Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat <comment><USER2> "Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources."

This is the Ego Depletion hypothesis. When the article was written in 2013 it seemed very likely to be true. In 2016 we're now aware of serious problems in many psychology studies, and while it's not definitely proven false, it's failed to replicate in enough studies that there's major doubt about it being a real effect.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Reproducibility_controversy_and_conflicting_meta_analyses) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis)

<comment><USER3> The problem with saying ego depletion isn't a thing may still be false.

I personally have a limited amount of "give a fuck". If I run out of fucks to give, well, that's the end of the story. I know exactly how many fucks I can give per day, and I suspect all of this is what they call ego depletion.

So, claiming it doesn't exist simply doesn't align with my own personal experience. Most likely, it is more subtle than current scientific testing can account for.

<comment><USER4> Will-power is essentially an Interplay between multiple models. If you view days as test-runs for programs you have optionally installed in your system, the energetic focalizers are creating energetic "gravity-tag games" out of synergystic signal processing. Let's say you have a process already needing to be in motion and then you attach a carrier wave on top of that...it could be considered a supplemental annex which creates an alternative nexus point for another energy loop or process table.

Anyway, move marginally beyond the words I'm using and imagine it more as an attractor where you go down a river on a riverboat and while casting nets also change your duck call to another one which still attracs ducks but also happens to attract alligators. Taking advantage of overlapping scenarios to create a change in what the existing momentum is applied to is the real trick of conscious agents.

<comment><USER5> I seriously can't tell if this is a parody post or not. It seems like there's a consistent idea under all of that, but it's such a jumble of metaphors that I can't figure out a single sentence.

<comment><USER6> It's generated by a LSTM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's true that ego depletion has a question mark over it these days.

It's also true that Sierra's conclusion has value:

> ...I've created interactive marketing games, gamified sites (before it was > called that), and dozens of other projects carefully, artfully, > scientifically designed to slurp (gulp) cognitive resources for... very > little that was "worth it". Did people willingly choose to engage with them? > Of course. And by "of course" I mean, not really, no. Not according to > psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics research of the past 50 > years. They were nudged/seduced/tricked. And I was pretty good at it. I am > so very, very sorry.

> My goal for Serious Pony is to help all of us take better care of our users. > Not just while they are interacting with our app, site, product, but after. > Not just because they are our users, but because they are people.

...nah, it'll never catch on. Where's the value prop here?

<comment><USER8> I can't use Adobe products for any serious amount of time, they induce rage followed by narcolepsy. I give the theory some credence, but I wouldn't call it "ego depletion". The mechanism I think consumes glucose in the brain 'the fucks' and once exhausted can't be replenished without rest.

<comment><USER9> Ha! Same for me. Even hated the news of them buying Fireworks... good insight as they eventually killed it.

But once you _learn the keyboard shortcuts_ and start to think in terms of _" what group of things would I want to manipulate / apply the same effect / transformation, to all at the same time"_ instead of "how things make logical sense to be grouped together", and also _" what tasks are more common for real-life professionals using this program"_ instead of "where would that option make sense to be based on what it actually does".

There are 2 UX/I games to play: (1) improve the UXI for current professional users that you know will pay for your product, and rely on professional network effects for growth, and (2) improve the UXI for new users, optimizing for adoptions, but accept that lots of the new users will never be "professional" users, will never pay a lot of money for it, and some of their feature requests will be expensive to develop but will result in no increased profit.

Hint: Adobe is obviously playing game #1 and they are also slaves to their past mistakes, and on top of that their current user base includes a huge number of "artsy, not so logical, and profoundly change-averse" users. Hence all their products can only induce rage and/or mind-numbness in people like us :)

<comment><USER8> There are two horrible flaws with Adobe products

1) the undo buffer only undoes actions against the media. The application UI has just as much or more state in it. I need undo to also work against settings and UI placement.

2) they expose way too much. The feature set that is visible isn't tuned to the needs of most users. Almost everyone needs to constantly dig through menus. The UI should be task specific and configurable on a per project basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I started a new job a few months ago. For the first month or so I was coming home really tired. I needed a half-hour or so nap before I could leave my house after I got home. I eventually worked out that I was stressing myself out.

So I started going into work with the express purpose of _caring less_. If I couldn't do a thing, I would give myself permission to relax, take a break, or ask for help.

The problem was instantly solved. Like, a total night and day difference in how I felt after work. I got better at getting things done, too.

<comment><USER11> This is part of why I'm so annoyed by the push for metrics at my service oriented company. Fortunately our company culture is such that my managers understand (and encourage) the need for frequent breaks and lightheartedness. If I had to just focus on the task at hand 100% of my day, I'd burn out within a few weeks.

The relaxed attitude also helps me get a sense for how urgent a particular day actually is. There's 150 tasks in the queue? Ehh, I probably shouldn't have YouTube going today, but I don't need to panic. Oh, now there's 1,500 tasks in the queue? Suddenly we had an emergency; sit up straight, focus, and figure out what needs to be done _right now._

And you know? That's awesome. The 100% focus time can come and go in bursts; I've had to work entire days in focus time when we were having a really tough time about things, but then we get the problem solved, everyone breathes a sigh of relief, and we can all step back a bit and reorganize, and think about how better to handle that situation, and what we can do to avoid it. We aren't ever drowned out by a constantly busy schedule.

<comment><USER12> > I'm so annoyed by the push for metrics at my service oriented company.

I saw it here on HN, from someone else and I remembered these quotes:

1) Just because it can be turned into a number, doesn't it mean that it should be.

2) Just because something has already been turned into o a number it doesn't mean it is important.

Usually managers will want to turn everything into a number. Number of tickets closed per iteration cycles, numbe of issues opened, number of lines written, number of comments per number of lines and so on.

Because they think those give them a deep insight into the team dynamics, and it makes their job more justifiable because they can use those "statistics" and present them to their manager instead of say wave their hands and say "yap it's fine, we shipped this feature, found some bugs, fixed them".

<comment><USER13> I have a very controversial opinion on this subject. Do not measure anything unless you know exactly what you are going to do with the measurement. To be fair to me, I stole this opinion from Tom DeMarco's books, but I'm often surprised at the kind of negative reaction I get when I bring it up.

Measuring things has a kind of Heisenberg principle. It is almost impossible to measure something without affecting how people operate on the thing your are measuring. So while you may get some benefit from your measurement, you are throwing something else completely out of control.

Just the act of measuring something can freak people out. Sometimes measuring something will cause people to unintentionally game the measurement. Sometimes the mechanics of measuring interfere with the operation that you are measuring. Sometimes your measurements are used to justify actions that are completely unjustified.

You must measure to control something, but you must measure the absolute minimum that you need to control it. If you find a way to control something with less measurement, you should usually switch to that method. Once you have achieved the goal of the measurement, you should discontinue the measurement.

<comment><USER12> I agree

> but I'm often surprised at the kind of negative reaction I get when I bring > it up.

Because they assume you are trying to hide or obscure something. "Why wouldn't you want more 'visibility'?" kind of stuff.

Then if you explain, unless they completely trust your reasoning, they think "Oh this is just a rationalization".

Moreover, over time metrics, and processes, and rules just accumulate. Every time anything bad happens -- new rule and some new metrics get added. Sure after a while they are ignored, but they are still there. Then nobody wants to be the person to say, let's clear the table of these unused rules and metrics let's have less.

<comment><USER13> One of the biggest issues I've run into is that people honestly don't believe that measuring will change behaviour. They feel that "Let's measure this just in case we can use it some time" is a good strategy. I can't tell you the number of times I've had the following sort of conversation with a developer:

"This story is not finished. It doesn't work at all".

"I know, but my estimate was 2 days and I've already worked 3 on it. Can't we just add another story to do the things that aren't finished? We're already taking a lot of criticism for being slow. I don't want to let the team down."

Then you have a finished story called "Add login to system" and an unstarted story called "Fix problems with login". The stake holder sees the list and says, "We can live with a few problems with the login system as long as the core functionality is there. Let's ship!"

But... nobody wants to admit that login doesn't work at all so they look the other way...

Absolute craziness that would be avoided if completion times were not measured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article is about ego depletion theory, which is a little less popular these days:

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/07/31/en...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/07/31/end- of-ego-depletion/)

Even if it is true, it's also using the original claims about glucose depletion, which would probably mean you were already addicted to sugar. Try getting a water drinking habit instead?

</comment><comment><USER15> Is "ego depletion" the only explanation for the experiment? How do the researchers rule out other explanations?

Maybe people choose the cake because they think, "Phew! I did something difficult! I deserve some cake!" And the people who only memorized two numbers think, "Well, I didn't do anything that warrants cake. I'll just take the salad."

I don't mean to propose this as an alternate explanation -- it just seems like there could be a million explanations for why people are more likely to choose the cake. (But maybe the researchers found ways to rule them out?)

Another random question -- have people replicated this experiment? Just curious.

</comment><comment><USER16> FYI, this is based on the "ego depletion" theory, which has been criticized. An excellent lay overview of this debate: [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2016/03/ego_depletion_an_influential_theory_in_psychology_may_have_just_been_debunked.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> >"You know where this goes: the dogs that had to sit — exercising self-control — gave up on the puzzle much earlier than the dogs that were just hanging out in their crate.The dogs that were NOT burning cognitive resources being obedient had more determination and mental/emotional energy for solving the puzzle. Think about that next time you ask Sparky to be patient. His cognitive resources are easily-depleted too." //

I'd have thought a better hypothesis was that the dog that it's free has other options for how to spend their time. The incarcerated dog doesn't have anything else to do. So whilst in both cases they maybe realise they can't get the treat - evil humans - the dog in the cage only has alternatives asking the lines of 'lick scrotum'.

If you lock me in a cage and give me a Rubic cube then I'm not going to be able to go down the pub instead.

</comment><comment><USER18> >> Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of resources.

Or, the people who were randomly assigned to the two-digit memorisation group just happened to prefer fruit over cake.

Drawing any kind of conclusion about "willpower" (whatever that is) from the fact that some people chose cake and some chose fruit is so far fetched that it makes the headline sound comical.

</comment><comment><USER19> I believe passion/purpose/etc. is what allows us to forgo the limited resources of cognition/executive function. If we can convince ourselves that we actually want to do something, the fatigue of decision making becomes drastically reduced and we can do things we don't even want to.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wouldn't this study show that we as humans are not multitaskers? To go with the example, what would happen if the people were given a longer break in between the memorization task and choosing the reward?

<comment><USER21> I like to think that if I can do a task semi-competently (say competence level N_task) with a full coffee of focus, then I can do two tasks (task_1, and task_2) with the same amount of coffee at a competence level of A * N_task_1, (1-A) * N_task_2. where A is a number between 0 and 1 representing the percentage of focus on task_1. (Disclaimer: not even close to a psychologist or someone who knows anything about this stuff)

<comment><USER22> You may like to think it, but the evidence is strongly in the direction of you taking a very significant penalty. Even computers don't get perfect utilization in a multitasking environment and they're way better at task switching than we are.

<comment><USER21> got any links? I did just google this, as efficiency is a topic I find interesting

<comment><USER22> [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=human+multitasking+efficiency](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=human+multitasking+efficiency)

This is NOT just a "let me google that for you" reply; I selected the search term carefully. (LMGTFY is for when the search is trivially obvious.)

I'd also suggest that the common experience of many professionals in the field matches what the studies show. Note that in theory, the formulation that "A * N_task_1, (1-A) * N_task_2. where A is a number between 0 and 1 representing the percentage of focus on task_1" implies that you must be _100% efficient_ in task switches, which you can easily disprove simply by trying to switch back and forth every second, or exactly precisely splitting your attention continuously. Again, even computers can "thrash" and spend all their time changing tasks in certain bad cases.

See also "queuing theory", which can put some math on this, and is useful for almost any HN denizen anyhow.

<comment><USER21> Haven't used duckduckgo much, so thanks for the search term (too busy trying to get bing rewards points haha). In any case, I found the following interesting tidbit from [http://apa.org/monitor/oct01/multitask.aspx](http://apa.org/monitor/oct01/multitask.aspx)

While the JEP study seems to indicate that multitasking isn't very efficient, its findings aren't definitive, according to another study in Psychological Science (Vol. 12, No. 2) by Eric H. Shumacher, PhD, of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues. That study found that, under special circumstances, people can do two different tasks at once without much interference--particularly if the tasks are well-practiced and do not physically conflict with each other. "These latter results raise a further question--what causes you to get interference between tasks in some cases but not others?" asks Meyer, a co-author on both studies. "This is a challenging question and one that needs to be answered carefully in order to tell the full story about multitasking and executive control."

Another point is, how fast do you have to switch the tasks to consider it "multitasking." E.g. do you have to switch on a 1-second interval? I would guess that would be much less efficient than something like, grading some papers while waiting for code to compile, which may take a minute to compile/ run some test, and then go back to coding, repeat- I would call that multi- tasking, and would almost guess that would be "more" efficient than actually just doing the coding task or the grading task separately, since it takes advantage of removing useless time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you want to read more about it, David Kahneman talks about the cake experiment in 'Thinking fast and slow'. His findings can be summarized as Ego depletion.

<comment><USER24> _Daniel_ Kahneman. Great book.

<comment><USER23> Thanks :) Don't know how I got the name switched.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> (2013)

damn, I was hoping that Kathy Sierra was back.

<comment><USER7> If I were her, I'd want to spend my time with horses too.

<comment><USER7> ...and in case my prior is insufficiently clear, what I mean by it is that, if people had come after me the way they went after her, I'd get the hell out of the industry, too. That she did so is a grave loss to our field. That she had reason to do so is an indictment.

Besides, horses are great. Huge and kind of inherently a little bonkers and occasionally mean as dirt, but they're also powerful, beautiful creatures. I can imagine finding a lot of solace there.</comment></comment></comment>


"Dihydrogen monoxide" joke gets DJs suspended - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/dihydrogen-monoxide-joke-gets-djs-suspended/

<comment><USER3> "If the public can't even understand a basic chemical formula, then it's probably hopeless to think they'll understand the more complex issues that are typically involved in public health, like complex dose effects and ambiguous epidemiology."

The general public doesn't understand any complex subjects, wether it's chemistry, health, technology or politics (just to name a few). This is why anyone in a suit or lab coat can use field specific terms to assure the public to keep calm and carry on - or panic.

The mainstream media acts as a catalyst to this problem by also not having experts in the required fields reporting on the subjects. And who is to point out the flaws in the those media stories? Blogspot? Twitter? Facebook? Good luck getting anyone to read those that aren't already following of the subject.

</comment><comment><USER4> Another example of chemophobia in the general public. The perception that all chemicals are bad for you is commonly accepted, although far from the truth.

Slate magazine did an excellent teardown on this issue, I share this link frequently:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/02/curing_chemophobia_don_t_buy_the_alternative_medicine_in_the_boy_with_a.single.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> This was either planned or well handled by the radio station, announce a suspension to generate news and traffic to their website, get people talking about it on facebook, and the DJs were back on the air on Wednesday. It's almost more of a prank on news outlets which will repeat any non-story.

<comment><USER6> DJ got publicity, Ars got page views, and we get an opportunity to demonstrate basic chemistry competency. Everyone wins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The big issue here is not that "the public can't even understand a basic chemical formula"--it's that so many people are willing to take something they hear in a morning radio show at face value (and panickedly call up the local utility, rather than search online for verification).

<comment><USER8> What you are saying is that the problem is that people assume that radio shows fact-check their claims and don't actively try to deceive their audience.

<comment><USER9> Why would you trust that what anyone (DJ or not) is telling you is the unbiased truth, especially when it includes a specific call to action?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's hard to know what to say to this.

No, you can't reasonably expect everyone out there to both 1. understand chemical formulas and 2. understand their long form names (which is a significantly different case, as people here seem to be forgetting).

In my opinion, you also can't blame a couple of DJ's for making what to many of us is just a dumb joke without first considering what many of us would also call an illogical, ill-informed, totally unfounded backlash. They put together a lot of material very quickly and part of their job is being, to a point, controversial.

That this could be construed, through misunderstanding, as something that could be called a felony and termination-worthy... while you can see it (if not agree with it) in hindsight, to suggest that they should have known better seems a bit out of step with reality.

This could and should have been dealt with by way of a mild reprimand and an on-air explanation and apology. That they were fired and that people are discussing litigation (if not pursuing it, which is not clear from the article) is a severe and dangerous overreaction of the sort that's becoming painfully common everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's amazing how everybody is so quick to dismiss the general public as "stupid" just because they are not familiar with some domain specific terminology.

<comment><USER12> I don't think anyone says the public is stupid because they don't know what Dihydrogen Monoxide is. The problem is that no one saw the need to do a one minute wikipedia search for the term before panicking and calling the local authorities. Because that is stupid.

<comment><USER13> I'm sure most people did.

How many people actually called in? I'm betting a few dozen out of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of listeners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "My understanding is it is a felony to call in a false water quality issue"

Is this a local or state or federal issue?

<comment><USER14> Also, how does essentially saying: "The water supply is full of water" qualify as calling in a false water quality issue?

<comment><USER15> The nose in the tent is that they didn't say it's full of water, they said it's full of [something I've never heard of], and presented in a newsy- alarming way, in venue where people are accustomed to getting snippets of news while they're doing something else. "Traffic on the freeway, be careful." "It's cold today, dress warm." "Something you've never heard of in the water, take precautions."

Suspension and disavowal probably went too far. A corporate and DJ apology would have been enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What percentage of people recognize first glance off the bat what hydrogen monoxide is? Europeans versus Americans?

Instead of proclaiming Americans are a bunch of uneducated idiot, maybe one should find out the base rate for knowing basic chemistry fact like dihydrogen monoxide.

</comment><comment><USER17> Oh stop being so high and mighty. Chemophobia! Really?

H2O is probably the most widely known chemical formula - go out and ask twenty random people what it is and you will get 19 answers for water.

Ask those same 19 people what dihydrogen monoxide is at 8am on a Tuesday when they are trying to get kids dressed and out the door, then say "contaminated" and the answer will be "I don't know but it sounds nasty"

Yes it's true - half of the population is below average intelligence, but amazingly they still seem to hold down jobs, pay mortgages, drive complex journeys and raise children. And when a public policy issue crops up - don't play silly in jokes but use plain English (like water) and explain - the IPCC has succeeded there.

OpEd politics is like programmin puzzles - it appeals to people who like puzzles. If you don't get a kick out of puzzles you won't concentrate on them. And the latest political oped piece, education or science understanding will just seem to most people as vital to existence as fix buzz. But no one here has a convincing explanation or solution to say US education policy - <USER2> neither will the people who did not recognise dihydrogen monoxide - but I will bet dollars to doughnuts they can all tell the difference between a good and bad teacher and want their children to go to the school of the former.

A comment recently mentioned how poor the voter turnout was - but given a introspective and mostly deadlocked congress, apathy is _a_ rational response. Even those below average intelligence can work that one out. Those who refuse apathy are above average I other ways, emotionally, optimistically and more.

<comment><USER18> You're asserting that, simply because people are capable of holding down jobs, owning homes and producing kids, that the general stigmatization of sciences and pervasive anti-intellectualism is insignificant because people can still intuit what constitutes as good and bad education and policy? This is absurd. Just because people may be capable of functioning in the real world without access to scientific knowledge does not meant that we shouldn't pursue the proliferation of such knowledge. Whether people _need_ to know what Dihydrogen Monoxide is is largely inconsequential. Insofar as scientific knowledge is, unto itself, a good thing, policymakers should strive to promote it, regardless of its practical implications.

It's preferable to be an informed functioning citizen than an uninformed functioning citizen, despite the fact that they are both capable of doing their jobs every day.

As an aside, "Half of the population is below average intelligence" is false. Half of the population is below the _median_ intelligence.

<comment><USER13> >As an aside, "Half of the population is below average intelligence" is false. Half of the population is below the median intelligence.

Not false. Median is a type of _average_. He never said half the population is below the arithmetic mean.

<comment><USER19> >Not false. Median is a type of average

?? I thought those were two distinct things. The median is the "middle" amount in a set of numbers, while the average or mean is the sum of all the numbers in the set, divided by how many numbers there are.

<comment><USER13> Arithmetic mean, geometric mean, median, mode etc... those are all specific methods of finding the average.

The most common average in ordinary use is the arithmetic mean, but they are not the same thing and the word average is much more general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This demonstrates how many people get their news from radio DJs...

</comment><comment><USER21> How many calls did the water plant get?

Depressingly, how many would they have got if the presenters used H20 instead of dihydrogen monoxide?

<comment><USER22> H twenty?

<comment><USER23> Yes.

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68y4g_look-around-you- modu...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68y4g_look-around-you- module-2-water_fun&start=95)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The not-so-funny part is water quality around the US really is rapidly diminishing.

So they will call in about the water but will say "oh well" to pollution that doesn't immediately affect their morning.

</comment><comment><USER25> As an European, all I can say is "Fuckin' stupid American rednecks".

Jeez, do the US have at least A BIT chemistry lessons in their education system?

<comment><USER26> Yes, of course. But the overall cultural assumption that science is something dangerous that Washington is pushing on the Real Americans is pretty powerful. And since that cultural assumption is a power base and a profit base, there are a lot of entrenched interests keeping it right where it is.

But this particular issue isn't even that. This particular issue is the fact that Americans have been trained for decades to jump at shadows, to worry about every possible threat. This is partly because frightened people are easy to control, and partly because hidden corporate powers really _are_ allowing their health to be at risk to make a slightly quicker buck.

It's easy to be alarmed about a technical term you've never heard before, and "monoxide" sounds like "carbon monoxide", which everybody knows is an undetectable gas that can kill your children in their sleep.

It's not as simple as just "stupid". It never is.

<comment><USER25> True about the "it's not as simple" point - but why did the people call the water department first instead of a quick Googling of the term?

I mean, it should be widely known that US news organizations often have a massive bias _cough_ Fox News _cough_ , so it should be the first thing to do to do at least a bit of fact checking.

<comment><USER27> "If people Googled before believing what they see or hear, I wouldn't have so many quotes misattributed to me." - Albert Einstein</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How should I study algorithms and datastructures? - <AUTHOR> Dear all, I am currently studying towards a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science in Sweden. Right now I am attending a course called "Algorithms and datastructures", where we get an introduction to sorting, searching, priority queues etc.
If feel that I need to spend a lot of time in order to really understand the essence of the algorithms, which gets very time consuming when you need two days only to understand insertion sort and merge sort.
How do I study these topics the most efficiently? How well should I know certain algorithms and datastructures? <comment><USER2> Short answer: code them ;-)

Long answer:

The Algorithms and Data Structures course is one of the foundational courses of a CS degree. Even if you think you don't need to be able to implement the algorithms you learn in your work later on, it is important to have some idea of which algorithms exist for a given task.

Also, and perhaps even more importantly, understanding how these algorithms work really hones your problem solving skills. You learn how to abstract the information given to you as part of a problem into an appropriate data structure, and what kind of operations you can carry out with which data structures. You learn how to cope with several different layers of abstraction and develop an intuition for programming approaches that are fast and/or light on memory. Basically, the ADS course doesn't teach you how to be a programmer, but how to _think_ like one.

As for studying for this course: there's nothing like doing it yourself. Chances are, you already have to do so anyway as part of your course work. Take the programming tasks seriously and really do try to do it yourself. (Get friends to help you by all means, but don't let them do the work for you.)

I would advise you not to slack either: based on your information and the ADS course at my uni, I'm guessing that you're still at the very beginning of your degree. It isn't going to get easier in terms of workload, and the algorithms you learn about later on in the course are a lot more complicated than those at the beginning. But if you've made the effort to understand the first bunch of algorithms, you'll be in good shape to understand the latter ones too. So yes, it is hard work, but you can do it :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Two days to understand the ESSENCE?? I understand that there are a lot of details, and those can take a lot of time to master, but the essence should be really quick. To wit:

1\. Merge sort. Given two sorted sequences, they can be merged in linear time. Given an algorithm that does so, we can sort a list in O(n log n) time, as follows: split the list into two equal halves, merge sort each half, and then merge the result. (The base case is that sorting lists of length 1 is really easy.)

2\. Insertion sort. Let's say you want to sort in increasing order. To make things concrete, let's say your given list is

[3, 1, 4, -1, 5, 9, 2, 6, -5, -3]

You start by walking through the list: 3, 1, ... WAIT. That's not right, 1 should come before 3. Let's drag it to the front of the list where it belongs. We now have:

[1, 3, 4, -1, 5, 9, 2, 6, -5, -3]

Now we again walk through the list: 1, 3, 4, -1 ... WAIT. What's -1 doing here, let's drag it to the front of the line:

[-1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 2, 6, -5, -3]

Again: -1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 2, ... WAIT. What's 2 doing here, we need to drag it forward, but not all the way to the front:

[-1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 6, -5, -3]

And so on. Is this what you meant by essence?

<comment><AUTHOR> I probably used the wrong word. I meant it took me two days in order to really understand the algorithm, to understand different implementations and find all the little details, to get some kind of intution that makes me able to code the algorithm just from my head in an efficient way.

<comment><USER3> Oh. Then I suppose two days is quite good. I don't think you really need quite that depth, but if you want it, I don't know if doing it much faster is possible. (It might be possible, I just don't know.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This may be too late for you to notice it, hopefully not. Something useful for me was not learning any particular algorithm or data structure in depth, but learning the "shapes" of algorithms and data structures.

When starting out you'll be learning, for example, the different sorting algorithms in great detail. This isn't terribly useful later on (the level of detail at least). What is useful is that they each have a shape, a style of functioning. Merge sort as one of the quintessential divide-and-conquer algorithms provides an excellent template for other algorithms with the same shape, but meant to compute something different. While bubble sort is a terrible sort algorithm, the pattern of bubble sort for computation is present in numerous algorithms. Same with insertion sort and shell sort and the rest.

It's like language acquisition, or at least like language acquisition is for me. When learning Spanish, I learned a lot of specific instances (hablo, hablas, habla, hablamos, hablan as 5 distinct things). Then I learned the pattern (grammar rules, -ar verbs generally drop the -ar and -o means I <verb>, -as means you <verb>, etc.), then I focused on root words in vocabulary (hablar means to speak) rather than memorizing every conjugated form of a verb.

Same as physics and calculus. Learn specific cases at the start, then you learn the rules, then you apply the rules to new forms to construct novel (to you) solutions.

And as others said, code. My algorithms class didn't require much programming, technically, it was rather high level. But I coded everything I could to try things out and understand them. Sitting down with pencil and paper to understand it was sometimes helpful, but the act of coding was more effective.

EDIT: High level in that it was focused a lot on the maths of algorithm analysis. I had one earlier in college that was more practically focused, on implementing algorithms, but the one that really stuck with me was the later one.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would first ask. Do you really need this in your day to day life? I know a lot of companies use this for hiring, but you can still get a job without them.

However if you still want to study them, there are plenty of resources online, like this youtube channel[1].

Taking 2 days to understand insertion sort is fine but you just need to practice learning more often and use the things you learn more often. Even if it's on toy projects.

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

<comment><USER6> He is in college taking an algorithms class, so I would say he does need the knowledge haha.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I must recommend two books, both of them are awesome. One is Algorithm by Sedgewick and the other is The Algorithm Design Manual by Steven S. Skiena. You can read the first book and then the other. If you want some challenges and practice, try LeetCode and HackerRank. By the way, it'd be better to keep a discrete math book at hand, it would help you if you encounter some mathematical proof problems. I would recommend Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications by Kenneth H. Rosen for reference.

</comment><comment><USER8> not the fastest but IMHO most practical way is through [http://www.usaco.org/](http://www.usaco.org/) training program @ [http://train.usaco.org/usacogate](http://train.usaco.org/usacogate), it's free and it will teach you to code and use most data structures and algorithms you'd ever encounter

</comment><comment><USER9> Would this count?

[https://visualgo.net/en/sorting](https://visualgo.net/en/sorting)</comment>


A Mac Pro Mini - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2013/03/06/mac-pro-mini <comment><USER2> Apple has abandoned any users who need real power. They have abandoned enterprise. They have abandoned video, 3D, DAW. My company, which would love to maintain our Mac fileservers and OpenDirectory, but we are being forced, kicking and screaming into the open arms of Windows Server, Active Directory, and ExtremeZ-IP. We don't need "desktop-lite". We need server-grade multi-core workhorses to run CPU-intensive workflow automation services (graphic arts, print production, high-end color stuff), but can't get them.

And their iMacs and Mac Mini's? Yeah, we use them as servers because we have no choice. We actually need Thunderbolt now. But they are buggy as hell. The built-in network interfaces on them drop for no apparent reason, and need to be re-started. Three separate boxes do this: 2 iMacs and one Mini. We have actually resorted to putting SmallTree PCIe gigabit ethernet cards (Intel Pro chipsets) into Thunderbolt PCI express chassis, in order to get a stable ethernet stack. Those never drop on us. How can Apple get something as basic as a stable Ethernet port so wrong? No load testing. No desire to fix their drivers or firmware, whichever is responsible.

<comment><USER3> While I realize its not 'apple approved' it is very easy and cheap to build an extremely powerful 'hackintosh' as long as you pick the correct hardware. See <http://www.tonymacx86.com/>

<comment><USER4> I am glad that is possible (and tempted to do it at home every time I go to plug in a thunderbolt device into my Mac Pro, and then have to go _oh yeah, god dammit..._ ) it is not just not 'apple approved' it is not _legal_.

In most normal business environments where obeying the law is a required practice and bootlegging software is not allowed, building a hackintosh isn't a solution.

<comment><USER5> Even if it were allowed, it would not be supported by the vendor in terms of warranty support. when you're a 27x7 org, you don't need excuses from vendors as to why your setup is not a supported configuration.

LDAP issues. Apple will not support it. Driver issues, the HW mfg will not support the HW when weird things pop up.

<comment><USER6> "when you're a 27x7 org,"

I assume you mean 24x7 :P

<comment><USER7> I can imagine a not-too-distant future where we have cloud hosting available[1] from flocks of solar-powered UAVs[2] loitering around the International Date Line, thus finally paving the way for >100% uptime.

[1] [http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.ht...](http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.htm)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototype)

<comment><USER6> In general relativity and closed-timelike-curve-time-travel there is a concept of a universal clock, against which >100% uptime is impossible

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well I dont think that a retina iMac will suffice. I had a mac pro for my home music studio. The point of it was to be a beefy machine that was plenty expandable had lots of disk space and was quiet for the horsepower it provided. Mac pros fit that bill perfectly. it was easy to load them up with fast server class hard disks plug in your audio interface, any DSP boards, dongles or whatever else was required and then you forget about it (that is, until you see your electric bill the next month...)

I got the 2008 octocore Mac Pro and did just that and ran both mac os and windows on it until I finally sold it last year(regrettably to help pay for personal circumstances as well as a lack of time for music production) and never had a single issue with it.

THAT is what I spend the extra money on, I want a beefy computer that will last me 5 years. That is what the PRO audio crowd wants them for. I would imagine its not much different in the graphics/video arena either.

</comment><comment><USER9> A Xeon class CPU is quite a bit different than the mobile/desktop class CPU Apple puts in their other systems.

I think Macro is being a bit dramatic in that a stagnant Mac Pro means the end of an era and I call bullocks!

Intel's Xeon chips do not advance at the same pace and have themselves stood still. Look at what Dell and HP are selling, they're basically the same CPUs (albeit you can buy one generation newer).

What the Xeon workstation/server architecture provides is a fat I/O pipe that's still extremely important to music and video professionals who rely on near zero latency. Even photoshop cringes when working in print media scale designs that take up a couple gigabytes in a document.

Besides, Apple tends to move slowly when a product isn't front and center, usually milking a design for all it's worth. Tim Cook said they're working on a pro device that will be out this year and I believe him.

<comment><USER4> No bullocks. The Mac Pro introduced at WWDC last year was the most pathetic upgrade since the Mac Pro's debut. It's not just the CPU.

The "Pro" not only lacks Thunderbolt, it doesn't even have USB 3!

In fact the only port that my brand new retina Mac laptop and my Mac Pro have in common is the headphone jack.

I even need a new one -- but I just can't. I would feel like such a jerk if I bought the lame-ass Mac Pro that Apple's offering. (However, IIRC from his now-defunt podcast, after bitching just like I am doing, Arment eventually did just grit his teeth and buy one.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The iMac isn't a developer machine. It looks on paper like a developer machine, but when put to the test of compiling large C/C++ projects day in day out it fails. We see more failures in iMacs than any other desktop we have at work. Way more hdd failure and gpu failure than our dells or other mac machines.

<comment><USER11> Why are you still running spinning metal drives on your developer machines?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The one reason people (like me) still want to keep the Pro alive, the one thing that no other Mac can do, is support for more than two screens.

Now, Apple already made it abundantly clear what they think of multi-screen desktops when they designed, and then failed to fix, the native full screen feature of OS X.

I love my Mac Pro mainly for this one reason, but honestly, like many other Pro customers at this point I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm not going to have different platforms as my laptop and desktop, so if the Pro goes that's it for me and Apple - if by that time there is no real alternative to achieve the same thing. This is a hugely depressing thought. I hopped on board when OS X came out and never looked back to the Linux desktop since. For me, it has never been about the hardware, but OS X which always felt like home.

<comment><USER13> You can connect 3 external screens even to the cheapest 11" MacBook Air. You can do that with Retina MacBook Pros as well. I am not sure if you can with iMacs though.

<comment><USER12> The newest MBAs can power 2 external screens, as can the higher-end iMac (which isn't so bad since you can use the iMac itself as a 3rd). My "normal" 15 MBP can power one external (non-TB) screen, and I think the Retinas can power two TB + one HDMI. A lot of this assumes I'm buying Apple's expensive Thunderbolt displays, however.

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can- manage...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/new-macbooks-can-manage-many- many-monitors/)

<comment><USER14> The Retina MBP 15" (not sure about the 13") can do two Thunderbolt displays or any two Displayport screens, plus HDMI.

<comment><USER12> Ah, OK, thanks.

Since this thread has re-opened a wound, I've been browsing external Thunderbolt PCIe cases. Putting graphics cards in these is probably also on option, as long as I'm not doing anything seriously taxing with them. But holy fuck, they're expensive as hell, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's kind of ironic that Apple seems to be leaving the graphics professionals, which are about the only group to never abandon them during the tough times.

</comment><comment><USER16> I couldn't agree less. A retina iMac wouldn't do it.

We'll probably see a new mid-size form factor aimed at professionals, slightly larger than the Mac Mini but with more horsepower and expandability. It'll be called "Mac" straight up. It'll be a throwback to the old Mac G4 Cube that designers and graphic artists loved, with marketing to match.

No reason to have a retina display integrated iMac—it's just not that exciting. What you'll see is the Mac Pro re-imagined for the modern world; one in which the existing Mac Pro makes no sense.

At least, we can hope.

<comment><USER17> The form factor will have to be significantly larger than any Mac Mini in order to accommodate a real workstation-class GPU. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see the PCIe x16 slot as the _only_ expansion slot on the motherboard, with all the PCIe 2.0 lanes routed to Thunderbolt. That would enable the motherboard to be only slightly larger than mini-ITX for single- socket single-GPU systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "A few power users will complain, but most won't care: by that time, most former Mac Pro customers will have already switched away."

This is a statement that is general and without any basis at all. Where does the OP come off writing "most former Mac Pro customers" I can almost guarantee that this is simply pure conjecture with nothing to back it up.

"There's even less of a reason to buy the Mac Pro today than I expected."

I run 3 monitors off a Mac Pro (24/30/24). I don't believe there is any way to do that on anything but a Mac Pro. I could run six with the two video cards I have now but can't fit them on my desktop. And I'm not using it for video editing or anything like that. I just like to work with as much screen space as possible.

<comment><USER19> The retina MBP can easily run 3 monitors, and more with a USB graphics card. I have 4 (24/27/24/23) running off mine right now.

<comment><USER18> Thanks. Which usb graphic card do you use and are you happy with it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maybe the answer is just to sell a version of OS X that is licensed to run on commodity X86 hardware, then just charge $1000 for it.

</comment><comment><USER21> For 3D/VFX work you get so much more bang for the buck with a PC and Win/Linux these days. We're a mixed environment shop, but the Mac Pros lag so far behind the new PCs bought recently, for a fracture of the price. It's not even funny any more. Then there's the network - I don't know what it is, but all PCs in our network are about 50% faster than all the Macs. Personally I just use my MBP these days for some developing and personal stuff, that's it. Everything else has moved to PC entirely, and I can't complain. Apple would have to come out with an insanely compelling product to sway me back.

</comment><comment><USER22> And why not just by a Mac mini and thunderbolt expansion chasis? achieves the same goal doesn't it?

e.g. [http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Merc...](http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Mercury_Helios) , <http://www.magma.com/expressbox-3t> , <http://www.sonnettech.com/product//thunderbolt/index.html>

<comment><USER23> It does not, because you are still stuck with i5/i7 processors, whereas workstations, especially those in high performance applications, would be much more suited to a Xeon.

I run a linux workstation with dual 6 core Xeon Sandy Bridge-EP's, with 64 GB of RAM. Being on an i7 would be limiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> To put a needle fine point on what market is not being served here: content producers and editors who need all of the CPU, GPU, disk space, pixels, and I/O they can possibly get in a relatively price-insensitive business environment.

Homebrews, file serving, enterprise, SOHO, and those with nostalgia for DIY home desktop are non-factors now. The creators need a no-compromise beast with a flawless Adobe and Avid story.

If Apple won't provide it, they're throwing their crown jewel customers in the trash.

</comment><comment><USER25> I see there being basically three types of person in this market niche:

\- Those who want more storage without external latency

\- Those who want more than one or two monitors

\- Those who want addon cards.

Thunderbolt is capable of solving all of these problems, and in fact there's already market solutions for them. The problem is that the enclosures cost more than the Mac itself, and that's not including the hardware you want to put into them.

Thunderbolt drive enclosures and RAID systems are already starting to fall in price and will continue to fall as TB gains marketshare, but the PCIe cages are still STUPID expensive. If Apple were to release their own bus cage for people to add PCIe cards to their macs at a sane price point, suddenly the MacPro stops being the only Mac with that capability.

A chain-able TB display adapter would also go a LONG way to expanding the Mac's capabilities. One DisplayPort output per bus just doesn't cut it for some power users, and the only alternative is significantly slower USB adapters.

<comment><USER26> > A chain-able TB display adapter

You do know that you can already hook up more than one thunderbolt display to a single thunderbolt port using daisy-chaining, right?

<comment><USER25> And if I felt like spending $3000 to replace all my existing monitors, that might be a viable option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have the perfect name for this product that would sit between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro: The Mac Plus.

 _rimshot_.

<comment><USER28> Don't you mean the Mac SemiPro?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I just want a dual or quad socket mac pro with haswell processors. I'm forced to use a Mac for iOS development, and large compile times just get annoying. Hackintoshes are not quite right at times and can screw up builds.

<comment><USER30> Are you saying Hackintoshes are known to sometimes generate executables that differ from those made by real Macs? That seems really unlikely to me.

<comment><USER31> As a person who used a hackintosh as a primary development machine, the problem is more that it is difficult to keep a hackintosh up to date, and due to Apple's aversion to backwards compatibility, this poses a significant problem for generating executables that will be accepted by a toolchain released 30 days ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> If someone were to design a Mac Pro Mini, then it really needs both the memory and hard drives easily replaceable. I can even handle all flash if it mSATA and not some funky connector. It needs two (4 would be awesome) thunderbolts, usb3, and two (working, solid) ethernet connectors (one for network, one for storage). HDMI is nice (I would like an added input). I need 32GB of RAM on the minimum side. Core i7 and NVIDIA GPU would be fine. Include an iSCSI initiator.

If the next Mac Pro is any good, I predict a huge buy on its first day due to two years of pent up demand.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder, since Apple is obviously abandoning this market, why is Microsoft trying so hard to alienate the power desktop user market with Windows 8 instead of aggressively trying to bring this group of Mac Pro users over to them. Of course they would have to improve Windows into a high-quality OS that works for them and find OEM's to partner with who are willing to find out what hardware these users want and provide it. Maybe it's a forlorn hope, but it's better than flailing after the tablet ship that sailed past them two years ago.

<comment><USER34> I agree completely.

Lately everyone seems to be convinced that we're witnessing the death of the desktop computer, but I wonder if this could be partly due to the lack of options in this market. Apple and Microsoft have both dropped the ball here. Apple has eliminated hardware options that power users are looking for, while Microsoft still doesn't provide a decent POSIX environment or even a passable terminal.

I honestly wonder what the world would look like if Microsoft were to suddenly switch focus and deploy a version of windows with full POSIX support built in, a decent terminal, a first class package manager, and a decent app store. Instead they are removing features like the start button that confuse existing users, and adding a Metro UI that power users don't want.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical, but I think we would be witnessing stronger desktop sales if Apple and Microsoft were providing options that users actually wanted.

<comment><USER20> So, basically you want MS to make a Linux distribution?

<comment><USER34> I'm not sure if you're being serious or just sarcastic, but no - that's not at all what I'm suggesting.

OSX provides a POSIX environment, and OSX is obviously not a Linux distribution. In fact Microsoft already provides SUA (Subsystem for Unix Applications) which is basically a POSIX environment, but iirc SUA is only available in certain versions of Windows, and only as a download from Microsoft, post installation.

So no I'm not in anyway suggesting Microsoft re-architect Windows as a Linux distribution. I'm suggesting that Microsoft make POSIX tools an integral part of the OS, like they are in OSX. For example, making bash the default shell, providing cmdline tools like powershell cmdlets to manage the system from the command line, providing a useable terminal etc. Basically similar to what cygwin and msys provide today, but better and with deeper integration in the OS.

<comment><USER20> A Unix system intended primarily to run on X86? May as well be a Linux distribution. At that point it probably doesn't make economic sense to maintain your own kernel.

<comment><USER35> Unless, of course, you have these millions and millions of apps that need your on kernel to run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have the rMBP with 16GB RAM and a giant SSD. Add the 27" Thunderbolt monitor and I think I have the new Mac Pro.

The power consumption is great and the performance is top-notch too.

<comment><USER21> But try rendering a large 3D or video sequence over night, and watch it melt through your desk.

<comment><USER36> It doesn't get that hot, even while running full-bore. I don't render video or graphics, but I do simulations and run a lot of VMs for various test modes. I suspect that fully loaded CPUs are going to hit a maximum temperature regardless of the application that is running. And yes ... I can't expand the RAM beyond that 16GB (it's actually the limiting factor for my VM count).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I see it going the other way. Apple needs a bridge product between the iPad and the iMac. They are also getting clobbered by PCs in the business market. I suspect the big announcement will be a mid-range line of macs aimed for large scale roll-outs to corporations and governments. I read an article backing up this viewpoint in Business Week a while back, but alas it was only in the print edition.

<comment><USER38> I don't see that happening.

Apple products are luxury items with high margins. They don't need to or want to chase that mass PC money.

<comment><USER39> > Apple products are luxury items with high margins. They don't need to or > want to chase that mass PC money.

This reality gets less true every day. It's the same argument people repeated to insist that the iPad Mini would never happen. Or the Mac Mini. Or $0-after- subsidy 8GB iPhones.

I don't think it would be surprising at all to see Apple look at business computing as money they no longer wish to leave on the table.

<comment><USER20> Apple already sell a relatively cheap desktop computer in the mac mini. I don't think they could make anything much cheaper without digging into their margins.

Microsoft's value in the business market is their suite of server desktop & cloud products and the integration between those. Adding all of that stuff to OS X would be a big undertaking and would probably take away a lot of the simplicity of the Mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wanted, MacPro in Cube Shape. Dual CPU ( Not Xeon Only, ) and up to 64GB of Memory, Dual Geforce GTX Titan, Dual Thunderbolt, SSD in Raid.

Because the Margin of SSD and Geforce GTX is much larger, Apple could make their own SSD and Buying Geforce GTX Titan at discount price. Making the New MacPro as similar pricing if you have built it up yourself.

</comment><comment><USER41> I thought I had seen it speculated that Apple's "Made in the USA" efforts would be for the next Mac Pro.

</comment><comment><USER42> Sounds like what is needed is a modern version of the SE/30.

Let's call it the iSE/30!</comment>


This is ridiculous. I cannot cancel CoveredCA - <AUTHOR>

For the past 3 months, I have been trying to cancel my health insurance at Kaiser and it cannot be done. I've called 10 times, 3 times each month asking why my account has not been canceled.
The main problem stems from, me, myself not being able to cancel at Kaiser. Kaiser tell me, that only CoveredCA can put in a request to cancel my account.
Does this make sense to anybody? I'm calling Kaiser, the customer. Asking them to stop billing me. 3 months ... They cannot because some broken process doesn't allow them to.
When I call CoveredCA, they tell me the same story, the request to cancel your account has been sent to Kaiser.
What is a client/consumer to do it in this situation? <comment><USER2> Sue them in small claims court for the amount they have billed you. Quite likely they won't regard it as worth the money to defend against your lawsuit.

Having a process server show up at their corporate headquarters is a good way to get your point across.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I'd hire a lawyer and also schedule a meeting with my local state rep. A rep can also help put pressure on the top of the chain to help get results.</comment>


Eve-Style Clock Demo in Red, Live-Coded - <AUTHOR> http://www.red-lang.org/2016/07/eve-style-clock-demo-in-red-livecoded.html <comment><USER2> There's something amazing about the fact that the entire Red system, including GUI framework, parser DSL, runtime, and compiler for a C-like language (Red/System) is _smaller than the average webpage_. (Red—the entire thing—is a single _946kb_ executable (on Windows).)

Also, if you haven't tried a Rebol-like language (Rebol, Rebol 3, Red, etc) you should definitely do so. Rebol was originally created by Carl Sassenrath, who wrote the original AmigaOS kernel. It's a very fun and sensible little language.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the size is mind boggling for what it provides.

I am keeping an eye on Red for my game programming. I think it still needs some library work from my last play with it. I would need OpenGL/Webgl, io, and sound support along the lines of what SDL2 provides.

I am a Lisper, and recently have been playing with NetLogo for simulations, so Red's syntax looks friendly to me, but I have not really done anything in it yet.

Incredible, if I could make a game and distribute the Red/System with it, and still be smaller than most of my other setups (C using Raylib, Love2D, etc...). Also writing DSLs in Red so the user can mod levels or gameplay AI would be really cool!

Keeping an eye on the port to Android too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've known and have paid attention to Red for a while. I don't know my opening to get into it as a user, though, so I'm still very "wait and see." The progress looks good, though.

<comment><USER5> I'm in the same boat. I typically check the Red website and Twitter page a few times a month for updates. I think it could be production worthy in a couple of years for a lot of uses. I read an interview Nenad (think the creator's name) did a couple of years ago and agreed with him on so many levels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Learn Red, fast! [https://timeserieslord.github.io/red/](https://timeserieslord.github.io/red/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Awesome! Picidici!

</comment><comment><USER8> For those of you who have not been following along at home (like me), here is a description of the Red programming language from the about page[1]:

      Red is a next-gen programming language, strongly inspired by REBOL. Main features are:

      * Homoiconic (Red is its own meta-language and own data-format)
      * Functional, imperative, reactive and symbolic programming
      * Prototype-based object support
      * Gradual and multi-typing
      * Rich set of built-in datatypes (50+)
      * Both statically and JIT-compiled to native code
      * Cross-compilation done right.
      * Produces executables of less than 1MB, with no dependencies.
      * Concurrency and parallelism strong support (actors, parallel collections)
      * Low-level system programming abilities through the built-in Red/System DSL
      * Powerful PEG parser DSL
      * Cross-platform native GUI system, with a UI DSL and drawing DSL.
      * Bridging to the JVM
      * High-level scripting and REPL console included
      * Highly embeddable
      * Low memory footprint, garbage collected
      * Single-file (~1MB) contains whole toolchain, standard library and REPL.
      * No install
      * Fun, guaranteed. ;-)

[1] [http://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html](http://www.red- lang.org/p/about.html)

<comment><USER9> Red is one of those languages that I forget about until a story like this comes along, and then I'm reminded how much I want it to mature to 1.0. Looks like full I/O support will be probably be released in the next 12 months or so, which will really open up some interesting opportunities. (The Rx capabilities in the current version mean that the only thing holding me back from using it in a professional capacity is the lack of an OSX GUI backend.)

<comment><USER10> You also forget that according to their roadmap core concepts like garbage collection, actor model, I/O are to be implemented _after_ most of the language and libraries are there.

Seeing how those three things deeply impact each other and everything in the language and the libraries, one is left to wonder...

<comment><USER11> After some experience with Factor (a very interesting concatenative language with great C FFI support), I think Red is the next exciting language for me to try. Just waiting for the I/O module. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Write Stories (and lose weight, clean up the environment, and make a million dollars) - <AUTHOR> http://www.oxfordamericanmag.com/content.cfm?ArticleID=309

<comment><USER2> Short stories are a tough market. Few people can make a living writing fiction, and almost nobody can make a living selling short stories. (I've been told this was not the case 50 years ago.) There's a good percentage of professional fiction writers who stay away from short stories, not because it isn't a nice form, but because it won't pay the bills.

If for some reason you _must_ write sci-fi/fantasy short stories, you should submit to the Writers of the Future contest. Great prizes, no entry fee, and you won't be competing against anyone who has already sold 2 or more stories. Write 4 stories per year and submit them to each quarter's contest. And stomp on a few cans while you write.

<comment><USER3> "The winning stories are published in the yearly anthology L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of Future"

Hm, I would not be happy about that.

<comment><USER2> I wasn't aware of any scientology connection (aside from the contest founder) until after I won it and my wife & I were at the week-long all-paid workshop in LA. One of the best experiences of my life. They try to maintain a wall between any scientology and the science-fiction contest. None of the judges or teachers, to my knowledge, are scientologists. If you ask the judges, people like Orson Scott Card and Gregory Benford, they'll tell you what a great opportunity it is. The 15 winners I met at the workshop weren't scientologists either. Fun people, great writers.

The people I met who ran the contest were scientologists, and they were very nice people. Hubbard put the money up for the contest as a payback for his early sci-fi career. I also wouldn't turn down a Nobel prize because Nobel invented dynamite and was an armaments manufacturer.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. If I ever manage to hack a sf story together, maybe I will reconsider the contest. I think also Scientology has a much worse reputation in Europe than in the US (I am in Europe).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That was really enjoyable. Practical and amusing. I sympathize, somewhat, with the plight of a career-writer. I have a hard enough time just getting a few blog posts up every week.

</comment><comment><USER5> Alternatively, you could go and live a life, so that you might have something to write about.

<comment><USER6> There's truth in this. I very much enjoy Philip Greenspun's writing. Most of it is of the general form, "I did X, and here's what happened and what I learned from it."

If you never do X, writing about it would be superficial, at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sardonic and hilarious!

</comment><comment><USER8> If you liked this short story at all, go buy Choke or Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk.

</comment><comment><USER9> Also, NaNoWriMo is helpful.</comment>


The 2% Change - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/archives/2016/08/the-2-change.html <comment><USER2> Curious. Why 2% and not say 3% or 5%?</comment>


It is easy to build $1-2M SaaS company - <AUTHOR> http://christophjanz.blogspot.com/2016/02/thats-nice-little-1-2m-saas-company-you.html <comment><USER2> Misleading title. Nowhere in the article it says "it's easy".

The article is about how it's more common to see SaaS companies with $1MM+ in ARR therefore founders shouldn't be thinking investors will be begging them to take their money.

It's not easy to build a business with $1MM+ in ARR. Competition is fiercer than ever.</comment>


"Alien" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" at 40 - <AUTHOR> https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/09/13/the-human-adventure-is-just-beginning-alien-and-star-trek-the-motion-picture-at-40/ <comment><USER2> It seems the predictions are ahead of the curve in terms of the year of technology arrival (think 2001 a space odyssey) but they seem to be inching closer, even if the reality lags a little behind the predictions

<comment><USER3> as long as they get there in the end. It's exciting to see how we are striving as a species to realise some of these technologies for the greater good, rather than just for domination.</comment></comment>


Tmux has left SourceForge - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tmux/tmux/commit/d2b35e19cdd61d163d26c4babccc1550e72a9623 <comment><USER2> As a daily user of Tmux, I can't tell you how happy I am that they've bailed out of there. It was always really odd to me that they weren't either on a self-hosted CVS server somewhere or on GitHub - how all is well in the world.

<comment><USER3> Mailing lists on google groups, which is fine by me, but annoys a lot of people.

<comment><USER4> Especially because you cannot even read them without JavaScript or signing up.

<comment><USER5> Does this work for you? [https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=forum/tm...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=forum/tmux- users)

It works here with Firefox+noscript, but in w3m it messes up when you read an article and forces you to a "need JS" page. I might have added some other hack somewhere in FFx ages ago to get groups working that I've forgotten about.

<comment><USER6> Oh, wow. Works for me. Confirmed that Noscript is required or any link you click redirects you back to the "rich" site.

This is awesome. Thank you for sharing. It's ugly, but who cares? Finally I can have more than one google groups window tab open and still have smooth scrolling without the javascript flailing around so hard my fans kick in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see SourceForge as being to code hosting platforms as GoDaddy is to domain registrars. They both started in the late 90s, exploded, and suffered from their success. They became infested with bad management, became bloated and difficult to use, and employed skeezy money-making tactics. GoDaddy doesn't seem to be in trouble the way SourceForge is, though.

<comment><USER8> As a customer of both GoDaddy and Namecheap, I have to say that GoDaddy offers a much better, more full-featured DNS control panel. Frankly, I can't see staying with Namecheap.

I really don't get the hate for GoDaddy. SourceForge, OTOH, are reprehensible.

<comment><USER9> A free CloudFlare account allows unlimited domain DNS services and their 'control panel' is clean and straight forward.

Unlike GoDaddy their only upsell is for their paid CDN services.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Now just wait for the 'tmux.mirror' project to appear on Sourceforge, 'maintained' by the SF admins...

</comment><comment><USER11> Are there any big projects still using SourceForge? I know "big" is a little subjective here, but it seems like most active projects have already migrated.

<comment><USER12> ScummVM, Inkscape and wkhtmltopdf seem to be hosted there.

<comment><USER13> Not wkhtmltopdf - It is on github and has been for some time. [https://github.com/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf](https://github.com/wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf)

It was never on sourceforge as far as I know. It was in Google Code and then later github

<comment><USER14> Except that the download links on wkhtmltopdf.org send you on Sourceforge...

<comment><USER15> That will be changing in the near future. Still undecided about where the downloads will be hosted, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> SourceForge was founded 1999. Now, 16 years later they start to abuse their power. GitHub was launched 2008. Does this mean we can expect GitHub to start abusing our data by 2024?

<comment><USER17> Github has a stable business model which depends on their reputation as a host. As I understand it, that isn't something that could ever be said of SourceForge.

I'm not saying github will be around forever, but I highly doubt they'll make the same mistake sourceforge is making now.

<comment><USER18> SF was highly reputable back in the day - why else do you think so many projects which have roots back in the 90's are hosted there?

Never say never. 15 years ago nobody would've dreamt SF would have gone this way.

<comment><USER19> Agreed. As a high schooler I loved sourceforge. I would talk it up to people and I had a couple of projects that I put up there. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

Then I saw that famous talk by Linus on git in 2007 ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8)). Since I had never managed to get SVN working properly for me git was awesome. No server software to install. By the time I wanted to put up another project on the web Github was a thing and I used that. I never looked back, I loved how it was about the code, not how many installer downloads you had.

That for me was the main problem with sourceforge. In the end it was a game (for the devs) to get the most downloads because that was how your projects were judged and ranked. The Github "game" is slightly better and there are multiple ways to play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> From the "tmux-users" mailing list:

> Will pull requests on GitHub now be allowed as a means of contributing > patches?

> No, patches still need to come by email to me [Nicholas Marriott] or the ML.

I wonder, what's the main reason behind it? What's wrong with Github PRs?

<comment><USER21> I believe, and I might be very wrong, that tmux is developed in the OpenBSD CVS tree, and patches are then merged from there to Github. The patches would need to be applied to the code in CVS, so a Github pull-request would be useless.

<comment><USER22> FreeBSD has worked out a combined svn and github pull request workflow, although mayb esvn is easier to do this with than cvs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I notice they're using Google Groups for mailing lists - how have people found Google Groups as a technical mailing list provider?

<comment><USER24> Horrid. Besides poor threading (I'm speaking about the UI itself), it's unbelievable how HEAVY google groups feels when loading and using their web interface. It's so sad to think that google groups was the _best_ interface ever to nntp in the past when it took over dejanews.

But it doesn't stop there. I had endless problems with regular subscribers ending up as junk. Likewise, as a subscriber, I had several issues in the past with subscription, where I had to contact the owner of the list and "debug" the issue (like there's anything to debug really: it just goes to junk and there's nothing you can do).

It doesn't help that google groups doesn't show prominently the fact that it's a regular list you can subscribe to without creating any account.

Fortunately, google groups generally plays well with gmane.org, so as long as they don't screw that up, I couldn't care less.

<comment><USER25> Do you prefer gmane's interface over google groups?

<comment><USER24> Yes. I just use a news reader via gmane. And via web, the "threaded view" is blazing fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> With so many alternatives (even besides GitHub) I wonder why some took so much time to change.

There was Google Code, Landscape, or even self-hosted Git amongst others.

<comment><USER27> Don't think Google Code would have been much of an improvement. I'm pretty sure Google has abandoned further development on it and have so for a while now.

<comment> david-given Google Code's being shut down in January 2016: [http://google- opensource.blogspot.ch/2015/03/farewell-to-goo...](http://google- opensource.blogspot.ch/2015/03/farewell-to-google-code.html)

There's an automated Google Code to github migration tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I really wish MSys2 also left SourceForge, especially since it comes with a Windows installer.

<comment><USER29> We hear you, so long as our project isn't hijacked we'll never agree to malware (or any other) bundling.

Hopefully SF will not deem us to have abandoned the project either!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Glad to hear!

Small plug, but I suppose the only people reading these comments are interested in tmux: [https://github.com/tmux-plugins](https://github.com/tmux- plugins)

</comment><comment><USER31> Ugh, what a PITA this is going to be (my project JOE is on sourceforge and people are starting to complain). All links point to sourceforge, so how long will they take to update? When I search for "TMUX source download" I get sourceforge. If sourceforge takes over your abandoned project, I imagine that they will remove forwarding links to the replacement.

</comment><comment><USER32> Do you know why souceforge.jp has become osdn.jp?

I usually download new tera term releases from there. (and of course ffftp)

</comment><comment><USER33> For some background on why a team may wish to leave SourceForge, I found this earlier hn article to be enlightening:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2739995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2739995)

</comment><comment><USER34> For the last few days, I was getting 404s on a lot of tmux links on sourceforge. Guess this explains that ;)

</comment><comment><USER35> Everybody should, and that shouldn't be newsworthy.

</comment><comment><USER36> Finally.

I remember that the fist problem occurred to me that wasn't not solved by Google was solved by asking in the mailing list of tmux, and now it it moved to Github, I can finally ask question at the issue page.

<comment><USER37> Please don't do that. The issues page is for issues, not support. Even if TMUX is one of the few projects where the maintainers don't mind answering support questions on the issues page (not likely), it's a bad habit to get into.

Please ask support questions on StackOverflow, or the mailing list, or IRC. Not the issues page. It makes life much harder for the maintainer.

(God, I'm such a greybeard now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Great news :)

</comment><comment><USER39> Finally !

</comment><comment><USER40> Finally!

</comment><comment><USER41> This is probably the commit you're looking for

[https://github.com/tmux/tmux/commit/d2b35e19cdd61d163d26c4ba...](https://github.com/tmux/tmux/commit/d2b35e19cdd61d163d26c4babccc1550e72a9623)

<comment><USER42> Thanks, we changed to that from [https://github.com/tmux/tmux](https://github.com/tmux/tmux).

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> [http://www.slashdotmedia.com/](http://www.slashdotmedia.com/)

We are not the customers, we are the product.</comment>


How Does the Film Industry Actually Make Money? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/magazine/how-does-the-film-industry-actually-make-money.html?_r=1

<comment><USER2> As I understand it, there is a big difference between what the studios _say_ that made and what they actually made - see "Hollywood accounting".

Example: According to this, "Return of the Jedi" did not turn a profit.

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/13500315912/hollyw...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/13500315912/hollywood- accounting-darth-vader-not-getting-paid-because-return-jedi-still-isnt- profitable.shtml)

<comment><USER3> Also, if you're interested in "Hollywood accounting", I suggest checking out the book The Hollywood Economist[0]

[0][http://www.amazon.com/The-Hollywood-Economist-Financial- Real...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Hollywood-Economist-Financial- Reality/dp/1933633840/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341278717&sr=8-1&keywords=holywood+economist)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "For the cost of "Men in Black 3," for instance, the studio could have become one of the world's largest venture-capital funds, thereby owning a piece of hundreds of promising start-ups."

That assumes you know how to do that of course. People know and are comfortable with what they know. Drawing a comparison to a skill in another industry that takes years to hone really makes no sense.

</comment><comment><USER5> Most blockbusters make money. They simply record the income in a different entity (or entities) than the entity (or entities) which recorded the expenses.

A large part of not getting screwed in a Hollywood contract is making sure your percentage relates the right entity.</comment>


The Complex Series of Symbols Early Motorists Used for Wayfinding - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2015/04/10/history_of_automobile_touring_the_symbols_early_motorists_used_for_wayfinding.html <comment><USER2> They mostly seem self-explanatory to me, but I've always been interested in maps. My dad had 30 or so of the government-produced maps of Britain, for various regions he liked to go hillwalking. I was more interested in finding interesting features ("Tumulus", a disused quarry, a battlefield) than the walking.

Map symbols: [http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/education- research/resources...](http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/education- research/resources/map-symbol-sheets.html) (first PDF link, or the third if you'd like to see some Welsh)

Example map: [http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=486745&y=233110&z=115](http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=486745&y=233110&z=115) with roads, railway, woodland, Roman ruins (to the east), landfill/spoil, hills, ...

</comment><comment><USER3> If found, receipt return to 23 Beaver Street, New York? I used to work for a tech company in the same building as the one which now occupies this space (though I used a Broad Street entrance); I believe 23 Beaver is now the entrance to the New York State Lottery offices. (The justice department has some juvenile-justice/family-court-something offices next door at 25 Beaver). It's just around the corner from Bowling Green and the Charging Bull, and it's on the south end of the same block as the New York Stock Exchange.

They probably had a different building there back in the day, but regardless, it seems likely that Edward W Brown was probably some sort of fancy Wall Street financier or similar, especially given that he was touring Long Island in an early motorcar...

<comment><USER4> He was vice president of the Sterling Salt company at the time[1] and later president[2]. He was also a "prominent yachtsman" and the son of Vernon H. Brown, the head of Cunard Lines' New York office.

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=XFw3AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA4208](https://books.google.com/books?id=XFw3AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA4208)

[2] [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F05E2DA173EE...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F05E2DA173EE633A25750C1A9629C946394D6CF)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be interesting to see somebody try and follow some of the routes (either for real or on Streetview)

</comment><comment><USER6> It is hard for me to imagine exactly what this looked like from behind the wheel. Symbols like "bear left" are still in use today on our no doubt much better roads. Then there is the symbol for "follow telephone wires". It implies a lack of sign posts, and possibly roads altogether. This gives me a glimpse of what driving/navigating was like, but not a complete picture. Anyone have more insight?

<comment><USER3> I started following the route on Google Maps. It looks like the route between the two ferries is still the same today (route 114) and while I didn't spot the hotel or the rustic gate, "follow telephone wires" seems like a reasonable thing to do here: [https://email@example.com,-72.351295,3a,75y,139...](https://email@example.com,-72.351295,3a,75y,139.69h,89.73t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sQWCE_wo3l5g4hFbIx5iXPg!2e0) even when you're cruising along and come to a possibly-tricky junction when you haven't hit that first right turn yet: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-72.348464,3a,75y,159...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-72.348464,3a,75y,159.38h,70.98t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s7x86OxcesiR0R8RzBRqsGw!2e0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would be interesting to see a re-use/re-purposing of some of these symbols .. seems like they all make a lot of sense - I wonder if I've seen them in some GPS applications before, seems like TomTom use the turn-direction symbols. Well, off to see if there's a font out there with these symbols in them ..

</comment><comment><USER8> What are the chances that these appear in a future Unicode?

</comment><comment><USER9> how long until the slate author discovers the secret language of pacenotes in rally car driving and someone posts them here?</comment>


AT&T announces Call Protect, a new service for automated blocking of spam calls - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/20/14028948/att-call-protect-spam-filter-fraud-caller <comment><AUTHOR> Just signed up... It would be _really_ great if this actually worked. I get at least one spam call pretty much every other day - though sometimes they come in waves. It's crazy it's gone this long before something this was offered.</comment>


San Diego Sees 900% Increase in Chinese Venture Capital - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@balboadata/san-diego-sees-increased-chinese-venture-investment-e569a85d8a03 <comment><AUTHOR> "TuSimple is not the only regional company that has benefited from a connection to the Far East's technology heartland. We performed an analysis of San Diego venture financing rounds from 2013 to 2020 based on Crunchbase data. In total, we found thirty-five financing rounds with at least one financier based in China. 71% of these rounds were led by an investor from China. Stunningly, we found Chinese investment in San Diego has increased by 900% since 2015. 2015 had four venture rounds with Chinese investors totaling $57 M USD. 2019 had five venture rounds with Chinese investors totaling $514.4 M USD."</comment>


Post your private keys here - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/PkiWtf/status/1303321825628356609 <comment><USER2> I don't find your account's premise uninteresting but it is empty and HN isn't your personal ad network. You might want to look at other submissions to tweets [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com) to see how those can actually provide meaningful context (and the post guidelines [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.</comment></comment>


StackOverflow Developer Survey 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020 <comment><AUTHOR> Weirdly Elixir dropped from #5 top paying last year ([https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#top-paying- te...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#top-paying- technologies)) no nowhere on the list this year.</comment>


JPA-based JUnit Test Best Practices - <AUTHOR>

This is a bit of an odd question, but it has been bothering me for a few months now.  I have built a JPA-based web application using Wicket + Hibernate (built with Maven), and want to test the DAO layer directly.  I created a specific src/test/resources/META-INF/persistence.xml file that I used for testing, but have been running into conflicts with WTP and the like.  To get around these issues, I created a separate test project where the unit tests live.  Is there a better way to manage unit tests for a JPA project without having duels between persistence files? <comment><USER2> How about asking at stackoverflow.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's the next stop. :) Thanks.</comment></comment>