3D Game Engine in Lisp - <AUTHOR> http://elliottslaughter.com/2011/06/blackthorn-3d <comment><USER2> I worked on this project doing most of the input coding (XBox 360 controller & keyboard), some of the game loop & networking, and some of the game play. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer as best as I can remember -- it's been a few weeks since I've worked on it.

Elliott's site seems to be down, but our code is open source:

<http://code.google.com/p/blackthorn-engine-3d/>

You'll find our project development notes for the class (status reports, some of the initial planning, final report, etc.), along with the code, screen shots from various points in the development, etc.

A lot of things are probably still a bit messy there; we only had 10 weeks during the course to hack the engine together. (Although I believe Elliott's been continuing work on generalizing it since the end of the school year.)

<comment><USER3> Any opinion on which elements were particularly nice to code due to choosing Lisp? What about anything where choosing Lisp gave you particular trouble?

<comment><USER2> Most of the team was unfamiliar with Lisp starting out, so that was an extra challenge to it -- only Elliott was an expert, and only one other person had actually used Common Lisp as far as I recall. I had some prior exposure to Clojure (although not recent), Python (what I usually use for many of my personal projects), and Haskell. Trying to use an unfamiliar language for a fairly serious project in a group setting like this was something of an experiment in itself.

This lead to a lot of the sorts of problems that you face when you're just learning a new environment. As such, most of the code is probably not idiomatic Lisp, although we picked up enough to get something written fairly quickly. A lot of the places where things like macros or functional programming could have been used to simplify things were missed due to lack of familiarity with the way things are done in Lisp. Looking back on my input code for example, there's an enormous amount of repetition that I could probably factor out -- and that would have been quite handy around week 8 or 9 of the project, since I needed to extend the controls. One feature that we found quite handy though were multimethods.

We didn't have too many problems with performance once the game was running, although we were running mostly on fairly decent machines. Starting things up with the load and compile was rather slow though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Might be worth mentioning in this context that the Crash Bandicoot games were in a Lisp.

<comment><USER5> And the developer continues to use Scheme (on top of the standard C++ SDK) to power their most recent games: Uncharted and Uncharted 2, two of the most critically acclaimed games of all time.

I'd definitely call Naughty Dog a Lisp gaming success story... Abuse is another (but not _that_ successful).

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Oriented_Assembly_Lisp>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember peeking at log or configuration files (can't remember well) of Age of Empires 2 and seeing them full of S-Expressions.

<comment><USER7> It was, though it was basically imperative code wrapped in sexps.

EDIT: It was for scripting AI "personalities".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really cool. I have no idea what is going on, though.

Is this a senior project? I'm unfamiliar with the course numbering at your school.

I'd love to see it even non-commercial open-source, I have some game ideas I'd like to implement (about 2 projects down the pipe. :D), but don't feel up to putting together a graphics engine.

<comment><USER9> Project is here with video and link to the course as well: <http://code.google.com/p/blackthorn-engine-3d/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Site should be back up. Congrats on taking it down =)

</comment><comment><USER11> The page doesn't seem to load for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> As pointed out by biot earlier, <http://code.google.com/p/blackthorn- engine-3d/> has the code and a video.</comment></comment>


Seasteading: Cities on the ocean - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21540395?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/citiesontheocean <comment><USER3> Much of the commentary on seasteading is underinformed. It doesn't have to be "libertarian", as the concept can just as equally be used to build states for progressives, or North Korean refugees, or any displaced or oppressed people.

The engineering issues exist, but cruise ships are a pretty good proof-of- concept. Cruise ships show that we can get stable, luxurious accomodations at a per-day cost that is on par with an expensive hotel (2-3X SF Bay Area daily rent). The only question is the extent to which we can improve on that.

Hacker News will get a lot out of the full Seasteading book, which anticipates most arguments and goes through many interesting details, from structural engineering through power, water, food, and cost.

<http://seasteading.org/book_beta/full_book_beta.html>

<comment><USER4> I just read the whole book. Here are my comments:

1\. "Pilgrims." The author consistently makes comparative references to pilgrims to the American continent. This is disingenious. For the homesteaders, the cost of expansion was very low. Their technological advantage allowed them to drive out the native inhabitants with relative ease. Their infrastructure requirements were minimal, but most importantly, there was fruitful land to be taken at very low cost.

Not so with seafaring. Your "land" must be planned and built up-front at substantial cost. Once you've built your "land", you're stuck with that design. You can't just take more "land", since it would require building an entire new platform, once again at substantial cost. What happens when your platform capable of supporting 1000 people can no longer support its growing population? Do you kick people off? Who decides who stays and who leaves? And who would be willing to live with the sword of Damocles over their heads, knowing that at some point in the future, they could be ousted by the council of elders, forced to leave their home and friends, to fend for themselves?

2\. Maintenance. The author is very opposed to taxation, and yet the very nature of seafaring incurs substantial maintenance costs. Who will bear those costs? Who will collect the funds? How will you handle disputes over the taxation rate, or people who refuse to pay?

3\. Wealth generation. This one was particularly poorly thought out. Tourism? The amount of space dedicated to tourism would have to be so huge to offset the living costs that I don't see this contributing in any meaningful way to economic surplus. Manufacturing dangerous goods? Space ports? Who would want to live near such places? All of the possibilities offered were of small economic value. Any balance of trade would tilt massively in favor of land based economies.

4\. Expulsion. How and when do you expel members of the community? Do you write a set of laws, with the more severe prescribing exile? How about people who fall behind in their financial obligations (i.e. taxation) for one reason or another (for example, someone gets sick and can't pay their bills on their salary)? That works well for those on the top, but for those at the bottom of the totem pole, it would be intolerable.

5\. Government. I realize that the author is a libertarian, but this worship of the "corporate" government as some sort of panacea is really naive. A corporation is a despotic form of government. Despotism is very well suited to small communities, but still suffers from the flaws of all governments: tyranny. Anyone who has spent time dealing with corporate politics will know how much it resembles swimming in shark infested waters. Political rot builds up, and is all but impossible to remove. Psychopaths make their way to the top and rule with an iron fist, making the company financially profitable, but a nightmare for those who work there.

6\. War. The author glosses over arguments of war by hand waving that it might not be as bad as with historical autonomous governments, or that "war drives away trade". Historically, this has not deterred those who bear a grudge. Furthermore, outright armed conflict is unlikely to be the norm. Far easier to simply sabotage the rival platform, since damage to a sea platform is orders of magnitude more devastating than damage to land.

7\. "You can just leave if you don't like it." This always makes me laugh. Leaving is not something simple like changing washing powder brands. Leaving involves uprooting your entire life, leaving friends & family, giving up all agreements, titles and numerous other intangible benefits, and then starting over with only whatever money you have in a new place where you don't know other people. The barrier is actually quite huge, especially when the community is small. It's even worse for people who are born on the platform, but don't agree with its politics. You know, just like libertarians who are born in a country but don't like its politics. You can always just leave, right?

<comment><USER5> Where exactly would one put a space port on a seastead? The minimum safe distance for a launch at Kennedy is something like 2 miles. And launching anything into space from a floating platform . . . let's just say that the basic laws of the universe are not on your side.

<comment><USER6> A detachable or detached launch platform would be trivially feasible -- at least at the scale of triviality in which one envisions seasteads in the first place.

We've been launching ballistic rockets from submerged platforms for ... oh, a half century or so now. Space launches for most intents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is one of the more outlandish ideas I've seen show up in The Economist. There are a mountain of hurdles to cross before you get to any kind of autonomous "state". Still, I hope someone tries it. Some casual observations:

* Would this be Bitcoins first big opportunity? For a Seastead to make the leap to true statehood, they'll need some kind of currency that isn't controlled by a foreign government. Bitcoin, with it's entirely decentralized design, would seem to fit the bill.

* The artricle makes some statements that these Seasteads could be used to prove the utopian Libertarian ideology. The notion that a small colony of a few hundred people are going to prove that _any_ ideology would work in a state the size of the US, France, U.K., etc is patently absurd. They'll ignore it, dismiss it, or find good reasons why mechanisms that work on a micro scale don't scale to larger nations.

* The article talks a lot about the need to be outside the jurisdiction of large nations like the US, and even mentions the willingness of the US to extend its jurisdiction pretty much anywhere in the world. The author seems to believe that if they stay away from the big-naughties, they'll be ok. I think he's wrong. If enough large corporations do the math and find that moving to an off-shore platform is a positive value proposition when compared to continuing to pay taxes, large, tax-dependent governments will find ways to replace the revenue. So you want statehood? You got it. Time to negotiate a trade agreement. How does a 60% tariff on all goods imported to our nation sound? Don't want to play ball? Embargo. Good luck with your 700 person economy.

* The last thing that strikes me is the monumental risk associated with building your entire nation on something that can sink. Literally. Say this idea eventually scales to $10,000 people. What is an acceptable level of safety for an entire population of that size? Lifeboats for everyone? Will the platform be sold as "unsinkable"? We know how that goes. Even land-based settlements face the risk of natural disaster, but it would seem the probabilities are greatly in favor of dry land.

<comment> T-hawk > If enough large corporations do the math and find that moving to an off- > shore platform is a positive value proposition when compared to continuing > to pay taxes

I think we can be reasonably confident that somebody in these large corporations has done that math. What this argument misses is that the comparison isn't seasteading vs US taxes, it's seasteading vs existing tax havens like Bermuda and the Channel Islands and Caymans. Those probably get you 90% of the way there on avoiding US and EU taxation, and would seem to be good enough that corps haven't had the need for seasteading or they'd already be doing it.

<comment><USER8> Yes, that's a good point. The advantage of seasteads is you can control the geography.

Another advantage is that you don't have a large native citizen population that you have to deal with. For example, on Bermuda the big reinsurers have to comply with local laws around hiring citizens (really how many genius level actuaries can an island nation produce - answer not many, you're going to have to bring in outside talent).

Yet another advantage is that it provides you choice. This is the biggest advantage of all. Even if all the current tax havens change their laws, groups of entrepreneurs can always create another one.

<comment><USER5> You're confusing incorporating with operating. Corporations are incorporated out of places like Bermuda, but they operate on the "mainlands" (US, Europe, Asia, India, etc.) Their physical presence in the country they incorporate in is usually limited to somewhere between a mailbox and a couple of hundred square feet of unoccupied office space. Their operating costs are the same as if they were incorporated in the country they actually operate in. The only thing they are avoiding is the taxes that would otherwise go to pay for the infrastructures they are operating on. The geography is of no concern to them and the risk of the large native citizen population doing anything to them is nearly indistinguishable from nil. The risk lies almost entirely in the political vicissitudes of the country they operate in that allows an essentially foreign company to operate within it's borders. A seastead does nothing to mitigate that risk. It just adds a whole bunch of extra operating costs to build and maintain a mailbox on the seastead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Although this post is rather off the HN path, people might appreciate a draft of a law paper I've coincidentally just written on the legal issues with doing these sort of things: <http://private.summerhilldesign.com/SeaLawPaper.pdf> (3rd year law student).

If this is too long, pg. 17 has a chart that shows how far out the different boundaries on the ocean. Starting at pg. 12 you'll see what things you can't do and pg. 24 has some conclusions. Might help take some of the "but that's illegal!" and "I don't think you can't do that" out of this discussion. Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER10> I've had this discussion with other people before, and I like to remind people of the first seasteading city : Venice.

It was built specifically to get away from people on the mainland, and thrived based on a platform of trade.

I'm not going to pretend it's a perfect example, but it is pretty interesting how one of the most powerful cities in the world at one stage was developed by deciding to build a settlement in the middle of the water, which was pretty high-tech for the time.

Of course the true power of Venice wasn't achieved until it acquired some mainland territory to shore up it's supply lines, so perhaps the lesson is that a seastead needs to be setup adjacent to a relatively weak nation state that can be reverse absorbed at some time (assuming a peaceful treaty rather than by force). There are plenty of caribbean + pacific islands that could fall into this task. It may not mean taking a whole country but simply signing a century-long lease over a portion, maybe like British Hong Kong or modern Guantanamo Bay. I'm sure plenty of poor nations would gladly accept rental revenues for a mostly unwanted piece of land.

As for revenue streams - if a settlement could be located somewhere climatically agreeable, and out of jurisdiction of sovereign states, simply having cheap alcohol + food, and gambling would be more than enough to get the cash rolling in. An off-shore casino could simply run tighter odds and more drinks and make it worthwhile for people to go to. After all, Monaco and Las Vegas used this to their advantage for a long time just by being places where gambling could exist.

I think it's a very novel idea and I hope someone tries it one day. If it's the same site I've seen before (TLDR) they posit the idea that the first attempt would likely be a re-purposed cruise ship. And don't forget, there is already a cruise ship ('The World') that is doing _something_ like this but mobile instead of stationary.

Bascially, instead of predicting what would or wouldn't work, someone should try it out and see what happens. Predictions of larger governments squashing it may turn out to be incorrect if the politicians of said governments find it to be convenient for their purposes.

</comment><comment><USER11> It is funny how deftly libertarians turn "freedom" into slavery. Note this passage in the end of the article:

"Indeed, as Mr Keenan notes, the most viable political model for a seastead may not be a libertarian democracy but an enlightened corporate dictatorship."

Yes it will probably be a dictatorship of some type, but I would not go so far as to assume it would be "enlightened." What will most likely happen is these will turn into floating work camps for poor desperate immigrants that have been promised a lot of money and then find themselves in a floating prison with no legal system to protect their rights.

<comment><USER12> Dictatorship does not imply slavery, and democracy does not imply freedom.

<comment><USER13> "...I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the urge to seastead comes from the same place as the urge to refactor code. "Let's just start over, it's bound to be way better because of all we've learned." But as well know, there is no guarantee that refactoring from scratch is going to produce a better product.

Modern states are like old codebases. They are a huge pain in the ass to maintain, BUT they also contain bug fixes and tweaks from 1,000+ solved problems. In fact all those fixes are probably why it is such a pain in the ass to maintain. That doesn't mean they aren't good fixes that are still relevant and necessary.

<comment><USER15> Uh, what you describe is rewriting, not refactoring... Refactoring is often a great investment, and is not done 'from scratch'.

I would question your assertion that modern states have 1,000+ solved problems. They have no unit testing, shoddy QA if any, etc. It's a bad analogy, imho. When they do generate a 'tweak' it is often not solving a problem, but generating more problems than it solves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _Until seasteaders are able to bank their money with independent, ocean-going financial institutions, they may not be able to escape the taxman's clutches._

You probably can't really escape the taxman's clutches anyway. It is mostly a matter of whom you pay, not if. Taxes exist to cover the costs of governing the people, providing infrastructure and services for the citizens and so on. Even if you can get unplugged from existing governments, someone has to pay for the infrastructure of the seastead and essential services. You can give it a different name, but charging your people to help pay these costs is basically the same thing as taxes. Not charging your people to help pay these costs would mean eventually sinking to the bottom of the ocean. These costs are likely to be relatively high, higher than what it takes to maintain roads and sewage and the like on land.

 _Unless a seastead were the size of Manhattan its citizens would have to forgo the cultural life, the parks and the wide choice of shopping and restaurants offered by large cities._

They might have to forego a lot of that anyway. I briefly considered applying for a job in Hawaii and I asked around regarding things like food in Hawaii (because I have special dietary needs). I was told basically that spam is a staple food, good luck getting meat and milk on a consistent/reliable basis as it sometimes isn't very available, things get flown in from far away so a lot of it is frozen not fresh, and what is available is quite pricey. There is plenty of sea food available, but I am allergic to shell fish and don't tolerate large quantities of fish well. In fact, I rarely eat fish.

A few years ago, I stayed in Port Aransas, Texas for a few days. I loved the place and have toyed with the idea of going back (as in living there). But I struggled to feed myself while there. There is a great deal of sea food and some very expensive restaurants and some real dives and a very limited grocery store. Given my dietary restrictions, these details made it a daily challenge to try to eat properly for my needs and I don't feel it really did an adequate job.

So if an island a short drive off the coast of Texas has challenges in offering "a wide choice of restaurants" and Hawaii has challenges with making sure food (in terms of variety and affordability) is consistently available, what on earth makes them think a floating platform will do better merely based on population size?

<comment><USER17> " good luck getting meat and milk on a consistent/reliable basis "

Maybe in 1950. Or on Niʻihau. But on the bigger islands it is no problem. There is a giant Safeway in the Manoa neighborhood of Oahu that is just as good as the one on Townsend in SF and there are many Foodland grocery stores. I lived there as a broke postdoc and had no trouble.

<comment><USER18> There is also the world's busiest Costco (they send execs there to learn how it works).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Defense costs for a seastead would be ruinous. A seastead is just another form of island. An island that's close to a land power will almost certainly need the deterrent effect of a strong navy --- its own or that of a friendly power --- if it wants to retain its independence. Strong navies are really, really expensive to build and maintain; a seastead probably would not be able to do either.

 _Example:_ Had it not been for the presence of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, mainland China probably would have invaded and conquered Taiwan in 1949 or 1950, or on any of a number of "crisis" occasions since then. It's no accident that whenever China rattles its saber about Taiwan, one or more U.S. aircraft carrier task forces moves into the Taiwan Strait.

 _Example:_ Had it not been for the presence of the Royal Navy, the Germans probably would have invaded and conquered England in 1940. The same is true of Napoleon in 1803, for that matter.

Economically, a seastead probably couldn't maintain the kind of navy needed for this task. England was able to maintain the Royal Navy in the 17th through 19th centuries, but it could draw on the resources of a growing empire. Today's Britannia doesn't come close to ruling the waves; it can't afford to.

Could a seastead get a strong, friendly power to extend its own navy's umbrella of protection, the way the U.S. has done with Taiwan? Possibly, but the friendly power would have to perceive a benefit to itself before it'd be willing to do so.

<comment><USER20> So you think the Germans or Chinese would want to invade the seastead? Do you think it's because the Germans/Chinese would want the seastead's land to extend their own borders?

<comment><USER21> I'd think it's typically not the land itself that they really want, it's the resources. If a Seastead were to become established and wealthy, you can bet it would eventually come under threat of attack.

<comment><USER8> My guess is that the wealth the Seastead generated would be more of the bits/bytes kind (i.e. financial wealth, wealth represented in contracts). I can't imagine a bunch of libertarians sitting in their seastead with big warehouses full of diamonds and gold. There are more effective places to store physical assets.

A seastead is not a perfect solution to freedom. There simply is no perfect solution. It simply creates another option. It's still possible for states to seize the assets of seasteaders, but being on a seastead makes it a bit more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really don't see the point of seasteads - escaping the law is not really feasible (you'll need supplies from a country, and if you do anything the US or other nearby countries don't like, you'll be cut off or heck, even torpedoed). There's plenty of land to build a small city on, much cheaper.

Even if you want a private island for your getaways, you can buy a big yacht for cheaper, anyway. Heck, even if you want to create a criminal haven, it's cheaper and easier to do it in some third world country by bribing everyone (Pablo Escobar and Cuba is a great example)...

<comment><USER20>
      "you'll need supplies from a country"

It's called importing. Most countries do it these days.

<comment><USER22> Yes, and when you decide to create your own country with your own laws, you'll either be importing at exorbitant fees or be embargoed by everyone...

<comment><USER8> Why would you be importing at exorbitant fees (relative to what an island nation would be paying anyways)?

And why would they be embargoed by everyone? Not even Cuba is embargoed by everyone. Why would everyone embargo a seastead inhabited by upper income individuals? In general the market is pretty responsive to wherever the money is.

<comment><USER5> Because you have to pay a shipper a lot of money to send a ship somewhere that doesn't have any exports to ship back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You can seen Peter Thiel's homage to Atlas Shrugged with funding this thing, but I think logistically its a little bit too much. I'm firmly in the libertarian camp, but things in this country would have to be pretty bad to move full time to a place like this.

Another cool idea is the possibility of creating self governing city's, with minimal regulation, inside of existing countries. Ex-Stanford economist Paul Romer is proposing ideas along these lines. If you partner with a country (Honduras is considering this) who give you land to set up an independent city, you could have the type of self-governing, anti-tax/regulation environment that libertarians yearn for. I can't see the US ever agreeing to something like this, but some countries would.

<comment><USER24> The "self governing city" concept you are talking about is called "Charter Cities", it is quite interesting and one can find more information about it at:

<http://chartercities.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I could not help it

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well. Share this quote

<comment><USER26> The man in Moscow I won't attempt to defend.

The Vatican will say that, as a Catholic, 10% of the bounty which God has enabled you earn should be donated to God in thanks.

The man in Washington will tell you that, in exchange for security and protection from outside threats, you will be required to contribute in proportion to your ability to pay (which is where far, far more of your money goes than to the bogeyman of the undeserving, lazy, workshy poor). Frankly I like to think of it as insurance against Red October.

Now, I don't for one minute think that the seasteaders would be able to provide infrastructure and security for the rich any cheaper than existing national governments, but I have to say that I consider going to such lengths to try and dodge them spectacularly miserly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think the key for Seasteading to be successful is to try to separate the engineering challenges, organizational challenges, economic/business model challenges, and political challenges.

Oil platforms and cruise ships do a great job of solving engineering, in a benign environment otherwise. As the article points out, large corporations are the best at this kind of megaproject.

I predict the first successful consumer seastead will be set up by a cruise line as a 2-3 week timeshare vacation/diving/excursion in a remote area, possibly with a jet airstrip. Somewhere too far from ports for cruises to comfortably visit, but with local interest.

Before that, we'll see natural gas fields in the middle of nowhere with either LNG facilities or downstream chemical production on a seastead nearby, and large labor force (relative to an extraction platform); thousands of people, possibly. Increasing resource/energy costs will support this.

We'll possibly also see temporary structures for disaster recovery, supply staging, etc. for military or relief work. The huge hospital ships (e.g. USNS Comfort) serve a role like this, as do aircraft carriers and LPDs; scaling up wouldn't be hard.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Nobody anticipated the immense variety of uses that would be dreamed up for > the internet, Mr Keenan observes, and the same may apply to...

...any idea you can think of. It's always possible there are upsides to an idea that could not have been imagined beforehand. Technology is littered with them. But it's useful to have some sense of the probability of such upsides, and we can get some idea by looking at those from the past, such as the internet.

The internet has been so successful because it provides communication, better than others in many respects. That's the benefit that makes it valuable to people; the specific technical features that produce it are secondary. There's a long history of improvements in communications technology that have been successful. There's even been the idea that the benefit of airline travel is communication (e.g. for business travel, a large segment).

We can ask if seasteading provides communication - and also if any new idea we might have provides communication. If it does, it will likely enable many unanticipated uses that require communication, and could be as wildly successful as the internet.

</comment><comment><USER28> China Mieville wrote a great piece ripping apart this concept: <http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/>

</comment><comment><USER29> Just been watching a documentry on floating homes in Amsterdam. Could be worth checking it out. Look for 'Amsterdam's Futuristic Floating City'. It's one of the Extreme Engineering series. Episode 7. I saw it on Discovery Science. Hth.

</comment><comment><USER30> The arguments here and elsewhere are all pretty much spot on. Lots of people like the 'concept' of being able to start fresh but few really internalize the challenges. One person I know feels it would be easier to privately colonize the Moon than to build a viable seastead.

That being said, there has been some interesting work in seawater chemistry that suggests you might precipitate out of seawater a form of concrete [1]. Of course it would be hard to precipitate out a _floating_ island but one might imagine building a 'reef equivalent' by growing it from the seafloor up. I personally don't think it is practical but I find the exploratory engineering entertaining and thought provoking.

[1] <http://www.build.new-atlantis.org/seacrete.htm>

</comment><comment><USER31> [http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2009/09/seastea...](http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2009/09/seasteading-without-that-warm-glow.html)

</comment><comment><USER32> We have enormous land still readily available far cheaper than ocean living. Barring a major breakthrough, this isn't going to change soon. As for the political reasons, we have plenty of liberal governments here on land. If you can escape a lousy government to get to a "Sea-Land", you can get to a normal country easier, and they're more likely to accept you. There just isn't a compelling reason for these, aside from frustrated libertarian fantasies.

</comment><comment><USER33> "THE Pilgrims who set out from England on the Mayflower to escape an intolerant, over-mighty government and build a new society were lucky to find plenty of land in the New World on which to build it." -- I love how the English think of the American colonial settlers versus how Americans do.

<comment><USER34> That, by the way, is a popular myth. It's closer to the truth to say that the Pilgrims sailed to America to _establish_ an intolerant, over-mighty government.

<comment><USER35> True, but they abandoned communism quite quickly when it's failures became obvious.

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/11/a_t...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/11/a_thanksgiving_.html)

<comment><USER34> I was speaking more to the lack of religious tolerance, but okay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Dear Somalian Pirates,

You're never going to believe this.

<comment><USER35> Dear Internet Guy who's clearly never sailed,

Have we mentioned our rubber dinghy's and fishing boats can only sail a few hundred kilometers?

<comment><USER37> I think the idea of security still exists, regardless of the viability of one particular group of pirates. Given a big enough target, someone will be motivated to come see what they can get. The question really is, what level of protection/security is necessary to defend a sea-stead?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Coming soon, Rife's Raft

<http://mslinder.wikispaces.com/Snow+Crash>

</comment><comment><USER39> Despite being on land, Guantanamo is a nice preview of non-"libertarian" implementation of seasteading.

</comment><comment><USER40> Libertarians don't need to build fake islands (and all the safe waters in which to do so long-term are already claimed). No, there is Vanuatu, the libertarian dream state.

Forget the usual cry of 'Somalia!' for libertarians. Vanuatu gives them what they want - miniscule government with few services offered, small police which doubles as the military. There is no income tax unless you own rental property. Defense is sorted as it's not strategically located against other countries. It's a tropical paradise and the people rate as the happiest in the world.

If libertarians really were going to spend resources on an island, why not save themselves some dosh and go to Vanuatu? I mean, apart from libertarians pretty much all having income reliant on high-tech skills that won't get much demand in an agrarian society.

There are places for libertarians to go in this world to experience what they claim they want, that aren't war-torn Somalia. They won't do it, because deep down they really want the goodies that come along with a society with complex government. If libertarians won't move to one of these countries, there's no way this fake island is anything but a pipe dream.

<comment><USER35> _..deep down they really want the goodies that come along with a society with complex government._

Which goodies, specifically?

Also, since most government programs are excludible (e.g., don't pay SS taxes, you don't get SS when you are old), do you feel libertarians would choose not to exit if given the option?

<comment><USER5> Off the top of my head, I'd say the internet which you are ironically posting this on. The electric lines that are powering your computer. The sewer pipes that carry your waste away from your living space. The streetlamps you travel under at night. The legal system that protects your property from anyone who wants to take it from you. Should I go on?

You know who didn't invent any of those things? The folks living in the liberterian paradise of Vanuatu.

<comment><USER35> The internet and electric lines are provided by Time Warner and ConEdison, respectively.

As far as I'm aware, few libertarians have any beef with streetlamps or preventing violence. Of course, like most people, you avoided the main issue - the majority of the US government (65%, see my other post on this topic) is not preventing violence or providing roads. It's redistributing wealth.

To bring up 35% of government spending while ignoring the other 65% is disingenuous.

<comment><USER5> If that's the question you wanted answered, it should have been the question you asked. Instead, you asked which goodies are provided by a society with a complex government structure.

Leaving aside the direct governmental involvement in the creation of the internet. Leaving aside the governmental influence in promoting the widespread use of electricity in the early 20th century. Time Warner and ConEdison don't exist without the complex governmental structures that define a corporation and provide the framework for them to operate.

There is a reason why corporations don't exist in places like Somalia. There is a reason why corporations who incorporate in places like Bermuda don't actually do anything in those places. It's no coincidence that the most technologically advanced nations on the planet are also the ones with the most complex governmental structures. They are inextricably linked. Without one, you simply don't have the other.

There's also the matter of the impact complex governmental structures have in protecting your private property. The little old lady at the county records office provides far, far more protection for your property than any gun ever will. Your private property exists because the government provides the framework for it to exist. Without things like car titles and property deeds, how long do you think it will be before someone just comes along and drives you out of your home so they can have it?

If libertarians ever really thought about how much of their comfortable existence relied on the government they hated so much, their heads would explode.

<comment><USER35> Again: virtually no libertarians have any objection to the enforcement of contracts, protection of property, etc. Most libertarians believe these are legitimate functions of the government, and that all governments should provide them.

You seem to be confusing libertarians with anarchists. It is anarchists who oppose these things.

Also, you are clueless about Somalia. Corporations do exist there - <USER2> example they have about 14 phone companies and one of the best telecom systems in Africa. Also, their system of law (enforced by 4 separate governments) is based on Sharia (Islamic Law), not libertarian or anarchist principles. I have no idea why you are bringing up Somalia.

<comment><USER41> Somali law(s) are definitely NOT based on Sharia, their claims to the contrary.

Rather its based on clan/family cooperation & paid protection. The 14 corporations are not "legal" in any sense of the word. They might be registered overseas, but there is no central record to register business & contracts in Somalia. People enter into agreements with the firm understanding that the cheater WILL be physically harmed. There are multi-million dollar businesses, even airlines, but everything boils down to mutual agreement.

If you fuck over someone they will hurt you, your family, your tribesmen, etc. Because of that, tribes ENFORCE contracts agreed to by their members, to avoid spilling the damage to the rest.

P.S. I'm Somali.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> These clowns will be crying for the US Coast Guard to come and rescue them the moment their "seastead" springs a leak.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your job role and what are the side projects you are working on? - <AUTHOR> The question in itself is self-explanatory. Please mention your normal day job role (backend developer, full stack engineer etc) and what are the side projects you are doing currently. This question is about having insight about what people are doing. <comment><USER2> I was hired as a Data Engineer for my skills in Scala, AWS, and other data technologies. I ended up falling into Backend Engineer (also Scala) as our core services needed significant support. From there, I drifted into Operations as our infra and deployment processes were negatively impacting QOS and the time from code-to-prod.

In my spare time I:

      - made a shitty personal website[0] for kicks

      - maintain an npm package[1]

      - contribute to SecureDrop[2]

      - run the not-yet-live BerlinLeaks[3]

[0] - [https://heartsucker.com](https://heartsucker.com)

[1] - [https://github.com/ehartsuyker/node- deb](https://github.com/ehartsuyker/node-deb)

[2] - [https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop](https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop)

[3] - [https://berlinleaks.com](https://berlinleaks.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> I see. Your site is shitty and good simultaneously. berlinLeaks is a nice idea but I don't see any posts on it.

<comment><USER2> Thanks.

There's nothing there because setting up SecureDrop is a pain in the ass. These (among others) are errors I hit while trying to get it running:

[https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/issues/1244](https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/issues/1244)

[https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/issues/1247](https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/issues/1247)

[https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/issues/1251](https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/issues/1251)

[https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/issues/1252](https://github.com/freedomofpress/securedrop/issues/1252)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm a full stack web developer and I created [https://www.quirkycushion.com](https://www.quirkycushion.com) last week. If it gains any traction then I plan on setting up sister sites for other products.

I read the book [http://www.startupbook.net/](http://www.startupbook.net/) which says to pick a niche which is why I will have several sites each focusing on one product rather than one site with multiple categories.

<comment><AUTHOR> How is [http://www.startupbook.net/](http://www.startupbook.net/) book?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm the team lead for WP All Import and WP All Export: [http://www.wpallimport.com](http://www.wpallimport.com)

We're a niche little WordPress plugin that allows users to import data from any source - Excel, CSV, XML, JSON, SQL, etc. We recently launched our exporter which will turn your WordPress data into a custom Excel file, CSV, or XML.

My side project is a little plugin to help manage different server environments: [https://github.com/joeguilmette/wp-local- toolbox](https://github.com/joeguilmette/wp-local-toolbox)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm a backend developer;

and, for a long time, I worked on side software projects; but, when I get home, I'm often so tired from coding all day that I don't program as much at home anymore. Lately, I've been learning to play a midi-controller and maybe make some music :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Technical Lead, Xamarin Insights ([https://xamarin.com/insights](https://xamarin.com/insights))

Side Projects: [https://github.com/skizzehq/skizze](https://github.com/skizzehq/skizze) \- High-throughput probalistic data structure service. Also working on it's Golang and Node.js client bindings (see the org.)

[https://github.com/njpatel/grpcc](https://github.com/njpatel/grpcc) \- a nice-to-use gRPC CLI for testing/debugging gRPC services

[https://github.com/njpatel/HiveKit](https://github.com/njpatel/HiveKit) \- a British gas Hive Heating -> HomeKit bridge

Also working on another little utility for devs around sending files between machines, should be out by the weekend!

</comment><comment><USER7> Technical cofounder of a SaaS company based in Switzerland.

Side project is a simple e-commerce website selling handmade jewellery ([http://www.wiggles.ch](http://www.wiggles.ch)) - I won't retire off it but I spend < 4h/month on the project and it pays the rent...

</comment><comment><USER8> Work as a contractor doing infrastructure/backend work.

Wrote a Riak Go driver before Basho decided to roll their own: [https://github.com/riaken/riaken-core](https://github.com/riaken/riaken-core)

Writing a realtime programmable mech combat simulator in Haskell, the client in Unity3d, the first SDK in JavaScript: [https://armoredbits.com](https://armoredbits.com)

<comment><USER9> Big fan of what you are doing with Armored Bits! Keep it up :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Normal day job: Professor of Mathematics at University of Washington (number theory). This is a tenured position, which gives me a lot of flexibility for "side projects". ([http://wstein.org](http://wstein.org))

Side project: SageMathCloud, which is a collaborative web application to make teaching and research in mathematics using open source software easier and more accessible. ([https://cloud.sagemath.com](https://cloud.sagemath.com))

I plan to swap the two starting in June 2016, so that being a professor would then be my side project.

</comment><comment><USER11> At work I am a full-stack front-end developer, working on:

[https://wifi.garden](https://wifi.garden) \- Public WiFi network advertising platform.

[https://mykoob.com](https://mykoob.com) \- School and education network/system.

And few school related web-apps for Russian school networks.

At home I also like to try back-end development and mobile app development, currently on weekends working on a Fiverr analog for Baltic market: [https://faifsapp.com](https://faifsapp.com), writing myself the backend, API, frontend and mobile app.

</comment><comment><USER12> Senior Programmer at Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning. Mostly backend and devopsy stuff.

Side projects:

* content-addressed storage cluster with a REST interface: [https://github.com/thraxil/cask/](https://github.com/thraxil/cask/)

* a circuit-breaker TCP proxy: [https://github.com/thraxil/cbp](https://github.com/thraxil/cbp)

* cyclomatic complexity analyzer for Go: [https://github.com/thraxil/cyclo](https://github.com/thraxil/cyclo)

* python constraint solver: [https://github.com/thraxil/constraint](https://github.com/thraxil/constraint)

* twitter to atom feed gateway: [https://github.com/thraxil/intweet](https://github.com/thraxil/intweet)

* utility for checking linked media on a page: [https://github.com/thraxil/mediacheck](https://github.com/thraxil/mediacheck)

* collect smoketest results and send them to graphite: [https://github.com/thraxil/chimney](https://github.com/thraxil/chimney)

* web based feed reader (wrote my own when Google Reader shut down): [https://github.com/thraxil/antisocial](https://github.com/thraxil/antisocial)

* figure drawing timed pose utility: [https://github.com/thraxil/zeuxis](https://github.com/thraxil/zeuxis)

* (semi) annual travelling charity art show popup event: [http://artsho.org/about/](http://artsho.org/about/)

* blog: [https://thraxil.org/](https://thraxil.org/)

* my art: [http://myopica.org/](http://myopica.org/)

* graduated interval recall flashcard web app: [https://github.com/thraxil/sebastian](https://github.com/thraxil/sebastian)

</comment><comment><USER13> Day Job: Software engineer at a startup looking to break in to the AR/VR space. Exploring the VR tech scene and brainstorming product ideas.

Side Projects:

An app to remotely play youtube videos - [https://github.com/agnivade/youremote](https://github.com/agnivade/youremote)

Implementation of Levenshtein distance in golang - [https://github.com/agnivade/levenshtein](https://github.com/agnivade/levenshtein)

Wrapper of the scrypt api in golang - [https://github.com/agnivade/easy- scrypt](https://github.com/agnivade/easy-scrypt)

Personal blog: [http://agniva.me](http://agniva.me)

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm a lead client developer working with Unity3d engine. Right now I'm developing game/app that improves people's vision. [http://www.cp3app.com/](http://www.cp3app.com/) (Yeah, I know the reputation that "brain training" apps have. But I also know that half of our office are scientists and chief chief has publications in peer-reviewed journals about this approximately each month.)

I'm participating in a month-long game jam right now, and lazily doing my own little stupid game, which is really just an excuse to finally learn to do some basic graphics myself. Also, music.

</comment><comment><USER15> I just made a full-time switch from front-end developer to Android developer with the agency where I work.

Current side projects, nothing mind-blowing:

\- Just launched a small developer swag site[0]. I know, not very original. It only carries a small amount of stickers right now, but 15% of every product goes to support its related organization or OSS project, or it goes to support a charity. So there's that.

\- A little Mac toolbar utility for designers that tests color combinations against the WCAG. I'll be releasing it within the next two weeks.

[0] - [https://developerculture.com/](https://developerculture.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Was a senior backend/full-stack Python developer, now considering career options, thinking about contracting or perhaps finding a remote position.

On the side I'm playing with Elixir/Phoenix and working on an experimental knowledgebase.

</comment><comment><USER17> Developer/TL on a cross-platform template engine.

Current side projects centered on development on mobile:

\- Dataflow programming on Android: [http://flowgrid.org](http://flowgrid.org)

\- Tiny IDE for JavaScript: [http://tidej.net](http://tidej.net)

Older:

\- Android "native" HtmlView component: [https://github.com/kobjects/htmlview](https://github.com/kobjects/htmlview)

\- Quake2 port to WebGL (via Jake+GWT): [http://quake2playn.appspot.com/](http://quake2playn.appspot.com/)

\- kxml

</comment><comment><USER18> project manager,

Working on the following projects

Devops Wiki [https://github.com/Leo-G/DevopsWiki](https://github.com/Leo-G/DevopsWiki)

Flask-Scaffold, A tool to quickly scaffold database driven applications with Python and the Flask framework

[https://github.com/Leo-G/Flask-Scaffold](https://github.com/Leo-G/Flask- Scaffold)

Backup Bash- A simple backup script written in Bash

[https://github.com/Leo-G/backup-bash](https://github.com/Leo-G/backup-bash)

</comment><comment><USER19> Engineer The _sarcasm_ fun task of helping the company clean up their technical debt and become an automated cloud company. It's a billion dollar company so I'll be done in 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER20> Consultant on database engine design, I take CS papers and provide practical open-source implementation. I provide support for my own open-source project. I also customize software like Zookeeper, Hazelcast or Spark.

My primary 'side' project is in my profile. A have several other 'side' projects. But all programming I do is done for money.

Before I started consulting my current work was just a hobby. I also had other projects in astronomy and strategy games, but I canceled that. I spend way too much time on computer.

</comment><comment><USER21> In London, I work as a consultant growing startups - but now I'm looking for a full-time role in growth/marketing/partnerships for a high growth tech company...

My side project is a hackathon/startup school hybrid focusing on creating entreprenurial solutions that tackle the challenges of diversity - [http://www.startupandbloom.com/](http://www.startupandbloom.com/)

Currently, I'm writing up press releases and sponsorship documents.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm a full stack developer from Ithaca NY doing contracting work via [http://ququplay.com](http://ququplay.com) In my spare time I'm working on a scrabble like mobile game targeting Polish market called Literaki [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ququplay.l...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ququplay.literaki)

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm currently working as a clerk in a government department. On the side, I'm taking courses on Udacity to make the jump back to the other side. (I'm a CS grad.)

</comment><comment><USER24> Day Job: Full-stack developer.

Side-projects:

\- BedquiltDB ([http://bedquiltdb.github.io](http://bedquiltdb.github.io)), a json doc-store layer over PostgreSQL.

\- NightChamber ([http://nightchamber.com](http://nightchamber.com)), a slow- web social site.

\- various Clojure libraries.

\- Screwing around with Elixir.

\- I've been toying with the idea of building "the next github", no concrete progress yet. Not sure I'll ever make progress on that one.

</comment><comment><USER25> Solo Entrepreneur and Conceptual Designer.

Working on the Wheatbin project management software and book: [http://www.wheatbin.com](http://www.wheatbin.com)

Early access to the software is available through my "Rule of Nine" deal (and helps me keep the lights on while I finish this): [https://gumroad.com/l/ruleofnine](https://gumroad.com/l/ruleofnine)

</comment><comment><USER26> IT Project Manager, created a blog for storing outage report post mortems. The aim is that people will be able to search for EG "Cisco and Apache" and get back all matching reports:

[https://www.outagereports.net](https://www.outagereports.net)

</comment><comment><USER27> Working as Full Stack Software Developer.

\- Get browser details ([http://getbrowserdetails.com](http://getbrowserdetails.com))

\- SpotTrek ionic mobile app ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.metatrek.s...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.metatrek.spottrek&hl=en))

</comment><comment><USER28> Front end developer, current side project learning React with a Chrome extension to show London Underground status [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/london- underground...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/london-underground- status/kikfibpnfanmjholkooofgfcafknbpei)

</comment><comment><USER29> PhD student in applied Math at UCL in London. Side project is public engagement: short documentaries about academic research ([http://knowitwall.com](http://knowitwall.com) ); My role is web developer (starting learning web dev from scratch which was and still is overwhelming but fun :) )

</comment><comment><USER30> Front-end developer, in Melbourne Australia

Put together an ecommerce website in two days and a photo of my dog, [https://www.americanyarns.com.au](https://www.americanyarns.com.au) incredibly rewarding and pays the rent Also 3 or 4 projects related to helping high schoolers to find their first dev jobs

</comment><comment><USER31> Day job: full stack software dev.

Side project:

A blog: [http://trainerminds.com/](http://trainerminds.com/)

The engine of the blog is this one: [https://github.com/spf13/hugo](https://github.com/spf13/hugo)

It's a static blog engine, it's like jekyll.

</comment><comment><USER32> Senior developer.

Side project #1 is a Chrome plugin to record user actions on a web page and use the data to automate end-to-end testing with Nightwatch/Karma and Selenium.

Side project #2 is a Chrome plugin to add tags to web content (anything, but it's intended for tagging usernames) and share the tags between groups of users.

</comment><comment><USER33> Full stack Python/Django developer, recently launched a web podcast client [0] using Go and ReactJS. Currently playing with Phoenix/Elixir, React, Vue and Go.

[0] - [https://podbaby.me](https://podbaby.me)

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm an Android/Rails contractor.

I've built a boilerplate project for starting Android apps using Clean Architecture: [https://github.com/dmilicic/Android-Clean- Boilerplate](https://github.com/dmilicic/Android-Clean-Boilerplate)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm an iOS dev. I spent one month in Feb building [https://emoji.cool](https://emoji.cool) :)

Choose an emoji and put it on your customized t-shirt

Stack: Ember, Stripe, AWS Lambda, plus other AWS services... It's kinda fun building something "physical" :)

<comment><USER36> Do you get clients?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm a data scientist and also a full stack developer and my side projects are [http://www.hellobox.com](http://www.hellobox.com) and [http://www.heystartup.com](http://www.heystartup.com)

</comment><comment><USER38> Freelance web/c# dev, and my side project is a voice command and control system for star citizen(similar to voice attack but with fullscreen overlay and natural speaking - sites currebtly down while i switch hosts and domain name though haha).

</comment><comment><USER39> Web developer (recently started on Nodejs, prev: Rails).

Side projects include evaluating the use of NginX as an app server (ref: open- resty). I am overwhelmed by the abundance of web frameworks available and the never-ending list of tools/libraries to learn.

</comment><comment><USER40> Customer Success Manager at CoScale

Side projects:

\- Felt: front-end load testing [https://github.com/kidk/felt](https://github.com/kidk/felt)

\- Pomodoro timer with stats (not public)

\- Map of glutenfree restaurants in Ghent (not finished)

</comment><comment><USER41> Starting new job next week as an R&D Analyst for a leading payment processor, moving from an Android Developer position.

Side project is automating eBay / Amazon Arbitrage (Dropshipping) using Go / Java. Learning Go in the process.

</comment><comment><USER9> Programmer in Campinas, Brazil, on a work pause recovering from RSI-related problems.

As personal research I'm slowly working on a 8-thimble predictive wireless keyboard and coming up with plans for a solar-peltier atmospheric water generator.

</comment><comment><USER42> Job: InfoSec Analyst, Side Project: Mobile Dev: [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Security_Shepherd](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Security_Shepherd)

</comment><comment><USER43> I am a Backend (Java) Developer and one of my most recent side projects I contributed to is: [http://salaryaftertax.com/](http://salaryaftertax.com/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Embedded developer/engineer, currently on automotive project

Side projects: * realtime audio guitar effect processor * clone of Buspirate on PSoC kit board * puzzle game for teaching digital logics and programming

</comment><comment><USER45> Backend (Java) Developer. Side project: Slack app that removes trade-off between communication and productivity in software development teams. Landing page should be launched by the end of the week.

</comment><comment><USER46> Working for KPMG on the helpdesk team. Side project: LogoMiner.com (Catalog of logo designs for a random discovery, design analysis and download) Project went live about 2 months ago

</comment><comment><USER47> Lead developer for a small London based start-up. Side project is a Node.js community platform: [http://nodeza.co.za](http://nodeza.co.za).

</comment><comment><USER48> Engineering team lead. My side project is an embedded key/value database: [http://upscaledb.com](http://upscaledb.com)

<comment><USER49> Off-Topic: By the way: [http://imgur.com/KrLQ9a3](http://imgur.com/KrLQ9a3) What is the first line :? Visited with a Lenny 2, Wiko.

<comment><USER48> thanks :) Will try to figure out how to fix this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Product Manager

Side Projects:

\- [https://trombone.io](https://trombone.io)

\- [https://tab.bz](https://tab.bz)

</comment><comment><USER51> Big 4 technology advisory manager. The main side project I'm working on is a MOOC platform written in clojure (nothing to see yet, though).

</comment><comment><USER52> Fronted software engineer for a HFT company.

Side project: UI framework over OpenGl for java, to be used for a 2d game editor, to be used for a 2d game.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm a Perl dev. & my side project is:

[https://propertywizard.io](https://propertywizard.io)

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm a full-stack pancake developer, working on a new container implementation in buckwheat.

</comment><comment><USER55> Program Manager, working on SaaS application to reschedule meetings based on user rules.

</comment><comment><USER56> CTO. Side project to streamline the technical job application and interview process.

</comment><comment><USER57> > what are the side projects you are doing currently. This question is about > having insight about what people are doing.

I find it interesting that you ask primarily about side projects rather than just projects. Why are side projects more OK to discuss (or more interesting) than projects?

I think it is sometimes a bad habit to follow the impulse to pursue an idea as only a side project. Whether you're a line employee or a founder, I think there's value to seriously pursuing ideas that you believe to have merit and attempt to get traction behind them at your company. It's the path to career growth and success in both cases. Keeping an idea as a "side project" limits its potential success compared with sharing it with others at your workplace and attempting to establish consensus around it and simply _doing it as a project_. You learn a lot more that way, not only because you get feedback from others about the idea. (Are you invested in the idea, or not? I don't mean financially. Success does not come from investing in no ideas.)

Perhaps what you are asking is: "what are you working on that is too small for you have bothered to try to garner consensus around it with others, to get their support for your idea". Just a thought. Or perhaps your question betrays an anxiety about one's inability to influence one's employer by altering business plans -- that is to say, if you don't pitch an idea, then there's no opportunity for it to be rejected. That is the impulse that I think we should not generally encourage, since it does not promote growth; it allows fragile and bad ideas to survive longer than they should, and it probably stunts good ideas too. This is just my opinion.

All ideas also deserve a time where they're cultivating and premature to share with others. Perhaps you are asking, "Share an idea here that you have not yet shared with anyone".

Perhaps what you are implying is that it would be improper for someone to discuss what they're doing at their job, in the context of their role at their job. "I am a developer at X.com and I'm working on a project for X.com where ..." \- perhaps this class of answer seems uninteresting for surface reasons. But why shouldn't it be interesting? Would it be boring to say, "I work at Comcast and I help transition our legacy IPv4 networks to IPv6", or, "I work at Google on an upcoming Google Compute Platform service", or "I help launch the Apple iTunes store in new countries and territories worldwide".

Perhaps what you're asking is, "What work do you do will benefit and be interesting to other engineers (e.g., building general purpose libraries and tools for other software engineers)?"

Sorry, I don't mean to be contrary. I like to play devil's advocate, and I think there's something interesting to dig into regarding what you intend to ask and the implications behind the question. There is a whole bundle of implications in that word "side project".

<comment><USER58> In many cases, side projects have absolutely nothing to do with one's mainstream work, so trying to have them gain traction at a company is moot. For instance, if I work for the government doing IT services, why should they sponsor my idea of creating a mobile game app?</comment></comment>


How Daily Life in Hong Kong Changed to Stall Covid-19 case growth and deaths - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/coronavirus-covid-19-hong-kong-usa-new-york <comment><AUTHOR> key take aways

Default is to wear a mask in public

Body temperature is is often checked when you enter a building

Frequent hand washing and use of hand sanitizer.

Frequent cleaning of door handles/knobs and other common shared contact services.

Many events, large and small cancelled.

Schools, parks, museums all closed.

Closing paragraph:

"what I learned in Hong Kong is that the small acts add up. Fatality rates are higher in countries that don't take as many measures to contain the virus. The closures of large events aren't a sign of doom. They shift our lives but show we're doing something to contain this. As strange as things are right now, life adjusts and finds a new normal — and it's the least we can do for those around us."

</comment><comment><USER2> Sanction and fine the Chinese communist party and their officers for the catastrophe they inflicted on the world. Never again.</comment>


The Guile in TeXmacs (2019) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.iam.uni-bonn.de/fileadmin/user_upload/gubinelli/texmacs/talk-texmacs-guile-strasbourg-june-2019.pdf <comment><USER2> I'm mourning on two graves every time I'm tuning my Org-mode workflow. First, that Emacs had to have its own language so I can't take my code and run it in an up-to-date and stable vm embedded in an Android app. Second, that additions and modifications to Org-mode tend to use Emacs' text juggling here and there instead of a higher-level Org API and string functions—so even if I had an embedded Elisp, I'd need to implement half of Emacs.

Emacs' flirt with Guile promised to mend one of those ailments—especially considering how on my oldish machine Emacs' GC hiccups every few seconds when just scrolling through an outline, and Emacs internals don't seem to get lots of low-level development these days (understandably, but still). Alas, that hope now has a grave of its own.

<comment><USER3> > Second, that additions and modifications to Org-mode tend to use Emacs' text > juggling here and there instead of a higher-level Org API and string > functions

I was shocked when I started looking into Org's API and found everything is done via parsing. There's virtually no tree/graph type API.

<comment><USER4> There's org-element, if you want to parse/generate org-mode, but it's true that many packages just operate on the text.

<comment><USER3> org-element doesn't go far enough. Say I wanted to traverse my document in depth first order. Or in breadth first order. How do I do it? org-element does not let me choose.

I say this as there is another well known node based editor out there: Leo. Nonprogrammers manipulate their documents trivially with Python code in a way that's a huge pain in Org mode even for seasoned developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TeXmacs is a marvel, and for literally decades I've wondered why it hasn't seen broader adoption.

<comment><USER6> Decades ago at least it used to crash and eat your data, which I think is a pretty strong barrier to adoption for software that holds important data of yours in its own proprietary format. I just tried the most recent version, and after two decades it still feels pretty alpha quality (Menu -> Quit Texmacs -> no effect; extremely laggy; low-res icons etc.).

<comment><USER7> I tried it a few months ago because i _really_ prefer GUI tools to entering weird codes in text files (and i'm saying that as someone who has made his own tools with his own weird codes :-P) and it felt very "alpha quality" to me too. It would randomly crash or hang, losing changes or do nothing and when it worked it would feel sluggish. To test it out i tried to replicate some pages from the first section of the original Turbo Pascal 3 manual (which is mostly text) but i could barely do more than two pages.

I like the idea, but the execution wasn't that good. It really didn't felt as something i could rely on at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many of us use everyday (me included, typing papers of +60 pages on monthly basis). There are still some rugged edges in the GUI but is certainly not alpha quality software. The Qt interface have been there since at least 2009 and nowadays we have one or two nasty bugs which we plan to address in the following months but nothing serious. As you can see from these videos (here [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjXdYclFpynD0ufg_pp-5...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjXdYclFpynD0ufg_pp-5MT5-X-57Okvs) ) all is quite stable. Unfortunately TeXmacs stress many corners of the Qt/Mac port and we need to go around bugs there constantly. If you experience more reproductible crashes then would be good to know, either show up in the mailing list or file a bug report in Savannah. If nobody complains we cannot fix them :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm surprised nobody mentioning the similarity of TeXmacs to Tioga editor within the legendary CEDAR desktop environment from Xerox [1]:

I've read somewhere some years ago that if you can create a usable hybrid combination of MS Office Word document (WYSIWYG) and TeX then you have a killer application for document editor. Additionally, similar to Tioga with the fact that you can also use other programs inside TeXmacs (e.g. spreadsheet, Octave, etc) is a huge boon for productivity [2].

I think the naming of the TeXmacs does create confusion though since it creates the impression that this is combination of TeX and Emacs but it's neither of them. Just like the Holy Roman Empire after the collapsed of Roman Empire, it's neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire.

Now hoping for the modern incarnation version of CEDAR desktop environment.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dt7NG38V4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_dt7NG38V4)

[2] [http://cajun.cs.nott.ac.uk/wiley/journals/epobetan/pdf/volum...](http://cajun.cs.nott.ac.uk/wiley/journals/epobetan/pdf/volume3/issue2/ep030dt.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting! I didn't knew the Tioga editor. All these pioneering work is really inspiring! Our goals fits very well into the paradigm of active documents and we have already many features implemented and beautifully typesetted : [https://www.texmacs.org/joris/icms14/icms14.pdf](https://www.texmacs.org/joris/icms14/icms14.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I followed some of the discussions of the porting to guile3. I have been amazed at what kind of code guile1.8 allowed, with _no_ separation of macro expansion and runtime.:

        (defmacro (foo bar)
          (define (baz n) (bar 4 n))
          baz)
        ((foo +) 4)

would work just fine. No separation between runtime and compile time. this hasn't been the case since 2.0, but 1.8 is still used places. Hopefully their port to guile 3 works so that they can reap the benefits of the work out in there over the last 10 years.

<comment><AUTHOR> The port is ready and working. We are waiting the release of TeXmacs 2.1 soon and then we will start working to integrate it to the main branch. TeXmacs will run with Guile 3.0 with the codebase fully compiled. It should improve loading times and some critical operations, but not benchmarks have been done yet.

<comment><USER9> great! thanks for letting me know.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can find it here: [https://github.com/mgubi/texmacs/tree/guile3](https://github.com/mgubi/texmacs/tree/guile3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it better than TexStudio??

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course. And no. It depends. :) It is refreshing. Nothing to do with TeXstudio, LyX, TeXmaker, TeXshop. The name is misleading. Opens your mind. Like Haskell, like Lisp, like Erlang, looks odd. But then you understand you always did it wrong before, and you never go back. Bottom line: try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Upvoting for the looped "st" ligatures in the slides.

+1 would sit through

<comment><USER12> I find those quite odd. It seems overly ornate compared to the rest of the font, which doesn't even contain the 'fi' ligature.

<comment><AUTHOR> Me too, this is the Linux Libertine font. I need to fine a way to disable those ligatures :)

<comment><USER13> Please, all deities, nobody use that ST ligature. It's cute for about a millisecond and then it's annoying.

<comment><AUTHOR> I checked just now and indeed that ligature has been supressed in the recent versions of TeXmacs. :)

<comment><USER11> It was never the default. You don't get them unless you specifically ask for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> No,in a previous version of TeXmacs they were active by default, we changed that now.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Bézier Game - <AUTHOR> http://bezier.method.ac/ <comment><USER2> For me on desktop Firefox it only works with touch events emulation</comment>


Best Books to Learn Data Structure and Algorithms in Java, Python, C, and C++ - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/javinpaul/10-best-books-to-learn-data-structure-and-algorithms-in-java-python-c-and-c-5743 <comment><USER2> All book links are Amazon affiliate links (tag=javamysqlanta-20)</comment>


How do you objectively evaluate your skillset? - <AUTHOR> This is a somewhat common theme, but I can't think of a discussion which advised how to objectively evaluate skills in contrast to other button pushers.
Last night my wife showed me a bunch of job listings for Google. I scoffed at the prospect, because those people are actually incredibly smart.  She scoffed at my not thinking that I am one of those people.
So how does one determine where they lie in the spectrum? <comment><USER2> Have a look there:

[http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency- matrix/](http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-matrix/)</comment>


The Origins and Therapy of Same-Sex Attraction Disorder (SSAD) - <AUTHOR> http://www.narth.com/docs/ssad.html

<comment><USER2> The shocking part for me was 'from the 1999 book'. '1999'. It would be quaint if it wasn't so recent.</comment>


Samsung Electronics' Market Value Drops Nearly $9 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303640604579295504048565272

<comment><USER3> I am surprised. My wife and I really like our Galaxy smartphones - <USER2> gear. My Dad and brother have the new Samsung 4K super hi-def TVs, and everything seems well tuned: great display and Android features are well integrated. More great gear.</comment>


The "Arcade" Workprint, 90s Cyber-Cinema Without Music or Sound Effects - <AUTHOR> https://waxy.org/2018/12/the-arcade-workprint/ <comment><USER2> Would be interesting to see an entire movie mixed with different scores like this</comment>