Google HTML/CSS Style Guide - <AUTHOR> http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/htmlcssguide.xml <comment><USER2> I like almost all of these rules; however (as others have said), that "Omit optional tags" section is pretty risky to use in any serious project. I can see where Google wants to go with this recommendation, but I think that it will take a while for the majority of the web to get accustomed to this convention.

<comment><USER3> I find not closing my
s and many of my table tags (e.g. <https://gist.github.com/1117438>) lends to much more readable and maintainable markup.  and  I'd leave explicitly there, the tag autogeneration rules conflict with HTML5 elements in oldIE.

IMO, you shouldn't ever drop optional tags for a byte payload reason, this is what minifiers are for (htmlcompressor is extremely robust). But sometimes it makes sense to drop some closing tags so your source isn't an overgrown garden of angle brackets.

<comment><USER4> Not closing
s is much easier to maintain. Look at my web page for instance, <https://ajf.me/>

It's not only easier, but more readable to do this:

Item 1

Another item

Yet another item

Than this:

Item 1

Another item

Yet another item

<comment><USER5> If your list is that simple, it takes no extra effort to add closing tags (especially if you're using a worthwhile IDE). If your list is more complicated, the closing tags will increase readability while decreasing ambiguity (and again they require no extra effort in a good IDE). This kind of thing might make sense for Google as a way to cut down on bandwidth costs over a long period of time, but it's a bad practice for 99% of the people reading it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The "Omit optional tags" section is rather... scary. Check out the example they include.

<comment><USER7> It's valid HTML5 but I can't get used to not close list items and even the body.

<comment><USER8> It is also valid HTML4. If you are not comfortable not closing the body, you can just omit the opening tag also :). Likewise with html and head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Do not use entity references_

That's surprising. They've saved me many times when files are opened and re- saved in different editors, from losing an accent or an em-dash halfway down the page where it's rarely noticed...

<comment><USER10> They save bytes. And as long as the UTF-8 rule is followed everything works fine. Also: editors that munge encodings without warning are evil.

<comment><USER9> The bytes are completely trivial, unless your entire document is a non-latin script.

And my point is that the UTF-8 rule is _not_ always followed, because source code gets passed around via e-mail, copied from browsers, edited in a console, saved with Notepad, and so on. Ideally file content would only ever be touched by source code editors configured only to ever operate in UTF-8 mode, but in the real world with real development teams and new interns, that is an impossible thing to ask.

At my last job, I made sure all accented characters in source code were _only_ ever written with entity references, and we went from having weekly problems with accents somewhere on the site, to almost never.

<comment><USER10> If that describes your development process, you have problems that entities won't correct. I think you maybe misunderstand the audience here: these are guidelines for Google's engineers. Honestly I think demanding (and assuming) that your developers use a toolchain that doesn't suck is a reasonable choice in that environment. It may not be in all shops.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, we worked a lot with outsourced development as well, and obviously didn't have any control over what tools they used...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Although the guide does mention "Separation of concerns", I've seen quite a few instances of markup that looks like the following across multiple Google API docs/sample code snippets

The Maps API documentation here [https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/...](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorial#LoadingMap) still recommends it. Fortunately, they seem to have updated their maps API code samples to use something like this instead

google.maps.event.addDomListener(window, 'load', initialize);

Probably a minor thing, but I've seen people, especially beginners, who pick up the former style (which is generally considered a bad practice) because they've seen it on places like the Google Maps API docs.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Avoid qualifying ID and class names with type selectors. Unless necessary > (for example with helper classes), do not use element names in conjunction > with IDs or classes.

I've never heard a decent explanation for why, with this one. Unless you're intentionally creating a rule which is broad in scope, adding the element name helps document a rule, giving somebody who is unfamiliar with this CSS some context on how the rule is used. Other than saving a scant few bytes here and there, I can't see what the benefit is.

<comment><USER5> Semantically, a meaningful class or id shouldn't always need to be qualified by the element type. There are certainly times when you'd want to, though, if the element type changes the meaning.

E.g., An e-commerce site that displays products in both the main content region and the sidebar. Product names use h1 tags in the main content region and h2 tags in the sidebar. Selectors like h1.product-title and h2.product- title have different meanings, and they're more efficient than the alternative selectors #main .product-title and #sidebar .product-title.

From a performance standpoint, qualifying class and id selectors by the element type is probably less efficient than not qualifying them, so doing it unnecessarily makes the selector longer and more difficult to maintain and decreases performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't get this one: Capitalization. Use only lowercase.

and:

Use HTML5. HTML5 (HTML syntax) is preferred for all HTML documents: <!DOCTYPE html>.

Why not <!doctype html>?

</comment><comment><USER14> "Omit optional tags", but "Always use a single space between property and value ... for consistency reasons.". I'm confused.

</comment><comment><USER15> try loading that page with javascript disabled

<comment><USER16> Funny :)

But, it's not HTML document, it's XML. Otherwise I would gladly point out that they used UPPERCASE tags, they closed their tags and they did not omit a protocol in xsl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice, I always wonder how other developers (like in bigger companies) style their code. I'm even gonna try to send this to a few outsourced developers I work with to see if we can improve that area, which is basically their aquiles kneel.

</comment><comment><USER18> I like it how they don't even mention that css properties should one per line (as though it is assumed). I really don't like having to deal with single line css.

<comment><USER4> They do.

CSS Formatting Rules > Selector and declaration separation

CSS Formatting Rules > Rule separation

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I prefer tabs over spaces, the rest seem good

<comment><USER20> Luckily my text editor converts all your tabs to 2 spaces for readability and formatting working with multiple developers.</comment></comment>


Why Tesla Motors Finally Acquired Tesla.com - <AUTHOR> https://namecorp.com/why-tesla-motors-finally-acquired-tesla-com/ <comment><USER2> Given there's no information on why Telsa Motors bought the domain, seems like click-bait to me.

<comment><USER3> There is a little:

"At some point it was inevitable that Tesla would do more than just offer cars and the TeslaMotors.com domain wasn't representative of this growth."

But yes, this is pretty obvious, and could fit in a tweet instead of a blog post.

<comment><USER4> And of course this is just the opinion of the author, so not really even information on the domain name purchase.

<comment><USER3> It seems like a reasonable inference. They introduced their energy storage products, then a few months later acquired the domain without "motors" in it. But they could do a better job of distinguishing between the facts and the inference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Domain names are a scam, and it has persisted for so long that it seems everyone has forgotten what a scam it all is. And now it's really too late.

If domain names cost $1000 each, we wouldn't have squatters at all. It is really a shame to find a great domain name that is just sitting unused.

ICANN's creation of hundreds more TLD's is just a further money grab in this whole thing. But of course, the .com domain is and will probably always rule.

<comment><USER6> Especially since Internet domain names were never set up to be consistent with trademark law (or heck, even the Yellow Pages), as they probably should have been. "Domain" is a terrible name in the sense that it actually does a pretty bad job of splitting businesses into their true domains.

Take moving companies. We have "Apple" and "United" in that market, and those names are clear enough as long as the grouping is something like "moving companies". They coexist in markets where Apple computers and United Airlines are well known. In the old days, these would have had two different mentions in the Yellow Pages. Yet, can there reasonably be a "moving.apple" and "moving.united" alongside "computers.apple" and "airlines.united"? No, these well-established _four_ companies have to compete for _two_ logical domains, because consumers only seem to care about ".com". Companies fight over domain names that they shouldn't _need_ to care about, and artificial "value" is attributed to these names.

<comment><USER7> That's what gTLDs should do going forward, even if it will be hard to change the mindset of people.

<comment><USER8> Not really, because you can still have two companies with the same mark in the same market - as long as they're in different countries. To match trademarks, we'd need to use ccTLDs instead of gTLDs.

<comment><USER9> That doesn't actually seem like a problem though. What's wrong with united.air.us and lloyds.bank.uk?

Which actually makes the squatting problem much _better_ because to squat on "foo" you need foo.air.us, foo.bank.us, foo.cars.us, foo.air.uk, foo.bank.uk, foo.cars.uk, foo.air.ca, foo.bank.ca...

<comment><USER8> _What 's wrong with united.air.us and lloyds.bank.uk?_

Nothing, but those aren't the gTLDs that unethical_ban was talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _" Uber is reported to have traded 1% of company stock to acquire Uber.com."_

Wow, if that's true, that has to be the deal of the century.

<comment><USER11> ... but Universal Music sold their shares early [http://fortune.com/2014/06/04/universal-music-group-sold- ube...](http://fortune.com/2014/06/04/universal-music-group-sold-uber-domain/) _facepalm_

<comment><USER8> Why the facepalm? Selling shares is no different than not buying them. If they weren't investing in tech startups, they shouldn't start doing so just because the shares fell on their lap.

Sure, in this particular case they would have made money, but that's with the benefit of hindsight. What if the domain buyer had been Spoonrocket instead?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> All the info in the article, plus Elon is deeply in love with domain names. just remember x.com was bought for USD 1 million and Elon didn't want to lose the money (even when the brand was failing) [https://books.google.com.do/books?id=Jtr3ThHeTEMC&pg=PA130&l...](https://books.google.com.do/books?id=Jtr3ThHeTEMC&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=paypal+buy+x.com+domain&source=bl&ots=sngduadDWz&sig=rTNCcTyN- DA4cxvFC9CPzla5pPs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0z7m888fLAhVJpR4KHcWRCaEQ6AEIZDAG#v=onepage&q=paypal%20buy%20x.com%20domain&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER13> I recall from the early days of domain names: the site ati.com had a front- page comment a la "there are 147 companies calling themselves ATI and demanding their right to this website. No, we're not giving it up. Yes, you'll take legal action against us - get in line." (And no, it wasn't the big video- card company, though they ended up with it eventually.)

</comment><comment><USER14> The article has no details, and just seems to be trying to stoke up prices for domain squatters.

<comment><USER15> How are you a domain squatter if you owned the domain before the company existed?

<comment><USER16> I had a look in the Internet Archive and for the entire decade that tesla.com was registered, it was a gandi.net domain parking page. Looks like a domain squatter to me.

<comment><USER17> That's not what squatting is. Are you implying that someone who buys a vacant piece of land and leaves it undeveloped is a squatter?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The article mentioned in the post about mcdonalds.com is very interesting, especially as it is the start of the domain name "gold mine" prospecting.

[https://namecorp.com/billions-registered/](https://namecorp.com/billions- registered/)

</comment><comment><USER19> _Patrick Swayze said it best in Dirty Dancing: "Nobody puts Baby in the corner." Well, the wrong domain can put you in a corner. The right domain can open the world._

I had no idea Patrick Swayze was such an authority on domain names and branding. Golden line though.

</comment><comment><USER20> It sounds pretty ridiculous that someone can make a windfall, just because they happened to buy the tesla.com domain name 20 years ago. But comparatively, it's not really any more ridiculous than someone buying a plot of land on the cheap, later finding a huge oil reserve underneath it, and selling it for tens/hundreds of millions of dollars.

I'm going to posit that domain names are actually going to be less valuable 10/20 years from now, compared to now. When you think about it, domain names are really a crude bridge that connect users to the website that they really want to go to. Search engines like Google are already undercutting the need for this bridge. Anyone who wants to go to Tesla's website simply needs to google for Tesla, or Tesla car, and they can find the site they are looking for almost immediately. I posit that this trend is going to accelerate in the future, until we get to a point where pretty domain names are about as valuable as pretty IP addresses: A novelty item, but one that most users don't actually interact with directly or care about.

<comment><USER21> I agree that domain names might be less valuable in the future, but only because there will be lots more choice instead of just .com...That is, more people will assume the web is full of more than just .com domains, and will take other TLDs more seriously. (At least I hope.)

Also, if more and more users rely _ONLY_ on search engines rather than domains to arrive at a website, that is essentially the definition of a walled garden...because if i'm a small - even a somewhat medium - business with a website, I now have to spend even more effort than before on SEO, just so when searchers type in my business name it won't get confused in search results with other similarly named companies, or push me down on a search results page...And then there's the whole concept of being at the whim of a search engine's policy: if i piss off a search engine and they prevent me from showing up in results, my business almost entirely "disappears from the (silo) web"...No offense, but i hope your prediction does not come true. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The score at the bottom of the article is hilarious. I used to own a Maxima and I would always go to Nissan.com only to find a semi-funciotnal "computer" repair shop. It was extremely frustrating, but the sites main goal right now is is to bring light to the lawsuit that the owner is going against. I don't even know if anyone even makes any transactions on Nissan.com.

<comment><USER23> I could swear that I remember a time when nissan.com had more stuff (ah, here we go: [https://web.archive.org/web/19961221205004/http://www.nissan...](https://web.archive.org/web/19961221205004/http://www.nissan.com/)). He's not a domain squatter; he owns a legitimate business and got nissan.com fair and square. I imagine that at this point he's been driven half-mad by Nissan Motor Company's legal harassment.

I really, _really_ hope that a judge delivers the car company the smackdown it so richly deserves.

<comment><USER24> Why not just sell them the domain? Is the car company not interested in simply paying him a couple million for it? Or is he demanding something ridiculous like $50 million? It would be interesting to know the inside scoop.

<comment><USER25> I wonder if they ever tried to buy it, or if they were straight to threatening him with legal action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I imagine Tesla the 80's rock band would have liked the Tesla.com domain back before the car company even existed. Instead they got Teslatheband.com

</comment><comment><USER24> Since the owner of Nissan.com identifies himself as "Nissan Computer Corp." in his contact page, why not disambiguate his site with a more informative domain name? NissanComputer.com, NissanComputerCorp.com, and NissanComputerCorporation.com are all available.

Having the anti-Nissan Motors banner on the home page seems somewhat petty and unprofessional. There must be thousands of people hitting his page every week, maybe clicking on the mail form and sending in questions about cars.

Has he not offered to sell the domain for a million or two? That's what I'd do. Surely Nissan Motor Corp. has spent more on legal fees than that, and undoubtedly he's spent a pretty penny as well.

<comment><USER27> It wasn't always that way. Over the years, the owner has been essentially bullied by Nissan Motors.

<comment><USER24> I understand, but why not just offer the domain for a million or two? Maybe it's an emotional thing, but again, I'd rather have the money myself. Or maybe the guy's independently wealthy?

<comment><USER28> _I understand, but why not just offer the domain for a million or two?_

He did [0], Nissan Motors didn't want to pay.

[0] [http://nowiknow.com/why-you-cant-buy-a-car-on-nissan- com/](http://nowiknow.com/why-you-cant-buy-a-car-on-nissan-com/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shuffleboard at McMurdo - <AUTHOR> http://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm <comment><USER2> Myself and a fellow researcher have been emailing about this essay today. Despite the author spending shockingly little time there, it's definitely spot-on McMurdo.

> McMurdo looks like a series of shipwrecks that people have tried to make the > best of.

I've often tried to accurately describe the feeling you get when seeing McMurdo. This is pretty good. It's an ugly town.

> It's not just that McMurdo station is ugly—and it is lens-shatteringly > ugly—but that there is so damned much of it.

I personally dont find this fair. McMurdo is an operating fuel, food and support depo for the US operations on the continent. It supports a fixed wing airport and full helicopter operations in crazy inhospitable conditions. There's no local home depo. There's no McMaster. There's no grocery stores. No independent construction companies. EVERYTHING has to be down there. There is going to be a lot of stuff around. While down there, I've often pondered how many of our very beautiful cities are probably supported by far less beautiful cities. Do you know where your garbage goes? Down there it's stored until shipped back once a year.

> The only way tourists might come to the Ross Sea in numbers would be by air, > but the memory of the 1979 crash, when an Air New Zealand plane flew into > the side of Mt. Erebus, is too painful.

If you don't have a weak stomach, the tale is a fascinating one ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_New_Zealand_Flight_901](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_New_Zealand_Flight_901)). Highly recommended.

> the Chalet, an ancient administrative building built in a style I would call > 'Ford-era National Park'.

This is so right. It's a weird building([https://www.jeffreydonenfeld.com/blog/2014/12/the- national-s...](https://www.jeffreydonenfeld.com/blog/2014/12/the-national- science-foundations-central-offices-at-mcmurdo-the-chalet/)).

> We're certainly not the ones leaving our trash all over the ice. Tourists > don't have bingo night, IceStock, exercise bikes, hot lattes, or yoga.

Whoa, there isn't trash on the ice. At least no intentionally dropped litter (the wind is strong, stuff can get blown around). Trash is a big deal down there and compared to everyday USA, everyone is super vigilant down there. There is a lot of _stuff_ around, but much of that has purpose or is being stored (often outside as there's limited indoor storage space, so things can look cluttered).

Also, keep in mind most of those activities the author mentions are all run by volunteers. Nobody is paid to put on bingo night (thats new to me), IceStock, or yoga. Hot lattes? Yeah, there's a machine in the coffee shop that's open like three days a week for a few hours. And yes, there's exercise bikes, but come on, even people in prison get to exercise.

> The US Antarctic Program did not fly cases of Jim Beam to the bottom of the > planet to watch them disappear into visiting bloggers. We are cut off.

They don't fly heavy staples like that down. Pretty much everything shelf stable or frozen comes down once a year on a ship. You should see the selection of booze and beer diminish when the main body of workers and scientists are down there. There is no flight resupply. I had one week with Sierra Nevada available last year, then all I could get was Tecate.

> Our presence here is just as unnecessary as the sprawling American base > whose cookies I can't stop eating

The cookies from the kitchen are actually really good.

> The summer staff is about to be raptured to New Zealand, leaving only a > remnant to face the tribulation of a Ross Sea winter.

Interesting note. Last year they started doing monthly flights through the winter, so the wintertime crews are going to be a lot less isolated (apparently, a couple days before every winter flight last year several people would quit. Before the flights that just wasn't an option).

> "Okay," I say. "Do you have any Zippo lighters?"

I didn't know they had these. Ironic that smoking is so rare, otherwise these would make great gifts for my friends.

> "Today is the coldest I've ever been in my life." I want to say something, > but my jaw is too stiff to move.

So cold mid-to-late summer? I don't get it. Honestly, I'm from Wisconsin and summer in McMurdo is pretty balmy. The author must have zero cold tolerance. January and February daily mean temp is around freezing ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station#Climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station#Climate)) and the sun is pretty damn strong.

Seriously, summertime in McMurdo isn't that bad. Wintertime is of course another matter.

But yeah, great writeup.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for the correction about shipping vs. flying. Of course I should have remembered that all that stuff comes in by sea.

My crack about trash on the ice was based on a couple of rusting oil drums we spotted on the sea ice a few miles north of the station. It could have been the kiwis! You are absolutely right that people have gotten much, much better about waste.

The cookies were amazing.

It was 11 degrees F on the day of my visit, which I also don't think is terribly cold. But it was quite windy out on the water, and my cabin mate (who made the comment) had never experienced below-freezing temperatures in his 66 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really interesting read - I just accepted a position with the US Antarctic Program as senior computer technician at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station this upcoming summer season, and I'll be spending a good amount of time at McMurdo in transit on the way to and from the Pole.

The research I've done on what to expect in Antarctica (and stories I heard during the interview process) are really, really interesting.

While McMurdo is the largest permanent base on the continent it's still incredibly isolated and self sufficient - and the polar station / field camps, an order of magnitude more so. Literally the closest thing we currently have to a permenant Mars colony. The USAP doesn't let anyone stay on ice longer than a year to prevent potential mental health issues.

If there's anyone else here involved (or previously involved) with the USAP here, I'd love to connect.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you enjoyed this, definitely follow Maciej's recommendation and read Big Dead Place ([http://www.powells.com/book/big-dead- place-9780922915996](http://www.powells.com/book/big-dead- place-9780922915996)), which captures the "Office Space on Ice" bleakness quite vividly.

You can get a taste here: [https://web.archive.org/web/20140108023919/http://www.bigdea...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140108023919/http://www.bigdeadplace.com/welcome- to-the-program/)

Unfortunately the blog is now only on the Wayback Machine, as the author, Nicholas Johnson, sadly committed suicide a few years ago after a tour as a contractor in Afghanistan ([http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson- rip/](http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson-rip/) and [http://www.alternet.org/media/world-forgets-antarcticas- firs...](http://www.alternet.org/media/world-forgets-antarcticas-first-great- author-fascinating-life-and-death-nick-johnson)).

</comment><comment><USER6> Also highly recommend Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog.

Another hilarious take on McMurdo and some of the scientific work going on in the region.

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

<comment><USER7> SciFi authors Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Antarctica' is also great, although I don't know how his fictionalization compares to the real thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love this guy's writing.

Why oh why does he make it so hard to know when he's posted something new? No RSS, no email list, not even a Twitter account. I've had to resort to setting up a changedetection.com alert on his home page so I know when a new article is posted.

<comment><USER9> This might help/be new? [http://idlewords.com/index.xml](http://idlewords.com/index.xml)

EDIT: Changed wording :)

<comment><AUTHOR> According to Feedbin, I've been a subscriber to that XML feed since July 10, 2014. So, definitely not new.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The prefab functional/ugly architecture is remarkably similar to parts of the Bagram and Kandahar air bases, but obviously adapted for the polar climate.

It makes sense when you consider that the place has been run by large federal defense contractors for the last 30+ years, as mentioned in the article, Raytheon and now Lockhed Martin (PAE). PAE also does a lot of work in Afghanistan. I'm sure if/when PAE ever loses the contract it'll go over to somebody like DynCorp.

</comment><comment><USER11> Reading this article (highly entertaining, as always, Maciej; thanks for brightening my day with your cynicism) led me to reflect on architecture. It seems pointlessly wasteful to have built a bunch of Quonset huts and trailers that people have to walk between, and also to have built the buildings above ground in the first place. I suppose digging in permafrost is difficult, and bringing in machinery so that you can have economies of scale is difficult, even if we no longer have the problems of cold steel embrittlement and tin pest that bedeviled the old polar explorers.

A little quick calculation, since calculation is always what I end up doing when confronting stories of human folly and suffering.

If you need to house, say, 1024 people, with 128 m² of floor area for each one (home plus office plus bar, etc.), with a mean ceiling height of 4 m, that's 524 288 m³. If you want to enclose that volume inside a hemispherical dome, the radius (and thus the height) of the dome is about 64 m, or 16 floors. The skin of the dome — the part that insulates the people from the cold wind — is about 26000 square meters, 25 square meters per person. The cross-sectional area that the dim sun illuminates during the summer is about 6400 m², so if we assume a bit less than 1000 W/m², you receive about 6 megawatts of solar energy during the summer, and about 3 megawatts year-round (3 kW per person).

How much insulation do you need? If the inside-outside temperature difference is 40° C, and you need to maintain that on 1500 W per person (maybe your thermal solar collection is only 50% efficient and you don't have significant other sources of heat) then you need insulation with an average R-value of about 3.8. 1-inch polyisocyanurate foam panels have an R-value of about 6, and they only cost US$19 for a 4'×8' panel (US$6.40/m²; this is the Home Depot retail price and includes aluminum facers) which works out to about US$160 000 to cover the whole dome. Unfortunately they aren't transparent, so you can't get solar radiation through them; you kind of need some kind of non-imaging optics heliostat if you want to gather the solar heat to illuminate and keep warm with. As far as I know, these don't exist yet.

At this point, and certainly when McMurdo was built, it would make more sense to use heavier insulation, and do your climate control by dissipating energy that you generate by some other means, such as with the nuclear reactor or by burning fuel oil. If you're dissipating 500 watts per person, you need three times the R-value (11.4, a bit under two inches of foam insulation, or US$320 000 of insulation). You need to use countercurrent heat exchangers to keep the air from going stale.

16 stories is small enough that people can avoid using elevators most of the time, at least if the common areas they usually travel to are intelligently located; 128 meters diameter is small enough that you can walk anywhere (in about two minutes), but large enough that bicycles or skateboards would occasionally be convenient.

If each floor is concrete 250mm thick (suitable for essentially any purpose that doesn't involve armored vehicles), we need 32768m³ of concrete, or about 65536 tonnes, if we use somewhat lightweight concrete. Concrete typically costs about US$120/m³, so that's about US$4 million of concrete, plus probably a similar cost in rebar. This cost isn't particularly sensitive to whether you build a bunch of separated buildings or a single giant arcology like I'm suggesting above, as long as the buildings are more than two or three stories tall. It is sensitive to things like whether each person gets 128m² or 32m² and to the flooring material.

If you could somehow get by with more inexpensive floor materials like expanded steel sheet with drywall under it, you could reduce the cost dramatically — the 250mm reinforced concrete I suggested above costs about US$60/m², while 9-gauge expanded steel sheet might cost US$24/m² (according to MetalsDepot.com). I feel like that kind of thing might be acceptable for a lot of floors that don't separate unrelated strangers.

This is important not so much for the cost of the materials (although that is kind of important) but more because you don't have a cement plant or even a quarry onsite there in McMurdo; all your manufactured materials have to be shipped in, as if you were in Alaska or something. A heavy-tested TEU only holds 28 tonnes; the amount of concrete suggested above is 2340 TEUs' worth of mostly sand and rocks. That's because the concrete weighs a ton per square meter, while the expanded sheet metal weighs 8.8 kg per square meter. That way, you might only need 25 or 30 TEUs instead of 2300 of them.

(The above conveniently omits the sheetrock...)

What about trash? Is it really necessary to haul it away from Antarctica? Let's make some pessimistic assumptions: suppose we need to plan to store 64 years' worth of garbage — ideally, frozen — and that the McMurdo Base residents and visitors produce the same amount of garbage per capita as New Yorkers, who are twice as productive of waste as any other major metropolis, at 7.8 million tons per year (220 kg/s) out of 8.6 million people (26 mg/s per person). Over 64 years and 1024 people, this is 54 000 tonnes of garbage, or about 54 000 m³.

This is about an order of magnitude smaller than the size of the people dome. If we just build a garbage dome near the people dome and put garbage in it every day and let it freeze, the garbage dome will only be five stories tall if it's built for 64 years' worth of garbage.

Presumably it will take less than 64 years for it to become economic to mine the rich deposits of refined mineral resources (indium, gallium, gold, copper, maybe even aluminum if energy prices don't fall dramatically) in the garbage pile.

Hopefully, the McMurdo residents will demolish less buildings, buy less new clothes, junk less taxis, and compost more of their food than New Yorkers do, so hopefully their garbage volume will be even smaller.

So you could probably build a new, much better McMurdo Base for under ten million dollars.

<comment><USER3> I'm glad you liked the article, though I don't consider myself cynical.

It is odd that you chose to derive this from first principles. People have been building in polar regions for years and this stuff has been thoroughly studied and the trade-offs documented.

For example, note that the fire hazards in the Antarctic are extreme, and this precludes just building one big multi-story building, even if that kind of construction were possible there.

Keeping trash _in situ_ would violate the 1991 Madrid Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty. So would mining the pile for minerals!

You clearly know a lot about this stuff, so consider reading up on newer bases like Scott Base and the South Korean base at Terra Nova, and adjusting your plan accordingly. I'd be curious to read what you came up with.

<comment><USER11> Usually I like to derive things from first principles before I go off and read about all the reasons my ideas were dumb. Every once in a while I come up with an idea that isn't dumb that I wouldn't have come up with by reading about them first. Generally people who are struggling to stay alive in dangerous conditions don't waste their time trying out crazy new ideas, which means they miss most of the good ones, too.

Thanks for the references! I wouldn't say I know a lot about this stuff. I know almost nothing.

Fire hazards are largely an artifact of building things out of combustible materials like wood. (Or polyisocyanurate foam.) Concrete, sheetrock, steel beams, and expanded sheet steel don't have fire hazards. Even so, it would probably be a good idea to have a refuge to escape to if a transformer or something caught on fire inside your arcology and started emitting toxic fumes.

<comment><USER4> Stuff has caught fire at McMurdo multiple times - if it's not exterior, stuff inside the building is certainly flammable. McMurdo actually has their own 6-person fire department specifically because it's such a hazard.

At the South Pole station, all winter-overs take a weeklong firefighting training course with the Denver Fire Dept., since they don't have the luxury of a dedicated team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Chemtrails_ , really? I read this: "After sailing for three weeks with no signs of human activity, no power lines, no _chemtrails_ , no evidence that we exist on the planet at all except for a mournful wooden cabin at Cape Adare, it's jarring to see this open-air museum of prefabricated regret."

I'm sure the author means _contrails_ ?

[https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4027](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4027) "Chemtrails, real or not?"

<comment><USER13> The author is very much joking.</comment></comment>


The Pseudoscience of 'The Secret' and 'The Power' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/books/review/Chabris-t.html?ref=books <comment><USER2> The New Yorker's review offers a similar critique, with a bit more historical/cultural context: [http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/09/13/10091...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/09/13/100913crbo_books_sanneh)

</comment><comment><USER3> The illusion of being in control is _very_ appealing.

<comment><USER4> The idea of being powerless (unless you're dead) is also an illusion.

We tend to have more power then we think, but its seldom the kind of power we think we need or the kind of power we really want. Often we need to learn how to use the power we have.

The problem for most people is that they never discovered the optimal niche that is fitting to their own unique combination of fitness and variation of abilities. This niche might not even exist yet, which is more or less what startups are all about.

Besides, what is actual power? Consider this: Which "power" is the most powerful? The power to annihilate whole cities or the power to build, rebuild, innovate, and maintain cities regardless of whatever may come?</comment></comment>


Black Hat: Iris scanners 'can be tricked' by hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18997580 <comment><USER2> I really hope that this raises awareness about the dangers of relying on biometric identifiers. Unfortunately, I fear people still won't pay sufficient attention.</comment>


Read the Plaque - <AUTHOR> http://readtheplaque.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> A site to collect historical plaques from around the world. A project of 99% Invisible, it was originally started by 99% Invisible host Roman Mars and Fusion.net editor Alexis Madrigal. Origin story here: [http://readtheplaque.com/about](http://readtheplaque.com/about)</comment>


Apple To Eliminate Printer Drivers - <AUTHOR> http://www.conceivablytech.com/8817/products/apple-to-eliminate-printer-drivers

<comment><USER2> So it is bonjour + postscript?</comment>


I built an IPFS crawler with libp2p - <AUTHOR> https://adlrocha.substack.com/p/adlrocha-how-i-built-an-ipfs-crawler <comment><USER2> Was hoping there was a link to the results - either a search box or some statistics. But hey - free code. Not complaining.

Also, if you haven't checked out Beaker Browser now that it's nearing 1.0 - great things are happening. This hasn't been broadcast much - but Beaker now has a built-in editor pane and forking mechanism. It's the best shot I've seen at a 'view source' 2.0.

There's been some healthy competition lately forking and editing the default twitter/mastodon clone. (Which is here: hyper://a8e9bd0f4df60ed5246a1b1f53d51a1feaeb1315266f769ac218436f12fda830/ But forks of it are here: hyper://0e0d1685c3575cf1df94191e14b4ecf068c43bcefee787ffbbed3d1f4666cab4/ and here: hyper://b798b86cc282ae065697f36a2a07072bfa28e5fdfa1d9a8c6fac0f07ff7d6676/.) If you want to learn Javascript, this seems like an amazing way. (Kind of like jsfiddle but for actual apps.)

<comment><USER3> Is beaker going to support IPFS?

<comment><USER4> They used to, but they removed support. It makes sense to focus on just one protocol I think since they're such a lean operation. Also the guy running Beaker seems to be sort of anti-blockchain (describing himself as an "Unblockchain consultant") which might make them biased against it.

Also, IPFS urls change when the content they're pointing to changes, which makes them bad for decentralized web stuff. They are working on IPNS to handle this but I don't know what the status is.

<comment><USER5> Actually, content-based addresses is really _critical_ for decentralized web stuff - since you can't trust a single source to name data, and instead want many different parties to participate in the same global address space in a secure and trustless manner. Check out the dweb primer for why working with a base-layer built on content addressing is so powerful: [https://flyingzumwalt.gitbooks.io/decentralized-web- primer/a...](https://flyingzumwalt.gitbooks.io/decentralized-web- primer/avenues-for-access/lessons/power-of-content-addressing.html)

IPNS is used by many groups to create a mutable layer over IPFS (it recently got much faster in our 0.5.0 release in April), but you can also use tools like Textile, OrbitDB, or other mutable databases built on IPFS.

<comment><USER4> I read that document and it seems to me like everything in there applies to Dat also, which isn't really content-addressed. But if IPNS is fast now it seems like it could be a good replacement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For anyone looking at [https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.07747.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.07747.pdf) to get an estimate on the actual # of IPFS nodes, note that these tools are trying to crawl the number of nodes acting as "DHT Servers" in the Public IPFS DHT. Nodes behind home firewalls or NATs don't become DHT routers because they aren't dialable, and other large users intentionally set many of their nodes into a lower-bandwidth client mode. Also, many applications run their own private IPFS networks (like OpenBazaar for instance) and don't participate in the Public IPFS DHT, so wouldn't be reached through a crawler here.

</comment><comment><USER6> How is the adoption of IPFS going, any example application that are using it and are themselves being used? I'm thinking of integrading it into a product, it has the best _blockchain_ like properties without the mining madness.

<comment><USER5> Going well! Check out all the awesome applications using IPFS in our editable ecosystem diagram: [https://www.figma.com/file/2bVNnjoOmxh4TtID9kzqEG/IPFS- Appli...](https://www.figma.com/file/2bVNnjoOmxh4TtID9kzqEG/IPFS-Applications- Diagram)

A few highlights are Fleek, Textile, Audius, 3box, Anytype, Qri, Berty, and MagicLeap! Specifically in the blockchain space, there's Peepeth, Augur, Uniswap, Civic, Arbore, and Aragon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So this is crawling the nodes not the content?

<comment><USER8> Seems so.

There is [https://ipfs-search.com/](https://ipfs-search.com/) [[https://github.com/ipfs-search/ipfs-search](https://github.com/ipfs- search/ipfs-search)].</comment></comment>


Overweight and obesity are linked to cancer - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/media/dpk/cancer/cancer-obesity/index.html <comment><USER2> From the sidebar:

> good health is the best prescription for preventing chronic diseases

That's bad enough to approach self-parody, but in a way it's very illustrative of the fact that apart from smoking cessation and arguably some other forms of drug addiction treatment, we have very little in the way of _demonstrably effective_ lifestyle interventions to prevent chronic illness. There are mountains of epidemiological associations and sometimes even plausible physiological mechanisms for many of these things, but it often turns out that the obvious intervention just defies the correlation instead of changing the outcome (cf. Goodhart's law), or changes things in a statistically significant but practically underwhelming way.

As far as I know, obesity is mostly significant as a public health issue because it makes _many_ conditions _modestly_ worse, not because it's the primary cause of any given problem. Losing weight might mitigate an illness such that you cross some diagnostic threshold and are thus "cured", but you're still in a much different state than someone who wasn't at risk of that illness at any weight. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to maintain a healthy weight, just that it's wishful thinking to expect that doing so is going to solve all or even most of your problems. In general, it's important to recognize that health is a complex topic and not fool ourselves into thinking we've found _the_ key to good health.

<comment><AUTHOR> Put another way...if you have a serious medial issue being overweight can be the difference between life and death.

Instead, we have Oprah selling "love your body" as if that love will save you went a health crisis comes knocking.

<comment><USER3> Loving your body while you're overweight and getting to a healthier weight are not at cross purposes. Shame causes people to dissociate with their bodies which makes exercise and healthy eating harder.

The fact that we are encouraged to think of being overweight as a personality flaw makes it much harder for people to lose weight. They take their weight as evidence of their weakness which causes a detrimental cycle.

It's also true that popular notions of "healthy weight" are medically inaccurate. Many people who are a normal healthy weight and have no medical reason to lose weight still think they are overweight.

There are lots of good reasons to encourage people to think of themselves as healthy at non-skinny sizes.

<comment><USER4> > Many people who are a normal healthy weight and have no medical reason to > lose weight still think they are overweight.

Many of those people probably _are_ overweight. If your bmi is greater than 25 and you're not weightlifting (and eating to support that), you're almost certainly overweight.

Many people who are overweight are using the love your body campaigns for justification of their weight, when they are actually overweight.

<comment><USER3> How can someone with no medical reason to lose weight be overweight? That's a contradiction. Think about what "over weight" means.

<comment><USER4> Many people who _think_ they're not overweight are in fact overweight. Just because you believe you're a healthy weight doesn't mean you are, and just because you are the same weight as everyone else doesn't mean you are a healthy weight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eating kills you. Heart disease kills 614,348 people per year & cancer kills 591,699 per year [i]. Heart disease has been linked to saturated fat for years. Cancer is your own cells that have mutated. Each new cell is just ticket to the cancer lotto. Obesity = more cells. Cancer & Heart disease kill over a million per year. But we spend most of our media time on shootings and snake bites, in reality it's that bag of Cool Ranch Doritos (which are a curse on humanity).

[i] [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php)

<comment><USER6> > Obesity = more cells

That's not true. Not only do fat cells just grow bigger (a skinny person has just as many as a fat person), you'd expect the increase in cancers to be mostly liposarcomas ("fat cell cancer"), which stay very rare.

Other organs might be distended or enlarged, but they don't contain more cells.

The reason obesity leads to cancer is not very well understood, but it's probably a complicated process involving abnormal hormone levels usual in obese people, and the constant low-grade inflammation their body is usually suffering from

<comment><USER7> How can that be true? Don't fat people at least have more skin cells than skinny people? Also, I can't imagine that enormously obese people just have larger fat cells than skinny people. I have read that it is harder to get rid of fat cells once they shrink, but not that we don't get more of them.

<comment><USER8> A common misunderstanding is that organs are made up entirely of "cells" but, they are not. There are other materials involved, such as collagen. We call these names like "connective tissues" and they take up a lot of the space.

That doesn't mean they aren't involved, proteins can go wrong, but, that is usually associated with other types of diseases besides cancer.

<comment><USER7> That still leaves me confused. A skinny adult who becomes obese has the same number of skin cells? That sounds hard to believe.

<comment><USER9> I would like to point out also, that many people who would be described as "skinny" would almost never become obese. Neither would they be able to put on much muscle mass. It is a huge misconception that our bodies are just blank templates that can become fatter or more muscular. Different bodies have affinities for different shapes.

Someone who is very ectomorphic and "scrawny", will often have severe difficulty gaining a substantial amount of weight.

<comment><USER4> I disagree, (would be open to sourcing from this) but there are photos of people I know from 15-20 years ago where you would look at them and think they're scrawny, and now they are visibly obese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "More than half of Americans that overweight and obesity can increase their risk for cancer."

Sorry to be 'that guy', but I'd expect official statements from the CDC to be better proof-read as this sort of thing really does impact the credibility of the message.

<comment><USER11> You might want to append a (sic.) to the quote. I assumed you made the typo until I read the follow-up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Curious if it's cause, or shared effect. Like perhaps the diet of an obese person generally has a higher amount of carcinogens, or lacks in some key antioxidants...in addition to making you overweight.

<comment><USER13> Obese people probably produce elevated levels of insulin-like growth factors over time due to their dietary choices. IGF-1 is already understood to increase cancer rates.

Intermittent fasting studies tend to focus on IGF-1 levels in the interests of slowing aging, which is of course strongly related to cancer prevention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> it doesn't really matter if it is or not, some studies say yes others say no. Bottom line is it sucks to be fat and overweight, e.g. you have less energy and life is just less fun.

<comment><USER15> I used to weigh well over 300lbs, and I eventually took up a hobby that made me want to lose it badly enough to go through the trouble of making my body eat half of itself.

I don't get to order pizza. I don't get to pick up something from a fast food joint on the way home. I can't go to a restaurant with friends. I have to avoid gatherings where free food will be present. I dread the days a coworker brings in donuts. I've had to get used to going to bed hungry. I usually don't have much energy at all because my caloric intake has to be restricted so much to prevent me from gaining weight back, so I take stimulants to suppress appetite and make it possible to get through the day without falling asleep at my desk. I am a slave to the scale.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I disagree with your statement. Oh, it sucked to be fat alright, because people treated me like shit just for existing and because it was embarrassing every time I broke a chair, but I wouldn't say I had less energy and I definitely wouldn't say I had less fun either.

<comment><USER16> My personal experience is very similar and you described it in a way better than I could. And then add on to that the requirement to do that day in and day out for the rest of your life.

Thank you for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Slightly OT, but I was just reading some fascinating comments in [1]. The post was about cancer and mitochondria.

Particularly for me, the series of comments about how the nervous system can play a role in cancer development (via inflammation promoting activity) is fascinating.

There are even some comments from Carlos Monteiro, a controversial cardiologist. He postulates that cardiac glycosides (used to treat cardiac problems) are also a potent anti-cancer drug.

[1] [https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2017/10/01/is- cancer-...](https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2017/10/01/is-cancer-a- mitochondrial-disease/)

[2] [http://www.infarctcombat.org/cm/homepage.html](http://www.infarctcombat.org/cm/homepage.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Not exactly news but worth being mentioned from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER19> Obesity is due to the Metabolic Syndrome, i.e. it is strongly linked to diabetes. Watch the presentation below, which I recorded at our church, which is about the leading UCLA research on linking diabetes and cancer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSo-p7DafpA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSo-p7DafpA)

</comment><comment><USER20> Relevant (fascinating!) talk from another thread[1]: [https://overcast.fm/+FaTQX2SRE](https://overcast.fm/+FaTQX2SRE)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15424339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15424339)

</comment><comment><USER21> Point taken, but who wrote that? It's hard to establish credibility when your authors write like a 3rd grader.

<comment><USER22> Public health officials do sometimes intentionally write at a 3rd grade level in order to reach the widest possible audience.

<comment><USER23> Are you suggesting that bad grammar and usage in a scientific article increase one's audience?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> irrespective of cancer being linked with being Obese, it is always better to remain active. naturally our body is not designed to have a sedentary lifestyle. So study can be taken as a reminder to stay active and not being a couch potato. take frequent breaks and have some active lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER25> and mental health issues (ex: depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), binge eating disorder, and night eating syndrome.) are linked to obesity.

</comment><comment><USER26> The more the cells the higher the chance for a mutation?

The older we get the more opportunity for cell mutation?

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't understand why any comments in support of this article are being downvoted. Is it now politically incorrect to support agree with scientific studies?

Reminds me of climate change deniers.

<comment><USER28> Well, climate change science doesn't offend anyone. The science from the article does.

<comment><USER29> This (ignoring facts one finds offensive) is a very serious problem in our society, does anyone know of research into how to work around it?

<comment><USER30> Most of the research I'm familiar with is related to cognitive biases from areas related to political science or religious beliefs and it's very obvious now that facts are not a way to get people to believe things that were initially spurred by emotional reasons. Most of the stuff I've seen basically says it's impossible to get people to get past their cognitive dissonance problems without making something very personal that requires them to adapt or risk more or less a form of identity loss. In fact, facts may cause people to bank even more on their existing beliefs and seek out "alternative facts" that support their current beliefs. This is a similar mechanic to how some anti- LGBT politicians have relented on their publicly known positions when some of their immediate family members have come out as homosexual. This is not consistent either - many such persons are simply disowned by their families and in extreme cases of bigotry result in an honor killing.

My personal, not-very tested belief is that there is a strong biological component to political alignments and if you put that person in a different culture they'd gravitate toward similar values on a relative scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> In other news, fire burns.

<comment><USER32> In what way is it obvious that obesity leads to cancer?

<comment><USER33> putting more unhealthy things into your mouth causes cancer, pretty obvious

<comment><USER34> it's actually quite easy to consume a caloric surplus with only "healthy" foods. beans, steak avocado, nuts are all examples of "healthy" foods with high nutrient density and high caloric density.

<comment><USER33> I just noticed you slipped in steak [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/health/report-links- some-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/health/report-links-some-types- of-cancer-with-processed-or-red-meat.html)

If you overeat of a Standard American Diet you increase the risk of heart disease and cancer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Cell division is not perfect, each time there is a chance of error. This is why _anything_ that results in a net increase in cell division will be linked to cancer.

Obesity means you have more cells than other people... to have more cells there must have been more cell divisions. The role of mitogenesis in cancer has been realized for many, many years[1], so I'm not sure why there is still any controversy about it.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/)</comment>


Ask HN: What is the most incredible UI you have experienced and why? - <AUTHOR> Every now and then, I'll come across a site/app with a UI that completely pulls me in. It seems flawless. Most of them have a healthy blend of imagery complimented perfectly with other front-end components.<p>Are there any UI's that you find incredible, either from an artistic or technological perspective, and what is it about them that captures your attention? <comment><USER2> For all of its flaws I will say Google Docs Spreadsheet.

While it doesn't replace Excel fully, you can use it and almost forget you're using a "webapp." The cells/columns look great, feel great, and they almost nail the desktop experience down to a tee.

It is actually a fairly old webapp, but I still haven't seen anything which made you forget that it was a webapp quite that well. Even GMail/Outlook.com still feel like webapps even with how good they both are design wise.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really like XFCE's Thunar. In particular, the bulk rename feature is easier to use than any command-line tool and is really powerful. I use it for all my file renaming.

In the 10ish years that I've been using software I don't feel it has really improved much. I think my ideal UI is a traditional window with a few menu items and a really deep preferences window, like some of the software I used to use on OS X Leopard. Lots of recent software seems to sacrifice customisability in the name of simplicity (Windows 8+, GNOME 3, Ubuntu Unity). I don't think this needs to be the case, complexity tucked away inside menus won't ever bother users who want pure simplicity. I think lots of developers drawn to the "command-line-only" mindset would actually be happier with GUIs of this kind, but I'm speaking only from my experience (I use the command-line extensively, and Linux, not OS X).

</comment><comment><USER4> Truly great UIs aren't memorable - they just work and you don't even think about them. Elevators, gas ovens, hourglasses. If you can make a useful application with a UI as simple, intuitive and forgettable as any of those, you've succeeded.

<comment><USER5> Not a UX person, so I'm a little surprised that you list the hourglass. I always thought that they had a terrible UI, mostly on account of not having a proper reset mechanism.

<comment><USER6> Can't tell if you are joking or not.

The reset mechanism for an hourglass is intuitive and gives very clear feedback on whether or not the operation suceeded

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Second Life's 3-D navigation, menus and editing, from the camera control for the AV to constructing #D virtual objects with primitives.

I think that's why SL is still so popular because it got the interface right, non-technically inclined people can learn to build rudimentary objects in a couple hours and its enough to hook many of them into becoming content builders.

Another would be FoxBase+/Mac for under a meg of object code the UI for data management and screen/form building was great. I got ugly when MS came in and standardized it into FoxPro for Windows compatibility.

The oldest best UI was the Print Shop on 8-bits changed the face of cork bulletin boards since.

</comment><comment><USER8> Old versions of Winamp were pretty great.

Also I remember being pretty blown away when Delphi came out.

<comment><USER9> I have a special place in my heart for Winamp's classic UI. In my opinion, it was the most intuitive interface for a music player. it had a playlist, equalizer, plugins, all of which were condensable to a fraction of it's full size. Of course, now there are a number of similar players that have the same capabilities, but shit, Winamp 2.x was where it started. Even today, it blows todays iTunes interface _way_ out of the water.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Incredible? I don't know if I'd quite go so far, but Reeder on iOS has a really fluid, slidey interface that works like a stack of cards. The best part is that you can drag to navigate back/forward from almost anywhere on the screen. I find myself constantly swiping back and forth just because it's so much fun.

</comment><comment><USER11> AutoCAD. Keyboard. pointer. non-branching scripts. branching scripts, dumb simple UI configuration, simple UI configuration, and full blown API's for creating full blown application layers.

It's UI's are sufficient for the spectrum of users, not tailored as demoware or onboarding new users You can even awk and sed the drawing data.

</comment><comment><USER12> Airbnb. It still amazes me how playing huge video clips in the background adds to the experience without being distracting.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes! That's a great example!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> No love for Apple?

Touchscreen-centric gadgets have appeared long before the iPhone came to the market, but the work Apple put in to the first iPhone's UI made touchscreens more useful than the traditional phone keypad interface for the first time.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think it was FrameMaker, on an SGI Indigo. It was the most amazing example of "progressive disclosure" that I've ever seen. It was amazing how easy it was to find what you wanted, and yet how uncluttered it was.

</comment><comment><USER15> I love this [https://www.wealthfront.com/tools/startup-salary-equity- comp...](https://www.wealthfront.com/tools/startup-salary-equity- compensation). It uses D3.js

</comment><comment><USER16> FL Studio is super confortable to write songs on it! You should check it out.</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't more companies offer paid plans without ads? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think it's for a few reasons:

1\. While you (and a few others) may be interested in it, a large percentage (perhaps most) of the market won't be. So they don't consider it worth the effort to build out just to support a tiny percentage of their overall userbase.

All that engineering time/effort spent on a paid subscription system could go towards features which more people would use.

2\. In some cases, the value of the user to advertisers is higher than they'd be willing to pay for an ad free experience. Probably not much of the time, but I remember hearing that a paid Facebook account would likely be something like $70 a month/year/whatever to make up for the loss in ad revenue.</comment>


3 Stupid Reasons to Raise Venture Funding - <AUTHOR> http://blog.eladgil.com/2010/07/3-sometimes-stupid-reasons-to-raise.html

<comment><USER2> I don't agree. I've been working for a company for the last five years building the Software alone that could of taken perhaps one year. The company has no debt and a great balance sheet, however any big company could catch us up in six months because they have the right resources. So I believe VC is great to get your product to market A.S.A.P before you lose the edge.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely agree with this - I think there are really good reasons to raise money.

As I mention in the blog, if you are raising money to accelerate what you are doing, want to scale the company etc. you should absolutely do so.

I think this is a "good reason" to raise money.

That said, I also think sometimes people want raise money for the wrong reasons as listed in the blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> good article.. to many entrepreneurs want to gauge success based on money raised.

</comment><comment><USER4> Too true! I can't believe those answers. Cash is king. Longevity rules :)</comment>


Show HN: Experiment to compare different techniques to move in Virtual Reality - <AUTHOR> http://mazerun.hcilab.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> MazeRun is an experimental VR Locomotion game exploring different methods of movement in virtual space. You need a HTC Vive headset to try it.

We are considering to open-source if the work is done :)</comment>


Using close script tag In A JavaScript Literal - <AUTHOR> http://www.wwco.com/~wls/blog/2007/04/25/using-script-in-a-javascript-literal/

<comment><USER2> I assume the author has no option to separate the JS code into a separate file, but that would certainly solve this problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, as he wrote "<\/script>" works perfectly. Or even "</" + "script>" works.</comment></comment>


Twitter suspended more than 70M accounts in May and June - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/06/twitter-is-sweeping-out-fake-accounts-like-never-before-putting-user-growth-risk/ <comment><USER2> > But Twitter's increased suspensions also throw into question its estimate > that fewer than 5 percent of its active users are fake or involved in spam, > and that fewer than 8.5 percent use automation tools that characterize the > accounts as bots.

Wish they reported this as a percentage of total user base.

For comparison, in Nov 2017, FB estimated[1] 60 million accounts, but by May 2018 [2] had disabled 1.3 billion fake accounts.

The real question - do these numbers reflect a reality that was always underneath as they enjoyed rapid growth, or is this indicative of greater efforts to use social media platforms nefariously?

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-raises-duplicate- fak...](http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-raises-duplicate-fake-account- estimates-q3-earnings-2017-11)

[2] [https://www.recode.net/2018/5/15/17349790/facebook-mark- zuck...](https://www.recode.net/2018/5/15/17349790/facebook-mark-zuckerberg- fake-accounts-content-policy-update)

</comment><comment><USER3> * claims to have.</comment>


Apple's officially over the optical drive, for better or worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/27/editorial-apples-officially-over-the-optical-drive-for-better/ <comment><USER2> "Over the past few years, Apple's been slyly but deliberately severing ties with a piece of hardware that most rational humans still view as essential on a full-scale computer."

I can count the number of times on one hand I've needed an optical drive in the last year.

In the last five years? Probably twenty times or so. I backup on the internet and use external hard drives. I stream content or view it off of an external. If I need to transfer files to someone, I do so using the plethora of online services, wireless networking, or using a thumbdrive.

I'm so very GLAD that Apple has the balls to do this.

"I've gotta say, though -- it's a wee bit difficult to shove 50GB worth of Blu-ray goodness into a North Carolina sky, and I'm saying that while residing just a few hours to the right."

I bought a PS3 years ago for Blu-ray, but I never ended up buying one for movies because the convenience of streaming and mail-in-DVDs made it easier to save space around the apartment.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I found this article whiney. The last time I had to use a DVD was upgrading to Snow Leopard. When I went to do the upgrade I had to take my 1 year old laptop in to get fixed because the DVD drive wasn't working on it -- it in fact probably never worked.

I remember when BluRay 'beat' HD-DVD. By the time HD-DVD was dropped by Toshiba I was already thinking "who cares? no one is going to buy bluray anyway."

I suspect within 2 years, ODD will be completely dead from a manufacturers perspective:

* Games will be acquired through app stores (all the major consoles already have these)

* Movies will come from NetFlix type streaming options (Walmart just entered the game, no?)

* Software will be from app stores as well, or USB sticks

That's not to say you won't be able to buy DVD's, it's just that devices won't have the drives.

Biggest losers? Best Buy's and similar stores. What are they going to do with all that shelf space? (I guess I've already proved myself wrong, since they still have racks of audio CD's sell to the odd 'old' person).

<comment><USER4> I think you address an interesting market that will still need disks. The home-theater geek. It's not yet practical to stream the amounts of data necessary to play a full 1080p movie for 2+ hours without any noticeable degradation or stuttering. For now, if you want the best, you need a Blu-Ray drive.

<comment><USER5> So the Blu-Ray market will pretty much be just slightly larger than the Laserdisc market was. I say it will be slightly larger because in the case of LDs, only highly affluent home theater geeks could afford to buy the players and the discs, whereas BD is priced much more competitively.

EDIT: We can also include everyone that doesn't have access to high speed broadband as candidates for BD, so the potential market isn't quite as grim as I originally surmised. Given the woeful state of broadband expansion in the U.S., there's probably a pretty good market for optical discs for the next 15 years at least.

<comment><USER6> One point frequently missed by people mocking blu-ray is that a lot of people are using it now pretty much by accident. I have a PS3 for playing games, and at a later date I got a LoveFilm subscription (it's like Netflix but British and rubbish). Now, if I want to watch a movie, it doesn't cost me a penny extra to watch the blu-ray. Do I want high def /for free/? Hell yes, I do! So I think Blu Ray will be sticking around.

However, on the "will the PC crowd miss it?" front - do I need a Bluray player? Yup! Do I need a Bluray player in my netbook, laptop, or desktop computer? Nope!

<comment><USER3> I would say the majority of people don't really care about the difference between BR and regular def DVD's. Hell, I know/understand the difference and I still don't care.

Audio CD's offered many advantages over tapes and records: audio quality, form factor, reliability. DVD's were much better than VHS for the same reasons. Other than being higher quality, BluRay doesn't really offer anything. I'm not going to replace any of the DVD's I own with BR. In fact, I'm getting rid of the DVD's and depending on streaming services so I don't have to store all that crap.

Based on that, I would actually wager that DVD will be around a lot longer than BluRay. 8 tracks were popular and are basically all gone now, but people still use records.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People always bring up the floppy drive example, but I didn't remember the huge outcry over the lack of a floppy drive that everyone mentions. By the time Apple dropped support for it, I hadn't used a floppy disk in years. Sure, PC tech pundits and journalists were up in arms, but that's their job.

As for optical drives, I have probably used it maybe half a dozen times over the past few years if you don't count an XBox. What's so crazy about dropping support for it in PCs? If anything, I'm glad. It'll lead to lighter and thinner laptops.

<comment><USER8> I remember vaguely... The first iMac was released in 1997, I think?, and the outcry was because they dropped not only the floppy but also parallel and serial ports. Some people called it "a toy".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even for Apple's hardware customers, Apple's opinion on whether or not to deprecate the optical drive isn't entirely trustworthy.

Given that CSS has been comprehensively cracked, ripped DVDs are the most widespread and reliable source of DRM-free commercial video in the world. Apple sells DRMed video that competes with (among other things) ripped DVDs. Beyond the financial incentive, Apple wants people to buy their DRMed video because it strengthens their ties to Apple's ecosystem. This all means that Apple has substantial ulterior motives for deprecating the optical drive.

Personally, I think that as technical speed bumps are worked out and available bandwidth increases ripped video is going to follow the path blazed by ripped music, so the optical drive still has some life left in it.

<comment><USER10> So, you need an internal drive for ripping? External drives are where it's at and Apple will gladly allow you to use them. (You can get one for the low, low price of $20 if you really want to.)

<comment><USER9> Need, of course not. That being said, internal drives make ripping significantly more convenient and, hence, more common (which still means incentives for ulterior motives). Defaults matter a lot and having to opt into an optical drive will make a significant difference in practice no matter how cheap and easy opting in is.

Also, if Apple is really done with the optical drive, the day will come when they won't sell the peripheral either. There will almost certainly be third- party options, of course, but Apple would have added yet another inconvenience. And so on.

Throughout this process, Apple can reasonably claim to be acting in the interests of the consumer, but the ulterior motives are still there. That means there is a credible reason to doubt Apple's claims.

<comment><USER10> What's inconvenient about ordering an external drive from Amazon? It's cheaper than Apple's drive, anyway, and you can do it right now. There won't be third party options – because said third party options are already here and cheap and available everywhere.

There is no need for stupid conspiracy theories. Optical media is done. It makes sense to longer include it by default. And if you really believe that there will be less ripped movies around because Apple ditches the optical drive, well then I can't really help you. Pirating will always be easy, what Apple does doesn't matter.

<comment><USER9> I think you misunderstand me, so I'll try to clarify.

I'm not saying that ordering a third-party drive from Amazon is some insurmountable obstacle, I'm saying it is a small inconvenience that will result in a measurable difference in behavior because defaults matter (often much more than we think - see the studies on opt-in vs opt-out 401(k) enrollment).

I'm also not arguing that there will be a smaller selection of ripped movies on bittorrent or whatever. I'm arguing people will use ripped movies less and, in particular, will use rips of their own collections less (and even watch their own collections less on their computer, but I think that effect is less interesting) because the optical drive is less convenient:

\- they're less likely to have it at all (as argued above)

\- it might not be at hand when you want to use it (particularly if you're not at home)

\- using an external drive is flat-out physically less convenient than an internal one (particularly if you need to keep your drive and computer plugged in and/or have other peripherals in the mix...)

Why would it matter that people are ripping their own collections less? Because the norms around ripping your own collection come from CD ripping and the norms around downloading movies from bittorrent come from piracy. Many more people are willing to do the former than the latter. In other words, ripping your own collection is very useful and is fundamentally different from pirating. The convenience of ripping DVDs you own is an important factor that will affect people's video consumption and I think that effect is growing with time.

I'm also not claiming that there is a complex conspiracy going on. I'm saying that, from a consumer's perspective, Apple's judgment about whether or not "the optical drive is done" is compromised. For that matter, this compromised judgment may manifest itself consciously or unconsciously.

Apple decision-makers might unconsciously make any or all of the following mistakes (as well as others):

\- underestimating the usability of DVD rips

\- overestimating the usability of iTunes video by not considering niche drawbacks (e.g. subtitle issues)

\- underestimating the desire of people to have video on non-Apple devices (e.g. Android phones or tablets)

To put it another way: Even though Apple has better technical judgment overall, I'm more willing to trust Lenovo or Dell's judgment about whether or not "the optical drive is done" because they don't face the same conflicts of interest that Apple does.

<comment><USER10> Who rips movies? That's even nerdier than ripping CDs which also hardly anyone does. It doesn't matter. Pirating has to be far more prevalent than ripping movies.

I'm not sure what all that judgment talk of yours is about. Optical drives are done for me personally. I have no use whatsoever for an internal optical drive and I actually can't think of anyone I know who would really need one. I will certainly never ever again buy a PC with an internal optical drive. That has nothing to do with Apple's choices. It's my personal choice and I will be very happy if Apple will sell me a product that fits my personal choice. If not I will have to buy something else.

What do I care for Apple's reasons? (I don't think they are absurd like you paint them.)

<comment><USER9> I happen to care more about DVD ripping because I like it and I think it is going to become bigger, but most of my argument also holds if you're talking about watching DVDs on your laptop or desktop instead (which is completely mainstream).

That being said, where did you get the idea that ripping CDs is nerdy? Where do you think the legions of iPods Apple has sold have gotten the overwhelming majority of their music? iTunes took plenty of time to get to where it is today and ripping was where (most of) the rest of the iPod music came from. To take a personal example, my wife has had an iPod for almost 6 years. Her iTunes Library is at least 80% ripped (maybe even 90%) despite the fact that she buys plenty of music from iTunes. Why? She had a substantial CD collection she ripped to start with. She also didn't stop buying CDs (things that you can't get on iTunes, autographed CDs or special attributes, new or used CDs on sale for less than they'd be on iTunes, ...).

I'm also not claiming that Apple's reasons are absurd. I'm just saying that they have structural and institutional biases that might lead them to come to an incorrect conclusion about this particular point: the value of an optical drive. In other words, even though Apple has a pretty good batting average on these sorts of choices, there are reasons to think they might be wrong (in terms of what people will actually value) in this specific case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, good riddance.

As a bonus, I'll be happy to reclaim the "eject" key for some other use. Right now on my Mac Pro (i.e. the tower- not the notebook) I hit it by mistake fairly often when reaching for delete. The drive tray then pops out loudly and scares my dog.

</comment><comment><USER12> PCs have been without an optical drive for years before Apple did it. I had a laptop with no optical drive nine years ago and I'm sure it wasn't original then. Granted, the experience was so poor I vowed never to live withot a built-in optical drive again.

But the time has come. In fact it might be a year or two overdue to be controversial. Now that booting from a USB flash drive is broadly supported my personal need for removable media is satisfied with just a USB port and a thumb drive. Burning a DVD to share files or boot to a rescue disk seems old fashioned and unncecessary. I don't even know where my box of recordable disks is anymore.

</comment><comment><USER13> When I got a netbook in 2008 and realized that the optical, while possibly useful during install (USB key boot is just as good), was never missed once Ubuntu was installed and running.

Ever since then, I've felt like the drives on my other laptops are dead weight.

Apple is definitely doing the right thing... just wonder why it took them so long.

</comment><comment><USER14> Good riddance. They add weight, I rarely use them, and they are horribly unreliable. I've run into problems with discs not ejecting, sometimes not being readable, blanks sometimes not being writeable, often issuing loud crunching noises when discs are inserted.

My 2007 MBP is dying, and I'm holding out for the next rev, hoping that the new machines won't have optical drives. I'd much rather buy a USB peripheral if I ever need it, and discard it when it gets flaky.

</comment><comment><USER15> Optical drives are rarely needed, EVERYTHING is going online and downloadable: movies, books, shopping, games, etc. Cable companies such as Comcast (xfinity) and AT&T see this. That's why they are putting in transfer caps now (250 GB/month). Their caps will not limit their own movie services. Services like justin.tv, Netflix and so on will be hurt.

</comment><comment><USER4> What are optical drives used for? Reading and writing data? There are much neater solutions. The typical CD holds 700MB, DVDs, 4.7GB. My reusable, USB thumb drive? 16GB, and I have at least 6 ports on my computer for them.

What about Blu-Ray and movies? For a home theater, Netflix streaming isn't going to cut it. Everywhere else I am happy to stream, or have my movies downloaded through iTunes or another provider. (Movie watching rights and transferability are another can-o-worms though.) For the most part, this solves 95%+ of my on-the-road movie watching.

For music, Apple would probably prefer you just download everything through iTunes and bypass the CD, but CDs are still a major piece of the CDN for the labels. I do need the ability to rip my old CDs to my computer, but I do prefer keeping everything digitized and backed up. Then again, I haven't had to rip a CD in years.

</comment><comment><USER16> Last time I used a DVD was like two years ago. What a good memories: The acceleration and spinning noises, the vibrations, the spike on consume on the powermeter, the heat and the extra weight and extra volume for carrying something you don't use at all.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think the issue here is (just) optical drive vs no optical drive. Its the implications that are pointed to in the article, i.e. Apple controlling the hardware, software and content on the device.

Of course, Apple will not do this completely overnight, but it does seem like we're moving in that direction one step at a time. I think Apple/Steve's long term vision has always been for the PC to be like all other electronic devices; you buy it configured, and for fixes/upgrades you always go through the manufacturer or manufacturer-approved process. It is a complete opposite to something like a Lenovo ThinkPad where a lot of the stuff is user replaceable and serviceable (hence making it a little more future proof and much cheaper for upgrades).

As a MBP user, I am happy with where Apple is right now but I'm not sure I'm completely happy with where they're headed (and Apple doesn't care about customers like me who are probably < 5% anyway). Even if we look at Apple's website (for e.g. about battery), the terminology changes from 'User replaceable battery' to 'Battery that you should not replace yourself' etc. Apple could very well make the next major iteration of Mac OS similar to iOS (i.e. Apple is the only App store, no side-loading). Minor upgrades (RAM, HDD) could cost a lot and could only be done by Apple.

Something to think about before investing a lot in Apple products and becoming tangled in the ecosystem.

<comment><USER8> I've been hearing this for a couple years, and I even had some people mistakenly telling me they don't get a MacBook because they think it only runs Apple-approved software.

I don't really think it's gonna happen. "It runs Windows" is a major selling point for a lot of people I know.

But I'll be the first to jump ship if this ever happens.

<comment><USER18> The MBPs are still pretty good and parts that I want to replace are still user serviceable (RAM, HD, optical drive - everyone should replace theirs with a 2nd HD).

The Mac Minis still have user replaceable RAM but the HD is not super easy to get to.

The iMac is pretty bad. You need suction cups to remove the screen from the body to service it.

I don't think they are going to bother too much about what software you can run. But hopefully they make basic parts like the HD and RAM MORE user serviceable.

<comment><USER8> A second HD in place of the optical drive? I never thought it was possible. Sounds like a plan for my recording rig: the SSD plus a bigger mechanical drive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've had my latest Apple laptop for a year now. I recently tried to burn a DVD for someone and realized the drive just immediately ejected everything I tried to put in -- blank DVDs, commercially-pressed CDs, etc.

I don't know if it's been damaged during or travel or it simply never worked, but the fact that it took me a full year to find out means I'll never put an optical drive on a "must have" list again. I think Apple is making the right call.

</comment><comment><USER20> PSA: There's still a ton of excellent, obscure music on CD that hasn't reached the cloud. Get ripping your local libraries and dollar bins while you still can.

(Incidentally, the optical drive in my last machine, a Macbook, was as good as useless. It failed multiple times because of the flex in the plastic case. So much for impeccable Apple design standards.)

<comment><USER10> Yeah! While you still can! Because if we extrapolate from floppy drives, 2025 might be the year you no longer can buy optical drives. That's, like, so soon!

Already now all the many users of floppies can pick from only a dozen or so floppy drives on Amazon. Abhorrent! And the money they have to pay for it! Way more than $10†! Truly horrific.

All kidding aside, you will be able to buy cheap external optical drives for a long, long, long time. There is no need at all to worry. The optical drive merely becomes an external add-on for those who truly need it. I also like to buy old music that hasn't made it to "the cloud" and probably never will. I will keep an external optical drive in the closet for that purpose.

—

† <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000M3GODW/>

<comment><USER20> I'm not saying that CDs will ever be inaccessible to the motivated technologist. But the media will continue to degrade and disappear at an even faster rate with optical drives no longer commonplace.

And while I'm sure that Apple buyers were among the first demographic to ditch physical media, this development is certainly another nail in the coffin of the brick-and-mortar data archives that are record stores.

<comment><USER21> "... this development is certainly another nail in the coffin of the brick- and-mortar data archives that are record stores."

The lack of an optical drive on Apple laptops will not be the stake to the heart of the brick-and-mortar music store; lack of consumer interest will.

The social music scene is moving online. Services like Last.fm, Pandora, and user "created" content sites like SoundCloud are the future. The nostalgia of standing around a music store is nice to think about, but not particularly profitable for the owner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My main machine for the last two years has also been optical-drive-free. Installing Ubuntu on it was kind of a pain (see [http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- journal/2009-Jan...](http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen- journal/2009-January/000563.html) and <http://canonical.org/~kragen/unetbootin.html> for details) but otherwise it's been pretty much fine.

</comment><comment><USER23> Now, it is often easier to carry around a usb flash drive which gives higher data sizes, speed, r/w, and easier to carry. Buy a new one every 6 months and that is an ok non-enterprise local backup.

My main problem with optical at this point is that the storage capacity and price really haven't kept up with USB Flash Drives. It is also now easier just to buy an external hard drive for live backups.

</comment><comment><USER24> Did the author really just omit any mention of USB flash drives in that article? Or am I just slightly blind?

</comment><comment><USER25> I've hardly used an optical drive since I first got my Lenovo X61. It was only available in the base unit which spent over 99.9% of it's life on the shelf.

However, even if I haven't used man CDs or DVDs for a while I still get a "but, but I know I'll need them someday..." reaction.

</comment><comment><USER26> I can imagine that this makes the laptops much more sturdier. This is why my last 2 laptops have been without CD drives. I just bought a $50 external, and I've been having a hard time understanding why more manufacturers didn't make optical drive-less computers.

</comment><comment><USER27> Well, while I want my next Mac to be 15" MacBook Air, I really want to have an option to plug in external BluRay drive. I do watch BluRay movies, and I want to be able to watch them on my main laptop as well.

</comment><comment><USER28> Personally I like being able to back up my entire home directory on a single instance of write-once media. A blu-ray disc holds at least 25GB.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is just like the floppy drive situation all over again. In a few years no one will care.

</comment><comment><USER30> About time, and good riddance.</comment>


A scandal in Oxford: the curious case of the stolen gospel - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/09/a-scandal-in-oxford-the-curious-case-of-the-stolen-gospel <comment><USER2> > While reserving respect for Holmes's reforming efforts, Mazza did not pull > her punches. The Greens have "poured millions on the legal and illegal > antiquities market without having a clue about the history, the material > features, cultural value, fragilities and problems of the objects," she > said. This irresponsible collecting "is a crime against culture and > knowledge of immense proportions – as the facts unfolding under our eyes do > prove."

That's an interesting charge. The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn't know anything was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out. But its the Oxford classics department that is keeping these artifacts hidden, inaccessible to the public or even other researchers for the last century. It was an Oxford professor that tried to sell them illegally, but that was made possible by the secrecy of and opaqueness of Oxford's stewardship of the collection. Who exactly is the villain?

<comment><USER3> > The article repeatedly points out that the Bible Museum didn't know anything > was stolen, and cooperated to return things when they found out

What the article repeatedly points out are circumstantial reasons for thinking the Bible Museum very much knew that they were not engaged in legitimate trade. 99.6% of the papyri the museum owns lack provenance and are still inaccessible to researchers and the public, even digitally. Artifacts were declared as "tile samples" when shipped to the US. The museum only returned pieces after years of controversy whose resolution came about without their cooperation (proof that the papyri were stolen was assembled _without_ cooperation from the Greens).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In case anyone else is interested, I found that the org that handles the the papyri has a really cool write-up about how they handle the digitization process.

[http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/imaging/imaging.html](http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/imaging/imaging.html)

According to the article: . Over the past century, just over 5,000 of the half-million Oxyrhynchus papyri have been published.

So between the large data set and scanning process, I'm hopeful that all of these (and other) ancient manuscripts will be shared publicly. I love imagining all the potential studies we can do with proper machine learning once we have the data set.

<comment><USER5> System run by a "power Macintosh G4". Not clear when that web page was composed, but G4 was introduced in 1999 and phased out in 2003.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A gem from near the end of TFA:

> At present, just over 20 papyri are displayed on the museum's website, out > of 5,000. I asked Holmes whether one can therefore conclude that the Greens > own around 4,980 papyri that lack reliable provenance. "In general, yes," > said Holmes.

<comment><USER6> I think the Greens get off way too easy in this article.

"In 2017, for example, a consignment of ancient Iraqi cuneiform tablets they had purchased was found to have been smuggled into the US as 'tile samples'."

To be more precise: The Green family bought over 5,000 ancient artifacts (mainly cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals from Iraq) -- at one point, wiring money to seven separate bank accounts to do so -- at a cost of $1.6 million. And they did this despite having been warned by their own legal counsel that the transaction was probably illegal.

They subsequently paid a $3 million fine.

They continue to insist that all of this was "inexperience" on their part. I think it was simple greed, combined with their certainty that any part of the cultural heritage of the world that pertains to Christianity properly belongs in the hands of American evangelicals.

I appreciate Holmes's candor, but let there be no mistake. He was hired to cover their asses.

<comment><USER7> Greed?! They're not making money on this.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Greed applies to possessions, not just money.

<comment><USER7> That's fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > which would make it the oldest surviving manuscript of the New Testament, > copied less than 30 years after Mark had actually written it.

I thought it was well understood that 'Mark' didn't write this, at least not the Mark the book is named after, and that we're not really sure who did write that first story, or indeed precisely when or where.

<comment><USER9> Nowhere in the Gospel of Mark is there a claim of authorship. The book is commonly attributed to John Mark, an associate of Peter, but this is just an (admittedly very early) church tradition.

That being said, it had to have been written by _someone_ , and shorthand that person is often referred to as "Mark".

<comment><USER10> This comes up surprisingly often in discussions of old texts. There are a bunch of related questions you might ask:

\- These texts are all attributed to the same author. Were they all written by the same person?

\- This text is attributed to a historical person. Did he write it?

\- This text is attributed to a single person. Is it the work of a single person? Is it a compilation?

And so forth. It is not in general true that an ancient text has to have been written by someone, unless by "writing the text" you mean nothing more than that a single person copied or bound other sources into one more comprehensive document. (Even that isn't true; there's no conceptual problem with multiple scribes copying different pieces of a long text.)

All that said, I see no problem with using a convenient designation to refer to a hypothetical author. The opinion of other people varies; I have seen the argument made that the reason we don't consider medieval European philosophy to have accomplished anything is that medieval European philosophy texts are generally not attributed to a named author. I think this is ridiculous; if the texts were significant, they would have attributed authors, or conventionalized authors, because of their frequent use in society -- just as, in your example, the Gospel of Mark is attributed to an entity named "Mark" for no particular reason.

<comment><USER8> Actually, more specifically, I have a problem with:

> All that said, I see no problem with using a convenient designation to refer > to a hypothetical author.

And that is -- it's not terribly convenient if it distracts the under-informed reader about the provenance of the source material.

In this specific case there's the insinuation of authority by proximity / familiarity.

While it's a convenient designation, continuing to imply the author of the primary source of the new testament was someone we can identify gives it more credibility than attributing the story to an unknown source, or an amalgam of sources.

Compare and contrast, say, Greensleeves -- a piece that everyone in the UK and AU recognises as indicating soft-serve ice cream is in the area, where the composer / author 's actual identity is at best secondary -- attributing a work of fiction to a (likely wrongly) named author grants credence that may be inappropriate.

<comment><USER10> Bah. Everyone knows the sound of an ice cream truck is Turkey in the Straw. ;D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > I have stolen, removed or sold items

No Oxford comma?

<comment><USER12> One may not wield it while suspended from the institution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fascinating stuff. Brings to mind the fact that much of earlier antiquity artifacts were plain looted into museums, etc. Mummies were made into artists' paint, for instance.

<comment><USER14> There was a fad where posh victorians were really into eating mummies.

<comment><USER15> If so it wasn't the first outing: [https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/british-skulduggery- pr...](https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/british-skulduggery-proved-a- healthy-export-155731.html) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this still an on-going investigation?

</comment><comment><USER17> Paging Inspector Morse.</comment>


Secret iPod - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/apple-secret-ipod-us-government-software-engineer-a9675646.html <comment><USER2> Just a rewrite of the blog post

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24188791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24188791)

</comment><comment><USER3> is he not worried about getting in trouble for divulging this?</comment>