Minecraft to run artificial intelligence experiments - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35778288 <comment><USER3> The fact that they want to use it as a teaching platform of sorts has very exciting implications. Minecraft is really huge with kids and that's an excellent way of getting more young people interested in AI and programming in general. To this day I think the Berkeley intro to AI class[1] on edx is the best I've seen because it uses Pacman as the running example which makes everything more approachable. It would probably be interesting to turn some of the examples from AIAMA into Minecraft examples as well.

[1] [https://www.edx.org/course/artificial-intelligence-uc- berkel...](https://www.edx.org/course/artificial-intelligence-uc-berkeleyx- cs188-1x)

<comment><USER4> I am personally very uncomfortable with introducing children to programming using Minecraft---sure, it has some benefits, but it's teaching them to embrace a proprietary platform that tells them that they cannot study or modify the source code. Support for modding does not count. What children need to be introduced to is software and an operating system where you can "mod" _everything_, and expect to be able to! _That_ is a practical skill and a powerful foundation.

Children should be encouraged to adopt free software. Replacements like Minetest exist, and they also have a strong modding community. I'd recommend people instead invest their time creating excellent mods for Minetest and bring it up to par with the features of Minecraft. I will be introducing my son to Minetest soon (he's four) before he gets into Kindergarten and his peers start talking about Minecraft and pressure him into a world of proprietary software. I would rather him talk to his friends about Minetest and encourage them to play with him.

There are also many other projects that aim to teach children programming.

Proprietary software is incompatible with education. rms has talked at length about these issues; I encourage others to consider his perspective:

[https://www.gnu.org/education/education.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/education/education.en.html) [https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more- important...](https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more- important.html)

<comment><USER5> Computercraft mod gives you LUA programmed turtles with impressive levels of programability.

Its fairly bare metal. Its not like you're running "mine.tunnel" and it does all the work for you, you have to program every little detail of movement or activity. Its not like LUA or LUA inspired, it is LUA so you get functions and real control flow.

I find it mildly amusing to program for my mining turtle to dig a large transport tunnel for me and line it with torch on the wall every X blocks and double tracked rails along the bottom and collect the goodies for me. This is not exactly the pinnacle of software development, but it is fun, which is all that counts.

Its also fun to emulate quarries and deep mining operations with programmed turtles. They come in handy for weird automations also.

My son watched the now ancient direwolf20 youtube mod spotlight on computercraft but had no motivation to run it himself. He's more an arduino kid, which is OK I guess.

(just to save time, insert here "LUA is not a real programming language", and insert here "I don't care its more of a programming language than watching youtube unboxing videos")

Computercraft is not unique, its just the oldest and most widespread of its genre. Personally I'd like a LISP in minecraft. Hoist out the guts of computercraft and toss in a nice jvm lisp like clojure ... in my infinite spare time... Assuming someone else hasn't already...

Minetest might be cooler sooner than you think. Its hard to speak for the community, but most see it as only a matter of time before MS kills minecraft modding a monetization scheme or abandonment of the java platform or who knows, at which point the mod authors and players will be salivating for something like minetest. The problem with minetest is nobody mods it so you can't program a turtle in LUA on minetest, only minecraft.

<comment><USER6> Logo would make an excellent programming language for Minecraft (adapted to add a few extra base commands for digging - laying down a block would be equivalent to pen down). I wonder if anybody has tried to integrate the two of them!

<comment><USER7> That would be great.

Here's a "graphics turtle": [http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2014/07/minecraft- fractal-tree...](http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2014/07/minecraft-fractal- trees.html)

Here's Rust and LLVM in Minecraft command blocks: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/37dkg4/sbbm_scri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/37dkg4/sbbm_scripting_in_vanilla_minecraft_with_rust_and/)

Here's someone hacking gnuplots into Minecraft worlds: [https://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/hacki...](https://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/hacking- a-gnuplot-into-minecraft/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think any simulation of a reasonably complex environment is an opportunity for AI research, but I am hoping that TrueCraft ([https://github.com/SirCmpwn/TrueCraft](https://github.com/SirCmpwn/TrueCraft)) will do well so that researchers do not depend on proprietary Minecraft.

<comment><USER9> A version is minecraft that is forever stuck at 1.7.3 is not very appealing. If you want a game like Minecraft that's open source, check out Minetest [http://www.minetest.net/](http://www.minetest.net/)

<comment><USER10> The stuff added after 1.7.3 isn't particularly interesting to everyone so opinions will vary :)

<comment><USER11> I dunno, explored the new end fortresses at the weekend and then proceeded to spend about 2 hours jumping off very high things and gliding around with the new wings.

(it was frickin sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet)

Next project is to set up some arkham style gliding challenges, although in this case missing the target by even a small amount is like to result in death...

<comment><USER7> > Next project is to set up some arkham style gliding challenges, although in > this case missing the target by even a small amount is like to result in > death...

Pilot wings in Minecraft?

Sounds awesome. I enjoyed some of the dropper maps, and that game where you jump off a high point into a pool and place a block each time, making the target smaller and smaller each time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One day soon, when the current generation that Minecraft courts is my age (mid-20's+), anyone who has never experienced Minecraft on a beyond-coursery level will have no true base from which to analyze concurrent trends. I count myself in the latter group at the moment, but as I see Minecraft become a greater cultural touchstone every day my desire to experience what it offers continues to grow.

<comment><USER13> Attempt to translate.....

"If you're over 25, chances are your peers don't play Minecraft. I'm over 25. Therefore, I'll play Minecraft when more players are established working age adults."

Good luck with that. In the meantime, my age 40+ wife and I have Minecraft mountains to craft into beautiful and creative castle homes.

<comment><USER12> That's not exactly what I meant. At my current age my social tipping point for delving into new games is very high. The last game I embraced was Battlefield, and that became an insane timesuck. That makes BF the only game I've accepted into my life in the last 8 years, besides a good Tetris sesh every once in a while.

Besides, my point is more a contemplation about what references, ideas, and concepts I'll because I might not ever dive deep into Minecraft. I didn't mean it in a snobby way at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just had a strange thought.

Say a sufficiently advanced AI agent is trained in Minecraft with the pixels on the screen as the only raw input (its 'eyes') and then trained to do simple tasks like building houses or hunting for rabbits.

Eventually, to us, these in-game players will seem to reason and 'think' about their world.

...which in my mind grants a few points to the "the universe is a computer simulation" paradox/thought experiment/theory.

<comment><USER15> You might enjoy the book "Vehicles" by Valentio Braitenberg

<comment><USER6> Or Permutation City by Greg Egan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Its seems that the current progress in AI pioneered by DeepMind is predicated on being able to measure progress by using a pre-defined set of rules (i.e. the game currently being played).

How will this work in a MineCraft simulation where there are no rules? Where will the feedback loop come from, e.g. a subjective evaluation by "humans"?

<comment><USER7> Minecraft survival has player health and player armour strength. It also has a hunger bar. And the player has an inventory of items collected.

And then there are a bunch of statistics. [http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Statistics](http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Statistics)

I agree this would make a player that has an unusual play style (never making a base, for example), but it might make for some fun Let's Play videos.

And increasing YouTube subscriber count, and video view count, and video thumbs up, while minimising video thumbs down would be an interesting experiment. ("I welcome our AI Clickbaiting overlords")

<comment><USER17> I'm much more interested in an AI that optimizes audience stats than one that optimizes in-game stats.

<comment><USER18> I predict a twitch stream of an AI playing various games. Watching it fail and succeed on various games and situations would be very interesting. Maybe a couple devs to do a voice-over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those interested in more details, a paper using this system is here: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/alekha/arxiv_g...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/alekha/arxiv_geql.pdf)

<comment><USER20> For some reason that PDF loads incredibly slowly for me, so here's a link to the abstract on arXiv.org: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.04119](http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.04119)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So skeletons will be an even worse pain int the future?

On a more serious note: I really hope they improve the mod mechanism, it's really painful to use mods as it stands. And mods are a very big part of Minecraft.

As I understand it, Minecraft will be reimplemented soon anyways?

<comment><USER22> > _As I understand it, Minecraft will be reimplemented soon anyways?_

That would explain why the extant Java version is riddled with years-old bugs and no hope of getting them fixed while they charge full speed ahead with additions to The End and hang-gliding and other shit nobody actually asked for.

Of course, there is no reason to think the reimplementation won't have annoying bugs as well, which also won't be fixed while they continue to add esoteric features out of the blue.

Yeah, I'm salty.

<comment><USER23> What bugs are you talking about? I've played on and off from 1.2ish, both online and standalone. It's still an unoptimised mess but it's not too bad.

<comment><USER22> Here's one:

[https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC-51053](https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC-51053)

Basically they tried to make some improvements to carts in general, fucked that up, then "reverted" that change and since then powered carts don't work. There's even a fix posted a year ago on the damn ticket itself - <USER2> apparently they are too busy adding attention-grabbing bullshit to even do a simple copy / paste job in order to fix major flaws in the game.

You'd think, in a game called "Minecraft", that minecarts would get more attention. Alas...

However, now that I've looked at this again, it appears they are finally planning to do something about this problem, where "something" is just removing powered carts altogether: [https://twitter.com/jeb_/status/699241247391772672](https://twitter.com/jeb_/status/699241247391772672)

And don't get me started on boats - though they did eventually fix that after a few years.

<comment><USER23> Right... Thanks for that. That's very disappointing. Still, there might be a remote chance that Minecraft is eventually open sourced. This is New Microsoft after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting that it's named 'AIX,' which is also the name of IBM's Unix-like OS. I guess it says something about IBM's AIX's prospects in the market when no-one associated with this project even thought about it.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I'm wondering if they'll run afoul of trademark.

AIX is still around, but IBM is very much pushing Linux, even on the same platform/hardware, so even IBM sort of sees it as dated or offering very little that Linux doesn't offer. Probably more cost effective as I imagine they charge similar for support but have to put less effort into the code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This sort of reminds me the experiment that some people ran on a custom Ultima Online server back in the day. They found some interesting behaviours came out from the monsters. I.e. which animals were afraid of which other ones, grouping etc.

</comment><comment><USER27> If it wasn't possible to "cheat" by using xray or insta mining super tools ... it would be a fun experiment making mining robots etc.

<comment><USER28> Orebfuscator is a pretty nice solution to X-ray. As for super fast mining tools, you can just not add any to the game.

<comment><USER27> I don't think there is a limit on how many "block mined" you can send to the server per second. Or they might have fixed that. Some cheats allow(ed) you to fly around while at the same time mining everything around you.

<comment><USER28> I think plugins like NoCheatPlus did something about it, but with more and more conservative cheat detection methods you start running into the edge cases of legitimate users.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Worldwide Holidays Days API - <AUTHOR> https://www.calendarindex.com/ <comment><USER2> Interesting idea, but needs more work.

Scanning the list of countries: Presenting them alphabetically and vertically, instead of left-to-right, makes much easier scan-ability. Some countries were also out-of-place alphabetically, e.g. Spain.

No countries with a Friday-Saturday weekend seemed to be present, for example Bangladesh. Knowing the days of the weekend is really useful and really related to needing to know public holidays (and I imagine a pretty quick-kill as it only needs to be input once per country).

I checked public holidays for where I am currently: China. It's wrong. National week (October 1st to October 7th) is 7 days, not one day, today's the last day. But the preceding Saturday and Sunday were working days (i.e. there was a 7 day working week before the 7 day national week of holiday, displaced weekend).

This seems valuable. But only if accurate and covers everywhere. Which it isn't now.

I also have an accurate list of international holidays (including weekends) in Outlook provided by Outlook/Exchange, so where can the value be sold most? For example, I know a 5-person team in a Fortune 500 that exist solely to make sure this kind of static data is maintained correctly. Any mistake though is gonna need a very strong SLA because it will cost them millions if mistakes happen.

Also, your 'About Us' page doesn't work.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the heads-up. We will take care of this asap

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Useless for Germany, since it apparently doesn't have data for states, counties or cities, all of which can (and do) have different public holidays in Germany. I'm sure there's more countries where this means the data is incorrect.

<comment><USER3> CalendarIndex rep here. Thanks for your comment here. We provide the data for all the states and regions for the countries we currently support.

That information is only available via the API, we don't display the respective state and county holidays on the website.

This list here: [https://www.calendarindex.com/supported- countries](https://www.calendarindex.com/supported-countries) Shows a list of all the countries and states we support.

View the API doc to see how the calls are make: [https://www.calendarindex.com/api- documentation](https://www.calendarindex.com/api-documentation)

Let me know if this helps or you have other questions.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I'm drawing for 100 days - <AUTHOR> https://giveit100.com/@MeganB/7ghort By Megan (one of the users of giveit100), not me <comment><AUTHOR> This is by one of the users of the startup @Finbarr and I are working on, giveit100.com

<comment><USER2> That makes the title of the submission misleading, since "Show HN"s are almost always projects undertaken by the submitter of the post itself. The use of first person adds to the confusion.

Contrast with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097155](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097155)

<comment><AUTHOR> Gotcha, didn't realize, noted for next time.</comment></comment></comment>


Why men buy sex - <AUTHOR> http://www.eaves4women.co.uk/Documents/Recent_Reports/Men%20Who%20Buy%20Sex.pdf

<comment><USER2> why is this on HN? ideas for startup?

<comment><USER3> Looks to me like a good analysis of our shameless need to look for sex everywhere.</comment></comment>


Valve's controller has been tested: impressions - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/valves-controller-has-been-tested-here-are-some-impre-1415579308

<comment><USER2> I kind of prefer the look of the beta controller more than the touch screen final version. It just seems like physical buttons would be easier to use. I'm sure some games will make use of the screen though. Really looking forward to trying it out.</comment>


Passing the Baton - <AUTHOR> https://grsecurity.net/passing_the_baton.php <comment><USER2> I suspect this will just shift focus to the Kernel Self Protection Project[1].

It may end up being the best thing that could have happened for kernel security in the end.

[1] [https://kernsec.org/wiki/index.php/Kernel_Self_Protection_Pr...](https://kernsec.org/wiki/index.php/Kernel_Self_Protection_Project)

<comment><USER3> Could KSPP evolve to add missing features that are currently present in grsecurity?

[https://grsecurity.net/compare.php](https://grsecurity.net/compare.php)

<comment><USER4> If you're willing to wait a _long time_ , then yes, KSPP, in years, might bring Linux kind-of on par with grsecurity today. If you mean in the short term, well...

What will likely happen is people will base new features on the last public 4.9.x patches, the same way prior KSPP patches have been, such as PAX_REFCOUNT or the read-only static variables, latent entropy, etc. (Frankly most of these are uninteresting compared to the powerful things like RAP, UDEREF, size overflow, etc, and the patches were in some cases neutered in other ways -- but whatever.)

However, grsecurity is more than that; if you watched the RSS feed, substantial amounts of effort went into also monitoring upstream kernels and carefully picking out security relevant commits and closing holes. The -stable grsecurity trees often had (literally) hundreds of included bugfixes that plugged things like minor infoleaks, 'benign' integer overflows, etc, when compared to the stable mainline kernels.

(In fact, there were few better resources for getting a peek at security- sensitive code "in the wild" being analyzed and fixed than looking at the grsecurity RSS feed, IMO. Huge amounts of it was _very_ enlightening to understand what kind of security sensitive issues you can find..)

When a substantial amount of your infrastructure is about anti-memory corruption mitigations, taking care of stuff like infoleaks becomes more important. It is both the combination of all of grsecurity's features -- making most attacks substantially more difficult, or simply outright impossible in a lot of cases -- plus this kind of detailed attention -- not just stopping whole techniques, but also mitigating _future_ possible attacks -- that put it very far ahead of the competition. It is not just a patch set, it is also very much a mind set, and a development model, behind the system.

In short, I don't agree this is the best thing that could happen for Linux Security or the KSPP. It's one of the worst, in fact. I think it means the KSPP will fall even further behind grsecurity as it will now develop all of its new protections privately (such as the whispered KERNSEAL), and they will be left to their own devices to develop new protections. (The current grsecurity authors have over a decade of experience in advanced anti- corruption techniques and kernel hardening, you're already starting the race late.) And even if they _do_ rip the code out of the old kernels, and they _do_ manage to keep it in tact without neutering or removing parts, it's not clear to me the kernels will still have the level of attention or mindset previously seen by the grsecurity team, which means it will overall still be worse off.

I knew this was coming after the -stable trees were pulled. It sucks.

<comment><USER5> > substantial amounts of effort went into also monitoring upstream kernels and > carefully picking out security relevant commits and closing holes

This would better be a project done by these same people, _in_ the upstream, to ensure that the -stable branches of regular kernel packages receive security updates, no?

<comment><USER4> Brad has already answered this before.[1] In short: they have no interest in cooperating with an upstream that feel -- in many ways -- does not appreciate their work[2], and their view of their work is that it is a _complete system_ and greater than the sum of individual parts, which upstreaming can't solve on its own.

Also, just picking out hundreds of bug fixes isn't _really_ improving kernel security, in reality. It feels good, but it solves very little. It's playing cat-and-mouse, whack-a-mole. You churn 1.5 million lines of code every 3 months, every major release of Linux, add tons of new code, and play the game again. This approach is simply not sustainable in the long run. You also have to have actual mitigation and defense techniques too -- and not just one of them. You need a lot of them, working together.

In short, it's not just about a set of patches, or just fixing some infoleaks.. The entire _development process_ needs to take part in this.

[1] [https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/59020/why-are- the-g...](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/59020/why-are-the- grsecurity-patches-not-included-in-the-vanilla-kernel)

[2] While I cannot find a link on me, I actually 'fondly' remember a recent memory somewhere from LKML, where someone (an ARM maintainer, I believe) actively lashed out at Kees Cook for "bothering" to do this work and attempting to upstream some of their work such as PAX_REFCOUNT. The reasoning? Because it's "bullshit" to worry about losers who do not upstream, and making their lives "easier" is a load of crap they shouldn't bother with, and it only benefits people "who do not contribute back". At one point they even started ranting about how people like Samsung similarly just 'take' and do not give back. It took _several_ emails to explain, patiently, that in this scenario, it is not about making anyone's life easier, nor benefitting shitty people like Samsung -- it is about protecting users. And it's about having mitigations that will stop exploits _today_ that don't get discovered until 5 years from now when millions of people are vulnerable with exposed devices. This isn't a simple disagreement about how a patch should be implemented -- it is a complete _misunderstanding_ of defense in depth, and true mitigation.

<comment><USER5> But the backporting-security-patches thing is _already done_ by every distro—just, not as well as grsec+pax do it. Said distro maintainers just need help to get their -stable kernels up to grsec/pax's _standard_ —at which point the grsec/pax patchsets could be based directly _on top of_ each distro's -stable kernel package, rather than having to do _all_ the work of backporting again themselves.

Which would, of course, free up resources on the grsec/pax side to go toward protecting users; and, moreover, would also _partially_ protect those users who just rely on their distro's -stable kernel, more than they're being protected today.

Perfect is the enemy of good; ideal security is the enemy of _less vulnerable_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also read the corresponding FAQ: [https://grsecurity.net/passing_the_baton_faq.php](https://grsecurity.net/passing_the_baton_faq.php)

</comment><comment><USER7> How does this work at a licensing level?

GRSecurity are patches to the Linux kernel right? Can you distribute patches for a GPL licensed software without the patches themselves being GPL?

<comment><USER8> Of course you can.

[https://01.org/linuxgraphics/gfx-docs/drm/admin- guide/tainte...](https://01.org/linuxgraphics/gfx-docs/drm/admin- guide/tainted-kernels.html)

Edit:

\---

Good point about the distinction between adding modules modifying existing source. It is an interesting question, actually and I haven't been able to find an authoritative answer on the subject.

A patch is a description of changes that would be made to a work, if they were made. Does it trigger the licence before it is applied to the source tree? On the other hand to generate a patch you would require the original source (even if you write it by hand you would still have to look at the source to determine line numbers). An you will probably have some bits of the source in your diff, but they are not being used for anything other than position information.

<comment><USER2> That's not the same thing at all.

The 'P' taint flag exists because upstream kernel maintainers aren't interested in dealing with bug reports where the bug may have been caused by proprietary code loaded by end users, which often can't be examined or copied even for the purpose of discussing the bug. Total waste of time, so the flag makes those cases obvious to anyone reading the bug report. The user can be told upfront to remove the proprietary code and try to reproduce the bug again.

 _End users_ can combine proprietary code with GPL code if they want to, because end users aren't bound by the GPL unless and until they _distribute_ something covered by it. You don't even have to _accept_ the terms of the GPL just to run the program[1].

A company distributing a proprietary module for the kernel may or may not be violating the GPL, depending on what it does and who you ask.

In contrast to the module stuff, GRSecurity is a set of patches to very low level parts of the Linux kernel itself. It could never be licensed in a way that prevented the patch set or the resulting patched kernel source/binaries from being covered and distributed under the GPLv2. If that were the case, the kernel would effectively not be covered by the GPL at all.

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html#section5](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html#section5)

<comment><USER9> > It could never be licensed in a way that prevented the patch set or the > resulting patched kernel source/binaries from being covered and distributed > under the GPLv2. If that were the case, the kernel would effectively not be > covered by the GPL at all.

Is this true? I would think that as long as your "new" code is sufficiently distinct from the stuff you're replacing, you'd be fine distributing a non-GPL patch (at least if it's e.g. purely positional to elide context related issues). The result of _applying_ the patch would not be distributable, but I'd think the patch itself would be fine.

<comment><USER10> Distribute changes, it's all GPL. Don't distribute changes, it's whatever you want it to be. This does not change depending on how "distinct" your change is.

<comment><USER11> I'd argue that the code is always GPL, it's just that if you don't distribute it then the GPL doesn't have any restrictions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This outcome makes me kind of sad. I bet there would be people willing to fund development of grsecurity and PaX in the open (i.e. with broken out patches, etc.), and there could plausibly be more money in that than in selling subscriptions.

</comment><comment><USER13> the FAQ mentions "KERNSEAL, STRUCTGUARD" \-- what are these? I tried searching on google but didn't find anything about either.

</comment><comment><USER14> I love how grsecurity is always quick to point out how generous they have been by providing the patches for free.

> We have been providing grsecurity freely for 16 years.

Meanwhile the kernel upon which their work is built has been provided for free for much longer, and continues to be.

<comment><USER15> you conveniently forgot to mention the fundamental difference: the upstream kernel isn't _developed_ for free whereas our code has always been. changes the equation quite a bit, doesn't it?

<comment><USER16> What do you mean, the Linux kernel isn't developed for free? Many contributors aren't paid.

And do you have proof that PaXTeam is not paid, if you are indeed PaXTeam?

<comment><USER15> > What do you mean, the Linux kernel isn't developed for free? Many > contributors aren't paid.

you're wrong, see item 6 in [https://opensource.com/article/16/12/yearbook-9-lessons-25-y...](https://opensource.com/article/16/12/yearbook-9-lessons-25-years- linux-kernel-development) though you might want to demand that Greg prove his identity first ;).

> And do you have proof that PaXTeam is not paid, if you are indeed PaXTeam?

sure, come visit me in hungary and i'll take you to the local tax authorities and grant you access to my files. of course you'll have to prove your own identity first ;).

<comment><USER16> You mean that some developers are paid to implement things by companies? Fair enough, though I'd still argue it's not developed commercially because no one pays to get access to the result (they only pay to influence the result).

>> sure, come visit me in hungary

That'd be amusing, maybe sometime this summer? I'm kinda busy right now setting up my business :')

Let me know when you're around the Benelux, we could do the key-siging song- and-dance over a coffee or beer.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Feynman sprinkler - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_sprinkler

<comment><USER2> The interesting thing to me is not the asymmetry, but that the asymmetry persists even with an ideal fluid. (The asymmetry actually is _greater_ the more ideal the fluid is.)

Related, that a putt-putt boat would work even in an ideal fluid.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not related directly to the article, but I wanted to quickly and highly recommend the book "Surely you're Joking, Mr. Feynman" which they referenced. A fantastic and very fun read.

<comment><USER4> The first time I read that, I was charmed and amused. The next time I read it, after progressing farther in my own studies, I found Feynman's voice and self- described persona unbelieveably arrogant.

Certainly he has earned the right to that arrogance, but it makes the book and its fascinating stories much harder for me to enjoy. I now prefer to stick with his scientific, rather than personal, books, but, despite my best attempts to ignore it, even my enjoyment of those scientific works is diminished by what I perceive of his personality, and I wish now that I hadn't gone back and re-read his biographic works.</comment></comment>


'Final Fantasy' finally lands on Google Play Store for $6.99 - <AUTHOR> http://www.the4cast.com/apps-software/its-here-final-fantasy-finally-lands-on-google-play-store-for-6-99/

<comment><USER2> And for 6.99 nobody is going to buy it. I've been a FF fan since I played the first one on Nintendo decades ago but unless squareenix keeps their pricing in line with everyone else I'm not going to buy their shit. Much like I haven't bought Assassins Creed (or any other Ubisoft game) beyond the first one once Ubisoft showed their true DRM colors.

<comment><USER3> _for 6.99 nobody is going to buy it._

Their sales figures indicate otherwise. Square's frequently held up as the poster child for how premium-priced iOS games can still sell very well. And the games that earned it that reputation are usually priced at least twice as high as that.

<comment><USER4> It looks like the Android game is a fast port of the iOS version though, with matching black borders on higher resolution devices. And it seems that it needs internet connection for a DRM check on every launch.

Meh.</comment></comment></comment>


World of Warcraft utility bot violates DMCA, says 9th Circuit - <AUTHOR> http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/12/14/09-15932.pdf

<comment><USER3> I'm morally on Blizzard's side, but if you're a freedom-to-tinker absolutist there are some bright spots in here. Highlights:

1.

The ruling draws a bright line distinction between "conditions", which limit the the scope of right copyright rights granted by a contract, and "covenants", which are basically any other promise in that contract. Under this ruling, you can't claim copyright violation when someone violates a EULA covenant; the fundamental right to make whatever copy you made was determined by the conditions in the contract, not the covenants. What this means is that companies can't force you to hop up and down on one foot or say nice things about them in public and then claim _copyright violation_ when you don't. See:

 _Were we to hold otherwise, Blizzard — or any software copyright holder — could designate any disfavored conduct during software use as copyright infringement, by purporting to condition the license on the player's abstention from the disfavored conduct. The rationale would be that because the conduct occurs while the player's computer is copying the software code into RAM in order for it to run, the violation is copyright infringement. This would allow software copy- right owners far greater rights than Congress has generally conferred on copyright owners._

2.

But on the other hand, there is a major shift in DMCA interpretation in the ruling. Prior rulings have held that the DMCA comes into play only in the setting of copyright violation. In particular, there had to be a nexus of both circumvention _and_ a resulting violation of copyright to employ the anticircumvention cause of action.

No more. This ruling reads the plain language of the DMCA and determines that Congress meant to establish _two_ anticircumvention causes: 1201(a), which covers _any_ circumvention, and 1201(b), which covers only copyvio circumvention. In support of this interpretation, beyond the plain text of the statute, the court notes that there are different checks on 1201(a) and 1201(b): 1201(a) is subject to Library of Congress exemptions and 1201(b) isn't, but 1201(b) only applies in copyvio.

To the concerns that this interpretation will result in a distopian hellscape, the court responds:

* Tell it to congress, bitches.

* If DMCA anticircumvention exacerbates antitrust, bring an antitrust-relevant DMCA case and they'll consider it.

* Stop being silly about DMCA violations for bypassing your own burglar alarms.

3.

Finally, it's worth looking at the court's take on Blizzard's tortious interference claim. Recall: you're liable for the tort of interference when you cause damage by knowingly and improperly inducing someone else to violate a contract. Blizzard has what seems to be a very strong case here; MDY conceded that very point on its own website. Thus, Blizzard got a lower-court summary judgement on this point.

The court reversed the summary judgement. To get a summary judgement for interference out of the 9th circuit, you need to consider 7 factors:

\- Nature of the conduct - Motive - The interests of the aggrieved party - <USER2> interests the interference advances - Relevant social interests - How directly the conduct actually bore on interference - Any existing relationship between the interferer and the aggrieved party.

The appeals court decided that the factors here were too murky to grant a summary judgement; MDY's product may have provided meaningful benefits to users, and even advanced social interests by (wait for it) "improv[ing] some users' romantic relationships by reducing the time that they spend playing WoW". I FIND IT HARD TO DISAGREE.

ps.

Permit me a brief moment of punditry:

I'd like to live in a world where companies are free to offer the products they choose to offer under the terms they choose to offer them under. Companies should not have to incur a technological arms race simply to ship a "no bots allowed" game". I also feel like that's a point that startup entrepreneurs should sympathize with.

On the other hand, the DMCA makes me queasy, because companies will exploit it to advance illegitimate interests, such as "preventing the public from learning about product flaws discovered through unauthorized research that endanger them". The DMCA has controls against this, but they all seem to involve researchers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers.

So while I'm glad that Blizzard looks poised to "win" this, I wish there was something less treacherous than the DMCA to allow them to do it.

<comment><USER4> _I'd like to live in a world where companies are free to offer the products they choose to offer under the terms they choose to offer them under._

Companies have always been able to _offer_ products under arbitrarily complicated terms of their choosing. But any supposed benefits from having the government _enforce compliance_ with these terms should be weighed against the consequent loss of individual privacy & liberty.

<comment><USER5> Why can't you do that weighing as an individual?

<comment><USER4> Because all the citizens of a country live under one government, the rules of which supposedly apply to everyone.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand this response at all. Contract covenants aren't laws; they're agreements freely entered into between parties: "you promise not to do X and to pay me Y, and I'll let you play my game Z".

<comment><USER4> For people who entered into a contact with Blizzard in order to use their system, sure. I'm talking about a 3rd party who obtains their client through an anonymous third party and reverse-engineers it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand their reconciliation of this case with the printer toner case in regards to Warden "effectively controlling access" to WoW's dynamic elements. From the decision:

 _...In Lexmark, the plaintiff sold laser printers equipped with an authentication sequence, verified by the printer's copyrighted software, that ensured that only plaintiff's own toner cartridges could be inserted into the printers. The defendant sold microchips capable of generating an authentication sequence that rendered other manufacturers' cartridges compatible with plaintiff's printers.

...The mere purchase of one of plaintiff's printers allowed "access" to the copyrighted program. Any purchaser could read the program code directly from the printer memory without encountering the authentication sequence. The authentication sequence thus blocked only one form of access: the ability to make use of the printer. However, it left intact another form of access: the review and use of the computer program's literal code...it seems clear that this provision does not naturally extend to a technological measure that restricts one form of access but leaves another route wide open._

By the same token, wouldn't you say that Warden blocks only one form of access to WoW's copyrighted dynamic elements -- the ability to access the game when running a bot -- and leaves intact another form of access -- the ability to access the game normally when no other programs are running? Can someone who understands the fine print here help explain the distinction?

<comment><USER7> Good point. There does seem to be some disagreement.

The Lexmark case was heard by the 6th Circuit, and this one by the 9th. It would seem that a petition for a writ of certiorari would likely be granted for this or a similar case so that the Supreme Court can reconcile any differences. However, I'm not sure that I want the current Supreme Court to have the opportunity to strengthen the DMCA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _That is, MDY (1) traffics in (2) a technology or part thereof (3) that is primarily designed, produced, or marketed for, or has limited commercially significant use other than (4) circumventing a technological measure (5) that effectively controls access (6) to a copyrighted work. See 17 US.C. § 1201(a)(2)._

I don't quite get how elements 3 and 4 are met. Glider's primary purpose is to autonomously play WoW (as stated in the opinion) not to bypass Warden. Was it "primarily marketed" as a Warden bypass? I assumed it was marketed as a bot with the Warden bypass as a feature? I guess I'm misunderstanding the 3rd textual element for violating § 1201(a)(2).

Can anyone clarify?

</comment><comment><USER9> Slightly OT: I would love to see games designed to be scripted by the users. It would be fascinating to see the kinds of strategies and user interfaces that would evolve. RTS user interfaces haven't changed significantly in the last couple of decades. The number of times I've cursed at stupid pathing or unit AI in existing RTS games - I know exactly what I want them to do but I can't communicate my intentions.

There are plenty of AI competitions but I don't know of anything for AI- assisted humans. Perhaps I should start one? Modifying an existing open-source RTS seems like the best route.

</comment><comment><USER10> [EDIT - removed - it seems I couldn't tell the difference between what was being overturned and the actual decision]

This is a case where being able to provide a bit of context for the link would be useful.

<comment><USER11> > If another party markets green shirts to users of this progam, they would > under this case be liable for contributory infringement.

No. This is not accurate. It's not even close. The "shirt maker" would have to be making shirts specifically to violate the agreement of the customer.

Blizzard isn't going after software that could potentially infringe. Rather, it's going after software that was specifically designed to infringe. Indeed, to make the software, the developer would have to infringe.

Whether this is fair or not is up for debate. But don't mischaracterize it as something it's not.

<comment><USER10> Well, I had meant to characterize the shirt as having been specifically made for the software users who wished to violate the license agreement. But never the less the court didn't actually hold this - the lower court did. This document says that no copyright infringement happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, what utter fucking bullshit. It looks like the court just rubber stamped whatever the BSA submitted. They actually say it's copyright infringement to copy a program into RAM to run it.

Mind boggling.

<comment><USER6> Your remark is utter fucking bullshit; it's clear that is not the basis of this case. The decision explains clearly that Blizzard cannot put arbitrary conditions on a user's license to copy the program into RAM, so Glider is not liable for doing so against Blizzard's preference.

 _First, although WoW players copy the software code into RAM while playing the game, Blizzard's EULA and ToU authorize all licensed WoW players to do so. We have explained that ToU § 4(B)'s bot prohibition is a license covenant rather than a condition. Thus, a Glider user who violates this covenant does not infringe by continuing to copy code into RAM. Accordingly, MDY does not violate § 1201(b)(1) by enabling Glider users to avoid Warden's interruption of their authorized copying into RAM._

(from earlier)

 _A Glider user violates the covenants with Blizzard, but does not thereby commit copyright infringement because Glider does not infringe any of Blizzard's exclusive rights... Were we to hold otherwise, Blizzard — or any software copyright holder — could designate any disfavored conduct during software use as copyright infringement, by purporting to condition the license on the player's abstention from the disfavored conduct._

<comment><USER12> Well, I got bored in the middle, so there.

<comment><USER6> I enjoy this reply.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Free Software Sticker Book - replace the OS/processor stickers on your computer - <AUTHOR> http://openstickers.com/ <comment><USER2> I like repurposing the existing stickers. For example, my Kindle has an Atom processor inside, or so the sticker says, anyway. My laptop has a sticker with the tech support phone number for Suntory beer, and my desktop has a sticker advising the reader to not operate the machine when it is under water.

When I got a VoIP phone, it came with a bunch of stickers that said "this device cannot call 911 during a power failure". I attached those to various household objects -- it's true that my alarm clock can't call 911 during a power failure, after all.

I have an Intel SSD on the way, which apparently comes with an "SSD Inside!" sticker. Might have to stick that to my bike.

<comment><USER3> I am the same way. My fire extinguisher is "Dual Bios".

<comment><USER2> Excellent :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I haven't owned a computer that came with stickers on it for about 3 years now.

I certainly have no intention of polluting my MacBook Pro's perfect exterior with a crappy home-made sticker now.

<comment><USER5> No removable stickers please, they're déclassé, just the glowing corporate logo thanks.

<comment><USER4> 1) The glowing apple is highly aesthetic, unlike most of those fugly stickers.

2) The product is designed with the logo in mind. It's not an afterthought. It's part of the product's design.

3) Most laptops of other brands carry the brand of the laptop maker in a prominent place too. E.g. Dell laptops: <http://www.treehugger.com/pink-dell- laptop.jpg> HP laptops: [http://www.laptopsarena.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/hp-bu...](http://www.laptopsarena.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/11/hp-business-laptop2.jpg) Sony laptop lid: <http://regmedia.co.uk/2007/08/07/sony_tz11_1.jpg>

4) In addition, most other brands of laptop also repeat that brand name inside the laptop, after you open the lid. The only brand I can see on my MBP once I open the lid is "Macbook Pro" in discreet silver letters under the screen. There's not even any noticeable writing underneath the laptop. Nor does it even say "Apple" explicitly anywhere.

5) In addition to all this branding from the laptop manufacturer (which exists on the macbook pro too, though it's easily argued that the apple branding is _way_ more tasteful than most other brands), _on top of that_ they also stick god damned "Intel Inside" and "Windows Vista ready" and god knows what other stickers.

Claiming that somehow the Macbook Pro is inferior because it has no removable stickers is completely stupid.

If you want a laptop that's largely free of stupid logos and stickers, get a Mac.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It looked for a moment like they were actually selling a book of these stickers. A second glance showed me that I was wrong. Anyway, I imagine a book of stickers like this would be a make a neat gift for a FOSS fan even if he didn't actually put any of them on his computer.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice idea but only about 1% are worthy of sticking on a machine. Seriously, who is sticking a Drupal sticker on their laptop??

<comment><USER8> I suppose there could be someone out there willing to put a Drupal sticker on their server...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there anyone that puts more stickers on a laptop than Sony? I count seven of them.

<comment><USER9> Okay, just removed all of them. I guess in the year I owned this one I never really noticed them until this article. Once I noticed them they started driving me crazy.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I had three stickers on my HP laptop, which I promptly removed. This is more a curiosity than something I'd actually stick on my computer, though the Stallman sticker in Book I is rather hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER10> Right on time. I've always believed that "you are not your f</comment><comment> computer", but after Section 331, I am just about to print a penguin logo and stick it my computer lid.

</comment><comment><USER11> Can I have a CUPS sticker to put on my sticker?

[Insert Xzibit pic here.]</comment>


Schools Will Reopen in Japan in April - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/20/national/school-can-reopen-april-after-coronavirus-shurtdown/ <comment><USER2> Just spent a month there. Sanitizer everywhere, masks everywhere; this was already in the culture.</comment>


Archaeology is revealing new clues about Shakespeare's life and death - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/william-shakespeare-archaeology-is-revealing-new-clues-about-the-bards-life-and-death-136803 <comment><USER2> > William Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of all > time and one of the most important and influential people who has ever > lived.

I see some hype just there. Is there any study on what the world will look without William Shakespeare influence? Or it is Shakespeare so famous like the Mona Lisa is (It has its merits and place in history, but, not the one that the press has given)?

> An online exhibition, due to be made available in early May 2020, presents > 3D-scanned artefacts recovered at the site of New Place. These objects, some > of which may have belonged to Shakespeare, have been chosen to characterise > the chronological development and activities undertaken at the site.

A part of the voyeuristic and quays-religious approach to the exhibition, the increased interest in archeology that this kind of projects can create is welcome. As, much as I am skeptical about the trendy obsession on certain authors or pieces of art, the general public awareness and funding for high- tech 16th Century archeological techniques is welcome. It is not the first time that spectacle and science empower each other, and I hope that is not the last one if we want the science to keep rolling.

<comment><USER3> All Literature departments in the western world.

Seriously, though: First half is pretty conventional assertion, the second half is taking it into pretty hyperbolic territory. Even if it's right. "Shakespeare" (the works, and allowing for controversies over authorship and attribution) is still worth talking about if you just stuck to the first half of the sentence.</comment></comment>


Yesquel: scalable SQL storage for Web applications [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://sigops.org/sosp/sosp15/current/2015-Monterey/printable/106-aguilera.pdf <comment><USER2> Fist of, this looks like a fun project. I haven't seen the implementation but it looks they built the new database using the current state of the art from db / data structure literature (distributed b+ trees).

On a semi-unrelated rant... I do have to say that Sql/NoSql/MoarSql nomenclature is getting old. The databases we're talking about are relational databases. The fundamental properties of these databases (selection, projection, aggregation, joins, et al) are properties of relational model (databases) and stem from relation algebra and calculus.

It just happens that the most common way of interfacing with these relational databases is the SQL language.

And, as far as languages SQL is kind of meh. It's really not that easy to work with / write (non-trivial queries). And, more importantly it's kind of a pain to generate via code.

END RANT

</comment><comment><USER3> As I understand it (I might be wrong) this engine basically automates DB partitioning by creating distributed nodes. By donig this it scales without having to deal with replication, but at the same time it is still fully relational. I'm not sure whether it allows ACID transactions. I'm also curious about how it could be evaluated against the CAP theorem. Interesting.

<comment><USER2> Pretty much all these distributed databases at their core somehow handle the partitioning of data. Even if sometimes it's just throwing up your hands and saying there's a user has to provide us a partitioning function. That's true in non-relational databases (Hbase, Casandra, Mongo) and in relational ones (Volt, Vetica, this db).

It looks like here the data structure enabling partitioning is based on prior art distributed B+ Tree.

From the paper it looks like it allows for full ACID transactions. At least to the physical extents that ACID is possible.</comment></comment>


Dan's Data on this and that and write-protected USB keys - <AUTHOR> http://dansdata.com/io100.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> The HDMI cables discussion reminded me of Dan's site. He has some good pieces debunking various 'magic tech' devices, cables and magnets included.

Also assorted hardware hacking, in a "more computer failures should involve smoke" vein ...</comment>


Introducing SourceTree for Windows – a free desktop client for Git - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bitbucket.org/2013/03/19/introducing-sourcetree-git-client-microsoft-windows/ <comment><USER2> Git AND MERCURIAL client. There's not a single decent Mercurial client on Windows. EasyMercurial is better than nothing, but not by much.

We a few .Net projects, (we mainly do Python), some of the projects we haven't even bothered moving from Subversion, because of the lack of good Windows Mercurial clients.

Having SourceTree on both Mac and Windows is huge to us.

EDIT: Just realized that they didn't include Mercurial support yet. Then I don't care at all.

<comment><USER3> TortoiseHg is an awesome Mercurial client, what are you talking about?

<comment> X-Cubed I can't speak for mrweasel, but in my experience, TortoiseHg struggles with performance on large repos, with basic operations (like refreshing the list of modified files in the Commit window) taking many seconds to complete. It consumes a lot of memory while idle (around 500MB on my machine), often becomes unresponsive or crashes, progress bars only represent the lowest level operations, not overall progress (eg: checking out a repo containing subrepos results in the bar going from start to finish several times), etc, etc.

It's not terrible by any means, but I'm interested to see what other clients can bring to the party.

<comment><USER4> Excessive TortoiseHG user here. Many rather large repos with multiple branches, tags, forks, etc. All hg processes together take less than 130 MB RAM. I don't recall having any crash at all in the last few years, nor did it become unresponsive, not even on my old TP60 (2007).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I installed it a couple weeks ago, and I would not recommend this yet. I have appreciated the frequent and easy update process during the beta. But, wow, still a long ways to go performance-wise. In the working copy view, where I spend the most time in ST, most clicks take seconds to respond. I'm optimistic it improves, I've been a fan of the Mac version for a while.

<comment><USER6> Please could you give us some details about your circumstances & repo at <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/SRCTREEWIN> ? I test with quite a few repos and your performance experience with the Win beta is unusual - viewing files in the working copy should usually average well under a second. Do you have very large diffs for example? Info about the repo you are testing with would be very useful, especially if it's public. The Mac version of ST went through a lot of tuning over the years so we'll probably have a bunch to do on Windows too, your assistance would be welcome :)

Steve Streeting, SourceTree dev @ Atlassian

<comment><USER7> Some feedback for you since you probably wouldn't find out in other ways. I used the Mac version for a while comparing against the Github client. SourceTree then insists you register to continue use which isn't unreasonable. However registration wanted me to create an atlassian account of some sort that looked like a really crappy bug tracker (ie yet another username and yet another password on yet another site that I had no intention of using). So I gave up and kept using the Github client (and the command line mostly). I had expected registration to amount to a one off name and address kind of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have ST on my Mac. It's a pretty beefy machine - i7, 4gb of ram. And it runs like a lazy dog in a hot August day in North Carolina, i.e., very slowly.

I really wish it'd be sped up and I sincerely hope that the Windows version is massively faster.

<comment><USER9> I use ST frequently on OSX and can't say I've personally encountered any slowness. Are there any specific actions you find slow?

<comment><USER8> Pretty much everything. Slow to load, slow to refresh, slow dialog boxes.

Other stuff on my system is quite fast.

<comment><USER6> The usual reason for slowness on OS X is one of the following:

1\. Lack of HDD space (10%+ is benchmark to keep OS X's dynamic defrag happy) 2\. Low memory - ST has to launch git & hg binaries and low memory affects those tasks especially 3\. Running Mercurial on the App Store version on 10.8 - this is a little esoteric but it's down to Python precompilation and slight differences in versions. You can resolve that by using the system Mercurial instead of the embedded one for now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why not the command line? One look at that UI and I cannot fathom why it needs all those buttons.

push, pull, checkout, add, commit. I can go days just using those five commands.

<comment><USER11> It has some useful features that I find easier to use in a gui than using command line.

For example, being able to see a summary of diffs of all staged and unstaged files, and being able to select particular lines of the diffs and stage/unstage/undo them. Or being able to see commits and diffs from other peoples' branches before I pull them.

Honestly, a gui is pretty useful for git, especially when you're doing operations that you want to apply to many specific files in different folders.

> push, pull, checkout, add, commit. I can go days just using those five > commands.

You're missing out on a few git features then.

I agree some of the buttons are useless, like adding or removing files. The main window has a list of staged and unstaged files and I just drag and drop files between the two window panes. I've never had to use those buttons before.

<comment><USER10> >You're missing out on a few git features then.

Including diff, which I forgot, what else do you use everyday?

<comment><USER11> log, branch, merge, mv, rm, status, fetch, reset

Some more that aren't used everyday, but certainly quite often

<comment><USER10> Oh, can't believe I forgot to include status.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there anything like this for Linux?

And has anyone managed to get this up and running with Wine/PlayOnLinux?

<comment><USER13> SmartGitHG's name sucks hard but it's close to SourceTree feature-wise: <http://www.syntevo.com/smartgithg/index.html>

<comment><USER14> SmartGitHG is a nice alternative, but it does cost money ($79), while SourceTree is being given away for free (as a way to push BitBucket).

I would love to see a Linux version of SourceTree, but it may be a while. As was pointed out by one of their employees before, they write each application as a native app for each OS to provide the best possible experience, so adding a new OS means adding a lot of work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great work!

Nice to see companies investing into desktop applications.

<comment><USER16> And it's a WPF one too.

<comment><USER17> I don't really see that as a plus. Qt would have been my choice but oh well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm pretty new at git and only use github. Why should I use this over the official github client? The official app is pretty easy to use and makes sense to me.

<comment><USER19> The official Github client is severely crippled and allows you to do little more than clone repos and make commits. This is a full-blown Git client.

<comment><USER18> I guess I do use the app and the actual website. I don't know what I am missing.

<comment><USER20> Git does not equal Github. SourceTree allows you to use most of the features of Git (the program). The official Github client lets you use some of the features of Git (the program) but is mostly an interface for Github (the website).

By their own admission, the Github client does away with the majority of Git features. If you want to find out what you're missing: <http://git- scm.com/book>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sounds like good news for making Git stuff easier on Windows platform. Git Extensions is pretty good, but can be intimidating for the unexperienced.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, I have team members that are still struggling with Git after 6 months because of issues remembering the right command line and needing to jump back and forth between CLI and Git Extensions for various use cases. Having one interface will make their lives easier. I'm hopeful for a performance boost from ST before I recommend it though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> We are using Git Extensions at work (<http://code.google.com/p/gitextensions/>). What would be the interesting new features if we switched to SourceTree ?

<comment><USER23> The ability to connect up to Git and Mercurial repos. Very nice when working with bitbucket for private repos (git/mercurial) and github (git) for public from one app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have been using TortoiseGit for years on Windows and thinks its pretty good, didnt really need more but ill give SourceTree a try as i like the OSX version of it.

<comment><USER25> Have you tried GitExtensions? I originally tried TortoiseGit after having used TortoiseSVN for years but it never felt quite right. But, now I'm thinking of switching to SourceTree. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've been using the private beta for a few weeks now and it is a fantastic product. I've become a huge fan of BitBucket and SourceTree over the last month.

</comment><comment><USER27> Looks good, except requires .Net 4.5 which we currently have an embargo on here for our dev machines since it replaces .Net 4.0 rather than side by side.

<comment><USER28> Out of curiosity, what piece(s) of 4.5 have you found aren't backwards compatible with 4.0 anyway?

<comment><USER29> We've experienced problems too. I really wish they'd just gone with a side by side release.

Here's the full list of breaking changes [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh367887(v=vs.110).a...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh367887\(v=vs.110\).aspx)

<comment><USER30> Eh we hit a bug here with WCF discovery when we had the machines run 4.0 code and had 4.5 installed.

I think the official fix has been out, but man did it cause some headaches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Nice, how about porting it to Linux? last time I tried to use a git gui there I wanted to read a visual basic book, then commit seppuku

<comment><USER32> What did you try? gitg was a pretty nice gitx clone when I used to work in desktop linux

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Bugger. Windows 7+.

I've had Windows 7 sitting on the shelf since the day it launched, but haven't get got round to installing it...

<comment><USER34> It really makes me wonder what is that they're using that doesn't work for older Windows...

<comment><USER35> I think it installed .net framework 4.5 - which according to Wikipedia is vista and above. And I bet they just didn't care to support vista.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Free for beta, but what about prices in general?

<comment><USER37> SourceTree has been free since joining Atlassian. We'll continue to keep the product free as part of our Bitbucket platform to help developers adopt Git and Mercurial.

Cheers, Justen -- Bitbucket & SourceTree product manager

<comment><USER35> I want to thank you for a great product and a perfect price point. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but any chance of open sourcing it in the future?

<comment><USER37> Thanks for using SourceTree!

We distribute source for JIRA, Stash, etc if you're a paying license holder for better plugin development. This is something we'll be sure to review if we add plugin support to SourceTree in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you're willing to live slightly dangerously, you can help Plastic SCM test their [Windows-friendly] Git integration: [http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2013/03/gitsync-is-out- na...](http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2013/03/gitsync-is-out-native- windows-dvcs.html)

<comment><USER21> Note that it isn't a real Git client, but a communication layer between a PlasticSCM repo and a remote git repository.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Thank you, thank you & thank you! There is nothing better than this for code review & git management for team.

I love this on Mac but had to compromise on Windows! Looking forward for ubuntu too someday :). Great job guys!

</comment><comment><USER40> Does it excel at anything, particularly? I still use a mix of command-line git and winmerge. (And I'm willing to try GUI tools, but Git has so many commands and options it becomes complex to know what you're doing in a GUI tool).

</comment><comment><USER41> The original SourceTree for Mac is a native Cocoa app. If this Windows version has been written in C# it could potentially be ported to Linux with Mono and GTK#/Qyoto. Perhaps the future is one single cross-platform app?

<comment><USER42> I hope not. I like SourceTree the way it is (on OS X) and every cross platform UI toolkit I know produces apps that don't feel native.

IMHO Bitbucket/Atlassian is doing it the right way: Native on the client side.

<comment><USER41> Check out Xamarin Studio. It's a full blown IDE and it's quite impressive in terms of native feel. Apparently written in C#, Mono and GTK#.

<http://xamarin.com/studio>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Finally something that developers using Windows want. Command-line is good, but when it comes to Windows I think people expect to have some GUI in place for all tools. Great work!

</comment><comment><USER44> I prefer to use TortoiseGit. I dont know why ont would want to open a gui client, I prefer the commands integrated nicely into the shell

<comment><USER45> TortoiseGit completely abstracts away the concept of index. Great for those moving from TortoiseSVN. Horrible for git users.

<comment><USER46> As a TortoiseSVN user, I still think TortoiseGit is horrible period...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The command line is the best "client". I think.

</comment><comment><USER48> I liked the previous icon set better. I don't see why there's a sudden aversion to color among developers. And why shapes have to be simplified.

</comment><comment><USER49> Is it open source? I notice the article mentions the word free _6 times_ (!!!!) while discussing this client.

Which is a strong indicator that it is doing horrible things.

<comment><USER50> Free as in beer.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: list of domains for university emails - <AUTHOR>

i'm trying to implement a way to restrict registration based on having a .edu account for specific schools, anyone know of a comprehensive list somewhere?  i'm having no luck with my search <comment><USER2> Why don't you just check if the email ends with .edu? Edu domain names are restricted to accredited post-secondary institution, handled by educase. <http://net.educause.edu/edudomain/>

<comment><USER3> In my experience the .edu should all be active universities. My university recently replaced the college in its name with university. We didn't add any degree programs, we were just recognizing that the school already had university status. And the .edu domain for our old name expired after about a year, I think. Right now our old name doesn't even link to our new website anymore, and educause has the registry on the whois record for the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suggest using the Department of Education college data. Most of the ~7,000 US schools listed have homepage URL listed, which you could grab the domain from with relative ease. Aside from that, you're probably looking at parsing Wikipedia pages or grabbing data from Petersons, which is not free. The DOE dataset is a good starting point, but you'll run into a fair (~300? I don't remember exactly) schools without domains listed, but they're schools like Joe's Barber School, not major universities. Any reasonably sized school has a domain in the DOE dataset. Peterson's is good, but they have restrictions on use which can be annoying to deal with if you care about legality.

Also, on the note of .edu domains being restricted to post -secondary institutions; that's not entirely true. That wasn't the original rule, so some non-university level schools are grandfathered in and own .edu domains. For instance, my high school has a .edu domain.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you can't get a definitive list, try a whitelist approach with a moderated queue for any domains not matching the whitelist.

Once you see a domain that's an educational institute it gets whitelisted and further registrations from that domain get ok'd.

No matter what text you include there, you're gonna get the odd student registering with a hotmail/gmail/yahoo account (I've tried something similar in the past). Try and get a list of free email accounts to give feedback on those straight away.

I think any domain using the .edu TLD is safe straight-away, but I'm not from the US, so it may be worth clarifying that.

</comment><comment><USER6> One would assume that you only want US institutions? Because nobody else really uses .edu to any great degree of consistency.

</comment><comment><USER7> type in the specific schools in google and grab the first result?

you could automate this quite easily, too.</comment>


Implementations of various type systems in OCaml - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tomprimozic/type-systems

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is so cool. I've been looking for a hands-on tutorial for H-M typology for a while now.

As a side note, it's nice to see how OCaml somewhat seems to become the de- facto standard as the environment of choice for PL design & experiments.

<comment><USER3> _I 've been looking for a hands-on tutorial for H-M typology for a while now._

For an introduction, I would also recommend "Algorithm W Step by Step"

[http://www.grabmueller.de/martin/www/pub/AlgorithmW.pdf](http://www.grabmueller.de/martin/www/pub/AlgorithmW.pdf)

<comment><USER4> It has a small error, which I have corrected here: [https://github.com/KMahoney/Algorithm-W-Step-By- Step](https://github.com/KMahoney/Algorithm-W-Step-By-Step)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be bizarrely useful to me if someone had something like this for the Calculus of Constructions.</comment>


Cisco cutting up to 2,000 jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/31847328/for/cnbc/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's something surreal about getting "n employees to be cut from X" when you work at X. Thank god I'm just an intern.

Anyone hiring interns next summer?</comment>


Castro has his doubts on Communism - <AUTHOR> http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/fidel-castros-doubts-about-cuban-communism-and-iranian-anti-semitism/?partner=rss&emc=rss <comment><AUTHOR> This has really changed my view point on Castro. I'm not sure if he's been looking at lives of Cubans and realizing that maybe the revolution wasn't worth it, or if he's just getting older and his youthful " altruistic idealism" is fading.

Nice to see people can change their mind, and recollect... even after decades.

<comment><USER2> It would have been great if he'd realized it earlier.

However, I imagine that growing up during the great depression (especially under a series of kleptocrat dictators) changes one's perspectives on the relative merits of different economic systems. I'm currently reading a book on J. Robert Oppenheimer, and I've been struck by the seeming ubiquity of very left-wing views among brilliant young theoretical physicists in the 1930s. Combine the dire economic circumstances in the US at the time with the rise of the Nazis and little accurate knowledge of life under Stalin, and some very smart people came to conclusions that seem very misguided in retrospect.

<comment><USER3> It is very difficult to develop your own philosophy from scratch, which is what it took back then to come to correct conclusions. In fact, doing this took nothing less than a genius in the field, and these are very rare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore."

Anymore?! What, it was working sometime during the past half-century of murders, starvation, political imprisonment, destruction of wealth and civil liberties, poverty, de facto slavery, and general screwing-over of generations of Cubans to the extent they'd be willing to risk their lives floating in a cardboard box to Florida?

<comment><USER5> It's actually been a lot nicer to live in Cuba during most of that time than much of the rest of Latin America. Pinochet comes to mind.

<comment><USER6> What was so bad about Pinochet by South American dictator standards? It's hard to think of any metric under which Pinochet's Chile could be considered worse than Castro's Cuba.

<comment><USER5> That's because you've spent your American life hearing about how Castro is the devil (because Cuba was allied with the USSR!) and hearing very little about Pinochet or any of the rest of Reagan's buddies.

I mean look at the comment I responded to, it sounded like they were running gas chambers in Cuba. I'm no defender of communism or non-democratic governments but just because someone wasn't allied with us doesn't necessarily make them more of a monster.

<comment><USER6> Actually I asked for information on how Pinochet was worse than Castro, not just a repetition of the assertion that he was combined with a false assumption about my nationality.

I don't claim to be an expert on South American dictators, but as far as I know the worst thing Pinochet did was to kill and imprison thousands of political dissidents, which is coincidentally also the worst thing that Castro did.

<comment><USER5> You've almost got it.

Now think: How come for certain people, whenever Castro comes up we hear about how he was/is some exaggerated monster yet those people don't actually seem concerned about Latin Americans or any other monsters in Latin American history?

<comment><USER6> Geez, you're _still_ not answering my question about how one was worse than the other, you're just responding with unwarranted patronization and innuendo about "certain people".

I'm the one arguing they're both in the same ballpark. You're the one trying to argue Pinochet was worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Source:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fid...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/fidel- cuban-model-doesnt-even-work-for-us-anymore/62602/)

</comment><comment><USER8> At least he admits what's real. We know the system doesn't work here in China, but they won't admit it. They even force people to think the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is the very definition of politics.</comment>


iphone6 on iOS11 - <AUTHOR> I upgraded my iphone6 to iOS11.After that I see the battery draining and checking I see iPhone6 has 2GB RAM and newer iPhones have around 4GB RAM. So hardware is not supported with high end graphics in new iOS11. <comment><USER2> I'm not seeing the battery issue, but my iP6 is S-L-O-W. and I'm only using 10% of my 64GB of storage. I regret doing the upgrade.

<comment><AUTHOR> is my iPhone is way too slow. These things are not discussed when they are sold. Is this not being forced to upgrade your phones indirectly when my hardware is well enough to work for most of my use cases. why OS is making my iPhone to go obsolete.</comment></comment>


Security service for websites(IP privacy,WAF,DDoS protection) - <AUTHOR> https://nisps.com <comment><USER2> cool! ill give it a try</comment>


Stem Careers and Ageism: a possible explanation - <AUTHOR> https://www.nber.org/papers/w25065 <comment><AUTHOR> "We find that the initially high economic return to applied STEM degrees declines by more than 50 percent in the first decade of working life. This coincides with a rapid exit of college graduates from STEM occupations. Using detailed job vacancy data, we show that STEM jobs change especially quickly over time, leading to flatter age-earnings profiles as the skills of older cohorts became obsolete."</comment>


Reduce Technical Debt with Gradle - <AUTHOR> http://gradle.org/evaluating-devops-tools-reduce-technical-debt-with-gradle/ <comment><USER2> > Gradle comes with a Build specific Domain Language (DSL) that allows for a > maximum of automation and expressiveness while maintaining an extremely > readable, maintainable and concise build script.

That DSL is Apache Groovy.</comment>


Click on this f**cking outrage (that is not at all what it seems). – Medium - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ketch/click-on-this-f-cking-outrage-that-is-not-at-all-what-it-seems-a199e6699ad3#.cyexl8lvu <comment><USER2> This is absolutely spot on. It really helps articulate how even "real" news is tilted in order to enhance virality and click throughs.</comment>


Flowchart.js – Simple SVG flow chart diagrams from textual representation - <AUTHOR> http://adrai.github.io/flowchart.js/ <comment><USER2> This looks really awesome. The description language really needs documentation though; it's pretty hard to figure out what to do just from the examples and the parser's source.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds of [http://knsv.github.io/mermaid/flowchart.html](http://knsv.github.io/mermaid/flowchart.html)

Both could use better node layout engines and support for DOT syntax or might be easier to adapt graphviz with Emscripten.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there something similar to this for making server infrastructure maps? Just something where one can define db, web, network device, whatever, and then make a layout diagram with maybe name and IP address thrown in there?

And apologies for another "is there something like this for X" comment!

<comment><USER5> Check out [http://blockdiag.com/](http://blockdiag.com/) and siblings (seqdiag, actdiag, nwdiag).

They have an interactive shell for it - experiment with [http://interactive.blockdiag.com/nwdiag/](http://interactive.blockdiag.com/nwdiag/).

<comment><USER6> Thanks for this link. I was going to say that graphviz covers it, but blockdiag is much simpler (and with extra features)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Remind me of this old service: [https://www.websequencediagrams.com/](https://www.websequencediagrams.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a wonderful tool for simple flow charting. I agree with other posters that a little more documentation would be nice and would also like to request the ability to export the underlying SVG (I'm still browsing source to see if that exists). I'm willing to help add both, thank you for this!

<comment><USER9> The RaphaelJS library, which this is built on, doesn't have a built-in SVG exporter (though there is a limited functionality for that, along with SVG export plugins), but in FireFox and Chrome, these two lines will get you the <SVG/> export:

        var svg = document.getElementsByTagName("svg");
        var code = svg[0].outerHTML;

Of course, that assumes you're just getting the first SVG, etc and so on. Anyhow, this does NOT work on IE because IE hates innerHTML / outerHTML for SVG elements.

One tiny thing that stands out is that RaphaelJS is built to support even IE6, and yet this flowchart program seems to bork under IE.

Edit #2: forgot to mention, Raphael was specifically designed to fallback to VML if SVG is unavailable, so the export functionality would need to support both or pick and choose, or just reconstruct programmatically. A dilemma indeed.

<comment><USER10> You could use this to convert from SVG to a Canvas element and then from Canvas to an image (via canvas.toDataURL("image/png")):

[https://github.com/gabelerner/canvg](https://github.com/gabelerner/canvg)

Still needs a very newish browser however. No IE 6-8 (& 9?) support.

<comment><USER8> I would prefer the SVG itself but this is an ideal short term solution. Thank you very much!

<comment><USER11> I have written two ways of exporting SVG that you can inspect here: [http://staticresource.com/sketch.html](http://staticresource.com/sketch.html)

One takes the SVG from the browser, encodes it and sends the <svg> as the body of an email (inlined, not as an attachment). Here's the relevant part:

        function render() {
          var link = document.createElement('a'),
              time = Date.now();
          link.href = 'mailto:?  subject=exported%20sketch&body=%3C%3Fxml%20version%3D%221.0%22%20standalone%3D%22no%22%3F%3E%3C!DOCTYPE%20svg%20PUBLIC%20%22-%2F%2FW3C%2F%2FDTD%20SVG%201.1%2F%2FEN%22%20%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FGraphics%2FSVG%2F1.1%2FDTD%2Fsvg11.dtd%22%3E'+encodeURIComponent(new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(board));
          link.id = time;
          document.body.appendChild(link);
          document.getElementById(time).dispatchEvent(new MouseEvent('click'));
          document.getElementById(time).parentNode.removeChild(document.getElementById(time));
        }

The other prepares it as a file and creates a download link (not seen on screen) and programmatically clicks that link to download it:

        function download() {
          var link = document.createElement('a'),
              time = Date.now(),
              svg = '<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?><!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd">'+new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(board);
          link.id = time;
          link.setAttribute('download','sketch.svg');
          link.href = 'data:text/html;charset=utf-8,' + encodeURIComponent(svg);
          document.body.appendChild(link);
          document.getElementById(time).dispatchEvent(new MouseEvent('click'));
          document.getElementById(time).parentNode.removeChild(document.getElementById(time));
        }

But be forewarned, since SVG uses XML namespaces instead of HTML, using things like '.innerHTML' won't work in certain browsers (iOS Mobile Safari for example) while innerHTML does tend to work as you would expect on most desktop browsers!

Canvas would work for exporting a bitmapped snapshot of the vector, but lacks the following:

\- filesize: SVG is vector, but Canvas renders a bitmap

\- non-destructive: SVG is human-editable after the fact, bitmaps only 'remember' the value of the top-most pixel and 'forgets' everything that has overlapped

\- human-editable: Though not pretty, SVG's can be read and edited by hand, bitmaps require a graphics tool to edit easily

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very cool! I really hate getting a bunch of visio flow charts to describe processes - those aren't things that I can easily modify without having the proper application. Does anybody know of other tools that take some sort of simple language and converts it into a flow like this?

<comment><USER13> Graphviz for the web: [http://mdaines.github.io/viz.js/](http://mdaines.github.io/viz.js/)

Nomnoml, a tool for drawing UML diagrams based on a simple syntax: [http://www.nomnoml.com/](http://www.nomnoml.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there something like this for directed graphs?

<comment><USER15> GraphViz can output directed graphs in a variety of formats: [http://www.graphviz.org/](http://www.graphviz.org/)

I recently worked on a project where we started off looking to use something similar to what op posted. Despite being a very old library, nothing really provided the level of stability and options that Graphviz had. If you can get past the somewhat odd syntax, I would highly recommend it for complicated directed graph output.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> AWESOME that it's SVG but dot/graphviz supports SVG output.

What I've been doing is I just have a dir of .dot files and then I have a gen.sh script which writes the SVG/PNG files.

Dot is a bit more low level but more powerful. Great for documenting protocols or state machines.

</comment><comment><USER17> Cool but I want to encode the textual representation as a URL and have a service return the SVG so I can embed this in e.g. a GitHub Markdown document. See e.g. [http://yuml.me](http://yuml.me)

</comment><comment><USER18> I might have started with DOT. I get that this is more specialized, though. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER19> is there a way to group together conditions?</comment>


Designing 2D graphics in the Japanese industry - <AUTHOR> https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry <comment><USER2> dupe [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=vgdensetsu.tumblr.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=vgdensetsu.tumblr.com)</comment>


'Oumuamua could be a shard from a dead planet - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/perplexing-interstellar-object-starts-revealing-its-secrets/ <comment><USER2> Has National Geographic gone downhill since the media part became [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Partners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Partners)

This reads like "Disney" science: take some facts and spin them to be entertainment. I thought the same of this article where I thought the reporting was twisting facts to make a headline: [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/lost- your...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/lost-your-sense- of-smell-it-may-not-be-coronavirus/)

<comment><USER3> I read a lot of astronomy journalism that I think is absolutely awful (one of the main reasons I made this account was to point out garbage articles/comments). I actually think that this is pretty good.

It mostly follows the paper (here's what looks like an earlier version of this paper that is easily available [1]), doesn't engage in too much hyperbole, isn't publicizing something widely outside of the consensus.

Disclaimer that I don't work on planetary formation/dynamics so am not an expert on this, but still, pretty impressed.

[1] [https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/apophis2020/pdf/2018.pdf](https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/apophis2020/pdf/2018.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Here's a 2019 preprint that concludes "We show that cigar-shaped models suffer from a fine-tuning problem and have only 16 per cent probability to produce light curve minima as deep as the ones present in `Oumuamua's light curve. Disc-shaped models, on the other hand, are very likely (at 91 per cent) to produce minima of the required depth."

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.03696](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.03696)

So it seems like there is still a lot of conjecture involved... Yet the National Geographic article misleads by showing an artists impression (pictures are truthy) while treating the elongated shape as fact on every line (the alternate disc model was also mentioned in original paper trying to deduct the shape, although the paper concluded it was less likely). Poor reporting IMHO.

I am not an astrophysicist, but this is the second Nat Geo article that I've read recently that has really failed my good reporting sniff test. Edit: failed to meet the high standards I expect from Nat Geo.

<comment><USER4> Did you read to the end? The article does actually make that point:

> _But [Bannister] and Laughlin introduce a new wrinkle to the mystery: > They're skeptical that 'Oumuamua is actually a cigar-shaped object, pointing > to a paper published last summer that revisited the original observations of > the object. The newer analysis concludes that 'Oumuamua may actually have a > pancake-like shape—a shape that Bannister likens to an overstuffed pita, > similar to an object in the outer solar system called MU69, or Arrokoth._

I get your point that the article doesn't promote the significance of the disc-shape analysis enough however my takeaway from the article wasn't that it was claiming the origin of Oumuamua was solved but rather new research has identified potential scenarios where cigar-shaped objects could be naturally created (research which was spurred on by the discovery and mystery of Oumuamua).

If that was what the article intended to cover then it doesn't make sense to cover the disc-shaped analysis extensively throughout the article however for clarity the mention of Oumuamua probably should also have been demoted in at least the title. Sadly I think there's little chance of putting click-bait headlines back in the proverbial genie bottle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I realize an iPhone 6+ is an old phone. But, this is a simple page with some simple text and simple images that is working so hard to track me that it is completely unreadable even though they really want me to read it.

<comment><USER6> Here you go, 4 MB to 25 KB: [https://beta.trimread.com/articles/11029](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/11029)

<comment><USER7> I love it! But it must be breaching copyright/terms etc...

<comment><USER8> Maybe it fits under fair use as critique. It's a critique showing the bloatedness of the original article. And it's only using 0.6% (0.006) of the original to make its point.

<comment><USER9> > it's only using 0.6% (0.006) of the original

When you think about it this way it's clearly fair use.

<comment><USER10> Usually copyright laws refer to a substantial part of a work, it maybe be 0.6% of the delivered web page, but it's 100% (presumably) of the article. The article counts separately as a work (and each image within an article could count as a separate work, there are conditions on that). But, in any case if all the textual context was copied that's still substantial. Interpreting things in a purely numerical way like that would be clearly ridiculous.

Such gotchas don't work in law in general (in my very limited experience).

<comment><USER8> Gotchas absolutely do work in this way in law. You just need to be willing to fight it in court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nitpick: it's ʻOumuamua, not 'Oumuamua. The initial letter is the ʻokina (U+02BB), representing a glottal stop.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOkina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOkina)

<comment><USER12> There was a discussion the other day about whether it's bad when HN gets derailed from TFA by incredibly minor details. I'm in favour of the tangents, which can often be more interesting than the primary topic - as is the case (for me) with your comment. Thanks for sharing :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is Oumuamua even pronounced?

It's the funniest sound I ever heard! I can't understand a single word. Is he serious or is he playing?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHvhRenwbb0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHvhRenwbb0)

<comment><USER14> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwUM4t4GOcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwUM4t4GOcY)

Not difficult at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Could be, could be something else, let's speculate widely!

</comment><comment><USER16> It "could be" almost anything. Billions of years, hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone.

</comment><comment><USER17> Metal Hurlant...

</comment><comment><USER18> why is this upvoted?

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't see how this is a new discovery. That line of thinking was pretty much the implicit null hypothesis.

The question at that time was, is it something more than that? and that's what made it interesting.

<comment><USER20> We didn't know how to make shards in the presumed shape of `Oumuamua, naturally. There is now a plausible model of planets being ripped apart by tidal forces which can result in such shapes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd still like a good take down of why this couldn't be from our solar system.

Seems highly unlikely these crazy 'from outside the solar system' ideas are likely.

This meme spreads well, but that to me means there is far more chance it is not true. The fact no one questions it also seems suspicious.

<comment><USER3> The argument is actually really really simple. If it started from within the solar system, it would not (barring some three body interaction) have enough energy to escape. But, we know from observations that it does have enough kinetic energy to escape. There are two options,

1\. It may have stolen some energy from another object (an accidental gravity assist), but we know that it didn't come close enough to anything big on its way though.

2\. It came from outside the solar system and so entered with some velocity, and therefore will leave with roughly the same velocity it came in with.

We have well known mechanisms to eject objects from star systems so it isn't crazy to have things passing through. No-one questions it because high school level physics is enough to show why it is the only reasonable explanation.

<comment><USER21> > We have well known mechanisms to eject objects from star systems so it isn't > crazy to have things passing through.

We know it's 'possible' for a tennis ball to go through a wall. But it's not actually within the realms of the possible.

So I guess I still question the 'crazy' part. What are the mathematics here.

If a planet breaks into 5000000000000000 (Earth / Oumuamua) pieces how many hit another solar system? I'd expect zero, but have no idea.

I think it's more likely 1. We missed the fact it went close to another body or it's in a complicated gravity assist eons in the making.

<comment><USER22> See [https://www.space.com/43015-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua- no...](https://www.space.com/43015-interstellar-visitor-oumuamua-not-that- special.html) for the math.

But you're still focusing on the wrong thing. The idea of "a complicated gravity assist" getting something going this fast in the Solar System is laughable. The only thing in the Solar System heavy enough to do a gravity assist on the necessary scale is the Sun itself, and it started nowhere near the Sun.

<comment><USER21> That link is great thanks.

For it to be real I'd expect billions of things passing through yearly, maybe daily. For something as large as Oumuamua I'd intuitively expect millions or billions of small rocks coming through.

"We find that such objects collide with the Sun once every 30 years, while about 2 pass within the orbit of Mercury each year."

But I worry about anything like this talking in human years, like "30 years". I'd expect every million years or millions a year when talking about the universe.

I understand as our technology grows, first we find yearly events and then improve. But the theoretical must make sense to me in non human timelines.

<comment><USER22> There could well be millions or billions of sand particle sized objects coming through constantly.

The Solar System is big. Almost all of them will pass through and miss everything. We literally have no way to notice them.

Incidentally we have spotted a second interstellar object. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2I/Borisov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2I/Borisov) is more what we were expecting them to look like.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>