There is no such thing as a city that has run out of room - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/06/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-city-that-has-run-out-of-room/ <comment><USER2> As a counterpoint to the comments about how very dense cities are unlivable, I'd like to offer the example of Paris. I think many people will agree that it's a really nice first-world city, with great culture, transportation, no sanitation troubles, etc (as opposed to Dhaka, which many take issue with).

Well, that's a city with 55000 per square mile inside city limits. Some of the suburbs (the richer ones, mind you) even have up to 65-69000 per sqmi. Dhaka has about 50000. Of course, a lot of suburbs are less dense than this, but those tend to be the impoverished & forsaken ones you definitely don't want to live in.

High density does not necessarily mean Manhattan or Hong Kong, in fact, closely built, dual use 7-story buildings with offices & shops & restaurants on the ground floor are a more balanced and less costly way to achieve it. And it offers a real opportunity to finally get rid of the cars, something that will be impossible to achieve in low-density cities because those could not support decent public transportation.

<comment><USER3> Paris, as they say, is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Come to think of it, I'm not even that fond of visiting.

I am very grateful that my parents brought me up in a decent-size house with a nice biggish backyard. I can't imagine growing up in an apartment. Particularly in today's world where kids don't play in the park unsupervised. It must be even worse for the parents, who can't say "go play outside!" whenever the kids get rowdy and annoying. I don't think indoor living is good for kids.

For people without children apartments are fine of course, which is why I think the ideal city consists of a combination of a higher-density centre with surrounding low density areas.

People need to quit it with the desire to make everyone else live like a single twenty-something professional.

<comment><USER4> > People need to quit it with the desire to make everyone else live like a > single twenty-something professional.

On the other hand, if all the twenty-something professionals were allowed to live in the city center of their dreams, with Paris-like population density, and hipster cafes and restaurants in each city block, there would be more room for the suburban sprawl for the families to be closer to the city center.

When the "suburban party" denies the "city hipsters" the dense, walkable neighborhoods, they also force the hipsters to compete for the same suburban estate, which drives prices up and commutes longer, and everyone is worse off as a result.

People who want X for themselves, would actually benefit and get their X cheaper and better, if they allowed other people who want Y get and build their Y, instead of forcing everyone to compete in the market for X.

I bit unintuitive, I understand.

<comment><USER5> I don't think the "suburban party" is denying any such thing. In cities like San Francisco people who paid a million plus for their townhouse don't want new highrises blocking their view or their light. People who live in suburbs don't care one way or the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The numbers in this article are somewhat lazily assembled, which confuses the analysis. The density numbers everyone's immediately going to fixate on are those of SF and NYC. But they're using the numbers for the combined statistical areas for SF-SJ and the NY metro area.

SF population density is something like 18k/sqmi. NYC's is 27k across all the boroughs, ranging from ~10k in Brooklyn to ~20k in Queens to 66k(!) in Manhattan.

The analysis is trickier in the midwest. Chicago has a citywide population density of 12k, seemingly lower than that of SF. But Chicago dwarfs San Francisco, and the average is brought way down by places like South Chicago and Ashburn. Lakeview, for instance, has a density around 30k. You'd presumably have even worse problems making comparisons to a place like Detroit, which has large areas that are virtually depopulated within it's city limits.

Communities like Lakeview and Lincoln Park in Chicago do not seem to have taken a major quality of life hit despite being far more dense than San Francisco. They consist of tree-lined streets and relatively capacious 2-flats and 2-3-4bdr apartments. I would 1000x rather live in a vintage stone Lakeview apartment, with an alley and a parking garage, than share a rickety wooden apartment in the Mission.

You think of people with a fixation for low-density living as those wanting lots of living space, a yard, plenty of parking, low crime, that sort of thing. But the median San Francisco resident gets none of that. It really seems like a worst-of-all-worlds situation, unless you've been grandfathered in to a huge house that you bought in the 90s, or have struck it rich and decided to plow all your winnings into real estate.

They certainly didn't do themselves any favors by comparing every city to Dhaka.

<comment><USER7> I thought the point of the analysis was to think of a city as a whole (I.e., MSA) and not just a downtown with surrounding neighborhoods... Chicago, for example, is very low density compared to CA cities despite having a downtown that could swallow all of CA cities' downtowns. And yet, it has miles of single-story homes, empty lots and abandoned factories. Comparing a city like Chicago using only the city and not the entire MSA to any CA city like SF and it still loses (if the game is density). I really appreciated the analysis because th baby boomer generation and their "I got mine..." attitude is keeping most urban places down: literally. Thank you prop 13, if you live in CA, for destroying affordability.

<comment><USER6> An MSA is not simply a city as a whole. It's the city and the surrounding area. For instance, the statistical area this article uses for San Francisco includes San Jose, a _wildly different_ and in fact _larger_ city than San Francisco. Worse, it includes all the little towns between SF and SJ, from San Mateo to Atherton.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some of the comments in the article seems a bit disingenuous. The Dhaka vs DC graph was kind of funny, because the quality of life in Dhaka is probably much lower in large part due to that density. But more to the point, I agree that no one has a right to the density they've become accustomed to, but that doesn't mean that an increase in density won't amount to a drop in the quality of life to them. Take for instance the comment where someone sad something to the effect that without going all Hong Kong, SF could increase density by 30 or 40% by utilizing unused/undeveloped parcels, and adding a few floors to existing buildings. Thats probably true, but that has no effect on the public spaces. So you now have 30-40% more people on the sidewalks. 30-40% more cars on the road. 30-40% higher density. For some people that is a positive thing, but for those that think it is a negative thing, no amount of hand waving is change that.

By hand waving, I mean assertion without argument. You may convince them that more and better restaurants will open, and that may genuinely change their mind, but many people I've talked to that prefer the high density lifestyle have a hard time grasping that there are those of us that genuinely do not. I live in a city of 120k in one of the least densely populated states in the US. It was 50k when I first came here. It has been genuinely intolerable for me, and I spend all my free time getting away to significantly less dense areas, and I am actively looking for jobs in areas lower than 50k (hard to do in technical fields). Of course I'm an extreme example, but the point being that trying to portray the quality of life concerns of people that prefer lower density as irrelevant is not an honest comeback. Disregard those concerns as being counter to the larger good, but don't pretend that people that hold those concerns will be happy about all the things they will gain at higher densities.

<comment><USER4> > 30-40% more cars on the road

When the population density increases over a certain limit, it becomes more economical (also faster and more efficient) to move people around by a combination of walking, subway, and buses. Like in London, Paris, New York, central Boston etc. After that, adding more people will not add more cars.

Of course, in the ultra-nimby San Francisco, building a subway would also get more resistance than in most other cities of the world.

<comment><USER9> > When the population density increases over a certain limit, it becomes more > economical (also faster and more efficient) to move people around by a > combination of walking, subway, and buses.

Only if the infrastructure for those things (particularly subway) exists. Which has to be built -- in advance of the increase in population, if quality of life isn't going to drop before it gets better.

So when we start seeing concrete proposals for infrastructure improvements _first_ , it makes sense to start talking about density increases.

> Of course, in the ultra-nimby San Francisco, building a subway would also > get more resistance than in most other cities of the world.

If true, this suggests that people who want to build a new high-density utopia should find some other city to descend upon.

<comment><USER4> > this suggests that people who want to build a new high-density utopia should > find some other city to descend upon.

Yes. As far as I understand the situation, of the first world cities of similar size or larger, San Francisco was probably the worst possible choice to base the tech boom in. As it has the most conservative attitude and least desire towards growth and building new homes and infrastructure. And poor quality houses and infrastructure to begin with.

Almost like a joke of history.

<comment><USER10> What really happened (and this is true to some degree in the Boston area as well), is that the tech boom(s) actually started in what was (at least then) largely suburban or even semi-rural areas. Silicon Valley and Route 128. This was, after all, a period when there was largely a migration away from cities.

When I was working in the Boston area tech industry (actually near 495) in the 80s/90s out of school, relatively few people I knew lived in the city proper or had a particular interest in doing so.

But then this interest in migrating to at least a handful of specific dense cities by young professionals blossomed and the nearby cities to these booms aren't really prepared for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > "Economists reject absolutes like 'full' and 'need,'" says Joe Cortright

Economists might. Humans (of which I can only assume economists are not) definitely do accept the concepts of full and "too crowded."

> Everything we know about cities suggests that, in fact, quality of life > doesn't go down as more people crowd in — the opposite happens.

[Citation Needed]

<comment><USER12> It's a very agreeable point you're making, but

you'd probably say Dhaka is too full at 112,000 per square mile, right? Well, why do humans live there? Indians are as human as any of us. Why would humans live in a city that's too full?

Because theyd still rather live there than the indian countryside. Even for Indians in Dhaka it's all about tradeoffs.

<comment><USER13> Dhaka is in Bangladesh, not India.

<comment><USER12> TIL. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've recently been to Delft. What struck me was that much of the housing was multiple dwellings on one plot divided by floor. e.g. three apartments atop each other.

Wow, no real surprise there, people crowd together like that everywhere. But take a look around :

[https://email@example.com,4.3485485,3a,75y,76....](https://email@example.com,4.3485485,3a,75y,76.17h,75.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sqeLcwDQO0xy9wXFwgPcA7w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

That street is a few minutes walk from the city centre.

The Google Street car can't even get to many house fronts and yet the place is _immediately_ somewhere you'd want to live.

<comment><USER15> Yeah this is what annoys me so much here in the UK when the topic of high density comes up, historically high density housing was used as cheap social housing where very little thought or art was put into aesthetics/services or providing for tenants then when the inevitable maintenance cost cutting makes it slum-like everyone recoils at the idea of living there.

And yet The Barbican Estate in London is one example of just how beautiful high density housing can be.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLgkDCoH14g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLgkDCoH14g) of course now (and been central London) what was once affordable high density housing is the preserve of the wealthy.

<comment><USER16> The best way to do 'high' density IMO is 4-6 stories across most of the city, like Edinburgh or Barcelona. If everyone lives in an apartment there's no stigma.

<comment><USER17> To my mind as a Londoner the coolest places to live here are towers. But that's because the modern ones are being built as luxury accommodation. The '60s tower blocks were built to be cheap - and it showed, and coloured the reputation of anything built in that shape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Another interesting data point was the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong. It no longer exists, however, at one point it was considered the most densely populated place on earth with an estimated population density of 3,250,000/sq mi. [1]

The Wall Street Journal also made an interactive portrait of it recently: [http://projects.wsj.com/kwc/#chapter=intro](http://projects.wsj.com/kwc/#chapter=intro)

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

<comment><USER19> KWC was an utterly dreadful place to live, but I suspect that has more to do with its lawlessness than its density.

<comment><USER9> > KWC was an utterly dreadful place to live, but I suspect that has more to do > with its lawlessness than its density.

But I don't think those two things were unrelated.

<comment><USER19> It being lawless made it a popular place to go. That made it dense.

It being lawless also meant there was no requirement to make it a _nice_ place.

So I suppose lawlessness is the thread linking everything.

(Of course, yes, density does make it awful in some ways. A lack of natural light, for example. Though I do wonder if proper planning could have improved that.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The most densely populated part of Montréal is Côte-des-Neiges, at around 7500 people/sq. km. (edit: to be comparable to the examples in the article, that's around 19500 people/sq. mi.) Typical street:

[https://www.google.ca/maps/place/C%C3%B4te-Des- Neiges%E2%80%...](https://www.google.ca/maps/place/C%C3%B4te-Des- Neiges%E2%80%94Notre-Dame-De- Gr%C3%A2ce,+Montreal,+firstname.lastname@example.com,-73.629338,3a,66.8y,80.35h,90.25t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s2UD0C3Z6pOwmsA81vvaBSw!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x4cc91759130c26a3:0x3b11a28996f34e10)

I must admit that at rush hour, the walking traffic on Côte-des-Neiges road can be a bit overwhelming, but it's mostly fine the rest of the day.

</comment><comment><USER21> Using Dhaka as the reference point is hilarious. Has the author ever _been_ to Dhaka? It was full a long time ago.

<comment><USER22> Exactly, just because you can stuff millions of people in a city doesn't mean you should. Dhaka has one of the worst pollution, sanitation, traffic that no other city wants.

<comment><USER23> Is that more of a function of poverty, rather than density though? HK has a lot of density, yet if not for the shitty climate, would IMO have been the most desirable place to live on earth (yeah I know this is subjective, but there is no shortage of people who would agree with me here).

<comment><USER24> It's a function of both. Pack enough people into a small enough area and the support + infrastructure gets really, really expensive.

There are many stupidities in the original piece, but one significant one is the apparent lack of understanding that cities have to be supported by political, financial and physical infrastructures which extend far outside the geographic boundaries.

The effective footprints of London, NY, and HK stretch across the world. So you can make an argument for _effective_ economic and ecological density being very much lower than the density you get from a naive division of population by immediate area.

When the effective density is much more constrained, you don't just get financial poverty, you get somewhere that's a shitty place to live in many different ways.

And when there's no political understanding of what an effective footprint is, you get disasters like the California drought - which is largely the result of to appreciate that water is a limited resource that comes from elsewhere, and has to flow into an area before anyone can use it.

<comment><USER25> Generally speaking, you don't get financial poverty at all as a result of density. You get wealth. London is wealthier than the rest of the UK. NYC is wealthier than the rest of the US. Hong Kong is the wealthiest city in China. Mumbai is the wealthiest city in India, unless Delhi has surpassed it since I last checked. I haven't checked, but I'd bet 5:1 odds that Dhaka is significantly wealthier than the rest of Bangladesh.

The California drought is primarily caused by inefficient use of water in agriculture. City usage of water is pretty much irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While some may not share this feeling, to me there's a constant sensation of pressure from not having enough space; from being too closed in with too many people. You go somewhere where there's a single building you own, in the middle of a nice bit of land, and you can go to town and not have to ram your way through the people, or go for a drive and not be sitting in traffic. That's relaxing to me. That's a pressure coming off... it feels almost like physically coming up from being at the bottom of a swimming pool.

I've even noticed I think worse in that sort of environment. Like I'll look at things I wrote in a high-density area and they look like insane ramblings.

That doesn't seem to be a 'well, you just need to find a nice high-density area' problem. I've lived in some very well-appointed flats in very nice areas before, and didn't care for the experience in the slightest. I don't care whether the flat's fantastically appointed with real oak furniture and good lighting[1].

And what are we offered in return for that unpleasant sensation? I don't care how many coffee shops or restaurants or whatever there are. I don't go to town unless there's something I can't buy on the internet or I need to go to work. There's little I'd value there. Rampant consumerism is not a society, nor is it a community. The ability to shop in a hundred stores is not the same as a high quality of life.

Ultimately, that is why I don't live in a high-density area despite being offered several multiples of my current wage to do so. I make enough to be comfortable here, it would be almost impossible for me to make enough to be comfortable there.

\---

1\. Which, by the way, is very difficult in a high-density area. Good lighting means light from multiple directions in at least some of the rooms. Quite how you're supposed to do that when there's another building in the way I'm not clear on - the general answer seems to be that one doesn't.

If you've lived in a property with good lighting angles some practices, such as an open-plan setup seem rather like bad hacks.

<comment><USER27> > I've even noticed I think worse in that sort of environment.

There have been many posts on HN in the past little while about interruptions killing concentration. Well, in that environment, there's always a siren going off outside, or a car alarm, or a car horn, or... You can't just _think_ there unless you get a place that insulates you from all that. Even then, it takes time for all the mental jarring that happened to you on your way to that place to die away, so that you can think.

<comment><USER28> This is a massive exaggeration. I'm aware this is anecdotal but I work close to the centre of a large city with 18000/sqm density (according to wikipedia) and I honestly can't recall the last time I heard a siren or car horn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just like there are people in Boulder who wish startups would leave and never come back, there are also people in Detroit who wish Dan Gilbert had never moved Quicken Loans downtown and started buying buildings.

Most of it is pure jealousy, because at the time no one wanted to bid against him. Engineers have caused downtown rents to soar and pushed the poor completely out. Sound familiar?

Even Gilbert's fabled security grid which has made a night and day difference on crime in downtown has its enemies, one merchant got upset when his landlord let Gilbert post cameras and demanded they be removed. There's even a protest t-shirt:

[https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1986/3481/...](https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1986/3481/original.jpg)

Just for reference Detroit in 2014 had 2010 people per square mile and more are welcome.

</comment><comment><USER30> Reddit's Seattle thread on this article pointed out that Istanbul has the kind of density talked about in this article, at least in some neighborhoods. This picture[1] was linked as a representative example, not too different from Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood (that Amazon has essentially remodeled in the past few years).

0: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/3nqu2s/there_is_no...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/3nqu2s/there_is_no_such_thing_as_a_city_that_has_run_out/)

1: [http://imgur.com/uCM6iiZ](http://imgur.com/uCM6iiZ)

</comment><comment><USER31> This is a fascinating article, thanks for posting.

It's unfortunate that so many U.S. cities (and some abroad) were designed and built in a way that results in them being unwalkable. I'm really interested in seeing how cities respond to this, and whether or not these cities will start to become more dense in order to possibly improve efficiency, or whether they'll just continue to sprawl because it's the easiest way to grow.

</comment><comment><USER32> On one hand they propose dramatically increasing economic spending because if only one thing is certain and in no dispute, its that denser design is more expensive to construct AND maintain. On the other hand they dismiss property rights and representative government as obsolete concepts to be scoffed at because they stand in the way of "progress" where progress is curiously defined as lowering standards of living due to higher density. The only rational conclusion is they must be proposing socialized government owned and operated and maintained ultra high density housing. AKA "the projects". And nobody wanted to live there when we tried it.

Usually the WP has better written articles. The individual lines and paragraphs are well organized written. It only fails are the higher organizational writing levels where its wrong, and poorly organized. One exception is the conclusion is completely wrong. Detroit never stopped evolving. It just evolved in a direction most people hated, so everyone who could, left. FUD along the lines of turn this place into the projects or else it'll turn into the projects isn't very logical.

<comment><USER19> > denser design is more expensive to construct AND maintain

Really? Surely economies of scale would mean that building 10 flats is cheaper than building 10 individual houses?

<comment><USER33> Really. It's important to remember that every floor in a building has to support all of the floors above it - not just physically, but all the services and access for the floors above too. Above three floors or so, you also need extra infrastructure like pumps to get drinking water to the upper floors, tanks to store it, and elevators so people near the top don't have to carry their shopping and furniture up all the flights of stairs. At the same time, you're losing economies of scale because rather than building the same house 10 times, you're building a one-off, with every floor having to be designed and analysed separately because it's under different loading. And of course that one building has the same transportation, power, water and sewerage needs and generates the same amount of garbage as all 10 houses, but now you have much less space at ground level to satisfy those needs with.

And this just gets worse as the building gets taller. Eventually, the infrastructure required to add more floors removes so much usable space from all the floors below that it's not ever economically viable to do so, which is why all the tallest skyscrapers are built for bragging rights these days.

<comment><USER19> Ah, I see. Reminds me that the Burj Dubai and such have a lot of space in the building used simply for elevator shafts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Greed is the problem.

<comment><USER35> Coupled with Debt. A very nasty mix indeed.</comment></comment>


When an implementation monoculture might be the right thing - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/nfroyd/2018/05/29/when-implementation-monoculture-right-thing/ <comment><USER2> > Whereas Firefox engineering is the only "consumer" of the compiler(s), and > so we should optimize for that single consumer

Seems really shortsighted view. What about distro package maintainers? Downstream derivatives? Porters to obscure platforms? Random developers/potential contributors?

<comment><USER3> It would, in effect, make gcc (and MSVC) into "obscure platforms," or at least non-tier-1.

I remember when Mozilla had trouble when they ran out of virtual memory space in the linker (see [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=709193](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=709193) , but this wasn't the first time that happened) and caused serious churn for the Windows build because Visual Studio was their only option. To be sure, this was exacerbated because VS was and is a proprietary product, but if you're going to bet that clang doesn't suffer some similar critical failure in the future, maybe you shouldn't bet every single tier-1 build of your core product.

<comment><USER4> In fact, Firefox currently can't build with the latest Visual Studio 2017 release due to internal compiler errors.

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1458247](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1458247)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What often happens with standards, is that politics rears its ugly head and they become technically compromised. Some of them become absolutely toothless! C++ is sufficiently complicated, to the point where the abstractions will leak and devils will creep in with the few details of the myriads that sneak past, despite the best efforts of standard writers. Smalltalk is small enough to be succinctly describable, but politics saddled it with a completely toothless standard that basically allowed anything.

What's needed are clear, succinct, moderately opinionated standards on clear, succinct, minimalist technologies.

<comment><USER6> C++ was first standardized in 1998, but it was created in 85. The standard is still changing, today in 2018.

It's easy enough to say what's needed, but is it even possible to have that for languages with a potential life span of half a century or more?

<comment><USER7> The Ada95 standard was covering a language far more rich than C++98 (it included all multitasking and did not rely on C standard). Its level of clarity and concision is incredible compared to C++98. Both languages were comparable at that time (same age, same usage).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's weird how gcc and msvc end up in the same basket here. Mozilla say they're all about openness. gcc is a free and open source compiler, while msvc is proprietary and closed source. I can see the case for keeping gcc supported, but if you don't have to support msvc, why would Mozilla give it more attention than for example icc?

</comment><comment><USER9> Monocultures like this interest me. We spent a ton of time in grade school learning about how monocultures were terrible long term strategies. And yet, it seems they are actively pursued everywhere. It is easy to see why this is a problem for biological things. Just look at how close we are to losing the current bananas most in the US know. I'm pretty sure avocados are the same.

In technology, though, we seem to embrace the monoculture for things. Languages, implementations, everything. They all seem to converge to a single one.

I think I understand why this happens in many cases, but I can't help but shake a feeling that it is off. Indeed, I agree with this blog post, but I still feel that something is off. Am I alone in that?

<comment><USER10> > Monocultures like this interest me.

Just because they call it a monoculture, doesn't mean it has anything to do with social behavior per se. It's a technical choice. Might as well ask why every function isn't implemented in X languages or X styles. Using a singular tool in a build is the default. It's a surprise to me, that they still were trying to support a bunch of disparate compilers. Let someone else handle that, while you run the race of feature implementation, which is hard enough.

<comment><USER9> Your first sentence is confusing to me. Monoculture is not, necessarily, a social thing. Hence why I mentioned bananas and avocados. :)

That said, I think I agree with your overall point. With the amusing counter that most new languages do go way the hell out of their way to start implementing everything. In large to keep you in that language. Even in the web services world, it amuses me to see so many folks try and cram everything into a single service where they can.

The flip side, of course, is you do have a finite budge of energy to make things happen. It makes little sense to spend that budget solving problems you don't have. Worse, you could rathole into solving technical challenges that you may never actually have a need to solve. All the while leaving your customers dry.

So, yes, there is a tradeoff. I fully agree with that. Which is why this topic is interesting to me. All of the incentives seem to be to embrace monoculture thinking in most that you do. I can't help but think that is off in the long view, though. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Glad that decisions such as this get questioned, even if they seem like the inevitably correct decision. Sometimes engineering choices require uneasy decisions; ideally you can move forward with those decisions while keeping the code base cross compiler safe enough to switch to another compiler if needed in the future.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think multiple implementations is more or less a C/C++ thing. If you look at other platforms (Ruby, Python, PHP, Haskell, Java, Go, Rust, Scala, Lua, Perl) there's basically _the_ version and maybe some ancillary implementations.

In fairness, it's hard enough to build a language people use that solves real problems. Asking someone to do it more than once, or to do it once but create specific enough documentation and tests so someone else can also do it -- and then get someone else to do it -- is practically impossible.

<comment><USER13> Common Lisp has at least four high-quality implementations (Allegro, Lispworks, SBCL, Clozure), and this is a fairly large language (thousand something pages of the ANSI specification + two chapters of AMOP) that is about as popular as Haskell if not less.

<comment><USER14> Do they all have a differentiator?

<comment><USER13> Allegro and Lispworks are proprietary with product support provided by the vendors, SBCL and Clozure are opensource. Allegro and Lispworks have their own IDEs and some proprietary libraries bundled in (e.g. CAPI which is probably the best option for cross-platform GUI for this language), while SBCL and Clozure both rely on SLIME and Quicklisp. SBCL produces fastest x86-64 machine code, as far as I know. Clozure has superior macOS support, as it used to be owned by Apple before they spun it off and was generally Mac-centric throughout its history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is Mozilla thinking about also using the same C++ standard library (libc++) on all platforms? Is it even feasible to use libc++ on Windows yet? IIRC, clang- cl uses the VC++ libraries.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder what their thoughts about OpenWatcom C++ and DigitalMars C++ were.

* [https://digitalmars.com/](https://digitalmars.com/)

* [http://openwatcom.org/](http://openwatcom.org/)

</comment><comment><USER17> While Clang is definitely good, GCC is quickly developing last years. Since they want to move everything into Rust, why they care about C++ parts right now?

<comment><USER18> I don't think they will stop using c++ anytime soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's 2033 and a Mozilla Engineer is writing the same blog post but this time talking about Firefox adopting webkit...

: |

<comment><USER20> You know what? A Mozilla Engineer did write a blog post talking about Firefox adopting WebKit... in 2007.

[https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/01/ancient-browser-wars- hi...](https://robert.ocallahan.org/2018/01/ancient-browser-wars-history- md5-hashed.html)</comment></comment>


TensorKart: self-driving MarioKart with TensorFlow - <AUTHOR> http://kevinhughes.ca/blog/tensor-kart <comment><USER3> In contrast, here's what is effectively an oracle machine playing mario kart: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBNgbJ5hXtQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBNgbJ5hXtQ)

(Amazingly detailed) info: [http://tasvideos.org/5243S.html](http://tasvideos.org/5243S.html)

<comment><USER4> I like how it just glitches itself to an almost instant win on half of the maps.

<comment><USER5> These are Tool-Assisted Speedruns. That means that it's a human player using things like slow motion, mem dumps and other mechanisms to play perfect games. It's more an example of human's abilities when augmented with computers than AI discovering those glitches itself.

<comment><USER6> The most amazing run I've seen so far was a RTA (realtime time attack) of mega man 2. A human player is manually collision glitching and writing over memory with a sequence of inputs. And the RTA time in 2016 is now faster than the initial TAS records.

<comment><USER7> Do you have a link? Sounds like it'd be a very interesting watch.

Edit: I found one that has an example (I think) around 7:38 [http://www.nicovideo.jp.am/watch/sm13963118](http://www.nicovideo.jp.am/watch/sm13963118) \- the collision detection pushes megaman into the wall and jumps between different sections. Very interesting indeed!

<comment><USER6> Sorry I think the one I was thinking of was Megaman 2. I did find a link for you. Starts at 2:36. [http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm23825129](http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm23825129)

Also you might be interested in the Final Fantasy 6 memory overwrite bug that was discovered in 2016 as well. It uses the Window Color menu settings as the data reference.

Btw regarding the Megaman 2 RTA, there's an even more ridiculous collision bug being used around 11:30 [http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm28321223](http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm28321223)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats on finishing the project! As you've already linked at the bottom of your post, it's possible that OpenAI could've solved most of your I/O issues.

One thing I'd suggest is exploring a reward function, instead of using only pre-recorded training data. That is, give the AI a goal to complete (in this case, finish the race) and let it learn by itself!

<comment><USER9> I would love to learn how to do that - any suggestions?

EDIT: to clarify: what should I google for?

<comment><USER8> Here's what I could find in a couple minutes:

[https://github.com/openai/universe-starter- agent](https://github.com/openai/universe-starter-agent)

OpenAI's example universe agent. Remember that while their goal is an agent that works in any and all environments (read: games), you could certainly optimize yours just for MarioKart.

<comment><USER9> Thanks, looks promising! Can't wait to try it! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is pretty cool; as someone who is currently working on the second project (traffic sign recognition) for the Udacity "Self-Driving Car Engineer" nanodegree, using TensorFlow - it is interesting to me how it seems like the "standard" MNIST CNN can be adapted to so many other use cases.

For the project I am currently working on, I'm using a slightly modified form of LeNet - which isn't too different from the TF MNIST tutorial; after all, recognizing traffic signs isn't much different than recognizing hand-written numbers...

...but "driving" a course? That seems radically different to my less-than- expert-at-TensorFlow understanding, but that is only due to my ignorance.

I'm glad that these examples and demos are being investigated and made public for others - especially people learning like myself - to look at and learn from.

<comment><USER11> From the post:

> Later, I switched to use Nvidia's Autopilot...

So I guess he didn't use the MNIST CNN model.

<comment><USER10> However, if you look at the code:

[https://github.com/SullyChen/Autopilot- TensorFlow/blob/maste...](https://github.com/SullyChen/Autopilot- TensorFlow/blob/master/model.py)

You can see that it follows much the same pattern as LeNet CNN for MNIST - <USER2> few (ok, more than a few!) convolutional layers followed by a few fully connected layers.

Maybe you could call it a "follow on" or perhaps an ANN pattern?:

Conv -> Conv -> Reshape/Flatten -> FC -> FC -> FC

(disregarding activation and such)

...which is really the lesson of the LeNet MNIST CNN - at least, that's my takeaway.

<comment><USER11> You're right, that does look similar... I expected this to be based on some type of RNN!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The inevitable follow-up article that delves into training offensive banana peel usage should be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER12> Quote: "Driving a new (untrained) section of the Royal Raceway:"

So the author did a proper test of the model by scoring it on an unseen track to make sure it generalizes! This is very awesome!

<comment><USER13> How did we get from "bare minimum sensible testing" to "This is very awesome!"? Are things that bad on average?

<comment><USER14> There's probably a broad range of people in the hn community.

<comment><USER13> Fair point.

NB: generalization should be one of, if not _the_ first thing you think about and plan for in any ML project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Personally I think the most impressive thing here isn't that you created a self-driving MarioKart, but that you trained TensorFlow based on input screenshots of your desktop.

I feel like that could be a good next step - a ubiquitous neural net model that, after mapping inputs, will learn to play any video game that's on your screen.

<comment><USER16> Especially since the hard work of increasing the screen resolution has already been done.

Also, bravo on including the stupid little bugs that gave you trouble. It always sustains me working on a hard project to know that a self-driving video game was blocked by a missing newline in a C HTTP request. It makes me step back and laugh at the ridiculous complexity of what we take for granted in our day to day work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Best part, "With this in mind I played more MarioKart to record new training data. I remember thinking to myself while trying to drive perfectly, "is this how parents feel when they're driving with their children who are almost 16?""

</comment><comment><USER18> It's basically a project these days at Udacity's Self-driving car nanodegree under "Behavioral Cloning" ;-)

</comment><comment><USER19> I was ready to be impressed about seeing an AI that could consistently beat the game's own AI, with blue turtle shells and all. Oh well, still pretty impressive to be able to drive on the easiest course without opponents.

</comment><comment><USER20> Check out also MarI/O, very impressive: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6UVOQ0F44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6UVOQ0F44)

</comment><comment><USER21> How are the original computer opponents able to play MarioKart?

<comment><USER22> 1\. The AI in games has access to internal representations of game state and does not have to recognize it from pixels on screen. This is a massive difference.

2\. The logic is usually a bunch of (human-authored) scripts consisting of if- else spaghetti.

<comment><USER23> Also, the AI opponents don't have to play by the same rules. They go by fun > fairness to keep things interesting. That's why you normally can't keep a huge lead on AI opponents, because they "rubberband" back up to you faster than they should be able to.

Wouldn't surprise me if they don't even 'drive' in any sense while off-screen, just increment some abstract position relative to the track length. But I don't know this for a fact.

<comment><USER5> "Wouldn't surprise me if they don't even 'drive' in any sense while off- screen, just increment some abstract position relative to the track length. But I don't know this for a fact." This seems unlikely, especially given how item pickup zones operate. Since an item box disappears for a short period of time after someone drives over it, it's imperative that the position of the CPU player who drove over it, and the one that comes after that (and inherently gets no item) is represented accurately. Even off-screen, AI continues to collect and utilize items.

Then again, maybe this is just done by cheating simply with an RNG.

<comment><USER3> This is indeed what they do. Mario Kart 64 is known for having the most egregious rubberbanding ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Personally, I'm just a little impressed that you can train an active agent to play a game using old-fashioned supervised learning on screen states and controller states rather than relying on "action-oriented" learning techniques like reinforcement learning, online learning, or even a recurrent model.

It really shows how _simple_ many control tasks actually are!

<comment><USER25> This is exactly what I wondered about. So what exactly is the function you are training for? Is it basically like "if the screen (showing the track) looks like this, apply these controls"?

<comment><USER26> An more accurate description of the function would be "given this picture of a screen, what is the most likely key my author was pressing in this situation" \- no goals, no values, no optimization, but simply learning to imitate the actions performed by a human.

Coincidentally, one of the neural network components in AlphaGo did pretty much the same, i.e. attempted to guess what human player would usually play in this situation purely based on the image and nothing else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Next, have it upload its race results to kartlytics

<comment><USER28> Yeah - that was a very cool project!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm interested in knowing why the Python and C components communicate with HTTP, beyond reading about the bugfix. Wouldn't it be easier to use sockets or files or some other mechanism to integrate the two languages?

Just something to think about as a developer. I would imagine that on a local machine, using HTTP as the protocol might add latency.

<comment><USER30> This was my initial reaction as well; it seems like a raw socket or even embedding a Python interpreter would be better ways to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Pretty interesting I must say. Have to admit though, I kind of expected the self driving AI to be trying to win Grand Prix or Versus races instead of doing well in Time Trials. But hey, I can see how that would be utterly painful to try and set up, especially given how times you get hit by items or rammed off the track in more recent games.

<comment><USER32> Step 1 is to make the AI find an ideal path through the course.

Step 2 is to make AI figure out how to return to the ideal path through the course when other people are stealing your items or shelling you.

step 3 is to make the AI figure out how to counter attack to slow down the opponents.

Step 4 is OH GOD WE TAUGHT THE AI HOW TO ATTACK RUN FOR YOUR LIVES.

<comment><USER23> Step 2.5 would be to make the AI figure out how to evade or minimize the effect of or ability to initiate opponents' offensive moves. That would be the most interesting bit to me. Would be neat to see an AI intentionally stay in 2nd place with an item at the ready until the home stretch, to avoid being blue-shelled.

<comment><USER32> Intentionally stay in second, unless it has reason to believe that it can stay in 1st place, even after getting blue-shelled.

But yes. point being, self driving is a feat of it's own, competing with opponents is a whole different ballgame with it's own set of challenges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It would be very interesting to see how well this does with more training data, especially with multiple players.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is very cool and I think if Kevin spends a bit of time learning reinforcement learning it could be amazing.

It seems like a lot of people doing reinforcement learning on video games get bogged down on training on raw pixels only... it would take a tremendous amount of data to make the driver recognise when and where to use certain power ups, however if you encoded this as a variable, wow it could be really cool.

I believe this is fundamentally how we humans learn with so few examples. Other humans "encode features for our brain to track" by telling us how it should be done and what information to prioritise.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is really cool, and any reason to bring this game back into my life is warmly welcomed

</comment><comment><USER35> I love this!

I'm working (albeit very slowly, as a beginner) on a similar project with Geometry Dash and Python. You're a great inspiration!

</comment><comment> gm-conspiracy I appreciate the write-up. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER36> great write up! this is awesome

</comment><comment><USER37> No power slide? Failure.</comment>


Micro-consulting for UX, a question at a time - <AUTHOR> http://www.askadesignerd.com

<comment><USER2> I used this guy before. He gave me a complete pdf with his notes. I think this is brilliant. I can ask only the question I have a trouble with, and get more than I ask in return. His pdf had enough comments to keep me busy for the next 5 weeks.

Do you guys know of other micro-consulting place like this?</comment>


Ask YC: Where do you buy RAM? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the market for some RAM, and wondering where people usually buy their RAM. <comment><USER2> I use Crucial (<http://crucial.com>). Usually pretty cheap and the service is terrific.

<comment><USER3> Another vote for Crucial. It always works, and the price is great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. For what I'm looking for, Crucial is charging $550, and the exact same model number (of crucial memory) is $379 on newegg.com:

[http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT2KIT25...](http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT2KIT25672Y335)

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148119)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I usually use Newegg.com but if you watch the deal sites (like slickdeals.net) you can get some very good deals on RAM

<comment><USER5> I go to newegg for just about everything. Occasionally you'll find a better deal elsewhere, but newegg is consistently priced pretty competitively and it's just not worth the time a lot of times for a savings of a few bucks.

<comment><USER6> I use deal sites, but I check regularly rather than waiting until I need it. Just recently I picked up 2GB for $10 AR - that's pretty decent, you have to admit. On the other hand, this had led to me having several extra GB sitting around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've used Other World Computing (<http://www.macsales.com/>) for 5-10 RAM purchases over the years. Good prices and I've never had a reliability problem. Mac focused, though RAM is generally RAM.

<comment><USER8> Bought from them as well for 10 years. Never had a bad stick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've bought thousands of dollars of RAM at <http://datamemorysystems.com/>

The one time I had issues (some very early gig chips for a AlBook), they fixed it quickly.

Cheap, reliable and friendly.

</comment><comment><USER10> I use newegg.com, mostly because I'm really, really picky about ECC- I use unbuffered ECC in everything. Only a little more expensive than non-ecc- the biggest problem is that most places don't stock it. newegg does.

If I was using non-ecc, I'd wait for a sale at Fry's (though I'd still make sure to buy corsair or crucial or some other reputable brand) - I get most of my hard drives at Fry's- I tried ordering 'em from newegg, and the packaging (on the hard drives) was horribly bad. the drives were ok, but that was luck.

</comment><comment><USER11> Craigslist. People that have just upgraded their laptop or desktop sell the old RAM for next to nothing. If nothing fits the bill on CL then it's off to Newegg.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sorry, I flagged this accidentally. (I tried out the new feature before reading about it.) Please do not take offense.

Is there any way to unflag? Thanks.

<comment><USER13> Unflagging is now implemented.

<comment><USER12> That was fast.

<comment><USER12> Did I just see a 'repl' comment from pg? ;)

Anyway - I was more amazed that I catched the moment when I went from complaint to feature. I am used to your speed by now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I buy from local shops in SP road, in Bangalore while in Delhi I used to buy from nehru place. Both these places are known for electronics goods at cheap rate in India.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm interested in where people go in general, but in particular I'm personally looking for 4 GB (2x2GB) ECC DDR SDRAM (at least PC2100).

</comment><comment><USER15> <http://oempcworld.com/> \-- good prices and pretty good service.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well I'm located in the Bay Area, but you can get 2 GB of Crucial ram for $20 at Frys Electronics.

</comment><comment><USER17> newegg.com or zipzoomfly.com or pricewatch.com

<comment><USER18> I remember when zipzoomfly.com was googlegear.com. that was before I found newegg.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Crucial + Mushkin</comment>


Startup that planned to deliver babies in space [is] suspending operations - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/space-life-origin-suspending-operations-babies-in-space-2019-7 <comment><AUTHOR> Had to trim down the BI title quite a bit.

I am, frankly, gobsmacked by the existence of this startup.</comment>


Oculus VR's New "Crystal Cove" Prototype Is Kind of Amazing - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/09/oculus-vr-crystal-cove/ <comment><USER3> Awhile ago I made this image [http://i.imgur.com/yaIpP2r.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/yaIpP2r.jpg) describing an arena where virtual combat could take place with Oculus Rifts. I used some hand-wavy idea of tracking user position via wifi (dumb idea), but with Oculus positional tracking, I wonder if this arena concept becomes closer to reality?

Edit>> link to original thread [http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1fxpqb/xpost_from_rc...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1fxpqb/xpost_from_rcrazyideas_airsoftlike_arenas_with/)

<comment><USER4> People run into each other all the time with laser tag and people can actually see each other in that case. I would be concerned about people running into each other and into physical objects because of their lack of visual feedback on their reality.

Say for example, two people facing each other with a virtual wall between them. If both accidentally try to walk "though" the wall they would simply collide with each other, potentially causing injury or damage to equipment.

Not to be a buzzkill, I'd love a system that actually could support this, in theory a large room with many freedom of movement devices (like what Virtuix Omni is working on) would allow this idea in a much smaller space and no risk of players colliding.

<comment><USER5> This is the Virtuix Omni, if others haven't seen it yet (second version):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5UTkLIh76U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5UTkLIh76U)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H75BT43uT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H75BT43uT0)

<comment><USER3> I saw the Omni when it was announced, but I was never convinced of it's potential. A few things about it bother me:

1) Strafing is extremely unnatural. It involves standing still in the center, lifting one leg to the edge, and "swiping" it down towards the center. It's a very impractical move for any type of game where strafing is strategic.

2) Backwards motion is extremely difficult. Try to find a video of someone doing it effectively. It's rarely shown because it's not easy to do. This removes this movement as well from any game where backwards movement is strategic.

3) [http://i.imgur.com/tsccO4H.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/tsccO4H.jpg) Not trying to be mean, but the visual of an adult using the Omni looks very much like a baby using a walker. I believe this limits the Omni to a product you'll only want to use by yourself, when nobody is around, because it looks silly.

4) The current version looks flimsy. Maybe they've beefed up the structure of the thing, but any video that I've watched has shown serious strain on the upright portions of the Omni itself.

5) The fact that you have to wear special shoes, and perform a procedure to get the Omni within reaching distance of a keyboard/mouse, and lock yourself in to the mechanism... seems like quite a bit of overhead to play a game essentially handicapped in terms of movement.

My prediction is that some people are going to be excited about Omni, buy it, try it a few times, and realize how limiting it is in actual gameplay, how limited they are in using their computer, the fact that they look silly to others, and the overhead involved in getting dressed and locked, and realize it isn't worth it. They'll push it to the side to collect dust, or try to sell it on craigslist.

<comment><USER6> (1) The way you strafe is to run in one direction but turn your torso (and the gun and the Oculus) to look to the side. You may have to tweak the game's control schemes to accomodate this, but it seems doable.

(2) I don't disagree, but it's basically going to be awkward to handle any in- game motion that isn't realistic, whether it's backwards motion or unlimited running and six-foot jumps. I suspect that you'll need to specifically design your game for the Omni in order for it to work well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tested have an interview/hands-on where they discuss why Oculus have used an optical approach with the external camera to track head movements. They note that it was superior to various other methods they tried. Wonder if eventually it could work with typical laptop web cams?

[http://www.tested.com/tech/459692-ces-2014-hands-oculus- vrs-...](http://www.tested.com/tech/459692-ces-2014-hands-oculus-vrs-crystal- cove-prototype/)

Also worth watching that video to hear about the switch to an OLED screen and the latency advantage there. Employees at that company must have so much fun trying all the alternatives to build the best product.

(My dev kit in Australia is for sale if anyone is interested. Email in profile. It's amazing, but I'm curious more than I am a software developer so it might be more useful to someone else.)

<comment><USER8> A similar approach could be used with a typical webcam. In their case it's probably a camera with a filter so they can isolate their IR LEDs. That's kind of a nice to have but it's not absolutely necessary. It's neat how they can get by with a single camera. Note the pattern of LEDs, as you move around they can use the pattern to locate you in 3d space.

IMO the downside of using a camera is that you automatically get some latency as part of the deal. A full frame has to be read out, digitized and the 3d position derived. Some other systems could have better real time characteristics. The cost of this system is presumably a factor.

<comment><USER9> You can use sensor fusion to combine it with acceleromters, which have terrible drift double integrating from acceleration to position, but can actually manage it in the few-milliseconds time scale between frames/signaling/processing of the camera.

<comment><USER8> Yes. That should work... I'll add it to the patent ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been following the Oculus CES coverage somewhat and by far the most in- depth interview/coverage has been by the Tested folks. Here's their video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpNQHNkJY1g](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpNQHNkJY1g)

The most in-depth discussions probably happen on the Oculus Developer Forums and the Oculus Subreddit. RoadtoVR is good for general coverage on HMDs and peripherals.

<comment><USER11> That was quite informative, but I have to say that the guy who did the interview really disoriented me. He kept jumping on everyone's words and it felt like he was way over caffeinated. I watched it almost 10 minutes ago and I still feel kind of jittery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Awesome. The golden age of VR may finally be upon us. It's been talked about for probably 20 years but now all the technology to support this at a reasonable cost seems to be converging. I think in 10 years we'll look back at this in a similar way to how we look at Wolfenstein 3d, when everything changed.

</comment><comment><USER12> Did I hear him say "gaze detection" near the end of the video? _that 's_ also a big deal I haven't heard anything about anywhere else.

<comment><USER13> I haven't seen that anywhere else, so he probably misspoke. Eye-tracking seems like it would be an obvious future enhancement. In the EVE spaceship demo, it seemed a little odd that you locked missiles based on where your head was pointing and not where your eyes were looking.

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately, eye tracking is only possible in broad strokes, not fine detail, and certainly not for tracking fast-moving small targets across the screen in a realtime action game. There's pretty much no such thing as a smooth eye movement; your brain tricks you into thinking your eyes are moving smoothly when they're not. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade)

I wanted to use my eyes to create 3D models via eye tracking. Looked into it for about a week before concluding it was probably impossible, or at least way less accurate than good old-fashioned hand movements.

Dunno what the Oculus guys are doing with gaze detection, but I doubt they're doing fine-grained detection such as being able to pick out a particular target with your eyes. (I would _love_ to be wrong about this! That'd be an awesome feature. I just doubt whether it's technically possible.)

<comment><USER15> From eye tracking can you infer where the user thinks they are looking? I.e. recover the illusory smooth eye motion I perceive when tracking a moving cat.

<comment><USER14> I think it'd be impossible because when you think you move your eye, your brain is essentially just moving a bitmap image of what you're looking at around the center of your vision. E.g. look at the word "sillysaurus2" above my comment. Look at the 's', then look at the 'y' \-- keep looking back and forth. Your eye likely isn't moving at all, even though your focus of vision does. It happens mentally rather than physically.

<comment><USER16> I tried what you said and I could definitely feel my eye moving. Is that being synthesized by my brain?

<comment><USER14> Indeed, it is. Strange but true.

The way to convince yourself your eyeball isn't moving is to touch your actual eyeball with your fingertip -- like press lightly against the left corner side of your left eyeball with your left index finger -- and then switch your gaze back and forth between the two letters. As long as your viewing distance is correct, you won't feel any movement. (You may have to back your head away from the screen. I'm viewing from a distance of arm's length.)

On the other hand, if you look back and forth between adjacent words, then you can feel physical eye movement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Tried it out yesterday. Really a major improvement, and they're listening to feedback. The method of producing 'low persistence' is quite interesting, and only works becuase of the move to OLED. Really smart guys there.

<comment><USER5> Carmack has been talking about OLED for VR headsets for quite some time, and I'm sure Palmer and the rest were considering it, too. But I think it wasn't very accessible to them until recently. They're a start-up so they can't exactly go an order a few thousand 1080p OLED panels. This may have been possible now due to Samsung making the Galaxy S4 with a 1080p panel last year, and perhaps other launched some, too, and it pushed the prices down for such a panel, enough to make it viable for Oculus Rift.

<comment><USER18> They have over $90 Million in venture funding. They can order pretty much anything they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone know when this will be released? It says Prototype Model and then there is a developer kit. I am not a big fan of Developer Kit as they tend to be far from ready to be a consumer product. Also add the price factor. Ditto goes to Google Glass which has a developer edition for $1500 (of course only for selected/invited ones) but if it ever becomes a reality i.e. meaning a real consumer product and drops the price to $300 then I will not be happy since it cost me $1200 more and the latest model may have better h/w components.

<comment><USER19> They are likely to release a consumer product late this year or early next year, with an updated dev kit coming some time before that. Always subject to change of course since this is bleeding edge tech, but they can't delay too much or they risk Microsoft or Sony beating them to the punch.

<comment><USER20> "they risk Microsoft or Sony beating them to the punch"

I very curious what the competition is doing. They're obviously working on competing products, but nothing has been made public.

<comment><USER19> Sony has a head-tracking HMD at CES, but it's nowhere close to competing with the Rift. Yet. [http://www.tested.com/tech/tvs/459687-ces-2014-impressions-s...](http://www.tested.com/tech/tvs/459687-ces-2014-impressions- sonys-head-tracking-hmd-prototype/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Every time I see these guys I think they are the next game console. Basically something that doesn't connect to your TV at all except perhaps if other people want to see what you are doing.

</comment><comment><USER22> Hrm.....I have to say that the technology is really cool, but the video makes it look like nothing more than a gimmick. Notice "makes it look".

They picked a tower defense game to demo this? Really? Who's gonna want to have full upper body motion (lean in, out, sideways, up, down) to play a tower defense game? A few people, for the novelty of it.

This type of marketing is very unfortunate. It's a technology with a lot of really cool potential and this video made it look like a gimmick.

</comment><comment><USER5> I saw a video of some of the Verge guys trying it out at CES, and pretty much all of them were like "I don't want to take this off" at the end. It sounds like Oculus Rift will change gaming forever, and not just gaming.

There could also be done a lot of revolutionary new things with movies, like seeing through a character's eyes, etc (cameras mounted to the main character Google Glass style?). Even watching a normal movie on Oculus Rift is probably going to be a better experience than going to the cinema, because you could virtualize the cinema in front of you, and recreate that atmosphere.

<comment><USER23> I suspect the Rift will force an interesting battle between pre-rendered and realtime graphics in film. Because of parallax effects, there is no way to pre-render footage for the Rift while still maintaining the level of geometric correctness the Rift provides. I suspect we'll see some pre-rendered 3d movies for the Rift, but they'll feel pretty weird.... It will be pseudo 3d, like current 3d films, not the true binocular, immersive, persistent-world effect that Rift games provide.

With realtime rendering, however, you will get the complete, geometrically correct 3d images with head tracking. I suspect what this means is we'll start to see 3d films that are rendered in realtime. Essentially like the cutscenes we see for AAA video games, except they'd be feature length without any gameplay in between. If VR really takes off, we might even see companies like Pixar re-release their films for realtime viewing.

I would love to see a company like Pixar produce new realtime 3d films for the Rift, but it seems unlikely that would make financial sense for them. I suspect what we'll see instead is indie shorts first, followed by larger and larger budget films. The same trajectory that CG films took in the first place.

An interesting implication of this is that live footage will be basically impossible to incorporate into a true VR setting. As video resolution gets higher we may see multiple angles of scenes being recorded in ultra-high-def, and then digitally combined into a voxel scene. Probably data from something like the Kinect would have to be mixed in too, to resolve all of the voxels. That could be replayed on a Rift, but the director would have to really constrain the kind of lighting, materials, and motion for that to work well. It would be extraordinarily difficult, and I suspect you'd still have a lot of strange artifacts.

This could actually be a big shot in the arm for pure digital film production!

<comment><USER24> I have a Rift and I'm bullish about its prospects for gaming, but I'm pretty skeptical about using this for non-interactive entertainment.

What would be the point of allow the user to move around (in a limited fashion anyhow) inside the movie? It doesn't improve storytelling (as games can by adding interactivity and perspective) - it strikes me as a gimmick, much like 3D films in general.

You get the whiz-bang coolness of "OMG I'm in this thing!", but ultimately it's a lot more gear than a straight-up television/movie screen for next to no gain. 3D movies had a few years of glory but is now deeply unpopular - <USER2> foresee the same for VR-movies.

<comment><USER6> I suspect there'd be a niche but viable market for non-interactive or semi- interactive content. Off the top of my head, I can see a handful of use-cases where immersive VR would be a huge plus over a two-dimensional image:

* Being able to view complex choreography (martial arts, dancing, etc.) from different angles

* Conveying a sense of size and scale -- e.g. Pacific Rim, Godzilla

* Recreating some emotion or feeling imparted by the surrounding environment -- e.g. the franticness of a war zone, the claustrophobia of a submarine

<comment><USER25> Porn is also an obvious use case. And porn could drive the market much more than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> They gained a huge asset with Carmack working full time for Oculus. I'd never have been interested in this, but now I am. It's progressing very nicely.

<comment><USER23> I don't disagree that Carmack was a huge win, but it's a little insulting to Palmer and the rest of the team to suggest that he's the reason for their progress. He's only been on the team for a few months. A lot of what they're doing has been in the works for a long time.

Plus, all I've heard about what Carmack has been doing is that he was working on Android stuff in the beginning.

<comment><USER27> Carmack is a late add to the Occulus team, but he's been doing real work in reducing latency:

[http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/22/latency- mitigation-...](http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/02/22/latency-mitigation- strategies/)

<comment><USER28> And for anyone who didn't know, Carmack has long been obsessively, arduously interested in latency problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Now I'm thinking I ought to start thinking about a 3-D desktop environment. I know it sounds nuts to use this technology to just render a browser and a bunch of terminal windows, but that could be an awesome working environment.

It is neat to have bigger and higher resolution screens, but I can only read the text at one point in space anyway.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is the future of gaming. I wonder if it uses some sort gyroscope to track position like the iPhone does.

<comment><USER31> You can't track position using a gyroscope. What you can track are changes in orientation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So,

Where can I buy one?

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope that while they're putting the finishing touches on the current product, and work on deploying it soon, they will also keep in mind what the guys at Avegant are doing, and either do their own R&D with this type of technology for future products, to completely eliminate the screen and the need to use UHD or higher resolutions in the future (or at least not for sometime), while making it easier for the eyes, or they buy them out.

The technology does have some major disadvantages like a smaller field of view compared to Oculus, but perhaps they can fix that. After all, VR headsets like Oculus also had very small field of views before, too.

To me, having the image projected onto your retina seems like a technology that has greater potential for virtual reality, even if it starts with a slightly bigger handicap than Oculus did.

[http://reviews.cnet.com/wearable-tech/avegant- glyph/4505-349...](http://reviews.cnet.com/wearable-tech/avegant- glyph/4505-34900_7-35833856.html)</comment>


Show HN: Stripe for speech to text (transcription API) - <AUTHOR> https://app.loverino.com/api/v1/docs <comment><USER2> I did not find pricing information - how much do you charge and how? Per minute, per file?

<comment><AUTHOR> per minute: [https://app.loverino.com/plans](https://app.loverino.com/plans)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is this like Stripe?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an API

<comment><USER4> Transcription API is a lot easier to understand than "Stripe for speech to text". You should probably lead with that even though it may not be as sexy as X for Y.</comment></comment></comment>


CRS-3 Falcon 9 first stage to sport legs and attempt soft splashdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/02/crs-3-falcon-9-first-stage-sport-legs-attempt-soft-splashdown/

<comment><USER2> This will be yet another ambitious mission for SpaceX. One of the things that strikes me about this stuff is that NASA would test some new feature, then test it two more times to be sure that it working wasn't a fluke, and then go for the next feature. SpaceX has been testing multiple new features on every flight, which has led to some really rapid advancement in their capability. If this thing successfully does its "pretend" landing on the water I am sure they will push for the next one to land back at the pad.

<comment><AUTHOR> NASA would design a new feature, send it through half a dozen design reviews, apply a few pounds of paperwork, test it on the ground, test fly it (maybe) once, and then deem it "correct" and fly it as-is forever. Manned.

This happened with STS and it's happening with SLS. If you can believe it, the SLS/Orion schedule is this:

1\. This year, the first Orion will fly unmanned on a Delta 4. For two orbits. 2\. Three years later (2017) the second Orion will fly unmanned on the very first launch of SLS--around the moon. 3\. Three years later (2021), the third Orion will fly manned, on the second launch of the SLS, to rendezvous with a captured asteroid. 4\. After that, they hope someone somewhere will come up with additional payloads for SLS and/or missions for Orion. Know anyone who needs a giant rocket at $1B a pop? Have them call NASA. They're targeting one launch per year, starting 2022.

It's completely mad. I wouldn't ride on the second flight of a rocket designed by God Himself.

Take a look, by the way, at the Apollo test program: [http://www.thespacerace.com/forum/index.php?topic=1089.0](http://www.thespacerace.com/forum/index.php?topic=1089.0)

Apollo, granted, was at a completely novel scale. But still: one test, all up? Then three years? I won't be able to watch.

By the time SLS-1 gets off the ground (even if I grant them their schedule) SpaceX will probably be launching a reusable Falcon Heavy (at about 2/3 the payload of the SLS Block I) every other month, for $200M or less. And they'll have, oh, about 100 F9 core-launches under their belt.

The SpaceX plan sure looks like a better idea to me. For anything. Other than spending lots of money.

By the time SLS-2 is picking up their asteroid, Elon will probably be watching from frickin' Mars.

<comment><USER3> By that time, Space X will be hired to fly parallel, take pictures and serve as a backup.

 _Couldn 't resist_

<comment><USER4> By that time, SpaceX will be selling tickets to tourists who want to ride along and watch in person :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was the Launch Systems Lead for one of the primary payloads on this flight and was surprised when they announced this but excited to watch it happen (or attempted). Almost every Falcon/Dragon flight is innovating in multiple major ways which is NOT how Aerospace normally works, but why many of us we chose to work in the industry and a refreshing change.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> CRS-3, by the way, will make good use of Dragon's unique down-mass capability. It will carry up and return three sample return freezers, and swap in a replacement for a malfunctioning space suit (bringing the bad one back for examination.) The bad suit (or EMU) is not the one that famously leaked back in July, interestingly enough, but the station's fourth suit that's been out of commission for a while.

</comment><comment><USER6> A coworker of a friend was recruited by SpaceX to help _design the rockets themselves_. He turned it down. Hes a product designer but damn I didnt know product designers could also be qualified to design rockets. Maybe it was just recruiter-speak but that's an incredible opportunity.

<comment><USER3> May I inquire, what job made him turn down SpaceX ?

<comment><USER6> Some design firm in South Carolina.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Launch target is March 16, 2014

</comment><comment><USER8> I still find it hard to believe that it is energy-efficient to carry fuel all the way up and then all the way back down only to spend it in the last few meters of the decent. I'm sure they've run the numbers and decided it is but it is the most surprising part of this approach to me. Does anyone have an idea of how much fuel is spent in the return phase?

<comment><USER9> SpaceX is optimizing costs rather than energy-efficiency. Obviously you need less fuel if you're not doing a soft-landing back.

<comment><USER10> Energy efficiency also needs to consider how much energy you need to build the vector. It looks quite likely to me that reusing the vector would be more energy efficient too.

<comment><USER9> Energy efficiency means many different things. It's tricky to estimate if the total energy efficiency is smaller using a reusable rocket. Could be.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Book of Secret Knowledge – A collection of lists, blogs, hacks - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/trimstray/the-book-of-secret-knowledge <comment><USER2> There's also [https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome)

What's causing the rise of these curated lists? Some things I've been pondering:

      * quality decline of Google search results
      * less people using bookmark aggregators (del.icio.us)
      * the trend towards feeds or transient info (fb/twitter/reddit)

<comment><USER3> > What's causing the rise of these curated lists?

People with good intentions that want a repo with a high star count. Getting over 500 stars on these readme-only/awesome/"curated" list is very easy.

The problem is that curating these lists isn't easy work - people will throw 50+ PRs at you adding their random project. Most maintainers blindly accept them and then the list becomes useless.

Sindre (original awesome list author) is one of the few who actually curates their lists.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do it only for stars... really man? Creating and maintaining such a list is not a simple thing. It's not awesome or other shit in the name.

This is a collection of my short notes, one-liners, useful links, tools and more. I added it to gh, to share with others and get other interesting things. Not for stars! The amount of them is obviously nice but not crucial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Honestly, I'm disappointed that there isn't any prose / new content involved in this "book".

I think it would be nice to have an actual "book", with community-composed chapters. They would follow the same topics listed here, but with actual cohesive explanations and background, rather than just a list of resources.

For example, looking at the first section (Shells), it would be nice to have an _actual_ bit of writing which tells you about the evolution of shells and why some might be preferred over others.

Awesome Lists[0] already does a pretty good job of maintaining a collection of curated lists.

0: [https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome](https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome)

<comment><USER5> I really find this list awesome as it is. And the short explanations are really good IMHO.

Without any offense intended, if you need more writing then maybe you need first to read some of the documentation resources before going back to this list?

Also, what I really like is that the author doesn't try to justify why and that's refreshing and lightweight, thanks for that!

But that's like my opinion, man ;-)

<comment><USER4> It seems a bit redundant to have a list if I need to read the documentation of the things on the list in order to gauge the value of the list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why call it secret when "It is intended for everyone and anyone"? I can't understand the idea behind it.

<comment><USER7> It creates enough mystery for someone to open the github page so they can read "intended for everyone"?

<comment><USER8> So it's clickbait?

<comment><USER9> Or, you know, an enticing name.

Not everything has to be "clickbait". Let's keep it to those who make money off of news posts, and blatant examples like "You won't believe what Lindsay Lohan did...".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another list similar to this is - [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/List_of_applications](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/List_of_applications)

<comment><USER11> +1 The entire Arch Wiki is itself a gem of "secret knowledge". (:

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> None of this is secret and it's not a book, but okay

</comment><comment><USER13> At the meta level, I think using a .md to host informational documents is cool. A step up from a blog, allowing a better way to discuss/propose additions.

I've been thinking of doing a piece of doing Defcon on the cheap (harder in recent years).

</comment><comment><USER14> thanks

</comment><comment><USER15> This is okay, was hoping it would be about life and not CS.

Every time someone recommends an install/read, I am wondering the break even it takes to learn, implement in practice, and implement IRL for a useful application..</comment>


Nanaimo bar gets Canada Post stamp, but critics question base-to-filling ratio - <AUTHOR> https://vancouversun.com/life/food/sweet-iconic-nanaimo-bar-gets-its-own-stamp <comment><USER2> Which is worse, this or Google's hamburger disaster?

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/30/16569346/burgergate- emoj...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/30/16569346/burgergate-emoji-google- apple)

<comment> em-bee the google hamburger won't show up in stamp collections 100 years from now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> BTW, I just want to say that if you get a chance to eat a Saskatoon berry pie: do it. I haven't had the chance for at least 20 years, unfortunately :-(

<comment><USER4> Not everyone loves them. I personally do, but my mom (a Canadian) doesn't think they're that great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> they trusted kraft: [http://www.kraftcanada.com/recipes/layered-nanaimo-bar- chees...](http://www.kraftcanada.com/recipes/layered-nanaimo-bar- cheesecake-86643)

<comment><USER6> Eww

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kind of reminds me of the USPS using a picture of the Statue of Liberty in Vegas.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/arts/statue-of-liberty- st...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/arts/statue-of-liberty-stamp- copyright-las-vegas.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Hilarious. How could they get that wrong? A simple Google Image search show this representation is non typical.

<comment><USER9> Very funny. Marketing gimmick to get it wrong? More people talk about it this way.

<comment><USER6> Let's talk about Rampart.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something almost but not completely unlike millionaire's shortbread ... It does seems that nanaimo bar came first, actually: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caramel_shortbread](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caramel_shortbread) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanaimo_bar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanaimo_bar)

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately inflation and wealth inequality is leading to it being called billionaires shortbread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That does not resemble my childhood memories of the Nanaimo Bar, but it did provoke some intense nostalgia.

<comment><USER13> Yeah...that is heftier than any nanaimo bar i've ever had. Those things are so rich it's hard to eat a whole normal sized one. That's just a bit much.

Looks more like an ice cream sandwhich to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Haha, oh well I'd still try one with more filling, it is my favourite part anyway. Canada Post is pulling some culinary activism I can get behind. Thanks for looking past the rockies Ottawa!

</comment><comment><USER11> So I always thought that 'sugar pie' was a pet name for a loved one.

Apparently not [1], I guess it is also a pet name, else there's a few songs I need to re evaluate.

Ps Does North America not use the word tart. The wikipedia page describes it as a 'single-crust' pie? How do you differentiate those annoying upside down tart 'pies' consisting of a disc of pastry plonked on top?

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

<comment><USER15> A tart is a pie with a bottom crust and no top crust. What you're describing as an upside-down tart is a grunt. If you bake a grunt but serve it upside down, it's a slump.

There are also betties, crumbles, crisps, buckles, clafoutis, cobblers, crisps and pandowdies. Each is different, and some have regional disagreements.

<comment><USER11> Wikipedia suggests that a grunt is a type of cobbler [1]? Although [2] suggests its steamed?

[2] also suggests a slump is yet another cobbler variation.

The upside down tarts are what they try to pass off as pies in British pubs, I wouldn't class them as pies, just like I wouldn't class a tart as a pie. British crumbles,cobblers et al don't tend to have pastry bottoms, so I wouldn't class those as pies either.

Shepherds, Cumberland and cottage pie...... Are the exception that proves the rule :)

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobbler_(food)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobbler_\(food\))

[2] [https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/07/what-is-cobbler-crisp- cr...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/07/what-is-cobbler-crisp-crumble- baked-fruit-dessert.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That looks a lot like a tompouce to me:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=tompouce&rlz=1C1GCEA_enNL749...](https://www.google.com/search?q=tompouce&rlz=1C1GCEA_enNL749NL749&oq=tompu&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.6728j1j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

<comment><USER17> That's made with layers of pastry on the top and bottom, right? I believe that the Nanaimo bar has a biscuit base, like a cheesecake, and chocolate icing on top. The custard core is a common point, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've seen them looking like this in the States. Guess I can now assume those weren't quite authentic.

</comment><comment><USER19> And continuing that great stamp conspiracy of not putting the value on the stamp so i have to spend ten minutes on google trying to figure out how many i need. Eventually i give up and just plaster the envelope with stamps. They win again. By the time i next have to mail something to my great aunt ive totally forgotten about the last and repeat the cycle. I must overspend at least a dollar or two each year on this scam.

<comment><USER20> I... I'm confused. They're permanent stamps. They _always_ have the correct value.

<comment><USER19> Weight. Not all things require the same number of stamps.

<comment><USER21> Yes. But it takes one of those stamps to send a regular letter. No matter if the price changes. No conspiracy here. Don't use letter mail postage for parcel mail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Less base is better anyhow but middle is way too big. Would glady eat.

</comment><comment><USER23> They did it on purpose. Now they have to amend and reprint the stamp, and destroy all the old batches. Except for a couple of sheets, which some insiders will hold on to, and which will eventually resurface as philatelic rarities...

<comment><USER24> Yes, the Great Canada Post Nanaimo Stamp Conspiracy... it's the perfect crime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The weird and wonderful erudition one may gain on HN. Before clicking through I couldn't even parse the title. _Canada_ , yes, the huge country we never hear about, and _Post_ , and _stamp_ , but who's Nanaimo, or where's the bar, and what's with its capacity for filling?

All is now clear. On to weightier if possibly less entertaining matters.

</comment><comment><USER26> Proving once again that the quickest way to success is to check with your customers. Rather than a secret build then a big reveal Canada Post could have checked in with some local experts for each dessert to ensure they had the best representation possible.

Canada Post isn't a startup and they aren't looking for "market fit" but the same principles apply.

<comment><USER27> No, it really begs the question of "how many Canadians were involved in designing this stamp?"

Subject-matter experts are always required.</comment></comment>