23> One of the few benefits to working for a larger company rather than a startup - they can afford 1s and the more successful companies can afford 0s too!

<comment><USER24> Fucking Oracle...they'll let me use hex but it's a pretty hefty pricetag. >:(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I found funny that she said "But it doesn't mean anything" when lots of artist now days make a career out of using FFT in Autotune...

Did I say that out loud?

</comment><comment><USER26> I recommend anyone who doesnt understand learning the fundamentals of writing code read the book "player piano" by Kurt Vonnegut which depicts a dystopian future where most human labor is replaced by machinery and software and engineers and managers rule society.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_\(novel\))

</comment><comment><USER27> If the general populace doesn't need to learn about programming because it won't mean anything to them, then the general populace really doesn't need to study the vast majority of history that we're forced to sit through and regurgitate in unimaginative fashion.

I, on the other, will sit on the side of the liberal arts and say that any and all learning is worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER28> The "Russel Brand" link (just before the footnotes) is pointing to the wrong url.

</comment><comment><USER29> Paxman is a twat.</comment>


Show HN: Define links between concepts then build comparison matrices on the fly - <AUTHOR> https://www.archyn.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

Founder and main developer here.

I've built this because I wanted to have a smart comparison matrix generator without spending a minute on the logic and necessary orchestration.

For the record, the examples you see in the landing page where built using this generator.

Basically to make your own Matrix you need to:

\- Declare the Elements and Groups you'd like to compare,

\- Create Qualifers and Affinities to link them (thing 1 "likes" thing 2),

\- Create a Matrix and select which Elements or Groups you want to compare,

\- Voilà!

Once done, your Matrix becomes live: any change to its Elements or Affinities will be cascaded down to it automatically.

Some sample data is already loaded when you sign-up so that you can play around to give you some idea on the concept.

Don't hesitate to give the free version a run, it's ad free with no time limit, and any thing you do remains private in your own Workspace (no sharing).

With any paid version you get the possibility to publicize your matrices so that you can embed them in your own website.

AMA, suggestions and critics are welcome.</comment>


The Trust Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/cover-story/2019/07/the-trust-crisis <comment> vincent-toups The idea of trusting any institution whose naked reason for existing is making money is absurd. Neither employees nor customers should expect anything from businesses but a concerted, rational, attempt to separate them from whatever value they might be capable of giving up and as cheaply as possible.

Its crazy that these institutions, which are fully rational in their pursuit of profit, want to gussy up their relationship with customers and employees as "personal" when it manifestly isn't. They see you as an entry in a spreadsheet but they want you to see them as a warm friend.

<comment><USER2> I've always felt the common relationship between employer/employee was strange. One one hand you have employers who demand loyalty and commitment, on the other you have employees who have the "i've worked here so long, you owe me" mentality. To me, unless your paycheck bounces then your employer doesn't owe you anything. As for employees, unless you're cheating your employer out of what they're getting for their money then employees owe their employer nothing.

if you go to work, do your job as per the job description and contract you signed and, in return, your employer compensates you per the contract then the deal is square.

The "relationship" from business to customer is even more ridiculous. From my perspective as a customer, i'm giving you money in exchange for something of equal value subject to the terms of deal. That's it. To say an organization is a "trusted friend", whether for-profit or not, is crazy.

<comment> vincent-toups I actually believe that this state of affairs is really unhealthy for human beings, who are psychologically constructed to want actual relationships rather than transactions in their life. But it is the current paradigm.

<comment><USER2> i know what you mean but work is not the place for that. Your life is the place for that but I'm opening a whole other can of discussion worms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Huh. It says, "losing the public's faith." When did we _ever_ trust them?

I can't argue with, "Reality: Trust is managed from the inside out — by running a good business." And the article does throw out there companies that tried. But the reality is 99% of the companies of the world are, by their nature, selfish entities, and will eventually degrade into doing untrustworthy things. It's the nature of the beast.

And those of us that deal with them, while potentially gaining some benefit, should treat them with suspicion. Any "faith" is misplaced.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gallup polls for public trust in institutions, including business:

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence- institutions.as...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence- institutions.aspx)

Pew conduct similar research: [https://www.pewresearch.org/topics/trust-in- government/](https://www.pewresearch.org/topics/trust-in-government/)

<comment><USER3> Under Big Business, it shows "Some" and "Very Little" as being the most prevalent categories. Sounds like a lack of trust to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't looked closely yet. The values are remarkably consistent (and low) since 1973, with the high-water mark for "Great deal/Quite a lot" being 34%, in 1975. Presently 23%.

Compare at 68% for small business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it should be possible for companies to lose their trademarks, if they commit too many violations.

Brands/trademarks are a token of trust, after all.

<comment><USER5> Brands/trademarks are an identifier, actually not a token of trust. I don't have much trust in "Walmart", "Capital One", or "Oracle", but a brand isn't about trust, it is about identifying goods and services. The brand/trademark is there to identify those cheap goods as from Walmart, Inc. (as opposed to, say K-mart), that overly-expensive, poor-performing database as from Oracle, Inc (as opposed to, say, the not-as-expensive SQL Server). Of course, you generally want your brand/trademark to be trusted, but they are an identifier, not a symbol of trust.

In fact, a token of trust cannot be created by the company, it has to be created by the people who trust it (the consumer). The fact that people pre- order a game or a Tesla is a token of trust, but the name Tesla is not a token of trust. "Tesla" might be a trusted brand, but it is not a token of trust.

Now the case of Amazon is interesting. Amazon has created a system where the brand actually has no meaning, because they will co-mingle inventory from anyone who claims it is identical, in particular, counterfeits. So I buy something with brand X, but there is actually no guarantee that it actually came from the makers of X. So Amazon's marketplace actually undermines brands. A world without brands/trademarks looks like Fulfilled by Amazon, not like a bunch of untrusted goods and services. The problem with Fulfilled by Amazon is that there is no guarantee that the item is what it claims it is and the whole point of brands/trademarks is to uniquely identify an item.

<comment><USER4> > Brands/trademarks are an identifier, actually not a token of trust.

If that were true, why don't companies switch brands when people lose trust in them? They are free to do so, but somehow they don't.

Often, the brand is a company's greatest asset, and revoking a brand/trademark would be a far greater punishment than a fine, which is often just a slap on the fingers.

Also, it would warn users. If I buy at Amazon, and suddenly have to buy at X then that reminds me that the company cannot be trusted and has to regain my trust. I think it would be the perfect punishment in many cases. A monetary punishment is often difficult to get right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know my dad was loyal to the company he worked for, and he declined many other better offers, gave up seeing his family, and devoted himself to them. Some time later, the corporation was bought up, his immediate boss left and he was downsized.

The issue with large corporations is that there is no real person behind them. The board can change, the owners can change - and these changes can happen dramatically overnight.

It's impossible to maintain trust in an organization like that because when an organization makes a decision, it's difficult to know who the main actors are and impossible to know who the main actors will be.

But I suppose there can be short term trust for corporations that have dominant individuals with dominant philosophies. We know that as long as Bezos is head, we can trust Amazon to think long term. We knew that was long as Sam Walton was around Walmart would prioritize low prices. But on top of that it's difficult to assign trust to an entity whose actions are the result of an ever changing and difficult to identify set of people.

</comment><comment><USER7> Lost me in the first paragraph. Manifestly, the buck stops with the shareholders. Acting like culturing "trust" can be pinched off from prioritizing shareholders over other stakeholders (users) is disingenuous.

<comment><USER8> I slogged onward to the second paragraph, where we have this:

>When we decide to interact with a company, we believe it won't deceive us or abuse its relationship with us.

How anyone who's looked at the headlines generated by the grifting of telcos and banks over the last ten years could write this, and then get it a first- tier B-school to publish it, should give us pause for thought.

The revelation comes a bit further on:

>Currently, Sucher and Gupta are cowriting a book on trust, Trusted: How Companies Build It, Lose It, and Regain It.

The selling of trust repair services is the very special own business of the authors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The unknown that remains is whether we have lost trust 1) because we have higher expectations, or 2) because the institutions and companies are failing us more than they did before, or 3) because we have greater visibility into a similar level of failure as we had in the past.

My belief and hope is that it is a combination of 1 and 3.

<comment><AUTHOR> The degree to which lists of corporate scandals are near-end loaded is concerning, though this may reflect recency bias.

Wikipedia is particularly prone to this, though I'm finding few other reliable sources with a different picture.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporate_collapses_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporate_collapses_and_scandals) \

A 2009 SSRN paper suggests growing pressures:

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1440769](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1440769)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If a government can compel someone to interfere with a user's account or data, secretly, then only your own isolated hardware, can be trusted.

Then end.

</comment><comment><USER11> 10 pages on trust and not one mention of digital trust or blockchain!

</comment><comment><USER12> Initially thought this article was going to be on the lack of trust regarding media/news...

</comment><comment><USER13> _Businesses put an awful lot of effort into meeting the diverse needs of their stakeholders — customers, investors, employees, and society at large. But they're not paying enough attention to one ingredient that's crucial to productive relationships with those stakeholders: trust._

Wow. This slime was almost enough to put me right off reading the rest of the article. It's transparently about putting the "needs" (greed) of investors and shareholders above the "needs" (privacy, safety, etc.) of customers, but let's pretend we're doing a great job for everybody and the only thing that has gone awry is a subjective feeling in the minds of people who are bothered by our actions.

Even after reading the rest of the article, I think maybe the opening sentence _should_ have put me off reading it, because despite all the right things being said about betrayal of trust and a puppy in an overhead storage bin, you're still reading it all in the context of an opening sentence that said, "Don't worry, you're reading the Harvard Business Review, we know you're a good person and doing a great job and you shouldn't really have to bother with this."

<comment><USER14> > _Betrayals of trust have major financial consequences._

LOL at the tone-deafness of the article. Why would/should people trust a bureaucracy that tries to put profit above people?

The other funny thing is whether readers trust advice from B-school professors. Arguably, a lot of the current ails of modern business (including the public's lack of trust in them) result from following wisdom professed by B-school faculty in MBA courses.

> _So our need to trust and be trusted has a very real economic impact. More > than that, it deeply affects the fabric of society. If we can't trust other > people, we'll avoid interacting with them, which will make it hard to build > anything, solve problems, or innovate._

They've got the priority order backwards.

<comment><USER15> Have you actually attended MBA courses? That's not what was taught in mine.

<comment><USER14> I've attended several lectures & discussions, and read a few standard recommended books (by no means am I claiming thoroughness). Though my comment was a touch flippant and used a broad brush, I was basically paraphrasing what I've heard from Clay Christensen and Rebecca Henderson (both HBS faculty) on why large organizations make certain typical mistakes, derived from contemporary wisdom (also taught in B-schools).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What garbage. Trust isn't a dependent variable. You can't measure it. You can't produce it in a factory. The reason why people don't trust X business is because they are untrustworthy. They will be unable to win trust back because being untrustworthy is, often, a fundamental part of their culture.

Also, a minor point in the grand scheme of things but I wouldn't take advice on trust from someone who had a fictional job title at Fidelity. From someone who worked in the industry, the business model of an asset manager is: do a shitty job, tell everyone you how smart you are (preferably with the aid of functionally useless qualifications), and hope no-one calls you on your bullshit. If you perceive yourself to be an expert on trust, don't work for organisations that have made untrustworthiness their business model. Doing so, suggests that you don't know what you are doing (which is likely the case here).

<comment><USER17> > The reason why people don't trust X business is because they are > untrustworthy.

Some businesses are untrusted despite being objectively trustworthy, and the other way around. Would you have trusted VW not to cheat on emissions tests five years ago?

<comment><USER18> No, anyone who trusts any company is a fool.

<comment> concert-gilled Trust is about degrees. How much time and money do you spend the verify the statements/actions/products of companies?

<comment><USER18> none, instead I position myself such that I don't have to trust them.

For example: I don't trust netflix to correctly charge me every month, so I review my accounts.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who's doing cutting-edge front-end development these days? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for people who are on the cutting edge of front-end app development in the browser (especially mobile). I just finished up a year-long development project and I'm looking to start working on the next big thing.
I co-designed the app framework currently used by Apple at https://www.icloud.com. More recently, I created Blossom, an iOS-style mobile app framework (https://github.com/erichocean/blossom). (A massively updated version of that was used on the project I just finished up.)
If you know where the action is today, ping me at email@example.com or let me know in the comments. I'm eager to do something kick ass.
Thanks! Erich Ocean <comment><USER2> Depending on how meta you want to get, you could consider going to work for [http://www.meteor.com/](http://www.meteor.com/).

</comment><comment><USER3> A bit of quick advice: Put some project links in your profile so that people here can see what you've been up to and what you're capable of. If you're good at what you do, people here might just approach you and ask you to come work for them on some of this cutting edge front end stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> I apologize for not having any suggestions for you but I do have a quick question. Just out of curiosity, what would you consider cutting-edge in front-end development?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. Some ideas from the last project I worked on:

\- Incorporating physics/dynamics. I built a library to automatically adapt tween curves coded in javascript to physically-correct responses based on the velocity and acceleration prior to invoking the tween (I used automatic differentiation to handle that). I'd love to go further down that path.

\- Constraint-based layout engines. Again, on this last project, we started playing with Cassowary, which is the automatic layout library Apple uses in Cocoa. Technically, Cassowary is a superset of what CSS layout can achieve. I'd love to spend more time seeing how that can improve dynamic layouts; for extra fun, combine with physics engine.

\- Game UIs. I really like some of the UX idioms games use, and I'd like to see if/how regular apps can take advantage of those types of things.

\- Losing the default 1:1 pixel-UI element mapping when it comes to event dispatch, which to me is a very mouse-centric design. This seems particularly important/useful to me to change when it comes to touch UIs.

\- Spending a lot more time on gestural APIs and new touch-related UX idioms. We've only scratched the surface of what's possible with touch/multi-touch, and I'd really like to be involved with apps that are considered today to 'not be possible' on mobile devices.

\- More mobile. I've moved to a completely mobile- and touch-first UX design approach, and that's definitely where the cutting edge is.

\- Vastly more speed/low latency. I think we've stalled as an industry in terms of response times and latency. I'd love to work with a team that wanted to do the kinds of things you can only do if latency is very low, around the order of one or two frame response times at 60 fps.

Hope that helps! That's just off the top of my head, there's a lot of specific UX areas that do not have adequate solutions today that I'd like to tackle again on mobile/touch devices, that are probably possible today.</comment></comment>


PyCon 2013 Coding Challenge Roundup - <AUTHOR> http://www.thumbtack.com/engineering/pycon-2013-coding-challenge-roundup/

<comment><USER2> It was fun. Thanks for doing that. Did you guys have your own solution worked out?

My solution if anyone's interested: <https://gist.github.com/davesque/5399178>

I bet no one else used pyparsing (not that there's any reason to, really). :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, most of us also worked out solutions independently. Our solutions all follow the same 4-step pattern outlined in the post (your solution also follows this pattern).

Glad you enjoyed the challenge!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Getting "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable"</comment>


Notes from a Flat Earth Conference - <AUTHOR> https://www.willpatrick.co.uk/articles/notes-from-a-flat-earth-conference <comment><USER3> I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat- earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations:

1\. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't, I can't speak for the flat-earthers) and to dismiss them as idiots who will just go away is a serious mistake. They are _very_ good at presenting convincing-sounding arguments, and refuting them can actually be quite challenging.

2\. The root of their reasoning is a tacit acceptance of teleology, which cannot be _logically_ refuted. They approach existential questions with the _assumption_ that there has to be some kind of point to existence, some transcendent meaning or purpose. If you accept this premise, then there is actually a logically defensible line of reasoning that leads you to Christianity and thence to the inerrancy of the Bible, and thence to YEC (and even a flat earth if you're really being intellectually honest!) A failure to appreciate this is IMHO one of the reasons that the secular world is having such a hard time effectively resisting these movements. A life without purpose makes no sense to these people, just as a theory at odds with the data makes no sense to someone with a scientific mindset. So if science leads you to the conclusion that life has no transcendent purpose (and it does) then, on their world-view, science must be wrong, full stop. No amount of data is going to persuade them otherwise.

<comment><USER4> Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to Christianity?

<comment><USER3> That is a very good question, and the answer is very long, much too long for an HN comment. But there IS an answer. (There is of course an answer for all other religions as well.)

<comment><USER5> Don't leave us hanging! Where can we learn the answer?

<comment><USER3> Any Christian apologetics web site. Or your local church.

<comment><USER5> I was hoping for something more precise tbh. Christian apologetics web sites and local churches also offer answers to lots of questions I don't care about, so if you already sifted through them, I was hoping you could share that advantage with the broader public.

<comment><USER3> Try searching for "why Christianity".

<comment><USER5> I broke my rule of ignoring people who bait and don't deliver and did a quick search. All 4 results from the 1st search page:

\- [https://www.livingwaters.com/why- christianity/](https://www.livingwaters.com/why-christianity/) seems to short- circuit back into "god-given rule"

\- [https://carm.org/atheism/why-believe-christianity-over- all-o...](https://carm.org/atheism/why-believe-christianity-over-all-other- religions) assumes the Bible as a historical source of truth

\- [http://www.gospeloutreach.net/whychristianity.html](http://www.gospeloutreach.net/whychristianity.html) \- quotes beauty not present in atheism, otherwise Bible as a historical source

\- [https://creation.com/why-christianity](https://creation.com/why- christianity) says Christianity correctly diagnoses a humanity's fault (moral inconsistency), and then declares it superior because of which solution it chooses

They don't seem to answer "why is Christianity the source of meaning", but rather "why choose Christianity as religion", which is a different question, so I might have misrepresented them. Either way, none of them seem very logically conclusive to me.

<comment><USER3> > They don't seem to answer "why is Christianity the source of meaning", but > rather "why choose Christianity as religion"

That's right. The original question was:

> Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to > Christianity?

If you want to know "why is Christianity the source of meaning" that's an easier question to answer: it's because the omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent Creator of the Universe loves you, and will give you everlasting life in paradise conditioned only on your acceptance of His sacrifice on the cross. Or something like that.

<comment><USER5> I think that's not actually the point that was made by cma (and my paraphrased question was imprecise).

"Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to Christianity?" presumes starting with no preferred solution: "existence has a meaning. Who discovered it?". It's much more interesting than "Christianity says existence has a meaning. What makes it right?"

<comment><USER3> > existence has a meaning. Who discovered it?

If you're looking for the Christian answer to this, it is: no one discovered it. The meaning of life is not discoverable knowledge. It is instead revealed by God.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used to be a flat earther. No, I didn't actually believe the earth was flat, but I loved the outrage it provoked and the attention I got when I told people I was a flat earther. I also enjoyed trying to defend my position and call out (valid) logical fallacies round earthers were making. It really forces you to improve your debate skills when you have to defend an impossible position. Lastly, there was a social aspect of it, a camaraderie with other flat earthers that made me feel like I belonged to a "secret" organization that was fun and influential. I eventually outgrew that hobby.

I'm sure there are many "genuine" flat earthers, but I suspect there are a lot of flat earthers like me as well. Of course, part of the "game" is pretending you really believe it, so good luck proving it.

<comment><USER7> My headcanon is that most people that proclaim to be flat-earthers are like you - they don't actually believe it.

From the Ancient Greeks to the 19th century, people believed the world was round. That story you heard in history class about how people in the 1400s were afraid to sail west because they'd fall off? Not true. They were afraid to sail west because they didn't know that the Americas existed, and without those they knew there was no way they'd survive a trip to China.

Flat earth in modern discourse was a strawman from the start. There may be some true believers - there always are - but it hasn't been a serious worldview in 2000 years or more.

<comment><USER8> I wouldn't be so sure, more likely people who make money of it are all BS masters.

Leader of the 'movement' selling books, youtube ads etc.

I had only once a pleasure to talk with flat earther, and apart from his flat theories, his view of how world works could be called... interesting, if not naive.

It reminded me of conversation with my primary school friends (back when we were 10), we tried to invent invisibility cloak by mixing 'chemicals' like sulpher, mercury and melted titanium (since those were the coolest substances we come up with) and coat a cloth with it. Kids stuff.

That was when we were around 10, this guy was close to 30 and was basically using same level of understanding of how to do things.

Its hard to believe sometimes bu a lot of people grow up never questioning or poking at the reality surrounding them.

You don't need that to grow up and get by in life, but then you end up not being able to distinguish reality from snake oil.

And all of those snake oil salesmen know exactly what buttons to push.

"Secret knowledge", "hidden truth", offer them glimpse into world that secret cabal never wants them to see. Convince them how much smarter and cleverer they are for "figuring out" the reality that other are blind to.

And then the 'blind fools' come to try to convince them that the earth is round...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > All this is to say that rational questions and arguments miss the point > entirely. These are not rational beliefs, nor even really beliefs. They are > more like identities, firmly established and fiercely defended. Their > existence is not a happy one, either. It seemed to me that they were > commonly the product of deep personal and social tragedy.

This seems to me to be the chief problem of social media. We live in a post- truth world that is more intensely tribal than ever before. Reason, and the ability to form consensus, seem to be dying or dead already. That worries me rather a lot, as it is the foundation of democratic society, and without it I'm not sure how long democratic society can continue.

In the authors description of the flat earth ers he says:

> ...you operate from a position where your worldview is driven by your > identity, not from what can be scientifically or objectively observed, or > what the experts tell you.

We can sit here and scoff at the tiny minority of fringe conspiracy theorists out there, but my observation is that people have taken this same approach to mainstream politics, deciding on an identity that aligns them to one side or the other, and then losing all ability to see that it is possible for their side to get something wrong, or the other side to get something right.

<comment><USER10> They _can_ be _internally-consistent_ beliefs, which is what makes them tricky (both for the believer and the rational contradictorian). But internally- consistent isn't quite the same as rational.

Where they deviate from rational is either failure to align to observational reality or an Occam's Razor argument (but be aware that Occam's Razor doesn't apply for a true believer; if something is true, it doesn't matter if it's complicated! ;) ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Honestly, hanging out in the Flat Earth FB group was extremely educational. In that actual physics and cosmology has a very solid, self-consistent grounding, and the hoops the group has to jump through to make it match to their alternate theory of a flat Earth are illuminating about how the real Earth works.

I'd never really noticed before that no satellite dishes tuned to talk to geostationary targets point north in the northern hemisphere, or south in the southern hemisphere. A bit of thought immediately clarifies why, but the flat- Earthers have to imagine an incredibly large conspiracy of governments hiding radio towers taller than anything humanity has ever built to explain it.

</comment><comment><USER11> When I think back to how I was first introduced to the concept of a flat earth I can't help but feel that it's one of the bigger epistemic own-goals in history. My introduction was in school, where the concept of a flat earth was trotted out as something that everyone believed in the middle ages that we eventually learned was totally wrong. The message was simple: don't be those people, listen to the scientific evidence. At the time I thought it was a compelling story, then I found out the story is a myth. [0] Ancient Greeks knew in the 5th century BC that it was round, by the 600s it was more or less unanimously supported by scholars. I've struggled to find a time in history when there was a serious, organized group that believed the earth was flat. Except for now that is, the uncomfortable truth is that this, right now, in 2020, is the peak of flat earth belief in human history. The lesson, to me, is this: be careful what you lie about in the name of pedagogy, lies have a way of backfiring on you when people realize they're being lied to.

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

</comment><comment><USER12> The allure of secret knowledge...

<comment><USER13> Is it that or some folks trying to cling to a tribe?

<comment><USER3> It's both. The secret knowledge defines the identity of the tribe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a bit sad to read, but very well written. I can't help but think of schizophrenia after reading through some of the conversations.

</comment><comment><USER15> In my real life I've never met a flat-earth guy (I live in India). I genuinely tried hard but couldn't find one in real life.

Most flat-earth people I found online seem to be Americans. This is possibly anecdotal but I'm puzzled as to why they are all Americans. It is coincidence or there is something about America?

</comment><comment><USER16> Joshua 10:13, Joshua commands the sun and moon to stand still for about a whole day. Isaiah 38:8 God brings the sun backwards to set the shadow of the sundail of Ahaz back 10 degrees. Genesis God sets the sun, moon and stars inside the firmament with us. Or the great flood that is recorded with similar versions all across the world. Even the Roman Catholics believed the earth was flat at the time of Christopher Columbus. There's a reason why sea level is always at zero. Point being its about worshipping our heavenly Father that created all things, and set aside all of man's teachings to forsake the things of this world to have enternal life.

</comment><comment><USER17> I did not pay a lot of attention to this. In my mind flat earthers were an odd group of people participating for fun in an elaborate make believe. Sort of like watching WWE together with beers pretending those are real fights.

I mean, contrary to a popular parable, people knew that the earth is round for a very long time and Eratosthenes made an estimate of earth radius 2200 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sometimes this type of long form journalism is nice because it lets you marinate in a different world. Here I can't help but feel like I just want them to get to the point because I don't really want to marinate in the Flat Earth world.

If a super intelligent AI came to me and said, "I'm going to take over the world and destroy humanity, but first I wanted to see if there was anything you needed." One of the things that I would ask it to do in order to buy time would be to annotate all the background details of every movie. For example, in Jurassic Park when Hammond is trying to get Dr. Grant to come to the park, the trailer they are in has a bunch of newspapers on the walls. What do those say? Who are all the extras that are hanging out at the dig site? Like who are the actors and can we give their characters any backstories that are consistent with the world of Jurassic Park.

I can't help but want the same thing from a story about a Flat Earth conference. How many other people went there just to see what was up. Who is there as a joke. Occasionally people send fake articles to journals to see if they can get them published. Does the same thing happen to Flat Earth conferences? People try to see how much of an outlandish presentation they can get away with? And finally, how many people go there, have a good time, pretend to buy into the whole Flat Earth business, but then when they get back and are cornered indicate that they only went because their friend went / to see what it was like / because they make fun of them later / etc.

Finally, this whole business feels very similar to me as the whole Evolution in education stuff. Sure people believe in the wrong thing, but at the end of the day very few people actually understand how the right thing works and even if they get that far they don't see what any of the implications are. Yeah, I would prefer people believe things that are true, but they don't understand it either way and they refuse to think about the implications.

I greatly appreciate the world building in things like Lord of the Rings or Avatar the last airbender. Everything works together in great detail to create a holistic world where actions have consequences that echo through the centuries. It feels like most people are just as happy to watch Michael Bay's Transformers. Maybe they like Avatar as well, but they don't understand why the shyamalan movie "adaptation" is bad. So I have a hard time caring that they agree with me that the cartoon was good as well.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is pretty well written, I love it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was a little surprised that there was no mention of mental illness. A human/reptile hybrid race is secretly controlling us all to serve an unknown agenda? I know that could be used for humor, but really it's just sad.

</comment><comment><USER21> Depressing.

<comment><USER22> I'm sure this won't be a popular comment, but based on the descriptions in the article, the flat earthers seem very similar to the Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice).

The clear distinction is the absolute unwillingness to listen logic without screaming what-a-about conspiracy A, or conspiracy B, or C. Or the classic "your just a socialist" inbetween talking about their social security and medicare benefits.

There's clearly a segment of the population that has the inability to compute simple logic without triggering a fight/flight/amygdala response.

I used to think education was the problem.

But I'm starting to think this inability to control their emotional response when hearing anything that conflicts with their "belief system" is the _hack_ that various organizations leverage to build a cult-like following.

Edit: thanks for all the fanfare(sarcasm towards the downvotes), I think that it proves my point.

<comment><USER23> >Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice)

What is the implication here? Is it bad to have friends who are Trump supporters?

EDIT: I see my point of political bias proven, complete with intolerance, rationalization of said intolerance, gross assumptions, and overall it leaves me disappointed that the HN crowd allows this.

<comment><USER24> I judge people (not solely) based on who they choose to associate with, so for me ya it is bad. To put it more bluntly, if you surround yourself with shitty people, I'll assume you're a shitty person.

<comment><USER25> You surround yourself with 7.8 billion people who shit nearly every day.

To put it bluntly, you are judging yourself when you take yourself to be judging others, you claim an excuse that associating with others leads to your own self-admitted "badness"... You judge yourself, and rather than taking sentence with those aspects within, you externalize it and make assumptions based upon comparisons of your ideal shitty person, which deep down we both know that we are our own worst critics.

This only leads down one road, self-annihilatory behavior.

Learn to love yourself completely, you are not lacking, and to be honest, you taking yourself to be one that thinks of others or yourself as a shitty person is one of the most lovable parts about you.

<comment><USER26> Does this reply have any coherence at all or is it just me?

It reads very similar to a response I received from the owners of a fishing website that I used to frequent when I questioned them about BLM.

<comment><USER23> >Username: trumpersHateMe

Nice, novelty accounts on hn.

That's lovely. I accrue some great insights from this sites river, but I should probably start curating my own river again. The insightful:judgemental signal-noise ratio is trending in a direction I simply fine unstimulating of productive discourse.

<comment><USER22> > insightful:judgemental signal-noise ratio

I think that's a worldwide phenomenon, not just HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > _When a worldview grows in a group of people that requires the belief that > this trust has been fundamentally broken by the institutions of modern > society, modern society feels the effects_

I think this causality is backwards. These people already feel that the social contract has been broken, and then FE falls into their lap as an explanation for what they're feeling.

The disillusionment with our modern social structures is entirely valid and personally healthy. The real question is how to keep that feeling from collapsing into simplistic red herrings like FE, "jet fuel can't melt steel beams", or Trumpism. It's more difficult to hold nuanced anti-mainstream- propaganda opinions in your head, than to rally around a counter-fiction.

Then again, maybe this has been the genesis of all religion - <USER2> narratives to assuage cognitive dissonance between what the rulers say and how you're actually treated. And the ones that end up being memetically successful are the ones that at least inspire people to do productive things.

</comment><comment><USER28> Sadly, this is another topic of questions to add to job interview filters - ask about the moon landings & vaccines.

Anyone subscribing to any of this conspiracy nonsense, especially as an identity is (pardon the language) too effin stupid to work in any serious technical endeavor - if they're deeply willing to ignore those facts & reason, what will they ignore on your project?

Plus, their deeply ingrained ideas that any authority is trying to control them has a high probabilty of turning against any employer lie a rabid dog, creating at least a costly series of problems and toxicity.

I'd even filter them out for manufacturing or fast food work.

edit: should add I'm talking about willful stupidity - deliberate cultivation of ignorance, as distinguished from naturally low intellectual horsepower

<comment><USER29> "Stupid" is not a useful way to generally describe the people vulnerable to conspiracy theories. I have met people who are relatively intelligent who fall into these. See also: religion, politics.

<comment><USER30> What's a better term for people with a lack of critical thinking skills and/or a lot of unexamined closely held beliefs?

<comment><USER31> I've met a number of religious people who were quite good at their technical jobs that required critical thinking skills. So long as the knowledge, skills and behaviors required of them don't clash with their identity beliefs, there's no problem in terms of performance.

<comment><USER30> Sure, but most of those fields don't require a carefully examined set of beliefs about the world itself in order to succeed. A logically inconsistent but functional worldview is usually enough. As an extreme example it's entirely possible to be an award-winning pediatric neurosurgeon while simultaneously believing that the Egyptian pyramids were grain storage silos.

Fields that require carefully examined beliefs about almost everything (physics for example) are a lot harder to pull that off in.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Finch.io – Fix web design bugs in real-time - <AUTHOR> https://finch.io/finch-tour/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey, HN!

Happy to show you the tool I'm working on! With Finch you can tweak any live websites design and export, sync and share the changes in real–time.

A bit of history - our team of three was working for a digital agency and we always feared those last 10% of every web project that took 90% of the time – the moment when the website was almost done, but there were lots of small design details that drove the designers crazy and developers devastated.

So to scratch our own itch we built Finch.

Happy to answer if there are any questions!

</comment><comment><USER2> I am looking forward to test this tool. Does it test UX-related issues such as hierarchy, navigation...etc.?</comment>


Yahoo To Encrypt All Traffic And Products By Early 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/yahoo-encrypt-traffic-products-early-2014-132212

<comment><USER2> That still does not stop the NSA from directly taking data from Yahoo.

and Man-in-the-middle attacks are still possible at least in the LAN using something like SSLStrip.

<comment><USER3> It's a big step in the right direction.</comment></comment>


Plangrid (YC W12) Builds A New Market For The iPad: The Construction Industry - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/02/plangrid-builds-a-new-market-for-the-ipad-the-construction-industry/

<comment><USER3> Very very exciting! Assuming a thoroughly brilliant execution, I'm certain that this app will find its fans amongst all groups within the design-build chain. Architects, construction managers, general contractors and trades. Even building owners and maintenance managers, perhaps.

I haven't tried the app, but having worked in both architecture and construction and now as a UX designer, I'm quite familiar with the problems it addresses. One of the biggest challenges on a construction project (even a small one) is document control and management. Though most work in architectural offices is done on computers, paper plans remain the final method of output of construction information, and this causes numerous problems.

Of course there is the cost of printing that the article mentions, but that's only one of several inefficiencies. A little background for those unfamiliar with construction: First, traditional prints are cumbersome, so they're difficult to pull out and reference in any kind of adverse field conditions. Large sheets of paper do not mix well with wind or rain. Even in good weather or indoors they're a pain to carry around and handle, so they tend to spend most of their time in the truck or trailer, often away from where they're really needed. To make them easier to carry, construction managers often make their own smaller photocopies of portions of the plans, which compounds the second big problem: keeping the documents up to date.

On a large project, keeping everyone's documents up to date is a nightmare. The more subcontractors you have, the bigger the nightmare becomes. And if you have a fast-track or rapidly evolving design-build situation, the problem is further compounded by compressed schedules. When plans or specifications are out of date, estimations are off and things get built incorrectly. You get waste, increased project costs, and the occasional lost shirt. One of my mentors used to destroy on sight any out of date documents he found people carrying. This app should be a much more elegant solution.

Essentially, paper plans are so difficult to manage that they waste a huge amount of time and sometimes result in errors. They're a centuries old, paper- based data bank and info graphic. So it's easy to see how this app could not only save time and money, but also increase quality and accuracy of what gets built: The people doing the work will have convenient access to the right information at the right time, through plans and other forms of location-based information on a device that's easy to carry.

Further, the ability to notate and communicate right from the UI has the potential to fix one of the frequently broken feedback loops in the design- build process: communication between builder and architect about unexpected field conditions or difficulties with the current design. I have no idea about the road map for the app, but there's a lot of potential here. Imagine you're able to share screens and stream video or still images back to the architect about something needing clarification, and have her be able to sketch on the plans in real time. Then the changes can be saved as a draft copy, ported back to the drafting software, modifications made and reissued as an official document (and even change orders) in a matter of minutes. The potential for this to speed construction and increase quality is not to be under-estimated.

As a designer, I'm very curious about the UI of the app and how well the UX is adapted to the needs of folks in the field. Because there are just so many variations on the use case, so many different ways that building plans are used by different people in the process. And, there is _one_ advantage to the size of traditional printed plans. Their bigness, at times, can be a virtue when you're trying to get an understanding of the overall layout of building, and extract key dimensions from it. Of course zooming in and out is how this is handled on monitors when drafting, but I suspect the problem is a little different on an iPad size screen, the solution needing to be a little more creative to convey the needed information.

Phew, thinking about the possibilities of this app is exhilarating, and my apologies if my post is overly long. Congrats to the founding team for identifying and working to solve such a significant missing piece in the chain of the construction process! :)

<comment><USER4> Folks have been talking about tablets being a natural fit for the construction market, and frankly I don't see it (at least for field work. Construction sites are nasty places - dust, concrete, bentonite, slurries, oil & grease, rain, snow, heat these are not good things for an expensive tablet to be around.

Furthermore, the trades guys are hard are their equipment. When it's time to go to lunch, stuff gets thrown in the trunk bed or on the passenger seat of the truck as they rush off. Even if a tablet survives the abuse, those guys rarely lock or raise the windows of their trucks on the job, so I wouldn't expect the tablet to be there when the contractor gets back from his break.

 _First, traditional prints are cumbersome, so they're difficult to pull out and reference in any kind of adverse field conditions. Large sheets of paper do not mix well with wind or rain._

This is true, but it's offset by their disposable nature. If I'm heading out to the field and I know there is going to be inclement weather, I bring a couple of copies and if one sheet gets destroyed by weather, oh well, I just break out my second copy.

And while large sheets can be cumbersome, they allow field workers to look at a small component of a plan in an overall larger context which can be very convenient (that's why the minimum size I typically deal with on a site is 11x17). On a 10-inch tablet, you can only do that by zooming and panning a lot and that's not nearly as useful.

I've been wrong before and maybe I'm wrong now but I can't help thing that this will be a frustrating experience for a lot of folks.

 _keeping the documents up to date._

This is a very good point (nothing like getting an "as-built" that is not even close to being accurate) but I don't think that offsets the downsides.

<comment><USER5> >> This is a very good point but I don't think that offsets the downsides.

The downsides of out of date documents are 1% of the total cost of construction. A project may have 1-3% margin for a GC, so this is an enormous number. You save in three big ways with PlanGrid - we are cheaper than printing, faster than dealing with paper for sharing and note taking, and eliminate building from outdated drawings.

Our current set of users love having it in the field. We have superintendents tell us they can't believe they are using an iPad everyday. They have all the drawings all the time and they are always up to date - something people in the field have never had before on large projects.

Several of our customers have purchased iPads just to use PlanGrid. It's true that some will break, of course, but the cost savings offset it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are tons of very obvious problems in many industries that are solvable by software. The only problem is that great domain experts and great hackers rarely overlap enough to do a startup together. It was a miracle that the four of us found each other.

<comment><USER3> Just read the "About" page on the PlanGrid site, and indeed your team does seem to be a great combination of experts & hackers.

My background sort of puts me with one foot in either camp for this particular problem set; it would be really cool to chat with you folks some time when I make it out to the Bay Area.

BTW, how did you all come to find each other?

<comment><USER6> 3 of us went to school together, 2 of us worked together, 2 of us went to a cello concert, not together. Its one of those tricky GRE math questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see that on your about page you mention only supporting PDFs.

As somebody frustrated by the lack of alternatives to Autodesk products, seemingly due to the lock in by .DWG files[1] not being an open standard, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts? Did you think about/try implementing the file format? Do you have plans for others?

Last week, I told myself I'd give the OSS CAD programs a try, downloaded LibreCAD and tried to open some architecture plans from my inbox. Could not open. Then I read came across an excellent explanation of the problem of DWGs in OSS[2], this is the most frustrated I've been for a while. The industry standard is a proprietary file format with no published specifications.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwg> [2]: [http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/whats-up-with- dwg-a...](http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/whats-up-with-dwg-adoption- in-free-software)

<comment><USER5> Our approach is as practical as it can be - the actual builders need drawings and the drawings are usually delivered in PDF. We've found very few of our customers get the DWG files themselves, and even if they do, they are easily exported to PDF.

<comment><USER7> Makes sense.

I guess I just wanted a place to vent out my frustration with DWG :D.

The other comments in this thread make it very clear, you have a great product. More industries need teams like yours.

<comment><USER8> I'm _so_ thankful that our customers don't want to deal with DWG files. I had investigated it a bit for our original prototype... it was not pleasant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice! That looks quite interesting. Is there any particular reason why the iPad was targeted first? I wonder if Android would have been a better choice because some manufacturers offer rugged tablets these days which seem like a better fit for this industry.

<comment><USER5> iPad is the dominant tablet platform (phones might have been different). We may do Android eventually - our backend is written to support web and iOS already.

<comment><USER9> It is the leader in sales but I'm not sure that will matter in this case. This is domain specific so the choice of tablet is determined by the availability of the software. Just my thoughts, great idea though :)

<comment><USER8> Thanks as well! We're waiting for a customer to actually request an android tablet version. We're probably going to port our software in a "lite" version to android focusing on the phone first then the tablet. Thankfully android tablets work well with android phone apps (especially with ICS).

By the time we get around to this, we have our fingers crossed that google's acquisition of Motorola begets a sweet android tablet from google directly.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like you guys have it sorted out. I bring up Android mostly because we found lots of customers asking for specialized hardware (for military, police and fire department contracts). They were really picky about that because the guys using it were not very gentle. It is a different domain so the requirements are not exactly the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have to believe something like this already existed for pen based tablets. And I believe that for real work, a tablet must have higher fidelity input that can be achieve with fingertips.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is interesting. As someone who works in this space (building hospitals) we see a lot of trending movement to the iPad, though I question the longevity of PDFs.

We have a software suite for the construction industry, which has modules for inspection requests, punch-lists, occupancy planning (healthcare), room completion (healthcare), room readiness (healthcare) etc.

We also have a service around providing custom reports... however, we find that the need for dynamic data trumps the ability to simply view the latest plan digitally, i.e. we provide the ability to run a dynamic report on all inspections scheduled, performed, outstanding, etc... As well as the need to run a report that would "Show me all the rooms that have a Medication Dispensation Unit, on level two and assigned to unit Med Surge" - <USER2> outputs a colorized visio (or ZUI iPad floorplan).

The future is in granularity of reporting, rather than just blanket display, and I think this is a great step. Especially if you have many trades begining to use it. There is no reason the trades can't run multiple apps for specific purposes.

Although, I am not sure I agree with one number in the article; "For $1MM in construction, you can have as much as $3,500 in printing" -- I am only skeptical as I work on projects in the hundreds of millions (1.5B, 850MM, 800MM 100MM are the budgets for my (personally) active projects) I dont see them spending 3MM on printing for the 850MM project... but I might just not be privy to the numbers from every trade.

Here is an example of a dynamic room category report for an active project here in SF. We colorize the rooms based on type/use to familiarize the org with the spaces <http://i.imgur.com/2DRah.jpg> \- We do a great deal more with the data and reports, this is just an example of many that the orgs use. Hospital transition planning is very complex, and costly. The vitals of the facility change a lot through the life of the project. The issue with educating THOUSANDS of people in prep for opening day such that they can SAFELY receive their first patient is critical.

Being able to very quickly synthesize and summarize vast amounts of information makes for a better, more successful project and a better, more educated and prepared staff.

Remember that while there are hundreds of people on a project team, there are thousands of people on the facility staff who are expected to move into the facility day-one and not cause fatal mistakes.

A project I am doing in Texas is 1.5MM square feet and dynamic, item-level granularity reporting is going to be key in the smooth success of the project.

I would love to see what PlanGrid can offer such large projects - and while I am a full proponent of the iPad in the field, in an industry where cost is king, I'd like to better understand how they convince construction companies of the ROI - esp. when tools and materials walk of the job all the time.

I think that Plangrid should talk to the designers (not just architects) as well; RTKL, Mazzetti, TEECOM, RLS, SMWM, SFM, etc...

If PlanGrid (love the name) wants to talk to me - my email is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> For us, the ROI on any project - but particularly large projects - is pretty simple: An iPad ($800) plus 3 years of PlanGrid ($1500 for the big plan) is almost always cheaper than the initial half-size set of thousands of drawings (a hospital project Tracy was on spent $2700 per planholder set of 3000 sheets), but when you add in the printing cost of MEPF coordination drawings, fabrication drawings, point-load drawings, deck-insert drawings, seismic bracing drawings, P&ID drawings, submittal shop drawings and the constant deluge of change order and supplemental sheets it's a huge money saver.

We are cheaper than just the printing costs alone, but our real value-add comes from the huge reduction in document control hours we bring. This, combined with our ability to mitigate the risk of building off outdated information, makes a huge win for almost every project if you do the math.

<comment><USER11> I'd be interested to see what the differential between 2D and BIM projects is.

Let me give you a concrete example; a hospital here in SF that is building a new facility has spent 30+ million dollars on coordination and constructability issues between all the trades.

There was far less printing of plans than there was hours spent coordinating the BIM model for changes.

Now, granted, this wasa project where there was an oversight in the design as it pertained to the owners intent and a number of critical technology spaces required were left out of the design.

This resulted in many hours of coordination efforts from all the trades to get these spaces into the facility, but a fraction of this was in printing.

If you can help with this problem, coordination, you have a much larger market.

The current industry trend is to err on the side of digital design and coordination meetings with IPD models, and reduce printing and field interference issues.

What might be an interesting opportunity for your service is to notify trades when changes occur that may affect them. THEN show them the new, updated PDF.

I don't know how this would occur -- other than the pushing of a constructability log or something....

Also, it would make sense that your app is much more focused on a the smaller project (HUGE market) of residential, smaller commercial etc..

Trying to force yourselves into solving the issues of massive scale projects may be suicide.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that BIM is totally transforming constructability reviews and massively reducing MEP conflicts with clash-detection etc.

The problem is, after all this 3D BIM work, how does that information get to the field? What are the actual workers building off of?

Paper. Outdated, expensive, paper. THATS the problem we are solving. Big projects, little projects, they all use paper, they all pay waaaay too much for paper, and they all have trouble keeping it up to date.

<comment><USER11> Sure, but do you expect the 500+ builders onsite on any given day to have a fragile $800 device with a screen size less than 8.5x11" as their primary interface to information?

I don't think that is realistic.

Others are working on augmented reality interfaces to provide that updated information. Where a set of glasses connected through the construction wifi network would provide the needed updates.

Sure, there is a much larger technical issue there WRT engineering a solution, but the fact of the matter is that paper is actually a cheap way of conveying a vast amount of information VERY efficiently.

They can write and scribble and troubleshoot on the plans.

There is a LOT more information to present on 30x42.

Their batteries wont die.

Training people to absorb information off plans is thousands of years developed, efficient and CHEAP.

I think that granularity of message is important - and I think you can really excel here.

Rather than presenting the whole plan on PDF - tell them EXACTLY what they need to know BY ROOM/BY LOCATION that pertains to them at that moment.

I'd like you to see the Inspection Request Module that we have to understand this; where on a PDF/Visio of a plan an inspector can just trace out the walls that they inspected in the field at that time. This finger-trace gets captured and recorded. Then synthesized into the colorized maps I showed aboved so that the whole project team can run reports on status of the project (you can also run reports that show which trades are succeeding and which are behind in every aspect of deliverables... sometimes you just need to fire a plumbing contractor because they keep failing inspections)

Anyway - paper is not always bad. It is an extremely efficient method of conveying information.

You need to preempt the NEED for paper, not reduce it on the back-end. This is what BIM and coordination and IPD are all about. Reducing back-end paper and change-orders.

Paper is not what is bad, bad information is what is bad. Eliminate bad information you eliminate waste.

LEAN processes are good.

<comment><USER3> >I think that granularity of message is important - and I think you can really excel here. > >Rather than presenting the whole plan on PDF - tell them EXACTLY what they need to know BY ROOM/BY LOCATION that pertains to them at that moment. >

 _This._

In my former life as an architectural designer and project manager for a design-build firm, we experimented with creating document sets that provided this level of room-by-room information. The documents were color printouts on 11x17 sheets, folded and contained in a binder. 160,000 SF remodel. Labor intensive to say the least, and only possible at all because we were doing mostly finish work.

But an app could make this level of granularity practical. The advantages to all stages of construction are numerous, from takeoffs to punch lists and inspection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At first glance I thought it was referring to a rival for the itunes marketplace for jailbroken ipads...

..but who would want to do that! Silly me!</comment>