There's a 1,200-year-old Phone in the Smithsonian Collections - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ideas-innovations/Theres-a-1200-year-old-Phone-in-the-Smithsonian-Collections-231152081.html <comment><USER2> I think we radically underestimate the sheer volume of technology that predates 1500 Europe. (Roughly where we count the modern western world from.maybe)

From the Antikythera mechanism to Hero's steam engines, model planes in Mexico and ball bearings on Roman emperors ships, humans did not lack invention, but what bound the modern world together was not better inventors but cheap printing and wider distribution of those ideas so they would not die out when one location failed.

I suspect that civilisations occur when they make the retention and spread of ideas pass a critical mass (ie the empire provides sufficient protection that an idea created in one place can find a home elsewhere in the empire (comms network)

<comment><USER3> Tossed off in the middle of James Burke's connections, while he's driving a French postal van up a mountain on the way to tell the story about the discovery of the vacuum, is exactly this point. As people communicate faster and more reliably, knowledge spreads and advances.

[http://www.transcriptsearch.com.es/id/w-pBZThdndI](http://www.transcriptsearch.com.es/id/w-pBZThdndI)

grep for "postbox of europe"

<comment><USER4> I've got to mention: Burke's entire ouvre is available on YouTube (as best I can tell posted by the man himself).

I've been tremendously enjoying re-visiting his original series, _Connections_ , and viewing _The Day the Universe Changed_ for the first time. Connections2 has been a bit of a let-down (too commercial and rushed with 22 minute episodes, and retreading much of his earlier material) though it too has its moments. I haven't gotten to Connections3 yet. I _highly_ recommend at least the first two, which _very_ much focus on how ideas develop, spread, and emerge.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/JamesBurkeConnection](https://www.youtube.com/user/JamesBurkeConnection)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about a fax machine from 1800

The Pantelegrafo [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLhWSb8pcB8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLhWSb8pcB8)

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

<comment><USER6> 1860, but still very cool. Thanks for the link!

I note that banking apparently drove the entrenchment of the technology: "The most common use of the Pantelegraph was for signature verification in banking transactions."

Bonelli's Typotelegraph is also an 1862-era invention: [http://www.hffax.de/hauptteil_faxhistory- Dateien/Caselli02.g...](http://www.hffax.de/hauptteil_faxhistory- Dateien/Caselli02.gif) (from [http://www.hffax.de/html/hauptteil_faxhistory.htm](http://www.hffax.de/html/hauptteil_faxhistory.htm))

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Though it is fascinating how old such an artifact is, it doesn't at all surprise me that such a communication device was invented and used during ancient times. Going from the picture, the 'phone' doesn't look too sophisticated but has the functionality that justifies its utility for an ancient civilization.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps not surprising, but fascinating to think of how it went from "doesn't exist" to "connect two gourds with twine, speak and listen." When it didn't exist, what phenomenon or technology might have provided the hint that connecting two gourds together would transmit sound?

<comment><USER9> In researching the history of musical instruments, I discovered that many distant cultures independently developed hunting bows and it is believed these are the original of stringed instruments.

So, the concept of a taught string bound to a resonating body, simple as it is may have been a precursor.

It is possible gourds where used as mounting points on some of the contraptions, and the ability of hollow spaces to resonate was probably already known... which leads to Capoeira-like instruments...

but the next leap of getting the thing to pick up voice is imo a larger conceptual leap. Of course, by then, written language was widespread and ideas could maintain a bit more momentum...

Yet still, notice how the bottom of the cup is of a different material and not tightly coupled to the rest of the cup. It's attached with a woven or knitted "sock." That's where energy leaves the system instead of bouncing energy back into the twine like bows. That's a great conceptual leap, considering it's not totally obvious to most people today how the bridge of stringed instrument works :)

I imagine they had built large string and hollow-body resonator combinations...

Yet it's yet another step to make it "input-"sensitive to human voice :)

<comment><USER10> It mentions that this was a culture without written language. I wonder if that was important - once you develop writing, it might be easier to pass notes than invent this.

<comment><USER11> The Incas that followed them had recorded language. I doubt it is really known positively that Chimu had no recorded language. There are quite a few peoples groups in the western hemisphere for which it is commonly asserted by outsiders they had no recorded language, but once you start studying them at all, you find they have a recorded language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> But is it really a telephone? Could the purpose of these two gourds on a string have been something else? I'm not discounting the engineering prowess of the Chimu, but sometimes one has to be careful assigning modern-day interpretations to ancient artifacts.

<comment><USER13> > _Could the purpose of these two gourds on a string have been something > else?_

Nope, the design and structure of it, simple as it is, are pretty telling.

<comment><USER14> A single gourd on a string is a musical instrument in several cultures.

I don't think that's the case here, but it might have been how it was invented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for sharing. My history of technology professor at the University of Minnesota used to speak of the "precocious technology" of Medieval Europe, in which artisans often invented devices that could not be fully explained by the science of the time. Precocious technology is, of course, a worldwide phenomenon and a phenomenon from all eras (including our own). The astonishing artifact reported on here has very unclear provenance--it's not clear how it passed into the hands of the collector from whose collection it came into the Smithsonian museums. Moreover, the lack of writing in the culture of origin at the time the artifact is thought to have been made means there is no history (written records) to supplement archaeology for inferences about the cultural role of the artifact. But it is a thought-provoking find all the same, and an example of what else might be missing from the archaeological record.

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord The Antikythera mechanism still remains by far the most fascinating ancient artifact.

That and Heron's steam engine.

<comment><USER16> Aside: the ship using the AM sank.

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

The more interesting questions: Was the ship's sinking the loss of a one-off prototype? Was the device blamed/abandoned, even if not at fault? Craftsmanship suggests it wasn't an early version--but where are the others?

On topic: humans are no more smart today than they were 2000 years ago; they just have better tools. Nanos gigantum humeris insidentes,someone once said.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It seems in improbably good condition for something over 1000 years old and made of organic components, so given its somewhat vague provenance I'd like something to confirm its age. Has it been carbon dated?

<comment><USER18> _It seems in improbably good condition for something over 1000 years old and made of organic components_

Not at all. Dry climates means things keep well if they aren't disturbed. Witness, for example, 3000 year old leather sandals[1], or a 5500 year old shoe[2]

There are plenty of woven clothes much older than 1200 years, too[3].

However, none of the supposed woollen/felt clothes and hangings[4] from Catal Huyuk have survived. That puts a limit of around 8000 years on the life of wool.

[1] [http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_ob...](http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/p/pair_of_childs_leather_sandals.aspx)

[2] [http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2010/06/100609-wo...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2010/06/100609-worlds- oldest-leather-shoe-armenia-science/)

[3] [http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00118/salon2.html](http://www.turkotek.com/salon_00118/salon2.html)

[4] [http://www.marlamallett.com/chupdate.htm](http://www.marlamallett.com/chupdate.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's no mention in the article of any testing based on a replica or reproduction of the design -- does anyone know if this has been done?

(The article does mention that the artifact itself is too delicate to test.)

</comment><comment><USER19> Someone somewhere is happy the Smithsonian finally found his lost phone. But that someone would like to get it back.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hi yes this is Indian

<comment><USER13> If by Indian you mean "native american indians of Peru", then yes.</comment></comment>


Will Y Combinator fund a service Company? - <AUTHOR>

Hi We are a Lahore, Pakistan based software startup that focuses on developing Mobile2.0 ( IPhone and Android ) application. I wanted to know, can i apply for YCombinator or only product based startups get funded ? www.geniteam.com <comment><USER2> YC funds startup with great growth potential; companies that can "scale" well. Service companies scale linearly, and require you to hire additional personnel to grow, whereas product companies scale exponentially compared to personnel.

So my guess is YC will not fund a service company.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is right analysis. However, ROI might be lesser but risk of failture would be lesser as well ? But, there is chance that we *"might" become a brand for IPhone apps development. If you can build reuseable libraries, then i beleive you can scale faster ?

<comment><USER3> Venture investors are not looking for things with a low risk of failure. In fact, all other things being equal, we're looking for the things with the highest risk of failure-- like starting a new search engine in 1998.

<comment><USER4> It's not that they like risk the are just more willing to invest at high risk than most people. Would you drop 10 Million for a 1 in 500 chance of 10 Billion dollars? It's a good bet bet but it can take a while before your first hit.

<comment><USER5> Would I spend 1e7 make an investment with an expected value of 1e9*(1/.5e3) = 2e6?

<comment><USER5> Hm, on closer inspection, I would for 10 billion and an average 2x return. I sure that wish I could delete both these comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a service company, would it be feasible for you to move to the US for three months, away from your team?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this would be possible. But , see its extremely important to move to USA and learn about ecosystem.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone provide suggestions, as how can i "repackage", what we have to pitch to YC-Combinator ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am thankful to everyone for providing assistance. I have submitted the application based on my understanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> what exactly do you hope to achieve with a mere $15K? Even in pakistan that can't be a lot of money

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi I think basic reason would be learning from Technoprenuers and mentors, because we dont have much success stories within Pakistan. With 15 K US $, we can support a team for 3 months. However, more important perspective is : Can we become a brand for building IPhone Applications faster, better and cheaper ? Can we build applications and charge subscription for maintiance ( we already are charing small amount ) ? Is the segment lucerative enough to make good profits for next 2-3 years ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes you can apply. But.

If you want to develop software for clients at their request, then it will be hard for YC to invest in your company.

If you develop proprietary software and license it to other companies that will need support, and customization, then it should be fine.

If your service allows clients to outsource customer service operations or IT support and you show you can easily scale it, then it should be fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a mixed model : We have developed few reuseable components for quick IPhone development. However, people using those would be developers. I dont have the numbers though. You might consider reviwing our startup at (www.geniteam.com).</comment></comment>


Kids Tech Workshops in #Amsterdam! - <AUTHOR> http://www.riseofcode.com

<comment><USER2> Have these workshops been running for some time already? It's amazing to see stuff like this happening all around the world.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the Best All-in-one  Web based Collaboration software. - <AUTHOR>

This would be to manage virtual staff Here I amy list of Ideal features:<p>. screen recording to log hour spent working on project... similar to odesk .live chat
.live video and/or audio chat .live screen sharing .organized project management system and all that inlets?? .file sharing . And whatever else feature a good package would have. <comment><AUTHOR> bumping up with the hope that someone will have good suggestions.</comment>


iDevGames – Mac and iOS Game Developer Community [2000-2019] - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20190123081251/http://www.idevgames.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> iDevGames was a wonderful community of the rarely-seen mac game developer. I grew up using the board myself, and it was their patient explanation of vector math, stack frames, and gcc compiler errors that allowed my early ambitions to succeed (sadly, I don't have any remnant of those years). I don't develop games anymore and I was sad to see the site had come down when I visited.

I have especially fond memories of 2004 ([https://www.macworld.com/article/1041232/udevgames.html](https://www.macworld.com/article/1041232/udevgames.html)), and I'm surprised to see that you can still see my favorite game here: [https://apps.apple.com/in/app/kill-dr- cote/id659232023?mt=12](https://apps.apple.com/in/app/kill-dr- cote/id659232023?mt=12)

There was also another forum that ran similar contests, I remember some theme to do with swarming, but I can't remember it now.

In retrospect, it was inevitable. You can see the activity decline over time that suspiciously coincides with a rise in Unity development. However, that decline came after it saw the launch of, among other things, Humble Bundle (out of Wolfire—these were founded by brothers, I believe) and I think some of the people on the original Unity team. It's truly a community I will miss.</comment>


Are you a Canadian YC News reader? - <AUTHOR>

Are there any Canadians reading YC News?  Please respond and/or vote up, if yes. <comment><USER2> Representing Kitchener/Waterloo Ontario Canada, the Silicon Valley of the North. (RIM, Sandvine, Dalsa, Open Text)

      and fellow Canadians planning on applying this fall?

<comment><USER3> Amusingly Ottawa considers itself silicon valley north as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Does anyone know if any Canadians have been selected for any of the startup camps?

      atleast our servers are always cool inside our igloos :)

<comment><USER4> The Snipshot guys are from Victoria, BC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a dual US/Canadian citizen, does that count? I'm currently residing in the US, but plan to move to BC within the next year.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, from Vancouver.

<comment><USER7> Also from Vancouver :)

<comment><USER8> Vancouver

<comment><USER9> me too.

<comment><USER8> Anyone interested in a casual meetup event in Vancouver?

<comment><USER4> Count me in.

<comment><USER10> I'm also from Vancouver. E-mail me at email@example.com re a meet up. In fact, if you all just e-mail me then I can reply to all of you on the cc list so we can arrange a time/place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes. I work on King St, Canada.

Wait - there are other cities in Canada?

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes -- originally from Toronto, but I've recently moved to the Bay Area.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm from Calgary, AB - currently residing/working in Seattle, WA.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm an Australian, now living in Waterloo, just outside Toronto.

</comment><comment><USER15> Originally from New Brunswick, living in Cleveland Ohio now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you ever return to NB, to visit family, say? Where in NB?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hi Robin,

You bet, I never miss YC News! I'm in Calgary, AB

<comment><USER17> I'm in Calgary as well. Parker, I think I have seen you around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am in Calgary too. Lets have a Calgary meetup!!!

</comment><comment><USER19> Edmonton.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm in Ottawa.

<comment><USER3> Ditto.

<comment><USER21> Ottawa reprazent. ;)

<comment><USER22> Quite a few Ottawans! Maybe we should do a meetup and discuss how to do startups in Ottawa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Bristol, England (Canadian/British)

</comment><comment><USER24> Montreal, QC here.

Why do you ask?

</comment><comment><USER25> Another New Brunswicker here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you now in NB? Where in NB?

<comment><USER25> @robin_bb: Moncton

<comment><AUTHOR> @comforteagle: are you involved in a startup? If yes, e-mail me: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Kelowna, British Columbia

</comment><comment><USER27> Yes, i'm near vancouver

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm in Fredericton.

</comment><comment><USER28> Halifax

<comment><USER29> I am from Halifax as well (actually rami, I think I first found YCnews from your blog.)

I will be living in Waterloo soon though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> West Kootenays, BC

</comment><comment><USER31> Waterloo, Ontario

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm in Toronto.

<comment><USER33> Me too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> In London town.

</comment><comment><USER35> Yes, Toronto.

</comment><comment><USER36> Ottawa here.

</comment><comment><USER37> yup - calgary also

</comment><comment><USER38> Dual Canadian/US citizen. Currently living in the Greater Toronto Area.

</comment><comment><USER39> ... well then sooory boot that, eh! here's a dooollar. take off! ;-)</comment>


China and the soaring price of Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/china-and-the-soaring-price-of-bitcoin.html <comment><USER2> This shows surprising naivety about what is happening in China.

To generalise massively, Chinese _aren 't_ trying to move money out of China.

Instead, they are trying to find any safe store of value, because they don't trust their banks.

Chinese are _desperate_ for any way to save money, because the four- grandparent policy (and no pension) means they need money in old age.

The optimal solution for them is overseas real estate (see the real estate market in Hong Kong, Sydney & Vancouver).

The non-optimal solution _used_ to be domestic real-estate. This solution was less than ideal, because of the huge oversupply in the Chinese domestic market. Chinese investors are aware of that, but "happy" to lose some money, rather than all of it in the case of a bank (and additionally, inflation in China is ~8%, but banks only pay ~1% interest).

It looks like Bitcoin is taking the place of some of that domestic real estate demand.

Note this is only my personal theory, but based on observations from [http://brontecapital.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/macroeconomics-...](http://brontecapital.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/macroeconomics- of-chinese-kleptocracy.html)

<comment><USER3> This doesn't make sense to me.

Bitcoin right now is an incredibly bad long term value store. Right now it's a speculative investment. Either it will succeed and demand for bitcoin will go even higher or it will fail and it will be worth nothing. It's like investing in some risky VC fund. It makes sense for people to have wildly different ideas about potential and risk, but it makes no sense to expect it to just stay where it is.

<comment><USER4> It makes perfect sense -- but only if you look at it objectively. The speculators will trade on the hourly waxing and waning exchange rates, but the _savers_ will look at 52-week moving averages.

If you judge BTC simply by the latter, and have the patience for re-evaluating your BTC finances annually or bi-annually, then you'd be in a pretty good spot.

Sure it fluctuates an uncomfortable amount on a regular basis, but it's a fairly consistent trend otherwise.

<comment><USER5> Not at all, if "...or it will fail and it will be worth nothing" is a possible scenario. If you buy every week, any catastrophic event that makes bitcoin worthless would still wipe out your retirement savings before your bi-annual reevaluation is due.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "If you are long Bitcoin for any appreciable amount of time, it seems you are betting that the Chinese economy will do poorly and capital controls will remain. Then more people will be increasingly desperate to get more money out of the country. Or you may be betting that the Chinese use of Bitcoin to launder money will increase due to the mere spread of the idea, through social contagion."

That's kind of silly. Bitcoin has many uses besides bypassing currency controls.

<comment><USER7> None of the other uses really justify the current price though. That's the point.

Clearly the value of a Bitcoin is not $0. He's not claiming that. He's claiming that if you think it is worth more than the current price of $680, then you are essentially betting on Bitcoin's current Chinese swell to continue.

<comment><USER8> Markets tend to price in future usage. Are there indications that bitcoins will be extremely valuable in the future ? Yes.

Is there progress being made every day with bitcoins ? Yes.

Is there global potential for bitcoin to be used as some form of currency ? Yes. (it is already being used in small amounts in several places)

Markets tend to price these things in. Investor sentiment is optimistic. Bitcoins current position certainly doesn't justify this price. But the market has priced in the future.

<comment><USER7> Rational and stable markets will tend to price in future usage. But even those suffer bubbles every once in awhile.

But that's beside the point. The argument being made is that the future usage being priced into Bitcoin in the current craze depends on China not doing things that would make it less useful to hold Bitcoin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I asked some colleagues (I am the only foreigner in a 500-sized web company in Beijing) and they were a bit doubful about the money laundry reason invoqued in the article.

Sure, there is a huge business in money laundering in China and, for example, contemporary art overvaluation is linked to this financial pressure. But still, this reason is not necessary to explain the hotness of BTC in China, because just summing the mass effect plus the Chinese appetence to play money- risking games is just enough.

<comment><USER8> This. I've been trying to explain to people on r/bitcoin and r/bitcoinmarkets that I'm pretty sure that the Chinese have well polished ways and means of getting money out of China, in spite of capital controls.

When the mafia figures out bitcoin is a good way to do this things will start looking quite different.

<comment><USER10> > I'm pretty sure that the Chinese have well polished ways and means of > getting money out of China

What makes you "pretty sure"?

Certainly some Chinese have sophisticated methods of exiting money, through overseas corporations and the like. However most Chinese do not, and there are many, many financially unsophisticated rich Chinese.

The evidence is pretty clear that you are wrong. The 20-30% premium Chinese pay for bitcoin, and the inflated Chinese real estate market, both indicate the difficulty. Besides, I lived in China and faced this issue. It is not easy.

Further, Chinese regulators are very smart. The capital controls are there for a reason, and they are effective and enforced.

<comment><USER8> If the Chinese regulators are so smart and capital controls are so tight, then how would the Chinese get money out via bitcoin ?

What about the entire paper trail:

a) from bank deposits/tenpay deposits to BTC China where they convert to bitcoins

b) and then allegedly sell on a foreign exchange (bitstamp, maybe ?)

c) following which they withdraw to an overseas bank account ?

If we're talking about illegal money (not part of the banking system) then again BTC China isn't reportedly accepting any cash. So how would that work ?

The evidence isn't really that clear. What we see is the Chinese buying a lot of bitcoins.

There's no evidence that they then moved those bitcoins to a foreign exchange, cashed them out, and then moved that cash to an overseas bank account. Do you have anything at all that supports this ? Not even the bitcoin network transaction volume is in agreement with this kind of movement of coins.

<comment><USER10> Nobody knows or understands why the Chinese government is allowing so much purchase of bitcoin. I suspect they will not continue to allow it.

I did not say that Chinese were buying other currencies with their bitcoin en masse although I'd be surprised if many were not. Perhaps they are just diversifying. Some may have no account in place to sell bitcoin for other currencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Okay, so with all of the talk about how China is buying more bitcoin than anyone else, why is the transaction volume not increasing accordingly? You can see it on the coinbase graph - [https://coinbase.com/charts](https://coinbase.com/charts) \- it's basically seen the same volume since April, with the exception of July.

<comment><USER8> That's actually an interesting point. It's possible that people on BTC China are not in fact moving their bitcoins out of the exchange and selling them on another exchange to launder money. They're possibly holding bitcoins in their BTC China wallets. Those transactions will not influence the over all bitcoin transaction volume.

Furthermore, per exchange volumes have been insanely high over the past few days. See: [http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/](http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/)

What you basically pointed out points towards the premise of the article being false. It's not money laundering, it's something else.

<comment><USER12> > Those transactions will not influence the over all bitcoin transaction > volume.

Shouldn't there be a "MtGox wallet (say)" -> "chinese wallet" transaction somewhere in the blockchain?

<comment><USER8> There should be, if they chose to withdraw their bitcoins from Gox. But assuming that the article is right, there would be another transaction that moves the money from their private wallet to bitstamp/another exchange as well.

Basically all there is evidence of right now is that the Chinese are buying tons of bitcoins. No evidence of selling/moving as such.

It's not possible to use Gox for USD withdrawals at the moment so I don't think they'll try that anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure that the author of this article is correct. Why would the Chinese gvt push bitcoin, for it then to be used to undermine the Yuan? Doesn't make sense.

From what bitcoin followers have been saying: the Chinese government has been indirectly supporting the rise and adoption of Bitcoin through state-run Bitcoin documentaries [1]. This is seen by some as China pushing for alternatives to the USD as a world reserve currency (following US gvt shutdown) [2].

[1] [https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/226-cctv-bitcoin- documentar...](https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/226-cctv-bitcoin-documentary- china/) [2] [http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1330873/chinese- state...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1330873/chinese-state-media- calls-de-americanised-world-after-us-shutdown?page=all)

</comment><comment><USER14> So the question is whether BTC jumping from 200 USD to 600 USD in under two weeks is a bubble or if BTC finally found its calling in China.

<comment><USER6> [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1q41wq/the_bitcoin_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1q41wq/the_bitcoin_hype_cycle/)

<comment><USER15> That's a very nice little application of behavioural finance to Bitcoin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting post.

But one should keep in mind that there is also the possibility that the Chinese are buying Bitcoin as an investment.

<comment><USER17> I've been calling it "speculative saving" and think that such behavior is a large portion of the Chinese bitcoin economy. I think a lot of Chinese tech workers have realized that bitcoin is a far better investment than real estate in Beijing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A report in 2012: 3/4 of bitcoins are not circulating. Not sure if this still is true today, but it does reveal something worrying: BTC is not a currency as you might think.

[http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/584.pdf](http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/584.pdf)</comment>


The Internet Is Still Not For Everyone - <AUTHOR> http://woorkup.com/2010/10/05/the-internet-is-still-not-for-everyone/

<comment><USER2> And neither are (good) roads, electricity, shelter, food, clean water, or good health.

If someone could put a number on how much each of us would have to pay to share the burden equally (as portion of family income) enable the world's poor, and I could afford it, I'd pay that tax/suggested donation, if a number of people I knew and trusted were entrusting that same amount of money/percentage of their income to that organization.

Until then, I give to my church (just because) and periodically to relief organizations that I think I can trust, and that I think have low overhead.

The amount of need is overwhelming though. So many organizations, and so many people need help.</comment>


Leonardo Da Vinci's To Do List (circa 1490) - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/2014/12/leonardo-da-vincis-to-do-list-circa-1490-is-much-cooler-than-yours.html <comment><USER2> What the article fails to recognize is the sheer difficulty and expense involved in acquiring information in those days. You not only needed lots of money; you also needed status and political friends who could connect you through their networks to people who know things about your subject of interest. Even getting a peek into a book was an arduous affair, sometimes taking years. There's a reason why the gentry were so fond of collecting books.

So yes, anyone politically, socially, and economically powerful enough, with an ounce of curiosity, would have a list such as this. I do the same for anything I can't get within a month.

<comment><USER3> And remember that paper was extremely expensive for ordinary people back then. Using it for something silly as a todo list seems as wastefull as using a JavaScript framework for just a todo app. ;)

<comment><USER4> Your basic assumption is todo app is not as expensive as the paper in that era. In that era paper was expensive, in this era todo app is expensive which require a smart phone (or a computer or laptop) connected to the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Before I reached the last sentence, I looked hard at the image and opened it in a new tab, thinking I could read his writing (since I learned high- intermediate Italian). Nope, it's mirrored [1], which may have had to do with his dyslexia.

Looking into it briefly, I came across a guy [2] who taught himself to write like Da Vinci (note: full-screen sign-up prompt upon clicking). Skip to to the 6th paragraph starting with "Perhaps...". Being a lefty, I think I'll give mirrored writing a go as well.

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

[http://michaelbalchan.com/davinciwriting/?hvid=3xsKQB](http://michaelbalchan.com/davinciwriting/?hvid=3xsKQB)

Edit: from the Wikipedia link above:

"Research suggests that the ability to do mirror writing is probably inherited and caused by atypical language organization in the brain. It is not known how many people in the population inherit the ability of mirror writing (an informal Australian newspaper experiment identified 10 true mirror-writers in a readership of 65,000). Half of the children of people with the ability inherit it. A higher proportion of left-handed people are better mirror writers than right-handed people, probably because it's more natural for a left-hander to write backwards."

<comment><USER6> I did my Engineering Physics I homework using mirrored writing. The instructor didn't mind. Looking back, it's a bit risky given you're drawing equations and arrows, not only text. I hadn't tried this before or since.

At the end of the semester, I told him physics seemed fun but I thought software engineering was a better career choice for me. Only years later did I find via LinkedIn that he had worked as a software engineer for ten years before. :D

"probably because it's more natural for a left-hander to write backwards".

No, the key is that pulling the writing instrument requires a lot less muscle than pushing it. This means that mirror writing requires 1) more muscle strain or 2) less muscle strain than writing with the dominant hand if either the hand is switched, or the direction (LTR or RTL). If you swap both factors at the same time, then the strain is the same.

Left-handers who write LTR and switch direction (RTL) reduce the muscle strain compared to their usual writing as they're now pulling the pen. A right hander who does the same in this situation has to push the pen RTL with their right hand, which is harder than they're used to. A right hander should use the left-hand for mirror writing so they pull the pen like they're used to.

From this information, you can derive why people think it's easier to mirror write by switching hands, and others think it's easier for left-handers than right-handers to mirror write with their original hand.

TL;DR: Yes, there is initial effort to start mirror writing. But the real difference is that in the long-term, one group will find mirror writing to cause more hand strain than normal, and others will find it less hand strain than normal, because in one group pushing the pen is normal and in the other pulling it is.

<comment><USER7> You've actualy inspired me to try mirror writing - I am left-handed (though I can write smht with my right hand), well I found it easy, intuitive and natural. With a bit of practive I guess I could write in mirror-mode every time, cool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > You can just feel Da Vinci's voracious curiosity and intellectual > restlessness. Note how many of the entries are about getting an expert to > teach him something

Nowadays that seems less common, with the incredibly amount of information available and readily accessible. However, I think learning from someone, even from just a short conversation, is highly valuable.

<comment> norea-armozel Yeah I never understood why people aren't more curious. I'm always looking for articles about how things are made, the history of given locations, and whatever just seems interesting. I never see anyone else with a marginally equivalent level of curiosity especially for my age (mid-30s). Seems like people get swallowed whole by their social lives and careers.

<comment><USER9> What makes you think they aren't as curious as you?

They might just be into different subjects. Plus, if there's nothing that suggests that you might be interested, they might self-censor comments about their own hobby subjects when talking to you.

<comment><USER10> I think theres a pretty obvious difference between da Vinci-esque broad- reaching intrigue and just having a certain set of hobbies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >[Talk to] Giannino, the Bombardier, re. the means by which the tower of Ferrara is walled without loopholes (no one really knows what Da Vinci meant by this)

I thought "loopholes" generally referred to a narrow upright window with wide angles in the interior but little room at the outside. It's designed so that you can shoot arrows out of it with a wide degree of freedom, but hard to get an arrow into.

<comment><USER12> [https://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/what-are-those- holes-i...](https://www.italybeyondtheobvious.com/what-are-those-holes-in- italian-buildings-and-towers)

<comment><USER11> Interesting! Thank you for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of my teachers wrote a book titled "The scientific method of Leonardo da Vinci". Unfortunately it's in Russian only.

[http://tung-sten.no-ip.com/Texts/Misc/Leonardo/Book.htm](http://tung-sten.no- ip.com/Texts/Misc/Leonardo/Book.htm)

[http://tung-sten.no-ip.com/Texts/Misc/Leonardo/Helper/Forewo...](http://tung- sten.no-ip.com/Texts/Misc/Leonardo/Helper/ForewordByCarloPedretti.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> If he lived today, most items on that list would be googled and forgotten about in one morning. We take our access to endless info for granted.

<comment><USER15> If he lived today every single answer would be on stackexchange. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It reminds of Gov Schwarzenegger recently saying he doesn't exist in a vacuum, and that mentors are key.

A large part of these are not "do X"; they are in "get Y person to show me how they do X".

We can be thankful of the Messer Fazio, Brera Friar, Giannino, Benedetto Potinari, Maestro Antonio, Mastro Giannetto, Maestro Giovanni and Vitolone who gave us Leonardo.

<comment><USER17> JFYI, there is a typo in the linked to text, Benedetto Po _r_ tinari, it's the same Florentine family of Beatrice Portinari, he was the nephew of the more famous Tommaso Portinari:

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

The "graphical rendition" on the original site has it correct:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/11/18/142467882/le...](http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/11/18/142467882/leonardos- to-do-list)

BTW - still to be picky - the linked article is 2014, whilst the original article by NPR's Robert Krulwich is 2011.

The whole Leonardo's Notebooks are available here (in a different edition/translation by Jean Paul Richter):

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Notebooks_of_Leonardo_Da_...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Notebooks_of_Leonardo_Da_Vinci)

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Notebooks_of_Leonardo_Da_...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Notebooks_of_Leonardo_Da_Vinci/XXII)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Get the master of arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle.

What did he mean by this?

<comment><USER19> I think he meant finding the square whose area is equal to that of a given triangle.

With our "modern" understanding of algebra and geometry, we know to do

Area = 1/2 * base * height

Area = s^2

therefore

s = sqrt(1/2 * base * height)

"Squaring the circle" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle)) was an ancient challenge, proven to be impossible with a straightedge and compass in the 1800s. He may have been trying to square the triangle with just those tools.

<comment><USER20> See [http://www.contracosta.edu/legacycontent/math/TriangleToSqua...](http://www.contracosta.edu/legacycontent/math/TriangleToSquare.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wow, I'm actually writing a book that reads just like this list. It's meant for INTJs, it's got 300 suggested activities--similar to those on Da Vinci's list in terms of theme if not object. I'm about to hit publish and seeing this article makes me feel pretty excited. I wonder if Newton also kept to-do lists...

<comment><USER15> Well... what's the ISBN, title?!

<comment><USER21> Haha. Well, I've got a few more steps (graphic design being a huge one) but here's a sample. The full book has just over 300 activities to try; this one has 50. All of the content is final, so I hope to get the book to the major self-publishing outlets in the next month or two.

[http://www.friendlyskies.net/files/etexts/sample/300-INTJ- St...](http://www.friendlyskies.net/files/etexts/sample/300-INTJ-Strengths- Sample.html)

Scroll way down for the meat. Love to know what you think.

<comment><USER15> Do please announce the finished product on HN. I think it might be interesting to more than just me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was trying to actually read the text and then I figured out Leonardo da Vinci wrote in mirror writing (writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language).

Apparently nobody is quite sure why he did this. weird.

<comment><USER23> When you write with a dip pen (e.g. calligraphy), writing from left to write will smudge the ink if you are left-handed.

Writing the opposite direction preserves the same convenience of movement as right-handed writers have when doing calligraphy, and avoids smudging the ink. It seems an elegant solution for someone who is left-handed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> That reads more like a bucket list than a todo list.

<comment><USER25> Wonder how our lives would be if we did more to work on our bucket lists than our todo lists.

<comment><USER26> Some of the best (perhaps cliché) advice I've gotten is not to confuse urgency with importance. It's far too easy to constantly be busy and checking things off of a list, while letting the really high-leverage things go unaddressed. An antidote I've found is to book big things far out, because then urgency doesn't come into play (I'm not worried about the laundry I need to do in March), and I can make the decision based entirely around "importance". So while it's easy to let a random Saturday slip away to todo list chores, if I purchase plane tickets to Japan for 3 months out, by the time it comes around then I'm definitely getting on the plane, chores be damned.

<comment><USER27> Have you considered getting rid of your mobile telephone? People's ability to prioritize is shattered with these devices or perhaps their ability to use them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> He didn't use org-mode?</comment>


Ask HN: How do I find open jobs at startups? - <AUTHOR>

Alternatively, how do you recruit talent for your startup? <comment><USER2> Step 1) Subscribe to crunchbase emails. You will get them every other day or so. The emails include which company's have gotten funding, how much they got, where they are located, and what they do.

Step 2) When you find a company you might be interested in, apply. The companies who just received a large chunk of funding are even more likely to go on a hiring spree.

<comment><USER3> That is some mighty fine strategic thinking you have there.

Kind of like finding a normal job by searching for the company instead of the job position ('indeed' and all those other jobs sites really do suck at times).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A lot of hiring gets done through recommendations - so never stop networking. Go to meetups, be active in communities etc. You never know where the next opportunity will come from

</comment><comment><USER5> try Angel List [https://angel.co/jobs](https://angel.co/jobs)

</comment><comment><USER6> You can search jobs at the 100 most well funded startups here: [http://www.thestartup100.com/job](http://www.thestartup100.com/job)

</comment><comment><USER7> Any suggestion more based on the EU zone?

<comment><USER8> Tried [http://workinstartups.com/](http://workinstartups.com/) ?</comment></comment>


T-Mobile reveals its plan to give free internet to 10M homes - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/t-mobile-reveals-its-plan-to-give-free-internet-to-10-million-homes-103521899.html <comment><USER2> >"Now it's literally, if you don't have connectivity, you can't do school."

It seems that in our current world, having internet access is increasingly like access to power or water. I wouldn't count on incredibly limited plans like the one linked to get us there. Like water or power, it seems that getting public investment at the community level is the best way to provide residents affordable internet access.

Unfortunately, 22 states have banned municipal governments from providing internet access [1].

[1] [https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband- roadbloc...](https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/)</comment>


Review my startup, moodpanda.com , UI Design - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
My friend and i have been working on http://moodpanda.com in our spare time for about a year now, do you think we should stick with the more friendly cartoon style UI or go for a more medical business look?
Any feedback you guys have would be great.
Thanks Ross <comment><USER2> The scrolling thing in the lower left is cool, but my eye is mostly drawn to a long line of "no reason given". Try de-emphasizing it somehow (e.g. graying out that particular reason?)

"Will anyone be reading...", in the FAQ, should be a header. "Contact us" should be a link.

I liked the panda (but then I like pandas). Who are you trying to target? I'd suspect that the typical free consumer app does better with pandas than with people in white coats. But A/B testing this may not be that hard.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this i will take a look at the "no reason given bit" Most social networks are quite bland looking as they are more of a framework</comment>


Using,Understanding,and Unraveling The OCaml Language - <AUTHOR> http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/u3-ocaml/

<comment><USER2> To sell OCaml and convince people its awesomeness, i need unicorns and happy bunnies. I need lots of them.

<comment> Vic-nyc I have more modest needs- I would like to know a few practical reasons why I would choose to invest time in learning it vs one of the other non-mainstream & mainstream languages out there. That being said, I understand there's always value in learning something new.

<comment><USER3> Ocaml prepares you for Fsharp - a first class language of the .NET framework. Full IDE support, cross-platform, very liberal licensing, and more or less on the cutting-edge from a MS languages point of view. Ocaml is also used in the finance domain a bit.

<http://ocaml.janestreet.com/>

Particularly the option types, pipelining, pattern matching, etc look very different to me, coming from mainstream languages.

<comment><USER4> Conversely, OCaml allows you the pleasure of a ML-style language without being shackled to .NET.

It is a very, very nice language to work with. Its performance when compiled is nothing to sneeze at, either.

Basically, short of any intensive bit twiddling, I'd take OCaml over C. You get the speed of of native code with the expressivity, type safety and memory management features of a higher level language. It is easier to write solid apps with, since it's harder to screw things up in OCaml.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very heavy in lambda calculus.</comment>


Ask: Transition from Microsoft stack to...? - <AUTHOR>

I have been developing using Microsoft stack for the last decade (please don't boo me :))).
I am interested in transitioning to the open stack. I would love your feedback on Ruby vs. Python vs. PHP vs [X].
Thank you! <comment> saiko-chriskun It's going to be hard to say much without starting some biased flame war, since in the end there's nothing that one framework can do that another can't, really.

All of the languages mentioned above have pretty good ecosystems around them. I think Ruby's is the strongest at the moment, but if you're more of a python guy no harm in that :P.

Honestly I learn as much as I can, and as such have done at least a little bit of dev work in all of the above languages plus some :P. Never hurts, and you'll be able to make a much more informed decision yourself afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER2> Clojure or Node.js. Since both are first-class on Windows, you can continue using the tools you are used to.

</comment><comment><USER3> I also write on the Microsoft stack full time at work.

About a year ago I started working with Ruby on Rails for all my side work and hobby projects. It really is an awesome mind shift from .NET.

So I guess my vote would be take a look at Ruby on Rails!

</comment><comment><USER4> I do rails and aps.net apps. Check out rails and also consider doing current .net apps OSS/rails style. See <http://www.servicestack.net></comment>


The ARM, the PPC, the x86, and the iPad - <AUTHOR> http://neosmart.net/blog/2010/the-arm-the-ppc-the-x86-and-the-ipad/

<comment><USER2> Article:

        In fact, it's now a universally accepted truth that RISC
        is better than CISC! Actually, because of how much more
        efficient RISC machines are than their CISC counterparts,
        most CISC CPUs convert their CISC instructions into RISC
        instructions internally, then run them!

Most RISC CPUs convert their RISC instructions into RISC internally, then run them! Look at the G5 (IBM PowerPC 970): it does register renaming, and divides and assembles its instructions for the purpose of out-of-order execution, just like any out-of-order CISC processor.

The truth is that instruction sets are always outdated compared to the number of transistors that Moore's law allow to put on a chip. At some time it seemed that 32 registers would make renaming unnecessary. At another it seemed VLIW would make possible a level of performance not allowed by older instruction sets. Ask Intel and HP how that transition worked out for them.

RISC principles are only superior in the sense that 70's crazy haircuts are superior to 60's crazy haircuts. They are dated too, just a little less so. And in these days of memory-bound computations, higher density in CISC instruction sets seems to give them a slight advantage, if anything.

<comment><USER3> > Most RISC CPUs convert their RISC instructions into RISC internally, then > run them!

A RISC processor is a processor with no microcode virtual machine level. These processors aren't RISC in anyone's view but marketing's. Likely, there are very few true RISC processors still being designed (for speed; processors for embedding are a different story.)

<comment><USER4> I think one thing that ought to be dealt with first before any RISC-CISC debate is what exactly defines either one. Some attributes commonly identified (in my experience) with RISC machines include:

\- Fixed-width instructions (generally 32 bits)

\- Explicit load and store instructions with arithmetic being performed only between registers (hence RISC architectures sometimes being called _load- store_ )

\- Large register files with few or no special-purpose registers (MIPS HI/LO registers being an exception to this one, for example)

Other common (though perhaps less "defining") traits: three-operand instructions, relatively few/simple addressing modes, procedure calls often done via "branch-and-link" instructions, etc.

But...

> _A RISC processor is a processor with no microcode virtual machine level._

Huh? I've certainly never heard _that_ before. In fact, I'd say the RISC/CISC dichotomy is primarily (if not entirely) an attribute of the ISA, not the microarchitecture implementing it. It's generally pretty easy to look at e.g. a PPC or x86 instruction set and classify it one way or another; in terms of internal implementations though, the lines have gotten so blurred (in both directions) in modern machines that I don't think it's real meaningful to talk about RISC vs CISC anymore at the microarchitectural level, frankly.

<comment><USER3> > I've certainly never heard _that_ before.

It's because we've adopted (or rather, co-opted) the terms to refer to things that shared phenotypical traits with their progenitors, but no longer held true to the original definitions. In reality, RISC originally just _meant_ "exposes its microarchitecture as its instruction-set architecture." All the other well-known properties of RISC machines were _effects_ of this decision. But these days,

> the lines have gotten so blurred (in both directions) in modern machines

...that, like I said, there are very few RISC processors under the original, theoretical definition of the term (and it's probably alright to just use "RISC" under the new definition, since only the embedded programmers will complain.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article a little out of date. The RISC vs CISC distinction is very blurry these days. Most RISC architectures have been made more CISCy, and vice versa.

The article mentions CISC CPUs using RISC instructions internally, which isn't the whole story anymore.

Ars Technica did a classic article on this debate (in 1999!): <http://arstechnica.com/cpu/4q99/risc-cisc/rvc-1.html> and a follow up here: [http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/09/retrospect- and-...](http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/09/retrospect-and-prospect- ten-years-of-risc-vs-cisc.ars/)

A particularly interesting part of the follow up: "But a funny thing happened with the Pentium M: processor designers discovered that processors of all types are actually more power-efficient if their internal instruction format is more complex, compound, and varied than it is with simple, atomic RISC operations ... ... The end result is that even RISC processors needed to get more CISC-y on the inside if they wanted to juggle the largest number of in- flight instructions using the least amount of power."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link, it was an interesting read!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The RISC/CISC things is a little simplified. One reason RISC has never caught on in the desktop is memory speed hasn't kept up with CPU speed (and can't - with the laws of physics). So if a RISC cpu takes 10 instructions to do what a CISC can do in 1, it loses any speed advantage if it takes 10x as long to get the next instruction from memory.

The principle reason people use ARM is low power, part of it's low power comes from the RISC design but it's not as simple as that. To reach the same overall performance as an x86 the RISC may have to use more power, simply because power increases faster than clock frequency.

<comment><USER7> The difference in RISC/CISC instruction count is closer to 2:1 than 10:1. (Unless you are using a VAX polynomial evaluation opcode, but that is an extreme.)

ARM ameliorates this by having multiple instruction sets. The Thumb instructions are a denser encoding, if somewhat slower. 90/10 rules apply.

<comment><USER8> Thumb instructions are the same speed, but can only perform a subset of what the ARM instruction set can; each instruction takes half the space. Thumb can be faster if it eliminates cache overflows, but can also be a lot slower if faster ARM instructions have to be emulated with Thumb equivalents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One point of view is that we are pretty close to optimal. Here is another perspective from:

        http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523

Kay says:

        Just as an aside, to give you an interesting benchmark—on roughly the same system,
        roughly optimized the same way,
        a benchmark from 1979 at Xerox PARC runs only 50 times faster today.
        Moore's law has given us somewhere between
        40,000 and 60,000 times improvement in that time.
        So there's approximately a factor of 1,000 in efficiency
        that has been lost by bad CPU architectures.

        The myth that it doesn't matter what your processor architecture is —
        that Moore's law will take care of you—is totally false.

From my point of view garbage collection, JIT compilation, and late binding are valuable and the hardware is leaving to much to the VM's.

<comment><USER10> Alan kay might not be correct in this case . The correct factor between 1979 and today's computers is not 1000x , is something between 10x-50x. and with the right compilers you get a factor of 3x-10x[1].

[1][http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- tol/2007-March/0...](http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- tol/2007-March/000850.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's building the business case and the revenues that makes this whole processor design discussion interesting.

Not the microprocessor technology itself.

Competitive microprocessor designs (in terms of speed, power, cost, volume and particularly the applications the users care about) are feasible but are Not Cheap, and to get the costs down (and the revenues up means you need to build the production scale. And building scale means leapfrogging the existing players in one or more dimensions sufficiently to draw over applications that the end-users really care about.

You need to be significantly better here or sufficiently profligate with the application vendors and the resellers, or sufficiently compatible to overcome the inherent application inertia; you need to have enough "pull" (speed, power, cost, particularly applications) to build up a base. Without this, you're running a furnace with the contents of the corporate coffers.

You can't be a just little better with your processor designs, either. That won't draw enough folks over. Both the Alpha and MIPS microprocessors had Microsoft Windows NT, and that (and even with porting tools such as FX!32) wasn't enough to build up an installed base against the x86 designs.

Apple is playing the long game here.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is one of the most interesting articles I've read here in a long time.

However, with the average use of mobile devices, does the CPU architecture really matter that much?

As the focus of mobile devices is more the consumption of media (games, video, etc), isn't the GPU where the large differentiator in this space?

Does either RISC or CISC have a benefit in the GPU space? Or am I completely wrong with that previous statement?

<comment><USER13> A GPU may help with media. GPUs tend to be SIMD / Stream processors. So some problems map well to that architecture, some less so.

Lots of GPUs tend to work on four pixel quads of RGBA data with very specialised instruction sets, which are not really CISC or RISC but are maybe more RISC like.

This is good for graphics rendering both 2D and 3D, video and audio encoders and decoders are trickier, some parts like motion estimation can be implemented on a GPUs SIMD architecture but the bitstream process is very serial by design so fits badly to a SIMD architecture and is not great on CPU either, having a custom piece of hardware or FPGA maybe a better solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> CPU's were/are one of the last pieces of computer-related hardware that I still kind of considered "magic." This article definitely helped to alleviate that...

</comment><comment><USER15> > Today, with the optimizations and internal RISC conversions that take place, > CISC vs RISC isn't really about the performance any more. It's about the > business, the politics… and the power consumption.

</comment><comment><USER16> _In fact, it's now a universally accepted truth that RISC is better than CISC!_

Is that actually true? I'd like to see some actual numbers comparing RISC vs. CISC performance/power consumption.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

You'd be comparing apples and oranges. CPUs are optimized for specific use cases. There's always a tradeoff between the performance of each component, and current x86 CPUs are designed/built-for the desktop while current ARM/MIPS/etc. are made for embedded and mobile devices.

Atom comes close to being comparable to certain embedded devices, but not really. Because it's actually a desktop architecture (resembles older in-order execution x86 desktop PCs) scaled down and simplified to reduce power.

Within the field though, it's taken for fact. To me though, nothing says it clearer than that Intel internally converts CISC instructions to a series of RISC instructions, then enters them into the pipeline. If it weren't for compatibility issues, Intel would be RISC today.

<comment><USER17> Microcode isn't the same a RISC. With an actual instruction set you are bound to an architecture, microcode changes with the microarchitecture so it can contain optimizations that would break compatibility if used in a general way.

Intel tried to move away from CISC with EPIC (Itanium), which could be considered a kind of RISC, but it obviously didn't work out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't it? The Itanium is a great performer. Like I mention below in another comment, if only for AMD which beat Intel to the x64 punch with the hybrid x86_64 architecture, we'd be all on Intel's vision of true 64-bit computing: the Itanium.

All computer architecture PhDs I've spoken to have referred to the Itanium with an air of awe. It was built from the ground-up with all the optimizations and bottlenecks in mind, and can be statically optimized to do magic... except no one is ever going to use it since it requires all applications to be recompiled, and with x86_64 offering an easy way out, that's not going to happen.

<comment><USER18> If AMD didn't introduce x86-64, we'd all be using PowerPC and 32bit x86 still. IA64 suffers from the same problems as all the other RISCs out there that died, it has potential to do magic but there just aren't that many magic compilers and the output tends to look sort of mundane.

The whole RISC vs. CISC is off the point, that was decided a long while ago. x86 "CISC" which is quite a bit more RISCy than say VAX or 370 happens to be a very compelling blend.

ARM does have an interesting position in the ultra lower power field though. I suspect that has more to do with ARM being designed for that from the start than the instruction set though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anybody remember Transmeta?

</comment><comment><USER20> > _z = x + y_

AFAIK, x86 doesn't have 3 operand instructions yet.

<comment><USER4> Generally true, though I think some of the proposed (future) SSE5 instructions may be three-operand -- or even four in the case of FMA ops (perhaps this is what you were subtly referring to by saying "yet").

Perhaps more importantly though, (again, AFAIK) x86 does _not_ have any instructions that operate memory-to-memory in the way the article indicates. There are plenty of memory-to-register and register-to-memory (and register- to-register) ops, but the ALU ops generally don't combine a load and a store into a single instruction (some instructions like cmpxchg do for the purpose of providing atomicity, but those are a special case).</comment></comment>


Has Bell Invented a "Telegraph Killer"? - <AUTHOR> http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2009/11/19hongo.html <comment><USER2> I am reminded of the story about how the market for the Xerox photocopier was initially computed. # of secretaries x # letters / day * average # mimeograph copies of each letter. The potential of the technology to affect the use of its outputs was ignored.

My wife and I recently upgraded our crappy mobiles to Droids. We hadn't at all considered the value of geolocating each other, but we quickly realized that a significant portion of the calls we made to each other were for the sole purpose of asking, "Where are you?" or "How close to X are you?" The potential uses of a new technology are not always obvious before adoption.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Consumers these days list spirit detection as an essential feature for new technology"

So this is what my web apps have been missing.

</comment><comment><USER4> "...we conducted a séance under modern scientific standards at Bell Labs."

<comment><USER5> Perhaps... but was it funded?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "We had difficulty reaching other users on the Bell apparatus, which Alexander Graham admits will have limited utility until they build a second Telephone."

</comment><comment><USER7> "Our tests show that users of the Telephone need not learn any "code," having only to shout in the plain English understood by all but imbeciles, foreigners, and the Chinese."

</comment><comment><USER8> "We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph, though fatigue from magnetic waves is inevitable in the use of each."

What cause this mysterious belief?

<comment><USER9> Nothing, it's a parody written fairly recently. Feel free to email the author to find out more.</comment></comment>


Identi.ca is now powered by pump.io - <AUTHOR> https://identi.ca

<comment><USER2> What I get in Chrome on Windows 8:

Unable to make a secure connection to the server. This may be a problem with the server, or it may be requiring a client authentication certificate that you don't have. Error 107 (net::ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR): SSL protocol error.</comment>


The Evolution of Operating Systems (2000) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.brinch-hansen.net/papers/2001b.pdf <comment><USER2> This stuff is really rare. And the reason why is explicated in a quote in the batch systems section:

 _First, these systems were "obvious" and could be understood in minutes from reading a manual. Second, there were very few different kinds of computers, and the community of system programmers was similarly small. At least in the United States, almost everyone who wanted to know about these systems could and did communicate directly with their authors._

One gets the sense that few anticipated there would one day be a computer in every home ;)

<comment><USER3> The paper dates from the time right as the PC was becoming affordable, too. A version for the following 20 years would be interesting. Ie the last 18 years and what's likely to come in the next 2. If the economy tanks, then the OS landscape will probably stagnate. And we'll probably see the first exascale supercomputers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This talks about good reliability of the RC 4000 software. I used an RC 4000 -- which seemed pretty steam-driven in the '80s -- and the immortalized phrase quite heard often enough from our Danish colleagues was "Ze compuder ish all schrewed upp". (Pardon the accent.) As far as I remember that was typically software rather than hardware, and I wonder why the discrepancy.

Anyhow, back home, our GEC 4000s¹ were fast and pretty reliable, running the OS4000 operating system. I've never confirmed it, but I assume "4000" was a tribute to RC 4000, given its similar software design and terminology, though Nucleus, (the moral equivalent of?) the microkernel, was in hardware/firmware. It's an interesting counterpoint to the RC 4000 monitor generally described as slow. As the GEC 4000 architecture was later emulated decently fast on M88000s, the speed wasn't just down to the original hardware; such 1970s microkernel-ish designs could work well. Skål PBH.

1, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEC_4000_series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEC_4000_series)

</comment><comment><USER5> Although I loved this paper, he isn't fair to MULTICS in it. MULTICS had a nice, feature set:

[http://multicians.org/features.html](http://multicians.org/features.html)

After Karger et al pentested it...

[https://www.acsac.org/2002/papers/classic- multics.pdf](https://www.acsac.org/2002/papers/classic-multics.pdf)

...it also got a security upgrade. Its security profile was stronger than most other OS's. Although mostly a flop, its combo of features and security did cause some organizations to buy it. The last one shut down in year 2000. It was just too expensive ($7+ mil?) to justify in a market that, at the time, mostly cared about performance per dollar with security and maintenance activities a non-concern. On other hand, Burroughs B5000 and System/38 (later AS/400) were reliability/maintainability-focused products from that era that did manage to survive to present day.

</comment><comment><USER6> A classical worse is better.

What I liked to see in updates are secure and fast microkernels (L3,L4) and secure nonblocking parallelism (Singularity) in a secure language.

<comment><USER7> I think you'd really enjoy Joe Duffy's Midori blogs then [http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about- midori/](http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/)

<comment><USER6> Sure, that's what I meant.</comment></comment></comment>


How I Lost 17,000 GitHub Auth Tokens in One Night - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneems.com/2017/08/30/how-i-lost-17000-github-auth-tokens-in-one-night/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15135049](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15135049)</comment>


How space travel became the unofficial religion of the USSR - <AUTHOR> http://calvertjournal.com/features/show/4645 <comment><USER2> This article fails to explore the depth of the connection between Russia and space travel. Long before the October revolution, Russian scientists like Kibalchich and Tsiolkovsky were obsessed with using rocketry to explore the cosmos.

They were just two members of a robust philosophical tradition, Russian cosmism, whose influence can still be seen today in the transhumanist movement. To many cosmist thinkers, space travel was not a "religion" in the cliched symbolic sense suggested by the article; it was the literal underpinning of their metaphysical beliefs.

Exploring space was considered, not just the fate of the Russian people, but the ultimate destiny for humanity itself.

<comment><USER3> > They were just two members of a robust philosophical tradition, Russian > cosmism, whose influence can still be seen today in the transhumanist > movement.

Source? I don't see any influence at all. When I read older transhumanist works like _Great Mambo Chicken_, Ettinger's _Man into Superman_, or even older than that like _The World, The Flesh, and the Devil_, or I read histories of the movement like Stambler's recent _History of Life Extensionism in the 20th Century_, I see absolutely no influence on Western transhumanism from Russians except indirectly through Cold War realities. Further, when I read the occasional summary or publication that filters through the language barrier about current Russian stuff like the 2045 Initiative, it feels like it's coming from a totally separate and disconnected world (for better or worse).

That there are similarities is not much of a proof: the possibilities of technology and science are the same everywhere, and so responses will likewise be similar. You don't have to have studied deeply in the Kosmism canon to think that it would be good if we didn't age, sicken, and die suffering horribly and that science might be able to do something about that...

The only attempt I've seen to actually show real links is Stross's lame blog post on it, which amounts to 'this is a little like that, this came before, therefore, this caused that' and is nothing more than a thinly-disguised 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'.

<comment><USER2> There is a certain special irony in debating the genealogy of an idea within a thread about Russian cosmism, given Vernadsky's belief in the noosphere.

Regardless, I didn't mean to imply that the modern transhumanist movement is merely an outgrowth of Russian cosmism. But the cosmist writings may be the earliest articulation of transhumanist values.

If someone finds a direct, linear connection between cosmism and transhumanism, I would love to hear about it. But I suspect that the same set of ideas has been developed independently multiple times.

Indeed, it would be problematic if they had only evolved within one nation, because that would imply that they were culturally contingent. If they are intrinsically sound, they should be available for discovery by diverse thinkers.

<comment><USER3> > Regardless, I didn't mean to imply that the modern transhumanist movement is > merely an outgrowth of Russian cosmism. But the cosmist writings may be the > earliest articulation of transhumanist values.

When people say "whose influence can still be seen today in the transhumanist movement", it seems reasonable to me to infer that they were indeed implying that if not an offshoot, there is still a lot of causal influence. If it was all a sheer coincidence, then 'influence' is a very odd word to use...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Practically all of the economy of the Soviet Union was the military-industrial complex and that complex had to pretend it wasn't only that.

All industry was dedicated to manufacturing weapons - what was produced for civilians was a side-production and small part of the output.

For example - practically all of the aluminium in the Soviet Union was used for the military. And most of the aluminium was used for rocketry and aviation - again military. And you have a big cities like Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine called Rocket city for having a huge concentration of such plants.

Now space exploration sounded good because it is one of the few areas the Soviet Union could compete with US AND it was convenient to explain why Socialism needs so many rockets.

The scientific progress might even eventually improve living standards might one wishfully think. Of course it didn't, at least it wasn't allowed to.

Eventually, most of the military-industrial complex was disbanded and it is only logical that the space cult was thrown in the dustbin on recent history.

Nowadays Russia has only a fraction of it is former military output and there isn't any point in pretending it is smaller, quite the opposite, the government think it is important to display it is military might.

<comment><USER5> Bold claims require proper sourcing. Otherwise it's perilously close to trolling.

Perhaps start by explaining why that complex had to pretend "it wasn't only that"?

<comment><USER6> Man, he is mostly right. Almost everything industrial in the USSR was either military, or dual purpose. E.g. in my home town huge chemical plant was supposed to produce chemical fiber, however if needed in 24 hrs it could be switched to produce explosives.

<comment><USER7> The plant wasn't _pretending_ it wasn't only capable of producing explosives, it was actually producing fiber.

<comment><USER6> You wont't believe, but driving chains plant in the same location was capable to produce and fix damaged T-72s. Actually it still can, and current owner has a collection of Soviet tanks, driving on small parade on the 9th of May each year. UPD: have a look - T34 and ИС-2 on the backyard of Driving Chains Plant - [http://www.gorod.lv/novosti/253080-v-daugavpilse- strelyali-s...](http://www.gorod.lv/novosti/253080-v-daugavpilse-strelyali- sovetskie-tanki)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for sharing this

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My grandmother knew names and personal details of first 60 or so cosmonauts, had a notepad with all launch dates and was generally a walking encyclopedia on all things space. She was a housewife most of her life and a steam engine machinist in the 1930s. Not any sort of technical elite, nor even remotely interested in anything technical. Except for the space travel.

So, yeah, to say that space travel was a big thing back in Soviet times would be a major understatement.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article is an exaggeration at least. "Space travel" wasnt' comparable with dialectical materialism(lead Soviet philosophical doctrine) in any way.

Interestingly, could be "american exceptionalism" called an "unofficial religion" as well? lol

<comment><USER2> "Exceptionalism" is not an American phenomenon. It just seems that way because America currently enjoys unipolar primacy, so it can put its ideology into action.

Most powerful nations have intentionally promulgated some form of exceptionalist ideology. Russians believe their country is exceptional because it alone can bridge the gap between Eastern mysticism and Western materialism. The Chinese believe their country is exceptional because of their civilization's unrivaled history. Brazilians believe their country is exceptional because it has blended more cultures and races than any other.

The examples go on and on... Japan, Korea, Germany, France, Italy, India... all have well publicized beliefs that some factor elevates their country above its peers. Given the ubiquity of this belief, I suspect that it has adaptive benefits for society, such as increasing social cohesion. (Or maybe it's just an innate human failing!)

<comment><USER10> There's a difference between a claim that a country is unique for some reason (everyone has one of these) versus thinking that this makes them superior or entitled.

American Exceptionalism even has a creation myth and a pantheon of gods. It's something else entirely.

<comment><USER11> > American Exceptionalism even has a creation myth and a pantheon of gods. > It's something else entirely.

Are you referring to the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers? If so that sort of thing doesn't seem exclusive to American Exceptionalism...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article seems to imply that any work of art created within the context of an organization must be regarded as propaganda by default. "The Mystery of the Third Planet" was produced by a studio, which according to wikipedia enjoyed an "unprecedented degree of artistic freedom" [1]. Yet this film is mentioned right after the remark that "children were a key target of propaganda with space-themed films and cartoons cranked out for a younger audience." I don't really disagree with this way of categorizing certain art as propaganda but I'd like to see the same line of thought applied more often to Hollywood.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuzmultfilm#History_during_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuzmultfilm#History_during_the_Soviet_era)

<comment><USER13> "Propaganda" is usually used to refer to attempts by a government organization to rally support behind itself and convince people that it is doing the right thing. It's pretty much implicit that a private company will try to gather public support by producing art/commercials/etc.

But most people feel a government should hold itself to different standards, and act on the will of the public rather than try to CREATE public opinion.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash In the 1930's, the Roosevelt Administration was concerned with widespread corporate propaganda aimed at convincing the public that the New Deal would destroy the economy, and so it commissioned a series of rival videos meant to help steer Americans from being unduly influenced away from policies that would actually help them.

If (a democratic) government merely holds itself to the will of he public as opposed to seeking to create it, then someone will take advantage of the power vacuum, and I see no way that state or society would benefit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very interesting article, it brought together a lot of things which I haven't thought about in years. Yet the word "propaganda" is a bit strong I feel. I was into many things as a end-of-Sovier-era kid, but have very fond memories of taking in Soviet sci-fi and generally futurist ideology. As a kid it has provided me with plenty of food for imagination and was all-around enriching. There are much worst things to surround your mind with, and plenty of things from modern capitalist pop culture are clearly inferior, I'm sure everybody can think of countless examples.

</comment><comment><USER15> It loads up briefly—with an image visible, even!—then becomes a blank white page without JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just want to add that the same fascination with science and space created cinema masterpieces at least for that time. The special effects used in these 50's and 60's movies influenced Hollywood and helped to create such classics as Stars Wars and Terminator 2.

<comment><USER17> Could you provide examples of the Soviet films that were so influential?

<comment><USER6> Hollywood directly ripped that one off - Планета бурь by Pavel Klushantsev. It strongly influenced both Spielberg and Lucas, and Cameron too.

<comment><USER18> > Hollywood directly ripped that one off - Планета бурь by Pavel Klushantsev.

Really? That's some weird thinking - that Star Wars were 'ripped' from that B-grade movie.

<comment><USER16> Maybe by our modern standards. But the movie was so revolutionary at that time that it was edited, voice-overed and all the mentions of the Soviet actors removed, fake American names were added in credits. And I think some additional scenes were shot in US (source [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planeta_Bur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planeta_Bur)).

Another famous movie was edited by young Francis Ford Coppola (who was also inspired by Soviet cinema) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beyond_the_Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Beyond_the_Sun)

<comment><USER18> So basically a B-grade movie got cannibalized by low-budget horror director.

That's very far away from your original claim.

<comment><USER6> Mate, before Planet of the Storms there was no SciFi. This is the hollywood rip off I am telling about - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059887/?ref_=tt_rec_tt](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059887/?ref_=tt_rec_tt) This is the original movie - [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056352/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056352/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) See for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A same article could have been written about the USA. Actually it would have made a bit more sense, since it could include pop culture references to actual space travel (e.g Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica etc. etc) instead of things like "The Guest from the Future", a TV series about time travel that mentions that there is a space port in Moscow of the future and some obscure cartoons (other than "The Secret of the Third Planet" I have not seen ones the author mentioned and, unlike her, I grew up in the USSR).

Not that I believe the cult of space exists in the USA, but the same stupid argumentation is more applicable here.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was a zealot of it in my early school years. Much of my later disappointment with modern days Russia was allowing the Soviet space research programmes to collapse. Its a pity humanity will never again have Energia rocket. That one could reach Mars with 5tons of useful weight in 1991. In 2012 there was attempt to animate Energia, but 90% of it was constructed in Ukraine, and it is not an option today.</comment>


What's new in civic tech: National Day of Civic Hacking - <AUTHOR> https://www.govtech.com/civic/Whats-New-in-Civic-Tech-National-Day-of-Civic-Hacking.html <comment><USER2> Can't tell if this is about ethically hacking the government for the good of the people or about making four cylinder Japanese cars sound like a dying mouse.</comment>


Sony starts free mobile device lending program for developers - <AUTHOR> http://developer.sonymobile.com/wp/2012/04/18/developer-borrow-an-xperia-smartphone-and-test-your-app/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=developer-borrow-an-xperia-smartphone-and-test-your-app

<comment><USER2> Sweet! I hope "keeping the devs happy" trend continues in Sony. Maybe this way someone will freak out when s/he sees unencrypted passwords stored in the database and does it in the right way.</comment>


If Mario Was Designed in 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://www.hiwiller.com/2010/04/29/if-mario-was-designed-in-2010/

<comment><USER2> In an interview between Miyamoto and Iwata the genius of this first level is discussed

<http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/nsmb/vol1_page4.jsp>

"But if you avoid the first Goomba and then jump and hit a block above you, a mushroom will spring out and you'll get a shock. But then you'll see that it's going to the right so you'll think: "I'm safe! Something strange appeared but I'm okay!" But of course when it goes against a pipe up ahead, the mushroom will come back! (laughs)" ... "At that point, even if you panic and try to jump out of the way, you'll hit the block above you. Then just at the instant where you accept that you're done for, Mario will suddenly shake and grow bigger!"

It turns out they panned it so you cannot avoid picking up that first mushroom that makes you big. They expected the first players to see it as an enemy, so they wanted to trap you into picking it up and then showing you that it made you more powerful.

Barely anyone notices that this was forced, but now everyone takes it for granted that the the mushrooms are good!

<comment><USER3>
      the mushrooms are good

And they are easy to make: [http://www.annathered.com/2009/06/21/how-to-make- a-radish-mu...](http://www.annathered.com/2009/06/21/how-to-make-a-radish- mushroom)

<comment><USER4> Be careful if you try using actual mushrooms, though; the species that the Mario mushrooms are based on is hallucinogenic and mildly poisonous. If you want to eat it, parboil it first.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The first few panels (World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros.) reminded me of this: <http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=465>

I love having any excuse to share this link.

<quote>

 _the big question of level design - and i mean that every level design lesson i ever write will be a response to this question - is: how do i teach the player these rules? an unfortunate trend in contemporary games is to spell out every detail in a hand-holding "tutorial" session at the outset of a game - unfortunate because it shows both a great deal of contempt for the player's intuition and a lack of confidence in the designer's own design. but more than that, it's a design failure because it tells the player the rules instead of allowing her to learn them.

what if the first level of the game were laid out in such a way that the player could learn the rules simply by playing through it, without needing to be told them outright?_

</quote>

The article's a critique of World 1-1 being the perfect tutorial level for Super Mario Bros. Go read it.

<comment><USER6> As wonderful as World 1-1 is for teaching Mario, I think that "Tell the player what you want them to do, allow them to see it succeed, then let them apply it" will _crush_ "Let the player explore the 'physics' of your world, hope they proceed" in terms of task success. And these days, we can measure that intuition.

Artistic intuitions of game designers have been measured in the crucible of conversion rates and been found wanting.

Does anyone here sell applications? Play the first five minutes of WoW. Notice how they guide you along by the nose and make it easy for you to succeed and feel awesome doing it. All applications should do that.

<comment><USER7> I think WoW has to do that because it's a very complicated interface with roots in the text-based MUDs of old (for example the combat log). I don't consider it an example of good UI/tutorial design.

Valve's Portal is how game tutorials should be done in my opinion. It introduces an unfamiliar game element (the wormhole gun) gradually: first you walk through pre-made wormholes, then you get to shoot one of the two wormhole entrances, and only then both of them. Even when you have the full portal gun, you get taught the various tricks (like accelerating by falling into a portal) one at a time. None of this is explained by a wall of text, rather, the level design itself suggests the only possible solution. This is all done so subtly that it hardly feels like a tutorial at all. In fact, for the player, the levels just get gradually harder and require you to combine more and more of the skills and tricks you've figured out earlier.

It works brilliantly, and makes for a much stronger experience than any of the text or voice based game tutorials I've seen so far.

<comment><USER8> _the text-based MUDs of old_

Hey now, text-based MUDs are not yet obsolete. There are quite a few folks out there playing them. Most often, they are free, they do not put viruses or DRM on your computer, and they work for the folks who are trying to play online computer games out in the boonies with low bandwidth.

<comment><USER9> Speaking of text-vs-graphics game eras, reminds me of my first impressions of Diablo:

"Oh, this is like NetHack</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>-++!"

</comment><comment><USER10> Google Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c8WtNO6...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c8WtNO6RCJUJ:www.hiwiller.com/2010/04/29/if- mario-was-designed-in-2010/+if+mario+was+designed+in+2010&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

Don't get your hopes up though. Only mildy funny.

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of the parts in Dragon Age: Origins where NPCs actively shill premium content to you:

<http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/6/>

</comment><comment><USER12> He forgot the store where you can buy stuff at that all games are required to have now. And how come you can't send mushrooms to your friends to help them out?

<comment><USER13> _May Mayhem_! Buy the Wario Hat _and_ 5 Extra Lives and get a 500 Nintendo Points(tm) discount! Remember to enter "mayhem" in the Nintendo Store coupon field. (Offer valid until the end of May.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Coralized link: [http://www.hiwiller.com.nyud.net/2010/04/29/if-mario-was- des...](http://www.hiwiller.com.nyud.net/2010/04/29/if-mario-was-designed- in-2010/)

</comment><comment><USER15> It really is more like if Sony or Microsoft took Nintendo's original design and added their APIs on top of it.

If Sony or Microsoft actually designed Mario the character would be overly muscled and bald like Gears of War or Infamous.

</comment><comment><USER16> 503 error. Move website to a reliable host?

</comment><comment><USER17> ::shudders::

Facebook and all of this "achievements" bullshit spell the ruin of game design, which began its slouch toward infantilism in the big-budget 3-D era ("look, shiny!") and has been forced down our throats over the past few years ("Shove in the Time of Facebook").

Go is a game. Bridge is a game. Chess is a game. Poker is a game (despite the embarrassing flood of idiots into Texas Hold 'em who play only that and have no curiosity about other poker games). Ambition is a game. Settlers of Catan is a game. Tigris and Euphrates is a game. Apples to Apples is a game. Chrono Trigger is a game. Final Fantasy 6 is a game. World of Warcraft is a game.

"[Your roommate at bandcamp] Just Ate a Sandwich" is not a game.

Sloppy non-design. Blatant idiocy. Shitty ideas. Infantilism. Let the real game designers do the work and let's ignore these "social [X]" charlatans, ok?

</comment><comment><USER18> I hate to say this, but this for Hacker News? Really?

<comment><USER19> I'm not really sure what you find objectionable in this post? It deals with tech, and it's a critique of trends in user-interface design (specifically in games), even if it dos so in a rather 'fun' format. And not just any part of the interface, but the all-critical "first impression". I rather suspect that many of us here have had to think long and hard about conveying the rules of the systems we are creating to the users in an unobtrusive yet effective manner.

How _wouldn't_ it be considered Hacker News?

<comment><USER18> > It deals with tech, and it's a critique of trends in user-interface design > (specifically in games), even if it dos so in a rather 'fun' format.

Yeah, the next submission should really about the Design Trends of Spam Sites in 2010 or How to Design a Online Streaming Porn Site using H.264 and HTML5

<comment><USER20> Because ... what? Games are on the same level of "seriousity" as spam sites?

<comment><USER21> He was being sarcastic. His point was that people should stop being so narrow- minded as to exactly what they expect to see on HN and get away from the sometimes formulaic waves of articles about whatever the buzzword of the day is.

Rather than backseat moderating against topics people think are uninteresting, they should just focus on submitting good quality, interesting articles about whatever could pique the curiosity of the readership.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can vouch for the accuracy of this. I'm an expert voucher, so you can trust me.</comment>


New York City's electric bike delivery workers face crackdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/25/new-york-citys-electric-bike-delivery-workers-face-crackdown <comment><USER2> Listen to this episode of the Brian Lehrer show from WNYC for background on the problem and the people who have fought to regulate it: [https://www.wnyc.org/story/peoples-guide-power-electric- bike...](https://www.wnyc.org/story/peoples-guide-power-electric-bikes- edition/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like they're holding "e-bike" users to a ridiculous standard given how shit most people are at driving cars. There should be heavy fines for operating "e-bikes" on the sidewalk, but otherwise I don't see how they're substantially different from a motor scooter or something.

That said, if you're able-bodied, and it's not your job, just use a normal bicycle.</comment>


Ikea releases its first Bluetooth speakers, and some light assembly is required - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/4/9/17216792/ikea-made-budget-speakers-diy-assemble-yourself <comment><USER2> Literally an AD</comment>


"How To Win Friends And Influence People" in a nutshell - <AUTHOR> http://www.mindmeister.com/pt/40950677/how-to-win-friends-influence-people

<comment><USER2> It would be so nice if all self-help books contained this type of information map. then again, no one would buy them once they saw how little it offered once you removed the tales and examples and 'stories about a guy I met...'</comment>


How to see into the future - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/3950604a-33bc-11e4-ba62-00144feabdc0 <comment><USER2> Good write up. I believe the Good Judgement Project referred to is this: [https://goodjudgment.com](https://goodjudgment.com)</comment>