Bill Thurston has died - <AUTHOR> http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/bill-thurston/ <comment><USER2> Like most individuals, and probably, most mathematicians outside his field, I do not deeply understand much of Thurston's work. But he did have a rather large impact on my life insofar as a paragraph of his has stayed with me several years (not many do, I'm afraid), and has been my reminder to slow down whenever I find myself saying "psh, that was easy, all I had to do was browse through the documentation":

 _I prided myself in reading quickly. I was really amazed by my first encounters with serious mathematics textbooks. I was very interested and impressed by the quality of the reasoning, but it was quite hard to stay alert and focused. After a few experiences of reading a few pages only to discover that I really had no idea what I'd just read, I learned to drink lots of coffee, slow way down, and accept that I needed to read these books at 1/10th or 1/50th standard reading speed, pay attention to every single word and backtrack to look up all the obscure numbers of equations and theorems in order to follow the arguments._

If a Fields medalist needed to slow down to read some maths, I can slow down to really understand whatever it is that I'm doing. And when I tell myself "I've learned that already!" I stop and ask whether I learned it at a "1/50th pace."

<http://matrixeditions.com/Thurstonforeword.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. That entire foreword is just beautiful. Thank you.

<comment><USER3> I wish the book itself was available as HTML or PDF. Amazing forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fields medalist Terence Tao writes about earlier Fields medalist William Thurston, "In addition to his direct mathematical research contributions, Thurston was also an amazing mathematical expositor, having the rare knack of being able to describe the process of mathematical thinking in addition to the results of that process and the intuition underlying it. His wonderful essay "On proof and progress in mathematics", which I highly recommend, is the quintessential instance of this; more recent examples include his many insightful questions and answers on MathOverflow."

Besides "On proof and progress in mathematics,"

<http://arxiv.org/abs/math.HO/9404236>

which I also highly recommend, I especially like Thurston's article "Mathematical Education,"

<http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0503081>

which is full of good advice about thorough development of budding mathematicians.

From Tao's blog, another link to a remembrance of Thurston:

<http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5059>

</comment><comment><USER5> From his "about" page on his MathOverflow profile:

"Mathematics is a process of staring hard enough with enough perseverence at at the fog of muddle and confusion to eventually break through to improved clarity. I'm happy when I can admit, at least to myself, that my thinking is muddled, and I try to overcome the embarassment that I might reveal ignorance or confusion. Over the years, this has helped me develop clarity in some things, but I remain muddled in many others. I enjoy questions that seem honest, even when they admit or reveal confusion, in preference to questions that appear designed to project sophistication."

Such beautiful modesty from a brilliant mathematician who inspired many.

[1] <http://mathoverflow.net/users/9062/bill-thurston>

<comment><USER6> I like the embarrassing arguments from MathOverflow moderators re. not closing Mr. Thurston's (vague, subjective, "not a question") question on MathOverflow.

Nicely put by Georges Elencwajg in one of the comments:

 _...posed by somebody else, this question would have been closed within a picosecond. The rationale, ironically, being that professional mathematicians of quality would flee this site in droves because the question is "discussiony", "vague", "has no right answer", etc. This is the Matthew effect in all its glory: "For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away" (Matthew 25:29) Needless to say, I'm euphoric at the thought of Bill's participation in MathOverflow._

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I agree with everyone who recommends the stellar "On Proof and Progress in Mathematics". It a gem that could only have been written by a lovely man.

<http://arxiv.org/pdf/math/9404236v1.pdf>

The parts about how communication works inside mathematical specialties and about the difference between math and computer programming are worth their weight in gold.

Really, everyone, just do yourself a favor and read it – all the way to its astonishing final section and beautiful ending. It doesn't require you to remember any math.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's been a while since I've done serious mathematics so I'm almost certainly wrong about this, but the "logical" definition for a derivative looks incorrect under the section "How do People Understand Mathematics?" (pg 3).

Shouldn't the distance between the quotient and _d_ be less than ɛ?

<http://arxiv.org/pdf/math/9404236v1.pdf>

<comment><USER8> You're right. I've read that several times over several years and never noticed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you've wondered what topology was about and wanted to get a better feel for it than just a dictionary definition, then see the 20-minute video in the article.

A blurb about the video:

 _The computer animation "Outside In" explains the amazing discovery, made by Steve Smale in 1957, that a sphere can be turned inside out by means of smooth motions and self-intersections. Through a combination of dialogue and exposition accessible to anyone who has some interest in mathematics, "Outside In" builds up to the grand finale: Bill Thurston's ``corrugations'' method of turning the sphere inside out. Along the way, the narrators discuss the related case of closed curves and why they generally cannot be turned inside out. Everyday analogies such as train tracks, belts, smiles and frowns are used throughout, all richly animated and complete with sound effects._ (quoted from <http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/docs/outreach/oi/> )

<comment><USER10> I just watched this on Youtube and was not disappointed. There was just a great clarity to the question-and-answer format of the dialogue; the animations and sound effects fit the exposition to a tee. I hope they're still making brilliant educational videos like this, somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Outside In, the movie referenced in the article, can be found on youtube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeYo7MHuj0g>

</comment><comment><USER12> Perhaps you mean, he _left_? (<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MathematiciansWhoHaveLeft>)

<comment><AUTHOR> I read that Japanese uses the charming phrase "he changed worlds".

<comment><USER13> I suppose you could say that he changed over to the world of "not existing anymore." Or you could just state the tragedy outright, and say that he's dead. Please excuse my bluntness; a person's obliteration is something I'd prefer not to swathe in soft euphemisms.</comment></comment></comment>


The prewar control systems that lead to the first computers - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/B-001-002-575/page/n19 <comment><USER2> This is a great book, btw. I own it in hardback.</comment>


Show HN: Public APIs 2.0 - <AUTHOR> https://public-apis.xyz <comment><USER2> I found some useful public apis here. Now I have some idea to built something on top of them. Thanks for creating this awesome site.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm happy you like the app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really good site, has loads of good API's to use

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks James.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very useful service and now even better in new V2

</comment><comment><USER5> Great app to find ideas.!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks brother. I'm happy you like the app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What do you have in 2.0?

<comment><AUTHOR> 2.0 is so fast rather than version 1 it have advanced search. API collections Saved your favorite APIs etc.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to value time more than money/fame? - <AUTHOR> During quarantine I have made an important discovery about myself: Everything I do is somehow related to begin 'productive' or with the goal of me receiving praise for it in whatever way. Espeically now with more free time at hand (which I was initially planning to use for something 'productive or useful'), I just ended up wasting about half of it since I deemed the things I was doing 'unimportant' or 'of no greater use to humanity' and so on.
For example: Everyday I try to come back to a project I have started and my initial motivation to continue is there, but it quickly fades away because my mind is like 'It already exists, why do you try to reinvent the wheel'..
By now it is really getting at me since I cannot even convince myself to do anything anymore except stuff for university and exercise. Have any of you ever felt that way or maybe even managed to change the way you look at things? <comment><USER2> Probably back to Michael Plant's article from earlier today.

[http://www.ox.ac.uk/research/research-in-conversation/how- li...](http://www.ox.ac.uk/research/research-in-conversation/how-live-happy- life/michael-plant)

The only thing you have of value is time. Take time to be happy.</comment>


Show HN: Jupyter Notebook Blog Platform with Actions & GitHub Pages - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fastai/fast_template/tree/master/_notebooks <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm Hamel, I'm one of the people who contributed to this project. I think this is a really great blogging platform for data scientists because:

\- Visualizations can remain interactive \- You can write your entire blog post in a Jupyter notebook and deploy it to your blog with a click \- No nagwalls or paywalls (Like you might get w/Medium) \- It's hosted on GitHub Pages, so it's free \- Its portalbe, so you can take your data elsewhere anytime.

This project is a repository template on GitHub, which means its super easy to setup and get started. Its powered by the really cool nbdev project [https://github.com/fastai/nbdev](https://github.com/fastai/nbdev), which enables lots of other cool features for blogging!

Most of the credit goes to Jeremy Howard ([https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward](https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward)) and Sylvain Gugger ([https://twitter.com/GuggerSylvain](https://twitter.com/GuggerSylvain)) for building all of the tools that make all of this work!</comment>


Ask HN: How to obtain a Theranos Edison? - <AUTHOR> Any idea where they went?
I'd love to collect one and put it in our office to remind of what happens when you lose sight of the end customer.
Wikipedia says the assets were released to Theranos' creditors. I see that Fortress has the patents now, but how about the actual machines? <comment><USER2> Or, you could just hollow out a big inkjet printer and _tell_ people it was an Edison, which is pretty much what they did.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you need to be reminded of this, you don't need a Theranos Edison, but a good ethics book</comment>


An Indian village addicted to chess - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170511-the-indian-village-addicted-to-chess <comment><USER3> I have a deep affinity for chess for economic reasons.

In 2002 when I went to prison in Florida for 22 months, playing chess for $1/game was my "hustle", and it allowed me to eat really well at a panhandle camp that was well known for its terrible chow.

Also, a rather odd but very beneficial side effect of my play came into focus...my chess ability seemed to convey a certain status to me by old timers on the yard, and assigned to me a certain "respect" level that basically kept me rather safe during my entire stay.

I'll admit...I wasn't always totally virtuous while hustling. I often lost to players in the beginning as to set the hook for future games and profitability.

The most interesting part is that, in reality, I kinda suck at chess in the real world by my own demanding standards.

<comment><USER4> I don't quite see how chess ability translates to safety in prison?

<comment><USER3> Yeah it sure isn't immediately obvious that this would be so, but without a doubt it is true because the same experience has occurred several times since.

So I have an escape charge in Florida (escape, not absconding) for not returning to a county work release center in Orlando many years ago. This was a really dumb thing to do because now, whenever I'm jailed I often get thrown in with the "high-security" inmates whom are also known as the murderers and anyone looking at over 20-years if convicted.

My last time through the system in Florida, I must have spent 4-5 hours a day playing chess with an alleged murderer whom was infatuated with the game and trying very hard to get better. I was in for some possession charges...bullshit really but because the old escape charge there I was.

This man had deep respect in the jail as his brother was at FSP/Raiford actually _on death row_ for an execution-style murder committed about a decade earlier. The alleged murder this man committed was related to that very incident.

Anyway, I had played his brother for several months back "in the day" and was the only person in the jail who could beat him, and to be honest, I became somewhat a legend in C-block for my game. Remember, these people in this block often sit in county jail for 3-5 years waiting for trial and such, so the "institutional memory" actually lasts a long time in such a dismal place.

Long story somewhat short: By spending so many hours teaching this man to play much much better, he put the word out that no one was to fuck with me, and I was not only really safe, but was fed and taken care of by the group.

Very odd experience, but every word true.

<comment><USER5> What were you in for? 22 months? Not judging totally curious - Florida's jails are packed.

[http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/11/13806293-...](http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/11/13806293-in- florida-1-in-4-blacks-of-voting-age-cannot-vote-because-of-felony-conviction)

<comment><USER3> I was busted selling MDMA in a nightclub.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can relate to this. Chess is a beautiful game, but for certain people it isnt just addictive; its a complete escape, a way to tune out the world and just get lost in a game.

I was going through some personal problems a year back and found myself constantly just staying up into the night, playing game after game of 5/0 or 3/2 blitz chess. I couldn't stop. It was therapeutic, but also a way of sort of avoiding the problems I had going in my life. I know it wasnt the best use of my time, but man it felt good to tune out for a while and in a weird way I think it helped me get through some of the problems I was facing.

<comment><USER7> There's something about needing to focus on a singular action that really helps you detach, I find. I don't think it's necessarily avoiding it - <USER2> you're detached and not thinking about it I think you give yourself space to reorient. Sometimes the world gets too noisy and you can't think straight.

That said, I once tried to relax by playing a chess game and I almost punched something I was so frustrated with how quiet and slow the game was ;)

<comment><USER8> If you're frustrated by the pace of the game, then I think you're not thinking deep enough.

<comment><USER7> Ha! Probably, honestly. I've never been too great at thinking way ahead.

<comment><USER9> It's something that takes tons and tons of practice. The more positions and tactics and openings you burn into your long term memory the less you need to keep in short term memory.

The best players in the world have put so many thousands of hours into the game that they can beat casual players trivially without thinking more than one move ahead. They owe this ability to having vast knowledge of fundamentals and theoretical lines in all the most common positions. This is how they are able to win simultaneous exhibitions against a large number of casual players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lovely piece!

The addictive element of chess reminds me of Satyajit Ray's movie "Shatranj Ke Khiladi" (The Chess Players). The movie is set in the 19th century at the onset of British colonization of the Indian heartland. It is about two noblemen of the Indian province of Awadh who are addicted to chess to such an extent that they have become oblivious to the dramatic changes happening in their households, the province, and the region in general. There's also a decadent dance-obsessed Nawab (provincial ruler). All three elite aristocrats are consumed in their hobbies and addictions while the British are maneuvering to subjugate their province.

<comment><USER11> A brilliant film, on so many levels. A tip of the hat to writer Munshi Premchand, who wrote the short story which formed the basis of Ray's film.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is from the highest literate state in India. No wonder here. When I was a kid, I used to see all the Autorickshaw drivers assemble under a tree playing chess and drinking tea while waiting for their next trip.

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

</comment><comment><USER13> Another BBC story on HN I can't read because I'm in the UK!

Here's another source for bemused Brits:

[http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/knight- exemplar...](http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/knight-exemplar- chess-saves-people-from-alcohol-in-a-village-in-kerala/article17408584.ece)

<comment><USER14> Is BBC behind a paywall in the UK?

<comment><USER15> The message they display says:

      We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our
      international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially
      by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits
      made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great
      new BBC programmes.

The rationale is explained in a little more detail in a BBC FAQ [1].

BBC Worldwide is a commercial entity, but the BBC's fair trading rules prevents them from promoting a commercial entity to UK licence payers. The somewhat odd outcome is that BBC content is unavailable to people in the UK.

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/online/website_changes](http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/online/website_changes)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Everything "bad" eventually becomes "good" for you.

150 years ago Scientific American bemoaned the "chess phenomenon" that was spreading quickly across the country. They wrote that chess was a trivial game that rotted the mind or something to that extent...

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure we're at the point where chess is universally "good". That might have been the case in Soviet Russia, where chess was hugely pushed by the state, or America in those Cold War years where ordinary society saw it as a noble way beat those Soviets.

Nowadays, however, chess is probably met more with indifference than anything else. One often hears complaints that it is a gimmick that merely shows that a person is capable of memorizing many, many thousands of positions, not that players are intelligent people in some other, more general respect (whatever "intelligent" might mean here).

Furthermore, it is also understood now that unless you invest in a very large library of chess books and dedicate all your waking hours to memorization, you'll never be able to play chess at a high level regardless of your passion for the game. Yes, people still play e.g. football among their mates even if they know they aren't ever going to be pros, but chess competition used to have an aura of being open to any clever player who just used his thinker, and that has now been generally shattered. Plus, computers beat people now.

<comment><USER18> As a recreational player that plays in tournaments from time to time and is active in my local chess community, this post really only exposes that you don't know what you're talking about. For context, I'm not amazing but I'm no slouch (~95th percentile in the US) and memorization accounts for so little of my defeats or victories that it's practically meaningless. In fact, studying the openings is usually considered to be the least value-adding way to improve unless you're a titled player (usually 2400+ US ELO)

<comment><USER19> They are talking about perceptions of chess among non-chess players, not the reality of chess for high-level players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Was wondering where I had seen this before. Here's a history TV bit they did on this village.

[https://youtu.be/hK0_QfZyiWI?t=14m22s](https://youtu.be/hK0_QfZyiWI?t=14m22s) (from 14:22 - 18:25) its in Hindi, but there are English subtitles.

</comment><comment><USER21> >> Here 4,000 of the 6,000 population are playing chess, almost daily

Really? I wish to go there for vacation. Great subject for Documentary. Anyone?

<comment><USER12> A native of Kerala here. You are most welcome to my state. You might find more topics for your documentary here, for ex: The religious harmony of Kerala, while the other Indian states are still divided on castecism. The high HDI and literacy (almost 95%) of Kerala. Here is Kerala Government's tourism website for more information to plan your visit.

[https://www.keralatourism.org](https://www.keralatourism.org)

You can get Visa on Arrival too [https://www.keralatourism.org/visa- requirement.php](https://www.keralatourism.org/visa-requirement.php)

If you find it hard to DIY. You can contact professional tour operators in Kerala to plan your vacation.

PS: Kerala has very high literacy about 94.59. Most of Keralites can write/read/speak English. All the information signs/shops/hotels are in English & Malayalam. You will have no problem finding your way around and asking for directions even without a tour guide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I find these social memes fascinating. I wonder if any sociologist has made a serious study of how they start and spread. There is another town in India dedicated to weightlifting and working as bouncers:

[http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/30/world/asia/india-muscle- villag...](http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/30/world/asia/india-muscle-village/)

<comment><USER23> Given number of villages in India, I guess you can find one addicted to ... virtually anything. Almost sure I have seen a village addicted to JavaScript.

<comment><USER24> I think I read about that in Hitchhiker's Guide -- there must be a village out there that grows sentient mattresses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Chess is so addictive it made me drop out of CS grad school.I would compete online every day from 10 pm to 3 am.That is not a good schedule if you want to make it to an 8 a.m class.

<comment><USER26> Out of curiosity, did you find that the draw of chess changed at all after you left your program?

<comment><USER25> Not really.But I moderate now that I know how it can affect other things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In the Soviet Union they used to show chess on TV and people would watch it like people football here in US for example.

I remember watching it with dad and it was good fun.. We'd also play chess at home in the evenings. I am still terrible at it though.

</comment><comment><USER28> How is it different from being addicted to a video game in an urban setting?

<comment><USER29> I don't know if you meant that rhetorically, but I think it's actually an interesting question. It'd be easy, but facile, to attach formal elegance and intellectuality to chess, but I'm sure there are equally elegant and intellectual video games.

In the context of this particular article, the socialization on display feels qualitatively different and superior (to me), to what I associate with even relatively social videogames.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Somehow this immediately made me think of Player Of Games by Ian Banks

</comment><comment><USER31> It'd be interesting to know what their rankings are. Is it just to pass the time at a weak level or do a lot of them become quite strong?

<comment><USER32> There is one picture [0] where the board isn't set properly (the square at the the bottom right corner is black instead of white), so I suppose they some of them are not too strong.

[0] [http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/li...](http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/live/p0/52/my/p052myzx.jpg)

<comment><USER33> Or perhaps it doesn't matter to them? The orientation of the colors bears no effect on the play of the game.

It might be confusing to people very used to the "traditional" rotation, but maybe breaking free of it is a good mental exercise? ;)

<comment><USER34> It's not only the rotation of the board. Look where those bishops are placed. There's bishop on b1 with pawns on a2 and c2.

<comment><USER32> Maybe they are playing Fischer Random...

<comment><USER34> not that random considering the position of K & Q.

<comment><USER35> Swap bishop and knight starting is a common displacement chess variant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Here's an interesting trip down the rabbit hole -

Kerala, the state mentioned in the article, is surprisingly distinct from the rest of India. It has some of the highest literacy rates in India (something like 92%) and an HDI comparable to developed countries[1].

Historically, Kerala had trade relations with the levant, and Rome from antiquity, and has hosted a large jewish diaspora[2]. Kerala has also had its share of christian "immigrants", starting with the story of St.Thomas, to traditions about Syrian Christians settling in Kerala during the 4th century AD. [3] Plus, the traditional christian church in Kerala is the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox church [4], with its official language of liturgy being Syriac (a derivative of Aramaic).

Similarly, there is a very ancient muslim tradition in Kerala [5], including the very first mosque in India.

Kerala is also famous for a lot of its contribution to Hindu thought [6], while some traditions are markedly different from the rests of India[7].

Kerala also has its own martial art, which arguably predates the more famous chinese martial arts. [8]

Finally, IIRC, Kerala was never completely under British rule, but I'm not completely sure on this point.

All in all, a very fascinating place.

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

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

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

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malankara_Jacobite_Syrian_Orth...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malankara_Jacobite_Syrian_Orthodox_Church)

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

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

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

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

<comment><USER37> Allow me to balance the narrative here:

[http://www.dailyo.in/variety/kerala-dogs-stray-animal- abuse-...](http://www.dailyo.in/variety/kerala-dogs-stray-animal-abuse-mass- culling-killing-cruelty-maneka-gandhi/story/1/13757.html)

<comment><USER38> Allow me to balance it here. Stray dog is a big issue in Kerala. Daily you read about an attack where a person is attacked brutally by stray dogs. And peak summer time is when they also carry rabies virus too. Most of the places kids are not allowed to play outside for fear of dog attack. With little support from the government, people are left with no other option than to kill them. Not sure why western media is so concerned about the life of a dog than a life of Chicken or goat or cow that are regularly killed.

[http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/85-yr-old-mauled- to...](http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/85-yr-old-mauled-to-death-by- dogs-in-kerala/story-tbEV9Rks2Mc9jtzmi5nlPK.html)

[http://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/stray-dog- attacks...](http://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/stray-dog-attacks-kid- drags-him-out-of-house-chavara-kollam-1.1740327)

<comment><USER37> It's a big issue because the people of Kerala have made it an issue by attacking dogs on sight. They have indoctrinated their kids from childhood about the dangers of stray dogs, and how the only solution is to kill them. Of course you can't catch them and kill them all, all you end up doing is to make the remaining ones more fearful and likely to attack humans. It's not like dogs don't learn and adapt to the changing behaviour of the humans around them.

Every Indian state deals with stray dogs. Why are stray dog attacks reported as abnormally high in Kerala? Why is Kerala wilfully defying the Supreme Court's verdict on dealing with stray dogs (i.e. to sterilise them)?

> Not sure why western media is so concerned about the life of a dog than a > life of Chicken or goat or cow that are regularly killed.

My antecedents are completely irrelevant to the issue. Everybody everywhere has the right to question the mass insanity that the people of Kerala are exhibiting w.r.t. this issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Could someone host this article on a platform that UK residents can access? I really want to read this, but the BBC UK doesn't let us see this!

<comment><USER39> BBC Worldwide (International Site) We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme- makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Based on the photos, it looks like they are playing some local variant of chess rather than the conventional game: \- the board is turned 90 degrees, so the white king is to the left of the queen; \- initial positions of knights and bishops are swapped.

Are there multiple different versions of chess played in India?

<comment><USER41> Variants of chess are common everywhere, I'd hazard a guess to say that people who play chess all the time are more likely to start mixing it up to add a bit of spice to the game.

Chess 960 is a good example of the backline swapping around.

<comment><USER42> >Variants of chess are common everywhere

Damn true. I can still remember my high school chess coaches getting mad at us for playing bughouse, saying it ruins our ordinary playing. I never believed it would, and it was quite fun, but then again, practice time is for practice time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> If you're interested in (read: addicted to and love all things) chess, one of my favorite places to learn is chessnetwork on youtube.

He is a lot of fun to watch especially playing bullet, does great commentary of professional games, and always reviews his games afterwards for learning.

</comment><comment><USER44> Hi, this is a very culturally insensitive and ignorant question but I am very curious: Why do adult Indian people, in India, sit on the ground or floor? It must be a cultural thing, that can't be comfortable or (dare I say it) clean.

<comment><USER45> Not just adults, but children sit on the floor as well.

Anyways, yes, it is a cultural thing. If you do it all the time, it is comfortable enough. What Westerner's perceive as uncomfortable is not uncomfortable at all.

Don't forget that Western style toilets are also a relatively new thing, so sitting Western style is actually less common (but is now common in post modern India).

Also, Indians are generally very fastidious and clean. Paradoxically, India itself is quite dirty since the concept of cleanliness in India is usually limited to one's immediate habitat. Sweeping, dusting and mopping is a daily chore in Indian homes unlike the West.

The images in this particular article do not portray a very clean environment though, I'll grant you that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Somewhat unrelated but does anyone know of a good android chess app that also teaches basic strategy?

</comment><comment><USER47> I read that as addicted to "cheese" and was rather surprised by that.

</comment><comment><USER48> This webpage isn't accessible from within the UK. That's absurd.

</comment><comment><USER49> I am in the UK and therefore am not allowed to read the article.

</comment><comment><USER50> No women in the photos?

<comment><USER51> It is traditional village. Women don't count. (And likely don't play since women and men don't mix in traditional villages - each gender has own culture.)

Though I guess more accurate title would be "half of an Indian village addicted to chess", it is not end of the world.

<comment><USER12> When it comes to India, most people who have never traveled outside their own state in their countries are clouded by solipsism. They have this view that India is the same everywhere in terms of culture including the role of women. What you see in the media is mostly not the real India and is mostly stereotyped.

> It is traditional village. Women don't count.

Is an uneducated guess and that too especially in a highly literate state like Kerala. Maybe the below link can throw some light on the small state of Kerala and why is it very different than other states in India.

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

According to the 2011 census, Kerala's has overall 94.59 literacy. Females - 92.12, Males - 97.10.

PS: I am a native of Kerala. If anyone is curious about Kerala and would like to visit Kerala which is called God's own country, you are welcome here and yes most of us can read/write/speak English. It includes the bus drivers, cab drivers, grocery store guy or those native villagers who plays chess. Kerala has the highest mobile phone density, the most internet users, excellent healthcare facilities, schools, Ayurvedic facilities, greenery, religious harmony. I can go on.

Kerala Government's tourism site : [https://www.keralatourism.org](https://www.keralatourism.org)

<comment><USER51> I apologise. I made quick guesses based on pictures. Thank you for stepping in with facts.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WHO: Cell phone use can increase possible cancer risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/31/who.cell.phones/index.html

<comment><USER2> Please don't try and spice up a submission with your own "more interesting" headline. Usually it winds up being inaccurate or misleading. The original CNN headline is "Cell phone use can increase possible cancer risk". The actual quote where the new "headline" apparently came from is "The agency now lists mobile phone use in the same "carcinogenic hazard" category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform." The new title doesn't even make any kind of logical sense.

<comment><USER3> I mostly disagree.

The average reader here is smart enough to read that headline, notice that part of it is quoted, and infer that the article states that some health authority has recently said that cell phone signals are about as dangerous as lead, etc.

The average reader is also more than smart enough to discern that the article is not, in fact, stating that cell phone radiation is the exact same thing as, say, lead. It's a bit ludicrous to even think that folks would assume this.

That said, I also prefer original headlines, as a rule.

<comment><USER4> >and infer that the article states that some health authority has recently said that cell phone signals are about as dangerous as lead, etc.

They would be inferring the _wrong_ thing if they did that. When someone thinks of the dangers of lead, they think of lead poisoning, not lead as carcinogenic. The dangers of exhaust, asphyxiation not as a carcinogen. Chloroform? Kidneys and liver damage from too high a dose, not cancer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> dupe of <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2603309></comment>


Control the SSL CAs your browser trusts - <AUTHOR> https://certsimple.com/blog/control-the-ssl-cas-your-browser-trusts <comment><AUTHOR> Hey there! Author here. We've got instructions for working out which root store you're using (it's based on your OS and browser) and instructions for configuring the major root stores: OS X, Windows, Firefox and Android.

We weren't able to identify a way to disable inbuilt certificates on iOS 9 - Apple Configurator 2 only allows the addition of certificates. If the HN community knows of a mechanism to do this, let us know and we'll update the article and credit you.</comment>


What a skull in an English pub says about India's 1857 mutiny - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-43616597 <comment><USER2> > He murdered Mr Hunter, and his wife and daughters after being brutally > treated were butchered by the road side.

I believe that 'being brutally treated' means raped.

> Dr Wagner writes that his book sets out to 'restore some of the humanity and > dignity that has been denied to Alum Bheg … I hope I have prepared the > ground for Alum Bheg to finally find some peace …'

If Havildar Bheg did indeed murder two men and rape & murder two women, I can't say that I'm all that concerned about his dignity, and not terribly impressed by his humanity.

As an aside, being blown from a cannon, while rather spectacular from our modern perspective, was traditional in India dating back to the Mughal era. I imagine that it must be remarkably painless.

</comment><comment><USER3> > who was executed in 1858 by being blown from the mouth of a cannon

Wow.

<comment><USER4> This isn't quite as it sounds, although not exactly better.

From [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun)

> George Carter Stent described the process as follows:[1]

>> The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of his back resting against the muzzle. When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the body is literally blown away altogether, not a vestige being seen.

> ...

> The destroying of the body and scattering the remains over a wide area had a > particular religious function as a means of execution in the Indian > subcontinent as it effectively prevented the necessary funeral rites of > Muslims and Hindus.[9] Thus, for believers the punishment was extended > beyond death.

<comment><USER3> Actually, frankly, thats worse than I imagined.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How sad that British were able to sow enough seeds of hatred and division in India that brothers in arms ended up fighting each other and separating into two not quite at peace neighbors less than a hundred years later.

<comment><USER6> I think its far far more complicated than that. Partition was/is a disaster, so was bangladesh.

However when the mutiny broke out, a huge wave of violence was unleashed, first against the british, then anyone who was seen to be helping the british, then the nextdoor Raj. Finally in reverse by the british.

<comment><USER5> Of course it is. However, divide and rule was the original british mantra. It saddens me personally how well it worked on the Indian sub-continent and as a student of history I wonder why it did.

<comment><USER7> Was the history that peaceful before the British got there? I was under the impression that the sub-continent always had a decent amount of fighting and unrest

<comment><USER8> There was always unrest, true, though it was no exception for the time considering its size. Either way the colonialists did nothing to help the situation but were focused on milking the cash cow. [https://youtu.be/f7CW7S0zxv4](https://youtu.be/f7CW7S0zxv4)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pro-Privacy (for Himself): Zuckerberg Bought The Four Houses Around His - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2013/10/pro-privacy-for-himself-mark-zuckerberg-just-bought-the-four-houses-around-his-palo-alto-home/

<comment><USER2> I would've done the same thing if I had a slimy developer building next door to me</comment>


The Cruel Waste of America's Tech Talent - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/opinion/the-cruel-waste-of-americas-tech-talent.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article

<comment><USER2> Here, let me burn the exceptionally modest amount of karma I have on HN.

I am married to an immigrant. Immigrants have been huge contributors to the country. We should keep 'em coming. I'm pretty sure virtually all "anti- immigrants" agree.

But what many call "anti-immigrant" is propaganda, due to deliberate and willful devaluation of the term "immigrant". It has come to supplant the more accurate terms "illegal alien" or the more modern "illegal immigrant".

We spent years navigating the hideous INS bureaucracy to obtain her citizenship. Amnesty bills are a slap in the face to those of us who played by the rules. The fact that existing immigration laws go largely unenforced have resulted in depressed wages and large swathes of the Texas and Arizona borders becoming killing grounds and defacto "no go zones". Farmers' lands on the border are becoming unusable and dangerous. Illegal immigrants place enormous burdens on hospitals in border states.

Like many on the right, I am strongly for legal immigration on pretty generous terms. I am strongly anti-illegal immigrant, and not the least bit "anti- immigrant". I do want to see existing laws enforced.

<comment><USER3> This article is specifically referring to people who were brought to the United States as children.

Having grown up in the US, they are often culturally American and often speak English with an American accent. (In fact, we've deported so many people who grew up in the US, that there's now a call center industry in Mexico that specializes in hiring people with American accents).

It strikes me as incredibly wasteful for the United States to educate a person through the age of 18, only to then deport them or prevent them from continuing their education or working.

<comment><USER4> Well, at least it benefits Mexico a bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Possibly half of the world's population would love to live and work in America. Most of the people that now live here have ancestors that followed the rules as my ancestors did. It is profoundly unfair to allow others to "skip the queue" over those who have followed our American laws, have been honest, and "waited their turn."

This article even mentions those that have broken American laws getting subsidized college education costs such as in-state tuition and other monies. In other words, you have people who are not American citizens getting in-state tuition rates that are not available to American citizens who grew up in other states.

H1B visas displace American workers who are looking for a job as well as lower wage rates. One NYTimes pick commenter suggests that he wanted an H1B visa to because he couldn't find anyone to work a Chicago job where someone knew both SAS and SQL. People want to use Open Source software such as R and Python instead of using SAS. In the NYC area there are many Meetups for stats, big data, machine learning, and so on and almost all of them are in R and Python and none to my knowledge in SAS. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7328677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7328677)

The problem for many firms is that they want software people to work on buggies (SAS) when they want to work on cars (open source). Many of these firms also want software people to come to undesirable locations instead of the ones where people want to live. For example, Google owns one of the largest office building in NYC, taking an entire city block. So, if firms use modern open source software and they locate in areas where people want to live then they will get the employees they need without having to resort to H1B visas.

<comment><USER3> >Most of the people that now live here have ancestors that followed the rules as my ancestors did.

This is something of a myth. With the exception of immigrants from China, who were barred by the United States starting in 1880, there really was no such thing as an illegal immigrant until the 1920s. To suggest that one's own ancestors played by the rules, so why can't the current generation of immigrants, is to ignore the fact that the rules at that time were completely different. Given that many of our ancestors came from pretty desperate circumstances, it's entirely likely that many of them would have immigrated illegally, had the laws of that era been analogous to our laws today.

>those that have broken American laws getting subsidized college education costs such as in-state tuition and other monies. In other words, you have people who are not American citizens getting in-state tuition rates that are not available to American citizens who grew up in other states.

This seems to hold children responsible for actions that were taken by their parents, when they were minors. Would you really accuse a 2 year-old of breaking the law if they were brought into the country illegally?

Further, in-state tuition is a benefit to taxpayers of a given state, and it provides opportunities for residents of that state to develop skills without having to go elsewhere. I don't see why someone who has never lived in state X has a claim to in-state tuition at X-State University, based only on their American citizenship. I do see a case for providing in-state tuition for someone who grew up in that state, went to high school there, and was the child of taxpayers, regardless of their educational status.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps you've heard of the ship the MS St. Louis that in 1939 with 915 Jewish refugees from Germany that was denied entry into the US with an estimated 1/4 eventually dying in concentration camps. It was made into a book and a movie, "Voyage of the Damned" [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075406/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075406/)

I'm sorry but I believe that people who are not in the US legally should not be going to our universities, let alone receive financial subsidies. They should apply as citizens of the country that they are citizens of just as anyone else who is not a US citizen and be subject to the same set of rules. Universities, esp. state ones with lower in-state tuition costs have limited number of spots that should go to residents of the state. For every person who is not in the US legally that you admit into the state university at in-state prices, you are depriving someone who is a citizen and a member of the state. Completely unfair!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I'm confused, but how does a so called "illegal immigrant" child go through 18 years of education only to get thrown under the bus later. Either give them complete amnesty or check their passport when they enter grade school.

</comment><comment><USER7> The top-voted comments for the article in NYT website are horrendous regarding H1B visa.</comment>


Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-patent-prevents-students-from-sharing-books-120610 <comment><USER3>
        No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science.

I ... no. I can't even...

I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to summon an inkling of sympathy for the publishers' plea against piracy when I see measures like that.

When I failed calculus because I didn't prove a theorem the way it was in the lecture notes and then was insane enough to argue the point, I thought it was pretty stupid. Here, I don't think the word even begins to describe the situation.

Commodity. That's a good way of describing the role of the students. It shows a rather alarming failure of the system that instead of incentivizing the pursuit of knowledge, students are set up for failure and milked for as much money as possible during their education.

I know a patent doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, and I do hope that most people in a position to make decisions in education call it out for being stupid, though I feel that's a tad optimistic. I'm just sad that a _professor_ is the one proposing this. There go my non-existent beliefs in academia.

<comment><USER4> Don't worry about it, man. He can patent it all he wants, but thing is not gonna fly. It's called a "tie-in sale", and the United States Anti-Trust law prohibits it. McDonald's tried this trick a long time ago with their franchise owners in order to better account for how much they sold, by forcing them to buy paper cups and other supplies directly from Corporate (i.e. prohibiting third party suppliers). I think it got really high in courts, but eventually the franchise owners won.

<comment><USER5> In Australia it's called "restraint of trade" and is totally illegal. eBay tried to do something similar by forcing users to use PayPal and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) struck it down.

This patent might work in areas of the world that don't have much consumer protection, but they will NOT work in areas of the world that care about anti- competitive practices.

<comment><USER5> Argh! Not restraint of trade, "third line forcing" is the term! Oops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm tired of this. I am not going to pay for any product I can pirate anymore. I don't even feel guilty about it. If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen.

I'm also tired of people preaching about how piracy is unethical. A copied piece of data is not equivalent to a lost sale. People cannot own information. You cannot own an algorithm or idea. Imagine if Newton owned the laws of motion, imagine if he owned calculus. How can someone own an arrangement of words or sounds. If you think piracy is unethical you are either a dolt or benefiting from current copyright and patent laws.

edit: And let us not forget the primary purpose of these laws. The purpose wasn't so you could get insanely wealthy off of an idea. It was to provide an incentive for people to create and learn. Copyright and patent laws are now doing the opposite.

<comment><USER7> _You cannot own an algorithm or idea. Imagine if Newton owned the laws of motion, imagine if he owned calculus._

And you can't copyright them either.

 _How can someone own an arrangement of words or sounds._

Because that person made it? Are you saying people have no right to own the things they make?

<comment><USER8> > Because that person made it? Are you saying people have no right to own the > things they make?

"I can only see so far because I'm standing in the shoulder of giants."

Imagine if you had to pay for every one of the thousands little concept that your own idea (inevitably) derives from. That system would be unsustainable. We can only make progress because we can expand and improve on what were created before.

<comment><USER9> Who is arguing that one should pay for every previous idea that a new idea is derived from?

That's a straw man.

The argument for paying people for new IP is that for a limited time we should offer rewards for people to add to the collective knowledge of our society.

So really in terms of your argument, the consumer isn't paying for "standing on the shoulder of giants" either. The consumer of IP is only paying for the incremental value added by the creator of the content.

As a society, we discovered that rewarding producers adds to the useful aggregate more than just hoping that they'll add the same amount of content without compensation.

<comment><USER8> > Who is arguing that one should pay for every previous idea that a new idea > is derived from?

IP limits production to create artificial scarcity. No matter how you look at it, after you copyright or patent something. You are limiting what can be created in the world.

> As a society, we discovered that rewarding producers adds to the useful > aggregate more than just hoping that they'll add the same amount of content > without compensation

No we did not. Historically, Intellectual property was created as one more monopoly privilege for the monarchy. [1] Together with the monopoly selling rice, and other commodities, were the monopoly of printing books. At no point in history did we, as a society, conclude that if we limit reward producers it would add to the useful aggregate. That excuse was only invented after the "monopoly privilege" over copying books were renamed to "copy rights". At the same time that other monarchy monopolies were destroyed.

Society never discovered that it's worth in the aggregate. You cannot prove it's worth in the aggregate. Any attempt so far to measure the aggregate has been absurd. [2]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law>

[2] <http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod.html>

<comment><USER9> > You are limiting what can be created in the world.

Not really true. You could say that IP limits some forms of use that could produce new creations. But that would ignore the fact that often IP is licensed, thus not preventing the creation of some content.

Further, providing a reward for the creation of new IP dramatically increases the overall creation rate of what society considers to be "useful" IP.

> No we did not. Historically, Intellectual property was created as one more > monopoly privilege for the monarchy

That's just an ad hominem.

> At no point in history did we, as a society, conclude that if we limit > reward producers it would add to the useful aggregate.

See, this is just factually incorrect. All you need to do is to look at US history and the motivations for creating copyright and patent law as part of the new nation to see that you're wrong.

The saddest thing is that I actually think that our system of IP is in serious need of a rewrite. The way that big media companies abuse our legal system and the power of our government should be criminalized. At very least, we should be using statistical models and the Scientific method to determine the ideal values for copyright and patent lengths rather than basing new IP laws upon the lobbying efforts of Disney.

That said, as an advocate for changing the situation, you're not being effective. You make totally unfounded arguments and in at least one other place in this same thread I saw where you were using cheap online debating tricks to try to get your point across.

When I read the original article this thread is based on, I felt some legitimate annoyance at the professor since what he's doing is unethical. But then I read a couple of your posts and felt I needed to respond to arguments that were remarkably uninformed and disingenuously constructed.

<comment><USER10> > That's just an ad hominem.

No it isn't....

<comment><USER9> The value of IP laws doesn't depend upon the (fabricated) motivations of those who created it.

So, yeah, it is an ad hominem.

<comment><USER5> Actually, it isn't. Ad hominem is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it.

In this case, he is referring to a third party (the monarchy) who actually did use it as a monopoly priviledge for the monarchy. Saying that it is frabricated does not make it so. In fact, if you look at all that was said, it was "Historically, Intellectual property was created as one more monopoly privilege for the monarchy."

<comment><USER9> > Actually, it isn't. Ad hominem is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim > by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting > it.

Which is what the poster did in bringing up the motivations of a monarchy that used some form of IP regulation that we weren't even discussing. Discrediting monarchies' motivations for wanting IP has nothing to do with the situation we have today. It's an ad hominem.

None of that has anything to do with the utility of reward-based IP laws in promoting the creation of useful IP to society. So you could also consider some argument about how monarchies used IP in medieval times to be a red herring. Regardless of the label, the argument is equally invalid.

<comment><USER5> I've actually reread my comment, and I concede the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Unfortunately, this is nothing new for students.

I have been forced to buy institution specific versions of my books (which simply means they regenerated the practice problems), preventing me from seeking cheaper bookstores like Amazon or the mom & pop down the street. I have been forced to purchase physical CD's with serial codes to access lecture notes (of course, only provided at the school bookstore). But worst of all, I'm very often forced to purchase WebAssign keys. Web Assign is a service that allows professors (in my case, in the math/physics departments) to create online quizzes and homeworks that are graded automatically. Usually the keys cost $45-$60 and they only work for one semester per class, and while they come free with new books (which are exorbitantly expensive, might I add) any used book purchase must be supplemented with these keys. Of course, the professor is glad to tell us we have the option not to buy the key, however we will then get a 0 on the respective assignments.

In my very humble opinion, the greed has gotten so out of control that it's hard for the publishers to see what is even wrong with forcing students to PAY TO DO HOMEWORK.

Something desperately needs to be done. My hope is that e-books slowly democratize the process, but that could be long after I have graduated.

<comment><USER12> _In my very humble opinion, the greed has gotten so out of control that it's hard for the publishers to see what is even wrong with forcing students to PAY TO DO HOMEWORK_

How is that not the whole idea behind college, in general?

<comment><USER11> Technically, my outrage would be at being forced to pay to do homework on top of being forced to pay to learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

Richard Stallman, Right to Read, 1997. It's really chilling to read this story today, when half of it is already truth.

<comment><USER14> I was thinking this should have been the topmost comment on this story- Surprised that not many people here seem to have read this,for if they had- this 'story' should have been the first thing they commented on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well looks like it's finally coming true: <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

What seemed absurd back in 1997 is more and more probable today.

</comment><comment><USER16> Up-front and clear fees, directly based on the product or service offered, are the most efficient way for a market economy to work. In this case, this should mean simple fees for the classes, and book prices based on the original content in that version divided by the number of people who demand that original content.

This patent describes a means to make the prices of things -- like a class -- much more obscure and indirect, which is obviously a perverse market. It's not really about piracy though; it more closely resembles a toll booth on the door to the classroom, or charging students to keep the lights on so they can read the chalkboard. This just happens to resemble a copyright issue, so it triggers that particular response from people interested in copyright.

So why are such perverse systems so common? Because we demand them. It's not some conspiracy. We like to play games with prices, and overestimate our ability to outplay our opponent, and think we can get the best of them (in reality, practical matters take over and we just end up paying more on average).

Take cellphones. You can buy an unlocked google phone for a simple, direct price based on the quality of the hardware and the support that you expect to receive from google (or the manufacturer). Then, you can get a prepaid service plan for cheap (I pay $30/mo for a good smartphone plan) that is based on the level of service you expect from the carrier for as long as you feel like being their customer. I will save hundreds per year over getting a contract and a discounted phone (let's say a typical smartphone plan is at least $60/mo, so I save $30/mo or $720 over a 2-year contract, but lose at most $400 from lack of a discount, netting me $320). I also have greater flexibility and choice.

Yet almost everybody in the U.S., including those reading this comment, are under a 2-year contract right now. Why? I don't know. Economics is about what people actually do though, not what they should do. And given a choice between clear pricing and obscure pricing, people choose obscure pricing.

EDIT: And after people get predictably tired playing pricing games with a large company, and end up just paying more, they complain.

<comment><USER17> Yes, I've definitely seen many people extolling the virtues of prepaid and I agree that prepaid is a fantastic option for many, but there are reasons why contracts are fine too.

Besides the psychological barriers to putting down an extra couple hundred to save a little money every month (where only in the aggregate do you start coming ahead), many of us just can't afford to drop that much cash at once for a phone. Not only that, but many have families, making that very expensive very quickly.

Speaking of families, prepaid doesn't cater well to families either! For most carriers, you can add a line for what, $10 a month (I use T-Mobile)? In my family of 4, a family plan would cost around $100 to $110 (without data).

The cheapest prepaid plans are now around $30 so a family of 4 would cost $120. Granted, that would include data, which I don't have. But with a contract plan, I would also get unlimited calling to others on the same carrier and free calling at night. Many Americans still actually use their phones as phones, so that's a huge plus that prepaid carriers don't offer.

So while prepaid works for many, it still isn't the perfect solution for a large majority of us.

One sidenote: If you're on T-Mobile, you can wait for phones to go on sale for free after 2 year contract and then get the cheapest data plan ($10 a month for 200mb) and your cost of the smartphone comes out to $240 over two years. Yes, if you HADN'T gone with the subsidy and brought your own phone (not to prepaid, but the other option T-Mobile has), your plan would be $10 less per month, but if you have a family, the benefits stated above quickly make that $10 feel a lot weaker. PM me if you don't quite understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This already is in widespread use, not sure how the professor expects this patent to hold up in any way. I had a 4 quarter French language requirement for my major for which I needed to purchase a $125 book, and then a $99 online fee to have access to the homework that was 20% of my grade. The real kicker? My $99 online fee only covers 12 months, 3 quarters is a calendar year without summer school, that fourth quarter requires an extra fee to gain access to the homework materials again.

My physics classes also do something similar through the "masteringphysics.com" website I believe.

This is nothing new, and it's brutal for students. I can usually get through a quarter with 4-6 classes for under $100 in book costs if I buy used, old editions, etc but once a teacher throws one of these online requirements my way the costs of a quarter skyrocket to unreasonable levels.

<comment><USER19> I've had to use the Mastering Physics site. You could purchase access the the site by itself, or get it for 'free' when you bought the required textbook. Mind you, this was no bargain - buying the book was a $280 investment.

<comment><USER20> And if it's anything like the online book components I remember from college, calling it an "investment" is a stretch. (Because that implies that you're getting some value from it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science." "Students who don't pay can't participate in the course and therefore get a lower grade."

It's all about purchasing power, folks. You knowledge only matters a little. Please, do pirate books. For crying out loud, knowledge can and should be pirated if it cannot be afforded.

</comment><comment><USER22> The patent itself doesn't stop students from sharing textbooks, it stops _publishers_ from implementing systems to stop students from sharing textbooks without paying this guy a fee...

<comment><USER23> On the one hand, yes, it allows the inventor to impose a royalty.

On the other hand, the whole point of a patent is to spread the idea. A patent has to provide enough information to replicate the invention yourself.

So now publishers just have to license the patent; before this, they would have had to come up with a system like this themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's been my experience that the people who share/photocopy textbooks aren't doing it to screw publishers, they do it because they cannot afford to buy the book themselves. It is a lot of extra work to pirate textbooks this way; I doubt anyone would bother without a good reason.

Once again, it seems like all it's going to do is make legitimate customers jump through hoops, while the pirates find loopholes or simply fail... neither of which results in additional revenue for publishers.

</comment><comment><USER25> The scorn in the TorrentFreak article is so heavy that I thought that, surely, they were exaggerating to stir up the masses, and the method described in the patent was not so heavy-handed as they claimed. (I am a university professor, and I would like to believe that my profession is an honourable one.) Well, no. They've got a link to the actual patent (with many spaces missing, for some reason), and its text, or at least what I could bear to read of it, is just as they describe.

By the way, as someone unfamiliar with this sort of patent, is there some legal meaning to the constant reference to "a plurality of lines of code" when detailing the mechanics of the software, or is the author just fond of the term 'plurality'? (He also refers later to a plurality of teachers and students working together.)

</comment><comment><USER26> I really wouldn't mind paying for a textbook access code for every class I take, if the price was actually reasonable (unlike new textbook prices). In an ideal world: go around the print publishers and digitally publish books with an access code at a low price with nearly all proceeds going to the author.

I have teachers that won't actually use textbooks because kids at my school cannot afford them. Professors will actually photocopy the material for us.

<comment><USER8> > I really wouldn't mind living in a world where you can have a monopoly over > ideas, if I am one of the few who can afford paying for those ideas.

I would. It has much further and deeper implications in the bigger picture than just that one textbook that you could afford.

<comment><USER27> They're not trying to charge for access to the ideas. They're charging for the explanation of those ideas in text that a team of people crafted. They're charging way too much for it, but that's only because universities let them.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. The ideas are already out there. Charging for information that's out there when you have a semi-monopolistic hold on the market through the collusion of most higher institutions of education is unethical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Since time immemorial students have shared information on good and bad professors. This will be yet another thing that is passed along. Don't take _his_ section, he forces you to buy a code. Take _her_ section and you can use my book.

</comment><comment><USER29> I have always thought that Universities should offer self-contained courses, with original homework and practice, specially in technical courses. Books should be considered as reference/reinforcement materials, never a requirement for anything.

After the irruption of Coursera and Udacity, I heard a couple of professors in my university talking about the impact those courses can have in the future. They saw themselves in the future as TAs of those courses, where the students only "use" them to clarify concepts.

<comment><USER30> This is exactly the way the courses at my University (Cambridge, UK) worked. The lectures covered all relevant course material and problem sheets were given out (also available online <http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/examples/>).

Each course had a short list of recommended books and usually the lecturer would give a few comments about each book at the start of the course. These were for supplementary reference and were widely available in the libraries. I bought one text book during my course for my favourite area, so I could keep it after University. Otherwise the libraries were completely adequate.

I studied maths, I know that computer science and physics were the same. With arts subjects students used so many books that it wouldn't be reasonable to by them. I am not aware of any courses having required textbooks but I don't know for certain.

<comment><USER31> Notes like [http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1112/LogicProof/logic- notes...](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1112/LogicProof/logic-notes.pdf) were pretty common in CompSci. Often the notes were sufficient on their own, with pointers to further reading if required (see page 1 on the linked notes). With the libraries, it was quite easy to manage without buying any books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I do hope I'm not the only one who thought of this:

<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

</comment><comment><USER33> That's an approach... Open source textbooks are another: <http://inl.info.ucl.ac.be/CNP3>

<comment><USER34>
        Students who don't pay can't participate in the course and therefore get a lower grade.

The patent kind of forces students to buy the material.

<comment><USER33> What I meant is that the academic world is divided in two directions. On the one side there are those who believe in making knowledge more readily accessible and the other those who would restrict its accessibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't know which country is it talking about, but no libraries and no book sharing is only going to put more load on students. They already pay good amount of fees to their schools.

</comment><comment><USER35> Hilarious - your education system is getting similar to those in Nigeria congrats. Nigerians professors/lecturers have implemented this for years - <USER2> don't need a patent for this kinda crap and you can see for yourself where its led them.

</comment><comment><USER36> Just another reason for not hiring people based on their grades.

<comment><USER35> the people who would most benefit from your comment either don't care or are too lazy to think up better ways to assess people outside the grade system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I believe professors at my university may already be infringing on this patent. I was required to buy a $90 "workbook" authored by the course professor to access a "course survey" worth 10% of the final grade. Granted, you could share the book and access to the material online, but not if you wanted an A.

<comment><USER38> Wow $90 workbook? The workbooks made by my course professors cost only $10-20 from the university photocopy shop - which is half as expensive as doing the photocopying yourself. When they're available it comes with homework, lecture notes, etc. It also isn't counted towards the grade...

When they're not available, because the lecturer did not author a workbook, we'd have to buy a $150-$250 textbook. I really hate it when the lecturer of Finance 1 and the lecturer of Finance 2 use different textbooks, even though one of the textbooks already have content of both of the courses. Luckily our library has a section full of textbooks with daily usage time limit of 2 hours. That means they're usually available when I go in to use one for homework - I don't even need to carry it with me...

Which university do you go to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> People, think positive. Having a patent means that no one except his genius Vogel (or his licensees) can actually implement this system. So our goal is not to bash his brilliant idea, but to convince Vogel that it's worth at least $1B (per year). To prevent this idea from implementation :-)

</comment><comment><USER40> Don't bite the hand that feeds; I predict a drop in enrollment of classes that use these textbooks...

</comment><comment><USER41> <joke> Well with more people increasingly dropping out of college, salaries have to come from somewhere </joke>

This has been going on for years in many institutions, he has just managed to make it legal.

Instead of limiting his works to his classroom only, i think he will make more profit on his work if he pushed sales and adoption of his books in other institutions, to other professors/lecturers, even than he can ever make charging a class of +/-100 excessively. And forget about the stupid patent.

The main confusion comes in when you realise: Hey he's an economics professor, you'd think he'll understand business better.

</comment><comment><USER42> <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

Richard Stallman's "The Right to Read"

I find myself wanting to post this link more and more frequently these days.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm struggling to figure out how this can't be a hoax that the professor is pulling on the system. But after closer reading, he does seem serious. And he'll likely give his cause more harm than good.

</comment><comment><USER44> You already pay for the use of the labs, the chairs, the time of the professor, etc out of tuition, right?

Then why on earth do you not also pay for the use of a book?

</comment><comment><USER45> Right, so let's reinforce the idea that a good education is for people who can pay for it, not for people who are smart enough to benefit from it...

</comment><comment> mck- .. during a time of a great liberating educational revolution, with the likes of Khan, Coursera, MIT/Harvard platforms forming..

</comment><comment><USER46> How many books do we need for school? A hundred? Some charitable soul please donate $100MM so we can create 100 free books for our children's education and put some pressure in government to create laws to use these books in all elementary school across the nation. Then college, then university. Free forever.

Sorry maffias, can't fight against progress.

<comment><USER47> Wikipedia shows you don't need $100M; people will contribute for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> _Under his proposal, students can only participate in courses when they buy an online access code_

Isn't that called tuition?

</comment><comment><USER49> How the hell does this warrant a patent? There seems to be nothing that is either novel or innovative about this particular "invention". Oh wow, unique codes as a way of limiting free participation, absolute genius. Somebody give this guy a Nobel and Tenure, oh wait...

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm somewhat confused as to how this would work. Surely the university is responsible for awarding the degree and academic staff choose a supporting textbook to help students? So I assume universities wanting to use a textbook don't have to adopt the system.

<comment><USER51> The guy is a Professor and publishes textbooks. My guess is that he wants a way to force his own students to buy his book instead of copying it.

<comment><USER50> I'm surprised the university would allow him to do that, since he's effectively charging an additional tuition fee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I don't see how this is any sort of revolutionary invention... certainly not an idea that is patent-able.

I've already participated in classes where an online code was required to access the publisher's homework... same idea really.</comment>


Apple Card launches today for all US customers - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/08/apple-card-launches-today-for-all-us-customers/ <comment><USER2> Always annoying that things like this don't launch both in the U.S _and_ Europe. All I see in my feeds is mentions of the Apple Card and I have to ignore it because it's a U.S thing only and I'm in Europe.

<comment><USER3> It must be somehow related to helping to kick start a buzz after the release in the US, as well as extending the time that the internet will be talking about it before it arrives in Europe.</comment></comment>


FreeBSD Quarterly Status Report Q1 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2019-June/001884.html <comment><USER2> Web page link:

* [https://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2019-01-2019-03.h...](https://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2019-01-2019-03.html) * [https://www.freebsd.org/news/status/status.html](https://www.freebsd.org/news/status/status.html)

The News page has an RSS feed if anyone wants to keep up with major announcements:

* [https://www.freebsd.org/news/newsflash.html](https://www.freebsd.org/news/newsflash.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems super cool:

> For the rest of the work term Bora will investigate and test unmodified > Linux Docker containers on FreeBSD, to evaluate the state of Linuxulator > support.

<comment><USER4> Well, I can tell you right now about the state of linuxulator:

\- binaries from ubuntu 16.04 (or even 16.10 IIRC) work fine, the more modern glibc distros don't; \- Steam can't connect to the network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone uses FreeBSD on laptop? How is your impressions?

<comment><USER6> Much better than it used to be. The biggest challenge historically has been video drivers, but with the recent Linux kernel compatibility bits everything has running very smoothly.

<comment><USER7> Do you know if there are any plans to add some desktop option into the installer? Something simple like tasksel [0] that just adds some curated (and minimal?) selection of packages after the base installation and starts the appropriate display manager right after the first boot. I think that this alone would help a lot to increase FreeBSD's desktop usage and the perceived scope of the project.

[0] [https://wiki.debian.org/tasksel](https://wiki.debian.org/tasksel)

<comment><USER8> For about a decade now, the easiest way to get FreeBSD on your desktop is to install TrueOS (formerly called PC-BSD) - [http://www.trueos.com](http://www.trueos.com). TrueOS _is_ FreeBSD, and the last time I installed it, you were given an option of simply installing a base FreeBSD system with a minimal package selection, exactly what you are looking for.

TrueOS is run by iXsystems, the same folks who do FreeNAS.

<comment><USER9> The TrueOS folks have shifted their focus toward more server-oriented stuff, and work on a graphical development has shifted to project Trident[0].

[0][https://project-trident.org/](https://project-trident.org/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Awesome 'about us' page - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologywithpassion.com/about-us/team/

<comment><USER2> It is lovely (though the few people not animated stand out [on purpose?]), so switched over to the front page to see what projects they do and ... basic header navigation overflow error <http://imgur.com/wYtr7>.

</comment><comment><USER3> i love this...nice concept

</comment><comment><USER4> I love that the Eastern European looking bloke is the one that blankly stares ahead.

Took a screenshot as proof:

<http://i.imgur.com/8HnUB.png></comment>


Mapping Scotland's Dramatic Shift in Political Geography - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-scotland-32621862

<comment><USER2> As an English person residing in England, This is very much the most interesting story from this election.

<comment><USER3> It's going to be really interesting to see what happens at Holyrood next year, and what the result of the promised 2017 EU referendum is. Although I am sceptical that we'd see independence before 2020 for Scotland, a big constitutional shakeup does seem to be on the cards.

<comment><USER4> what is "holyrood next year"?

<comment><USER5> Elections for the devolved Scottish Parliament.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_general_el...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_general_election,_2016)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a German I feel strange seeing a nationalist party win. Is it reasonable to worry here? Don't know much about Scotland.

*edit: deleted a sub comment after being shown that I misunderstood something.

<comment><USER7> The SNP are nothing to worry about, really. They're centre-left and moderate. They might campaign for another referendum but it would be silly to class them as xenophobic.

However, from a technology perspective the new Tory majority _really_ worries me. They have no understanding of tech. They want to reintroduce sweeping surveillance legislation that was blocked by the Lib Dems in the previous government.

They also want to ban encryption (!) and will continue to attempt to censor the internet.

They will also likely fail to reform the current system that sees people being arrested for making jokes on Twitter (or, more widely, our terrible libel laws). They also have no real interest in ensuring widespread rollout of high- speed fibre broadband. They'll pay lip service to it, but that's easy to do.

They are also unconcerned about data protection and will likely continue to allow more care.data-style schemes with little effective oversight.

The only upsides: GDS and open data initiatives will probably survive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I want to know is how all those polls were wrong. The closest I can get is there's a systematic "shy conservative" bias.

It's certainly not a sample size problem. I trust the pollsters understand statistics, and this seems to be the most polled election ever.

<comment><USER9> Note that the same polls were all pretty accurate in regards to the result in Scotland, which makes the errors even odder (and gives a bit of support to the "shy conservative" theory).

Possibly the highly promoted guides to tactical voting provided by the right- wing press had a disproportionate impact on the marginal seats?

<comment><USER10> How does the "shy conservative" come into play in telephone polls, for example? I guess it may well, but it seems a little strange.

Is there something where on the day people swing more towards the safety of the incumbent? This study seems to suggest the opposite should true [0], at least when it comes to undecided voters.

It's definitely an interesting question. How were the polls _so_ wrong? Maybe in the closely contested seats the minor parties split labour? But why didn't the polls show that?

I'd love to paw through the data. Really need to look at it on an electorate by electorate basis to see the variation between the parties (opinion vs actual).

[0] [http://www.pollingreport.com/incumbent.htm](http://www.pollingreport.com/incumbent.htm)

<comment><USER9> The basic theory is that people are embarrassed to vote in their own selfish self-interest. There are some who claim you get more conservative voters with online polls, because there's no human being there to judge them.

I'd always heard that the undecided break towards the incumbent. I believe all the polls took that into account already though, and still got it wrong.

<comment><USER11> Oddly enough I would rather not have someone patronizingly voting for what they believe is in my best interests. How do they know what that might be? I would hope that people would always vote in their own 'selfish' self-interest.

<comment><USER10> I might vote for something that's not directly in my self-interest, believing it's more in the collective interest. I'm part of the collective and I feel a more even society is in my interests, even if that means I personally might not be as well off as I could be. That's really not patronizing.

Though you could argue that I've done it for my own self-interests in the long term (who knows when you or your kids might rely on essential services) :)

EDIT Also, it's pretty obvious that there are choices that are better for some groups of people (that aren't me). I don't know who "you" are, but there are voting choices that I can make that will help those classes of people, you may or may not be among them. I resent the idea that I'm being patronizing by making that choice (though in the strictest sense of the word "patron" maybe you're right).

<comment><USER11> 'Collective' suggests to me we're not going to agree. Patronizing in this context only means making assumptions (likely to be unwarranted I'd argue) about what someone else wants. But who is the 'someone' affected by a vote in a general election? How many people? To what extent? What about unknown/known effects on other people who you do not have in mind? You cannot know and the assumptions pile up. So much easier to vote on what you really do know to the extent that you can know or rationalize. As you say, we can surely agree that it isn't always our immediate concerns that best serve our interests as in the simple example of imagining ourselves out of work or needing medical attention. As you say, this benefits everyone – point being that we also are 'everyone'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why were the Liberal Democrats so strong in rural/highland areas up until now?

<comment><USER13> The Liberal Democrats have always (well, till now) been at their strongest in progressive rural areas that have little to no urban blight (so, much of Scotland, much of the South West, parts of East Anglia, Northumberland, mid Wales).

Now for my personal opinion.. I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties - they're progressive without being overtly socialist, and that appeals to the "hey, I'm still cool" element of the rural middle class that still likes their cars, village fetes, and horsey stuff, but is also pro gay marriage, pro equality and pro welfare.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "I would credit this to them being the most "centre" of the parties"

I thought the liberal democrats (at least before the coalition) were the most left leaning of the major parties.

<comment><USER14> Labour are the most left leaning, but still kinda centrist. Liberal Democrats are relatively centrist for the major parties but still quite right:

This sums it up best... the UK is mostly a right leaning authoritarian country, we vote on the relative differences between parties rather than the overall thing.

[http://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2015](http://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2015)

<comment><USER15> Is it just me or does politicalcompass.org seem to skew everything towards right wing authoritarianism?

<comment><USER14> I think it's just the world we live in. The left and more liberal options exist but none of them are mainstream and we mentally re-draw the extents of the political compass to cover the politics we experience (the major parties).

<comment><USER13> That should be how the political compass is drawn since it is based on human experience, no?

I think that chart is crazy though. The Conservatives are far from a far right party. Christ, if you dropped the Conservatives in America, they'd be considered a right bunch of commies - even the Democrats would be off the scale to the right by that chart.

<comment><USER16> > That should be how the political compass is drawn since it is based on human > experience, no?

AFAIK, the political compass attempts to assess an absolute scale across world politics, not local choices.

<comment><USER15> Still a bit odd the concentration of western political parties in the right- wing authoritarian section of the graph - unless there's a whole lot of countries with extreme left-wing governments which are very pro-choice, which I highly doubt.

<comment><USER16> > Still a bit odd the concentration of western political parties in the right- > wing authoritarian section of the graph

Dunno, if you consider that much of the anglosphere is patterning itself more and more after US politics which lives solely in the top-right corner of the top-right quadrant it makes sense that they would coalesce there. And "labour" parties have definitely been shifting their stances towards US dem inspiration.

<comment><USER15> I'd still say the UK and Australia are a fair way away from the American parties (particularly the republicans).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Form F-1 – Liulishuo (LAIX) - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1742056/000119312518264876/d569067df1.htm#rom569067_4 <comment><AUTHOR> Background: [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4206602-first-look- liulishu...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4206602-first-look- liulishuos-72-million-ipo)

> The company has 83.8 million registered users, of which 1 million are paid > users.

> The company's rapid growth (~6x in the first half of this year)

Per the F-1, the average Liulishuo user spends over 60 minutes per day learning English in the app.

How their product works: [https://medium.com/syncedreview/liulishuos-ai-app- is-teachin...](https://medium.com/syncedreview/liulishuos-ai-app-is-teaching- english-to-70-million-people-31d4fb38a799)</comment>


List Comprehension in Swift - <AUTHOR> https://duan.ca/2017/12/09/list-comprehension-in-swift/ <comment><USER2> I really dislike the proposed way to do this. If this is "Swifty", give me something else.

The Haskell list comprehension made sense to me the first time I saw it, but there is no way I'd know what the mess in the article was doing until someone explained to me.

Design has to come first. You can't just go with what's "Swifty" if that doesn't convey what's happening in a reasonable fashion.

<comment><USER3> > _The Haskell list comprehension made sense to me the first time I saw it, > but there is no way I 'd know what the mess in the article was doing until > someone explained to me._

Given that this is basic Swift, the complaint makes no sense:

      let a = Array(1..<5, 3..<5, where: { n, _ in n % 2 == 0 })
      { ($0, $1) }
      // [(2,3),(2,4),(2,5) ...

      let a = Array(1..<5, 3..<5) { ($0, $1) }
      // [(1,3),(1,4),(1,5),(2,3),(2,4) ...

<comment><USER4> What the heck? Why does it end up like this? I see very little connection, and I've seen list comprehensions in several different languages.

<comment><USER5> A list comprehension is basically a cartesian product with a filter and map applied to it.

What we have here is an array constructor, which takes one or more ranges as its arguments. The named `where:` argument provides the filter closure and the final argument is the map, using standard trailing closure syntax.

In fact, other than the missing implementation of the constructor, this would be perfectly legal Swift code today.

I'm not sure what's there to be confused about. `x..<y` describes an open range (including x, excluding y). `{x, y in ... }` is normal Swift closure syntax, where `x` and `y` are the arguments; you can also use positional arguments as in `{ ($0, $1) }` instead.

If the final argument of a function is a closure, it can be (as in Ruby) be written after the closing parenthesis of the function call.

<comment><USER4> > A list comprehension is basically a cartesian product with a filter and map > applied to it.

Ah yes, explain me more the concept I've been using for a dozen years, surely I don't understand it. And with mix of terminology from as far topics as set theory and functional programming, to lessen the confusion.

> What we have here is an array constructor, which takes one or more ranges as > its arguments.

I would never have guessed the arguments thing.

> `x..<y` describes an open range (including x, excluding y).

I would never have guessed it's open range.

> you can also use positional arguments as in `{ ($0, $1) }` instead.

I would never have guessed, and I was writing in Perl with its magic variables for more than a half of my professional career and most of my studies.

And that's the whole point: the syntax is so atrocious that it takes training to understand it. I can accept the _semantics_ to need training to understand (as I did with Perl, Erlang, or now doing with Ada), but with this we haven't hit that level yet.

<comment><USER5> So, your problem is that Swift's syntax in general isn't to your tastes, not the list comprehension proposal as such? Fair enough, but that's not what you were saying.

<comment><USER4> > Fair enough, but that's not what you were saying.

Then tell me, what was I saying?

>> I see very little connection, and I've seen list comprehensions in several different languages.

And then...

> So, your problem is [...] not the list comprehension proposal as such?

...you should get off your high horse. Your juggling with math terminology earlier is not impressive. I know you wanted to sound _smart_ , but you overdid it and got _smartass_ instead.

<comment><USER5> > Then tell me, what was I saying?

Let me rephrase then: what you seemed to be saying.

> ...you should get off your high horse. Your juggling with math terminology > earlier is not impressive.

I'm not sure where you got that impression. I learned about Cartesian products in high school. Everything else I was talking about is at most first year computer science stuff.

I was simply trying to be precise, using the most basic terminology I could think of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _List_ comprehension is a bad idea, IMO. They were an improvement over not having anything like it, but python has improved over it ([https://wiki.python.org/moin/Generators](https://wiki.python.org/moin/Generators))

⇒ _Generator expressions_ are the way to go. They would give you the sequence of elements without generating the (potentially enormous) data structure.

From there, methods to reify the items in a sequence would give you your list, array, or dictionary, where needed.

So, for Swift, I wouldn't use

        Array(1..<5, 3..<5) { ($0, $1) }

but the slightly longer

        Array(for i in 1..<5, j in 3..<5 yield (i,j))

I'm not sure that is easy to fit in the existing parser, though. If it can be fit in, I would allow that code in 'normal' nested for loops, too.

<comment><USER5> This does not require a different syntax. You'd just construct a lazy list instead of an array.

Neither is an improvement over the other. Sometimes it's more important to have the results up front fast, sometimes generating them on demand is better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > (Can't wait until we can have variadic generic parameters!)

This.

<comment><USER8> It's a genuinely hard problem. There are proposals for Rust, but nothing actionable. Catching up with all the other cool things takes precedence. (side-note: Rust dodged the problem by using macros. As a C++ guy, I was a little uneasy with this, but they're _mostly_ hygenic)

<comment><USER9> Out of curiosity, what are the non-hygienic parts are of Rust macros? I'm pretty sure that non-procedural macros are hygienic, although I don't know a whole lot about the implementation of procedural macros.

<comment><USER10> Quoting the subreddit the other day:

> Nothing except local variable names (and nested macro capture names) is > hygienic in macro_rules in fact.

It's a thing that's being fixed in the new macro systems, yeah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can someone explain the n modulo operation to me?

<comment><USER12> it's an easy way to filter out odd/even numbers. `n % m` means "divide `n` by `m` and return the remainder". If you divide any even number by 2, the remainder is always 0, if you divide an odd number, it's always 1. Translate that to a boolean and you've got a nice odd/even filter.</comment></comment>


Seeing the Human Pulse (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/seeing-the-human-pulse-0620

<comment><USER2> "Finally, using a technique called principal component analysis, the algorithm decomposes the resulting signal into several constituent signals, which represent aspects of the remaining movements that don't appear to be correlated with each other. Of those signals, it selects the one that appears to be the most regular and that falls within the typical frequency band of the human pulse."

Given the filtering of the signal using principal component analysis. I wonder how sensitive this technique could be for arrhythmia detection, since many arrhythmias are inherently irregular. The potential for measuring cardiac output is already awesome, though, as it's useful for diagnosis of heart disease.</comment>


A curated list of awesome network analysis resources - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/briatte/awesome-network-analysis <comment><AUTHOR> 200+ links to books, conferences, courses, journals, research groups, software, tutorials and more. /shameless-plug</comment>