Nutraloaf - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutraloaf <comment><USER2> Soylent is not a new concept - in hospitals it is a quite common need to provide patients with most / all their nutritional needs in liquid form. Off the top of my head, famous brands in the field of "meal replacements in liquid or powdered form" are Abbott Ensure ( [http://ensure.com/products/ensure- powder](http://ensure.com/products/ensure-powder) ) and Nestle's Boost - ( [http://www.boost.com/healthcare- professionals](http://www.boost.com/healthcare-professionals) ).

<comment><USER3> Those are more expensive though, not less.

<comment><USER4> They're made by people who know what they're doing, in clean factories, with quality ingredients.

I'm not surprised that products created by people who don't know what they're doing, in a kitchen, using god knows what ingredients, mixed in unsuitable ways, to be cheaper.

<comment><USER3> Soylent is made by people who know what they're doing, in clean factories, with quality ingredients. You seem to have a really deep emotional investment in strawmanning soylent, why is that?

<comment><USER4> Where has all the product they've shipped so far been made, and by who?

<comment><USER3> They haven't shipped any product. Once again we have people spewing absolute nonsense pulled seemingly from nowhere. It is great that you hate soylent so much, but if you want to criticize it, take 15 minutes to at least do a quick google search and read a tiny bit about it.

<comment><USER4> Two replies to my comment - one saying they haven't shipped anything, and another saying they have shipped something.

The reason I dislike Soylent so much is that it is a scam, advertised using dubious (and possibly illegal) claims.

Plenty of people were interested in it as an experiment - see the interest after his initial blog post. I thought it was a stupid idea then, but at least they weren't claiming it to be anything it wasn't.

They could have released it as an experimental product and been fine.

But they didn't. They chose to make a bunch of claims that have no basis in fact.

<comment><USER3> Both replies say they haven't shipped anything. Seems odd for someone who gets intensely bitter over someone making a successful business to hang around on HN.

<comment><USER4> > Seems odd for someone who gets intensely bitter over someone making a > successful business to hang around on HN.

Plenty of people on HN dislike scams. Soylent is marketed in a dishonest, scammy, way.

First, the minor dishonesties:

> _Suppose we had a default meal that was the nutritional equivalent of water: > cheap, healthy, convenient and ubiquitous._

Soylent tries to say it's something new; that this product doesn't exist. That's just not true.

> _Soylent will be personalized for different body types and customizable > based on individual goals._

This is the most interesting part of the Soylent claim. If they could make access to testing easier and cheaper they'd have a useful product.

> _For anyone who struggles with allergies, heartburn, acid reflux or > digestion, has trouble controlling weight or cholesterol, or simply doesn 't > have the means to eat well, soylent is for you._

They had to change the main source of protein because many people are lactose intolerant. Despite the disclaimer later on in the page this paragraph is making clear medical claims. They have no evidence to support those claims. They also have no need to make those claims! People would have bought Soylent if those claims were not there.

> _Soylent [...] puts you in excellent health,

Another dubious unsubstantiated medical claim.

> _and vastly reduces your environmental impact by eliminating much of the > waste and harm coming from agriculture, livestock, and food-related trash.*

This is an important point. But, like most of the Soylent stuff, they make the claim but have no evidence to support it. I can't find any kind of ecological assessment on any of the various Soylent blogs and websites.

> _50% of the food produced globally is wasted, and food makes for the largest > component of municipal garbage. If not for this waste there would be plenty > of food to adequately nourish everyone alive._

Food waste is not the reason for global malnutrition.

> _1 in 7 people globally are malnourished, and 1 in 3 in the developing world > suffer from deficiency. Countless others are living hand-to-mouth, > subsistence farming, hindering economic development. Even in the developed > world, agriculture is the most dangerous industry to work in by occupational > injuries and illnesses, and obesity is on the rise._

This is laughably ignorant. i) Soylent is very expensive when compared to the existing FRPs and FSPs used by WFP and UNICEF. (20% of the world lives on less than $1.25 per day) ii) Soylent needs clean water. About one billion people don't have access to clean water. Soylent make no mention of this, even though water is a crucial ingredient of the product. iii) Soylent appears to do nothing to increase local independence and resilience. How does Soylent help local farmers?

> By taking years to spoil,

I really need to see how they've tested that. I can't see how it's true. Especially in the context of food aid, where ideal storage conditions may not be available. Perhaps they mean "sealed packs last six months in less-than- ideal conditions" \- that's a fine claim to make (if true), they don't need the untested exaggeration.

> dramatically reducing cost, and easing transportation and storage, soylent > could have a dramatic effect on hunger and malnutrition.

Soylent is considerably more expensive than the products being used by WFP and UNICEF. I guess transportation and storage are similar.

> _Proceeds from the purchase of soylent enable us to work with aid partners > and reduce hunger and environmental impact both in the United States and the > developing world._

This is great. I wish more companies would do it. Soylent don't mention who they're going to be working with. I'd have thought that with the $800,000 they've raised they would have made a few initial donations. Perhaps they're researching who to give some money to? WaterAid would be one choice. WFP would be another.

> _Imagine everyone having a customized,_

So far, two options. i) Male. ii) Female. It's a great idea - what do they mean by it? Do they know what they mean?

Then there are a bunch of user testimonials and quotes from the press.

They actually do a reasonable job of the risks and challenges section, better than many other crowd-funders do. They don't mention the risk of people becoming ill after using Soylent.

> _there is much evidence that is considerably healthier than a typical diet._

They don't define a typical diet. There is not any evidence that Soylent is considerably healthier than any diet, because there's no evidence for Soylent at all yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are many single sources of nutrition that are cheaper than Soylent.

Have a look at the WFP information here ([https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional- products](https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products)) and here ([http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/co...](http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/communications/wfp255508.pdf))

And the manufacturer page for some of these products here ([http://www.dsm.com/corporate/home.html](http://www.dsm.com/corporate/home.html))

This report from IRIN shows the extreme need to lower costs with these foods - they're aiming at $4 per kg. ([http://www.irinnews.org/report/83124/malawi- cheaper-recipe-f...](http://www.irinnews.org/report/83124/malawi-cheaper- recipe-for-treating-hungry-children))

<comment><USER5> With apologies to the original...

"You tell everybody. Listen to me. Hatcher. You've gotta tell 'em! SOYLENT IS MARKETING SPIN! We gotta stop them! Somehow! Listen! Listen to me… PLEASE!!!"

I'm not judging and I wish the creators well - there's just not a lot of real new thinking in Soylent - most of its promise is just pure marketing, like most products I suppose ;-)

<comment><USER4> It is remarkably effective marketing. We've been able to walk into any drugstore and buy equivalent products for many years, so for Soylent to generate the buzz they have is amazing.

It's certainly a good thing to put on their resume.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's a cheap alternative from an actual dietian:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1jvsie/the_man_w...](http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1jvsie/the_man_who_thinks_he_never_has_to_eat_again_is/cbj3120)

Spoiler: he doesn't think highly of either Soylent or its creator.

<comment><USER7> I don't think it's actually a safer alternative to base your diet on a reddit comment. Just saying.

<comment><USER6> ... as opposed to a random blog post?

<comment><USER7> I don't think it can be considered as random once a whole million dollar compaign was launched around it (compared to a reddit comment I mean, whatever is written still means nothing till you have a product). And I kind of find Rhinehart post a little more detailed : [http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424](http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424)

<comment><USER6> > _I don 't think it can be considered as random once a whole million dollar > compaign was launched around it._

This is an argument for relying on existing products, which have development budgets in the tens of millions, decades of research and experience and dozens of dietitians and scientists working on perfecting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slightly off topic. On the soylent funding-website it says you can 'buy' one weeks worth of soylent for $65, that's $260 for a month. Is this not an insanely high cost for a months worth of food? When I was living by myself I spend waaay less than this (although I was in Sweden if that matters)

Or am I missing something.

<comment><USER9> I spend about 700-1000$ on food a month because I don't like to cook or eat low quality food. If I swapped to a meal replacement a few days a week I would save quite a bit even at those prices.

IMO, There may be a lot of ready to eat foods out there from soup to frozen food etc, but if you actually consider how much salt and preservatives are in most of them there really not healthy. Existing meal replacement shakes etc are heather, but tend to be focused on dieters vs direct meal replacement. So, IMO there is plenty of room for Soylent, but I fear there going to get the taste or nutrition wrong as it's a vary hard problem.

<comment><USER10> What do you eat that costs that much? I spend ~¥25,000 ($250) a month on food for two people (not including eating out once a week or so) and that's making no special attempt to save money on food. We eat a lot of fresh veges, fish and meat.

<comment><USER11> Given that you eat out only once a week and buy lots of fresh veg and fish I take it you like to cook, which is exactly what the original poster claimed he wanted to avoid. How much do you think it would cost you to eat as well as you do now, but with almost all meals eaten at restaurants? I imagine that $1000 a month isn't too unreasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Soylent is amusing, but it ignores the fact that people take pleasure from eating food, a payoff which is hard-wired in our brains.

No supplement, whatever its nutritional value, is going to be able to fill that need.

<comment><USER13> The creator of Soylent addresses this. He says he now treats eating 'real food' like he does drinking alcohol -- an enhancement for social activity.

I am curious to try Soylent or something like it just for that 'Oh, this is unusual! What a pleasure!' kind of effect when eating regular food.

<comment><USER6> Another way to achieve this is to try different foods.

You might also be interested in reading about "Mindfulness-Based Eating". It seems a bit woo-y to me but psych friends of my acquaintance say it shows promise.

<comment><USER13> I am lucky enough to live in a city with a large variety of food both from grocery stores and restaurants and I take advantage of that, perhaps too much.

Even with all of that variety the closest I seem to come to mindfulness while eating is when I pay a lot or go out to eat with foodie friends (but I repeat myself).

It comes from a very utilitarian approach to food that I've (perhaps foolishly) taken my whole life. Eat fast and get on with important work. That's probably another reason a Soylent type product appeals to me.

I am curious about the book but trying to maintain mindfulness while eating every meal, frankly, seems like an extravagance. Of course, that is just a guess on the advice it contains based on the title.

<comment><USER6> Oh, is there a book by that title? She just told me about the idea at some point; apparently it's an up and comer in the food / eating psychology world. Her research and therapeutic work is focused on eating disorders.

I understand the utilitarian approach. I've done it myself.

My current diet is goal-directed.

But that doesn't mean I think I'm smarter or better than dietitians who read more than the abstracts on pubmed. I haven't entirely replaced food. I just have a dozen or so meals that I can make quickly, scale up or down, which have known macronutrient breakdowns and which I can rotate according to my daily whims and tastes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Learn cooking ! Its a great way to unwind and take your mind off things. Get a COSCTO membership and a Pasta/Rice cooker. You will eat healthy, impress your dates.

Nobody will remember or care about how you sacrificed your well-being/health to put in extra effort at work. Except your body and it will remind you of this as you grow older.

<comment><USER15> Cooking is a stressor for many people. Sorry, can't go to the movies tonight, have to make lunch for tomorrow. No time to read books, have to shop, prep, cook and clean every evening after work. Food enthusiasts love it and are good at it and paint this idyllic picture of it all that's not really in sync with the daily reality for many people who work full time jobs and aren't particularly interested in cooking. Me, I do like to cook, but it takes a LOT of time, and I would love to have more time for other stuff without paying a fortune to eat out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My question is why don't prisons ONLY serve nutraloaf? Probably healthier than the pink slime stuff they serve in public schools.

<comment><USER17> The prisoners would go crazy from the lack of variety. Nutraloaf sucks, and as bad as prison food is the same bland loaf of crap day in and day out will just make everyone angry. People aren't robots, and putting at least a little effort towards keeping prisoners from causing trouble is well worth it.

<comment><USER6> Plus, if it's the baseline, how do you use it for punishment?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> loving that some mod changed the headline from "A cheaper alternative to Soylent?" to "Nutraloaf", thereby removing the satire - wouldn't want to offend our investor overlords.

of course, there's no record of the edit, & my name is still attached to the article. nice to see Paul Graham's as ethical & self-aware as ever.</comment>


Who Uses IBM Power? - <AUTHOR> https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/products.html <comment><AUTHOR> Seems it was also discussed earlier on HackerNews about how POWER9 isn't unreasonably expensive - but couldn't seem to glean who are the real server customers.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15859307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15859307)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Don't get me wrong, I love IBM POWER and am currently contributing to the LibreSOC/LibreGPU

[https://libre-riscv.org/shakti/m_class/](https://libre- riscv.org/shakti/m_class/)

project, but what is the real market for POWER besides niche military use?

Who are POWER9 server customers for example? Seems a bit more expensive than competing Xeon.</comment>


A Theory of Type Polymorphism in Programming (1977) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/papers-we-love/milner-type-polymorphism.pdf <comment><USER2> If you find this interesting, you should give the paper "Basic Polymorphic Typechecking" by Luca Cardelli a read[0]. It's probably the clearest explanation I've read of how parametric polymorphism and type inference works (spoiler: typechecking is actually the same thing as type inference in this model).

[http://lucacardelli.name/Papers/BasicTypechecking.pdf](http://lucacardelli.name/Papers/BasicTypechecking.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Also, FWIW, "Automatic Type Inference via Partial Evaluation" [https://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~cormac/papers/ppdp05.pdf](https://users.soe.ucsc.edu/~cormac/papers/ppdp05.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love reading this kind of stuff. Is there any decent site that compiles papers and books about topics like this that are worth reading?

<comment><USER5> So a really really good book in starting in this area is Types and Programming Languages by Benjamin Pearce</comment></comment>


UK private health records available to buy for £4 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/the-tony-collins-blog/2011/01/will-self-policing-stop-nhs-records-being-viewed-in-india/index.htm <comment><USER2> _Data does not leave the UK - it resides on servers hosted in the UK and is accessed from India._

Er, right.

</comment><comment><USER3> Without going into details, we've done a fair few jobs involving UK systems with BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) to India as well as other countries and in pretty much every case we were able to smuggle Personally Identifiable Information (PII) out of the remote estate or access things that shouldn't be accessed.

I should note that this is not something against Indians, most of the time it was due to the problems with working across two security boundaries and the lack of acceptance of the problems and realities of doing so, combined with what were effectively unrealistic promises and a complete lack of understanding of the two cultures, gaps and overlaps.

To put it another way, any system where data is held in trusted environment A, but accessed from partially trusted environment B is dependent on the security of both A and B. However, while environment A is fully trusted, environment B isn't, and for (sometimes) good reason. The problem arises when instead of proper controls what happens is a bizarre form of security theatre starts to arise, and subsequently gaps start popping up all over environment B that would be otherwise considered acceptable in environment A.

It is not realistic to securely manage information with a strong trust requirement in an untrusted environment on a permanent basis. It is even less realistic to do so on the basis of contractual obligation as an alternative to routine checks and balances.

</comment><comment><USER4> I now add to my list of reasons NOT to outsource overseas (time zone, language, culture, currency, work ethic, lag, import/export restrictions) this new item: data security standards.

</comment><comment><USER5> you couldn't make it up. Can't these people write a contract and police it?

<comment><USER6> You could make it up because it's been going on for years and years with no consequences to anyone involved.

The digital age is good for a lot of things, but it was a lot harder to carry a filing cabinet, and thus harder to steal records.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I need to get out of this nasty little country...

(No that is not fishing for job offers.)</comment>


Static Analysis - <AUTHOR> https://nim-lang.org/blog/2020/06/08/static-analysis.html <comment><USER2> The real benefit of static analysis is non-local. It's automatically catching that A, which has some entry condition, is being called correctly by B, way over in another file maintained by someone else. This is why the borrow checker in Rust, which is a form of static analysis, is so valuable. It keeps you from global ambiguity over who owns what.

Compare linters and style checkers, which merely enforce local no-nos. The value in the more elaborate tools is automatically catching errors where each piece of code looks fine in isolation. Proof of correctness work tends to focus on local issues, because that's the academic history. But that's not where it is really valuable.

<comment><USER3> > the borrow checker in Rust, which is a form of static analysis, is so > valuable

> Compare linters and style checkers

Odd comparison: static analysis is way more powerful than these two examples.

It can spot plenty of subtle bugs due to incorrect reasoning around a problem.

<comment><USER4> Genuinely curious: is static analysis really more powerful than the Rust type system + borrow checker?

A more concrete example: is Coverity + C more powerful than Rust?

<comment><USER5> There's _no_ model more powerful than static analysis if, by static analysis, they mean abstract interpretation: the Galois connection guarantees this.

<comment><USER6> > abstract interpretation

That's not what static analysis (which includes things like type-checking) means _and_ that's not something you can do with general-purpose code, for reasons related to Rice's theorem.

<comment><USER5> Type-checking is one of the classical examples of abstract interpretation — it's mentioned in the original Cousot & Cousot paper (1977). Maybe you're thinking of something else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have no good reason to know about "full formal chains," and yet attempting to read the article still managed to grind my programmer ego into the dirt. :) Major respect to people who operate in that world.

Related to Nim in general: I'm excited to use Nim more. Prior to finding Nim, I had this list of languages to explore in more depth: Python, Ruby, Lisp, Pascal (though I still plan to explore those). Oh, and find a good scripting language, in addition to one from the compiled language group. Oh, and avoid anything too "enterprise". So if you know anything about Nim, you know why this feels pretty amazing.

<comment><USER8> > Python, Ruby, Lisp, Pascal (though I still plan to explore those). Oh, and > find a good scripting language, in addition to one from the compiled > language group

It's interesting that you want to explore Python and Ruby more but seem to consider finding a good scripting language as a separate goal. They're both definitely scripting languages, so if you don't expect either to be good, why do you want to explore them more?

<comment><USER7> Could you clarify? I couldn't relate these back to my comment:

* but seem to consider ... separate goal

* if you don't expect either to be good

<comment><USER8> Sorry for the confusion; the part of the comment I was responding to was this:

> I had this list of languages to explore in more depth: Python, Ruby, Lisp, > Pascal (though I still plan to explore those). Oh, and find a good scripting > language, in addition to one from the compiled language group.

The phrasing of "oh, and find a good scripting language" makes it sound like that's a completely separate goal than exploring Python, Ruby, etc. in depth. It reads to me like you plan to explore those four languages, then afterwards go find a good scripting language. This doesn't seem like it would be necessary if you find either Python or Ruby to be a good scripting language when you explore them, which implies that you don't expect to have found either of them to be good. Given that, I was curious about your motivation to explore those languages if you didn't expect them to be good.

Based on your confusion, it seems like you weren't intending these to be read as separate goals. I'm still not sure why you'd explicitly call out "finding a good scripting language" after mentioning you wanted to explore Python and Ruby, but my initial question appears not to be relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not yet released but the DrNim documentation is available online [1]. DrNim is the tool that will provide Static Analysis to Nim (based on z3). This will be probably presented in the upcoming Nim Online conference in June 20 [2].

[1] [https://nim-lang.org/docs/drnim.html](https://nim- lang.org/docs/drnim.html) [2] [https://forum.nim- lang.org/t/6418#39615](https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/6418#39615)

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't understand how people use languages without static analysis. The only edge case I can think is using any scripting language to write a script that is less than 1k lines. Are there any pros for languages that don't have static analysis other than the fact that it allows "rapid development/prototyping"?

<comment><USER11> So you don't know any successful projects in JavaScript, Clojure, Erlang, Elixir, Groovy, Julia, R, etc. etc. etc.? ;)

There are well-known advantages and repeating them here will incite another flame-war.

I can only speak from my 35 years of coding experience, spending most of that time in the confines of static typing:

Most problems I solve today are not good fits for static types. They cause major headaches along the road as your customer's needs change and as I get a better understanding of the problem domain.

<comment><USER12> > Most problems I solve today are not good fits for static types.

This would seem to involve a widespread misconception about what static types are really about. Languages that "don't have static types" are _not_ inherently more flexible than languages that do expose them; one can always translate a "dynamic" program structure to a statically-typed language in a way that preserves arbitrary flexibility in refactoring, prototyping and the like. Many languages even provide a standard `Dynamic` type for this very purpose.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, which makes them so generic they become meaningless, like generic_map, generic_attribute...no thanks.

If you want to define, transform and reason about your domain model at runtime, dynamic languages are the way to go.

I know, I've been using static typing for most of my career. They become a burden, refactoring or not. Now go back to your Haskell corner ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like Dafny [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/dafny-a- lan...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/dafny-a-language-and- program-verifier-for-functional-correctness/)

</comment><comment><USER14> How common in the industry is the use of 'invar' to signal an invariant, 'ensure' to signal a postcondition, and 'require' to signal a pre-condition ?

<comment><USER15> Eiffel uses 'ensure' and 'require' for these meanings.

.NET Code Contracts (may it rest in peace) uses 'Ensures' and 'Requires' for these meanings as well.

<comment><USER14> what about for invariants ?

<comment><USER16> assert() is pretty much the industry standard for invariants, right? they're usually evaluated at runtime but it should be perfectly possible for a static analysis tool to "evaluate" them statically.

<comment><USER17> assert() by itself is typically not the same as "defining an invariant". An invariant is an expression which should be true for the whole life-time of the block/function/program/anything, but assert() only defines an assertion at a specific point.

<comment><USER3> Plus, assert() is commonly used for runtime checks, not static analysis.

<comment><USER18> You can use static_assert but compilers observe assert already. assume is another commonly used invariant.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In switch, cable operators want to go "a la carte" - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/27/us-cable-idUSTRE78Q6EE20110927

<comment><USER2> Ha! I love it. The Internet TV enthusiast's revenge. Cable companies seeing their hold on viewers/subscribers falling to Roku and Hula. Of course, they are so hidebound in their profitory mindset that they won't let the a la carte method go cheap. They'll make it ridiculously expensive per channel, and thus lose the customer to the Internet anyway. If they were really smart, they'd figure out how to adapt and adopt the Netflix method. You can have that DVD forever for a modest price (remember late fees at the video store)? But you won't get the next one until you return the one you have. Maybe cable could go American Chinese a la Netflix: 2 from column A and 1 from column B, but you can't watch any other channels until you are finished with those in a 24-hr period. Well, just a thought.

</comment><comment><USER3> They just did the math and realized they can gorge consumers better with a la carte programming.</comment>


Talking About Feelings in the Conference Room (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/04/11/its-time-to-talk-about-your-feelings-in-the-conference-room/ideas/nexus/ <comment><USER2> I often went to one of my managers to talk about how penned-in and overworked I feel at my current job in retail.

He got replaced. Now I go to my union rep to vent.

</comment><comment><USER3> Checking in, because I can't actually do it at work :/

Right now I feel like I can't share my feelings. That they are somehow an annoyance to my boss and some of my colleagues. I want to feel more like I'm part of a team and not just a software-writing robot.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm the guy who is constant complaints and always has problems. It's pointless talking about it cause they'll just ask "what do you need" I need things that aren't even culturally acceptable. "Get help" Help doesn't help. I just want the end.</comment>


Ask HN: If one person was to redesign all fundamental software in a lifetime - <AUTHOR> If one person was to redesign all fundamental software in a lifetime
Consider the following thought experiment / scenario: Tomorrow morning, on your favorite tech news site, you read that a single person developed a system which covers all of these needs:

  * Protocols / Formats
  * Programming Concept / Language
  * Compiler / Interpreter
  * Virtual Machine / Run Time Environment
  * Data Base / File System
  * Version Control / Package Manager
  * Networking Stack / UI Framework
  * Operating System / Resource Management
 Excluding the following "incidentals":

  * Hardware Abstraction / Specific Drivers
  * Standard Library (because it is to vague and also redundant)
  * End User Applications like Browser, Mail-Client, etc.
 I am not talking about combining existing components into yet another distribution, but rethinking them from ground up. The question is not how feasible this is technically nor how it would be received and integrated into the existing world. It is just about the system on its own, standalone, like a piece of art. Also, I am interested in the implications of Conway's law: The idea that software projects will always reflect the social and communication structure of the organization and people who built it.
Let your imagination run wild... What do you think it would be, look and feel like to you? Do you think:

  A) It will suffer from a lack of mental diversity (like a monoculture) and be a security nightmare because nobody else reviewed it while it was designed (many eyes theory)?
  B) The fact that a single person managed to pull it off in a lifetime proofs its superior simplicity and instead of the usual patchwork we would finally get one unified and well engineered solution?
  C) It is phony / bogus because such a thing is just impossible to do.
  D) Something entirely different
 <comment><USER2> Check out VPRI STEPS, TempleOS, and Urbit. You end up with a mix of good and bad.</comment>


Learn REST in 18 Slides - <AUTHOR> http://obeautifulcode.com/API/Learn-REST-In-18-Slides/

<comment><USER2> There is an advantage in separating "protocol" from "binding" (in this case, "HTTP binding"). While REST is typically explained as an HTTP-only protocol, this is not the only possible "binding". I've successfully designed and implemented REST-style APIs using non-HTTP based RPC methods in the past. The main benefits in REST are not coupled with using HTTP GET/POST/PUT/DELETE but with the clearly defined model of resources, operations, client/server and limitations (e.g. statelessness) to make it a simple (but powerful) model.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with everything you've said. I intentionally did not separate "protocol" from "binding" in this deck. I wanted to take more of a pragmatic approach and less of an academic approach. In practice, REST is most often implemented on HTTP. Because devs can relate to HTTP, I coupled protocol and binding to keep things simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A lot of people request a certain reply format by adding an extension like .json or .xml to the request. Seems easier that using Accept.

With Accept you need to parse the ";q=X" part as well.

See Accept when I access a website with Firefox: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9, _/_ ;q=0.8

Your REST API needs to understand this, according to these slides.

<comment><USER4> Mimeparse has implementations in a lot of languages [https://code.google.com/p/mimeparse/](https://code.google.com/p/mimeparse/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Direct link anyone?

I can't GET this file.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the link to SlideShare: [http://www.slideshare.net/OBeautifulCode/learn- rest](http://www.slideshare.net/OBeautifulCode/learn-rest)

you can "save" the presentation locally

<comment><USER6> Though you can only save the presentation if you log in. Creating an account requires authorizing SlideShare to edit your LinkedIn or Facebook account.

One can use a LinkedIn account from BugMeNot ([http://bugmenot.com/view/linkedin.com](http://bugmenot.com/view/linkedin.com)) to safely log into SlideShare so you can download the PDF.

(It would have been more convenient if you had just published a PDF download link alongside the SlideShare embed.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah! I didn't realize that. Here's the direct link: [http://obeautifulcode.com/doc/Learn- REST.pdf](http://obeautifulcode.com/doc/Learn-REST.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Holy wall of text slides Batman!

<comment><USER8> Agreed. The title makes it seem that the 18 slides are easily digestible when in fact, it's pretty dense and it's a slog just to even glance through them.

<comment><USER9> A slog indeed.

For anyone interested, this is the article I hand out when someone asks me about designing a REST API: [http://www.vinaysahni.com/best-practices-for-a- pragmatic-res...](http://www.vinaysahni.com/best-practices-for-a-pragmatic- restful-api?hn)

And here is the HN discussion from when it was originally posted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5819231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5819231)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's dramatic. Learning any new topic, particularly one as involved as REST, require some investment of time. Your blog post has FAR more content than my slides do. And your approach is from a "best practices" point-of-view. So the arc of our stories is necessarily different. I'm glad that blogs enable people to learn the same topic in multiple ways. It's a good for everyone. I just wish people would avoid self-promotion on top of other people's backs. =)

<comment><USER9> I have found the article I linked to be incredibly digestible for people learning REST, which is why I recommend it; regardless of the point-of-view. It's what I think is missing from your slides. You might be able to solve this in the context of an actual presentation, but taken as just the slides, it's very dense.

Also, this isn't self-promotion at all. I'm not in any way associated with that blog. I just like the content.

Different perspectives and learning styles, I suppose. I'm not trying to be argumentative, just briefly laying out my thoughts. Cheers</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/08/stop-fearing-artificial-intelligence/ <comment><USER2> I'm not afraid of artificial intelligence destroying mankind.

I'm afraid that future tech elites will use artificial intelligence to turn an already hollowed-out middle class into a permanent undercaste, who's every thought and action is observed, calculated, and put into a spreadsheet so that their betters can best assess their professional utility - whether that's as a potential employee or dog food.

Not the same thing.</comment>


The Most Common OAuth2 Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://homakov.blogspot.com/2012/07/saferweb-most-common-oauth2.html

<comment><USER2> This is important; while it's not really a general vulnerability, you could run into a lot of trouble if someone's performing a targeted attack. I don't think I'd ever really read anything in any consumer-facing OAuth2 documentation about the important of state, and given the breadth of sites vulnerable to the issue, it seems like a lot of other people don't know about it either.

Patching this in my Rails apps was easy; it's a trivial solution, but I'm leaving it here to demonstrate that it's not a hard fix.

When generating the URL to redirect to for authorization:

      session["#{service}_oauth2_state"] = ActiveSupport::SecureRandom.urlsafe_base64(24)

Then, pass state as a param when generating my OAuth authorization URL.

When the authorizing endpoint returns:

        session_state = session["#{service}_oauth2_state"]
        if params[:state] != session_state or session_state.blank?
          render :text => "Unable to validate login state." and return
        end

It's worth noting that I did have to update Koala (the Facebook API library we're using) to get arbitrary parameters passed through to #url_for_oauth_code. Older versions had a hardcoded list of parameters, which did not include state.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's not hard to fix, agreed. at the same time it must be fixed in gems, not by developers

<comment><USER3> By gem developers that is :)</comment></comment></comment>


Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? (1977) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.thocp.net/biographies/papers/backus_turingaward_lecture.pdf <comment><USER2> FWIW, I think the idea he presents of performing algebra (or other formal syntactic or semantic operations) to derive and transform programs deserves more attention than it seems to get.

I was doing some experiments with Joy ( [https://joypy.osdn.io/](https://joypy.osdn.io/) ) and some meta-programming that would have been pretty gnarly in most other notations was very straightforward:

[https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Quadratic.html#derive-a- defi...](https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Quadratic.html#derive-a-definition)

[https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Recursion_Combinators.html#d...](https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Recursion_Combinators.html#derivation- of-hylomorphism-combinator)

[https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Generator_Programs.html#maki...](https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Generator_Programs.html#making- generators)

[https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Newton- Raphson.html#finding-...](https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Newton- Raphson.html#finding-consecutive-approximations-within-a-tolerance)

Joy is similar to Backus' FP and to the point-free Haskell of Conal Elliot's "Compiling to categories" [http://conal.net/papers/compiling-to- categories/](http://conal.net/papers/compiling-to-categories/) [https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Categorical.html](https://joypy.osdn.io/notebooks/Categorical.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The actual mental slavery, is the notion of instructions. You have Operand A, Operand B, and a hidden Operand I, which operates on given Operands, encoded in a endless chain of drudgery.

Now imagine a system, which is deterministic, but purely phyics based, data flows continously at maximum possible speed, by beeing copied from A to *, and operations, are executed purely as a attribute of data- meaning, this river carrying sand, carrys certain certain sand, again purely as a property to a stone in the river, where it is grinded, split, etc..

Then again, the new data, having diffrent "physical" properties, is sped along to other streams.

The art to program such a machine, would be to understand the physics of data, of the system, to place a stone upriver, and to know, where downriver to reach, to collect the gem, liberated and polished.

Such dataphysics also has interesting inherent properties. Interaction can never reach farther then the number of processors in parallel times the maximum length of data. So dataphysics has a lightcone, within which it is fully parallel. One could take data out and insert it into this determinstic simulations, simply by staying out of sight and keeping causality. But i digress.

<comment><USER4> Do you mean like Sutherland and Sproull's counterflow pipeline processor developed at Sun in the 90s?

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.39.4...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.39.4810)

<comment><USER5> Shameless plug: Try flowgrid.org -- Unfortunately it tends to be more cumbersome than "traditional" programming. I hope the tutorial is some fun though. Perhaps because one just gets used to traditional programming too much? Data flow programming seems to be successful for Node Red though...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13210988](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13210988)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12159792](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12159792)

2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182712)

2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671379](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671379)

2009: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=768057](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=768057)

(Links for the curious.)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if anyone noticed how people first came up with the architecture of a single bus for data and code and how they then had endless problems due to writing data where code should be and executing data as code. And they plug the problems by forbidding to write data and code in the same place and to read data as code (afaik).

So yeah, should maybe computers be liberated from the single pipeline?

<comment><USER8> > So yeah, should maybe computers be liberated from the single pipeline?

Internally, they basically are. Instruction and data caches are separate and only connect at the L2 level. Aliasing between the two pipelines is only allowed if software requests it, with the specific architecture determining the amount of automatic vs. manual synchronization required. What would you prefer, physically disjoint DRAM?

<comment><USER7> I think I've read about programs misapplying the execution bits accidentally, such that malicious data can slip by. Buffer overflows still don't seem to be shrugged away despite the bits.

Maybe finish the move and do exactly what was proposed before the single pipeline: don't ever mix data and code in the same memory. No need for physically separating the RAM. Just have designated areas, maybe even allocate code areas on the fly―only not by the program itself.

Even JIT can be accommodated this way, I think: since you know that code comes from the program and not errant buffers, and if the program is marked as JIT- type, let it write to a code area allocated just for this program. But probably not copy from the data memory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A rebuttal by Dijkstra to Backus' paper is here (actually, a deconstruction): [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd06xx/EWD692.PDF](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd06xx/EWD692.PDF)

<comment><USER10> A rough summary of his points:

* It is not given that the "Von Neumann Bottleneck" is what generates flabby, verbose programs.

* Computers execute programs, human reason about them. There's no reason to expect the same tools to apply. This has similarities to Linus' objections to C++ in the Linux kernel - kernel code is an implement of high level concepts and there's no to have the language structures _partly_ support or impose these high level concepts; instead one should understand abstractly and then bring them to implementation.

* The operations of functional programming aren't efficient in their naive implementation. They can be made efficient with an optimizing compiler but this effectively results in the programmer thinking about more, not less, elements.

* Dijkstra takes issue with Backus' assumption that functional programs will make program proving accessible to the average programmer. I think Dijkstra wants to up the skill of the average programmer rather than expecting that functional programs will make proving easier. (this one I'm less sure of but it seems like you have any situation where only "unaverage" programmers are going to be using functional languages).

Dijkstra closes: _" In short, the article is a progress report on a valid research effort but suffers badly from aggressive overselling of its significance, long before convincing result have been reached."_

And I think the situation now is that FP has shown itself to be definitely useful in some domains but still suffers from publicity that implies it is a paradigm that will "eat" ordinary software engineering.

That it has huge mind-share for what it isn't might be as bad as it not being widely used for what it is useful for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "John told me he considered FP a failure because, to paraphrase him, FP made it simple to do hard things but almost impossible to do simple things." \-- Grady Booch, [https://twitter.com/Grady_Booch/status/1153348388827480065](https://twitter.com/Grady_Booch/status/1153348388827480065)

</comment><comment><USER12> We probably will see the end of the von Neumann Style, but it won't be because programmers don't like it. It will because in it's modern incarnation it's horribly inefficient.

This breakdown of power consumption of a 32 bit ADD by various bits of the CPU was taken from a Tesla presentation about their navigation computer, [https://youtu.be/Ucp0TTmvqOE?t=5247](https://youtu.be/Ucp0TTmvqOE?t=5247)

icache: 25.0 pJ, register file: 6.0 pJ, control: 39 pJ, ALU add: 0.1 pJ

(sometimes I curse HN limited formatting. it doesn't do much, and yet the little it does often manages to get in the way.)

The ADD takes 0.15% of the total energy consumption. His breakdown doesn't show it, but I'm guessing the rest could be divided up into three things: getting the data to the ALU, and decoding of the instruction stream (which can probably be better thought of as a form of decompression), and control overhead mostly devoted to extracting parallelism from a serial set of instructions.

0.15% is woeful, particularly so when you realise the main constraint on speed now is power, or more precisely getting rid of it. We already have architectures that do better than tvon Neumann (eg, GPU's, NPU's), but even those are orders of magnitude away from what the brain achieves in terms of MIP's/watt.

The main constraint here is not building it. IBM did build a computer that mimics how the brain does things. It was a neural network and so massively parallel, but just as importantly information was sent by varying the number of pulses sent in a unit of time. That's important because if no information is sent there are no pulses, so potentially bugger all power was used.

The main constraint is programming it. We can't do it, and we have no idea where to begin. This debate about FP vs statefull programming seems to be a never ending source of entertainment in our field, but it's beside the point as neither have much relevance to solving this problem.

</comment><comment><USER13> If the Alonzo Church model and Turing model of computing are computationally equivalent, then does it really matter? I may not be understanding correctly.

</comment><comment><USER14> Programming will never be 'liberated' from the von Neumann style because the most successful programs will always be written in that style.

That's like asking if dentistry can be liberated from the toothbrush because we have dental floss.

<comment><USER15> Be careful speaking negatively about functional programming... there's an almost cult like following obsession that's almost anti-establishment, bordem with imperative paradigms, or more in pursuit of leaving a mark/legacy.

I've used functional and imperative programming for varied tasks throughout my career. Sometimes, functional programming approaches are fantastic and intuitive for tasks, other times, they're counterintuitive and become cumbersome depending on what you're doing.

While academically, functional programming can be interesting in many respects, for most development needs it can hamper development progress more than assist (humans have lots of tendencies and history that gives imperative approaches an edge).

For humans, computers exist to help us perform tasks we can't very well or quickly and do so consistently. As long as you can do that, people in general don't care about what underlying theoretical computational abstractions you choose--lets not lose sight of that fact. Only those in computing will really care.

Functional programming isn't new per se, there's just a trend of rediscovery and advancement going on. There's something to be said about supporting the underdog. Whether imperative paradigms will _always_ dominate as the higher level abstraction of choice is questionable since the software field is still, relatively speaking, new. It likely isn't going to change much in any near future, however.

<comment><USER14> I don't see FP (and I mean pure FP style) as the underdog. I think the FP community tend to blame FP's repeated failure to reach mainstream on either developers' stubbornness or FP's poor implementation in many languages.

The way I see it however, is that FP has had plenty of attention and plenty of opportunities to go mainstream but it failed to do so simply because it's not as effective as imperative programming when it comes to building most real- world software.

It's not like the market doesn't know. Every developer on the planet knows what FP is and knows all the benefits. Some imperative languages like JavaScript have even adopted some aspects of FP for certain use cases (some aspects of the front end UI related to dynamic templates; e.g. VueJS, React).

But FP is ideal only for certain narrow niches. FP proponents should just leave it at that and stop trying to promote FP as if there is a fundamental law of science which says that it's superior to imperative programming because it's not.

My personal experience with FP is that it's not good for creating large modular software. You can't create effective abstractions that are accurate models of real world entities without encapsulating their state as well. State is an essential and inseparable part of the abstraction when we talk about modeling real-world entities in software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> HNers, let me tell what Backus finally had in mind come to fruition; I only figured this out recently: [https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2014/EECS-2014-...](https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2014/EECS-2014-130.pdf)

Here's the thing, Backus was not coming from the lisp and embryonic ML communities that were function programming research at the time. This was career-retrospective speech be a new-commer to the field. I think the existing community was surprised and bemused.

Certainly your regular function programminger would have chuckled at all the "point-free" style FP. This was a decade before Haskell mind you, and at least a decade before lots of function reuse became popular (being blocked on better strictness analysis and a lack of type classes and instances). Remember in then-cutting-edge Scheme, (define ...) has an implicit (begin ...) rather than single-expression body, and don't get me started on the other imperative lisps. APL before FP just made the existing community laugh harder.

So fast forward a while, and even today implicit parallelism is not happening much in production in Haskell. Applicative is much more popular than Arrow, and thus everyone is still writing Von Neuman code even if its dressed up functionally.

Well, let me tell, that thesis puts a lot of the pieces together:

The real genius of point-free isn't getting rid of the names. We have debruign indices for that. Nor is it allowing other modules of computation. Computer scientists found good ole' 1970s Category Theory (In principle, Backus could have done this too!) and now we know about (symmetric) monoidal categories and their internal languages and all the stuff we need to point-free-ify the programs in lambda-calculus-influenced calculii.

The real genius is dealing with dynamism / higher-order programs. With the raw lambda calculus, you are in a fun house of higher-orderism and it's hard to jump out of the substitution / term-rewritting mindset. CPS, which occupied much of the functional research community for at least a man-decade, only further serializes and higher-order-ifizes things. Monadic programs bind promiscuously; every step is potentially dynamic af, one again also serializing and higher-order-ifizing things.

With arrow-like things, however (and Control.Cateogry.* and Profunctor is really much better at distilling the concepts than the legacy Arrow class, thanks Ed), suddenly we have a decently expressive form of computation with no lambdas in site. We've lifted the "fog of war", freeing the first order "90%" of the work from the higher order "10%".

Arrow notation as implemented in Haskell today, however, abuses `arr` for the structural rules of the guest language (weakening, contraction, and exchange per Wikipedia [1]). This reshrowds everything and ruins all the promise of Arrows. Yuck.

Back to the thesis, there are 2 big contributions:

1) A practical version of Arrow which doesn't need arr for structural rules. (Control.Cateogry.* since does this better and with more faithfulness to the math, but had to start somewhere.)

2) A theory of heterogenous metaprogramming so the first order and higher order bits don't even have to be the same language. We're talking things like and FPGA that computes its own re-flashing.

There is also a protoype implementation of various lambdas so humans can still use names, but I hear its bitrotted and so I can't vouch for it.

So, back to John Backus. The thing is programmers are lazy. They rather write in the language they know, or learn the language their teachers know. Also, humans need at least the option of some names (even if we have to name too many things today), so mandatory combinators will cause problems as long as we struck programming in shitty, 1-dimentional text. Finally, without at least the _taste_ of actually compiling to other programming models, along with scaling programs with the Von Neumann model, the economic and curiosity incentives just aren't there. And in 1978 the Von Neuman model was still fucking killing it. Wires were fast, and components be they spinning disks, ALUs, or DRAM were all kinda slow but in similar and predictable ways. Programming DOS was a shit-show, of course, but so were non-trivial compilers. Nothing was ready.

Now we know how to do program better, have the power to run the compilers, and the legacy machines have a cost model I like to think of as "molasses in capillaries with huge bottlenecks". We're ready.

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

<comment><USER17> Are the arrows presented in the paper, something you think I should really familiarize myself with and use?

I did a deep dive into lambda calculus over the past year and I noticed similar limitations you mention. So this seems interesting.

I have seen arrows before but they just seem like a re-hash of the other lambda-like calculi. But maybe this paper's version of arrows is different?

<comment><USER16> I think it's worth it. Everything is lambda-in-a-straight-jacket-like. The question is how can you mix and match straight jackets, and how convoluted is programming.

Also look at [https://github.com/conal/concat](https://github.com/conal/concat)

<comment><USER18> Categorical logic reframes the lambda calculus as being "simply" the internal language of cartesian-closed categories. Doing the same for other categories leads to other languages that are not so lambda-like. Sometimes categories are best characterized by _graphical_ languages, as seen in string diagrams and generalizations thereof. Studying these things involves a rather thriving subfield at the intersection of PLT, category theory and foundational mathematics/logic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love this paper, I believe it will be. Something like APL meets Prolog with a little side of lisp.

</comment><comment><USER20> John von Neuman's 29 state cellular automata machine is (ironically) a classical decidedly "non von Neumann architecture".

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

He wrote the book on "Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata":

[https://archive.org/details/theoryofselfrepr00vonn_0](https://archive.org/details/theoryofselfrepr00vonn_0)

He designed a 29 state cellular automata architecture to implement a universal constructor that could reproduce itself (which he worked out on paper, amazingly):

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

He actually philosophized about three different kinds of universal constructors at different levels of reality:

First, the purely deterministic and relatively harmless mathematical kind referenced above, an idealized abstract 29 state cellular automata, which could reproduce itself with a Universal Constructor, but was quite brittle, synchronous, and intolerant of errors. These have been digitally implemented in the real world on modern computing machinery, and they make great virtual pets, kind of like digital tribbles, but not as cute and fuzzy.

[https://github.com/SimHacker/CAM6/blob/master/javascript/CAM...](https://github.com/SimHacker/CAM6/blob/master/javascript/CAM6.js#L4569)

Second, the physical mechanical and potentially dangerous kind, which is robust and error tolerant enough to work in the real world (given enough resources), and is now a popular theme in sci-fi: the self reproducing robot swarms called "Von Neumann Probes" on the astronomical scale, or "Gray Goo" on the nanotech scale.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- replicating_spacecraft#Vo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- replicating_spacecraft#Von_Neumann_probes)

[https://grey-goo.fandom.com/wiki/Von_Neumann_probe](https://grey- goo.fandom.com/wiki/Von_Neumann_probe)

>The von Neumann probe, nicknamed the Goo, was a self-replicating nanomass capable of traversing through keyholes, which are wormholes in space. The probe was named after Hungarian-American scientist John von Neumann, who popularized the idea of self-replicating machines.

Third, the probabilistic quantum mechanical kind, which could mutate and model evolutionary processes, and rip holes in the space-time continuum, which he unfortunately (or fortunately, the the sake of humanity) didn't have time to fully explore before his tragic death.

p. 99 of "Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata":

>Von Neumann had been interested in the applications of probability theory throughout his career; his work on the foundations of quantum mechanics and his theory of games are examples. When he became interested in automata, it was natural for him to apply probability theory here also. The Third Lecture of Part I of the present work is devoted to this subject. His "Probabilistic Logics and the Synthesis of Reliable Organisms from Unreliable Components" is the first work on probabilistic automata, that is, automata in which the transitions between states are probabilistic rather than deterministic. Whenever he discussed self-reproduction, he mentioned mutations, which are random changes of elements (cf. p. 86 above and Sec. 184.108.40.206 below). In Section 184.108.40.206 above and Section 1.8 below he posed the problems of modeling evolutionary processes in the framework of automata theory, of quantizing natural selection, and of explaining how highly efficient, complex, powerful automata can evolve from inefficient, simple, weak automata. A complete solution to these problems would give us a probabilistic model of self- reproduction and evolution. [9]

[9] For some related work, see J. H. Holland, "Outline for a Logical Theory of Adaptive Systems", and "Concerning Efficient Adaptive Systems".

[https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing- machin...](https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing- machinery/outline-for-a-logical-theory-of-adaptive-systems-efsWyqMa1l)

[https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/5578...](https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/5578/bac4296.0001.001.pdf?sequence=5)

[https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10841](https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10841)

<comment><USER16> > Although I refer to conventional languages as "von Neumann languages" to > take note of their origin and style, I do not, of course, blame the great > mathematician for their complexity. In fact, some might say that I bear some > responsibility for that problem.

From the paper. Whew.</comment></comment>


Binge Listening Is the New Black - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Stitcher/binge-listening-is-the-new-black-d9fff5cca915

<comment><USER2> I binge listened to Serial the same way I binge-watched The Wire and Breaking Bad. But I don't watch TV shows on a consistent basis. I rarely watch shows even by download. This might not be an important factor, but identifying non- traditional consumers being attracted to the content, consuming it and moving on might be a useful cohort or metric.

Second, I'd be cautious to say the format is the reason why it's popular. Such as saying that the TV-show like structure, and made it easy to consume, are the reason for binging. It is certainly why it is popular - for a podcast - but I doubt it's why it's popular in general. Content is king.

Not being a typical TV-show fan I only consume TV/podcasts that I hear (and turn out to be) exceptionally good from friends and reviews. Although I do listen to podcasts while I work (on a day to day basis).

Regarding the question of binging, well I think it could easily be 90% about quality of content. Quality such as Serial and The Wire are rare. So given the opportunity and access to all the media at once (thx to the internet) nothing stops us from consuming it all at once.

Anyone who wants to repeat this model, more quality content please. Which means content creators should focus most on good storytelling.. and less about the format and delivery. Hollywood should take note of this since they also seem to be obsessed with format over good storytelling. They seem to think CGI is an adequate replacement for good characters and drama.

<comment><USER3> yea, good point. With this analysis, it is difficult to conclude that format is the "reason" the show is popular.

What would be helpful is to break out all of the success levers mentioned on the article (format, length, etc), and compare Serial to other shows, for each leaver.

Would love to see that next...</comment></comment>


Pothead Ph.D. - This is most definitely not a cautionary tale - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/07/2008070201c.htm <comment><USER2> The comments here are interesting. I think some people get upset as soon as they hear the name of an illegal drug, and instantly get ultra-defensive. You'd think people that claim to be among the most intelligent wouldn't immediately make such an emotional judgment. After all, when is the government ever right about anything? What they consider legal or illegal should not affect your judgment; 50 years ago it was essentially illegal to be black.

Anyway, if you read the article and substitute "coffee" for "marijuanna", I don't think anyone would be upset. If you are against "chemical help", why would you care about the current US legal status of the drug?

FWIW, I don't smoke pot, but I do drink a lot of caffeine. You could say that I'm a drug addict, and that's fine with me.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for this comment BTW, refreshing to see someone with such an open mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow, an entire article about the benefits of pot and working and no mention from this "Ph.D" about the difference between Indica and Sativa marijuana.

For those too lazy to Google it, Sativa (usually grown outdoors) is great for working (think euphoria, and optimism), Indica (usually indoor) is for relaxing at the end of the day and "zoning out". Think 'body high'

Those FUD commercials you see with the kids deflated on the couch? Indica. The commercials you don't see? Well those would be showing motivated Ph.D students working their ass off after smoking a little Sativa (apparently unaware of the chemistry behind the scenes if this article is any judge).

Lesson for kids: Do your homework (this applies to your hobbies too) If you think just smoking weed will help your studies, at least make sure you're buying the right kind or a hybrid which will give you a little of both.

<comment><USER4> This seems to be accurate, but I've never been able to find any scientific explanation for the difference in effect. I've heard it attributed to the different ratios of THC to CBD, but I can't find any articles/papers to confirm this.

<comment><USER5> There are also a number of analogs of THC present such as THC-V which is 500 times stronger than THC.

[http://designer- drugs.com/pte/188.8.131.52/dcd/chemistry/t...](http://designer- drugs.com/pte/184.108.40.206/dcd/chemistry/thc/index.html)

<comment><USER5> and for anyone with a chemistry background reading the above, be warned that ordering olivetol is a quick way to get a DEA agent to show up at your door

<comment><USER6> Damn it, I want my Kratom.

<comment><USER5> the 7-hydroxymitragynine precursors are ok but I don't have the capital to set up an industrial synthesis... for any intrigued chemical engineers there is a lot of money to be made here.

<comment><USER7> Here is the thing. For anyone who's good enough at setting up chemistry equipment to be good enough for you, why wouldn't they rather make a few batches of MDMA or LSD instead. Shit, Shulgin has 3 whole books, which, in addition to being keys from an extraterrestrial into the ways our brain works and we experience ourselves, are also recipes for unique psychedelics.

I could imagine people could make a lot more money then doing your legal shit a lot faster by making those analogues and distributing them at high price to the real heads that hang out at places like Alex Grey art shows or consciousness or AI conferences. You'd make a lot of money by knowing a few interesting people and supplying their scientific and artistic circles with these analogues. You could write a very interesting thesis on the results. And, you'd be advancing science a great deal.

In theory of course. We would never expect authentic scientists and hackers to break the boundaries the authority system have prescribed for them. A good scientist will always obey the authorities, and only look in the allowed places for knowledge about how the world works. Any new lens with which we might perceive reality will be brushed under the rug. In fact, we will always bow down to power and aggressively attack anyone who conflicts with the normal way of looking at the world, just like the original scientists did (huh?). These laws and boundaries are essential to conventional power structures. It's scandalous and completely unhackerlike how close you come to violating these systems of control. My idea was completely hypothetical. You disgust me hippy. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Before anyone starts taking this guy seriously, consider the impact that drug use could have on your life in terms of the social effects rather than the drug itself.

Being arrested for possession (or, worse, dealing) could invalidate you from easy worldwide travel (merely having been arrested - let alone charged - invalidates you from many visa waiver programs), numerous professions, and delay certain opportunities. You have to seriously consider whether you can get away with it, and, if you don't, whether you can handle the consequences.

I'm not pro or anti drugs, but I'm very much anti people ruining their future for the sake of some temporary fun. But if you know you can deal with it, enjoy it!

<comment><USER9> Let's see what the risks are. I'm going to guess most readers here are from the USA, and besides, it has some of the harshest laws in the developed world about marijuana.

According to:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_cannabis_use_by_country> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States> <http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7370>

12.6% of the US population annually uses marijuana. Out of a population of 304 million, that makes 38,304,000 users per year. There were 829,625 marijuana- related arrests in 2006 (no idea how many led to actual charges or convictions). That means the chances of being arrested are about 2.2% per year, assuming uniform enforcement across all users.

For most people, this overstates the actual chances of being caught since, sadly, the hammer comes down hardest against poor people and ethnic minorities. I don't have a citation for this, but I think this is the case. Can anyone improve on my stats here?

So, while I originally hoped to show you were wrong, I have to conclude it is a significant risk and getting riskier. According to the NORML article, marijuana arrests for simple possession are skyrocketing. In most cases the penalty amounts to a wrist slap, but still there's a risk of more severe prosecution.

Where I come from (Canada, and my last place of residence, BC) people are barely afraid of toking up right in front of a police officer. It's probably bad to disrespect the officer, but I've seen them turn a blind eye to such violations many times. Especially in BC, there's a broad consensus that the plant does very little harm.

<comment><USER8> My point is not necessarily the risk of incarceration or the inconvenience of being arrested, but in being able to accept any risk (and clearly there is one, even if it's small) of what problems it might cause in your life if you were to be arrested or have even a minor offense on your file (and considering how deep those files go and how easily they are shared nowadays, that could be a big issue).

For example, the United States consulate suggests to UK travellers that anyone who has ever been arrested, even if no charges were brought, should not travel to the US under visa waiver, and must attend an interview to get a visa. That's a pretty big deal if you didn't know about it (as one person who /was/ on my wedding vacation - and now must stay at home - found out to their dismay).

It's unlikely anything relating to some marijuana use will destroy your life or impede you significantly, but even not being able to travel freely between countries /could/ be an impediment, especially if such travel is necessary for your job, etc.

This is the least of it, of course. If you want to work with children, particularly in the UK, you also have to declare all of these things. If you want to work in certain industries, you have to declare these things. Things will come out if you go on to become a celebrity or a public figure of some sort. The risks are small, the outcomes not fatal, but still worth considering if you want to maintain a clean record.

<comment><USER10> This is something to consider. It is relatively easy to avoid being busted if you're in a relaxed place like the Bay Area. However it is easier to get busted in other places. Unfortunately, if you're poor or not white, you're also more at risk for being busted. Two of my friends are barred entry to Canada because of previous possession charges, and Canada has some of the most relaxed pot laws in the world. Also, if you have a pot bust on your record, it is hard(er) to get your passport renewed. If you want to become a heavy pot smoker, it is a good idea to be white and rich enough to afford a good lawyer. Whatever you do, if you're black, you or your friends smoke pot, and you travel to Dubai, make sure you clean off your shoes.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512815/Briton- jailed...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512815/Briton-jailed-years- Dubai-customs-cannabis-weighing-grain-sugar-shoe.html)

<comment><USER7> No one should ever travel to Dubai for any reason. You do not have any recourse if they decide to fuck you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OK if we are talking about anecdotal evidence then how about a colleague of mine who smoked pot every day while doing his PHD. He spent several years doing very little work and then ended up having a major psychotic episode. Without people to support you this sort of thing could entirely derail your life. Fortunately he managed to complete the PHD only after getting off the pot.

Having known a number of people who have smoked daily for periods in their lives and suffered from mental health issues, I have no doubts that heavy pot use contributes to mental health problems.

<comment><USER12> I've never used an illegal drug, but the plural of anecdote is not data.

<comment><USER6> It may not be information, but it is most certainly data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> patrickg-zill If the roughest thing in life you ever encounter are the "rigors" of a PHD program in a non-scientific field like whatever CritLit field this guy is in, then you are truly living a blessed life.

</comment><comment><USER13> For me, it just makes me paranoid, sleepy, or sick, which are three good reasons to avoid it. I pass no judgment on others, though. It's clearly a substance that should be legal, whereas tobacco should be banned.

<comment><USER11> I was just about to vote you up then I saw the tobacco should be banned. As an ex-smoker (tobacco) I am against any smoking happening near me but banning it is not the answer.

<comment><USER13> The funny thing is that I'm a smoker on my third attempt to quit. Tobacco is insidious and deadly, and if it were impossible to buy, many thousands of lives would be extended, and health care costs would be significantly reduced. I don't necessarily believe _any_ substance should be banned by the government, but comparatively, weed does far less damage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was really funny.

Dude. I used to take this college stuff so seriously, but really, after a couple of tokes, erm, it all.

What were we talking about again?

</comment><comment><USER15> Marijuana actually impairs memory and learning <http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10607>

<comment><USER3> All Marijuana studies actually funded in the US (they are rare and typically have 1 result) should be cautiously taken into account with the knowledge that our administration does whatever it can to spread FUD to the public about the drug. Follow the money trail ...

<comment><USER16> That's an ad hominem argument write large. You can't dismiss a study just because it was funded by someone you disagree with. You have to take it on its own terms. If the study is flawed, show the flaws, if not, it shouldn't matter who funded it.

<comment><USER3> Funding, like all procedures and data used in the study is very relevant. In a perfect world it wouldn't, but sadly who is paying the bills often dictates the results of these studies. In that perfect world, there would also be scores of scientists who are paid to analyze studies like this to prove/disapprove the conclusion, but again our imperfect system means funding for intelligent study of Marijuana is severely lacking.

I would imagine getting US government funds to study the "potential damage of marijuana on x" would be a lot easier than getting funding for the "potential benefits of marijuana on y".

Just because we don't see competing studies does not mean the data is not there.

<comment><USER16> If the data is there, show it. I'm open. I think that the 'drug war' is a total waste of time and money, and that having one fewer red-herring for the police to chase around can only be a good thing.

But you can't dismiss a study just because it was funded by biased people. All people are biased. It's up to you to attempt to look past the bias to see what is genuine, and to see to it that your own viewpoint is expressed.

There are plenty of well funded liberal and libertarian groups that would be more than willing to fund the kind of research that you want. In fact I've seen stuff by Cato that would be right up your ally. You'll do far more good by finding this stuff than by criticizing the only studies being presented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17>
       But now it seemed like a privilege to consider
       economic globalization and its relation to
       British poetry

No comment.

</comment><comment><USER18> when i was 15 or 16 i used to smoke a lot of pot. I got bored and started some more interesting hobbies, like parkour and football(real football, not that American parody of a sport). Anyway, if you are realy bored, go ahead and smoke, but if you are still bored, thats because you are a boring person, i realised im boring and started to unbore myself. Now im satisfied with my self and i don't realy need weed. If somebody offers me to go smoke i might agree, if i have nothing better to do at the moment, but for me it is esentialy the teenage anti=boredom drug. Because most teenagers are really bored a lot of them smoke.

</comment><comment><USER19> before clicking through, I thought this was a joke judging from the url.

</comment><comment><USER20> "For that matter, it ain't alcohol, which is far worse for one's body and mind."

Except for that not only is moderate consumption of alcohol good for you, but teetotalism is as bad for your health as being morbidly obese. How is it possible for someone to get a Ph.D. without picking up even a trace of scientific literacy?

<comment><USER3> What about for alcoholics? If refraining from something completely is bad, should we all experience LSD/Cocaine/Heroine infrequently?

I would think the real damage of teetotalism would be the stress involved in constantly thinking about and addressing it. Not so much the lack of the substance in the body.

<comment><USER20> "I would think the real damage of teetotalism would be the stress involved in constantly thinking about and addressing it."

Then you would be wrong: [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05EED9143FF...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05EED9143FF932A05751C1A9649C8B63)

<comment><USER21> This article shows benefits from moderate drinking for individuals at high risk of heart disease, not the population at large:

 _For many people moderate drinking has absolutely no benefit at all, Dr. Klatsky said. This applies to all adolescents: teenagers have a negligible risk of heart disease and for them the risks of heavy drinking vastly outweigh any benefits of moderate drinking.

The same generally applies to men under 40 and women under 50, except for those with known heart disease risks. Pregnant women, people with liver disease, known drinking problems or a family history of alcoholism should never be advised to begin to drink for their health, he said.

But for others with known coronary heart disease or a risk of heart disease because of obesity, cholesterol levels, or smoking, moderate alcohol use may be a way to reduce that risk._

It is important to look at context when reading about these sorts of studies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Personally I think _smoking is disgusting_ and _smoking pot is dumb_. Thinking that smoking pot is good for you is even dumber.

Health Issues of Marijuana - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana#Health_issues>

<comment><USER23> Chewing tobacco is also disgusting and possibly dumb (because it causes mouth cancer), but it is not illegal. Pot is though. That's my problem with the anti-drug tirade: Nicotine is a drug and is not illegal, but THC is also a drug and is illegal.

(I should probably note that I've never smoked pot.)

<comment><USER16> Tobacco is a local industry. Marijuana is not.

The US was built with the money from Tobacco, not Marijuana.

So we can't criminalize Tobacco any more than Columbia can do away with cocaine or Afghanistan can out opium. Personally, I think that marijuana use is probably harmful, as is most drug use, but isn't worth the cost in criminalizing it.

<comment><USER24> > Tobacco is a local industry. Marijuana is not.

You are kidding, right? Marijuana cultivation is one of the largest cash crops in the US (there is some question as to whether or not it is the largest, but there is no disputing the fact that it is in the top five.)

> The US was built with the money from Tobacco, not Marijuana.

The US was built with money from tobacco, sugar, and slavery. Not really a great mix for us to be crowing about. BTW, when you see period documents that talk about "hemp" and how all colonial settlers should be encouraged to grow this valuable crop you are reading an exhortation from the government to grow marijuana (we don't grow the same varietals now, but it is the same plant...)

<comment><USER25> "when you see period documents that talk about "hemp""

Good point I read some place that the reason people originally wanted to out law marijuana was in order to make it illegal to grow hemp which was competing with their cotton crop. So really this all just started out as a government enforced monopoly to please some corporate fat cats.

<comment><USER24> While that theory has some support, I would also suggest that you not discount the synergistic effect of the popular association between marijuana and that "scary" jazz/beatnik scene which probably seemed quite threatening to the dominant culture of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Oh you poor baby!

You have trouble reading and writing and 'rithmetic, so you need a little chemical help. You pussy.

Get out of cocoon, er I mean school, get a real job, get married. have a couple of kids, get a mortgage and a couple of car payments, raise those kids without worrying too much about the evils around them, visit Mom in her nursing home, do things for others in need, and, if you have time, have a nice life too. But don't drop a single egg while you're juggling. And don't you dare miss a day of work, no matter how mind numbingly boring or lame it is, or how sleepy or depressed you feel.

The only thing worse than the whining of a student is the whining of a pothead student. Grow up.

<comment><USER7> Your life sounds like it sucks because you did not use the consciousness altering properties of drugs to decide how to meet life on it's own terms and do your work here on earth. Doing drugs while you are young is a great way to avoid becoming this bitter later in life.

You remind me of a slightly more evolved version of those 90 year olds who hate anyone who isn't as repressed and miserable then they are. So you made choices according to the conventional wisdom of your time, your life sucks as a result, and you're getting more and more trapped in your shitty, repeating cycle as the time to get out gets smaller and smaller. You're going to die (tick tock, tick tock), and instead of doing all the unimagined cool stuff you would of dreamed up while using drugs responsibly, you're going to waste all of this beautiful gift that is our fleeting life doing stuff you hate. Each day, you feel it coming, and go through it anyway.

And, to top it off, when you die, you'll think your ascending into heaven, and God, a black woman, will meet you at the gate with dreads and a gold and green cap, and a blunt with 4 grams of hydro in a swisher sweet wrapper, and say "I put all those drugs all over the planet so you could use them to help you be creative enough to invent the future, and you failed to do your part because you were too distracted from the perpetual cycle of maintaining illusions. Fuck you, mon, I'm sending you back as a cockroach. You don't need more then a brainstem, because you never use it anyway. If living as a thoughtless drone in a hivemind was good enough for you this time, that's all you get the next time around." Then, the gates will slam shut, and you'll see God and Sagan and Erdos and Steve Jobs, all taking hits of that blunt, planning the evolution of humanity, and bumping some new Radiohead, while your consciousness gets shunted into the body of a cockroach so you can relive life in a more metaphoric expression of the way you chose to live in your human form.

Sounds less like a problem with people who use drugs and more like a problem with how your choices have sucked, and continue to suck at very deep levels of reality.

<comment><USER26> You figured all that out about me from a single post? Amazing.

Your massive inellect and talent is wasted here at hn. Looking forward to seeing you on Dr. Phil.</comment></comment></comment>


Verisign/RapidSSL Responds To Certificate Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.verisign.com/ssl-blog/2008/12/on_md5_vulnerabilities_and_mit.php

<comment><USER2> "We applaud security research of this sort and are glad that white hats like the "MD5 Collision Inc." group make a point of investigating online security. This group went to great lengths to keep its findings private, and unfortunately that included ensuring that VeriSign did not receive any of this information ahead of the actual presentation, rendering it impossible for us to begin work on mitigating this issue prior to this morning. So I'll caution you that these responses are preliminary, and if it turns out that any of the information we've received is inaccurate, my responses may change."

I really like this, especially the last sentence. That's refreshingly direct communication.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Q: How many certificates are affected?

A: Zero. No end entity certificates are affected by this attack. The attack, when it worked, was a potential method for a criminal to create a new, false certificate from scratch. Existing certificates are not targets for this attack."

This answer seems a little bit, well, disingenuous. Does he not understand the attack or does he not understand SSL?

<comment><USER4> I believe the answer for that question was actually pulled from the MD5 paper itself. See here:

<http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/rogue-ca/>

Scroll to the bottom in the question/answer section. It's interesting they only used 200 PS3 game consoles to do their computations with.

<comment><USER3> In the paper itself, they reach the opposite conclusion:

"Question. Suppose that a criminal creates by our method his own rogue Certification Authority that is trusted by all browsers. Are then only websites with certificates from the CA whose signature he used vulnerable to impersonation attacks? Are only websites with certificates based on MD5 vulnerable to impersonation attacks?

Answer. No. When a criminal uses redirection attacks in combination with a rogue but trusted CA certificate, all websites are equally vulnerable."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (Thanks to gojomo for finding this).

Gotta admit, a solid response.

<comment><USER5> Yes, they're taking a page out of Microsoft's playbook by using a blog post to respond in more detail to a security vulnerability. When executed well, it mollifies critics much better than the press release style of communication due to its appearance of informality.

That being said, I would have liked for them to say that they've reviewed their logs and saw no other issuance activity that followed the same pattern as the researchers, and that they will improve their operational monitoring and serial number sequencing to help protect against future potential attacks.

<comment><AUTHOR> They basically sucked all the drama right out of it, which seems like exactly the right play.</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter Conspiracy Theorist Charged with a Felony in Lynch Threat - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/twitter-user-charged-with-felony-in-lynch-threat-against-muslim-candidate-qasim-rashid <comment><USER2> Sounds like the target of the threat, Qasim Rashid, had a little trouble getting Twitter to act: "Twitter ultimately suspended the account", but it seems to have taken a large number of reports. "... the threat was preceded by at least a year of unhinged attacks against other politicians and public figures, peppered with oblique references to right-wing internet conspiracy theories."

It seems that Pizzagate was among those theories, but it's hard to tell if "The Storm"/Qanon was part of it. I'm actually kind of surprised that Qanon wasn't part of it. Those folks really seem to want death penalties, even though nobody's been charged with the kind of crimes Qanon seems to think are pervasive.</comment>


Ask HN: Could we decentralize RSS using email? - <AUTHOR>

Google Reader is dead, and new and old readers owned by companies are popping up all over.  What we'd all like is something simple and free, but the processing needs of a centralized service require something commercially-backed.
I've thought a bit on how we can avoid another Reader situation and still keep things free and open, and I had an idea: email.
Storage
Yes, you'd still need a service still to poll your list of feeds (Yahoo Pipes, Zapier, or custom servers could work).  These services would then send you a specifically formatted email for each new post.
The title could be the subject, the post as the message.  Perhaps the Blog, date and post link would be the first line.  Extra information could be set in "X-" headers or in a signature.  We'd need a standardized method for formatting these emails so that RSS readers could plug and play.
Finally you'd need to set up some filtering to avoid spamming yourself, or use a separate email address altogether.
Reading
Ok so maybe that would decentralize the storage of the posts.  And you'd get some niceties like searching built in with your email provider.  At first I assumed a read email would equal a read feed, which could work.  But this would require readers to be able to access your email to mark them read.
Another thought would be for the RSS readers to support a forwarding address.  Forward your feed emails to them, and they display it to you.  To mark them read (without needing your email password) could they just email you back something?
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> That's a great approachand this is exactly what we are doing at <http://www.feedsapi.org> , so you might want to check it out. It's however not free, I believe a free good service can not survive the market. We poll the sources every 60 minutes and deliver the articles as they come in , in realtime. At the email inbox level, Gmail offers all the features you've listed in the reading section and things like filters and labels make the organisation even easier. Would this be an option for what you are talking about ? Thoughts ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Why not just NNTP?

</comment><comment><USER4> What's needed is a system to sync state (read items, starred items, etc), preferably one that only you have access to. I propose a standard file format, implemented by RSS Readers that contains this kind of data. The file can be stored on a service like Dropbox. If implemented correctly, you'd never lose your data when switching clients and you'd be able to use different clients on different platforms with your own data.</comment>