Being Average in the Age of Alpha - <AUTHOR> https://www.safalniveshak.com/being-average-in-the-age-of-alpha/ <comment><USER2> There is nothing wrong with being average. You should have enough energy to swim above the event horizon, where bad things happen (i.e. financial instability and job insecurity, the root of all evil).

If you don't have the motivation to be excellent, don't try. There really is no point to it, as the author pointed out. Excellent people have an inner "drive" to get there and they seek tremendous joy from walking that path. If you force yourself to do it, you will always be unhappy and your brain won't be able to compete no matter how much you try because there is nothing more important for success than this: You need to love what you do. But also, you need to be at the right time in the right place, have the right environment to strive and parents who have the ability to support you.

The world is a mean and unfair place...

<comment><USER3> Being above financial instability and job insecurity is a good thing. It doesn't follow that the average person having a stable life means that the world is cruel and unfair.

<comment><USER4> But nobody really wants to be average. We all deep down want to be exceptional or important or matter in some way - not average.

<comment><USER5> Average people can matter in very important ways indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would call it "being different" in the age of "crowds' standards". Really, what people need to realize is that everybody is different from others in at least one respect. Striving to become an "alpha" is like trying to win other peoples' game: the rules of this game are written by other people and there are already some who are far ahead of the others in this game. As a result, chances of winning in other peoples' game are pretty slim. That's why it pays to be different, in an age that promotes some widely accepted standard as being the right one (the "alpha").

<comment><USER7> Insightful comment. Similarly, competitive people prefer and create highly structured environments and situations, where it is clear what to min-max for and where they stand on the highscore list. Nuance and soft qualities go out the window that way, but others can balance that out at some cost.

<comment><USER8> Put another way: If at first you don't succeed, change the rules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Perhaps stepping out of the "alpha" concept, and redefining what it means to be a man, is worth considering. Humans are not boolean, nor do they exist as a point along a singular axis.

To me, a "man" is someone who listens, who elevates others, who fights for others, and is relentless in doing so. We need less "alpha" in this world, and more "fierce gentleman". We need not warriors, but collaborators.

</comment><comment><USER10> Average is fine in a normal distribution. In the power law distribution the world is increasingly moving towards, average may not be so good.

<comment><USER11> There are certain jobs and specializations in which you can't just be average. You can find a place as an average doctor, but maybe not in neurosurgery.

But the real problem is "categorizing" people. You can't know whether someone is cut out for something unless they try, and America in particular does not like that kind of progression (after all, you can't try every career on the planet -- you can easily die never knowing what you are good at). They only really like people who choose to do a career they are good at on the first or second try. Or they like people who can convince others they've never failed at anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Most people don't realize that being average is a matter of luck. It doesn't matter how hard you work, you just have to be in the right place at the right time.

</comment><comment><USER13> Maybe intelligence has led to higher stress as we can better recognize what competence looks like and thus what to aim after. So everyone knows what it is better and they all want it, because they know it means the best chances at evolutionary success, regardless of whether the individual is capable of actually reaching that level of competence.

In games you can see this competitive struggle and meta forcing and how dare you stray from obviously the best strategy. I believe there are correlates everywhere there is a hierachy of competence.

</comment><comment><USER14> The problem with exceptionalism is there are more talented people than exceptional outcomes and so like a gambler you try your hand again hoping for that lucky roll exactly because you feel that in another universe, if the ball bounced right, you could be something so much more.

</comment><comment><USER15> I feel neurologically-predetermined to fret about my deterministic cosmic dice roll. D:</comment>


Ask HN: Will Remote Start to Affect Tech Salaries? - <AUTHOR> As we all know many companies who never managed employees remotely are now forced to do it for months and months due to coronavirus. Speculation has it that many companies will find out first hand productivity isn't being hurt when managing teams remotely, and they may actually reduce office space in expensive cities and become more remote friendly. If these assumptions are correct, do you think a cascading affect can happen where Silicon Valley firms start hiring remotely outside Silicon Valley (first from cheaper U.S countries) ? But it's not necessarily going to stop there. Once you are experienced in managing someone remotely from California to Ohio, why not offshore it to Mexico or Canada? The question of tech offshoring has been discussed a lot, but my question is whether the current situation is actually going to give it a very big push. The U.S is just an example obviously, I can see this happening in the EU or anywhere else for that matter. <comment><USER2> Agreed, I think that the EU can look at any talent in their timezone (Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Belarus, Hungary etc.) [https://techbeacon.com/app-dev- testing/top-12-international-...](https://techbeacon.com/app-dev- testing/top-12-international-cities-software-engineers) South Africa has the biggest bang for your buck, even for local jobs, having an international job and living in SA would be a great combo.</comment>


Ask HN: What is that website that compared language vs. language? - <AUTHOR> I can't find it for the life of me but it was an almost cute code vs. code such as php vs. python and as I recall showed the stats such as how many jobs were available for each? Anybody? Thx. <comment><USER2> Indeed.com jobs stats</comment>


Can TikTok be banned from US based Android devices? - <AUTHOR> https://raccoon.onyxbits.de/blog/trump-ban-tiktok-wechat-usa/ <comment><USER2> Half of this rationale seems to assume that TikTok can't modify the app to work independently of Play Services. But that is completely something they could do. In fact, I'd assume they have a Chinese version already developed with separate infrastructure. Not sure why it is assumed that is so hard. It would be fascinating to see what would happen if a super popular app like that went all in on a side loaded distribution mechanism.

<comment><USER3> Another issue is that TikTok relies on advertising for revenue and if US companies are banned from doing business with TikTok, they would need to run the app at a loss in the US at least. They could use their revenues from the rest of the world and the Chinese government to survive in the US. Not clear how that would affect TikTok sponsored influencers.

Either way, the US could order ISPs to block TikTok servers, this would require a VPN and would kill TikTok for normies.

<comment><USER2> > Either way, the US could order ISPs to block TikTok servers

Do you think there is any legal mechanism by which they can actually order ISPs to block a server? While blocking financial transactions has plenty of precedent, I'm not sure there is any for straight up blocking communication which looks a lot more like free speech. Especially with no basis in evidence to support actual wrong-doing.

<comment><USER4> Based on what I've seen in the past few decades, all you need to say are the magic words "national security" to justify anything and everything.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't say "national security" are the magic words. When Trump tried the Muslim ban it was overturned, same for building the wall which was justified by "national security".

I think the magic happens when the issue is bipartisan, which is the case here as both parties are anti-China. When an issue is supported by both parties then it will pass 100% with no obstacles from the constitution or any laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Site doesn't open.

I wonder how this would work ? Google can for sure remove an app from the play store and maybe even remove it from play services enabled phones.

If I am European and travel (in some hypothetic future where it is possible) to the USA, does tiktok get removed from my phone ?

Edit : I can open now. Some notes re : different apks for sideloading. I don't know if the author is being malicious here but they are inventing problems that don't exist. Yeah, there can be multiple apks for a given app (that's the main idea behind app bundles). However if you distribute your app yourself you either

\- provide an universal apk that will install on all devices. It will be way larger since it needs to incorporate all the different possible configurations, but is trivial to make for a dev.

\- detect the user device config and provide a download link tailored to that device. I guess tiktok is popular enough to go that route, but that's just a minor engineering point.

Also wow, very classy to insult people who use an app. Of course if you don't like a service people who do have to be dumb.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm concerned about the precedent of the government getting involved in app censorship on ideological grounds.

Today TT, tomorrow whatever the Party or our Dear Leader doesn't find complimentary?

<comment><USER7> if we didn't put up with centralized stores on mobile this wouldn't be a practical possibility for the government to ban things. now for us to get an app to our users we have to be sure the dear leader apple/google AND dear leader government both approve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Devices - no, but it sure can be removed from Play Store entirely (not just US), and banned from using all US based cdn's and hosting providers... pretty much killing it.

<comment><USER9> Actually, it seems like they can delete it from devices. FTA it's just a push notification :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, they can. AFAIR this feature was used once in the past after a court order to delete an app that was very popular in south america (brazil?), but contained a nasty sideload.

I can't find an an article backing this up though.

<comment><USER10> Wait, really? That seems ... very unexpected. Can anyone confirm, ideally with some sort of proof, that Google can delete apps from your phone on demand?

I suppose Apple has this ability too. I've never really thought about it.

<comment><USER11> I think I can help provide some proof.

First - the article talks about the message delivery via push notification. The push notification is, essentially, a JSON object.

The relevant notification for push/delete would be something like:

      notificationType: 2
      docid {
        backendDocId: "com.zhiliaoapp.musically"
      }

Second - ADB itself, of course, provides a command for removal of an app. Only requirement would be permissions. If working direction with a console on target device, that command is going to look like this [1]:

      pm uninstall -k --user 0 [package name]

Third - Google playstore has the permissions required to read and write to the phones filesystem. I can't find this explicitly stated, but I'm sure someone else will link to some documentation showing this is true.

Fourth - Kinda makes everything else a moot point, google play apps are served by google clouds (the author mentions this as well), so even if google couldn't remove the app from the phone, it could essentially cut the cords to the APIs and render the app useless. [2]

1 - [https://jimcofer.com/2019/02/18/uninstalling-android-apps- vi...](https://jimcofer.com/2019/02/18/uninstalling-android-apps-via-adb/)

2 - [https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/dynamic- deliver...](https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/dynamic-delivery)

Final thoughts: The author touches on this, but I don't think anyone really knows the answer. Google _can_ remove TikTok, but will they (they haven't yet, right? lol)?

EDIT: formatting and final thought

<comment><USER12> > The push notification is, essentially, a JSON object.

It's a proto message, to be more precise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not sure what the article says (doesn't open for me at the moment) but to answer the question:

Access to Play Store apps can be restricted to certain countries. Such apps do not appear in search results. So it's possible for Tik Tok to disappear for anyone looking to install it in the US, or with a US-based Google account.

However, as long as a device allows sideloading (installing apps from other, "unknown" sources), and most of them do, it's debatable whether it could be banned from people's _devices_.

Google has some mechanisms to counter malware (Play Protect) but these are supposed to be used against "harmful" apps. It's debatable whether they would want to be involved in enforcing these restrictions this way.

It might be difficult for most users to follow the instructions to sideload an app, however there was the precedent with Fortnite, where users were asked to download it directly from fortnite.com/android (or use a QR code), and it seems to have worked. As far as I recall the Fortnite app was also preloaded on some phones.

The real difficulty for ByteDance might be something else altogether: namely, if the US prohibits doing business with the company, and the US users could no longer be monetized. Such a restriction would be very difficult to work around.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great article. This answered a lot of questions that I was wondering about.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes it can due to all phone apps being funneled through only 2 corporations. Until we get a more open mobile platform and a more decentralized mobile app store then governments have easy access to strict controls over what apps we are allowed to use.

</comment><comment><USER15> So, how does China ban things like Youtube and Facebook? Both on the app store level and IP/Firewall level?

</comment><comment><USER16> Couldn't the US government tell the cloud providers that TikTok uses (supposing they are American as well) to stop serving requests from American IP addresses?

TikTok could serve those requests from China but serving video from China would make the app unusable.

</comment><comment><USER17> >Let's be very clear here. I am not a fan of TikTok. I had the misfortune of coming across it when it was still called Musically and I had to explain to a little girl that she, unlike her friends, was not allowed to dance for strangers. That ruined an otherwise perfect evening.

I realize this isn't the main point of the post but I'm very surprised this is pretty much an accepted thing now. I would have thought the Trump administration or the media would weaponize the potential exploitation of children and turn a complex geopolitical struggle into a moral panic for the public to more easily understand.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you're missing Tiktok content, open the Instagram search tab and you'll see all their "reels" ... complete with tiktok watermarks in the corner.

(this is a joke, but seriously I see quite a lot of them are just reposts; I believe the tiktok video editor is still best in class, although I've never tried it)

<comment><USER19> Yeah, reposted Tiktok videos show up on Twitter nonstop as well. At least they're watermarked with the original author's name...</comment></comment>


Show HN: MealDB – The best restaurants and cafes nearby - <AUTHOR> http://mealdb.com

<comment><USER2> What does it use for the ratings/restaurant data?

I'm in a part of Tokyo with tons of restaurants and was disappointed to see that it brought up a bakery and a pop idol cafe for my first and second hits -- not only are they not especially good for meals, they're both pretty far from me.

<comment><AUTHOR> It uses Google's ratings data. The same ratings you would see in Google Maps, but unlike Google Maps, it sorts the results by rating.

You can change the radius through the location menu. I did initially have the default radius as something smaller, but that didn't work so well outside of city centers. I'll be making an update so that (when not explicitly specified) the radius will be increased/decreased based on volume & quality of results.

I'm okay with it showing places that are not perfect for meals. If there's an exceptional bakery nearby, I think that warrants it being listed. I like to use the "image" button for this; I find that it gives a really good feel for what to expect from a place.

<comment><USER2> I actually went back to look again after you mentioned the radius and noticed that the site tags my number one hit as a bakery when it's actually a store that just sells snacks. (Think mini bags of potato chips, candy, etc. Grocery store stuff.)

I guess the problem with this area in particular is that the people who rate things on Google tend to be tourists and not people who live/work here, so the ratings tend to skew high on tourist attractions rather than places that are actually good to eat at.

(If you were curious, the second result was the AKB48 cafe in Akihabara.)

Design-wise, I never would have thought to look for a radius setting under the location menu. Playing with it didn't help much; I think it's just a problem with people in Japan not rating things on Google. Oh, well!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just a ux tip i noticed: popping up the location api window asking for a permission without an user action is (atleast by some people) considered a bad user experience.

Maybe have a big button (or similar) on the landing page that says "Find out delicious food" or something more describing. Clicking that button would then launch the location api permission dialog :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. I agree that it's a bit abrupt. Will experiment with something like what you're suggesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks pretty good! I'd recommend using a Facebook icon instead of a "thumbs up" icon, since nobody likes clicking like buttons if they can avoid it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, good point. I did some user testing on this (with peek.usertesting.com) before showing it to anyone, and that exact thing came up a couple of times in the videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It looks better than I think you originally gave yourself credit for.. I'm probably going to try to use this.

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks nice. I'd definitely recommend porting it to an app. It seems straightforward enough to implement. Good job.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's like yelp. But very very minimal.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's intended to be something you might use on your phone to make a quick decision about where to eat in a place that you're not familiar with, so I think of minimalism as a feature for this type of app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What did you use to build it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It uses Bootstrap, Angular, Google Places API, hosted on App Engine (Python backend).

Funny story about how it came about, actually. I built a really crude version of it last year the night before flying to Hong Kong for a holiday. I realised I hadn't done any research about good places to eat in HK, so I stayed up all night trying to get something functional up in time, figuring that I would sleep on the plane. That was a really bad idea, because it turned out that I could barely manage to get any sleep on the plane.

I've been making it a bit more usable over the past week or two, showed it to my friends on facebook over the weekend, and decided it's ready to be shown a bit more widely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> ....for me to get a side job at? Because I have no disposable income beyond keeping myself alive. So, great time spent on that app, comrade.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry to hear that. Not sure about what your circumstances are, but maybe you could post an Ask HN so that someone might be able to help?

From what I've seen, the HN community is incredibly generous when it comes to giving people opportunities.</comment></comment>


Apple iPhone SDK Beta 4 (allowing background apps?) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2008/04/23/apple-iphone-sdk-beta-4/ <comment><USER2> Good, it would be really nice if the AIM app would work properly instead of logging off every time you switch apps.

</comment><comment><USER3> I cannot even imagine background apps aren't coming.

I could imagine that the new iphones have more RAM then the old ones, and that background apps may be limited on iPhone 1.0. I could imagine them as a killer feature that would help get people to upgrade their 1.x iPhones to 2.0 version.

But there is no way that iPhone background apps don't happen eventually. Apple is smarter then that.</comment>


Chromebooks now available - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=os_chrm_67?&node=2858603011

<comment><USER2> Don't these things seem overpriced? What am I missing?

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of this, I just don't understand that price point. The cheapest model there is $349. I just bought a 15" Acer laptop for a client (in a pinch) for the exact same price. Obviously, the specs destroy the Chromebook, and that price also includes the Windows 7 license (which isn't really free). If it's portability and mobility you want, then you're approaching the price of an iPad, with some of those Chromebooks at ~$500.

I could be out to lunch, but I think that price is a mistake, a mistake that's been repeated by players in this space: you can't sell an iPad competitor that's worse than the iPad for the same price. It seems basic, but no one has figured that out yet.

There's also the fact that the idea of running on Chrome (web only) is cool, but not for the mainstream yet. In other words, it will probably appeal to hackers. Hackers likely are not going to buy a Chromebook, but instead will do it themselves on a $200 netbook.

This is an interesting step towards the future, I hope they don't mess it up.</comment>


Ask HN: Could cryptographically verified testimony replace audio and video? - <AUTHOR> Technologies like "deep fake" will soon throw audio and video evidence of someone's past actions in doubt. But public key cryptography remains unbroken. If enough people used PKC to sign their statements, could that not be a workable substitute? <comment><USER2> Reference statements the solution is simply to write out the statement and sign it physically, keep the original, and provide copies.

I think technologies like deep fake may affect things like CCTV evidence, especially if it's veracity is thrown into doubt. I can see courts, where I live, having a hard time with this as currently CCTV evidence is treated as a truthful and objective account of people's actions beyond reproach.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are problems here though. What if the key gets stolen or the bug found in the algorithm? All this makes it not very sustainable.</comment>


The Joy of Quiet - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all <comment><USER3> This is a bad comment, in that I can't bring myself to complete reading the article.

What _steams_ me about the recent "quiet", um, "discovery" and advocacy, is that many of those proclaiming it are the same fools who, last decade, were proclaiming the value of "collaboration" and cramming me into smaller cubes that eventually started to lose their walls (sort of a notched "ueber- bullpen", without naming it such).

I've known all along that I need peace and quiet to be productive. Not a monastary, but my own quiet room and the ability to use it, and to leave it, as I please.

Even on the shop floor, the relentless, day-long blaring of a radio becomes a significant distraction. There is, for me, a greater satisfaction and productivity in being _present_ , even in the midst of what some dismissively consider to be "menial" tasks. (But which seldom really are; and if you pay attention, you notice the difference in execution, and how this affects things both downstream and up the hierarchy.)

I'm done with the words. I look for actions, now. If you give me a good workplace, a good neighborhood, etc. I'll respect this. If you talk and bloviate about it, no matter the particular words and sentiment of the moment, I'm going to start viewing you as part of the problem.

An attitude I think we should all consider.

<comment><USER4> Agreed completely, I have always hated the bullpen and complain at every company I work for that thinks it's a good idea. So far the trend in tech companies still seems to be "more bullpen" though.

I tend to work at home as much as I can, so that I can actually get some work done. I'm starting to see going into the office as more of a social thing than a work thing.

I like what you had to say about being done with words and looking for actions now. It seems like an intelligent way to live.

<comment><USER5> I agree with one caveat. I love quiet, but I also love collaboration.

The solution for me is in purpose-fit team spaces. If everybody in a room is working on the same thing, and all the conversation is team-specific, it can be a joy. It is tricky to get both the space and the cultural discipline, but I really love it when it works.

Which means I thoroughly hate the way "collaboration" has been used to thoughtlessly bully people into cheap-ass, disruptive working spaces.

<comment><USER4> What about online collaboration? In my experience, that is the only place collaboration has actually happened. There's something about asynchronous collaboration that seems to make it more effective than synchronous collaboration, at least sometimes.

<comment><USER5> Collaboration happens all the time in the physical world. For many sorts of collaboration, I like it better, in that you can get much shorter feedback loops. Depends on what you're up to, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      recalling that it's only by stepping briefly away from my
      wife and bosses and friends that I'll have anything useful
      to bring to them.

That is deeply true. I picked my 3 year old son up from school two weeks ago, and sat on a bench in a churchyard near the school. Normally we rush through there hurrying to a playdate or just giddy on scooters with friends.

But this time we sat, ate a sandwich and stopped. I pointed out the bird song and it was like a different world for him - the church had become something new, an extra layer to the world.

I won't try to hold him back from the giddy rush of three wheeled scooters and playground running. But I must try to just show him some stillness - perhaps a little more often too.

<comment><USER7> Did the same three weeks ago with the 7 year old. We watched a blue jay go from tree to tree, coming back to the same one several times. We walked around looking for him, waiting for him to sing. In the church ground where normally my son races about. It only lasted about 15 minutes, but it was very nice.

<comment><USER6> It's the 15 mins you will remember.

He, on the other hand, remembers Dad going all funny because of a bird. Parents !

:-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The more I disconnect from various information sources, the more I realize how utterly unnecessary they were to begin with.

It started with quitting Facebook back in February. After going through a short withdrawal, I deeply appreciated the "silence" that came from not knowing every single thing about every single "friend" I had on there. These days, not having Facebook is just a minor inconvenience: sometimes I don't find out about upcoming events until the last minute. But even that seems to happen less and less often, as my friends find out I don't have FB and the ones who are my _real_ friends make sure to invite me via email or SMS.

Then I implemented GTD for work email. I use Outlook (sad face) so I disabled the utterly annoying desktop notifications, then went from checking email every few minutes (out of habit) and responding to every email then and there, to checking email twice a day and responding to emails en masse. At first I thought people would be annoyed by not receiving email responses right away, but then realized that's what instant messages are for. With personal email I was more brutal: I disabled push notifications on my iPhone, and started checking it once every other day.

With iOS 6, I've been experimenting with keeping my phone on DND mode most of the day. I changed my voice-mail message to say that I only answer calls between 6pm and 9pm, and tell them that if it's urgent, they can call me again within 3 minutes to override DND mode. I've found that most people don't in fact have anything urgent (maybe they realize it wasn't urgent after hearing my VM message) so that seems to be going pretty well also.

It's difficult to overstate the benefits I've seen from limiting my information consumption. For the longest time I had felt like my life was controlling me, and I was simply reacting to stuff happening. But once I started voluntarily restricting my exposure to stuff that demanded my attention (usually overblown in importance), I realized that it was all bullshit. I have become calmer, more productive, and happier. Feels good, man!

<comment><USER9> A phone has a "DND" mode? Genius! Can you do a write-up on how to get that set up?

I have an iPhone and sometimes just keep it on airplane mode all day to get research done. This is a bad solution for people who really need to contact me though.

<comment><USER10> It's fairly straightforward:

[http://m.cnet.com/news/how-to-set-up-do-not-disturb-on- ios-6...](http://m.cnet.com/news/how-to-set-up-do-not-disturb-on- ios-6/57507504)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For those looking for ideas to break away, just try the St. James way in northern Spain(or any similar walking experience). You only walk, eat, rest. There is nothing else to do for a month(if you start from the Pyrenees). You sleep mostly in pilgrim hostels, or cheap hotels. You can start alone but surely will finish with at least 10-15 new friends (if you want to of course). Every day you´ll walk for 5 to 8 hours, get to the hostel relax, talk to people from around the world, have an amazing dinner in some cheap small town restaurant drink some wine. Just awesomely simple, but really enjoyable. I really recommend it. It makes you think how we are somehow a nomad species.

<comment><USER12> I agree 100%. I too walked the Camino de Santiago, in 2009.

Probably the best thing I've ever done. I came back centred, happy, relaxed and motivated. I met great people, had great times (and trying times - <USER2> walking 40km, into a town with no spare beds, and then walking another 10km to the next town, to again find no beds) and really challenged myself.

Walking alone through those fields is something I'll never forget. Hours of walking brings about a meditative state, and inner quiet which is rare to find.

Start by yourself, this will bring you out of your comfort zone and you'll meet more new people.

It's a great metaphor for life - you meet people, you lose people, you say goodbye, you learn to rely on yourself.

I recommend it to anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Iyer conflates a number of things here.

Quiet is generally good, but how important it is depends a lot on one's personality, needs at a given moment, and so on.

Not being constantly interrupted is also a good thing, but, again, it depends a lot on one's personality type, work being undertaken, and so forth.

Being disconnected from other people (I suspect but can't prove that Starck is basically full of shit, but there do exist people who could credibly claim such isolation) is something else entirely. Maybe it is good and maybe it isn't: I've never had the chance to try over an extended period. I'll submit that you can have isolation without quiet or lack of interruptions, by the way.

Get those mixed up and there's nowhere you can go, precisely where Iyer takes us.

</comment><comment><USER14> My own personal version of this happens during my work day commute. No radio, no podcasts, no phone calls.

I've found that unless I have about 30 minutes/day or so of thinking time, I tend to lose focus on my longer term projects.

<comment><USER15> This was one of the most surprising things about commuting 25 minutes on the train for me, the break between 'home' and 'work' and the ability to just sit and think are really useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Robot apologist here, but for some reason neo-Luddism has become fashionable again and it bothers me. Is this really a war over little pings from email inboxes? Are we truly that oppressed by the ability to find out anything about anything? Do we need a virtual Moses to part the red sea of push notifications? I find it really difficult to sympathize with this line of argument. This is either a case of misconfigured notifications or of honest Amish-like fear of technology, and neither of these make sense to me.

<comment><USER17> I envy you; you haven't had your "this is all bullshit" moment yet. It will happen. It's not questioning the value of the technology (as you believe), it's questioning the _place_ in your life.

This isn't "neo-Luddism," this is people questioning whether all of those things are actually important enough to us to warrant a context switch. As I get older, the context switches hurt more and more, and I desire a higher SNR throughout my life. That means less Facebook, less Twitter, and a lot less HN. All push notifications are off on my phone. I wouldn't recommend my system to everyone, but I do derive a tangible benefit from being less connected. (There is also something to be said for keeping the constant, mostly inane chatter of random Internet denizens out of your mind, but it's too early to draw any conclusions there).

Generally, if it happens on the Internet, it probably doesn't matter very much. I'll see it when I need to see it.

<comment><USER18> Perhaps some of us were wise enough to not fall for the "bullshit"? " _It will happen_ " seems a bit condescending.

Your envy reminds me of an old man wishing he were younger.

<comment><USER8> It's not that you were wise enough to not fall for the bullshit, but that you have not yet realized that it is bullshit.

The real wisdom comes from the realization that the only reason people are consuming so much information today is because it's a habit that feels like a necessity.

<comment><USER19> > It's not that you were wise enough to not fall for the bullshit, but that > you have not yet realized that it is bullshit.

Are you a mind reader, that you can see what this person does or does not know?

I am disinclined to accept "wisdom" alongside such presumptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Having moved in London two years ago, I struggle to find a moment of intense quiet. The reason is mainly the planes that are authorized to fly above the city (a stupidity in my opinion) and even in the middle of a park, you can still hear them, flying just above your head.

At night, cars, ambulances, you name it, will take the relay.. Frustrating.

<comment><USER21> Yep, same experience. Horses on cobblestones at 4am.

<comment><USER22> #19thcenturyworldproblems

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you travel, you may enjoy Iyer's Why We Travel story.

"If a diploma can famously be a passport (to a journey through hard realism), a passport can be a diploma (for a crash course in cultural relativism). And the first lesson we learn on the road, whether we like it or not, is how provisional and provincial are the things we imagine to be universal."

[http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-stories/why-we- trave...](http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-stories/why-we- travel-20081213/)

<comment><USER24> Nice share, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This was wonderful. Pico Iyer is an amazing writer from a family of intellectuals. The University of California obit for his father, Raghavan, notes that Raghavan was "an inspired and inspiring scholar and teacher on the Santa Barbara campus from 1965 to 1986". I have personally had teachers inspired by the works of both Raghavan and his son.

His point, too, is one that I have found increasingly important for myself. Joel Gascoigne's post "6 things I do to be consistently happy" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4405127>) in some sense echoes similar thoughts. Like Joel, I exercise most mornings, and like Joel, I stop all electronics at 11 most nights and read (fiction) for an hour. While it is often difficult to step away from computers and smartphones and the Internet, I find that exercise and books satisfy me deeply in a way the Internet is frequently unable to.

A friend pointed out to me that books possess a pretty much optimal SNR, which may have something to do with this.

</comment><comment><USER26> This weekend I lost myself in the mountains of West Virginia on a whitewater rafting trip. The great thing about bouncing around class 5 rapids is that you have no time to think about anything but the present. The phrase "laser-like focus" is tossed around amongst the tech community, GTD folks, minimalists, etc., but I never knew what it actually felt like until I was on the water. Getting away from the computer for long periods of contemplative thinking is one of the best activities I've done for my mind in a lifetime.

If Iyer's ideas or my own experience resonate with you, I recommend checking out a copy of Hamlet's Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age [1] from your local library.

1: [http://www.amazon.com/Hamlets-BlackBerry-Building-Good- Digit...](http://www.amazon.com/Hamlets-BlackBerry-Building-Good- Digital/dp/0061687170)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the first piece I have read by Pico and it reminded me of a quote by Gandhi I had noticed on the London Underground "There is more to life than increasing its speed".

</comment><comment><USER27> If you enjoyed this piece, you might like the book "The Information Diet" [1]. It's not particularly compelling writing, but the author has good ideas that are very much inline with this post. Boredom is essential.

[1] <http://www.informationdiet.com/>

</comment><comment><USER24> To those who liked this article, I recommend Net Smart[0]. It eschews doing away with digital media altogether, acknowledging their unprecedented power, talks about the need for intention and focus when using the web and social media, and explains using basic literacies and mindfulness techniques to that end.

0\. <http://rheingold.com/netsmart/></comment>


JoAnn Morgan's Apollo Story - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/joann-morgan-moon-landing-apollo/594370/ <comment><USER2> This was a surprising read... JoAnn Morgan was also interviewed on NPR a few weeks ago on the same topic.

The tone was lighter... by Morgan's own words she was accepted at NASA after the launch and continued to work there until after retirement.

> MORGAN: They got used to me, and they accepted me. And so by Apollo 11, them > putting me out there to be there at liftoff was probably not that big a > surprise. And after launch, the test supervisor, who happened to be the same > one who'd told me I couldn't be at blockhouse 34, he came down and gave me a > cigar when he was handing out cigars.

[https://www.npr.org/2019/07/05/738860204/joann-morgan-the- on...](https://www.npr.org/2019/07/05/738860204/joann-morgan-the-only-woman- in-the-firing-room-during-apollo-11)</comment>


Will Apple tarnish brand with Target 'store-within-a-store' outlets? - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/hardware/238455/will-apple-tarnish-brand-target-store-within-store-outlets

<comment><AUTHOR> Personally, I think it's more "two great tastes that taste great together" than it it is "Martha Stewart for Kmart"</comment>


SpaceX successfully lands its sixth Falcon 9 rocket after launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/14/12467632/spacex-falcon-9-jcsat-16-drone-ship-landing-success <comment><USER2> > SpaceX's president, Gwynne Shotwell, estimates that reusing these landed > Falcon 9 vehicles will lead to a 30 percent reduction in launch costs, > according to Space News.

Surely it will be more than a 30% reduction once they make the rocket refactoring process more efficient? I've heard Elon say that the savings would be an order of magnitude given how low the cost of fuel is relative to everything else on the rocket.

I know Elon is famously optimistic and Gwynne is probably dampening expectations on purpose but 30% doesn't seem very impressive. Is Gwynne just playing down the cost savings or is she likely to be accurate, even in the medium term (3-5 years)?

<comment><USER3> It doesn't make much business sense to pass along ALL the efficiency savings directly to your customers.

30% reduction in launch costs will be hugely welcomed and SpaceX will be able to do lots with the additional revenue.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps I misunderstood what Gwynne was saying. I thought that "launch costs" would be the cost of launching a rocket for SpaceX, rather than the price that they set for customers.

Perhaps your correct though, the quote is a bit ambiguous.

<comment><USER4> "It's saving 90% in launch costs, but we're only passing 30% of the savings along to the customer" doesn't sound very good in a press release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What could SpaceX have learned about landing a rocket on a boat resting on waves?

It seems like the craziest idea. I would have said "No chance. Land it on land, like the word says." but they've managed the risks down to where it's not surprising that they've landed yet another one. Some special magic has gone into that and I can't even imagine what issues they've had to solve.

<comment><USER6> They mentioned on the live stream that the landing _point_ doesn't really change the difficulty. It doesn't matter whether they land on water or on land, for the most part. What makes the landings difficult is how much propellant is left in the first stage. There's more of it left after a LEO launch, so they can do a longer landing burn and during that have more opportunity to correct, e.g. for winds. With the GTO launches there's only very little left, so the landing burn is shorter, which also stresses the vehicle more. This time they were happy to actually do a one-engine landing burn as opposed to three engines like they did with the drone ship landings so far (I think it has always been three engines at first and then one engine for the very last bit for drone ship landings until now).

They've also noted numerous times that waves don't really matter much to the landing.

<comment><USER7> So can they add 5% more propellant to the rocket, or perhaps lower the weight of the rocket a bit so for the same propellant - more is left when it lands?

<comment><USER6> Propellant tanks are full at liftoff, so no, there's no way of adding more. And there's also no room to save weight either, considering that every bit of saved mass is more payload capacity to orbit. Two features of the Falcon 9 Full-Thrust upgrade increased propellant limits, though: One was bigger tanks, but I think they said they're now at a height limit for various reasons (structural integrity of an empty rocket stage is usually abysmal, for example, and you want to land it upright and empty). The other was superchilling the propellants, which made them a bit denser, thereby fitting more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know it's too early but, I'm already kinda getting used to this.

</comment><comment><USER9> key point - "spacex has yet to actually reuse any of its vehicles"

<comment><USER10> True, interesting collection of Merlin engines they have. If nothing else their spare parts cache is huuuuge. :-)

Can't wait to see what they launch with the refurbed boosters.

<comment><USER11> Supposedly a reused booster will fly in the next 3 months; they're still haggling on price with the customer.

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't be surprised if they are haggling with the insurance company on the risks of reusing a booster.

<comment><USER11> It's possible. Only this summer did insurance rates on the Falcon 9 come down to those on the Ariane 5. SpaceX will have to provide extensive data (especially from the static fire in McGregor) to bolster reliability claims on a landed booster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 2017 will be the big year for Space-X. First Falcon Heavy flight, and first crewed Dragon flight.

<comment><USER14> Every year since 2013 was the year of the first Falcon Heavy flight. Maybe _this_ time.

<comment><USER15> They keep re-designing the Falcon 9 and adding new features so it's not really surprising. Those poor engineers working on it, "What do you mean you're increasing the Falcon thrust _again_. Now we have to reinforce the connectors even more." The capacity of a Falcon 9 has gone from 10 tons to orbit up to 23.

<comment><USER14> Yes, and they're not done yet. I think the upper stage is going to get another thrust improvement with the next flight or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Still amazing to watch! Can't wait to see the Falcon Heavy liftoff, followed by two simultaneous first stage landings.

</comment><comment><USER17> My daughter and I saw a couple of strange flashes in the sky while out looking for Perseids last night. We're in the UK and the flashes were in Cassiopeia in the North Eastern sky at about 10pm BST, is possible they could have been from this rocket?

<comment> david-given Could it have been an Iridium flare? The timing sort of matches up.

[http://www.heavens- above.com/IridiumFlares.aspx?lat=53.1204&...](http://www.heavens- above.com/IridiumFlares.aspx?lat=53.1204&lng=-2.2852&loc=Unspecified&alt=95&tz=GMT)

<comment><USER17> I did wonder about that but there were two or three flashes in quick succession. It was spookily close to matching up with that 22:29 flare prediction in Cassiopeia, but it was at least half and hour before that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Question about the second stages: Are these left in orbit or are they deorbited?

<comment><USER19> Depends on the launch. There is no remaining fuel in a second stage for any Delta v to lower its orbit into the atmosphere in most launches. A launch to GTO at 350 x 36,000 km will eventually decay. In some satellite launches there is a third stage (like a fregat, but not the same thing) which performs the final circularization of the orbit. In others the satellite itself does this. In a launch to an MEO orbit like 1500x1500 km the 2nd stage is going to stay up there pretty much forever as dead debris.

<comment><USER6> SpaceX doesn't do GEO launches as far as I know, only GTO. I don't know whether from a lack of capability or whether they're not allowed/certified for that, though. I guess an expendable F9 should easily be able to get to GEO.

<comment><USER11> SpaceX does GEO since December 2013.

[http://www.spacex.com/press/2013/12/03/spacex- successfully-c...](http://www.spacex.com/press/2013/12/03/spacex-successfully- completes-first-mission-geostationary-transfer-orbit)

<comment><USER20> SpaceX doesn't do direct GEO insertion, only boosting to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) which is the norm for satellites headed to GEO. The satellite itself does the circularization, which isn't hugely costly fuel wise but requires a stage that can restart after coasting all the way to GEO altitude (several days), which SpaceX currently lacks (the 2nd stage runs on batteries).

<comment><USER19> Yes, exactly this. GEO requires an engine that is low kN thrust but can be restarted many times. The Wikipedia page for the Russian fregat which is commonly used as a 3rd or 4h stage for their launches is a good example of such hardware. If you're patient you can even circularize a GTO with ion engines, which has been done on some partially-failed telecom satellite launches.

<comment><USER21> It has also been done by design instead of a fallback.

[http://www.boeing.com/features/2015/01/bds-702sp-01-26-15.pa...](http://www.boeing.com/features/2015/01/bds-702sp-01-26-15.page)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looking forward to this not even being news in the future. Thank you Elon</comment>


Looking for a technical  co-founder ASAP (VoIP)   - <AUTHOR>

looking for a technical  co-founder partner has the ability to build things , to work on a secret new project  I cannot mention more details any one Interesting Required
-VoIP background -programming skills<p>more info & reply to : email@example.com <comment><USER2> Build what kind of things? Is this a website, desktop application, iphone application, lincoln log cabin, what? You'd probably get better email responses if you specified at least some of the technical skills that you're seeking.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Skywing that 's true

VoIP background Required . any one can contact me .

</comment><comment><USER3> flagged as spam</comment>


In 2016, is DigitalOcean safe to use for production? - <AUTHOR> A correlating question is: how do you evaluate the production-readiness of a VM provider?<p>We currently run several applications on a large SingleHop server and are not happy with service interruptions, cpanel, and the downsides of applications having to share some configuration. <comment><USER2> 1\. Does the provider keep their promises?

Digital Ocean promised IPv6 support and the ability to run custom kernels several years before they provided this support.

2\. Is the networking secure?

The "Private IP" addresses in Digital Ocean are accessible to anyone in the same zone.

3\. Will they cover your ass?

[https://motherboard.vice.com/read/nra-complaint-takes- down-3...](https://motherboard.vice.com/read/nra-complaint-takes- down-38000-websites)

<comment><USER3> Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have never added IPv6 support years and years after saying they were "working on it."

<comment><USER4> From 2011 aws elb and dns have supported IPv6 [0]. For most websites this is really nice way to support IPv6, IMO

[0] [https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2011/05/24/elb- ip...](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2011/05/24/elb- ipv6-zoneapex-securitygroups/)

<comment><USER3> Not everything is a web site.

Also personally I find V6 more useful under the fold. For a gateway it's nice to support but doesn't give you anything. In your intranet it makes address conflicts go away forever and lets everything autoscale with zero configuration. This can be done with V4 but less conveniently and with more complexity under the hood (and therefore more things to break).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any single-provider that allays all concerns. Redundancy is the name of game. Any single-point-of-failure (in this case, a hosting company) is a bad idea.

Pick 2 hosting solutions you like (I'd recommend checking out AWS, Linode, Rackspace, and GCP), and build your systems redundantly on both. If they don't share infrastructure/datacenters, the odds of them both failing at the same time are small enough that it's not worth worrying about.

</comment><comment><USER6> Using them for the last 6 months. Running 10 multi-connected droplets with each running multiple cron jobs. We are a fast growing ecommerce SAAS startup. Just in case, we keep a good backup of everything on AWS. But DO is something we are recommending!</comment>


Online Learning Platzi (YC W15) Gives You Useful Tech Skills, Not Diplomas - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/20/platzi/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I'm one of the founders of Platzi. We've done classes with RethinkDB, YC partners, Sails.js/Treeline and Product Hunt. They're all free right now and will be for a while.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER2> Do you know Cloudacademy.com / Codecademy.com / Teamtreehouse.com ? How would you compare with them?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know cloudacademy, cool.

We have livestreamed classes with industry pros. Among them, that I mentioned on the parent comment. There's a lot of real-time collaboration among students, like shared notes, questions and files.

But really, the live classes, those are our best feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I loved the startup class and sails js lectures. Looking forward to more in the future.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if MOOCs will reduce credentialism, or strengthen its grip...

(If I hear "You don't have a phd, you can't be first author on this paper" one more time, I'm getting the shark launcher)

<comment><AUTHOR> In the tech industry (design, marketing, programming) we're seeing that companies don't care about credentials when they see an awesome portfolio. Google VP of People Ops said they no longer care about GPAs [1]

On the other hand, one of our students from Spain managed to convince his university to validate one of our courses as credits. So I don't know. But the trend is towards projects > diplomas.

(However, for papers, that's gonna take a while)

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman- ho...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a- job-at-google.html)

<comment><USER5> yeah that's truly incredible. If I'd spent the first two years of my university education learning from a tool like Platzi, I'd be in an incredible place. Can't wait for @freddier to redo the badass "intro to programming course" in English so I can show it to a few folks I know who struggled to adapt to formal CS education</comment></comment></comment>


The long-term effects of ugly political discussions on Facebook (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/01/the-long-term-effects-of-ugly-political-discussions-on-facebook/ <comment><USER2> I think this is what was behind (still is?) the huge surprise to many, that Trump has a large number of supporters.

The social cost in my friendship group of airing conservative views, has for the last few years been quite great. If you are not completely on board with the currently promoted view, you are accused of "wrong think" and chastised. The best strategy, as differing views on politics are rarely worth losing long-time friends over, is simply to shut up. Unfortunately this reassures the group in their unquestioned beliefs. It reminds me of Taleb's minority rule [0]

When it comes to anonymous polling and voting, for this kind of group there is a massive disconnect between their perceived reality (reduced dissent or differing opinions due to social cost) and reality. It is a shame, both sides lose.

A large part of why I love HN and other pseudo and fully anonymous forums is that you are able to engage in proper discussion, disconnected from this social suppression.

[0] [http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf](http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/minority.pdf)

<comment><USER3> You're hardly alone, and when I voice this concern to my vocally liberal friends, the vast majority don't give any reply at all and pretend that my message never reached them or wasn't worth responding to. I find this brand of (what is essentially) censorship to be quite disappointing.

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

 _It's November 2008, after President Barack Obama's first election, and one of professor Ruth R. Wisse's undergraduate students comes in to speak with her.

"I really did want to tell you that I've been feeling very guilty," says the student, a freshman.

"About what?" asks Wisse, an outspoken conservative faculty member and prominent Yiddish scholar.

"Well, I worked on the Obama campaign," the student says.

Wisse laughs, and replies, "You and everyone else—why would that necessarily make you feel guilty?"

"You see, I'm for McCain, and I voted for McCain."

Wisse was now puzzled—and intrigued. "Well, why did you work on the Obama campaign?"

"Because I so wanted to be with my roommates and with everyone else."_

[http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/10/1/conservatives- sc...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/10/1/conservatives-scrutiny- oct-2015/)

<comment><USER4> I'd say if they are ignoring messages they don't like, then you are doing well. After all, we have the right to say what we like -- not the right to be taken seriously.

I am not saying it means your friends are being wise or balanced, it's just that what they are doing is not censorship.

<comment><USER3> Oh yes sorry I shouldn't have conflated the two. I, like the parent poster, have taken care to not voice not-commonly held opinions that would be met with scorn or disbelief since I want to avoid that sort of misery. I suppose my own experiences are a disappointment that my peers often do not open themselves up to understanding the logic and reasoning behind someone's beliefs that do not match their world view.

I guess the Brendan Eich situation would be a decent example of the kind of censorship I am referring to, where we now seemingly cannot respect the right of others to have opinions and beliefs that are vastly different from our own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem with political discussion on Facebook is the problem that has always existed with political discussion. Facebook just amplifies it x100. People simplify political rhetoric to fit it into a finite number of "camps": Democrat/republican, liberal/conservative, "SJW"/anti-PC, feminist/mysoginist...

The simplified rhetoric pigeonholes issues into bipolar ideological frameworks. As a result, political "discussion" does not reflect the reality of complex networks of opinions, people, and ideas. Instead, it reflects a shallow mask of "us" and "them." Nuanced, rational discussion does not stand a chance against the uncontrollable biases of ingroup/outgroup psychology.

Once someone forms an opinion, and finds validation of it from within a group, they have joined the ingroup. At that point, it will be nearly impossible to move them to the outgroup. Hearing any opinions from the outgroup will only drive them further into the ingroup, as they retreat to the echo chamber of their peers and emotionally reconfirm their own beliefs instead of critically engaging opposing viewpoints.

Of course, I'm mostly talking about the "ingroup" of "feminists and SJWs" (I hate that acronym because it seems hypocritical to criticize SJWs for reductionism and then give them an acronym). Right now the "regressive left" is certainly the most guilty of seeking affirmation from ingroup dynamics, and the group most unwilling to engage with the opposition.

However, I think _every single human_ is subject to the same biases of ingroup/outgroup psychology. The "SJW" group is only the most recent example of a group whose opinions are pigeonholed, amplified, and ultimately opposed. But many of the people crusading against political correctness are guilty of the same unwillingness to consider the other side.

This dynamic has _always_ existed, as long as humans have been a social species. It's how society evolves. But it sure is messy.

(visualization of the political polarization in congress: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stu...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning- visualization-of-our-divided-congress/))

<comment><USER6> WTF, you had me until the "SJW" group being the _most_ guilty. My guess is that you're part of some ingroup that is polarized against the SJW group so it seems to you like it's the most extreme. But that's just typical polarized ingroup thinking.

<comment><USER7> They easily fall into the most extreme category when it comes to online discourse. I've never seen a group more organized when it comes to brigading and propaganda about how to respond with essentially copy and paste replies to any category of response elicited to their arguments.

SJWs pushed out the CEO of Mozilla, made GitHub stop rewarding people based on the merit of their work, and pressured companies to hire under qualified minorities over other more qualified people[1]. Even if they don't have a strong presence in other industries, they have completely dominated tech companies to the point where people fear using a race or gender to describe how someone looks.

1\. Assuming equal qualifications from each group, there will be more qualified non-minorities than minorities by definition.

<comment><USER8> I think SJWs would respond that meritocracy has always been an illusion in tech because people will still hire for "culture fit". And the predominant culture in tech companies, by survey and measurement, seems to be male. The idea that tech is "completely dominated" seems to fly in the face of those numbers - which I'm assuming you see SJWs as perceiving negatively at this point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another, bigger long term effect: everyone is either A) becoming extremist in their political ideas or B) just won't talk about politics at all.

Edit: I've been moving towards B myself.

<comment><USER10> I would say that might be a side effect of a more fundamental shift – that of social networks making us more stupid (unintelligent?) and unable to coherently defend ideas in real life.

On the internet, it is easy to type out long comments, cherry-pick and refute the ideas of the person on the other side, and sometimes be incredibly rude to them. But performing the jugglery of coherently defending your point while talking frankly, without being rude, in person, is a skill that seems to be conspicuous by absence in Americans today. I have noticed way too many people recently who post 200 things on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Instagram, and yet are unable to keep up a decent conversation for more than five minutes without uncomfortable silences or pulling out their phones.

<comment><USER11> How are social networks making us more stupid than generations of family-run farming communities?

Anyway, I don't see any evidence that people were ever able to speak frankly without being rude, nor that silence being uncomfortable is anything but a personal problem. Maybe you think silence is uncomfortable because _you_ aren't properly socialized?

<comment><USER12> In previous decades "rude" in politics would literally get people killed. Trolling on FB doesn't move the needle in comparison.

As a rue of thumb, if windows, limbs, and necks aren't being broken, the discourse is still relatively civilised.

I don't believe there's evidence to support the idea that there was ever a golden age of mainstream political civility. I think there may have been a golden age of literate and moderated political _journalism_ , but that was always distinct from the kinds of things that happened - and still do happen, in some ways - to people who happen to be in the wrong out-group.

<comment><USER8> I think its important to draw a distinction between the past and now. In the past, many oppressed people would never have a chance to participate in "the discourse" because the mere act of them speaking could be seen as inappropriate. The violence against them would be leveled at them _outside_ of the realm of discourse. The discourse may have been civilised, but the civilisation wasn't!

The idea that those people can all participate in the discussion without the fear of direct fist-to-the-face violence, is to me a positive.

I'm pretty sure you already felt that way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had a friend (who I've known since high school, and I graduated in the late 80s) unfriend me because of a link I posted as a reply to his reply to a mutual friend's post.

My take: my now unfriended friend can dish it out, but can't take it.

His take (via some third parties): I'm a close minded evil conservative [1].

Yes, I come across posts from friends (and acquaintances) that I don't agree with but I won't unfriend any of them over it. There are 50,000 other channels I can "watch" and I'm certainly capable of changing the channel. Pity more people don't realize that.

[1] Libertarian actually. My friend is, in his own words, "a liberal pinko Commie." Make of that what you will.

<comment><USER14> Let's see that link, baby.

<comment><USER13> It was to a medical study that showed a possible side effect of marijuana use is paranoia. The actual event happened some time last year and trying to dig it up on Facebook is a pain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To me this is just a 21st century example of the old adage 'don't discuss religion or politics' \- you will often be unpleasantly surprised by the views of friends and family that you considered like-minded people. I avoid these topics entirely, unless I know someone _really_ well and even then would not post about it on Facebook et al.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. I would rather not know the political opinions of many of my friends as Often we would disagree and it wouldn't be a fruitful discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had an uncle unfriend me after I called out some of the racist, misinformed crap he was spouting in response to Prince's death. It's unfortunate, because I really want to like the guy, but his posts had really boiled down to one (or, rarely, more) of: sportsball fanaticism, "Immigrants are scary!", or "Why doesn't anyone care about Vietnam Veterans?!"

My feed is a lot less unpleasant now, but we're both that much more isolated in our echo chambers. Granted, I think the acoustics are much nicer in mine, but a breadth of discourse does, one hopes, help to keep one's mind ... if not more open, at least more aware of what other people are thinking.

<comment><USER18> Calling someone a racist is a quick way to get unfriended, yes. I've been blocking people who use that kind of personal attack on me and my life is better for it. His perception of your feed and your perception of your feed are likely very different.

Since he is your uncle, you have an inroad available of meeting him to hopefully patch things up. But be aware that you might have to try and understand his point of view rather than labelling it, and writing him off as a bigot.

I don't know the full story, but I've become somewhat skeptical when I hear things like this.

<comment><USER17> I didn't call him a racist, though I can see how my phrasing of what went down might imply that. I pointed out places where his beliefs about Prince were based on factually false ideas about the man and his life, and supplied information he was clearly lacking that gave context to the things he'd heard about him that inspired those mistaken beliefs.

E.g., "He was a druggie!" Yeah, no. It was Percocet, because his hip was profoundly fucked up from all the jumping around on stage he'd done for _decades_. As a Jehovah's Witness, drug abuse was _strictly_ against his faith, and he didn't even allow guests at Paisley Park to drink or smoke tobacco. That kind of thing.

See how making an assumption about someone and proceeding with that as a premise leads to mistaken beliefs about the events in their lives?

<comment><USER18> Well... he did take a lot of drugs. Prescription pills are a hell of a thing, much stronger than street drugs, and he was taking them in excess. Not just doctor's prescription if you know what I mean. I don't want to talk about prince.

In your post you suggested that your uncle was saying racist things. You imply his racism and I bet it comes across quite strongly when you speak/type.

Worse than passing judgement on someone is passing judgement and then communicating it passive aggressively. Word games, used so that the other person can't properly address what was said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I understand why some people use Facebook, but I've managed to avoid it and have never heard someone in my real life express happiness that they made a different choice. It always seems to offer benefits in theory that don't pan out. Mostly it just seems to make people unhappy.

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't recommend hanging out on Facebook, but if it puts you in touch with lost acquaintances that can be valuable.

<comment><USER21> That part has mostly just been sad. Time really wears people down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like to call things people don't want to talk about "untouchables" because you can't argue them, you can't reason them out, you can't even comment on them without getting a glare or worse. Religion, politics, economics etc.

People feel affronted when these things are talked about. I think that's why we have these political/religious/economic strongholds/echo-chambers where no one will disagree with you so you feel powerful in your conviction. In all honesty though, we know our positions have holes, but never talk about them as a society.

I think if we talked more about thing we disagreed about, we'd realize we're wrong or not quite right about everything. Untouchables would go away. The problem is hard illogical convictions and echo-chambers where we allow ourselves to let our guard down.

Not talking about things as a society is the problem, not the solution. We shouldn't get upset and break off relationships when people do.

IMHO of course.

Edit: rewording

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't mind thoughtful political discussion, but much of what I see on Facebook is partisan political propaganda. Commenting on it only seems to legitimize it.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd be honestly curious to see the same study enacted outside the US. I do wonder if it'd come up with very different results.

I don't want this to sound like stereotype-bashing, but I do notice that politics in the US seems to be incredibly polarized. There seems to be very little in the way of "difference of opinion", and more .. O is the antichrist, H is a criminal, B is a communist, T is going to bring on the apocalypse/ww3/economic collapse armed with little more than ignorance and arrogance ..

It's hardly surprising people find political conversation divisive, when they see someone who disagrees with them as not having a differing opinion on one or two key issues, but as supporting a regime that's going to destroy their way of life (.. which never ends up happening).

<comment><USER25> This is probably because the USA is relatively large and there are significant differences between states in terms of culture and industry.

For example, the people of New York probably have very little in common with those of Tennessee.

For example, it's easy for a liberal in Massachusetts to label a conservative in Arizona a "bigot" for wanting to close the border, but the liberal in Massachusetts has probably never experienced the issues of illegal immigration in the way that someone from Arizona has.

This is why I think more power needs to be given to individual states rather than the federal government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Facebook has gotten to the point for me where even normal, non-political things I post on Facebook draw trolls and shitposters. Probably just the cocktail of friends I have but people use my posts as a way to express their particular way of standing out. I posted a picture of an iris recently and even that brought out people making some weird comments. Stuff like that makes me want to hold back on posting. If I ask for restaurant recommendations I don't feel like dealing with a ton of sarcastic comments anymore.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hm, okay, I think we're making progress here though. I've started and continued quite a few controversial conversations that have "harmed" some[1] relationships, but overall I think it's for the better and has improved the relationships I want to improve.

[1] [https://www.facebook.com/derekbreden/posts/1670541883212714](https://www.facebook.com/derekbreden/posts/1670541883212714)

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting word, "homophily". Apparently it has been around for a while, I recognize the effect.

It is interesting that discussions can be hugely enriched by discussing differing opinions, and at the same time very threatening. Especially if there is limited trust. Interesting to consider when sharing things at home, at a party, at the office, and in random groups.

</comment><comment><USER29> I had that very experience a few days ago, after the first round of the Austrian presidential elections my facebook wall exploded. Marked several friends for "don't show messages, but stay friends", because I am not interested in political opportunism, no matter which side they are on.

</comment><comment><USER30> That's exactly it. I have this one friend who always posts pro-Israel articles and another one who is black and reposts subtly racist (against whites) quotes. Even if I don't follow them, if I don't block them, their garbage will show up on my timeline sooner or later. And it's always the same things. Like, for 5 years they post this stuff. One could think their world is frozen in time. I never want to be that guy towards my friends, that's why I'd never post anything about politics, religion, etc. Facebook is not the right thing for it. Actually, for me personally, facebook is nothing but a platform to communicate with or find old classmates.

<comment><USER31> That's what the "Unfollow" feature is for. For those people who you want to keep a link with, but don't actually want to follow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'd like to balance the article out a bit and say something nice about Facebook. (Holds nose)

Yes, these things turn ugly. But I think there are a lot of people who have strong political opinions but have not been forced to communicate them (and defend them) in writing. Instead, they'll just tell a joke to a few friends that they know share the same view.

The old complaint about television was that there were no segmented conversations anymore. It used to be that grown-ups talked about one thing with the kids around, other things with just adults, and still other things with close friends. Television changed all of that. Now every type of conversation was fair game for everybody. This is probably one of the main driving factors for the youth-dominated culture of the past several decades, but I digress.

Facebook is doing that about politics -- and to some extent, religion. You don't get a special set of friends you make those atheist or conservative jokes to. It's everybody, all the time. This is forcing folks either to 1) learn to defend their views in longform discussions civilly (which is very rare), 2) have lots of flame wars with people (I disagree with the article. I think some of these folks can be fairly close), or 3) just shut up and self- censor.

I've been privileged to be on a couple of sites where open and civil discourse was promoted, and I miss those experiences. I learned a lot and managed to change my opinion on a couple of things.

Facebook is not that kind of site. At first I thought I could cultivate reasonable discourse in my comment feed. I could not. Then I tried a private group, thinking a smaller group could self-moderate. Perhaps some could, but mine could not. The more people realized they might be in error, the more abusive they became. Now, for me, it's just jokes, travel pictures, and humorous family stories. About once a month somebody will sucker me into a political/religious discussion. I always apologize and bow out.

I love having difficult conversations. I like being challenged to think differently about the world around me. But for this to happen implies a high level of written respect for other participants that simply doesn't exist on the site. I eventually decided to become a no-politics guy on FB because it made me a worse person. It made me angry at people that I liked. How many times can you explain concept X to a friend before you don't have to again? Well, the answer is an infinite number of times if the other person doesn't want to hear it. So discussions have no progress. No matter what you do or say, a couple of weeks later you're going to be doing and saying that all over again. I do not have the infinite patience required to do this, and hell, I _like_ these people! Easier just to dumb down my content so they can consume it.</comment>


A History of YouTube's Closed Captions Part II: Bringing It All Together - <AUTHOR> https://datahorde.org/?p=1346 <comment><USER2> I'm not hearing impaired but, when reading t'intarwebs in bed, I'll quite often watch a YouTube video with the sound off and closed captions on, so as not to disturb the missus.

The thing that makes YouTube's closed captions nearly unusable for me is that they take up two lines and the lines scroll. Even if you adjust the font size to he much bigger, they just take up more room. There's no option to configure the captions to be on a single line.

If the video in question features someone speaking, there'll be quite a lot of continual text and, with autogenerated CCs, [which the vast majority are] a lot of it will be slightly wrong.

So I'll read the top line and start reading the bottom line which will suddenly scroll up, so it's now the top line, thus adding another fraction of a second for my eye-line to re-orientate, to the extra time my brain's already taken to process what _$RandomIrrelevantWord_ in the middle of the sentence should actually be. By the time I've done that, the line has often scrolled up again out of sight, to be replaced by whatever line was previously the bottom line.

Rinse and repeat continuously.

It might sound counter-intuitive but if I could set the CC to only occupy one line, I'm sure I could read them faster and easier as the line would stay in the same place and not suddenly move upwards. Or, alternatively, keep them on two lines but replace the entire two lines each time. Don't scroll them.

\---

 _cf._ also: Apple's Finder column view. What lunatic decided that making an tem slide out of the way when you click to select it was good GUI design?</comment>


Watch out Silicon Valley: European Union gets into the venture capital game - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/watch-out-silicon-valley-european-union-gets-venture-capital-game <comment><USER2> Silicon Valley says:- Ahhh Fresh Suckers, bring 'em on.....</comment>


Popular iOS Games That Could Have Been Designed for 8-Bit Systems - <AUTHOR> http://prog21.dadgum.com/191.html <comment><USER2> There already is a conversion of "Super Hexagon" to the Commodore 64. It's called "Micro Hexagon": [http://kotaku.com/micro-hexagon-is-super-hexagon-on- the-comm...](http://kotaku.com/micro-hexagon-is-super-hexagon-on-the- commodore-64-1474937561) [http://csdb.dk/release/?id=125132](http://csdb.dk/release/?id=125132)</comment>


In three years desktops will be irrelevant - Google sales chief - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/15446/business/in-three-years-desktops-will-be-irrelevant-google-sales-chief

<comment><USER2> Spoken like somebody who has never suffered through editing 32GB of RAW photos on a laptop before.</comment>


Major brands announce temporary Facebook ad boycott - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-technology-202/2020/06/22/the-technology-202-major-brands-announce-facebook-ad-boycott/5eefc22d602ff12947e91172/ <comment><AUTHOR> From the article: "At least one major advertising agency, 360i, has advised clients to support the boycott, the Wall Street Journal first reported."

I've rarely seen ad agencies actually recommend reducing spend. I think this might turn into something bigger.</comment>


Shop the best American-made Goods - <AUTHOR> http://www.millandoak.com <comment><AUTHOR> Over lock down, I struggled to find a find a decent way to support the small businesses around the country that were struggling. So I created it.

Mill & Oak is the best selection of American made goods. We are curated by design and only list the best products across home decor and accessories, with new vendors added every week.

Check us out and let me know what you think!

-Colin</comment>


Electronic Ballot Box Time Lock Defeated [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TICY1LdiwO4 <comment><USER2> This would probably be more useful in reverse. You could unlock all you want but it would start counting time up every time it was opened with no way of reseting. Log says it was locked and sealed at 8 p.m., it's delivered at 9 p.m. but lock says just 14 minutes, you know it's been opened.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't like the execution, but great idea!</comment>


Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://what-if.xkcd.com/34/ <comment><USER2> I must say, I love the WhatIf? weekly feature of xkcd. Always thought provoking.</comment>


CallDay.org by StopWatchingUs: Call your representatives about NSA surveillance - <AUTHOR> http://callday.org

<comment><USER2> Wow, great job guys! This is really well-done. I feel like these centralized "routers" to congressmen are going to make a huge impact on how people make their voices heard.

Also Holmes you sound very professional

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny thing is, the NSA knows that you're calling them. ;(

<comment><USER4> What's the problem with that? Haha. At least they know they aren't doing the correct thing and people are doing something about it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Non-programmer wants to build a startup. Learn to code? - <AUTHOR>

how many of you learned to code to build a startup(or would like to)? Does it make sense at all? <comment><USER2> I don't think it does. Learning to code is this hyped up movement that simply doesn't work. Learning some syntax in a language is not "coding" nor is it "programming". There's much more than that.

It will also take a _long_ time to become proficient at it. If you want to build one in a few years, and you have the drive and motivation, it could be done, but there's no guarantees. It's traditionally best left to those who are best at it.

That's what co-founders are for.

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends on what your other abilities are. If you have a solidly related creative skill such as design work or CSS, learning to code can get you to the point where you can contribute to a startup. If your skills lie in business or similar backgrounds, you're not going to be much of a technical founder under most circumstances.

Either way, if you're not already a code, you either need to put in a lot of time learning to engineer software, or look for a co-founder. The latter is usually best.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know how to code but I did teach myself to build a wordpress website to get an MVP up and get customers. It depends on how technical the product is. If you are great at the business, customers and hustling, I would focus on building a basic version using existing technology and then you can build a technical team / find contractors.</comment>


Intel Prototypes Low-Power Circuits - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24843/ <comment><USER2> What the article doesn't mention is how the errors are detected -- in a fool proof fashion and cheaply. I can think of error detection schemes that might be cheap to implement but are not foolproof. For instance for an integer multiplication the parity might be cheap to calculate (and without redoing the whole calculation.)

Thus, the error detection algorithm checks the actual parity with the "correct" parity. That of course falls down for multi bit errors.

Researching the literature a bit:

A different approach (tradeoff precision for power) in GPUs: Energy-precision tradeoffs in mobile Graphics Processing Units (<http://iccd.et.tudelft.nl/2008/proceedings/060pool.pdf>). Another one (probabilistic chips): <http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/20246/>.

Edit: Added more detail, formatting.

<comment><USER3> Razor works by latching a signal twice at different times and comparing the two values; if they differ, the signal must have arrived at the primary latch late which is an error. It specifically detects timing errors which are caused by negative voltage margin, not other types such as soft errors caused by cosmic rays. [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=956417.956571&coll...](http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=956417.956571&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&type=series&idx=SERIES366&part=series&WantType=Proceedings&title=MICRO&CFID=34085365&CFTOKEN=33998412)

I wouldn't be surprised if Intel's work is similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One-page version here: [http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.asp...](http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=24843&channel=specialsections&section=smarterit)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is really innovative and I suspect it will force the rest of the industry to adopt similar technologies.</comment>


16-bit math look-up tables – the unexpected power of scaled-integer math - <AUTHOR> http://wilsonminesco.com/16bitMathTables/ <comment><USER2> For those who are interested, CORDIC (for COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer) is another technique from that era. It "is a simple and efficient algorithm to calculate hyperbolic and trigonometric functions, typically converging with one digit (or bit) per iteration." See [https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Digital_Circuits/CORDIC](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Digital_Circuits/CORDIC)

For instructional purposes, here is a simple Python implementation that uses only adds and shifts in the inner loop, followed by a single scaled-multiply to finish it up: [https://code.activestate.com/recipes/576792-polar-to- rectang...](https://code.activestate.com/recipes/576792-polar-to-rectangular- conversions-using-cordic)

<comment><USER3> IIRC, CORDIC has some issues as you scale the number of bits you want--you can't just run CORDIC 64 times for 64-bits of accuracy, for example.

I think the point of diminishing returns is 14-16 bits, but it's been a long time and I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Back in the day of 80286's and 80386's there was a popular Fractal generating software that did all calculations in fixed point arithmetic because PCs usually had no FPU back then.

Fractint[1], the site has a certificate error, but otherwise works fine, even the software still gets updated from time to time.

[1] [https://fractint.org/](https://fractint.org/)

<comment><USER5> Used it to generate uniform random plasma fields for game textures. Great program!

<comment><USER4> With the right color map they made a nice sky with clouds. Color cycling them through a smooth full color map was also nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cute. However, unless you're using a CPU from the 6502 era, it's probably not worth the trouble for multiplication and division. Today's low-end CPUs have good multiply hardware, and for a few dollars more, you get a decent FPU. Trig functions, though, may be worth precomputing. The standard libraries for trig functions often grind their way out to far more precision than you need for graphics or control, and that takes time. Interpolating from a modest sized table can be faster.

<comment><USER4> > However, unless you're using a CPU from the 6502 era, it's probably not > worth the trouble for multiplication and division.

When we talk PC, fixed point math was popular a few generations longer than the 6502 era. The 6502 had no multiply and division instructions at all, and up to the 80386 there was only integer multiply and division and that was slow as molasses. Before the 80486 fixed point wasn't a matter of speed, it was a matter of survival (at least for graphics and such).

<comment><USER7> indeed, I was using fixed point maths on PlayStation 1 games in the mid to late 90s. It was often responsible for the gaps you'd see between polygons on many PS1 games.

<comment><USER8> Gaps were mostly a sign of sloppy developers and rushed schedules. Compare Tomb Raider 1 on both PC/PSX with Destruction Derby (reflections) and Gran Turismo 1/2 (polyphony).

<comment><USER7> Yes, there were ways to avoid it (shared vertex calculations), but the effect seen was mostly where there are two separate vertices that are supposed to be at the same position, aren't, because each vertex was positioned with different transformation matrices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I used this exact approach just yesterday when I needed to calculate some sine values on an 8-bit MCU. Turns out including a precalculated table takes way less program memory than linking softfloat and trig libraries. 8051 is not dead, folks!

</comment><comment><USER10> Related to 16 bit lookup tables, unum is a format for representing numbers as sets of number ranges as an alternative to floats.

[http://www.johngustafson.net/presentations/Unums2.0.pptx](http://www.johngustafson.net/presentations/Unums2.0.pptx)

[http://www.johngustafson.net/presentations/Unums2.0.pdf](http://www.johngustafson.net/presentations/Unums2.0.pdf)

[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.00722.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.00722.pdf)

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

<comment><USER11> Unums are unlikely to gain much usage. Posits[1][2], also by Gustafson, are a more reasonable alternative to IEEE-754 floating point (but will still have a difficult time displacing IEEE-754, if they can at all).

[1] [http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/170201-slides....](http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/170201-slides.pdf) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0Y1uAA-2Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP0Y1uAA-2Y)

<comment><USER12> Posits seem impressive. My only concern is the lack of NaNs seems like a bug rather than a feature.

It's true that some programmers do the silliest things when faced with NaNs. But the fact is they are useful. You often want to do calculations over big matrices, where some elements simply don't have a mathematically defined answer (usually because of div0s but also because input data might have holes).

It would be a royal pain if the whole calculation stopped every time you had to add two infinities.

<comment><USER13> >is the lack of NaNs seems like a bug rather than a feature.

I think this is a reasonable concern. I'll propose to John that we make there be an optional "mode" where the infinity token is treated as "NaN". In reality, this mode just amounts to "ignore NaN traps", because the way that it's done in my hardware models, it requires almost no extra hardware.

<comment><USER14> What if we want both NaN and infinity?

<comment><USER13> if you really want both, then either 1) use IEEE floats or 2) write your own data type, or 3) used a boxed data type, which is really the best solution for the dominant "missing data" abuse case anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Āryabhaṭa's sine table, the first known mathematical LUT, was made around 500 DC:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āryabhaṭa's_sine_table](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āryabhaṭa's_sine_table)

<comment><USER14> > _first known mathematical LUT_

Babylonian multiplication and reciprocal tables are about 2500 years older.

For that matter, Hipparchus and Ptolemy's chord tables are also centuries older, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy's_table_of_chords](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy's_table_of_chords)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >And by the way, real-world I/O in control situations is never floating-point, whether timers, counters, A/D and D/A converters, servos, etc..

well, actually ;) Adlib/Sound Blaster Yamaha OPL2 and OPL3 both used external Floating Point DACs (YM3014B,YAC512)

</comment><comment><USER16> >> Jack Crenshaw addresses it in chapter 5 of his fine book "Math Toolkit for Real-Time Programming."

Ah shit, can't believe I missed this, all these years. Jack Crenshaw ie Let's Build a Compiler. Love that guy.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there a stdclib which allows for easy replacement of expensive funtions like fsin or fcos with lutables? Also do those not poison the cache?</comment>


WordPress Drops React – Choosing the New JavaScript Framework for Gutenberg - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/2733 <comment><USER2> The good part is that good open source projects like Vue and Inferno are getting some visibility.

</comment><comment><USER2> Facebook's open source software licences are going to ruin React</comment>


Founders at Work featured in 21 - <AUTHOR>

If you see the movie, pay attention to the classroom scene just after Ben gets beaten up and you can clearly see jl's book. I thought it was pretty cool. <comment><USER2> This is so cool- I'll have to see the movie!!

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't imagine Jessica spending her time on product injection, so there must have been a fan on the set.

<comment><USER4> For being a wide-release, mainstream movie, they nailed the geek stuff pretty well.

<comment><USER5> Except for the bit about taking two weeks to get a new EEPROM fabricated.

<comment><USER6> I actually thought the exact same thing while watching the movie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsK1c9ZBpuw> <= 21 Trailer

</comment><comment><USER4> Saw the movie Friday and I only have one thing to say: "Winner, winner, Chicken Dinner!!"

<comment><USER6> Lol, for the first half of the movie I couldn't figure out if he was saying "Winner, winner, chicken thinner" or "dinner". Thanks for resolving it for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm thinking Jessica did a multi-million dollar product placement deal. Well played!

</comment><comment><USER9> This movie was awesome. Went to see it on sunday.

</comment><comment><USER10> ha, awesome! boston based research, crew,filming,etc. so im sure there was a fan. Maybe a fellow hacker on the set?

</comment><comment><USER11> Spoiler alert!

</comment><comment><USER12> Was a pretty good movie. You could totally anticipate the ending though, either right at the beginning, or right after he gets beat up.</comment>


Name.com suffers breach, credit card data accessed, encryption in place (phew) - <AUTHOR> http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/05/08/name-dot-com-suffers-breach/ <comment><USER2> Luckily I always use PayPal for transaction on name.com.</comment>