Show HN: WebGL Voxel Engine - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Lallassu/voxelengine3 <comment><USER2> I'm (slowly) working on my own game largely inspired by a previous version of this engine. The repo with the previous version:

\- [Lallassu/Qake: Qake voxel-engine demo]([https://github.com/Lallassu/Qake](https://github.com/Lallassu/Qake))

I was really floored by how much functionality was possible with what seems like so little code.

<comment><USER3> There needs to be more of this. I know how hard it is to work on a stylized video game all by yourself: just remember its a marathon not a sprint so pace yourself and keep at it! <3

<comment><USER2> > just remember its a marathon not a sprint so pace yourself and keep at it!

Thanks! This really is the best sentiment for personal passion projects. Tho an occasional sprint can be fun too!

This 'isn't my first rodeo'. I've been partially implementing ambitious software projects for years!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Needs a loading indicator, I thought it was broken until the assets started popping in.

<comment><USER5> Agree. Had I not read your comment before opening the link I would have quit before it fully loaded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> i think the degree to which Three.JS has allowed programmers access to the world of modern 3d is severely understated. If you haven't tried it, go to threejs.org/examples/ and copy and paste some source, it's _incredibly_ simple to start hacking.

<comment><USER6> It's a world I'd like to enter more myself but I've found it's a little hard to get started. With a degree in maths / comp sci, I have a pretty good understanding of linear algebra. 20 years experience coding means I'm quite happy to hack away.

Thing I've struggled with is all the background. People talk about shaders and launch straight into the details, but I've barely been able to find any background information that sets the scene.

Last night I made a game with Unity, which was fun and pretty simple to start with and I'd like to understand more about it all.

Where does someone with plenty of comp and maths knowledge but no 3D experience (other than tinkering with the likes of Blender) go to learn about it quickly?

<comment><USER7> You might be interested in [https://github.com/ssloy/tinyrenderer/wiki](https://github.com/ssloy/tinyrenderer/wiki)

<comment><USER6> Good shout, thanks. I had that on my reading list a while ago but never got around to it. Thanks for the reminder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool looking game!

What's the purpose of the node server in the code (as opposed to just opening the HTML document in a browser)? Do you have plans to use websockets or something to add multiplayer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! No it's just a simple way of running the game locally without a real webserver and without issues with x-origin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cool, lacking the ability to strafe.

<comment><USER10> This. Make A and D strafe instead of turn, relying on the mouse to aim, and it'll be very playable. As it is, not so much. But still pretty cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's unplayable on an AZERTY keyboard. On such layout the controls should be: ZQSD instead of WASD.

AZERTY layout: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY#/media/File:KB_France.s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY#/media/File:KB_France.svg)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a very nice looking game. Congrats! Love the ambience of the game. It is very immersive.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here is my wishlist:

Something like GVDB that runs in WebGL and can handle arbitrary dimensional volumes.

It's a very tall order!

<comment><USER13> By arbitrary dimensional, do you really mean N-dimensional, or just 3D with more channels of data (than just RGBA), or just larger 3D spans?

The OpenGL and WebGL primitives aren't really suited for N-dimensional data since there are specific buffer types and intrinsics for 1D, 2D, and 3D texture handling. You can fake more than 4 channels using more than one texture. You can't really get around the per-axis size limits because these are points of portability and also directly related to resource allocation limits in practice, i.e. GPU RAM is consumed as the cube of 3D texture span.

You can abuse WebGL textures a little bit by turning off interpolation and using nearest sampling as if it were a basic array access. But then you still have to write your own array packer and N-dimensional array addressing arithmetic to map the ND coordinate into the 3D coordinate needed by the texture sampler. And you still have to live with such tiny texture size limits that it seems quite pointless except as an academic exercise. I've used this to fit larger 1D arrays into a 3D texture without exceeding a 1024 or 2048 per-axis limit.

Actual ND techniques are more feasible in a GPGPU language like OpenCL, where you have more basic memory access and SIMD intrinsics. But I think it will be quite some time before these capabilities are exposed in a web language and also with sufficiently high resource limits to do anything non-trivial.

<comment><USER12> I do :) I've written a tool that bakes out clifford algebra functions into glsl (using sympy/sage to generate the clifford algebra). I want to use it to play with volumetric data... in the web browser! Obviously that's very lofty... foolish even.

If it's even possible, it'd be hard. I don't have the chops at the moment, and neither does chrome!

"But I think it will be quite some time before these capabilities are exposed in a web language and also with sufficiently high resource limits to do anything non-trivial."

Realistically, that's probably more what I'm actually waiting for.

And GVDB could be perfect, except for its super awkward licensing and platform lock. Ugh! I think there are some other realtime VDB projects out there, so I might check into those some time.

In the meanwhile, when I get around to it, I'll probably end up doing low poly ("low-simplex") stuff. A more realistic goal for the browser of today (and for my skillset) is something that can intersect lower dimensional manifolds with simplices embedded in higher dimensions. Dealing with normals will be mind bending. But I believe it can be done!

My project is to play with 4D (and higher) Moebius transformations of animated polygon scenes.

First, the animated polygons need to be converted into 4d polytopes. Using the intersection tool described above, the 4d scene can be "scrubbed" in a time- like way by transforming the intersecting manifold. Except that now it's possible to apply conformal transformations to the 4d polytopes before scrubbing through!

This is an old demo of 3d Moebius transformations applied to key-framed polygons: [http://hyperspectives.wondering.xyz/moebius/hyperhorse.html](http://hyperspectives.wondering.xyz/moebius/hyperhorse.html)

Except that now I'm wondering about what 4d Moebius transformations look like.

How do they deform animation? I'm pretty sure that under a 4d moebius transformation, all four of the horse's legs could be running at different rates without ever interfering with one another. Of course they'd all be different sizes too. Also, spatial dimensions of the horse geometry would melt into the time dimension, depending on what kind of manifold was doing the time-slicing. What would it look like??! I want to see!

I might actually be able to get away with using stereographic projection/rejection for time-slicing instead of intersections, but I need to think that through very, very hard. I think it'd probably result in some gnarly polygons.

By the way, another thing I'm really looking into is this: [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-54382-1_...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-54382-1_17)

I've managed to implement these clifford-bezier surface patches in Sage, haven't gotten around to OpenGL.

EDIT:

By the way, in case you're curious, the idea that the horse's legs could move at different frequencies without intersecting one another is very much related to "spacetime dilation" in the theory relativity. The principle that would keep the hyper-horse from self intersecting is conformal invariance, which is closely related to Lorentz invariance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> After playing one round this completely froze my Macbook Pro and I had to force boot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Strange, I've developed it on my Macbook pro mostly and I never had such issues. I've used google-chrome.

<comment><USER14> I have 2017 MBP with touch bar. The sound kept playing, but mouse and keyboard didn't respond to anything. The game canvas was black. Couldn't quit browser or switch window from keyboard so only option was to force boot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is really nice work and the code is very readable and clear! Thank you

</comment><comment><USER16> It's almost playable with no hardware accelerated graphics.

</comment><comment><USER17> Very cool, controls are a bit awkward though.

<comment><USER18> Controls (WASD) are way too quick on my computer. I can only tap it slightly and it already moves quite a number of degrees, usually past the point I wanted it to move. Also, having the world rotate around you makes me nauseous. That being said, very clever and I am really impressed with how smooth this game is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> wasd = colemak hell</comment>


Closures in JDK 7 - <AUTHOR> http://www.jroller.com/scolebourne/entry/closures_in_jdk_7

<comment><USER2> I find it amusing in a very bitter way that only when Sun's own engineers realized the pain of programming in Java without closures that they seriously considered adding them. But at the same time closures are so important and useful that I'm glad to see them go in.</comment>


Show HN: How to integrate and automate iOS deployments in TFS environment - <AUTHOR> http://www.nonstandardsolutions.com/2014/07/my-quest-to-automate-mobile-deployments.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a need to integrate my iOS development with TFS repository. The dev ops that only use Windows boxes need to be able to build and deploy iOS code to TestFlight and App store mainly accessing remotely a Mac Mini server.<p>My solution was to add some script steps to the scheme and a build script to each project that can be executed from a TFS task accessing the Mac Mini via ssh. I describe my solution in more detail on the url above. I'm wondering to hear other solutions to similar problems and suggestions to improve my solution. Thanks</comment>


Ask HN: What xkcd issues are a must read? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Here's some data on which ones are shared most on reddit: [https://xkcdref.info/statistics/](https://xkcdref.info/statistics/)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the awesome link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The right answer is: all of them :D

</comment><comment><USER4> Why would an xkcd issue be a must read?

<comment><USER5> Probably in a funny way?

I like three very much:

1) "we are dealing with a sysadmin"

2) Math over physics over chemistry over biology...

3) Knuth's answer to array index inconsistency across languages (some start from zero others from one because [reasons])

<comment><USER6> Links for the lazy

1) "we are dealing with a sysadmin" \- [http://xkcd.com/705/](http://xkcd.com/705/)

2) Math over physics over chemistry over biology... - [https://xkcd.com/435/](https://xkcd.com/435/)

3) Knuth's answer to array index inconsistency across languages (some start from zero others from one because [reasons]) - [https://xkcd.com/163/](https://xkcd.com/163/)</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter's future could look a lot like its past - <AUTHOR> https://www.getrevue.co/profile/caseynewton/issues/twitter-s-future-could-look-a-lot-like-its-past-215420 <comment><USER3> I have my doubts about Twitter being able to create an open and decentralized standard considering they still haven't even opened up polls to third-party clients. I imagine there's no technical reason for it, just business ones. If they want to make the big leap towards a decentralized standard, why not make the small leap and give features like polls to current app developers?

<comment><USER4> I think such issues (give developers features) are something that would require a centralized response. This in turn creates liability and the issues of large platforms; they are tweaked by an incredibly small % of users who develop the feature, who can't fully foresee the unintended consequences of any large action. Then the results are mostly expressed by another % of loud/angry/extreme users, amplified by the media and then the centralized developers have to answer.

In the article, the author mentions 'your policy is what you enforce'. But that's really overly simplistic. There's a gradient, with extreme moderation on one end and no moderation on the other (even those in favor of no moderation will generally agree that nuclear launch sites and codes should be moderated off).

And then there's how and where you implement systems to identify cases which require moderation and what systems you put in place to avoid abuse and what incentives you are creating. And all this probably changes with time as people try different things to game systems. Our government(s), economies, etc are getting more and more centralized, controlled by fewer and fewer hands. This skews incentives and positions of leverage, look at what's happened with youtube content creators as a tiny example, but it's way beyond that.

By making it decentralized, Jack's basically appealing to the wisdom of crows. I think the article is missing the long of it. Yes, there will be forks, but eventually consensus appears in the community. I feel his comparison to Mastadon is unfair, since it was new and looking for a niche. Twitter is such a big name, everyone will want to have input on such a decentralized system, so there should be strong input from all sides as they are represented, at least within the tech sphere (which is pretty large and diverse when you leave SV/CA).

Our current development climate is allowing something as dramatic of a change as P2P protocols in the early 2000s. P2P has mostly disappeared in favor of streaming services, at least in the first world. But it was the P2P that allowed the creation of big streaming services. Without that pressure, I have serious doubts the current IP holders would have allowed Netflix or Hulu to be.

Jack's level of vision is reaching way beyond mine, but I think he is on to something, and the payoff can be truly disruptive, not just to business which is a bit boring, but to how things can work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Jack Dorsey references [1] Stephen Wolfram's testimony to the US Senate where he outlined a solution for algorithmic transparency and content curation. My startup, The Factual, coincidentally built something similar to what Stephen envisioned as a "final ranking provider". Blog post with details: [https://blog.thefactual.com/delivering-on-stephen- wolframs-v...](https://blog.thefactual.com/delivering-on-stephen-wolframs- vision-for-addressing-algorithmic-transparency)

[1] [https://twitter.com/jack/status/1204766086320680961?s=20](https://twitter.com/jack/status/1204766086320680961?s=20)

<comment><USER6> I'm very interested in the area you're working in so I checked out The Factual. Heads up that the "About OwlFactor" page gave me a 403.

From clicking around it seems like you've built a cool system for ingesting and scoring articles. I would say that you're methodology and it's bias against "highly opinionated" journalism seems to be committing the Argument to Moderation fallacy.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for checking out our site! We rebranded from OwlFactor and I forgot to update my HN profile! Doh. Fixed.

You're right that our methodology encourages moderation in news articles. But it doesn't penalize far right or far left outlets. Rather, if the style in which an article is written is inflammatory or opinionated then it is dinged. So it's not so much that viewpoints should be moderate but rather that the case for any viewpoint should be made without undue hyperbole and emotion.

The real test of our technology is if regular news readers like you and me like this selection bias. So I'd be grateful if you checked out the selections on www.thefactual.com/news and commented further.

<comment><USER7> Can I test your algorithm in some of my writing?

<comment><USER5> Hi there - our Chrome extension rates any news article: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/civikowl/clbbiejji...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/civikowl/clbbiejjicefdjlblgnojolgbideklkp?hl=en) but it won't rate an arbitrary piece of writing (yet).

To be honest, an unknown author with no history on a topic on a site that's also previously unknown will struggle to rate >50%. Lmk if I can answer any other questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > A third-party Twitter client might be prettier and more functional than > Twitter's own client — shout out to Tweetbot! — but it certainly would not > be more profitable.

I never understood this, why can't the API/firehose serve ads that would be presented in the 3rd-party apps?

Additionally 90% of users would naturally gravitate to the default app regardless, leaving 3rd-parties for cool/interesting/advanced/innovative use- cases. I still feel this was a mistake - not as some hippy idealogue - <USER2> from a ruthless capitalist perspective. This was their like button.

<comment><USER9> Because there simply would be a 3th party app which would ignore the ads? If there was not I'd write one.

Simple as that. FB and Google closing their XMPP gateways is an example of a similar issue.

<comment><USER10> They could state in their terms of services that the API key will only be valid if the developer doesn't hide the ads.

<comment><USER11> Then why would I as a developer bother with it at all? I don't want to serve ads someone else is getting paid for from my app. And if my app was to be funded by ads, then what? Display twice the number of ads to the user?

<comment><USER12> Tweetbot is a paid app. Its revenue model wouldn't be fundamentally affected by Twitter putting ads in the feeds it displays.

I'd rather see ads in my feed than Twitter continue to make third-party clients less useful.

<comment><USER8> Or Twitter could share the ad profits a la YouTube to incentivise all kinds of innovative niche ui's. 3rd parties are not the enemy to be managed. They are a blessing - free engineers who managed the impossible of building a product with customers and traction. UI is a cost for Twitter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's funny how things have turned. They had an open API with several 3rd party clients, and they killed them. Now they want to go even more open... Strange

<comment><USER14> It seems like the heart of it is this:

> He argues that Twitter's value lies in directing your attention toward > valuable tweets — not hosting all the content.

If twitter can succeed in offloading their hosting costs onto this "decentralized network" and remain the authority over which tweets are relevant (and therefore remain the primary channel which can serve ads on this type of content) it could be a big win for them as far as the bottom line.

At the same time, it might take some of the heat off of them as far as accusations of bias on the platform. If Twitter is the _only_ entity deciding what is and is not acceptable in the discourse, questions can be asked about whether or not they're doing that in a wise and fair manner. If they are just one of many curators, then "the market" can decide if their method of governance is best, and they can't be accused of having a monopoly over the discourse in the same way.

<comment><USER13> I get your point, but I wonder if exactly this will happen, that they will lose the monopoly (and therefore a lot of money).

I'm not saying that losing it is bad or good per se. I'm just talking financially.

<comment><USER14> I understand what you're saying, and I would venture to guess that Twitter has put a lot of time and money into determining whether this would be a good outcome for them before they would go through with it.

It is curious in a way, since Twitter does seem to hold a monopoly on a certain kind of online discourse. It's not like FB -> Instagram -> Snapchat -> TicTok where there there seems to be a generational sunrise and sunset. In that case it seems like there would be more to gain going open with the hopes of having the opportunity to exert more control over the next up-and-comer

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How "open" is the Twitter API compared to other social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc... What is the lay of the land in this regard?

<comment><USER12> That's a broad question without one single answer.

In my experience, getting approved to _use_ the API is substantially easier with Facebook than Twitter. Twitter will reject for bullshit reasons, and send you a "there can be no appeal" message. The only way around it is to kick up enough of a fuss with prominent people to get a manual reconsideration.

Once you're in, though, you can pretty much do anything a Twitter user can do. Facebook heavily limits what data you can get - you basically can't get _any_ info about the user's personal profile/feed, or info about a user's friends. Twitter makes all that readily available.

On the other hand, analytics.twitter.com has no API (and hasn't for years), whereas Facebook makes all sorts of analytics info available on Pages.

<comment><USER16> One thing conspicuously missing is getting all of the replies to a given tweet. This makes it difficult to build anything resembling an alternative Twitter UI (such as existed the the hayday of more open Twitter APIs) using the official API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Twitter gets free bandwidth but still gets to profit off of the centralized social index? We call that the "bitchute effect".</comment>


House Lawmakers Voice Concern About Google Buzz - <AUTHOR> http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2010/03/house-lawmakers-voice-concern.php

<comment><USER2> I already have accepted that I'll get downvoted for this, but does the US Congress not have anything better to do with its time?

<comment><USER3> First of all, you shouldn't get downvoted for this. I disagree with you, but its a question that is good to ask.

Secondly, while I don't think google buzz, in itself, is something the Congress needs to focus on, I think its good that they are looking to set rules early on instead of waiting for an even bigger issue.

Privacy is going to be a hotly debated topic and if Congress can start talking about it now, it will be good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Article Summary:

"A group of House Energy and Commerce members are urging the FTC to investigate complaints that Google's Buzz social networking service and some of its other services may harm consumer privacy."

One of the goals of the proposed probe would be to determine how much data Google gathers from it's properties such as Buzz, and how it uses this data to target ads to users.

Google counters by saying "user transparency and control are very important to us, and we review all products carefully before we roll them out. When we realized that we'd unintentionally made many of our users unhappy, we moved quickly to make significant product improvements to address their concerns. Our door is always open to discuss additional ways to improve our products and services moving forward."

I suspect Microsoft is behind much of the increased government scrutiny over Google.

[http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/house-lawmakers-voice- concer...](http://hnsummary.com/2010/03/29/house-lawmakers-voice-concern-over- google-buzz/)</comment>


Surely you're joking, Skype - <AUTHOR> https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA142/how-can-i-delete-my-skype-account

<comment><USER2> [http://justdelete.me/](http://justdelete.me/) is a good site for looking up these policies. Skype is bad, but not quite in the "Impossible" tier with sites like YouTube, Wikipedia, and Hacker News.

<comment><USER3> IIRC StackExchange is the same

<comment><USER4> On SE, you can delete your identifiable information, turning your username into one of the generic "userXXXXXX" names. All of the content you've produced remains, though.

<comment><USER5> Which is really great. I hate looking for some obscure problem, find where someone posted a fix online, then discover the account of the fixer was deleted and the fix is gone now. Even worse when it's a program or file or something...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Skype is like Hotel California.

<comment><USER7> I laughed pretty good when I read that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Netflix has the same policy or it did when I wanted to delete my account. Support person instructed me to change the email address to something unknown.

</comment><comment><USER9> sadly, this is actually not new and has riddled many forums before.

skype has never allowed that before and, to my knowledge, never communicated why that is. Or if there maybe is a technical reason for it.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is no "delete" on Internet

<comment><USER11> This is not discussing the entire internet, but trends among specific services designed make it far easier to add your personal data than remove it.

And arguably, your comment is not objectively true, but only tends to be true. There's no technical reason why data (even personal data) can't disappear from the internet - one only need look at the recent worries about the state of repos on Google Code to see that, until there's some overriding interest in backing something up, it doesn't necessarily get backed up.</comment></comment>


New Directions in Cryptography by Diffie and Hellman (1976) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/publications/24.pdf <comment><USER2> Worth mentioning the two just won the 2015 Turing Award:

[http://amturing.acm.org/](http://amturing.acm.org/)

I actually just recently spoke with Hellman for an interview. He's focusing on educating people about the risk of maintaining nuclear deterrents. Also has a new book out that might not be what you expect:

[https://anewmap.com/](https://anewmap.com/)

<comment><USER3> Is a recording or transcript of the interview available?

> [https://anewmap.com/](https://anewmap.com/)

Yes, pretty hard to imagine. That said, it looks pretty interesting.

<comment><USER2> Sorry for the late reply, I wrote it up here (didn't want to self-link in a top level reply):

[https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/27/cryptography-pioneer- marty...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/27/cryptography-pioneer-marty- hellman-on-using-compassion-in-personal-cyber-and-international-threats/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > We stand today on the brink of a revolution in cryptography.

Wow, to be able to make that the lead sentence and it turns out not to be hyperbole!

<comment><USER5> In some ways, it's an understatement. It's revolutionary, period -- not just for cryptography.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> made a video inspired by this work: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBfamv- _do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEBfamv-_do)

<comment><USER7> Ah that was a cool video! I was showing that to my girlfriend the other day to explain DH to her :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Also developed in parallel by GCHQ, but they didn't realize the potential and it was classified for 27 years:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public- key_cryptography#Classi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public- key_cryptography#Classified_discovery)

<comment><USER9> Or they knew exactly the potential but wanted to keep it to themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thank you all for your kind words. Martin Hellman

</comment><comment><USER11> (1976)</comment>


Open Calais Semantic Web Search Tool - <AUTHOR> http://viewer.opencalais.com/ <comment><USER2> For some reason my brain read that as "Open Calacanis (...)" and I pictured a web search tool site where EVERY result was a link to a page on _Mahalo_.

Then I woke up screaming.

<comment><USER3> I did exactly the same thing.

<comment><USER4> Hate to say it, but: Me too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you'd like to play around with what the Calais API provides, I've just added support for it on <http://apiplayground.org>

Paste in the text from a newspaper article, for example, and it'll show you tables of some of the entities that are extracted.

If you're interested in seeing what the back-end that services the API calls looks like (Node.js, so that it doesn't block), take a look here:

[http://github.com/jashkenas/api- playground/blob/master/src/a...](http://github.com/jashkenas/api- playground/blob/master/src/app.coffee)

</comment><comment><USER6> First, thanks for building the demo tool!

If you'd like to see the _really_ interesting stuff that OpenCalais extracts head over to <http://viewer.opencalais.com>. OpenCalais goes well beyond entities and extracts relevant facts and events as well. Entities are just what's in the news - events are what's _happening_.

<comment><USER5> Good call. The API Playground just has some surface-level results from different APIs. The OpenCalais viewer is much more comprehensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm using it on <http://Newsley.com>. I'm particularly interested in building support for the events/facts OpenCalais extracts, but I'm only part way through rebuilding the back end. I'm also really excited to use it along with publicly linked data sets.

Currently, I'm extracting entities that are above a certain relevance threshold for each article. e.g. [http://newsley.com/articles/developing- countries-set-to-acco...](http://newsley.com/articles/developing-countries- set-to-account-for-nearly-60-of-world-gdp-by-2030-according-to-new- estimates/2550)

It's a great api. You can push 50k articles a day through their system for free. 2 million articles a day is $2000 a month.

</comment><comment><USER8> Open Calais is already around for some time and evolved greatly. It's especially interesting when you input text about the BP Oil Spill.

<comment><USER9> Open Calacanis has been around for some time as well and now is trying to evolve into a pro poker player. He's especially interesting when he's trying to deny Mahalo spamming techniques and pretending to delete his facebook account.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to monitize a web application outside of subscription service? - <AUTHOR>

I have a webapplication, where it's niche is probably to small to earn money with it.
Any ideas how i can monetize it? Eg. Codecanyon, paid tutorial, ...? I'm willing to sell it as anything.
I'd like to learn from other people's experience, so if you have any experience, please share :) <comment><USER2> I may be reading too much into your question, but it sounds like your existing customer base is too small to support your development activities.

Have you thought about seeking out a trade association and selling them the rights for their members to use your software? You may be able to grow your customer base while reducing your transaction costs.

My field of expertise is software pricing, so feel free to contact me!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just for extra information, i'm talking about this webapplication: [http://www.ledenboek.be/EN](http://www.ledenboek.be/EN)

No need to register, demo: [http://www.ledenboek.be/EN/Account/Login?Demo=True](http://www.ledenboek.be/EN/Account/Login?Demo=True)

<comment><USER3> Most programs that manage clientelle charge the owner based on membership capacity and additional features from the base version. Looks like you are just beginning, I'm sure you will have opportunity to enhance features and make it more desirable.

Secondary revenue could come from advertising to the clientele (when the access the site for ??) based on the membership base (country club, good place for real estate and auto dealership ads, etc.) but I would think you would have to cut the membership owner into ad revenue (maybe reduced usage cost?). There's potential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do payments go through your app? What about collecting a small fee on all transactions?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, there's only a subscription service for clients (Stripe). Not for their members.

In the current situation, it wouldn't earn enough money to justify the additional work.</comment></comment>


Announcing the Second Edition of "Refactoring" - <AUTHOR> https://martinfowler.com/articles/201803-refactoring-2nd-ed.html <comment><USER2> Wow, this is huge!

I'm stoked for the book. I'm surprised-but-not-really that it will use JavaScript as its main language to teach the concepts!

> When I wrote the first edition I was frustrated that I was having to write > the book's code in a language that was significantly worse than the language > I preferred (Smalltalk). Little did I know that I would take another step > downwards twenty years later.

Oh, the irony!

<comment><USER3> _But the compelling reason for choosing it over Java is that isn 't wholly centered on classes._

That doesn't explain why choose it from among the majority of other languages that aren't centered on classes. JavaScript is so quirky, it seems like a really strange choice for a general programming book.

Perhaps it's my back end bias showing.

<comment><USER4> He probably went where most developers are. Just like choosing Java over Smalltalk for the first edition.

I feel its better to reach more developers, than aim for the best technologies that very few are actually even aware of.

<comment><USER2> Exactly my thoughts!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Refactoring book in Javascript looks like an early April, 1st joke :-)

What I really miss is the integration with the automatic refactoring tools in our IDEs. How would I make a heavy refactoring if I already have a "extract method" in my interface? Would it be the same? Some of the refactorings are easier to automate so are more common in the IDEs. Would are better paths considering what is automated?

<comment><USER6> I'm asking this from a position of massive ignorance (I'm mostly a backend dev who does the occasional website), but is there any type hinting tooling in the Javascript ecosystem? Python has PEP484 where you annotate types in either comments or docstrings, Ruby has YARD tags used similarly, and smart IDEs can pick up on these and offer decent refactoring tools.

But does anything similar exist in JS land?

<comment><USER7> TypeScript is fast becoming the go-to language for JavaScript with types.

<comment><USER8> They still didn't manage to put together a usable language. Just try to import your `Foo` class into `Bar` and your `Bar` class into `Foo`. _BOOM_! It will explode into your face. And this is just a basic thing which should work in a real language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I realise this is an unpopular opinion, but I really didn't like the previous book. Don't get me wrong, I definitely think refactoring is a good thing (in moderation!). But Fowler presented a list of possible refactoring operations, including step by step instructions... for _very_ trivial things.

In the introduction he drew comparisons with GoF design patterns book, saying he wrote it hoping people would refer back to it as they do to that book. Yes, sometimes I need to rename a function or split it in two, but do I really need to dig out a reference book to look up how to do that? And the comparison to design patterns is crazy, those are at a far higher level of abstraction and are correspondingly less obvious (and more interesting).

<comment><USER10> I never read more than a fraction of the first edition, but I found it valuable. The key idea was that refactoring was a methodical, careful process that consists of steadily taking the code from one working state to another. At the time, refactoring was a dirty word at my company, and people didn't distinguish it from rewriting code in any arbitrary fashion.

<comment><USER9> This sounds mostly like the first chapter, which was the bit I enjoyed the most. That was about automated testing, and a whole book about that might've been quite useful.

<comment><USER10> Automated testing is great, but you can apply the core idea to code without automated tests. The difference is that you have to be even more mechanical and cautious.

In addition to the principles about refactoring, reading a few of the examples helped to drive in how methodical it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm hunting around these days for good books on general programming. I'm a fairly pragmatic programmer (not _everything_ needs to be a class). Has anybody here read the first edition, and what was your impression of it?

<comment><USER12> One of my biggest lessons from the book is right in the introduction. To paraphrase: "If a change you want to make to the codebase is hard, refactor the codebase until that change is easy, then make the change".

I always try to either be refactoring or changing behavior but not both at the same time. That has kept me out of a lot of trouble.

<comment><USER13> A rule of thumb that I try to follow (but often neglect) is to keep changes either sweeping/shallow or narrow/deep. So if you're refactoring a module and that has implications across the codebase, don't try to make a deep change to the business logic at the same time.

Keep those tasks separate.

<comment><USER14> I find that I will be making a change, notice a refactoring, and then get lost in the rabbit hole. I try to keep a pad of paper by me at all times now, and if I notice something, then I will make note of it, but keep moving with what I was doing. Then after I'm done, I can revisit the notes that are on my paper. Right now, a lot of those become backlog techdebt items that will get fixed in the future.

<comment><USER15> One approach I sometimes take is to make the refactoring in one commit and the change in another. They can go into the same PR (within reason), but they're clearly separated out.

<comment><USER16> This is the approach I try to take. It requires discipline but it has helped on several occasions.

The biggest benefit is that it makes code reviews easier for others because the reviewer can step through each commit. This makes the refactoring changes much more obvious.

Splitting the commits also makes it much easier to roll back a functional change that goes wrong or isn't needed while still keeping the refactoring improvements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Am looking forward to the book. Read the first one in the early mid 2000s and it changed my view of programming forever. Java in the modern climate isn't the best choice anymore to do this.

The move to a less class-centric approach is a much needed and welcomed shift. It helps to illustrate the spirit of the pattern or technique without getting weighed down with the restrictiveness and arguably dogmatic nature of java.

</comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one who thinks that using javascript is a _terrible, horrible, no-go_ decision?

He could have chosen Python which is also one of the top languages and it does not have the quirks of javascript.

I can't help but feel that he only chose this language because this is the language which will net him the most ROI.

And we'll take the collateral damage which is an influx of people who will wave his book and say "Let's use this language! Even Mr. Fowler uses it! This must mean that this is the best language there is!"

Imagine the damage this will do to us grunt programmers in the field. Now it will be even harder to push _real_ languages through management now that a celebrity in our little scene is using javascript.

I bet that Mr. Fowler doesn't have to program in that crappy, quirky, horrible 9nth circle of hell language.

Sorry for the rant but this had to come out.

<comment><USER18> I'm curious as to what you believe are the "quirks of javascript" and if you think there are any more reasons as to why it's a "crappy, quirky, horrible 9nth circle of hell language"?

Thanks.

<comment><USER8> Just google it. There is not enough space here to list them all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is intriguing, though personally I never connected much with Fowler's writing in the past (though I have gotten into his _ideas_ ).

Anyone know of any other good books about high-level design/architecture for javascript?

Actually, thinking about it, maybe what I'm really looking for is something for designing/architecting things in dynamic/weakly typed languages... (Been doing JS for a bit now, but I spent much longer in Java before).

<comment><USER20> _Thinking Forth_ [1]. Yes, it's Forth and not Javascript. But it covers pretty much the same territory as _Refactoring_ plus some pretty deep discussions on program design/architecture, for a book originally written in the mid 80s.

[1] [http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/](http://thinking- forth.sourceforge.net/) Although you can buy a copy on Amazon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The book will be released in a series of ten thousand editions, each one modified slightly from the previous one but still correct and self-consistent.

</comment><comment><USER22> You could say he... refactored it. <puts on glasses>

I'll get out now...</comment>


Making an immutable queue with guaranteed constant time operation - <AUTHOR> http://twistedoakstudios.com/blog/Post2096_making-an-immutable-queue-with-guaranteed-constant-time-operations <comment><AUTHOR> Okasaki's research paper: [http://www.westpoint.edu/eecs/SiteAssets/SitePages/Faculty%2...](http://www.westpoint.edu/eecs/SiteAssets/SitePages/Faculty%20Publication%20Documents/Okasaki/jfp95queue.pdf)</comment>


Plug.dj trying to raise money for next 6 months through users - <AUTHOR> Link: http://imgur.com/rqzbMMX
Intro:
I just returned from lunch and saw this in my mail.
For those who aren't aware what Plug.dj is just like Turntable.fm.
For those who don't know what Turntable.fm was - it was a website that let you create rooms where you could play music and other people in the room could listen to it. Similarly with plug.dj, you can create new rooms (called 'communities' I think) and can invite your friends to listen to music with them, or join rooms focussed on edm, dubstep etc. where other people will play music for you.
The main point:
I am in no way affiliated with these guys but I love their product and I use it often. I loved turntable.fm but things didn't workout quite well for them. I'd absolutely hate it if Plug.dj sees the same fate so I'm just trying to spread the word.
If you're already using them and like them, then you should consider donating. If not, you should consider trying the app out and consider donating if you'd like it.
Edit: Looks like you can only donate if you're an active user and at level 3 on the site: http://imgur.com/7smuQ0G. I think this is pretty awesome on their part. You basically can't donate unless you've actually used the site for a bit. <comment><USER2> I subscribed in response to this. I've been using the site for years, and I used turntable before that. I really hope they can get it together, but I honestly doubt they have a chance. It sounds like they're within weeks, not months, of running out of cash. $6 each (or even $25 each) from the tiny fraction of users likely to donate will not give them the 6-month window they want according to this blog post: [http://blog.plug.dj/2015/09/keep-us- plugged-in/](http://blog.plug.dj/2015/09/keep-us-plugged-in/)

It's been a good run, but they didn't even really try to make money until about a year ago. When they did, it was alongside a site relaunch which took away many features that had been free until then and put them behind either slowly accrued points or cash money.

I'll be there until the lights go out. In the meantime, does anyone have a suggestion for the next most similar site, where a plug community could migrate en masse? The room I'm in has been there for four years, and it would be a shame for it all to vanish in a puff of a failed attempt to get Series A funding.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately they probably going to go the way of TT. They never really had a decent enough revenue model IMO. Also annoyed after supporting them through purchasing avatars and a subscription that they still come back asking for more.</comment>


Google Developers Case Study Showcase of Google+ Redesign - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/web/showcase/case-study/googleplus <comment><USER2> Shame they removed 80% of the functionality.

</comment><comment><USER3> — not &mash;

</comment><comment><USER4> what did they actually use to achieve this?</comment>


Bay Area as a City State - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/10/INEK1EAPGN.DTL

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of one of my unexpected favorite reads: Jane Jacob's "Cities & the Wealth of Nations" [http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Wealth-Nations-Jane- Jacobs/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Wealth-Nations-Jane- Jacobs/dp/0394729110)

She argues that cities (more specifically, city-regions) are the most fundamental economic unit, and many of the problems that national economies encounter are a result of an imbalance created by tying together multiple city-region economies; and tying them together (and together with large rural areas) creates political problems (because their interests do not align). She also points to cities like Singapore & Hong Kong to show how separating a city-region politically and economically from other city-regions, and decoupling large, rural areas allows for optimal economic conditions for cities. She's not a trained economist, but as a city resident, her argument resonated pretty strongly with me -- though, as a practical matter, well, not at all practical.

<comment><USER3> An observant reader (or someone who lived in singapore or hong kong) would note that both Singapore and Hong Kong do not have true democratic governments.

Hong Kong currently has a parliament that is only one third elected by the people, one third elected by the government itself and one third elected by special interest groups. The executive (the head of state) is elected by 800 people representing private citizens and special interest groups. In practice however, these 800 people are all selected by the government itself. As a result, each year you see the same billionaires in the 800 group, always electing the candidate who has shaken the most hands with the PRC government.

There are a multitude of economic consequences as a result of this. Policies left over from decades ago include fixed electricity pricing, price floor on bus tickets, supermarket duopolies, tunnel operator monopolies, misplaced housing estates, local shopping center monopolies, are some problems the government is not willing to deal with. (Why would they, to lose support among 33% of voters who also happen to be most economically well-off and to be accused of "economic interference"?) These are all things that exacerbates income inequality. Income inequality is increasing not because the highest income people are producing more but because they're earning more from the inefficient market and political system geared towards them.

Everyone thinks Hong Kong has like the best economic system ever, but I'd like to point out that they don't.

Of course, things I've said here are very political and you might get different responses depending on who you're talking to...

<comment><USER4> I didn't know that re Hong Kong's government.

The makeup of their government sounds a lot like the classical mixed republic, with elements of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy combined into a single set of institutions.

Historically, the states that had this structure tended to encourage some of the most stable and prosperous societies, e.g. the Roman Republic and early modern England.

If Hong Kong is really organized like this, it's not surprising that they have such a strong economy. I suppose how long it will last depends on how long the PRC will maintain their hands-off policy and how long Hong Kong itself can stave off internal pressure to change their constitution to favor one faction or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Residents pay taxes to the feds and the state, some of that money trickles back down to the state, and some of _that_ money trickles back down to the city.

Wake me up when we can pay taxes to our city-states, and some of that money trickles up to the state, and some of _that_ money trickles up to the feds.

<comment><USER6> You would love CA then, where the state seizes local taxes to pay state bills and the republicans rant on about lowering taxes. The cities are feeling the pinch and have to cut local services.

<comment><USER5> That's not at all what I said I wanted :)

I want trickle-up instead of trickle-down taxes, ie, the city controls the purse strings instead of the federal and state governments.

<comment><USER6> I know. I was being deliberately obtuse. Imperial China had what you were talking about and it was institutionalized corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google is incorporated in Delaware. Apple (through Braeburn Capital since the mid-2000s) manages most of its assets in Nevada. They're not paying state corporate income taxes to anyone, let alone California. Perhaps they're not using any of the services that California state taxes provide. But it's sort of a complicated argument.

The state has a long history. Perhaps this article is a good way to break the deadlock. But realistically, corporations are already acting as if this were a city state (funding their nearby cities much more than the state, etc.).

So I don't know. If anything, I think they should move the capital to San Francisco, so that there is better dialogue and involvement with businesses. Similarly, I don't quite understand what the point of Springfield, Illinois, or Albany, New York are. Maybe there's a reason though...

<comment><USER8> I have always thought that there is a reason (or can be, depending). When the capital city is also the largest city, the rest of the state can often be ignored (a complaint from many about Boston, for example). If the capital is outside of the major cities then the government can better focus on the state as a whole without getting involved in local politics (think Albany vs New York City).

Also, often capitals are moved outside of major cities due to population and infrastructure, as sometimes larger cities can't sustain any more growth (which is what happened to Malaysia).

San Francisco has interestingly never been a contender for the capital, as before Sacramento it was Monterey (and Benicia and Vallejo but those were just stints). And if it were, the odds of the State focusing on the Bay Area before anywhere else could indeed become an issue.

<comment><USER4> If there's a significant economic, cultural, and political divergence between a city and the rest of its state, there's also a strong argument to separate the cities off as autonomous city-states.

If people in upstate NY and NYC have conflicting interests, wouldn't it be better for both parties to separate NYC as as state in its own right, rather than maintain the compromise solution of Albany?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Of course a bay area city state would vote to spend no money on the military industrial complex, and then an orange county city state would invade and conquer them.

<comment><USER10> Well, it seems that Singapore, as a model city state in that article, has much stronger military forces than many much larger and more populated countries.

<comment><USER11> I think waterlesscloud was alluding to the political preferences of Bay Area residents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reading this article, I immediately thought of this prediction, where a Russian economist predicted that the US would break into six separate pieces by 2010:

[http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/us-to-split- into-6-pie...](http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/us-to-split- into-6-pieces-in-2010---russian-economist-predicts/blog-288429/)

</comment><comment><USER13> If I were in charge of California, an independent Bay Area would be paying through the nose for water.

<comment><USER6> Residential users use about 10% of the water, last time I looked. Larger users are alpha, hay, and rice. So if we ban growing rice in the desert, we will have plenty for the people. CA rice is probably for export, because it is the shor grain variety, not the long grain that most of us eat.

<comment><USER14> That is true, but what parent is alluding to is that the rest of California would have a monopoly on our water supply. The real demand matters little when said demand is inelastic and only one guy controls it.

This is probably the one biggest reason why nation-states exist as they do today. The sum of the parts is less than the whole. This leads to some interesting ideas. What if societies go through downturns (and even collapse) because the central bureaucracy becomes a net negative instead of a net positive, as is happening in California today? But this digresses from the topic at hand.

<comment><USER6> Actually not. San Francisco, and East Bay MUD which supply much of the SF Peninsula and the East Bay both own their own Sierra dams and infrastructure. I dont think a hostage situation would ensue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "In an age when nations have become so large that their citizens no longer identify with distant governments..."

What? it would seem like the complete opposite of this is true. I would say that nationalism and national identity, in the US and most other places in the world, is stronger now than it has been in the past 50 years.

<comment><USER16> Indeed. Honestly that seems like the biggest problem with the plan- most local politicians and representatives are complete nobodies, they get elected by riding the coattails of presidential and maybe the senatorial elections.

<comment><USER17> That's because the media doesn't do a good job of informing people about what state and local politicians actually do. Luckily, there's a way to fix that. At the Texas Tribune, we're aiming to solve that problem, and there are similar California-based organizations.

<http://californiawatch.org/>

<http://www.baycitizen.org/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank god this wont happen. I live just north of San Luis Obispo and would be left with the same old mess. Better would be to fix the mess in Sacramento. A new governor with a more pragmatic outlook, Jerry Brown, passing the initiative to remove the budget supermajority would be a good start.

<comment><USER18> I'm not so sure it'd be that bad. California would get a greater voice in the Senate and thus receive back more of the tax dollars we pay federally (we currently receive far less than we payout with a sizable portion of our funds going to other states). And I have to imagine state politics would be simplified by making the state smaller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's kind of silly California, 'we', Bay Area, are the best and greatest of all, you need us, bow before us. This sounds too one-sided and most likely, it's not that simple.

Anyway, except this reasoning, I'm very keen on the idea of city states, I'd like to try something like that, the city I live in is most likely the first thing I try to identify with, and it is perhaps the authority that affects my life the most (and I even can't vote in the city where I live now…).</comment>


AMD blasts Apple's Thunderbolt technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.crn.com/news/components-peripherals/229300158/amd-blasts-intels-new-thunderbolt-sandy-bridge-technologies.htm

<comment><USER2> Why change the title of the article from Intel's technology to Apple's?

<comment><USER3> More controversy, more clicks.</comment></comment>


The Desperate Plight Behind "Darkness at Noon" - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/the-desperate-plight-behind-darkness-at-noon <comment><USER2> >"At least one woman accused Koestler of rape, but many others described behavior that today would certainly be classified as sexual abuse. "

Aren't we supposed to erase him and his works from history now, then? after all:

>"Anyone who disagrees with the Party's dictates is on the wrong side of history, and so deserves to be eliminated. "

<comment><USER3> Being against rape isn't a niche 21st century politico-cultural thing. People have always at least pretended to be against rape. If you can't see the difference between rape and say, having a different opinion about trans issues, you're the weirdo.

<comment><USER4> > People have always at least pretended to be against rape.

Depends: the notion that a husband forcing his wife to have sex is rape is quite new.. Plus what about slaves? Women in a conquered city?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've always been struck by the detail that he _and his wife_ died in a double suicide, because _he_ was terminally ill. This man who wrote so profoundly about brainwashing and thought control in the end persuaded a woman that since _he_ wasn't going to live any longer, her life wasn't worth living, either.

I only have the profoundest respect for Darkness at Noon. I read it in high school and it has stayed with me ever since. But it strikes me that sometimes you escape great trauma and sometimes you don't. A man who spent a lot of his time having a great public will forced upon him tried to escape that, but turned around and exerted the same abuse on other people in his private life. Sort of like the man who says, "I'll never be like my alcoholic father. He drank whiskey. I only drink beer."

<comment><USER6> # This man who wrote so profoundly about brainwashing and thought control in the end persuaded a woman that since he wasn't going to live any longer, her life wasn't worth living, either.

Charlotte Altman, tbe wife of Stephan Zweig also committed suicide with her husband. But that was because Zweig thought that all is lost as the war has almost been lost, but why did this lead to her suicide as well?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a slight problem with all the references to psychoanalysis that authors of that age were stuffing into their books. I mean it used to make some works look very persuasive, but nowadays I keep wondering what of it is truth and what of it is just bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER7> His _Age of Longing_ is worth a look, I think. I haven't read either book in years, but it seems to me that it was better than _Darkness at Noon_.

I also think that quite a few writers gave better accounts of the purges and trials than Koestler.

</comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone noticed that literary reviews generally get very few or no comments but frequently end up on the front page. Why is that? Is there a cabal of users upvoting these stories for some reason?

<comment><USER9> Perhaps its just that sufficient people find them interesting enough to upvote, but few people in the HN demographic have much to say about the subject. Nobody comments because nobody has commented.

<comment><USER10> I myself upvote submissions I want to see other people comment on rather than ones I wish to.</comment></comment></comment>


My semi-regular reminder that Python 3 is on schedule - <AUTHOR> http://sayspy.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-semi-regular-reminder-that-python-3.html <comment><USER2> I really appreciate the approach of the Python dev team. It's methodical, deliberate and patient; the exact opposite of how I feel the PHP team has managed that project. Features in PHP seem to be decided upon and implemented in a rather hasty and whimsical manner. A couple of examples come to mind:

\- PHP access syntax is completely inconsistent. Accessing a method/member of an instance is $foo->bar; a static method/member of a class is accessed as Foo::bar; and namespace access introduces yet another syntax, Foo\bar\baz.

\- Another example is the introduction of anonymous, first-class functions. For five major versions, functions were not first-class, and existing libraries and frameworks were written to accept function names in-place of the actual functions. One point-release changed all that, and the result has been a predictable clusterfsck of inconsistency. I wish the PHP team had planned for a long-term adoption of this feature: first-class functions are a fundamental part of a language's character, not a whimsical bolt-on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes "python 3 has failed to gain lots of users" is different from "python 3 has failed to gain lots of users, but planned to at this stage".

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not really a Python programmer, but all this perplexes me.

Python 3 seems not that Earth shatteringly different, when compared to the previous versions.

What are the plans for new and ambitious things happening? (In Python 4?) Edit: Preferably in a backwards compatible way.

Edit: No big plans in threading, functional programming, etc? No OO extensions? Etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> No Big plans on threading: Developer and Patch needed.

Functional programming: No one has proposed it, Developer and Patch needed.

There's a trend here - developers propose things for inclusion and changes to python based on needs, availability of time and skill. See the entire PEP system: <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/>

We add new things in almost every release. If someone proposed a big pep for something on your list, it would be discussed, and added to a release.

For example, <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0380/> is coming when the moratorium on language features expires.</comment></comment>


Amazon.com got a full theme refresh and looks great - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/

<comment><USER2> screenshot for those who can't see it: <http://i.imgur.com/KMcfc.png>

the left hand menus are mouse-driven hover menus (how 1997!)

edit: ugh, and you actually have to click the text - clicking the white background near the text doesn't work. I hate it when menus do that!

edit2: another screenshot: <http://i.imgur.com/e58gx.png>

<comment><USER3> Strangely, I like the Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart sites better...how did this happen?

<http://www.barnesandnoble.com>

<http://www.walmart.com>

<comment><USER4> Perhaps because they're simpler. You'd expect that to work better if the test is how nice a site looks rather than how well it converts.

<comment><USER5> I could not find a proof but I remember reading that they tried to simplify site a number of times but these changes lead to reduced revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazon does so much A/B testing that I've grown accustomed to it never looking the same between visits.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well, then, looks like they may be testing a new theme. Mine looks like this when I'm logged in: <http://d.pr/hYJe> and <http://d.pr/TlLA>. Menus are redesigned, fonts look larger throughout much of the interface. But, I just opened it in a new Incognito window without logging in, and it looks the same as always: <http://d.pr/aY1R>. Here's to hoping they keep the new theme!

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks like work-in-progress. Their HTML is a mess, and the homepage doesn't even have a title tag.

<comment><USER8> Amazing how little that matters when you're making billions of dollars.

<comment><USER7> _chuckles_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I bet that the next time I go on Amazon, the pages I visit will still consist mostly of what are essentially advertisements whose main effect is to distract me from my reason for going on the site, and I bet that information I consider very relevant, like the year of of the publication of a book, will still be very hard to find amidst the visual clutter.

<comment><USER10> > distract me from...

Funny: I do so much research on Amz that I am accustomed to zeroing in on just info I really want - with the result that I can browse for months without noting new features (treasure chest buttons, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks the same to me?

<comment><USER12> Yeah. Same here as well. Google-esque slow roll?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> They have also added a new "Like" button to the product pages, that no one seems to have noticed... Screenshots : <http://twitpic.com/34gozu> and <http://twitpic.com/34gob6>

</comment><comment><USER14> This whole white theme might come from the same team that make new imdb.com re-design.

For me it is too white, as with the imdb, the eye cannot distinguish items easily because it does not hang to visual elements.

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting to see that they have dropped most of the blue/orange color shades which has been synonymous with the brand. Definitely, this is a welcome change and the site looks better.

</comment><comment><USER16> I like it, a well needed refresh. Wonder when its going to make its way to amazon.co.uk</comment>


QuickRead: A bookmarklet that adds Readability to every link - <AUTHOR> http://www.readshout.com/quickread

<comment><USER2> _plug_ I'm doing something very similar, with the exception that I do all the processing on the server side. For example, you can link to the text of this article like this:

[http://viewtext.org/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.readshout.com%2Fqu...](http://viewtext.org/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.readshout.com%2Fquickread)

I'm making this so other sites can provide links to ViewText on their pages, similar to how I'm using it on <http://ihackernews.com>. It's great for mobile phones. It also handles RSS feeds -- putting the full text of the article in the RSS feed.

In addition, it rewrites links back through the reader, caches pages in the event that they go down, and a couple of other things...

BTW, nice work jamesjyu.

<comment><USER3> I use viewtext and ihackernews everyday on my iphone. That's great to browse HN and the web. Thanks ronnier for your great work !

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I'm glad it is worthy of being used :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a user this is an awesome tool, but as a content producer that relies on advertising revenue this is potentially a nightmare. While you can argue that it's similar to AdBlock, you're essentially 'forcing' the removal of ads on your users, whereas a browser plugin is optional and takes at least some work to install (finding it, installing and restarting browser). Just seems scary to imagine lots of websites picking this up, as that could kill advertising revenue for many sites.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I have mixed feelings about it also, since it allows the linker, not just the browser user, to rewrite what the linked content looks like. Though, some of my mixed feelings come from the other direction: if stuff like this becomes widespread, sites that _do_ have nice layouts, not a ton of in-your- face advertising, etc., lose their competitive advantage. Right now I avoid linking to particularly egregious sites, but if I could link to a decent article via a mechanism that reformatted it to be readable, maybe it's ok? And that'd remove the advantage that more friendly sites currently have in attracting links.

Perhaps it's a bit idiosyncratic, but for my personal surfing, I do some minimal ad-blocking via a local proxy (polipo), but I have it configured to return the default 503 Forbidden response, so sites that have been ad-blocked are marked up with a bunch of ugly error frames, rather than silently rewritten into nicer-looking sites. It keeps sites from loading their terrible video ads, say, while not allowing me to forget that they do have them (which in turn reminds me to be careful when sending such links to people who might not have an ad-blocker installed).

<comment><USER6> If your layout doesn't help drive traffic, something like this won't change things. If it _does_ , then people will probably go to your site because they prefer it.

For instance, all these reader-tools like this are utterly worthless for _navigating_ a site, so if the person is at all interested in more they _must_ visit the site. And then you're back to your layout helping things or not.

Advertising revenue: certainly a concern. But no more so than any other adblocker out there. Layout? Not particularly, unless you rely _entirely_ on layout and not on _content_. In which case, I generally say good riddance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Didn't work for me. The text of the article spilled off over the bottom of the white overlay panel, and then catastrophically collided with text underneath.

</comment><comment><USER8> This isn't actually using the Reability plug-in, though, when it's installed. So, it doesn't pick up users' Readability settings, which are very important in many cases. Thus, one has to apply Readability to the Fancyboxed page in any case.

Seems to me that this has the ability to break too many things, where there is an option to DIY, should you wish -- just install the Readability plug-in, which is, frankly, awesome, and invaluable for the visually impaired.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have thought that an algorithm like this could be useful in conjunction with something like zap reader for being able to browse around in "zap reader" mode. I like reading my longer blogs on zap reader by it is sort of a pain to copy and paste the text into the little zap reader box. Some way to automatically identify and process the main block of text on a page would really help matters.

</comment><comment><USER10> If these were written in Ruby, please consider contributing back any patches to <http://github.com/iterationlabs/ruby-readability>

<comment><AUTHOR> It's all javascript.</comment></comment>


A Map Showing Every Cargo Ship - <AUTHOR> http://digg.com/2016/every-ship-in-the-world <comment><USER2> [https://www.shipmap.org/](https://www.shipmap.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I expected this to be [http://marinetraffic.com/](http://marinetraffic.com/) which shows current/recent locations. But I'm not sure if it shows every single cargo ship in the world.

<comment><USER4> Every ship within range of an AIS receiving station. There are deadspots far out and see and behind obstructions.

<comment><USER5> Yep, terrestrial AIS receivers can only receive messages from ships that are less than ~50 nautical miles off the coast. Further out than that and you need satellite-based AIS data.

(I'm an engineer at Spire, we've launched a constellation of nanosatellites that does exactly that: [https://spire.com/products/sense/](https://spire.com/products/sense/) )

<comment><USER6> The website is extremely clear. I am wondering a few further things.

What network design is used to communicate between the satellites? I presume that they don't all go at the same speed in the same direction, so the network layout must be flexible, right?

Also, what is their size? You called them nanosatellites, can they really be a hundred nanometers big? How are they powered, and how are they put out of commission?

<comment><USER5> Correct, our constellation uses several different types of orbits to achieve global coverage. The satellites don't communicate directly with one another but rather through a globally distributed network of groundstations. When a satellite passes within view of one of our groundstations we are able to downlink the AIS data which then gets processed and delivered to customers.

Ah yes! I think the term "nanosatellites" is a bit confusing--it refers to satellites between 1 and 10 kg ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniaturized_satellite#Nanosat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniaturized_satellite#Nanosatellites)). Ours are 3U cubesats so they are about 30cm long. Much bigger than a hundred nanometers!

They have solar panels which are used to charge batteries, and since they are in low-earth-orbit they will eventually de-orbit and burn up on reentry after several years. The FCC actually requires that cubesats re-enter the atmosphere within 25 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Burning massive quantities of bunker fuel. The result is a huge amount of CO2...commercial ships produce more than a million tons of CO2 every day."

Narrator is unnecessarily alarmist here, and sounds like we should be concerned about the contribution of cargo ships to the greenhouse. I would say we should celebrate the shipping industry for being so much more beneficial to humanity per unit of CO2.

<comment><USER8> I don't see how it's alarmist to note the fact that they are by far and away one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gasses as a group. I think they could do better, and we wouldn't pay that much more as consumers for a lot of the goods, unless the biggest overhead really _is_ with shipping.

<comment><USER7> "they are by far and away one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gasses as a group."

Wrong. Shipping is the most efficient transportation of mass-distance per unit of CO2. Shipping's CO2 contribution is only %3-%4 of total CO2 produced by humans.

<comment><USER9> But in terms of particulate emissions it is very significant. Upwards of 60% of total sulphur emissions and accounts for over 60,000 deaths per year. At room temperature you can walk across the surface of the fuel. It is nasty stuff and the scale is quite large.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A couple of observations I thought were interesting:

Very few ships travel around the southern tip of South America

A corrupted data point sends it flying across Russia and into Southern Europe.

A lone ship travelling to Svalbard.

Multiple ships travelling in rivers deep into Russia.

Control of the nine-dash-line area would yield huge economic influence to the controller.

<comment><USER11> The southern tip of South America is known as Cape Horn ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Horn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Horn)). It's an unpredictable and dangerous area, hence the popularity of the Panama Canal.

Russia is huge, hence a lot of river shipping.

Control of the seas would bring a lot of influence, hence the British control of Gibraltar and the complex history of the Suez Canal.

<comment><USER12> > Control of the seas would bring a lot of influence, hence the British

You can stop there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can someone explain the logic of why ships in the Pacific sail in an upward- curvature between Japan and the USA? (they move upwards and then down)?

Or is that just a flaw of 2D-mapping?

<comment><USER14> Yes, here's a picture & explanation: [http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/6822/why-is-the- strai...](http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/6822/why-is-the-straight- line-path-across-continent-so-curved)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> The map is built from data showing ship locations in 2012, so it's not exactly what things look like today, but it's a pretty close approximation.

What were oil prices then? What are they now? What is the state of piracy then? What is is now? Interesting, but I suggest that the really interesting details aren't to be found on this map.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm amazed to see ships navigating into Siberia up the Lena. I thought the deltas of the Siberian rivers were impassable.

<comment><USER17> I'm just amazed someone still gets content from Digg!

<comment><USER18> I thought they were dead myself, they really missed the boat in creating the original reddit type site

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow Singapore, Istanbul and which I believe is Rotterdam has crazy traffic. And basically all of Japan and China :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Dumb question, but what's the term for the moving marker? Or are they just 2x2 px leaflet markers?

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't know if it's a quirk of my desktop/Chrome setup but I cannot resize it to reveal possibly the most dynamic trade routes in the world around Japan and Eastern China. Disappointing.

<comment><USER21> For the record, I am an idiot who couldn't figure out how to click and drag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There seem to be a consistent route of ships travelling overland from Tunis across the top of Algeria.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sweet data eye candy, I would love to have a near live version on a screen on my wall.

</comment><comment><USER24> Pirates are gonna love this.

<comment><USER25> Pirates already know about AIS. [http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24586394](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24586394)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there a way to make the map fullscreen?

<comment><USER27> [https://www.shipmap.org](https://www.shipmap.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The constant exchange between the west coast of the US and Japan is so regular!</comment>


Customizable charts of Covid-19 Data - <AUTHOR> https://coronamap.it/analysis <comment><USER2> What I would like is download the data as CSV or SQLite database, and then I can make the charts on my own computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the creators here. I think we will implement it soon, BTW, we thought it would be nice to have a ready to go platform to make charts that are easily sharable and most important thing they will automatically update as soon as the data gets updated.</comment></comment>


Tumblr: 'We're pretty opposed to advertising' - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/04/tumblr-ads.html The LA Times does a quick take with David Karp. <comment><USER2> I just can't see this ending well. I actually <3 tumblr, but I don't know what their options are:

* They've raised a decent amount of money, which means they can't stay a strictly small 37 signals type company.

* 4,000 for virtual stickets isn't too encouraging.

* The themes are a nice revenue stream, but I don't think it's enough to keep them going.

* They've nixed premium accounts which could have been nice.

* They're 100% opposed to ANY form of advertising, even something that's innovative. I don't think they should be doing adsense, but I think there's actually room here for something innovative. They have an interesting audience and there's a certain sense of style on tumblr blogs. They could do advertising that doesn't suck.

<comment><USER3> I slightly disagree, but I see your point.

Tumblr has done an outstanding job of building a community both on and _off_ the web. They host and sponsor events in New York all the time, and they foster quite a creative harbor for creative individuals. That said, what I think tumblr will pursue for future funding involves tapping into that pool of creative talent.

Quite a few tumblrs have signed book deals, and if anything, I think tumblr could quite possibly end up partnering with publishing houses, and other mainstream outlets. In fact, they just recently had a partnership with Cartoon Network (through TimeWarner) to integrate cartoon characters of some new program into the design of their theme garden for a week.

Advertising isn't and shouldn't be a revenue option for every single web startup out there.

<comment><USER2> I definitely agree that advertising is a poor option for most web startups. Ironically, tumblr is the vibrant, engaged, and creative community where they could apply an awesome form of advertising.</comment></comment></comment>


Andrew Ng calls Tesla irresponsible for shipping an imperfect autopilot - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/andrew.ng.96/posts/1025649884157585 <comment><USER3> There will be better autopilots, but never perfect ones. Aircraft have been using imperfect autopilots since their inception. Most planes have a prominent red button you can press to disable the autopilot whenever it misbehaves.

I'm not sure why this post routes through facebook, but here is a link to the article: [http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/model-s-on-autopilot- crash...](http://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/model-s-on-autopilot-crashes-into- other-car-proving-yet-again-tesla-owners-arent-paying-close-enough/)

<comment><USER4> Part of the problem is Tesla's "autopilot" isn't designed to be fully automatic. It's a diver's assistance package. As a comment in the Facebook thread mentioned, I too wonder if the problem is partial-autopilot in general. People will tend to put their trust in the system if it appears to be automatic. We probably shouldn't be shipping partial autopilot at all. Fully automatic or bust.

<comment><USER5> I have an assisted driving system in my Jeep. I'm pretty clear on its capabilities and, for example, stay alert to the possibility I have to hit the brakes when coming up on stopped traffic at freeway speeds because I'm outrunning its detection range for it to do so safely automatically.

The problem is Tesla selling a system with similar limitations as "autopilot." It's not. It's an assisted driving system, albeit a very smart one, and they need to make it more clear that's what it is. They're setting incorrect expectations, and the various "I climbed into my passenger seat while it drives!" bits aren't helping.

Basically we're living the old urban legend of the dude putting on cruise control and then crawling into his camper for a nap. The cruise control is a little bit smarter nowadays, but it comes down to a gross misunderstanding that Tesla is (inadvertently) encouraging.

<comment><USER4> Does the Jeep system function if you don't provide any inputs? The Subaru system will brake if it has too, but won't actually drive the car for you. Same for lane holding - it'll give some steering input and beep if you start to swerve, but it won't actively steer around a curve.

<comment><USER5> Really late response, but it'll gas/brake on its own and will steer back to the center of the lane if you go past a configurable margin.

Gas/brake is meant to be "foot off pedals." You set a desired speed, and it'll go the lesser of that or the speed of the car you're following, and follow at a configurable distance otherwise. It's very, very, VERY nice for Bay Area commuting.

The only real needs to pay attention are A) if a car cuts you off and then slams brakes, B) the car in front of you locks brakes up or swerves out of the way last minute with something in front of it, or C) you're booking it at freeway speeds and come up on stopped traffic. In all three cases an alarm sounds telling you to brake, but if you don't want to to be an emergency you'll be looking out for at least C) so you can take over the slowing down before that alarm could go off. Hopefully the sensors get longer range in the future.

The lane-keeping is meant to only be an assist, though, and would leave you pinballing from one side to the other (or getting stuck on the side that's downhill from the crown) as you hit the margin and it pushes you back center. It'd also get you through a gentle curve the same way. You _can_ go hands free with good alignment and tolerance for looking like you're driving drunk but I wouldn't recommend it. Eventually an alarm will sound if you're fully hands off the wheel.

Worth noting Tesla's system isn't much different there, though, aside from that it'll hold center of the lane and won't pinball. You're still expected to keep your hands on the wheel, and it has a similar alarm that goes off if you don't.

Don't get me wrong--their system is ultimately more advanced, with speed limit sign reading and a bunch of other cool tricks. But it's still meant to be a hands-on assist and isn't sold that way.

Edit: to be clear, I'm just describing adaptive cruise control above, and there's nothing particularly special about that. For all intents and purposes, the only difference with autopilot is the active steering for lane-keeping, even if it is smarter under the hood. It seems to be have the same limitations otherwise judging by their manual disclaimers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> First, Andrew Ng is a co-founder of Coursera and helped teach a few Machine Learning classes just so we all know he has the chops to say something like this. That's how I recognized his name a little more digging shows he really does have a good ML/AI background.

Second, He isn't saying an imperfect autopilot. He's saying that 1000 to 1 is NOT acceptable error. So the title is misleading, unless he edited his post.

Third, he is correct. Lay people who see this will immediately think that Autopilot is WAY to hard and that software devs will never get it right. I'm not saying they are right, but I am saying it's terrible PR for AI to release a system that is as buggy as this and assume zero responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER7> Tesla is innovating rapidly in the Autonomous driving space AND releasing those inventions to the customer, which is great.

Typically these things used to take 5-7years to "trickle down" where a reasonably-priced car (not that $80k is reasonable) might have these available for end users.

However Tesla absolutely NEEDS to do more to prevent this technology push model that they have from tainting the whole Autonomous Driving trend. Expecting that a Driver will read the f'ing manual about

"....Traffic-aware cruise control may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) ....Depending on TrafficAware Cruise Control to avoid a collision can result in serious injury or death."

is insane.

My suggestion: Enforce a must watch video tutorial with questions (such as is common for say a driving test) before enabling the Partial AutoDrive. It really is a matter of Life or Death - you have a very short time to react on the road. With their distribution model Tesla definately has the resources to pull this off, and might serve as a model for the rest of the industry.

<comment><USER8> I kind of wonder if Tesla figures "Hey, once a few crashes happen people will figure it out."

<comment><USER9> It doesn't matter what Tesla does or says. Stupid always finds a way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree it is irresponsible. I think Google is correct in saying that self driving cars probably shouldn't even have steering wheels...it is absolutely unrealistic to think that people will hang out for an hour while the car does things correctly, and then be alert when it happens to not do things correctly.

Humans don't work like that.

</comment><comment><USER11> From the Article

" However, as YouTube commenter Shaimach points out, the Model S manual calls out this exact situation as something drivers need to be aware of:

Warning: Traffic-aware cruise control may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead. Always pay attention to the road ahead and stay prepared to take immediate corrective action. Depending on TrafficAware Cruise Control to avoid a collision can result in serious injury or death."

</comment><comment><USER12> i can't get my head around a car and a human driver sharing the driving duties at the same time. if you can't trust the car to do everything correctly, then what am i supposed to do as a driver?

sit there tensely with my right foot and hands hovering over the brake pedal and steering wheel?

<comment><USER13> How is this different than the automatic transmission? Antilock brakes? Traction control? Lane departure/encroachment warnings? Adaptive cruise control?

Or even older tech like "drive by wire" (your foot isn't directly connected to the throttle bodies) or manually adjusting the choke in carbureted vehicles?

These are innovations that have happened in my lifetime. I'm sure there are even older "car and driver sharing duties" examples others can come up with.

<comment><USER10> It's very different. But some of those things, like adaptive cruise control, get close. But even with adaptive cruise control, if you completely stop paying attention, you will be reminded very quickly that you are doing it wrong.

With this, you could go for hours without having to do a single thing, and then suddenly you are expected to jump in and take control with barely a second's notice. That is just bad human factors.

<comment><USER13> I would refer to @mikeash's answer as I feel it addresses this question.

<comment><USER10> Again, I don't see how that is supposed to work. How long are people going to pay attention to "the big picture" when they still are only very rarely required to do something? If they don't have to do some action to actually keep the car on the road or to avoid getting honked at every 30 seconds or so, their minds will drift off.

This is just regular human nature. Sure you can do it for a while, but after a while you stop doing it.

I am quite sure that Tesla et al will discover soon enough you can't rely on people to step in like that. They just need to get their cars to work better than humans, all the time. (or as Elon Musk said, they should be at least an order of magnitude safer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is just the cost of progress. If every imperfect piece of technology didn't ship, we'd have no technology at all.

<comment><USER15> not all technologies are created equal.

If my macbook's battery dies when it rains, it's not the same as if my car crashes into another one injuring multiple people.

<comment><USER16> One might make the argument that the automobile--as originally released without autopilot--is a deeply flawed device and that even this level of "flawed" autopilot is superior.

<comment><USER15> the problem here is not that the thing is flawed, is that it's flawed in a radical way that users are not aware of, i.e.

> Traffic-aware cruise control may not brake/decelerate for stationary > vehicles

When you drive a car, you somehow expect to crash into something if you don't pay attention. If you let your autopilot do it, crashing into stationary objects is not something you are prepared for.

<comment><USER16> The point I'm making is that we should not be concerned with making a perfect autopilot, but more importantly, we should not be concerned with making an autopilot that is as good as a human driver in all aspects in which human drivers are good.

We should be concerned with making one that reduces injury.

If that means that we have more low-speed fender benders--at the cost of zero drunk-driving accidents--I'm all for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, seeing how Tesla just handed every auto insurance company in the world a free get-out-of-paying card for accidents dealing with that car, I'd say Tesla screwed up. Seeing as how Tesla has potentially exposed everyone involved in the supply chain to lawsuits, then yes, they screwed up.

If I were a well-backed lawyer, right about now, I'd be girding up to file requests for colonoscopies on the people who assembled the circuit boards in those cars.

Seriously, right about now, some lawyer is figuring out how to suck money out of Tesla until it's a dry, twitching husk in the noonday say. Tesla handed that guy a gift.

</comment><comment><USER18> Crash? That was an accident, and it was definitely the auto-pilot's fault, but to me that looks like a fender-bender. Let's resist the media's attempt to use more extreme wording to sell stories.

Yes, I know the driver prevented it from being worse, but that's one of the conditions Tesla's auto-pilot is supposed to be working under, a driver paying attention. There are problems with this model, but that doesn't mean we should ignore what actually happened in lieu of what _could_ have happened when making a title.

<comment><USER19> There has actually been a movement since at least 2000 to stop calling accidents "accidents" because it was found to make it seem like "lol accident nothing could have been done" I can recall the word "accident" being dropped by driver instructors and such back then at least. It might even go back further.

Collision is better, but has a lot of letters so you condense it to crash.

<comment><USER20> When driving emergency vehicles, the course you take that serves amongst other things as an exemption for having a CDL used to be called EVAP - <USER2> Vehicle Accident Prevention, and is now called EVIP, Emergency Vehicle _Incident_ Prevention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Tesla should take a leaf out of Airbnb's book and pay for all damages caused by a customer using Autopilot in the manner it was intended to be used.

[http://mashable.com/2011/08/01/airbnb- ransackgate/#K9lVMU5w_...](http://mashable.com/2011/08/01/airbnb- ransackgate/#K9lVMU5w_iqF)

<comment><USER22> you mean like this: [https://boingboing.net/2016/05/20/airbnb-stealth-updates- ter...](https://boingboing.net/2016/05/20/airbnb-stealth-updates-terms-o.html) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The autopilot is still in beta and warns drivers to still pay attention to the road.

As long as drivers have control, they are responsible for the vehicle. Only after we remove steering wheels, the accelerator, and brakes; and have a fully autonomous system should the car manufacturers (or software manufacturers) be blamed.

<comment><USER24> While that might be true purely from a legal standpoint, it just doesn't make much sense logically. Let's compare it to something like a gas stove. If you turn the stove on with a bunch of combustible stuff around it and then walk away for ten minutes and your house burns down as a result, that's pretty obviously your own fault. However, if you turn the stove on with just a normal pot of water on top, walk away for ten minutes, and it self destructs and burns your house down, what would you think? Is it your fault for not standing there with a giant fire extinguisher, or is it the stove company's fault for making a poorly QA'd product? I think Tesla's Autopilot feature is a lot more like the latter example than the former.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This 'imperfection' probably needs to be weighed against the fact that Tesla drivers apparently drive 2.5 million miles a DAY on autopilot. Cars have other imperfections that lead to accidents as well, like obstructed vision and blind spots for example. The real question is, is the autopilot, imperfections included, statistically a better driver than a human pilot also with imperfections. One or two fender benders does not make the case.

</comment><comment><USER16> Because the regular pilots are so good at the job?

<comment><USER26> Tesla isn't responsible for how a driver drives their car.

But they are responsible for the software they ship.

<comment><USER16> If Tesla can ship a not-perfect autopilot that could significantly reduce injury over not using it at all, shouldn't we abandon this pursuit of "perfection" and release early?

<comment><USER27> Tesla's non-perfect "autopilot" seems to be causing accidents a human wouldn't.

<comment><USER16> Have you been on the roads much?

<comment><USER27> Im referring to Teslas hitting stationary objects. One such story was posted here a week ago.

<comment><USER16> People also hit stationary objects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I dont understand, the ML systems he designs are not deterministic by design! He's been letting that stuff fly (literally) for over a decade now[1]!

P.S: I realize a "shipping" scenario is different.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JL04JJjocc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JL04JJjocc)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm just wondering if Tesla has responded to this? Do we know it was the Autopilot? Do we have evidence? I know Tesla captures a great deal of information from the car.

</comment><comment><USER19> Cruise control can also lull you into not paying attention. Autopilot is simply marketing term for "advanced cruise control" which is what this really is right now.

</comment><comment><USER22> Tesla is NOT shipping an autopilot in the first place. They are selling LANE FOLLOWING driver assisted system and CALLING it autonomous AI "Autopilot".

This is the main problem.

</comment><comment><USER30> An imperfect autopilot, running on extra cpu cycles from the automatic door lock processor.

</comment><comment><USER31> If an imperfect autopilot is better than a human pilot, we should use it!

</comment><comment><USER32> The collision itself looks surprisingly minor.

</comment><comment><USER33> he should try driving a model T...

</comment><comment><USER34> Anyone have public link to video?

<comment><USER35> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQkx-4pFjus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQkx-4pFjus)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I guess from his experience their team rigging AI competitions at Baidu he might not be totally confident in _real_ software :p</comment>


Crowdtilt (YC W12) raises $2.1M - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/17/kickstarter-for-groups-and-events-yc-alum-crowdtilt-picks-up-2-1m-from-sv-angel-yc-partners-and-more/

<comment><USER2> From the article:

>I've found that when I plan something like a vacation rental with friends, it's often done by email with a lot of chasing for payments in the aftermath (that could just be my own flaky friends, of course).

It's definitely not just the author who has flaky friends. I think almost everyone has problems collecting money from friends. This makes me think of fantasy football and what a pain in it is to run a league. This, in turn, makes me think of WePay. I wonder how WePay is doing with these two specific use cases: vacationing friends and fantasy sports. And I wonder what they think of Crowdtilt.

<comment><USER3> Actually WePay is moving away its focus from group payments to small stores, merchants, and fundraising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats James and Khaled! Awesome company from two of the nicest guys you will ever meet.

<comment><USER5> Agreed on Khaled, although I'm at best unsure on James.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought Crowdtilt was like kickstarter but then I read further and its different. I like the idea and I can definitely see myself using their services.

</comment><comment><USER7> If Facebook credits had a decent percentage fee instead of the crazy 30% they currently have, they'd instantly rule this market completely.

</comment><comment><USER8> Congrats guys, Crowdtilt rocks! (said the guy wearing a shirt bought using crowdtilt).

</comment><comment><USER9> Congrats! Keep crushing it guys.

</comment><comment><USER10> Congratulations guys!

</comment><comment><USER11> Congratulations.

</comment><comment><USER12> Excellent work, gents.

You're welcome :)</comment>