Giving $1k to Someone in Extreme Poverty - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@heyheyandrew/heres-what-happens-when-you-give-1-000-to-someone-in-extreme-poverty-78bdce3aa414#.obz1bro74 <comment><USER2> Given the /where/ this money is being sent, how well does 1000 USD spend in Kenya? That is, what would it cost to buy someone in the US that same result?

Edit: I missed the 'quarterly' part of the education cost.

I think I'll compare the 50-70 USD per 3mo (~230/year) education cost of a student to one from the USA. According to a census website post one of the less expensive schools spent about 7000 per student / year. ( [http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press- releases/2015/cb15-98.h...](http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press- releases/2015/cb15-98.html) )

Roughly calculating, that's about a 30x difference in cost of living. So it'd be a lot more like unconditionally giving a poor US family 30K. If this is a one time infusion, it isn't BIG, but close enough to it to break negative feedback loops.

<comment><USER3> > That is, what would it cost to buy someone in the US that same result?

That's really hard to compare, because very few people in the first world don't have a working roof ([https://www.givedirectly.org/operating- model](https://www.givedirectly.org/operating-model): We target households using criteria that vary by region—including aggregating a range of factors or looking at housing materials & [https://www.givedirectly.org/blog- post.html?id=2845341784910...](https://www.givedirectly.org/blog- post.html?id=2845341784910255488)).

Lets use the figures from the operating model page: "The average recipient in Kenya lives on just 65 cents (nominal) per day" \- so a cash injection of $1,000 is 1,538 days @ $0.065 - or about 4 years. If it is a family of four, $1,000 is a year's worth of expenses for the whole family.

That's probably a fair measure of what this represents - a year's salary for a family of four.

As a cash injection, it also allows for large purchases, e.g. to spend a few hundred on a roof. So each payment is the equivalent in the US of enough cash to buy, say, a car?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> TLDR: It's an advertisement for a non-profit that mentions their website's name about a million times. The money is going to people in very poor places like Kenya. Almost all of it is spent on education fees, housing, food, and healthcare. About 3% on vices like tobacco.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be an advertisement if the writer was directly compensated or connected to GiveDirectly. That doesn't seem to be the case, and surely people who are operating in the philanthropy market would also follow FTC sponsorship disclosure laws?

As stated:

This is an unsolicited Op-Ed by an individual who is not being compensated by GiveDirectly, it's patrons, benefactors, affiliates, or partners.

Calling it an advertisement detracts (and by definition, it isn't) from the essential: that there's good being done.

<comment><USER5> It seem like, these days, anyone talking about how something is good is "advertising". You're not allowed to praise or recommend anything, only criticize.

<comment><USER6> I think persuasion pieces have become somewhat synonymous with "advertising" due to the rise in popularity of sponsored content. With everyone trying to sell you something, it's hard not to become jaded.

<comment><USER4> The article was written by a guy who owns a advertising consulting business, specializing in social media and native advertising. He's trying to sell something, even if it's not strictly a business transaction directly between him and GiveDirectly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not sure if it actually matters much, but I'm curious how they're able to track spending. It seems tracking spending habits could be construed as a condition of receiving subsequent installments and thus change the recipients' behavior into what they think GD wants them to spend it on, rather than what they'd actually want to spend it on.

<comment><USER3> (Disclosure: I donate to the new basic income charity, which I started when I found a way to do it from Australia).

[https://www.givedirectly.org/](https://www.givedirectly.org/) is the website, and the homepage answers a lot of questions.

> tracking spending habits could be construed as a condition of receiving > subsequent installments and thus change the recipients' behavior into what > they think GD wants them to spend it on, rather than what they'd actually > want to spend it on.

I agree that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_\(physics\)) is probably true, but the the question is really hard to answer or put in perspective because "what I want to spend money on" changes based on lots of factors, not least of which is the amount received.

It is also likely that getting three payments changes the spending from receiving a single payment, which would be different to the spending from GD's latest program, [https://www.givedirectly.org/basic- income](https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income), a test to "... scientifically test the idea of a universal basic income by providing regular cash payments to thousands of extremely poor households in East Africa for more than ten years."

There are sooooooo many questions about cash transfers, and given the almost complete lack of administrative costs - $0.91 in every dollar ending up in a poor person's hand is insane - they are all worth investigating. Your question is likely item 9,999 on that list :)

As an example of the questions that need an answer, one I found interesting was this: [https://www.givedirectly.org/blog- post?id=334321986851653361...](https://www.givedirectly.org/blog- post?id=3343219868516533613)

> In Uganda and Rwanda more than 96% of eligible recipients have opted in, > respectively. > ... In July 2015 we entered Homa Bay, a new county and our > first venture outside of Siaya. In Homa Bay and the neighboring areas, > roughly 45% of the households we speak with decline to be enrolled into the > program.

It is amazing that people will give up free money, and shows the lengths GD goes to investigate the problems surrounding cash transfers.

<comment><USER8> 91% of donations going towards the intended recipients is almost too-good-to- be-true.

I volunteered for a small locally run charity in a Nairobi slum and observed that for every dollar received, the Director would use up to 60% towards maintaining him and his family. This, I was told, is the norm.

<comment><USER9> The legal requirement for an organization to receive tax-free nonprofit status in the US is that at least 5% of funds be spent to serve the stated mission. The bar is low everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If everyone is building mud huts, are they held back by lack of tools? It seems like a decent kiln for making roof or floor tiles would make a big difference in many of their lives.

Developing art or goods for export would help to make this sustainable.

<comment><USER4> Check out Primitive Technology YouTube channel. His most recent video shows this. It's not too difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Direct giving fills a void between infrastructure building, entrepreneurship, acute/long term medical aid, and foreign investment.</comment>


Folding Home now has more than 1 Exaflops for SARS-CoV-2 research - <AUTHOR> https://stats.foldingathome.org/os <comment><USER2> The data on Macs agrees with slizard's comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22574795](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22574795), concerning Folding@home:

 _[Folding@home] lack[s] crucial SIMD optimizations to allow making use of AVX2 /AVX512 on modern x86 CPUs as well as the years of algorithmic improvement and code optimization we made. These two factors combined lead to _significantly_ lower F@H CPU performance compared to what they had we're they using a recent GROMACS engine._

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Via [https://www.golem.de/news/coronakrise-sars- cov-2-forschung-u...](https://www.golem.de/news/coronakrise-sars- cov-2-forschung-ueberschreitet-1-exaflops-2003-147495.html) (German)</comment>


Typeset.js – A typographic pre-processor for HTML - <AUTHOR> http://blot.im/typeset

<comment><USER2> Is small cap conversion done for every word that's written in all capitals? The convention that I'm familiar with (I think from The Elements of Typographical Style) is to only set acronyms - that is, pronounceable initialisms like "NASA" or "PETA" \- in small caps. All other initialisms like FBI or USA are set as normal-sized caps. I think the reasoning is that small caps are there to preserve the capitals but not disturb the flow of the text, since it's read as a word just like the words around it. Full caps do disturb the flow of the text because they are not words and not pronounced as words either.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any word in all-caps is 'converted' to small-caps. This behaviour can be changed, or even disabled, by setting a flag in the options object before processing. I prefer to keep all-caps out of my body text.

<comment><USER3> Back at Flipboard, for our RSS typography processing, we used a rule of thumb that all-capped words 3 letters or longer would get small-caps treatment. It worked pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have used a similar tool [1] some time ago in PHP. The project hasn't been kept updated, but the idea of processing text/HTML and converting the right entities is pretty neat. At least the readability improves massively.

This project Typeset.js is slightly different as it adds additional markup and styles. For me, converting here's to here's was enough for me back then.

[1]: [https://github.com/scoates/lexentity](https://github.com/scoates/lexentity)

<comment><USER5> For PHP you can have a look at JoliTypo [1], much more up to date, tested, working for any style guide and using a real parser.

[1]: [https://github.com/jolicode/jolitypo](https://github.com/jolicode/jolitypo)

Disclaimer: I'm the author, and I've tested them all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is great! I wish there was an easy way to incorporate this into Jekyll blogs.

<comment><USER7> Could it not be managed in a Grunt task?

<comment><USER6> I suppose you could write a grunt or gulp task to parse all of the files after jekyll has generated them and run them through typeset. It might be slightly challenging to ensure that only the actual article content gets ran through typeset and not any other content.

Unfortunately, I use Github pages so this wouldn't work for that from what I can tell.

<comment><USER8> > It might be slightly challenging to ensure that only the actual article > content gets ran through typeset and not any other content.

Not a problem. It accepts CSS selectors as options (e.g., ".article").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sweet. I've been doing this in Rails helpers, and it's a pain.

Now, how would I add this to my Rails asset pipeline? I'm thinking either:

* Port to Ruby, or

* Use this as a microservice.

??

<comment><USER10> It looks like much of code is some simple routines to find and replace elements. Might not take long to recreate it in pure ruby.

<comment><USER11> Nope, didn't take long at all: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10079270)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Help me find a source? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I'm working on a book, and trying to find the source for something. I'm hoping you might help.
A few months ago, my business partner stumbled upon an article here that talked about the efficiencies found in better programmers.
I'm paraphrasing badly here, but I believe the general point was that a better programmer would write code that was ultimately 8 times more effective than others. This was measured in the brevity of code, etc.
If you can help me find this link, I'd certainly appreciate the help!
Cheers,
Eric <comment><USER2> As xsmasher said, you're citing Peopleware, by Demarco and Lister. If you didn't know that instantly, you need to read the rest of the book as well.

[http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects- Teams-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams- Second/dp/0932633439)

Pick it up, you won't be disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you'll find this covered (with citations) in Peopleware, and possibly the Mythical Man Month too.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a very commonly expressed idea. One of the most-cited sources is "Mythical Man Month" by Fred Brooks.

For more: <http://www.google.com/search?q=10x+programmer>

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably not the exact article you were looking for, but still a good read: [http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and- developmen...](http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and- development/?p=545)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links--I'm now off to do some reading! :-)</comment>


Global wind power capacity tops nuclear energy for first time - <AUTHOR> http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/20/national/global-wind-power-capacity-tops-nuclear-energy-for-first-time/ <comment><AUTHOR> Note: Capacity isn't the same as production, but interesting nonetheless. As far as I remember from other articles, 63GW of newly installed capacity is well above predictions made even a decade ago.

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't think it is a good thing though. Wind power will not scale to cover humanity's needs for entire 20xx, not to mention 2xxx. I'd rather see all this hype going to fusion research.</comment>


Go Developer Survey 2019 Results - ainar-g https://blog.golang.org/survey2019-results <comment><AUTHOR> My hot takes...

1) Fast adoption of GoLand/IntelliJ (and death of Sublime/Atom)

2) Nearly complete adoption of modules (my company is behind!)

3) "I feel welcome in the Go community" dipped from 82% to 75%. Anecdotally most people in Go are really nice but some people are aggressively pedantic (don't call it the Golang community!)

<comment><USER2> I've been a Go programmer for many years, and I like the language and the community, but I have not found it to be uniformly welcoming. "Aggressively pedantic" is a good way to put it.

<comment><USER3> I have been to 4 Go conferences (two gophercons). Despite being first generation mediterranean-descent (my father is the exact immigrant story touted in many circles), because I fit the 'white christian male' bill, I have felt anything but welcome in the Go community. Actually, many times, I feel like it is actively hostile towards me. I remember one of the closing keynotes, a man stood up on the stage and said "Come take a picture with me out back if you look like me, you know who you are" which left me with my jaw dropped.

<comment><USER4> I am missing something. Do you mean you feel there is a hostility toward those who fit the "white christian male" bill?

<comment><USER5> I think he means the opposite, which is that he fits the "white christian male" and feels that there is hostility towards towards people who fit the "white christian male" bill.

<comment><USER3> To the contrary, I am usually assumed to be middle eastern (egyptian, oddly enough, although it may not be that surprising considering the hellenistic period and where my relatives are from) and despite being Christian, I am not one of the accepted mainstream forms of Christianity in the US, so I face double prejudice, on the one side from those who think Christianity is the cause of all the worlds problems, on the other side from other Evangelical types who think we are idol worshipping heretics. It is only when I correct people, that I get the "oh" reply, usually in disappointment that now I don't qualify for one of their acceptable groups of people who experienced prejudice or a lack of acceptance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm really hoping that gopls gets to 1.0 soon. I feel like gopls is the elephant in the room that's taking a lot of air from some of the smaller tools, and I'm glad it's being called out as a priority in this report.

<comment><USER7> I've been following it since the first public release. It's still, unfortunately, very buggy.

I restart gopls perhaps 20-30 times a day, working in VSCode. I have to restart it every time I switch git branches or do other major file changes that completely break its mind.

I try to report every bug I find, but bug-reporting is even more of a productivity killer than the bugs. It's often difficult to reproduce exactly when they depend on an exact order of events.

Sometimes it's just seems infuriatingly like incompetence. After struggling for hours with gopls suddenly going insane the other day (i.e. even a restart wouldn't fix things), I realized gopls _doesn 't understand build tags_, and will just fail in random ways on code that has a "// +build" comment. The gopls team knows perfectly well tags are not supported, but instead of warning you when you open the file, which would be the sensible option, they just let gopls mismanage it.

I really hope gopls reaches maturity soon, or I'll have to consider GoLand instead, which seems to have gotten this right.

</comment></comment><comment> kris-s Between languages like Go, Rust, Swift, and others I feel pretty optimistic about these new players (and I very much prefer more language diversity).

No surprise to see generics being so strongly pined for again. Very curious about how Go getting generics will change its position in the landscape.

<comment><USER8> If Go ends up getting generics it will be a serious competitor to Java in the enterprise small-medium size application space, and perhaps make it viable for larger applications.

So I think it will be a huge step up for Go. This is of course if they do it in such a way that does not increase language complexity by an order of magnitude (e.g C++ style templates). I think Java style generics is not as complex and something along those lines would be a huge win IMO.

<comment><USER9> As a Java developer I would need a few things to switch and maintain my current level of productivity: generics, a map/filter/reduce paradigm for working on collections, and more flexible error handling -- in that order.

Oh, and let me leave "fmt" in the list of imports even when it's unused, because adding it every time I stick in a printf to debug something, and then needing to remove it later because of compiler errors, is incredibly frustrating.

<comment><USER10> It's been an unpopular opinion but I've contended for a long time that if Go had map/filter/reduce from the onset like it has copy and append, most people screaming for generics would have been silenced.

<comment><USER11> But doesn't that require some level of generics? This is an honest question not rhetorical / a retort.

<comment><USER12> Go has several generic functions like append() or make() baked into the compiler ([https://golang.org/pkg/builtin/](https://golang.org/pkg/builtin/)). When people are asking for generics, they're asking for a language-level mechanism for defining additional generic functions beyond these provided by the compiler.

<comment><USER11> I'm talking more along the line for Map/Filter/Reduce support and why those weren't included in Go originally.

<comment><USER12> Yes. The distinction is that there are two ways to implement map/filter/reduce: either as additional built-in functions or in std. Only the second way requires language-level generics support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Does your organization manage their own internal go documentation server > (similar to godoc.org)? > No (85%)

I would be very open to setting this up at my org - is there a canonical way to do this?

> What is the biggest challenge you personally face using Go today? > Working > with modules / vendoring / pkg mgmt 12%

Go has come a long way since the solutions in the early days and is now supremely better than it every was. However, vendoring is still confusing, and it's unclear when one should commit vendor files (we did that at one of the places I used to work) and when one shouldn't. We kept getting afraid that one day some guy would just delete that repo off GitHub, or somebody would end up hacking it, then we can't get an important fix out into prod. I'm not sure if the Go team has any advice regarding this.

> What is the biggest challenge you personally face using Go today? > Issues > with tooling 12%

I think Go in general has become very mature. From a tooling standpoint it's almost feature complete. The only thing I would like to see there is better autocomplete and tooling around calling C from Go but I know that's kind of hard to achieve. I frequently work with C libraries that I have to call from Go because Go is simply easier to write than C, but I don't think that Cgo has good integration with gopls at the moment (and I don't think it did in any other tooling that I've used).

<comment><USER13> RE: modules and vendoring, you should no longer have to worry about a package going away now that proxies have been introduced (the default proxy right now being proxy.golang.org).

You should be able to pull all your modules from a proxy, minus any private repos you control (which you can either setup our own proxy for OR set The GOPROXY var to go direct to vcs for it).

Also, not vendoring should give you a smaller repo and build speed shouldn't suffer too much (proxy caching and such).

<comment><USER8> Ah good point about GOPROXY.

So if I have a mix of private and public dependencies that I pull in, can I specify a specific proxy for the private ones? Is it the GOPRIVATE env var?

<comment><USER14> The proxy should maintain a copy of all dependencies (public and private), so only one should be necessary.

<comment><USER13> This should be clarified, if you setup YOUR OWN proxy it can handle both public and private modules (side note I haven't been able to verify this yet with artifactory).

You can also just let your GOPROXY fallback go "direct" which will then go straight to vcs (you need to make sure you have a gitconfig setup to redirect https to ssh).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > What critical language features do you need that are not avaliable in Go?

==> Generics 79%

> what's the biggest challenge you personally face using Go today?

==> Generics 15%

Really? What a surprise. /s

Still wondering if Go 2.0 will actually happen, or be torpedoed like the error improvements.

Anyway, the work appears to be ongoing here [https://go- review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/187317](https://go- review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/187317)

<comment><USER16> There is no Go 2.0. They kind of decided to introduce non-breaking changes slowly and that's it for now. Nobody (from the team at least) even talks about 2.0 anymore.

<comment><USER15> Sure there is, even if as concept, or milestone mark of what it is supposed to mean in language features.

The team does speak about it, as the Go 2.0 labels are pretty much still being used, and mentioned in code reviews or occasional emails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> ~60% of respondents have <2 years experience with the language.

I'd really like to see this filtered to developers with >5 years go experience. What do the experienced go devs want from the language? How do they use it?

I've got a little over 9 years of almost daily use and I have little in common with the devs in my org that are earlier in their career and coming to go with a head full of some other language.

<comment><USER8> Out of curiosity, at what point do you consider someone a seasoned Go developer? Is it 5 years or is it more?

I've been using Go since 2015 and I still feel like I'm not as seasoned as I perhaps should be (I'm not really an enthusiast of the language, I just think it's the right tool to use for 95%+ of the stuff I'm working on right now).

<comment><USER17> Hard to quantify. Time in language should roughly track. Maybe number of companies/projects developed.

Any of the dimensions you could imagine would be good starting points.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am stunned by how many people actually like working with go.

As a language, I've always thought it was horrible. But as an option for tasks like network programming, devops, setting up a web service, it's one of the best.

So I understand it's popularity, and I reach for it frequently as well, but not happily like others seem to.

<comment><USER19> Depends on where you come from. From C, it's basically what you did with C with bells and whistles (multiple return types instead of OUT parameters for instance).

From Scala/Java/C#, if you really like working with these languages, I don't think you'd enjoy Go.

And while Goroutines sound nice at first, they come with many issues that languages that had similar concepts (like ADA tasks) did not have.

<comment><USER20> > Problems

Such as? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm pretty new to Go, and I recently tried to get delve working with VS Code and it was a pretty rough experience (VS Code in general wasn't as polished for Go as I'd hoped). Using Delve via the command line was even harder for me to figure out.

My experience debugging in dynamic languages has just been so much easier. Just add a single line anywhere and boom - a repl exactly where you want it. I don't mind IntelliJ for Java either (a big difference being that it has a free community edition).

I know Go is different than dynamic languages, but I wish the UX of debugging was simpler, or that there's a free IDE that makes it easy. I've also heard you can "replay" easily with Delve, which sounds amazing if it was easy to figure out!

<comment><USER22> If you are a professional programmer then paying $200 for a Goland license could ameliorate some of your complaints.

<comment><USER23> For individuals only $89:

[https://www.jetbrains.com/go/buy/#personal?billing=yearly](https://www.jetbrains.com/go/buy/#personal?billing=yearly)

<comment><USER21> You're talking to someone who cringes at even paying for Netflix, let alone an IDE

<comment><USER24> Should your employer/clients do the same for you? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel like the answer to "what prevents you from better debugging/profile" that's dominant, "lack of knowledge/experience" may be more of a catch-all than actually highlight a problem.

Like, there's always something you can do better, most people don't want to claim they know everything. So in a survey I'd probably check that box/type that answer even if I didn't have an actual problem.

</comment><comment><USER26> Interesting to see. Been a computer-person all my life, but only started programming with Python like 4 years ago. Switched from Python to Go after about a year. Go just seemed much easier to work with. I have still, to this day, not made a single penny with Go. Never been a professional programmer. It's so weird to think that I'm still trying to learn more and more about it and use it for _something_. Go really pulled me in somehow. I blame Todd McLeod and Jon Calhoun ;) Ultimately the value of Go for me seemed to be quick-access to lots of buzzwordy things I wanted to make use of. Concurrency, web-apps, internet / online - infrastructure things. (Funnily enough I still don't use concurrency much or properly at all. Like, years in and I still don't.) There is hardly a greater feeling than to make something work, to figure something out. To know you've learned something. I just hope that one day that will actually turn into money. That seems to be the trickiest part. Hmmmm.

<comment><USER27> I'm curious what it is that you do for work? You mention not making money from Go (or programming) -- what are your goals? Is it a startup kind of thing, or employment as a developer? I feel like you could probably get a job if you're familiar with Go and Python you can probably start interviewing.

<comment><USER26> I was a (technical, mostly) project manager for about 10 years and then decided I didn't like that career anymore. I am indeed trying to get a small product out there. If, however, that does not work, I'd be looking into employment as a developer. It's kind of hard to gauge how I might operate in a team environment. I also wonder how to even begin assessing my experience level. I am certainly not shooting for the stars, but also getting stuck in a proto-2-proto role would probably be terrible ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> When it says "I primarily develop Go on...Linux|Mac|Windows|Etc", is this question referring to the platform the project is intended to run on? Or is it the platform people are actually using their IDE in?

I'm just surprised that Linux _only_ is so high and Windows so low if its referring to the "workstation".

<comment><USER29> > is this question referring to the platform the project is intended to run > on? Or is it the platform people are actually using their IDE in?

I think it's pretty obvious, no? "develop Go on" seems pretty self explanatory.

<comment><USER28> If it was I wouldn't have asked.

<comment><USER29> What other meaning do you think "develop Go on" could have?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This interpretation makes an obvious mistake at the end of the "Sentiments toward Go" section. The question asked was:

> Rank the following programming languages in terms of your preference

And the blog writes:

> people who responded to the Go Developer Survey tended to like Go. > > However, we also wanted to understand which other languages respondents > enjoy working with.

For some tasks, I would _prefer_ to work with Python or Bash, though I _dislike_ these languages. I rarely enjoy programming with Python, but I sometimes prefer its environment, especially its universality and some specific libraries. I suppose I'm not a single counter-example where "prefer to use" does not mean "enjoy using".

</comment><comment><USER31> Soon Go will have both generics and package management, two things the maintainers really didn't think it needed on Day One. I don't say this to insult anyone, Go has always been a great and unique language. I say this as a plea to any aspiring language designers out there: please don't try to make a modern general purpose language without these things. We really do need them.

<comment><USER32> Actually, I think the success of Go has proven the contrary. You can make a modern language without those features. In fact for an MVP you want to cut difficult or not absolutely necessary features from the first version. So I think Go did fine here and I encourage other language designers to follow their lead.

One cavaet is if you don't think about at least how generics might work in your language in a backward compatible way, you box in your future options. See java for how this goes poorly. If you look at the generics proposals for Go you see how this has greatly complicated the task. That doesn't automatically mean it was a mistake to do it that way though.

If you try to do everything at the beginning you might take so long that you fail outright or don't get the early adopters who help shape the language. Plus you'd be behind the curve on adoption. So I think Go did the smart thing here.

<comment><USER15> Without Google, Docker and Kubernetes, Go would have been as successful as Limbo and Oberon-2, its two main influences.

<comment><USER33> And yet most frequent use cases seem to be developping web services. So pretty different from building container engines.

<comment><USER15> Since most new Go developers seem to come from Python and Node communities, that is just a natural consequence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > This question should have said "woman" instead of "female".

So women are not female?

</comment><comment><USER35> Suprised to see Vim usage decreasing every year. Presumably most are defecting to Goland

<comment><USER36> I doubt anyone is defecting in any numbers, but that the unix die-hards are being diluted by an influx of developers who prefer an IDE.

<comment><USER37> Even unix die-hards can see the benefits. I stuck to using vim for years and years until I ventured in learning some new languages and explored VSCode. Then I started working with Java and found IntelliJ. The gains when the IDE is actively working with you to autocomplete/point out errors/warnings/code formatting etc are undeniable. Recently I copied a Python script from Linux side to VSCode - the window basically lit up with suggetions/warnings about unused imports etc etc - and this is when the script was working fine in Linux. Cleaning up the code was super easy too. In case it is not obvious, I love *nix and I'm totally for modern IDEs.

PS: I'm aware that a lot of these can be achieved by vim plugins/formatters etc - I do use some. But I can't be pursued to code Java in vim vs IntelliJ; its just not the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I only read the tl;dr, but I expected some questions centered around most commonly identified missing features in Go (i.e. first class support for enumerations, generics, naked return, compiler generating similar code for named vs unnamed returns, etc.)

<comment><USER39> They do touch on these issues but only barely. The survey is more about who's using Go the way it is now and how can we help with adoption with what Go is. The survey is not necessarily intended to be a how might we make the Go core language different or "better" sort of thing.

Remember, for a lot of Go developers Go _is_ fine the way it is now. You may get a different set of developers if you add features but you also may lose those who like it the way it is now. There are a lot of applications coded that just don't have a need for the features you mention.</comment></comment>


Electronic Circuit Simulator in the Browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.falstad.com/circuit/circuitjs.html <comment><USER2> While we are at this subject, here's an electron wrapper of this I made for using in school environments: [https://github.com/Immortalin/Simulacra](https://github.com/Immortalin/Simulacra)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's funny to see this here—I've been a MEGA FAN of Falstad for many years now, and I use this and many of his other tools in every single one of my classes. If y'all don't know about this site, he's made SO MANY incredibly excellent and informative tools it boggles the mind.

Seriously people, this guy is a freaking genius. I want to meet him just so I can shake his hand, thank him, and buy him about a million beers.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's very nice. I've used LTSpice extensively, but this was very helpful for understanding phase-locked loops. Seeing the current flow in the wires helps.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a fantastic tool! When I was younger, it was great to be able to experiment without needing any hardware and while having more visibility into what was happening. Especially cool that it lets you play with memristors.

</comment><comment><USER6> This tool is the lowest-barrier-to-entry to get into circuit design -- used the applet after trying commercial/trial tools (including "cloud-based" ones), and all failed me.

</comment><comment><USER7> Don't forget to do Options->European resistors!

This is a favorite among collegues. I believe at [http://lushprojects.com/circuitjs/circuitjs.html](http://lushprojects.com/circuitjs/circuitjs.html) already this is already marked.

</comment><comment><USER8> When I made this 3-phase source, the voltages were out of whack until I reset the simulation. Perhaps the phase offsets are relative to the time of placement, instead of some absolute reference?

[http://tinyurl.com/y7dlszq2](http://tinyurl.com/y7dlszq2)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Repository: [https://github.com/sharpie7/circuitjs1](https://github.com/sharpie7/circuitjs1)

<comment><USER9> Nice! I've been using this tool on an occasional basis for years (since long before it was converted from a Java applet to JS) and I noticed that the source code was available for download, but I had no idea it had switched to a fully open-source development model.

</comment></comment><comment> vhost- I built a simple keyboard matrix with a "scanner": [http://tinyurl.com/yanykyws](http://tinyurl.com/yanykyws)

That LED represents a something (probably firmware on the keyboard) reacting to the switch being pressed by a user.

Edit: I used a decade counter with a 5 col matrix for simplicity. I was using a 4 bit binary counter, but the browser started really bogging down with a bunch of components.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm currently teaching an electronics class and have used this site heavily for in-class demonstrations. Some of the concepts (like a Push-Pull amplifier) are much easier to understand when you can see a visualization of how it works.

<comment><USER11> I teach an occasional "electronics without math (except ohms law)" class at the local makerspace - I've been using falstad ever since they showed up (many thanks!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, this would have been a game changer when I was taking EE courses. So much better than a half-working SPICE port on Mac OS X 10.2.

</comment><comment><USER13> Awesome site. I've been using Circuit Jam for Android for years. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.circuitjam...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.circuitjam&hl=en_US)

I love that I can now play with this while on my computer and with monitors..

</comment><comment><USER14> Used SPICE (PSpice) simulation tool a lot during college some 12 years back... but this is pretty nice and much easier

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice site!

That example circuit is called a _resonant circuit_ and the oscillation that is seen after the power supply is removed happens because both the capacitor (C) and the inductor (or coil, L) store energy—in electric and magnetic fields, respectively—and start feeding each other.

<comment><USER11> FYI try this:

set the 100 ohm resistor to 1 ohm

set the 15uF cap to 15pF

close the switch, open it again - check out the spark (or rather the stupidly high voltage)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A variation on this that has 3D graphics, visual effects etc. is [https://www.electricVLab.com](https://www.electricVLab.com)

</comment><comment><USER17> I designed an actual board with this. Would have been SOL without it.

<comment><USER18> Same here. It never hit production, but this simulator was fully-featured enough to replace SPICE and accompany breadboard prototypes before I ordered a PCB run.

<comment><USER17> haha, production in my case was sending $3k to China for 100 units ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I used this to better visualize the circuits in my undergrad physics courses. I remember searching for a good animated representation of a curtain type of circuit with the expectation of finding some decent gifs/videos, but I stumbled upon this web app instead. :)

</comment><comment><USER20> I wanted to build this from source to use offline, but so far I can't figure out how; the source is in Java, compiled to JS with GWT, and I haven't figured out how to install GWT yet. I've really enjoyed using it online.

Has anyone done a validation study comparing this simulator to a known-good simulator like Berkeley SPICE?

<comment><USER21> You can download a jar version, though perhaps it's older code. Still works fine:

www.falstad.com/circuit-java/

<comment><USER20> Cool! I've installed it and it seems to work plausibly, though it's an old enough version that its "export URL" function is no longer compatible with the site. And the site has more features.

The validation question is interesting to me because I'd like to do things that go beyond just academic exercises, so I'd like to know how much confidence to have that the physical devices behave as modeled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I remember when this was still a Java applet - nice to see that it has been since rewritten in JS.

I credit this app for being able to pass the first half of my sophomore year at University - just months before I failed four courses(the allowance was two) and was given a chance by the dean to redeem myself.

<comment><USER23> I was really happy to see it got rewritten in JS as well, because Java applets are a pain (or just plain impossible). Sadly, the JS version is also a lot slower, I don't know how that could have gotten prevented

<comment><USER24> Webassembly tends to help by a good margin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 555 internals looks beautiful. I wish I had this when studying 555 for the first time.

</comment><comment><USER26> That's great, but we really need something like this that can allow us to simulate microcontrollers / raspberry pi. Development would become really simple for us software guys then !

</comment><comment><USER27> I have 8 bookmarks in my browser and this has been one of them for the past two years. It's incredibly useful for EE stuff and fun to just mess around in.

</comment><comment><USER28> Yes! I've wanted something like this since I was 12 and could never understand why it didn't exist. How else was I to learn circuitry at that age? Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER29> Falstad saved me during my university year. If just all field's had this type of material ...

<comment><USER30> Falstad ruined me during my university years, but i think we are talking about two different Falstads

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I found this thing years ago and still occasionally go to it to play around with different circuit concepts. Very cool!

</comment><comment><USER32> Woah, I learned so much about electronics using the old java applet!

</comment><comment><USER33> pretty neat, ive used [http://www.partsim.com/](http://www.partsim.com/) before - nice to see more simulations in the browser

</comment><comment><USER34> on the topic of circuit analysis, read about [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodal_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodal_analysis) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_(electrical_circuits)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_\(electrical_circuits\))

lots of interesting bits

</comment><comment><USER35> Thanks circuit lab username:asusta

</comment><comment><USER36> Always wanted to make one of these. Nice job!

</comment><comment><USER37> I'll throw my hat into the ring as well. I have also recently been building a small signal AC analysis circuit simulator [1]. The main idea behind it is to convert a closed source tool that has been around for years within the LIGO scientific collaboration to one that is open source and implemented in Python. It's almost functionally complete, can simulate transfer functions and (accurate) noise from op-amps, resistors, capacitors and inductors in circuits with current or voltage sources. There is a library of popular op-amps for which we've measured the noise, open loop gain and various other parameters, available to be simulated with.

[1] [https://git.ligo.org/sean-leavey/circuit](https://git.ligo.org/sean- leavey/circuit)

<comment><USER38> Looks pretty cool but the input is pretty esoteric to a newbie like me: [https://git.ligo.org/sean- leavey/circuit/blob/master/example...](https://git.ligo.org/sean- leavey/circuit/blob/master/examples/liso/liso2.fil)

Same thing about the output format: [https://git.ligo.org/sean- leavey/circuit/blob/master/example...](https://git.ligo.org/sean- leavey/circuit/blob/master/examples/liso/liso1.out)

Is this a custom file format or a well known one?

Also, the references to LISO are all behind a user/password wall, which makes it hard to learn: [https://wiki.projekt.uni-hannover.de/aei- geo-q/start/softwar...](https://wiki.projekt.uni-hannover.de/aei- geo-q/start/software/liso#download)

<comment><USER39> It has a familiar Fortran/Academia/FEM solver vibe. This is very, very likely a format inherited from a Fortran code.

<comment><USER37> Ah, that might be the inspiration. The author used FORTRAN for other projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What a wonderful site.

</comment><comment><USER41> i think i watched this before ony guy whos is korean student somewhere in USA, teches via YT very cool stuff...

glad this is here.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is there a way to use this without an internet connection?

<comment><USER43> Yes, you can install the java version on your local machine. [http://www.falstad.com/circuit-java/](http://www.falstad.com/circuit-java/)

I've done this in the past and it works just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Paul Falstad did (and does) all the heavy lifting for this project, but the co-host of the JS version at lushprojects.com is my site and I did the original port from a Java applet to a GWT application that complies to JS.

Glad to know so many people find it useful. I always thought it was a great visualisation tool which I why I wanted to put the effort in to do the port.

Off to bed now, but if people have questions I'll take a look at the discussion again in the morning.

<comment><USER45> Where do I learn to write simulations like this? I'm doing numerical models this summer, and it feels like a lot of the notation is inconsistent, unlike programming.

<comment><USER46> What's your background? I ask because if you need to learn the physics behind how circuits behave then that's going to be a lot more difficult to self-teach than just learning how to solve differential equations computationally.

<comment><USER45> I've done a little bit of arduino nothing too impressive, and I've had basic physics. I'm still having issues understanding how graphs(the data structure) come into play and how to count the resistance in those situations. I've read several books on basic electricity. As for calculus I've only had calc 1. What should be my path to learn more about these simulations?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> How do I get the scope output for circuits that I build?

<comment><USER9> You can add scope plots by right-clicking on any component and selecting "View in scope".

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> While we're on the subject, allow me to plug Electrical Age: [https://electrical-age.net/](https://electrical-age.net/)

It's a minecraft mod, yes. It's also a fully functional DC electrical simulation, with realism as a primary focus. Any inaccuracies are either strictly required (= it runs at 20Hz for most purposes), or allowances for decent gameplay.

(Or bugs. Those are probably my fault.)

<comment><USER49> People don't realize how much crazy stuff originates from minecraft.

For instance, battle royale (e.g. fortnite, pubg, realm royale, etc). That came from a minecraft mod based on hunger games before Arma+dayZ implemented it on their end. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_royale_game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_royale_game)

But there's way more cooler stuff than that coming out of minecraft.

We have people building full blown computers in minecraft too.

Example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPaI5BJxs5M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPaI5BJxs5M)

You can even livestream yourself on a TV screen that you make on minecraft. Example: [https://youtu.be/IdlZRhKmWJY?t=327](https://youtu.be/IdlZRhKmWJY?t=327)

<comment><USER50> The full blown computers running in Minecraft has made me hope for more games that make computation an integrated part of game mechanics.

Like what if parts of the game code where represented as the environment. So that you can build your own game. Perhaps you can mod the game from inside the game. Or perhaps something more controlled, like modifying the level generation by interacting with the level itself.

<comment><USER51> In my opinion, at this extreme, it becomes more like work, not fun. Might as well use the brain cells for building a "real" game.

<comment><USER50> I'm honestly curious: where do you think the boundary between work and play occurs here? It seems to me that many of those that make those mods do it mostly as a recreation, don't you think?

<comment><AUTHOR> > where do you think the boundary between work and play occurs here?

a) complexity

b) failure rate

c) consequences

<comment><USER50> Exactly! And that's the beauty of designing such a game in the right way. There's an opportunity to narrow down the freedoms in just the right way to limit failure rates.

I don't think complexity alone is a game stopping issue. There are plenty of highly complex games that people find fun and addictive. But complexity in combination with high failure rates (a lot of trial and error) will kill the fun.

But I think that high complexity with low error rates is perhaps exactly what makes a game fun. If you can express yourself freely and roam around while expecting most of your actions to produce an interesting result the game will be very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I used and enjoyed circuitlab.io until it went for-pay only. Nice to have an easy to use free alternative for very casual hobbyists like me.

<comment><USER53> That would be [https://www.circuitlab.com/](https://www.circuitlab.com/) \-- I built it :)

Edit: if anyone wants, reply with your CircuitLab username and I'll give you a free membership upgrade when I get home this evening.

<comment><USER54> username: cristoper

Thanks!

<comment><USER55> username: Raft Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Credit card cannot be used for purchasing medical marijuana in Colorado? - <AUTHOR>

An "entrepreneur" approached me to develop a POC of a marketplace for selling medial marijuana in Colorado by accepting payment using Bitcoin. He is saying credit card companies do not allow purchase of "prescribed medical marijuana." All this does not sound right to me. Would be interested in hearing HN community's thoughts on this. <comment><USER2> Yeah, he's right. Lots of dispensaries take credit cards. Most do by flying under the radar or just lying on their application. Some merchant services providers are willing to work knowingly with marijuana businesses, but they are taking a risk doing it.

Getting a card-not-present account (which is what you would want) is even harder. As far as I know nobody has done it in a legit way.

Background: I'm the co-founder of Marvina ([https://marvina.com](https://marvina.com)) and I've been trying to figure out payments for almost a year. There's reason to be optimistic, but so far nothing big has broken.

This is the kind of stuff we deal with every day: [http://mmjbusinessdaily.com/breaking-mbank-to-close-all- cann...](http://mmjbusinessdaily.com/breaking-mbank-to-close-all-cannabis- accounts/)

</comment><comment><USER3> NPR's Planet Money did a recent podcast on the problems that pot merchants in Colorado and Washington are having when dealing with banks:

Audio: [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/02/06/384347628/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/02/06/384347628/episode-602-big- weed)

Transcript: [http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story...](http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=384347628)

It also contrasts the situation in the US with the current banking environment in Canada, which has no such problems dealing with cannabis-oriented businesses.

</comment><comment><USER4> I used to be involved in the MMJ industry in California. This is very true. Credit card companies are notoriously stand-offish when it comes to cannabis -- most dispensaries in LA have ATMs on premise for this exact reason.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am by no means an expert on the subject but here's my interpretation:

Since the sale of marijuana is still a federal crime, banks/creditors are not legally allowed to be involved in transactions regarding it.

<comment><USER6> This right here is the answer, a lot of dispensaries in Denver will have an ATM on premise but it jacks their insurance and it's still not really a good idea, from what I heard they can get in trouble still by having an ATM on site.</comment></comment>


If a pilot ejects, what is the autopilot programmed to do? - <AUTHOR> https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/52862/if-a-pilot-ejects-what-is-the-autopilot-programmed-to-do <comment><USER2> I'm annoyed that the top answer is basically saying "well that wouldn't happen". So what? The question wasn't about how likely a thing is, it's what happens should it occur.

It would be like if someone asked "what would happen if a C program tried to access uninitiated memory?" And the answer was "Good programmers would never do that".

<comment><USER3> My kids ask questions like this all the time.

Them: What if a shark jumped into a volcano?

Me: That wouldn't happen because sharks live in the ocean and can't jump high enough or far enough to reach land.

Them: OK, but what if?

Me: ... It would get burned and die...

So yes, if a pilot ejects and the plane had auto-pilot on and the auto-pilot was programmed to try to land after a pilot ejection and the plane was still safe to fly, the plane would in fact attempt to land.

<comment><USER4> A few decades ago an F86 pilot ejected from a flat spin. The resulting changing in CG leveled off the aircraft and when his wingman saw the plane flying level and straight again, he radioed "You better get back in that plane". It landed in flyable condition in a corn field, engine running.

<comment><USER5> This is a similar story. (Maybe it is actually the incident to which you are referring?)

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

<comment><USER4> Thanks, that's the one! It was an F-106, not F-86.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After The Pilot Ejected, This F-106A Flew for Miles Before Landing Gently in a Field! [https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/plane-flew-pilot- ej...](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/plane-flew-pilot- ejected-f-106a-flew-miles-landing-gently-field.html)

<comment><USER7> That wasn't the autopilot though, that was just aerodynamics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Somtimes, you don't even need an autopilot:

[http://www.ejectorseats.co.uk/ejection_from_a_harrier.htm](http://www.ejectorseats.co.uk/ejection_from_a_harrier.htm)

<comment><USER9> fantastic, i love anecdotes like these.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Take this from someone in an actual air force: (On lunch break atm by I am wearing a flight suit.)

(1) The chance that the 'autopilot' will even be on in an ejection scenario is very low. If something does go wrong, pilots will take control first, eject second. Disconnecting the autopilot will happen either deliberately or automatically as the pilot moves the stick.

(2) Aircraft with ejection seats are not Cessnas. The "autopilot" might not be on, but the fly by wire control system is never really off. That system will remain active and could potentially "fly" the plane some distance. Think of it like a car sliding on ice. The cruise control might be off, but the stability assist system isn't. The driver can jump out and the car still recover itself.

(3) The engine(s) will keep going. Ejection does not turn off anything. It's not like falling off a jetski where a kill switch is pulled. The throttle will be wherever the pilot left it.

There have been a handful of incidents where a pilot has ejected and the aircraft continued on without him/her. I've read about this with test pilots in spins. The aircraft is spinning and unrecoverable, so the pilot ejects. The aircraft then self-recovers through a combination of inherent aerodynamic changes (falling into thicker air) and/or efforts by the fly by wire system to maintain the commanded heading/pitch from a now-unmanned stick.

There is an adage amongst fighter pilots that they shall not punch out until they know where their aircraft will land. Hanging in a parachute as your aircraft recovers and continues strait into a school. If over land/people they will stay with it until VERY close to the ground.

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Belgian_MiG-23_crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Belgian_MiG-23_crash)

<comment><USER12> Re: Mig-23 incident - at the time of the incident it was a popular theory that this was Soviet's answer to Mathias Rust landing his Cessna on Red Square two years prior.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I thought with military craft, as soon as the ejector handle is pulled the onboard computers are wiped/destroyed before the seat even exits the aircraft.

<comment><USER14> Even moreso, I would expect that with most experimental or non-commodity military craft in actual combat situations (i.e. the kinds you really don't want the enemy analyzing or using against you), the plane would just explode as soon as you're a safe distance away.

Like scuttling a ship, but smaller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can answer a similar question in Formula 1 engine testing failure. It might be similar to the plane problem.

There are basically two options: Hard shutdown (power off, full brakes) vs Soft shutdown (power off, doing nothing). Both have it's merits and usecase, and are selected by the SW automatically. HS could save lives but could be very expensive, as the engine could be broken by the strong forces. SS could last a few minutes and destroy the engine also.

In the plane cases you don't have that many options there, though usually with 4 more degrees of freedom yodur options on a plane are much higher. I don't think that there are programmed sequences, but with military applications I would be not surprised to see both options implemented. Escape as far as possible vs hard vertical acceleration for maximal destruction.

</comment><comment><USER16> Once the pilot is ejected, the autopilot doesn't need to concern himself with human G limitations. That could be useful for drastic recovery maneuvers.

</comment><comment><USER17> Considering that a rocket was just lit in an enclosed area, how much of the autopilot is left to be functional anyway?

<comment><USER18> I suspect it's fine. Two-seater planes fire the seats in sequence - if it's not frying the other passenger, it's highly unlikely to be melting the instruments.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Ejection...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Ejection_seat_test_at_China_Lake_with_F-4B_cockpit_1967.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Per military planes, I suspect they select the preferred behavior ahead of time based on the mission and estimated flight path. In some cases self- destruct may be the better option, in others, a controlled landing is better. You probably don't want to self-destruct over your own cities and thus build in logic to find a rural landing spot if it's a local or training mission.

</comment><comment><USER20> I would object to the premise of the question:

> I would want to build in a way for the plane to try and save itself if > possible

In a combat situation, I would imagine you'd want to destroy the aircraft if you lost control of it, to prevent the enemy recovering: the working aircraft itself, the technology it contains, or any sensitive reconnaissance recorded on it.

<comment><USER21> As someone who has worked on the F/A-18 (actually CF-18) mission computer software, when the pilot ejects the mission computers start to erase the sensitive information that they contain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This reminded me of a tragic incident from my hometown a few years back (though I don't think autopilot was involved): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Jalandhar_MiG-21_crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Jalandhar_MiG-21_crash)

</comment><comment><USER23> [https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/plane-flew-pilot- ej...](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/plane-flew-pilot- ejected-f-106a-flew-miles-landing-gently-field.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> I think it is programmed to control the plane. Not to autoland it, but to keep it flying. When JAS Gripen crashed in Stockholm after instability, the pilot ejected and the plane managed to improve its stability somewhat before crashing.

</comment><comment><USER25> TL;DR: "It's not"

<comment><USER26> Which isn't an answer to the question.

"The autopilot doesn't change its operational parameters to account for ejection." would be an answer, meaning it takes no account of it and continues as before.

Saying "it's programmed to do nothing" is very different: meaning it would stop, meaning it would be taking notice of the ejection.

<comment><USER27> The real answer is more along the lines of 'if the pilot has ejected there's some serious issue with the plane and the autopilot has been disengaged in attempts to rectify the problem, either automatically in the case of a stall or spin or by the pilot giving inputs which would disengage the autopilot.' There's no instructions after that because the plane is assumed lost once the pilot ejects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It likely isn't active because any event which causes loss of control of the aircraft will exceed the autopilots limits.

As for crashed military, state side decades ago I did a shoulder to extended arm walk in the wood. Overseas a sister squadron deployed some guys to recover what they could and destroy the rest; that was in a "not so hostile" country.

<comment><USER29> The autopilots flight envelope limits are somewhat artificial though. If you wanted to, you could design it to try and take over no-matter-what in the event of an ejection.

The biggest question I'd have is: What would you even want the auto-pilot to try and do after an ejection? Assuming it somehow gained full flight control, then what?

<comment><USER26> You might eject when in control of the vehicle if it couldn't land, or there was an engine fire say. You probably want the vehicle to ditch where it will do least harm.

<comment><USER18> > You probably want the vehicle to ditch where it will do least harm.

Not if it's a military aircraft with classified equipment over enemy territory.

<comment><USER30> In that case, "least harm" might mean "find the least accessible location and crash in whatever manner does the most damage to sensitive components", assuming "go to nearest allied country and crash-land" isn't an option.

<comment><USER27> This falls along the same lines to me as the "autonomous car morale quandary" questions that were really popular for a while. Both assume the situation is bad enough that the pilot has ejected/car can't avoid the accident but the airplane/car has the control authority left to actually make the choice.

<comment><USER30> Right, as the commenters in SO point out, any situation that's bad enough for the human pilot to eject is also almost certainly bad enough that the autopilot won't be able to do much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Favorite answer: [https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/52931](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/52931)

Clippy's flying the plane, folks.</comment>


Busta Rhymes Backs Megaupload, Says Record Labels Are The Real Criminals - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/15060817494/busta-rhymes-backs-megaupload-says-record-labels-are-real-criminals.shtml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> I'm not clear on how Megaupload pays artists (or anyone) who attract large amounts of downloads from paid accounts.

What am I missing?</comment>


Reflections of a Startup Girlfriend [Response]. - <AUTHOR> http://kymchiho.posterous.com/the-start-up-girlfriend

<comment><USER2> does it get any more self-serving?</comment>


What's new in Singularity 2.5 and why it affects everyone using containers - <AUTHOR> https://www.sylabs.io/2018/05/whatsnew-singularity-2-5-why-affects-everyone-using-containers/ <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr The Sylabs team recently discovered an exploit vector to all container runtimes, that allows a malicious user to gain additional privileges within a container on hosts running kernels that do not support the PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS feature.

Singularity is not the only container platform affected; this vulnerability can be exploited using any container runtime on a vulnerable kernel.</comment>


The perfect circle - Giotto's O and how to prove your craftsmanship - <AUTHOR> http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2008/02/the-perfect-cir.html <comment><USER2> The more I work on my project, the LESS code I have.

How will people ever believe it took that much work to make so little code?</comment>


Ask HN: Should I pay for a cartoon I used in my blog years ago? - <AUTHOR>

I found a nasty surprise in my mailbox this morning: an email that claims it represents the legal department of CartoonStock.com. Apparently, they "just" found one of their cartoons in my personal blog, in a post from 2007 I completely forgot about. At the time, I wrote something about Murphy's Law, and googled for an image to accompany the post. I never gave it a second thought, and I doubt anyone but me read this.
In the meantime, I opened a consulting company. The company's site has a link to my blog. I guess that's what prompted that email to my company's address, claiming I've violated the rights of CartoonStock.com.
They want $168.00. They don't care if I remove the image. They have a long explanation about liability and such.
My questions: 1. Since I did not do anything with malice (and at the time, wasn't really thinking about copyright, or who owns a cartoon), did not benefit (financially or otherwise) from using the image, should I pay? 2. Is this some sort of a hoax/attempt to get money, or am I headed into major legal issues if I ignore this? 3. Should I remove the image immediately from the blog, or will that be an admission of guilt to something? 4. Finally, since this blog preceded my company by several years, are they allowed to pursue my company, just because I link to a clearly personal blog?
TIA for any assistance/ideas/opinions! <comment><USER2> 1\. You should not pay before talking to a lawyer. The $168 could be a trojan horse to open you up to more liability.

2\. Possibly but unlikely.

3\. Yes. "Removed as requested by $law_firm on behalf of CartoonStock.com"

4\. No.

The best course of action would be to remove the cartoon, check for any other infringing content on your site, and ignore the request. Any other action should be preceded by talking to a lawyer.

Also keep in mind that there is a lot of ambiguity around linking - unless you were hosting the image, you didn't _necessarily_ commit copyright infringement.

Finally, if you do reply to the request in any way, do so from your home address.

<comment><USER3> > Finally, if you do reply to the request in any way

I'd just let them track down your corporate agent and send mail there. I wouldn't reply to this letter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should verify you're dealing with the rightsholder or their representative, then take their offer, IMO. Paying a reasonable fee to license the cartoon, which is what they've offered you, is both legally and ethically the right thing to do.

You can't copy and distribute someone else's work without their permission. There is no requirement of malice, financial gain, or anything else to be in violation of their rights under copyright law. It's just not allowed, and that's the case in probably 100+ countries around the world, since 90-something were signatories to the WIPO treaties. Your use of the image doesn't fall under any of the fair use exemptions, and neither is ignorance of the law a defense. If they wanted to take you to court, you'd lose, and you'd almost definitely owe more than $168.

</comment><comment><USER5> Take this to snail mail to confirm that they really are CartoonStock. Should you pay? Yes. Be prepared to pay the $168. A fee that size IS typical for a copyvio incident like yours, even if you didn't benefit financially. Not paying the $168 now, WILL cost you more after their lawyers rack up billable hours dealing with you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for your comments and support! While I did not derive any financial gain from this little cartoon, I wouldn't mind paying a one-off to the artist. However, this looks like a scam, or a way to get me to admit guilt. So here's what I plan to do: 1\. remove the image and add a static "removed by request of rights holder" 2\. ask for a written copy of the rights to the specific image, including where it was posted, who drew it, who owns the rights, and how did this company arrive at the price 3\. I still think this is some sort of a cam, as there's no individual identified, and the address is a corporate address in Seattle (which could just be a drop point).

Thanks all!!

</comment><comment><USER6> Seek legal consultation.

With that being said, if they own the right to publicity or copyrights now or represent the artist, it's going to be tough to fight. If it was a personal blog they may be able to go after you personally. But if they are a legitimate rights holder you will spend multiples more trying to fight it on the basis of not knowing about copyrights or not having made money from it.

You should request documentation to the matter and speak with an attorney.

<comment><USER7> Paying the $168 would be much cheaper than seeking legal consultation. And the lawyer would just tell him to pay up. As other commenters pointed out, it's a pretty clear-cut case of copyright infringement and he'd lose (at great expense) if he tried to fight it in court.

 _" Am I headed into major legal issues if I ignore this?_"

If you ignore the notice, they'll take the case to court. If you don't show up at the trial to defend your case, they'll get a summary judgement against you and the court will order you to pay the $168 plus their attorneys fees.

<comment><USER8> > Paying the $168 would be much cheaper than seeking legal consultation

If it is a scam, that's exactly the type of thinking they count on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Treat with caution - CartoonStock are a British company, based in Bath. I'm not aware of any US presence aside from a toll free number. Most UK Limited Liability Companies use UK lawyers too, so a Seattle based "law firm" representing them sounds somewhat fishy. Be careful.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd say $168.00 is reasonable and fair, and an inexpensive way to clear your conscience and square up with the creator/rightsholder.

</comment><comment><USER11> > They have a long explanation about liability and such.

Can you summarize the liability explanation? Is the sender a lawyer/law firm or someone just claiming to be the copyright holder?

IANAL, ask them to provide how they arrived at $168.00 as economic value of the image. Similarly, you should estimate the economic value of the image to your blog/venture. Did you generate any income from the blog? Can you quantify the value contributed by image to your income? For example, if you were running advertisement on the page, could you quantify contribution of the page, that the image is on, to your total ad revenue?

Do not pay right away! Keep asking for more information like their validity of their claims of copyright, who owns the copyright? Where the image was posted? More work the sender has to do, less likely they will continue to badger you. In all requests, give them a definite time-period like 30 days / two weeks to respond.

I am very suspicious of such claims demanding monetary compensation unless such claims were preceded by take-down warnings and legal warnings from a lawyer/ law firm. My guess is the sender is a fraud and I am sure you are not the only one they are harassing. Such claims are like 'spam,' sender sends out thousands of them expecting some will pay. Do a Google search on the sender, sender email address, reverse-image search to find where else the image is posted. Contact some of them to see if they received similar demands.

Edit: If you decide to communicate with sender, I will suggest asking only one question in each email and then wait for response. Once you get response, then take a few days and ask another question. It will be a while before you run out of all your questions. You also get to see how determined the sender is to collect from you.

<comment><USER12> > ask them to provide how they arrived at $168.00 as economic value of the > image?

It occurs to me this is a brilliant price point for a nuisance fee shake down. A crummy $168 makes this time-suck go away. What's your time worth? Of course there's nothing more gratifying than winning a principled fight. Even if you have to debate ad nauseam.

<comment><USER11> Yep, keep the amount low enough so that it is not worth the time for receiver to do much research or push-back.

"They don't care if I remove the image"

The above statement was the red-flag that tipped me of this being potentially a scammer. Any legitimate sender will request you to take-down the image or purchase the non-exclusive rights to the image.</comment></comment></comment>


What's Going On with Intel? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288911541207613440 <comment><USER2> [https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1294653961211752448](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1294653961211752448)

> Friends, at the request of the original author, I have deleted the thread > entitled "What's going on with Intel?" He was not comfortable with the > attention it is getting.

<comment><USER3> The individual images are already archived in the Wayback machine.

<comment><USER4> Do you have link? I had bookmarked tweet for later reading, now lost them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The idea that Intel's process was able to stay ahead by accepting design rules that were hard to work with was something I'd always heard. That's why their foundry plays, despite the process lead back in the day, never seemed to work out.

</comment><comment> Const-me Interesting.

BTW if anyone wanna watch the video linked from #4, here's the link, took me couple of attempts due to uppercase i versus lowercase L: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsLpQnIJviE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsLpQnIJviE)

<comment><USER6> I usually deal with that problem by copying the link to Notepad++, where the distinction is quite clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a big ship, which is hard to turn around. However, I am reminded that General Motors was clearly a shadow of it's former self by the late 1970's, yet it took until the Fiscal Crisis in 2008 for it to actually go bust. When you're that big, you can spiral downwards for a long, long time.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very interesting set of posts. Part 4 on what Keller did to shake things up was particularly enlightening (and impressive).

I wish there was a part 5 discussing why he left. I've seen lots of speculation but no good inside information.

<comment><USER9> > I've seen lots of speculation but no good inside information.

I've read rumors along the lines of illness, some say him, others say a close relative of his. Even so, these rumors are not really very interesting. I think "illness" crossed the mind of everyone who read the sudden and unexpected announcement of him leaving "for personal reasons".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting read.

The point about Intel having many units waiting for 14nm capacity to be gradually released to them from CPU/Server business is good one. All those 14nm fabs should be used for other things already.

<comment><USER11> I feel really sorry for Intel hardware engineers.

A lot of them have finished designs only to have them delayed due to the process they targeted being either not ready, or having no spare capacity.

Many of the products have been delayed so much that they get cancelled. It doesn't make sense to release them anymore as newer designs are ready to take their spot on the queue waiting for capacity.

<comment><USER12> I feel more sorry toward the investors who paid for their workj to be honest.

<comment><USER10> Investing is opportunity/risk management.

If investors suffer more than they are prepared for, they have been incompetent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm getting an error message saying "This Tweet is unavailable." Does that mean it's been deleted? (I don't normally use Twitter.)

And if so, is there still some way I can read the content?

<comment><USER14> Thread reader is able to pull it up[0].

[0] [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1288402693770231809.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1288402693770231809.html)

<comment><USER15> its dead jim

<comment><USER16> The images seem blank, but if you click an image, you'll get the image with the text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can see why Apple saw the sinking ship in 2015 and started down the ARM path with all the delays and vulnerabilities.

</comment><comment><USER18> I will never understand the fascination with Twitter.

<comment><USER19> It's the Borg hive mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's a bit hard to read as is. There are several posts in .png format, each translated to English. There's a bunch of insightful info in them.

Part 1:

[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288911541207613440/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288911541207613440/photo/1)

Part 2:

[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288402697536720897/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1288402697536720897/photo/1)

Part 2.5 (a commentary by the author):

[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1289816670626709506/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1289816670626709506/photo/1)

Part 3:

[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1291687789260451847/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1291687789260451847/photo/1)

Part 4:

[https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1293444174851653632/ph...](https://twitter.com/chiakokhua/status/1293444174851653632/photo/1)

This appears to be thr original (non-english) author:

[https://www.facebook.com/RDinPortland](https://www.facebook.com/RDinPortland)

<comment><USER20> How about a plaintext transcription?

<comment><USER3> More effort than I can be bothered with personally, but you're free to do one. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That's a tweet with an image of part 3 of an article?

I don't understand why people do this. Please just post text.

<comment><USER22> People do that on Twitter to get around the rule that you can't post anything long enough to be worth talking about.

Isn't the limit still 280 characters?

<comment><USER23> There is twitlonger for that. But it has the unfortunate side effect of basically being a plain URL, where as images can be read on the site directly.

At some point though someone's got to understand that the platform is not conducive to sharing longer content. Tweet chains and especially images of text are an accessibility and UX nightmare.

I'm actually getting more annoyed the more I think about it, because I understand why.. but it's just so wasteful.

<comment><USER24> Twitter isn't meant for this type of content. If you want to publish an article then do that on a blog and link to it on twitter.

<comment><USER23> Yes. But posting a link to that content will be engaged with less. It will have a smaller audience, thus, people game the system by posting images of text or tweet chains.

That's what I'm saying.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I am not able to reply to comments - <AUTHOR>

Hi,<p>It seems that I am not able to reply to comments (I lost the "reply" button on HN). I can however downvote or upvote comments. Did I do something bad to deserve it, or is this just a bug on HN? <comment><USER2> There is a reply cool down. Just wait for a bit.

[EDIT] Try visiting this link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=6541950](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=6541950)

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed it works like that. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Amazon Kindle To Debut On Monday - Ugly But Impressive - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/18/amazon-kindle-to-debut-on-monday/ <comment><USER2> This device is dead on arrival.

It uses the same small 6.4", 800x600 screen as the Sony Reader and has a resolution of 167 dpi. Low quality print is at 600 dpi or more.

Even if it supports PDF format, you wouldn't want to try reading pdf documents on it because you'd either have to shrink a page down to 35% or so of the full size (so it fits fully on the screen) or only render 1/3 of a page at a time.

Finally, for $400, this thing is ridiculous. It's interesting that Motorola in their low-cost cell phones (the Motorola F3) uses the e-Ink display, but these book readers are sold/marketed as premium products. Ugh.

Go into a Borders or a Sony shop to take a look at the Sony reader to get an idea of the screen size. The text rendering is impressive but not worth $300 or $400. e-Ink display technology is neat, but this first generation of products is lousy.

<comment><USER3> Low quality is 300dpi old laser printer used to do fine at it.

I have the Sony reader and love it, but this thing is fugly.

There is different types of eink I think the phone screens are not bit mapped.

On the whole I think this is going to flop. Most people do not want to carry around a tablet when a paperback is what they want. All the gizmos are a waste.

Also, why add dumb features like wireless? Simplify, the ebook has a built in mp3 player, guess how many people use it?

The sony could be improved by upping it's resolution to 300dpi, make the screen a little bigger. Keep the same cool form factor and remove some useless buttons. Put a front light on it. And remove the DRM, DRM will keep killing ebooks until publishers get a clue.

I also think there is room for an ereader with a 300dpi letter sized display, panasonic had really cool looking prototype. Give me that in a sony style package with a pdf reader and I'll gladly fork over $1K for it.

Currently working through Guttenberg, amazing how Mickey Mouse has totally corrupted the idea of public domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I plan on using the OLPC XO as an ebook reader. It's got a dual mode screen for full color indoors and grayscale in sunlight outdoors.

Since it runs Linux I'm sure it could handle pretty much any format you throw at it, given the right software.

$400 (including donation of a laptop to a child), so same price, but can do a hell of a lot more. Plus it looks cool. Plus you're donating a laptop to a child.

One week left... <http://laptopgiving.org/>

</comment><comment><USER5> > And the cellular connectivity, which generally costs $60 or more per month, > will be included with the device for free says a source close to the > company.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Now if only someone would figure out a way to decouple that from the device itself.... :-D

</comment><comment><USER6> It looks as if DeLorean made the Newton.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is awesome [http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/19/live-from-the-amazon- kind...](http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/19/live-from-the-amazon-kindle- launch-event/)

The design is ugly, but the capabilities rock out.

<comment><USER8> I don't know man. No native pdf support, I can't get the pdf books I already have onto it because it won't reader PDFs from the SD card. I have to PAY to read free blogs. Sounds like a lot of potential but not much utility. I suppose they have to defray the EVDO costs but it sucks.

<comment><USER7> I would be surprised if they don't turn it into a document reader. Didn't they mention the ability to send documents to it? What format is needed?

I'm sure there is a way to get even DRMed PDFs into the right format, though most people won't know how or won't bother.

<comment><USER8> You have to email the files to a pre-specified address and they convert it into the native format and push it to your device. There is a 10 cent charge per file to do this. It seems PDF conversion isn't supported (at least from reading the manual I found on Amazon) but that may change.

<comment><USER7> Paying $10 to put the 100 ebooks you've purchased into this reader is reasonable after paying hundreds for the device.

<comment><USER8> Think of it this way. If apple suggested that you can transfer AAC files to the ipod for free but you have to pay 10 cents per MP3 you want to transfer, would you like it?

Turns out there is a free alternative but it sucks (takes 15 minutes per file)..and that's now without the system being overloaded.

Worse news...no PDF support, not even via email

[http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/19/15-things-i-just- le...](http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/19/15-things-i-just-lea.html)

Also, what makes you think that I purchase all my documents? What about papers I have downloaded off the web for free? Technical documents? Reports? God. The device has USB. It has an SD card. It has EVDO. But I can't transfer my DOC and PDF files directly without waiting for 15 minutes and/or paying 10 cents per file?

<comment><USER7> I don't people have as many ebooks as they have mp3s. A better comparison might be $0.10 per artist.

But you're right. No PDF support is idiotic.

[edit: a tool to print an ebook to a textfile makes this easy]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't wait to try this thing out. Currently, I love to read eBooks on my Pocket PC before going to sleep. The only problem is that sometimes, with a good page turner, I may not sleep at all!

</comment><comment><USER10> $400? - I had enough trouble justifying an xbox 360 purchase... couldn't you just do the same thing with an iphone (or one of its knockoffs)?

<comment><USER8> You can but

a) Smaller screen b) E-Ink displays are much easier on the eyes (no strain)

Still, 400 for a box that won't even let me read my PDFs or blogs that I can read for free. No thank you, I'll continue using my 12 inch laptop (eye straining as it is).

<comment><AUTHOR> I read books (PDFs) on my iPhone these days. It's excellent and the resolution is amazing. Like you said, no PDF support is a dealbreaker.

<comment><USER8> That's cool. I am curious how much of a page fits on the screen at once? 100%, 75%, 50% ? In other words how many times do you have to scroll to make it through a page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Depends on the PDF but you'd be amazed how high-rez iPhone's screen is... I really like reading on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They should really have partnered with Apple on this... gadgets are about cool factor and then function.

</comment><comment><USER12> You weren't kidding about ugly. Looks like 1980s-era PCs.

</comment><comment><USER13> Kindle, as in kindling, as in burn the (paper) books?</comment>