Economic Mobility Requires the Nearly Impossible - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/economic-inequality/524610/?single_page=true <comment><USER3> This is where I stopped reading:

 _He writes that the upper class of FTE workers, who make up just one-fifth of the population, has strategically pushed for policies—such as relatively low minimum wages and business-friendly deregulation—to bolster the economic success of some groups and not others, largely along racial lines._

The idea that raising the top marginal tax rates 3-5% or raising the minimum wage 4 or 5 bucks will combat inequality is laughable.

The cognitive dissonance between the cause of class (and the related race) inequality and the policies suggested to combat it never fail to blow my mind.

Slavery was a legal, government subsidized industry. The Jim Crow south that systematically stripped the black community of their property rights was built on a system of state and federal laws. The highly regulated, highly subsidized mortgage loan industry had reams of racially divisive rules that barred the black community from building generational wealth during the most important period of general economic prosperity in perhaps the history of the world following WWII.

American governments spent 200 years systematically robbing various ethnic groups of their rights, but bullshit pieces like this blame it on affluent white people that vote for candidates that have ideological problems with the minimum wage.

Gimme a break.

The cause of economic inequality is several generations of government disrespect of individual property rights and monetary policy that slants competition toward those that can pool assets - banks.

<comment><USER4> I think people don't fully appreciate the erosive power of monetary policy.

<comment><USER5> Please - Look up the monetists, who proposed 20% overnight lending rates to combat erosion (inflation/stagflation) back in the 1980s. The erosion we are experiencing is a brand of Monetary policy called Keynesianism - being ultra low interest rates to simulate growth - on the theory that growth would offset inflation; it did, but only - it appears - because wealth growth concentrated instead of disseminated. We are at the end game of Keynesianism, where we have to force a currency change to offset the dilution resulting from negative interest rates.

That was a mouthful - point being - if this interests you, it's probably worth checking out monetists; they predicted our current spectre of stagflation.

Which is all to say - monetary policy is a useful tool, a good rope - <USER2> pulling in inflation by raising the interest rate - but pushing a rope for stimulating it. Not all monetary policy is negative; the overnight lending rate was always intended to operate with a premium to punish poor lenders and reward good ones, and stimulate the economy by lowering lending burdens in times of stress, but monetary policy was never intended to replace fiscal and regulatory burden sharing between civilizations aims and capital investments. But that's what it's become - all capital investments are now passed off, in failure, to ultra low interest rates or bail outs, which is skewing the market.

<comment><USER4> Even the monetists have a crazy appeal to authority that somehow an expert should "track the growth of the economy" (for some definition of "growth" and for some definition of "economy") and match inflation. All this does is Rob from the poor the social benefits of technological price deflation to chase this mythical good of "stability". Stability just means keeping the rich rich.

Ultimately even self proclaimed monetist Alan Greenspan couldn't keep his hands off the dials and creatively interpreted economic growth to mean something that was nonsensical to anyone except the investment class.

<comment><USER5> I'm not disagreeing on the point but you've failed to connect "track" to "rob".

Also, Greenspan was clearly a Keynesian - and, IMO, rather/depressingly naive or proud, from his bio. Smart guy, horse blinders.

<comment><USER4> well inflation generally robs the poor (and everyone else[0]) of the value of their money. By rob, I mean 'nonconsensually alter in the negative direction relative to the natural state'. Technology is supposed to be the 'tide that lifts all boats'. What few people understand is that the primary mechanism by which it does this is by lower prices, because that doesn't fit the narrative of "deflation is bad for poor people" (it's not).

I suppose it's a bit loose to say that the poor are entitled to ameliorative effects of technology - but they are entitled to not be cheated by the government, and if they weren't cheated by the government then they would be enjoying a higher quality of life from lower prices.

Yes, obviously Greenspan acted as a Keynesian, but he was trained and continues to believe himself a monetarist. That's the point. Monetarism still believes in the seductive idea that stability can be achieved by fiddling with the money supply - they just would prefer to relegate it to some computer program or something algorithmic, but that STILL encodes the normative biases of the individuals who choose the criteria for the algorithms. So even if you could have a 'top man' in place that is so virtuous or autistic as to keep his hands off the dials during crises, it would STILL screw the poor. Point being: There's no categorical difference between a Keynesian and a Monetarist, just a matter of degree of recklessness.

[0] but other people have means to protect themselves from inflation, mostly investments which yield higher than inflation. Really rich people benefit greatly from leveraged financial instruments, which are tougher in a deflationary regime. In other words, via inflation we are stealing from the poor to make it easier for the wealthy to get really wealthy, and it seems the recurring pattern when society gets overleveraged, the solution is to bail out the really wealthy - socializing the pain of risk.

<comment><USER5> > Monetarism still believes in the seductive idea that stability can be > achieved by fiddling with the money supply

I think you've hit the nail on the head. This is my belief as well; while it is apparent that monetary policy can be useful, the old adage goes "if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail".

It appears that instead of doing the correct (and politically difficult) thing from a fiscal, tax, and policy perspective, we just keep lowering the interest rates and waiting for the next upswing.

Which where the Chilean experiment[1] with apolitical fiscal policies will be interesting to observe. I've not seen much on it since, but it'll certainly be tested in the not too distant future.

[1] [http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/10/fiscal-p...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/10/fiscal- policy-0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm pushing 40 and side with the article. It takes about 20 years of paying one's dues to really understand how broken the entire system is. How much effort year after year it takes to tread water, to climb slower than one is capable of, to get pushed back by debt and doing what others tell us. That's the part I'd specifically like to do away with - the rat race. I'm older, more broken today, but no more capable than I was when I was 20. I mostly see the wasted time and how others happened to land on the lucky side of things. Now that I have some semblance of stability in my life, I'd prefer to give it all away if it allowed others to self-actualize earlier. I'm wondering if this is something one either groks or doesn't, and how to communicate with people who only talk but don't listen.

</comment><comment><USER7> One solution that isn't mentioned is improving our voting process. U.S. ranks something like 30th in voter turnout. Given that you're more likely to vote if you're well-educated/higher income, white and older means many of the disenfranchised referred to in this article aren't represented in govt.

</comment><comment><USER8> The view expressed in the article is not surprising when reading two other articles (see below) that appeared not long ago here in HN, one of which was flagged (I tend to suspect that these theses hit a little too close to home for some and hence the immediate dismissal).

[1] America is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People [https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america- is-r...](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is- regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14158310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14158310)

[2] Why Poverty Is Like a Disease [http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/why-poverty-is- like-...](http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/why-poverty-is-like-a- disease) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14201822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14201822)

</comment><comment><USER4> > Many cities, which house a disproportionate portion of the black (and > increasingly, Latino) population, lack adequate funding for schools.

This is quizzical. Most cities spend more money per pupil than suburbs and rural areas; which suggests that poor education in urban areas is a function of institutional corruption and not lack of funding.

<comment><USER9> > This is quizzical

I think you might mean "This is questionable". Quizzical is an adjective applied to people's expressions or behavior, implying that they are puzzled, confused, or questioning. It is not an appropriate word for suggesting that an argument is dubious.

[Assume a standard grammar Nazi mea culpa here, if language corrections are annoying to you.]

<comment><USER10> i read gp as using quizzical as a verb meaning the sentence induced in thæm 'expressions or behavior, implying that they are puzzled, confused, or questioning.'

[Assume a standard grammar allied powers mea culpa here, if language corrections are annoying to you.]

<comment><USER9> > i

> thæm

I suspect the so-called Allied powers are trying to instigate a war, but we will not be provoked.

> i read gp as using quizzical as a verb

That reading of gp's _intent_ , while plausible, still involves an in-apt _usage of the word_. At best, you might say "This makes me quizzical", but that would still be an awkward way to express your doubts about the validity of the argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > address systemic racism by reviving the spirit of the Second Reconstruction > of the 1960s and 1970s

I think we're going to need more concrete recommendations than that.

<comment><USER12> We would be better off going back to the antitrust monopoly busting of the initial 1930s new deal anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> First listed reason for inequality in America according to The Atlantic: Slavery. Good to know what political slant they bring to the table.

<comment><USER14> I really think these articles are important to read. I still think about and reference Ta-nehisi Coats' article "the case for reparations" [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the- cas...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for- reparations/361631/)

He makes a strong point.

Now, I'm a white guy, my father owned a small business after selling his scanning electron microscope company to a bigger player. He paid for my University education outright including rent. I had to work for any spending money I wanted, but I basically had a free ride into my current programming job.

A poor black kid living in a high-violent-crime area who is the child of a minimum-wage-working single mother, is not going to have the same chances.

If he gets caught underage by cops with a six pack of beers or a jar of mixed hard-alchohol stolen from a liquor cabinet, or good forbid enough marijuana for a joint, he's not going to be able to rely on his parents' to hire the lawyer to get those charges removed.

This is (according to this article and others) traceable in a large part back to slavery. But it also comes from gererational poverty. Lack of parental resources leading to malnutrition, which leads to inattention in school, parental long hours at work leads to a lack of attention and corrective feedback. Or the parents are addicted to something and modelling bad behavior to begin with.

The child in these cases _starts_ innocent and realistically has an infantessemal chance of success.

The solution is for government programs to tax me and people like me to provide simple things that can help break the cycle of poverty.

Free breakfast and lunch for kids, raise minimum wage, etc...

The Palmer Luckey's of the world have to catch on to just how fucking privileged they are as middle class white kids.

These articles don't deserve to be rejected outright under "bias" they're based on real solid research.

<comment><USER15> > The solution is for government programs to tax me and people like me to > provide simple things that can help break the cycle of poverty.

It'd be even better to end institutionalized racism, institute a mass pardon program, and pay reparations to the victims of Nixon's stupid escalation of the war on plants:

      At the time [1994], I was writing a book
      about the politics of drug prohibition. I
      started to ask Ehrlichman a series of
      earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently
      waved away. "You want to know what this was
      really all about?" he asked with the
      bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace
      and a stretch in federal prison, had little
      left to protect. "The Nixon campaign in 1968,
      and the Nixon White House after that, had two
      enemies: the antiwar left and black people.
      You understand what I'm saying? We knew we
      couldn't make it illegal to be either against
      the war or black, but by getting the public
      to associate the hippies with marijuana and
      blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing
      both heavily, we could disrupt those
      communities. We could arrest their leaders,
      raid their homes, break up their meetings,
      and vilify them night after night on the
      evening news. Did we know we were lying about
      the drugs? Of course we did."

\- Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs, [http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it- all/](http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/) [https://web- beta.archive.org/web/20160323102916/http://harpe...](https://web- beta.archive.org/web/20160323102916/http://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize- it-all/)

edit: John Taylor Gatto [1] points out in one of his books that black families were pretty stable post-civil-war, until the governments started sending black men to prison for teh ganja. Children do better when they have a father around.

[1] [https://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com/](https://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com/)

<comment><USER14> I miss-wrote. It sounded like I thought there was ONE solution required. Clearly you have a point and there is far more to the story and there isn't any reason I can think of why you wouldn't be able to do both of these and more.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chinese guy installs Windows 98 on iPhone6 Plus - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbbs.feng.com%2Fread-htm-tid-8563343.html&edit-text=&act=url

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the original link - [http://bbs.feng.com/read-htm- tid-8563343.html](http://bbs.feng.com/read-htm-tid-8563343.html)</comment>


My First Open Source Project – Feedback Please? - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/trubanews/truba <comment><USER2> Use prefix Show HN: for this kind of posts and you'll be get your feedback :)</comment>


How a Tech Non-Profit Became the Hottest Ticket in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2012/06/khan-academy <comment><USER2> The formula is:

1\. Take a hard, tough-nut-to-crack problem, like making education not suck.

2\. Take something that's traditionally been behing high-priced walled gardens (ie universities) and offer it online for cheap or free.

3\. Put an extremely intelligent, visionary man at the head of it all.

This isn't Pandora for cats. This is making quality education more widely available and making the process to do so transparent and honest. Bravo, Khan.

<comment><AUTHOR> Paying a competitive salary (like Khan does) also helps!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What I find weird is that there is no mention of Khan Academy hiring any educators. Even if your teaching methods are non-traditional, you still probably need someone with traditional teaching experience to tell you whether the lessons will actually be effective.

<comment><USER4> Hi zhemao, thanks for the comment! I'm a Khan Academy developer. I just wanted to add that we _do_ hire educators. Among them are Beth and Steven who are our in-resident art history faculty (<http://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team>). We also have a dedicated School Implementations team (<http://ka- implementations.tumblr.com/>) working directly with schools to understand how Khan Academy can be integrated in classrooms and to evaluate our performance against independent test results.

<comment><USER5> Thanks stchangg! I'm on Khan Academy's school implementations team and just wanted to add that Maureen, who is also on the school implementations team, is a former 6th grade teacher. This summer, we also have 2 experienced math teachers working with us to flesh out a significant amount of our math content: Chris Talone (teacher at Marlborough, a girls' school in LA, who taught 7 levels of math simultaneously with Khan Academy this past year) and Jesse Roe (teacher at Summit, a charter school in San Jose, who taught Algebra and Geometry to 9th graders with Khan Academy this past year). We're really grateful for their thoughtful contributions which are grounded in years of experience teaching math to lots of different types of students.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for the great work you're all doing at Khan Academy. Also, I'll take this opportunity to give a small suggestion :-)

I was wondering if you guys could make Mathematics more problem solving centric (see www.artofproblemsolving.com for an example approach. Also "The Art and Craft of Problem Solving" by Paul Zeitz and George Polya's "How to solve it")

Most of the Mathematics in school curriculum is just plug n' chug work at a slightly higher level. Students do not get any insights into how really good problem solvers solve tough problems. Mathematics competitions such as the regional and international olympiads give students an exposure to such type of problem solving, but this experience is limited to a narrow pool of students who through pure serendipity discovered how intellectually rewarding problem solving can be. Perhaps if training materials were more widely available, more students would be able to get a glimpse of Mathematical problem solving at a totally different level.

In a previous life, I used to tutor O-level and A-level students in Mathematics in Singapore. The transformation some of them had when exposed to say principles in Polya's "How to solve it" was _phenomenal_. All too often I wished I had access to more easily accessible training materials that I could give them (and that I myself could learn from!). I'm sure there are plenty of teachers in my position all over the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm thinking of starting a tech-nonprofit my self. How does it work in terms of fundraising? Are you raising donations instead of investment? And do you have to constantly seek donations since you don't really ever have the intention of making real revenue?

<comment><USER8> First, a disclaimer: I know next to nothing about non-profits. The fact that you know even less should give you a pause. If you're serious about this, do some (or even a lot of) research before asking the most basic questions.

A non-profit status is not about making revenue or not. It's a legal categorization of your company. So first, you need a company. Then you have to apply for a non-profit status with the government.

How do you apply for non-profit status? I don't know, you'll probably need to hire a lawyer specialized in non-profit registration to guide you through that process. It's also not a one-time thing: in order to maintain your non-profit status, you have to convince the government every year that you still are a non-profit.

You're confusing the means with the goal. You don't need non-profit to be benevolent. You can have crazy profits by day and spend those profits on benevolent activities by night. You can build wells in Ethiopia, send vaccines to Nigeria or any other thing that non-profits do without being a registered non-profit. You can think of non-profits as a way for rich people to do benevolent things (via donations) without spending time actually doing those things (i.e. rich person signs a check, a non-profit does the work of sending a malaria net to africa).

So why people register for non-profit status? First because it gives them a preferential treatment from government in terms of lower taxes (?), ability to fund-raise money that is tax-deductible for the donor etc. I'm sure few google searches will direct you to a much more extensive information.

Given preferential treatment why won't every company register as a non-profit? Because government doesn't give that treatment to just anybody. There is a checklist of things that a non-profit can and cannot do. If you're Locke, you won't like being a non-profit.

That partially answers your "fundraising vs. investment" question. I'm guessing that "investment" is not even on the table for non-profits due to government rules so they can either earn their money or do fundraising. If you think, however, that fundraising is easier than making money, then you're probably wrong, but that's a whole new topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Khan Academy is fantastic.

We need a charter school that uses it as the core of its content delivery for educating on the subjects covered as a test.

I would put my two kids in that school without question.

</comment><comment><USER10> These guys make a good argument that you can do just as much good or more by working a conventional job and donating money to nonprofits than by working for a nonprofit directly:

<http://vimeo.com/32787159>

<comment><USER11> (Current KA intern here.)

That video assumes that nonprofit jobs aren't high-paying, but that's not always the case. KA, for instance, pays competitively. If you can both have a high-paying career that enables you to donate while also using your skills to help advance causes you care about (especially if the skills in question are skills that many or most people don't have), then by the reasoning in the video, that's better than either option they present.

<comment><USER10> Makes sense.</comment></comment></comment>


Help look for Malaysia Air MH370 - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomnod.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I just realized how much dirt my screen has.

On a more serious note, isn't this awesome? This is what the Internet is all about.</comment>


Relational inductive biases, deep learning, and graph networks - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.01261 <comment><USER2> The code for this was recently released

[https://github.com/deepmind/graph_nets](https://github.com/deepmind/graph_nets)

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone here have industry applications of graph networks that they can talk about?</comment>


SAP announces new partnership with Apple - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/05/sap-announces-new-partnership-with-apple-to-expand-ios-in-the-enterprise/ <comment><USER2> I wonder what this will do to the strong ties between SAP and Microsoft.</comment>


Magic and Software Design (1993) - <AUTHOR> http://www.asktog.com/papers/magic.html <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the opening paragraphs from SICP ([https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full- text/book/book-Z-H-9.html#%_chap_1))

"We are about to study the idea of a computational process. Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes manipulate other abstract things called data. The evolution of a process is directed by a pattern of rules called a program. People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells.

A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform.

A computational process, in a correctly working computer, executes programs precisely and accurately. Thus, like the sorcerer's apprentice, novice programmers must learn to understand and to anticipate the consequences of their conjuring. Even small errors (usually called bugs or glitches) in programs can have complex and unanticipated consequences.

Fortunately, learning to program is considerably less dangerous than learning sorcery, because the spirits we deal with are conveniently contained in a secure way. Real-world programming, however, requires care, expertise, and wisdom. A small bug in a computer-aided design program, for example, can lead to the catastrophic collapse of an airplane or a dam or the self-destruction of an industrial robot."

</comment><comment><USER3> > Houdini's fondness for reading extended to magazines, too: after his famous > escape from inside a locked safe behind a screen, which took mere seconds, > he spent the next fifteen minutes back stage, idly reading a magazine, after > which he dotted himself with water and burst forth, looking properly sweaty > and exhausted

TurboTax famously does this. It has a few loading screens where it slowly 'calculates your best return'. It happens instantly, of course, but they spend about 10 seconds showing you loading bars so you think that whatever it's doing is difficult.

I'm a big fan of magic, and the main thing to take away from magic is this — none of us perceive 'reality'. Our minds create a simulation of the world based on very limited and error prone input. And if you can carefully control the sensory input if your spectators, you can control their reality.

The moment of the magic trick is often when the false reality you've created collapses — you've made them believe that you put a card in the middle of the deck, or that you've shuffled it, or that they had a free choice — and then you present them with incontrovertible evidence that they had not. That moment of inconsistency is what causes the perception of magic to happen — their mind moves the card from the center of the deck to the top in an instant in their internal reality, which is the only reality they've ever existed in.

So I guess when you're designing software, don't just think about how your software works, but also think carefully about the model of reality that your users are building. If you manipulate it carefully, you can seem to perform miracles.

Game designers, btw, I think already understand this — games are full of hacks and cheats that make you think there's a whole world or a mind behind what's happening to your character, when it's often quite simple behind the scenes — magician's choices in particular are quite popular in games — where you're presented with seemingly several options which all produce the same outcome.

<comment><USER4> One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.

Magic is consumed for entertainment. Applying the same techniques to more serious aspects of life is called "fraud", and the magician is called a "con artist".

What game developers do with their hacks and dirty tricks is building immersion for their make-believe worlds. The player that sits in front of a game does so voluntarily, fully aware that they're just _playing_ , that it's all entertainment. They can lower their defenses, because they know nothing will harm them.

What TurboTax - and other companies adopting similar UX patterns - does is straight up lying to people. Manipulating their perception of reality for their own economic gains. It's a malicious activity, and as such it should be shamed, not commended.

<comment><USER3> I don't think you should be deceitful in any meaningful way, but I don't think that making people wait a few seconds is anything more than showmanship.

<comment><USER4> There's no reason to do that in a non-entertainment app, unless you want to manipulate users for your own benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That was a quite interesting read; I hadn't heard that analogy before. It's a shame the formatting of the page really makes it difficult to engage with the content.

<comment><USER6> Formatted version for you:

[https://gundog.herokuapp.com/?gundog_url=https://www.asktog....](https://gundog.herokuapp.com/?gundog_url=https://www.asktog.com/papers/magic.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a couple of Tog's books (both are amazing) and used to read asktog for inspiration ... thanks for reminding me that I should be rereading his wisdom!

[https://amzn.to/2OZSKoj](https://amzn.to/2OZSKoj)

[https://amzn.to/2UXXGO9](https://amzn.to/2UXXGO9)

</comment><comment> david-cako social media is surveillance disguised as a top hat. :)</comment>


Real Time Search Engine - Bonush.com Launch's - <AUTHOR> http://www.bonush.com

<comment><USER2> Real Time _Twitter_ Search Engine

Needs both Javascript _and_ cookies in case you are wondering. Looks like just another useless site I will have forgotten in 15 minutes.

<comment><USER3> And what have you made today then ?

That's a terribly negative attitude to take towards someones work.</comment></comment>


Not just startups, sometimes banks fail (and take $2.5 billion assets with them) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/28/financial/f132006D09.DTL&feed=rss.business

<comment><AUTHOR> I was one of the lucky NetBank customers that suddenly found himself without a bank account this weekend. Thankfully, I'm not rich (yet) so the FDIC will ensure that I don't lose any money.

Potentially very painful lesson learned: Yes, banks can go out of business. FDIC only covers you up to $100,000 if this happens. When you get rich with your startup, keep your money stuffed in your mattress.</comment>


Our Early Ancestors Stalked Eight-Foot-Tall Sloths - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/elements/lab-notes/our-early-ancestors-stalked-terrifying-eight-foot-tall-sloths <comment><USER2> Alternatively it could be argued that increasing temperatures and abundance of food favored smaller animals (including our very low-tech ancestors), which pushed the proverbial _mammoths_ out of their ecological niche and into the oblivion.

The smaller the animal, the larger _skin_surface_ : _body_mass_ ratio, thus higher heat loss. The smaller the animal, the shorter the intervals between feedings it can tolerate. A large-bodied animal can go for longer period of time without food, especially if equipped with slow metabolism. In contrast, smaller body and faster metabolism requires frequent feeding, but also allows an animal to out-compete slower, larger ones both in food search, and by out- breeding them.

For any given body plan, an animal can only cover distance roughly relative to its body size; the smaller animal, the harder time it will have to find sufficient food on sparse, hardy cold-climate vegetation. On the other hand, once denser, warm climate vegetation takes hold, it allows smaller herbivores to live in higher density, and with higher breeding rate.

If I remember my biology right, the more an animal has specializations for particular environment or niche, the slower it will adapt to changed circumstances, both in body build, and in behavior & seasonal migration patterns.

Last but not least, a predator population requires certain density of prey to be sustainable. Once plant food becomes abundant due to warming up, and herbivore population grows, the population of predators can be established, and cull the large bodied animals unadapted to heavy predation.

<comment><USER3> The reason we believe that humans wiped out the mega-fauna is because the megafauna of North America all disappeared within a millennia of humans arriving from the land-bridge. It's possible they all coincidentally disappeared but unlikely.

<comment><USER4> I don't consider it unlikely at all considering that the human entrance into N. America coincides with huge climate change events - the Younger Dryas cold snap followed by the abrupt and quick Holocene warming event. It's even possible that the human migration was a result of looking for favorable conditions as climate change made their traditional hunting and foraging areas untenable.

<comment><USER5> #stoned_ape_theory

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> But, when did Sloths lose their energy? I have seen videos[1] of Sloths crawling/slithering slowly across a road, and cannot imagine they were ever a formidable or challenging target for (pre-)humans.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES32UFlPOUA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES32UFlPOUA)

<comment><USER7> I don't know the answer to your question but I wouldn't compare modern sloths to ancient ones. They're each adapted for completely different environments.

<comment><USER8> That's exactly the point of the question, though: when/how did sloths transition from "ancient" to "modern"? If ancient sloths were massive and formidable prey, as per the article, what happened? Were there always smaller and/or slower sloth varieties, and we just killed all the giant ones?

EDIT: As always, Wikipedia comes through [1]. There were species of different sizes, with tree sloths always being smaller than ground sloths [2], the giant of the article

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth#Evolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth#Evolution) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_sloth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_sloth)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is decent evidence recently on a possible astroid impact and massive "flood" overland tsunami from the Arctic. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis)

</comment><comment><USER10> We have a "great" history for killing all big animals. So sad. But I guess they'll grow back once we're gone

[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/in-a- few...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/in-a-few- centuries-cows-could-be-the-largest-land-animals-left/558323/)

<comment><USER11> We have been in competition with the animals on this planet since we arrived. Commercialization has certainly caused some avoidable consequences to animal populations, and I agree we ought to take care of the earth as well as we can, but I just can't get worked up on the animals' behalf over our ancient ancestors killing them and using basically every part of the carcass in an effort to survive.

<comment><USER12> Oh don't worry, no one is expecting you to get worked up about it. It's just that we all tend to have this attitude that we are the pinnacle of nature's great evolutionary process, when pretty much all evidence suggests we're a bunch of bastards to most life on Earth--and each other, incidentally. Go humans?

<comment><USER13> All creatures try their hardest to out-compete everything else. It's just that we're very good at it.

On the other hand, we're also pretty much the only chance for terrestic life to survive the end of our solar system.

<comment><USER12> > All creatures try their hardest to out-compete everything else.

When we take a wider look at life, this just isn't universal. If you look at ecosystems in very stable environments (e.g. caves), the ecosystem as a whole tends to come into balance over time, where species are not aggressively try to outcompete their competitors, but instead fit into comfortable little niches so that the system as a whole keeps functioning well. In fact, evolution works on the ecosystem scale as well, and systems with aggressive species tend to be very unstable and prone to crashes. In environments with constant change, then ecosystems are constantly changing and competition becomes more fierce, benefiting aggressive species. This is not always the case, so I don't think it's useful to assume that everything is trying to move as aggressively as possible; otherwise evolution would select against species with long gestation periods and tend towards shorter generations and faster growth.

<comment><USER14> There isn't any particular reason to privilege caves or other "stable" habitats. This is an incomplete understanding of them, anyway. Because caves are nutrient-poor, it is common that all animals there are extremely lethargic. That is not the same as lacking aggression or competition. Cave animals strive to survive as fiercely as anything in the jungle, just at a much slower pace. If a more active predator were to be stranded in a cave, it might eat everything it can find in a week, and then starve. Within months, other animals from more remote corners of the cave would scavenge its carcass and repopulate.

To visualize this, watch one of those speeded-up videos of starfish and sea urchins. At our pace, they are sedentary. At their pace, it's Thunderdome all day every day.

<comment><USER12> Caves were just an example, and pretty much the rest of your comment actually proves my point. If a "more active predator" enters a cave and subsequently eats everything and dies, then evolution has selected against it. Evolution selects species that best fit the environment, and that generally means species that find a sustainable balance through both internal and external regulation mechanisms.

Your example doesn't require an invasive species. Aggressive species (ones with their consumption and reproduction clocks set "too high") can arise through mutation, too. In either case they spread like cancer and usually take down parts of the ecosystem with them before they are finally selected against. Eventually, ecosystems find mechanisms to limit the damage of cancer- like species and adjust everyone's "clocks" to appropriate levels. Ecosystems that cannot bring their species into stasis experience repeated shocks, are less stable than ones that do find stasis, and often disappear. This is exactly why the long arc of evolution is best understood as a punctuated equilibrium ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium)) rather than a constant drift. Systems that find stasis are more successful than ones that don't. Unfortunately these systems are repeatedly interrupted by drastic environmental changes like geological events. So, the systems that survive are the ones that tend toward balance but are able to adapt to occasional disruptive events. That requires biodiversity that is generally reduced by aggressive species.

> To visualize this, watch one of those speeded-up videos of starfish and sea > urchins. At our pace, they are sedentary. At their pace, it's Thunderdome > all day every day.

Or look at hardwood forests that develop extremely slowly over thousands of years, despite the availability of plenty of energy from the sun. The slower the system, the better it actually proves my point. Clearly, evolution does not select for the fastest growing, most aggressive species out there. Otherwise starfish and sea urchins would move faster, or be displaced by something that moved faster.

Properly understood, ecosystems are super organisms that require many many moving parts to bootstrap, grow and function. Human bodies are analogous. Your cells aren't trying to "outcompete" every other cell in a Thunderdome situation every day. They are carefully regulated both internally and externally. When those regulatory mechanisms fail, you end up with cancer and you die. Clearly, cell replication rate is a key regulator internal to a cell that prevents us all from experiencing runaway cancer and dying. Clearly ecosystems have species with internal regulation mechanisms as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Big foot did exist</comment>


JQuery: Official Plugins - A Change in the Roadmap - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jquery.com/2011/04/16/official-plugins-a-change-in-the-roadmap/

<comment><USER2> Looks like a case of we wanted to have official supported plugins, but keeping the microsoft one's up to date has proved difficult so we're removing the concept. Though our simpler plugins will remain updated.</comment>


Ask HN: How to stop chronic worrying? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Negative reinforcement can be very effective at curtailing any bad habits you might have. Put a rubber band on your wrist. Then, any time you find yourself needlessly worrying, just pull on the rubber band, and let it snap hard enough to sting. If, shortly thereafter, you start worrying again, pull that rubber band a little further so it stings even more. Repeat as needed.

A less painful technique for addressing this is to click on the following link, have a laugh, and then vow to stop being "that guy"...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdk- rHAndNc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdk-rHAndNc)

</comment><comment><USER3> Meditation has helped me a lot. It helps the "you" that wants to stop worrying to be present. You learn how to be aware that you're worrying _while_ you're worrying. Then you can stop it by gently placing your attention on something positive or constructive. The more you do this, the easier it becomes.

</comment><comment><USER4> One really good technique I've learned is to write your worries down on a piece of paper. Once you do that, you realize how ridiculous most of it is.</comment>


LoStorage.js - Client-side storage the way it should be - js-coder https://github.com/js-coder/loStorage.js

<comment> n-gauge Good example and if your using the ! in front of the function to save a byte you could change the for loops like so:

for (var i = 0, l = keys.length; i < l; i++) {

to

for (var i = keys.length; i--;) {

(to save even more)</comment>


Khan Academy's Transition to React Native - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.khanacademy.org/posts/react-native-at-khan.htm <comment><USER2> It is a best case scenario when you can build the entire app in React without any native code. I've been charged with building a large Swift framework for a React Native app, and key bugs were nearly insoluble.

<comment><USER3> Are the swift parts needed for the UI work, or platform specific functionality?

<comment><USER2> Both, was a camera module that did encrypted photos.</comment></comment></comment>


Reconstructing Journalistic Scenes in 3D - <AUTHOR> https://rd.nytimes.com/projects/reconstructing-journalistic-scenes-in-3d <comment><USER2> this looks very cool. but my experience with photogrammetry is pretty poor. The reconstruction seems to be noisy.</comment>


FSF responds to Microsoft's privacy and encryption announcement - <AUTHOR> https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-responds-to-microsofts-privacy-and-encryption-announcement <comment><USER2> It seems like the response glosses over what Microsoft is actually doing and instead just attacks them for something unrelated (Widows is closed source). In the FSF eyes, Microsoft can do nothing to improve security until Windows is open sourced.

<comment><USER3> No, I think in the FSF's eyes -- rightfully -- it can't be proven that security has improved.

I also can't agree that it isn't related. If I tell you I'm wearing a green shirt, how can you know for sure if you or someone you trust hasn't verified it? You can't. It's the same with MSFT. But in the case of MSFT, it _has_ been proven that they wear a lot of Hypercolor[1] stuff.

Is it good that MSFT is doing stuff to make things more secure? Sure. Do we still have to take it on faith that they are doing _everything_ they can to protect their users? Yup.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercolor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercolor)

<comment><USER4> So, Microsoft and its Windows product adheres to no industry standards, has no external audit process, has never been verified by a private or Government contract agency through audit or other verification process?

I work in a small programming company and we do internal and external audits while maintaining compliancy with federal and state regulators as well as groups like ISO.

Sure, our work is closed source, but that doesn't automatically mean it hasn't been externally verified for a number of different things by a number of different organizations...

<comment><USER3> No, I did not say those things. That aside, if you wanted to, after an audit/review concluded, could you put a backdoor in your software? Since it's closed source, would anyone know about it?

<comment><USER5> In deterministic build? It will be very hard. I doubt that any audit signs on anything other than specific versions.

<comment><USER6> does microsoft use deterministic builds?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> huh? I know this isn't going to be the popular opinion but I have to get this off. As much as I respect FSF, this mentality is one of the things I dislike about them. Statements that imply either you are with us or you are evil, trying to crash at opening events of MS/Apple "saving" people from closed source etc.

Not everything has to be open source and not everyone has to choose open source. Microsoft/Apple/Google may never make their core products open but it doesn't mean they can't try to make it secure or privacy conscious. The beauty of freedom is that YOU get to choose and trust what you want, good or bad, open or closed.

As a developer, I find GPL to be against the "spirit of open source", but it would be extremely wrong for me to demand you license your code differently or to even suggest to your clients to choose a liberal license. Its yours and their choice not mine.

<comment><USER8> >As a developer, I find GPL to be against the "spirit of open source".

It's not about open source. It's about free software.

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the- point....](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html)

<comment><USER9> Which is, urm, rather the point.

Some of us care more about open source than free software.

<comment><USER10> Not the FSF. Have they ever given the impression that they care _at all_ about open source except as a characteristic of Free software? I'm sure they didn't intend to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just love how the FSF ignores, and has ignored for a considerable amount of time that governments, and organizations can and have gotten the Windows source code, and that their actions today restate that they do provide the windows source code for governments to audit. Given that such programs have been available for a considerable amount of time, one has to wonder when the FSF is going to change their tactic away from their current one of outright lying about the situation.

<comment><USER8> "Freedom and security necessitate not just being allowed a peek at the code."

"Transparency in the Windows world normally means self-reports commissioned by Microsoft, or access granted to outsiders covering very limited portions of source code under strict agreements that limit sharing that information."

Yup, John Sullivan really ignored that.

You can disagree with the FSF's mission, but they are certainly not spreading lies on purpose.

<comment><USER11> The source agreements are far more than just a "peek" at the code. I would still argue that Mr Sullivan is at the very least distorting the truth, if not outright lying. The FSF has its agenda, and has proven it will try to distort the motives of any entity that doesn't completely agree with it.

<comment><USER10> >I would still argue that Mr Sullivan is at the very least distorting the truth, if not outright lying.

And I would listen to that argument, but you haven't made it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As long as Microsoft tells NSA about the bugs they have in Windows before they start fixing them [1], that just constitutes the same thing as "backdoors", since with many of those bugs NSA can take full control of a machine.

So Microsoft doesn't need to "give NSA a backdoor". They just need to tell them about certain bugs before they fix them - and that's _just as bad_ as giving them backdoors, since NSA _can_ and _will_ use them as such.

[1] - [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies- said-t...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap- data-with-thousands-of-firms.html)

<comment><USER13> You're describing a security disclosure program. Since anyone else could have (and often has) already found the attack, the point of this is to put the defenses up as early as possible.

Surely real valuable attacks would be ones there's no planned security update for.

<comment><USER10> >You're describing a security disclosure program.

No, a security _non-_ disclosure program. Disclosure is when you tell people. Telling a spy agency in no more "disclosure" than telling a Russian trojan dev.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Open/closed source software and secure/unsecure software are orthogonal concepts. Yes, it may be easier to assess open source software with regard to security and privacy issues, but it is absolutely not necessary. And even with open source software the overwhelming majority of users still has to trust some third party because it is absolutely unrealistic that every user or organization audits their complete software (and hardware) stack. The only thing you really gain is that you are free to choose which third party or parties you have to trust.

<comment><USER15> > Open/closed source software and secure/unsecure software are orthogonal > concepts

No, they are not. It's fundamentally impossible to secure proprietary software because you have to trust its provider the software does what it says it does whereas with open-source you can always check for yourself. Any backdoor in open-source software is there to be exposed and corrected.

With proprietary software only one party can disclose vulnerabilities and in open-source anyone with the knowledge can do it. You can choose to trust a single party or choose to trust a myriad of different parties any one of which can blow the whistle if they find something fishy.

I find it highly unlikely a backdoor to a popular open-source application could remain there for long. I don't think it's unlikely at all with proprietary software where there is no incentive to fix a problem until someone outside the company learns about it.

<comment><USER14> It is not impossible. There is no reason why closed source software can not be secure. Yes, you can not convince yourself in the same way you can with open source software but again secure software and the ability to convince yourself that a software is secure are different things.

<comment><USER15> > There is no reason why closed source software can not be secure

True, but there is no way to _prove_ it's secure. It's not about convincing myself or anyone else - it's about proof.

<comment><USER14> You get no proof for open source software either unless you perform a formal verification. And even then your proof may be wrong.

But maybe we can agree on the following. Closed source software can be secure but there is a broad spectrum of needs for convincing someone that a software is secure and this need may be better served with open source software in some circumstances. For some it is sufficient to trust a vendor. Some want to audit the source code (and this does not exclude closed source software). Some even need formal verification maybe even of the underlying hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > A lock on your own house to which you do not have the master key is not a > security system, it is a jail.

This is completely bogus. The owner of the master key may have the access (understandably undesirable), but that does not keep you from getting out. If anything, it's like having no lock at all.

<comment><USER17> True, but their point that "these promises are meaningless" remains valid.

<comment><USER16> Replace "Microsoft" with manufacturers of food, cars, medicines, personal hygiene products, etc. They are regulated, inspected, but all under the same / similar conditions:

> or access granted to outsiders covering very limited portions of source code > under strict agreements that limit sharing that information

You are trusting the manufacturer's promises. Are they essentially meaningless just because the general public doesn't have insight into manufacturing details?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think FSF has an open-source axe to grind here and this happens to be an issue they can use to bash MS. I do think MS should be praised for improving security. However, don't forget Snowden's warning -- encryption does not help you if you don't have secure endpoints. Moreover, encryption does not help you if you have rogue agencies with secret courts, secret rulings, no due process and no legal rights in a police or dragnet surveillance state.

I hope the big tech companies are serious about protecting their users, even foreign users, since their business model depends on it.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't think people should be so dismissive of the FSF's argument here. It's central to the issues with security these days. P2P Affero GPL licensed software is about the only way to be secure anymore. Even then, we have issues with unknown code and hardware at the lowest levels of the stacks.

</comment><comment><USER20> You've got to read between the lines with a corporate statement. There are two major issues this one:

1) They're giving no indication that they _can 't_ decrypt their customers data. This won't protect customers from the thousands of information requests that they're not allowed to publicly acknowledge, and will only hamper vectors such as MITM fibre splitting. This is concerning given the fact the US intelligence agencies share their data with private companies, and that Microsoft didn't even attempt resist previous requests. They have no incentive to inform customers and fight expensive legal battles, so as soon as the whole privacy thing blows over it will be back to old habits.

2) Allowing companies to review their source code is only useful for their desktop products. Most data is going into the cloud now, plus it's possible to use cross library exploits and obfuscated code. I don't actually think that they'll do this now, hover they've done it in the past with their famous NSAKEY in the 4.0 kernel.

Office 2008 with a firewall will keep your data safe. Office365 is a company risk. I wouldn't put anything more confidential than a CV or short story on it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Microsoft's effort to protect customer data from government snooping? sounds legit. I'll just leave this here [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/12/dual_ec_drbg_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/12/dual_ec_drbg_ad.html)</comment>


Show HN: Animal Crossing New Horizons companion app - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.tnrd.critters <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all,

Recently made my first Android app, written in Kotlin. The art is made in Photoshop by someone else, and then imported into Zeplin. Zeplin allows me to export it directly into the project in the correct folders and sizes.

There were some hiccups in the beginning due to me not understanding the art asset sizing strategy, but once I stumbled onto Zeplin it made things a whole lot easier.

First time using Kotlin as well so that was a nice challenge, but really liking the language so far!

Planning on making an iOS version as well, but have to get a proper development setup for that first.

Tips are always welcome!</comment>


JS roguelike game: The Royal Wedding - <AUTHOR> http://ondras.zarovi.cz/games/trw/ <comment><USER2> I found the dynamic lighting effects quite impressive, and I like the use of proportional text for the story rather than more monospace.

Habits from other roguelikes make me keep looking for an inventory and the ability to move diagonally, but neither one actually seems necessary, just unexpectedly missing for a roguelike.

Edit: "Achievements: 0 gold found 1 secret gold stashes found". So, I found one secret gold stash but it had no gold in it?

<comment><USER3> Just checking now, vi keys work for diagonals.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also the diagonal numpad keys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The dynamic legend and narrative bar are really great additions to roguelikes. Did you have inspiration for these things? I don't know that I've seen either of them done before.

<comment><USER5> Brogue has a dynamic legend. I've not seen a narrative like that, though.

<comment><USER6> Brogue has a dynamic legend for monsters and items. I've never seen one done so well for terrain. This game does a nice job of combining all useful information I need in one tiny spot. Well done!

Aaaand... idea stolen! ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That was great! I'm particularly impressed with the smooth learning curve, especially the dynamic legend.

I sometimes didn't notice when a new narrative appeared. I would just glance over once in a while to see if something new had happened. Maybe bring more attention to that, like having it blink once instead of fade in? Sure it doesn't look as nice, but you want the player to focus there.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree; the narrative should bring more attention to itself. Not sure about the proper UI/UX way to do that, though...

<comment><USER8> Having the text in different colors would be enough. Maybe just a different "brightness" of that golden color

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone who feels inspired by this should enter the Seven-Day Roguelike Challenge! It starts this weekend! <http://7drl.org/>

<comment><USER6> Seconded! The library used in this game (rot.js) is the perfect platform for a 7DRL game as well. I've been using it quite extensively (via coffeescript) and it handles a lot of the hard stuff (FOV, lighting) very well, which frees one up to work on more interesting things: setting, gameplay, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> nice. as someone unfamiliar with rougelike games I liked the walk you through it on the side and map legend on the bottom. In javascript too. I like the reference to the toolkit on the homepage.

<comment><USER11> > I like the reference to the toolkit on the homepage.

Oh. That's a problem. The only thing I can think of that might be more of a productivity drain than playing a roguelike is _writing_ one. Goodbye sweet, sweet sunlight...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just started playing Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup the other day for the first time (I've played Nethack and Angband for years though), so I'm in a Rogue sort of mood. Thanks! This is wonderful.

<comment><USER12> Tome 4 (<http://te4.org> )is a really polished, modern take on roguelikes. It's also based on a pretty modular, GPL3 licensed engine, in case you ever feel like making your own.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I played that quite a bit a few years back. Unfortunately at the time quite a bit of some of the runecaster class was broken, but it was still quite fun.

That was all before the current engine, which I have to say looks pretty awesome from videos and screenshots. I'll have to try playing it again.

<comment><USER12> If you're talking about the old Middle Earth one (tome2), then it's a very different game in many respects. A lot more changed besides the graphics, but it's turned into a pretty polished game that encapsulates many of the best parts of *band roguelikes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been playing a ton of Brogue lately. The dynamic lighting in this is similar to what Brogue has. Brogue is by far the prettiest ASCII game I've ever played.

<comment><USER13> Brogue's gameplay also is extremely well-rounded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Given the selection of characters that represent walls, corpses etc. I'm guessing that this game is influenced by Adom. The narrative system is pretty well done, and the font is awesome by the way :-)

Edit: The author has built other games as well <http://ondras.zarovi.cz/>

</comment><comment><USER15> Great game! Too bad it bugged on me at some point; after getting out of the dungeon I can't move anymore...

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to hear that! Can you post the output of your browser's JS console?

<comment><USER16> Mine froze when I entered the castle garden looking for the bride. :(

Using Opera 12.14, exception traceback: <http://pastebin.com/DJXrkae5>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the traceback! Will try to investigate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It looks very nice, and I'm pretty impressed with the effects.

I do have to admit though that personally I just don't 'get' rougelikes, maybe I'm just too young, but they just don't really interest me.

<comment><USER18> _Normal game: You pick up an unknown potion. Do you drink it? You save the game and drink the potion. The potion kills you. You reload the game, dont drink the potion, and move on to the next level._

 _Roguelike: You pick up the potion. Do you drink it? Hmmm...too risky, it could kill you. You decide to visit a wizard who can identify it for you. Oh no! A monster. You fight! The monster is strong...You're down to 1 health..the potion is your last chance...AHHHHGH OMG IT WAS POISON. <or> OMG ITS A HEALTH POTION I LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY!_

People play roguelikes because the specter of permanent death (no save games* ) creates tension and suspense you rarely see in other games. This tension has a dramatic influence on gameplay choices and the emotional response elicited by those choices.

If, however, it's the oldskool text graphics and complex control schemes that you dont 'get', you'd be forgiven for thinking that 'ascii graphics = roguelike'. This is not the case, its just that the many famous roguelikes are dungeon crawlers with this graphical style. And yes, the controls are complex and the learning curves are steep. They are not for everybody. ADOM is my favourite roguelike dungeon crawler.

The best (IMHO) recent roguelike is FTL: Faster Than Light. Its a spaceship combat/strategy game designed to be played so a session lasts about 30-90 minutes. The graphics are nice and the gameplay is simple to understand but difficult to master. Its brilliant.

FTL: <http://www.ftlgame.com/>

ADOM: <http://www.ancardia.com/download.html>

*Generally you can have one save game. So you can save and quit but then have to resume that same game.

<comment><USER19> Permadeath only really works for games that don't have an explicit narrative. It's no fun to die and then have to sit through the same conversations and plot twists all over again. Roguelikes tend to be complex and random enough to allow the player to experience something entirely new each time they play. There's still an overall story, but every telling of it is unique.

<comment><USER18> I agree, and I think you've touched upon a critical point.

One thing you'll notice about roguelike forums is the number of 'storytelling' threads where a player recounts their adventure. The lack of explicit narrative is more than compensated by user generated narrative.

Much like emergent gameplay (ie Minecraft), good roguelikes create emergent narrative. The narrative is worth sharing because of the surprising random encounters and do-or-die decisions.

I suspect this partly explains why most roguelikes have such simple graphics. A friend remarked that FTL was 'good for the imagination'. Basic graphics leave much to the imagination which enriches the internal narrative of the gamer.

That said, I dont think AAA graphics _exclude_ a roguelike experience, and are in fact a barrier of entry for some younger gamers.

<comment><USER20> I think it would be reasonable to have a Rogue-like with a narrative if the death of your character did not mean the death of the world. Maybe dying would mean that you had a new character in the same world. Omikron: The Nomad Soul had a similar mechanic (although it was non-random).

[edit] Shiren the Wanderer also has a notion of progress that is saved even though your character _will_ die.

<comment><USER21> In Planescape Torment, your character wakes up after dying. In most situations in the game, dying has little consequences, you just wake up a little while later.

<comment><USER19> Yes, this is the opposite of permadeath.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Holy shit that was impressive. I clicked just for fun and got sucked in for a full 20 mins. Glad it ended where it did!

</comment><comment><USER23> Fantastic! Finally my 16 core Xeon dev laptop with 32 gb's of RAM is finally doing some useful computing.

</comment><comment><USER24> Great fun, a nice short diversion! Why did she do it! Such a senseless waste :-)

Achievements:

1 gold found 1 secret gold stashes found 4 precious gems found 27 enemies killed 2899 turns played

<comment><USER24> p.s. for anyone looking for a great Rogue like game for mobile checkout "Legends of Yore". I have wastedH^H^H^H^H^H whiled away a lot of time with this gem.

<http://www.legendsofyore.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nice. I hope the next feature is to use localstorage to save your current state so that when you return it picks up where you left off.

</comment><comment><USER26> They lighting effects make every move a visual treat.

I'm wondering how much of it was randomly generated? Does story ending have a random outcome?

</comment><comment><USER27> Wow, very nice. I kept looking for an inventory too, but I like that it was kind of stripped to its essentials.

</comment><comment><USER28> Brilliantly done! Nice lighting effect.

</comment><comment><USER29> That was fantastic! As others mentioned, really enjoyed the dynamic lighting and key. Great touches.

</comment><comment><USER30> Incredibly well done. I love it.

</comment><comment><USER31> What's next Dwarf Fortress?

<comment><USER32> That would be so awesome. :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Certainly a bit easier than dungeon crawl or adom.

</comment><comment> lindsey-lohan Dungeon font at second screen appears too small.

</comment><comment><USER34> awesome game!

but is it just me, or is it impossible to defeat the murderer? played it 3 times and i get killed everytime by the murderer.

what did i miss?

<comment><USER35> Pick up the plate armor, he'll barely score any damage on you. It looks like `[` and is in the dungeon somewhere (in addition to chain mail, which looks like `[` as well).

<comment><USER36> I had the plate armor and I suspect there was a bug with the axe (or perhaps a feature where one of the weapons does nothing), he didn't do much damage to me but I just had 100% miss rate. Second playthrough used the sword and dispatched him easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> so i dropped my weapon to pick a flower and then i went into the dungeon unarmed... great

<comment><USER38> There is a weapon in the dungeon! Just have to find it.

<comment><USER39> There is _sometimes_ another weapon in the dungeon. Hence, the rougelike nature.

<comment><USER40> I just kept wielding the flower. I killed with love.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Can't find the murderer. :(

<comment><USER42> You have to go into the dungeon (> just below the chapel)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> You my friend, is crazy! :)

</comment><comment><USER44> Gardener killed me. :(

</comment><comment><USER45> Excellent!</comment>


You know Area 51, but just what in the world is Area 6? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/you-know-area-51-just-what-the-world-area-6 <comment><USER2> I had a passenger who'd been at several of the government's secret bases, in the 1960's. I wrote a diary about him recently:

 _Imaginary Workplaces_ \- [http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2016/1/2/03328/96840](http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2016/1/2/03328/96840)</comment>


Finding Local Twitter Trends with Perl - <AUTHOR> http://www.dotcodedump.com/2009/07/finding-local-twitter-trends.html

<comment><USER2> If anybody wants trends in their city, <http://happn.in> might be what you're looking for.

To add to the discussion, here are some of the things that make Happn.in tick:

* We throw out trends that occur in more than N (currently, N=3) cities. This gets rid of the Michael Jacksons and Swine Flus.

* We've built up a sizable list of stopwords that include things like 'and', 'or', 'but', and also 'google', 'twitter', 'lol', etc.

* We've built a list of users who contribute little content to Twitter, and ignore their tweets. There are some other spam-blocking measures in place.

* We throw out retweets, urls and hashtags. This gets the trends away from memes and blog posts, and helps to highlight real-world stuff.

* We don't include one-word phrases, Arguably, this makes us miss things, but the amount of noise when one-word phrases were included was too high.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fun idea.

1\. If I'm looking for local twitter trends, it might be accurate to show me Michael Jackson...but is it interesting?

2\. When I look at this list, I want to DO something with it. Clickable terms would be nice, even if they just dump me to a local Twitter search.

If you want to build one for Chicago that gets use, hit me up.

<comment><USER4> RE: point #1 - I concur. Maybe it would be helpful to filter out nationally trending topics from your local list. After all I (user) only really care if something locally is different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is something I've been looking for.

I wonder how many users he is following to create the trend and also what kind of users he's following.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.happn.in/>

Has an API, too.</comment>


Domestication: Not so dumb animals  - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12415186

<comment><USER2> Uggg. The people able to train wolves are top tier animal trainers; random pet dogs and shelter dogs in comparison have not had training at such an expert level. This says a lot more about the training than about the innate intelligence. While the first experiment was flawed, the followup was too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Every time I read something, later it turns out to be wrong.

Is there a news site that only prints news that has marinated for a bunch of years? (Different amounts depending on the subject matter.)

Idea for startup?</comment>


New phonetic alphabet - <AUTHOR> http://ndsweeney.co.uk/fun/modern-day-phonetic-alphabet/ Just for fun <comment><USER2> The idea of a phonetic alphabet is that anyone can understand something you are saying over voice.

I myself never heard of "Zoopla", "Yell"

And this would be worst if im talking with an airline, or my grandfather.

Completely dumb.</comment>


Common Parasite Linked to Personality Changes Making You More Outgoing - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/common-parasite-linked-to-personality-changes/ <comment><USER2> This is weird, for the longest time I thought that T. Gondii had the exact opposite effect - making someone more introverted. Apparently that was/is true only for males, whereas it's supposed to make women more extraverted.

[https://www.medicaldaily.com/toxoplasma-gondii-parasite- cat-...](https://www.medicaldaily.com/toxoplasma-gondii-parasite-cat-feces- linked-schizophrenia-and-other-mental-illness-337030)

</comment><comment><USER3> >In the new study, a pattern appeared in infected men: the longer they had been infected, the less conscientious they were.

This seems...bad? In contrast with simply being more "outgoing".

</comment><comment><USER4> "Outgoing". The terms usually published, for infected men, are reckless, and unattractive to women. For infected women, more adherent to convention.

I have not encountered "outgoing" anywhere.

A course of antibiotics is said to cure both the infection and the behavior.

<comment><USER5> > A course of antibiotics is said to cure both the infection and the behavior.

Probably not, since antibiotics work against bacterial infections, and Toxoplasma Gondii is not a bacterium.

<comment><USER4> I stand corrected.

Wikipedia says it's a eukaryote. Means I probably still have it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would the FDA be averse to a business model selling the parasites to introverts? There are prebiotics and probiotics. Some doctors use maggots to remove dead tissue.

<comment><USER7> I think OSHA and DOT should have a problem with it and its risks in the wild have really only been so ignored because of the silos of these agencies.

(The cat lady on the Simpsons and the mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland each express the same kind of model/correlated stereotypes for diseases with varying mental symptoms that weren't well understood in their time.)

Naturally, most people with Toxoplasmosis don't have psychotic outbursts and most hatters look dashing.</comment></comment>