On Why I Am Not Buying RubyMotion - <AUTHOR> http://www.upbeat.it/2012/05/08/on-why-i-am-not-buying-rubymotion/ I like Ruby and the way it is easy to work with. I personally use ruby in many projects, mostly on the server side. I am not a lover of Xcode. Yet, RubyMotion is not for me. <comment><USER2> Objective-C isn't the hard part about iOS programming, it's fairly simple and can be learned in a day by a programmer.

It's the frameworks that are hard, and you have to learn those using RubyMotion anyway.

And not only that, but you have to rely on objc framework documentation and do the translation to Ruby in your head. Too many wasted cycles, imho.

On the flip side, I like seeing experimental tools like this to promote new ways of thinking and coding and it will inevitably foster new features into the official SDK (ala blocks).

<comment><USER3> I think the potential of RubyMotion is in the "new ways of thinking and coding" aspect you mention -- the big potential win here is to import a Rubyish way of thinking about iOS programming.

I'm not part of either the ObjC or Ruby communities, but the impression I get as an outsider is that Ruby is a language and coding culture obsessed with elegant and minimalist expression, and ObjC doesn't make those things priorities. So what I'm hoping to see come out of RubyMotion is an obsessive drive to wrap the iOS frameworks in libraries that let you do the common things with no code at all, and the uncommon things with the least code possible. For people who have only worked in lower-level languages ... well, the difference over time could be surprising. At least I'm hoping so.

To put it in practical terms: I bet if you follow the sample RubyMotion apps over the next six months, you'll see the number of lines of code required to do what they do plummet, replaced by high-level libraries. If I'm right, let's get back together then and high-five. If not, oh well, it was a fun experiment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like I said in the post, totally open to change my mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Whenever I see a third party tool I ask myself: how quickly it will be > updated to the last SDK version? ... What will I tell to the client? "Oh > look, we have to wait one week for technical reasons". For every project I > have taken on I have never had the guts to run such a risk.

Forget the rest of the article, this sums up why it's not for you.

<comment><USER5> Who is the "you" you're referring to? Me? I hope not, I'm really enjoying RubyMotion.

Would I recommend it to a company that only does iOS development? heck no. How about a RoR company that _wants_ to do some iOS development? Now we're talking. If nothing else, I think it is a great way to learn the Touch/Cocoa/Foundation frameworks without having Obj-C cruft get in the way of having a good time.

<comment><USER4> I don't know who you are, so I assume I'm not. I was referring to the writer as I'd just quoted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> ps2: How cool would it be to have a REPL console like the one in RubyMotion on the Xcode console?_

You can!

Every time it comes up, I'm going to repeat this suggestion: Use Nu[1] as a REPL for iOS[2] and OS X[3].

[1] <http://programming.nu>

[2] [http://groups.google.com/group/programming- nu/browse_thread/...](http://groups.google.com/group/programming- nu/browse_thread/thread/e8592ef8128245fd/68e83fa4a5306446?lnk=gst&q=#68e83fa4a5306446)

[3] <https://github.com/timburks/nu/blob/master/nu/console.nu>

<comment><USER7> Sounds interesting... I was just looking into F-script (<http://www.fscript.org/>), is this similar?

<comment><USER6> Aye, pretty similar. F-Script has some features that Nu does not (like the object explorer), while Nu is the only one that works on iOS.

The big difference is heritage: F-Script is Smalltalk and Nu is Lisp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The funny thing is; That's not listing any of the major issues I have with RubyMotion. One of them would be that I bought the software and I can't integrate one external library I need, but, one of the greatest thing about RubyMotion is that it has been getting updated every day. So I bet you they'll update it with any new version of the SDK before it gets released.

The reason you should be excited about RubyMotion is that it's just easier to read that ObjC since it has a lot less noise, and lot of goodies you just "get" from Ruby's core. And the debugger is fantastic!

<comment><USER9> What about user support ? Can you write and get an answer from the author in a reasonable amount of time ?

<comment><USER10> When I bought ruby motion I was a bit in provisioning_profile hell. I shot off a support Ticket and got an answer within 4 minutes from Laurent Sansonetti. When I told him in a second Mail that I'm not too chummy yet with Xcode he came up with some really useful links half an hour later.

By now there is a very active Google Group.Wrote a question yesterday and had an answer within 10 Minutes. Very friendly vibe, mostly Rubyists dabbling into Xcode, but also some very nitty gritty in depth topics.

Also the BubbleWrap repo (<https://github.com/mattetti/BubbleWrap>) is chugging along nicely, cool for a young project... So, yes: you can get help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great write up, although not all the points are strictly speaking valid (epecially the one regarding future ios versions; since all the pre-release iOS firmwares are available for developers, there are chances RubyMotion will be updated in a timely fashion).

My take on this is the following: using RubyMotion, overhead will be tremedous - while debugging, you will need to make sure and double check that it's you who screwed things up and not RubyMotion's author(s). This alone is a major downside of the whole thing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Although updates to the last SDK version in a timely manner is a valid concern, but does one really rebuild his application with a new major iOS version after a week of the release?

<comment><USER13> You might want to if there's a killer new API feature available, or if there's a new iOS device with a different resolution that requires a rebuild to support.

<comment><USER14> And the new sdk versions usually coincide with the release of a new device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm hoping they bring out a trial version... Ruby is not my main language, and while I'd like to give this a try, I'm not $149 keen on seeing if it is something I'd use.

</comment><comment><USER16> This looks very promising, but are there any examples of real applications written with RubyMotion and submitted to the AppStore? Everything I see is just stand-alone examples, but can all the pieces be glued together and turn into a functional app?

And second, maybe this is a dumb question, but is there any possibility that Apple blocks apps submitted using third party tools like this?

<comment><USER17> There are apps written in MacRuby (RubyMotion's desktop sibling) in the Mac App Store, and there are apps written in other alternative languages in the iOS App Store, so it's hard to see what the problem would be. The RubyMotion FAQ agrees with this assessment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've got a little rebuttal to this here:

[http://www.fastchicken.co.nz/2012/05/11/so-many-straw-men- so...](http://www.fastchicken.co.nz/2012/05/11/so-many-straw-men-so-little- time/)

You have a good point, but mostly, I think it's a strawman argument.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's the whole discussion of CoffeeScript vs pure JavaScript imo. Except that RubyMotion doesn't play nice with existing libraries. Or does it?

Just make up your own mind. I'm thinking about just learning Objective C just because I would definitely use those nice existing libraries.

<comment><USER20> RubyMotion should be able to invoke any existing Obj-C library. It already has documented support for CocoaPods.

New iOS SDK release support is a valid concern, but I don't think library usage is a big problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> OP makes good arguments, but they seem out of place considering he's already dependent on the Apple approval process.

<comment><USER22> What IOS developer isn't dependent on the Apple approval process?

<comment><USER21> Kind of my point. OP's dependency arguments boil down to a matter of comfort. Discomfort with depending RubyMotion seems at odds with discomfort with depending on maintaining good favor with Apple.

I find both dependencies are well worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Change. It scares people.

</comment><comment><USER24> > _Whenever I see a third party tool I ask myself: how quickly it will be > updated to the last SDK version? Say Apple releases a iOS6 today. Will an > aligned version of the tool be ready today? If not, when? One day would be > fine, one week would not._

Really why? I don't even update my original XCode straight from Apple that often.

When you sell to customers (for profit), you want to target previous versions of the iOS, not the latest, and surely not within a week.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had this issue with an iCloud-based app. A client wanted it to be ready on the iOS5 release. I agree, it's living on the edge, but sometimes it is required to have access to beta stuff and work on that. Not every third party tool allow that.

<comment><USER24> Well, if you're doing client work maybe it makes sense.

I was mostly talking about one's own work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Light gray text on dark gray background! Great choice.

 _> Using a third party tool is like gambling: you might win or loose_

"Loose"? AAAAAGH

<comment><USER26> neither statements make for a useful conversation. please avoid them in the future.

<comment><USER27> To be fair, the "light grey text on a grey background" criticism is valid. Your blog should be readable in most browsers and on most monitors. This blog fails that test. I've looked at it on both Windows and Linux and on a couple of different monitors. It's hard to read in all cases. I shouldn't have to fire up Readability to read a blog post.

<comment><USER17> It's a valid criticism, but it's not interesting or on-topic for the conversation here. Cesare has an email address and a Twitter — those would be better media for a comment like this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The history and opportunity of the modern mortgage [video] - <AUTHOR> https://a16z.com/2019/05/31/why-your-mortgage-is-so-complicated-the-history-and-opportunity-of-the-modern-mortgage/ <comment><USER2> Every time they say "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" they've got some weird double-speak thing going on. Happens at 2:36 and 3:41 if you want to have a listen. Very odd and sounds exactly the same both times. Is this to prevent voice-to-text from working?

Links to video at those times:

[1] [https://youtu.be/z3vdcrI7xak?t=156](https://youtu.be/z3vdcrI7xak?t=156)

[2] [https://youtu.be/z3vdcrI7xak?t=221](https://youtu.be/z3vdcrI7xak?t=221)

<comment><AUTHOR> Think it happened when they did the editing and merged voice with background music/sound.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really great content by A16Z.

It shows how complex building a Fintech in US actually is , often due to how many different partners you will actually need to depend on.

In this specific case , you would need to have each partners offer an API that you could call to automate the mortgage workflow.

Obviously , due to the nature of the financial sector it's very likely those partners don't have those APIs and don't want to build them because they are sitting on a very profitable business and have no plan to change that anytime soon.

I can draw a comparison to Airbnb , where most of their jobs wasn't so much to build "disruptive tech" but to lobby local administration to let people rent their appartement to individuals , while hotel industry was lobbying the other way around.

It becomes even more complex when you realize you'll have to do this at global scale to build a unicorn.

<comment><USER4> Myself and a few others woulc like to use cryptocurrency to enable fractional ownership of property where anyone in the world can buy and sell 'shares' or just own them as an investment. This is happening with art too.

<comment> m-i-l Art is very different from physical property, given it tends not to have any intrinsic value, generate income etc.

Fractional ownership of residential property is already possible in the UK, without cryptocurrency:

\- Set up a Declaration of Trust which defines the fraction of ownership of each of the Tenants in Common, along with other details such as what to do if one wants to sell. This is typically used by owner-occupiers.

\- Purchase via a Public Limited Company, and issue shares in that company. This is typically used by investors.

\- There are also fractional property ownership schemes run by housing associations.

There was even a startup attempting to streamline this process, without cryptocurrency, although it has folded already[0]. Adding cryptocurrency is only going to add new risks such as key management, exchange failure, etc. and doesn't provide any clear benefit(s) to those who don't already have a vested interest in the chosen cryptocurrency platform. Unless the idea is to use cryptocurrency to bypass the existing legal system, but that is going to expose you to the legal (not to mention moral) ramifications of it being used for tax evasion, money laundering, theft, etc.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19319363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19319363)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another way of summarizing Alex Rampell's video: _The mortgage industry is ripe for disruption._

Yes, there are massive economic inefficiencies in the whole mortgage lending business and since a16z's motto is, _" software is eating the world"_, there are opportunities for tech startups to disrupt all of that.

To spur discussion, I'd categorize "disrupting mortgage industry" into 2 general buckets:

(1) disrupting the _procedural_ aspects of a mortgage : lowering the cost of moving the transaction from the "loan application" all the way to "closing". The _worfklow_ aspects.

In terms of disrupting _people_ , this means disrupting the loan officers at banks, appraisers, title searchers, surveyors, etc. In terms of disrupting "fees", this means reducing/eliminating "loan origination fee", "title insurance", and "survey costs". (A lot of these administrative overhead costs are basically a bunch of "checks & balances" to ensure the loan transaction is not fraudulent or has undocumented liabilities ... e.g. verify loan applicant's paychecks to make sure he/she really has a job with $x income, and the property's recent newly installed fence doesn't encroach on others' property lines creating a potential lawsuit.)

(2) disrupting the loan _underwriting_ : This means lowering the _cost of money_. Today, we see that a 30-year mortgage in America is about 3.7%. Maybe there's a market inefficiency and a clever entrepreneur can lower it to 2.5%.

The vastly different problem-solving aspects of (1) and (2) will attract very different skill sets. E.g. entrepreneurs interested in (1) might think of reducing costs of surveys with robots/drones/satellites while startups interested in (2) might try to lower the "cost of money" by creating financial packages such as _" 500 co-signers on a mortgage that also receive a portion of the profits from the house's sale."_

In the video, he mentions FNMA and FHMLC are the ones that buy home loans. Basically, it means that banks like Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase are glorified order takers. They charge a $1000 "loan origination fee" to sell your loan to the the government sponsored agencies. If the loan ultimately ends up at FNMA anyway, maybe there's a much cheaper way to accomplish that. (Although I doubt the FNMA website will ever have a landing page that says _" Skip the banks and apply for a loan directly with us!"_)

<comment><USER6> The disruption everyone talks about in this industry is much like self driving cars so far off into the future. Can the process be streamlined yes, can you get rid of some of the players not really. You will always need a title check you will always have to handle servicing( some banks and lenders do it in house depends on the cost) you will always need someone to buy a pool of loans and sell it to other investors.

<comment><USER7> Title companies or title insurance is one piece I've never fully understood.

Are title companies basically just insurance companies that do a lookup in public / private records on that property to make sure the person selling the property is actually owned by them. And if they did poor research or the records were wrong, they'll pay for fees. Is that accurate or am I missing something?

<comment><USER8> You got it. They sell a couple different depths of products, the more guaranteed it is the more cost. They do the research to make sure there arent any valid competing claims or partial claims to any property. They bundle that all up with an insurance package for if they are wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are a few startups disrupting the mortgage industry. In the UK, Habito [1] is doing pretty well.

Though I mostly know of Habito because I have had friends work for them as they have at least some of their systems have been written in Haskell [2].

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

[2] [https://www.infoq.com/presentations/habito-mortgage- broker](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/habito-mortgage-broker)

<comment><USER10> I used Habito recently to get a quote on remortgage. I don't get the disruption tag, they are simply a mortgage broker with some nice forms. Trussle is another one in the UK.

In the end found a cheaper deal through my own research. A broker is only as good as the percentage of market they cover.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The takeaway appears to be that the modern mortgage in the US places several intermediaries between borrower and lender.

The opportunity would be to develop the software that can replace the unnecessary entities, driving down costs and profiting the innovators.

We can take this idea to its extreme and possibly learn something. Imagine a world in which home buyer and seller transact directly using software. In a world eaten by software, we might expect this to be the norm.

Impossible? Find the one player who can't be removed under any circumstances. Add them back in, and try again.

Continue until only the minimum roster of players remain. Assume all laws remain in their current form.

I suspect a16z, along with many other fintech startups have run this analysis already and have come to a depressing conclusion: the players in place now are essential given the current regulatory framework. They may not have automated as much as they could have, but they're reluctant to go further given their regulatory burden.

That's where an organization such as a16z can come in. With software startups increasingly requiring nothing from venture capital, the last bastion of relevance will lie in the twilight zone between technology and regulation. Companies who need to get laws changed for their business models to work will need deep pockets.

</comment><comment><USER2> The video is very American centric - is this the case in other countries ie Australia?

<comment><USER12> Yes and no. Australia has mortgage brokers and financial institutions that collateralise or group loans for resale. We don't have equivalents for the government run Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Video glosses over an important aspect of balloon mortgages. No one ever really expected you to pay the full balloon. The expectation was that you'll pay some portion and roll the rest into a new balloon. The problem during the Great Depression wasn't that the people couldn't make their balloon payments (they never could) it was that the banks had no money to lend, and they couldn't roll the balloons.

(An interesting aside, is that during the run up to the crisis, banks reinvented balloons in the form of the teaser adjustable rate. These had a low fixed rate for 2,3 or 5 years, and then would turn into 28,27 or 25 year adjustable rate loans, with they rate much, much higher. The thing is, no one was ever supposed to pay that rate. When the teaser period ran out, the borrower was expected to refi. And of course we know what happened next....)

</comment><comment><USER14> If you really want to go down a rabbit hole of real estate weirdness, research why title insurance is required, and read up on some examples of fuckups that have occurred with land ownership records and scams...

<comment><USER15> Any particular instances come to mind?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Please please could someone recommend two or three books to get a more in- depth understanding of the history of mortgages, similar to what this (awesome!) video only briefly touched on.

<comment><USER17> I can definitely recommend this list of posts by Tanta, who worked in the mortgage industry for years:

[https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2008/12/compendium-of- tan...](https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2008/12/compendium-of-tantas- posts.html)

I looked at turning these into an ebook (with permission from the family) but never got it published.

<comment><USER16> I would love you if you sent me that ebook (email in bio).

<comment><USER17> Thanks for asking. It's not available for public consumption, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is true.

What about group ownership? There's a building in the new york city area that is mainly owned by the tenants. So that by paying the mortgage, they are really buying more shares in the corporate entity that owns the building. Then they never lose that equity in the property.

</comment><comment><USER19> Having the talent standing in front of a whiteboard with a marker and never writing anything was an odd choice by the director.

<comment><USER20> The animation style is drawn. Probably just to get you thinking like you're watching someone draw it out.

They also could've played with the idea that he did draw or drew afterwards and edited in the animations instead. Might make more sense since he's holding the marker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Moral of the story, do not be in debt, do not get into debt

<comment><USER22> How is that the moral of the story? If anything, the government sponsored entities are artificially lowering interest rates which you can use to borrow, so it makes sense to take advantage of that cheap credit.

<comment><USER21> America, a supposedly a capitalist society. I expected Americans to be at least more finally literate than people from the bloc.

Artificially low interest rates may well benefit you to some tiny extent, but imagine just how much more benefit is given to a bank. You still take an enormous risk, staking all your livelihood, and the bank get a near free way to make money. That's not equitable.

The prime majority of people have no genuine need to own a home, yet the 100+ years of state+banks instilling the mortgage culture managed to make it look so. It hurts me to see that even intellectuals on HN don't seem to see through that.

Every time I raise that, somebody jumps with a calculator to show me "how much I miss out." I am not missing out anything of that, unlike near 2 millions of once well off, middle class Americans who got screwed by "a low risk mortgage"

<comment><USER23> > The prime majority of people have no genuine need to own a home

Many people, including me, value being able to do anything they want to the property, live in it as long as they want, know how much it will be costing them years into the future, and never have someone enter without their permission even (landlords can legally do this if there's an urgent maintenance problem). In my last rental I could not even paint the living room. They may also appreciate the opportunity to participate in any appreciation.

<comment><USER24> Those are really the key things. Buying a condo vs. renting a similar place? Sure, you can run financial calculations--and should--but a lot of factors that go into whether one or the other is the optimum _financial_ decision are unknowable to a greater or lesser degree. Will housing prices go up or down? What will interest rates do? Will you have to turn around and sell the property quickly for reasons? Will maintenance expenses be more than you anticipated?

Much bigger are things like stability vs. mobility, being able to change aspects of the property to your liking, and whether you can even rent the sort of property you would like for an extended period.

Also "need" is an odd word in this context. I own and do a lot of things that I don't "genuinely need." But I'm happy for them anyway.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


F.C.C. Vote Sets Precedent on Unfettered Web Usage - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/technology/02fcc.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> I'm not trying to be a downer or anything, but what the FCC did might have been a lot more narrow than what everyone in our community is advertising.

The vote didn't say that companies can't throttle traffic. It was against Comcast's truly evil reset packets - basically, against Comcast's forged traffic. It is a very good thing that the FCC has taken a stand against ISPs forging traffic to disrupt people's internet connection. However, I would caution against statements like the NYTimes article has saying that the FCC has come out against "equipment that slowed - but did not completely block - file transfers using BitTorrent". This wasn't mere traffic shaping or throttling in the Comcast case.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not technically 'Web' usage - more Internet usage.

I thought that distinction worth pointing out.

I doubt anyone's going to court over a multi-megabyte webpage...</comment>


Tesla Powerpack to Enable Large Scale Sustainable Energy to South Australia - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-powerpack-enable-large-scale-sustainable-energy-south-australia <comment><USER2> Date: July 6, 2017

This is the announcement from last week that was heavily discussed at the time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715679) (153 points/76 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14723853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14723853) (206 points/166 comments)

</comment><comment><USER3> "completion by December 2017". Is Tesla able to produce this many batteries in such a short time when they are also currently trying to ramp up production of their cars?

<comment><USER4> The short answer to this is that if they don't, they have to give it away for free[1]. Plus this has received so much press that this will be made to work…

[1] : [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-07/elon-musk-is- the-100-d...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-07/elon-musk-is-the-100-days- or-its-free-idea-legit/8687996)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Remind me why they're using Li-ion batteries, which have a primary advantage of being light, when they could use cheaper, heavier, and less flammable alternatives?

<comment><USER6> As with anything I suspect that this is to do with economies of scale. Delivering a 100MW battery installation in under 6 months is challenging. Being able to achieve this using their current manufacturing base is impressive.

That's not to say Li-ion batteries are ideal, but right now, at this moment in time, this is probably the only way of achieving a solution in under 6 months.

I believe the newer Glass batteries [1] will be the long term solution for this type of installation, but they are some years off, and South Australia has a problem that needs solving this year.

[1] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/does-n...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/does- new-glass-battery-accelerate-the-end-of-oil)

<comment><USER7> And with Li-Ion battery capacity predicted to increase about 10x by 2025, as everyone and their dog starts building a battery factory to serve the EV market, prices for Li-Ion batteries should drop several fold by then. So it makes sense to start adopting Li-Ion batteries into your utility infrastructure.</comment></comment></comment>


Ping21: Earn Bitcoin by Monitoring Uptime and Latency - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@21/ping21-earn-bitcoin-by-monitoring-uptime-and-latency-807f212509f4#.hsftc1lu3 <comment><USER2> I understand the business model here.

What I don't understand is the competitive advantage. It seems to me that this could be deployed for just about any computing hardware, such as Raspberry Pi. With a marketplace and something like Resin.io you could spin this up pretty quickly. The benefit being that you don't need extra hardware, you can just use a spare Pi or an extra SD card.

So what is 21's advantage here? Or am I just speaking to a similar usability challenge that Dropbox began with?</comment>


Uber's self-driving cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh - <AUTHOR> http://www.recode.net/2016/9/14/12917436/uber-self-driving-cars-pittsburgh-drivers-cars <comment><USER2> I saw a black version of the same car here in Arizona last week, complete with roof apparatus. I guess it's just being driven and isn't self-driving yet. The Google car has been around here for weeks.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best books about Quantum Computing for beginners? - <AUTHOR> As I searched for Quantum Computing books, I didn't have success to find the book that is written for non-technical person. For me, I understand the basics, but I have people around me who are not involved in Computer science and they are still interested to learn about Quantum Computing. Also, I found IBM's videos very useful when I recommend them but still books are better structured in terms of learning the processes. Thanks. <comment><USER2> The classic book is:

\- Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Michael A. Nielsen Isaac L. Chuang

A bit gentler introduction: \- Quantum Computing: A Gentle Introduction by Eleanor G. Rieffel</comment>


Frege – a Haskell for the JVM - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Frege/frege <comment><USER2> I need to take a serious look at Frege. I am writing a book on Haskell and I have spent years using various JVM languages, so Frege seems like a good bet to invest some time on - if the development environment, REPL style Dev, etc. is as smooth as it is for Haskell.

<comment><USER3> I can only encourage you to do this, and come back with criticism (or praise).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hopefully this can be turned into a GHC plugin providing an additional back- end with [https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/11470](https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/11470)

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting; any Haskell users comment on how portable code is between pure Haskell and Frege?

<comment><USER6> The below is the projects own take on that question:

"Frege gives you the opportunity to use your skills on the JVM. Most idiomatic Haskell code will run in Frege unmodified or with only minimal, obvious adaptions. Even more important: you can bring your purely functional problem solution strategies to your Java projects."

<comment><USER7> This is ridiculously optimistic. Perhaps many toy programs can be easily converted, but real programs that use libraries other than base will not be so easy to migrate.

I've used the Haste compiler which IS Haskell that supports ALL GHC extensions except TemplateHaskell, supports the Cabal build tool and in practice it has its own ecosystem; most of Hackage will not compile on it.

Frege doesn't implement all the language extensions (very commonly used ones, such as MultiParamTypeclasses, are not supported), it doesn't share a build tool. It would be a great deal of work to port any non-trivial program.

<comment><USER8> > I've used the Haste compiler which IS Haskell that supports ALL GHC > extensions except TemplateHaskell, supports the Cabal build tool and in > practice it has its own ecosystem; most of Hackage will not compile on it.

As someone who's standing on the precipice of GHCJS, Haste and PureScript, I'm very curious to hear about your Haste experiences in this regard.

(I've been using PureScript in my side-projects for a bit. For the sake of completeness of this list, I've tried Elm and am not interested.)

<comment><USER7> I really want to like Haste. It supports nearly all features of GHC, it works with Cabal, it produces small output that can be understood/debugged. Its runtime is only 500 lines of clean javascript. I was able to build a toy app that shared code between client and server and let me use my existing tools to work on it (Hdevtools et al.). For awhile a nice react library was in development for it.

But... its lack of support for TemplateHaskell and native code means that a lot of firewalls/shims are required to share code with likely server programs. There is no support for common library types such as Text and Aeson types - ghcjs has shims for those that build without native dependencies. react- haskell library switched to ghcjs because the Haste ecosystem/development community is non-existent. And I would probably not build a serious project with Haste for the same reason.

ghcjs is nice but...it is too big in so many ways. The runtime footprint for real programs is very large. The complexity of it seems high and it still only has a single dedicated developer. I've heard its performance demands are high - it doesn't seem like something you'd want to run on a phone. It feels too risky to me - Purescript or Typescript is probably what I would go with for a serious project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are typeclasses possible on the JVM? I'm a .NET person, and I've always heard that typclasses aren't possible on the .NET CLR, so I wonder what's different about the JVM that makes this possible?

<comment><USER3> Frege has typeclasses (Haskell 2010).

Whoever told you it's impossible in .NET is probably wrong. Don't you have interfaces in C# ? But you don't even need interfaces. Strictly speaking, unless you use typeclasses with polymorphic recursion, you don't need a runtime representation for typeclasses at all.

<comment><USER10> > Whoever told you it's impossible in .NET is probably wrong.

I think brianberns is probably referring to this: [https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual- stud...](https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual- studio-2015/suggestions/2228766-add-higher-order-generics-to-f-type-classes)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Last I checked it was not possible to use a Frege program on Android. Has that changed any?

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17222383/how-to-run- frege...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17222383/how-to-run-frege- programs-on-android)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5151858/running-a- haskell...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5151858/running-a-haskell- program-on-the-android-os)

<comment><USER3> The demand seems to be not that big, at least nobody started to seriously take on some out of the box Android support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is writing "pure" Haskell to be hosted in a non-Haskell imperative environment a common thing to do, as opposed to separating the pure and the imperative via monads? Seems to me that Frege could make this quite attractive.

<comment><USER13> I fail to understand the question. Isn't hosting "pure" Haskell code in an imperative modern OS environment a common thing to do?

<comment><USER12> I mean leaving IO to a program to which the (pure-only) Haskell code is linked, dispensing with monad-based separation. Frege seems to make this particularly easy.

<comment><USER3> Sure, this would be possible.

You can call "into" Frege code from any JVM language. OTOH, you can call any JVM code you could with Java (Frege is compiled to Java source code).

The crucial point are the data that get exchanged between Frege and Java in either direction. While there are no problems with primitive types or Strings, standard JVM container classes like java.util.HashMap or java.util.ArrayList represent mutable data, and thus we can't use them with _pure_ Frege code.

For that reason, we still need monads (in particuar, IO and ST) to deal with mutable data in Frege.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the weaknesses of Clojure on the JVM is its ridiculously long startup time. How fast does Frege start up on the JVM?

<comment><USER3> It's okay, at least when you have SSD or at least decent RAM.

Here is an example:

        ingo@freguntu:~/Frege/frege$ time java -jar fregec.jar -version
        3.23.900
        0:00.22 62016k
        ingo@freguntu:~/Frege/frege$ ls -l fregec.jar -rw</comment></comment><comment>- 1 ingo ingo 33426802 Mär  6 12:32 fregec.jar

<comment><USER15> Aren't you checking the Frege compiler, there?

The complaint about Clojure is that Clojure _apps_ start slow. Frege compiles to Java and from there to bytecode, so you'd need to compare a hello world in both languages to answer the original question, I think.

<comment><USER3> The compiler is a Frege app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So then we have Haskell with Clojure.

<comment><USER17> Does that mean we can use Haskell with datomic?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does Frege's performance compare to Haskell? The start-up time and over all.

<comment><USER3> To counter possible misunderstandings: Frege is not positioned against Haskell in any way. To the contrary!

When you don't need the JVM, by all means, use GHC or some other native Haskell compiler! You'll have more language extensions, libraries, and your program will be faster and use less memory in most cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If there's a way to use Frege with Apache Spark that would be super useful

</comment><comment><USER20> How does they compile it for JVM? To java-classes or to bytecode itself?

<comment><USER3> Yes.

And, in addition, to Java source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How does this compare performance-wise to natively compiled code?

<comment><USER3> Generally, >=

<comment><USER22> Uh, care to explain why you think something like compiling Haskell to Java will yield better performance than writing an optimizing compiler such as GHC, with its native backend and optimizations that are tailored specifically for the types of programs written in Haskell (including things like the runtime system such as the garbage collector)?

<comment><USER3> Sorry, riscy, with >= I mean, Frege programs will take longer than native ones.

<comment><USER22> Ah, okay. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The lies entrepreneurs tell themselves  - <AUTHOR> http://founderdating.com/im-busy-foundertalk/

<comment><USER2> Disconnecting and getting away from your device for a couple days always makes a difference. Gives you a chance to be with friends/family, enjoy your hobbies, and come back fully charged.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I hire a corporate lawyer before signing a term sheet? - <AUTHOR> I know it is recommended to hire a lawyer to help with negotiations etc. before signing a term sheet, but is it essential? Especially if you are working with a well known VC firm/investor? How about a first time investor? <comment><USER2> YES. Always, but one with solid funding/M&A experience.

What's NOT covered in the term sheet is many times more important, and harmful to you and your company, than what is.

</comment><comment><USER3> For all X, if X matters, hire a lawyer. If X does not matter, then it doesn't matter.</comment>


Algorithms aren't responsible for the cruelties of bureaucracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/05/algorithms_aren_t_responsible_for_the_cruelties_of_bureaucracy.html

<comment><USER2> I didn't even realize that there were people complaining about the automation of bureacracy. Anyone who's dealt with excessively bureaucratic systems understands that, practically by definition, agency is removed from the employees you deal with so that their incentives are to follow instructions to the letter. The only difference between actually using machines instead of forcing employees to act like machines is that computers are faster and in general less error-prone.

<comment><USER3> Not necessarily. A lot of the problem with bureaucracy is just finding someone who can help you. If I call in and talk to a person, they can often say, "Oh, you want these guys. I'll refer you over there." On the other hand, if I'm dealing with a computer, I usually have to spelunk through this labyrinth where no direction clearly leads to what I want.

<comment><USER4> Hm. Too bad there's not a stack exchange for dealing with individual government bureaucracies.</comment></comment></comment>


An Update on the GitLab Situation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mlaccetti/an-update-on-the-gitlab-situation-c30452d6474f <comment><USER2> "We aren't actually losing features due to things changing tiers as much as we are losing features because we ourselves have forcibly downgraded our license."

Then common decency should have you correct your article of April 3rd accordingly (as of 0200 GMT Saturday, it hasn't happened).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hence the followup - I will link to it in the original article.</comment></comment>


IPhone caused "crisis of design" at Samsung  - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20120806/iphone-caused-crisis-of-design-at-samsung-memo/ <comment><USER2> From what I can see, that memo isn't anything that any company wouldn't produce internally when faced with such a strong competitor, and it doesn't imply that they wanted to outright copy the iPhone, but good luck convincing a judge of that...

Also, did their lawyer fuck up by mentioning the memo? I'm not well aware of how these things work.

<comment><USER3> It seems like the lawyer may have fucked up, or it may be some brilliant Perry Mason-eque trap. But if the latter, why fight the memo's introduction into evidence in the first place? So I'd guess it was a mistake.

Anyway, the memo by itself doesn't damn Samsung, but in context with, oh, the radius of curvature of every corner of key products being changed to exactly match Apple's devices, the color and arrangement of icons, the color and choice of materials, and the design of packaging all matching -- it seems pretty damning.

Yesterday we had the internal memo revealing that most returns of the Galaxy Tab were literally caused by customers mistaking it for an iPad.

Burger King for a long time had a strategy of building new restaurants near newly built Macdonalds because it knew how much effort its rival put into researching locations. This seems kind of unethical, but apparently is perfectly legal competition. Samsung builds its restaurants near Macdonalds, copies the menu, erects a golden M over the entrance, and serves takeout in white bags.

<comment><USER4> Kind of like how Apple modeled themselves after Sony. Interesting that this sort of legal battle never happened with car manufacturers as cars from various manufacturers tend to share fashionable design attributes.

<comment><USER5> That's because they license the hell out of their patents to each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The simple fact is that before the iphone, many 'smart' phones were complicated horrible devices (badly designed from a hardware point of view) with very poor UI/UX. Then after the iphone they were all like the iphone in some way or another. If you ask any non-technical person out there they will say the same. The iphone set the benchmark. So I can understand why apple feels like folk are just ripping them off at times and riding on their coat tails.

<comment><USER7> What would be better for the users? Assuming the iPhone was better than what came before. Which action from incumbents would be best for users?

a) Do not copy the iPhone. Make old ugly phones. (What blackberry did) Now users are stuck with old ugly phones.

b) Make something different, not because it's better, but only for being different's sake. (what windows phone did) Forces users to adapt to something new instead of using what they're already used to.

c) Embrace the innovation. Put all that's good about the iPhone in your product. Then iterate through it and improve upon it. (what samsung did) Now users have the best of both worlds, they have the brand new innovation, in a format they're used to. And taking benefit from next iterations improved from it.

It's obvious that option C is best for users. Might not be the best for the original innovators. But it's the best for consumers.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that intellectual property is first and foremost intended to protect users. Not innovators. Protecting innovators is a means to a greater end. It's the vehicle that we found that would, in theory, lead to greater products for users. But, unfortunately, often there's a conflict of interest between inventors and consumers.

As an innovator, it's in my best interest that everyone in the planet must pay their every last time to me if they ever stare at my invention, and are only allowed to improve upon it if I allow it. But as a consumer, it's in my best interest that inventions are shared and improved upon. So I can have the best of both worlds.

When there's this conflict of interests. Consumers should always take precedence. Because protecting consumers is the only good argument to back up IP in the first place. If that's not the goal, then IP is meaningless. Protecting inventors for protecting inventor's sake has no value. We do so because we believe that will lead to greater products for users.

It's very common to see a confusion between these in these discussions. Even in courts. Every time I hear "apple is being ripped off because they paid so much money into R&D" or "artists are entitled to their music, and not you". It's clear there's a disconnect between what IP should be and what you think it should be. You shouldn't care whether it's protecting the inventor, you should care whether it's protecting the user. Whenever you're in doubt, you should ask yourself if doing something will protect or hurt the user.

And in this case. It's obvious that even tho Samsung did copy a lot from Apple, they're also improving a lot on what existed before. What they're doing is not in the best interest of those they're copying from. But it's in the best interest of users. Punishing Samsung hurts consumers. That's what we should be worried about. If samsung loses this, it sets a terrible precedent for our industry. And it would be a great loss for consumers. Regardless of who copied what for which reason.

<comment><USER8> You are the founder of evolup.com. Let us say your product/service becomes a huge success. Seeing your success, existing social games developers want to do the same.

Which action from those existing developers would be best for users?

a) Do not copy your product/service. Continue doing things the old way.

b) Make something different, not because it's better, but only for being different's sake. Forces users to adapt to something new instead of using what they're already used to.

c) Embrace the innovation. Put all that's good about your product/service in their offering. Then iterate through it and improve upon it. Now users have the best of both worlds, they have the brand new innovation, in a format they're used to. And taking benefit from next iterations improved from it.

So where does your preferred option (c) leave you in this scenario? Would you whole-heartedly welcome another player "embracing your innovation"?

If that happens to me, I'll lose all motivation to innovate any further. What is the point after all?

<comment><USER7> You're asking the wrong question to the wrong person. I'm actively in contact with other local game developers trying to get them to do the same thing I'm doing (and compete with me). I've even helped others with implementation details. Which, I believe, will help grow the ecosystem for all of us, myself included. Since what I'm doing is too new (arguably ahead of its time), there's still some prejudice from both users and investors against my technology. If others were doing it as well, that would help me. Do you wanna copy me as too? Feel free to contact me, I'll help you. I can teach you how to properly implement procedural generation to reduce your costs with game artists.

At the end of the day. I trust my skills in my area. And deep inside, I'm confident that no matter how much I'm copied, whoever copies me will always be one step behind me. Because I'll keep on innovating one step further. The only reason I founded a startup is because I believe I'm better than the competition, otherwise I wouldn't have. Realistically, I believe my competitors are much more likely to become clients to my API than to actually try to implement it themselves.

That's just one of the many reasons humans will continue to create and innovate, no matter how much innovation is copied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, a friend of mine years ago after the iPhone came out purchased a Samsung pre-Android "smartphone". He bought it because it "looked like an iPhone" and did smartphone things like the internet and mp3's (sort of).

He quickly realized that it was NOT an iPhone or even a very smart smartphone.

Since you don't always get to use the phones in stores, you don't always know what you're buying. If it "looks like an iPhone" and has the same feature list, to many people it's the same basic device, just like most people do with appliances, cars, tv's, computers, etc.

Samsung made a lot of sales based on the fact that they looked and sold themselves as an iPhone look/workalike device.

<comment><USER10> If this was an argument for damages every car company would spend all its time litigating. What exactly is the difference between a Corolla and a Fusion? Why does every car have about the same shape? Is it because anything other than that isn't aerodynamic and will destroy highway mileage, or is everyone infringing on IP?

<comment><USER9> Well one difference is that patents only have a lifespan of what 20 years or so? Most of the basic tech in a car that was patented in the 1900's is free to be used and improved upon. Is new stuff patented and licensed? Yes, absolutely it is.

Notice how Toyota partnered with Tesla motors to build an EV SUV? Or what about how Ford licensed Toyota's hybrid technology back in 2004? Patents and licensing.

Given that the automotive industry is much older than the computer industry, they've likely learned the value in licensing technology where it makes sense. Nobody would claim or confuse a Ford Fusion Hybrid with a Toyota Prius.

Also, Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, etc. all by now have fairly distinct branding and styles, so you don't see as much where the new Ford sedan looks just like the new Chevy sedan in hopes of selling more vehicles.

Samsung seems to have made a real effort to look and sell as if they're selling iPhones and iPads. That is why they're in trouble. Notice that Apple didn't sue Blackberry for the the Storm or the Torch looking the same as the iPhone.

<comment><USER11> Apple also sued HTC and Motorola. They are attacking every successful Android manufacturer. It has nothing to do with what Samsung did specifically. Apple first decided to sue Samsung and then the lawyers came up with the arguments.

<comment><USER12> AFAIK, they aren't suing HTC and Motorola for infringing on their trade dress and design patents though, only Samsung is getting that attack. And, it's not like Apple's the only one participating in the patent lawsuit game, it's a big web of lawsuits where they're all suing each other for something or other. We single out Apple in this mess because they're the most headline worthy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Whether or not Samsung is going through some sort of "crisis of design", the pernicious nature of what Apple is doing is quite underestimated. They are trying to claim minimalism, the lack of distinction, as their own. It is the minimalism and efficiency dilemma.

Fact of the matter is that current state of technology places limits and barriers that should not be permitted for patent or copyright right up against. In fact, this effect will only concentrate even more as the physical nature of technology and innovation disappears as things get smaller and more concentrated.

With technology and design starting to crowd up against a barrier of physical form-factors, it becomes increasingly apparent that patenting and copyrighting should proportionally protect the change, the innovation, the added value; not the absolute.

The iPad and iPhone are not, in any significant way, unique. They are more marginal variations on existing technology and design than not. Capturing popular attention and leveraging inherent human desires is what garnered the devices and Apple so much fame and fortune, not the innovation or creativity. There is nothing unique about straight lines, exact curvature, shininess, sharp edges, and uniformity. Apple simply OCDed the shit out of their products. I applaud their designs and their configuration of technology, but much of it is not sufficiently unique to warrant patenting or copyrighting.

Where do you draw the line, and will Apple (or any other corporations for that matter) be allowed to draw that line right around their interests, products, and designs in a self-serving manner...essentially corporate gerrymandering?

Tongue-in-cheek, so no need to tell me how stupid I am, but we may as well allow for the patent on anything that is different than what existed prior if we are going to allow patenting and copyrighting of what is defined by hardly more than the technological limitations. Should one be allowed to patent a tablet that is 5 mm thick because it is thinner than a 6 mm tablet?

When you patent fundamental constraints, you might as well patent and copyright going from point A to point B and sue everyone that doesn't go through point C to get to point B. You are essentially trying to force complexity and inefficiency because you have hijacked simplicity and efficiency.

<comment><USER14> "The iPad and iPhone are not, in any significant way, unique. They are more marginal variations on existing technology and design than not."

There are interesting points you make about IP law, but you lost me in the above sentence which is just plain wrong. Perhaps you forget what the pre- iPhone cellphone market was like.

<comment><USER15> Do people these days not even remember PDAs or is this willful blindness? Apple has some claim to being early on the scene wiith hanheld computers but not with the iPhone.

<comment><USER14> Sure, but that's not what this legal case is about nor is it the point I was arguing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would hope that the iPhone _would_ cause a crisis of design. There's nothing dispositive about this memo, of course.

</comment><comment><USER17> _Completely off-topic, but I hate seeing "IPhone..." on HN submissions._

 _Please change the title to " iPhone caused..." (i.e. add an space at the beginning), and the stupid auto-capitalization system will be fooled._

 _see here for a submission with lowercase i at the beginning:_ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306480>

</comment><comment><USER18> How does this work in the "physical product" world (not icons on a screen). What I am getting at is that there are stunning examples of design rip-offs in other industries. One of my favorite examples is the blatant design rip-off of Mitsubishi cars. They copy Mercedes Benz and BMW almost to a fault. Yet, I've never seen a lawsuit in that world. Maybe MBZ and BWM simply choose to continue innovating and move on. I don't know. I think I've seen this from Kia as well. They always seem to target MBZ and BMW.

</comment><comment><USER19> Of course the iPhone influenced Samsung's designs, as well as every other smartphone's design. The iPhone was in turn influenced by the designs of products which preceded it, for which Apple can take absolutely no credit. Such things should not be patentable.</comment>


Sea Ice Extent Sinks to Record Lows at Both Poles - <AUTHOR> https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/sea-ice-extent-sinks-to-record-lows-at-both-poles <comment><USER2> Look at this graph of global sea ice extent for every year since 1978. It is insane how much an outlier the last 9 months are. Like sesame street level "one of these curves is not like the others" kind of outlier.

[https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/sea- ice-...](https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/sea-ice-extent- area/grf/nsidc_global_extent_byyear_b.png)

<comment><USER3> 40 years is kind of nothing in terms of geological time.

It's definitely an outlier but trend following has two different schools, that the trend will continue forever, or that the trend will revert to the mean. I'm in the camp that things will revert to mean for things like this, just like how California drought recovered so violently. I guess time will tell.

<comment><USER2> You have a gut feeling it will revert. Okay, great. But the consequences are on the scale of a significant fraction of the world's GDP as well as a significant fraction of the world population. Should we maybe have someone study it more carefully?

So say we find a bunch of smart people to think about the question. Give them the biggest computers money can buy. Have multiple competing teams who double- check each other and get rewarded if they find mistakes in others' work or have new ideas to improve the study. Make it big -- it is important, right? Global. Lots of smart people, lots of the biggest computers. Anything they need to help their work.

And after years of their work, when they come back with a report [1], then lets just ignore it and trust your gut instead, right?

[1] [http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/mindex.shtml](http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/mindex.shtml)

<comment><USER4> bravo (although you did make me spit coffee all over my laptop which I am not happy about....)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the DC area, we had two weeks of 70 degree weather in February. The cherry trees blossomed because of it, and then they wilted off the trees because temperatures dropped to normal.

I saw Fox News manage to put a anti-global warming spin on it by only reporting that cold killed the cherry blossoms, leaving out the fact that they normally blossom in April.

<comment><USER6> I salute you for your commitment to watching Fox News. After Trump's election I said I was going to consume more of the other-side-centric media because I wanted to understand how this F'ing happened. I can't, though, it's too painful. So I salute you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Already, the discussion here swings toward the climate change vs. "denialist" debate. Instead of politicizing it, maybe read the article? According to those interviewed, the trend until last year was to see more ice.

        > "It is tempting to say that the record low we are seeing this year is global warming finally catching up with Antarctica," Meier said. "However, this might just be an extreme case of pushing the envelope of year-to-year variability. We'll need to have several more years of data to be able to say there has been a significant change in the trend."

Ironically, all those accusing others of being "denialists" are themselves failing to look at this scientifically, and resorting to the rudely unscientific tactic of name-calling.

<comment><USER8> No. Implying a single piece of decontextualized evidence--sea levels not rising--casts doubt on AGW is a classic denialist tactic. Multiple lines of evidence provide compelling arguments for AGW. It's an intellectually dishonest gambit to try to play a game of "gotcha" instead of trying to come up with the most powerful explanation for a phenomenon, and toxic to scientific discourse.

<comment><USER7> I did not say what you think I said. In a topic as complex (and contentious) as weather, climate, global warming, etc. I think we should focus on understanding the science and employing civic discourse. I simply repeated what the scientist said: no conclusions yet, need more data. And in response I receive the blatant accusations of "classic denialist tactic[s]"? You think that's not toxic to discourse?

(Disclosure to pre-empt the common accusation of ignorance: I'm scientifically trained and work in renewable energy R&D.)

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately I think the level of discourse is already at rock-bottom. I would like to agree with you and I think people do need to be careful and not jump the gun (and thereby provide fodder for the denialist camp) but at some point we can't simply be academic about it all - the evidence for AGW (or ACC preferably) is overwhelming at this point and while an objective academic is preferable it can also be damaging to the goal of changing public opinion.

The denialist camp has a simple and effective strategy for disputing anthropomorphic climate change: First, always call it global warming to make it less understood and then if its cold [1], dispute GW and if any single piece of information doesn't 100% fit with GW (ie, a single datapoint that shows global temperatures cooling by ignoring ocean temperatures [2]).

However, if you are being 100% honest about any climate measurements you cannot say anything other than "Well, this single measurement doesn't tell us anything but it fits with the trend of rising temperatures globally and we need more data and research.". This may be true, but its not winning the argument. People will follow simple, easy narratives and will shy from complex arguments whose consequences are also terrifying and potentially apocalyptic. By sticking to our guns and taking the high road, we might be dooming ourselves and by the time people really feel climate change it will be too late. Is our high-minded discourse worth that? I'm not saying we rabidly jump on every datapoint and say "SEE CLIMATE CHANGE", but until I see a lot more credible information I think its time to stop taking such a passive stance.

[1] [http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/politics/james-inhofe- snowball...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/politics/james-inhofe-snowball- climate-change/) [2] [https://weather.com/news/news/breitbart-misleads- americans-c...](https://weather.com/news/news/breitbart-misleads-americans- climate-change)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ok, so this question has been asked before, but here goes!

What are we going to do about it?

I hear people say it's just too late to stop a catastrophe, but I find it hard to believe.

<comment><USER11> It's not too late to stop this. But if you try, some people who will be dead before the worst happens and so won't suffer or pay for the consequences, and who can profit in the short term by punting the problem into the long grass will fight to prevent you from doing so.

In order to stop it, roughly $10 trillion dollars worth of fossil fuel assets will need to be left in the ground. As a historical parallel, the economic value (inflation adjusted) of the slaves in the southern US before the civil war was $10 trillion dollars.

The people who owned those slaves opted to fight the most destructive war the planet had seen at that time rather than give up their property.

Have you noticed that nearly all the big names pushing Brexit are climate change denialists? That Trump claims it's a hoax and chose as his Secretary of State the head of Exxon that discussed climate change on a seperate email alias which the company then "lost" when asked to provide them in a court case?

It's not looking good, but it's not a technical issue.

<comment><USER12> I'm just back from Antarctica, and chatted with a number of scientists from McMurdo & Vernadsky stations - while stood outside wearing shorts and a shirt (apparently this is not normal Antarctic apparel, but it was _hot_ ), and their outlook is dour. They're not talking in terms of prevention or reversal, rather, mitigation - how can human life survive in a vastly changed biosphere?

Animal behaviour was all sorts of weird too - Orca and humpbacks in abnormally large groupings (hundreds of individuals), salps flourishing in the water just below the rotted away feet of glaciers, penguins nesting and mating at exactly the wrong time of year.

The only way to lessen the disaster will be to subvert existing systems to the purpose - make it financially rewarding to leave oil in the ground, to use renewables, to not burn down forests for short-lived ranch-land. Doing this on a global scale can only be achieved through capitalism - it's the one constant across borders, as its increasingly clear governments either cannot or will not respond to this crisis. Don't ask me for specifics - I haven't figured that much out yet, but it seems to be the only viable pathway.

<comment><USER13> I have a friend who works for Exxon material science division. His goal in life is to find "the next oil", obviously Exxon is willing to hedge its bets and fund some alternative energy research so they can position themselves if a new breakthrough is discovered.

Here is the problem: Oil is currently the most energy packed material that humans _easily_ have access to. And its not even really close, wind / solar / etc are not just 40% less efficient, more like orders of magnitude.

I think the demonization of oil may be causing more total CO2 than just burning it. A craze starts which convinces everyone to buy electric cars - except those rare earth materials for the batteries are really hard to find. They require millions of tons of mining to gather enough a usable quantity for one electric vehicle.

How does all that mining get accomplished? Certainly not in a CO2 friendly manner. Where does the electricity come from to charge those batteries?

Many reasonable people in the energy industry are eager to find a "better oil" but realize that rushing off into hysterical tulip manias is probably doing more harm to the enviroment than just using the 'cheap / easy' oil that we have.

<comment><USER14> The viable alternatives aren't so simple as replacing one product with another that's just as energy dense. They involve things like biking instead of driving, not making frequent trips across the country, spending less time doing busy work and more time taking care (cooking, mending, gardening, walking, studying, adapting).

The global economic norms are predicated on a simplified models of humans, in which we are needy, pathetic little hungry creatures who must be managed and trained, sorted and extracted.

But really, we are 8 billion capable, creative individuals who, free of our doubts and demons, could really make the world more livable for ourselves and each other. Do you realize how many capable hands are among us? I see it clearly on a good day. _We_ need to realize it, and I believe we will, but probably not without some fire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing I've always found interesting is that technically, by definition, we're currently in an ice age:

      "By this definition, we are in an interglacial period—the Holocene—of the ice
      age that began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch,
      because the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice sheets still exist."

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

</comment><comment><USER16> Watched "Chasing Ice", 2012, last night with my wife. It was her homework assignment. What a film! Great watch for anyone here who has not seen it. Its half climate change documented via changes in ice, and half behind the scenes look at how they made those. How to mount a camera in the arctic.

</comment><comment><USER17> Thinking about the Fermi paradox and the great filter, I think due to humans being too selfish we will may be someday end up not making it through.

Earth is the only habitable planet by a long shot and we are still treating global warming like a mad man's story.

The current trump administration gives a strong vibe that they'll exploit the planet for their full term and leave the bigger problems for the next president to sort out.

</comment><comment><USER18> Personally tired of hearing the word 'record'. It's pretty obvious that every year is going to deliver new records. Why don't we/NASA start reporting on the effects. Then the denialist argument becomes moot. Perhaps the human effects too. Perhaps that will make this more real to the idiots who question the science.

</comment><comment><USER19> Comments about climate are so censored here. Bottom is full of flagged out comments with replies. It's like reading CIA doc with half page black.

<comment><USER20> Only one user's comments are flagged, and it's a new account with no other comments.

<comment><USER21> And their comment was based on a false premise (that melting sea ice causes an increase in sea levels... it does not).</comment></comment></comment>