Hexing the technical interview (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview <comment><USER3> Aphyr is a joy and a wonder: "If it were meant to be illegal," you remind him sagely, "Sun Microsystems would have made it unrepresentable."

<comment><USER4> I'm still convinced that the "Clojure from the ground up" series [1] is the best and most effective language guide/tutorial I've ever read. The level of understanding at play there, in terms of building the correct mental models in the right order for a broad audience is excellent.

[1] [https://aphyr.com/tags/Clojure-from-the-ground- up](https://aphyr.com/tags/Clojure-from-the-ground-up)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Acing in 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13886626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13886626)

Hexing a bit in 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14050017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14050017)

Typing in 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14078852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14078852)

<comment><USER6> 'typing' is one of my all-time favorites. It's pure magic watching him pop what I suspect are dependent types out of Haskell's type system, and that prose is just laugh-out-loud magic.

<comment><USER7> Dependent types are slightly different — dependent types depend on _values_. Since Aphyr is working entirely in the type system, there are no values.

Aphyr is abusing Haskell's _type deduction_ feature.

<comment><USER6> True, now it's coming back to me. It blends different orders of kinds (I'm still probably butchering it).

The abuse makes sense in terms of the type system behaving as a logic / goal- seeking engine. It does showcase the truly impressive work going in behind the scenes of Haskell.

<comment><USER8> > It blends different orders of kinds

Orders, kinds, types, sorts, classes, groups, categories, genera, flavours, colors, shapes... same thing.

<comment><USER9> > Orders, kinds, types, sorts, classes, groups, categories, genera, flavours, > colors, shapes... same thing.

Same thing, to first order.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I understood this was about finding a cycle in a linked list. I wish I could understand the code part. But the writing part was pretty brilliant.

On another note, I only wish my technical interviews were so simple. People talk about weeding out those who can't program but finding a cycle in a linked list is a prerequisite to the prerequisite for passing the google interview questions I was expected to do in 45 min at the whiteboard.

<comment><USER11> FWIW, I don't particularly like this interview question since it's dangerously close to a riddle. Sorting, graph traversal, and other algorithms are well covered by undergraduate computer science curriculums, but this algorithm is basically impossible to come up with unless you know it already and it's not even something that you would "know to know"…

<comment><USER12> Yeah, it's a terrible interview question because it's just trivia. It's one of those things where the best response may be "I know this problem. It's called tortoise and the hare. Do you still want me to do it on the whiteboard?"

<comment><USER13> I tried that at Amazon interview where the interviewer gave me the "Alien Dictionary" problem unmodified. Calling her out on it wasn't wise, as I'm sure she torpedoed my chances while still doing decent on the rest of the loop.

<comment><USER14> An Amazon interviewer once gave me the word ladder problem unmodified.

I am not a recent college grad, and I don't encounter a lot of interesting algorithm problems in my work, so I had prepared by working through some leetcode problems. But I had worked through only "easy" and some "medium" problems because I had the impression they didn't ask the harder ones. I was able to recognize it as a BFS graph problem and gave the time complexity (and space complexity, IIRC), but I did not finish it on the whiteboard.

Live and learn. Maybe I'll have another go in six months. Can't argue with the money and the resume cred.

<comment><USER13> Amazon really isn't that prestigious. Only work there if they have a job that interests you.

<comment><USER14> I'm in flyover country. It's certainly prestigious here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I didn't understand most of it but for some reason I have now installed Lisp and am working through a tutorial.

<comment><USER16> This was much more about Java than Lisp. It was just a really out-of-the-way way of writing Java. Clojure almost made me hate Lisp because of all the leaning on Java that's done as shown perfectly in this post. Actual Lisp is a lot more fun.

Install SBCL, pick up a Lisp book from 30 years ago (e.g., Paul Graham's, Peter Seibel's, Norvig's), and start hacking.

<comment><USER17> We can keep debating all day long how Java and Javascript suck, but the massive ecosystems based on these two suckers sadly won't go away anytime soon.

There are of course languages that are more fun to work with, but at the end of the day we all have to eat. I would love to see Common Lisp's former glory to be restored, but sadly the language use in the industry seems to be shrinking every year.

Clojure is a modern, practical Lisp dialect that lets me use real REPL and structural editing and at the same time keep my sanity intact, plus I get paid. Please don't be so harsh about it.

I think having a Lisp as a hosted language was an awesome idea, I'd rather write (slightly crippled) Lisp that targets multiple platforms and get paid, rather than "hacking" in a (real) Lisp for free, or even worse - no Lisp at all.

<comment><USER16> You don't need to apologize for what you get paid to do. Barely anyone gets to work with the software they would use in their free time. That managers let you use some language does justify learning it, but it doesn't make that language better on technical (or aesthetic) merits.

PHP is bad. If you're getting paid for it, it's still bad. So what? People also get paid to scrub toilets.

Personally, I would rather write Java than Clojure. But I wouldn't quit if I suddenly had to use Clojure.

<comment><USER17> I haven't written much Java professionally (I know the language, I've used it), but I have written tons of Javascript code. I have to say - <USER2> just makes much more sense. Java and Javascript are good as low-level languages for their respective platforms. But if you want to build something practical, Clojure really is much better.

And by the way, demonstrated Clojure code is very unusual. Nobody in practice writes anything even close to that. Java interop is baked into the language, but in practice it doesn't look as scary as in the blogpost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> See also (x4):

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=hexing+the+technical+interview](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=hexing+the+technical+interview)

(+2):

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=typing+the+technical+interview](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=typing+the+technical+interview)

(+1):

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=reversing+the+technical+interview](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=reversing+the+technical+interview)

But, as far as I'm concerned, these articles could be posted a dozen more times and it wouldn't be too much.

</comment><comment><USER19> One would do well to keep in mind the third commandment of technology management: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." A.k.a., nobody likes a smartass, regardless of how good they are. If you interview one, it's a no hire. If you're unfortunate enough to find out there's one on your staff, it's pink slip time.

<comment><USER20> Someone is generally classified as a smartass when the balance of intelligence is on the smartass side. So this is just giving idiot managers carte blanche to fire people smarter than they are. For job security I guess.

<comment><USER21> Not sure I agree. I've worked with a few "smartasses" in my time, and it can be a real pain. Some people are absolute masters of the technical details of a subject, but fail to see the wider context.

For example, you get developers optimising the hell out of a block of code - making it unmaintainable in the process - when the real bottleneck is developer time, not processor time. Or someone builds a giant vector autoregression model powered by MCMC when a rolling mean would have been adequate for the task.

 _Build the simplest tool that will solve the task at hand_ is not a mantra that comes easily to some people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Slightly related, since this blog post has inspired me for a while. I would absolutely love to read a whole fantasy-themed "tome" that treats a programming topic as a school of magic. Maybe VR/AR is like illusion/alteration magic. Maybe robotics is the equivalent of summoning, or beast training, or something; maybe electrical engineering is like smithing or crafting. Computer history is lore. And so on...

I wonder if there's anything else out there like this idea? If not, I'll make it happen.

<comment><USER23> Agree - this style is so rich with possibility. I'm reminded also of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from Diamond Age, which included fairy stories that taught fundamental computer science. It also imagines a cultural upbringing where algorithms are the solutions to ancient riddles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Aphyr is also the author of many Jepsen tests, such as this somewhat infamous case:

[https://aphyr.com/posts/284-call-me-maybe- mongodb](https://aphyr.com/posts/284-call-me-maybe-mongodb)

Jepsen: MongoDB

Aphyr is an incredible writer and just extremely smart, it is hard to read anything from him and not come away humbled.

<comment><USER25> Aphyr is the author of jepsen itself, and I believe all the tests as well.

<comment><USER24> I thought that some others were contributing these days? I was aware that he was the initial author.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Awesome. I've read it on my phone. Nice thing about Clojure - like any Lisp it doesn't care about the width of your screen, it wraps, yet retains readability.

Who are all those people who constantly whine: "Lisps are unreadable". Dyslisplexic programmers?

<comment><USER26> I manage to misplace brackets and parenthesis in python. I fear what sort of trouble I could get myself into with a language with as many parentheses as lisp.

Readability is subjective.

<comment><USER27> I have to say that I often have more problem with indentation and the like in Python or YAML, especially given the insistence that indentation means a specific amount of specific whitespace character.

The lower level of S-expression serialization kind of resulted in offloading this task to editor, where it should lie, instead of burdening the developer with it. That said, even I will admit that without experiencing the fact that the editor will handle parens for you, one's experience in other languages is going to suggest bad things. How many of us ended up having to manually count "end" keywords in Pascal and the like?

Still, with a proper editor (not just emacs), the experience is really, really different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The author about the writing: [https://www.metafilter.com/166166/Og-to-til- javanissen#69855...](https://www.metafilter.com/166166/Og-to-til- javanissen#6985515)

</comment><comment><USER29> My friend and I both work at FAANG. He told me a story once about how he wrote the solution for a whiteboard problem in Haskell. Once he was done the interview asked "great, so do you want to start coding this up?"

</comment><comment><USER30> This is beautiful, and horrifying. A cleverly written tale around some deep magic.

And yet.

Who among you would hire this witch? Who among you would want to maintain this kind of code, should this witch move on to challenges more suited to her skills?

Who among you would dare to meddle with the work of a Real Programmer[1]?

1: [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of- mel.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html)

<comment><USER31> It should not be taken too literally. Part of the context is how asking this type of puzzle question with a simple expected solution is trivialising to smart programmers; part of it is the question of how many places cargo-cult difficult interviews because google do it that way but then expect people to work on CRUD apps with little originality or autonomy. It would indeed be a disaster to hire someone like this for that job.

On the other hand, there are places where this kind of thing would fit right in: exploit writing, games development, certain kinds of HPC, cryptography, some firmware development. And it demonstrates the kind of deep understanding where being able to _read_ this kind of thing is very useful to puzzle out some horrendous low-level mess that has been inflicted on you by a vendor. If it was John Carmack or Richard Feynman doing it, it would be celebrated.

The risk with "rockstars" is they do this stuff when you don't want them to. Codewitches are much rarer, and have a much better sense of when it's a good idea. Neither is ever really going to be a "team player" but can deliver amazing things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Just a tip for anyone wanting to write Norwegian words. O and Ø are different letters. You don't make a word more Norwegian by adding slashes over random Os.

A coumparisoun would be to change "o" to "ou" tou make sentences louk moure English.

<comment><USER17> Clojure is spelled with 'ou' in the UK. #truestory

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> He's not kidding about the cafe babe in section 4.1.

>The magic item supplies the magic number identifying the class file format; it has the value 0xCAFEBABE.

[https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se8/html/jvms-4.ht...](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se8/html/jvms-4.html#jvms-4.1)

<comment><USER34> 404

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can anyone tell me if there is a specific work Aphyr is referencing with the narration style?

<comment><USER18> He also appears to reference His Dark Materials, which is my personal favorite book (or trilogy, but they're one work).

<comment><USER4> There is definitely some His Dark Materials (hey, the new show seems to be doing a decent job of adaptation! I was so nervous) references in there.

Is the wrist scar reference from the series and I've forgotten it or is this from something else?

<comment><USER18> Hm, the wrist scars don't remind me of anything in particular. He later clarifies that the scars make out the letters HJKL around his wrist - so maybe it's just a gag for that reason.

<comment><USER4> That is probably right, found this [1] comment where he explains it. I thought the torus/ice stuff was a Jemisin reference!

[1] [https://www.metafilter.com/166166/Og-to-til- javanissen#69855...](https://www.metafilter.com/166166/Og-to-til- javanissen#6985515)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Wow, I've never seen this before. Love the writing style - reminds me of trying to put together things like this in a creative writing class.

<comment><USER37> If you like this you'll love his twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I wish I could understand what's going on in this article. Besides a magical Swede impressing some normie in a hoodie.

<comment><USER39> Norwegian in this case.

<comment><USER40> As a Swede I can concur to this statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Guess I'll be one of the few to speak up and admit, I just don't get it. I'm sure I'll be downvoted for it by a dozen people smarter than me who resent my ignorance.

The prose seems to _resemble_ something dark and beautiful and meaningful. But if it's meaningful it's lost on me, for the most part. And dark and beautiful and meaningless is honestly a bit torturous. Like trying to stare at a Pollock and understand something.

And the bytecode just couldn't be more boring to me. Why is bytecode for this mundane algorithm interesting?

Someone could do us second class citizens (who I have no doubt are orders of magnitude more numerous than those who privileged few who get it) a favor by producing us with a line-by-line analysis. But I guess that would ruin the feeling of privilege.

<comment><USER42> Put down your pre-emptive feelings of defensiveness.

FFS, there's no shame in not understanding something. There _is_ shame to be had in throwing around accusations of privilege at people who understand something you don't.

People won't downvote you for not understanding. Some people will applaud you for saying you don't understand, up until the point they realise you're not seeking help in understanding, that you're not trying to improve your own knowledge and wisdom; that instead, you're trying to make yourself feel better by ascribing yourself some moral high-ground for not being one of those "privileged" people who understand something you don't. They might downvote you for being a passive-aggressive child about it.

<comment><USER41> _Some people will applaud you for saying you don 't understand_

I've been around enough to know how wrong that is. Do you actually believe this? Honest questions asking for explanation are almost guaranteed to result in a negative vote sum.

 _instead, you 're trying to make yourself feel better by ascribing yourself some moral high-ground for not being one of those "privileged" people who understand something you don't. _

Make myself feel better for what? Maybe I needed to include the /s tags...

<comment><USER42> _Honest questions asking for explanation are almost guaranteed to result in a negative vote sum._

Boo hoo hoo. Oh no, lost some internet points. Anyone whose opinion is worth a damn will applaud you asking honest questions; especially here, on defensive poser central.

 _Make myself feel better for what? Maybe I needed to include the /s tags..._

You've gone for the "I wasn't being serious" defense, pretending you didn't mean it. However, your post wasn't remotely sarcastic and contained far too much detail and defensiveness, with a tone taking itself very seriously. You're convincing nobody.

What exactly do you now claim you were being sarcastic about? "The prose seems to resemble something dark and beautiful and meaningful"; that's sarcasm, is it? So you're saying it IS something dark and beautiful and meaningful? "And the bytecode just couldn't be more boring to me." Right, so you were saying the bytecode was some of the most interesting code you've ever read? If your post was sarcasm, you're truly terrible at it and should switch to irony or satire instead. Little bit of literary term privilege there for you to sarcastically pretend to object to.

FFS, this is the anonymous internet. If you can't be honest with yourself here, where will you be honest with yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is wonderful. I think Aphyr is going to displace _idlewords_ as my favorite author.

</comment><comment><USER44> Incredible, every line is well-thought-through

</comment><comment><USER45> see also

[https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical- interview](https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical-interview)

and

[https://aphyr.com/posts/340-reversing-the-technical- intervie...](https://aphyr.com/posts/340-reversing-the-technical-interview)

</comment><comment><USER46> Aphyr and the Redis guy are probably my favorite authors of entertaining, deep technical content (maybe add Raymond Chen).

</comment><comment><USER47> Why are there so many hex numbers used? Are they pointers, variables, for calculation...?

<comment><USER31> They're raw Java bytecode, passed to the JVM for execution. Some of them are also variables or strings.

<comment><USER47> Why does she do that?

I would guess for performance. So you would be side-stepping some of the compilation?

<comment><USER31> I suspect in the end it's not much faster, but it _is_ smaller. Really the fun in the essay is that that's not what any normal person would do as a solution to that problem, it's a stunt to show off deep mastery.

<comment><USER47> But in this case, is it mastery?

To me, mastery would be if you can use mathematics to trivialise an implimentation in a counter intuitive way. I understand that this is a different kind of mastery. But does the essay write code that is a sign of mastery, or does it just use the byte code as a talisman? I don't follow the code so I wouldn't know.

<comment><USER48> I think it counts as mastery, precisely because it does choose a thing so counterintuitive that it's past what most of us would even think of as a possible solution.

I spent many years writing Java, but never took the time to learn how to write the bytecode (that's why we have a compiler ...). I know that Clojure lets you call Java classes, but it's a completely crazy, magical, frightening, and awesome thing to see someone do it by writing their own class loader, and then writing their own class -- in bytecode! -- to load, when the _simplest_ and clearest solution would be far from that.

It's a bit like solving FizzBuzz with Tensorflow: terrifying on at least some level, as it makes it so clear that there's so much more depth I could be learning, yet exciting for almost the same reasons.

<comment><USER47> > It's a bit like solving FizzBuzz with Tensorflow

I had to wiki that, but it's a good point. The first thing about NN that interested me, rather than images or audio or anything like that, is that a one level NN (IIRC) can approximate any function (by adding more and more nodes to that level).

I guess the point is also that any really deep rabbit hole is in some sense better than a selection of random 1000 rabbit holes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> It's probably the 3rd time I've read this, and I'm loving it every time.

</comment><comment><USER50> I wish I could write like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> You definitely could: writing ability comes with practice, just like programming ability. I recommend trying to get a solid pace with it!

<comment><USER11> I'd probably be too embarrassed with the intermediate results…

<comment><USER51> Good. That means you have good taste and can therefore improve.

<comment><USER52> Ira Glass's take on this is so good and I go back to it often when my creative work is less than satisfactory:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2wLP0izeJE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2wLP0izeJE)

Basically when you work on creative stuff you're drawn to it because you have good taste, but for a long time your work will disappoint you because of your good taste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> To say I am confusion would be putting it mildly.

</comment><comment><USER54> would be interesting to know if a reallife interview inspired this post! Tim - are you out there?

</comment><comment><USER55> glorious</comment>


Phantom Time Hypothesis - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis <comment><USER2> While imagining changing the entire world's calendar today is too large by a couple orders of magnitude, imagine the task of A: getting an entire continent to change its calendar B: using the by-modern-standards utterly terrible and slow communication methods C: getting absolutely nobody to hold out despite the incredible ease of doing so and the general inclination of people to do so D: leaving no written evidence, commentary in the time, or anything else written that would survive to later dates to make it clear this happened, despite the fact that the only way to communicate this change is via written documentation.

For D, it isn't just about whether the evidence would survive to today, it's about whether it would survive to, say, the grandchildren of the time, who might comment on it themselves.

D is, IMHO, what really clenches it... there is simply no way to do this without a ton of text being generated. You might think, "ah, just tell everyone to destroy the evidence afterwards", but, first rule of history, past people are just as human as you are. There's no way you'd get 100% compliance today; imagine the internet commentary today, imagine telling everybody on the internet to delete all the evidence of a change like this. Not gonna happen.

It's an amusing theory, as I quite enjoy a good conspiracy theory, but it makes no sense. Even the putative motives don't begin to justify such work. Historically speaking, if you are the sort of person who wants to be important to the calendar, you don't put gaps in to line up to nice round powers-of-ten, you call yourself a _new_ calendar and start out with a fresh Year 1.

<comment><USER3> Don't forget E: convincing _other_ continents to change _their_ calendars too, lest any historical or astronomical events shared between your cultures reveal the terrible secret.

<comment><USER4> Reports of astronomical events are missing though: [http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/2/2.22/F7.expa...](http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals.org/content/44/2/2.22/F7.expansion.html)

<comment><USER5> Even if there were no verifiable astronomical records during the period in question, wouldn't there still be discrepancies related to events from _before_ that period?

<comment><USER4> Apparently there are: [http://www.setterfield.org/Dodwell_manuscript_1.html](http://www.setterfield.org/Dodwell_manuscript_1.html)

Edit: I have no idea how accurate any of this stuff is. From my little experience trying to figure out the origins of historical claims I have learned it is very difficult to do so. Poor citing practices abound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are a few of these floating around:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Fomenko%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Fomenko%29)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Rohl%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Rohl%29)

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

A common theme is attempting to tie the Bible in with the rest of history.

<comment><USER7> The Fomeko chronology is entertainingly batshit, with a history-rewriting conspiracy of crazy scope and petty motivation. It makes vanishing a few centuries look like small potatoes.

I think the touch that the New Testament actually refers to events prior to those of the Old Testament is particularly fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fine example of a Wikipedia page where the discussion page is a much more informative and interesting read than the article itself.

</comment><comment><USER9> One of the amusing aspects of Game of Thrones is that while constructing an intricately detailed timeline going back thousands of years, George RR Martin then leaves clues that the timeline may be off by thousands of years.

[https://books.google.com/books?id=tYUsrknjhbEC&pg=PA46#v=one...](https://books.google.com/books?id=tYUsrknjhbEC&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false)

"Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend." \- Hoster Blackwood, to Jaime Lannister

<comment><USER10> GRRM does love his unreliable narrators. Jon and Sam have an interesting conversation about how many Lord Commanders there were before him, and there's a few fan theories spun off out of that. And A World of Ice and Fire is a "historical" document written by an in-universe character who presents the history through his own biases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Classic example of the Baader Meinhof phenomenon. On Saturday night I was trying to explain this theory to someone and I couldn't remember the name of it or the time period.

<comment><USER12> [http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof- phenomenon...](http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/)

<comment><USER13> That's the one where you buy a car, and shortly thereafter discover that there seem to be more cars of the same model on the road than before.

In reality, there are the same number as before--plus one if you bought yours newly manufactured--but your brain is now primed to _notice_ them more often. Before, they blended in with the myriad of other car models, but now you notice that _other people_ are driving _your_ car.

<comment><USER14> That's in general but it doesn't necessarily work for that example unless you are talking about a more general classification of a car like a ford or maybe a ford fiesta (do they still make thos? ah the 90's!).

If you just bought a brand new 2016 model BMW 525i there's a good chance that if you start seeing more of them it's because there are actually more of them now. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like crank theories as much as the next guy, but only good crank theories. This particular theory requires you be entirely ignorant of Chinese history. Muslim history, too.

<comment><USER4> I am not an adherent to any of these missing time theories, but did get interested in the idea awhile back when watching a documentary about ancient Rome. It seemed like the same details were being repeated over and over, like the same story repeated many times. Of course there are many reasons for that, so please do not get defensive.

Anyway, can you cite the specific evidence for eg chinese eclipses and their associated dates? Wikipedia cites this page which has that awful scholarship I've found is typical of chronology discussions: [http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Phantom%20Time.HTM](http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Phantom%20Time.HTM)

<comment><USER15> I can't cite all of Chinese written history for you. There's a lot of it, with precise dating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The fact that articles like this even exist is one of the top problems with Wikipedia today. One guy with a crazy theory can generate enough "evidence" and "citations" to make any random bullshit encyclopedic, and there's no "this is provably false" way to get rid of it.

<comment><USER17> To be fair, it is presented very clearly as a conspiracy theory.

<comment><USER16> Two people does not make a noteworthy conspiracy theory.</comment></comment></comment>


Nuclear Winter Easier to Trigger Than Previously Thought - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/nuclear-winter-easier-to-trigger-than-previously-thought-study.php

<comment><USER2> So, that could be a Plan-B in case we can't contain global warming.</comment>


Pop_OS 19.10 - <AUTHOR> https://system76.com/pop <comment><USER2> Wanted to chime in and say Pop!_OS is the leader when it comes to HiDPI on Linux I believe.

Especially if you have 4K monitors or a 3K/4K mix where the monitors need a different DPI set.

PopOS uses a system to manage the scaling very well. [https://support.system76.com/articles/hidpi-multi- monitor/](https://support.system76.com/articles/hidpi-multi-monitor/)

The closest comparison I've seen elsewhere is fractional scaling in Gnome 3.32+: [https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/FracionalScaling](https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/FracionalScaling)

If you have a configuration / workflow for HiDPI on Linux, it'd be nice to see if there were other options / any other things out there.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that info. If the OS is pleasent otherwise, I'll switch immediately from elementary OS. Their position on fractional scaling is:

\- it's bad because pixel perfectness!

\- you're wrong for wanting it

\- we don't care that MacOS does it well

So annoying.

<comment><USER4> > \- we don't care that MacOS does it well

At least in 2017 they claimed MacOS _didn 't_ do it well[1].

Do you have a link to something more recent where they changed their position?

1: [https://medium.com/elementaryos/top-3-misconceptions- about-h...](https://medium.com/elementaryos/top-3-misconceptions-about- hidpi-f5ef493d7bf8)

<comment><USER3> Oh yes, that's my opinion. They are biased because they see only the defects, I'm biased because it works well enough for me (and many people I have spoken to about this who run MacOS) on MacOS.

Add to that the implicit assumption that it's good enough which is encoded in Apple's decision to include it at all.

Ymmv

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have been using PopOS on my secondary, private laptop for two years. I installed it on a whim, and it just works for me. Nothing spectacular, just polished. Always been happy with it.

Perhaps that's the biggest compliment for an OS?

</comment><comment><USER6> I'll chime in here to show my support for Pop!_OS. Simply put, I like it so much, that it's been the host OS on my 2013 Mac Pro tube since early this year: [https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3...](https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3/4_Pop!_OS__The_first_real_Linux_desktop.html)

<comment><USER7> Great picture post. I've been curious about Pop for a while and I've had similar frustrations to what you mention. I also appreciate the mention that it works better outside a VM, I'll skip that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I recently installed CentOS 7.7 onto a Dell Latitude 5290 (Dell's equivalent of the ThinkPad x280) and found everything (audio, suspend wake, wifi, caméra, nvme) just works, and it gets twice the battery life as on Windows 10.

I'm happy to see really nice marketing on Linux as a desktop OS but it seems over the top these days.

<comment><USER9> Many things happen in the Linux kernel. It doesn't matter which distro you use as long as the kernel supports your hardware. Lots of distros have taken credit for things that happen outside of what they do.

<comment><USER10> Can you expand on your answer, please. I haven't been following Linux kernel updates and wondering if you're implying that they did a better job at supporting hardware or was there an organized push to support more hardware?

Also, just out of curiosity, did additional hardware support take away from other areas of development or was this just natural since more Linux kernel devs just use different hardware and saw direct benefit?

<comment><USER9> A distribution like Ubuntu, Debian, Pop!_OS, Fedora, etc., is a collection of programs from many, many other projects and places. Almost every distribution configures things a slightly different way, but almost any other distribution can be configured that same way.

Distros include a unique set of packages, but after installation you can remove what you don't want and add what you do.

The single biggest factor in terms of sheer compatibility with your hardware is the Linux kernel, and every distribution has one. Some are older than others. Some projects remove things from the kernel and recompile. Others add things.

But by and large, the Linux kernel is the same from distro to distro. Some ship newer kernels, to be sure, and some ship older ones. The Linux kernel developers maintain a few different kernels at the same time, some older with security patches, some newer with the latest features and drivers.

Fedora ships new kernels all the time. If you have new hardware and have parts that are not working so great, new kernels will often solve your problems. It's not the distributions doing this, it's the kernel team.

If you have old, stable hardware that works great with an old kernel, you might want to run something like Debian or CentOS -- if you like that sort of thing.

Fedora or Arch are both great ways to get new hardware working its best, but that's because the Linux kernel developers are doing this work at the kernel level, and these distributions pick up new kernels very soon after they are released.

If distro developers contribute back to the Linux kernel -- and many do, from Ubuntu and Fedora for sure, but for others, too -- everybody benefits from those improvements when a new kernel is released for the use of all distributions that want to package it.

<comment><USER11> So why is it so many programs support/recommend Ubuntu rather than generic Linux? Is it primarily the testing environment that the devs use and the packaging formats the different distros use? I ask because I'm deciding between fedora and some Ubuntu flavour for my next OS and have used Ubuntu for the last 2 years

<comment><USER9> It all comes down to preference, including what works for your hardware and your use case(s).

Before GNOME 3, Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora all used GNOME 2, and they were more alike than different. I'd say the same is true today with these three and GNOME 3, though Ubuntu skins it somewhat differently.

They really are more alike than you'd think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Imagine Development as a First-Class Citizen

The cloud and devices of the future are running Linux. Accelerate your productivity by developing on the same platform that you deploy to. Your tools and programming languages are supported natively and only a command away._

??? I scrolled all the way down and I'm still not sure what the heck is this supposed to be. The selling points are window snapping, workspaces, and... a script to install tensorflow? It's all so bizarre.

 _We're focusing on you in a different way than anyone else. Our approach centers on user testing and careful analysis with the singular goal of delivering the most productive and gorgeous platform for developing your next creation. It's not just about making the easiest tool, it's about making the best tool. And we're just getting started._

Nope, still not making sense.

 _Discover what's possible at the cross-roads of IOT and AI._

Oh, please just stop.

<comment><USER13> Took me a while to figure out it was a fork of Ubuntu. Does System76 maintain its own aptitude repos? What custom software does it come with (if any)? What architectures does it support? What is the default desktop environment? There's no detail anywhere. No screenshots either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wasn't sure what Pop!_OS was but found this page:

[https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop- ubuntu/](https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/)

</comment><comment><USER15> use it every day, very pleasant distribution for a scientific workstation, especially the great nvidia driver support.

the overall design seems to be for a knowledgeable computer user, but one who has no interest in configuring things.

<comment><USER16> Made the jump from OSX and for scientific users who don't to endlessly chase a working laptop setup PopOS and it's nvidia driver support (on a thinkpad) has been fantastic, highly recommend as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have found this to be a great option for local deep learning. Painless install of nVidia drivers, CUDA, tensorflow, etc. Also works well for playing games through Steam.

</comment><comment><USER18> No real indictment on the quality of the OS nor on the effort that people have put into the project, but why, oh why, did they pick a name which has two different special characters in it?

It looks like they're trying hard to push this OS but they seem to have hurt their chances of SEO by creating a name which is both unpronouncable (pop exclamation mark underscore OS) and unsearchable.

<comment><USER19> While I agree the name is silly, it seems to work in Google. Both "pop os" and "pop!_os" returned their page as the first result for me.

<comment><USER20> as a programmer, I really wish they're was a google setting that respected special characters. in general the algorithm seems to throw them all out discriminately. perhaps they're not indexed at all, for performance reasons?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is it me or is it so weird that this "OS" (Linux distro) made by a laptop seller (admittedly, with a nerd clientele in mind) has for top selling point bundling a tool to manage your tensorflow installation?

Also mentions of blockchain and IoT make this page look like a buzzword bingo.

<comment><USER12> Truly is a buzzword bingo. This paragraph:

 _Imagine Development as a First-Class Citizen

The cloud and devices of the future are running Linux. Accelerate your productivity by developing on the same platform that you deploy to. Your tools and programming languages are supported natively and only a command away._

???

I scrolled all the way down and I'm still not sure what the heck is this supposed to be. The selling points are window snapping, workspaces, and... a script to install tensorflow? It's all so bizarre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> TBH, I took one look at the marketroid speak on the landing page and said "Hell no."

But then I skimmed the HN discussion and found the following links:

[https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3...](https://triosdevelopers.com/jason.eckert/blog/Entries/2019/3/4_Pop!_OS__The_first_real_Linux_desktop.html)

[https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop- ubuntu/](https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/)

Now I'm intrigued, and will try installing it on my laptop today.

<comment><USER23> > The feedback from power users has been amazing - I'll agree with the popular > slogan for Pop!_OS as "the best OS for developers" wholeheartedly. I can > install it and start working. No need to install Nvidia drivers, worry about > LUKS disk encryption or customizing my desktop at all. It's perfect, and I > am faster than on Pop!_OS for general productivity than on Windows (and a > LOT faster than on macOS).

Oh come on. I will never understand this. For your desktop, surely you can afford to spend an hour configuring your system that should work for over a decade. I lost it at installing NVIDIA drivers, is it that difficult or time- consuming or what the heck? :D As far as full disk encryption goes, I would rather do it manually using Arch's wiki than trust someone else with it, especially because there are MANY ways to do it, and they probably had no plausible deniability in mind, which is a nope for anyone who is serious about it. There are lots of different layouts, parameters, and so on. But OK, for people who cannot install NVIDIA drivers or are not willing to spend a minute doing that, then yeah, sure, why not...

<comment><USER22> Why would I spend an hour configuring a machine when I don't have to? I don't spend an hour fiddling with a car before it's usable for me. Why should a computer be different?

Why would I want plausible deniability with my encryption? I'm a developer, not a cia agent. I need to keep my company's code safe from random strangers, not governments.

<comment><USER23> How about this phrase: "one size does not fit all"? Do you use the default configurations for all of your software as well? If not, why not, and how does the reasoning not apply to the rest of the computer?

<comment><USER22> I do what most people do: Look for something that covers as many of my use cases as possible. The less customization I have to do, the better.

What I'm hoping is that this OS lives up to its promise to cater to the 80% first, which will likely mean that I need to do little-to-no customization, which means less things to maintain myself, which means more time to do actually valuable things. That's what I used to like about MacOS in the days of Mountain Lion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is there someone here who migrated from Mac OS to Pop!_OS? If yes, what was your experience and what did you miss?

<comment><USER25> I'm actually currently using both at the same time on different laptops.

The biggest thing I miss -- font rendering. Font rendering is all messed up in linux. It's painful to read pdfs, emails, browse the web. I've tried all sorts of configuration options and it's still broken. Really, it grates me. Things just look off.

On Pop! (old thinkpad), typing gives me joy, and I live in the terminal / use vimium browser bindings / snap windows around. I prefer this machine for editing code / hacking.

On Mac, swiping around is frictionless. I use hot corners, gestures, and have trackpad sensitivity at the highest. No need for vim outside of editing code, and I default to GUI workflows. The screen is much better, and prefer watching videos.

My VPN setup and all that jazz is just as easy on either machine.

<comment><USER26> Yep. Pop OS fixed the graphics driver mess on Linux and seemingly spurred Ubuntu to finally take action.

I'm hoping they tackle font rendering next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> just popping in to say thank you to the dev team if youre seeing this. pop os is slick. i ditched win10 for it and it gives me a hope for the linux desktop i havent felt since 1999!

<comment><USER28> I just switched to pop from Windows 2 weeks ago. i had been trying out various distros on another laptop over the last few years but I would only mess around for a few days and then go back to windows. switching over completely has worked out a lot better because it is forcing me to learn a lot faster.

having Windows running in a vm is a lot better for my mental health as well. I don't have to worry about it taking control over my computer at random hours to do some updates

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have almost a violent reaction to gnome application UX. I find it terrible. It is so hard to figure out how to do anything.

<comment><USER30> I felt the same way but I love it these days, I just used it wrong for a long time. It's very opinionated and you kind of have to adjust to the workflow. It makes more sense to treat it more like a tiling window manager than a traditional UI and use the keyboard extensively.

I've reconfigured switching between workspaces to simpler hotkeys and together with the overview you can keep a lot of stuff open and navigate without things feeling cluttered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I tried it last release. I don't see how it's any different than Ubuntu other than the company also makes laptops. I must be missing something.

<comment><USER28> I havnt used ubuntu in years so I'm not sure how they compare, but i think pop has different keyboard shortcuts, has nvidia drivers included, it uses a different app store gui, has a better/easier install walk-through with an option for full disk encryption.

its basically just a lot if small things that make it easier to use right out of the box. that's what it seems like to me anyway

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Recently tried installing Ubuntu 19.04. The ISO thumb drive didn't work. Don't remember the details, but I tried nomodeset and some other usual(!) tricks. After 30 minutes I decided to just give Pop a whirl even though it's not as popular as Ubuntu. Worked with no fuss. That's the best argument I can think of. It's Pop OS for me from here on.

<comment><USER33> I've never had to try "usual" tricks to get Ubuntu installed, and I've installed it many times in the last 12 years. In fact, I've been installing Linux for around 18 years total and the instal has always been pretty smooth from what I can remember.

I understand the gripes of people that say Linux doesn't work out of the box and requires constant tweaking, but if you're having usual problems even getting it installed, I'm curious what you're doing during the install.

<comment><USER32> No no, I'm not doing anything weird during the install, I'm having issues _getting to the install_. Self-built desktop with (in this case) AMD CPU and GPU, but nothing special.

<comment><USER33> Have you tried using your onboard video card during install and installing AMD drivers after you get in?

I've never actually used AMD components so maybe they make it more difficult to get the drivers or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What is it with Desktop oriented Linux and the disgusting default brown/grey UI? Dear Ubuntu, you're not doing anyone a favour by having such a gross color as the default. I can guarantee a lot of Mac + Windows users looking to switch see that gross color and discard Linux as a whole because of it. Remember, when regular users ask what Linux to pick, or google it, the first one to show up is usually Ubuntu. (These aren't technical people I'm talking about, they probably don't know or don't care that you can change the colors).

How about a clean white, like OSX? or sleek, neat Black?

<comment><USER28> zorin has a whiter than white ui and its the distro i always recommend zorin for windows users instead of ubuntu because it's laid out similar to windows.

the first time I tried out ubuntu i kept clicking the right side of the window for the X and minimise buttons and lasted maybe half and hour then switched to mint

<comment><USER35> >the first time I tried out ubuntu i kept clicking the right side of the window for the X and minimise buttons

You can change this, but the option is hidden away somewhere (gnome-tweak-tool or some dconf option maybe).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I get that Pop!_OS is nice, but Ubuntu 19.10 is super polished out of the box as well. Even though System76 is arguing it is much more than just a reskinned Ubuntu, my final verdict is that it is just a reskinned Ubuntu.

</comment><comment><USER37> Styling it "Pop!_OS" seems like a bad idea if they want wide adoption. Should I type it like that every time? Or maybe omit the explanation mark, as in the HN submission title? Or just type it the same way as I am (presumably) supposed to pronounce it, "Pop OS"?

I bet all three variants will be used regularly (and probably other, erroneous ones like "Pop_OS!" and "Pop_!OS"). What is the point in making a name ambiguous and difficult to get right? Why not just call it Pop OS?

</comment><comment><USER38> Lambda Stack is an alternative to Pop!_OS's tensorman, which doesn't use containers:

[https://lambdalabs.com/lambda-stack-deep-learning- software](https://lambdalabs.com/lambda-stack-deep-learning-software)

This is a one-line apt/aptitude installation for TensorFlow, PyTorch, CUDA, cuDNN, etc. When NVIDIA releases a new version of CUDA, you can simply apt-get upgrade to the latest version.

Disclosure: I work for Lambda Labs.

<comment><USER39> Do you support the 19.10 release? The inability to compile or package every version and variant of TF, and GCC9 conflicts with both the CUDA SDK and Tensorflow, is precisely why we created Tensorman.

<comment><USER38> Lambda Stack supports 16.04 and 18.04 at the moment.

It's value prop is to enable people to easily install TensorFlow / PyTorch and their dependencies in a container-less fashion. Though it doesn't provide the isolation of containers.

What I've learned from talking to customers is that many people don't care that much about handling multiple versions of the same framework. I wouldn't be surprised if you find that, like Lambda Stack, people are mainly using this product to easily get started with TensorFlow/Pytorch.

Now that TensorFlow 2.0 is out, we will see a much more stable API. People won't have to change their code if TensorFlow bumps up a dependency version. For many, this will reduce the impetus for moving to containers.

<comment><USER5> Install of PyTorch and CUDA is literally one line in anaconda. I don't remember what I did for tensorflow, but I have it up and running and I am quite the computer phillistine so it could not have been much harder.

Maybe the second part is more of a value prop or good point of focus?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm seriously thinking about it. I'm just addicted to creative cloud for stuff. Anyone know how to get it working with after effects and adobe xd?

<comment><USER41> Here's an alternative hot take on this.

You gotta cut the Creative Cloud addiction. Unless you're a full-time designer (especially if working in print or something), alternative tools exist, and it's about figuring out how to move and work in them.

No, GIMP isn't in the conversation.

People complain about web tech, but I've found that it's honestly really the best bet for new design technology. Figma et all are good enough for most stuff, many have PSD support, and better collaboration stories on top of all that.

My two cents, at least. I could be wrong, but this is what I'm trying to do - my logic became "if I'm gonna pay monthly for this shit, why am I paying Adobe?". They're not even truly native on macOS and it's run worse for me with each update.

<comment><USER42> I get what you're saying in terms of Photoshop and Illustrator, but what about After Effects (and by extension Adobe Media Encoder)? I love web tech, but I have never seen an application come close to the power I get in there.

<comment><USER28> fusion? im pretty sure they have a Linux version. they do with Resolve anyway. you can also do some fusion stuff inside of resolve now

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> >We're building an OS for the software developer, maker, and computer science professional who uses their computer as a tool to discover and create.

Then have a simpler website... This website doesn't look like it's trying to appeal to a computer scientist.

<comment><USER44> The system is rather nice to use, but nothing about the branding of this distro appeals to anyone, as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER45> I have no idea what you or the GP post mean.

The site loads pretty quickly, does the whole static background scoll thingy, and explains how you can use it and what its highlights are.

<comment><USER43> Let's say that it looks more like the Apple website, when I expect it to look like the Void Linux website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've been using Mint and Ubuntu for the past 5 years. Installed Pop on a spare laptop 18 months ago, to experiment with.

Switched to Pop as my primary OS 3 months ago.

There isn't much that's radically different ... it's just better, cleaner, more polished, smooth.

</comment><comment><USER47> I've been using Pop_OS for ~6 months and have found it to be very nice.

</comment><comment><USER48> Hopefully this means navi is fully supported... already drained enough hours trying to get things all working. Wound up reverting to the last Ubuntu LTS.

</comment><comment><USER49> Last time I've tried popos the installer didn't allow me to install with custom LVM on LUKS encrypted drive, is that fixed now?

</comment><comment><USER50> Great project, but adjacent punctuation hurts me

</comment><comment><USER51> I would be interested if anyone has put Pop on a Pixelbook Go and used it for web development.

</comment><comment><USER52> Since it's based on Ubuntu, can I just add a repo and install their desktop?

<comment><USER53> Yes you can, I've done it in the past. I don't recall the info, but you can search for it and should find it easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Just finished updating my laptop as I make this comment. Super smooth, loving it!

</comment><comment><USER55> For anyone who has used Pop OS how does it compare to Mint?

<comment><USER56> In my experience it was slightly better, but then most of my problems with Mint were because of Cinnamon. Not sure if drivers or just Cinnamon's compositor, but Cinnamon would become really choppy at times. Pop is smooth and painless to install. I ended up moving to Manjaro and Plasma eventually, but I'd recommend.

<comment><USER55> It's cpu vsync. It sucks. It's the only thing I change on Mint.

I install my graphics drivers (nvidia), go to the nvidia settings control panel, turn on full composition (run the desktop through the gpu) which enables vsync on the graphics card. I then go into general (settings) and set vsync to none, disabling cpu vsync. This makes Mint as smooth as butter. It also improves youtube playback quite a bit.

<comment><USER56> Oh, that makes sense. It definitely affects Plasma to a certain extent too. The default compositor uses OpenGL 2.0 and I could feel some amount of subperceptual lag that annoyed the crap of me after a bit. Switched to XRender and things have been great since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Just support ubuntu.

Given how short the cycle is between the two ( < 48 hrs apparently) I find it hard to believe any real value is added here.

And no I'm not using a OS where just typing the OS name is dependent on keyboard layout. WTF is wrong with you people? Thats insane. No

<comment><USER53> Who are you arguing with?

<comment><USER57> >Who are you arguing with?

Who's arguing? It's top level comment on a hn submission. Occasionally people post their opinions. Who am I arguing with? I didn't realize us vs them mindset is compulsory here.

<comment><USER53> Maybe you should re-read the comment. It reads as if you're angry about something with little to no context as to what point you're trying to make. Whatever works for you, I suppose.

<comment><USER20> I sensed no anger in the comment, and it was a fairly well-made point.

relax.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Azure goes database crazy with one new NoSQL and two new SQL services - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/azure-adds-mysql-postgresql-and-a-way-to-do-cloud-computing-outside-the-cloud/ <comment><USER2> > The company is also offering a preview of a database-migration service that > takes data from on-premises SQL Server and Oracle databases and migrates it > to Azure SQL Database.

That's awesome. While I'd personally prefer the migration goes to PostgreSQL... :D, it's still good to see more options for migrating away from Oracle to <anything else that works>.

Hopefully Oracle's "Cloud" platform dies off, followed by the rest of the company.

</comment><comment><USER3> May look into what the PostgreSQL option offers... of course plv8 is one of the main extensions I look for, but I know there's several that are very popular.</comment>


Why Do We Need a Decentralized Storage System? - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/iW3eg5leKhE <comment><USER2> So why do we need it?</comment>


Data: Vancouver Average Home Price Plunges 20% in 1 Month - <AUTHOR> http://globalnews.ca/news/2887766/data-is-the-metro-vancouver-real-estate-market-in-free-fall/ <comment><USER2> The provincial government instituted a 15% real estate tax levied on foreign buyers that went into effect in July. So, no surprise here.

There are plenty of people supporting the tax who actually wanted prices to come down, and the tax is having the intended effect.

[http://globalnews.ca/news/2846122/b-c-to-bring-in-foreign- bu...](http://globalnews.ca/news/2846122/b-c-to-bring-in-foreign-buyer-tax- finance-minister/)</comment>


Professor griefs gamers, feigns surprise at reaction - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/offbeat/70376/professor-griefs-gamers-feigns-surprise-reaction <comment><USER2> I'm with the professor on this one. If you can't play-act like a villain, or a villainous hero, in a game about heroes and villains, then what the hell is the fantasy world of gaming giving other than all the worst weaknesses and faults of the real world?

Have any of the detractors stopped to think that perhaps their sense of community and socializing isn't what all gamers want? Societies values are not always intrinsically good. The fantasy world of gaming gives a person the chance to transcend normal forces and values, within the rules of the given fantasy world.

It is entirely fitting that this experiment was done in a world of heroes and villains. The majority want to claim a moral prerogative to insist on status quo, just like in the real world, when far fewer of the foundational reasons for the status quo exist. Your real world nor fantasy world freedoms, life, limb, rights are not affected by a rule-abiding player who entered a fantasy world to play out their fantasy of heroes and villains. The genuine and rule- abiding fantasy players rights are impinged by the majority rule.

A summary of wrongs here, (1) death threats conducted in the real world against a player who played the intended fantasy in the fantasy world (2) support by the majority of enforcing real world rules as if they had the same weight and imperative in the game world which was being used by design (3) Editorializing in the title of this post, and not least (4) a direct accusation of dishonesty which constitutes a personal attack in the title of this post.

If we transcend mob rule and the establishment for a moment, step into the realm of ethics and what is truth, necessary and unnecessary social norms and rules versus individual rights, we find a sad sad tale of the majority wanting to forcing their way on every individual in an mis-balanced sense of societies rights and needs.

Kill my karma, if you must, establishment supporters, but it's the professor, not the establishment, who has my support.

<comment><USER3> Having played City of Heroes and knowing what's going on here, you're completely off base. The CoH PvP zones have special drones protecting the base, to give people breathing room. This professor was repeatedly teleporting people into them, an act which gave him _no reward whatsoever_ and which (at least for a while) penalized the person involved (drone kills would give you XP debt). Neither of these properties hold during normal, legitimate, PvP play.

RPing a villain is fine. Acting like an asshole makes you a pariah. Surprised?

<comment><USER4> I do not play City of Heroes, however if you read his research paper and his comments, he did those things to remove those players as obstacles in order to complete the objective of the zone (capturing 6 towers as I understand).

Since I do not play please let me know if I misunderstand, but it sounds like he was taking a perfectly legitimate avenue to his ultimate goal of capturing those 6 towers and winning the zone.

<comment><USER3> The towers are, by design, nowhere close to any of the key positions. No one close enough to be teleported into the towers (the power has a range limit) is in any way threatening the nominal goals of the zone.

I'm not sure why they didn't ban him, honestly. I had gathered that this type of sociopathy was considered griefing by the developers and grounds for temporary or permanent bans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think you could summarize this article as "Gamer dislikes griefers, thinks gaming is serious business". It sounds like it was partially on the game designers to limit this griefing activity and make this character able to be killed. The professor's purpose was to study this community and in doing so he put it under stress and watched it react. I think this is valid research given that no one was actually hurt-just annoyed.

It seems like this guy should be more upset with the developers who did nothing (that's cited in the article) to stop this.

<comment><USER6> It may be a valid and interesting result, but I don't think it was ethically collected. I'd love to hear how these human subjects were briefed or compensated for this study. It's pretty clear the professor was subjecting them to unexpected emotional stress without their consent.

It may also be valid and interesting to find out what happens if you flip people off in traffic, or pay for your restaurant bill in pennies, or taunt preschoolers when you beat them in a game, but it doesn't mean it's ethical to just go out and do it, even if there's nothing explicitly saying it's illegal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> At least at the UC, I suspect this sort of research would require human subjects approval, just like if you want to interview random people or put them through some form of test. You can't just harass people who have not agreed to it in the name of "research" anymore in a MMORP than you can on the street.

I think someone at Loyola needs to think about ethical guidelines for research here.

</comment><comment><USER8> This summed up exactly what _I_ thought of the original article. I have to wonder what the result of this will be on his credibility as a professor and how it will reflect on Loyola University in the long run.

Reporting on common sense that is akin to running into a lion den and hitting one with a stick only to result in a mauling should not be newsworthy, let alone require the writing of a book.

Edit -> Link to the original article in case you missed it. [http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university...](http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university_professor_be.html)

<comment><USER9> Reiterating common sense is not scholarship, systematically measuring it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The original study is entirely valid research and fascinating to boot.

I'm looking forward to reading the book.

</comment><comment><USER11> I had the same problem on GTA4. In multiplayer there's a "GTA Race" mode which is racing but with freedom to walk around, use weapons on other racers, etc. There's also a vanilla "race" mode with no weapons that's just about racing.

So I enjoyed playing GTA Race, blocking up the track and mass killing the other racers - you get points and it's the point of that mode - to either dodge violence or to cause it. Instead people whined about how they "just wanted to race" yet for some reason they wouldn't bother to use the proper Race mode.

Basically, people are idiots.

</comment><comment><USER12> What I don't get is why the game developers did not fix the loopholes in the system.

I am also skeptic of the research motives. "People get angry if you annoy them" - hope it wasn't funded with tax payer money...

<comment><USER13> Fixing all the loopholes is hard. Blizzard didn't want to mess up the game when they made the telekinesis skill in diablo 2, but it turned out to be a big problem. Similarly they didn't want you to be able to PK people with no warning, but various methods of doing that emerged. Now for Diablo 3 they're so worried about people screwing with each other that the game gives everyone separate item drops, but something like that is too big a change to just go back and "fix the loopholes" in diablo 2.

<comment><USER12> I believe that. Not even sure how long that professors griefing was allowed to continue. It sounds as if he primarily had one trick he used, which should have been fixed after a while.

Or if it can't be fixed "physically", then maybe there should be rules and misbehaving players should be evicted.

I hope they won't fix Diablo 3 so much that it becomes boring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The irony here comes from the professor simultaneously trying to impose his own social norms on the players he's antagonizing. When someone says something like "if you do that again, I'll kill you" in the context of playing a game, it's ridiculous to interpret it as a bona fide death threat.

</comment><comment><USER15> Whatever your opinion on griefing is, it can sure be humorous.

This link was in the comments from on NOLA article, "FANSY THE FAMOUS BARD":

<http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm>

</comment><comment><USER16> Professor was suprised that there are two distinct set of rules, game rules and social rules, and that by breaking social rules you can anger people?

Somebody should go to his office and pee on his desk explaining to the professor that he is not breaking any game rules (in that case called 'physics'). Professor could be also suprised by revelation that in real world also two distinct set of rules exist. Maybe he could write about this afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER17> Thank you! This saves me from commenting on the original now.</comment>


Show HN: Code Collaboration Charts - <AUTHOR> https://www.networkperspective.io/for-code/ <comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. In this project I tried to bring a new perspective on code repository, transform "git log" into a contributor collaboration network, display it nicely and try to make it useful and hopefully interesting. I'd very much appreciate your feedback.

<comment><USER2> As someone who works in graph visualization, this looks like just another case of a default hairball visualization (those often arise when combining force- directed layout with dense graphs): beautiful pictures (in the sense of nice to hang it on the wall), but rather useless as a visualization.

Looking at the various hairballs it would be more helpful to render simple HTML lists ordered by some graph analysis algorithm results (centralities, etc.) What you "see" in these diagrams is mostly a listing of nodes sorted by degree (and you can't even tell the exact degree). Also, nearness often indicates relationships that simply aren't there.

It might be better to find a set of use-cases that describe how users of the app find answers to real-world questions they have, and then add interaction to the diagram that helps the users in answering these questions. Right now, basically the only answers it provides: who had the highest number of interactions. And for many cases, you can't even read the names of those that the people interacted with because labels there are dozens of overlapping labels.

<comment><AUTHOR> The overview of a bigger repository looks kinda like a hairball, but the ui lets dig deeper, and filter the graph by "code areas" (paths) or organizations.

I was thinking about a few use cases like these that come first to my mind:

\- for open source - assessing if a framework (repo) might have a bus factor problem. Take Vue [https://bit.ly/2nVxsh5](https://bit.ly/2nVxsh5) and React [https://bit.ly/31njWR3](https://bit.ly/31njWR3) . It is easy to see that if Evan for any reason drops Vue then it might be a problem

\- I imagine a bus factor is even a bigger problem also for closed source projects

\- for developers - quickly finding experts in a some area of the project (especially a bigger one with few 100s developers). The ones more connected are also more likely to answer your questions - eventually they are well connected for a reason.

\- for community managers - well each open source project is a community and this is its visualization - so yeah you usually know the top contributors in the community but there might be more people that you might try to involve and engage more in the project. The tool lets you browse the connections in the repository and gives you more social context.

\- for non-technical managers / hr - well... they have hard time browsing github as it's full of code (of course it is). This gives them another perspective and insight how works get done within a project (open or close sorce). Though I am not super sure if showing a network is more friendly than showing a code, but that is a common way of showing social structures in sociology for instance - so yeah humanities area.

But maybe showing last 30 days of collaboration would untangle the hairball and give more actual info - this is something I working on now - and your comment tells that this might be important.

Thank you for your feedback. If you have some thoughts on the use cases I wrote or others please share. Thank you!</comment></comment></comment>


Google Voice Now Offers SIP Addresses For Calling Directly Over IP - <AUTHOR> http://www.disruptivetelephony.com/2011/03/google-voice-now-offers-sip-addresses-for-calling-directly-over-ip.html

<comment><USER3> Amazing that they use Yate (which is unfortunately not that widely known).

Years ago I've examined different VoIP engines for a project:

While Asterisk is one of the most widely used VoIP engines the source code and the whole architecture (at least few years ago) was ugly as hell. Instead of designing the whole system for concurrency there were some pretty ugly workarounds. In addition, it was trivial to crash the system with a little bit of SIP fuzzing (and some of those crashes may have been exploitable).

Yate on the other hand - while not having as many features as Asterisk - <USER2> just beautiful. A really nice architecture and extremely good readable C++ source code. In fact, it was a real joy to study the source.

Unfortunately I didn't really had a chance to study Freeswitch, as it was pretty new at this time and therefore not an option. From what I've seen it seems better architected and more stable than Asterisk. The main difference to Yate is that Yate only has few external dependencies, while Freeswitch tries to utilize as many external libraries as possible (e.g., instead of implementing SIP itself it uses an external library).

If I'd had to choose a VoIP engine today (and if a simple SIP proxy wouldn't be sufficient), Yate would be pretty much at the top of the list.

<comment><USER4> And the team behind it is really cool - met them on the 2.0 launch party and they were extremely friendly. They're honest about the project priorities too. It's basically a "what feature do you want to sponsor" project. (and I mean it in a good way)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It appears from the article that this is one half of the connection of Google Voice to SIP voip, the inbound sip call to gv number.

The other half, delivering GV inbound calls to a SIP phone, is still missing in action. It's also now getting a lot more attention due to the impending shutdown of the Gizmo5 sip service.

As much as Google seems to want me to switch my gizmo number to GV, GV solves a fundamentally different problem than I need solved. They are working on getting one number to any end point, and I need to map one number to my desk (without using a cellphone or hard wired phone.).

I'd love to find a good provider, but they all seem to be geared either to monthly fee for all inclusive, which is way more than I need for this application or not providing both an inbound number and the sip termination. (like ipkall) I could hack a combination, but it's probably going to wind up being less robust.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you want a round about way of receiving inbound Google Voice calls through SIP (for free) you can do the following:

1\. Get free SIP service from IPTel (<http://www.iptel.org/service>).

2\. Get a free phone number in the Washington area with IPKall (<http://www.ipkall.com/>).

3\. Add your new IPKall number to your Google Voice account.

Now when someone rings your GV number it will call your IPKall number which will in turn call your IPTel SIP account.

<comment><USER7> I tried to use a few numbers from IPKall but they were all already registered with Google Voice. Sipgate[1] gives you a number free and was easy to setup with some instructions[2] from XDA.

[1] <http://www.sipgate.com/> [2] <http://forum.xda- developers.com/showthread.php?t=887131>

<comment><USER5> Sipgate has been out of numbers since the Gizmo5 shutdown notice went around. They expect to have some soon, but no real info on a timeline.

<comment><USER8> Is this something like what's going to happen with IPv4?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> God, these addresses. I hope that one of the features between now and the actual rollout is letting the users assign _much_ more memorable identifiers like 'firstname.lastname@example.com". Still, the day when Android phones have out- of-the-box solutions for IP calling is getting tantalizingly close!

</comment><comment><USER10> Can anyone recommend a SIP phone for OS X?

As a semi-aside, I'm really tired of paying for skype since the service is so awful and would happily redirect my money elsewhere.

<comment><USER5> Blink (<http://icanblink.com>) is ok as a client. I'm not 100% on the interface, but it does seem to work well without crashing. It's gpl, and it does seem to have some momentum behind it.

There's one called simply "Telephone" which is very simple, just a textbox to call. No contact list or anything. (well, it wasn't much in december, since then they've moved from code.google to github: <https://github.com/eofster/Telephone>)

Gizmo5 is a crashy piece of ...something. It's the only app I've ever had on osx that has crashed so hard it's needed to be reinstalled. Several times. OTOH, you can't get it anymore, and Google is shutting down the sip service behind it.

<comment><USER11> any idea how to configure Blink for GV SIP? I used +1[my number]@sip.voice.google.com and GV password but keep getting auth errors.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can't register Blink for GV as an endpoint. You can use Blink to _call_ a GV number via SIP (example here: [http://truvoipbuzz.com/2011/03/make- unlimited-sip-calls-to-g...](http://truvoipbuzz.com/2011/03/make-unlimited- sip-calls-to-google-voice-number-tutorial/) ) but you can't set up Blink as one of the numbers GV calls.

That's the missing piece I mentioned at the end of my article and has been made in several other comments.

<comment><USER11> Thank you for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Google had enabled for a while a XMPP in/out gateway but they seem to have disabled it. It's still working on my account though and pbxes.org has a nice support for it built in, so it seems imminent they'll re-add this feature at some point in the near future. Given the on-deck support for SIP calling in Gingerbread, I figure they must be in the final stages of testing now.

</comment><comment><USER13> Related: [http://blog.duh.org/2011/03/so-google-voice-sip-is- actually-...](http://blog.duh.org/2011/03/so-google-voice-sip-is-actually- coming.html)

Hopefully they'll fix the security issues (4 digit PIN to log in...), or at least SSL wrap it soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a great post (and may be how the info got to the people who clued me in to the existence of sip.voice.google.com).

He also has this post writing about the type of SIP integration we really need to have with Google Voice:

[http://blog.duh.org/2011/03/google-to-kill- gizmo5-on-3-april...](http://blog.duh.org/2011/03/google-to-kill- gizmo5-on-3-april.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you want a relatively easy way to use your GV number for inbound and outbound calls with the SIP client of your choice, just connect it with Asterisk. The easiest way is to use "PBX In A Flash". I've been using it at home for a few months and it's been fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER15> We found today this is no longer the case --> [http://www.onsip.com/blog/rob/2011/03/08/google-voice-sip- ad...](http://www.onsip.com/blog/rob/2011/03/08/google-voice-sip-address-no- longer-available-sipvoicegooglecom-now-silent)

As for Yate, we believe it has the same issue we found with native Android SIP support: It doesn't distinguish between auth username and username, which creates limitations. (SIP Authentication username not configurable - RFC 3261 Section 22.1)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this is very similar to how some of us were using Gizmo5 with GrandCentral before Google acquired both of them:

[http://groups.google.com/group/grandcentral-help- poweruser/b...](http://groups.google.com/group/grandcentral-help- poweruser/browse_thread/thread/8ac56b29429d3bc8?pli=1)

<comment> X-Istence Yeah, I am wondering if Google is planning on getting the functionality I had with gizmo5 into Google Voice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I signed up at sip2sip.info and just tried dialing my GV in SipDroid, but it got stuck on "dialing".

<comment><USER3> I've recently switched from SipDroid to CSipSimple ([https://market.android.com/details?id=com.csipsimple&fea...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.csipsimple&feature=search_result)) - which in my opinion works much better. The main difference is that SipDroid implements almost everything in Java code, while CSipSimple is a wrapper around PjSip (which is a pretty mature SIP library).

So if this doesn't work in SipDroid it may be possible that it works with CSipSimple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why oh why is it still not available in the UK :(

<comment><USER19> Likely because it's significantly more expensive to call a UK mobile than a US one. I believe that they announced free calls until the end of the year. Maybe they'll roll it out in the UK at that point but expect to pay for it.

<comment><USER20> How much does it cost to call a cell phone in the US?

<comment><USER19> For comparison:

Twilio: $0.02/min to all US and $0.03 to UK landlines or $0.32 to UK mobiles -- yes, 16x the US rate.

Voxeo: $0.02/min to all US and UK landlines or between $0.14 and $0.35 for mobiles.

Google wouldn't use Twilio or Voxeo for this kind of service so it gets cheaper elsewhere -- especially on their scale -- but it shows the relative difference.

<comment><USER21> UK rates really are a crapshoot. Voxeo and Twilio must just be averaging the rates for mobiles. The rates I get at Flowroute for UK mobiles vary wildly: <https://www.flowroute.com/services/rates/U/></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can donations sustain an open source software?  - <AUTHOR>

When creating an open source software, do you think that it's better to finish the product and ask for donations or show the ideias and bet on crowdfunding? <comment><USER2> It's not donations that are meant to sustain open source software. The idea is that it is not the software itself that is meant to sustain itself (because information ought to be free) but rather things like support, maintenance and other tailored services are supposed to provide the funding for the project and for the people working on it.

This is why commercial Linux distributions can work and have worked.

Yes, granted this doesn't apply to all OSS, but in the cases that it doesn't, then it's definitely just for the benefit of the programmer to be able to freely work on, share and collaborate to complete something.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you and it's a very interesting point, but I also think that there is another one.

Let's suppose that you're developing some tool that could solve problems of a lot of people. It's natural that you try to sell this to them (there isn't free lunch).

Getting paid only by services, in my opinion it's not that sustainable, because you'll have costs with this service and you already have other costs with development. To start making some profit, the price of the service has to be high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> IMHO you write software to scratch your own itch, then you release it into the world for others to benefit from your work.. with the nice side effect that sometimes you get feedback,improvements and patches on your code. money is not a _must_ on the open source equation.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could do both.

In my experience, unless you deliver something really indispensable or really, really awesome, no one is going to give you a dollar. Being simply a neat app won't cut it.</comment>