The x86 PlayStation 4 could signal a sea-change in the console industry - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/04/the-x86-playstation-4-signals-a-sea-change-in-the-console-industry.ars <comment><USER2> The rumor that they are attempting to block the used game market through a sort of DRM scheme is disappointing. While I've only ever bought 1 or 2 used games in the past, the act itself is a huge "F* YOU" to consumers and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

No one likes to feel controller or compelled to act in a certain way, which is why pretty much all DRM schemes have been broken and why the MP3 became so incredibly popular.

I feel like game producers are making the same argument for the second-hand game market as the MPAA makes for pirating movies: Every used game sale is a lost new game sale and blocking used games is better than innovating or changing the pricing/sales structure.

<comment><USER3> I honestly lost my faith in Sony respecting their customers when they removed a feature I paid for, from my hardware (PS3 Linux compatibility) then leaked all my personal data through poor (non-existent?) security.

<comment><USER4> Add attempts at suing reverse engineers for posting decryption keys (mathematically derived, no less) to that list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article fails to mention the audience this is good news for: PC gamers. If next generation consoles are x86 based, expect to see future games being more widely available on PC, and, better yet, expect the "best" versions of those games (in terms of graphics, features, etc.) to be the PC versions. The only catch is if the game developers hold back on PC releases due to fears of piracy, but on the whole this probably will still mean many more releases on PC.

That said, most flagship titles (Halo, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, etc.) will probably stick to a single console due to contractual obligations.

<comment><USER6> What? The instruction set matters very little. Pretty much all games are written in C++ and last time I checked there are C++ compilers targeting pretty much any architecture in existence. The graphics API is more important than the instruction set.

<comment><USER7> Additionally, current generation console hardware have a big-endian byte order, which can make dealing with importing of resources a pain at times.

<comment><USER8> Surely, /surely/ this is the least of their concerns. Since when did we get so sloppy as to assume byte ordering in files? When was the last time your PNG loader failed on x86 because the file has big-endian fields?

<comment><USER9> In the console programming world, cycles are precious. You don't tend to waste time doing things 'just in case', you're much more likely to assume a best- case scenario and engineer things that way.

In terms of endianness, it's not a huge problem - the toolchain normally copes with this, as assets are built individually for each target platform. This is what we did last time I worked on a cross-platform game anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article fails to mention that the graphics quality of the games made for these consoles could be a lot more advanced than what's available for the PC then, because developers get to write games directly for that specific hardware. John Carmack has said that the DirectX/OpenGL layers can slow down performance by 4x-10x, for example.

<comment><USER11> You'll have to forgive my skepticism, but can you link to where John Carmack has ever made such a statement?

What I don't understand is, if the performance is being slowed by 4x to 10x, what is it being compared to? I doubt anyone is actually coding GPU assembler for complex 3D scenes all the big games require. If there are no alternatives to these API's for allowing game devs to create the results they need, then its a lot like comparing apples to oranges.

<comment><USER12> John Carmack: So we don't work directly with DX 11 but from the people that I talk with that are working with that, they (say) it might [have] some improvements, but it is still quite a thick layer of stuff between you and the hardware. NVIDIA has done some direct hardware address implementations where you can bypass most of the OpenGL overhead, and other ways to bypass some of the hidden state of OpenGL. Those things are good and useful, but what I most want to see is direct surfacing of the memory. It's all memory there at some point, and the worst thing that kills Rage on the PC is texture updates. Where on the consoles we just say "we are going to update this one pixel here," we just store it there as a pointer. On the PC it has to go through the massive texture update routine, and it takes tens of thousands of times [longer] if you just want to update one little piece. You start to advertise that overhead when you start to update larger blocks of textures, and AMD actually went and implemented a multi-texture update specifically for id Tech 5 so you can bash up and eliminate some of the overhead by saying "I need to update these 50 small things here," but still it's very inefficient. So I'm hoping that as we look forward, especially with Intel integrated graphics [where] it is the main memory, there is no reason we shouldn't be looking at that. With AMD and NVIDIA there's still issues of different memory banking arrangements and complicated things that they hide in their drivers, but we are moving towards integrated memory on a lot of things. I hope we wind up being able to say "give me a pointer, give me a pitch, give me a swizzle format," and let me do things managing it with fences myself and we'll be able to do a better job.

[http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/John-Carmack- Intervie...](http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Editorial/John-Carmack-Interview- GPU-Race-Intel-Graphics-Ray-Tracing-Voxels-and-more/Intervi)

<comment><USER13> Yes, in layman's terms - on the console you talk to the hardware as your buddy, you trust each other, and get along doing business better.

On OS's, there is no buddy, friendship. The OS (kernel) does not trust you by default, and there is no friendly language to get quickly the stuff done as in the consoles.

You can't schedule a DMA user-space. You can't batch too many draw calls in one piece. You can't check, inspect more detailed what the system is doing. You can't talk to any of the devices directly, but have to delegate this through the OS.

Now, the consoles have gotten to be closer and "less" friendly in that respect. But then again, security becomes much more important these days, especially with online games...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Where are the pixels?

TV manufacturers are currently delivering 1080P sets in volume and at low prices. Nobody can really get out of a commodity play, and the future of bigger HDTVs is kind of pointless.

Apple is delivering up 1080P content already, and the iPad 3 delivers better in our hands. (3D is a red herring.)

So what's next? Higher resolution TV screens. IMAX in the home. iPad functionality on the walls.

We are, in my opinion, going to continue to see a steady rise in the resolution of our TV screens (and change in what they do), and the content resolution will need to increase to match. That content will increasingly be delivered over IP.

Apple is rumoured to be entering the TV market, and we know it won't be with a me-too commodity product. So why wouldn't they launch with a higher resolution screen, just as they did with the iPhone and iPad 3? They can control the delivery of media through the Apple TV, and with the iPad already in the lounge gaming on the higher resolution TV is essentially ready to go.

So for me the NextGen gaming devices better launch alongside new TVs (Sony can do this), and with stunningly detailed graphics, or we will rightly yawn at their arrival and stick with our computers, iPads and iPhones.

Heck - if Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft continue with their very slow release cycles for the gaming machines, then the next generation may well be the last - and we'll be driving big screen games using iPads and other tablets.

<comment><USER15> The future of the living room is absolutely rooted in some form of forthcoming disruption. However, no one has meaningfully disrupted TV since the 80s when cable, video tapes and game consoles all hit mass market appeal at the same time.

If the rumors here are to be believed, innovation among console makers is waning, so you're right in assuming the inevitable TV disruption is coming from elsewhere.

It could come from Apple, but my money is on a startup.

TVs, ultimately, are just monitors. They process a signal that comes from an external source. The first product that meaningfully augments the signal, regardless of source (antenna, cable, satellite, streaming, game console) is the true disruptor.

Tayloring your TV watching experience to your web browsing, social, taste, and purchase histories is where TV will ultimately be disrupted. When you walk into the living room to watch Mad Men, the TV should know it and adjust the in-screen Twitter feed accordingly. It should hear you laughing at Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia and provide suggestions to other shows people laughed at who laughed at the same joke. No man should ever watch a commercial for feminine hygiene again. No woman should watch a beer commercial that objectifies women again. And when I see Don Draper wearing a slick hat, I should be able to pause the show so I can buy it.

As far as I can tell, the only thing stopping this gazillion dollar disruption is that we can't get signal providers to play well with device makers. Apple has made this work with cell phones, so there's every reason to believe they could do it to TV, but I think a startup that figures out how to augment the signal without the provider detecting and blocking it has a chance to become the next Apple.

<comment><USER16> _When you walk into the living room to watch Mad Men, the TV should know it and adjust the in-screen Twitter feed accordingly. It should hear you laughing at Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia and provide suggestions to other shows people laughed at who laughed at the same joke._

That sounds _awful_. The issue at hand when compared to video games is that television and film are not interactive- people have tried time and time again to make them so, but I honestly think that is a mistake. I don't want to read instant Twitter reactions to Don Draper's latest verbal beat-down of Peggy, I want to watch it. There is nothing wrong with television and film being a one- way experience.

 _It could come from Apple, but my money is on a startup._

I doubt it, simply because television is an extremely expensive medium. The existing players make it more expensive than it should be, but creating TV shows will always cost a lot. That's why the moves by the likes of Netflix into original programming are particularly fascinating.

<comment><USER15> You're absolutely right that the passive TV peg shouldn't be forced into the active entertainment hole.

However, when I'm watching a sporting event, I find myself looking down at my phone or tablet and looking for reactions from my favorite sports writers - and then I miss a play and I get frustrated. I can't be the only one having this experience.

Also, GetGlue is proving that people want to make their entertainment social - they want to scream what they're watching to all of their friends.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be passive, but it should be doing a lot more than what it is. When something on the screen illicits a reaction from me - be it a need to hear someone's opinion on it, or a laugh or a desire to make a purchase - the TV should be immediately providing an outlet to that reaction without getting in the way of the experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a clear departure from the old Sony. Sony used to be all about locking developers and content providers into proprietary platforms, raising platform value through exclusives and lowering cross-platform development. They started off with cash-cows based on standards such as Trinitron and the Walkman and went cocky after the big success of going it all alone with the 'PS1' and 'PS2'. However where they were only looking at professional content, Apple one-upped them by lowering barriers for developers, opening the floodgates and lowering content prices. Is this the next step of Sony to reinvent themselves under Hirai-san? Whereas other Japanese CE companies are exiting the consumer business rapidly, Sony certainly is putting up a fight.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wonder what this means for a Steam console, particularly if PC games get more love as a result of consoles being x86. I suppose it's good news in the end, with less time wasted on cross-platform shenanigans and more time spent on making games.

<comment><USER19> I wonder if Sony is basing this decision on negotiations with Valve.

Think about that possibility for a second. What would be the motivating factors? Sony has gotten the shit beat out of them relentlessly in terms of multiplayer/online gaming. PSN has been shuddered for weeks at a time. Partially outsourcing this component to groups like Valve will fix many of their problems, but in return Valve probably would like their whole portfolio of content to be accessible.

If Sony goes x86, it'd be a shame to make such a dramatic shift and not capitalize on a content neutral platform.

<comment><USER20> Sony's already been dabbling in Steam support. This move would not surprise me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sony has always had terrible developer tools and developer support. Hopefully this might enable some of the tools available on PCs to become available on the Playstation.

<comment><USER22> Huh? Maybe you're thinking of PS2 days or earlier. I'm a PS3 developer and Sony's tools and developer support is better than Microsoft's or Nintendo's. Enough so that we have asked Microsoft if they could replicate some aspects of what Sony does for the next generation.

<comment><USER23> Sony's tools support got a _lot_ better after they bought SN in 2005, but it wasn't that long ago that you couldn't do things like source-level debugging on an SPU (I assume you can now). Compare that to something like Pix/remote source-level debugging, which the 360 has had since day 1, and the difference is quite clear.

<comment><USER24> SPU debugging has been available since at least 2007 going by archived email conversations I have on the topic, and I recall it working even before that.

Sony's tools stopped being annoying around 2007 and have been excellent the last few years. In some ways they surpass what's available on the Xbox 360 -- Tuner and GPAD are more flexible than PIX and the debugger isn't tied to the massive anchor that is Visual Studio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Will next generation consoles still use optical disks, or will games be delivered by flash?

<comment><USER26> Why do we need physical media? I'd prefer to download them myself. I usually buy games in the Playstation store if they are available there. Yes, of course, this would mean that you probably can't sell your games after you're done with them, but that's not a big issue for me personally.

<comment><USER27> You're making several anecdotal assumptions based on your personal situation and extrapolating it to the entire target market for the Playstation 4:

1\. Everyone has a fast internet connection to the point where downloading a full BluRay disc of content (~25GB) is a non-issue.

2\. Everyone has an Internet connection where downloading up to 25GB of content for a single game will not go over their transfer caps, possibly incurring usurious overage charges.

3\. Everyone that will buy a Playstation 4 will be well-off enough that they don't need to resell their games after they have played them in order to afford the next game that they want to play (effectively only paying the difference between the original cost and the resale amount).

<comment><USER28> It works well enough for Steam.

Consider also that we're talking 2013 onwards. Connections continue to improve.

<comment><USER29> Not in rural, or even a lot of suburbian America. Telecom monopolies and all that. My mother has 300 kbps dsl, which she has had for a decade, and that is from Verzion, because they have an internet monopoly in her area.

Unless we get either reform on who can lay fiber or get some national fiber channel program in the states, only big cities stand a chance of seeing meaningful increases in bandwidth this decade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> From the business perspective, we all understand the rumored incremental hardware updates here from Microsoft and Sony; Nintendo ate everyone's lunch for 5 years with last-gen, 3-year old tech[1] that cost little to make while Microsoft and Sony hemorrhaged money until what seems like last year... not to mention the huge technical hurdle for devs and middleware companies trying to reach parity on each platform.

WIN: If Microsoft goes the _incremental_ route with the same Xbox OS a-la Apple's iOS evolution, they keep middleware compatibility with larger graphical budgets for teams to play with... EVERYONE likes this and every dev team that has shipped an Xbox 360 game hits the ground running immediately -- possibly opening up the doors to _dual_ Xbox 360 and Xbox 720 releases of their games (one with lower quality textures and rougher geometric assets and the other with higher-end business) -- I am sweeping my hands across a fairly complex problem here, but you get the point. With compatibility intact, there are interesting things that can happen here that we've seen work on the iOS ecosystem. (maybe not for Triple-A devs, but for budget minded games, this could work wonderfully especially as digital-downloads and indie devs grow).

LOSS: Sony has to make a clean cut and scuttle the last 8 years moving onto an x86 design, new OS, new middleware all new QA cycles and retraining all the PS3 devs.

WIN: Sony now matches the same arch as the Xbox-next (same CPU optimizations apply and same GPU family) and we can stop getting these damn port-style games that never take advantage of the extra Blu-ray room or cell processing power.

LOSS: No revolutionary boost in performance if the hardware rumors are true. I have no doubt the bump in specialized/tuned hardware will give us real-time versions of the Unreal Engine 4 demos (of that smoking guy that beats up mechs) BUT, at 4k resolution and 120hz for 3D? Not for every game. I imagine we will see something akin to what we have now with _most_ games running at 720p with the few rare tuned ones actually running at 1080p resolutions. I would guess next-gen will offer 4k resolution on some titles and 3D on others while running at 1080p or some such combination. Obviously if it is a simpler game like a Wave Racer, we'll get both, but for Gears of War 15 and Mass Effect 32, I doubt it.

WIN: Faster game dev cycles means we get some more impressive titles on the improved hardware/experience sooner. Don't have to wait 2 years post-launch for the first real _good_ game.

LOSS: Next-generation consoles are going to be engineered to be all-in-one entertainment hubs... TV cable tuning, DVR, streaming, apps, social, games, mobile-tie-in, etc. etc... this will make jumping between consoles harder as you stake your claim in the Microsoft or Sony (or possibly Nintendo -- yet to be seen if they can pull off a Network) camp and build up your life/existence within their walled garden. This generation it was nothing more than rep points, next-generation (especially Microsoft) will be throwing every Facebook-esque psychologically engineered trick in the book to keep you ON their platform, consuming content through their channel with your credit card en-tow, sharing your pictures with friends and building your character's rep from game to game to game, movie to movie and app to app.

I sincerely doubt we (the harder-core folks) will all have all 3 next-gen systems this next time around and will most likely have 1 (probably Xbox-next) as the cost of flipping between them will be bigger than just powering on Console X to play game Y for a few hours.

LOSS x2: Double the resolution on the Kinect-next, rumored eye-tracking, multi-person tracking and more accurate voice controls? I can't even imagine what is in store (e.g. "You don't seem to be enjoying this episode of Lost, would you like to skip to the next episode or can we recommend Battlestar Galactica?" -- say "Start Mass Effect, invite Scotty32, Soldier load-out" -- experience {episode of Law and Order, McDonald's Billboard in background... notification popup...} "Just emailed you a buy-1-get-1-free BigMac coupon for McDonalds! The nearest one is 2 blocks from you... yummy! Say 'Pause' to pause what you are watching and go grab lunch!")

You get the idea...

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii#Technical_specifications>

<comment><USER31> I disagree with you on LOSS x2: Kinect v.next.

The future generations of kinect will bring astonishing changes to the world of gaming. You assume the new capabilities will be used for "malicious" means which is possible but that's a bad way to judge some technology. That's like saying the next Gen Intel CPUs will be 2x faster so people will use it to spam twice as much or hack passwords twice as fast.

The fact of the matter is Kinect will continue to shape the future of gaming. The hardware is just not good enough for hard core gamers currently. Once that barrier is gone I think it can create a much more immersive gaming experience that would benefit all gamers.

<comment><USER32> "Once that barrier is gone I think it can create a much more immersive gaming experience that would benefit all gamers."

I wonder about this. I think the lack of tactile feedback as well as the higher intensity play style will never sit right with all games or gamers, but I do think there will be genres that become synonymous with the Kinect and become better than they ever were--and more than dancing and fitness. What I hope is that developers recognize this and don't just shove kinect down our throats but use it when it makes sense to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Seems like good news for PC gamers, bad news for nVidia, so. I don't even see the risk of having that fast moving hardware development cycles like we had in the past when PC don't need to catch up on concoles in terms of performance.

The only hope I have now is PC gamers don't have to cope with PC adapted console titles affecting game play. But maybe that's more due to market share and not architecture, but hope dies last!

</comment><comment><USER34> I have to say I'm rather disappointed in arstechnica right now. This article is nothing more than a riff on a rumor (read the first 2 paragraphs carefully). I think that's wholly irresponsible on their part.

</comment><comment><USER35> Classic 1st April :)</comment>


Show HN: Let your friends add articles to your reading list - <AUTHOR> https://listo.unote.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN!

We made an app to remove personal recommendations from communication channels and provide a social read-it-later solution instead.

A challenge we are facing right now is to find out how we can make the product more viral. Users can already use the app to send content to non-users but few actually do.

Any insights on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

The app is developed with Flutter/Firebase and available in Play Store and App Store.

Play Store: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.listo](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.listo)

App Store: [https://apps.apple.com/app/apple- store/id1502284126](https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1502284126)

We're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and questions!</comment>


Un-Teaching Personal Responsibility - <AUTHOR> https://americanconsequences.com/un-teaching-personal-responsibility/ <comment><USER2> I find this "personal responsibility" narrative interesting (and, full disclosure: also bullshit), since it reminds me of sports discussions-- everyone has a strong opinions, they're nearly all un-falsifiable, and they almost always appeal to notions that no one disagrees with.

i.e., no one actually thinks that actions ought not have consequences. Arne Duncan et al weren't trying to 'un-teach discipline' or whatever, they were trying to address secondary problems around discipline.

I love Google's ngram viewer for context here. Use of the phrase "personal responsibility" _skyrocketed_ around the late 80s[1], more or less matching the rise of the right-wing "bootstraps" narrative.

During the period covered in the ngram viewer (late 80s to 2000), the number of people in American prisons more than doubled[2]. In fact, it continued to rise precipitously until--you guessed it--circa 2008, where it finally plateaued (after more than tripling since 1988).

So, I dunno, maybe this is my bleeding heart talking, but if "unteaching personal responsibility" means "putting fewer people in prison," sign me up for the next lesson.

1: [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22personal+re...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22personal+responsibility%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%22%20personal%20responsibility%20%22%3B%2Cc0)

2: [https://sentencingproject.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/Tre...](https://sentencingproject.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf)</comment>


Open Source Game Clones - <AUTHOR> http://osgameclones.com/ <comment><USER2> Not quite ready to submit this to the list yet, but I've been working on a Quake 3 engine clone from scratch in C# with Bridge.NET, targeting the browser and WebGL. It's been a super fun project so far -- a few days of part-time work and I have levels rendering nearly perfectly and I'm making progress on character model rendering. Repo is at [https://github.com/daeken/WebArena](https://github.com/daeken/WebArena) and you can see a live version at [http://demoseen.com/bridge/](http://demoseen.com/bridge/)

Still a ton to do, but I'm really digging it.

Edit to add: WASD + Space/Shift + arrows to control the camera.

<comment><USER3> Awesome! I wrote an MD3 loader/renderer/animator years ago[0] and had a lot of fun with it—always wanted to try loading the levels as well, though I've yet to try it. Any comment on how difficult that was in comparison to dealing with characters? I imagine you are pulling the data from WAD files (err.. does quake 3 still use those?), and static geometry is in a 3D BSP tree?

[0] [http://symbolflux.com/statichtml/oldprojects/md3library.html](http://symbolflux.com/statichtml/oldprojects/md3library.html) (No source or anything available atm—just a screenshot and description, though I could up it up if anyone were interested.)

<comment><USER2> The actual level loading itself is stupid easy -- I had the geometry loading and rendering in something like two hours. The tough part is converting their "shader" model over to something that modern GPUs can understand. That took about a day and a half and still isn't entirely complete -- I'm missing environment mapping and vertex deformation.

MD3 has been pretty straightforward on the whole, but I didn't design my mesh abstraction super well out the gate, so I've mainly been redesigning that and trying to make it futureproof. I think I have it to about the minimum repeated code possible at this point, but I'm sure I'll reach some other snag down the road and have to refactor again!

<comment><USER3> Interesting—yes, I was wondering about their shader model. I glanced through your source and saw what looked to me like some of the conversion. In any case, the shaders you have running so far (I assume they generate the animations on various objects in the scene) look very nice :) Good luck with the project!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It would actually be really cool if games officially adopted this kind of engine-based model that we see in some of the examples, where the "engine" would be FOSS (meaning it can be ported, modded, improved, etc.), and the "game" that is sold is the compiled binary blob graphics, assets, scripts, etc.

In short, I guess it would basically be like selling RPG Maker games or DOOM wad's, but without the engine itself being proprietary.

<comment><USER5> Isn't UE reasonably close to that already for most practical, if not ideological purposes?

<comment><USER4> But that only works if Unity open sources the engine. A _ubiquitous_ engine is not the same as an open engine. The fact that we now have jDoom, Doomsday, and other enhancements to the engine that let us play Doom, Doom2, Hexen, Heretic, etc. only work because id software released the source code. Otherwise, it would be like any other proprietary engine, and we'd have to reverse-engineer it if we want to be able to play those games again.

I'm sure you could argue that Unity is currently more cross-platform than engines were 10-20 years ago and already works on Mac/Win/Linux/Android/whatever, but we can't guarantee it will be around in 20 years.

<comment><USER6> UE is Unreal Engine, not Unity. Presumably Unreal Engine 4, which gives full source access to anyone who agrees to their EULA and takes patches through GitHub.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You missed the best clone of them all :P [https://github.com/raxod502/TerrariaClone](https://github.com/raxod502/TerrariaClone)

<comment><USER8> Just submit a PR to [https://github.com/piranha/osgameclones/](https://github.com/piranha/osgameclones/)

<comment><USER9> It's not a real game. It's a project online to show all the bad code the guy wrote when he was a young coder.

<comment><USER8> Lol oh ok

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I wasn't trying to cause confusion!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is an awesome list.

I know there are many programmers that spend long hours recreating games they like in open source. But are there artists doing the same? It would be great if many of these projects that require a copy of the original game for the assets could get contributions from artists willing to make open source skins / texture packs as well.

<comment><USER11> Yes: [https://opengameart.org/](https://opengameart.org/)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the link. This looks really cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Those projects are good, but I think it is a bit sad, that the open source movement allmost only manages to produce clones of games and not a new one. Well, let's see, if I can change that one day ... lot's of ideas, but not the time, nor money at the moment. Common problem, I suppose ;)

<comment><USER13> To be fair, creating a new game that's _good_ takes a lot more talent across a lot more domains of expertise than your average FOSS hacker might appreciate. The code is just one part of it - you've got art, music, level design, story possibly, it can be as complicated as making a movie.

Cloning an existing game is easier.

<comment><USER14> If people want to try their hand at it, I recommend them to try to participate in game jam warm-ups, such as MiniLD[0] for Ludum Dare. Getting your feet wet gives quite some hint at the scope of things you have to handle.

[0]: [http://ludumdare.com/compo/minild/](http://ludumdare.com/compo/minild/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an amazing list; thanks a lot for sharing! Here is a link to the underlying github repo where people can contribute to that list: [https://github.com/piranha/osgameclones/](https://github.com/piranha/osgameclones/)

</comment><comment><USER15> There's this best game ever, Master of Magic, which countless people tried to rewrite over but nobody ever got anywhere. Even in this list.

Of these, Star Control (Ur-Quan Masters) is also one of the best games with tear-dropping story which I also recommend highly. The open-source port is of excellent quality.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a good example of when a site with a lot of images would actually be helpful - I could use some thumbnails! ('go submit a pr then')

</comment><comment><USER17> I didn't know that Allegiance was switched to an MIT license from Shared Source, that's awesome! I've not been running Windows natively on a computer for some years now, and I kinda miss playing Free Allegiance with easily 200 players in a single game, so hopefully under the new license it's more likely to be ported off of Direct3D, and then perhaps off of Windows dependence. I'm probably not going to be the one to do it though, so maybe it'll never happen.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great list!

If we were to start an archival project to preserve some of these classics for posterity, it seems there are a couple of techniques. Internet Archive's strategy of collecting (public domain?) ROMs and exposing via JSMAME. Use an open clone as reference and then port again to WebGL. Or for games ported to SDL perhaps re-compile via Emscripten to Javascript.

HTML5 and browsers are becoming performant enough. Is there some other portable emulator that might be a better target?

<comment><USER19> libretro is pretty cool: [https://www.libretro.com/index.php/mission/](https://www.libretro.com/index.php/mission/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I should submit [https://spacewar.pro](https://spacewar.pro) as a clone of DOS SPACEWAR

</comment><comment><USER21> Really nice, but out of date it seems. A lot of the links don't work and sometimes good alternatives aren't mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER22> There's one engine missing in that list, and it's pretty advanced:

[http://fte.triptohell.info](http://fte.triptohell.info)

Supports a lot of the Quake based games (started out as a QW engine but is much more today).

Had Vulkan support way earlier than vkQuake came to be. Spike, the basically single developer behind it is really talented.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd like to see an open, multiplatform clone of Subspace.

We've had a reverse-engineered server for some time: [https://bitbucket.org/grelminar/asss](https://bitbucket.org/grelminar/asss)

</comment><comment><USER24> RTTR for a Settlers II remake is really good (but requires original graphics files).

</comment><comment><USER25> If you didn't play it, and are into puzzle games, I strongly recommend you to try the Pushover reimplementation. I loved that one back in the DOS times, and the free clone contains may additional levels.

</comment><comment><USER26> How do I know which of these could be played in Ubuntu?

</comment><comment><USER27> I'd love it if someone made a Visual Studio Solution that correctly built as many of these as possible.

</comment><comment><USER28> I stumbled upon this when searching for examples of successful open source games. Great list, thanks for this.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's always seemed funny to me that there aren't a million Fantavision clones.

</comment><comment><USER30> You include several clones built on Unity. These are not open source.

<comment><USER31> Is a game "not open source" if all the business-logic code and game assets are open-source, but it relies on a closed-source engine (that it doesn't ship with)?

Doesn't seem much different to me to e.g. writing an open-source game that uses DirectX. DirectX is not, itself, open-source, but it's not really "part of" the game. The game just uses its API; and could equivalently use anything else with the same API (like the DirectX implementation in Wine.)

<comment><USER10> A purist would say that an open source game should use OpenGL. But I generally agree. Unity is free to download so there is no monetary barrier to compiling these games. So it's not free from a GNU sense of the word but it is free money wise and the gameplay parts are open source.

<comment><USER31> That's not even so much what I meant. The "game" isn't the engine; and so the "game" _is_ open source. You're free to modify and redistribute everything that constitutes the game. To _play_ the game, you need the game engine, similar to how running a program requires a machine (real or virtual) with a compatible ISA. But there's nothing forcing you to use a closed-source implementation of the game engine. If an open-source implementation of the engine doesn't exist, you're always free to write one.

Nobody ever says that a program being written for closed-source _hardware_ necessarily implies that the program can't be open source. Because, of course, you can just write your own open VM for that same hardware. Saying that e.g. Gameboy Advance home-brew is all closed source, because the reference implementation of the hardware is closed source, is nonsensical. People are free to write, modify, and run GBA home-brew. Doing the last one just requires an emulator for most people, which is an everyday tool for programmers (given that many languages target _abstract machines_ like the JVM or Erlang's BEAM, where the resulting bytecode ISA is _only_ reified as an emulator.)

<comment><USER32> > If an open-source implementation of the engine doesn't exist, you're always > free to write one.

This is a very strange interpretation.

When a piece of software that is released under a free license has a crucial non-free dependency, it is effectively non-free. As the software only works with the non-free dependency, but that dependency cannot be conveyed along with the free part, the whole thing cannot legally be distributed and thus is non-free.

<comment><USER31> The reason I take that view, is that the ability to _use_ the software isn't actually a part of what makes software open source! As long as people have all the code, and can modify it, and can redistribute their modifications, the code is open-source... whether or not you can run it.

Consider: there are also hardware platforms that have effectively ceased to exist over the years. If you wrote a program for one of these platforms, and it was open-source, would you now consider the program closed-source, because—given that the platform hardware doesn't exist any more—you can't run the software any more?

No. Why not? Because open source is about the source, not about the binary. The source is a product in its own right, and valuable in its own right, whether or not it can be compiled into a working program.

<comment><USER33> > Why not? Because open source is about the source, not about the binary.

If you have the platform and the source, but you can't run the program, then I wouldn't consider it "open source". At least not in the usual sense of FOSS. It's not just about the source; it's about the freedom to study and modify the source, produce improved versions of the original binary, and distribute that binary and the source that created it.

The division between game and platform is lower in the stack than the engine.

> The source is a product in its own right, and valuable in its own right, > whether or not it can be compiled into a working program.

I agree with that statement, but it's a different argument than you were making before.

<comment><USER34> And you won't get far with source modifications if you can't run the program.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to blow whistles securely: Just AdLeaks - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/07/how-blow-whistles-securely?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/JustAdLeaks

<comment><USER2> might be a honeypot for leakers?</comment>


Stan Lee dead at 95 - <AUTHOR> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stan-lee-marvel-comics-legend-721450 <comment><USER2> I'm happy that he lived a good life, I hope he rests in peace.

I'm an avid comic book collector, so he had a huge influence on my life.

His last few years were pretty tumultuous, and filled with controversy because of his "handlers" that appeared to be taking advantage of him. Stan Lee signing things at conventions looked more like a sweatshop than anything else, with his "handlers" having to tell him how to sign his name eventually. Hopefully they didn't inject themselves into his will or exploited him for huge gains.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgfhKG5FTng](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgfhKG5FTng)

</comment><comment><USER3> I always chuckled at his cameo appearances in the movies. Always expected, but in unexpected situations. It was one distinguishing thing in his movies. Of course, the stories were too (depending on the movie).

What a phenomenal legacy he has created and left! He will be missed...and his appearance will be sorely missed in future movies!

</comment><comment><USER4> Very few modern artists have contributed as much to culture (pop or otherwise) as Stan Lee. I'm just happy that his efforts (and others like him like Kirby, Alan Moore, Grant Morrisson, Brian Vaughan, Frank Miller, Miyazaki, Hosoda et al) have created a tour-de-force of modern-day storytelling.

It's almost ironic that I was just finishing a Batman arc when I first heard the news. The news of his death doesn't really leave me sad (He lived a fuller life than most of us ever will) but does find me acknowledging the end of an era.

Thank you Stan Lee!

Excelsior indeed

<comment> forgot-my-pw Excelsior!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So long, Stan, and thanks for all the stories. I always enjoy looking out for the cameo role in all of the Marvel films.

</comment><comment><USER6> Rest In Peace! I have not been a much of a Marvel fan but seeing his cameo in Venom was pretty cool. Now I have to go watch some more Marvel movies!

</comment><comment><USER7> Wrote an article for him - The hero behind heroes [https://medium.com/boosto/stan-lee-excelsior-the-hero- behind...](https://medium.com/boosto/stan-lee-excelsior-the-hero-behind- heroes-3715adf918de)

</comment><comment><USER8> I knew this day was coming, I was waiting for how I might feel for me to experience the death of someone that inspiration for me. But unlike musicians and actors that often die 1/2 or 1/3rd (or 1/4th) this age, I was expecting and content with the outcome of his life.

Aside from the shock of the headline finally coming out, I think I can be content just saying so long.

<comment><USER9> In many ways, considering his life since his beloved wife passed (in bad health and sieged by vultures masquerading as friends), it was probably a relief.

Still, a universe without Stan The Man is a poorer one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know it's hard to pick, but what do people think is Stan Lee's greatest creation?

<comment><USER11> The Stan Lee cameo.

<comment><USER9> Don't be flippant. The man changed the cultural landscape way before any movie of his creations had been shot.

<comment><USER11> That wasn't flippant. Comics were already pushing $2 an issue by the time I noticed them. TV, movies, and Netflix are my only exposure to his creations.

The cameo is something just about everyone knows about and enjoys. People who couldn't afford comics growing up and couldn't get into them later know it. It's iconic. That's great.

<comment><USER12> I agree here. I am not a fan of comic books nor superhero films. My wife loves them though so we have seen most Marvel movies and it id probably where I know Stan Lee from.

Though IIRC he appeared in "the big bang theory" as well.

Of course - his legacy are the characters and stories and not just the cameos :)

<comment><USER13> But cameos drawn into the comics were notable even before they were movies. That the movies continued the tradition made the cameos even better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thanks for the memories. The last cameo is going to be very emotional for viewers.

<comment><USER15> Which movie is that in?

<comment><USER9> I guess the second part of Infinity War, coming up next year. Filming of that one has long been completed. But I'm not up to speed with the MCU at large, so there might be some other minor movie. EDIT: there is Captain Marvel too, already wrapped; and there are rumours that others might have already been filmed, for projects further down the line.

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he had already filmed one for Spider- Man: Far From Home, that one has wrapped production. It's a possibility that he may have some canned appearances meant for future movies as well, but I think FFH is the last one where they could have physically brought him onto the set.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's daunting to think of how many words have been written in titles he cocreated.

He quite possibly helped create the largest piece of fiction humanity has ever written.

</comment><comment><USER18> The neatest thing for Stan Lee must have been to see the realistic-looking movie adaptions of all those comics that he worked on for decades.

<comment><USER19> Right. He literally watched his imagination become as true as it possibly could.</comment></comment>


Pastebin for spoilers - <AUTHOR> http://spoilrs.co/236CEc5d9hkcq-uWDdvh-A <comment><USER2> I was confused for a moment: [http://spoilrs.co/posts/amGpfCV2JLGTlDBRKloP0g](http://spoilrs.co/posts/amGpfCV2JLGTlDBRKloP0g)

Perhaps to make it Javascript-disabled-friendly there can be styles that are _removed_ when the pop-up is dismissed (or that exist when javascript is disabled via <noscript> ?)

I'm also not sure there is a demand for this sort of thing. [spoiler] tags that require to be clicked/highlighted are hard to accidentally click/highlight and in scenarios I know a [spoiler] is used as a link to a pastebin, etc. User behavior I've seen is to middle click the link and view it later/after. Which requires the user to also switch to the tab.

It seems to be a bit of a redundant failsafe, in my honest opinion. But it looks nice and functions! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reminding me to fix that! I just tweaked it so it tells you to enabled java-script in order to use the site now. I will come up with a proper fix later so it works without JS being needed at all.

I agree with on spoiler tags, I wasn't going to push it publicly at all, but my friend said there may be demand for sites that don't have a spoiler tag like facebook. He kind of insisted on pushing it out so we will see what happens.

thanks for taking a look :)

<comment><USER2> _> but my friend said there may be demand for sites that don't have a spoiler tag like facebook._

That's a fair use case. Being one who doesn't use FB, it didn't even cross my mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Me and a couple friends do random programming challenges once a month. Last month we had to build an app in 30 minutes or less based on a randomly picked subject.

I got entertainment as the subject and decided to build a pastebin-like website for spoilers.

The idea is to enable users to be able share spoilers easily without the worry of someone accidentally clicking on the link. If you do accidentally click on a link, don't worry as you won't see the spoiler until you say "show me the spoiler".

I am not sure if there is any demand for this at all, but my friend suggested I put it online as it may be useful to others.

Let me know what you think, I know its super simple right now but if there is demand I can add more features.</comment>


Diaspora Founders to Move On, Handing Over Social Network 'To The Community' - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/27/diaspora-founders-hand-project-to-community/

<comment><USER2> Diaspora seemed to be heavily focused on the presentational layer of a social network, rather than the actual social network itself. That seems to have been premature. I like the approach of "Tent.io" much more. Simply work on building a consensus for a protocol that people can start working with.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really sad that they gave this up to work on Makr.io

<comment><USER4> Didn't know what it was, so I looked it up. A meme generator. Aren't there enough of those already ?

I could maybe understand if they hoped to get money out of this. Does that seem likely (asking for opinions here, I really have no clue) ?

<comment><USER3> They could probably sell it off if they happened to get some traction, but given that it's been a week since they launched it and every item on the homepage is self-referential, the chances seem low.

Going from a Facebook competitor to this is just really sad.

Then again, maybe they've got something up their sleeve that we don't know about given that they're YC, but from what I've seen I have my doubts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could someone explain to a slightly naive young man how these guys ever intended to have a viable business, if the premise of their product was that it would be free and outside of central control?

</comment><comment><USER6> Who can blame them? It's hard working on something nobody wants.

</comment><comment><USER7> It seems as if the group were the only ones keeping the project going, and without them there won't be much more work on it.

</comment><comment><USER8> or "So long, and thanks for all the money."</comment>


El Niño Storms Put Pacifica Cliff Apartments at Risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/us/el-nino-storms-put-pacifica-cliff-apartments-at-risk.html <comment><USER2> The drone footage on this was amazing... and of course horrifying.</comment>


Algorithms as Microservices - <AUTHOR> http://blog.algorithmia.com/2016/03/algorithms-as-microservices/ <comment><USER2> This is one of the dumbest things I've read in a long time. Algorithms are _not_ where the real value is: that's why you can pull them off shelves at the bookstore. Algorithms are public knowledge, commodities to be written and rewritten at will by common, workaday developers.

 _Data_ is where the value is, because you're the only who has it. It's your competitive advantage. It's your secret stash that no one else can access. And if you're willing to ship it halfway around the world to a microservice provider based on flashy marketing, well, I've got a bridge to sell you before your VC money runs out.

<comment><USER3> Disregarding the article, I sort of disagree with your comment too, maybe you are oversimplifying it too much. Or maybe because it's kind of a chicken and the egg kind of problem - which came first, the algorithm or the data.

Sure, generic sort algorithms come "off-the-shelf", but that is not true for all algorithms. Not all algorithms are public knowledge if they are patented, proprietary, or restricted in use/distribution.

You really need both - algorithms and data, right? And systems of execution for algorithms... and networks to interconnect the systems... and potentially humans to review the algorithm's output... and..... and... and..

I think the key is, algorithms can also represent embedded capabilities (information? knowledge? insight? not sure what to call it) generated from data. I mean, look at a RNN - the values/weights/etc. calculated inside the model are calculated from observations/training on the data. Once you disconnect the algorithm from the data itself, the algorithm alone now has embedded value without the data, potentially enormous.

Or, expert/rule-based systems which contain algorithms explicitly designed to embed human knowledge - those algorithms may not even be trained on actual data, they are simply a simplified expression of codified human knowledge.

If you go one step further and try to make some assumption that the way our brains work is by codifying inputs we receive into algorithmic models... and then using those algorithms to calculate based on new inputs from the environment... we can't keep all the data in our heads, but we can probably keep more algorithms than data.

Maybe I'm being too philosophical, but in my opinion, it's not just about the data.

<comment><USER4> Very interesting viewpoint. Any algorithm can be replaced by data and a lookup (e.g. Rainbow or multiplication tables.) On the opposite direction, the claim that any data can be replaced by an algorithm is indeed deeply philosophical (c.f. Materialism and free will)

<comment><USER5> If we want to go deeply philosophical, then fundamentally data and algorithms are the same thing anyway. Whether you interpret something as data or as code depends only on the angle you're approaching a problem at.

<comment><USER6> From the perspective of a Turing machine, they're the exact same thing. We just created abstractions to separate them. And from the perspective of physics, you've just got yourself yet another isomorphic transformation of the above mentioned Turing machine, so still the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I went to the algorithmia site and looked through their algorithms.

Some aren't algorithms (or at least not of any algorithmic note) - for example [https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/web/ShareCounts](https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/web/ShareCounts) count social shares on facebook, pinterest, twitter, linkedin.

There are a lot of text analysis algorithms, but I find that problematic because in many cases the accuracy of the result on the data you pass it is going to depend on the training corpus. And you don't give it that.

When I look at any reasonably complicated algorithm the price is also quite a lot, if for example you want to use AutoTag [https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/nlp/AutoTag](https://algorithmia.com/algorithms/nlp/AutoTag) to extract tags the price is $116 for 10,000 calls. If I am extracting tags to play around with something personally then I won't hit 10,000 calls quickly, but on the other hand it's my money and I would rather implement it myself so as to not spend the money. If I am extracting tags for a real application running in production 10,000 calls could go quite quickly. I would want to develop the in house capability pretty soon.

Maybe it would be useful to build MVPs that used the functionality and then just slot the algorithm in with a TODO replace this as soon as possible so as not to pay lots message. but my personal predilection would be to just build the functionality I need.

<comment><USER7> should also note that, in my experience, if you need one nlp algorithm you probably need more than one, and if you have developed the architecture/skills/code to use one probably using the others will decrease in the time required to implement, while with algorithmia you don't seem to get a discount on higher numbers of calls, or using related algorithms.

This really also goes for other things, like image analysis etc. etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Problem I see is that given following algorithm types, I see only one of them really fits this model:

1\. common algorithms (sorting, graph algorithms, etc) - are commodity and there are tons of free libraries that have good enough implementations.

2\. generic data dependent algorithms with many parameters (classification, NLP, neural networks, etc) - many many parameters to tune and they need to be tuned for each type of dataset. Unless you understand the algorithm, there is no real value in playing around with parameters. But if you understand algorithm then you probably want to implement or modify it to your specific needs (speed, complexity, etc). Only people who just want to play around with data might want to try off the shelve stuff to see how it performs but I don't see much market for serious users. I might be wrong here though.

3\. Very specialized algorithms (3D surface reconstruction out of points, antenna analysis, etc) - this includes above algorithm types(common and generic data driven) that were specifically tuned to specific purpose. Some companies sell libraries that do that and those companies would probably benefit from Algorithmia.

</comment><comment><USER9> If an algorithm is on another server, you have to pump the data over there, process it, and pump the results back. If the data size is large, transferring the data will take some time. Thus, the algorithm must require substantially more time than the data transfer. Render farms are the classic example.

There are some commercial desktop applications which do this. Autodesk Fusion is one. Some of the more compute-intensive tasks are sent to servers at Autodesk. If you don't like that, you can buy Autodesk Inventor, which is more expensive and requires a big desktop machine locally. (I've used a 24 CPU machine with Inventor. If you're doing finite element analysis or injection molding simulation or ray tracing rendering, it can be worth it.) Autodesk 123 Catch (3D model from photos) also works that way, which allows running it from a phone app.

Another possibility is that the algorithm is proprietary. This comes up with oil well data analysis. But the data is proprietary too, so everybody has to sign tough agreements.

This article mostly looks like a way to have micropaments (maybe not so micro) for software accessed from servers. If you're running on Linux, it's hard to license software to a server, what with virtual machines, cloud systems, and containers being started and stopped.

<comment><USER10> > Thus, the algorithm must require substantially more time than the data > transfer. Render farms are the classic example.

Unless you work at Pixar, where render farms have been bandwidth-limited from day one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If only there was a service that offered left padding. That would be huge.

<comment><USER12> Worry not, [http://left-pad.io/](http://left-pad.io/) has you covered.

<comment><USER13> Too bad that they don't offer a hosted version of left-pad stack, our CEO worries about privacy. And I can't find SLA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What do they mean by "microservice" in this context? In a microservice architecture there is a topology of services. Data & Requests move and fan out in this topology.

For algorithms "microservice" architecture is highly dubious. You may perform point-lookups (given X, categorize Y) but you may also perform a large-scale computation (given millions of X, categorize Y). In that case, moving _code_ around instead of data is much more valuable. Thus you get systems like SQL, Hadoop, Spark where code is shipped around instead of data.

</comment><comment><USER15> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow- based_programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow-based_programming)

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

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipeline_\(software\))

And similar premises. This isn't a totally new idea. Come up with the minimum functionality for a process. Construct a method of communicating and plumbing these together. Spin them up on demand as needed. Many companies have done research on this concept.

</comment><comment> norea-armozel This seems like marketing speak gone wild. First, 'data' and 'algorithms' really don't have much meaning here because if you already are producing 'data' then you have software which implements 'algorithms' to pull the data in the first. Adding functionality to whatever software you're using is more a matter of finding out what you need to know from your 'data' so why leave it in the hands of someone who doesn't know what you really need? It just seems like people assume that writing or utilizing software are easily outsourced/commodified when in practice you will always have an analyst or a programmer somewhere in your business. Just pay the for person and get over it, already.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ethereum is sort of like "any-algorith-as-a-service"

<comment><USER17> This is the most insightful comment so far. Recently there was posted the pay- per-use API market 21.co, a "micropayments marketplace" [1]. We do have solutions for moving code to data, sure, like Hadoop and Joyent's Manta.

But consider we already outsource algorithms for bitcoin generation and transaction processing. A small amount of data that does require specialized processing. We're seeing it again with voice recognition and image processing APIs. This will continue as we have more data which will encourage more specialized hardware and create situations where algorithms as a service make sense, like Ethereum's smart contracts and 21.co's flat pricing.

In theory it could be very efficient for easy code problems to be solved, leaving man-hours for innovation. Which is what we have all worked towards in open-source. But the flattr/gittip model essentially fails in this regard. Can it be solved by the free market?

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270292)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This would only makes sense when Internet connections reach 1Tb at low cost. The only "algorithms" this currently makes sense for are very complex ones such as voice recognition which require too much data and processing power to include in a phone's OS.

</comment><comment><USER19> What do you guys think about Saas vs licensing containers? With Saas, the vendor takes care of operating the infrastructure. With containers the customer is responsible for the infrastructure. Which do you prefer and why?

<comment><USER5> Containers, because they can be made simple enough to not require having a specialized sysadmin, and they give you full control - it's your network, your data and your machines executing code. No third party can suddenly disappear, "update" to add "features", get acquihired, etc. I understand that the benefits of SaaS is that it is easy, but if you step back and look at it from an engineering (or security) point of view, the current obsession with it is simply insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> initial impression: pretentious marketing

</comment><comment><USER21> This is what all big fat BI/BW providers have been doing for decades now, isn't it?

</comment><comment><USER22> Hey guys we haven't gone small enough. We really need to just write operations as micro services. Because really all we are doing is fitting puzzle pieces together and we don't need to worry about the gritty details of the operations themselves.

<comment><USER15> These should be nanoservices. Then breaking it down further we'll get to picoservices.

<comment><USER23> You're not hip enough anymore, the new good practice in the valley is femtoservices. Each statement running on its own server.

<comment><USER24> Run each machine code instruction in its own container.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Someone will fall for these buzzwords.</comment>


Speed up your JavaScript, Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2009/01/13/speed-up-your-javascript-part-1/

<comment><USER2> Most of the time you shouldn't even need to chunk processing like this, and if you do, you might be doing something else wrong.</comment>


The Portlandia Effect: How Did the Show Change the City It Satirized? - <AUTHOR> http://www.vulture.com/2018/03/portlandia-effect-how-did-the-show-change-portland.html <comment><USER2> I seriously doubt the show has as much effect as some in the article are suggesting. I'd bet that it is largely spillover from Silicon Valley and Seattle.

<comment><USER3> The creators of the show agree: "You're going to have to find something else to talk about why Portland's changing. Oh, it's still changing, but Portlandia's over." -Carrie Brownstein

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> People tend to pick either "Piece of media X had no effect on culture" or "media X had these specific, clear, well-defined effect on culture."

Both are cop-outs, born from what the speaker wants to be true.

The more interesting question is: Given that Portland has long since replaced San Francisco as the most prominent uniquely-cultured west cost city, what changes are inevitable? And what role did Portlandia play in the larger picture of that change?

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been looking at a move to Portland from Chicago for the past year. I've never seen the show, I've lived in Chicago for the past 10 years.

( Online ) Portlanders love to say that people are moving there for the show, are openly hostile to the thought of people moving there, harass people online, and quote things like "Oregon is full" and for some reason seem to think their city is the most expensive in the United States.

You see things like people explaining they're moving to Portland from New York for a job, and people's advice will be: "HAH, good lock affording the rent!", when in reality, rent is much higher in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Denver, and the nice parts of Chicago.

I guess my point is: Portland is experiencing what these cities experienced a decade later. It sucks and it's wrong. But blaming a television show and harassing people for moving there isn't really productive.

> Tobias Read, the Oregon state treasurer, stood at a podium before news > station cameras and a heaping display of cupcakes to applaud Portlandia for > providing the city with $36 million in direct spending, 200 annual jobs, and > $18 million spent on in-state goods to Oregon vendors. The show "increased > tourism and our city's notoriety," he said.

I find it telling that city officials are thanking Portlandia for the tourism money.

There are a lot of good reasons for moving to Oregon besides a television show. Here are mine:

\- Better housing. Sure, you can find pretty cheap housing in Chicago, if you're willing to ride the El to and from work at an hour a pop each way ( MINIMUM ). Living in the upscale neighborhoods of Portland cost basically the same amount as living in an upscale Chicago neighborhood ( AKA, has good proximity to work ).

\- Less violent crime.

\- Better climate. Last year I swore I would not live through another Chicago winter, they are absolutely horrible and never end.

\- Proximity to nature. The midwest is boring for nature, especially around Chicago. It's cornfields and nothing else for miles and miles.

\- Access to skiing and other active lifestyle activities.

\- Portland is legendary for it's biking infrastructure and culture, and has one of the highest pedestrian commuting rates in the country.

\- It has decent public transit.

\- It's a smaller city, and is not a nightmare to traverse.

\- My partner is an architect, and Portland is actually building housing like crazy.

For the sake of fairness, I'll list out the cons:

\- Locals seem to be hostile to transplants

\- VERY LARGE homeless problem. Not as bad as Los Angeles, Seattle, or New York, though. Problem with this is that you really have to live there for a while to understand the extent of the problem.

\- Taxes are higher

\- Smaller city, smaller tech scene, less job opportunities

\- SAD amount of diversity, and an extremely racist past

\- Much fewer days of sunlight.

<comment><USER6> How do you ride more than an hour one direction to get to any place people work in Chicago? I don't remember even Loop to Evanston being that long.

<comment><USER5> Evanston has the metra, not the el. Fewer stops. And even THEN, you have to get to your actual place of work from the transportation station. And things have changed even in the last 5 years.

It adds up:

If you don't live close to the El, you have to walk there or catch a bus. That's 20 minutes.

Actual trip on the el is another 30 minutes, if you're lucky.

If you don't work right off of an El stop, that's another 15 minutes.

And that is OPTIMAL time, oftentimes you will get delays because the blue line is over-populated and has constant delays.

[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct- per...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-blue- line-cta-delays-commute-20180220-story.html)

<comment><USER7> > _"Evanston has the metra, not the el."_

Evanston is served by both Metra and the El. The Purple line north of Howard runs through Evanston and has multiple stops.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jspp: A JavaScript Pre-Processor - <AUTHOR> http://www.jspp.io/

<comment><USER2> The tagline (tag-paragraph?) is a little opaque:

 _A simple way to build web applications with embedded server side JavaScript. In a few minutes you can build dynamic backend logic in to any page (html, css, etc) using node.js, jQuery and server side DOM with php-like embedded code._

Having read through the rest of the page, I'd rewrite it like this:

 _A way to embed server-side JavaScript into HTML and CSS files. JSPP uses PHP-like template tags and gives you access to jQuery and node.js modules._

</comment><comment><USER3> dildos

<comment><USER4>

              <?jspp
              dicks = require("dicks").dicksSync(10)
              $(this).html( dicks.join("\n") )
              end()
              ?>

<comment><USER5> wtf?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How Often do you reformat your peronal computer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I tend to run Ubuntu LTS in my systems, and only upgrade between them every 2-4 years to a next LTS or the one after (Ubuntu does Long Term Support releases every 2 years and supports them for 5 years). I will reformat once in a few upgrades, so on a scale of 6-10 years.

Now, I run a bunch of lxd containers for development, and they are a bit more ephemeral and might get re-setup more frequently. This allows me to avoid having a base system with dependencies for stuff I don't really need.

I sometimes also reformat when I introduce new disks or replace them with bigger ones.

</comment><comment><USER3> Once on installing the operating system.

I would only reformat again if changing to a different file system. Eg: XFS to EXT4

Even that is not really necessary, since fstransform can convert file systems in situ.

</comment><comment><USER4> i tend to redo my system at least every 6 months if not every 3

</comment><comment><USER5> Whenever I want to sell it.</comment>


Free List of 1000 Fastest Growing SaaS: Includes 21+ YC Companies - <AUTHOR> http://saas1000.com/ <comment><USER2> Thanks!

If you signup you can get the list for free and get the updates that we are going to send later which will include things like you are talking about;

-Growth Rate Graph -Has growth slowed in the past quarter -Which ones took money, etc.

The ranking data is somewhat based on the # of employees a company has and how quickly it grows.

</comment><comment><USER3> Where do you get the ranking data? It would be nice to see a small summary of what the companies do. If you add a growth rate graph, that would help too.

Good job.

</comment><comment><USER4> What does one do with this data?</comment>


Improving and Making the Vulnerability Equities Process Transparent - <AUTHOR> https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2017/11/15/improving-and-making-vulnerability-equities-process-transparent-right-thing-do <comment><USER2> I think there is a big "citation needed" when they say:

"The United States is a world leader when it comes to sophisticated processes and conversation on this topic, and no other nation in has created and run a process as advanced, meticulous, and transparent as ours."

</comment><comment><USER3> dang, sctb, et al.:

You guys should recommend this post (and/or the "Charter" [0]) for re- submission in a couple of days (whatever you call it). I think this is a story that is definitely interesting and relevant to many HN readers and would certainly spark some good discussion. I'm not sure why it wasn't noticed the first time but I know that sometimes "timing is everything". Thanks!

[0]: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/External%20-%20Unclassified%20VEP%20Charter%20FINAL.PDF)</comment>


Startup Lessons Learned -- Take it with a grain of salt - <AUTHOR> http://warholandy.tumblr.com/post/48157830/startup-lessons-learned <comment><USER2> hahaha. this is great- I tried to post my own experience with this start-up (and in my opinion, citing the _REAL_ problems) and was told to take the post down (later, with legal text) and now I see this post, trying to parody the one I wrote with things like 5. and 8. - shame. I might want to add though, that the author does not have the technical expertise to figure out who wrote how much code along with other (many) misrepresentations- otherwise, 8, while very sound and correct advice, might differ in terminology and he might have a better idea fitting his take into existing context written by PG and others.

Nonetheless, most of the advice is realistic and useful in the sense that the points raised are practical and might help structure your startup.

<comment><USER3> So was it like a big fight with drama and crying and all? Did someone get voted out? Please do tell your side of the story! I love drama!

<comment><USER2> I wish I could but unfortunately- the author is very agile with his various BS NDA, Non-compete and what-the-hell-not forms. I'd rather move on to things in my life that don't waste 5 months of my time. Anyway, I just couldn't hold myself back from saying something when seeing the "leader" go on and publish his thoughts while suppressing mine and then misrepresenting a _few_ things.

I'd rather end it here by saying I don't want to be a part of this new blame game and that the advice given is very sound and realistic. Tragically, the author has tried to apply his zero-technical background to very technical practices when trying to blow out his thoughts into relevant context provided by others. In the process, he has decided to dish out 50% of the problems, misrepresenting a _few_ and then suppressing the other _REAL_ 50% through NDA forms.

Lastly, so that it is clear- the author and his company paid 0 dollars for the patent- It all came out of my pocket and was the result of years of work.

In my opinion it is wise to file a provisional patent for an idea _you_ think is worth it in all its uniqueness and by all measures, I (think I) did not commit a crime by _trying_ to secure my invention/s.

Choose the people who you work for very, very carefully. Things like this (and probably worse) happen later.

Adios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Our biggest mistake in our startup was scrapping a prototype that was built in a certain framework for first PHP and then eventually Python/Django. ... This applies not just to the programming language or framework, but to hardware and software applications — keep costs low, use what you already know, and move on"

This is one that requires a large grain of salt. Switching technology may very well be compatible with "use what you already know" and "keep costs low". You can't switch key players in the middle and expect consistency in either quality or cost, which a lot of people think is possible. "You can't afford to have a religion" works both ways: you can't have a religion based on what you perceive to the value of what you've already done either. I've come into a few projects after a not insignificant money was spent on "cheap" freelancers and contractors to "get the prototype up". Now all I'm supposed to do is add a few more features and polish it to take it to the next level or deploy it. This is often an impossible task, or one that will take longer or cost more than a rewrite because it merely does the prototypical features and wasn't built for expansion or even deployment. But people fear the "rewrite" because it sounds like you're starting over. Get the right people in early, use #8 when necessary, and #6, #7 will come easier (at least in terms of the technology).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the hard lesson I am learning is that you really can't afford to spend time arguing with co-founders about what should be included and what should not.

I think that every 2 person team has to designate one person as leader, and the other as adviser. Otherwise there are too many bruised egos and too much compromise.

</comment><comment><USER5> Post was pretty good, but this link within the post was even better: <http://venturehacks.com/articles/speed>

</comment><comment><USER6> Can really relate to #9 "Highs and Lows — Never give up".

One day I think "haha this is going to be _BIG_ ". Then the next day I think to myself it's an idiotic idea that will never make any money and is using too much traffic and I ought to just close it now before it uses more. Trying to average those feelings out over the days is quite hard - especially if you're a single founder.

I guess if you have co-founders, each founders highs and lows rarely coincide, so you're able to pick each other up.</comment>


Business ecology and the four customer currencies - <AUTHOR> http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/12/business-ecology-and-four-customer.html <comment><USER2> But are there really only four of those?</comment>


Watch Germany Switch on Its Experimental Fusion Reactor Live - <AUTHOR> http://www.iflscience.com/physics/watch-germany-switch-their-experimental-fusion-reactor-live <comment><USER2> >... switched on by German chancellor Angela Merkel – who herself has a doctorate in physics.

Why can't we get scientists in politics? :-(

I mean, a constitutional law professor isn't bad, and we've had an engineer president once before, but those were the high points.

<comment><USER3> I have no reason to doubt the technical skill of the engineer.

The constitutional law professor, on the other hand, seems to repeatedly demonstrate either ignorance or contempt of that document, based upon the actions of his administration.

<comment><USER4> Who are you to say what the constitution says! He is a professor and knows more than you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems it's all over already: [http://www.ipp.mpg.de/livestream_e_16](http://www.ipp.mpg.de/livestream_e_16)

Countdown was at 3:35pm, ending at 3:50pm. It's past 4pm local time now and the live stream is only showing the test video.

EDIT: They have an official YouTube channel at [https://www.youtube.com/user/plasmaphysik/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/plasmaphysik/videos) but haven't updated it yet. There's the video from December showing the helium plasma, though.

<comment><USER6> Now there is a speech by someone: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmFeG44euHY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmFeG44euHY) (Watching to see if there is anything more...)

Update: Looots of speeches.

update2: Here is the interesting bit with someting happening, almost at the end: [https://youtu.be/KmFeG44euHY?t=2548](https://youtu.be/KmFeG44euHY?t=2548)

<comment><USER5> I was a bit confused when it looked like the presenter was introducing Angela Merkel and then Sibylle Günter from MPI was the first speaker (Merkel herself steps up roughly half-way through).

But yeah, it's rather uneventful to watch if you're not intimately familiar with what's actually going on in that one second. Definitely not worth watching for the speeches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, if is a success this could maintain the reaction itself?

Which would be the next steps? Building a realone that could produce energy?

<comment><USER8> The presentation in the video[1] has a chart comparing it to other research reactors

Older version of this chart on page 20 of this pdf[2].

Stellarators are still lagging behind tokamaks due to lower funding and higher complexity of the asymmetric plasma.

[1] [https://youtu.be/KmFeG44euHY?t=478](https://youtu.be/KmFeG44euHY?t=478) [2] [http://esv- paf.de/images/stories/energie_fuer_alle_wochen/au...](http://esv- paf.de/images/stories/energie_fuer_alle_wochen/auf_dem_weg_zu_einem_fusionskraftwerk_- _bernadett_gmeiner_max-planck-institut_02.04.11.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Will this produce more energy than it consumes?

<comment><USER8> No, it won't produce much energy at all. They're only doing hydrogen and later deuterium, i.e. no tritium injections. That'll only undergo minimal amounts of fusion, so little that the reactor will barely get irradiated and can be modified.

The goal is to learn what's necessary to build a bigger device.</comment></comment>


An Anecdote About ML Type Inference (1994) - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20081006181650/http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/vhll/full_papers/koenig.a <comment><USER2> Just checked the code examples in a current Standard ML compiler, and they work without modification and behave as described. That's why you should choose Standard ML for your next project.

Great example though. When looking at Idris I had the impression there was a logical end point of having the type system so descriptive that, given the type of a function, there was only one possible implementation.

<comment><USER3> About twenty years ago I endeavored to learn both Standard ML and OCaml, and I found I preferred SML. I'm not clear how OCaml has gotten more mindshare, but I really liked SML/NJ.

I suppose back then we were still in the throes of "object-oriented is best" and the "object" in OCaml had some pull

<comment><USER4> I guess so. Both mainstream market mindshare and research freshness. The Ocaml Object System was quite liked at the time for the solid backing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Play with Standard ML in your browser: [http://try.mosml.org/](http://try.mosml.org/)

There's also an SML compiler generating Javascript: [http://www.smlserver.org/smltojs/](http://www.smlserver.org/smltojs/)

Just as a simple demo, I combined it with Processing, to make this little thing: [http://hjemmesider.diku.dk/~dybber/processing- sml/](http://hjemmesider.diku.dk/~dybber/processing-sml/)

</comment><comment><USER6> The phenomenon described in this article is actually an instance of Reynold's parametricity. This one of the free stuff you get for using a (reasonable version of) static typing.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a good argument for having argument types declared for functions and structures, but inferring as much else as possible.

The trouble with inferring everything is someone reading the functions has no idea what the restrictions are. The classic Python example involves "lists" (built-in arrays) vs NumPy arrays. They implement most of the same operators and functions, but with different semantics. For built-in arrays, "+" means concatenate.

</comment><comment><USER8> I keep getting tricked by ML referring to either the programming language or the subfield of AI.

<comment><USER9> It used to be that "type inference" would successfully disambiguate, but now things like these exist [https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.02161](https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.02161) [https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.10657](https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.10657)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> \- SML is old

\- OCaML has OO cruft and OCaML folks themselves keep telling you "Oh, you don't have to use the OO parts of OCaML"

Well then effin give me an ML that's more modern than SML, and has no OO cruft!

don't tell me "take this stuff that we think is good, and just ignore parts of it that are bad"

(and I'm not interested in Haskell).

edit: Matt Might lists only two other languages [0], Scala and Scheme. Both are not ML (though I think some folks think Scala is an ML?)

[0] [http://matt.might.net/articles/best-programming- languages/](http://matt.might.net/articles/best-programming-languages/)

<comment><USER5> What is the problem with being old? I see the main problem with SML as lack of libraries and community.

<comment><USER10> I guess SML would be it then. I'm sick and tired of the OCaML community that tells you to use OCaML, as if it's better than SML, but then tells you not to worry about the OO parts.</comment></comment></comment>


Users Who Know Too Much (e.g. who read the print-friendly version instead) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cio.com/archive/021507/fea_user_mgmt.html?action=print <comment><USER2> While this article has some good insights it is not on topic -- it's for established businesses, not start-ups.

</comment><comment><USER3>

<comment><USER3> Commented the wrong post, my bad.</comment></comment>


Another arrest shows why no one can hide from the genetic detectives - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/611172/another-arrest-shows-why-no-one-can-hide-from-the-genetic-detectives/ <comment><USER2> Pretty soon it will not matter if they don't have your DNA - they will be able to figure yours out from samples from your relatives.</comment>


I replaced my oven with a waffle maker, and you should too - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/09/i-replaced-my-oven-with-a-waffle-maker-and-you-should-too/ <comment> yoz-y How do I put a whole chicken in a waffle maker?

<comment><USER2> Hammer.</comment></comment>


The Inside Story of a Small Startup Acquisition (Part 3) - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2012/02/28/the-inside-story-of-a-small-startup-acquisition-part-3

<comment><USER2> I dont know why the HN system accepted my submission a minute later than yours (shouldnt it check for duplicates?). Btw I've deleted it.

<comment><USER3> Maybe you didn't include the slash at the end of the link...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi Rob! Would you mind sharing the marketing plan (with secret-sauce details removed perhaps)?

<comment><USER5> If I removed the secret sauce parts it's just a blank Word Doc :-)

But seriously, there's not much in there that I can share at this point. However, as I implement and experiment with approaches I will be blogging about them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are good resources for learning data modelling in cassandra? - <AUTHOR> I have started using cassandra for one of the projects I am working on and I did datastax course on data modeling. However in practice, there are several cases where I get stuck with what would be correct way to model data. To give example, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41025245/cassandra-update-value-in-one-of-the-clustering-column   So I am searching for good sources to read more about data modeling and explore more real life examples. What are resources that you found useful? <comment><USER2> How about this free tutorial from datastax ?

[https://academy.datastax.com/resources/ds201-foundations- apa...](https://academy.datastax.com/resources/ds201-foundations-apache- cassandra?unit=introduction-course-introduction)

<comment><AUTHOR> I already did this course. However there still a few cases which are not clear to me. I don't know if sub-optimal solution I am assuming for those cases is correct or I am doing any mistake with data modeling / there is alternate way of data modeling to avoid it.

For eg. It is advisable in cassandra to do data modeling around queries. However if I model set a column as clustering column for the purpose of sorting based on it and if that object is dynamic, because it is clustering column, I cannot update its value since it belongs to primary key now for that table. In that case, two options are

1) Sorting on client side (which is bad) 2) Delete complete row and insert new row (which will create tombstone) Is there other valid way of achieving this in Cassandra data modeling?

Eg. I have table_A and for query of getting all rows with a particular state, table_A_by_state. However since state will be dynamic, and you will need to update state in table_A_by_state which comes with options I mentioned above. Has someone else faced same problem or is there other way of data modeling for this problem?

table_A: Columns: id (K), name, state

table_A_by_state: Columns: id (K), state (C), name</comment></comment>


"Freedom of Expression on Internet Guaranteed" -today's China Daily headline - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/08/china_internet_strategy/

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of Google's services still seem to be blocked today though, as per <http://www.google.com/prc/report.html></comment>


The Donbass Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://www.theblacksea.eu/donbass/ <comment><USER2> This was a very engaging, high effort piece of journalism from an org I've never heard of before. Content like this is not cheap to make which gave me the _something 's not right here_ vibe, so I tried to find out who paid for this. Their about page says they received a grant from the The German Marshall Fund of the United States, which was founded during the Cold War as a way to promote ties between the US and West Germany. Some digging shows the org is funded by the German/US governments and has at least $200m in endowment. So be aware this journalism is funded by US interests.

<comment><USER3> Why should we be aware of journalism funded by the US or their interests. Where should I get my news from RT or Sputnik?

<comment><USER4> Because "journalism funded by the US or their interests" is most likely propaganda.

Why do we not get similar long form articles about Saudi Arabia?

<comment><USER5> Russian doctrine of information warfare seeks to create confusion, distrust and ambiguity about truth. Part of this ideology is to label everything as propaganda, to claim there is no objective truth, that everything is influenced by the funding agent. This allows to claim, that Russian-backed news sources that form an integral part of their information warfare machinery and spread blatant lies, are as legitimate as any other source of information. This allows the state to keep the monopoly of truth which allows for removal of any accountability from government actions. Which perpetuates status quo of power.

There are in fact shades of grey. All journalists are biased by their world- view and of course backers at least fund the ones the views of whom they like. But there is such thing as journalist ethics and not all funders exercise the sort of control over the writers as the fsb does. Not all media is propaganda.

We don't get such articles about Saudi Arabia because there is no war there.

<comment><USER4> > We don't get such articles about Saudi Arabia because there is no war there.

Yeah, but they're fighting in Yemen and have a heavy hand in Syria. A lot of long form articles from our main steam media can be written about Saudi Arabia if they really want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Obvious propaganda piece. Both sides are doing bad things. Intelligent observers can read about the situation widely and decide for themselves what the drivers of the situation are, but this piece doesn't add much.

Just for the sake of fairness, I could play devils advocate for either side, but an intelligent reader will do that for themselves, so I'll skip it.

Also, I checked their list of stories, and they all seem to be negative...

<comment><USER7> >Both sides are doing bad things.

Such statements downplay the root cause and pretend like all parties are equally guilty which is never the case. All sides did bad things in WW2, although it doesn't make all parties equally guilty. It was Hitler who started it. It was Putin who started the war against Ukraine by annexing Crimea. He personally and Russia in general bear the responsibility for the war they planned, prepared, started, financed and still keep running.

<comment><USER4> > It was Putin who started the war against Ukraine by annexing Crimea.

What happened before Russia annexed Crimea? If you can answer that question honestly, you'll get to the root of that conflict. Just be honest with yourself.

<comment><USER8> It all depends on how far back you want to go. Before the annexation, there was a referendum, but before the referendum, there was de facto occupation by the "polite people" aka Russian forces with all identification tags removed (a war crime in and of itself, by the way).

Before the occupation, there was Maidan. And before Maidan, there was Yanukovich, whose achievements include stuffing the Supreme Court, and having it scrap the country's new 2004 Constitution and reverting to the old one, which, coincidentally, gave president a great deal more power than the new one.

We can go all the way back to Pereyaslav Rada if you want, but what's the point of the exercise? No matter how you slice it, Russia invaded and occupied a part of a sovereign country, and there was no genocide or other serious crimes against humanity ongoing there that could possibly justify such a thing.

<comment><USER4> If you stop at "Before the occupation, there was Maidan", then do a serious investigation of those behind the Maidan, you'll get the real answer.

Hints: John McCain went to egg them on (He was in Libya and Syria too). The US ambassador was handing out cookies to police officers. And then there's Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland - [http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-26079957](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957)

<comment><USER8> So what? Last I checked, there were Russian tanks in Crimea and Donbass. There were no US tanks in Kiev.

Or are you saying that tanks are an adequate response to cookies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whatever side you're on, it's a damn shame what's happened in the Donbass. All the industry bombed to shit, thousands killed, more jobless and forced into poverty. And it doesn't look like it will be over anytime soon. I just hope the people there get enough aid to survive, and maybe a hand rebuilding out of the rubble once the fighting stops.

Слава україні, героям слава.

</comment><comment><USER10> @tristanj: thanks for reading the piece.

theblacksea.eu is run by the romanian centre for investigative journalism, a romanian non-profit (www.crji.org). RCIJ is part of various international networks, including the latest www.eic.network

you can check the RCIJ/CRJI for investigating the CIA black-sites, partnering with Wikileaks on the cable gate, and other investigative stories;

the black sea website had a grant from the Black Sea Trust, operated by GMFU, in 2012 for one year, in order to build the site from scratch under free software licence and to perform the initial 10 stories or so. that grant expired in 2013, 3 years ago.

we would love some more funding, but for now most of the work is done pro-bono or on a freelance basis.</comment>


Get ready, get set, Go - <AUTHOR> https://nathany.com/learn-go/ <comment><AUTHOR> This article is an excerpt from Learn Go, a beginner's guide to Go, that I am writing with Manning Publications.

I'm targeting people with some experience with a scripting language but fairly new to programming, while trying to keep it moving at a good pace. If that describes you, I'm very curious if it makes sense or what areas should be better explained.</comment>