Should students profit off my classes? - <AUTHOR> http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2012/02/should-students-profit-off-my-classes.html <comment><USER3> If there is a "hacker mentality", teachers _tend_ to have the opposite of that: given a maze and a cheese, any route to the cheese more efficient than the one the teacher suggests is morally suspect. I've had more than one discussion that devolved into "The journey to the cheese is the real reward!" said by someone who was essentially fetishizing the particular contours of the maze rather than the journey.

(More broadly I think most conceptions of education where "Hide the knowledge from the students" is an acceptable operating principle are probably borked. Exceptions to be awarded if you're teaching nuclear engineering or Charms and skipping ahead a few chapters can result in the lab vanishing in a fireball.)

There is, for example, a well-trodden path in elementary schools of assigning "busywork", which is essentially a classroom management technique whereby you purposely assign work which has zero or negative marginal educational value such that your faster students do not run out of things to do before the class period ends, so that you can focus your efforts on slower students or class discipline problems. I remember a few incidents where I was chastened for dealing with busywork too efficiently. (e.g. "Draw 10 flags of the world." "Can we pick the countries?" "Sure." "Libya, Japan, Ireland, France, Italy, umm, can I use an encyclopedia for a moment?" "Why those countr... PATRICK." "Yes ma'am?" "That's CHEATING. All the other students will do lots more work." "Happy to suggest better flags for them too, ma'am.")

<comment><USER4> You have what appears to me a bias against teachers. I find this curious given one of your products.

I personally think that bingo is a worthless activity but I don't thrust this opinion on other teachers. Personalities come into play with teaching. I could never make a bingo activity work in my class because it is antithetical to my personality. But some people do make it work. And with 30 people in a class is it reasonable to believe that all 30 will enjoy the activity or find merit in it?

I sometimes hide knowledge from my students because I want them to see it for themselves. Do you know how hard it is to get someone to understand that -4^2 is -16 and not 16? I can say this fact ad nauseam and it just doesn't click until a person sees it. They have to be guided into understanding this. Me telling them it is so and explaining it doesn't work.

At any rate it seems you have a bias against teachers. Have you taught much? When was the last time you were in a classroom?

<comment><USER5> Wait - I thought -4^2 _was_ 16 not -16. But then the 2^3^4 discussion here lost me as well.

<comment><USER6> Order of operations. -4^2 is equivalent to -(4^2).

<comment><USER7> heehee, programmer's error. -4 is assumed to be the value, and not seen as -1 * 4, which i believe is the interpretation.

order of operations is a useless source of confusion -- we should just use parens always and avoid ambiguity. #toomuchcprogramminglately

<comment><USER3> I tend to agree, and always did explicit parens for that sort of thing. Then again I use parens in ruby code, too, so maybe I just like them a little too much.

You could argue from consistency that the standard convention is more aesthetically appealing, though. I tried writing this in a HN post but it boiled my brain so I sketched it on the back of an envelope instead.

[http://images2.bingocardcreator.com/blog- images/hn/arithmeti...](http://images2.bingocardcreator.com/blog- images/hn/arithmetic-consistency.jpg)

Basically, assume high school algebra works the way you think it works. If we treat unary negation like it magically grabs the nearest integer prior to the exponent happening, things we assume are equal in high school algebra start to break catastrophically. You'd have to invent a new and perhaps uglier way to do algebra which would lose properties like "moving terms around the same side of an equation on paper for clarity is allowed because it doesn't change what they sum to."

Anyhow, if this ever comes up in my household, I'm going with "Yeah, that one's weird. Your dad didn't like it either, but convention is that -2^2 is -4. That's totally separate from math, it's just how we choose to represent math in squiggles, and this collection of squiggles is supposed to be read as -1 * (2^2) instead of (-1 * 2)^2 . Why did we pick that math-to-squiggles mapping? Long story and kind of boring, but it's sort of important that everyone read the squiggles the same way, for the same reason that we don't get into an argument over which side of a road should be called 'left' and then smash our cars into each other. Either way would have been a perfectly good 'left' because left is ultimately just squiggles, but now we're stuck with one of the squiggles."

<comment><USER7> At the risk of getting off in the weeds, I'd rather re-frame the problem here as to wether unary negation makes sense as an operation, at all!

In my ideal world, -EXPR would be a parse error, and it would only be valid to write -LITERAL * expr. (-1 * a.) So, you could have -4^2 is 16 because the - would not associate to the nearest constant, but rather be part of the 4-value.

The reason for this is that -a^2 is super confusing, and I believe it should be treated as invalid. I do _not_ think that promoting the order of precedence of unary - is the best solution because it leads to the common confusion of thinking "well, a is already negative, so there is nothing to do". if instead this was explicitly -1 * a ^ 2, then you can always "plug and chug" with simpler rules.

Essentially, the confusion is because unary negation is the only operation that is confuse-able with the value definition.

Final qualm against unary negation: what does --4 evaluate to in ruby? 3? No. 4.

If I had my way, then --4 would clearly be invalid because the inner -4 could not receive the unary negation.

In more programming stuff, I think that mixed-type operations should be illegal (no implicit casts!) adding an int64 to an int32 and storing the result in an int32 should be a compiler error!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> steve-howard I think the professor's idea is actually a fantastic solution to the problem (i.e. find the mistakes in the available note sets and write the tests accordingly). I can't really see an ethical basis for banning note-sharing (after all, if the class is worth anything, they should be teaching you facts).

<comment><USER8> > _find the mistakes in the available note sets and write the tests > accordingly_

Really great... instead of focusing on enabling students and focusing on teaching them the really important fundamentals and making sure they understood those through exams, let's just frakk with them in a really petty way (likely by musing over petty small technicalities) and put them in their place, helpless little pups that they are!

<comment><USER9> Exams are about testing what the students have learned, not about teaching them. This sounds like a great way to sort the students who actually decided to learn something from the students you preferred to memorise some notes they bought rather than learning the subject matter.

<comment><USER10> The vast majority of my educational career could be summarized as memorizing some notes written by myself, given by the teacher, or inscribed in hardback textbook. Getting them from another student is hardly a crime.

<comment><USER9> Not a crime, not even something I'd suggest students get punished for - <USER2> definitely something that should be actively discouraged.

Yeah, you can make notes yourself and memorise them, and even that will probably teach you more than getting notes from someone else and memorising those. But it doesn't change the fact that it would be better if exams could only be passed by learning and understanding the subject material, not by memorising facts.

<comment><USER10> Tests that challenge a student's deep understanding of the material rather than rote memorization is of course preferable. No has argued that.

I place zero value in the transcription of notes. The act of writing is a useful tool for memorization and even deeper understanding, but it's just that - a tool. Everyone learns differently. The test is meant to grade one's understanding of the material. How you obtained that understanding isn't relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does the university a professor went to then also have a case against the professor "selling" what he learnt by teaching others? How far up the chain do we go?

</comment><comment><USER12> One of my guiding principles as a college teacher is to never make rules I can't enforce. This clearly falls under that category. Even if I was concerned about this, there's nothing I can do about it. If a student wants to sell her notes to one of these companies all she has to do is not write her name on them, and I'll never know who did it. Prohibiting it would just make me look like a moron who doesn't understand the limits of his own authority.

<comment><USER4> The orientation for new faculty ought to consist solely of your first sentence. Too many of my colleagues don't seem to understand this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Or, you know, the professor could just post notes themselves online, cutting out the middle man. Some people learn better from a live class. Some learn better from offline notes that they can peruse at their leisure. Why not cater to both?

</comment><comment><USER14> I agree with the mountain out of a molehill argument. There's an easy solution to this - if the profs don't like this, sell their own notes on the site for the minimum amount.

Most of these sites let you name your own price. Set the price insanely low and donate the proceeds to the university or a charity.

</comment><comment><USER15> For many students, the purpose of education is achieving a profit in a career / job.

A student is as much entitled to their interpretation of education (His or her her notes) as the prof is entitled to force students to purchase their lab manuals and textbooks.

Saying you own a set of notes is saying you own knowledge.

No one owns knowledge in education. They teach it. Study it. Learn it. Share it. Write about it.

This isn't a question of economics, or IP. It's the principle. As a professor, few are teaching anything new, or novel, or something they invented.

Many are teaching concepts that have been around for many years. Most profs hate teaching because it cuts into their time to do what they're best at (and don't get to teach enough about) -- their research.

</comment><comment><USER16> On what basis would a university have any say about what a student does with her notes? I can't think of one--legal, moral or ethical.

I certainly hope this doesn't become something more universities waste their time on, because this is ludicrous.

(edit: typo)

</comment><comment><USER17> I worked with/at TakeNote, which is Cornell's commercial note taking service and dealt with this often. Notwithstanding "ethical" reasons, this is very odd to me. I think the California law cited that seems to ban the selling of class notes, and any public schools whose student policies similarly ban resale, raise colorable First Amendment issues. I know there is extant case law at least in some jurisdiction that says that your notes are your notes, presuming that they are not verbatim transcripts of the lecture. This is the case even if the lecture itself and material is protected by copyright.

</comment><comment><USER18> I believe the emphasis should be on the professor to take responsibility and change his curriculum/exams each semester. If professors did this effectively, the issue of note sharing between semesters could be dramatically reduced.

Students are paying a lot of money for education these days. Is it to much to ask that professors provide fresh and original content as opposed to printing off the same powerpoint presentation or case study for five straight years?

It's simple, make your class exciting and captivating and students will retain more while enjoying it. Those are my personal experiences and opinions of course :)

<comment><USER19> This strikes me as hopelessly naive on a number of fronts.

Good professors spend years refining their lectures and they change things year to year, but many of those changes are evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.

Reducing all education to a simple transaction where money is traded for knowledge is overly simplistic and invites poor conculusions. Even if it were that simple, there is an inherent and significant asymmetry of information that stands in the way of an efficient market.

Further, for some professors, at least, money isn't the only reward they get from teaching. They may like interacting with students, they may feel their own understanding of the subject is improved by teaching it to others, and the dynamic of the classroom provides valuable insight that helps them improve how they teach the next batch of students.

The professor may feel, and have evidence to back it up, that students who don't come to lectures, on average, learn the material less well than those who do. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but at least some of them likely relate to the classroom experience, the enthusiasm of the professor, his or her ability to read the room and dwell a little longer on a point that half the students may be baffled by. Their lectures could have a lot of deliberate redundancy about key concepts that isn't captured in notes.

You can argue that the student should be free to choose whether or not to avail themselves of these advantages, but your comment and so many other comments in threads like these, suggest that many students don't even realize what they might be missing.

I'm utterly convinced that our education system, from kindergarden through graduate school and beyond is ripe for significant changes, but I'm mindful of what can be lost in major disruptions, particularly if people are ignorant of the value of the things they are sweeping aside.

<comment><USER18> That's exactly my point. Students remember the content and the professors from those who took pride in their work and made class exciting and interesting. I acknowledge that the process is evolutionary, but from a personal stance, I have had professors who have gone beyond the information or examples listed in their resources to expose up to date examples which created the ability to relate and better understand.

As I said, and you conversely reiterated, if the professor makes class exciting, captivating and relevant, students will enjoy coming to class more times than not.

These professors aren't the ones having to worry about students notes being redistributed.

I do agree that our education is ripe for significant change as well... on all fronts.

"Particularly if people are ignorant of the value of the things they are sweeping aside." ??? Just as many other industries are being reshaped due to technology and innovation, the same goes for education. Grade "A" content and self learning material are more accessible now than ever. A teacher is no longer necessary to learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Flame-y tone aside, I cannot help but feel exactly like this:

> _Zounds, Herr Professor Doktor, you seem to be setting a new level of > pettiness and arrogance. You don't seem to object to your getting a > doubtless hefty paycheck resting on huge tuition rates, nor do I recall any > quibbles from you to the costs of textbooks. Gods forbid that any student > earn a few bucks from his diligent note-taking!_

What I do with MY notes should be nothing but MY business, as simple as that. We are talking university here, people. Students should be MORE than old enough to be able to decide for themselves which way of learning works best for them. I do not need some facetious, bored prof patronizing me on how I want to study and ultimately pass the exams.

> _campuses are taking new steps to limit what students can do with their > class notes_

And this is completely beyond me as well. Even if I could obtain exact 1:1 replicas of all slides used in each lecture plus thorough notes, I still do not get a degree from whatever university they came from and keep in mind that a lot of the HUGE names are releasing course material for free anyway.

This whole thing just seems really petty. And don't forget, some students learn a lot better by listening, others learn better by writing it down and others learn best researching on their own and taking thorough, well- structured notes can be a difficult job if you want to follow class and discussions equally well at the same time. Why shouldn't you allow both of those learning types to benefit? Don't we want our students to actually become team-players and independent, autonomous?

<comment><USER20> Maybe I read a different blog post. In my reading, I am pretty sure the professor agrees with you.

<comment><USER8> Up to the point where he reveals that...

> _And then I'll write exam questions testing on those very same mistakes. If > we all did that, the market would dry up pretty quick._

...he actually DOES oppose it obviously and wants to stop it.

<comment><USER20> You missed his point. He doesn't care. He thinks the market can deal with it. He thinks the schools should stay out of it. As a professor, he can route around it by being smarter than the note sellers. You want to restrict his right to do that? Bizarre...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I miss the days when most of the tests were all bluebook essays including science, computer science, history, etc.

You youngsters have it too easy...</comment>


"Traditional methods for protecting community from..scale..are now manifestly unfeasible" - <AUTHOR> http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/12/33338/3000 <comment><USER2> I love how K5 articles have their own writing style. It's a shame the community is dead, because I genuinely miss the writing that came out of there, with its own unique rhythm and set of tropes.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. It was like a writer's creativity oracle:

      * The masterful series: Tales of the Hive.
      * The insightful whistleblower: How IBM Conned My Execs Out Of Millions.
      * And even the (insane) writer's self-inflicting goatse-style: An Introduction to Anal Masturbation.

Hive series: Birth of a Package <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/18/203511/484> Blood, Sweat, and Honey <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/9/13/212244/867> Lions at the Gate <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/7/16/222933/069> (More at <http://www.voiceofthehive.com/>)

IBM <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/9/27/95759/4240> (Can't find the link to the article about the writer's struggle to survive the legal attack from IBM.)

 _The_ goatse <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2007/7/23/204244/127>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Counter intuitive principles and highly thought provoking ideas make it a great, although long, read. The application of the conclusions in this article would be interesting to behold and analyze.

Author, rightly or wrongly, holds some strong opinions against Clay Shirky's ideas.

</comment><comment><USER5> Meta-discussion blending with topical discussion here, I'd be interested to know what the moderation burden on HN is. HN has maintained quality up to this scale and may be able to prevent additional growth, but what's the cost?

<comment><USER6> PG gives a lot of credit to the editors for keeping HN clean. But let's be honest, people behave here because they don't want to burn their bridge with PG. He's said himself that he created HN in part to get a taste of what YCombinator applicants are like before they apply. This whole site is one big, ongoing public job interview. That's a big part of what keeps people in line.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that that is quite accurate. I doubt that the majority of people here are here for the ycombinator seed money. I come here because it is the best aggregation of topics that are interesting to my tastes. Will I apply for ycombinator seed money? Probably not.

<comment><USER8> Even if you're not applying to YC (though quite a lot of people here are), the fact remains that PG is somebody who's fairly well-known in the hacker community, and he's very active here (compare that to how the heads of some other social sites don't directly get involved on their sites as much). People will always be more wary of making an ass of themselves in front of somebody with a reputation than they will be of doing the same in front of anonymous strangers.

In fact, on Hacker News it's even _more_ so a matter of known people, since there are a lot of well-known people who come on here and say stuff. I know one of the big Delicious people do, because my first month here I got rebuked by him for insulting Delicious. There are people from most of the major YC companies, along with guys from 37signals, Joel Spolsky, Jason Calcanis, and more - and when there's a site frequented by a lot of people who have reputations, suddenly spouting stupid mouth noise seems a lot more foolhardy.

(I find that whenever somebody whose web site I use gets annoyed at something that I say here, it absolutely makes me at least reconsider what I said. I judge people by the awesome things they make, so this is a community that has a _lot_ of people that I respect a ton, and it encourages me to remain civil and reasonable here.)

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I agree with that. I had a well known entrepreneur respond to one of my posts, and I was slightly shocked. While I don't think my original post was rude or unreasonable, I really wasn't expecting it to be read by the person it was talking about.

After that I was more impressed with HN. It seems like a very unusual social news site, because the news is actually discussed with the people involved. For example, recently there was an article on nytimes.com about somebody who makes jellyfish tanks. Well, I find out in the comments that the person actually is an user here.

That does help me think about what I say. I might be interested in working at some startup or tech company after I graduate. And there's a good chance that not only will my future employer find this account, but that I have actually already said something about that company. I really don't want to write a thoughtless comment and then find out that it was about some company I'm interested in.

<comment><USER8> Partly it's that, yeah. But partly I think people stay nice and responsible because there are people here worth being nice and responsible _to_. Some of the people here are really fascinating and really stand-out. (I also love how many people we get here who submit their own writings: this site produces a lot of original stories.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's a lot to be said for this theory if you look at the real world, where anonymous interactions play out well 90+% of the time (selon anecdotal experience.)

<comment><USER11> I disagree. The anchoring point of this article is rooted in the multiple- identity problem in online communities. Shirky's idea is to limit scale and embrace identities, while this article's counter is to deemphasize identities and disincentivize secondary accounts.

In other words, this whole article is about tackling the ONE issue that real- world interactions don't have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> on a practical side what's happening at the moment with facebook and twitter is destroying the classical online communities and replacing them with your personal social recommendation network. That works quite well for people who already have a wide network and a lot of people to follow, but I think it's a bit sad for the kid who wants to learn and just starts...</comment>


How the Mandalorian Was Shot - <AUTHOR> https://ascmag.com/articles/the-Mandalorian <comment><USER2> I enjoyed watching this. And I restrained from finding out who played Mandalorian till it was revealed in the series. That along with other things in the series, kept my interest alive. And 'the child' is adorable beyond description. :) Thanks for sharing this.</comment>


Newfound Planet a Top Contender to Host Life - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/newfound-alien-planet-top-contender-host-life-134126368.html

<comment><USER2> Cool. Strange they show an 'enlarged photo' of it. Also strange to say 'Alien' every time they say 'planet'. What else could it be - a planet right here on Earth?

<comment><USER3> >Also strange to say 'Alien' every time they say 'planet'. What else could it be - a planet right here on Earth?

To be fair, it could simply mean an exoplanet, a planet outside of our solar system. I suppose "alien planet" is more intuitive than "exoplanet."

We've grown quite accustomed to the planets in our backyard, so I think the word alien is quite evocative here. I was born about 2 decades after the first moon landing, but the first confirmed exoplanets weren't discovered until my lifetime. That's pretty fricking amazing to me.

<comment><USER4> Yes! I agree. Here's a graph of the number of exoplanets discovered by year: [http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered...](http://exoplanet.eu/diagrams/?t=h&f=&x=discovered&xmin=&xmax=&y=raw&ymin=&ymax=)

I consider it the most exciting graph I have ever seen.

<comment><USER3> :)

Somewhat related, it's frustrating when I read about the history of computer science and am blown away that many of the best algorithms/languages we have today were developed 40-60 years ago. It's always nice to be reminded that there are unsolved problems and unlocked mysteries.

<comment><USER5> And yet we have continuously greater numbers of software patents filed every year. So obviously innovation is happening -- right? After all, Bubble sort was good, but Bubble sort on a web enabled device with rounded corners is defiantly the cat's meow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's x7 earth mass. The reason we've only discovering huge planets is because that's all our equipment can detect, so far (by wobbling/obscuring their sun).

For our solar system, only Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus would be massive enough to detect.

</comment><comment><USER7> Was the debate settled on whether or not this planet exists? [1].

[1] [http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks- plan...](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-31-goldilocks-planet_N.htm)

<comment><USER8> That is about Gliese 581g, this article is about Gliese 163c. That is a different planet circling around a differnt star.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find it strange how the writers assume only Earth-like life would evolve on another planet. They speak in terms of bacteria, plants, animals... It doesn't make any sense to me. Out of the 3.5 billion years that the planet has sustained life, animals (first sponges, then cnidaria, etc.) have only been around for 630 million. Evolution didn't happen according to some goal; organisms evolved to suit their habitats.

So saying that plants/animals wouldn't exist on a planet significantly hotter than ours is really strange to say - they'd have no -reason- to. Because the evolutionary tree on that planet would be completely different from ours, the organisms' forms and internal structures will be very different in many ways. The same things won't have happened in their evolutionary history.

And of course, life would be adapted to the planet itself. You might say, "Enzymes don't function at those temperatures." Well, the life on hotter planets will have evolved to use different enzymes that -do- work at those temperatures.

<comment><USER10> The main reason for the temperature constraint isn't actually temperature but rather the presence of liquid water. We currently know of no life form that can exist without it. I believe the 'goldilocks zone' is more specific in that its looking for liquid water on the surface. There could be liquid water underground in bodies well outside the goldilocks zone and there are some indications that this is true of some moons in our own solar system.

'Planet temperature' doesn't completely rule out the possibility of life. Venus for example is hot as hell on the surface but there is actually a band of the atmosphere which humans could hangout unprotected in, its breathable, the pressure is about what it is on Earth, etc. There have been some attempts to send a probe to hang out there and look for bacterial life but I don't think any have been funded.

<comment><USER11> _Venus for example is hot as hell on the surface but there is actually a band of the atmosphere which humans could hangout unprotected in, its breathable,_

The atmosphere is carbon dioxide with an aerosol of liquid sulfuric acid. (?)

<comment><USER10> Hm, went back a reread where I originally saw that and I completely mis- interpreted. Its not breathable, rather from ~50-65km off the surface it is roughly 1 bar in pressure with temperatures from 0-50C and breathable air would 'float' at this height due to the density of the atmosphere. Sorry for the foul up.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Eunuchs May Hold Key to Longevity (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Health/castration-men-live-longer-eunuchs-studied-korean-records/story?id=17310420

<comment><USER2> Interesting - if I was an advertising executive of say, Nivea Facial Cream for Men, I would be putting this report out on every PR wire I could.

"Live longer, cut your balls off. Alternatively use our moisturiser and look like you will live longer"

Tl;dr castration might help you live longer, if your life is anything like 13th Century China.</comment>


Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available - <AUTHOR> https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/05/22/1510151/0/en/Computer-History-Museum-Makes-the-Eudora-Email-Client-Source-Code-Available-to-the-Public.html <comment><USER2> "Eudora was specifically designed with the idea that standards are a key to successful adoption. Indeed, the rapid acceptance of the Internet is largely due to the standardization process. Published standards are what allow applications from multiple sources to cooperate with each other. Without standards organizations would only be able to use their own applications together, and not those from outside. Also, by allowing diversity of implementations you achieve a much more robust software ecosystem."

\- From the "Windows Eudora Architecture.pdf" in the distribution

<comment><USER3> This is beautiful. One of the "so obvious it's invisible" truths of the modern age, and I nearly forgot that Eudora and other pioneers of the age were making a somewhat risky choice to only support standard protocols and eschew the proprietary mailers. Most of them are now long dead yet POP3, IMAP, SNMP chug along. At the time, though, it wasn't so clear.

<comment><USER4> POP3 is horribly inefficient and SNMP is a security disaster waiting to happen. At least POP3 isn't widely used anymore.

<comment><USER5> Why is POP3 horribly inefficient? Lack of an equivalent to the IMAP COMPRESS extension?

<comment><USER4> POP3 is only efficient if you download all mail to the client and immediately remove it from the server. But nobody does that, everyone leaves their mail on the server. Then everytime you synchronize the server has to go through all the mail it has to see what you don't have, which is very inefficient if you have 10000 mails in your inbox, like most people have these days.

It's optimized for a usecase that doesn't exist anymore and it will work in the usecase that does exist while wasting a lot of resources. Truly the worst you can have. It'd be better if it didn't work at all.

<comment><USER6> I for one use pop3 and am really content with it. I cannot bear the idea of keeping my personal mails on a remote server. And that of having to use a web interface to configure splitting rules via a web interface, unable to easily version control and undestructibly and easily test.

You seem to have a personal (!) problem with POP3. Why is that? Are you forbidden to use IMAP because of it? Are you forced to implement a POP3 server?

<comment><USER4> Clearly you've never had to do tech support for people that inadvertently chose POP3 because in many systems it's still the default selection, along with the default behavior of deleting mails from the server as you fetch them.

What do you mean the only copy of all my mail is in some bizarro mail client specific proprietary database? Why can't I also read my mail on my phone? I dropped my laptop in the toilet and now my mail is gone. Isn't it on the server? Why can't I use folders? Don't you have backups?

No, your mail is gone, because you used a protocol designed for the 90s. It's a great idea if you have a mail account with 10mb quota and you download your mail to a fixed, reliable workstation and you don't mind if you lose it all if the disk crashes, it doesn't happen that often. Not hardly as often as laptops getting stolen, Windows breaking itself and phones going bust.

I'm not sure why I need to have personal problems with your pet protocol to have an opinion on it, especially on one that stinks as much as POP3. It's obsolete.

<comment><USER6> > I'm not sure why I need to have personal problems with your pet protocol to > have an opinion on it, especially on one that stinks as much as POP3. It's > obsolete.

Because you're trying to fight people that use it.

In another comment I write how I use it. Clearly you can lose mail with IMAP too. There is a reason we do backups. Also, people not knowing how to use it or you not liking to deal with these does not make a protocol obsolete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's the actual Computer History Museum article and links to source: [http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora- emai...](http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-email-client- source-code/)

</comment><comment><USER8> In 1999-2001 when I was doing dialup tech support, running into a customer with Eudora was a dream compared to the nightmare of basically any other contemporary mail client around: Outlook and Outlook Express. EarthLink even made their own abomination of a mail client called Total Access, IIRC it could import and export Eudora dbs.

<comment><USER9> Don't forget Pegasus!

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

<comment><USER10> Or Email Connection!

[http://web.archive.org/web/19980212160741/http://www.email-c...](http://web.archive.org/web/19980212160741/http://www.email- connection.com/EMCFINALQ1.html)

edit: fix link

<comment><USER11> Or, if you lived in Eastern Europe, The Bat1[1] - and it is still actively supported!

I switched to Opera Mail because it was convenient to have the browser and email client in one software (which is also freeware), but that went with the Chropera move.

[1][https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/](https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/)

<comment><USER12> The Bat was quite nice! I used it for a while but finally switched to the Japanese client "Becky Mail", ugly but quite functional. I still have some backups in a zip drive I should restore...

<comment><USER13> > some backups in a zip drive

Hehe, I have one of those, too. But unfortunately it is an external drive, and none of the computers I own have a parallel port...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Damn. The "bad" words have been sanitized. Seeing the programmers' frustrations as they appear in the comments enhances the experience when viewing old code like this.

<comment><USER15> It's funny how in most corporate/commercial code past 2005 or 2010, you'll rarely ever see profanity in comments. I've never put profanity, or even any jokes, in comments. I really try to keep my professional code professional.

Even on my own OSS projects I tend not to do that anymore.

<comment><USER16> Unfortunate that we (as a collective --- not something I _personally_ believe in) seem to think that that is being "professional", and that it is somehow a reason to make everything as bland and soulless as possible, and that that is somehow better? I agree that a lot of code has lost its "character", so to speak.

The Linux kernel still retains much of its fucks and shits, and apparently has gained a whole lot of crap: [https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/](https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/)

<comment><USER17> It's an unfortunate loss for our conceptual heritage for the word 'professional' to have been mostly hijacked to mean something more like 'obedient', 'conformist', 'dull', 'bland', 'besuited' etc.

Once you don't have a word to express a concept, that concept can quite quickly fall out of circulation. Professionalism was a useful part of modern culture: it would be a shame for it to disappear from the lexicon. A horse that's bolted, I fear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh, cool. I can finally fix the bug/feature that whenever someone replied to an email from me they got warned about profanity because of my last name :-)

<comment><USER19> Could be worse: you could have graduated Summa cum laude and have the store refuse to put that on your graduation cake!

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2018/05/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2018/05/22/proud-mom-orders-summa-cum-laude-cake-online-publix-censors- it-to-summa-laude/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c7e51e71eba7)

<comment><USER20> As long as you're not from Clitheroe or Scunthorpe

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Boolean butch; // don't call pete drag handlers in PantyTrack"

Always assume that one day, the world will see your code.

<comment><USER22> My third boss wanted to open source some code. I got the pleasure of witnessing our hackiest developer's eyes go wide when he mentioned this idea.

Maybe you should stop writing code that you're embarrassed to let other people see. Your coworkers will thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's under an open source license too:

 _" The transfer agreement allows CHM to publish the code under the very liberal BSD open source license, which means that anyone can use it for either personal or commercial purposes."_

<comment><USER15> I'm guessing they had to go through the code pretty carefully to make sure they could. I'm seeing embedded PNG, zlib, qt3 and other libraries buried down in there.

It's also interesting they have completely separate windows and mac code bases.

<comment><USER24> > it's also interesting they have completely separate windows and mac code > bases.

At the time I don't really think that was uncommon.

I mean, you barely had FOSS portable libraries to base the core functionality on, even before you started tackling platform specific issues.

There were different CPU architectures. Machines back then were completely different, with each type having it's separate types of HW devices and connectors. Etc etc.

Literally _nothing_ were common between PCs and Macs. I'm not surprised at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To paraphrase Hoare, Eudora was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on its successors. And now we can all help stamp out flying e's.

 _Edit_ : CHM has a survey for past/current Eudora users: [https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora- poll1](https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1)

</comment><comment><USER25> While I was in college, during the summer of 2001, I did an internship at Qualcomm. I was surprised to discover that they used Eudora as their internal Email client, despite not having seen it still in use elsewhere for many years.

Of course I found its UI frustrating enough (for reasons I barely remember now) that I wound up installing something else to use on my workstation.

<comment><USER26> Why "of course"? It was a great email client at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Some years ago, Gmail changed so using Eudora with it became difficult. I've worked out the following procedure:

after checking email fails the second time,

Server SSL Certificate Rejected pops up

click on Yes

click on Tools then Options then Checking mail

click on Last SSL Info

click on Certificate Information Manager

under Server Certificates, keep expanding until you reach the bottom one

click on it then click on Add to trusted

click on File then Check Mail

</comment><comment><USER28> I applaud Qualcomm for donating all trademarks and copyrights too, which means literally anyone can recompile it and still call it "Eudora".

Unfortunately Eudora is basically three completely different codebases (Windows, Mac, and a rebranded Thunderbird for Linux). I guess only the Windows one is likely to ever be revived.

<comment><USER5> "The license does NOT allow you to use any of the trademarks or domain names related to Eudora, including Eudora™, www.eudora.com, and www.eudora.org." — [http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora- emai...](http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-email-client- source-code/)

<comment><USER28> It's a bit weird, just above they say "they decided not to simply grant a license, but to transfer ownership of the code, the Eudora trademarks, the copyrights, and the Eudora domain names to the Computer History Museum".

So it's the CHM who is barring people from using the name. The relevant clause must be this: _" Neither the name of Computer History Museum nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission."_ Is this really "BSD license", if the name is off-limits? This looks like an extra clause to me. Honest question.

EDIT: also, that clause mentions the names of _contributors_ , not of the actual software. So they would have to argue that Eudora is barred by "contributor Eudora Inc." \-- does that company even exist anymore?

<comment><USER29> > Is this really "BSD license", if the name is off-limits? This looks like an > extra clause to me.

There's actually a few licenses that are called the BSD license. In modern terms, BSD refers to the 3-clause BSD.

However, the 3-clause BSD was not the original form. It was introduced because the 4th clause was generally viewed as problematic. That 4th clause is:

> 4\. Neither the name of the <organization> nor the names of its contributors > may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software > without specific prior written permission.

This "weird" clause is actually the 4th clause of the 4-clause BSD. It's weird because it's extremely uncommon, but it is part of a major BSD license.

<comment><USER5> That clause is in the common 3-clause version. The dropped clause from 4 to 3 is the one that was originally #3,

 _3\. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes software developed by the <organization>._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I uploaded the code to GitHub: [https://github.com/avar/rhqben](https://github.com/avar/rhqben)

<comment><USER31> It looks like github thinks all of the source files are a single line.

[https://github.com/avar/rhqben/blob/master/Eudora_M_source/V...](https://github.com/avar/rhqben/blob/master/Eudora_M_source/V624/Editor/Source/Editor%20Source/draw.c)

<comment><USER5> Macs use(d) CR as line terminator, not LF (*nix) or CR LF (Windows).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I still use Eudora... heavily .... maybe this is a sign

<comment><USER33> > maybe this is a sign

Of what, old age?

<comment><USER34> Wisdom.

<comment><USER32> Awesomeness?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's a curious purgatory the project is in, which I think would make it difficult to attract developers.

On one hand, a user base wants the old product with minimal twists and they are known to balk at anything more than that.

On the other, project survival likely depends on getting new users on board, in which case an old design and UI are probably going to be detriments.

<comment><USER36> I guess you could write a theming engine, implement the old design using it, and then implement the new design.

<comment><USER37> Doing that basically destroyed Winamp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It is utterly strange that the museum claims "to publish the code under the very liberal BSD open source license" and then prompts the user to agree to all this stuff that contradicts the classic BSD license:

 _The Computer History Museum (the "Museum") is willing to license the Software to you only upon the condition that you accept all of the terms contained in this Agreement. By clicking on the "I accept" button below or by downloading, installing or using the Software, you have indicated that you understand this Agreement and accept all of its terms. If you do not accept all the terms of this Agreement, then the Museum is unwilling to license the Software to you.

1\. Grant of License. Conditioned upon your compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, the Museum grants you a non-exclusive and non- transferable license for a single user, solely for your individual, personal and non-commercial purposes, (a) to load and install the Software; (b) to compile, modify and create modifications or enhancements of the Software or any of its components ("Derivative Works"); and (c) to run the Software or Derivative Works on simulators or hardware. The Museum and its licensors reserve all rights in the Software not expressly granted to you in this Agreement.

2\. Restrictions. Except as expressly specified in this Agreement, you may not: (a) transfer, sublicense, lease, lend, rent or otherwise distribute the Software or Derivative Works to any third party; or (b) make the functionality of the Software or Derivative Works available to multiple users through any means, including, but not limited to, by uploading the Software to a network or file-sharing service or through any hosting, application services provider, service bureau, software-as-a-service (SaaS) or any other type of services. You acknowledge and agree that portions of the Software, including, but not limited to, the source code and the specific design and structure of individual modules or programs, constitute or contain trade secrets of Museum and its licensors.

3\. Ownership. The copy of the Software is licensed, not sold. The Museum and its licensors retain ownership of the copy of the Software itself, including all intellectual property rights therein. The Software is protected by United States copyright law and international treaties. You will not delete or in any manner alter the copyright, trademark, confidentiality and other proprietary rights notices or markings or limited or restricted rights legends appearing on the Software as delivered to you.

4\. Term. The license granted under this Agreement remains in effect for a period of 75 years, unless earlier terminated in accordance with this Agreement. You may terminate the license at any time by destroying all copies of the Software in your possession or control. The license granted under this Agreement will automatically terminate, with or without notice from the Museum, if you breach any term of this Agreement. Upon termination, you must, at the Museum's option, either promptly destroy or return to the Museum all copies of the Software in your possession or control and certify in writing to the Museum that you have fully complied with the foregoing and that no copy of the Software remains in your possession or control. 2

5\. Indemnification. You shall defend, indemnify and hold harmless the Museum and its licensors from and against any damages, liabilities, costs, expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees), claims, demands, suits or proceedings (an "Action") to the extent such Action alleges that your modification or enhancement of the Software, or any portion thereof, infringes any third party copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or any other proprietary right, provided that the Museum gives written notice of the Action to you. The Museum may opt to participate in the defense of an Action, provided that the Museum bears any legal fees and expenses and other costs of defense it incurs in so participating.

6\. NO WARRANTIES. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE MUSEUM AND ITS LICENSORS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON- INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS ARISING OUT OF COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED FROM MUSEUM OR ELSEWHERE WILL CREATE ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS AGREEMENT.

7\. Limitation of Liability. THE MUSEUM AND ITS LICENSORS' TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FROM ALL CAUSES OF ACTION AND UNDER ALL THEORIES OF LIABILITY WILL BE LIMITED TO $100. IN NO EVENT WILL THE MUSEUM OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING LOSS OF DATA, BUSINESS, PROFITS OR ABILITY TO EXECUTE) OR FOR THE COST OF PROCURING SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR THE EXECUTION OR PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE, WHETHER SUCH LIABILITY ARISES FROM ANY CLAIM BASED UPON CONTRACT, WARRANTY, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE, AND WHETHER OR NOT MUSEUM OR ITS LICENSORS HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE. THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS WILL SURVIVE AND APPLY EVEN IF ANY LIMITED REMEDY SPECIFIED IN THIS AGREEMENT IS FOUND TO HAVE FAILED OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you.

8\. U.S. Government End Users. The Software is a "commercial item" as that term is defined in FAR 2.101, consisting of "commercial computer software," as such term is used in FAR 12.212 and DFARS 227.7202. If the Software is being acquired by or on behalf of the U.S. Government, then, as provided in FAR 12.212 and DFARS 227.7202-1 through 227.7202-4, as applicable, the U.S. Government's rights in the Software will be only those specified in this Agreement.

9\. Export Law. You agree to comply fully with all U.S. export laws and regulations to ensure that neither the Software nor any technical data related thereto nor any direct product thereof are exported or re-exported directly or indirectly in violation of, or used for any purposes prohibited by, such laws and regulations. 3

10\. General. This Agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, without regard to or application of conflict of laws rules or principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods will not apply. You may not assign or transfer this Agreement or any rights granted hereunder, by operation of law or otherwise, without the Museum's prior written consent, and any attempt by you to do so, without such consent, will be void. Except as expressly set forth in this Agreement, the exercise by either party of any of its remedies under this Agreement will be without prejudice to its other remedies under this Agreement or otherwise. All notices or approvals required or permitted under this Agreement will be in writing and delivered by confirmed facsimile transmission, by overnight delivery service, or by certified mail, and in each instance will be deemed given upon receipt. All notices or approvals will be sent to the addresses specified by either party to the other in accordance with this section. The failure by either party to enforce any provision of this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of future enforcement of that or any other provision. Any waiver, modification or amendment of any provision of this Agreement will be effective only if in writing and signed by authorized representatives of both parties. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent possible, and the other provisions will remain in full force and effect. This Agreement is the complete and exclusive understanding and agreement between the parties regarding its subject matter, and supersedes all proposals, understandings or communications between the parties, oral or written, regarding its subject matter, unless you and Museum have executed a separate agreement.

11\. Contact Information. If you have any questions regarding this Agreement, you may contact the Museum by mail at 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA 94043, by telephone at 650.810.1010 or by facsimile at 650.810.1055.

IF YOU AGREE TO THE FOREGOING TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND DESIRE TO COMPLETE INSTALLATION OF THE SOFTWARE, PLEASE CLICK THE "I ACCEPT" BUTTON BELOW. OTHERWISE, PLEASE CLICK THE "I DO NOT ACCEPT" BUTTON AND THE INSTALLATION PROCESS WILL STOP._

<comment><USER39> That license means it's essentially dual licensed, and the more liberal license will trump it (BSD), you cannot publish something as BSD and then "downgrade it" afterwards.

The license you were forced to accept is probably just a generic license covering all software in the computer history museum for when the owners have _not_ provided a more liberal license.

<comment><USER38> > The license you were forced to accept

I didn't accept it. I'll try to get them to remove those terms, that appeals to me more than agreeing to legal terms I don't intend to abide by.

<comment><USER40> It's possible they have responded to this, because I now have these terms come up:

Copyright (c) 2017, Computer History Museum. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted (subject to the limitations in the disclaimer below) provided that the following conditions are met:

        Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
        Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
        Neither the name of Computer History Museum nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED LICENSES TO ANY PARTY'S PATENT RIGHTS ARE GRANTED BY THIS LICENSE. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

<comment><USER41> That license does not match [https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause](https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause)

<comment><USER42> It matches [https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause- Clear.html](https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause-Clear.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Wonder why they chose not to host on GitHub...

<comment><USER44> This is meant to provide an archive for the code. A major attraction of using GitHub is to allow easy pull requests and issues. If you're not going to be using those features, it's mostly useless when you already have your own infrastructure for hosting data. Lastly, if you're using a version control system other than Git, GitHub is not going to work well.

<comment><USER45> You can set repos to be archived, i.e. read-only, on Github these days.

Besides, I find it a whole lot easier to just casually browse through code on Github rather than download 129 megs of eudora_w_source.zip, extract it somewhere and rifle through it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-r How well has this code base aged? Will it be able to display today's HTML- heavy emails?

<comment><USER7> I'd hope that it wouldn't. "Today's HTML-heavy emails" are horrible.

<comment> mark-r I wouldn't argue with you, but I'd rather they be horrible than unreadable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> It would be fun to port the Mac version to x86.

<comment><USER47> The Mac archive doesn't have any resource forks, which is likely going to prevent building a working copy. Trying to figure out who to email at the CHM about it.

<comment><USER48> Really? That's a huge oversight.

At the very least, none of the original new mail images, sound, etc (all PCT, SND resources). I miss hacking Eudora with ResEdit.</comment></comment></comment>


Why we're a titleless startup - <AUTHOR> http://socialuxe.com/2010/04/why-we-are-a-titleless-startup/

<comment><AUTHOR> by @eston, formerly of Spymaster & Facebook.

<comment><USER2> This was already on here a couple of weeks ago when I published it, actually</comment></comment>


Dow is down 500 points - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-09/asia-stocks-point-to-mixed-start-treasuries-rise-markets-wrap <comment><USER2> Market is melting</comment>


Bridging the Gap Between Businesses and Developers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@KeepCoding_/bridging-the-gap-between-businesses-and-developers-a7b73981f28d <comment><USER2> TLDR: Fluff, more fluff, some basic stuff we all know about the business-IT relationship, fluff again, buzzword, ADVERTISEMENT for KeepCoding (a coding bootcamp thing)...

[https://keepcoding.io/en/](https://keepcoding.io/en/)</comment>


Next Steps for Pkg.go.dev - <AUTHOR> https://blog.golang.org/pkg.go.dev-2020 <comment><USER2> > We understand that corporations with private code want to run a > documentation server that provides module support. We want to help meet that > need, but we feel we don't yet understand it as well as we need to.

They just need to check how corporations use private NuGET, Nexus and Artifactory repositories.</comment>


Ask HN: Curating Blog Posts into a EBook - <AUTHOR>

Is it legal to sell a PDF of curated blog posts that are free? <comment><USER2> Generally "free to access" doesn't mean "free to republish for profit". You'd probably want to find stuff that is Creative Commons with commercial use allowed, or contact authors individually with a proposal and terms.

[https://creativecommons.org](https://creativecommons.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it. Thanks for the advice!</comment></comment>


How to 3-D print a heart - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-to-3-d-print-a-heart <comment><USER2> Title misleading, they haven't 3d printed a heart, just some arteries. :( We are very, very far away from being able to actually 3d print hearts that could be used.

<comment><USER3> The same story with a less misleading title yesterday got fewer upvotes: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442755](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10442755)

(and even the arteries they printed are probably not actually functional)

<comment><USER4> At best I thought they were scaffold for another step, like covering the printed 'tree' with an elastic coating that would then be an 'artery'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's amazing to think we may one day be able to!

</comment><comment><USER6> So.. what open source software are they using?</comment>


Name that Color - <AUTHOR> http://chir.ag/phernalia/name-that-color/ <comment><USER2> Is it bad that my first question on seeing that page is "What color space is he doing the nearest color calculation in?"? HSB would do a lot better than RGB, no?

<comment><USER3> Since you choose colors in HSB, I'd assume that the math is done in that space as well.

Empirically, the colors seem to make up tiny cubes in HSB space. If they were in RGB I don't think you'd see that kind of coherence.</comment></comment>


Apples Hands Hackers Secret iPhones in a Bid to Boost Security, Sources Say - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/08/05/apple-is-giving-out-hacker-friendly-iphones-plots-mac-bug-bounty-sources/ <comment><USER2> Theyve been doing this for quite some time now. They have been known already to hire insiders of the hacking community back when jailbreaking was mainstream.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am interested to see what becomes of this program and rather or not it is as beneficial for everyone as it appears in the article.</comment>


Ask HN: Covid-19 Philosophical Questions - <AUTHOR> I have been musing with some philosophical questions lately.
1. Death by poverty vs death by virus?
It's evident that the world is going into a lockdown which will inevitably last for at least 12-18 months. This will tank the world's economy like never before. It will demise many industries (hospitality, aviation, travel, holiday, insurance, maybe even healthcare?, etc.) and many jobs might be lost forever. At the end of the pandemic one might be left significantly worse off than if they would have just caught the virus and moved on with life. Will we cause more harm through action than inaction?
2. Blessing in disguise?
On the contrary a complete shutdown of the world is exactly what we needed in order to stop further global warming. The reduction of travel and lots of other things might have the largest impact on global warming which we've ever had. It's as if nature forced us into action because we were incapable of acting ourselves. Maybe the demise of one generations' economy is a worthwhile trade-off for saving our planet for future genrations?
3. Is nature exposing our bluff?
On a philosophical level one might say that the better we become at cheating nature (as in keeping dead people alive) and the more we get (over-)populated with an ever aging population, the more likely it is that a rather harmless pandemic like COVID-19 will have a significant impact and be able to wipe out large numbers of people in absolute terms.
One day we will reach such a large number of people with such severe health conditions that even the slightest cold could kill hundreds of thousands of humans and at some point we ought to ask ourselves is COVID-19 already that point or not? Is it ethical to force a 20 year old healthy human into a 18 month lockdown (prison) in order to save a 85 year old person who was able to enjoy their entire life and now is already on the brink of death anyway?
What are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> 1\. I don't see how this would "demise" industries long term. Maybe flight and travel will take a hit? Big whoop, maybe they should have had a contingency plan for stuff like this? Travel is kind of to blame for this epidemic, so its only fair that these companies gets a dose of karma. There is something wrong in this world when people can only get a sense of fulfillment if they travel all over the world, its just a decadent, polluting form of escapism.

2\. Im sure this won't stop global warming long term, humanity will be back to being good little wage slave consumers in no time.

3\. Your reasoning is build on fallacies. Not only 85 year olds are affected by this outbreak of SARS. Even healthy young adults can get ARDS like conditions that will seriously affect quality of life and age.</comment>


AI based personal assistan - <AUTHOR> https://inbot.io <comment><AUTHOR> Demo on their site seems quite promising, have anybody tried this?

<comment><USER2> I once played around with it, seemed pretty cool indeed. But i guess it can still do much better when they have more data for training.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is Google+ a good platform for a brand page or is it only Facebook now? - <AUTHOR> So we are in the middle of creating social accounts for our product and have created both facebook and google+ brand/product pages. But is seems like google+ is sooo far behind facebook in terms of API, apps and other tools. This got us wondering if Google+ is worth the trouble? Is it still worth using time on a brand page on Google+ or is it only Facebook now (or others)? <comment><USER2> I have been a Google+ user consistently since 2011, and over the past year in particular, activity has massively dropped off. I think Google+ is finally running out of steam, after many years of ghost town jokes.

Used to be there was a decent point in G+ for brands being integrated with Google Maps/My Business, etc. but Google's moved heavily towards removing G+ integration with most of their products, and that perk doesn't really hold true anymore.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, what we see is that it seems to be very focused on groups and not so much brands. The only real advantage we see is that it should help SEO on our website, but not much more.</comment></comment>


Yahoo spurns Microsoft again as blood boils - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25658023/

<comment><USER2> What's that you say? You want to buy the crown jewel of our business? But not for cash? And the rest of our company gets turned over to a man with no experience running Internet businesses?

We'll get right on that.

</comment><comment><USER3> At this point, the only choice Yahoo's board has is "merger" or hostile takeover. They might as well flip a coin. 'Cos none of them are walking away from this unscathed either way.

</comment><comment><USER4> Since the last round, Microsoft has acquired Powerset, whilst Yahoo has lost top execs and done an ad deal with Google. Microsoft looks in a stronger position this time around.

</comment><comment><USER5> yeah offering 1b when they can make 800mm with goog and not lose ownership is stupid. i think if msft offered the whole deal again at 32 it would have to be accepted though</comment>


From the Macbook Pro to the Dell XPS. Arch Linux for Creative Pro Users - <AUTHOR> http://www.akitaonrails.com/2017/01/31/from-the-macbook-pro-to-the-dell-xps-arch-linux-for-creative-pro-users <comment><USER2> Awesome! Thank you for pointing out some good open-source alternative apps for 3d, video and photography!</comment>


Recruit Holdings launched its online recruitment site for new graduates - <AUTHOR> http://qiita.com/gonshi_com/items/602c3b6c34d4a42c2e18

<comment><AUTHOR> This site has full-graphic experience with WebGL. Here's how they built the website for all devices including lower spec ones.</comment>


Why was an Indian man held for sending a tweet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-20202275

<comment><USER2> This story leaves me feeling helpless. What can I, living in the United States, do to change this statement:

      In reality, [Section 66A of the IT Act of 2000] is more often used by
      the state as a weapon against dissent. In each such case, police action
      has been swift and harsh.

I'd love it if someone would comment, or better, write a blog posting with a list of actionable steps that I can take to improve things.

<comment><USER3> Whilst a laudable sentiment, you might be better off putting your energy into ensuring a similar law is never passed in the US.

We have have a very similar law in the UK, Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, and I'm sure it won't be long before something similar is proposed in the US after the 'innocence of muslims' debacle / tragedy (which is exactly the kind of thing that the UK law was brought in for, but has been similarly abused by the authorities).

We also have rather interesting laws surrounding libel in the UK... India seems to be a bit more sane on that front at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The same thing happened here in Bolivia.

Samuel Doria Medina, tweeted that President Evo Morales had sex with a minor (17 years old) and she was pregnant. The following day the mother of the minor (a political person of power in Evo's cabinet) files for jail time among other things.

This was about two months ago and to be honest, media died down on it, and I have no idea what happened to the process. Was she in fact pregnant? Was the president in fact involved sexually with a minor? Lots of questions, no answers.

<comment> guard-of-terra 17 years old is not a minor. And you don't tweet about other peoples' sexual (or reproductive indeed) lives. If person C tweets about the sexual life of B and A, then C is a bad person. They should not have done it.

P. S. I live on another side of the planet.

<comment><USER5> Every society sets different ages for when sexual activity is acceptable. You may not agree that a 17 year old is a minor, but it isn't your decision.

I would recommend you do not go to Bolivia, have sex with a 17 year old, and try to argue that a 17 year old isn't _really_ a minor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe the headline should be "Why were 2 men arrested and convicted for tweeting in the UK?"

<comment><USER7> Actually, it was for creating a Facebook event. Arguably even more private.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/16/facebook-riot- calls...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/16/facebook-riot-calls-men- jailed)

<comment><USER6> That's a different case. Details for the Tweets below:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9431677/Twitte...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9431677/Twitter- joke-trial-conviction-quashed-in-High-Court.html)

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/09/matthew-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/09/matthew- woods-joking-april-jones-facebook-sickipedia)

<comment><USER8> My bad, worth a mention though.

This one's a little more outrageous :|

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunate, but real state of affairs in the so called "India Shining" story! Corruption is ingrained in public and private offices. And my biggest concern is that it's become a way of life and people are indifferent to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This indifference is but forced. It seems that here, the "authorities" need to be appeased to get them do the job they're paid for. If you cannot appease, you are screwed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Things like this one happened several times in Bangladesh. The government imprisoned several people over time for posting statuses against the prime minister on Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER11> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index>

</comment><comment><USER12> STUPID HUMANS!

</comment><comment><USER13> because India is a corrupt mafia run state?

<comment><USER14> Corrupt, yes. Mafia-run, no. There are limits to the insults we will take.

<comment><USER14> Come to think of it, implying that some of our politicians were smart enough to be mafia would be highly insulting to the mafia.

Some are wannabe mafia, though. They're the ones we try to avoid. The others are corrupt, but often their motives are fairly aligned with public interest. For instance, they take cuts on all infrastructure projects, so our infrastructure tends to improve at a fairly good pace - though obviously not as fast as it theoretically could.

<comment><USER15> "so our infrastructure tends to improve at a fairly good pace"... not quiet. The politicians get HUGE kick backs from the contracts. Where does the money come from? By sourcing cheap sub-standard materials. This leads to shit infrastructure with everything crumbling within couple years of construction. I have seen pictures of N. Korea and they seem to have better infrastructure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alpha Geek - <AUTHOR> http://economist.com/node/18750658

<comment><USER2> I came across Scott Aaronson's review of NKS a few days ago and loved it: <http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0206089>.

I would recommend reading that to anyone who is also looking at Wolfram's work.

<comment><USER3> My theory is that that review, and Shalizi's, are as popular as they are because nothing is more convenient than learning one doesn't have to actually do the work of considering a (set of) new ideas and perspectives.

<comment><USER2> Well, I wrote my thesis about cellular automata, and I promise I've considered Wolfram's set of ideas and perspectives. So while I can't prove anything about the popularity of Aaronson's review in general, your hypothesis is demonstrably false in at least n=1 instance.

That being said, I took a look at your website and GitHub (not to mention your employer, Wolfram Research) and it's obvious you know what you're talking about - I don't think you should be being downvoted as heavily in this thread as you are. Plus you made a Futurama reference, so you're obviously a cool dude.

My point is, let's all avoid implying that people who don't agree with us aren't qualified to discuss this subject. I think both of us are, and Wolfram is a pretty polarizing subject - one that all sides need to keep civil about sometimes.

<comment><USER3> And you did Gazehawk! Pretty cool stuff, I was telling Stephen about that a few weeks ago.

But, let me say, you're right. But I do think its _part_ of their popularity. Also the fact that they're both very entertaining and erudite writers. And sure, there _are_ plenty of valid criticisms, and they make them.

Off to read your thesis..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems wrong to frame the problem as "mathematics vs. cellular automata". The old kind of science (OKS?) is not as much about mathematics as it is about the scientific method of verification by experimentation.

If you want to setup a new kind of science, you have to devise a new verification method that is not experimentation-based. If you think you can go without experimentation altogether then it's not science at all (cf. pre- Copernic philosophical ramblings, _à la_ Descartes).

It seems what Wolfram does with "NKS" is build new things; it builds those things by "finding them in the computational universe" (a universe that its automata explore).

Creating new ringtones is fine, funny and (moderately) interesting, but it's NOT science — not because ringtones are trivial, but because there is no concept of right or wrong in the ringtone universe. You cannot invalidate a melody.

Laws of nature expressed in mathematical formulas are verified everyday; if you want to demonstrate that nature is in fact made of cellular automata gone wild, you have to actually recreate nature (or parts of it) and show that it's indistinguishable from the real thing.

Although I don't know much about anything and haven't read NKS, I don't see any claims of this sort coming from Mr. Wolfram; I certainly didn't see it mentioned in the article.

</comment><comment><USER5> The value of someone doing something different, from a different perspective, is huge. They don't have to be right or successful to have a lasting impact on society.

It doesn't matter the scale, challenging the establishment is difficult and uncommon.

</comment><comment><USER6> In the article, Dr. Wolfram claims that computer programs, not mathematics, is the best way to model the universe. However, hasn't Lambda Calculus (and therefore functional programming) shown that the two are the same?

<comment><USER7> Well, Wolfram's thesis is that analytical representation is not the correct frame for modeling the world, and algorithmic/procedural representation (e.g. simulation) is the correct method.

This isn't particularly novel, but it is a key insight of computer science. I just don't think that Wolfram deserves credit for it.

Edit for clarification: The key insight being that you can model things algorithmically. Whether it's "correct" or not is a different matter. But this type of modeling is different from analytical modeling.

<comment><USER3> No, this is a mischaracterization of what Wolfram is saying. Wolfram says: why consider computer programs to be valuable as mere _approximations_ to the underlying analytic models, when you can consider computer programs _themselves_ to be an entirely new and unexplored land of complex and interesting models.

Traditional computer science considers computer programs to be merely a means to an end.

A quite delicious irony is given by the example of Naiver Stokes equations. They are themselves an idealization of the flow of fluids composed of discrete particles. Because of our obsession with continuous models, we mostly resort to laboriously solving them numerically -- but it turns out that simple lattice gas cellular automaton models are actually 1) fairly accurate 2) much more computationally efficient, and 3) more suggestive of the underlying microscale physics.

To step back a bit, a helpful analogy would be that simple computations are the 21st century equivalent of differential equations, which were studied rigorously in their own right starting in the 18th century, often prior to their application to concrete problems.

Whether this intuition will turn out to be prescient, or whether it will fizzle out, is another question.

<comment><USER7> That doesn't make sense in the context of my comment, and besides, i don't think that's true.

If you take the Turing Test to it's logical conclusion, a program that is indistinguishable from a human intelligence _is_ a human intelligence. There's no means to some other end. The program _is_ the intelligence.

This is also something that Turing came up with in the 40s & 50s. Not exactly novel.

<comment><USER3> Uh... well, I'm getting Wolfram's take right. So you don't think my _analogy_ is true? It's just an analogy.

But it's clear that it has methodological implications for how one does science:

For example, if you think computers are just a way to simulate continuous systems, it would not occur to you to sample random programs and see what they do. It would not occur to you to enumerate simple programs. And you wouldn't think that it is very interesting that such and such a simple program can do such a such a computation.

If you did, it would. And if you were ambitious enough, you would actually try _hunting_ for the program that computes the universe, as Wolfram has been doing on a cluster in his basement (I love this tidbit) for some years now: [http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html)

<comment><USER7> No, you're making the assertion first, that everyone positively asserts that the universe is continuous, and second that computer scientists see algorithmic systems as being simulations of analytical systems.

The first i am agnostic to (although i do like the feynman quote at the top of <http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0206089v2> which was linked to above), and the second is most certainly false, as i have indicated above.

The evidence in NKS to support wolfram's assertion that the universe is a simple program is circumstantial at _best_ , and so his windmill tilting quests for the program that is the universe seems quixotic at best, and arrogantly foolhardy at worst.

Analytical modeling, algorithmic modeling, or whatever other model someone wants to use to represent reality are models until you can prove them to actually be fundamentally connected with the manner in which reality functions.

<comment><USER3> Re: NKS theory of physics. You're right, it's far from convincing. But it is intriguing speculation, and I think he adequately hedges it as such. Some fascinating partial results are that the natural restriction he introduces for graph automata to be deterministic are enough to induce special and general relativity. That's pretty eery!

Re models: now we're getting into epistemology. I don't think the aim you ascribe to scientists to "prove them (models) to actually be fundamentally connected with the manner in which reality functions" has much meaning when one is talking about, say, quantum field theory. How do I connect the mathematics of QFT with what is "really going on"? You can't. It just is.

<comment><USER8> > "Some fascinating partial results are that the natural restriction he > introduces for graph automata to be deterministic are enough to induce > special and general relativity. That's pretty eery!"

That sounds remarkable indeed; can you point to an online reference that has more info on this? thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> always reminds me of the most rated comment his book got on amazon...

<comment><USER10> [http://www.amazon.com/review/RUGSCP3XBNBUV/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm...](http://www.amazon.com/review/RUGSCP3XBNBUV/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1579550088&nodeID=283155&tag=&linkCode=)

<comment><USER3> There seems to be a strong inverse correlation between claims of having read the book and actually having read the book. I haven't read the whole thing, but I've read enough to know that this particular Zuse-head is bullshitting.

I'll list just a couple of errors that would be impossible to make if one had read even _most_ of the book. Wolfram often pedantically reiterates the same points, so keep in mind that these things are hard to miss:

1) "The Principle of Computational Equivalence" does not state that all-is- computation. It states that whatever 'objective' means we use to quantify computational complexity, we will discover that all computations are either trivial or of equal complexity. I.e. computational complexity (where this is crucially left undefined) "saturates" very quickly in the world of natural computations, no matter how you decide to measure complexity.

2) SW's discovery of universality among the simplest CAs is not a triviality, because unlike what this guy says, the dovetailer is _not_ a simple program -- it is explicitly set up to be universal (in a manner). Its Turing machine rule number is probably in the trillions or higher. Whereas the surprise is that even amongst the very simplest programs, universality is easy to find.

To use an analogy, string theorists would _cry with joy_ if it turned out that there was some small number of "simplest natural string theories" and one of them gave us all the known particles of the Standard Model.

3) Asymptotically optimal program search, in practice, isn't the way you would hunt for universes, and it is relatively easy to see why (TL;DR for now). Schmidhuber's academic work is of no practical relevance to the chapter on physics, although its cool from a math geek perspective. Same with maximally rational agents.

And the main idea here is just Occam's razor, not some arcane formulation of maximum predictive accuracy under a strange universal prior of symbol sequences, as cool as that sounds.

4) Wolfram _doesn't_ propose the universe is a discrete CA, although everyone seems to think this. He makes all the obvious points about why it is unlikely to be so, and goes on to propose a graph automata model as being a suitable generalization of space and time.

So yeah, don't trust every well written review you read on Amazon.

As for not referencing people enough, I have sympathy with this criticism. On the other hand, as the book delves into a million and one different domains, the inquisitive reader would get extremely bogged down if he were to descend into the jargon of each individual field. And you _would_ need to descend into jargon to say anything other than light summarizations of what has come before.

But these light summarizations _do_ exist, in the extensive notes. In fact they're often not so light -- for example there is quite an interesting discussion of why the Pressburger arithmetic and the theory of intermediate degrees isn't a contradiction of the principle of computational equivalence.

Many times when one first thinks that Wolfram is being simplistic or naive, it turns out that he's gone into a lot more depth in the notes (I assume to avoid getting bogged down in the main text).

He really does know his shit.

Disclosure: I work on Wolfram|Alpha. But I have a brain, and I can think for myse.... ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD

<comment><USER11> It would have been nice if you had listed that disclosure first, so I could have skipped over your comment entirely.

<comment><USER12> ad hominem much?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the ideas he talks about in NKS. But much like the problem I have with the US software patent system, most/all of what's in it thats good is not novel, and what's novel is not necessarily good. I too, and I'm sure many others, independently had notions about how nature works more like a process of steps, with patterns, rather than a set of static equations, and that therefore computer programs may be better at modeling them. And that organic lifeforms, in particular, may in a sense just be computer programs, except ones running on natural-made parts rather than man-made ones.

Wolfram just has an arrogant position that he somehow brought them down from the mountain top for us mere mortals to consume. He didn't. He isn't. Smart man? Yes. Good ideas? Yes. Novel? No.

</comment><comment><USER14> Did Wolfram ever get around to giving credit to Zuse and Fredkin?

[http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~wclark/ANKOS_zuse_fredkin_thesis.h...](http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~wclark/ANKOS_zuse_fredkin_thesis.html)

<comment><USER12> The claim that 1) the universe is a computer, and 2) the subclaim that it is a cellular automaton are NOT the primary claims of the book. 2) is explicitly argued against even.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "We live in a period when technology looks very organised. But that's a fluke, a feature of the history of engineering that reflects what we've learned to build. When we start just going out into the computational universe and finding stuff that works, it's all going to look a lot more bizarrely random."

This parallels my understanding of how humans will perceive the post- singularity world.

</comment><comment><USER16> History isn't easily convinced.</comment>


Rethinking CSS Grids - <AUTHOR> http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/rethinking-css-grids

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or are the examples in the middle using 'md' and 'fr' wrong?

If they're not wrong, why are they so bloody confusing?

Edit: It's been fixed now. The final example had 2md, 1fr, 1md originally, instead of the 3md, 1fr, 2md that it has now.

<comment><USER3> The 'fr' unit is "fraction of available space" and comes from the w3c proposal. I believe the second example is incorrect in that the 1fr column should be 7md wide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps a bit OT of TFA, but on the general topic: Were HTML 'tables' so widely and badly used and were they so corrupted as a term that the W3C had to create 'grids'? Is this kind of just an upgrade to tables?: <http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-grid-align/>

How is a grid different than a table? I find it odd that that each element in the grid is explicitly positioned (e.g. #score { grid-column: 1; grid-row: 3 } ).

It seems as though we've been round and round on this topic and I feel as though we're going to go round again some more when we could be improving the core elements (at the risk of some breakage).

EDIT: some answers to my questions here: [http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/css/css3-preview-tables- an...](http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/css/css3-preview-tables-and- grids.html)

EDIT2: looks as though multiple client sizes are a driver.

<comment><USER5> Grids and tables are worlds apart. Grids live in CSS, tables live in HTML. If you don't care about IE<8 you can also use display: table-(row, cell) for positioning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is so much thought, and so many concerns, that go into CSS modules that I'm a little disappointed the article doesn't go into more detail about the problems it is looking to solve.

A fundamental starting point seems to be that CSS grids should match the mental model and terminology of "designers" rather than "developers". It would be good to have a thorough explanation of _why_ that may or may not be an improvement. How would added abstraction effect development? How would the functionality of the existing CSS Grid Layout proposal be mapped to, or improved, with an alternative syntax?

Hopefully the ideas in the article have already been shared with the community of people working on CSS modules. It would be good for the concerns and approaches of various professions to be exchanged in a constructive fashion so that any future CSS modules are as good as can be.

<comment><USER3> Graphic Design Grids (GDG) are about creating a unified layout with a rigid horizontal and vertical rhythm. The CSS Grid Layout (CSSG), on the other hand, are more about creating a flexible 2d layout. You can make CSSG do the same thing as GDG (I think using grid-column-sizing and grid-row-sizing and then using either grid-template or grid-*-span) but it's not necessarily obvious.

This is a request for the ability to define an arbitrary unit of measure with gutters called a module and be able to use it as part of CSSG. I like this and have experimented with as part of sass/stylus grid systems.

Most of the rest is a complaint about terminology and I get slightly confused from there. IMO the `grid-x-count` property serves no purpose. Simply using `width` with and md unit value or an appropriate grid sizing definition would serve the same purpose. I'm also not sure how columns and fields interact. I think it's the same as `grid-columns` and `grid-rows` from the CSSG proposal and this is an extended part of his complaint that the CSSG terminology doesn't match up with GDG terminology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here is a proposal for people that wish to suggest good ways of doing layout, that will make it at least somewhat possible that someone might take you serious:

DO NOT USE GRAY TEXT ON A WHITE BACKGROUND.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think this has already been solved by tools like <http://grids.heroku.com/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Doesn't this make resizing rows and columns horrible? Why not just pretend your grid-module is 1x1 and use flexible-box layout?

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't understand the fuss about grids, well its graphic design lesson 1.

Plus I would never use a framework for generating CSS.

<comment><USER11> _I don't understand the fuss about grids, well its graphic design lesson 1._

The fuss about grids is that they make sense on the web and there's no actual, proper, standard way to create and use them yet. Sure, if you know your way around CSS you can effectively create a grid-system for a site (and with media-queries you can make it flexible enough to support multiple devices), but the fact that it isn't a standard (despite being, as you said, _graphic design lesson 1_ ) means there's lots of work to do.

So it isn't really about making a fuss (although for some people talking about grids is indeed still in-fashion). It's about working towards making/using grids on the web easy for everyone and not just those of us know know the inner workings of the box-model, DOM and CSS.

We'd still be riding horses if Ford didn't make a "fuss about cars".

<comment><USER11> (Please forgive this slight vent/derail, but HN is becoming a strange place when I get downvoted for voicing my opinion in a honest and respectful way. Heck, I said absolutely nothing that can be construed as wrong. I'd love to know why it happened - different opinions? If so, add them to the discussion, don't be the silent guy getting away with downvoting other people's posts because they differ from your own point of view.)

<comment><USER2> Yes it is. You get downvoted here if someone doesn't like your post for any reason whatsoever.

And now that nobody can see any numbers, they can't tell if you've gotten massively upvoted or not, either. In the past, I'm sure they'd have gone 'meh, no votes, don't worry about it' but now they can't/won't take that attitude simply because they don't know. So they downvote. It doesn't cost them anything and they feel better for having tried to silence an opinion or fact they don't like.

Now, I'll be downvoted for being off-topic, and that's a whole 'nother story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> this page crashes the stock android 2.2 browser every single time.</comment>