Why don't people understand the urgency of colonizing other planets? - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5717779/why-dont-people-understand-the-urgency-of-colonizing-other-planets

<comment><USER2> Before we colonize anything outside of our own self-sustained gravity well, we kind of need to have a working model of a self-sustained /ecological system/.

Which we noticeably lack.

Let's not forget that, under the criteria of self-sustainment, Biosphere II was a failure, yes? And that subsequent research in ecological systems indicate that we are, collectively, more ignorant than wise as to the mechanics necessary to sustain a fully functional off-world environment.

Yes, we could be wiped out by a kilometer-radius asteroid at any moment. That doesn't mean we actually know what to do about it. Colonizing other planets necessitates /self-sustaining/ colonization - it's utterly pointless, after all, to have a Mars colony doomed to a slow and painful death if its ludicrously expensive supply line to Earth collapses.

If that doesn't convince you, though, /you/ can be the first one to try out a Biosphere-3 on Mars. Go ahead - I won't take your place in line. I promise.

<comment><USER3> You might be right, but none of that speaks against the urgency of doing it, or explains why people don't see it.

<comment><USER4> Practical chances of having something done affects the sense of "urgency to do it".

Even more urgent than colonization is the achievement of immortality, but I don't see people urging to achieve it for the same reason, i.e they think it's not practically achievable.

<comment><USER5> I will have to say, even having a highly dependent colony on another planet will push towards self-sufficiency for pure cost reasons alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Assuming some worst case scenario, how many people would need to be on another planet for the species to survive? Would 1 million be enough to support the necessary technical infrastructure independent of the Earth?

If it isn't independent of the Earth then what's the urgency? Would having the same number of people on/in Earth, inside an independent ecosystem ("Biosphere III", perhaps?) be sufficient safety net? That would be a lot cheaper.

The presumes that the author's stated goal of species survival is the only goal in advocating the colonization of other planets.

I believe there are gaps and omissions in the text.

"most recent 2 millennia living as farmers" -- that should be about 6 millennia.

"there is no evidence that modern humans have ever gone extinct on a continent or a large island." -- what, the Vikings on Greenland aren't modern enough while 1602 is?

"Detection of a large asteroid on a collision course with Earth would no doubt precipitate a frantic scramble to retrofit existing missiles to deliver a nuclear explosive to deflect it toward a less terrifying trajectory." -- except I thought there were more effective ways than nuking it to another orbit. Nuclear weapons have a lot of energy but not a lot of momentum. A mass driver, or a gravity tow, or a number of other techniques seem more appropriate from what I've read.

"which each killed more than 200,000 people provide powerful reminders of the vulnerability of our species to natural disasters." -- not at all. That's 0.003% of the species. If anything, it shows the vulnerability of an human but the resiliency of our species.

I can even argue that having more people, including those living in dangerous places, means more chances for survival. If we all uniformly lived away from Vesuvius, from tornado alley, from tsunami prone areas, and instead only lived in the safest, then we increase the chances that an unexpected event (asteroid, anyone?) at just the wrong spot can destroy everyone.

That's only hand-waving, which is what the author does all over the place.

</comment><comment><USER7> When technology problems are sufficiently hard, not working on them is often the right strategy.

The normal progress of science and technology will make more powerful tools available in general, and eventually there will come a point where the solution to the problem is easy because of those new tools.

Better to work on things now that we can actually make progress on, and do research to discover new tools and techniques to expand the range of problems we can deal with.

<comment><USER8> This is interesting because it probably most accurately describes the current approach to AI. Developing a fully realized "hard AI" system is much too complex a goal to be completed in any reasonable timespan. Instead, most AI researchers are working on more manageable subproblems (machine learning, computer vision, semantic processing, etc) -- tools if you will. We can't be sure, but I personally like to think that these more approachable advances in building an AI toolset will help to work on the larger and more complex AI problems in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is an underlying assumption here that the human species MUST SURVIVE. While my general aim in life is to add to human flourishing, I do feel that people who are obsessed with keeping humanity alive are being a little dramatic.

If an asteroid does hit Earth and destroy most life, is that so bad in the grand scheme of things? If we can come to terms with our personal death, why can't we also come to terms with the death of our species?

Not saying we should all kill ourselves - but that the preservation of our species should take a back seat until we solve more pressing and truly urgent concerns like global poverty, infectious disease, cancer, human trafficking/slavery, etc

</comment><comment><USER10> Where's the rush? Wait a few decades, let it be profitable and the Moon will be colonized. This timeframe is tiny in the grand scheme of things.

The human race has never been in a better position to ensure its survival and the chances are increasing. I would guess that even a dinosaur-killer (20km) asteroid, while devastating, would not end the human race itself. Thinking about events that happen every few millions of years is not very productive for human beings.

Even if you start spending $1tn. per year, it's doubtful that space exploration can be made profitable; in fact it could be the opposite (public money crowding out private investment).

With that in mind, get NASA to actually search for the multi-km size asteroids that could threaten the Earth.

<comment><USER11> In my opinion this is what is holding _us_ back in the grand scheme of things: Only do things which are _profitable_.

Let's just step back for a second and consider the following questions: Do we have the raw materials to start space colonization? Do we have the human resources (manpower and knowledge) to start such a program?

I think the answer to both questions is _yes_. Unfortunatly materials and the manpower are too expensive in the current industrial world.

<comment><USER10> If there's no incentive to make it profitable, there would be no critical mass to move the technology and industry forward. There's only so much public money that can be spent and it's fairly obvious that it won't be spent efficiently.

The space shuttle: $500bn, ISS: $100bn., is humanity closer to colonizing space for that money?

Governments have an incentive to spend money, not to be frugal and industrious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems to me what is most urgent is what is possible now ('the Adjacent Possible')

IMO that is:

Supporting the _Seasteaders_ and _Charter Cities_ ; supporting the further development of nuclear technology (all potential forms of fusion and fission); supporting the development of new forms of propulsion technology (e.g. plasma drives).

</comment><comment><USER10> As an aside, this is an example of what it would take to definitively wipe out humanity:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZiZU42sn6w>

</comment><comment><USER13> if we can't survive here, we can't survive anywhere. there is no urgency to colonize other planets.

<comment><USER14> As the article makes clear, the primary reason for extraterrestrial colonization is to increase the chances of human survival in case of a major catastrophe that would cause extinction on Earth - like an asteroid strike or nuclear war. The author acknowledges that other places in the solar system are not as suited to human life as Earth. It is clear that he sees space colonies as a backup plan for the species, as opposed to a way to escape this planet's problems.

<comment><USER10> A nuclear war won't end the human species, neither would a once- every-100M-year asteroid. Neither would a super-disease, super-volcano, super solar flare etc. Human beings live everywhere on Earth, in diverse environments; technology allows us to inhabit the oceans or the underground if need be. The worst environments on Earth are still more welcoming than the best of what outer space can provide.

<comment><USER14> The idea behind nuclear wars, asteroid strikes, or super volcanoes isn't that the events would directly kill every human being, but that their associated effects would. In all three cases, throwing large amounts of dust into the atmosphere would rapidly cool the Earth, making it more difficult for farmers to grow crops, and creating large-scale starvation.

I do not disagree with you that any location on Earth is more amenable to human habitation than outer space, but I do not think that there are facts to support your claims that an event that would drastic change the Earth's climate for the worse would not affect humanity.

<comment><USER13> After nuclear wars, asteroid strikes, AND super volcanoes, the environment on earth might just be comparable to the next best planet we can find in the next Xk years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Humans suck at reasoning about black swan events, thus the ROI can't compare to more obvious and immediate needs. So blame our brains.

<comment><USER8> The article specifically spends at least two paragraphs on this point.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: The one thing you believe is true, but most people think is untrue? - <AUTHOR> This is apparently how Peter Thiel finds talent. <comment><USER2> I don't believe that climate science is 'settled'.

To clarify I'm neither religiously pro or anti global warming (although I do believe that climate change should happen as a byproduct of a chaotic system with high entropy) - to me the question of whether or not it's solely man made is irrelevant. The questions of importance to me are:

Is it possible to sufficiently geo-engineer the Earth's climate to counteract climate change?

If it is possible where's the cost/benefit analysis (i.e. how much do we spend on geo-engineering to achieve the best 'payoff' in terms of success)?

What's the cost of adaptation (i.e. accepting that the change will happen and adapting ourselves to the changing environment)?

Those questions are relevant regardless of whether or not the world is getting hotter or colder. For me the political muddying of the waters makes it impossible to engage in rational debate with either side. It's become a religion, but unless you're a climate scientist (and I'm not) you realistically only know what you've consumed from others, and there's a lot of people on all sides who are more interested in moulding facts to fit a political argument than identifying what's really happened.

<comment><USER3> Those are indeed interesting and relevant points but they don't have much to do with climate science per se. Climate science is about understanding how climate works, not costs of adaptation or geoengineering.

<comment><USER2> You make a good point, I was referring to climate change and the claim that 'the science is settled'. Apologies for any confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Surely there wouldn't be just one. If you started with a list of common misconceptions, presumably a well-informed person would not have most of them.

e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions>, which is quite interesting, though it's missing the first two I thought of: gods and the Monte Carlo fallacy.

A more interesting variant of the question might be, what do you believe that most well-informed people don't? That's harder.

<comment><USER5> So what _do_ you believe that most well-informed people don't?

<comment><USER4> The first things that come to mind are all things you can't say, and about those I generally follow my own advice, and don't say them. But I'll try to think if there are any that are uncontroversial.

<comment><USER6> "The age of consent fluctuates like hemlines"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here are two things I believe are true that most well-educated people think are untrue. Among those who think one of these is true, a large percentage think the other is false.

\-----

Most people (who accept evolution) claim there's a definitive evolutionary tree for all species.

I believe there is no _single, definitive_ tree, but rather, several trees. Depending on which feature or gene sequence you're studying, and what method you use to construct a tree, you'll get slightly different trees. Sometimes this is just statistical noise, but other times it's due to different traits actually having different lineages, as a result of events like recombination (say, when a virus injects a fragment of DNA into another creature's genome) or horizontal gene transfer [0]. If you build a phylogenetic tree that covers whole genomes for multiple species, it will typically end up being a phylogenetic network [1] rather than a simple tree.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer> [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetic_network>

\-----

I also believe the original language text of the Bible has been very reliably preserved since antiquity. There's a surprising amount of crossover between the subject of textual criticism [2] and phylogenetics -- comparing manuscript variants (between millions of pages across several centuries) is not that different from comparing DNA mutations. There are very few parts of the Biblical text that are seriously disputed by the legitimately well-informed.

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_Criticism>

<comment><USER8> Doesn't the position you take on [2] depend very heavily on how you define "original"?

I was under the impression that there was very little dissent between believers and critically-minded scholars alike over either: (i) the texts that compose the New Testament (in particular) of the Bible have been well- preserved and accurately replicated with very few claims of interpolation or revision (ii) The Synoptic Gospels were heavily influenced by at least one common source document which appears to be totally lost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Conservatives say they don't believe in evolution, but act like they do (in the sense they tolerate "animal spirits" in economics, a sexual division of labor, and racial disparities which may be genetic in origin). Liberals say they believe in evolution, but act like they don't. And our most destructive policies happen at the intersection of these two forms of hypocrisy.

A runner-up: "social security" is not the exact nature of the problem we face. Instead, the problem is the dependency ratio: old people can live off of million-dollar 401K portfolios and the proceeds from selling million-dollar houses, or live off of social security--in either scenario, the working population will be forced to accept lower available consumption (and low returns on their savings) for a given level of income.

<comment><USER10> I'll go one step further than you on social security, and argue that even your take is not quite correct.

The so-called dependency ratio is not a real problem because most people in the economy no longer do productive work. Our standard of living is not bound by labor, but by resources (oil, lumber, arable land, etc). As 60 year old workers start to retire, no fewer resources will be produced, we're not going to produce less oil because 60 year olds retire. But we may consume less resources because fewer people are commuting to work and occupying climate controlled office spaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That scientific questions exist that humans "by nature cannot" or "will never be able to" understand. (Due to our brains being too unsophisticated or unimaginative, etc., or due to a projection from our current inability to observe.)

</comment><comment><USER12> You may have some trouble with a question like this outside of HN ;-)

I tried this question on a dating site as an experiment for one day... and then forgot I had it up. It generated nearly no responses other than jokes except for one person that was very flustered and was intimidated by it (perhaps unsurprisingly).

As for one thing that I think is true and that most others don't.... well the thing that seems to clash the most is that I find "bad" things funny, _regardless_ of my personal beliefs about them. People really tend to be more of a straight man than you'd think.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just one? Thiel chose a great question. As an aside, maybe it should be considered for next round's yc application?

Some number of my possible responses, although admittedly I would use none of these for Thiel's essay:

* Modern running shoes increase one's tendency to injury.

* Free will can exist in a fully deterministic universe.

* Saturated fat and cholesterol are not the primary causal factors behind heart disease.

* Keynesian economic reasoning has few virtues in its own right, but is leveraged as a rationalization for policies convenient to those with political power.

<comment><USER14> > * Free will can exist in a fully deterministic universe.

Would you mind going further into this one? Barring belief in dualism, I don't see how this can be possible.

<comment><USER15> I'm not an expert on it, but that position's sometimes called "compatibilism", if you're looking for a keyword. This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article's a decent starting point, if a bit academic: <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/>

The really short answer is that it boils down to a disagreement over what "free will" means. Compatibilists dispute the claim that free will is definitionally equivalent to something like a videogame with multiple endings, where your actions can change which endings you get (the "garden of forking paths" model of free will).

It's actually usually taken as an alternative to dualism, because _if_ humans are 100% made of physical matter that's bound by the usual laws of physics, _and_ we think something called "free will" is meaningful to talk about, then they must somehow be compatible. The alternatives are: 1. dualism, claim that some part of human thought/action takes place outside of the laws of physics; 2. deny that free will exists; or maybe 3. somehow deny that the laws of physics exist, or at least claim they exist in some different way than usually understood.

Daniel Dennett is probably the best-known-among-the-general-public proponent of compatibilism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The USA will suffer an Argentina-like economic crash in the next 10 years.

I spend real effort trying to talk family and friends into making reasonable preparations, but I run into a lot of skepticism.

</comment><comment><USER17> I believe that eugenics is a good idea.

<comment><USER18> When everyone is a superman, who will clean the toilets?

<comment><USER19> Barring rms's answer being correct, the same people who do now: the people willing to do a good job for the least money. One likely economic outcome of a successful eugenics effort would be that tedious, mindless jobs would be among the best-paying rather than the worst.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >99% chance we are living in a simulation

</comment><comment><USER5> There is no God.

There must be a cure for death.

</comment><comment><USER21> Religion and civilization are ultimately incompatible.

One day, psychiatrists will routinely prescribe touch, including sex, as an intervention against depression.

In our lifetimes, the USA will experience economic or political collapse, and maybe even break apart into different regions.

9/11 wasn't an inside job, but the anthrax scare was.

<comment><USER22> >Religion and civilization are ultimately incompatible.

That's a strange thing to say considering that, in the past, religion was the defining aspect of civilization.

It was religion that civilized the barbarians.

<comment><USER12> It's not that strange if you think of it in terms of improvements of models. For instance, I'm sure religion based civilizations are more civilized than cavemen, but at the same time, our standards improve as we acquire better models.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Transcendental infinities and infinitesimals - many different types of infinity exist, both countable and uncountable.

Most people tend to stop at the standard infinity that lies at the top end of the real number line - "bigger than the biggest number you can think of, and then some, plus one."

Never mind that there's another infinity, just as big, at the far end of the negative side of the real number line, and further infinities in all directions when you bring in complex numbers, quaternions, infinitesimals, the uncountable infinities lying between any two arbitrarily chosen adjacent real numbers and so on.

Also, the "Arabic" number system was invented in India. It was only introduced to the West by the Muslims.

Yes, America, if not for Muslims you'd still be counting in Roman numerals.

<comment><USER19> Please define "exist" as you've used it in your opening sentence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> That use of capitalistic/libertarian ideals for efficiency in business would lead to major social unrest. Keeping dead weight (much of society) working keeps the masses and their pitchforks away from the houses of the ruling class.

</comment><comment><USER25> Selfishness doesn't explain very much of human behavior.

<comment><USER9> Define "Selfishness" in this context.

In a broad sense, it's very hard to argue that selfish genes don't explain most human behavior. Certainly, I would spend my time differently if I weren't the result of a couple billion years of brutal gene-versus-gene competition.

<comment><USER25> Genes might be selfish, but that doesn't mean the organisms that they create will be. Selfish genes also created the ant colony, where it doesn't make much sense to talk about an ant's individual behavior as self-interested. I'm only suggesting that we are more like ants than educated people currently believe.

Furthermore, humans have language, and can even ask themselves questions like "what would so-and-so do?" Our minds are filled up, it seems to me, mostly with the thoughts and data supplied by others. So I wonder if it makes sense to say that we are all individual minds.

<comment><USER9> Okay, that's what I suspected. At the right level of abstraction, you can certainly find non-selfish activities. But a gene's-eye-view is the most significant view, because in the long term anything that doesn't adhere to that view is extinct.

Certainly a complete sociopath will still have non-selfish internal organs. But it's highly reductionist to claim that a sociopath is not sociopathic because his heart generously pumps blood to his other organs.

What looks like generosity generally falls into a few categories of gene-level selfishness, e.g. kin altruism, in-group altruism, reciprocal gifts, etc. Our evolutionary inheritance doesn't allow for pure altruism; that's a bug that gets fixed by selfish groups out-reproducing.

<comment><USER25> You're arguing against a point I didn't make. I'm not arguing for the existence of pure altruism, or denying the importance of genes. I'm saying that selfishness doesn't explain human behavior very well. It's an argument against the common model of human beings as rational economic actors. For the most part our motivations lie elsewhere, and we don't behave as _homo economicus_ unless we are in weird and artificial situations.

I'm also making a more subtle point about the difficulty of delineating where a person ends and society begins. This is a much fuzzier concept for me, but I have a hunch that it doesn't make sense to say that a human personality is entirely contained in the body that we normally associate it with, any more than crashing waves are contained within a rocky shore. The body gives rise to this funny thing called a mind, and yet minds don't seem to be stored just in one brain.

I did not understand your point about the sociopath; it seems to be making my argument for me, that the driving forces at one level of organization tell you little about the next level up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Jimmy Carter was once attacked by a giant rabbit (whilst he was President).

<comment><USER27> I suppose that depends on how you define "attacked" and "giant".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm not sure if I _really_ believe this, but...

[http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/The_God_Emperor_Come...](http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/The_God_Emperor_Cometh)

</comment><comment><USER29> There is no God.

(revorad almost got it right but blew the "the one thing" requirement)

</comment><comment><USER18> The Big Bang didn't happen.

Climate change is natural.

The top rate of income tax should be 90%.

Root is a design fault.

<comment><USER30> there's no doubt that climate change is natural, but isn't the climate change "issue" about the notion that we're speeding it up?</comment></comment>


Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/ <comment><USER2> As a former Google employee myself, I have a really hard time connecting these actions with the company I used to be very proud of working for.

I understand that reaching the Chinese consumer is a huge opportunity, but drawing the line at refusing to assist in the censorship of 1.4 billion people seemed like an easy line to draw and stick to. If Google won't stand against this, won't the rest tumble? I fear a domino affect that won't be possible to undo.

For the first time in a long time, I am genuinely disappointing at Google and am questioning thoughts I've had in the past of going back to work for them again.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google is already censoring content in the US and EU, not even the same results in all countries, and we asked for it, so what's so much different about following Chinese law?

<comment><USER4> The difference is about the same as purchasing a firearm for self-defense vs. purchasing a firearm as part of a plan to invade someone else's house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There seems to be a hypocrisy with people upset about censorship on behalf of China, but don't seem all that upset about censorship on behalf of the EU (eg RTBF) or censorship when it supports their politics (eg hate speech)

I don't support this theoretical move, but asserting Google should pull out/stay out of China and not obey/comply with local laws, and yet argue that the EU local laws should have global reach seems unjustified and unequal respect for sovereignty.

<comment><USER6> China is an authoritarian one-party state with a history of violating the human rights of its citizens. The EU, for all its bureaucratic flaws, is a democratic institution with a history of respect for rights and the rule of law.

So yes, absolutely, there are strong moral reasons to treat EU laws differently than Chinese laws.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reality check: nobody use a mobile app for searching purpose. So either the whistleblower is misleaded, or it's a slightly different app than just search.

</comment><comment><USER8> Pity so many corporations in our industry harvested good will of their users, expecting to never help their oppressors, and a decade later here we are :(

</comment><comment><USER9> What a dumb idea. They have 0 chance of success in China and it will just create bad PR everywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER10> We'll, that feels pretty wrong...

<comment><USER11> > We'll, that feels pretty wrong...

... to persons who value moral higher than shareholder value. Advertisers will mostly be happy to enter previously untapped markets.

It is cold, but why should Google care? The times when an publicity stunt like "dont't be evil" was required to establish a big user base are over.

If it would in any way raise the revenue of google, i assume google would instantly proclaim another "don't be a dick" COC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I guess Google no longer cares about "Free speech on the web" eh?

<comment><USER7> I'll believe it when there's free torrent speech on google search results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What is wrong with this? It is as if Google spider bot sits within China.

What is the use of showing the result, if the users can't access the content? It makes sense to filter the result than showing an 'unauthorised' error on clicking the link.

</comment><comment><USER14> First the military drones, now getting in bed with China, and the law straw was removing almost every mention of "Don't be evil" from its workers' code of conduct manual.

I think it's pretty clear at this point Google is willing to sell their own mothers (and your data) just to keep those profitable quarters up for many more years.

As more advertisers start preferring Facebook, I think Google will become even more desperate in regards to what it will be willing to do to increase revenue and profits quarter after quarter. Expect many big "evil" things to come from Google in the near future.

<comment><USER3> > keep those profitable quarters

Isn't it actually illegal for publicly traded companies to do otherwise?

<comment><USER15> Illegal? No. The principle is "best interests of shareholders" but that has never meant only profits, especially if the costs of those profits do material damage to the world those shareholders live in, in which case it's not in the best interests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the original article deserves the URL spot. [https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search- engi...](https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine- censorship/)

</comment><comment><USER5> There seems to be a hypocrisy with people upset about censorship on behalf of China, but don't seem all that upset about censorship on behalf of the EU (eg RTBF) or censorship when it supports their politics (eg hate speech)

I don't support this theoretical move, but asserting Google should pull out/stay out of China and not obey/comply with local laws, and yet argue that the EU local laws should have global reach seems unjustified and unequal respect for sovereignty.

Let's face it, the core issue here isn't free speech and censorship, it's speech you like or censorship you like vs those you don't.

<comment><USER17> Yes, censoring hate speech and censoring any thought slightly critical of a repressive regime are exactly the same thing. /s

<comment><USER5> Free speech is only valuable if it protects speech you don't like including the worst most vile forms of it.

In some societies, criticizing religion, parodying religious icons counts as bigotry and hate.

American liberals used to be pretty united and in agreement with Voltaire but it seems things have changed.</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter Is Optimized for Douchebaggery - <AUTHOR> https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-twitter/ <comment><USER2> The point about how the medium of Twitter shapes the message rings true to me.

Everything is so short it seem largely trite and careless. They system is built for score keeping and it feels like people post just to score even if that isn't their intent.

Responses don't seem like they for the person they're talking to, rather for everyone else who might see.

Even the most thoughtful ideas seem soulless and reduced to only the simplest elements. A statement that someone is a terrible person rings out loud, any nuance or deeper concepts seem awkward and weird.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actual title: "I kind of hate Twitter" (2013)

<comment><USER4> (2013) but reads as if it were written yesterday. By me. If I were a better writer.</comment></comment>


A Rails 3.2 application with recurring billing using Stripe - <AUTHOR> http://railsapps.github.com/rails-stripe-membership-saas/ <comment><USER2> Out of the box Rails solutions with integrated payment systems scares me as it allows people with little Rails experience to quickly allow payments.

I'd parallel my concern to beginner developers who create Rails projects that don't check for User ownership when navigating to /edit paths.

Implementing Stripe is almost a small rite of passage. It forces you to understand the API, and how it treats payments and other various objects.

<comment><USER3> What you raise is a valid concern, but is it better for a new developer to work off a best practice style example app or try to reinvent the wheel on their own?

<comment><USER4> I agree. I know a lot of developers that will benefit having a good example to work from.

<comment><USER2> No doubt I agree as well. Best way to learn is by imitation. But yeah, it is just a concern, that's all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you refined the tutorial and put it in an eBook, I would purchase it. I think a lot of people would.

Maybe contact the pragprog [1] guys?

[1]: <http://pragprog.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the encouragement. It's what drives the project. I'm thinking about offering some of the RailsApps advanced tutorials through a subscription site to support the project.

<comment><USER6> I definitely agree!

For most things, I want to know: 1\. What are the pieces? 2\. Where do they go? 3\. How do they interact with eachother?

When implementing payments into a site (which is a core concern for the business/application), I'd like to know each answer in pretty good detail, so I'd be more than happy to pay $15-$40 for an ebook which will hold my hand through the "best practices" to those 3 answers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for detailing the price range you'd pay. I ran some pricing tests (for a different tutorial) and compared offers of $9 for an ebook versus $19/month for a subscription-based online tutorial. Both offers performed well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a diff that shows the differences between a fresh Rails installation and RailsApps/rails-stripe-membership-saas as of ea5bc35c02de4be277682dca964bff8dcb84917c.

<https://gist.github.com/3955802>

</comment><comment><USER8> I've said it before, but I'd love to see something like this as an oauth service. If anyone's working on it, feel free to shoot me an email.

<comment><USER9> Stripe announced OAuth a few weeks ago.

<https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-connect>

<comment><USER8> That's cool, but it's for sites with users who have Stripe accounts to sell things to take payments. What I'm looking for is basically DailyCred (<https://www.dailycred.com/>) but with paid user plans. It has to be white- label.

<comment><USER10> If you end up finding a reliable white-label service for this please let me know too!

<comment><USER11> Check out the WePay API - <https://www.wepay.com/developer/platform/authorization>

What you described is a bit vague so I'm not sure quite what you need, but it allows you to basically spin up merchant accounts for your customers on the fly in a way that's basically as seamless as legally possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for doing this. I saw something similar for Python and kept meaning to do a Rails version.

<comment><USER13> What's the Python example?</comment></comment>


Cached OkCupid Article: Why You Should Never Pay For Online Dating - <AUTHOR> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2 <comment><USER2> It's sort of funny how removing the article has spawned a bit of the Streisand Effect, though I gather it's probably only limited to our little corner of the web. And even at that, it would probably just 'look weird' if they were still hosting the article after the acquisition, regardless of the attention that removing it draws.

<comment><USER3> I had to look it up..

 _The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of perversely causing the information to be publicized more widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no contrary action had been attempted. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, following a 2003 incident in which her attempts to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect>

<comment><USER4> Very fitting username

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> hey, i'm all for selling out but im not into rewriting history. either leave the post or write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed. dont go rewriting history by trying to delete it.

<comment><USER6> > write a new one saying why it was wrong or what has changed

The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed.

<comment><USER7> > The problem is that it wasn't wrong, and nothing has changed.

It's certainly not wrong, but something has changed. OkCupid now reports to match.com, which is among the largest paid dating sites in the world.

 _edit_ I don't know the specifics, but IAC owns Match.com, and also OkCupid, but does that mean that Match.com oversees OkCupid? My statement above might be wrong on that alone.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I meant nothing changed in their original analysis of match.com.

<comment><USER8> Well, presumably now they have access to the _real_ , not benefit-of-the- doubt, numbers. Which only makes Match.com look worse...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have liked OKCupid's posts in the past, but this one is clearly propaganda. There's a pretty obvious flaw in this argument:

"It turns out you are 12.4 times more likely to get married this year if you don't subscribe to Match.com."

The data to back it up is based on Match.com press kit:

"12 couples got married or engaged today thanks to Match.com"

What they're missing is that a lot of people get married or engaged while subscribing to Match.com, but not due to Match.com. Heck, my roommate did. It's not an exclusive arrangement. In fact, it's pretty likely that if someone is subscribing to Match.com they are also dating outside of Match.com.

<comment><USER10> The other flaw is that by definition people on dating sites are not currently in a relationship (well, usually), so of course they're less likely to get married in the near future. I suspect the 12.4 ratio would be similar for active OKCupid users.

<comment><USER11> > (well, usually),

Not true for OKC. Very poly friendly.

<comment><USER12> It might appear so, but a friend of mine who's in a poly relationship gets harassed fairly frequently on OKC because she's married.

<comment><USER13> I've been on OKC for about 8 years, been poly on there, met poly girls there, had poly friends there, never once heard of anyone getting harassed for polyitude.

I'm not saying it didn't happen... but it might be kind of like saying "planes aren't safe, I had a friend that was in a plane crash."

<comment><USER12> Sorry if it came off as me saying that people in poly relationships aren't at all welcome on OKC, just that it's not universally welcoming.

I'd imagine how welcoming people are to others in poly relationships largely depends on where you are. People in El Paso, TX (where my friend and I live) are likely less open to that sort of thing than people elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> OKCupid responds: [http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor- ou...](http://www.observer.com/2011/tech/okcupid-we-didnt-censor-our-matchcom- bashing-blog-post)

<comment><USER15> "But Match.com didn't ask OKCupid to take down the post, CEO Sam Yagan told The Observer, it was just the "common sense thing to do.""

"Furthermore, the data that OKCupid gathered from Match.com's public filings and press kit were not completely accurate, he said, which he realized once he saw the real data."

 _snip_

"And even though the two sites are now playing for the same team, it'll be business as usual at OKCupid's Midtown office, he said. OKCupid will remain free and OKTrends will keep publishing the popular research it culls from its members. (Data from Match.com and its affiliated sites will not be included.)"

So, rather than putting up a correction to the previous blog post that due to fresh data showing something different; they decided to take it down. I suppose either because Match.com either refuses to release the data, the blog post is confirmed to be true or they wanted to appease the new owners.

<comment><USER6> For a company that's usually so good about publicity, it really seems like they fucked up here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I must have missed the story on this page's apparent disappearance or whatever.

<comment><USER17> Just today OkCupid got bought by IAC which also owns match.com which they are critical of in that post.

<comment><USER18> Time to enter the online dating space, I guess.

<comment><USER19> Can I counter recommend this? If you're good enough at SEO or online marketing to have a chance in hell at a broad online dating opportunity, there is more money available for less work and less competition elsewhere. The space is competitive, the incumbents are some of the savviest firms online, they have gigantic warchests, the fight will be dirty, and there is easier money elsewhere.

Plus you're competing with OKCupid, which is to linkbait as AirBnb is to PR.

<comment><USER20> Dating sites are #8 on "Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund": <http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

<comment><USER21> Dating sites have very strong network effects. The entry on that page acknowledges that: if you want to start a dating site, the question you answer is not "What should we do better about online dating?", it's "How will we get our initial users and keep them?"

Patrick's point is that if you have the skills to get users in a business with network effects that strong, there are many more lucrative markets you could crack. EBay, for example. Online auctions is hugely lucrative, orders of magnitude more than dating, and EBay sucks in many ways. But their network effect is so strong that it's virtually impossible to break in.

(Online auctions is #10 on the list, BTW.)

<comment><USER22> Solving the 'chicken and egg' problem has lead to a catastrophe in large dating markets:

Abandoned accounts and men->women spam.

I think a smaller dating site would prosper quite well if it could eliminate wasting people's time. eHarmony has a good practice in this regard, but eHarmony is also marriage, christian, straight focused - and excluded all others.

A dating site that disabled user accounts that hadn't logged in or responded, initiated conversation eHarmony style, and somehow limited the spam that men send, well... that'd be worth checking out. It would drastically raise the signal to noise ratio.

For spam: perhaps you can only send one message per day to new people, and one message per person per reply. Choose wisely.

Also, for every uploaded picture, grab the date it was taken and put that on the page. Might not stop hackers, but that's a small minority.

Other effects to combat: the ego inflation effect, where having many virtual 'options' makes you more selective.

Maybe even a 'ask a friend' feature, where you email a reply history to a friend and ask their advice (helps with network effects).

There's LOTS of room for innovation here, essentially.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> We have always been at war with Oceania.

<comment><USER24> So are we Eurasia, or Eastasia?

<comment><USER25> Whichever has always been at war with Oceania. Please report to minitrue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's called "harmonization". China does it all the time.

<comment><USER27> Next time it will probably be "eHarmonization".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's unclear to me why I shouldn't pay for an online dating site from reading that article? The only thing that he says that really drives that point is that they're incentivized for you to fail. But I'm not sure I buy that, since churn is probably higher when you get no dates than when you're dating but maybe just haven't found the "one" (if that's what you're looking for).

The main argument seems to be that number of profiles and active profiles are different. It seems like the takeaway to me is to be cautious and try to learn the number of active profiles.

<comment><USER13> The point I got from it is that the girls worth dating don't pay for it. Girls that don't have to work to get guys might sign up for a free site "just for fun" but they certainly would never pay for a dating service.

<comment><USER28> The author certainly doesn't make that point clear. For one, I don't believe it, but more importantly there's no evidence in the post of it.

<comment><USER13> Well, it's the first line of the post. But they don't go into that aspect as much as I'd like, because I think it's the more important one.

I personally would never date someone I met on a pay dating site, because desperation is an honest signal of poor quality. But that's just anecdote.

<comment><USER28> _I personally would never date someone I met on a pay dating site, because desperation is an honest signal of poor quality._

That's the same thing people say about free software. :-)

With that said, I think you may confuse desperation with efficiency. If I were single in this day and age, I would certainly use pay dating sites (assuming prices were reasonable). Not because I'd be desperate, but it widens your network considerably, and you don't have to waste time at bars, clubs, social mixers, etc...

And given the number of colleagues and friends who have met people online -- I'd say the superficial quality at least (looks, jobs, education, humor) seem to be higher than average.

In any case, the article provided no evidence either way. What would have been useful is for them to show proof that women on pay sites are less desireable than women from say, MySpace ;-)

<comment><USER13> I have met people online, and known people who have met people online, but they were all on okcupid or other free sites; never on a pay site. I didn't say all online dating was like that, only pay sites. A free site does widen your network, but I think the point of the post was that paid sites have mostly dead users and therefore the network is rather small.

V.v. free software, I think the better comparison is between a free dating site and free software; lots of people contribute to make it better. Certainly it's partially true with OkCupid; users do add a lot of the content, writing match questions and quizzes.

<comment><USER28> _A free site does widen your network, but I think the point of the post was that paid sites have mostly dead users and therefore the network is rather small._

But he doesn't argue this effectively. In fact a free site would be worse in this regard -- especially for the scarce resource (women -- who I suspect are often free on paysites, as they are in some nightclubs).

As a female (which I'm not), I'd rather be listed on a pay site than a freesite, if the main issue I have is too many emails from guys.

It almost would appear that desperate women would be on free sites -- since paying a nominal fee for first level filtering would indicate a less desperate act than someone who opted for greater volume, even at slightly less cost.

In any case, I think we can both agree that the blog entry didn't really address in a satisfactory way the central thesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The problem with free dating sites is that they have to be fucking enormous to make any money. OkC is an amazing product with a huge user base and guess what? They had a tiny office and weren't making much money, then they were bought by (shock) a dating site with a sustainable business. IAC/Match sucks but they understand something the OkC guys don't—how to make money from their product.

<comment><USER30> Do you have any idea how much they were making? [http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid- open...](http://onlinedatingpost.com/archives/2010/02/at-okcupid-openness-is- the-key-to-success/) suggests $15 million in revenues.

And selling a business with $6 million in investment for $50 million is likely to be lucrative enough, anyway (and you'd hope that they were turning some profits to justify the $50 million.)

<comment><USER29> From what I can tell, the article you linked says that PoF is making $15mm in revenue.

If OkC were making 15mm in revenues why in the world would they sell for $50mm? That just doesn't add up. Their overhead outside of bandwidth costs wasn't that high, they employ 10-15 (I think) employees and have a small office in Chelsea or sommat. Their profits would be enormous if they were generating anything near that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm not sure it's the end of the world it was deleted, it was a conflict of interest and leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for, but on the whole I don't think the article was that bad. It just pointed out that paid dating sites are tricky with their marketing.

<comment><USER32> _leaving it up would have been something they got criticised for_

I don't think that strategy has been working out for them very well so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I really hope that OKC keeps publishing articles about the online dating scene. They had some good insight about a lot of different online dating phenomena.

Match seems like a shady outfit that would not want to publicize this type of data.

</comment><comment><USER34> It appears to be gone. Anyone have a copy?

<comment><USER35> Here's a mirror/copy/screenshot (trying to hit all the browser text search keywords; it's not actually a screenshot):

<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3232537/html/search.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> the original link is dead to me. Clicked text only version and it works. [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuo...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9OtAvuobLwgJ:www.okcupid.com/z/yf2&hl=zh- TW&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER37> Still wondering why I should care...

</comment><comment><USER38> UNDELETED! Google Cache copy (for when the Google Cache expires) [http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_onl...](http://machinesentience.com/why_you_should_never_pay_for_online_dating.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> I love this article, and I always loved OkCupid for their statistical analysis and myth debunking. I am very saddened that they had to join their competitor. O well.

</comment><comment><USER40> For most American women a $19/month subscription is a good investment for them to sleep around for a while with some bad boys, and when the time comes, marry a chump who will pay her to quit her job, go to coffeehouses and have nice lunches with the other married girls, or get her nails done at the cost of maybe $15k a year. Then maybe divorce him a few years later for a nice change of $100k. Not a bad return at all.</comment>


Cory Doctorow: Why CCTV has failed to deter criminals - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/17/why-cctv-does-not-deter-crime <comment> alan-crowe Cory needs to step back and see the big picture and the long timescale.

In any big city there is continual low-level agro between the aresholes who get drunk and break things and the decent folk who clean up the vomit and do the repairs. It is not black and white; it is common for people to change sides as they get older, or in response to becoming parents. Some persons have a foot in both camps, especially during the transition.

There is a second sense in which it is not black and white. The agro is quantitative. If the bus shelter gets smashed once every few years, it is sufficient to just repair it. If it gets smashed every saturday night, that too expensive and more needs to be done.

There are the yobs with spray cans making the graffiti and the property owners with the solvents and the origninal-colour paint getting rid of the graffiti. There is a threshold. If the makers are persistent enough and frequent enough the property owners become demoralized and give up. Then the graffiti makers can move on to tag a new, pristine area.

There is a five year timescale on which the people who clean and mend become demoralized if they are faced with too much cleaning and mending. There is a thirty year, intergenerational timescale on which one attempts to bring up ones children to be on the clean and mend side.

That is an uphill struggle, because, let's be honest, most neuro-typicals find that getting drunk and smashing things is more fun.

Cory is focusing on the perpetrators. Does catching them and putting them in prison for 6 months reform them? Maybe, maybe not. Other people get a 6 month break from repairing the kicked-in door and cleaning up the vomit. That is vital for moral, both to keep going on the cleaning and mending, and to keep going on bringing up ones children to join the cleaning and mending team, and in having credibility with ones children when one says that the cleaners and menders are the good guys and the team to join.

</comment><comment><USER2> They don't provide a deterrent anymore because we forget they are there. They don't work as a deterrent because the chances of being caught on CCTV are slim.

But I'm not sure that this matters. I see CCTV more as evidence gathering rather than crime prevention.</comment>


Gentle hint for writing a product, service or project announcement/post - <AUTHOR> If you write a great blog post about your service going live, or your project reaching v1.0 or your product hitting the market, please do this:
Start your posting with a paragraph describing what it actually is that you are announcing. With a link to the actual product or project page.
Do not assume that your readers have been following you on your journey the past months or longer. Assume that people have never heard of you before.
Personally I close a page pretty quickly after reading too many paragraphs about how fantastic the product is after all the user feedback from the past months and all the hard work that you put in, WITHOUT TELLING ME WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS THAT YOU ARE RELEASING.
Apologies for yelling, but this is such a common mistake. You as a developer live and breath your project every single day. Someone reading your post is probably seeing it for the very first time.
Write for your future audience. You are losing readers and an opportunity to attract people to your product. <comment><USER2> This is good advice even in conversation.

Yesterday I talked so someone who went on and on about being in the alternative energy space. Quote unquote.

"So what do you sell exactly?" I had to ask a couple of times.

Turns out they buy solar panels wholesale, sell at retail, and install the panels if you want.

It sounds a lot less sexy, right? But that's what they DO for money.

When I see websites full of mealymouth prose (such as the sites that OP admonishes), I think that the people behind them do not fully understand what they do for money.

Keep it simple. Words of one syllable or two syllables will force you to think.

Know your business. If you really understand exactly what the customer is buying from you (not what you think you are selling to the customer), it is easy to describe your business or product.

But yeah. OP is right.

<comment><USER3> Ha ha maybe he thougt you wanted to invest?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good advice, I see this all the time. I hit a landing page, and I cannot actually figure out all of the things it does. I was listening to the IH podcast on my way home and patio11 called it something like features.html.</comment>


NBC Olympics Online: A case study in incompetence? - <AUTHOR>

TV coverage sucks.
Tried to watch the events I am interested in online.  The plan was to connect one of my development devices (either an iPad or iPhone) to the TV for the duration of the Olympic Games and simply watch that way.
Here's the problem:  NBC doesn't seem to allow you to watch on a mobile device without installing their app first.  I didn't because all reviews on the app store state that there is no full-screen video and, in general, the app is a horrible experience.
I looked all over their site for a way to sign-on and enable live streaming on the iPad and every single time they detect that it is a mobile device and stop at "Download Mobile App".
No worries.  I can connect a spare laptop to the TV and do it that way.  I happen to have a qualifying satellite TV subscription that enables watching online through nbcolympics.com.
The site makes you log on through your cable/satellite provider.  I did and got a message reading:
"You're Ready To Watch! Your required tier of TV service has been verified. You now have access to watch live streaming coverage of the London Games!"
Then I clicked on one of the events and got a popup that said:
"We're Sorry. You do not have a subscription to view the requested content. To upgrade your programming go to mydish.com/programming and then log back in to view content."
I did the login -> get-confirmed -> try-to-watch loop a few times.  No joy.  I switched from Chrome to IE.  No joy.  I switched to Safari. Nope.  PC/Mac/Apple TV, Google TV, no difference.
How incompetent do they have to be to ruin access and the user experience to an event of this magnitude to this extent?
WTF?  I'm going sailing. <comment><USER2> Justin.tv and others had helpful click & watch streams in HD from BBC. Great experience.</comment>


Ask HN: Companies where people work 12 hours, How do you sustain a relationship? - <AUTHOR> I'm seeing some companies ask in their interviews whether you are okay with working 12 hours a day. Is it even possible to have a meaningful relationship/social life in that case? <comment><USER2> I was at a company for 6 months that started with 9 hour days and after 4 months turned to regular 10-14 hour days. The worst was a week of 10+ hour days straight, usually there'd be one "normal" day each week but something was always going wrong (having to meet unrealistic deadlines, systems breaking, etc). Glad that experience is in the rear-view, it taught far more on self respect/care and connected me to a lot of great people (who also left soon after I did).

Edit: Forgot the initial question. It was a huge negative influence on an existing long-term relationship. If I stayed at that company it likely would have ended the relationship.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can't possibly work 12 hours everyday. Maybe for a week or two at best. At worst a month.

So if you are working for up to a month for 12 hour days, you better have a strong relationship with your significant other who understands your work and understands it's temporary.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pass on the gig.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think it is possible. There is literally no way that I'd take a position where I am expected to work 12 hours a day. I'm a human being, not an industrial machine.

</comment><comment><USER6> Cut down on your commute time, skip lunch, and get by on less sleep. It is possible.

</comment><comment><USER7> Chat, call, or video call with them during breaks.</comment>


A vi-centric family tree of editors (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/kolya/misc/txt/editors <comment><USER2> They missed the RAND editor.[1] This was a full-screen editor of the late 1970s, years before "vi". It was originally designed for a specific HP terminal [2], one which had programmable function keys, and there was a little plastic overlay to place around the function keys indicating what they did. Later, there was a custom terminal with built-in keys for the editor functions. Expecting users to remember control sequences was considered unacceptable.

The RAND editor wasn't free. We had a site license for it at an aerospace company, so it was on all the UNIX systems. It was not used widely outside aerospace and DoD. "vi" was an attempt to do roughly the same job without the special hardware.

[1] [http://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N2239-1.html](http://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N2239-1.html) [2] [http://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/HP_2645A](http://terminals- wiki.org/wiki/index.php/HP_2645A)

<comment><USER3> Cool! It makes me sad that history like this will be lost when the first generation of coders turns to dust.

Before an hour ago you were one of the only people in the world to know this little bit of history, and the fact would have probably died with you.

<comment><USER2> It's not lost. There's the RAND paper mentioned above. The code is on Github.[1] It runs on Linux now.

[1] [https://github.com/blakemcbride/Rand-E- Editor](https://github.com/blakemcbride/Rand-E-Editor)

<comment><USER4> Github is a treasure trove of awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was my post to alt.folklore.computers. Nice to see it reappear after all these years!

<comment><USER6> Did Elvis miss the cut? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_(text_editor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_\(text_editor\))

<comment><USER5> I didn't include it, because the original question was where vi and its predecessors came from, not what offspring did it have itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting to note that the author, Eric Fischer, still creates beautiful data visualizations [https://www.twitter.com/enf](https://www.twitter.com/enf)

<comment><USER5> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone knows why emacs is almost never installed by default while vi(m) is? I often wish I had learned vim instead of emacs because of this :/

<comment><USER9> Historically, probably because

        $ ls -lh `which emacs`
        -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   220M Oct 19 02:10 /usr/bin/emacs
        $ ls -lh `which vim`
        -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   1.7M Oct 19 02:38 /usr/bin/vim

Disk space isn't as much of an issue anymore, but still, it's 100x the size.

<comment><USER10> To say nothing of:

            kamloops$ ldd  $(which vi)
            /usr/bin/vi:
                    -lcurses.7 => /usr/lib/libcurses.so.7
                    -lterminfo.1 => /usr/lib/libterminfo.so.1
                    -lc.12 => /usr/lib/libc.so.12
                    -lutil.7 => /usr/lib/libutil.so.7
            kamloops$ ls -ld  $(which vi)
            -r-xr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  506072 Nov 26 15:57 /usr/bin/vi
            kamloops$ ldd /usr/pkg/bin/emacs-24.5
            /usr/pkg/bin/emacs-24.5:
                    -lossaudio.1 => /usr/lib/libossaudio.so.1
                    -lc.12 => /usr/lib/libc.so.12
                    -lexecinfo.0 => /usr/lib/libexecinfo.so.0
                    -lelf.2 => /usr/lib/libelf.so.2
                    -lterminfo.1 => /usr/lib/libterminfo.so.1
                    -lpthread.1 => /usr/lib/libpthread.so.1
                    -lm.0 => /usr/lib/libm.so.0
                    -lz.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1
            kamloops$ ls -ld /usr/pkg/bin/emacs-24.5
            -rwxr-xr-t  1 root  wheel  14682824 Jul 27 16:51 /usr/pkg/bin/emacs-24.5
            #
            # count of files installed per package...
            #
            kamloops$ wc -l /usr/pkgsrc/editors/nvi/PLIST
                  24 /usr/pkgsrc/editors/nvi/PLIST
            kamloops$ wc -l /usr/pkgsrc/editors/emacs24/PLIST
                3914 /usr/pkgsrc/editors/emacs24/PLIST

<comment><USER11> Of course, we can do even better these days

        $ ldd /opt/sublime_text/sublime_text | wc -l
        15
        $ ldd /home/tmk/.local/share/umake/ide/visual-studio-code/code | wc -l
        84

And I'm not sure ldd even captures all the libraries these things load.

<comment><USER12> Things are better still when one stops looking at shared libraries and starts looking at run-time remote procedure call dependencies.

The GNOME editor, a "small and lightweight text editor" according to the blurb and its reviews by some clearly incurious reviewers, requires that a per- user/per-login Desktop Bus broker be running and also (on my machine) that the following Desktop Bus servers be running: at-spi-bus-launcher (which runs _another_ Desktop Bus broker), api-spi2-registryd, dconf-service, gvfsd, gvfsd-udisks2-volume-monitor, gvfsd-afc-volume-monitor, gvfsd-goa-volume- monitor, gvfsd-gphoto2-volume-monitor, and gvfsd-mtp-volume-monitor.

Normally, it behaves like WIN16 programs used to behave: invoking the editor a second time simply sends a D-BUS message to the already running first instance to tell it to open another document and then exits that second invocation. If you want to start up a true second _separate instance_ , one way to do so is use dbus-run-session to start it up with a private Desktop Bus broker of its own. Of course, doing so starts up second instances of all of the aforementioned D-BUS servers as well.

This is not "small and lightweight".

* [http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/323700/5132](http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/323700/5132)

* [http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/201900/](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/201900/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I built a platform to keep track of the lineage of things and their variants: [http://www.theymadethat.com/things/fi4/vi/show_evolution](http://www.theymadethat.com/things/fi4/vi/show_evolution)

It still needs heavy work on usability and there are still some key features missing (like an actual family tree visualization), but progress is steady.

Feel free to leave some feedback

</comment><comment><USER14> This might be kind of off-topic, but I am interested in how he create this tree diagram, is there any tool could do that? or just handmade?

<comment><USER15> A fun tool once you have handmade diagrams is [https://github.com/ivanceras/svgbobrus](https://github.com/ivanceras/svgbobrus) which converts them to svg.

You can use [http://asciiflow.com/](http://asciiflow.com/) to create ascii diagrams in your browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting how John McCarthy, the father of lisp, seems to be at the root of it all.

<comment><USER17> Well MIT did have (one of?) the first PDP-1, which is why there are a lot MIT names on the family tree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A recent addition is vis[0], which incorporates sam's structural regular expressions.

[0][https://github.com/martanne/vis](https://github.com/martanne/vis)

<comment><USER19> It's quite strange that the lacking feature of vim was a proper and good extension language where most of the editor itself you could modify, but vis comes along and instead of a powerful language like Lisp has Lua almost tacked on.

An editor with the speed of use of vim combined with a Lisp-like language (elisp with the warts removed) would be great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Anyone interested in learning Vim might enjoy some practice exercises! [https://github.com/steveshogren/10-minute-vim- exercises/blob...](https://github.com/steveshogren/10-minute-vim- exercises/blob/master/book_sample_delimited_edits.md)

</comment><comment><USER21> Since some of the authors are from academia, it would be nice to have references to the scientific papers addressing the implementation of these editors.

</comment><comment><USER22> Awww, I would love to see the rest of this conversation!

<comment><USER23> There you go [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/$20emacs$20and$20ot...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/$20emacs$20and$20other$20editors/alt.os.multics/dtd1-L1vdcY)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't actually understand this. Can someone explain???

<comment><USER25> "vi"[1] is a very influential text editor created in the 1970s (and still used today). This "family tree" show a bunch of other old text editors that directly or indirectly influenced or inspired vi. (For example, George Coulouris's "em" was based on Ken Thompson's "ed". Bill Joy and Chuck Haley's first version of "ex" \-- an ancestor of vi -- was based on "em".)

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi)</comment></comment>


Do not allow newly created accounts to create new threads - <AUTHOR>

For the past couple of days I see that there are advertisements being submitted to HN. For example. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=523061 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=523001 And the accounts through which these threads are submitted are just created (2 hours and 1 day in the above cases).
I thought we can prevent this by not allowing user accounts created within a couple of days to create new threads or by not allowing user accounts with 0 or lesser karma to create new threads. Any thoughts ? <comment><USER2> These attacks are probably automated, and it would be trivial for the spamming software to be updated to get round these restrictions. I don't think it would take long.

The cost would be that HN would be less welcoming to newcomers.

That's a permanent loss for temporary gain, and I don't think it's worth it.

I think your idea can be improved on:

(a) instead of hardcoding conditions that we think indicate spamminess, the server should be keeping track of what characteristics spammers tend to display (sprinkle Bayesian magic pixie fairy dust here)

(b) new threads that are neither clearly spammy (banned) nor clearly unspammy (allowed on as now) should be provisionally allowed on the new page, but then banned should a single reader flag it, without the intervention of a moderator

(c) moderators should be able to unban threads if need be

The important thing is: although we have to play whack-a-mole with the spammers, we must take care to play whack-a-mole at as high a level as possible and not have to worry about the details.

<comment><USER3> <i>(b) new threads that are neither clearly spammy (banned) nor clearly unspammy (allowed on as now) should be provisionally allowed on the new page, but then banned should a single reader flag it, without the intervention of a moderator</i>

Don't you think that will start flagging wars or egregious flagging without a just cause? I think a score should be maintained by tracking how many users flag an article and based on a combination of Bayesian filtering and user reputation (karma) and perhaps some other factors, the post be killed or let remain.

<comment><USER2> Maybe.

I was thinking that if the server marginally decides a thread isn't spam, it should be easier for readers to overrule it, and so classifying threads into 3 threads is better than into 2.

I think your idea is better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> spam isn't just a problem for "the past couple of days." there have been a flood of spam submissions for probably a year now. they all get killed eventually.

pg has the situation under control. if he needs to take further measures to handle the problem, i'm sure he'll do whatever is necessary to keep things running smoothly around here.

</comment><comment><USER5> I concur with this proposal.</comment>


Use your time wisely - <AUTHOR> http://reinventingsquares.com/2013/12/09/user-your-time-wisely/

<comment><USER2> Nice to see you go down this path, but it's probably too simple an insight for anybody to find interesting/useful. (Read, talk to people.)</comment>


Allocating 56GB of memory in Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/vicapow/ee9f5f8180b39b438072 <comment><USER2> This just looks like the virtual address space / paging in action to me. Try writing to it.</comment>


How the $99 Parallella Supercomputer Launched in 18 Months - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/servers/785558-99-parallella-supercomputer-has-successful-launch-after-18-months

<comment><USER2> They have always called this a "Supercomputer" but I'm not clear on how it actually is? My understanding is it requires a lot of these in a cluster to make anything powerful enough to "get stuff done"?</comment>


How Groupon hurts loyal customers - <AUTHOR> http://www.annehelmond.nl/2011/03/10/how-groupon-hurts-loyal-customers/

<comment><USER3> The article mentions "Another friend was skeptical about the concept because how can you keep up the quality if you offer the same deal for 1/2 price." It's not half price but rather a quarter of the price; Groupon takes a cut. Even though it looks great to the business to get started with these promotions, a lot of businesses are losing money from them. You have to put this into perspective with many of the traditional ways of advertising - <USER2> to conversion for mailers, T.V. ads, etc... (you also have to consider how many of these customers return). It may turn out that Groupon is not the best solution, but I guess it depends on the business model...

</comment><comment><USER4> It is not just Groupon that hurts customers. When another partner website jacks up prices - they are also accountable. How do I know this? I spent one day (I chose it as my final working day)working Groupon complaints at a company where the pricing on the company portal Groupon page was jacked.</comment>


Slip Lanes Would Never Exist If We Prioritized Safety over Speed - <AUTHOR> https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/11/5/slip-lanes-would-never-exist-if-we-prioritized-safety-over-speed <comment><USER2> "Our own Daniel Herriges will be weighing in on the role speed plays in the alarming increase of pedestrian and cyclist deaths"

In my town, cyclists don't follow any road signs and weave in and out of traffic. If you are going to share the road with cars, you will need to follow the same rules.

Pedestrians are often on their phones and not paying attention..and many people don't follow the lights/crosswalks.

I've noticed that in all of these discussions about cars, cyclists, and pedestrians, the cyclists and pedestrians bear no responsibility. They are part of the problem.</comment>


Commitment Reminders and FWYDWYD syndrome - <AUTHOR> http://belly-flop.blogspot.com/2007/03/commitment-reminders-and-fwydwyd.html <comment><USER2> Another way to really keep the fire and remember what you're doing is to maintain momentum. Like the 37signals guys say- have accomplishments every week that you can celebrate. That trumps having to dig up old memories about how excited you once were any day, IMO.</comment>


Parser Combinators in Go - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/using-parser-combinators-in-go-e63b3ad69c94 <comment><AUTHOR> There's a follow-up post explaining the problems of naive parser combinators and how to work around them: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com/parser- combinator-gotchas-2...](https://email@example.com/parser-combinator- gotchas-2792deac4531) The source code is available on GitHub: [https://github.com/QAhell/Parser- Gombinators](https://github.com/QAhell/Parser-Gombinators)</comment>


Could the net become self-aware? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227062.100-could-the-net-become-selfaware.html

<comment><USER2> That was remarkably content free even by the standards of New Scientist.

We want specifics. Does the emergent internet overmind like Ice Cream or does it prefer the tasty brains of young developers?

</comment><comment><USER3> More importantly, could the author of this article become self-aware?</comment>