Shen – A Sufficiently Advanced Lisp [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMcRBdSdO_U&list=UU_QIfHvN9auy2CoOdSfMWDw <comment><USER2> From what I remember, it has some weird license. I can never remember what exactly is weird about it (or that of Qi, a related project), but on a quick reading now, I think at least this:

 _" 6\. [...] In particular it is not permitted to make derived copies of this software which do not conform to the Shen standard or appear under a different title."_

(i.e. kinda "no forking" clause, IIUC)

<comment><USER3> I seem to remember that the author only require that the forked Shen satisfies a number of published tests, that is to guarantee that the forked program function like the original Shen in the basis case. A forked program could extended the original one with new capabilities, libraries and ideas. I think that the author of Shen believe that free sofware should not be free as in beer, now he earn some money selling the Shen book. Only my two cents.

<comment><USER4> Shen and Qi are written by an academic. More likely than trying to sell the book is the that author is trying to ensure that the core theories that got put into the languages stay in the language with out alterations to the core principles... what exactly those are I never delved into enough for comment but the documents and history point to a very principled author and language being created.

<comment><USER3> After searching for the official specification (a term used formally in the license), the only thing I could find is the web page for the documentation that is called the official shen standard doc, [http://www.shenlanguage.org/learn- shen/shendoc.htm](http://www.shenlanguage.org/learn-shen/shendoc.htm), so I suppose the official specification is the content of this page. As I don't have the book of Shen I can't tell if there is further documentation about the "specification of the language".

The author in the license page claims that he is not going to make a fork illegal by changing the standard in such a way as to make the fork retrospectively illegal.

There was one author who made a close source port of Shen in java but then there were big problems. Perhaps he could give a lot of information of what kind of problems are you to encounter when you try to develop a close source product using Shen. The last think I can remember was that he bought the book of Shen for her 16 years old daughter and he was emotionally very interested in Shen but then all went down. [By the way, I apologize for not putting the 's i the third person )). in my other posts.

<comment><USER3> here is the link [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qilang/yL2Eps2cnwY](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qilang/yL2Eps2cnwY)

<comment><USER5> The issue here was not that the port was closed; but that people helped to build it and gave their time for free on the assumption it was going to be free and readable. My post

[https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/qilang/PJyM6xC...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/qilang/PJyM6xCzYRg)

opened this topic. The rest is history.

I have a clear policy of not contributing my time to closed (for money) software unless I am being paid as a consultant. I do not have any objection as such to closed source software.

Mark

<comment><USER3> Hello Mark. Could you give a link to the "specification of Shen", that is, is there a battery of test that for a fork of Shen certifies that the fork is a conforming with the specification fork?, is the "official standard documentation web page of Shen the text of the specification alluded in the license?

Thanks for you work in Shen.

<comment><USER5> The license was introduced before Shen was issued in September 2011 (the license came out in June) and for a year or so the only specification was Shendoc (now Shendoc 16). The understanding was that Shen was specified in that document and what was not covered by Shendoc was covered by 'Functional Programming in Qi'. Later a hurriedly introduced text 'The Book of Shen (first edition)' (TBoS) was produced to fill a gap (2012) and this year (January 2014) a more thorough 2nd edition of TBoS (> 400 pages) was published which fixes the language standard very thoroughly. This is currently the canonical standard. You can find a link to that book on the Shen home page.

[http://www.fast-print.net/bookshop/1506/the-book-of-shen- sec...](http://www.fast-print.net/bookshop/1506/the-book-of-shen-second- edition)

Shen is now very stable and has been for nearly two years. At my suggestion, I posited that it might be better to move the standard to a computable series of tests and this was floated to the 2011 committee that is responsible jointly for all the ports.

[http://shenlanguage.org/2011committee.html](http://shenlanguage.org/2011committee.html)

Such a change requires the unanimous consent of all the people involved and it seems we have this and a reworded simplified license.

The only obstacle is the work needed to put this test suite together. I've suggested that this suite might be _assembled_ in Github, though for legal reasons the final version must be put in a publicly accessible but tamper- proof place.

Since the type-integrity given out by the system is not better than the strength of the kernel, we take kernel work very seriously. There is already a suite of 126 tests that I run every Shen port through and 2011 members echo these tests. But this informal test suite needs to be amped up to several hundred tests to approach what I consider to be an adequate test suite. It is very boring but important work. So far I have begun assembling all the programs in TBoS into this suite.

These license issues really only affect people who are deeply involved in kernel work and as far as application programmers are concerned, I doubt that it affects them much at all. As far as graphics, concurrency, FFI etc. and add-ons are concerned there are no restrictions. Likewise none on closed source work.

<comment><USER5> I'll also add that I'll be asking for volunteer contributions on the Shen news group to help assemble this test suite. So people who want to expedite us here can do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wish Dr. Tarver would make his _Book of Shen_ [1] available via Google Play[2] (or similar). I rarely purchase paper books these days (especially technical books), but am very happy to _pay for well-written books_ and read them on my iPad.

[1] [http://www.fast-print.net/bookshop/1506/the-book-of-shen- sec...](http://www.fast-print.net/bookshop/1506/the-book-of-shen-second- edition)

[2] [https://play.google.com/books/publish/](https://play.google.com/books/publish/)

</comment><comment><USER6> This interests me a great deal:

"Qi makes use of the logical notation of sequent calculus to define types. This type notation, under Qi's interpretation, is actually a Turing complete language in its own right. This notation allows Qi to assign extensible type systems to Common Lisp libraries and is thought of as an extremely powerful feature of the language."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_(programming_language)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_\(programming_language\))

What also interests me is that, unlike Java or Scala, adding types is optional, so the types can be layered in. I prefer that style, because when I face a new problem that I have never faced before, I feel that adding type information suggests I know something that I don't actually know. I prefer to add types to a function, once I've come to understand what role a function should play in regards to the problem I'm trying to solve. In that way, the type information also communicates what I have learned about the problem I am trying to solve, versus the areas of my problem that I am still ignorant about, and whose code I can leave untyped while I figure things out.

I am also intrigued by what fogus has written:

"Qi (and its successor Shen) really push the limits of what we might call a Fluchtpunkt Lisp. I suspect it requires a categorization of its own. A few years ago I was looking for a Lisp to dive into and my searching uncovered two extremely interesting options: Clojure and Qi. I eventually went with Clojure, but in the intervening time I've managed to spend quality time with Qi and I love what I've seen so far. Qi's confluence of features, including an optional type system (actually, its type system might be more accurately classified as "skinnable"), pattern matching,3 and an embedded logic engine based on Prolog, make it a very compelling choice indeed."

[http://blog.fogus.me/2011/05/03/the-german-school-of- lisp-2/](http://blog.fogus.me/2011/05/03/the-german-school-of-lisp-2/)

Just recently, here on Hacker News, we had posted an example of a step-by-step explanation of adding types to a working Shen app:

[http://www.shenlanguage.org/library/shenpaper.pdf](http://www.shenlanguage.org/library/shenpaper.pdf)

Someone in the comments on Hacker News highlighted this comment, by the original author of the untyped app:

"No, I didn't think about writing typed version of this program. You know, I'm not "disciplined" kind of person so type discipline is (for now) pretty foreign to me. :) I have the strange feeling that types hampers programmer's creativity."

Mark Taver responded with his own thoughts, which I thought were interesting:

"The underlined sentence is a compact summary of the reluctance that programmers often feel in migrating to statically typed languages – that they are losing something, a degree of freedom that the writer identifies as hampering creativity. Is this true? I will argue, to a degree – yes. A type checker for a functional language is in essence, an inference engine; that is to say, it is the machine embodiment of some formal system of proof. What we know, and have known since Godel's incompleteness proof [9] [11], is that the human ability to recognise truth transcends our ability to capture it formally. In computing terms our ability to recognise something as correct predates and can transcend our attempt to formalise the logic of our program. Type checkers are not smarter than human programmers, they are simply faster and more reliable, and our willingness to be subjugated to them arises from a motivation to ensure our programs work. That said, not all type checkers are equal. The more rudimentary and limited our formal system, the more we may have to compromise on our natural coding impulses. A powerful type system and inference engine can mitigate the constraints placed on what Racketnoob terms our creativity. At the same time a sophisticated system makes more demands of the programmer in terms of understanding."

<comment><USER7> >Qi's confluence of features, including an optional type system (actually, its type system might be more accurately classified as "skinnable"), pattern matching,3 and an embedded logic engine based on Prolog, make it a very compelling choice indeed.

Note that the post is from 2011, in the meantime Clojure got core.typed (optional type checker), core.match (pattern matching), core.logic (logic engine)-

<comment><USER5> Not really the same. That's rather like saying because I have a chassis and some wheels and an engine piled in the garage, I have a car. They have to be connected together in the right way to make Shen. Shen is available under Clojure and has been for about 2 years.

I'll also add that IMO there is a difference between having these features in a library and having them in the language standard. Common Lisp for instance, has had pattern-matching in various forms, but if you look at the code contributions on comp.lang.lisp these extensions are not often used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like what Shen has to offer, but it runs on top of other languages hence there's a huge performance hit. There's nothing revolutionary about it, it's just a lisp with pattern matching, lazy evaluation, prolog system, type checking etc.

Having looked at it, it doesn't give much of an edge over say Prolog, I'm yet to see anything that it offer's that Prolog doesn't.

<comment><USER5> I'll let others judge the originality of Shen.

I would say that the performance of Shen is very much a function of the platform and the person who did the port. The Merlin compiler in Qi II would, as doall points out, outpace the output of a Lisp programmer. I've yet to put all that technology into Shen.

Also, credit to the 2011 Shen committee members who ported Shen to so many platforms, the versatility of being being able to traffic Shen code across languages is what made Aditya's work and talk possible.</comment></comment>


Senator Schumer's waffling response to SOPA - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/hD9T5.png

<comment><AUTHOR> TLDR - He hears us, but he's doing nothing.

This motivates me to go to the tech meetup on Wednesday.

www.meetup.com/ny-tech/events/47879702/

<comment><USER2> Schumer is a PIPA sponsor:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/1red1bluekick2/comments/nuyta/list_o...](http://www.reddit.com/r/1red1bluekick2/comments/nuyta/list_of_senators_supporting_sopapipa/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah it pisses me off. He admits and clarifies that what we say he understands but still goes on the side of the RIAA.</comment></comment></comment>


Downvoting posts that prompt significant debate - <AUTHOR> Procedural question: Is it fair and useful, that a comment or a question here can raise a debate of, say, seventeen or more individual contributions but attract only a negative score? <comment><USER2> One of the decisions I made about downvotes on HN is to treat them as editorial feedback. Maybe I was unclear, maybe my facts were wrong, or maybe my comment just wasn't very good. In response, I often delete or edit or rewrite my comments. The critical thing for me understanding why a comment was downvoted.

It looks to me like the comment in question was flagged. Lacking elements such as examples, rationales, analyses or an interesting story may have caused people to find it uninteresting. By being only tenuously related to the issues around laptop privacy, others may have found it low quality. It is plausible that one or more people felt that a likely result would be sparking two sides to talk past each other. The ;) does little to argue against such an interpretation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it fair and useful that downvotes are used both as a moderation tool (making posts disappear, drop down the list) and at the same time a "dislike" button?

That's the core problem. Something can be unpopular but still inspire conversation, or conversely popular and inspire none.

Sites like this and Reddit need three buttons "like" "dislike" (both of which aren't tied to moderation, and don't add or subtract from a total score), and a "unconstructive" button which is directly used to attack low effect/trolling/unacceptable comments.

"Unconstructive" tags should be PUBLIC. Meaning if you abuse it as a "super- downvote" it will be obvious from your profile.

<comment><USER4> The title refers to "posts" being downvoted (flagged is the only mechanism I know of).

I think most posts that are flagged are flagged because they are _dupes_ (or blogspam/derivatives of existing dupes).

<comment><USER2> I think "posts" may refer to comments rather than submissions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's the problem with any social network that allows this. Upvoting and downvoting has less to do with whether a comment is correct or true, and more about whether the hivemind behind the community agrees with it.

A great example would be reddit - try posting something there praising a conservative candidate and see how well you do. Then, try posting something praising Bernie Sanders and watch as you ride the wave of upvotes to the front page.

Nothing to do about the correctness of the content. Everything to do with whether the hivemind agrees.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Score itself is ridiculous! It shouldn't matter-- but it often does, completely human.

We should all work on cultivating an internal locus of control.

Tim Ferriss and Josh Waitzkin recently spoke about this issue (fwd to 50:00) [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/03/23/josh-waitzkin-the- pro...](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/03/23/josh-waitzkin-the-prodigy- returns/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't see why not.</comment>


How "omnipotent" hackers tied to NSA hid for 14 years–and were found at last - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9058701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9058701)</comment>


Regular cannabis use were associated with poorer cognitive performance - <AUTHOR> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/add.15207 <comment><USER2> The title here seems like it's drawing much more conclusion than the paper gives - really should read "Study Correlates Regular Cannabis Use in Adolescents with Reduced Verbal Memory Performance"

Better yet, "Stoned Teens Don't Listen" hah.

<comment><AUTHOR> the title was copy-pasted from paper's "Findings" section.

Can't paste all the nuances in the title, so checkout the actual link.

<comment><USER3> Here is the actual sentence the title was edited from:

>After correcting for multiple testing, a greater frequency and earlier onset of regular cannabis use were associated with poorer cognitive performance, specifically on tests of verbal memory.

I thought the bad grammar was just a typo, but it was due to you cutting up the sentence to mean something different than what the paper actual states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > A vast majority of participants endorsed [Quotation note: Had used] cannabis > use at waves 1 (88%) and 2 (94%), with a mean age of onset of monthly use of > 13.7 years. Further, participants reported using, on average, 8.4 (SD 1⁄4 > 10.8) days per month in the previous 6 months at wave 1.

They've collected a group of urban kids whom the vast majority are using cannabis, many starting years prior to this survey.

I know it is chic to be skeptical, but this is one study where I think it is also correct. The study leads the reader to believe that there is a biochemical link between cognitive performance and cannabis as a substance [0]. On the other hand, the evidence they present is that a small minority of kids aren't using and are performing better. The number of confounding variables is much, much higher than simply alcohol use (Which in the second wave was at 99%, not much to normalize for) and family situation. For example, drug use can result in being kicked off sports teams, suspensions, things that could hinder intellectual development.

Is anyone convinced by the study and would stand to offer support for its conclusion?

[0] To me, the following quote can be read to support this assertion: " Moderate adolescent cannabis use may have adverse effects on cognitive functioning, specifically verbal memory, that cannot be explained by familial factors"

<comment><USER5> Problem is you can't run an RCT and hand out marijuana to teens so you are stuck with biased sampling methods.

<comment><USER6> Easy personal solution is to accept the serious limitations of studies like this. Harder scientific solution is to implement a well designed cohort study that follows people over 20+ years.

That's how we know about cardiovascular health. Framingham cohort study.

<comment><USER4> I haven't really vetted this study, but it samples IQ prior to use at 9-12 and after use at 17-20 among twins [0]. It concludes that there is no link between IQ scores and usage. More of a "For your interest" reference.

Your overall comment is spot on, just because designing a good study is hard does not mean we should accept poorly designed studies as good science. Agency risk unaddressed, science should seek to find the solution to a question rather than an answer.

[0] [https://www.pnas.org/content/113/5/E500](https://www.pnas.org/content/113/5/E500)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From my own personal experience, pot seriously impairs my cognitive performance. I'll only do it if I don't have to work for the next 48 hours (eg. a Friday night or vacation). If I'm undertaking some kind of serious effort I can't do it at all, because that period of impairment will stop my progress.

I think if I had a different kind of job, that didn't require me to figure out a lot of details, it wouldn't matter.

I understand that others have a totally different experience and can code while stoned. But I'm not surprised that the average results would show lower performance if a chunk of the population is like me.

<comment><USER8> I don't think this is accurate. Surely it depends on the specific pot. If you consume cbd are you cognitively impaired? Probably not. What about mostly cbd and <1% thc? <5% thc? Or maybe all thc and little cbd. All of these will have different outcomes.

<comment><USER7> I don't notice much effects from cbd. Sometimes hints of a "body high" but I'm not sure if it's the placebo effect. The only thing that seems to matter is the thc content. For me, a little dose of a high thc gummy is the same as a big dose of a low thc high cbd gummy. So I could take cbd on a work night, or probably even during the work day, but it wouldn't do anything for me.

When I talked about pot, I wasn't taking about cbd, although I apologize if that causes confusion.

<comment><USER8> CBD is known to have a modulating effect on THC. Essentially THC on it's own induces anxiety. CBD reduces or even eliminates that effect. My point is more that saying "pot" does this or that is not descriptive enough to draw any conclusions. The effects between different strains and people varies so greatly it's a practically meaningless statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am a regular pot smoker in my mid-40s. I have been using marijuana regularly since I was 16 and have participated in several studies of this nature since I was in my early 20s.

I have volunteered for these because I have always felt that marijuana does not diminish my cognitive performance for certain tasks -- and definitely does not diminish my memory recall abilities.

Some of these tests involved listening to short stories, and re-telling then an hour later, and other memory games.

I like to think I aced them, to keep the bell curve wide.

On one occasion, the researcher did indicate this to me, well after the experiments were over.

<comment><USER10> I grew up around a lot of people who were regular smokers from an early age, say 15. (and by regular I mean "can't sleep without pot"), and their cognitive abilities definitely suffered from smoking, and they freely admit it, and I think it's very obvious if you're around people who smoke a lot.

You simply can't concentrate when you're high the same way you can when you don't smoke. Reading is more difficult, exercise is more difficult, that's just the literal effects of weed.

If you're high all the time you're not going to perform the way you can when you're sober, and this is just my anecdotal observation, with people who started smoking young it becomes a sort of personality trait. You just become less sharp, less active, and when there's habit less interested in doing things not-high. Studies aside, that just can't be helpful.

<comment><USER11> Heaping all weed together produces this confusion where one person has one experience and a different person another.

Some strains make you highly focused. Others more social. Some make you more creative. Some might make you scared and hearing things.

It's like thinking all food is the same. One person eats chocolate bars all day and another carrots but are treated as a baseline.

<comment><USER12> No. It would be like saying: one person ate kale all day while the other ate red cabbage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this really all that groundbreaking? I had a teammate in highschool remark that you could pinpoint in his grades the times when he started/stopped smoking weed.

<comment><USER14> That could have indicated poorer cognitive performance, reduced motivation, poorer time management, and any number of other things.

<comment><USER13> Well not if you ask him as he would tell you his grades were highly correlated to his smoking habits. Obviously its a non scientific anecdote, but my point is I thought it was well established common knowledge that marijuana affects cognition.

<comment><USER15> And his smoking habits might be directly correlated with reduced motivation, poorer time management, and any number of other things. Meaning that it might not be a direct cognitive effect, but a second or third order effect altering his performance.

<comment><USER13> Please read the second part of my comment before just repeating what you already said

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's important to note that this study is focused on Adolescents.

</comment><comment><USER17> They say "A sibling in each family was a clinical proband identified due to delinquent behaviors."

Pardon my ignorance here but, does this mean they only studied kids with "delinquent behaviors"?

<comment><USER4> Your reading is correct:

> From 2001 to 2006, 245 probands/257 siblings from San Diego and 351 > probands/373 siblings from Denver were recruited via substance abuse > treatment programs, alter- native schools and juvenile probation departments > (see [30] for ascertainment details)

Citation 30 is:

30\. Gelhorn H., Hartman C., Sakai J., Stallings M., Young S., Hyun Rhee S., et al. Toward DSM‐V: an item response theory analysis of the diagnostic process for DSM‐IV alcohol abuse and dependence in adolescents. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psy- chiatry 2008; 47: 1329–39; [https://doi.org/10.1097/](https://doi.org/10.1097/) CHI.0b013e318184ff2e

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awful title

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm curious if it was a light, medium, or heavy THC strain of cannabis that the subjects consumed. It would be nice to see a cognitive performance study for all prescription drugs.

<comment><USER20> I haven't touched the stuff in 35 years, but is it markedly different today than in the past?

<comment><USER21> Yes:

> Overall, the potency of illicit cannabis plant material has consistently > risen over time since 1995 from approximately 4% in 1995 to approximately > 12% in 2014.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987131/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987131/)

<comment><USER22> Concentrates are regularly in the 60%-80% range, with some crystalized versions hitting above 90%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is no new. I was under the impression everyone knew this?

</comment><comment><USER24> tl;dr: They call it "dope" for a reason, dummy.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wonder what affect of LSD is in similar stufy.

</comment><comment><USER26> Carl Sagan used cannabis, and we can al agree he was a rather smart guy.

However weed strains back then had a different CBD/THC ratio than the ones today.

<comment><USER27> There is a strain today for just about any CBD/THC ratio you could ask for, in legal markets anyway. Black market supply might be warped, I don't have any experience with that though.

<comment><USER28> Sorry, this isn't true. I work in the industry and know how to talk about product. I have a very, very low THC tolerance, but I appreciate a buzz. I have failed to find a product that suits my preferences for years in a legal market. My preferences are relatively "niche", and the market has no interest in it.

<comment><USER29> Just take half a hit and inhale air for the rest of your breath. No need to take a four foot bong rip if you just want a smooth mellow high.

<comment><USER28> Well, duh, if I'm very sensitive to THC I obviously don't take large tokes. But with typical THC content being > 15%, "half" a hit is really hard to nail down. I tend to err on the side of caution because getting too high makes me anxious... and the usual outcome is I don't get any effect at all.

<comment><USER29> Have you tried edibles? Dose can be controlled and I feel like it's a much more mellow high that builds slowly over time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Lokalise – Automate your localization/translation process(web&mobile) - <AUTHOR> https://lokalise.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Lokalise is a localization management system used for the translation of mobile apps (iOS, Android), websites, games and documents. With Lokalise you can: (1) upload and translate your localization files (2) manage all your software localization projects (3) add screenshots to translations (4) translate in real-time and see how translations look on your mobile app (iOS and Android SDK) (5) order professional translations or use machine translation (Google, DeepL)

</comment><comment><USER2> this seems a good alternative to the mess of using spreadsheets for editing translations.</comment>


Quantum Mechanics for Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://kim.oyhus.no/QuantumMechanicsForProgrammers.html <comment><USER3> Hmm he seems to imply that MWI is the "right" interpretation, and that the measurement problem is solved. Most physicists would not agree. If you follow the link to his MWI description, there's this gem:

> But fortunately, I knew computer science, which most physicists do not know, > with the Church-Turing thesis, which roughly states that anything physical > can be simulated by a computer.

But that is not what the Church-Turing thesis says. A Turing machine cannot mimic a truly random physical process, pretty much by definition.

And then:

> This means that observers can be simulated by a computer.

Except that nobody really understands what kinds of physical interactions qualify as measurements -- or even if that is the right framework to use at all.

<comment><USER4> I'm a quantum physicist (well, we don't say that, I'm an atomic physicist, but for anyone not aware it is 99% quantum mechanics we do all day), and the MWI isn't universally accepted, but it's not universally rejected either. Plenty of important physicists interpret quantum mechanics that way, and I do too (I am not important though). That's not to say I'm confident it's _correct_ , just that it's the most sensible way to understand the theory as we know it so far.

It might not completely solve the measurement problem, in that the purported derivations of the Born rule are hotly contested, but neither does any other interpretation - it gets further than most. I don't see anyone else except pilot wave theory (which violates locality) deriving the Born rule either.

"measurement is not special, and observers are just quantum systems like any other" seems like it ought to be the default assumption to make, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, and honestly I think the reputation of MWI as a bit crazy comes about for purely historical reasons. Namely, Bohr didn't like it and he held a lot of sway.

Physicists are human, and parallel universes is pretty strange, so most people reject the idea without thinking about it in much detail.

Most physicists' opinions shouldn't count for much anyway, because the measurement problem simply doesn't come up in our day to day work, so most haven't thought about it much.

Furthermore, plenty of physicists don't actually grasp the fundamentals of their own field - they specialise a lot and can use specialised theories to get what they need done without understanding in detail where it came from.

So I really think the decoherence people, as cranky as their website looks and as oddly as they write, ought to be the ones whose opinions count on the matter.

Edit: seriously, check out their website, straight outta the nineties:

[http://decoherence.de](http://decoherence.de)

<comment><USER5> > Furthermore, plenty of physicists don't actually grasp the fundamentals of > their own field

I once met a professor at a quantum chemistry conference who argued with me that I could not converge on the exact eigenvalues of a helium atom (assuming a simplified Hamiltonian with a few Coulombic terms). He stated the oft repeated mantra that "the Schrödinger equation can't be solved for any element other than hydrogen", so I wrote a program that brute force diagonalized the Hamiltonian to demonstrate otherwise. He was confusing the notion of a closed- form solution (an analytical expression that gives the solution in terms of specified elementary functions) with that of a numerically exact solution (one that converges on the exact solution but can't be expressed in terms of specified elementary functions).

Another professor who was teaching a course on statistical mechanics once said that the single particle wave function is more fundamental than the multi- particle wave function. Nevermind the fact that his research involved density functional theory, which famously fails on those cases where the molecular wave function _can 't_ be well approximated using a product of single particle wave functions.

<comment><USER6> > Another professor […] once said that the single particle wave function is > more fundamental than the multi-particle wave function. Nevermind […] his > research […] where the molecular wave function can't be well approximated > using a product of single particle wave functions

Depends on what you mean by "multi-particle wave function". The way it is usually understood (I think), it includes all possible tensor products of single-particle wave functions. Then it should be possible, shouldn't it?

<comment><USER3> Tensor products only describe the separable (i.e., unentangled) states.

<comment><USER7> As I understand it, that is only true when dealing with density matrices. For example, |0>⊗|0> \+ |1>⊗|1> is entangled and has tensor products. I think that Xcelerate is correct in saying that all combinations of the basis vectors form the basis of the multi-particle Hilbert space, as a single-particle wavefunction is just a vector/ket.

<comment><USER3> Sure, the tensor product space has a _basis_ that is formed by the tensor products of all pairs of basis elements. But this is different from saying that any particular vector in the space is a tensor product of elements from the individual spaces.

But I'm possibly just misunderstanding what you're saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This puzzles me extremely. There are very insightful statements like

> One does not deduce them like one do in math. The physicists who actually > did this stuff apparently knew this, and considered the math more akin to > toying with the models to see what happens, to see if they could get better > models

Which is absolutely true. Part of the problem with quantum mechanics texts is that they're almost all descended from Oppenheimer's lectures (via Schiff's book) to graduate students who already _knew_ this, and just needed someone to brain dump the latest techniques.

But then it's mixed with really basic misunderstandings, like

> Many physicists like to believe that this makes the underlying model > irrelevant; that the matrix behaviour, its eigenvalues, is the only thing > that matter. You will encounter lots of this in books about Quantum > Mechanics. This however is not science, because it ignores Ockhams Razor; > the models shall be the simplest ones. A sparse matrix is simpler than when > it is Fourier transformed, or put into atom orbitals. (I thank Eliezer > Yudkowski who gave a reminder that Ockhams razor belongs here too.)

Quoting Eliezer Yudkowski is a useful heuristic for not taking someone seriously, but this quote implies that the author missed the whole point of linear algebra. And is falling into the traps described by Theorem IV in van Kampen's [Ten Theorems about Quantum Mechanical Measurements]([http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=617...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=617AE275E5CECF5F0AFD69ACBC52141B?doi=10.1.1.205.6529&rep=rep1&type=pdf)).

</comment><comment><USER9> > Since you are a programmer, you do not know what science is, even though you > may believe you do. A hint: Computer science does not contain science, just > mathematics.

He probably wrote this half in jest, but it is actually a serious issue in fields like Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision that are have their intellectual roots in Computer Science.

Papers in CV and NLP are about data structures, algorithms, software engineering methods, neural networks, statistical models, and so on. They do not discuss anything in particular about the structure of language or the properties of images. This is because they are descended from CS. In CS, exemplar results are ideas like QuickSort and Dijkstra's algorithm. These algorithms work on _any_ list or graph; you do not have to know anything special about the particular properties of the list or graph you are operating on.

As an illustrative anecdote, I went to an NLP talk given at MIT by a well- known Google/Berkeley parsing researcher. He gave a talk about a system that used neural networks to do sentence parsing. In the QA session, I mentioned the idea of verb argument structure, and asked how the system would learn, for example, that a verb like "persuade" or "argue" can take a that-complement, while other verbs cannot. He didn't really have an answer, because it wasn't the kind of thing that he worried or thought about. My guess is that he did not consider such a question to be relevant to his field.

<comment><USER10> I do research on Deep Learning. That seems the exact kind of question they would deem relevant to their field.

I don't know much about NLP but if I had to guess the answer to your question is include it in the training data. I don't know what model they use, but presumably it parses out sentence structure in a specific format and uses that as input to some neural network architecture.

Not really sure why he didn't answer your question, it's the exact kind of question people do NLP to answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's puzzling to see the author call himself multiple times a scientist while lending so much importance to Occam's razor (which is spelled differently in the article, not sure if it's an alternative spelling in his language or a mistake).

Occam's razor is not a law. It's not a fact. It's a simple suggestion if you're looking for a starting hypothesis.

Not sure which way to start to investigate a phenomenon? Pick the simplest one and verify that one. It doesn't mean it's right, it doesn't mean it's wrong, just that it's a reasonable first guess.

But not a proof. Not a fact. Just a guess that's statically more likely to be right.

<comment><USER12> Occam is the Latinized version of Ockham, as in "William of Ockham" [1].

[1]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Ockham](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Ockham)

<comment><USER13> Which must be the correct spelling, because it's shorter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems just to be a model of systems evolving according to discrete difference equations, admittedly derived from quantum mechanics; it doesn't seem to have much to say about quantum mechanics _per se_. It reminds me of a lower-(math-)tech version of SICM ([https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/sicm/book.html)).

</comment><comment><USER15> A slightly wacky article, but I do think there is lots more scope for explaining quantum physics via programming concepts. I got what little understanding I have of QM by creating a game that simulates it. I even made my own wacky article as well :) [https://linkingideasblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/learning-q...](https://linkingideasblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/learning- quantum-mechanics-the-easy-way/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Why not categorical quantum mechanics?

<comment><USER17> Yeah I'm reading a nice book from Coecke and Kissinger [1] just issued and am loving it, it's the story of String Diagrams for a wider audience and with all the details fleshed out (not just hinted as in Baez TWFs). Monoidal categories, tensor networks, directed PGMs, quantum computing and even vector space NLP semantics are all particulars seen from this vantage point.

[1] Picturing Quantum Processes, ISBN 1108107710

<comment><USER18> This book looks very promising. I just bought the kindle version on amazon. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Here is a model of waves, as in light or sound, but not as in water waves or > electron waves

How water waves are different from sound? Water wave _are_ sound, aren't they?

<comment><USER20> The wave that he is modeling is due to having a field in space-time that will interact with nearby values of the same field in a linear way, which results in it moving at a constant rate.

The waves that you see in water are the surface representation of 3-d movements under the surface of the water. So you get effects such as the depth of the movement for a wave determines its velocity. A wave that moves a very deep water column moves very fast. (One that is a half-mile deep can move as fast as a jet!) A wave that moves a shallow water column moves slowly.

Another interesting fact about waves is that there is a significant nonlinear interaction between the depth of the water and the depth of the wave. As you come to shore this causes the wave to rise up. Surfers enjoy this effect when it comes to normal wind driven waves. But in the case of very deep and fast waves, the effect is very much like a tide unexpectedly coming in. The result is known as a tsunami or tidal wave.

These complex behaviors mean that water waves can behave very differently from light and sound.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This article does not elucidate anything about Quantum Mechanics, is quite confusing, and indeed is plain wrong in several aspects. Very disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER22> I actually find those notes particularly well suited for programmers:

[http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1516/QuantComp/materials.ht...](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1516/QuantComp/materials.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> I feel like this is what's wrong with the world: "In science one guesses at explanations. One does not deduce them like one do in math."

As a programmer who took quantum mechanics in college, I have to admit, I didn't understand most of it. Someone I respect once told me that if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don't understand any of it at all.

The mathematical portion, vector mathematics with imaginary numbers, was the only part that was interesting to me. It seemed to me that mathematical deductions were necessary because the phenomenon modeled nothing in our "reality."

</comment><comment><USER24> This article could have been written by an algorithm. Everyone knows the meme about Quantum Mechanics being incomprehensible, like, ~"if you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics".

Quantum Mechanics requires randomness, because determinism is scary. Both probability and fate are functions of time, and time is the most interesting thing to look at. Generally, Time is ignored, or at best "accounted for".

As a programmer I think time is more interesting than particles or fields or probabilities of wave-function whatever

<comment><USER25> >Quantum Mechanics requires randomness, because determinism is scary.

Isn't the many-worlds interpretation generally regarded as deterministic?

<comment><USER26> IIRC, it's deterministic in a sense that isn't equivalent to the way de Broglie-Bohm is deterministic. The latter is generally what people mean by deterministic, ie. it's a classical theory with an extra term to account for quantum influences.

<comment><USER27> Both theories model the universe as being in a definite, non-probabilistic state, and that the state at one time determines the state at all future times. But yeah there is some difference in the anthropocentric aspects, i.e. how our observation of probabilities actually arises.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The more I learn about physics and math, especially with regards to quantum theory, I start to get really freaked out. The amount of "neatness" to the universe is staggering. How there's no "inbetween" at the smallest scales. Everything is discrete.

The fact that simple arrangements of symbols on a screen can perfectly describe this behavior is mind blowing. It leads me to think there's no possible way we're not living in some type of computer simulation.

<comment><USER29> Minor nitpick: We definitely do not know whether everything is discrete. There are plenty of quantum mechanical phenomena that do not have discrete spectra (you can have light of any wavelength for instance (with some caveats at the extremes of the energy scales)). We also do not have theoretical or experimental proof that space-time is discrete at the Plank length-scale - <USER2> we know is that our current theories break at that scale.

See [https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/9720/does-the- pl...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/9720/does-the-planck-scale- imply-that-spacetime-is-discrete) (the given answer is pretty great, but beware, the author is known for being a bit hostile in his non-physics opinions)

<comment><USER28> Thanks for exposing my ignorance. I had an "aha" moment realizing that relativity makes it so that there can be no "final" level of energy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Hey, something I can comment on properly for once ;). Handed in my final Quantum-field-theory homework yesterday (or blood-sweat-and-theory as I called it, great fun) and finishing a MSc. in Computational science 'soon'.

From what I can follow, most of it is, unfortunately either varying degrees of wrong or just confusing as all hell. :\

Some assorted quotes:

>The electron is not in a single place, but instead spread out over all the positions, more or less. This is called "superposition".

No, the superposition principal states that individual states (contributions) can be summed in a linear fashion. I know this is not a very clear way of wording it, but it is one of those things I think is quite hard to word but very easy to understand once you see it.

(Although one could say this is a form of superposition, namely a sum of infinite delta functions in position-space. But this would be the most confusing example to use)

>The smart programmer would guess at a model containing more complex math that will get the array to model several particles, but no such thing exists.

Quantum field theory.

> These examples have used cubes with a width of 1000 voxels, and of 1000 time > instants. The Universe use a width of something like 10^70 voxels. The same > goes for time.

I assume this is (roughly matches) size-of-observable-universe/plank-length. But this is misinterpretation of the planck length. As far as we (I) know, spacetime is continouis. (string theorist migth disagree, I am not familiar).

Furthermore, the many particle approach is not at all reasonable. One would (usually) use lattice-QFT. where one simulates a field for each _type_ of particle (the field can have several components) and particles are identified as excitation of this field. The most well known is lattice-QCD.

>Quantum Electro Dynamics

Quantum Electrodynamics ;)

>Richard Feynman got the nobel prize for figuring out a way of doing this. His Quantum Electro Dynamics is a sort of dynamic programming method

This part is right (I have no idea what the next few sentences are trying to say). Feyman diagrams (those fun squilly drawings) represent the results of some awful, awful integrals. The real analytical answer is integrated over two infinite spaces. But one can do a taylor expansion to get a answer which can be computed. Feynman noted that you can read off a few rules from this approximation and assign drawings to them. The answer can then be computed by summing all (topologically distsinct graphs) instead of the terms in the Taylor sum. It's much easier than it sounds (and sure as hell more fun than doing integrals), and you can copy-paste entire sections of your diagrams as long as the in and out-puts match up. perfctly suitable for dynamic programming.

</comment><comment><USER31> There is lots of undefined behavior in the code examples, where x-1 is used as an index although x starts from 0. I guess he didn't want to talk about boundary conditions?

</comment><comment><USER32> You can also read the Feynman lectures on computation, has some notes on quantum computing.</comment>


Tetris could reduce trauma - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4142908/Playing-the-video-game-Tetris-could-reduce-trauma-claim-Oxford-University.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I would be interested in how Sudoku compares. That is also a deep distraction, challenging but not overwhelming (they can be made pretty simple, and progressively harder), but _doesn't_ have the moving colored objects.</comment>


'A direct, toxic chemical injury': What vaping does to the lungs - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/direct-toxic-chemical-injury-what-vaping-does-lungs-n1061151 <comment><USER2> > "But I will not be shocked when we discover 20 years from now that some > patients have chronic lung disease because they've been vaping."

Well, she'll only have to wait a few more years. Vaping got started in 2003, and by 2005 was already exploding--I personally knew several developers who vaped regularly at that point. (I'm not a smoker, so it's notable that even I was familiar with vaping at that point.)

It's a pity what this hysteria and moral panic is doing. Both of my parents successfully switched from smoking cigarettes to vaping. My dad had been chain smoking unfiltered Camels since he was about 15. But now they're getting calls from friends and family "concerned" about their vaping. I just hoping it doesn't result in them relapsing. Anybody who thinks vaping, using reputable products, is even remotely comparable to cigarettes is a dangerous nut.

Tainted vape juice and coils which are too hot have been a known concern since the very beginning. The solution isn't the hysteria over vaping, it's to stop these kids and young adults from buying black market products.

That's the first thing I told my parents--only buy vape juice and devices from reputable suppliers and manufacturers with a well-known presence, preferably manufacturers in the U.S. If the medical community is truly concerned, they'd either push the FDA to release some sensible standards; or create their own standard, tap an existing pharmacologic auditor (or whatever you call them) to verify manufacturing methods, and initiate a publicity campaigned to advertise their trademarked label.

It's ridiculous the way that not only the media but _medical_ _professionals_ gloss over the hard facts of these cases--e.g. black market products, mostly verified THC products with every reason to believe the vast majority of THC notwithstanding claims--to pass judgment on vaping generally. Or how the "epidemic" in vaping (including both nicotine and THC), at least until the end of 2018, hadn't even exceeded regular marijuana usage by high schoolers. Their patently illogical reasoning and irrational conclusions are the type of thing we've come to expect from Trump, not doctors.</comment>


Nasdaq Tackles High-Speed Trading in Treasurys - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/nasdaq-tackles-high-speed-trading-in-treasurys-1444694409 <comment><USER2> This fits with the general trend in trading in fixed income markets versus equities markets.

Due to to the lower amount of liquidity (inventory available for someone who wants to buy/sell), fixed income (bond) markets tended to be traded traditionally - by negotiating with a number of firms individually (whether electronically or over the phone). These traders are extremely worried about someone hearing about their order and trading ahead of them (the actual "front-running" that Flash Boys accused HFTs of doing!) Therefore, they want to carefully release information about their interest in buying/selling to brokers they can trust.

These markets are stubbornly difficult to automate. Attempts at creating open markets where participants can trade anonymously with other participants have mostly failed except in the most liquid fixed income markets. Even though treasuries are some of the most liquid bonds "on the run" (recently issued), other maturities can be extremely illiquid.

<comment><USER3> Most commodities markets get really thin a few years out the curve as well, so if you're a large producer wanting to hedge your production the next few years it may still be pretty tough without lots of slippage.</comment></comment>


The Life of a Drone Pilot - <AUTHOR> http://muftah.org/the-life-of-a-drone-pilot/

<comment><USER2> _We need to work [...] while [..] working with the distributed ground crew for processing, exploitation and distribution of mission products_

I'm a bit confused about the terminology.

Are mission products just information? If so, does the text above mean "we need to make sure that the other guys in the loop get the images they need". Or instead of images it could be people's and vehicle's positions? Or the identities of people involve in a scene? Or, is it most of the time about mundane things such as just traffic status?

It also uses the term "neutralize" when it seems to mean "kill", which is rather odd. I don't see how, from a drone, there could be an intermediate action between watch and kill (barring the finale of the tv series 24). Or could it mean anything else?

The journalist does not seem interested in the missions, only about the pilot, which is a pity but fair enough as it is what the title says.

<comment><USER3> Neutralize is the military euphemism for kill.</comment></comment>


Sticky Footer - <AUTHOR> https://philipwalton.github.io/solved-by-flexbox/demos/sticky-footer/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing this. Some folks are still using JavaScript for this, and it's unnecessary.

One nit: This isn't a "sticky" footer, and that's a good thing. I'd just call this a "bottom footer" for lack of a better term.

 _Sticky_ is used to describe an element that starts with a non-fixed (non- overlaying) position such as position:static and switches to a fixed (overlaying) position to stay visible on screen during scrolling.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/CSS/position#st...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/CSS/position#sticky)

This is: The footer is placed at the bottom of the window or the bottom of the body, whichever is _lower_.

Sticky would be: The footer is placed at the bottom of the window or the bottom of the body, whichever is _higher_.

<comment><USER3> > I'd just call this a "bottom footer" for lack of a better term.

Maybe I'm introducing more confusion here, but wouldn't the term for this be "fixed"? I.e. it's fixed to the bottom of the page, regardless of the size of the window.

<comment><USER4> Well no, "fixed" is a position relative to the the viewport.

"Sticky" is like a conditional/hybrid between "fixed" and "relative".

I mean, I call this kind of footer "sticky" but it's not a great name and I can't think of anything better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ironically this and (avoid 100vh on mobile web) [https://chanind.github.io/javascript/2019/09/28/avoid-100vh-...](https://chanind.github.io/javascript/2019/09/28/avoid-100vh- on-mobile-web.html) are on the front page at the same time.

<comment><USER6> And both of these "articles" are hardly worth their title let's be honest. This sticky footer one could just be a link to the flex-grow documentation on the MDN, and it's not even a real sticky footer. The 100vh one comments on an issue that we've known about since responsive design became a thing in 2011 (2012?). Also, putting "A Better Solution: javascript" at the end of a blog post about a CSS problem is a joke.

<comment><USER7> CSS is just broken. I want to use general expressions like

        height = a.height + b.height - 2*c.height

<comment><USER8> You can!

      :root {
        --header-height: 5em;
        --container-height: 25em;
        --other-height: 2.5em;
      }

      div {
        height: calc(var(--container-height) - var(--header-height) + (var(--other-height)*2));
      }

<comment><USER7> But this example uses static sizes, unlike the sticky footer problem of the article (where e.g. the window can be resized by the user).

Can CSS calc() be used with dynamic widths or heights of other elements?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really hate sticky headers and footers, especially if I'm browsing on a small screened device.

<comment><USER10> Sticky footer, in this case, is not really sticky as in "always there as you scroll". It's more like: "always at the end of the screen, even if there's not enough content".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Flexbox makes this so easy! I remember having to do some weird black magic with negative margins to make this work.

old_man_yells_at_cloud.jpg

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm using such a "sticky" footer for a lot of my projects. At first, I was fine with a simple flexbox solution. Then I've tested this layout in IE11 (because it is known to have a lot of flexbox bugs). I've fixed it, but then I've got issues with Safari. It was this article that finally helped me solve the issue for all important browsers.

</comment><comment><USER13> > _the CSS required to make this demo work cross-browser is slightly different > from the CSS shown in the example above, which assumes a fully spec- > compliant browser. See the comments in the source for more details._

The code: [https://github.com/philipwalton/solved-by- flexbox/blob/maste...](https://github.com/philipwalton/solved-by- flexbox/blob/master/assets/css/components/site.css)

It've been great if he'd hooked up the page with caniuse to determine the best css to use for a individual's use case. See also his own flexbugs ([https://github.com/philipwalton/flexbugs](https://github.com/philipwalton/flexbugs)), which ironically is linked directly from caniuse's 'known issues'.

</comment><comment> vim-guru For websites this is just fine, but there's still the case with web-apps where you want the background to be the colour of that footer or header, so that overflow scrolling looks good.

</comment><comment><USER14> The article makes it look simple. The actual code that deals with various browsers is here: [https://github.com/philipwalton/solved-by- flexbox/blob/maste...](https://github.com/philipwalton/solved-by- flexbox/blob/master/assets/css/components/site.css)

</comment><comment><USER15> Aren't CSS grids supposed to be the better solution for this kind of problems?

</comment><comment><USER16> Reminder that here is a neat little script that will let you remove sticky headers and footers with just a simple click:

[https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky- headers/](https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/)

Please just stop using stickys. They are annoying. Thanks.

<comment><USER17> This is different. The sticky footer as defined by the article means that the footer appears at the bottom of the document, not viewport. It has nothing to do with position: fixed.

<comment><USER16> oh, okay. Nvm then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why not just set margin-top: auto for footer?

<comment><USER19> If your page height is less than 100vh - footer height, the footer won't sit at the bottom of the page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> main { min-height: cal(100% - header height - footer height) }

<comment><USER21> Header/footer height is (most) often not fixed but changes depending on your screen size.

<comment><USER20> Not necessarily true, and in that case you'd just have to update min-height to the new header/footer sizes.

Still wouldn't downvote</comment></comment></comment>


Why I Love PHP - <AUTHOR> http://engineeredweb.com/blog/why-i-love-php/

<comment><USER2> Most of these arguments can be made about ColdFusion (<http://www.getrailo.org/> or <http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion- family.html>). It has problems of its own, but a wildly inconsistent language / API isn't on of them. If I were recommending a language to a budding web developer I would not recommend PHP.

<comment><USER3> But you would recommend ColdFusion!?

<comment><USER2> For a novice - absolutely. There are very few languages that make it that easy to develop a web application. Developers that already have experience in another server-side language probably won't get as much value. The exception is PHP developers - you guys really need to try ColdFusion.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I'm Sticking With Dropbox (Over Google Drive) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cobychapple.com/blog/2012/04/26/why-im-sticking-with-dropbox-over-google-drive/ <comment><USER2> Selective quoting. The very next sentence says:

 _The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones._

Furthermore: _You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours._

The Verge compared privacy policies and concluded that they are not actually much different: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive- terms...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive-terms- privacy-data-skydrive-dropbox-icloud)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I did zero in on a few lines there, but I also don't like the idea of anybody using my content to promote their services or to develop new services based on what I upload. Operating their services? No problem there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I saw people discussing this earlier on Twitter and I agree that the Dropbox TOS _sounds_ better than the Google one.

My problem is that Dropbox does everything that is highlighted in this post as a reason not to use Google Drive. If anything, the Dropbox TOS reduces clarity by "hiding" that they do these things.

> use, host, store, reproduce

Well yeah, that's what the service is designed to do. Dropbox does all of those things.

> modify, create derivative works

Something as simple as creating a thumbnail of a JPEG is modifying/deriving your files. Dropbox most certainly does that.

> communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute

Again, this allows them to show you your data in multiple ways that exist now or may exist in the future. Again, Dropbox does all of these things too.

I honestly think that Google should have added "We will never sell, give away or allow partners to access your files without permission" to the top of their new TOS. It would clear all of this nonsense up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like I said, I'm no lawyer—so I'm sure that the Dropbox TOS is probably quite similar from a legal point of view, however it's the apparent intent that they go to the trouble of attempting to convey that makes the difference to me.

<comment><USER4> You like that they're hiding that they're claiming the exact same rights over your data?

It sounds like you're just finding an intellectual justification to support a predetermination that Google must be doing bad things with your data -- even though they're doing the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Verge did a piece about privacy policies: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive- terms...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive-terms- privacy-data-skydrive-dropbox-icloud)

Not very conclusive but Nilay highlighted the fact that while Dropbox's terms seem friendlier, in legalese, it's perhaps has more leeway.Also, he mentions that Google's unified policy means that they have to be extra verbose/careful about this. For example, if I can attach large documents from my Google drive while e-mailing from my Gmail account (basically not have to upload it from the local system), I'll consider that to be an interesting value addition; but that'll require me to give Google the right to move files between their servers, maybe compress it etc. This is a hypothetical example.

I trust Google as much as I trust Dropbox (which is to say that I'm cautious) and I expect Google to refine their offering as well as their policy over time.

</comment><comment><USER6> I will not stick to dropbox just because of some general and broad legal mumbo-jumbo. The truth is, both services are identical in terms of their intention to hosting your files. However, I cancelled my account today with dropbox for three reasons:

1) 5gb over 3gb I had at dropbox 2) Integration with gmail - you have to admit, this is awesome 3) Integration with google docs. I don't use excel or word anymore. I use google spreadsheets and docs. Now that ALL my stuff is in google drive, I no longer have to separate office-styled documents from pictures, videos and other files. All of them in one place is just amazing.

There's no doubt dropbox was innovative, but since I'm every day on google/gmail/docs - there's no reason for me to use/login to another service.

<comment><USER7> I think this will be why Google Drive ends up taking over this space. The ease of integration is what made dropbox so great in the first place. Now Google is taking integration a step further.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I prefer Dropbox because it's better integrated on the Mac — it doesn't break Quick Look, for instance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree. It sucks how all the Google docs format files can't be previewed (i.e. with OSX's quick look) or opened using desktop applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> oh boy, not again...

the db terms were the same, they rephrased it when the exact same panic rant about terms was raised all over the internet.

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks like their YouTube license. I think they need to amend it specifically for Google Drive.

I seriously doubt this is anything more than a stupid omission on their part. They'll fix it and won't be doing anything notorious with your data.

Though Google.. I'd appreciate if you didn't "publicly perform" my google docs. kthx

</comment><comment><USER11> So frustrating to see people are not learning from the past that these legalese phrases are NEVER as bad as they sound.

It seems this never gets old, does it? How often has this phrasing caused issues - and then when it's clarified it turns out it's just paranoid legalese giving them the right to show you your content to yourself on a public internet terminal etc.

I can recall these "Oh no! Read the terms!" articles for at least Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, maybe for others. Each time it turns out to be harmless.

Seriously - do you REALLY think Google a) wants the rights to publicly perform your MP3s or display your pictures and b) even if they did, that they're stupid enough to think this wouldn't cause an outrage.

</comment><comment><USER12> Also there is UbuntuOne. Also 5GB. I love it and have been using it for a while. Granted I only use it between Ubuntu machines and then access stuff online via the Web interface. Also integrated pretty well with the file browser.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's scary that we are seeing how quickly the market is moving in this space.

First they competed for feature parity and there was bloodshed.

Then they went tried to woo us with their usability and we were in awe.

In the end price was all that was left and they scorched everything in their path.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify: I'm sure that from a legal point of view the terms of both applications are similar. As a legal layman though, it's the apparent intent that makes me feel better about using Dropbox.</comment>


History of Knol, createad by Google to replace Wikipedia, to be closed soon - <AUTHOR> http://www.scriptol.com/web/knol.php

<comment><AUTHOR> But we gained Annotum, a promising theme for Wordpress to manage multi-users!</comment>