Medieval Theories of Haecceity - <AUTHOR> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-haecceity/ <comment><USER2> Aristotle created some messes in logic that weren't untangled until the 19th century. This is one of them.

This concept has some practical applications in computing. When are two objects equal? If they are immutable, and there is no way to distinguish them via their public interfaces, are they equal? Should they be considered the same object? If so, copies can be shared, or single objects can be duplicated without harm.

In logic, this is a statement in the theory of uninterpreted functions:

       (forall f, x, y  f(x) = f(y)) => x = y

Here, if any function f applied to x and y produces the same answer, x=y. x and y are indistinguishable, and in mathematics, that implies they are identical. This has applications in constructive mathematics, where all the functions already in existence can be enumerated and tried. Any new function must be a composition of existing functions, so if that property holds for the existing functions, it must hold for all new functions. (I figured this out ten years after I had a paper rejected by JACM, where I did bulky machine proofs of the theory of arrays without using set theory. There's a better way that's fully constructive using the argument above.)

The medievalists apparently didn't pick up on the immutable angle. That led them into circular reasoning: "Maintaining that an object is singular or individual because it results from or is endowed with a proper principle of individuation which is itself singular, amounts to nothing more than duplicating what should be explained."

<comment><USER3> The problem is we're dealing with real objects, conflating real objects and mathematical objects is begging the question against the person saying we need haecceity (also called "thisness" \- the property of being "this" thing and not "that" thing).

If real objects are just like mathematical objects then all they are is bundles of properties: object A is no more than the set of properties that can be ascribed to A.

There are a few problems with that, but here's an interesting one. Consider a world in which there are only two identical iron spheres, say 1 mile wide, 1 mile apart from each other. Now each sphere has exactly the same properties - are they the same spheres?

Most people would say no. So what individuates them? Well, some property that makes it the case that one sphere is that sphere and not any other.

To put it in your terminology, for every boolean function f(x) which is true iff x has property f and false if it doesn't have f (eg. IsIron(x) = True), then both spheres have exactly the same set of true/false values for all properties (forall f.). _Unless_ we introduce a haeecity functions: a(x = A) = True for A, b(x = B) = True for B - ie. properties which are only true when their arguments pick out the objects which they are about. Then we can distinguish between objects, because they have different values for haecities (property functions) a, b.

<comment><USER4> First time I have read anything about haecceity. The first thing that pops into my head regarding the two iron spheres is that they must differ in their position in the universe, so they differ in something other than their haecceity. If there is no way for two identical real objects to occupy the same space then maybe this concept never applies to real objects...?

<comment><USER5> The problem for a Midevalist is that location is an _accidental_ property...transposing their locations does not make one the other and vice versa. Location as the basis for haecceity is numerical individuation of the sort Scotus rejects.

<comment><USER4> Hmm... but in the real world there's no way to transpose their locations without moving continuously through intermediate positions, so at the end of the transpositions the two objects will have a different history of location and their identity can be observed throughout and thus preserved.

If they could be transposed instantaneously they'd be indistinguishable. Although they would still have a different 'history of locations' property.

Or are we saying the same thing? that there's no need for haecceity in the real world as there are always real properties that could be used to distinguish objects?

<comment><USER5> The real world, so far as I am aware, does not consist entirely of two iron spheres. Moving the goalposts does not help clarify the reasoning nor refute the point about haecceity.

That a person cannot tell two things apart is also accidental for the mediaeval philosopher. God can. Omniscience gets us the Locational history. Of course this means the universe contains three things: two spheres and God. That would be a given for any public opinions expressed by Scotus or his contemporaries.

The obvious move to defeat Haecceity is to postulate a universe with two Gods. Alas, the medieval philosophy logically precludes this: Two omnipotentencies is a contradiction and the Council of Nicea dogmaticcally solved that a millennium before Scotus's time.

If that's what you're saying then yes we are saying the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> one of my favourite words!</comment>


Formerly ~private personal info now freely available - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/01/12/youve-probably-never-heard-of-this-creepy-genealogy-site-but-its-heard-all-about-you <comment><AUTHOR> The site www.familytreenow.com makes formerly "private" (public for a fee) personal info now freely available. Like your address history, living relatives, or other connections.

It seems like a good idea to opt out, assuming the site managers respect that, but also that this kind of thing will become common over time, and regular people will need some kind of strategy adjustments. I'm curious what you have to say.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the science behind CrossFit?Is it safe to practice? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> i have two bulging discs, and light weight lifting for 30minutes and a one round of crossfit really helps me (my studio does 3, i tried two but it proved too much at the moment), combined with gravity boots after.

the thing about crossfit is that its a muscle / indurance mix. almost army style training really.

it puts you in an anerobic state, lowering the oxygen your cells can consume, forcing your body to build more resiliant cells and muscle fibre.

one thing to note: often crossfit mixes different routines, so if you have a back issue, make sure you avoid ones that involve excessice back strain such as planks, until your back is completely healed.

other than that its healtheir than weight lifting for the average person, no heavy weights involved and its full body, so all the little muscles get to work too.

its time efficient too, 60 minutes and done. weight lifting can stretch for hours as you advance. with crossfit, you just reduce your rest period if you want more intensity.

personally i do a mix of both, and keep my training under 90minutes two times a week.

<comment><AUTHOR> >because of my back issues, I was wondering how to approach doing it. Also, I'm a bit worried if the high intensity would lead to any kind of injuries. Your suggestions are very handy thank you.

<comment><USER2> youre very welcome. if your back had healed a bit, consider gravity boots. my discs are in 5/6 and 8/9, upper region. so i couldnt do anything but swing 2kg dumbbells around very carefully. once the nerves calmed down and it was more muscular pains, i managed to utilize the gravity boots effectively. 60 seconds after training, and sleep after or head to a sports massuese then eat protien and sleep. 7 months in, 80% better.

as to intensity and the 60m crossfit, just try a single round and leave, with 20 stations and 25sec rest, its around 20 minutes worth. keep an eye for the pain, and get one decompression excersize to do before bed everyday if you can help it. by the rate this is going i think ill heal 100% by mid 2019 which is a better prospect than thinking im fucked for life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi, because CrossFit runs on time, there is a great danger that the exercises will be performed uncleanly.

Basically, body exercises and basic training (squats, dead lifts, pull-ups) are strongly recommended.

The technique must be carried out cleanly and to learn this takes several months as a beginner.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any pointers (videos, articles etc) for beginners?

<comment><USER4> For barbell training, _Starting Strength_ is a fantastic introduction.

For kettlebell training, I would sooner look to Pavel Tsatsouline's _Simple & Sinister_ for a simple and effective program that can be run by beginners for a good long while.</comment></comment></comment>


Biotech meets DIY hacker culture, sparking new wonders and worries - <AUTHOR> http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/27/18471933-biotech-meets-diy-hacker-culture-sparking-new-wonders-and-worries?lite

<comment><USER2> I know these biohacker spaces and whatnot are just getting started up, but more often than not, it seems like they're re-inventing the wheel.

DNA barcoding is old hat, and biofuel production using e.g. algae has been done before.

It's great that these ventures are sparking interest in the community at- large, but they aren't really advancing scientific knowledge forward as much as they're portrayed.</comment>


ArticleDropbox Scores Patent for Peer-To-Peer Syncing - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/dropbox-scores-patent-for-peer-to-peer-syncing-160103/ <comment><USER2> If I read that correctly, Dropbox (established 2007) has received a patent on... _drum roll_...Bittorrent (created 2002). What is this I don't even.

<comment><USER3> That article doesn't really go into enough detail but from what little there is, this sounds different to Bittorrent - it's not random sharing of chunks, it's directed p2p synchronisation.</comment></comment>


This is how Canada's housing correction begins - <AUTHOR> https://www.macleans.ca/economy/realestateeconomy/this-is-how-canadas-housing-correction-begins/ <comment><USER2> This past summer I was looking at relocating for a job at article.com (they seem great by the way,) and I ultimately ended up turning it down because of the insane cost of housing in Vancouver. It would have been a significant pay cut and quality of life change, even with the decent raise that the package came with.

As an outsider, it certainly seems like time for a correction. I wish I could have taken that job, and now that I see this, I wish I had, as I'd be well positioned to scoop up some of that price corrected property.

The other thing that I found fascinating about this, and this is obviously from the view of an American, is that the 30 year mortgage is pretty unique. Historically that seems obvious now. But, I have a hard time imagining buying a house with the kind of risk that comes with an adjustable rate mortgage, that seems inherent in the Canadian mortgage model.</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on my startup's landing page – http://learnetto.com - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, I've just launched a landing page for my new online learning marketplace start up - http://learnetto.com
I'd love your comments and feedback on how I can make it better.
Thank you! <comment><USER2> So here are my thoughts / points I noticed.

\- Overall its a clean website, not too much info about whatever one doesn't care about.

\- The header BG isn't wrong, but the green > blue gradient doesn't feel 'right' to me (not a strong feeling and note that I'm no designer)

\- Some elements (twitter icon / two signup buttons) are a bit off the overall flat style of the site.

\- In my eyes (again, no designer), the 'want to teach' button also falls a bit outside the style with the darker color

\- I'd make it clearer that the categories / course types are actually courses that will be available later on, right now its just a list of programming jargon that doesn't say anything.

        - Also, there's a on-hover element, but no link behind it

\- The Bill Gates quote is nice, but maybe use something more 'down to earth' type of guy where your targeted audience can relate to.

\- The spacing under the last signup form is a bit big

\- Maybe make the secondary heading 1.5/2 times bigger..?

Hope that gives some useful feedback, I know the difficulty of creating a landingspage..

Jeroen Sormani

<comment><AUTHOR> Jeroen, thanks so much for taking the time to give such detailed feedback. Much appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link - [http://learnetto.com](http://learnetto.com)</comment>


Static commenting - <AUTHOR> http://tlvince.com/static-commenting

<comment><USER2> The Email method looks promising for blogs based in NanoBlogger and ohter static content management systems. My fear is that it might get hacked/exploited by 3rd parties.

I assume that with good filters it can be accomplished.</comment>


Apple Recalls 15-Inch MacBook Pro Laptop Computers Due to Fire Hazard - <AUTHOR> https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2019/Apple-Recalls-15-Inch-MacBook-Pro-Laptop-Computers-Due-to-Fire-Hazard <comment><USER2> Previous discussion:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235259)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20240359](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20240359)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20238181](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20238181)

</comment><comment><USER3> My battery was in the program as well but at the same time it was also lower than 80% of original capacity at full capacity with 1000 cycles, so it was technically worn out. Usually you can replace them for 199 euro in that case and it's fixed within a week, but they had to replace it for free which takes 2-3 weeks. System wouldn't even accept the paid option when I asked to pay for it.

Never had the idea it was getting exceptionally or even moderately hot, never saw any bulging. But when it's back I have a MacBook Pro that only has the bottom case and logic board of the computer I brought and the rest replaced for free (screen program too), after four years. Though I can imagine people that do not have a backup machine hate to wait so long.

<comment><USER4> Louis Rossmann made a video about this recall, where he noted that he didn't really see this issue in the wild - [https://vimeo.com/343882228](https://vimeo.com/343882228)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this only for the US? My 15" Macbook 2015 should be included in the program (And the battery has been asking to be serviced for a couple weeks now), but when I check with my serial number it indicates that I'm not elegible

</comment><comment><USER6> Check eligibility for recall by MBP's serial: [https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery- recall](https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall)

</comment><comment><USER7> This should include "2015" in the title to be less click-baity.

<comment><USER8> Why should it include 2015? The date of the recall says June 27, 2019.

<comment><USER9> Because the effected models are 2015 models, not all 15 inch macbook pros are effected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This has been posted and discussed few times in the past weeks but I think there is no harm to leave this here to make more people aware of this.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had tested my serial number back when they announced it and mine is not affected (a Spanish model), which makes me wonder: how come only a range of models are affected? Aren't they all built in the same way?

Just wondering if I'll eventually face that issue a few years down the line, now I get paranoid anytime I leave my laptop alone on my wooden desk.

<comment><USER11> Yep. I wonder similar about the 13" MBP 2015 that I have, which has a swollen case. Not covered in last year's 13" recall, but looks like the same problem. The London Apple store disagree :(

<comment><USER12> Same laptop, same issue about a year ago. I had it checked out at a local Apple Authorized Service Provider, they ended up replacing the battery (for the usual battery replacement fee).</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I built an app to manage your meds - <AUTHOR> http://www.nightingaleapp.com/#home

<comment><USER2> A bit OT, but I love the gif on the site. Much more elegant than a video and renders perfectly on mobile.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Work restricts youtube/vimeo 80% of the time. Next, we use Pentium D computers for programming. Finally, looks great.

I wish more people would use gifs rather than videos. If you can convey your message without audio, cheers to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like your design, but I think you need some copy on privacy and data security. For physician access, how do you handle HIPAA compliance? It would be good to mention this on the front page, at least under the "For Physicians" section.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is super similar to a (now defunct) SMS-based medication reminder application called GetMinders. I have confidence that this type of service could be useful, but I think taking medication is one (small) part of a larger problem of comprehensive medical treatment management. I'd really like to see someone tackle patient/doctor relationships in a project management type of tool. This would be better served as a piece of that larger platform.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys,

My friend and I built this over the last couple of months and have been having a ton of fun testing this out with some elderly users! Feel free to drop us a line at email@example.com

Thanks!

<comment><USER6> Cool. Is this based on Lungo.js ?

<comment><AUTHOR> JQM actually!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you have plans to release a less feature-rich version for an international release? I could really use such an app to manage my own meds !

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Pradeep!

The only reason why I haven't published it internationally was because of language issues. Drop me a line at email@example.com and I can figure out where it would be appropriate to publish.</comment></comment>


Why Const Sucks - <AUTHOR> http://jmdavisprog.com/articles/why-const-sucks.html <comment><USER3> > D's const is also transitive, meaning that if something is const, then > everything it contains or refers to is also const. If D code has the > equivalent of const vector<T*>, then not only is the container treated as > const, but the elements are as well.

And that is not necessarily what the programmer wants.

There are a number of uses for a constant vector and non-const objects. Adding "const" in front of "T" should make everything constant, but just assuming everything is constant does not allow one to have non-const objects.

Unless there is a way to override this, it looks like a severe limitation in the language.

</comment><comment><USER4> > All of this means that const actually provides zero guarantees about an > object not being mutated (and even in the case where the object is directly > constructed as const, that just means that it's undefined behavior when the > object is mutated, not that the compiler actually protects against it being > mutated).

if this is the only reason why author thinks that const is a problem, then it is all good. you can do the same thing in C as well. and ofcourse, if you do that, and break things, you get to hold all the pieces as well :)

probably a 'constexpr' semantics is what the author might be looking for ?

arne-mertz article on mutable, available here: [https://arne- mertz.de/2017/10/mutable/](https://arne-mertz.de/2017/10/mutable/), which imho, is another side of the const-coin, is quite good as well.

edit-001 : slight change.

<comment><USER5> I agree. Even extremely safe languages like Ada, which have found most of their use in safety-critical situations like in plane avionics and medical equipment, allow the programmer to do "unchecked conversions," the equivalent of a static_cast.

It would actually be insane for const to forbid the programmer from doing any of these things. A certain amount of a language and its features is to protect your program from other programmers, to communicate your idea and vision about the code. In that way, const is amazingly useful.

<comment><USER4> > A certain amount of a language and its features is to protect your program > from other programmers, to communicate your idea and vision about the code.

indeed ! language is about telling others (and yourself) about ideas that you want to express. c and c++ seems to be more suited for 'consenting adults' (oh dear) than anything else :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _Now, Java also added a number of nice things that C++ didn 't have - <USER2> > as an array knowing its own length, array bounds checking, and other > features geared towards protecting the programmer from stupid mistakes._

C++ has bounds-checked arrays that know their length if you want (hello, _std::vector <T>_, or roll your own if you don't like that one). It just doesn't endow the C arrays with it (for good reasons). The C compatibility of C++ means that C++ interoperates easily with C API's without the overhead of FFI.

<comment><USER7> I assume the author refers to "T *t = new T[x]", which probably predates and inspired Java.

There is no reason why C++ can't provide a lengthof(x) function that returns the length of arrays allocated using new[], since the length needs to be stored internally anyway -- otherwise delete[] wouldn't know how many destructors to call. It would also be great if there was a realloc() equivalent that did the right thing with regards to constructors/destructors, because it's not possible to build this functionality on top of C's realloc().

new[] and delete[] are frustrating. If you "typedef int X[5]", how do you correctly free one instance of X - "delete new X" or "delete[] new X"?

The problem is that vector<T> isn't great either. Only C++03 made it legal to assume that vector<T> has contiguous storage (which is critical when interfacing with C APIs), and only C++11 made it possible to transfer vectors without expensive copies. But using rvalue references and copy elision correctly is certainly not trivial, and using vector<T> as a building block for your own data structures is in some ways more frustrating than using new[].

I think C++ should deprecate new[] and delete[], add a library function std::realloc_array<T>(ptr_or_null, length) that can be used to replace new[]/delete[]/realloc() and another library function std::array_length(ptr), and then vector<T> and other data structures could be built on top of that with little overhead. But I don't see it happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm more annoyed that const is opt-in instead of the default. Though I guess for C++ as a "better C" there wasn't much of an option to do that...

</comment><comment><USER7> const is one of the reasons why I prefer strongly-typed languages based on reference types. I want to love the no-overhead policy of C++, but value types make const annoying (e.g. no vector<const string>) and require complicated rvalue-reference mechanics to be efficient when working with nested data structures.

In Java, where everything is an (expensive) reference type, building an immutable LabeledPoint2D class is a no-brainer. "final String label; final double x, y;" \- done. I find this much easier to reason about than the C++ equivalent where the const-ness only emerges from how you use the class.

Add Objective-C's system where Array<T>, Set<T>, String etc. are all immutable, and only their derived types (MutableArray<T>, MutableSet<T>, MutableString) are mutable, and you get a reasonably effective and efficient implementation of tail-constness without extending your type system.

It's bizarre how C++ and D both try so hard to implement const, yet higher- level languages that could easily have better const support don't really bother (think Java, where you never know which List<T> is mutable).</comment>


Steve Jobs is not the next Bill Gates. He is the next King George III. - <AUTHOR> http://www.malcognition.com/blog/2010/steve-jobs-is-not-the-next-bill-gates-he-is-the-next-king-george-iii/

<comment><USER2> If this is true, when does the revolution begin? And, will it be televised?</comment>


MIT, Harvard use nanotechnology to monitor singular cells in real-time - <AUTHOR> http://bostinnovation.com/2011/07/19/mit-harvard-use-nanotechnology-to-monitor-singular-cells-in-real-time/

<comment><USER2> It's a pity that there isn't more specific information about how exactly this works, or even how they're testing this, and receiving data.

As is, I can't tell if this is overblown, or whether it's revolutionary.

Edit: I noticed there's an article attached. Anyone with a subscription want to elucidate?

<comment><USER3> I went in and skimmed, though admittedly this is outside my area of expertise. They're basically using a fluorescence technology (FRET) with a reporter attached to a tagged piece of DNA fused to the cell surface. Data capture is through imaging.

As is usally the case with "science by press release", I would characterize this as evolutionary not revolutionary. People have been using fluorescence- labeling successfully for a long time. What seems to be novel here is that they are able to do in-vivo sensing at very high rates. Most of the tech I'm aware of hasn't allowed for that very well. Usually you can get a static image, but it appears they are actually able to capture temporal changes. Plus using the microscope in-vivo is pretty interesting, though I'm sure that bit alone has been done before.

In a nutshell, they can use a confocal microscope (either inside or outside an animal) to look at the cells emitting light and where they are located. It looks like a really nice study. It's definitely not like the "sensor" you picture when you read the headline though.

<comment><USER2> Thanks - appreciated!</comment></comment></comment>


Apple's new iPhone operating system will decimate part of Facebook's business - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-apple-ios-14-damage-audience-network-ad-business-2020-8 <comment><USER2> > Apple is making it harder for companies to track people's data across apps — > and Facebook says it could have devastating effects on part of its business.

Good. Any business that relies on tracking people without their explicit opt- in consent deserves to be destroyed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how many people are going to be shocked at the invasiveness of Facebook that will only come to light as Apple (and others?) start to block things that Facebook does.

More shocking to me is how many people _know_ and don't care.

<comment><USER4> What blows my mind is that all of these capabilities and extensions were happily built in, like "oh of COURSE there's a good reason for any random app to know all this stuff", and they're shocked, SHOCKED to see it being abused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two previous discussions of this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24284613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24284613)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24284046](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24284046)

</comment><comment><USER6> If only we knew of other instances of large companies making platforms that were massively abused in bad faith so we could better understand this shocking black swan event. Oh. Wait.

Facebook just happen to be on the other end this time: sometimes you're the pigeon, sometimes you're the statue.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think Facebook could stand to be reduced by 1/10th.

<comment><USER8> Facebook _destroyed_ by new iPhone operating system

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Finally, some great news about Apple!

</comment><comment><USER10> While this presents Facebook as losing from this change, remember it is Facebooks customers who rely on their cost effective advertising campaigns to run their business.

<comment><USER11> Commerce was a thing before Facebook. It will be a thing after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This makes me so happy. As someone who works in the advertising sector, I'm happy to hear the bells tolling for the creepy tracking companies.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure if WhatsApp's chat data is accessed by FB too. I thought it was impossible after they implemented end-to-end encryption. A friend of mine recently bought a mattress and talked about it with other friends in a WhatsApp chat. One of those guys didn't even look up the mattress anyone on the web but still got an ad for it on FB in a few hours. Could be just a coincidence. All of them are on Android.</comment>


Show HN: Transfer links between computers without emailing yourself. PasteBro. - <AUTHOR> http://pastebro.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I made a little pastebin website. It's pretty rough at the moment and has some issues (prone to flooding for one). I put ads on it just to try out Google Ad sense that I'll be using for a different project; I hope this doesn't bother anyone too much (an ad blocker should take care of it pretty easily).

PasteBro is pretty prone to trolls right now. The way it's setup is that anyone can delete anything. It's also hosted on a free heroku account so it won't scale at all.

Right now I'm just using it as a private "internal tool" for passing links to myself and I've only shown it to a couple of friends. So feel free to use it and hopefully it won't get too out of control.

Suggestions and feedback are both welcome and appreciated.

<comment><USER2> It's a nice little tool! Be proud of it. Pasties tend to be prone to the same issues. The point is, this is handy and focused.</comment></comment>


Side projects are like children - <AUTHOR> http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/10/side-projects-are-like-children/ <comment><USER2> If side projects are like kids then i'd be dragged away by social services by now for total neglect of my 30-40 kids.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel like I did a bad job of explaining the core of my analogy, which is that creating a child or a side project is easy and fun, but they're potentially with you for a long time, and thus deserve careful thought before starting.

<comment><USER3> Maybe use tattoos as an analogy instead.

<comment><USER4> There's an inverse correlation between the numbers of tattoos you have and the amount that you care about getting another, though...

On second thought, maybe they are a good analogy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As someone who has had the same attitude in the past, working full-time on one thing at a time that eventually went nowhere, I'm beginning to think of side projects as insurance.

Perhaps it is more fruitful to think about how to work more efficiently in the present and track potentially good ideas for the future, than to keep throwing them away.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is how I previously thought, but I've since reconsidered. The reason is that you can't split your attention between multiple projects without a loss in overall efficiency. The amount of attention given to each of n projects isn't 1/n, but rather 1 / (n^x), where x is some measure of how bad you are at multitasking. For me, I think x is probably somewhere around 1.5, so if I have three projects, I end up giving each an average of 20% of my full attention. The remaining 40% is lost to the ether due to distraction, task-switching costs, and not having one project constantly be the main thing on my mind.

As a result, increasing diversification results in a lower overall expected value of your projects, because you're losing more and more of your productivity to efficiency losses.

<comment><USER5> We might be thinking of different time-scales. I've probably never worked on more than one thing on any one day, but if I had to do the same thing every day for more than a month I'd be bored and dragging my feet eventually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the fish analogy better. Feed a little bit everyday. Don't be afraid to flush 'em and get new ones.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does this come from something you read? I really like this analogy, though I still think focus is really important.

<comment><USER6> Came from a startup discussion I had a long time ago. We were talking about Google's 20% idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find comparing side projects (something of which we grow bored with a large percentage of then abandon) to children moderately disturbing.

<comment><USER8> You mean children aren't something that you can selectively nurture or neglect, at a whim, until one of them becomes a rock star and pays your bills for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I get the gist of the article and can appreciate the message. I fall victim to this spawning of many projects that I can't dedicate the right amount of time to and they get some traction, but never really see the light of day. I'm my own distraction at times; the latest idea takes away from the original one...rinse and repeat.

I've recently realized this about me and started down the track of trying just to focus on one or two projects and put the right resources behind them. This is a recent "a ha" moment, so, we'll see how it goes. Good article!

</comment><comment><USER10> The core assumption here is that the projects are a means to an end, where the end is likely one of the "Three Ps:" Power, Prestige, or Pecuniarum.

Side projects are also like plants in your garden. Some people enjoy the gardening for its own sake, and yes that means they are going to make a lot less money than someone who ruthlessly weeds out anything that isn't going to grow into a massive oak.

p.s. FWIW, I think of side projects as attempt to answer questions. I stop work on them when I think they've gone on long enough to find the answer.

</comment><comment><USER11> Has anyone ever considered selling their side project?

There is a market here. It is easy to see it from the point of view of someone working on small side projects around their full time job. The profit of the side project is not worth the time invested in it, and killing it is the best course of action. But you have all that sunk cost (time more than money) and no way to recoup it. Wouldn't you take a few thousand dollars to sell it off?

And on the other hand, if I were to buy up 5 or 10 promising side projects and run them concurrently full time, I might be able to lower costs (economy of scale) and extract some greater value from each one and the profit will be greater than the sum of its parts.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wouldn't kill or sell my children, but I definitely did so for side- projects. As well, children don't bring me money (at least currently), whereas the projects do.

That said I really like considering both as organic: you plant seeds, take care of them and they hopefully grow.

</comment><comment><USER13> My side project scratches my own itch. There's no way I'd want to kill it.

</comment><comment><USER14> One drunken night and you're stuck with them for 18 years?

</comment><comment><USER15> from what I can tell, side projects are much better than children! :)</comment>


Be a Startup Punk - <AUTHOR> http://freefreebeer.tumblr.com/post/3963782292/be-a-startup-punk

<comment><USER2> I'm curious as to how you to determine whether or not there is beer available at places listed. I live in Salt Lake City and the Utah State Capitol, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, LDS Chapel - Downtown, Utah State House of Representatives and Washington Elementary School are listed as having free beer.

I don't know if there is any legal problems with declaring that an elementary school is serving beer, but I'd check up on it.

Otherwise I like the idea. It's almost relaxing to build something just for the shit of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> At this point we just trust the users & see how it goes. There's a "freshness" to the system that should make places drop off the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Some of my favorite 'startup' punks :)

www.dischord.com

<comment><USER4> Three cheers to you, juice.

I'm still waiting for this kind of spirit to seep back into the web. When we were first online, everything was weird, awesome, and seemingly limitless. Now we're in a state of incredibly boring commodification.

The stale and sterile nature of the FB Newsfeed drives this point home to me. All the unique and dynamic people I know have been reduced to an unformatted little post, with a link if you're lucky. This model of web communication has turned us all into just another bland-looking content generator, and automatically stripped us of identity.

My advice to startups: everyone is bored with the web right now. There is nothing sexy or controversial occurring with a decent business model behind it (like Dischord Records). Please inject some id into your business plan, and give the people what they really want: sexy fun.

Freefreebeer is the right idea...

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad you like the spirit. I didn't think about it in the terms you outlined. But you're right: the internet used to be awesom. We gotta take it back from the SEO farmers & social media whores. Put some soul back into it & yes, if you're doing a startup: bring some cojones to your business model.</comment></comment></comment>


Artists, Developers, Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://sendachi.com/join-us <comment><AUTHOR> Sendachi is looking for artists who started out as scientists The talent we seek is a polyglot in the truest sense of the word: having had real world experience in building and deploying across an array of relevant technologies (Cloud, virtualization/containerization, big data, automation, etc) as well as solving the hard problems deeply rooted in the connection between business, technology and customers. Are you ready to chart new ground in creating exponential value for your clients and your teams?</comment>


Block-breaking game in vim 8.0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/johngrib/vim-game-code-break <comment><USER2> For those who like this I can tell you about another thriving gaming platform...

Emacs! You can out of the box play all your favorites such as

       M-x tetris
       M-x snake
       M-x solitaire

Just as well as multiplayer classics

       M-x pong

To find out more and get the latest games check out [https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryGames#toc1](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryGames#toc1)

Great OS, the only thing that's really missing is a decent text editor.

<comment><USER3> Nothing beats Microsoft platforms for gaming though. Excel 97 has a built-in flight sim. Can Emacs do THAT?

<comment><USER4> It was written with Excel macros or Basic, or someone wrote the C program and compiled it within the Excel binary?

The point of Emacs is that you can build this stuff with its Lisp language. I imagine that you can write a crappy flight simulator with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related, a self destroying game I built some time ago: [https://void4.github.io/](https://void4.github.io/) The yellow dot is the instruction pointer, the red dots represent the program memory. If you hit the ball just right you can introduce graphic glitches. Most times, the instruction pointer gets out of bounds however.

<comment><USER6> This is really cool and I'd love to play with it, but my eyesight isn't good enough to hit the ball more than once at a time. Is there anyway you could post an upscaled version?

<comment><USER5> Updated it. If it's still too small, just right click, inspect element and choose a custom width and height.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Welcome to the Emacs family, Vim. We have been waiting for you.

<comment><USER8> everywheres$ vim

Welcome...

mostwheres$ emacs

bash: emacs: command not found

<comment><USER9> vi is pretty usual to find in a default installation, but Vim? Debian is the only OS I've come across that includes it (and aliases it to vi, for some stupid reason!).

(Note: Vim user here)

<comment><USER10> macOS aliases vi to vim:

        mymacbook:~ mikestew$ ls -lah /usr/bin/vi

        lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     3B Jun  7 12:21 /usr/bin/vi -> vim

Seems like Debian, as you describe it, went the reverse route for some odd reason. Is that right, I type in _vim_ on Debian and _vi_ runs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great for companies that measures productivity by keystrokes per minute. (sarcasm)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is absolutely amazing! I encourage everyone to skim over the code! It's surprisingly readable Vimscript.

[https://github.com/johngrib/vim-game-code- break/tree/master/...](https://github.com/johngrib/vim-game-code- break/tree/master/autoload/VimGameCodeBreak)

</comment><comment><USER13> Does this work with Neovim or vim only?

<comment><USER14> If it works in vim it should work in neovim?

<comment><USER15> It was forked before vim 8.0 was released and neovim doesn't try to keep its fork compatible with vim. Consequently it is not.

<comment><USER16> > neovim doesn't try to keep its fork compatible with vim.

Nvim tracks all Vim patches[1]. _Only_ the job-control API differs. All other Vim patches are merged into Nvim reguarly, including new Vimscript features like partials, lambdas, etc.

Nearly all 7.4.x patches (except for job-control) have been merged:

[https://neovim.io/doc/reports/vimpatch/](https://neovim.io/doc/reports/vimpatch/)

Hundreds of 8.0.x patches have been merged also, but they won't be in that report until we finish the last couple 7.4.x patches.

[1] [https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Merging-patches- from-u...](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/wiki/Merging-patches-from- upstream-Vim)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How about breakout using the Nuke compositor and a python script:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxTRbh7K1jQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxTRbh7K1jQ)

</comment><comment><USER18> I guess after a long day at work, looking at your project's code, this is a good relaxing "exercise".

</comment><comment><USER19> Is "Breakout" still a forbidden word due to trademarking?</comment>


Medium Was Never Meant to Be a Part of the Developer Ecosystem - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/devteam/medium-was-never-meant-to-be-a-part-of-the-developer-ecosystem-25a0 <comment><USER2> I really think that this cycle the author describes isnt just aggravating, its fundamentally flawed. You never see if people are willing to pay what you believe your product is worth and cant tell if people are buying your service or buying a dollar for 95 cents. And you've anchored low prices into everyone's mind that then makes your product seem overpriced when you price it appropriately.

I dont think this article actually covers whether or not the service it is advertising plans to do the same.</comment>


Pac-Man: How We Played the Game - <AUTHOR> https://retrobitch.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/pac-man-the-untold-story-of-how-we-really-played-the-game/ <comment><USER2> > The only reason why people "restore" vintage arcade games is usually to > command higher prices on a market that typically sells to novice collectors. > The practice has little to do with preservation and much more to do with > profiting off the naive.

That is so profoundly untrue. You never get back the money you've spent in renovation AND the real purpose is passion, to bring back that sense of NEW to something retro, and having it play like it came out of factory.

<comment><USER3> The quote is about "restoring" by putting cheap-looking stickers instead of properly _restoring_ the original paintwork.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Article is about material deformation. It's charming, and I'd encourage people to read it.

Now days the equivalent might be a really shiny controller, or letters worn of of a keyboard.

<comment><USER5> Even worn paths through the grass at university/corporate campuses can show better ideas for sidewalk layout.

<comment><USER6> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path)

<comment><USER7> [https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a Ms. PacMan game in the gym of our office building I play between sets. You really do need a grip, and at least for my play style, I'm jamming the controller the direction I want to turn while I travel down the wall prior to making the turn. To make a fast, precise turn, you do really need some force, and its fun to think how different a control interface this is from our modern day consoles and PC!

</comment><comment><USER9> Props to this Mark Montag guy pulling a powerstance.

[https://retrobitch.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/pac-man-the- unto...](https://retrobitch.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/pac-man-the-untold-story- of-how-we-really-played-the-game/the_oshkosh_northwestern_sat__jul_18__1981_/)

</comment><comment><USER10> >Original unrestored Pac-Man cabinets almost always show this kind of wear- pattern caused by the thousands, oftentimes millions, of left-hands that once gripped it during gameplay.

I don't believe this ever happened. Let's make the conservative assumption that a cabinet was in continuous operation 8 hours a day, and each game lasted 2 minutes. That's only 240 games a day, which means it would take nearly 23 years of such extremely heavy use to reach 2 million games (the lowest number to qualify as millions plural). The Pac-Man craze did not last 23 years, and such heavy use is only plausible at the peak of the craze.

<comment><USER11> It's a trivial point, but you are right that it wouldn't be millions. The cabinet wear was caused by thousands of hands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Feel like I have watched Bandersnatch too much, but reading this made me think about:....

You know what Pac stands for? PAC. Program and Control. He's Program and Control Man. The whole thing's a metaphor. All he can do is consume. He's pursued by demons that are probably just in his own head. And even if he does manage to escape by slipping out one side of the maze, what happens? He comes right back in the other side. People think it's a happy game. It's not a happy game. It's a fucking nightmare world. And the worst thing is? It's real and we live in it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Who else was reminded of that pinball essay in Foucault's Pendulum in Chapter 34 in relation to Lorenza Pellegrini?

       You don't play pinball with just your hands, you play it with the
       groin too. The pinball problem is not to stop the ball before it's
       swallowed by the mouth at the bottom, or to kick it back to
       midfield like a halfback. The problem is to make it stay up where
       the lighted targets are more numerous and have it bounce from one
       to another, wandering, confused, delirious, but still a free agent.
       And you achieve this not by jolting the ball but by transmitting
       vibrations to the case, the frame, but gently, so the machine won't
       catch on and say Tilt. You can only do it with the groin, or with a
       play of the hips that makes the groin not so much bump, as slither,
       keeping you on this side of an orgasm. And if the hips move
       according to nature, it's the buttocks that supply the forward
       thrust, but gracefully, so that when the thrust reaches the pelvic
       area, it is softened, as in homeopathy, where the more you shake a
       solution and the more the drug dissolves in the water added
       gradually, until the drug has almost entirely disappeared, the more
       medically effective and potent it is. Thus from the groin an
       infinitesimal pulse is transmitted to the case, and the machine
       obeys, the ball moves against nature, against inertia, against
       gravity, against the laws of dynamics, and against the cleverness
       of its constructor, who wanted it disobedient. The ball is
       intoxicated with vis movendi, remaining in play for memorable and
       immemorial lengths of time. But a female groin is required, one
       that interposes no spongy body between the ileum and the machine,
       and there must be no erectile matter in between, only skin, nerves,
       padded bone sheathed in a pair of jeans, and a sublimated erotic
       fury, a sly frigidity, a disinterested adaptability to the
       partner's response, a taste for arousing desire without suffering
       the excess of one's own: the Amazon must drive the pinball crazy
       and savor the thought that she will then abandon it.

I enjoy me some retro gaming, and I've noticed sometimes I also grip cabinets or controllers in odd ways. I notice it because sometimes my hands are sore.

Also, I wonder if I should go re-read that book. I think I have better faded memories of it than my actual enjoyment at the time when I read it. It seemed dense and I don't think I understood much of anything. But everyone remembers this passage I quoted above.

<comment><USER14> I remember thinking that the book was dense too, and this passage definitely stands out in my memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You know, I've spent my life loving Pac-Man in the arcade but merely liking the myriad home versions I've purchased over the decades. Thank you so much for finally explaining why.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a good bit for ergonomics to figure out how to better improve the arcade experience in cabinet design.</comment>


Where The Magic Happens - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bitmakerlabs.com/2013/02/22/where-the-magic-happens/

<comment><USER2> The diagram featured here, as well as the phrase "Where the magic happens", appear to be lifted verbatim from this scene in HBO's comedy Girls: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8C4V8x7RZ0>

<comment><USER3> Even disregarding that, this is kind of a fluffy article. I expected more from a top 5 spot - Is there something special about this blogger? (And not that it matters, but this and the last two articles of his appear to be self- submitted, and by a new account.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://vimeo.com/55527124> : very related, very inspiring</comment>


Static website using NextJS and markdown files - <AUTHOR> https://vijayt.com/post/static-website-using-nextjs-and-markdown/ <comment><USER2> I tried, just last week, to install Gatsby, as I'm currently (and recurrently) deep in a twisty little maze of static website generators, trying to find the one that fits best with what I'm trying to do.

It broke. `npm install gatsby-cli` broke for utterly mysterious reasons[1] and, as I am not versed in the node ecosystem, the whole thing is just an indecipherable mess to me and I haven't the cycles to learn enough to debug it. So into the bin it went (and that's _not_ /bin or even /usr/local/bin!)

How sad. It looked nice on the outside of the box, but the arrogant, insider- centricity of the node ecosystem made it unviable for any outsider. Far, far from the first time I've had that happen to me, and probably not the last.

[1] ...despite my node/npm installation being at the latest release, so that's not it...</comment>


Call Daily, Absolutely Free to both mobile and landline phones around the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.evaphone.org Call Daily, Absolutely Free! to both mobile and landline phones around the world. The more people use Evaphone lite, the more free destinations and longer free calls. <comment><USER2> When I loaded the page, Google Ads loaded faster than the dialer widget and it almost lead to me believe that the whole site was just a parked page with ads. And when the dialer finally loaded, I had to look at it twice to realize that it wasn't an ad.</comment>


Plover – Browser Fileshare - <AUTHOR> https://plover.io/ <comment><USER2> hey I'm the creator of plover! Let me know if you have any questions :)</comment>


Russian meteor path plotted in Google Maps - <AUTHOR> http://attivissimo.blogspot.ch/2013/02/russian-meteor-path-plotted-in-google.html <comment><USER2> I'm always blown away how quickly people worldwide can be analyzing an event thousands of kilometers away and producing useful analysis, no matter where they live relative to the event.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. From the picture, and the path length of 320 km we can estimate that the meteoroid impacted at a very shallow angle. Assuming that clouds only form below 50 km, then we get an upper limit on this angle of ~10 degrees.

asin(50./320.)

I wonder if some of the videos is complete enough as to calculate the speed.

<comment><USER4> Unless I'm misunderstanding your calculation, it seems that you are thinking the meteor trail was cloud (water droplets). It was probably smoke (dust and gas) being sheared off the meteor by ultra-high-speeds collisions with atmospheric gas molecules.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I think dust from the meteror would look a lot darker. ( Actually I belive that dust provides the condensation seeds for the clouds.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Title should be "on a map" really.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone have a precise path of 2014-DA plotted on a map to see on which "line" it would hit the earth should it hit it?

I _know_ it's not suppose to hit the earth but I'd like to know from which "side" the earth would be facing it at the moment it's going to be the closest.

<comment><USER7> It will be over Indonesia. [http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/02/14/hamilton- as...](http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/02/14/hamilton-asteriod- earth.html)</comment></comment>


France announces crackdown on people reading extremist Web sites - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/22/us-france-crime-idUSBRE82I07N20120322

<comment><USER2> I am French and that smells bad, really bad. This is the kind of law or rules that are born in the heat of the moment; these "think 'bout the children" moments. What happened in France is really sad, but it is what it is: an act by an isolated person. This is not a repeated pattern that needs a law to solve it.

I am very far from being an extremist but I have consulted websites that are considered extremist, just because sometimes I stumble on them while browsing the internet, or just by curiosity, because I think I ought to "know my enemies". The definition of extremist is also very blurry, and will probably be abused in the future.

<comment><USER3> In all fairness, the title is misleading, if not disingenuous.

\- An announce has been made by a president who's not so likely to be reelected next month. If he's kicked, his law proposals are moot.

\- This president has a compulsive habit of making dramatic/populist announces right after impressive crimes made the news; he made this one a couple of hours after a terrorist has been killed in a botched arrest.

\- Most of these announces are never followed through; when they are, the _Conseil Constitutionnel_ often cancels or neuters them for unconstitutionality; disproportion between the intended effect and the restrictions on freedom of speech is a legitimate cause of unconstitutionality (cf. e.g. the recently cancelled law about the Armenian genocide);

\- The French parliament is in vacancy until it will be reelected, about one month after the President, so no big law can be voted right now.

It would be awful indeed if this law was enabled, but it's quite unlikely to pass.

<comment><USER4> > An announce has been made by a president who's not so likely to be reelected > next month.

W. wasn't so likely to be reelected either...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all. -Chomsky

</comment><comment><USER6> When I was in France recently trying to use free WiFi I was required to enter my name, address, mobile phone number, etc on several of them. I have a screenshot of one captive portal page here: <https://twitter.com/#!/nelson/status/178533010302451712>

"Because of January 23, 2006's law, you have to register to use our wireless service. In accordance with the anti-terrorist legislation that came into effect on 23/01/2006, we are obliged to record the identities of users. The data collected in this form will be shared with the National Commission on Data Processing and Liberties and will not be used for commercial purposes or sold to third parties without your prior consent."

I probably used 20 different WiFi nodes in France and I'd say about 4 of them tried to collect contact data like this.

More info on the law here: <http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/frenchlaw>

<comment><USER7> Filling bogus information, is actually illegal.

Either ways, the National Commission on Data Processing and Liberties is your friend in the story (CNIL in French). They go to great length to regulate access to your data. There are several cases of national agencies being forced to collect less data thanks to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished"

Who defines "habitually", "advocates Terrorism" "call for hate and Violence"?

These terms and phrases are so overtly broad that a person visiting Reddit could easily qualify.

If the French govt. really moves a law along these lines, they would have taken a giant step away from Freedom towards Govt. Censorship of the worst kind.

I suspect this is just some pre-election bluster from Sarko to bump up his bad numbers. If and when this gets to the Law making stage, France needs a SOPA- style movement to kill this dead.

<comment><USER9> Hopefully - otherwise any french subscribers to /r/beatingwomen are going to jail.

In this case though, Sarko should 'just' have banned muslim propaganda, since the perp was muslim.

<comment><USER10> He's probably going to use it as an excuse to suppress his Lepeniste enemies, even though they had nothing to do with it. They were pretty careful to call for the suppression of "hate" in general, not Al-Qaeda or anything that has to do with this gunman in particular. Maybe this doesn't translate well but in English, "hate" is a term of abuse for right-wing attitudes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, this has the potential to snowball if implemented...

That said, I've always been amazed at how people can go to another country, live and work there for years and yet speak in their own language (and not understand the local one) and refer to local citizens as "they; these; those", as if they're not part of the local culture. It may be hard assimilating, but the saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans" is true - in time, you end up being a Roman.

This resentment builds up, that's how you end up with terrorists and other malevolent people...

</comment><comment><USER12> I am not an expert of french politics but this looks clearly as a play to the coming elections. And as most election-driven declarations it's overly stupid, and will probably never be implemented.

<comment><USER13> This has so much conspiracy potential. It is all to familiar: Conservative politician down in the polls, "Terror" craze happening out of the blue with a superb timing for the election, that even the FT can't resist from titling "Sarkozy stands to gain most from arrest...".

<comment><USER14> The lone gunman is now dead, etc.

Judging how Sarkozy seems to have dealt with former political rival Dominique Strauss-Kahn, setting him up with a "rape", it's entirely possibly. French intelligence likely had the ability to pull strings in the terrorist community and Sarkozy likely has the ability to pull strings with French intellience.

<comment><USER15> While one may agree or disagree with Sarko, I think the personal history of Mr DSK would ague against this having been a "set-up". The CIA, MI6 and all the other covert organs can't do someone as heinous as Assad but on the other hand they can at will, just pull framed rapes and crazy whackos killing and terrorizing people to create a desired result?

It reeks of "wanting to believe" as much as a balding man with a hot partner will "want to believe" the partner is not cheating when all the signs out there are signaling cheating.

<comment><USER14> This article presents a pretty convincing argument for the idea that DSK was set up:

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/dec/22/what- re...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/dec/22/what-really- happened-dominique-strauss-kahn)

>the two men high-five each other, clap their hands, and do what looks like an extraordinary dance of celebration that lasts for three minutes.* They are then shown standing by the service door leading to 45th Street—apparently waiting for the police to arrive—where they are joined at 2:04 PM by Florian Schutz, the hotel manager.

>the duty officer at the Accor Group in Paris ... responsible that weekend for handling emergencies at Accor Group hotels, including the Sofitel in New York ... sent a bizarre e-mail to his friend Colonel Thierry Bourret, the head of an environment and public health agency, claiming credit for "bringing down" DSK

<comment><USER16> This has been debunked. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss- Kahn#Conspi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss- Kahn#Conspiracy_speculation) "The New York Review of Books subsequently corrected one of its allegations, reporting that a "dance of celebration" between two Sofitel employees lasted 13 seconds, not the 3 minutes originally reported."

<comment><USER14> A shorter dance of celebration doesn't debunk the theory as a whole.

<comment><USER16> what is left?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FTA, quoting French president Nicolas Sarkozy, in the wake of the death of the guy who confessed to murdering schoolkids and soldiers: " _From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished._ "

<comment><USER17> It's election time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> From Wikipedia: _striking just below the knee cap with a tendon hammer produces a signal which travels back to the spinal cord and synapses (without interneurons) at the level of L4 in the spinal cord, completely independent of higher centres._

</comment><comment><USER19> France announces crackdown on people not using VPNs/TOR to access extremist websites.

In other news a lightbulb went off in the mind of yet another hacker, this time in France, who decided to devote his time to liberating the internet from the draconian control of governments and large corporations and working toward a censorship resistant infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a predictable reaction from an incumbent one month away from a competitive election. It is not a failure of democracy for one arm of government to react like this - it's a failure if that populist whiplash becomes policy (or is debated seriously enough to spook).

An analogy would be October 2012, Romney is hot on Obama's heels, and a shooter goes on a rampage in Times Square. It would not be unexpected for the President to call for greater monitoring, no limits to what will be done to safeguard the American people, yada, yada. Norway's reaction was anomalous in the shooter being Norwegian and the political climate being mellower than France in an election year.

</comment><comment><USER21> It may be temporary, but Marine Le Pen's campaign web site seems to be down at the moment. It would be easy to see her benefiting from the inevitable fervour over this loony gunman. Sarkozy would love to have a bit of that for himself, hence his seemingly-reckless statement.

</comment><comment><USER22> Well it's just one more dumb thing said by Sarkozy. In a month he won't be president anymore, just ignore him already. I don't see the crime of "reading a website" being punished in this country any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is no different than banning/censoring books for "extremist content". It will start with terrorism and a few months later it will expand to other topics, and we all know that's going to happen. Next in line is probably copyright infringement, because that's a favorite topic of Sarkozy.

When exactly are the upcoming elections, so French people can get rid of Sarkozy once and for all?

</comment><comment><USER24> The title of this story is "Gunman dies in hail of bullets as French siege ends" and has absolutely nothing to do with the throw-away line that the submitter used.

Do not editorialize submissions on HN. This is not Digg.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here; I quoted the relevant part in the first comment.

<comment><USER24> From the guidelines <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

"You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it."

"Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Isn't free speech a constitutional right there?

<comment><USER26> It's illegal in France to deny an atrocity acknowledged by the State. If the government calls something genocide or a heinous crime, it's illegal for a citizen NOT to agree. It was meant to reign in holocoust deniers, making it illegal. Then it was used as a political pawn against Turkey, viz Ottoman crimes against Armenians.

In Britain two women are in court demanding their right to wear a cross to work.

In Germany it's even illegal to salute the German flag, or borders on social taboo.

Europe .. it's fucked, but it's better than the U.S.

<comment><USER27> The law making it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide has been invalidated by the constitutional council. The decision is quite interesting actually: \- It is right to forbid denying the holocaust, as it has been recognised by an international jurisdiction (the Nuremberg court) \- But it is wrong to forbid the Armenian genocide because it has been declared a genocide directly by the French government, so it could be used to censor anything. It seems a weird choice to me(I'm French), but it makes some sense. ([http://www.conseil- constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionne...](http://www.conseil- constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais/les-decisions/acces-par- date/decisions-depuis-1959/2012/2012-647-dc/decision-n-2012-647-dc- du-28-fevrier-2012.104949.html) \-- in French legalese)

Also, free speech isn't absolute even in the US, for example I think you must also have libel laws.

<comment><USER28> How can it be right to forbid denying anything whatsoever? That is thought crime pure and simple. Just because an "international jurisdiction" "recognised" it, doesn't mean a) they got it right and b) new evidence may not come up thus calling for a re-assessment of the whole thing. History is science, nothing is undeniable in science.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Log::ger, a low-overhead Perl logging module - <AUTHOR> https://perlancar.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/introducing-logger/ <comment><USER2> It's amazing how much documentation have you written without even a speck of description of how the module's API is organized and how to use it. I know Log::Log4perl, but I don't see how to replace it with your Log::ger.

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the author of the module. Thanks for the comment. The documentation definitely needs some work. Only the absolute basics is shown in the module's Synopsis, and some more info is written in the FAQ, but it's not as complete as I would like it to be. I do plan on writing a tutorial though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Author of the module here. Didn't expect to see my blog post posted here. Feel free to ask any question you might have.</comment>


Closed-source App Wins Open Source Competition - <AUTHOR>

This app won tens of thousands of dollars in the "Apps For Communities" contest sponsored by the FCC and the Knight Foundation:
http://appsforcommunities.challengepost.com/submissions/2732-homeless-scc-santa-clara-county
The rules say "Apps must be made available under an OSI Approved open source license".
http://appsforcommunities.challengepost.com/rules
But the source is not online, and I was told by CWR (the company that wrote it) that it's closed-source.  Anyone want to help me shine a light on this? <comment><AUTHOR> Quick update: the company admits they didn't follow the rules and says they will share the code (but they are not sure how long that will take.)

<comment><USER2> More importantly, shouldn't the contest organizers comment on this?</comment></comment>


'Blue Screen of Death' haunts iPhone 5S users - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/software-services/Blue-Screen-of-Death-haunts-iPhone-5S-users/articleshow/24039612.cms <comment><USER3> It seems as though iOS 7 was inordinately buggy when it shipped. With iOS 6, apps would crash multiple times per day, but iOS 7 is an entirely new level of buggy-ness. Springboard crashes regularly. My lock button stopped working after upgrading (I've researched this, and apparently this is an issue that has been known about since Beta 2. Evidently, Apple never got around to fixing it.) The phone routinely becomes unresponsive. The Apple TV version of iOS 7 was bricking devices and had to be withdrawn by Apple. This is not a functional operating system.

iOS 7 is a complete and utter embarrassment for Apple. It was nowhere near ready to ship, and it's become apparent that Apple's hardware release schedule dictated the iOS 7 ship date, and compelled Apple to release iOS 7 prematurely.

Although I've long been a fan of the iPhone due to its superior app ecosystem, I simply can't take my chances with another Apple mobile product. Apple has forced me into a situation whereby I can either elect to continue using a phone that does not turn on and off and crashes perpetually, or use a functional Android device with an inferior ecosystem. Basically any sane person would chose the latter.

iOS 7 was in no way ready to ship, and is still a major regression from iOS 6 even after several subsequent minor releases. The fact that Apple released such an incomplete OS to millions of users really makes me question their judgement.

<comment><USER4> This is a rather frightening trend that I've seen from Apple over the past couple years.

Other aspects of iOS aside, I would say there are many sane people who would consider the Android app ecosystem superior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think it's a full restart, just Springboard crashing and restarting. After a real restart, I think the phone is supposed to required a PIN, instead of allowing the fingerprint sensor to unlock it. But when this happens to me, the fingerprint is sufficient to unlock.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've had that too, I think around 2 or 3 times, however the restart after that only takes a couple of seconds, so it doesn't bother me too much. I hope this will be fixed with the next software update.

<comment><USER7> In the middle of a long browser session with multiple tabs open and I receive a phone call _boom_. BSOD !

The phone restarts and the browser tries to reload all the tabs but the session is lost.

It bugs me even if this is once a week event. iPhone has been around for 6+ years and by now it should be mature enough to not go kaput when a piece of code misbehaves. Android (nexus 4) doesn't do that. They support hundreds of devices. Apple had only a handful and that too with much less diversity.

<comment><USER8> If you think that Android doesn't crash, you must have never used it. My Samsung Android phone crashed on me so consistently on a daily basis - <USER2> couldn't even use apps like Google Maps or WhatsApp because they ALWAYS crash the system. Trust me, it isn't any better.

<comment><USER9> The HTC Desire X that I've had for a year and a half hasn't crashed once.

Anecdotal, I know - just like your Samsung experience.

Btw, I wonder if the heavy customisation that Samsung does could lower the reliability of the system?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slightly off topic but related, iOS 7 has made iPad 4 less stable too. It reboots ~ once a day while browsing, reading flipboard...

Changing the wallpaper takes a good 10 seconds. The "set home screen" button has no visual feedback so you keep on wondering if it's _busy_ changing the wallpaper or you didn't hit the button correctly. Granted that you don't change wallpapers everyday, but the delay in wallpaper change coupled with no visual feedback makes it an unwelcome experience.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow, they've appropriated yet another standout feature of Android phones, especially my craptastic Galaxy Nexus (unfortunately still under contract). I was going to dump it for a 5S in the near future, but between this, the HW sensor issues, and a technical conversation I had with some Apple engineers recently, I'm really scratching my head about what's going on with the company.

<comment><USER11> This will probably be fixed in a soon software update.

HW sensor issues are strange, but understandable in a new product. Also, it's a pretty small impact.

The damning thing in your statement is your conversation with apple engineers...but you don't provide any information from that conversation.

Two minor quibbles with the new phone, and a secret, don't really add up to a reason for us to doubt Apple. Can you elucidate your claims, or do you just have 'a bad feeling about this'?

<comment><USER10> I'm not asking you to doubt Apple. All I'm giving is an opinion based on my own recent data, a small amount of which is privy to me (and for purposes of tact will remain so).

If it's just me, then I'm an anomaly and I should be soundly ignored. Time will tell.

That said, I flirt with dumping Android for IOS every time my contract comes up for renewal. Given the reports of 5S performance relative to everything else out there, I was enthusiastically looking forward to getting one. Now, not so much, and I'm considering sticking with the devil I know yet again.

Yes, both these first world problems will be addressed - I spent many years doing driver work so I know that's a given - but it seems like a real step down given that IOS 7 was in the hands of testers for at least 7 months prior to release (according to friends who revealed themselves as such post- release).

<comment><USER12> You're not making any sense. These are 5S specific bugs not general to iOS7.

<comment><USER10> So you're claiming me that IOS7 wasn't tested on pre-production 5S phones before the release of both of them?

That Apple didn't catch such flaming obvious usability issues blows my mind, but whatever floats your boat. They shipped Apple maps so I guess I shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore.

Since we have no idea what the root cause of these bugs is, I would not immediately conclude HW until it is proven so (because usually it's not). And even then, I doubt they will admit it's HW if there's a SW fix for them (which there usually is).

<comment><USER12> No of course I am not saying that.

What I am saying is that the majority of testing would have been done with iOS7 on shipping devices which have had no issues. The issues seen are specific to 5S which clearly indicates driver or kernel problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I actually had a BSOD in the first few minutes of my 5S arriving. It's been rock solid since apart from the usual iOS7 issues.

<comment><USER14> Do you mean that it actually showed you a blue screen, or just that it rebooted once?

(My phone has rebooted a couple of times - iOS7 clearly has bugs, but I've never seen a blue screen or a pause)

<comment><USER15> It's actually showing a blue screen. The color blue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Microsoft: You'll be hearing from our lawyers.

</comment><comment><USER17> If the phone were to simply reboot rather than show a blue screen, and _then_ reboot, no one would care about this issue. It would just be another bug in iOS 7. The media just seems to enjoy any sensational twist to the story.

iOS 7 is buggy, get over it [I'm a developer, I've been on iOS 7 since the Betas, it's still buggy]. Hopefully 7.1 (and please, Apple, 7.2 and 7.3) will fix a lot of these issues.

<comment><USER14> It _doesn 't_ show a blue screen before rebooting. If you read the article you'll see that it's a tortured attempt to redefine _any_ kind of freeze as a 'BSOD' in order to hang this label on Apple.

This is extremely likely to be a paid piece placed by a competitor.

<comment><USER18> If you read the article, it says that the screen actually turns blue for few seconds and goes blank.

Moreover, even Windows has not shown me the blue screen in a long while ( since Windows 7, now on 8.1 ), but still people call the restarts BSOD. Get over it.

<comment><USER19> Although very rarely, it does show the BSOD in Windows 7 for me. I think it's like 3 to 4 times in total, in past 2 years.

<comment><USER18> Yeah I know the Blue screen comes on Windows 7 ( and 8 ) Just that it has not happened to me ( I have had the crashes )

<comment> alive-or-not The default setting is to reboot, without showing BSOD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This site is haunting my eyes.

</comment><comment><USER21> Microsoft fanboys bitched that Apple took the flat UI from WP, but they'll probably give this one a pass.</comment>


Everything you need to know about pointers in C - <AUTHOR> http://boredzo.org/pointers/ Pointers in C with explanation and examples. <comment><USER2> you really, really shouldn't introduce a concept with an bad example, and then add the caveat of " dont do this". It's like a double negative in speech, it's too confusing to parse.

so i got as far as the "int* a,b;" example.

C does not work that way, so OF COURSE that won't work. Why not build on that</comment>


Don't blame HealthCare.gov - <AUTHOR> http://sdt.bz/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=65305&page=1 <comment><USER2> I blame magical thinking. Start with nebulous concepts without definitions (like "healthcare" and "profit"). And use Orwellian distraction and conflation to blame all problems on Oceanic Republicans and other Enemies of the State.

<comment><USER3> I blame talking points & incendiary rhetoric.</comment></comment>