More than half of the trees that grow only in Europe risk extinction, says IUCN - <AUTHOR> https://www.dw.com/en/nearly-60-of-europes-native-trees-risk-extinction/a-50607229 <comment><USER2> I do think there is something hypocritical in us pointing fingers to Brazil for destroying the Amazon forest. In Europe, most forests have been destroyed in the past centuries, all for economic gain. If we are so concerned, why not rebuild those forests. Apparently we are not that concerned, we still make the same choice for economic gain, just like Brazil does.

<comment><USER3> Most deforestation in Europe was pre-industrial. Europe is actually doing a pretty great job of reforestation - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04/watch- how-europe-is-greener-now-than-100-years-ago/)

<comment><USER4> Has Brazil fully industrialized? With a per capita GDP of less than ten thousand dollars and a population mostly employed in the agriculture sector (compared to 2% in the US) I'd say not yet. The west is trying to kick the ladder out from behind them.

<comment><USER5> > a population mostly employed in the agriculture sector (compared to 2% in > the US)

It's 10% of the population, about a quarter of GDP, so not "mostly". Brazil is usually put into the Newly Industrialised Country category. It has quite a bit of secondary sector giants too.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough. I didn't look up Brazil specially but I am familiar with the rates in the region and assumed they were similar.

Western countries have not eliminated a quarter of their GDP to prevent climate change, shouldn't they do that before telling those much poorer than they to do so?

<comment><USER6> Stopping the deforestation isn't going to affect the GDP at all, let alone slash a quarter of it.

Keep in mind that the deforestation is purely caused by the livestock industry trying to squeeze profits. There are other ways to produce meat that don't involve invading and burning forests.

According to the government, in 2017 only 5,7% of the GDP is _directly_ related to agriculture and livestock _production_ [1]. And according to an industry website livestock was responsible for only 31% of that [2].

The rest of that "one quarter" is related to processing and distribution, which can happen in urban areas closer to the southeast, far away from the Amazon, and those things don't benefit at all from the deforestation.

And the processing/distribution industry could exist by itself without local production, as proved by places like Hong Kong, the largest importer of Brazilian beef. [3]

By the way, the biggest producer of beef in Brazil is the state of Sao Paulo, which is on the other side of the country, not at all related to Amazon. [3]

So nope. Stopping the Amazon deforestation RIGHT NOW won't even make dent in our GDP.

\---

[1] [http://www.agricultura.gov.br/noticias/agropecuaria-puxa- o-p...](http://www.agricultura.gov.br/noticias/agropecuaria-puxa-o-pib- de-2017)

[2] [https://www.beefpoint.com.br/abiec-perfil-da-pecuaria-no- bra...](https://www.beefpoint.com.br/abiec-perfil-da-pecuaria-no-brasil/)

[3] [https://www.globalmeatnews.com/Article/2018/01/18/Brazilian-...](https://www.globalmeatnews.com/Article/2018/01/18/Brazilian- beef-exports-keep-on-growing)

<comment><USER4> If this is so inexpensive why not agree to pay producers the costs incurred for not engaging in the practice plus a small fee if they don't engage in deforestation? They would be stupid to turn down free money and given so many people are concerned and the total amount being so low this measure could be funded by donations easily. This could be handled in a few days if what you say is true.

<comment><USER6> Because those people are operating outside the law. It's not as if we know who they are.

It happens to be a crime here in Brazil to invade lands and burn preserved areas. People should and have been arrested for it.

The deforestation is purely a political problem, this has nothing to do with economics as you've tried to portray here.

\--

Btw, by "political problem" I mean that the government was outright saying that the deforestation and fires "are normal" [1], or they're accusing NGOs of starting the fires [2], or even denying external help to avoid the fires in Amazon [3].

The current position of the government is different, however. Now is that the fires should be stopped, and the army has been sent to Amazon to arrest people. [4]

And that was thanks to both external and internal pressure. Why did it took so long? Because there were too many criminal apologists trying to justify why burning the country was needed. But it wasn't.

\---

[1] [https://noticias.uol.com.br/meio-ambiente/ultimas- noticias/a...](https://noticias.uol.com.br/meio-ambiente/ultimas-noticias/ag- estado/2019/09/05/incendios-na-amazonia-sao-normais-nesta-epoca-diz-ernesto- araujo-para-cnn.htm)

[2] [https://noticias.uol.com.br/meio-ambiente/ultimas- noticias/r...](https://noticias.uol.com.br/meio-ambiente/ultimas- noticias/redacao/2019/08/21/bolsonaro-diz-que-ongs-podem-estar-por-tras-de- queimadas-na-amazonia.htm)

[3] [https://noticias.uol.com.br/meio-ambiente/ultimas- noticias/r...](https://noticias.uol.com.br/meio-ambiente/ultimas- noticias/redacao/2019/08/29/bolsonaro-chama-de-esmola-ajuda-do-g7-para- combater-queimadas-na-amazonia.htm)

[4] [https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/exercito- prende-63-pessoas...](https://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/exercito- prende-63-pessoas-em-um-mes-por-queimadas-na-amazonia/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> While the basic message is probably true the way the article is so economical with the facts that it rightly belongs in the trash.

The one example it cites is for a species of moth from the Balkans. Last time I checked the Balkans were still part of Europe so this species of leaf-mining moth could be expected to colonise more northerly parts of the continent as the climate warmed. So no real surprises there. It's probably happened in the past and yet we still have horse chestnut trees.

Other weasel sentences such as "The study said 42% of the 454 tree species in Europe, which include some found elsewhere, could die out on the continent." So "some found elsewhere". What percentage are found elsewhere? Where exactly is elsewhere. Some species are probably very widespread indeed so losing a few at the edges of their range are inconsequential.

The real story here is Europe's fragmented habitats means that a lot of trees are going to have a hard time adjusting to climate change - there's nowhere to go. Pollution puts a lot of stress on trees - remember acid rain? While there is a real problem with imported insects, fungi, etc. none of that is mentioned.

A lazy article, written by a lazy journalist who just threw in "extinction" to spice things up and sow fear, doubt and uncertainly.

</comment><comment><USER8> On top of the 'natural' threats mentioned in the article there are two specific EU policies that threaten trees in the EU even more.

The EU has a policy to get the member states to reach a certain percentage of 'renewables' in the energy basket or face stiff fines. So far so good. However, commercial logging managed to get 'wood pellets' on the list of 'renewables'. The result? Forests and roadside trees are being 'harvested' like there is no tomorrow because it helps meet the quota.

The EU set up a program for returning surfaces to more 'original' vegetation. Much of Europe's forests in low forested areas are created 2 or 3 centuries ago to serve as hunting grounds for the aristocracy. 'Nature' organizations (pretend green lobbies in reality) are now strip cutting forests in the name of 'planting more native species' and even 'landscape diversity' in regions that barely have tree left. 'Coincidentally' raking in nice subsidies to do so with a positive financial return, allowing them to buy more land to 'converse' raking in more subsidies...

Yeah, I know you can see the excessive airquotes, but I'm mad as hell.

</comment><comment><USER9> An interesting point came up this past summer when discussing allergies in cities. The trees that are planted in cities tend to be male since female trees will bear fruit and are messy.

I wonder if the lack of diversity (yes even in trees!) is causing problems. If there were a mix of male and female would trees be able to evolve or at least grow more offspring.

</comment><comment><USER10> I consider myself somewhat of a permaculturist, but I try to stay pragmatic. Genetically modified seeds are something we should be heavily looking into — and people who care about the environment should support that research, rather than shouting, "something, something, Monsanto."

</comment><comment><USER11> On another article, a user is wondering why there isn't a public uproar and why isn't absolutely everyone writing to their representing politicians about car rental companies ripping them off of 15€ for their Hamburg-Milan cross country holiday family car trip. I dare everyone reading this to actually take the time and write to their politicians to act against climate change and urbanisation. Time is up already.

<comment><USER12> Why act against urbanisation? Making more people move to densely populated cities is saving energy and natural resources.

<comment><USER11> I don't believe that cities in developed countries are becoming denser. Rather, the commercial area per person is increasing.

<comment><USER13> Even if true, they're still more dense and car-free than non-urban areas. That's just a reason to advocate for increased density, not against urbanization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> pl-94 Can anyone explain me what is the danger of losing 60% of the species? As soon as we maintain the same volumes in tree, it is overall fine, isn't it?

<comment><USER14> While it probably isn't the main concern, different species produce lumber with different properties. The loss of Elm trees in the uk removed a timber that was very useful for boatbuilding, for example (thought that is a bit of a niche concern).

<comment><USER15> Wow, I hadn't known about that niche for elm! I searched because I unfairly doubted you, and thought you might be confusing elm with some other tree. Here's a comment thread that provides some more information: [http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?212281-Elm-in- boa...](http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?212281-Elm-in-boats)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Beyondpad – New kind of note taking and data management solution - <AUTHOR> http://www.beyondpad.com/ <comment><USER3> This is a brilliant application. I wish I could trust it to hold my brain dump, but this seems to be registered and hosted in the United States, which is no longer a secure place to store my data. I'm unable to determine how this is to be monetized, or if at all, so would it be possible to free the source of this application, so that it can be hosted in a trusted location, such as Seychelles?

<comment><USER4> I have a similar project, it's licensed under the GNU license. You can host it wherever you want to.

It's early in its development stage, and I would love all and any kinds of feedback.

[You can find it here]([https://github.com/Azeirah/brainstorm](https://github.com/Azeirah/brainstorm))

<comment><USER3> exactly what I was looking for. I plan on installing this tonight. thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some of the user-interface problems I recognised in my few-minute-test:

\- Many notes I have are longer: I.e. tend to be made of headlines etc. So i need something like markdown for structuring. Using the mouse seems to cumbersome and to hard to maintain a visual consistency.

\- The delete button (particularly on the default notes) was too hidden in the menu. I had to search for it.

\- Adding a link didn't automatically select the link field to immediately copying the link.

\- Copying a link in a empty text field didn't convert it in a link field (seemed like a good opportunity to shine)

\- I didn't find a "new note" button after entering a first node (because I had to save it... doh). I think I would prefer an auto-save and/or a "new" button to avoid the confusion.

\- When clicking "link to tag" I have no method of aborting my uneducated request (esc?) I had to enter the tag to safe it even though I changed my mind.

\- I often had to click "..." when trying to edit an entry. 6 menu items: I think they could all be shown side-by-side?

<comment><AUTHOR> I must agree, there are these subtle usability issues. I'll be definitely addressing these in next updates. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do you plan an open source version for self-hosting?

<comment><USER7> Please. Another vote for this. This would seriously become my tool of choice, but I would become so dependent on it, as an extension of my working style, that I wouldn't want to invest unless I knew I could know that it wouldn't go away and that I could also hack changes into the code. Would definitely be willing to pay for the Open Source Version. I've also had ideas very similar to this, but am much more interested in having it than developing it.

<comment><USER4> I'm working on something that's very similar. It's early in development, and lacks many features. But if you private host it, it's already very usable.

Take a look here [https://github.com/Azeirah/brainstorm](https://github.com/Azeirah/brainstorm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The video went pretty fast for lay users to follow.

As a survivor of online projects that ended up closing down, I will wait for a way to export data before using this seriously.

</comment><comment><USER9> That video give me no sense of how this really works. I just see a jumble of boxes and colors, and a voiceover who keeps throwing single words out there without any context. Nothing on that page or in the video makes me feel like this would truly organize my work any better than my trusted, permanently open, plain text to do list.

<comment><USER10> I wonder if creating relationships between notes would work well for me and my very large to-do list. However, it may be a moot point since at the current rate it's more like a never-do list. ~/ideagraveyard.txt

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It looks interesting. There are two features that would make me really excited (could be that I just didn't find them in the few minutes I looked for them). The first is the ability to link notes directly to each other and then view the notes in a graph view, mind-map style. I see the graph view for tags, but nothing for viewing notes in a graph. The second is a mobile app, cause I do most of my note-taking on my phone. The web interface is useable on my phone, but not really ideal, as many of the controls are too small for my finger to reliably hit. I don't know how much I line up with the target audience here, so there could be good reasons that those aren't planned or prioritized.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mobile is with high priority. Linking notes to each other - basically if you promote note to tag (from options in edit mode), then it can be linked, to other note. but simply linking notes, not at the moment. As for mind-map feature - similar thing you described is also in a future vision - <USER2> you should be able to vie your notes in graph with relation to other tags (and thus maybe even create meta links/tags to link those together).. but that's for the future of Beyondpad!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks very interesting. Like a combination of Subtask and Trello. Each of those have limitations that keep me from adopting it for all my note-taking and project management... Perhaps this is the perfect middle-ground.

One thing, though: That demo video went waaaaaaay too fast. I couldn't keep up with it at all, and just stopped watching. I understand you're trying to fit all the many features into a single, short video, but that's just too much. Why not go at normal pace and just feature the most "a-ha!" features?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks I guess ill do that with video, split it in kinda introductions to main parts of the app

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This looks awesome, well done!

What are your plans for the future? Is this just a hobby project, or is it something you plan on monetizing or open sourcing? The reason I ask is, I've seen a lot of projects like this fizzle out, which makes me weary of investing any time into using it.

That being said, I'm excited to see your future developments and refinements on this project!

<comment><AUTHOR> Plan is simple - to keep going, keep improving, making it better. Vision and pipeline is full of awesome features. And maybe some day Ill manage to monetize :)

<comment><USER14> Good luck :) By the way, on the map and calendar view, you have "can be seen _hear_ " instead of "here".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This looks pretty good. It's similar to Sortd.com but is without the very useful email integration.

Sortd has just released another 200 invite codes. Apply fast at [http://www.sortd.com](http://www.sortd.com) to get into the private beta or Tweet for an invite code.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seems really good, takes some things from google keep and adds the complexity that keep lacks.

Nice!

</comment><comment><USER17> It looks very interesting. Congrats!

Is it possible to have more than one widget associated to an item. Let's say, I create an item and add a countdown timer and a to-do list. Would it work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you can add multiple same type items to a note, no problem!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like the idea, but I think there's probably more friction than I wanted to. Nevertheless, I'm not your target customer, I don't have a team or manage projects.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've also published this app to chrome web store - [http://goo.gl/nH6Cqj](http://goo.gl/nH6Cqj)

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome. Can you make that an app for offline use?

<comment><AUTHOR> This feature is partialy developed, I plan to enable it in a while when i'll fugur out all sync quirks and edge cases

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's like a productive Pinterest.

</comment><comment><USER21> I was looking at this because I want to make something similar. I've been looking for the software I want for the last ten years, and nothing comes close to the image in my head as to what software can do. So, I'll explain what I want.

I want something similar to this, which will replace email. It doesn't necessarily have to replace email, but it will accept emails and you can send emails out of it. The idea being that email will manage the projects. I'll explain. You create an email to people. You tag it as 'project' and it will create a new project, a distribution list, and automatically give the project a name (based on the subject). Any files emailed between you and others in that project via email will automatically be added to your project's workspace. Appointments set will be assigned to the project, and each appointment occurrence will have notes that you can keep for that occurrence. Tasks can be created for projects as well, and people can be assigned those tasks, and get email reminders.

With those features, if I don't recall what happened in the last meeting, or some client is asking about a file that I supposedly received, I don't have to go looking around trying to find which email on which day it was, as I'll have all project's emails together.

Once a project is finished, then emails between people in that project won't automatically be categorized, but there will be 'suggested' categories.

\-- that said, this is nice, however, I can't figure out the ordering here, it appears there is none. Here's a simple test. Add 21 new notes. Just 1 enter enter 2 enter enter... it appears that the new notes are added to the left and that pushes everything else to the right, except when it comes to the extreme right and then it pushes that one all the way to the left and down one. That's an easy way to do it, but it's not easy to read. People are used to reading newspapers, Newspapers have a columnar format, and you read your columns. Classified ads are vertical columns as well, and if you are looking for something you look vertically within the categories. This on the other hand is horizontal categories, which is very confusing, especially since the category something is in is related to what's left of it, and how large that left thing is... in the example I give, you notice now 1,2,3 are from right to left on the bottom. Then 4 is slightly higher than those, on the very left. and then go right again, 5,6,7 all good, and 8 is once again higher... continue on until you get to sixteen, and now it all looks nice and tidy. Now edit 14 to say "14 this is a much longer note just as a test to see what happens with the columns". Now the whole thing looks like a mess.

tldr; use vertical columns to make the output predictable. People are used to spacial relation, so changing that because the content of one cell changes, makes the spatial relationship memory useless.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice read! About ordering - notes are shown in order they were added or reorganized. As for masonry layout - you are absolutely correct in cases it can be hard to read, that's why Beyondpad has two options in settings, max number of columns and should those columns be arranged in rows or tiles, I guess Row layout is what you would preferred (this layout option can be changed also from context bar (three dots near search bar)) About email solution - that would be indeed interesting to see implemented in some email client. Just to give some reference context in Beyondpad - one point in vision is to allow attaching emails to tags, thus when adding tag to a note or stuff that note would be shared with those contacts.

<comment><USER21> Not quite, row layout gives too much white space between items. I would prefer columnar layout. It's like row layout but vertical.

Oh, and this should be delivered over SSL... but I'm sure that's in the works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I understand, I need to think about that and ordering.. cause then it seems to me that scrolling would have to happen horizontaly.. but thats and interesting idea! Meanwhile there are lists :)

<comment><USER22> +1 to SSL

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do in few days, its nothing much but I want to wait till traffic calms down not to disturb initial users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems like the kind of note-taking app I was looking for - something that does not constrain me to the one-dimensionality of text, and isn't just a poor work-around that fact as outlines are. I particularly like that one can visualize the nodes in a canvas and then switch to the columns view. This is really good.

Now the dealbreaker question: can I export my data without losing relationship metadata?

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment if you are into it you can get all your data, including relations in json format just by inspecting traffic source and getting that json. But I plan to add more civilized way of getting your data out!</comment></comment>


In poor countries technology can make big improvements to education - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/international/2018/11/17/in-poor-countries-technology-can-make-big-improvements-to-education <comment><USER3> _" In poor countries technology can make big improvements to education_

 _Teachers are often unqualified, ignorant or absent; tablets show up and work "_

I reached the article limit, so I could only read this, and I disagree.

I live in Brazil and my wife works in a big NGO focused on education. She visits schools in poor regions all over the country. Her current understanding is that she sees no evidence that technology helps at all. And the NGO piloted lots of tech initiatives on lots of schools.

 _" Teachers are often unqualified, ignorant or absent; tablets show up and work"_

The first part is definitely true, the second one not so much.

What seems to make a difference is a prepared and motivated school principal.

EDIT:

I just read the whole article (thanks to _ivm_ letting me know about Outline).

The title is kind of clickbaity. Big programs, with a lot good things going on, and they focus on the small part that use tablets and I don't think it is even an absolute necessity.

 _" The coach-and-tablet element is just one part. A curriculum based on synthetic phonics (widely used in developed-country schools) has been designed and 23m books distributed, along with detailed lesson plans to make life easier for teachers. But the technology is crucial to supporting them and providing their bosses with data about their performance."_

It is _" crucial"_ for a small part of the program with good results.

They at least acknowledge some high profile programs that did not work and go on to share a few other few and specific cases that are very interesting and explain how tech could indeed help.

I still think it overrates the tech part, but looks like the classic case where the journalist writes a more down to earth article and the editor adds a exagerated title.

<comment><USER4> I had a power outage last night that really had me appreciate one aspect of technology we have taken for granted - power. I can certainly see how electrification can boost children's grades - they can read and do homework at night when their days may be dedicated to farmwork after school. From what I read that sort of labor is essential given some horrifying unintended consequences like banning child labor too early for their economic development apparently resulting in increases in child prostitution (correlation isn't causation).

I haven't spent time in the third world but I think it is safe to say the technology that does them the most good is infrastructure whether it is ancient like sewers or new like cellphone first deployment.

I think tablets are largely something for the far end of the bell curve - <USER2> for autodidacts who would seek out new things when given the means. Most people don't spend their frer time say looking up obscure history and quantum physics but those who do can be enriched by it.

There are smart people everywhere - I had a professor who grew up in the third world and disassembled and reassembled electronics from a young age. My deceased grandfather had a middle school education but sure could learn - despite working as a plasterer he managed to learn quite a bit of completely unrelated trades untaught, perspective in wood art, and write an eloquent sermon about his time in the Pacific theater when he accidentally made a more generous than expected donation in the dark - giving a $20 bill which is about $300 today and worth even more to the natives. It would have fit in as a chapter of a quality novel perectly.

<comment><USER3> Yes, eletricity is essential. By _" technology"_ I was refearing mostly to computers/tablets/phones in the classroom.

Also, not all _"third world"_ are equal. Brazil, Senegal and India, to take three semi-random examples, are very different in its structure.

And inside a country, there is also a lot of inequality. I am from Brazil and got basically the best education money can buy (excluding fancy, elitist schools for millionaires).

<comment><USER5> > I am from Brazil and got basically the best education money can buy

So maybe you're not the best qualified to determine what works best for the poor?

Have you ever been 1 of 40 students with a text book that is falling apart, with kids fighting in the class room, with a teacher who doesn't give a shit? What's easier, buying a $100 tablet, or turning a school around?

The idea that education won't be revolutionized by technology is willfully ignorant. Kids will put on a virtual reality headset and talk to AI teachers, if someone had the pocket to build it.

Kids don't need to go to school. Obedience training needs to end. Poor kids need a way to learn skills that are in demand. Technology is the only way forward, not lining the pockets of NGO employees.

<comment><USER3> I do not determine what works best for the poor. I was reproducingy wife's opinion (that has a very different background from mine) that is backed by some studies.

I also made very clear that there is lack of evidence that technology (as in computers in the classroom) help so far. I never said I am against trying to revolutionize the education with tech, I just said it isn't revolutionizing right now, as the article implies.

You are fighting an idealized enemy here, not debating with me. You are arguing to inexistent arguments that would make you feel good about your own strong ideas. Not actually bothering to understand my point.

And acusing my wife of corruption or unethical behavior was just shitty.

<comment><USER5> > I was reproducingy wife's opinion (that has a very different background from > mine) that is backed by some studies.

What studies? Help me out here. I'm trying to understand how having high quality instructions are harmful to people who can't afford quality teachers.

> I also made very clear that there is lack of evidence that technology (as in > computers in the classroom) help so far.

What about the evidence in the article? Did you read it? What evidence do you have?

> Not actually bothering to understand my point.

That your wife is some authority on education and thinks technology is bad. Profound.

> And acusing my wife of corruption or unethical behavior was just shitty.

Didn't say that. But at some point "cancer awareness" organizations exist to keep their members employed and not actually curing cancer. Human nature and all that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's important to recognize access to information does not equate to education. No matter what sophisticated tools you have at your disposal, you still need an educator to do the job of teaching, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to craft some kind of coherent picture that synthesizes connections between what's being learned. Niel Postman's _Technopoly_ puts forward a pretty good argument for why we can't simply replace teachers with sophisticated tools and hope the information sticks. Technology is a great boon and enabler in the field of education, but's it no replacement for teachers or communities, which remain integral to the pedagogical process.

The same logic, at its extreme would suggest you could replace parents with sophisticated tooling and come out with children that are just as well developed and ready to contribute to society in meaningful ways.

<comment><USER7> And then we could replace the children with tools and no humans are needed for education!

<comment><USER8> /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One major problem is that in poor countries, opportunities are few, so a lot of effort is spent in you competing against your peers.

Until i arrived in the West, i didn't realize what's possible with the collaborative approach instead of competing against each other.

In west, average people were teaming up and achieving better result as a group than couple of sharp kids in my country where they spent a lot of effort killing competition.

This is my experience, excuse if it's full of bias.

<comment><USER10> This is all too common in developing economies. Due to general economic mismanagement leading to limited opportunities and sticky cultural beliefs, students are pegged against each other. A national exam is used as a filter to allow those the exam deems "smartest" into the top programs in the country. These exams are notorious for being cheated on, and many students effectively spend their secondary education over fitting their education to succeed on the exam reducing the likelihood they will pursue any other interest.

The thing that I don't think most of these countries realize is, if you've spent an entire child's life teaching them to compete with others, and making that a ticket to their success, all you do is enable that behavior and it becomes a habit.

I've met many foreigners working in the West who strongly believe that because they were top performers academically in their countries they are better than everyone and it shows through in arrogance much more frequently than people who we in the West might consider "top performers". What I like about many Western education systems is the emphasis on collaboration. Some Western countries don't have a national entrance exam and that's really for the best. You create a funnel of homogeneity in your academic system by using that as your qualifying metric without much thought to anything else and your economic development persists on that path with those deemed to be top performers looking down on their fellow citizen.

Of course, I do not want to over generalize. This is not ALWAYS the case and I've also met many foreigners who are humble and amazing to work with and Westerners who are arrogant and dismissive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't live in a poor country, but as a college student every time I've had a class that relied heavily on technology it's been miserable. The math classes where homework was done on paper, from a math book were pleasant.

I also always like to think about Dijkstra and his opinion on technology vs paper for teaching. He seemed to avoid it's use when it replaced a more personal teaching style _but_ he also seems to be a pioneer in distance learning[1]. I think a lot of people could learn a lot from him.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX3URhx6i2E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX3URhx6i2E)

</comment><comment><USER12> Although this article addresses the situation in rural areas of poor countries, I have personal experience that access to technology contributes to better education even at undergrad level of the education. I personally went to a college which was trying to mitigate the lack of good professors and instructors. I had the idea of doing assignments, recitals and lectures(if necessary) from Edx. I personally believe that completing and doing good in courses from MIT on Edx certainly if nothing else contributed to my self confidence.

<comment><USER13> Technology is a tool.

Would a wrench help your education? If you take it out on the playground and throw is around it wasn't useful. If you leave it in the closet it wasn't useful. If you use it to cut the clay for your art project it was useful but you could have done better. If you use it to rebuild and engine thus learning how to do a career it was useful - how useful depends on if you actually want to be a mechanic.

A computer is a tool, just like a wrench. You can use it to play games and get no use. They can gather dust and be useless. They can however open a world of information in some cases this can be a big difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Paying teachers more is not likely to improve the situation. As research by > Justin Sandefur of the Centre for Global Development shows, poor-country > teachers tend to be remarkably well-paid, by local standards (see chart). > And evidence from countries as diverse as Indonesia and Pakistan suggests > that teachers' pay levels have little impact on learning.

Is it at all reasonable to use units of GDP to compare salaries? That doesn't seem right to me. The US GDP per capita in USD is about $60k. The Ethiopia GDP per capita in USD is less than $800. The only way to claim that teachers are "remarkably well-paid" by using units of GDP, while in reality 7 * GDP / person in Ethiopia (about $5,400 per year) is not enough to buy food or pay rent.

If the cost of living in Ethiopia were 1% of the cost of living in the US, then teachers would be better off. But the cost of living there is only slightly lower, so teachers' buying power there is a tiny fraction of what it is here. They're getting a lot less than our minimum wage in _relative_ dollars.

[https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/country_result.jsp?cou...](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/country_result.jsp?country=Ethiopia)

<comment><USER15> Nope, the OP you are replying to is correct.

In India, teachers are paid very handsomely when compared to other disciplines (~ Rs. 35000/month for fresh grad, after 7th pay commission). I and my brother grew up in a very high cost of living part of India, with my parents making a similar total wage and life was just fine. We rarely ate out (but my mom is a fabulous cook), nor went on vacation or splurged on fancy gadgets and toys, but the basics were in very much in place. Good nutritious food, large enough 2 bedroom house, decent schooling, working computer, internet access, all utilities, all while staying well groomed and growing up happy. In lower COL areas, it may even be possible to live with a bit more luxury than we did growing up.

Cost of living calculations are misleading. The biggest expenses are rent, transportation and food. Those 3 much much cheaper in poor countries. ( joint families, public transport and dirt cheap food)

Cultural traditions enable a cheaper lifestyle too. Retired Grand-parents take care of children and help with household tasks, so don't need to pay for day care and outside food. Adults usually stay with parents and slowly take over as head of family, instead of paying rent or needing to go in debt to buy a house upfront.

> They're getting a lot less than our minimum wage in relative dollars.

Dunno about Ethiopia, but when compared to India, numbeo says Mumbai is 5 times cheaper than Boston. I am making ~10 times (for 1 person) more than what my parents made (for a family of 4) and QOL is not much different. I can afford fancier gadgets and a lot more fast food. But, human services like house cleaning, home cooks or a domestic help are waaaaay out side my pay grade, while my Indians making ~20 times less can afford some of those.

The basics here in the US : housing, transportation and good food are pretty expensive in the US.

<comment><USER14> > Cost of living calculations are misleading.

I can totally agree, but using isn't GDP units more misleading since GDP inherently reflects neither income nor cost of living?

> The biggest expenses are rent, transportation and food. Those 3 much much > cheaper in poor countries. ( joint families, public transport and dirt cheap > food)

Totally, the relative costs for various things I would expect to be different in different countries. But I don't understand why that invalidates cost of living as a metric. It should be an absolute number that accounts for locally adjusted costs. I expect the local cost of living to account for whatever the normal average costs are for rent & food, regardless of how that compares to other countries.

Of course there are a _lot_ of problems comparing costs in the US to India or Ethiopia. But isn't looking at what the average person makes relative to what the average person has to pay to live there a lot more relevant than the country's GDP?

> Mumbai is 5 times cheaper than Boston. I am making ~10 times (for 1 person) > more than what my parents made (for a family of 4) and QOL is not much > different.

Right, exactly. You're only making in relative terms 2x more, not 10x. And not all services scale the same way. Hiring human services in the US is relatively much more expensive.

That's all expected and agrees with what I'm saying. I don't see how any of this supports GDP per capita as a QOL metric. Maybe the PPP adjusted metic like @nabla9 suggests, in which case the teacher pay factor in Ethiopia is 2.5x compared to the US, not 7x.

<comment><USER15> > I don't see how any of this supports GDP per capita as a QOL metric.

My bad, I should have clarified.

I was trying to make a point about teaching being a relatively well paid job in (in this case) my home country of India and that thinking of COL or QOL in simple terms of scalar multiples is not all that helpful.

That being said, your other point totally holds. GDP is 100%, a flimsy metric to gauge QOL. Also, India-US disparity may be closer to 7-8x, but in the Ethiopia-US case it appears to be closer to 60-70x.

You correct, that 800$/year is a laughable income to live any kind of life, and no difference in GDPs or cost of products is going to make up for such a massive difference in wealth. This is a country living almost entirely in poverty, and earning a standard deviation for two more than the median would still leave one in crippling poverty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The missing piece in the technology puzzle for rural education is broadband satellite internet. Iridium Network's bandwidth will be able to support HD video and rich internet applications. The key difference: every student, teacher and indeed every member of the village community will be able to use their connections _in parallel_. Rather than one person at a time or each sharing a single conn. Low-power, low cost ARM based hardware running linux or chromeOS, especially in networked appliance configurations for classrooms, could become standard. We'll witness a ton of emerging user scenarios: live video teaching, IoT, telemedicine. The future is already here. And it is about to get distributed everywhere ;)

<comment><USER17> Have you had any experience with computers in a school setting? It's all most school in Germany can do to keep their computer infrastructure up and running. Never mind rural Africa!

Setting up and operating such a network requires some serious know-how - know- how that pretty much nobody in your scenario is going to have. And never mind the practical problems of running computers in a rural setting (see my post above).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like the idea of holograms being projected to schools [https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/holograms-of- teachers...](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/holograms-of-teachers- beamed-into-london-classrooms-from-around-the-world-a3449181.html)

This could be useful for general teaching, while the role of face-to-face teachers may change for more one-on-one teaching. Something that many parents long for their children in an age where schools are being shut down and combined into "megaschools" (UK)

</comment><comment><USER19> I live in 3d richest county in US in my kid's middle school it's not super uncommon for a teacher to just put on some YouTube video that covers what they are studying ...

<comment><USER20> You could just home school your kid with khan academy.

<comment><USER19> I am seriously considering it

<comment><USER20> Look into artofproblemsolving.com as well. They have online classes for math that are very enjoyable. It's a great supplement to the horrendous math curriculum in schools.

<comment><USER19> thanx for the pointer!!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In (some) poor countries, public teaching pays poorly and tend to have strong unions. Unfortunately this combination attracts bad actors that politicize education putting the interests of the children last. Technology can't do much about this.

That said, is unbelievable what kids are getting on their own from access to what is available on the internet. It is truly transforming rural areas.

<comment><USER8> When you have only 2 dollars a day, you ain't have no time for unions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can confirm from first-hand experience that access to technology can make big improvements at the university level too. Tens of thousands of people from developing countries use one of Citationsy's features to access scholarly research and papers that their universities do not pay to provide them access to.</comment>


PeaZip – A free cross-platform file archiver utility - <AUTHOR> http://www.peazip.org/peazip-free-archiver.html <comment><AUTHOR> According to the page:

"Read (browse, extract, test) 7z, Google Android's apk, bz, bz2, bzip2, tbz2, tbz, gz, gzip, tgz, tpz, tar, zip, zipx, z01, smzip, arj, cab, chm, chi, chq, chw, hxs, hxi, hxr, hxq, hxw, lit, cpio, deb, lzh, lha, rar, r01, 00, rpm, z, taz, tz, iso, Java (jar, ear, war), pet, pup, pak, pk3, pk4, slp, [Content], xpi, wim, u3p, lzma86, lzma, udf, xar, Apple's dmg, hfs, part1, split, swm, tpz, kmz, xz, txz, vhd, mslz, apm, mbr, fat, ntfs, exe, dll, sys, msi, msp, Open Office / Libre Office (ods, ots, odm, oth, oxt, odb, odf, odg, otg, odp, otp, odt, ott), gnm, Microsoft Office (doc, dot, xls, xlt, ppt, pps, pot, docx, dotx, xlsx, xltx), Flash (swf, flv), quad, balz, bcm, zpaq, paq8f, paq8jd, paq8l, paq8o, lpaq1, lpaq5, lpaq8, ace through separate unace plugin (closed source) available on PeaZip add-ons page, arc, wrc, 001, pea, cbz, cbr, cba, cb7, cbt (and more...)"

Open Source, Cross Platform, and Free.

Also written in Lazarus/FreePascal...

Project Goals #2:

"Bring focus on Lazarus/FreePascal

I'm developing PeaZip project in FreePascal language, under Lazarus IDE. I like Pascal-related languages and I think Lazarus/FreePascal is one of the best cross-platform IDE available; I like it even more because it is open source and because it's growing day by day in a more mature and powerful IDE. I'll be glad to bring a bit of developer's attention on Lazarus/FreePascal through my project."

Delphi may be dead(*), but Lazarus/FreePascal is very much alive and kicking...

More power to you, oh-as-of-yet-unknown WinZip/WinRar open source replacement- writing author!!! <g>

<comment><USER2> It is a long list but don't forget that many of those list (Microsoft Office, OpenDocument) are just standard zip files with a different extension.

<comment><USER3> And containing XML files within the zip, IIRC (need to check).

<comment><USER4> This is correct, at least for excel and word (xlsx and docx, respectfully, dont know about the others). And past the zip, theyre both largely terse xml under the hood abiding by a published schema. This is actually pretty convenient and allows for cross platform tools for creating/consuming files. For instance, I like the xlsxwriter Python module for creating xlsx files (no affiliation with the project, but I've used it at a couple of jobs to create some pretty nice spreadsheets, with no need for an excel install on a server). A lot of early Python modules required an Excel install and worked over COM, so on both accounts, Windows only.

<comment><USER3> Yes, good points. I think (but not sure) that the change from MS Office binary file formats (with their issues of being proprietary, undocumented, etc.) to zipped XML formats (for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) came at the same time as when they added an "x" to the filename extensions, like changing .doc to .docx, .xls to .xlsx, and so on.

This was also probably around the time when there was that big public hoo-ha about MS XML formats vs. Open Office / Open Document formats. I had read some about it at the time, don't remember the full details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been using 7z for many years and [https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip- zstd/](https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd/) which is just a patched 7z for a while. And p7zip on unix platforms.

I know PeaZip is based on that, so I wonder what made you choose this over 7z?

</comment><comment><USER6> I tried this program and ended up switching back to 7zip because this program did not work well on a 4k screen (scaling was realllllly bad) and there was a lack of visual feedback for the extraction operation. I felt like I could customize 7z more towards what I needed.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been using PeaZip for years. Once I discovered that it didn't extract files to a temporary folder, then copy files to the destination from there (resulting in two needless file transfers), I haven't looked back.

<comment><USER8> I don't know why any program would copy files, let alone twice, to un-archive them, but the usual extract-then-mv pattern is an important feature, usually well-worth the cost of the extra syscall: if the extraction is interrupted, it avoids leaving incomplete files that are indistinguishable from correctly- extracted files. I would consider extracting in place by default a design flaw.

<comment><USER9> Extract and move is fine, but many programs extract to a temp dir first, and then _copy_ the file. I don't think anyone minds an extra rename (and, as you say, it gets you a sort of atomicity with the extract) but moving a file out of a temp dir can mean doing a full copy, if the destination is not on the same FS.

As a side note: for POSIX OS's, this is why I much prefer the FD based operations. I don't think it quite exists, but I really think the right answer here is to create a deleted file, and then give it a filename. That is, you write the data out to disk, and hardlink it into its final resting place. Atomic, but with no mess of figuring out a temporary name. This is the reverse of how temporary files work, where you create a temp file & then delete it, before writing to it. (Linux allows this; it'll clean up the file when it is closed. It's backed by disk, and since it lacks a name, it can't be inadvertently opened or messed with by other programs. It's a way of saying "give me anonymous disk space".) There's a syscall to create deleted files in one-shot, now, but I don't think there's a way to hardlink them, yet. (Note that you need to still provide either a path, or the FD to a directory, s.t. the OS can determine what FS should back the file, and that you have access to disk at all.)

<comment><USER8> > Extract and move is fine, but many programs extract to a temp dir first, and > then copy the file. I don't think anyone minds an extra rename (and, as you > say, it gets you a sort of atomicity with the extract) but moving a file out > of a temp dir can mean doing a full copy, if the destination is not on the > same FS.

The way many programs deal with this (Firefox, rsync by default I think) is to create a temp file _in the destination directory_ with a throwaway initial name. This approach seems like a good tradeoff to me. I agree that using a temp directory for an arbitrarily-large file that is intended to be written to disk is a big mistake. I don't think any tools I regularly use do this, but my /tmp is a tmpfs so it wouldn't be too pessimal on my setup.

> As a side note: for POSIX OS's, this is why I much prefer the FD based > operations. I don't think it quite exists, but I really think the right > answer here is to create a deleted file, and then give it a filename. That > is, you write the data out to disk, and hardlink it into its final resting > place. Atomic, but with no mess of figuring out a temporary name. This is > the reverse of how temporary files work, where you create a temp file & then > delete it, before writing to it. (Linux allows this; it'll clean up the file > when it is closed. It's backed by disk, and since it lacks a name, it can't > be inadvertently opened or messed with by other programs. It's a way of > saying "give me anonymous disk space".) There's a syscall to create deleted > files in one-shot, now, but I don't think there's a way to hardlink them, > yet. (Note that you need to still provide either a path, or the FD to a > directory, s.t. the OS can determine what FS should back the file, and that > you have access to disk at all.)

How would you specify which filesystem the deleted file should be created on?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> PeaZip should be the goto over 7-zip for ease of use, but I went back to 7-zip because the UI takes forever to open with PeaZip on Windows.

<comment><USER11> In addition, something is off with drag-and-drop extraction. AFAIR, you can't make the desktop visible first by dragging to the right edge of the taskbar. Maybe they fixed it, but in the meantime I got used to 7-Zip FM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Peazip is great. I love that there's a portable version--it has come in handy before when I didn't have installation permissions. At the time (not sure if it's still the case now), WinRAR or 7zip didn't seem to have portable versions listed on their homepages and the other sites proclaiming that there are looked shady.

<comment><USER13> I don't know how far back you're going in time with this comment but I've used 7zip portable for years: [https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable](https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm always impressed by the quality of apps created with Lazarus.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know why everyone recommends 7zip when this app is 100x better.

<comment><USER16> not really, it takes forever to open

<comment><USER17> I was using Bandzip. Just installed and tried this. It opens fine just like any other zip type program. No lag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is this a new release? PeaZip has been available for forever....

<comment><USER19> According to WikiPedia [1] the most recent "stable" release is from 9 days ago.

I believe this was posted because user @peter_d_sherman is the 10,000 of the day [2].

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

[2] [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Tried installing peazip just the other day and was surprised that it wasn't available via apt.

It's available via 'cnet downloads'. So... NOPE.

<comment><USER21> The primary download is from OSDN. CNET is just an available mirror.

<comment><USER22> Also from the same site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone knows if there is a macOS version somewhere?

<comment><USER24> There's info here about their macOS port progress - but with all the discussion on that page about Carbon (!) not being fully implemented in Lazarus, and recommendations to run in Parallels, it seems unlikely.

(Carbon was the API for compatibility with Mac OS 8 & 9 on Mac OS X, and was deprecated in Mountain Lion.)

[http://www.peazip.org/mac-osx-rar-zip- utility.html](http://www.peazip.org/mac-osx-rar-zip-utility.html)

(EDIT: I originally thought the page had instructions to build yourself on macOS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hmm, needs Zst.</comment>


Divvyshot (YC W09) launches free iPhone App - <AUTHOR> http://blog.divvyshot.com/divvyshot-now-has-an-iphone-app

<comment><USER3> why do developers think the shake thing is useful or fun? seriously, it looks ridiculous when you're trying to do it in public. you look like you're pissed off at your phone and trying to get it to work by shaking it.

just get rid of the gimmick and make a button initiate the action.

<comment><USER4> We considered a button but ended up going against it. It doesn't scale - <USER2> button doesn't give us enough data. People don't time their presses well enough and if the app becomes successful we'll have a hard time telling apart presses that occur close to each other (both in time and space).

We've also considered a 4 digit pin but that confused users. It turns out that users intuitively understand the shake UX to transfer the contents from one phone to another.

<comment><USER5> Not to be argumentative but doesn't shaking present the same scaling problems? You can only stack so many iPhones before it becomes dangerous to shake them (for me shaking one is enough!). Why not put a button with a certain timeout, surely users can hit the button within 5 seconds of each other.

<comment><USER4> We're not talking about scaling by syncing more than 2 devices simultaneously. We're talking about scaling our user base.

The problem is that we can only expect GPS to be accurate to 1-2km and the phone clocks are often off by 1+ seconds. This makes it difficult in metropolitan areas when multiple transfers can occur simultaneously within a 1-2km radius.

<comment><USER5> Ah, I misunderstood the mechanism, I thought it transferred over wifi, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What happens when you want to share but you aren't with that person?

For me the vast majority of the times I'm sharing it's with someone that physically isn't with me. Maybe I'm just a special case.

<comment><USER7> There's an option to send somebody an email with a link, or you can do twitter, flickr, or facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> wow -- finally a photo sharing app that makes sense and that's easy to use... jesus christ it was about time. i'd say it was worth the wait though because these these guys nailed it. i just shook pictures to a few friends in the office... worked perfectly but they should really offer a disclaimer about not being responsible for carpal tunnel (i'm feeling a little stiffness). regardless, job well done team divvyshot!

</comment><comment><USER7> The shake-and-share ability looks great. Let's hope that catches on, as that would make photo sharing really easy (and fun).

<comment><USER9> Secret Bump API?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't quite put my finger on it, but the voice in the video sorta bugs me. It has that infomercial-ist tone which leaves me with the impression that the product is worse than it seems.

<comment><USER4> We noticed that too. We were even thinking we could end the video with something like this: [http://www.realmofprosperity.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/08/...](http://www.realmofprosperity.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/08/informercial-debt-method-copy1.jpg)

Oh well, you can't get everything right.

<comment><USER10> hah. yah. I've never produced a video like this and I'm sure it's harder to pull off so it makes the viewer feel like you are completely genuine. I wonder if there is a service that sells voice-overs? Getting the Apple commercial guy would be sweet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are you planning to promote this outside of divyshot.com? Are you running ads?

I built an app for Hacker News that just went live on the App Store this morning, but my announcement completely flopped on HN. (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=986329>) I mostly built it for myself, but figured that a few folks here would find it useful. What's the right sort of marketing for iPhone apps?

<comment><USER12> It might have gotten more votes if you had provided a link to a page with screenshots and a description of the app. I use Linux and therefore a link directly to iTunes doesn't do much for me.

<comment><USER11> What about a short movie vs. screenshots?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've always liked the concept behind divvyshot. However, I wonder how well it is faring considering that the juggernaut - Facebook photos - has become one of the de facto places for folks to upload photos.

<comment><USER10> Competition validates the market exists.

<comment><USER13> its a no brainer that the market exists. My question was geared more towards how will they compete against FB photos, which has grown like a weed.

<comment><USER14> There's an opportunity in mobile because many photos are taken on the phone and (arguably) it's easier to transfer photos from your computer to your phone than your computer to Facebook because USB is faster than broadband.

People want to share photos w/ their friends. Facebook is the easiest way; that doesn't mean it always will be.

<comment><USER14> I hate that the "reply" button vanishes so soon.

Yes, of course that's right. The 1-to-N factor and ease of tagging are why Facebook grew so much faster than all the other photo-sharing services.

I guess my point was that DivvyShot is in a different part of the pipeline (closer to the camera) than Facebook, so that presents new opportunities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wooo Sam! Nice to see it's finally released!!

</comment><comment><USER16> I can share files with Bump also. Can you tell me what differentiates this?!

</comment><comment><USER17> man the voice over style in the video was borderline late night infomercial.

</comment><comment><USER18> How did you make this awesome demo video?

I would love if you spilled the beans...

* Writing the script * Getting someone to shoot/edit it * Lighting * Getting someone to read it etc.

I have to do something similar soon [ non iPhone, ;)] and I am truly in awe.</comment>


I was Jordan Peterson's strongest supporter. Now I think he's dangerous - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-petersons-strongest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html <comment><USER2> I really can't stand JP, I'm glad to see more people coming with articles opposing him. I feel like in a lot of cases in interviews he rambles off and touches on so many different points that people have a hard time responding to him. I think the author of this article tries to touch on this somewhat.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel like everyone's attacking a straw man version of Jordan Peterson in a case of mass virtue signaling.

<comment><USER4> Yep. If this guy had anything legit to pin on JP, this long-ass drawn-out story would have been much shorter.

<comment><AUTHOR> He does.

1\. He's more of a preacher than a teacher, even in the classroom.

2\. He uses the language of fear, a lot.

3\. His follower tend to be outright dismissive of opposing views.

<comment><USER5> Having one's followers be dismissive of opposing views is not necessarily bad. Darwin shares that distinction.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Graphical HN with swipe, right-click, and headlines - <AUTHOR> http://ghn.cloudapp.net/

<comment><USER2> In FF 26.0a1 (2013-09-23)I get the contextual menu when I right click. This sort of ruins the whole experience -- though I suppose it's nice that you're not jacking my normal mouse behavoir.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for giving it a spin. Yeah - not the best experience I agree. I think the next round of improvements may be settings to toggle desired behavior. Some people may want the menus to remain, others may not, and so on. As always, I'm up for any other thoughts or feature requests!

update: disabled the menu for now, just for kicks.</comment></comment>


Guaranteeing memory safety in Rust [video] - <AUTHOR> https://air.mozilla.org/guaranteeing-memory-safety-in-rust/

<comment><USER2> Was anyone able to make out what the questions from the audience were at the end? I might need to watch this again with headphones. Great talk. Thank you for sharing this.

<comment><USER3> The last question was about using Rust for Servo, and in particular whether there had been any major pain points. Patrick Walton helped to answer (45:48):

~ The overall discipline hasn't been too difficult to been follow.

~ Most of the issues we hit are issues in the implementation. (e.g. the precise way the borrow-checker checks inveriants, reasons about lifetimes and whatnot.) These kinds of issues are fixable, and we continue to improve them all the time.

~ I don't speak for the entire Servo team, but I feel like the discipline, the overall type-system strategy that Rust enforces, has been pretty friendly.

~ We still have a lot of unsafe code, but a lot of it is unavoidable, for calling C libraries. And also we're doing things like: we have Rust objects which are managed by the SpiderMonkey [JavaScript] garbage collector. Which is really cool that we can do that, but the interface has to be written in the unsafe dialect [of Rust].

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This talk also doubles as a description of how to understand the memory management concepts in Rust—if you've ever wondered how to use references and boxes in Rust, this is the talk to watch.

<comment><USER5> It also tackles head on the comparisons between Rust and C++11. Worth a watch if you are curious about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The syntax of Rust was one major thing that made me avoid studying the language. Now, this talk encourages me to go and play with it.

One question that comes to my mind is that how Rust concurrency compares to Go concurrency. After this talk, and some little use of "goroutines", Rust seems to be the choice of the wise, for it being seemingly more sage and still as easy to use as Go's. I'd love to read a reply from someone who knows concurrency/parallelism, who is most definitely not me.

<comment><USER7> What was your beef with the syntax?

<comment><USER6> I really dislike abbreviations like "fn", "mut", "proc", etc., not only in Rust but anywhere. I'd rather prefer actual words. At first, very shallow look; I thought Rust was C++ with shorter keywords (I didn't know anything about the features featured in the talk until today, though). Combined with (afaik) everything being an expression, Rust code would, I thought, become unreadable very quickly.

<comment><USER8> I actually find the shorter keywords aid readability. Code, just like prose, has a maximum line length after which readability starts decline. Given that we only have so much horizontal space to work with, shorter keywords allow one to use more descriptive variable and function names. Given that the number of keywords is fixed and the number of variables and functions is unlimited, I'd rather be terse in the former and verbose in the latter.

Also, Rust does care a great deal about readability. You might scoff at this statement, but it's true: Rust's syntax works hard to strike a balance between all of clarity, consistency, regularity, readability, and familiarity. As the language gains wider use, understanding of these constraints improves; modern Rust has removed 95% of the sigils that characterized ancient Rust. There used to be _tons_ of sigils, and many were largely inscrutable: ~, @, +, ++, -, more that I've forgotten. Now there's only two: & (for references, a sigil taken directly from C++) and * (for unsafe pointers, a sigil taken directly from C). And there are even some people who would like to see the * sigil for unsafe pointers go away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a fantastic video. I've been reading rapidly about rust and its types of memory pointers before, but this talks really helps me see the big picture ( aliasing & mutability, and the borrowing metaphore). Great great talk.

</comment><comment><USER10> Rust doesn't really have zero-cost abstraction (runtime bounds checking, symbol mangling, exception handling frames, split-stacks (this may have changed?)) this was and still is my complaint about it, the one way to fix it is death by a thousand knobs that modify functionality but by then it's not even the same language. Also the recent change adding -ffuntion-sections -fdata-sections (a hack imo) shows that the language or the implementation has an issue. I may be wrong, if so let me know.

<comment><USER4> > runtime bounds checking

In practice this is quite rare because of iterators, which do _not_ need to do bounds checking. In the rare case in which you need to use indexes, you can always opt out of the safety without the use of a compile-time switch, exactly like the choice between C++'s "operator[]" and ".at()". The only difference is that the _default_ is safe, and the unsafe version requires you to jump through the "unsafe{}" hoop, unlike C++.

Also, with MPX on Skylake even the bounds checking may well become zero-cost.

> symbol mangling

How does symbol mangling make your program go slower?

> exception handling frames

Also enabled by default in C++, and you can turn it off just as in C++. LLVM will also optimize it out if you don't use it and use LTO. On most architectures exception handling is zero-cost via table-driven unwinding (although it can inhibit optimizations).

> split-stacks (this may have changed?))

They're gone.

> this was and still is my complaint about it, the one way to fix it is death > by a thousand knobs that modify functionality but by then it's not even the > same language.

Nothing needs to be fixed, as none of the things you mention are an issue.

> Also the recent change adding -ffuntion-sections -fdata-sections (a hack > imo) shows that the language or the implementation has an issue.

Why? Rust's compilation model is exactly the same as C++ "unity builds" (which are becoming the norm in large projects).

<comment><USER10> > symbol mangling

Preference in all honesty, what besides the obvious requires mangling?

> split-stacks

What took place of split stacks? guard pages?

> ffunction-sections fdata-sections

an example is to use weak aliasing of dummy functions - but this is sort of elf dependent (I have no idea how or if weak aliasing works in pe). I think this is an area that needs to be improved.

If I'm wrong, let me know.

<comment><USER4> > Preference in all honesty, what besides the obvious requires mangling?

We have a module system. So we have to do name mangling to allow you to use multiple functions with the same name in different modules. This allows you to program without fear of annoying name collisions.

        mod foo {
            fn f() {}
        }
        mod bar {
            fn f() {}
        }

> What took place of split stacks? guard pages?

Stack checks that abort if you run out of stack (like MSVC's __chkstk). It would be nice to just replace it with guard pages where available, and we can probably do that in future versions.

> an example is to use weak aliasing of dummy functions - but this is sort of > elf dependent (I have no idea how or if weak aliasing works in pe). I think > this is an area that needs to be improved.

How does this allow the linker to throw away unused functions? The reason we use function and data sections is to allow the static linker to remove dead code (which is a lot for many programs).

<comment><USER10> Modules don't really need sym mangling though a simple mod_fn or mod_fn_type for parametric polymorphism but I'm probably missing something. Weak aliasing to a dummy creates a stub if the other strong sym function is not used thus not pulling it in. I think this is a language level issue and shouldn't be punted to the linker to figure out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The topics in the second half of the talk are very impressive. Looking forward to write some rust!

</comment><comment><USER12> Anyone else having problems with streaming? It's unwatchable for me (Comcast cable).</comment>


RACHEL Modules - <AUTHOR> http://dev.worldpossible.org/cgi/rachelmods.pl <comment><USER2> RACHEL is the technology developed by World Possible to provide important internet content in contexts with little or no internet access.

Executive director Jeremy Schwartz's elevator pitch:

[https://youtu.be/yhAehSQoMl8](https://youtu.be/yhAehSQoMl8)

World Possible home: [http://worldpossible.org/](http://worldpossible.org/)</comment>


Ask HN: How would the world change if everyone could afford/use the internet? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working in the domain of 'Connecting the Unconnected' i.e: working to bring the 4.3 billion unconnected online. Just wondering about your take on how the world would change, if at all, if everyone was connected to the internet. <comment><USER2> Have you worked extensively with the "unconnected"?

Sometimes, people might not be as unconnected as you think. To give you an example from the urban environment, I've seen download kiosks where somebody with a computer will download music videos and songs and then install them on memory cards for squatters, street vendors (living next to/in their stalls) and others that might nominally be seen as unconnected.

In other instances, "connection to the Internet" might look very different than one would assume. For many of the rural residents of the 4.3 bn you mention, the Internet is meaningless unless there are the types of applications that these people are interested in and/or in need of. They are not blessed with the potential for leisurely media consumption nor are they skilled to access information and / or modalities of use provided primarily for literate audiences.

I hope when you speak of connecting the unconnected you are not thinking of providing pipes of bandwidth or even new consumer devices? That has been tried and is clearly not the way forward. Rather building services that specifically target the needs as well as limitations faced by "the unconnected" seem a much more viable proposition - perhaps working with (and not reinventing or innovating around) the modalities already being developed, such as the "download kiosks" mentioned above.

First and foremost, though, I hope you are spending plenty of time with the unconnected when developing this idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> I could not agree more when you say that building services which target the needs/limitations faced by the unconnected is the way forward rather than just expanding the infrastructure, and it's refreshing to see someone realize that. It's not just about making the internet available, it's also about teaching the unconnected 'how' to use it (I feel the UX layer of the internet may be broken for the unconnected) And even more important to teach them 'why' (i.e: a farmer in some developing rural area might not really care to connect with friends via social networks or download music, however, teaching him how to check the weather online, might just bump his livelihood up a few notches.) The word here I guess is 'relevance'. Yes, I have been working on digital literacy with under privileged people, we have also been running extensive usability tests to help understand how the unconnected interact with basic internet services, however, I feel there is a lot more to be discovered about the dynamics of this completely untapped demographic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=768h3Tz4Qik](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=768h3Tz4Qik)</comment>


17 Google products you've never heard of - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-products-youve-never-heard-of?r=US&IR=T/#think-with-google-is-a-digital-cheat-sheet-for-marketers-where-it-uses-its-data-to-glean-whats-on-deck-for-the-industry-11 <comment><USER2> This is an ok list, but people surely heard of Express and Gboard...</comment>


California Franchise Tax Bureau - <AUTHOR> I need some help! Can the California Franchise Tax Board hold a single owner personally liable for not paying the $800 annual fee for a foreign LLC formed in Florida and registered with the State of California. It was registered in California in 2012 and legally stopped in 2015.  The company has never made money, but lost a lot.  No money was given back to the owner. They are threatening me saying they can pierce the corporate veil and make me pay.  I know California needs money but I put so much money into this corporation I don't have anything left. I think they are trying to scare me! <comment><USER2> California doesn't "need" money -- but the FTB are no joke. Don't mess with the FTB.

You need to consult a lawyer (probably costs more than $800), or just pay them the $800.</comment>


Backdoored Python Library Caught Stealing SSH Credentials - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/backdoored-python-library-caught-stealing-ssh-credentials/ <comment><USER2> The insecurity of many of the popular package managers (pypi, npm, crates) and the wholesale reliance of so many software systems on these managers seems like a massive security risk. While I appreciate the simplicity of getting an up to date environment through these managers, I always have a tinge of fear in using them. Whether it is backdoors, information theft (like this article), or filesystem destruction, they all are simple to implement and simple to hide. I let so much arbitrary code run on my computer when I import a python module. Maybe the breach isn't in a popular top-level library, but some dumb little dependency. It's even more dangerous because most eyes aren't looking at that dependency, presumably.

I am tremendously naive to infosec and security in general, but I can predict that the big companies have measures in place to mitigate these risks. Containerization seems like it could help limit the scope of the damage, but the popular containers seem like they are more at risk (usually downloading the latest releases) to encounter these attacks.

What is the likelihood that some actors (state-sponsored or otherwise) could bring down some major systems? Not Google/Facebook/Visa/Netflix major, but widespread across many smaller platforms.

Blackhats and Whitehats out there must be collecting information on:

Which dependencies/libraries could be targeted

Which authors/publishers are vulnerable (regarding password safety, lib deployment mechanisms, ...)

Which systems/libs to compromise to affect classes of targets

I feel like this is a likely cyber attack vector over the next 10 years. How haven't there been more of these that are successful? Is someone building the intelligence in preparation for attacking? Are these systems actually secure (if you successfully avoid maliceful users)?</comment>