Google VR180 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/products/google-vr/world-you-see-it-vr180/ <comment><USER2> I can't tell if it's the headband to slip a phone into, the tools for content creation, or the dual channel cameras. Perhaps it's all three.

kind of a shame they used up the 180 name though. it's not a wide view of vr. it's not really a 180 from the cardboard either.

From the few words about it, i have a generally positive vibe about whatever vaguely defined thing they made. Neat. Not neat enough for me act on. I'm probably not in the targeted demographic. But good luck with whatever that winds up being.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a misnomer to call video VR.

<comment><USER4> If it's got a 180 degree field of view and it's 3d video, I don't think it's much of a stretch

<comment><USER5> If you're the kind of person that never moves and faces one direction then yes, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to call this a form of reality.

I'm lucky enough to not be in that situation, so this is more like portable 3D video to me. But that doesn't brand as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> shouldn't the 180 actually be 2 pi steradians? Or is it 2-D VR?

<comment><USER7> pretty sure its 2D, yes. just a single line of pixels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I recently got a Gear 360 (affordable 360 camera from Samsung) and it's easy to see why Google would focus on 180 instead: the quality of the image is seriously weak in 360 and cannot be much better in 180 due to the device having only one camera facing either way, there is no way to preview photos without the phone, and a lot of the time (concerts, sports hyperlapse, landscape shots) you only want the front view anyway. That being said, I still like the idea of 360 for being able to capture the full scope of a place (like a studio apartment I shall soon move out of) easily - though maybe Google's could just do panorama easily.

<comment><USER9> You can capture (in my opinion) better experiences of static scenes with Cardboard Camera ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.vr....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.vr.cyclops&hl=en)). It's higher resolution than most 360 cameras I think and comes with depth (!!) and sound. It's been a while since I used it though and I think it might have holes in the top (it's not a full sphere).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like it's the same as LucidCam (lucidcam.com)

<comment><USER11> That probably puts LucidCam in a pretty tough spot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Managing what happens in front of a camera is hard enough when you're making a video using a single fixed position camera on a static set. Making a video where everything in a 180 degree arc around the camera has to be choreographed is going to be _a lot_ more work. I wonder if Google (or a third party) have any ideas how to make that part of the film-making experience better.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks awesome, albeit there isn't much to read about it.

So to the big question in my mind: is this something everyone can rely on? Or will this be another google experiment that doesn't go anywhere?

</comment><comment><USER14> Anybody knows how/if the camera/player pair support 6-dof?

<comment><USER15> i doubt it -- if they're getting 6-dof out of a stereo pair then they have invented some magical tech

<comment><AUTHOR> There's limited 6-DoF from Google's Jump camera ([https://vr.google.com/jump/](https://vr.google.com/jump/)): "Assembled videos are high resolution and come with depth data, ready to go for edits and visual effects."

<comment><USER15> Yeah Jump is a cool rig but that's 16 cameras in a circle, not a stereo pair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't care what anyone thinks, that is friggin awesome.

</comment><comment><USER17> So it's a new video format, but without specs or code ?

</comment><comment><USER18> yea. VR

</comment><comment><USER19> Maybe I'm old, but didn't it used to be customary to include some text actually describing the product on a product introduction website? Like so many other such sites, this has a signup link and a flashy-yet-uninformative video. It might as well be advertising Jabberwocky.

I mean, it looks like they're adding stereo video to youtube (didn't it already have that?) that you can view on your Cardboard or Daydream headset (couldn't you already?) so... it's a rebranding of that? The only 'new' thing is that they're partnering with a couple of hardware companies to make stereo cameras exactly like someone (Samsung?) was selling five years ago.

(Edit: Except that the example VR180 youtube video seem to have been shot at 5-10fps for some reason - is that just me or is this part of the charm?)

/old-man-shouts-at-cloud

<comment><USER20> You can do anything at Zombo-com

<comment><USER20> The original Flash version: [http://zombo.com/](http://zombo.com/)

The updated HTML5 version: [https://html5zombo.com/](https://html5zombo.com/)

<comment><USER19> Wait, there's a new HTML5 version? What's next, a new version of that stupid web game where you click on the soccer ball to stop it hitting the ground and it counts the clicks?

(If there is one of those, please tell me now or not at all, and especially not Monday morning when I have documentation to write. :P )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> how long before they abandon this also?

<comment><USER22> what do you mean, they just updated google glass...lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's a shame there's so little info on this page. There are several articles about this from various tech news sites[1][2] (there are a bunch more, but I'm not gonna link to all of them).

If you want to try it out yourself, here's a playlist of videos on YouTube that are all "3D 180": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLN_4SqVDVM7jCAt9RPKNrOzp...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLN_4SqVDVM7jCAt9RPKNrOzpa8FDhFxWp&v=xtjs5mUxpFk)

One of the general ideas of this "VR 180" format is that it gives you a lot of the immersion of 360 video, but it's a lot easier for creators to use (you can still put all your equipment (lighting, sound, etc.) behind the camera and not worry about it being in the shot). The cameras capture 180(ish) degrees of view. When played on the web or iOS or Android, it will play/look like a normal video (with maybe a bit of a wide lense). But if you use a headset, then you can look around a little more and get the "VR immersion" experience.

[1]: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/22/youtube-chops-360-video- in...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/22/youtube-chops-360-video-in-half-with- new-vr180-format/)

[2]: [https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-vr180-virtual- reality/](https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-vr180-virtual-reality/)

Disclaimer: I work at YouTube and did some of the iOS work for this. I do not represent my employer in any way, and this post is just a personal note of mine.

<comment><USER24> But what's the product? Is it that headmount thing they slide the phone into? Or is that Daydream? The cameras seem to be a separate thing arriving later, so it's not those. Or is it just the idea of trying to build a standard for 180 degree videos as opposed to static or 360?

I'm often quite surprised that a massive company with such competent staff can overlook detail on a public announcement site. Surely the very first bit should be a statement about what's on offer?

<comment><USER23> That "headmount thing they slide the phone into" is actually a Daydream[1], I'm pretty sure.

The VR 180 "product" (that you can purchase) is, as far as I know, the cameras that are in development. However, there are a few other things that the VR 180 announcement covers:

\- Ingest support for VR 180 to YouTube's servers. The servers can now ingest, process, and serve VR 180 videos.

\- Player support for VR 180. YouTube clients now know how to handle (and play) 180-degree content.

In the past you could just take a 360 equirectangular video and chop it in half and call it 180. But you couldn't upload it to YouTube and play it back, since it would try wrapping it to 360 still, and it would look wrong. So this announcement covers a few things: server support, client support, and new dedicated cameras for 180-degree content.

[1]: [https://vr.google.com/daydream/](https://vr.google.com/daydream/)

(Edit: my comment about about the lack of content is now outdated, since the URL for this submission has now been changed to the Google blog post. The original URL was [https://vr.google.com/vr180/](https://vr.google.com/vr180/))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's some more information about Google VR 180: [https://blog.google/products/google-vr/world-you-see-it- vr18...](https://blog.google/products/google-vr/world-you-see-it-vr180/).

It seems to me that Google has scaled back efforts on 360 video. There are lots of difficulties with 360:

\- Large file sizes (hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes of data)

\- Inadequate camera quality (even 8k video looks low-quality)

\- Bandwidth limitations (in streaming and processing)

\- Film-making and making use of all 360 degrees

These problems aren't going to be solved within the next year, so Google decided to go 180 as a stopgap for now.

<comment><USER25> More like >90% of the time, no one ever looks more than 180 behind them, so much of the extra information is wasted, but costs more to produce.

<comment><USER26> Half the bandwidth to serve, creators can have their lighting and equipment out-of-frame, and no one looks over there anyway. Win, win, and meh, which adds up to win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> We have realized the same function, also we developed a app providing the live broadcast. Although it's not 360 degree, users can still get immersive experience. download the app: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrmedia.sh...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrmedia.show)</comment>


Ask HN: What are your UI pet peeves? - <AUTHOR> What elements of "modern" UIs drove you nuts, don't work, are stupid or you simply don't like? Also, do you have any suggestions for improvements? <comment><USER2> \- In google maps the default colours blend in to each other, especially things like tracks that you are likely to try to look at in the outdoors in sunlight. Rediculous!

\- Any time you break the visual/categorical heirarchy of a list of options. For instance, related items appearing in different categories due to a technical similarity to other features that are not known to the user. What?

\- Animated slideouts that are too resource intensive/slow or that dont work at the desired zoom level. Come on!

\- Uninformative lockups/freezouts when something is loading. It should tell you what is happening. Huh?

\- Opaque screens that say things like "Updating..." with no way to know if things have stalled or any way to see whats really going on. Grrr.

\- Frequently used option should be available in one click/tap, often times these arent able to be mapped to another option and are buried in contextual menus! Nooo!

<comment><USER2> Also: In web apps for thing like email much of the precious screen real estate is taken up with margins and titles (for aesthetic reasons?) and there is usually no way to change to single line mode, necessitating scrolling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know if this is modern UI or just plainly stupid UI, but recently I had to use the Riot messenger web app and I was looking for the page to show the device/encryption/fingerprint information. I tried to find it in the room- settings which is where it used to be, but no not there. Then I looked in the main settings, also not there. Looked over and over again. In their attempt to simplify the Riot UI, they placed that information inside the chat bubble's settings and only there. Right, the only way to get to it now is to right click any chat bubble in a room and access the page from its options. Nothing indicates it. I guess you are supposed to just know to right click the chat bubbles for that stuff. I'm not infallible though. Maybe there was some indication and I just missed it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't ask me to re-enter the same thing again and again. For example, don't keep asking me to enter my address over and over again. I'm filling in a mortgage application and the fact that I need to type in my address for a 3rd time made me come back to this thread.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just don't distract me from what I'm doing: popups, interruptions, making me do something unrelated. I opened a program to do X, not Y.

Don't prompt me to update when I open your program, especially if it's a long update process. (Visual studio on Mac is a big offender, Photoshop used to do this, but I haven't used it in years)

Don't move text while I'm reading it.

Almost all alerts, emails, and other ploys to increase engagement

<comment><USER2> Netflix tries to make you "engage" with it more than intended and hence it seems to be a feature that items go missing, everything takes a long time to navigate to and the appearance of thumbnails change. Its literally designed to get in your way so you have to run a gauntlet. Its like how they put junk food near the checkout in supermarkets... it's also trying to make it seem like there is more variety and choice than in actuality. Really looking forward to some 3rd party way to navigate Netflix that has less of these dark patterns.

<comment><USER4> Honestly, I'm starting to get tired of Netflix. There's some original content I like, but the quality keeps going down as the price goes up.

It's making me consider going back to getting disks in the mail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> oh my god, this tangent has a steep slope!

fresh in my mind are "mini players". i spend minutes trying to make them go away on youtube, twitter, and others. then, i give up and reload the page. so painful!!!

most websites don't care about readability. my zoom level is above 100% on all my browsers and all my devices due to bad eyesight. this breaks tons of websites. medium, for example, is unreadable! headers, accept cookies footers, ads, sidebar, and you are left with a tiny area for what you came for. and quickly leave too.

my phone has black and white turned on by default. i am tired of being triggered by bright notifications & colors. most websites have poorly chosen, undistinguishable colors.

it is 2020 and we have made it hard to edit text in a textbox on a smartphone. move one character left, right, delete one character. this is just so hard on a smartphone! we got rid of buttons for touch, but my nokia 3310 did it just fine!

etc...

</comment><comment><USER6> I loathe the material design floating action button (little plus button) in the lower right of apps.

My eyes are just never drawn there it seems so unnatural to look for it.</comment>


Homeless Alone - <AUTHOR> http://homelessalone.blogspot.com/ <comment><USER2> Am I missing something obvious here? The 40-something-guy in the blog moved to another state without a job to live with his 80-something mother? What happened to him in the first place? Why doesn't he have any savings or anything to show for past 40 years?

<comment><USER3> > Am I missing something obvious here?

Imagination? Empathy?</comment></comment>


Sex Trafficking On Backpage.com: Much Ado About (Statistically) Nothing - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/06/sex-trafficking-on-backpage-com-much-ado-about-statistically-nothing/

<comment><USER2> A somewhat relevant article about the police and Backpage:

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121002/07354820569/oh- loo...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121002/07354820569/oh-look-police- can-use-backpagecom-to-track-down-arrest-convict-pimps-prostitutes.shtml)</comment>


OpenJDK now available for Windows - <AUTHOR> https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2016/06/27/openjdk-now-available-for-windows/ <comment><USER2> To download the installer you have to join Red Hat's developer program and agree to the terms and conditions[1] which state that the services are for "development purposes only" and that "using the services provided under the Program for a production installation" is a violation of the terms.

So presumably I can't distribute this installer to my users or even have them install it themselves for production purposes?

[1] [https://developers.redhat.com/terms-and- conditions/](https://developers.redhat.com/terms-and-conditions/)

<comment><USER3> Additionally, it is delivered as an MSI, making it less usable.

I would also like a simple ZIP file please with no installer. I like to set up some software with an environment variable that points to which JRE / JDK that I want it to use.

Example Use Case:

One Windows OS. Several smallish Tomcat servers. Each Tomcat server has environment variables that point to the CATALINA_HOME (a base unpacked tomcat folder), and a JAVA_HOME which points to a JDK or JRE.

I can stop a tomcat service. Remove it from Services control panel. Change some environment variable pointers in a .BAT file. Re-add it to Services control panel. Then restart the service. Now that server might point to a different Java and/or different Tomcat release.

Similarly Eclipse. I don't "install" it. Just unpack it and create a shortcut to it's launcher. Set its configuration file to point to which of my various Java versions I want it to use -- including multiple vendor's implementations.

Red Hat: I don't WANT to "install" a JDK on Windows.

<comment><USER4> I do the same thing on Windows. I try to "install" as little software as possible, and just keep a directory that has all of my software and a few scripts to create start menu shortcuts, file associations, etc.

You should be able to extract an msi with the right msiexec command line switches.

<comment><USER3> I thought of that. I can often extract MSIs using 7zip. I was about to download until I read that it can only be used for development purposes. Apparently I have to agree not to redistribute it. No thanks Red Hat.

Elsewhere in this thread I discovered:

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

And I already knew about:

[http://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/](http://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/)

The more OpenJDK folders I have to test against (on both Linux and Windows), the better. Just change environment variables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Coincidentally when i tried that link ( [https://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/overview/](https://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/overview/) ) yesterday it wasn't available.

there's also a github repository with openjdk 8 windows builds availabe as zip : [https://github.com/ojdkbuild/ojdkbuild](https://github.com/ojdkbuild/ojdkbuild)

<comment><USER6> The license on the Github repository seems much more reasonable:

OpenJDK binaries are released under the GNU GPL v. 2 with classpath exception.

Project icon is taken from Nuvola icon set, it is released under the GNU LGPL v. 2.1.

Build scipts are released under the Apache License 2.0.

Other sources and binaries in this project (cygwin, freetype etc.) are released under their corresponding licenses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can also get OpenJDK for Windows (with support) from Azul systems: [http://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/](http://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/)

<comment><USER8> Actually this is also the only easy macOS OpenJDK install solution I've found so far.

<comment><USER9> Check out [https://github.com/shyiko/jabba](https://github.com/shyiko/jabba)

It's like nvm (for Node.js) but for installing JDKs.

<comment><USER10> On linux you can use your package manager + alternative system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting. In light of recent Oracle JavaSE licencing enforcement (MissionControl etc.) this will provide some safety from legal uncertainty.

And maybe redHat will also release a JDK6 build for Windows for the poor souls ( _cough_ ) who are forced to deploy with good old JDK6 even though it is unpatched.

<comment><USER12> Given that those stuck on JDK6 tend to be large corporations with deep pockets (and often a policy requirement to have a commercial support contract for all their software anyway), I think that's precisely the part they wouldn't want to do for free.

<comment><USER13> Our use case is a proprietary app that still requires Java 6. Fortunately, OpenJDK 6 is still supported and security-fixed (well, backported patches) in Debian/Ubuntu.

<comment><USER12> OpenJDK 6 won't be around forever. I strongly advise figuring out an exit strategy for that app.

<comment><USER13> well, yes :-) It's an old version of Quova, an IP geolocator from Neustar. The new version is way better, _but_ we can't be bothered rewriting the stuff that uses it until we have to.

<comment><USER12> Java 6 EOL should be your "have to". It will be easier to fix before you get a hard deadline, and it's easier to upgrade by one version twice than by two versions once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love OpenJDK. It hurts my soul whenever I see an open source project using proprietary Oracle APIs. Most recently I ran into this with Graylog. Great product, but it's unit tests won't run without the Oracle JDK.

<comment><USER15> We'd be happy to use OpenJDK, but few days ago we discovered a bug (feature?) that works differently in HotSpot - so we had to migrate our services to it.

<comment><USER16> OpenJDK _is_ the HotSpot VM.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, that's what I thought too. However I'm seeing different behaviour on these two vms with the same version.

<comment><USER17> Already been there :( the command line flags by default are different

You can do a diff using java -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An important win here is that we can now give our Windows-using developers _the same_ Java on their PCs that we run on the live Ubuntu 14.04 servers.

(they get a Windows 7 PC from IT, which they can use as-is or load Linux onto, on a "you break it we wipe it" support basis.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Note this does not include JavaFX/OpenJFX.

<comment><USER19> Primarily because Red Hat traditionally cross-compiles anything for Windows within their existing Koji build system, and Gradle is not in the RHEL or Fedora repositories because it's such a pain in the ass to bootstrap (you can often build Gradle 1.X with 1.X - 1, but not 1.X itself which makes trying to maintain the package a challenge in your own sanity).

If OpenJFX switched to Maven or Gradle, Inc. made their product less janky to work with it could easily be included in the OpenJDK packages - you can still just build it yourself and toss the .jar in the OpenJDK directory and it will work, at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there a way to download this without registering to red hat developer network?

<comment><USER21> oddly, it directed me to 'register' to download, but the download started before i registered anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how Red Hat plan to monetize this?

<comment><USER23> This is for people who are deploying to RHEL. They'd be happy to sell you a RHEL support contract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> In case you don't know what this is all about:

Oracles Java contains a number of "commercial" stuff that costs money. So in theory, you could download the standard Java SE and run certain tools or the standard tools with certain command line arguments and suddenly owe Oracle a shipload of money. And I am talking a lot of money, like $40.000 for a single machine. And yes, they have started using SDK analytics to map potential "costumers" and sending them huge bills:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/16/oracle_targets_java_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/16/oracle_targets_java_users_non_compliance/)

Someone suggested migrating to OpenJDK which does not (for most parts) include these tools and have a more sane license. The problem is that OpenJDK does not come with a Window installation from a reputable source.

 _TL;DR: Larry Ellison needs a new yacht and since Google is not paying he is now sending his lawyers after ordinary folks who thought Java was free._

<comment><USER25> Honestly, we need to just fork Java away from Oracle, just like Solaris and ZFS have been done.

I find it deliciously ironic that Oracle's products are no longer compatible with Solaris and ZFS because they won't follow upstream... because they don't understand they aren't upstream anymore.

Java needs the same treatment.

<comment><USER26> OpenJDK has about ~750 contributors with more than half associated/employed or sponsored by Oracle contributing to most significant part of JDK.

It is about 1M+ lines of highly optimized C/C++ code and 4M lines of Java code. So it is not like a package or a library that a dozen or contributor manage well. And Considering payment is the core issue here I do not know how highly paid people will be made to work on JDK.

<comment><USER27> > And Considering payment is the core issue here I do not know how highly paid > people will be made to work on JDK.

They will be _employed_ to work on the JDK: there are plenty of companies that are already involved in Java and employ people to work on it outside of Oracle.

Hypothetically IBM, Red Hat, Google and the other non-Hotspot VM makers could band together and fork Java successfully - hell, a even a bank or 3 will want in on the action. They will have to name it something else and prepare for the inevitable epic lawsuit, but funding people to work in the JDK will nor be a problem.

<comment><USER26> I think all 3 you mentioned are spending not insignificant resources in other programing languages.

IBM sees future in Swift LOB apps and Go on blockchain related efforts. Also with open sourcing of their own J9 components they would be even less inclined to participate in OpenJDK fork or some such

Redhat sees Ceylon on apps side and with all this containerization thing going on, may be quite a bit of Go.

Google of course is betting big on Dart on apps side and Go on infra side.

For Banks I do not see any issue at all to either pay Oracle or Azul to get commercially supported JDK. Their main unique requirements are either high- perf GC(Azul) or high perf collections which they anyway write for themselves.

<comment><USER19> Red Hat still has a _lot_ of money invested in the JVM ecosystem, see all the JBoss products. Ceylon also targets the JVM, so even if not Java The Language we will see Red Hat continue to support Java The Platform for a long time.

<comment><USER26> Indeed. And that will be excellent reason not to go on warpath with Oracle when so many of Red Hat customers look to run Oracle certified Java and other Oracle Enterprise products on Red hat systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I hope after Flash, Java is next technology to go...

<comment><USER29> Why? The JVM is awesome. Or are you just trying to be an edgelord with that hot take?

<comment><USER28> It is unnecessarily resource hungry.

<comment><USER3> There was an article the other day on HN about Golang compiler and work on its GC. (Garbage Collection)

As the article goes on, it becomes clear that a modern GC managed system is no simple thing. As you start to add all the choices and tuning you end up re- inventing the JVM runtime.

Any program of sufficient complexity eventually ends up having GC.

Java may be too resource hungry for trivial programs. For large programs Java is an industrial strength runtime platform. Or I should say the JVM is. You don't have to use the Java language. You can use a number of languages that compile to JVM bytecode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I guess some more people that Oracle can fine.</comment>


Code golf: Count the words in a text and display them  - <AUTHOR> http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/19568/count-the-words-in-a-text-and-display-them <comment><AUTHOR> Deleted and reposted because it linked to a specific answer.</comment>


Politicians can only view secret trade pact in special viewing room - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/08/eu-doubles-down-on-ttip-secrecy-as-public-resistance-grows/

<comment><USER2> This whole T-agreements are way beyond madness.

<comment><USER3> Depends on wheter you believe in multi-country trade pacts or not. The failure of the Doha Round showed further emphasized that they have to be _negotiated_ in secret, but of course are made public when that's finished and it's time to ratify them or not.

Experience shows they have to be voted up or down without allowing each of the 535 Congresscritters a change to amend it, i.e. force a renegotiation with the other pact members, which won't happen since they've already taken political hits once it became public.

If neither of these process details are acceptable to you, then multi-country trade pacts are not acceptable to you, and a lot of potential compromises where e.g. country A makes a concession that helps country B, which makes one which helps country C, which makes one which helps country A, when no (new) bilateral concessions are possible won't happen.

This of course says nothing about the content of any particular agreement, but that's a separate issue from process.

<comment><USER4> I have to question whether secret negotiation is separate from content. If you want it to be really separate from content, you have to keep it from being a mechanism for inserting horrors that hide among the pages of a treaty nobody will read and understand.

For example if you limited each treaty to 10 provisions of 10 pages each then that would make the document understandable, AND it would incentivise the backers of important provisions to shut out the garbage if the garbage will sink the whole deal.

As it is we get at least hundreds of pages of garbage hiding among thousands of pages of soporific minutia.

<comment><USER3> I get the impression that treaties are studied a lot more closely than the now typical 1,000+ page bills, in part because they come from the executive, they don't come with the understanding that "the leadership wants you to vote for this bill they drafted". More of the tension between branches of the government that our Founders were fond of.

Didn't the (Democratic back then) Congress fail to ratify at least several of the last few treaties they were presented with? When was the last successful one??? These things tend to have lots of enemies, I have _some_ hope these new ones, assuming negotiations are even successful (only the secrecy gives any hope for that, and I just found out on Wikipedia that the Millennium Round between Doha and Uruguay didn't even get off the ground), will get examined carefully enough. Certainly the ground has been prepared.

For that matter, are we sure the language is going to be that ugly? Here's it for the Uruguay round [https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/legal_e.htm](https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/legal_e.htm) and I drilled down to this bit on copyright IP: [https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04_e.htm](https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04_e.htm) (all IP here: [https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_01_e.htm](https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_01_e.htm)).

Agriculture tends to be one of the worst areas, here's the first of two pages: [https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/14-ag_01_e.htm](https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/14-ag_01_e.htm) Ugly, but not particularly opaque. E.g.:

 _4\. (a) A Member shall not be required to include in the calculation of its Current Total AMS and shall not be required to reduce:

(i) product-specific domestic support which would otherwise be required to be included in a Member's calculation of its Current AMS where such support does not exceed 5 per cent of that Member's total value of production of a basic agricultural product during the relevant year; and...._

Particularly good is there's no "this line in this law is changed to....".

And let's not forget that in the US treaties can do only so much, many of them need enabling law to actually take effect.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tablets And Smartphones Before And After The iPhone And iPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.redmondpie.com/tablets-and-smartphones-before-and-after-the-iphone-and-ipad-images/

<comment><USER2> I don't see the big deal. You can make the same argument about the Blackberry when it first came out, and the Palm devices before it, and so on. People are easier to persuade when you mimic the look they want and differentiate on features. Look at clothing even.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah but Microsoft and others tried for YEARS to make tablets work, no dice. Apple succedded on their first attempt. That does say something.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not suprising how Apple inspired everyone else.</comment>


Lessons from Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2012/12/26/lessons-from-europe/

<comment><USER2> It confused me that someone from the UK would say "I'm moving to Europe". Also, 3 days is more like a weekend getaway on Ryanair than moving to Europe (from Europe).</comment>


Linux on an 8-bit micro - <AUTHOR> http://dmitry.gr/index.php?r=05.Projects&proj=07.%20Linux%20on%208bit <comment><USER3> This is seriously awesome. I take special care to upvote these kinds of projects, as they embody the hacker spirit: hack something that has never been done before in an awesome way, and to hell with practical value!

</comment><comment><USER4> That's impressive!

I remember when "getting linux working on a laptop" was thought to be tricky.[1]

ELKS was a linux distribution for old small machines. It was supposed to run on an 8086, and use just 512 KB (not MB) for ram. ([http://web.archive.org/web/19990117003949/http://www.uk.linu...](http://web.archive.org/web/19990117003949/http://www.uk.linux.org/ELKS- Home/index.html))

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embeddable_Linux_Kernel_Subset>)

Wow, still sort of live. (<http://elks.sourceforge.net/>)

[1] Here's a 2003 FAQ which gives some nice details of the problems people faced then. (<http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Laptop-HOWTO.html>)

<comment><USER5> Well, getting Linux working on a laptop was more a case of exciting driver wrangling, rather than performance limiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _All that's left is that pesky 32-bit CPU & MMU requirement. Well the AVR has no MMU and is 8-bit. To conquer this obstacle, I wrote an ARM emulator._

So technically it's Linux running on a 32-bit "macro", just one which happens to be implemented in some seriously inefficient manner.

There are some real ports of Linux for "limited" architectures, like uClinux (supporting few 32-bit micros, including some MMU-less ones) and ELKS (for 16-bit x86 CPUs).

This project is "only" a cool ARM emulator with software DRAM controller, which BTW proves again that Linux doesn't fit onto 8-bit micros.

<comment><USER7> I was impressed by it.

        This project is "only" a cool ARM emulator with
        software DRAM controller, which BTW proves again that
        Linux doesn't fit onto 8-bit micros.

But it does, for practical purposes. I'll try to put into context with a practical story -

There's a global apocalypse happening tomorrow.

There's a sealed bunker beneath my author's house that will survive. It contains one of these microcontrollers, a keyboard, specifications for a daisy wheel printer that hooks into the debug port and a big stack of paper, and a row of bicycles connected to a alternator to power it all.

There is a post-it note stuck to the controller that says "pwd; /usr/bin/ls; cd /; /usr/bin/ls; man man; man ls; man ed;".

Decades from now and by chance, Benedictine monks will build a monastery, and the bunker will be within its generous grounds. In time they will discover the bunker, and take turns getting fit while others they learn to use the system. They're a disciplined, careful bunch, particularly around commands like rm.

Out of concern for the reliability of storage media, one of the hackers will set up a RAM disk and migrate the system over to this. The abbot will declare that pedalling is a leisure activity so that they system will never again need to reboot.

Though their diligence, the art of unix hacking will live on.

A thousand years later, an opaque glass bottle will break free of the ocean, and wash up on a beach. Bizarrely, it will contain well-preserved code printouts from an entry in the 2013 7-day roguelike competition. It will be marked up in pen, to highlight the author's flamboyant use of obscure system calls, particularly those that are specific to the linux kernel. A convenient novelty of the game is that (unlike rogue) it is one-dimensional - a player can walk left or right on a line, and a new line prints out each time they move.

A copy of the source will eventually find its way to the monks - <USER2> pedaling furiously to keep their RAM disk alive - as they take an interest in anything that refers to linux. They will type in the code, and then throw it at a compiler. It will all work. This is the last computer left on the planet, and the reason that the code can be compiled to run on the computer with no modifications is because - for practical purposes - it's linux that's running on this 8-bit micro.

<comment><USER8> I think in the event of a global apocalypse you'll be wanting this gentleman[1] first... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzyXMEpq4qw>

[1] Claude Paillard, <http://paillard.claude.free.fr/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This guy is definitely a genius... or insane. It boots the full graphical desktop in around 6 hours.

<comment><USER9> He's more on the side of genius, but less on the side of practical. I think he'd do really well if he tried a startup with someone who could help push him in the direction of building things with more practical use.

<comment><USER10> I've done plenty of practical things a while back (palmpowerups in PalmOS days) but nowadays I am relaxing (I work at Google and I fly planes for fun). I'll go back to doing practical things with a purpose in a year or two :)

<comment><USER9> Very much looking forward to seeing what happens if you venture out into startup land again :)

By any measure, Palm Powerups was very successful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is not exactly Linux on an 8-bit micro; it's Linux on an ARM emulator on an 8-bit micro. Still good to see an use for ancient memory modules :)

</comment><comment><USER12> Previous Discussion:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3767410>

</comment><comment> iso8859-1 I put his sources on Github. Since there are no modifications, it does not violate the license.

[1]: [https://github.com/ysangkok/linux-on-an-8-bit- microcontrolle...](https://github.com/ysangkok/linux-on-an-8-bit- microcontroller)

</comment><comment><USER13> _Curiously enough, once booted, the system is somewhat usable. You can type a command and get a reply within a minute._

<comment><USER14> _It takes about 2 hours to boot to bash prompt ("init=/bin/bash" kernel command line). Then 4 more hours to boot up the entire Ubuntu ("exec init" and then login). Starting X takes a lot longer._

<comment><USER15> "You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh / Your Windows boots up what, in a day and a half?" - Weird Al

<comment><USER16> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos> \- just to make it easy for others to appreciate this gem.

<comment><USER17> For the extremely lazy, the exact moment of the quote:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qpMvS1Q1sos#t=75s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> iso8859-1 Comments from Dimitri last time this was on HN: <https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dmitrygr>

</comment><comment><USER18> Am I the only one who noticed his "clock" is an aircraft altimeter? This guy is awesome! :)

</comment><comment><USER19> Never underestimate the Portia[1] trick.

[1] [http://www.rifters.com/real/2009/01/iterating-towards- bethle...](http://www.rifters.com/real/2009/01/iterating-towards- bethlehem.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> I was puzzled at first when I saw the license. Who would be interested in this commercially?

Then I realized the interesting thing isn't to run Linux, but some other more lightweight code that depends on the 32 bit arm architecture, but would run just fine on an 8-but micro, performance-wise.

Any idea what that use case might be?

</comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of a fellow who got OS X to boot on an 680x0-based Mac: [http://blog.makezine.com/2006/10/10/mac-os-x-panther- on-a-25...](http://blog.makezine.com/2006/10/10/mac-os-x-panther-on-a-25m/)

</comment><comment><USER22> And slightly on topic, here is Windows 95 on a 25Mhz 386 with 4 meg of RAM <http://everything2.com/title/25+MHz+386+running+Windows+95>

<comment><USER23> Back in the time, there were even hacks to run Windows 95 in safe mode on 286 machines. 386 with 4 megs was the official minimal requirement.

<comment><USER6> What were the limitations and hacks involved in this? I mean, parts of W95 (certainly including explorer.exe) were 32-bit so either they had to be disabled/replaced or the kernel extended with an 80386 emulator.

<comment><USER23> IIRC it may involve using some parts from Win 3.11 running on MS-DOS 7.0 and other windows 95 parts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This kind of things makes me shiver when I think how much awesomeness author injected in his project. I bet he also had tons of fun.

</comment><comment><USER25> Did Minix ever run on 8-bit? I remember running it on an 8088-based PC, which was sort of an 8/16 bit hybrid.

<comment><USER26> An 8088 was a 16-bit cpu with an 8-bit bus, so it was slower (and cheaper) but ran exactly the same code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Awesomely cool project, but I was somewhat dismayed by the choice of GNOME, as GNOME is quite bloated and a smaller window manager, instead of a DE, seems to make more sense while not detracting from usability.

<comment><USER28> hahaha, this comment is hilarious. The guy got an 8-bit tiny little 55 cent chip (8 bits means an isntruction is between 0-255) to slowly crawl its way through pretending to be a real mdoern CPU by pretending to execute a real modern desktop CPU instruction every few cycles.

He got it to starting up x in a day and you're like, "Cool project bro but I'm dsmayed by the choice of GNOME".

saying it, "detracts from usability." this is just hilarious.

<comment><USER29> I'm still confused as to whether he's being serious or trolling us hard.

<comment><USER27> I'm just a GNOME hater... Forgive my uninformed comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> iso8859-1 I wish he'd use a proper license. I can't mix it with anything like this.

<comment><USER10> such as?

\- dmitrygr

<comment> iso8859-1 Hi Dmitry.

I'd get rid of the non-commercial requirement, but I guess you have a reason for choosing it. But it causes incompatibilities with GPL'ed software for example, since the GPL requires commercial to be allowed.

I'd recommend one of the licences listed on <http://opensource.org/licenses> like the GPL.

Creative Commons has a nice license chooser, if you want a proper licence with the restrictions you currently have: <http://creativecommons.org/choose/> For example the BY-NC-SA (attribution, non-commercial, share-alike) license is pretty much what you have currently. It is still GPL incompatible, however.

The Free Software Foundation has a list of licences too: <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html>

Thanks for your patience.

<comment><USER10> I considered GPL, for a while, actually. I'll think of it some more

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Given a choice between the fun of 8-bit programming and the stodgy functionalism of a mere OS? hmmm... let me think. (1MHz @ 4 cycles/instruction = 250K instructions.)

</comment><comment> iso8859-1 Video describing the boot process: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm0POwEtiqE>

</comment><comment><USER31> Next Challenge get this working on my Z80

<comment><USER32> For that you have UZIX (<http://uzix.sourceforge.net/>) or the predecessor UZI.</comment></comment>