QUIC, a multiplexed stream transport over UDP - <AUTHOR> https://www.chromium.org/quic <comment><USER2> I've said it before and I'll say it again. If Google wants others to use QUIC they will have to stop pointing at their Chromium source tree and say "there it is". Provide a standalone library that implements QUIC for the major platforms and compiles without having to install custom build environments and people/projects will start using it.

<comment><USER3> I don't think they really want other people to use it, at least right now. I think they want the latitude to be able to make backwards-incompatible changes and only have to worry about roll-out on their own servers and to their own client software.

<comment><USER4> Yes. This.

It's the same model as SPDY. See a problem (HTTP1/x utilizing the network poorly). Implement a proprietary protocol from just your clients talking with your web properties. Work out kinks. Standardize as HTTP/2.

I wonder what the HTTP/2 equivalent of QUIC will be.

Interesting aside. As I typed that summary above. I couldn't help but think of Microsoft and how SPDY might still exists as a private "market leading feature" if Google sold server software...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I see FEC is mentioned; isn't most error-correction over noisy channels implemented at the link-layer? Even over e.g. wifi or cellular radios, my understanding is you typically either get the packet or not, with the internet layer rarely seeing corrupted packets.

[edit]

I read deeper in, and apparently, QUIC optionally allows sending packets in groups, with an additional packet that is the XOR of the other packets in the groups; this means that you can fill-in any single dropped packet by sending an extra packet ahead of time.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've played with QUIC [1] and SCTP [2]. QUIC does not have good documentation and SCTP's userlevel library feels like it's intended on being used a certain way (one-to-one sockets) and is easy to use incorrectly, which makes me uneasy about the quality of its code.

I really wish there was a solid "TCP replacement" with optional reliability, optional ordering and multiplexing that I can run over real networks as user level code, among other features. But the view from the ground from what I've seen is that people either use TCP or build their own protocol that runs over UDP (I'm thinking about games specifically here).

Am I missing an option here? Maybe I should dig into libquic and really figure out how to use it and if it can do what I want.

[1] [https://github.com/devsisters/libquic](https://github.com/devsisters/libquic) [2] [https://code.google.com/p/sctp-refimpl/](https://code.google.com/p/sctp- refimpl/)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I have the same wish.

JIC you haven't seen it, it covers some of the bases: [http://enet.bespin.org/](http://enet.bespin.org/)

IIRC I got frustrated with its (at least at the time) inability to send a packet while waiting on a packet to be received so I gave up and started writing my own spin on RFC 908.

<comment><USER8> IIRC, packets on different "channels" in enet don't block each other. So, a troublesome reliable packet that needs retransmitting unusually many times won't hold up packets on other channels -reliable or not.

Edit: from the docs

> To combat this latency and reduce the ordering restrictions on packets, ENet > provides multiple channels of communication over a given connection. Each > channel is independently sequenced, and so the delivery status of a packet > in one channel will not stall the delivery of other packets in another > channel.

<comment><USER7> I was referring to their non-thread-safe (within a single ENet instance) architecture combined with the need to block if you want to pick up a packet the moment it arrives. I have to block to receive that packet, but while I'm blocking, I can't send a packet (because ENet isn't thread safe). Now, it will let you set a receive timeout, but then you just spend a lot of time spinning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mixing (doubling up) network layers like this is a bad plan. Yes, it would be a new protocol on ip, and would be less backward compatible. But if it's that important to do, then let's do it right. As long as we're probing to see if it's supported, then why not?

<comment><USER5> NAT traversal

[edit] And implementation in userspace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone have a clear explanation for why QUIC exists when SCTP (which can be run over UDP) existed? What does QUIC bring over it?

<comment><USER11> SCTP isn't implemented on most routers, firewalls. UDP is.

<comment><USER12> SCTP is in Cisco IOS[1], but regardless, it sits at the IP layer so all routers need to do is pass it as IP, unless you want to do more.

It's also in plenty of OS kernels already, such as solaris and linux, and can be written as userspace libraries.

1: [http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios/12_4t/12_4t15/htsct...](http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios/12_4t/12_4t15/htsctp.html)

<comment><USER11> I'm talking about your typical Netgear router / firewall application.

> it sits at the IP layer so all routers need to do is pass it as IP

Erm... no. The vast majority of consumer electronics are built up from NAT. You are NOT getting past your Verizon/Comcast router with IP alone.

It's getting interpreted as TCP, and then getting NATted over to something else. As far as i can tell, UDP has a similar process.

But its a major problem with SCTP and consumer routers. Have you ever tried to send an SCTP connection across your typical consumer Verizon router?

<comment><USER13> > You are NOT getting past your Verizon/Comcast router with IP alone.

... on IPv4. On IPv6 you don't have to worry about NAT, and IPv6 usage is growing: the percentage of Google traffic conducted over IPv6 has doubled in the past year and is significantly higher on weekends, which means consumers are driving a lot of that traffic. It's now over 7% on weekends and growing by about one percentage point every 3-4 months. That seems to me like a sufficiently large pool of potential testers.

The NAT problem is really finally going away. What we need to be worrying about is dumb firewalls, but I'd bet that there will be just as many consumer routers that fail to make any of their firewall rules apply to IPv6 as there will be routers that can pass TCP over IPv6 but not arbitrary protocols.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> QUIC has come a (relative) long way: [http://blog.chromium.org/2015/04/a-quic- update-on-googles-ex...](http://blog.chromium.org/2015/04/a-quic-update-on- googles-experimental.html)

<comment><USER15> That's a pretty awesome overview, I had no idea of the scale they are using it in the wild.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can think of a lot of things this could be good for that aren't web servers.

I didn't see it clearly treated in the documents at the linked site: is out of order packet delivery supported? I see they they use multiple streams to avoid head of line blocking, but within a stream, can packets be delivered out of order?

<comment><USER5> This looks like purely a stream protocol, so at the transport layer, there are no "packets" to be delivered, just a stream of bytes.

[edit] See SCTP for reliable multiplexed out-of-order datagrams.

<comment><USER7> SCTP isn't friendly with cheap consumer routers, which makes it a non-starter for me, unfortunately.

<comment><USER5> [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6951](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6951)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> reminds me of this comment:

"Of these, quic is my favorite option for the future. It is a truly phenmenal transport, with tons of things done very, very well. However, though the dragon is ready to hatch from its egg, it must still be unearthed from the enormous Code Caverns, of the Chromium Mountains, a quest not to be taken lightly."

[https://github.com/ipfs/go- ipfs/issues/57#issuecomment-70162...](https://github.com/ipfs/go- ipfs/issues/57#issuecomment-70162015)</comment>


Automatic Face Recognition and Surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/10/automatic_face_.html <comment><AUTHOR> One interesting tidbit: _Last year, the US Department of Commerce tried to prevail upon industry representatives and privacy organizations to write a voluntary code of conduct for companies using facial recognition technologies. After 16 months of negotiations, all of the consumer-focused privacy organizations pulled out of the process because industry representatives were unable to agree on any limitations on something as basic as nonconsensual facial recognition._

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm going to invest in the business of mask making ...</comment>


Show HN: arkade – Kubernetes Apps for Developers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alexellis/arkade <comment><USER2> How does one commit their Kubernetes configuration to git without to yaml files (or similar)?

Should we be committing bash scripts with the command and flag invocation?

Ah, it's largely a wrapper around helm and kubectl, still don't see how to save my config to git

<comment><AUTHOR> It's up to you, you can use Flux if you're at the stage where you want to create a CD pipeline. Failing that - yes you can generate YAML with arkade and have that generated in a CI stage.</comment></comment>


An engineer's emergency kit business card - <AUTHOR> http://boldport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/an-engineers-emergency-kit-business-card.html <comment><USER2> For those not familiar with Saar/Boldport's work, he's working on PCBmodE ([https://bitbucket.org/boldport/pcbmode](https://bitbucket.org/boldport/pcbmode), used to create this business card PCB), an open source layout tool borne out of frustration with the existing tools widely used by the industry.

The most impressive board designed using PCBmodE so far in my opinion is Saar's 'lifegame' [http://boldport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the- lifegame.html](http://boldport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-lifegame.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it the default now for individual entries on blogger.com blogs to be displayed as lightboxes, or is this just an unusual option this one user chose?

<comment><USER4> Just try reading it on an iPad. It's an absolutely miserable experience. It feels like they tried to reimplement scrolling, which, of course, they get totally wrong.

It baffles me that companies spend significant amounts of time and resources making a user experience that _works great_ rather awful[1].

[1] See also: Flickr.

<comment><USER5> Oddly they are continuing to make it worse. For at least a year you have needed JavaScript enabled to view Blogger sites. It's a blog, why do you need JavaScript to display a loading screen! And they scroll horribly in mobile Safari too.

And now these light boxes. I don't get it.

Related to the BoldPort product though, I think electrical engineering world is world could use some better tools. Earlier in the week one of our electrical engineers spent a day helping to debug a new board. The problem ended up being a signal name was renamed in one place but not another. If the current EE design tools don't have refactoring support much less some sort of electrical "uninitialized variable" error, there must be room for improvement in these tools.

<comment><USER6> I can't respond to the article itself, since I can't read it, since I refuse to turn on JavaScript for random web sites. BTW HN itself works great without JavaScript.

To your point about "uninitialized variable" nets, if the net was truly a singleton it would show up as such in a netlist report. This capability existed in board design tools I used 30 years ago. What might have happened is a renamed net might have been split into two different nets. E.g. a net that connected 10 places became two nets, one to 8 places, another to 2 places. Not a singleton.

There are additional checks that netlist generation tools can do. E.g. does every net have a "driver" or "output" on it, or does it consist of all "inputs". Absence of driver can easily be flagged as an error. However, there is one wrinkle. Sometimes, nets are "busses" and are bidirectional. Each pin of the net can be either an input or an output at various times. That's harder to detect as an error.

There are many ways to avoid problems like this. Two common ones: 1) READ THE LOGS. I'd bet even money that your problem shows up in the logs as a singleton net or as a net without a driver. 2) SIMULATE. Board functional simulation has been possible for over 30 years; it's not always done. Did your engineer simulate his design? Why didn't his simulation catch the problem?

Sometimes, in board design (as in FPGA design) it's faster and certainly easier to just get 99% of the way there ahead of time and debug the final few errors on the board itself. That might be the case here, so if your company made this decision a priori, then you shouldn't be surprised if you need to spend some time debugging a few simple errors.

BTW that sort of sloppiness just wouldn't fly in chip design. Chips are usually far far far too complicated; extensive pre-tapeout simulation is de rigueur. And it takes weeks (if you have much money and a very good relationship with a fab) or months to get revised silicon. Much easier to do a few cuts and jumpers to a board than to do a silicon spin.

As to "refactoring support", most CAD systems I was familiar with didn't have an easy way to rename a net across multiple "pages" of a board design. Maybe the tools have gotten better. IMO that sort of refactoring (if done extensively) is a losing proposition anyway. You're much better off with careful attention to detail up front. You should be very careful renaming nets that cross schematic pages; you wouldn't have the problem if you carefully thought about the names before you created the schematic.

In summary, even the best tools won't help a sloppy designer.

<comment><USER7> Author of article. Someone posted a static version of the page:

      http://ajasmin.net/saved_page/an-engineers-emergency-kit-business-card.html

I hope you like it.

> In summary, even the best tools won't help a sloppy designer.

Sloppy engineering is bad. But excusing shitty EDA tools by suggesting the engineer is sloppy is not much better. Most EDA tools are crap at DRC (static rules that only cover geometry and physical connections) and user experience. (Most engineers wouldn't have access to very expensive tools that might be better than some.) You talk about FPGAs (I'm an FPGA/Verilog expert); have you ever looked at the logs? It's getting progressively better, but wading through hundreds and thousands of warning and info messages is not exactly the most effective way to tell an engineer that something _might_ be wrong. Sure, you can write scripts, but the tools are shit out-of-the-box in finding problems _and communicating them to the engineer_. This is one example, but they're equally bad at guiding the engineer to good design practices that reduces faults, as I think they should.

Circuit design tools are worse, and engineers must rely on their experience and keen eye for detail. Some engineers don't have one or both of those. Are they sloppy? Can't the tools be more intelligent to help?

I think that there is a lot to improve in this domain, and I'm trying to do that with PCBmodE. Blaming the engineer and falling into the "digital Stockholm syndrome" isn't the way forward here.

<comment><USER7> As a followup, I've written a 'defence of the "sloppy" engineer' [http://boldport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/in-defense-of- sloppy-...](http://boldport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/in-defense-of-sloppy- engineer.html)

<comment><USER6> I've used EDA tools (both board design and chip design) for over 30 years, and in that time there's been one constant: what the designers want to accomplish is usually at (or beyond) the limit of what the tools and platforms are capable of. So yes the tools are "shitty" for what we want to accomplish _tomorrow_. They're superb compared to what we had _yesteryear_.

You might not like my "sloppy" choice of words. But IMO the difference between good engineers and mediocre ones is exactly what you called a "keen eye for detail".

I agree the tools could be, and should be, a lot better. It's a copout by the tool vendors when they produce "thousands of warning and info messages". And yet the good engineer _must_ wade through those messages. That is part of the necessary "get on with it" attitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am impressed by the amount of work someone did to make this site completely unusable on iOS devices.

It loads slowly, poorly animates (what for?), scrolls abysmally, and prevents zooming in.

I'm sorry for the slightly off-topic comment, but I think this needs to be said. I long for clean, simple, readable web pages.

<comment><USER7> I'm the author and maker of this board. The blog is hosted on blogger (Google). When I decided to use blogger I wrongly assumed that it will 'just work' across platforms, but it hasn't been the case, unfortunately. There isn't much I can do in terms of configuration, and the only option is to find a new blogging platform, which I may do in the future.

<comment><USER9> I think it is because of the Blogger's "Dynamic Views" template your blog uses. Maybe another (more classic) template would be better for cross-device compatibility.

<comment><USER7> I will test that, although I'd normally expect this brand name service's back- end to handle this stuff gracefully.

<comment><USER10> Blogger is a rather poorly supported product at Google. I'm sure it's on the chopping block soon as it duplicates a lot of G+ functionality.

<comment><USER11> ... and to be honest, this might not be such a bad thing. For simple articles, G+ is about a billion times better than blogger, and would make a pretty good replacement for many people.

Indeed, ideally as part of such a move, they'd enhance G+ a bit[1] to cover the areas where it's currently weaker than blogger. Then everybody would win...

[1] E.g. better support for formatting articles; curently it only supports a rather pathetic subset of markdown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very cool, although it seems like it might be simpler to just learn OCaml.

<comment><USER13> "The heart wants what it wants"

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How exactly would you get through TSA with that...

remember they almost shot and killed that MIT student that was wearing some circuits as art on her shirt

<comment><AUTHOR> If you can take a laptop through (or in fact _any_ electronics) then in principle, this should be no problem.

<comment><USER15> "Here is a true story about a glass tty: One day an MIT hacker was in a motorcycle accident and broke his leg. He had to stay in the hospital quite a while, and got restless because he couldn't hack. Two of his friends therefore took a terminal and a modem for it to the hospital, so that he could use the computer by telephone from his hospital bed.

Now this happened some years before the spread of home computers, and computer terminals were not a familiar sight to the average person. When the two friends got to the hospital, a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying. They explained that they wanted to take a computer terminal to their friend who was a patient.

The guard got out his list of things that patients were permitted to have in their rooms: TV, radio, electric razor, typewriter, tape player, ... no computer terminals. Computer terminals weren't on the list, so the guard wouldn't let it in. Rules are rules, you know. (This guard was clearly a droid.)

Fair enough, said the two friends, and they left again. They were frustrated, of course, because they knew that the terminal was as harmless as a TV or anything else on the list... which gave them an idea.

The next day they returned, and the same thing happened: a guard stopped them and asked what they were carrying. They said: "This is a TV typewriter!" The guard was skeptical, so they plugged it in and demonstrated it. "See? You just type on the keyboard and what you type shows up on the TV screen." Now the guard didn't stop to think about how utterly useless a typewriter would be that didn't produce any paper copies of what you typed; but this was clearly a TV typewriter, no doubt about it. So he checked his list: "A TV is all right, a typewriter is all right ... okay, take it on in!"

[Historical note: Many years ago, "Popular Electronics" published solder-it- yourself plans for a TV typewriter. Despite the essential uselessness of the device, it was an enormously popular project. Steve Ciarcia, the man behind "Byte" magazine's "Circuit Cellar" feature, resurrected this ghost in one of his books of the early 1980s. He ascribed its popularity (no doubt correctly) to the feeling of power the builder could achieve by being able to decide himself what would be shown on the TV. --ESR]

[Antihistorical note: On September 23rd, 1992, the L.A. Times ran the following bit of filler:

         Solomon Waters of Altadena, a 6-year-old first-grader, came home
         from his first day of school and excitedly told his mother how he
         had written on "a machine that looks like a computer -- but
         without the TV screen."  She asked him if it could have been a
         "typewriter."  "Yeah! Yeah!" he said.  "That's what it was
         called."

I have since investigated this matter and determined that many of today's teenagers have never seen a slide rule, either.... -- ESR]"

[http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/t/TVTypewriters.html](http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/t/TVTypewriters.html)

\----

If you went ahead and assumed that TSA agents are really just cleverly projected computer algorithms (androids perhaps?), your predictions concerning their behavior probably wouldn't be far off.

<comment><USER16> > If you went ahead and assumed that people are really just cleverly projected > computer algorithms (androids perhaps?), your predictions concerning their > behavior probably wouldn't be far off.

Fixed that for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just never understand how OCaml programmers love to party.

<comment><USER18> They're functional alcoholics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> At first I wondered why you needed all those parts just to light an LED. Then you explained what they were for. Nicely done.

</comment><comment><USER20> Well done Saar, nice to seem someone from the Pitch & Mix on HN!

<comment><USER7> Thanks! ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I prefer Kevin Mitnicks:

[https://secure.flickr.com/photos/ranh/106709219/](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/ranh/106709219/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Obligatory link: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YBxeDN4tbk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YBxeDN4tbk)

</comment><comment><USER23> This is cool, but I like Michael Ossmann's better.

[http://ossmann.blogspot.com/2011/02/throwing-star-lan- tap.ht...](http://ossmann.blogspot.com/2011/02/throwing-star-lan-tap.html)

PCB board for a LAN tap. Definitely one of the coolest business cards I've received- particularly at a hacker con.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think that the banana peel is a reference to this: [http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1qkd9x/secret_staircase...](http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1qkd9x/secret_staircase_reveals_terrifying_secret/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Nicely done, I wonder if you could add a 555 timer with the legs pulled straight out to the sides. Not sure you could clip it and still plug it in a socket but you could rewire it 'dead bug' style.

<comment><USER7> That's a thought. I'm interested in new mechanical configurations of components, and how to hide/embed them into the board in interesting new ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Next on my wishlist - a business-card-sized emergency soldering iron!

<comment><USER27> [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9450](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9450) it's not business card sized, but it'd probably fit in a pocket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Love the banana for scale reference.

</comment><comment><USER29> What a cool idea. Hope he finds a way to make it scalable.</comment>


Ask HN: Email provider for sending transactional emails? - <AUTHOR> I run a website monitoring service, and send out email notifications to my customers whenever there is a problem. I'm currently using SendGrid with a shared IP, however a lot of my emails are being rejected due to blacklisted IPs. As the notifications don't get through, it leads to not very happy customers.
Over the past month I've sent 75k emails, and nearly 5,000 have been blocked due to the IP being on spam lists (I should note that 0 of my emails have been marked as spam). My customers are usually small businesses who have overly aggressive spam filters, so that definitely doesn't help.
I contacted SendGrid support and the only thing they could recommend was that I upgrade to a plan with a dedicated IP. Although $19.95 to $79.95 per month isn't too bad, after you send 100k messages per month their prices go up quite a lot (it jumps to $165 for 200k messages), so I've been thinking of moving anyway. The only thing I use them for is as a SMTP server - I don't use any of their marketing tools.
So.. can anyone recommend a good provider who will be more supporting? <comment><USER2> We use mailgun and have had a pleasant experience. Good luck!</comment>


Preaching Equality, Startup Didn't Practice It with Employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/business/carta-workers-inequality.html <comment><USER2> This feels like a news outlet cherry-picking stories to fit a pre-determined narrative.

I am a Carta employee and I have not seen or experienced any gender or racial discrimination at this company.

That's not to say that it doesn't exist outside my bubble or that it hasn't existed in the past. I would guess that a fast-growing company ($0 to $3B in 8 years) with a first-time CEO has made plenty of mistakes. I just don't think that this article paints a representative portrait of the current experience of most Carta employees. A more accurate title for this article could be "Preaching Equality, Startup Was Mostly Good But Appears To Have Made Some Mistakes"

I also see a lot of LinkedIn posts from former Carta employees sharing similar opinions:

* [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6706013198711173121-...](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6706013198711173121-GYxT)

* [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/annie-hu-664b1552_preaching-e...](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/annie-hu-664b1552_preaching-equality-start-up-didnt-practice-activity-6706037370657079296-raBl)

* [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ammanuelselameab_theres-a-bun...](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ammanuelselameab_theres-a-bunch-of-negative-press-out-now-activity-6705993571746635776-jZRT)

* Same as previous but with more comments from others: [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heward_theres-a-bunch-of-nega...](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heward_theres-a-bunch-of-negative-press-out-now-activity-6706011295914819584-6nF_)</comment>


RemoteStorage – An open protocol for per-user storage on the Web - <AUTHOR> https://remotestorage.io/ <comment><USER2> In theory this seems like a great solution to many data privacy problems, but I suspect strongly that this leads in reality to very hard to support products as you can't make that many assumptions about the data stores. Performance and reliability of datastorage makes up a large chunk of the user-experience of any web-app, so having this out of ones control is a tough proposition for anyone actually wanting to build a business ontop of this.

<comment><USER3> In reality everyone's data will be stored at the same four cloud providers.

<comment><USER4> Sadly this will be true for 95% of the storage

<comment><USER5> It seems to me that an API intended to make this storage a commodity would lower the barrier to entry, possibly increasing the natural number of participants in the market.

<comment><USER6> Don't worry, these competitors will host their service on one of these providers

<comment><USER7> Is that a big problem if data is end-to-end encrypted?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have created a number of small tools in the last and I generally have kept them stateless because I didn't want to manage (or pay for) storage of user data. If something like this was widespread I could trivially allow the user to save their data without needing to manage that myself.

For complex applications you might want a richer API but I think that for now making it easy to adopt is a key feature and I generally just want to stick a serialized state in a small number of "files" anyways.

I really hope this takes off at some point.

<comment><USER9> will that work with gdpr? it sounds ok but i am not sure

<comment><USER8> I'm not a lawyer but I think it should be because you aren't storing the users data. The one concern might be explaining that the user is sending their data to a third party (of the users choice) in a nice way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The disconnect I have with this is it's a key value store. Sure you can build on top of that, but any non trivial application would require more flexibility. Has there been any work on a remote sql spec, for example?

<comment><USER11> We built a remote (and encrypted) data sync spec for graphs, it can be used for both traditional table (relational) and document storage as well as key/value data ( [https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun)). It has push built in and is fully decentralized and running in production today (terabytes of traffic), and handles concurrency and offline conflicts out of the box.

There are some half baked GraphQL query engines for it as well as some SQL query prototypes on top, but not quite ready yet. What were you wanting to build?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You can also check out Standard File, which aims to accomplish something similar (namely, trustless servers for end-to-end encrypted client application). It's currently being used in Standard Notes with great success.

[https://standardfile.org](https://standardfile.org)

</comment><comment><USER13> One consideration for where this could be very useful: if you're constructing autonomous agents who can seek and aggregate information and dispatch actions on your behalf, giving these agents access to segments of a personal datastore like this could be an interesting starting point.

Oddly enough, I keep going back conceptually to the 'gevulot' concept from Rajaniemi's 'The Quantum Thief' as an idealized implementation of this.

<comment><USER14> I use my RS accounts for exactly this, in combination with Huginn for example. It's super simple, because you just PUT or GET, with the bearer token for one segment (called "category" in RS) in the Authorization header. And you can also PUT things in the special /public category, so they're world-readable. Example: when I check in on Swarm, Huginn uploads the entire check-in data to my RS for archiving, as well as updates a public RS document with my current location, which my website then shows publicly: [https://sebastian.kip.pe](https://sebastian.kip.pe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How is this fundamentally different than storing files in S3 or Azure BLOB storage or SFTP or.... is WebDAV still a thing?

<comment><USER16> How is it the same? If I'm hosting a Web app, my users can't write to S3.

<comment><USER15> So this would be in place of a service like Dropbox -- or S3 or Azure Blob -- where user passes a token to the app to allow reading/wring data to the user's storage account/location... but with a standard protocol and authorization scheme?

<comment><USER17> Somewhat, but then users are able to choose their own hosting provider, rather than having to use Dropbox, S3 or whatever that you happen to support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sounds cool, but I'm missing something basic.

1\. I update some data on my desktop.

2\. I shut down my desktop.

3\. I power on my laptop.

How and when does my laptop get the updates made on the desktop?

(edit1) One idea for a solution is asking peers for help: my data gets encrypted and seeded to many peers, so it is always available somewhere.

(edit2) While I like the "own your data" aspect of this, I dislike the "everything in a browser" aspect. At what point is this easier as just a native program?

<comment><USER19> For what i understand the remoteStorage has different plugin storage you can use. If you want your data to be available across multiple computer you should use a plugin which store data in a cloud storage like dropbox,gdrive o even S3. But i think you should be able to implement something like you proposed by combining remoteStorage with webTorrent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is data encrypted?

<comment><USER21> Seems that encryption support is being added to some specific implementations[1], but not mandated by the spec.

[1] [https://community.remotestorage.io/t/encryption-option-in- li...](https://community.remotestorage.io/t/encryption-option-in- library/108/20)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wouldn't users be able to tamper with their own data? Seems like another attack vector.

<comment><USER23> If you write web apps, you should be used to treating user input as hostile. You just need to write your application with a clear perimeter around user supplied input.

<comment><USER22> Let's say the web app is a game and it keeps track of your high score when you play it, if the high score is stored somewhere you have complete control over, what's to stop someone from modifying that score? Substitute high score for any variable a server tracks about a user that isn't explicitly supplied by that user.

<comment><USER23> The only way to prevent cheating in a game is to run the code on the server based on transmitted user actions.

Even with a server side DB, they could lie about their results or hack the game to do better.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dwarf Fortress, the Great Ancestor - <AUTHOR> http://zarkonnen.com/dwarf_fortress_the_great_ancestor

<comment><USER2> The handful of games inspired by Dwarf Fortress are cool, but I really hope somebody is working on a proper successor. A game that's even more ambitious with its simulation, with the software appropriately designed so it can be multithreaded and optimized.

Dwarf Fortress is amazing. It's quite possibly my favorite game of all time. But at the same time, it's really only scratching the surface of what's possible with this kind of simulation. There's a whole genre of incredibly deep RPGs just waiting to be created.

<comment><USER3> That may be hard, since DF is under constant development.

Being more ambitious in the sim department will be excruciatingly hard, since DF already has an almost silly level of simulation:

[http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/23/5926447/dwarf-fortress- will...](http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/23/5926447/dwarf-fortress-will-crush- your-cpu-because-creating-history-is-hard)

That said, yeah, it's a cool genre which could use some real love.

<comment><USER4> I think it would be interesting to see something DF-inspired at an MMO scale. I'd like to imagine what a larger team could do, with access to lots of parallel CPU power. DF does a lot of work abstracting things that are off- site, since a typical PC can't simulate the entire world in realtime. But if you had enough servers sharing the work, I expect you could do much more. Throw in a bunch of players all giving some direction to their own little autonomous civilisations, and I think it would be fascinating to watch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> DF is one of the top games at creating emergent scenarios, and yet not very good at it. Many parts are tedious, broken or not very fledged.

I really wish more games opened their AI, including conversation. Using them for little Turing experiments is a lot more fun than item mods.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just a heads up that the majority of the page took around 15 seconds to load, and that was after a few refreshes.

[http://i.imgur.com/wzJAp3Y.png](http://i.imgur.com/wzJAp3Y.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh, that's rather unfortunate. Thank you for pointing that out, I'll see that I can fix things!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author writes about balancing difficulty of DF. I've seen many people saying that DF is too easy once you figure it out. It's true that it isn't a difficult game, but I think it's missing the point. The point of DF is simulation, not being a difficult game. There's a lot of beauty in it. If you want to be challenged there are better games for that. If you want to explore virtual worlds or excercise creativity you've got a deal.

</comment><comment><USER8> This NYT story about the guys that wrote Dwarf Fortress is amazing. One of them was a Phd candidate, but now they survive on the money from DF fans - [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance- of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf- fortress.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

<comment><USER9> The guys who make it are really cool and accessible. There have been lots of crazy fan projects doing research they hope for them to incorporate in the game somehow (e.g. material properties research, tree research, [http://imgur.com/EPtgt](http://imgur.com/EPtgt) ...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For another vast 2D game experience check Distant Worlds, 4x space strategy with tens of thousands of planets and asteroids [http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2011/10/distant-worlds- retur...](http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2011/10/distant-worlds-return-of- the-shakturi-review/)

</comment><comment><USER11> >. But at this point, DF has a relationship to modern games much like a literary classic does to other books: it will help you understand where a lot of stuff is coming from.

According to wikipedia DF came out in 2006? Where does the classic book analogy come from.

<comment><USER3> They are stating that just as concepts and themes from classic books resurface in more modern books, gameplay concepts and themes from DF can be found in modern videogames.

That isn't to say DF does not contain themes from previous videogames, or that it is the progenitor for modern games; just an influence.

<comment><USER11> The article is quite explicitly calling it a classic it doesn't actually mention any predecessors that it inherits from (I haven't played DwarfFortress, but reading about it suggests to me, games such as Ultima, Moria, Angband).

<comment><USER3> We consider many of Shakespeare's works to be classics, but he pulled a lot of his themes and ideologies from the Bible, the Illiad and the Odyssey.

One does not need to be first to be a classic.

<comment><USER11> Actually Shakespeare also pulled many of his themes from other writers very much closer to him in history (and he was criticized for it in his time actually), but as it remains those writers i.e. Christopher Marlowe are not well known and Shakespeare is (but it is essential to this that merely reusing-retelling-retheming of classical aspects is not enough for this, many others besides Shakespeare did this in those days, as many films, and tv- series do it now).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> dwarf fortress is the war & peace of games.</comment>


University of Chicago: 'We Do Not Support So-Called Trigger Warnings' - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/4466021/uchicago-trigger-warnings/ <comment><USER3> This is _tough_.

With the aspirations of "civility and mutual respect" along with "rigorous debate, discussion, and even disagreement", I would hope any truly egregious edge cases disappear.

In the middle, I think people have the right to remove themselves from discussions—civil or otherwise—that they don't want to listen to or engage. But that right _doesn 't_ limit others' ability to have those selfsame discussions in public or private venues, nor require others to give you advance warning about it.

And finally, U. Chicago has the right to set degree requirements. If you are unable or unwilling to meet those requirements (e.g., not participating in discussions), then you have no place at that institution. After all, the "real world" won't hold your hand.

So...

 _Trigger Warnings_ ("A trigger warning is advance notice about subject material that may be difficult for certain students to read, hear or see.") U. Chicago says they "don't support" them. I think actively discouraging them in every case seems extreme, but the institution simply _can 't_ be required to provide trigger warnings in every case for every individual. In other words, a _lack_ of trigger warning doesn't mean _you_ won't be triggered.

 _Safe Spaces_ ("A safe space is a place they can go to avoid those subjects or heal after confronting them.") U. Chicago doesn't condone the creation of safe spaces. Similarly, I think this stance is extreme. Safe spaces may be necessary for individuals. But U. Chicago is under no obligation to provide them for you or excuse you from other discussions as a result.

In other words, U. Chicago isn't a place for people who don't want to discuss issues that make them uncomfortable. Which, on its face, seems reasonable to me.

<comment><USER4> > "A trigger warning is advance notice about subject material that may be > difficult for certain students to read, hear or see."

But that's not what trigger warnings are for... it's not just about mild discomfort. They're to prevent _panic attacks_.

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

Whether trigger warnings are effective or not is a different matter, but of course if you portray them as being about being offended or mild discomfort that they sound utterly stupid.

<comment><USER5> Avoidance in the form of 'trigger warnings' may actually worsen the underlying problem for people with PTSD because avoidance can strengthen the underlying fear.

Successful treatment often actually involves confronting the fear, little by little, until it no longer causes discomfort:

"Exposure therapy is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy[118] that involves assisting trauma survivors to re-experience distressing trauma-related memories and reminders in order to facilitate habituation and successful emotional processing of the trauma memory. Most exposure therapy programs include both imaginal confrontation with the traumatic memories and real-life exposure to trauma reminders; this therapy modality is well supported by clinical evidence."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder#Management)

<comment><USER6> Exposure therapy can be effective, but under controlled circumstances as supervised by a professional and prepared for by the patient.

Uncontrolled exposure is more likely to worsen the anxiety than extinguish it.

<comment><USER7> I feel like the idea the parent was suggesting is that avoidance behaviour itself can increase anxiety about the topic, and that encouraging it may end up being more harmful than the risk of uncontrolled exposure, especially when the result of such exposure is not _necessarily_ negative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's important to acknowledge that the term "safe space" means different things to different people.

To the Yale protestors (who were widely supported at UChicago) the entirety of university housing at Yale was meant to be a "safe space," so it was incumbent on the university to fire professors who voiced unwelcome opinions in that space.

To many of the people who are angry about this letter, "safe space" means a support-group-like room in a specific place at a specific time, which doesn't interfere with the rest of the university's operations.

I suspect it is the former which Dean Ellison meant to attack. I find it hard to believe that he's trying to shut down, for example, group therapy programs for LGBTQ youth offered by the psychology arm of the university's student health system. But I do appreciate him sending the message, "we're not going to fire professors because you don't like what they said."

<comment><USER9> Yeah, all these words mean different things to the Social Justice/Progressive left and the rest of us.

It's one of the surest tells that a movement is wrong when they refuse to use the regular meanings of words and start redefining them in their own usage. People who are right never have to resort to such contrivances.

<comment><USER10> Which is why I'm sure you use the word "colored" (or worse) instead of african/african-american, homosexual instead of gay, tranny instead of transwoman/transman, and similar?

After all, words are just irrelevant symbol strings on top of a meaning, right? If you're not really racist, it shouldn't matter if you only ever refer to people of the global majority by slurs. The surest tell a movement is wrong is when they refuse to use the regular meanings of words.

<comment><USER9> If we're trying to communicate and understand the world together, what specific words we use don't matter, only that we agree on what they mean. We could even speak a completely non English language.

If you're instead trying to show which American political tribe you belong to, the concerns you mention become very important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I don't get about this is why trigger warnings and safe spaces always seem to get lumped together in discussions like this.

It's really hard to actually create a safe space. You have to actively intervene to prevent (or provide redress for) the "wrong" kinds of speech. I can totally see why a university would not think safe spaces were worth it, or even consistent with their goals.

But trigger warnings are a really simple common courtesy. There was a popular meme spread around the Fourth of July to be considerate of veterans who may be distressed by the sound of fireworks. If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up.

<comment><USER12> > If you think this is a consideration worth extending to a veteran, it seems > perfectly consistent that you'd want survivors of rape or abuse to know that > a discussion of rape or abuse was coming up.

And at what point does it stop? Who decides what is a trigger warning?

If someone is afraid of wolves. Must I now stop wearing my wolf shirts?

When does it simply turn into censorship and shutting down topics and discussions you don't want to have?

If someone has a personal issue, what gives them the right to force their issues on others? Why must everyone adapt to them?

<comment><USER13> I think you're missing the part where they are victims, and all we're trying to do is minimize the damage. That's a calculated risk that each person is going to have to take for themselves.

<comment><USER14> They were victims; they're not actively victims in the moment of a discussion. The damage has already been done. Conversely, you can say that you're helping with the recovery and healing process. But it's important to acknowledge the aspects of the past, present and future as they relate to trauma.

<comment><USER13> Causing someone a panic attack in the present is not damage that "has already been done".

<comment><USER14> They're not experiencing a new incidence of trauma, they're reliving one.

A more "physical" corollary would be the "ghost" limb sensation for someone who has lost one. That person doesn't lose their limb every time the sensation comes and goes away -- it was lost before and after the incident. It may be painful sure, but who says that recovery and healing is without pain? One of the leading methods of treating PTSD being studied is having combat veterans relive a similar incident through a controlled environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One thing that bugs me is that people think trigger warnings are to make sure people don't get offended. Being triggered is not the same thing as being offended. Being triggered is about having _a fucking panic attack, hyperventilating, feeling like you 're having a heart attack and you're about to die_.

Panic/anxiety attacks are not a silly little thing. They were portrayed somewhat accurately in Netflix's recent Jessica Jones (she even uses a common grounding tactic to prevent them, like street names from childhood), and in Love and Mercy, that biopic of the Beach Boys' frontman. Having had close experiences with people who have panic attacks and see them getting triggered by being reminded of certain incidents, I can tell you that panic attacks are not fun, and those suffering from them are not faking, nor are they being whiners. With time, it's possible to get over your triggers, but it's a long healing process. During healing, trigger warnings are the same courtesy as signs saying that people with heart conditions or expectant mothers shouldn't get on certain carnival rides.

But people now on the internet say stupid shit like "triggered much?" for what was once called "u mad bro?" And whether exaggerated or not, it seems that this kind of "triggering" is what UofC seems to be speaking out against. That's not what a trigger warning is for.

<comment><USER15> Even if a meaningful percentage of the people clamoring for trigger warnings had a legitimate psychological condition like PTSD (which, based on my interactions with such people at a large university, they don't), making everyone else accommodate their emotional state is not a rational, mature approach. If you have a problem, seek to treat it; don't try to foist it on everyone else.

<comment><USER7> Whether it's a rational approach depends on how costly the change is to make, and how much it helps.

Banning people discussing certain topics in public throughout a university is obviously too costly. Adding a brief note at the start of an article/lecture/etc. saying you're going to be discussing something is perhaps not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Safe spaces and banned trigger words creates the tendency for people to silo themselves in a echo chamber of their own ideas. This manifests itself later on in our population in the form of filtering friends and news who dissent against their opinion.

The rise of these recent techniques of protest are more a failure of our high schools and universities to provide sufficient visibility and importance to debate and discussion.

<comment><USER17> > silo themselves in a echo chamber of their own ideas

An immutable mind is a weak mind. If you have to silence your opponent in order to win, you really haven't done research. Both of these are at odds with the concept of an institute of _learning._

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's a subtle point that's getting overshadowed by the lightning rod discussions about trigger warnings and safe spaces.

The U of C is explicitly stating in this letter that if you don't agree with their values, don't come to the school.

This seems uncontroversial to me, but I think it's worth affirming that self- segregation is a valid social strategy. I know segregation is a loaded word, but that's because historically it was caught up in the exercise of power differentials.

Robert Putnam concluded ([http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...](http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/)) that diverse societies actually see a decline in civic life because there is more friction and distrust between individuals with different values. So there is such a thing as too much diversity, and diversity must be balanced with cohesion.

Moreover, diversity seen as social mixing is self-defeating since after enough social mixing everyone is the same and there is no more diversity. There is a happy medium whereby people can be tolerant and different at the same time. Indeed, tolerance and difference need each other to exist.

Segregation is abused when there is an exercise of a power differential, whether between individuals or groups.

So I'll strike the balance by saying, "You have the right to segregate yourself from others and hold exclusionary values as long as you do not use force to impose those values on others."

If you disagree with this statement, I'd ask you to examine how many ways you segregate yourself from others. Do you befriend anyone? Do you date anyone? Do you work with or hire anyone? Everyone engages in this behavior because we are social animals and shared values are necessary for society.

In the long term perhaps human society will become universally shared, at which point many of these controversies will be moot. However that is not the case now so we should allow communities of like-minded individuals to form and share values that differ from the values of others. Indeed we should always allow this, because there will always be minorities no matter how homogeneous the dominant culture is.

<comment><USER19> Well put.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Some 18 year olds fight in wars and die. Other 18 year olds cry and throw tantrums when someone says a word that they don't like hearing. The world we live in!

<comment><USER21> As it happens, veterans as a group have a high incidence of PTSD, which is what trigger warnings are supposed to be about.

<comment><USER22> I'm not aware of any veterans with PTSD ever asking for trigger warnings though.

<comment><USER23> That doesn't mean they can't benefit from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > "When you read something that makes you angry, stop for a moment and answer > two questions: who wants you to be angry, and why?"

Something my father once told me, that has served me well over the years.

There's a lot of money (read: clicks) to be made by manufacturing outrage, and there's far too much to be angry about in this world to be inventing any more of it. Maybe this is something you should be angry about, maybe it isn't. But unless you like being mad you owe it to yourself to think about those questions before making a decision.

For this thing in particular, it doesn't make any sense without context. I'm not at the University of Chicago, and nor is anybody I know. Are "sjw pc trigger-warningers" a problem there? Or is the university being ridiculous? We can argue back and forth forever whether "safe spaces" are good or not depending on your definition -- which definition is the one that is relevant at the University of Chicago? This letter may make perfect sense in the context of current issues going on at the university. Or it may be a load of bull. But, at least from where I'm sitting, I have no context. And whoever uploaded this didn't provide any. What was their purpose? Who knows. Definitely not enough justification for me to worsen my mood about it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I remember someone a while back posted a lecture page from CMU. They support Trigger Warnings. And a few papers there had them.

It was a database course, I can only imagine "master/slave" terminology.

So I was wondering, how are Trigger Warning supposed to work? Can the student refuse to do the required reading and claim full credit because might be triggered, seems like it would open loophole.

That was just CS stuff. What about history, that's full of prejudiced offensive language and terminology. Can students avoid doing required work by claiming they'd be triggered?

Is there anyone undertaking an effort to sanitize records to "fix" the triggers. For example take some classic distributed system papers and search and replace master/slave with leader/follower?

I can understand wanting to have safe spaces. But I don't quite follow how trigger warnings resolve themselves in the context of classroom learning. Any recent grads have any experience with how this is handled?

EDIT: I think it was a link like this (even perhaps this exact course, just for last year).

[http://15721.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2016/schedule.html](http://15721.courses.cs.cmu.edu/spring2016/schedule.html)

\---

Concurrency Control III — Optimistic /!\

...

/!\ : Trigger warning: The material presented in this lecture uses explicit language and discusses certain situations in database management systems that may be triggering to some students.

\---

Are students allowed to pass without learning and being tested on Optimistic Concurrency Control in databases? If not, what is the purpose of the warning, just to have them mentally prepare for it?

<comment> vertex-four Allowing people to ensure that they're in a mental state to handle a topic before they handle it is reasonably important. Mind, in the case of master/slave, the term "trigger warning" is likely misused and a simple statement of "these used to be the standard terms for discussing this, now many people use leader/follower" is reasonable. Explaining historical context to things that may be upsetting can never be a bad thing, IMHO.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, it seems like CMU was overzealous in how it implemented this policy here. I would be surprised if a lot of students disagreed. It's annoying that people bring up examples like this to dismiss the concepts entirely, because obviously we can and should have a discussion on when they're useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is a really hard topic to think about.

On the one hand, I worry that we're moving towards a mind-police driven society where we actively discourage people from saying anything that goes against the grain of society. Be it by activist groups, or algorithms optimizing for clicks and user retention.

On the other hand, it is important to be courteous to each other and not upset people needlessly. Discussions should give people the option to bud out and not participate, if they feel they cannot do so.

On the third hand, maybe we've always lived in a society where we actively discourage participation by anyone who is perceived as upsetting the group and nothing new is happening.

Then again, I think people should be actively encouraged to entertain stances and opinions other than their own. Being upset and offended can often be a good thing.

<comment><USER28> On the _third_ hand? Now you've triggered my alien phobia!

Seriously, though, reasonable people should behave reasonably, and a lot of the problems go away. But we aren't talking about reasonable people; we're talking about college kids. I remember myself as I was then, and I was a jerk. I was much more concerned with winning (in whatever form) than being reasonable or nice or considerate. So... yeah, the administration probably needs some guidelines rather than relying on the reasonableness of the students.

I said "needs some guidelines", but that isn't actually what Chicago is doing here. They're stating that they follow some values, and that you shouldn't go there if you can't go along with those values. This is a better approach, because values are actually a better guide than rules (somebody can always find a set of circumstances that the rules don't cover, especially if they want to).

<comment><USER18> Good point about values being better than rules. Values are also a much more inexpensive way to observe norms than rules, in addition to being more effective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Safe spaces used to mean "say anything you want, face no judgement."

Now it means, "don't say anything that might offend someone."

</comment><comment><USER30> This seems like a good way to define what makes the school different. If you like this, go there. If you don't like it, you can go somewhere that does have trigger warnings and safe spaces.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm teaching a journalism class this fall in which I've made David Simon's "Homicide" a required book. It's a terrific book overall, but I chose it because of its examination of the system as a whole. But as you can imagine, a book that involves following the Baltimore homicide department around unavoidably gets pretty grisly, even with Simon's treatment of it (that is, in the way The Wire is quite possibly one of the most boring shows ever about police work, while being also the best show on TV ever). There's lots of details about murders and rapes (the central event involves the rape and murder of a child).

That said, it is a journalism class, and students who actually become journalists should expect to report on such traumas on a fairly regular basis. So I don't feel that concerned about using the book for journalism class. I'll probably warn students not to read the chapter about autopsies while eating. If I were in another liberal arts/humanities departments, I might take pause (but I have no idea what it's like to be an instructor in any other departments, so don't take my opinion as having any insight to other departments or their proclivities)

</comment><comment><USER32> Bad move, Chicago. If the kids don't learn how to use trigger warnings and safe spaces at school, how will they know how to use all of the trigger warnings and safe spaces in the real modern world after they graduate?

<comment><USER26> Speech in real life is way more limited than in college. You can say things you'd be fired for, be a total asshole, say racist things, and get a slap on the wrist in college.

<comment><USER32> There is a world outside the workplace.

<comment> vertex-four And, weirdly enough, you can also generally choose who you interact with outside the workplace. If you don't want to hang out with people who refuse to stop smoking weed around you when asked? Fine. If you don't want to hang out with people who refuse to stop talking about rape around you? Also fine! Just want to be told when there's likely to be something uncomfortable coming up? Yup, you have a right to hang out with people who respect you enough to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have never understood the discomfort around trigger warnings. Society has used them forever in areas that are considered sensitive. When the news warns you they're going to show graphic footage or that a story involves sex - <USER2> are trigger warnings. It's simply displaying common minimum level of empathy for the experiences of others.

Safe spaces are more complicated and (inherently) restrictive and so I understand the discomfort around those too. You can allow controversial / awful groups to exist (Nazis, KKK, etc) and provide trigger warnings for their events. Indeed, I would think that having 'opposition' groups and hosts provide their own sets of trigger warnings would be a fantastic introduction to outsiders.

</comment><comment><USER34> There seems to be whole lot of slippery-slope happening in this thread. Asking people to respect trigger warnings for the most common types of PTSD (generally, rape/sexual abuse) does not lead inevitably to banning everything that anyone has every been uncomfortable with. This is about _reasonable_ accommodation.

Consider the example of disability laws: you're required to install a wheelchair ramp/lift if an employee needs it; you're not required to let a quadraplegic person be a lifeguard.

<comment><USER35> If we coddle people in wheelchairs, they'll never learn to wheel themselves up stairs. In the real world, there are stairs everywhere and they need to get used to that. I sprained my ankle one time in college and I crutched my way up the stairs just like everyone else. Why can't they do the same?

<comment><USER36> Except mental handicaps are not as well understood as physical handicaps. Trying to accommodate every single mental handicap in society is futile and expensive.

<comment><USER35> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> As someone who has difficulty listening to many subjects (I am extremely prone to depression) I still think this is a good move: If you have difficulty with a topic, pretending it doesn't exist won't help you.

</comment><comment><USER38> Am I missing something, or doesn't safe space just = Library / Dorm room ?

Maybe add some headphones so you can't hear anything....

<comment><USER39> In practice, it basically means "club room where people who don't like the club aren't allowed in".

<comment><USER40> more like "club room where people who _aren 't liked by the club_ aren't allowed in"

<comment><USER39> Yes, that's usually the complaint that people who don't like safe spaces add. It always seems to me like the people who trumpet that loudest easily fit into the "don't like the club" category, though.

<comment><USER41> That is not a counterargument, it is an ad hominem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> U Chicago's letter is essentially a single, all-encompassing trigger warning to the incoming freshmen.

</comment><comment><USER43> My concern with all the attention given to college based safe spaces, trigger warnings, rape culture, social justice, weed culture, athletic program scandals, etc. is that practical minded children from working poor families will just assume college is an alcohol-fueled summer camp for rich kids and jocks that doesn't teach real world skills.

That's what I thought at 16 after seeing Animal House and having never visited a college campus. Fortunately someone insisted engineering is a practical degree that I should consider. But had that person not influenced me, I would have just went to Apex Tech which gives you a box of tools and a "diploma" in 6 weeks.

</comment><comment><USER44> The University also seeks to eliminate so-called 'spoiler warnings'.

54 percent of students said the climate on campus prevents some people from saying what they believe because they are fearful of looking like assholes.

<comment><USER45> Where did you find that? I've been trying to find any data from the campus climate surveys, but most links are just about who participated.

<comment><USER46> That's not what the quote said, nor the context of it, the parent was trying to equate 'offending others' as 'being an asshole'.

The actual quote is "54 percent of students said the climate on campus prevents some people from saying what they believe because they are fearful of offending others."

<comment><USER45> Oh lol, it was in this article. I had already read a couple sources and was just looking at comments. I thought actual data had been released from the climate survey that the school did this spring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> When an irrational reaction to common stimuli stopped being a concern of only the person afflicted and their doctor?

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm not clear why people on both sides of the debate seem to be interpreting "trigger warnings" as "no triggers allowed." It's meant to be exactly what it sounds like, a advance warning of upcoming content, so that vulnerable people can take appropriate action. That doesn't mean that such content should be forbidden, or that sexual assault victims should get credit for a course that they didn't attend; just that they can prepare themselves mentally, and decide in advance if that credit is worth the pain and discomfort it may cause.

I've had to help a friend having a sobbing panic attack because someone made a stupid rape joke and triggered her PTSD. It's not a laughing matter. But it's not an excuse for censorship, either.

<comment><USER15> The emotionally healthy approach is to try and deal with stress disorders, not to shield everyone from every possible stressor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Brilliant move on the part of the University. This is actual intelligent PR during the current pathetic climate of what is making headlines at Universities nowadays.

People want to go to a university to grow. Growth is not retreat. Strength is not capitulation. Employees want to know that a graduate has a mental resilience along with the skillsets learned.

</comment><comment><USER49> Are there any proposed metadata schemes for including trigger-warning-like info in, say, web pages?

</comment><comment><USER50> We just need a large enough group to make a fuss over blockages of discourse being a trigger for them. And that they need safe spaces where they can openly communicate without fear imposed on them of possibly triggering someone else.

</comment><comment><USER51> Post WWII, an entire generation of soldiers who had seen some of the most horrific scenes of war entered university on the GI Bill and made it through their education without trigger warnings.

The students at the U of C will be fine.

</comment><comment><USER52> What I find rather interesting, is that throughout human history we never had a need for trigger warnings until now. We've had slavery, 2 world wars, famine, countless horrors inflicted on a countless number of people. Nobody asks for it.

Then I look to the third world there we have things like female genital mutilation, are the women who had that horror put upon them concerned with trigger warnings? Nope. Not as far as I can tell.

Why here, why now? Are modern first world citizens mentally weaker somehow? I posit that it these types of policies may do more harm than good long term.

<comment><USER35> Well the US has had obscenity laws in place until recently. It's just that the people who decided what was "upsetting" were politicians rather than students and had the power to get rid of it completely.

<comment><USER52> In practice those laws rarely if ever were applied to college classroom or similar event. Speech within a private facility by individuals has always been protected.

<comment><USER35> Well yeah, but if a book can never get published because of obscenity laws, it will never be discussed in a classroom. The law doesn't even need to be actually enforced very often to have an effect. The fact that authors know that their books might be labeled as obscene will make them censor themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> How did universities evolve from spaces meant to evoke controversial and provocative thought (like the birth of the free speech movement at UC Berkeley) to the "safe spaces" of today? If a university is meant to enrich you, one worthy lesson is the ability to "agree to disagree in a cordial fashion". If you disagree or feel threatened by a line of thought, make your voice heard. Receding into a safe space won't prepare you for the real world.

<comment><USER54> I'm guessing it started in the 90s when progressive social scientists edged out political dissenters from their departments, and began pushing their political orthodoxy as "science" to an already left-leaning campus who ate it up (confirmation bias and whatnot).

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> At a time when many prestigious private schools had Jewish quotas for students and faculty, the U of C did not.

There should never be bans of free speech consistent with that of the First Amendment (i.e, you can't shout "Fire" in a movie theater).

I hope that there is a law passed that universities that block free speech as many have, are not allowed to receive federal funds in the form government grants for faculty, and financial aid for students.

<comment><USER56> > There should never be bans of free speech consistent with that of the First > Amendment (i.e, you can't shout "Fire" in a movie theater).

Freedom of speech and the First Amendment are two different things (and I'll note that there is _no_ limiting clause in the first amendment), and I think it would be helpful if people realized this. Freedom of speech is a broader principle that is (IMO) a good idea independent of any legal enshrinement of the law.

<comment><USER55> I'm not certain, but I think there was a Supreme Court ruling that said you can't shout, "Fire" in a movie theater as an action of free speech or the First Amendment.

At any rate, people pay good tuition money to get an education and part of an education is the free exchange of ideas.

<comment><USER56> Yes, the Supreme court has given many "passes" to the government to regulate your free speech, but what I was saying is that it's important to separate the concept of "free speech" from the legal institutions that attempt to prevent their restriction (by the government). There are many situations where it is legally allowed for someone to curtail your freedom of speech, and that is independent of whether or not it is a good idea for that person to exercise their right to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I think this should be a requirement for any university that wants accreditation and certainly all state-run institutions. This is a bold statement not for the Uni. of Chicago, but for every other university that does not have a similar policy in place. Sorry, but you _cannot_ get a proper education with trigger warnings and safe spaces. Therefore, those institutions that do not have the courage to stand up for _education_ should lose their accreditation. Until we start holding institutions and individuals responsible for their actions, however, this will not happen, and holding institutions and individuals responsible for their actions is not something that, at least in the US, we know how to do well or at all.

<comment> norea-armozel So student associations shouldn't be allowed to not allow certain people into their meetings if they're found to be abusive? Because that's the point of a safe space if you didn't know. It's not unlike support groups who can and will eject people who are known to be abusive or otherwise disclose information outside the support group without permission of all members. So, to say that safe spaces shouldn't be allowed is a bit questionable because people take safe space to mean the entire university campus and annexes rather than private spaces of student associations, sororities, and fraternities. And as for trigger warnings, I think they too have a place at least in terms of notifying students if certain topics will be discussed in the class. If that's too much to ask as well then I'm glad I'm not going to the University of Chicago.

<comment><USER58> No, because the statement expressly says "freedom of expression does not mean the freedom to harass or threaten others."

<comment><USER59> Not really, your freedom ends when you diminishing someone else freedom. Harassing and threatening do not make people less free. Even Mozart was considered offensive some times, some people was triggered and described his music as immoral . So, freedom of expression should be without any restriction, except when it stepping on freedom of other people.

<comment><USER28> But that's a different topic. "You can say anything you want" is different from "you can say anything you want _in our meeting_ ".

Saying that Mozart can compose anything he wants is different from saying that the symphony _has_ to play it, and that I _have_ to go.

<comment><USER59> Yes, but in education, this is dangerous way. Whole point of science is to critique, if you are triggered by facts, and university bans "hostile" ideas you can not even discuss it. There is a place and time, but you should have a right to oppose creationism, for example. At least you should be not afraid to ask questions or state facts. And if everything is safe space, and everybody is triggered this is totally oppose to scientific principles and contradicts whole point of education.

edit: "you can say anything you want in our meeting" in practical terms, if there is a meeting about wage gap, you should be able to state facts that contradicts narrative, and not be afraid that you will be force to apologize for trigerring or even quit university

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> "Please don't use uppercase for emphasis."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER4> Fixed, but I really did want to yell.

<comment><USER60> Understood, and thanks. Since it's no longer relevant I've detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361418](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361418) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The "so called" part of the announcement feels like it's meant to be particularly patronizing. "You rassafrassin youngsters, with your so-called rap music and trigger warnings!"

<comment><USER61> It is meant to be a nod to the intellectual bankruptcy of the entire concept of safe spaces and trigger warnings. Taken to their logical conclusion, these policies would lead to a gutting of the entire premise of a liberal education, which is what the University of Chicago has always sought to provide (source: proud alumnus, particularly today). You simply cannot protect people from ideas they disagree with while also fostering vigorous intellectual debate and growth.

<comment><USER62> There is a difference between safe spaces meant to coddle ignorant privileged white kids from having to hear ideas they've never heard before, and safe spaces as a refuge for marginalized students who need a break from racist, classist, bigoted, body shaming, heteronormative, colonial, hegemonic treatment from others on campus. There is a difference between privileged white kids demanding trigger warnings for topics that call out their privilege and a rape survivor needing a trigger warning so they don't have to watch a rape scene in an assigned movie and have a PTSD flashback and nightmares for 2 nights in a row.

<comment><USER63> Any pertinent examples of "privileged white kids demanding trigger warnings for topics that call out their privilege?" I've never heard of an incident where conservative kids on campus demanded that a progressive speaker's event be canceled – all of the incidents I've seen in the news have been the other way around. (Of course, the news does tend to have its own narratives it wants to push ...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Old man yells at cloud.

</comment><comment><USER65> They don't want students to have any spaces where they feel safe/accepted? That's weird.

<comment><USER66> > They don't want students to have any spaces where they feel safe/accepted? > That's weird.

Why would a student need a special space to feel safe/accepted? Doesn't the university already provide students basic safety?

<comment><USER13> No, students get harassed and raped at a pretty high rate. And suicide is the #2 cause of death among young adults. Physical security and "acceptance" is a big public health issue.

<comment><USER67> thays just not true - the rate of rape and sexual assault is lower for college students (at 6.1 per 1,000) than for non-students (7.6 per 1,000).

[1] [http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/12/14/campus- rape...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/12/14/campus-rape-uva- crisis-rolling-stone-politics-column/20397277/)

<comment><USER65> The Instapundit is attempting to debunk public-health assessments of the incidence of sexual assault with crime-report data, when a key argument of anti-rape activists is that rape/sexual assault largely goes unreported. And given the way that women are treated who make allegations of domestic violence, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, I would not be surprised if that is correct.

<comment><USER13> The study cited in that link (which I link directly below) says 20% of students who admitted to being raped said they reported it to police, compared to 32% of non-students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This statement by the University is willfully ignorant. The University provides an officially sanctioned LGBTQ Safe Space ([https://lgbtq.uchicago.edu/page/safe- space](https://lgbtq.uchicago.edu/page/safe-space)). Clearly the University isn't ensuring that people who think gay people are evil are also represented in those safe spaces. Furthermore, some ideas are clearly off limits. The University is not going to allow and promote legitimate arguments about whether the Holocaust was justified, or whether we should return to slavery and colonialism.

The point of contention is and always has been which spaces, why, and for what reasons. The University is clearly not ignorant of the nuances of this debate, and if it wanted to commit itself to rigorous debate, it could do so while respecting that there is a valid rigorous debate to be had about this policy.

<comment><USER68> >Furthermore, some ideas are clearly off limits. The University is not going to allow and promote legitimate arguments about whether the Holocaust was justified, or whether we should return to slavery and colonialism.

Why are certain topics off limits? If someone wants to give a talk about why they believe the Holocaust is justified they should be free to do so, just as I am free to ignore it or go argue he's wrong.

<comment><USER26> Please show me an accredited University that has done that. This is not a view any university shares, for good reason.

<comment><USER18> Not exactly the same, but Northwestern U has an avowed Holocaust denier on its faculty who is protected by tenure.

Institutions matter more than shared values sometimes.

<comment><USER26> Contingent on the fact that: "Butz has made clear that his opinions are his own and at no time has he discussed those views in class or made them part of his class curriculum." If he were to represent his opinions as the views of the University, or in the classroom, they would remove him.

To me, that seems not only consistent with the principle of a "safe space," but the definition of it.

NU also supports safe spaces: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-to- create-inclus...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-to-create- inclusive-campus-communities-first-create-safe- places/2016/01/15/069f3a66-bb94-11e5-829c-26ffb874a18d_story.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Industrial Designer Ron Arad Reinvents The Wheel For A Smoother (Bike) Ride - <AUTHOR> http://crispgreen.com/2011/11/designer-ron-arad-reinvents-the-wheel-for-a-smoother-ride/

<comment><USER2> This article is a bit unquestioningly gushing - although I love the creativity and concept. For starters, I can't see how it has any lateral grip. Nor is it explained how it negates the need for a hub or bearings. I assume disk brakes are used, but that's left to the imagination.

How I wish there was a news source which got down with the technicals. Thinking about it, that's the space that HN comments fill.

<comment><USER3> > For starters, I can't see how it has any lateral grip.

I thought that too. He rides the bike in the video but notice that he only goes straight and makes no turns, doesn't accelerate or decelerate very fast. There's no way there's any traction there. Now if it were covered with rubber it might work nicely.

<comment><USER4> Even covered in rubber you'd have basically no traction when turning. Bicycle wheels are rounded so they still have a decent contact patch when turning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks like a variation of the Tweel: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel> It's drawbacks are noise and heat, this one looks like it at least has the noise problem. At high speeds it probably has the heat problem as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm no engineer, but I imagine there would be substantial energy loss through the movement within the wheel. Not to mention lack of traction with the road.

Looks like another solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Bicycle wheels are light, cheap and can be adjusted easily by changing the air pressure.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hello rolling resistance? Goodbye traction?

</comment><comment><USER8> A better title: Industrial Designer Ron Arad Reinvents The Wheel For an Interesting look

If you want a really smooth ride, get a fat tired 29er, put smooth but fat commuting tires on it and pump them up to as low an air pressure as possible.

It'll still have less rolling resistance than this, be quieter and smoother. It'll be horrible for any real purpose (like, say, riding...), but it will absorb road bumps well.

<comment><USER9> Actually, they fail to demonstrate the smooth ride. The ride in the movie is on a clean road, with no bumps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author of this article doesn't appear to know anything about bikes.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if the metallic sounds during the ride were added after, or if they're the result of reducing other sounds from the video. If they're from just turning the volume down, I can't imagine these would be very widely used. Given the street sounds in the beginning of the ride, I'm thinking they might _actually_ be that much louder than a car.

</comment><comment><USER12> Did anyone else see those and think of the smartwheels that YT's board had in _Snow Crash_? Granted, the wheels pictured aren't actually "smart", in that they don't dynamically alter their rigidity to compensate for detected imperfections, but they're a damn good start towards a mechanism for building smartwheels.

<comment><USER13> chiseled spam... yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It goes to show how elegant and simple the humble bicycle is. I enjoy cycling because it's fast, efficient and peaceful. I'm not sure that this design meets that criteria at all. It might look pretty when viewed at certain angles but on the whole (particularly after hearing the sound it makes) I think its ugly.

Yet the traditional bicycle wheel with spokes works surprisingly well. It's light weight, rigid and overall quite simple. I'm averaging about one broken spoke a year at the moment but it's not too difficult to replace.

Though certainly there are incremental improvements that are useful, such as making frames/components lighter while maintaining the same strength through the use of various alloys. But I don't think I'll be changing to these new wheels anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER15> A mesmerizing design, but yea, doesn't seem practical when you think about traction. Still with some modifications, it's nice to know that we could still have bikes if rubber suddenly disappears!

</comment><comment><USER16> I had to click around a bit to find the video. Here it is:

<http://vimeo.com/30555070>

</comment><comment><USER17> I am surprised this design works: I would have thought that all those pieces of metal deforming would absorb a lot of energy and slow you down.

If it were an ideal spring, E would be conserved, but I am not sure for this structure. It is reminiscent of the old style automobile suspensions.

<comment><USER18> It DOES slow you down. can't you notice on the video? They guy is pedaling standing up and it barely moves.

btw, this is the same concept that forces racers to use slim tires. less cushioning, but less drag.

<comment><USER19> It's almost exactly like the tires are always flat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What would the equivalent of a popped tire look like? I couldn't help picturing shrapnel..

</comment><comment><USER21> It might look interesting for when you're riding at <10 mph to your local coffee shop, but I would not want to make a tight turn at 20 mph or rely on the lower coefficient of friction when making an emergency stop.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is it louder? Is it heavier? Is it less able to stop and turn at a moments notice?

Certainly innovative, but does this make things better?

<comment><USER23> It sounds louder. It looks heavier. Quack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> wear a helmet, please

<comment><USER25> helmet? Pfft. How about attaching some brakes!

Ugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's art. not design.

design is the marriage of form and function.

</comment><comment><USER18> See the video. it's the bumpest ride of all history.

utter crap. and i'm not even trying to figure out how to break!

if you want "A Smoother Ride" get a 29er</comment>


The Dweetabase - <AUTHOR> https://dweetabase.3d2k.com/ <comment><USER2> Dweets are pretty nifty. I'm constantly amazed at what people can accomplish in so few characters of code. To me it feels like magic. It reminds me of visualisations made for WinAmp back in the day, there too the community came up with some fantastic things.

I use some of these as indefinite loading indicators on my web service (with permission and attribution of course), since many of them look perfect for the task. :)

Here is the original site of the dweeting community: [https://www.dwitter.net/](https://www.dwitter.net/)</comment>


Delivering Happiness: The New Tribal Business Ethics - <AUTHOR> http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/06/delivering-happiness-tribal-business-ethics/ <comment><AUTHOR> If the article isn't loading for you... then I apologize for choosing [redacted] as a web host. I am looking for reasonably priced developer- friendly alternatives. (I want a shell, but not root.)

Here is Google's cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cac...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache:www.zacharyburt.com&btnG=Search)</comment>


Turbo Pascal navigational aids that saved my life in 1991 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/timonoko/sextant/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> This is some code that I could just enjoy reading for probably hours.

</comment><comment><USER3> more submissions like this please!

</comment><comment><USER4> "The devilish tide current appeared to be totally random and followed none of the god-given rules and laws."

Bill O'Reilly: I'll tell you why it's not a scam. In my opinion, all right? Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that. You can explain why the tide goes in…

David Silverman: Tide goes in, tide goes out…?

O'Reilly: Yeah, see, the water — the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always comes in…

Silverman: Maybe it's Thor up on Mount Olympus who's making the tides go in and out…

O'Reilly: No no, but you can't explain that… you can't explain it…

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb3AFMe2OQY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb3AFMe2OQY)

</comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one who, upon reading the title, thought it was about menu shortcuts? (It's not). Talk about feeling silly...

</comment><comment><USER6> Some lisp files there too. Interesting.

<comment><USER6> Most likely targeting his own Lisp implementation: [https://github.com/timonoko/nokolisp](https://github.com/timonoko/nokolisp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Look, I'm sure this is cool and all, but British Columbia is a LOT of wilderness. You can get lost in the back country pretty easily if you don't know what you're doing, and you can also lose your life ocean kayaking without proper local knowledge. Every year there's a ton of news about clueless tourists who either vanish or have to be rescued by SAR.

"Then I started paddling from Vancouver city to the west in 1991. I did not understand them tides. I did not know you can get pretabulated tables. I was paddling against tides most of the time. Somewhere between Kelsey Bay and Telegraph Cove there was 2 weeks period of fog and rain. I totally lost it. I was running out of food."

How on Earth do you think to go on a multi week ocean kayaking trip and not take tide tables.

<comment><USER8> There's a line of thought that highly original thinkers can be so biased toward "I can figure it out myself"\--that is, they get so many happy brain chemicals from the activity, or whatever--that referential thinking becomes their critical blind spot. Referential thinking involves consulting others' measurements and advice; tide tables fall into that category.

Once you build your own navigational mental model and realize you know how to navigate from first principles, as he did, I'm sure it becomes almost intoxicatingly tempting to get out into open water.

<comment><USER9> The author has many other similar trip reports on his home page at [https://timonoko.github.io/](https://timonoko.github.io/). In the 1992 report (in Finnish) he already says that the tide chart and vhf radio are must haves. At least he wasn't too stubborn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find it amazing he was recording video of his trip from 1991, the camera must have been huge!

<comment><USER7> Huge compared to a modern camera, but probably not vhs or betamax size gargantuan. Hi8 or vhs-c format cameras existed in 1991.</comment></comment>


The Harsh Realities of iOS App Distribution - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/21/iterations-the-harsh-realities-of-ios-app-distribution/

<comment><USER2> Getting people to care about something is hard, what else is new. If you build a genuinely great product, distribution will be a lot less of a problem. Many users will tell their friends, journalists will be receptive.

If you build a 'meh' product, yep, you're going to have a hard time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi David, I definitely agree with you. But there have been a few occasions, at least, where I've seen a great product and they have initial downloads, but it's tough to keep sticky. Again, this isn't an apology, but I believe the burden rests solely on app makers in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It helps to recognize that the iOS app store is only a distribution mechanism for most developers. Distribution is not a problem. The problem is marketing. But marketing is a problem for most developers anyway, doesn't matter if you are building iOS apps or web apps.

So market.</comment>