Mr. Rogers was my actual neighbor - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/7/26/17616380/fred-rogers-documentary-2018-mister-rogers-neighborhood <comment><USER2> The lesson I take from such anecdotes is simply to be authentic. Most of my frustrations with people come from a lack of authenticity. In particular, in the working world, there is a tendency to let organizational roles, structures, and responsibilities turn our interactions into something less than being our authentic selves, and that is the root cause of many frustrations.

<comment><USER3> "Be authentic" is not good advice to adults.

To kids, sure. But you also have to explain to them that as an adult, nobody cares for your search for authenticity, you're expected to show up and work. There are too many people who are flaky these days who all think they're special, I think it's related to the wave of "be authentic" advice out there.

Edited to not come across as negative - people are real sensitive about that.

<comment><USER2> I don't think you and I are talking about the same kind of authenticity.

<comment><USER4> I tend to put on opposite ends of the spectrum being strategic and authentic. Authentic interactions with people at work generally are better for everybody if you are in an environment that is compatible with that. Many environments are not so you have to be more reserved and strategic about what you say and how you interact with people. Being authentic with people outside of work is not terrible advice. Allowing people to know you are having some emotion such as happiness or fear or sadness allows people become closer to you and you to them. Mr Rogers talked a lot about that—expressing how you feel about things. I think many people misconstrue mr Rogers to be all about the "you are special" thing. But his target demographic was kids who likely were not that well off and had not great family lives. Having somebody who tells you that you are not a piece of trash probably helped a lot of kids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I got to meet him at an art opening back in the 90's. The accounts of him as a genuine nice guy, I feel, are accurate.

As far as appearance goes he was definitely more urbane than his sweater- wearing persona on the TV show would suggest. Of course he was a sophisticated creative person in an environment with adults. Meanwhile, we were all silently channeling our innermost 5-year-old selves (he probably knew that and was used to it)!

</comment><comment><USER6> Incase anyone hasn't seen this video of him presenting before the senate committee in 1969, in support of national public television.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA)

</comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr the author had a one-time encounter with Mr. Rogers when the author was soliciting donations for his little league. Mr. Rogers was as empathetic as he was portrayed on his shows. That erased any previous doubt that the author had regarding Mr. Rogers' authenticity.

<comment><USER8> Also, he lied to Mr. Rogers which seems like it deserved more introspection than evidenced in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Was the $1 Rogers donated a generous amount back then? What real world items might it have bought?

<comment><USER9> Why the downvote? It's a serious question. IIRC you could buy an ice cream cone for perhaps .05-.10?

<comment><USER10> I was a kid in NYC in the late 50's early 60's. My sister and I bought a soft pretzel from street vendors for a nickel or 6 for a quarter. We also got a lunch from a pizza place of a slice and a coke for a quarter.

<comment><USER9> So the $1 could have benefited the team significantly. It was hard to get from the article wether the author was thankful for the $1 or thought it was petty.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm accredited, where to start for angel investing? - <AUTHOR> throwaway account.<p>I plan to spend 20k-30k/y in investing startups for next 5 years, what resource would you suggest apart from angel.co syndicates? <comment><USER2> I know a good network of VCs and angels from Tim Draper and Marc Benioff (who are investors in us) that I could connect you with. Shoot me an email, firstname.lastname@example.com !</comment>


Thndrstrm, a decentralized personal server solution - <AUTHOR> https://thndrstrm.com <comment><USER2> Interesting idea but isen´t there completely free alternatives like OwnCloud? No mention of Open Source, something like this will likely not survive. I´m very skeptic in regards to something like this on crowdfunding. I´ve had a bad experience on indigogo where I lost $200+ because I trusted the creator. Besides it´s just bits and pieces of different services already created. iGoogle, Google Plus, Google Music, Smugmug, Plex? Gmail, Pushbullet, Google Calendar, Google Drive/Docs, Lastpass although I´m soon moving to Mooltipass. CMS? Wordpress,Ghost, Pico. There don´t seem to be a need for something like this, except perhaps your own control where OwnCloud covers quite a bit of it. And if it isen´t open source and you don´t host it yourself on your own servers then you aren´t in control.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of these days I hope to understand the modern fear of vowels...

</comment><comment><USER4> Why why why is this PHP and MySQL? Can we please stop using stacks that do not scale and have severe security problems?

<comment><AUTHOR> PHP and MySQL are actually very fast, check out Tech Empower's benchmarks ([https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r10&hw=...](https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r10&hw=peak&test=db)). Remember Facebook is built on PHP. For this purpose (distributed servers) it's a perfect stack. Easy to code for and very fast. Security is one of our primary concerns and I assure you that Thndrstrm has our users' privacy and security in mind at all times.

<comment><USER4> Fast != scalable

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> this is a kickstarter campaign. there's nothing for users to try out. why is this on Show HN?

</comment><comment><USER6> November 2016 seems like a long way off...</comment>


Algorithmic symphonies from one line of code (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2011/10/algorithmic-symphonies-from-one-line-of.html <comment><AUTHOR> The video that started it all: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtQdIYUtAHg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtQdIYUtAHg)

The follow-up post: "Some deep analysis of one-line music programs." [http://countercomplex.blogspot.sg/2011/10/some-deep- analysis...](http://countercomplex.blogspot.sg/2011/10/some-deep-analysis-of- one-line-music.html)</comment>


Xmarks Acquired by LastPass - <AUTHOR> http://blog.xmarks.com/?p=2033

<comment><USER2> The combination of these two has got me thinking. Not in the Wired-style "Clearly everything will be on the cloud and we will have no need for harddrives!" techno-optimist style, but just that you pretty much _can_ do this if you want.

LastPass and XMarks or Firefox Sync (and I think Chrome has similar) takes care of keeping your browser the same, independent of location. Dropbox can keep your important files where ever you want (up to some size). Netflicks and various music streaming services can take care of media being ubiquitous. Email and other communications are more often than not tied to an online provider.

So, what parts of your computer can't you get from cloud services if you want? Gaming still seems to be a large one, although OnLive supposedly fixes that. Large applications like Photoshop aren't necessarily replaceable by WebApps. What else?

<comment><USER3> Aviary Phoenix is pretty good as a Photoshop web app: <http://www.aviary.com/tools/image-editor>

<comment><USER4> I've been using Aviary as a last-ditch backup for a few years now. It's never been my go-to tool on a machine that I control, but at work, it will often be just enough. I would like to see better wacom compatability with their tools (eg: pressure sensitivity), and more accessible Bezier control points for their SVG tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does LastPass have any advantages over using 1Password + Dropbox?

<comment><USER6> Not really...

I use iMacros for Firefox + Dropbox for all web logins

and Keepass + dropbox for all other passwords.

Both programs store the passwords AES encrypted, and are thus safe to use with dropbox</comment></comment>


Show HN: Handup Vote — we worked hard to build the best voting app for iOS - Anth-ny https://www.handup.com

<comment> Anth-ny Any comments or suggestions from HN would be much appreciated!</comment>


Vulnerability in GNU/bash path completion feature [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jheyens/bash_completion_vuln/raw/master/2017-01-17.bash_completion_report.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

a few weeks ago we found a vulnerability in GNU/bash path completion feature.

The bug has already been fixed by Chet Ramey; the most used Linux distributions in productions have not been vulnerable.

Unluckily, we were not able to reach the CVE people, but since the bug has already been fixed, more than two weeks ago, we decided to publish the small report anyways.

Jens Heyens

<firstname.lastname@example.com>

CISPA <[https://cispa.saarland/>](https://cispa.saarland/>)

Related Reddit thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/5slvtu/how_do_i_r...](https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/5slvtu/how_do_i_request_a_cve_id_for_a_gnubash/)</comment>


Show HN: One App for Web – Read Hacker News, PH, DN, Reddit All in One App - <AUTHOR> http://reader.one

<comment><USER2> This a nice alternative to "hacklinks".

I would suggest providing a hint to the remote content. For example, if it is an image - state it, maybe with a preview.

It would also be useful to filter out 'tabloid' sites like reddit (or restrict it to /r/programming /r/sec etc).

Some mechanism to preview content or view their content in a consistent style would be nice as it can be a bit jarring going to Slashdot from an otherwise clean interface

[edit] Probably worth mentioning the labels on the left don't seem to do anything on chrome and if you resize the background remains at the same height.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're going to display how many comments there are on an item, please make that linked to the actual comments so I can read them. Besides that, it looks nice! Good luck with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> There should be a comment icon on the right when you hover on one news item, with a link to add comment on the source site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Saw this on Product Hunt earlier, very nice.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a future in XSLT? - <AUTHOR> I've been looking for a content management system and came across Symphony (http://symphony-cms.com/). After playing around with it, I like how it works — but it uses XSLT for its template system.
I don't know XSLT. I've read a lot of negative opinions on it browsing reddit and HN, so I'm not sure if it's worth learning or not just to use Symphony. I also don't see it mentioned that much on the web, and there's not too many recent books on it on Amazon. I've been using HTML 5 recently as well, and I have read about some difficulties using HTML 5 and XSLT together.
Just thought I'd get HN's opinion on what they think of XSLT and its future. <comment><USER2> I think it's pretty much a dead technology now, except for legacy uses like in big XML-heavy Java frameworks that were early adopters. I've tried using it for document transformation purposes several times but never found a use where it wasn't easier to just write a DOM-manipulating script. As a templating system I don't see any advantages either - conceptually it's nice to force the separation of programming logic and templating functionality, but then again, you soon need similar constructs (if, loops, includes, ...) anyway and then you have to switch to xslt extension libraries... When it comes to templating, I still much prefer showing programmer constraint is a better way to go than technical barriers. That tradeoff may be different in a context where you have dozens of programmers/designers/content producers work on a site. But for a site of that size performance would presumably exclude XSLT.

In general, I get the impression that the 'XML everywhere' fad has passed and that technologies like XSLT, xsl:fo and the myriad of xml replacements for DTD's have passed their peak a few years ago.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it is definitely being used in some very large and prominent applications, but in my experience the developers and management are aware of the deficiencies and want to move past it (but this takes a long time). I don't see a need either to start learning it now, unless you happen to go work for one of these companies that use it extensively.

Ultimately it always seemed to me like it was a tool to deal with the non- uniform hacky XML data the company had literally everywhere. Perhaps that's the problem that needs to be fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> XSLT was created to allow for document tree translation in an implementation independent manner. The main problem I have with this concept is that document translation is that 99% of the time you're doing it, it's to get the document to the format your app needs or from the format your app needs. In other words, the vast majority of translations depend on the implementation, so what's the point of an implementation independent translation language?

So on its own as a templating language, XSLT 1.0 had problems of varying size. The biggest by far was that the 1.0 spec had the absolute worst string handling of any language I've ever come across. It's erlang bad with the syntactic elegance of being an XML language. This is somewhat corrected in more recent versions but I think this is the primary reason the language has failed to gain adoption. If you're doing whole node manipulation, XSLT is adequate. It's not elegant, but it's flexible and I generally don't have problems getting the results I want in short order.

I do like a number of ideas present in XSLT, particularly the concept of templating documents as trees (guarantees well formed output) and transformation by pattern matching. Those both carry over into my preferred templating language, Python's Genshi, which some people like and some hate. To me it provides a good balance between purity and practicality.

As to your specific questions, I did one site in pure XSLT back in 2003-2004 and vowed I'd never do it again. I have a guy at work who really likes Symphony and produces good quality stuff with it. If I had to do PHP it'd actually be one of my top choices (I don't like PHP either...). I've never regretted learning xpath, since it seems to pop up regularly in unexpected places and isn't THAT complex. The complexity in xpath comes from many implementations not fully implementing the spec. HTML 5 has an XML encoding, so there's no reason that XSLT would work worse with HTML 5 than it does with XHTML.

XSLT will never be the one true path for templating, but its presence as a standard will always attract people who appreciate that sort of thing (I'm not one of those people) so it's not really a dead end either.

</comment><comment><USER5> Knowing XSLT for a while --

I wouldn't use it for a web framework, it just seems to be the wrong place. I use xslt for simple document transformation. Say you often have to deal with ridiculously complicated xml files and want to adapt them quickly and in batch to something, then using xslt is a nice way to go.

You should know functional programming to get anything more done than just throwing out some nodes, though. And the hard part about xslt ist actually xpath, which I still have problems with even after years to get the syntax right..

(I'm not a daily user, but it's my usual tool for that matter)

<comment><USER6> I agree to avoid it with a web framework. It's just not worth the hassle in that sort of application. Where I still use it though is for reporting systems. Have your datasource output XML and then have an xsl for the web report and a xsl-fo for a printable PDF report.

At the time I wrote the reporting system it was to replace Crystal which I found to be much more of a pita and more expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you do use XSLT make sure to use 2.0 if at all possible. It has some key features like extra built in functions that make it a lot more palatable.

Personally I think XSLT is an interesting language from a theory perspective, and it taught me some interesting things about rule-based programming. However there are too many serious limitations in it in terms of everyday practical use. In addition to the verbosity problems others have mentioned, here's a good list of things XSLT can't do:

<http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect2/nono.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> Xslt is kind of fun to write IMO - not so much fun to read or maintain. It is very nice for simple transforms and document generation but I've worked on a template system that used it extensively and it was a nightmare to make updates. I'd stay away from heavy use of it if at all possible.

<comment><USER9> It's a good excuse to play with functional programming, in a kind of brain- teaser sort of way, but it ends up feeling like a a lot of work to accomplish most of the things you want to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cobol is still being written.

There is a future, but the real question is: is it a future worth going into?

I wonder if there's any attempt to fork Symphony onto a different templating system.

</comment><comment><USER11> The only response I can come up with is: "god, I hope not!"

</comment><comment><USER12> Avoid it like the plague, would be my advice.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hi guys. I use XSL everyday and what you need to understand it's not a generic programming langague like Python, it's a DSL meant for transforming from one form of XML to another. If you're doing x = x +2 in XSL you're doing it wrong and that's why it's so awkward. XSL is very strong in that one domain only - declaratively transforming XML. It's actually much easier to maintain rules than any other language I tried for this particular purpose. I just hope people won't try to use it too much - it has it's own niche and because XML is everywhere now it's a fairly big niche, but it's best used sparingly and in combination with other technologies.

</comment><comment><USER14> You may or may not know of a famous post declaring the death of FreeBSD, which was abstracted to cover several other technologies. [If not, google for "netcraft confirms it".]

I personally would not bother. I played with XSLT and its predecessor called DSSSL or something like that, back in the late 90's. It hasn't taken over the world yet, and I don't expect it to surprise us. There are many other ways to manipulate a DOM, eg Javascript, that are much more sophisticated and widely supported.

If you want to get a particular job that requires deep expertise in XSLT, well, that's your decision. But I would not peg it as a generally-useful skill.

</comment><comment><USER15> I agree with most of the folks here. XSLT in framework is just not the right place.

1\. It is bulky and comes with a lot of baggage. 2\. Writing even a small statement like int x=2 in xslt is an arduous task of <xsl:variable select="blah blah"/> (this is the shortest way, it gets even longer if you need to do more complex stuff. 3\. It is not advanced enough like 'real' programming languages.

The only thing I would use XSLT for is document transformation. I totally agree with xsltuser2010 (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1330691>)

</comment><comment><USER16> so most people hate XSLT. Personally, I find it interesting because it's a language independent templating system, and as far as I can tell, it's more popular than any other one templating system. There's a fair bit of XSLT available out there for your use.

The problem I have with most templating systems is that they are extremely language specific. I want the design guy to be able to style any page, be it generated by perl, php, C, etc...

</comment><comment><USER17> Having used XSLT quite a bit I now avoid it - for generating HTML simpler templating tools are much easier to use (I using StringTemplate but there are plenty others) and for manipulating XML I actual find I prefer normal code in Java/C#/Javascript.

</comment><comment><USER18> I use it at work for most of our web templating. It beats dealing with microsoft webforms but that's the nicest thing I can say about it.

It's a very fast, computer time not developer time, way to make HTML if your datasource is XML.

</comment><comment><USER19> No.

Ok to elaborate, there are too many walls you hit in using XSLT. You'd be better off with a templating layer with a faster language much like tenjin, mako, jinja etc in the python world but every platform has them.

</comment><comment><USER20> Based on job ads I read XSLT still has a future--in the enterprise. :|</comment>


Coding - <AUTHOR> Looking to learn how to code from an exceptional individual in Los Angeles. I am a professional athlete with Team USA. Can provide workout lessons, nutrition tips or guides, nike apparel, and other cool things.<p>Let me know if you are interested! (: <comment><USER2> In lieu that no one has answered, here are two other options: 1) [https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full- text/book/book.html](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html) 2) [https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm](https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you don't discriminate when it comes to languages, I can recommend Zed Shaw's "Learn Python the Hard Way". It's an excellent book that gets you writing code right from the start.

Here's the free book in HTML form:

[https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/](https://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/)

You can also buy a PDF version that comes with several hours of Zed doing the exercises. I bought that just because I liked the content as I prefer text, but you might have different tastes so here's the link:

[https://learnpythonthehardway.org/](https://learnpythonthehardway.org/)</comment>


Humane Promises/Futures for JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://mootools.net/shell/q9ASd/28/

<comment><AUTHOR> I've worked on this library for about 9 months and I can no longer stand to write traditional AJAX JavaScript code. When I first released it Node.js was only beginning to get traction. While I like Node.js, I think most of the code of I've seen to work around async heavy code is ugly as hell. So I'm hoping some of the ideas in my Promises.js might be useful someone.

Basically my philosophy is that async heavy code should look like and be testable as normal JavaScript. That is once a promise crosses a function that has been decorated with future, it will be realized. Now that may take some time, so the function returns a new promise for it's computation.

The main bit of innovation is that the "inside" of future decorated functions should look like regular JavaScript not a hideous mess of code for dealing with the fact that your arguments may be async.</comment>


A Lion Uncaged - Damn it Feels Good to be a Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://youtube.com/watch?v=kPYlN-04HOE

<comment><USER2> I knew I wasn't the only one thinking of Office Space when reading that essay.

That said, I think there's been enough news.yc posts about the essay. Can we please move on?

<comment><USER3> > Can we please move on?

I wish. But the next weekly angry rant/controversy isn't here yet for people to get excited over.</comment></comment>


A Kubernetes-based polyglot microservices application with Istio service mesh - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vietnam-devs/coolstore-microservices/tree/master/src/services <comment><USER2> Give [https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/microservices- demo](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/microservices-demo) a try, it inspired this project you linked to.</comment>


Understanding procrastination and how to achieve our goals - <AUTHOR> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200805/delay-self-handicapping-strategy-i-can-protect-my-self-image-procrastinating

<comment><USER2> Damn! I'm procrastinating to read the article!

<comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr = Procrastination is an ego defense mechanism which works by hindering your performance. This is a way to avoid the possibly painful reality. In the article, the give the example that if, for example, you study for a test only the night before and get a bad grade, you can still tell yourself "I just did not have enough time" which is by far not as painful as admitting to yourself that you are not smart enough.</comment></comment>


Apple's iOS 5 Update Now Available For iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/12/apples-ios-5-update-now-available-for-iphone-ipad-and-ipod-touch/

<comment><USER2> List of things Apple is releasing today (perhaps incomplete?):

      iOS 5 (iPhone, iPad)
      Mac OS X 10.7.2 (and maybe 10.6.9?)
      Apple TV 4.4 Update
      updates to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS
      iPhoto 9.2
      Aperture 3.2
      Safari 5.1.1 (Mac, Windows)
      iCloud Control Panel for Windows
      the iCloud web apps
      Cards (and associated print/delivery service)
      Lion Recovery Update
      iTunes Movie Trailers app
      Find my Friends app
      AirPort Setup utility app
      updated iOS Remote app
      updated iOS iMovie app
      updated Find my iPhone app
      store for text message/alert tones
      iPhone Configuration Utility 3.4 for Mac OS X
      ...and of course the iCloud (and iMessage, etc) service itself, including migration tools for MobileMe, etc.

Oh, and the new phone is shipping this week [thanks, smackfu], including its Siri service that relies on a server-side component. And iTunes 10.5 yesterday. And the white iPod touch. OK, I'll stop now.

Just might be a stressful time to be an Apple employee.

I remember it being reported that in the Jobs-Makes-Everybody-Cry-After- MobileMe-Launch-Disaster meeting that he said that one of the major mistakes they made was releasing too much at once - that they should've let MobileMe simmer a while more instead of tying it to the iPhone 3GS launch. Guess we'll see what happens this time. Hard to transition your whole software stack to being integrated with a new cloud service without doing most of these updates at once, I suppose, but they _could_ have shipped the software then waited a month and shipped the phone. Would've been contrary to the "integrated" hardware/software messages that Apple usually has, though.

edit: All in the shadow of a homepage that has nothing but a memorial to Jobs. Classy. And, if they pull it off, should give a nice confidence boost that such feats can be done even in the new era.

<comment><USER3> Also: Xcode 4.2

<comment><USER4> Also: White iPod Touch

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also OS X 10.7.2. Among other things, finally gives the ability to rearrange spaces.

<comment><USER6> the three-finger swipe up and down once again scroll to the top and bottom of the page in firefox after the 10.7.2 update.

the cursor movement seems to be faster at the same set speed, i had to turn it down a notch after the update.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Various errors when trying to install iOS5 on my iPhone 4. I'm getting everything from error 3194 "This device is not eligible for the requested build" to a generic error 3200 "Unknown error".

Coupled with some crazy Lion crashes lately, my anecdotal experience is that Apple software is not "just work[ing]".

<comment><USER8> The iOS 5 update errors are being reported as server failures on Apple. Although, I admit I'm not helping the problem. It took 20+ tries to finally get it to phone home correctly.

[http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/12/apples- ios-5-upgrade-...](http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/12/apples- ios-5-upgrade-servers-are-slammed-causing-3200-or-internal-error-update- issues/)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the link. I figured as much, though a more descriptive error message would have helped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone know how to do a restore without backing up first? Like a lot of others, the restore is failing for me when it communicates with Apple and every time I retry, it does a backup that lasts about 30 minutes. I'd love to just keep retrying without doing the backup each time.

<comment><USER10> Try putting your device in DFU mode. This worked for me, after that clicking restore (then update/restore) went straight to the verification phase.. Previous backup was restored when I finally get the update installed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Photostream... taking pics on the iPhone and watching them appear nearly instant in iPhoto is amazing tech.

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know how iOS 5 runs on a 3GS? Does it bog things down?

<comment><USER13> if i had a 3GS i would wait until the next iOS update comes out unless there is a resounding "Wow!" from 3GS users.

<comment><USER12> I don't follow your logic, if there isn't a performance penalty I don't see why anyone would keep using the older OS.

<comment><USER14> jailbreaks?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Multitouch gestures don't work on the original iPad, even though they worked for developers on iOS 4.

I guess this is either to sell more iPad 2s, or because the performance when switching apps is slower (it is), which makes the app switching gesture worse.

Either way it's quite a dubious decision IMO. iOS 5 is all about being able to do more with the iPad. I've been using it a lot while writing my dissertation, and the main issue is how slow it is to switch between safari/iBooks and the writing app. The horizontal tabs in safari are a great improvement in this sense.

</comment><comment><USER16> _sigh_ My poor iPhone 3G and I are completely left out.

I did update OSX to make use of the new iCloud but its really no use unless you have an i-device with iCloud. I use Pages.app and was hoping I could make use of the iCloud storage feature but it appears I HAVE to have its equivalent Pages app for iOS to activate it.

:(

<comment><USER17> I feel old school because of my 3G. Be proud, brotha!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What is the build number of this release? Can anyone confirm it is the same as the GM from october 4th?

<comment><USER19> Looks like it's the same as GM - 9A334 (source: <http://ios.e-lite.org/>)

<comment><USER20> nice, that's my page (ios.e-lite.org).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> With iMessage being released I wonder what is the plan for Facetime? Is it complementary, or is it going to be killed? Are we going to get iMessage on Mac/Windows as well?

<comment><USER22> Why would video chat be killed due to the release of a text chat service?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Having lots of issues upgrading Xcode and iPhoto through the Mac app store. Just hangs. I thought it might be because my mini needed another restart after getting the lion update, but that didn't help either. Now since I tried to update them, the Mac app store is showing them as updated even though they aren't. No idea how I fix that...

</comment><comment> cf0ed2aa-bdf5 Are there any unofficial mirrors yet? I have a 100mbit connection but the download is just awfully slow.

</comment><comment><USER24> Download stalled... :(

<comment><USER25> Akamai caches weren't pre warmed. It should get better soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 3G owner, made that mistake with 4.0....just reverted to 3.1.2

Not making that upgrading mistake twice...

</comment><comment><USER27> Tried to download, always ended up with a "corrupted" download. Trying again now, it says "5 Hours."

</comment><comment><USER28> Downloading already here in the UK :)

</comment><comment><USER29> as doesn't auto correct to A's anymore. Yeah

</comment><comment><USER30> I'd definitely wait. Apple is swamped now.

</comment><comment><USER31> iMessage & location based reminders dont work on my 3GS :(

<comment><USER32> iMessage should work fine, location based reminders on the other hand are iPhone 4 and 4S only.

<comment><USER31> doesnt work for me..what do i do to make it work?? I cant see any option under messages for activating iMessage.

<comment><USER33> This makes me wonder how the majority of the people are even going to use it if it isn't immediately obvious how to activate it. I used this gigaom article to setup it up on my 3gs: <http://gigaom.com/apple/ios-5-imessage/>

It works pretty well and I can't wait for the mac version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why does Techcrunch always offer such exaggerations as "SMS dies today?" I'm curious if people will actually use iMessage very much. It will be hard to keep track of the relatively small amount of friends you know are on iOS5, and people on iPods won't want to rely on having wi-fi for their SMSing.

<comment><USER35> You don't "use" iMessage and you don't have to keep "track of" anything.

If for friend has an iPhone you will automatically send her an iMessage, if not you send a text. You won't even notice. (The "Send" button changes color. That's all.)

(Yeah, TechCrunch is exaggerating but iMessage is very clever.)

<comment><USER36> The only problem is that most people will stick to the unlimited SMS plan. If they have a small data plan (500 MB for example), they'd be using their limited data.

<comment><USER37> iMessage offers more: you can send photos and videos, and you see the other end typing if I understand correctly, so you can use it like a chat.

<comment><USER38> More: you can use iMessage on iPad and iPod touch to send message to someone using iPhone.

<comment><USER39> Has Apple mentioned anything about Mac OS support?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Blowback from the NSA surveillance. - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/blowback_from_t.html

<comment><USER2> When I wrote my representative, this point is what I stressed.

Strong privacy protections will become a competitive advantage for nations going forward, and the US will lose business if they maintain the right to spy on 'foreign' communications which pass through their network (or don't).

Many Americans and EU citizens alike would probably pay extra for services which are incorporated and hosted in countries with strong, enforced privacy regulations. Some organisations may be _required_ to use services with strong privacy protections located outside of the US.

<comment><USER3> Part of the reason that people from around the world are keen to put their money into US property, and thus to contribute _significantly_ to the wealth of the US, is because they justifiably believe that their US property rights have some real and effective protection based in _law_ , not just the good intentions of the US government. When they figure out that their US cloud data has no similar protection, it's likely to have adverse consequences for the US over time. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5853380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5853380) (The situation with "upstream collection" of data passing though US telcos is less clear-cut, and in any case there's SSL for that - it's the PRISM "direct collection" which most demands attention.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The last sentence is very true, but what makes me really sad is that the consequences of this leak is that at least in Germany and UK, the government look for ways to fast-track the same kind of surveillance system. They want the same thing for themselves!

<comment><USER5> Yes, that's right. I wonder whether Snowden could foresee this consequence of the leaks.

It's obvious - the countries which possess such technologies will have big advantage over countries which do not, so they have no other option as to pursue the same capabilities.

The only other possibility would be for the Internet to "reinvent itself" to provide true privacy and anonymity, but that is probably not doable.

<comment><USER6> My understanding is that the contractors that built this capability are selling it internationally anyway. The only thing that's US-specific or surprising about the system is its interaction with our particular laws and particular rights, which it doesn't need to pretend to respect in other regimes.

<comment><USER7> Kind of takes the piss out of the argument that we have to keep all of this a secret for "national security"

<comment><USER6> Shhhh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Last night I was talking to a friend.

Instead of using Skype we used mumble hosted on a server he controls, over SSL.

The repercussions of this will be huge. It is an international mess. I'm Canadian, and now I find myself concerned and wondering how I can, if I can, secure my communications.

</comment><comment><USER9> Rumors about Echolon were around since 1980ties. There were dozen cases that confirms surveillance over last 10 years. And most governments know about this already, they have similar project or were part of it.

So nothing is going to change. Nobody will use PGP because "it is too hard". Everyone will stay on Facebook. And soon networks like Tor will get shutdown . And cryptography will become illegal word-wide (already is in UK). Welcome to 21st century.

<comment><USER10> sorry, cryptography is illegal in the UK? Huh?

<comment><USER11> If I remember correctly, you can be ordered to decrypt any suspected illegal data on or travelling from your computer. Even ignoring the fact that the only difference between a 2GB file of random noise and a 2GB AES-TwoFish file is that the latter decrypts with the right password, (and thus if ordered to decrypt the first you're kinda SOL) this law includes SSL connections, for which the key is not known to you. There were some articles about the law on HN a couple months back after it was proposed, and I think it managed to pass. Again, AFAIK.

<comment><USER10> do you have any links?

<comment><USER11> One from Falkvinge (first hit on google), responding about as you'd expect [1], and a link to the actual law [2]. It doesn't make encryption illegal, it just makes it illegal to not produce the key on demand. You can decide which is worse.

1\. [http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/12/in-the-uk-you-will-go-to- jai...](http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/12/in-the-uk-you-will-go-to-jail-not- just-for-encryption-but-for-astronomical-noise-too/)

2\. [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/53](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/53)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >> The revelations that have emerged will undoubtedly trigger a reaction abroad as policymakers and ordinary users realize the huge disadvantages of their dependence on U.S.-controlled networks in social media, cloud computing, and telecommunications, and of the formidable resources that are deployed by U.S. national security agencies to mine and monitor those networks. <<

I think the author doesn't go far enough, and it should read "users realize the huge disadvantages of their dependence on ANY PUBLIC networks". It doesn't matter if it is [directly] U.S.-controlled or not, since other networks are controlled by their respective gov. agencies in that particular countries [or soon will be], and the data can be traded/exchanged.

It seems to me this is a trouble for the whole Internet [or soon will be]; it's not U.S.-specific problem.

</comment><comment><USER12> "We can't fight for Internet freedom around the world, then turn around and destroy it back home. Even if we don't see the contradiction, the rest of the world does."

Er, how is unregulated spying on non-Americans, fighting for internet freedom around the world?

I take internet freedom to mean the USA has the world wide freedom to spy on non people.... sorry, non Americans.

The blow back I would start worrying about is if the countries or the likes of the EU start walling off the internet, sort of like China, to keep American spying out. I now wonder if the Chinese firewall is as much about internal control as it is defensive.

American actually risks the break up of the internet as one single thing, unless it begins to respect people who are not American.

<comment><USER13> The Internet has faired pretty fucking well under American custody in the past two decades. Let's not be at a rush to discount this fact in the face of the leaks.

For better or worse, the US still seems to have probably the most progressive stance on general freedom of speech and tolerance in the world. This is perhaps the last example of nationalism to which I think tech folks can subscribe honestly.

<comment><USER14> The most progressive? Really?

Yes, we're better than China, but pretty far from the leader.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index)

The U.S. is the most important nation in terms of it's historical importance to freedom in the world, but it's been decades since it's been considered an example to emulate, in terms of either the electoral and political process, or rule of law based in natural rights.

<comment><USER13> A red herring, my friend. From your link:

 _" The questionnaire asks questions about pluralism, media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and infrastructure. The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences, the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public media. It also reflects violations of the free flow of information on the Internet. Violence against journalists, netizens, and media assistants, including abuses attributable to the state, armed militias, clandestine organizations, and pressure groups, are monitored by RSF staff during the year and are also part of the final score."_

So, a whole bunch of other things are rolled into that--least of which is some ill-defined internet component.

I know that it is very popular to bash on the US--often with very good reason! --for its press. Fact is, we did this to ourselves. Fact is, we stopped paying for newspapers that did good reporting. Fact is, we promoted and supported the rise of media moguls and conglomerates that helped stifle solid journalism. That was us, not some secret government cabal.

The US is pretty hands-off with regards to the 'net, especially with regards to free speech that others may find offensive: contrast us with the way many European nations seem to feel about hate speech or libel.

The only things I'd actively hold that we do incorrectly about the 'net is the ICE domain seizures and massive data-mining of communications.

Then again, we again see that the private sector is more than happy to vacuum up personal details. Thanks Google! Thanks Facebook! Thanks marketing firms!

Yet again, we do the worst of this to ourselves.

<comment><USER15> It boggles my mind how people don't understand the point you're making here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> On the phrase _new internet nationalism_ I would like to point out I snuck in the nominal country of 'AA' to an IETF internet standards draft recently to informally establish it as a potential touchpoint/alias for the internet at large.

 _IIBAN subsumes the position of National Numbering Authority (NNA) for the nominal [ISO3166] 'nation' of AA (the Internet) in order to provide a financial endpoint registrar service for the internet community._ [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-stanish- iiban-01](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-stanish-iiban-01)

It's pretty token at this point, but I would be thrilled to see others pick this up and run with it! (PS: New revision of that draft out soon.)

</comment><comment><USER17> I wish Bruce was right, but the interception of so much internet traffic is hugely valuable to the US (not just security but commercial spying too). Therefore it will use all the leverage it can with its trade treaties etc to lean on sufficient countries that it will maintain if not escalate its control of the main internet routing systems.

</comment><comment><USER18> The problem they'll notice will be the slide in demand for our software and internet services. We'll get hit in the wallet and they'll wake up. Because the US loves a lot of stuff. But money always come first.</comment>


Show HN: Xcode in your browser, idea only - <AUTHOR>

I've had this idea brewing in my head for a few days, now. I think it might be possible to setup an in-browser iOS IDE and debug environment. The technology is out there, it's just a matter of patching it all together.
Here is a concept image I drew up in Paint just now: http://i.imgur.com/yEDT2.png
Here are my implementation thoughts:
+ Use http://codemirror.net/ for the actual in-browser editor
+ Use git for project file syncing, on the server, similar to Cloud9
+ HTTP-based API for fetching and updating files from a client browser
+ Compile on the server using Xcode command line tools, similar to how http://travis-ci.org/ operates
+ Actual iPhone emulator, using the technology, or similar technology, that powers https://browserling.com/ so you could get full click interaction
I know I entirely over simplified this. The only parts that I do not know if they'd work or not would be the actual compiling of the Objective-C code and the VNC-like emulator idea. I don't know if Substack has open sourced the core technology that powers browserling or not (I would assume probably not).  Also, not sure if it would run on OSX either. There's probably ways to simplify this, too. Like, I have not poked around at the command line parameters to the iPhone emulator, etc, so I don't know if you can even invoke it from a command prompt, or if you have to go through Xcode.
This would require a lot of server power, but I think it'd be pretty sweet. <comment><USER2> I like it. I really want a better IDE than XCode for iOS development, and I hate having to boot up my Mac VM to do some work. I cannot wait until Java comes to iOS (@Java just announced it a few day ago)

</comment><comment><USER3> Re: the iPhone emulator part, check out Pieceable. It's being mostly open sourced soon. <https://www.pieceable.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> What advantages would this bring over regular development and debugging?

<comment><USER2> Multi-platform iOS development.</comment></comment>


Hey, Gang, Let's Watch the Web Together - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/hey-gang-lets-watch-the-web-together/index.html?ref=technology

<comment><USER2> I thought the title was going to lead to a rant about the web isolating people socially, but actually this shows some of the real power of web (at least for people with hot enough connections) to enable people to share...

maybe especially cool for connecting with shut-in friends/relatives. The web is about _connecting_ and here's another great expression of that potential.</comment>


Counter-electronics High-powered Advanced Missile Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.boeing.com/Features/2012/10/bds_champ_10_22_12.html

<comment><USER2> Check out the video from Boeing. At about position 0:42, you can see the CD drive open and the disk inside comes flying out of the tray!</comment>


Steve Perlman Says He Can Speed Cell Data 1,000-Fold - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/business/2014/02/steve_perlman_pcell/?x=4

<comment><USER2> This all sounds very interesting, but why does the average everyday user need 1000 times more data speed?

I don't want to sound like Thomas Watson ('I think there is a world market for about five computers.'), but we're already able to send full live video streams with decent reliability, a 5 or 10 fold increase in speed would probably mean doing this with incredible fidelity. What could we possibly do with 1000 times as much.

I think that is a bigger challenge in getting the mobile carriers to implement it. How would the average user benefit. However, if their is a business that needs a 1000x increase in speed, that is likely a much more likely plan for roll-out.</comment>


Crypto: speck – remove Speck - <AUTHOR> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/herbert/cryptodev-2.6.git/commit/?id=578bdaabd015b9b164842c3e8ace9802f38e7ecc <comment><USER2> For those interested, Eric Biggers, the author of the patch which added Speck support, sent an RFC the previous day to add HPolyC support to the kernel.

[http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1808.0/05226.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1808.0/05226.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> So is the presumption that Google would write a more honest and correct encryption algorithm than the NSA? The irony is at least a little funny. People distrust the NSA because they use highly invasive technology to identify suspicious behavior. But Google is trusted, and they use highly invasive technology for profit.

Honestly, I generally trust both of them. But, technology politics are very confusing.

<comment><USER4> Google's track record regarding crypto is high. NSA has done a lot of good, but recently behaved bad (backdoored random number generator) weird (not explaining uncommon design decisions) and counterproductive (representatives either being or acting stupid on various cryptography standard body mailing lists).

Google on the other hand has been doing a very nice job

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually used speck in a project of mine. It compiles to very very tight code even on an 8-bit micro, much smaller than AES. Since my attack profile does not include nation-states I see no issues in using it in my use case. Sometimes even speck may be the right tool for the job.

<comment><USER6> > Sometimes even speck may be the right tool for the job.

I disagree. Proliferation of very-likely-backdoored crypto is dangerous. By using it you're demonstrating that it is OK to use crap the NSA is pushing. If it gains in popularity, you'll have people trying to use it for sensitive communications, etc, without understanding why it is a terrible idea.

<comment><USER7> It is extraordinarily _unlikely_ that Speck is backdoored, since it's a (deliberately) simple ARX block cipher transform, a close cousin to a variety of other block cipher designs from academic cryptography.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, [https://lwn.net/Articles/762152/](https://lwn.net/Articles/762152/) has a full source code to Speck. It's like - OK, where is the backdoor, is eight the backdoor, or is three? Did the NSA sneak a backdoor into the idea of binary arithmetic when that was invented?

If people want to pick fights with the NSA, fine, but this may have been the dumbest possible fight to pick.

How does the implementation of HPolyC look in terms of whether I would notice if you hid something naughty in there?

<comment><USER7> Speck was announced to the world in a paper with design documentation, diagrams, and source code. Just read the Shors paper.

[https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/560](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/560)

Nobody is hiding anything in HPolyC either.

<comment><USER8> My concern wasn't with speculating that anybody _is_ hiding anything in HPolyC but with the comparable amount of code amongst which naughty things _might_ be hidden, today or in future, in Linux, or more likely, in something else.

Unfortunately HPolyC is _much_ bigger and more complicated. I'm sure it gets Google's job done, but I think overall purging Speck because of people's weird paranoia about the NSA was an unforced error and we'll regret it.

<comment><USER7> HPolyC is "bigger" but is built out of cryptographic components you generally already have to trust: the Poly1305 MAC and the XChaCha cipher. It's a construction, not a new block cipher transform. So obviously it takes more lines of code to run it. But it introduces fewer new primitives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love deleting unused code

<comment><USER10> Deleting whole deprecated features is even better. Often it's an indication of a modular architecture and proper upgrade path when an old, unused piece of code has been superseded without breaking any major parts of the whole system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is interesting... If speck isn't used I'm all for less poor crypto that can be used in the kernel... Just like OpenSSL removing Export ciphers (thanks FREAK attack)</comment>


A Fully Functional 3D Printed Watch With Tourbillon - <AUTHOR> https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/a-major-step-forward-in-horological-additive-manufacturing-christoph-laimers-3d-printed-tourbillon <comment><USER2> So when does something change from a watch into a clock? This thing is the size of a fist

</comment><comment><USER3> So this project is really cool, but its not the first.

[http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:328569](http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:328569)

That has been sitting in my print queue for some time waiting to be printed

<comment><USER4> Both are designed by the same guy.

[http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1249221](http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1249221)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty cool. I have yet to do anything so mechanically complicated on my printer. I was under the impression that it would be insufficiently round but perhaps I just need to spend more time calibrating it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how accurate this is. I had assumed making a balance spring precise enough to be reasonably reliable was extremely difficult. Being made of a plastic like substance that can only be accurate down to a visibly low resolution, I would guess it's not very accurate. Sort of a moot point considering the main spring only lasts 30 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER7> > will run for 30 minutes

And thus a challenge is created.

</comment><comment><USER8> Url changed from [http://gizmodo.com/the-first-3d-printed-mechanical-watch- is-...](http://gizmodo.com/the-first-3d-printed-mechanical-watch-is-an- intricate-p-1752690777), which points to this.

<comment><USER9> I definitely think that "with tourbillon" should be included in the title. A tourbillon is a very tricky complication (Rolex doesn't have any tourbillon watches for example), a kind of "tour de force."

As amazing as the title is, with that addition it's jaw-dropping. (Still, trying to counter the effects of gravity in a watch with the ticking accuracy of plastic is a bit funny.)

<comment><USER8> Ok, we added that. I don't know what it means, but we added it. :)

<comment><USER10> Thanks. It was the "tourbillon" in the title that made me click. Amazing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cheetah Mobile Accused for Committing Ad Fraud Using Click Injection Technique - <AUTHOR> https://www.eyerys.com/articles/news/cheetah-mobile-accused-committing-ad-fraud-using-click-injection-technique <comment><USER2> This appears to be a slightly reworked extract of

[https://www.xda-developers.com/cheetah-mobile-ad-fraud- andro...](https://www.xda-developers.com/cheetah-mobile-ad-fraud-android- apps/)</comment>


Active Oberon Language Report Update 2019 - <AUTHOR> http://cas.inf.ethz.ch/news/2 <comment><USER2> It's the second time i see this language mentioned on HN. Reading about it made me feel it was coming straight from the 80s, and i must say i didn't find anything special in its feature set (but i didn't spend a lot of time). Could anyone provide more info on what makes this language interesting ?

<comment><USER3> The language in itself is just a member of the Pascal/Modula family stripped to the minimum while still supporting modules and some form of polymorphic objects. What is interesting is what Wirth et al does with it in the Oberon book ([http://www.projectoberon.com](http://www.projectoberon.com)): building a complete computing environment (including a kernel, compiler and GUI) running on their own CPU. All in 9000 lines of Oberon code, no C or anything else.

<comment><USER4> Just started reading the book and so far it is quite interesting and informative and it looks like the problem they were trying to solve were that of the massively complicated operating systems which seem to get in the way rather than help. Funny how that resonates just as much today as then.

I have the digilent board from my FPGA experiments and Oberon looks like pascal so should be pretty easy to pick up so I might give the examples a go.

Unfortunately VGA graphics and PS2 keyboards and mice seriously dont cut it these days

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ainar-g (Only tangentially related to the OP, but what the hell.)

Does anyone here have an experience programming in Oberon-07? One of the most interesting features of the language for me is the fact that it doesn't have a BREAK statement. Which means that one must use a form of WHILE for linear searches. Probably to force people to think in terms of structured programming instead of the logic of "hidden GOTOs". Does it ever bother you? Did you ever had a thought like "Sheesh, this would be so much better with a FOR and a BREAK."?

<comment><USER5> An elegant solution (if applicable) is placing a deliberate sentinel value at the end of your data before looping.

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

Whereas usually loops have 2 tests for checking if the while loop should end (end-of-data-reached? or break-condition-is-true?) you only need to check for the latter.

This is a very Oberonesque programming optimization.

<comment> ainar-g I'm sorry, but I don't see how that answers my question. Oberon-07 has real FOR loops over arrays, so it doesn't need sentinel values. My question was about an idiom like:

      WHILE True DO
        (* Stuff.  *)
        IF someCondition THEN
          EXIT;
        END;
        (* More stuff.  *)
      END;

<comment><USER6> My guess is that Wirth's approach would be to avoid having too much logic in a loop (if really necessary, break it into separate procedures) and if needed to do something like

        WHILE ~someCondition DO
          (* Stuff *)
          IF ~someCondition THEN
            (* More stuff *)
          END;
        END;

In general from a quick look at the projectoberon.com source code (which is largely written by Wirth) the vast majority of WHILE and REPEAT uses seem to be less than 4 lines long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Compared to the Oberon in [http://www.projectoberon.com](http://www.projectoberon.com) this is like Oberon++. I mean, it's still a pretty bare bones language, but it has added quite a few fancy features.

<comment><USER7> Right. The whole point of Oberon is being as simple as possible. If you need all the fancy stuff introduced with Oberon-2 or Active Oberon (which are not the same lange as the one designed by Wirth) then there are better alternatives, e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Pascal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Pascal), or Java, or C#.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> FWIW, in-browser emulation of Ye Olde Oberon system (w/ compiler): [https://schierlm.github.io/OberonEmulator/emu.html?image=Ful...](https://schierlm.github.io/OberonEmulator/emu.html?image=FullDiskImageWithSource&width=1024&height=576)

[https://github.com/schierlm/OberonEmulator](https://github.com/schierlm/OberonEmulator)

</comment><comment><USER9> I was taught this language in 1st year of Oxford CS course. While I thought it's a dead language at the time, I'm glad to hear I was wrong ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a niche language, but it still gets used.

This company is still in business, selling Oberon compilers for embedded development.

[https://www.astrobe.com/](https://www.astrobe.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm curious, would you use it in a business setting today? What's the killer feature?

<comment><USER7> No. It's not designed for that. It was designed as a minimal lanuage focussing at the bare essentials required to implement a minimal operating system with graphical user interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Also for Wirth/Oberon fans: Oberon for the JVM — [https://github.com/lboasso/oberonc](https://github.com/lboasso/oberonc)

</comment><comment><USER12> Is it peculiar that the language report does not mention "active objects" in its text? Is there a different but equivalent term in use?

</comment><comment><USER13> Could we perhaps link directly to the PDF (at [http://cas.inf.ethz.ch/projects/a2/repository/raw/trunk/Lang...](http://cas.inf.ethz.ch/projects/a2/repository/raw/trunk/LanguageReport/OberonLanguageReport.pdf))?

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted the link to the overview page, because it provides more information about the PDF not being yet final and where to discuss further the issues until it gets the final seal of approval.</comment></comment>


Researchers Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Stop African Elephant Poachers - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/760487476/elephants-under-attack-have-an-unlikely-ally-artificial-intelligence <comment><USER2> How long before 24-hour endurance surveillance drones are cheap enough and pack enough sensors and edge intelligence to for NGOs and small country Game and Wildlife departments to buy and use as part of preservation programs like this?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you could power an electric drone from an internal combustion engine + generator. Also, nothing forces the drone to depart and land from the same base, so it can cover a large area and land on friendly locations for refuel.

Large drones can pack multiple pretty decent imaging and radar sensors and store the images on board for later processing.</comment></comment>


Bit Twiddling Hacks  - <AUTHOR> http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html

<comment><USER2> Also check out _Hacker's Delight_ :

<http://www.hackersdelight.org/>

[http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Delight-Henry-S- Warren/dp/0201...](http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Delight-Henry-S- Warren/dp/0201914654/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ah... I have some good memories of adapting some of these for microcontrollers while still in school.

My favorite is Kernighan's method for counting set bits. It's as short and clean as the naive method and not immediately obvious: [http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#CountBit...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#CountBitsSetKernighan)

</comment><comment><USER4> The [http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#ZeroInWo...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html#ZeroInWord) hack is reminiscent of the strlen discussion the other day: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=510326>

</comment><comment><USER5> If the number of CPU cores increases significantly, with the individual cores getting much simpler, I wonder if bit twiddling will be back.

</comment><comment><USER6> These are good for showing off to other programmers and ensuring your job security/future contracts at your present place of work.

<comment><USER7> Not if you comment properly. Don't worry, these are safe to use!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: ATT Android phone helpful for development? - <AUTHOR>

I live in southeast Alaska, and the only carrier available is ATT.  My wife would like me to get an iphone so we have compatible devices, but I lean towards android.  I will not get into iphone development anytime soon, but I would probably try out developing for android if I could load my own app onto my own phone.<p>Are ATT android phones helpful for development, or does ATT's policy of locking android phones make them useless for this purpose? <comment><USER2> You shouldn't have any problems. AT&T's Android phones no longer prevent installation of non-market apps, and IIRC even when they did you could always deploy your own code on them with the developer tools.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, that's good to know. Do you know if they still come with a bunch of pre-loaded apps that can't be removed?

<comment><USER3> yes, every carrier's phones do.</comment></comment></comment>


June 22, 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-22-2020?r=egh6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=hackernews <comment><USER2> I don't know how defamation works in the US, but can't Obama sue Trump now?</comment>


Brexit Party Dominates as Tories and Labour Suffer - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48417228 <comment><USER2> The E.U. would have worked better, if it stayed a free trade union. The pursuit of turning it into a super state evolved the EU into a bureaucratic mess.

<comment> dane-pgp The U.S. would have worked better, it if stayed a confederacy. The pursuit of turning it into a super state evolved the US into a bureaucratic mess.

<comment><USER3> We've had over 200 years to work things out —slowly. It was pretty much a diaspora of the same mindset throughout with a common language and body of law.

Two hundred or a hundred years ago people put up with a lot. A modern world doesn't want to wait for things to work themselves out.

<comment><USER4> Two hundred years ago, the federal government was tiny and most decisions were made locally. That changed dramatically in the last two generations.

<comment><USER5> A "generation" in scientific terms is roughly 25 years, right? In 1969, you couldn't drive a truck full of oranges between cities in two different states without permission from a federal agency, if I understand the history here correctly.

<comment><USER4> There was two big spikes: three generations ago, FDR and WWII caused the federal government to grow from 5% of GDP to 25% of GDP, and dominate economic regulation, and then two generations ago the Warren Court caused the federal government to dominate social regulation. After FDR, but before Warren, you couldn't drive oranges between states without federal permission, but you could have prayer in local schools conforming to local values. The latter was arguably a bigger destabilizing force than the former.

<comment><USER5> So it seems to me we sorted that out almost exactly the right way. Parents are responsible for inculcating religious values into their kids, not school administrators, and we don't pay $5 for an orange†.

Either way: it can't be the case that things were more decentralized and local 2 generations ago and more centralized now, because, well, no, they aren't.

† _I don 't like oranges and haven't bought one in years so if it turns out we do pay $5 for an orange pretend I said $50, which I'm pretty sure we don't pay._

<comment><USER4> Parents have always relied on the community to help inculcate religious values, just as they do with other kinds of values. Talking religion out of schools, where kids spend most of their waking time, and the public sphere generally, cut the legs out from under a key institution that was integral to the fabric of American society. And in the process it created enormous resentment to the folks who had orchestrated that destruction.

Even when you come to the "right" conclusion, imposing rules on people contrary to their values comes at a high price. In Bangladesh, the liberal elite tried to impose ideas like secular government. The common people pushed back, backing a military dictator that made Islam the official religion. 50 years later, the struggle between the two sides continues. You can't beat people into believing the right things. There is nothing fundamentally different about Americans. You can impose the right answer on issues ranging from abortion to obscenity (and for the most part, I believe we have), but people will resent you for overriding their community's choices. The cost of correcting injustice is straining the fabric that binds you together.

(How much does a banana even cost? $5?)

<comment> dane-pgp > The cost of correcting injustice is straining the fabric that binds you > together.

Yes, but bear in mind, the cost of maintaining injustice is also the straining of the fabric that binds you together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> jim-jim-jim Don't EU elections usually favor more obscure parties? There were some BNP MEPs not too far back, no?

<comment><AUTHOR> Only because a proportional representation system is used.

Back in 2009 Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons were elected as MEP's for one term. After that the BNP's vote dwindled and they lost their seats.

</comment></comment><comment> dane-pgp Way to bury the lede, BBC. Another way to look at these results is:

Remain parties: 40.4% | Hard Brexit parties: 34.9% | Conservatives/Labour: 23.2%

as per:

[https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1132805516189683712](https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1132805516189683712)

It's a pity that despite the European elections being the closest the UK comes to using a nationwide proportional voting system, some of the media tries to present the outcome in terms of which party won the biggest minority, and how the two main parties fared.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well, thankfully except for viewers in Scotland :)</comment>


Ramaze by Example - <AUTHOR> http://blog.purepistos.net/index.php/2008/11/18/ramaze-by-example/

<comment><USER2> I love Ramaze because it lets you write Ruby without any magic. (there be no dragons!)

      # helloworld.rb
      require 'ramaze'

      class MainController < Ramaze::Controller
        def index
          "hi world!"
        end
      end

      Ramaze.start :adapter => :thin, :port => 3000

      # ruby helloworld.rb
      # curl http://localhost:3000/ => "hi world!"

Don't even need a webcast to understand that.

<comment><USER3> Ditto.

It plays well with JRuby + Warbler, sits on Rack for pre- and post-processing goodness when needed (without having to intertwingle with stuff in the app proper), and basically gets out of your way. I don't feel like I have to learn assorted ill-documented mini-DSLs in order to just write a Ruby app that sits on the Web.

#ramaze on freenode rocks, too.

It's the most Ruby-ish of Ruby Web tools I've used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://github.com/zh/turl/tree/master> \- tinyurl-like service in ramaze (just one file). even have an API ;) Have also a bigger project - <http://github.com/zh/tamanegi/tree/master> \- rss/atom feeds aggregator.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've always been a advocate of Ramaze. Too bad it does not get the press it deserves.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just finished a 3k+ controller LOC business app with ramaze, and we love it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just for comparison / further investigation, there's also Sinatra - <http://sinatra.rubyforge.org/>

It's more "DSL-y" than Ramaze.</comment>


Show HN: Dynamic favicon timer - <AUTHOR> http://tomato.es

<comment> johnx123-up Doesn't work on Chrome

<comment><AUTHOR> it works, but the timer is too long. you can cheat by running "javascript: TT.start(1)"</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where to find remote jobs for mathematicians? - <AUTHOR> The typical tasks for mathematicians or data scientists are probably not harder to do remotely than for software engineers.
However I did not find a similar job board like WeWorkRemotely for this type of jobs (and there there doesn't exist a Category for them).
Does anybody know a good resource for math/datascience jobs with the possibility to filter for remote positions? <comment><USER2> You have to get a bit more creative here. I'm having success with cold e-mailing early founders who are not looking for data scientists then tell them what data science can do for them.

Or apply to their "full stack web developer that is really just frontend" jobs and then be so good that they can't refuse.

There are not enough remote data science jobs to build a board around them. If you want one, you pretty much have to create your own job.

</comment><comment><USER3> Remote jobs search in freshersworld.com

[http://www.volivesolutions.com/opencart- development.html](http://www.volivesolutions.com/opencart-development.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Only the best writing service can met the expectation of the customer. Since the best essay writing service have the expert writers. The expert writers have deep knowledge in each subject. So it is very important to select best service. [http://bestessaywritingservice.co](http://bestessaywritingservice.co)</comment>


ASUS Chromebox: Fanless Haswell in a NUC-like Form Factor, Starting at $179 - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/7735/asus-chromebox-fanless-haswell-in-a-nuclike-form-factor-starting-at-179

<comment><USER2> Link to ASUS promo page [http://promos.asus.com/us/chrome- os/chromebox/](http://promos.asus.com/us/chrome-os/chromebox/)</comment>


Math Trick: Calculating the Square Root by Hand - <AUTHOR> http://www.itl.nist.gov/div897/sqg/dads/HTML/squareRoot.html <comment><USER3> Much faster algorithm, calling your input value X:

1\. Move the decimal point 2N digits to the left, so that your value X is of the form a.bcdef... or ab.cdef... Remember the value N.

2\. If X now has one digit before the decimal place, set Y = 5. Otherwise, set Y = 2.

3\. Compute Y = Y * (300 - X * Y * Y) / 200 to as many decimal places as you want. Feel free to start by computing only a few decimal places.

4\. Repeat step 2 until you're computing Y to the number of decimal places you want in your answer and it's not changing.

5\. Compute Y = X * Y.

6\. Move the decimal point in Y to the right by N-1 places.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry, but this is totally unclear (to me at least).

For example what are you computing (in part 3) if you know what X and Y are?

What is N?

What is "the number of decimal places you want"?

Can you explain in another way? Do you have an example? Why does this work?

<comment><USER5> Part 3 makes perfect sense to me, it's an "x = x+1" style line.

N is (((the number of digits of X), divided by 2), rounded down.)

Edit: hmm, maybe I've got it wrong, the convergence is very slow. Anyways, here's how it works out for me:

      X = 105362
      X = 10.5362 so N = 2 (half the number of digits to the right of the decimal point...)
      Y = 2
      Y = 2*(300-10.5362*2*2) = 2.578552
      Y = 2.578552*(300-10.5362*2.578552*2.578552) = 2.9646326
      Y = 2.9646326*(300-10.5362*2.9646326*2.9646326) = 3.0742773

It should converge to around 3.24, at which point you would shift the decimal point back 2 digits to get 324.

<comment><USER4> I guess I'm confused by the fact that you are repeating step 2 which reassigns Y...

Clear on N thanks.

An example would make this easier...

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it should read "repeat step three". Frequently, if you want to find x satisfying f(x) = x you can just let x be the limit of the sequence t, f(t), f(f(t)), f(f(f(t))) where t is some arbitrary number. In this case, we have:

      f(Y) = Y*(300-XYY)/200

If f(Y) = Y, then:

      Y = Y*(300-XYY)/200
      1 = (300-XYY)/200
      200 = 300 - <USER2>
      100 = XYY

So it looks like the algorithm calculates an inverse square root instead, and then multiplies it by the original number (step 5.)

<comment><USER3> _Yeah, it should read "repeat step three"._

Oops, quite right.

 _So it looks like the algorithm calculates an inverse square root instead, and then multiplies it by the original number (step 5.)_

Exactly. The nice thing about this method is that it converges nicely even if you make errors (arithmetical or rounding) along the way -- so you can start by working with only a few digits and only use full precision right at the end.

You could compute square roots using a direct NR iteration (Y := (Y + X/Y) / 2), but that requires that you perform a division at each step -- most people find multiplications to be easier and faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was taught this method of calculating a square root by hand when I was a child in public school. I have since been surprised by the number of people my own age who were never taught.

Since many Canadian high schools only teach "pre-Calculus" now, it makes me wonder if anyone is learning the "long hand" method for square roots these days.

<comment><USER7> Same with me, learned this in 8th grade (although I forgot most of the details since). 1996, Romania.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those intrigued by this kind of thing, this book (paper only, but the web page has more resources) may be interesting:

Dead Reckoning: Calculating Without Instruments, by Ronald W. Doerfler ([http://www.myreckonings.com/Dead_Reckoning/Dead_Reckoning.ht...](http://www.myreckonings.com/Dead_Reckoning/Dead_Reckoning.htm) )

More good stuff at <http://myreckonings.com/wordpress/> . The nomography posts had caught my eye a while ago, and there may be more of those coming soon.

(Disclosure: I recently exchanged a couple of emails with the author, after leaving a comment on the Heaviside post which was briefly featured here.)

</comment><comment><USER9> Thinking in powers of two, aids to get faster estimates of square roots. When you are calculating just by hand, you can tolerate errors associated with this method.

For example, the number of the explication is near to 2^16, so the square root is 2^8 = 256 approximately (with relative error of 0.7% and in less of a second :)

Of course, it won't work when numbers are farther of powers of two.

<comment><USER10> You just have to be familiar with how to scale numbers logarithmically. (That is, half-way between two units is 70% of the value, 1/10th of the way is 30% value, and so on.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _"What is the largest number that we can put in the units and multiply times the divisor and still be less than or equal to what we have?"_

Oh my goodness.

<comment><USER12> Just read on, the process becomes obvious after the next iteration. It _is_ very simple actually.

<comment><USER11> Oh yes. I just thought that sentence was fantastic!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We found longhand square root instructions with worked examples in my Grandma's recipe collection. :)

</comment><comment><USER14> dare I ask, why?

<comment><USER15> Among other things, knowing how to solve a problem with limited means helps you understand more precisely how hard it is.</comment></comment>


Fifteen days after (a not so great) launch : What we learned - <AUTHOR> http://blog.shyahi.com/post/61338021784/fifteen-days-after-a-not-so-great-launch-what-we

<comment><USER2> This two are very important.

Fix the issues raised during the launch, do more marketing, reach out to more users.

Don't take forever to launch working on the never ending todo list. Launch, fix, launch again…

</comment><comment><USER3> Congratulations on launching the Shyahi. I am always interested in these types of articles. I hope you you will share more such type of stories. Good luck!</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with writers block for programmers - <AUTHOR>

I suppose I'm in a bit of writers block, but for programming.  How do you deal with it?  Take a vacation?  Drink a beer? <comment><USER2> Usually when I get that, it's because I'm trying to make something perfect. To handle all the edge cases, to make something bulletproof. And then I take a deep breath and remember that the sooner I make a shitty version, the sooner I can actually figure out what I need to optimize for.

So take a big breath and build the shitty version. You will save so much time in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do small things like code formatting, refactoring, commenting. It helps loading the code back into your brain and get into the flow.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't over think it... Most times people get writers block when they think of style and syntax over substance. I mean programming isn't like writing a story... you don't have to make up the fact that your function has to return a string with a username... you just want to do it bad ass... just write it... I call it Jalopy Code... its the junk that gets it done and then I go back and clean it up after...</comment>


Going Offline - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1190292298694680577 <comment><USER2> And as usual, a crypto scam in the replies.

I wouldn't be sure about Twitter either.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good for him. Twitter and Facebook are garbage fires.

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, that was fun to watch.... (it seems Elon was giving away Bitcoin)

[https://elonmuskgift.org/b/](https://elonmuskgift.org/b/)

edit: Still seems to be a fair amount of ETH up for grabs.... wish I had some to give

[https://www.elon-get.com/eth_get/](https://www.elon-get.com/eth_get/)

<comment><USER2> Not sure if sarcasm or not but it's an obvious scam.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which scifi authors to interview about immortality? - <AUTHOR> The producers of a serious informative show on Dutch national television are looking for scifi authors to interview on the subject of immortality. Which authors do you think they should pick, and why? <comment><USER2> Peter F. Hamilton

Besides writing marvelous sci-fi which I would recommend everyone to read, many of his books center around a world where humans rejuvenate. Basically you go to a clinic where your body's age is turned back to whatever age you desire (or maybe a new body is grown, can't remember). When you are there your "brain" (memories, thinking patterns etc) is backed up meaning if you are killed the clinic will simply clone a new body for you and download your consciousness to the new body. It's been I while since I last read his books so I can't off-hand remember what moral/social aspects of immortality he focused on.

If you want to read his books I would recommend you start with Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. Those have to be some of the best books I've ever read. Speaking of which, I'm off to re-read them a third time.

<comment><USER3> In reading his stories, I couldn't help but think that either immortality/rejuvenation leads to a very static society, or he has difficulties in trying to think of what a future society might look like.

His stories felt very much like the present, or the near past, projected into the future, with very little change.

This could be deliberate. The some of oldest people are also the richest (including having their own family planet), and least likely to want cultural change. The entire civilization could be bent to their desire to prevent change. But I don't think so. I think he just writes the present into the future.

Of course all authors find it hard to really think about a future culture different than their own. Take Heinlein, whose future worlds are often American pioneer or mid-20th century. But Heinlein added a few things to remind you that it is the future. Kilts are a trend in Methuselah's Children, white gloves for men in Double Star, nail polish for men in Beyond this Horizon, and at the end of Time For The Stars we realize that women throughout the story were always wearing hats, while back on Earth that fad had passed and women had naked heads "like an animal."

While in Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, the future was now, with a few extra gadgets, and a view of sexism which already feels dated. (I agree with the comment about sexism at [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/149949969?book_show_ac...](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/149949969?book_show_action=true) . And yes, Heinlein's stories were also sexist. I like the description that he write about a future with woman's lib, with women characters as doctors and engineers, but the reality of women's lib was quite different.)

On a technical side-note, the power sources really bug me. There are super- duper capacitors that can be charged over a century in order to change the weather, and incredible power sources that can be surgically embedded in humans so that a fight between two such augmented human ends up knocking down walls, but there are still diesel engines?

<comment><USER4> I think you may have picked up on something there, talking about a "static society". I remember reading a comment from Hamilton at one point (possibly in the fore/afterword?) that the goal of the Night's Dawn trilogy was to write about a society so stable and stagnant that change has to be forced upon it from without. And while the Commonwealth saga may not have shared the same explicit premise, there were definite parallels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Going to second Eliezer Yudkowsky. He wrote the most popular Harry Potter fanfic in the world, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (I know it's funny, but it's probably been read more than most of the other scifi in this thread). The whole theme was about the philosophy of the rejection of death as the natural order.

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

[http://yudkowsky.net/](http://yudkowsky.net/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Mr. Bruce Sterling authored "Holy Fire" in 1996, a novel which deals with the topic of radical life extension through a protagonist who is an elderly woman. Contemplative, and a fun read.

Were he alive, Jules Verne would have been an excellent choice. Verne's tomb has a statue dedicated to immortality and eternal youth, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne#/media/File:Verne_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne#/media/File:Verne_tomb.jpg)

<comment><USER7> +1

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Try Charlie Stross (@cstross), if he's not interested in being interviewed himself I'm sure he'll still give you an interesting reccomendation set.

<comment><USER9> The ending of _A Colder War_ hints at the rather bad possibilities of virtual immortality...

<comment><USER10> And he doesn't actually think the singularity or mind uploading will happen:

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2011/06/reality-...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html)

<comment><USER9> Well, who knows exactly how Cthulhu (or K-Thulu) eats souls?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Greg Egan, but he probably wouldn't say yes.

[http://www.gregegan.net/](http://www.gregegan.net/)

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Greg_Egan](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Greg_Egan)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I understand he shuns the spotlight. Too bad, because he was the first one who came to my mind as well.

<comment><USER11> I haven't read most of the authors here (this thread is doing double duty, being great for finding more authors/books to read, thanks) but from what I know so far, Egan is the best at writing about true immortality. Like trillions of years to actually infinite time level.

Diaspora (my favourite book) goes so far as to just stop counting time anymore because it just goes so unimaginably far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1\. Jacek Dukaj [0] - virtually unknown due to refusal to write directly in English :( "Perfect Imperfection" is imo the best sf book about trans/posthumanism there is.

"Dukaj has interesting take on post-humanism, both as a state of being and as a process. If you recall Accellerando, even though Manfred Macx was a futurist and trans-humanist he was hesitant to augment himself past certain limits. Stross pretty much drew a line in sand and said: up to here, you are human and if you rewire yourself further you will become something both incomprehensible, inhuman and frightening. Dukaj is very aware of this problem, but in his universe there is no line – there is a blurred spectrum of humanity. Yes, if you continue augmenting yourself for pure performance you may eventually lose track of your humanity." [1]

2\. Hannu Rajaniemi

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

[1] [http://www.terminally- incoherent.com/blog/2011/07/08/perfect...](http://www.terminally- incoherent.com/blog/2011/07/08/perfect-imperfection-perfekcyjna- niedoskonalosc-by-jacek-dukaj/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Although not very known outside of Russian-speaking people, I would recommend Sergey Lukyanenko. He deals with mortality/immortality in several of his novels: "Line of Delirium" [1] and "The Stars are Cold Toys" [2] dilogies immediately come to mind.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Delirium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Delirium) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_Are_Cold_Toys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_Are_Cold_Toys)

<comment><USER14> Translations into English have happened in the last few years, which is why I've enjoyed several of his books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Daniel Suarez in Daemon and Freedom (tm) writes about a game designer that creates an AI that restructures the world. Very similar in idea to Ready Player One, but a very different take.

<comment><USER16> Interesting choice since the "AI" in the first book was grounded in reality, and was explicitly neither sentient nor sapient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> John C Wright

Wrote the Golden Ocumene trilogy which explores a post-post-singularity society where not only is immortality taken for granted, post-humans can swap between species and lifestyles, IRL or virtually, pretty much at will. Essentially the book itself explores the will to push boundaries in a world where everything conceivable is plentiful and readily available, and as a result, most of humanity and culture has grown stagnant, because how can you get better than perfect?

</comment><comment><USER18> John Varley - His "Eight Worlds" future history has combined the concepts of backing up and restoring human consciousness with cloning a new body to house that consciousness in stories going back to the 70's.

Perhaps he would be most famous for his short story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" which was dramatized on PBS. This production was later to be soundly mocked during the original run of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

<comment><USER14> And he has a new book coming out in August 2018, so he's probably interested in some publicity.

[https://varley.net/nonfiction/news/irontown-blues- blues/](https://varley.net/nonfiction/news/irontown-blues-blues/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Dennis E. Taylor, mainly for his Bobiverse Series (only thing I've read by him).

I think he's not very well known, but his Triology fits the theme very well: It is about the engineer Bob, who is uploaded as a "replicant" into a spaceship. Humanity mostly wipes it self out using nukes after they got the Bob failsafe away into space, and Bob gets too deal with the remnants of humanity. He replicates himself, too the point that the Bobs can host a Bobmoot and vote on things. Due to being immortal, some Bobs starts calling humans ephemerals, wheras others are offended at the implication that they're not human.

It's a very interesting and entertaining read. I'm also writing this from the top of my head and have only read this triology by him.

</comment><comment><USER20> It is not scifi, but I think some mention of Tuck Everlasting should be made. The book was really important to my understanding of death when I was growing up.

Unfortunately it looks like the author, Natalie Babbitt, passed away last year. So they can't interview her.

</comment><comment><USER21> Richard Morgan. His first trilogy, the one that starts with Altered Carbon, is set in a society where people can move to new bodies. Rich people are effectively immortal, leading to interesting societal effects.

<comment><USER22> Strong second for Richard Morgan and Altered Carbon. The story is gangbusters action fiction, but the thought he's given to the implications are spot on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Iain M Banks, the culture series touches on immortality and choosing / not choosing it. [edit: didn't read carefully enough. Sadly, he won't be available for interviewing]

</comment><comment><USER24> James L. Halprin His "The first immortal" from 1998 is the best example I've ever seen of the next 150 years. It's amazing to go back and reread this and see what he predicted is unfolding in our current time.

Free download: [https://coins.ha.com/information/tfi.s?type=-FIRSTIMMORTAL.C...](https://coins.ha.com/information/tfi.s?type=-FIRSTIMMORTAL.COM)

</comment><comment><USER25> I was going to say that Heinlein did a wonderful and poetic try at immortality with 'Time enough for love', before quicly realizing that, alas, this great soul has passed away almost 20 years ago.

There's authors that achieve a sort of personnal connection with readers through their stories. Heinlein did that for me, along with the also greatly regretted Iain M. Banks.

</comment><comment><USER10> Ferrett Steinmetz

His book The Uploaded deals with the consequences of a world where the dying are granted digital immortality in a fantasy filled utopian adventure, but they still get to vote. The real world is falling apart, few people care about their bodily existence, looking for any excuse to die, and the uploaded have all the political power.

<comment><USER26> That brings to mind a short story where only those under a certain age were allowed to vote or hold political offices or command position, while the clinically immortal elders were still allowed to have advisor and observer roles. It might have been the one with the baby-eaters, but I can't recall now. It also brings to mind the Futurama where Prof. Farnsworth ages out and is forced to move to the retirement planet.

Even our ancestors feared rule by the dead, which is where the rule against perpetuities comes from.

<comment><USER27> Jonathan Swift wrote masterfully about that in Gulliver's Travels (1726), which is one of best SF works ever written, in my opinion. He describes a nation in which some people are born immortal (called the struldbrug):

 _As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates; only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit; they cannot purchase lands, or take leases; neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of meers (metes) and bounds._

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Null-Set Eliezer Yudkowsky

<comment><USER10> Nick Bostrom if Eliezer counts as a scifi author.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Howard Tayler - [http://howardtayler.com/](http://howardtayler.com/) He has been writing a sci-fi comic for 17 years and has spent some considerable time investigating and exploring the concept of immortality in the last couple of years of comics.

</comment><comment><USER29> Honorable mention: Roger Zelazny [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Zelazny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Zelazny)

It's a sad irony that an author who's work was so focused on immortality died at 58.

</comment><comment><USER30> Cory Doctorow's first book, _Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom_ , is about a society in which everyone is pretty much immortal thanks to brain back up technology. I would definitely add him to the list.

Also: Hannu Rajaniemi - author of _The Quantum Thief_

</comment><comment><USER31> Damien Broderick, given his related non-fiction on the singularity and other topics.

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

</comment><comment><USER32> A close related subject is the technological singularity because it would mean we would more or less melt together with technology. People like Ray Kurzweil and the writer Vernor Vinge are famous for this.

What broadcasting company is this? VPRO?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not supposed to tell (yet). I understand the show might still be canceled and they don´t want people spending eternity waiting for something that doesn't materialize. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> As a fairly recent author in the genre, look at Dennis E. Taylor and the "We Are Bob" trilogy revolving around brain scanning and self-replicating von Neumann probes. I thought it was a great series.

<comment><USER34> Way to many pop culture references for my taste. There are a few plot holes, especially in the first book.

Still worth reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Alastair Reynolds has numerous stories dealing with astronomical distances and ages. He has dealt with characters facing and using a variety of life extension methods and how that affects their attitude.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great tips, people. The producers something to chew on. The show will likely air in January. It should become available online as well. If someone is interested, I can toss them a link.

</comment><comment><USER36> Ramez Naam, for the Nexus trilogy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nexus_Trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nexus_Trilogy)

</comment><comment><USER37> Claire North (aka Catherine Webb). Her book "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August" addresses a different "type" of immortality than we typically think of.

</comment><comment><USER38> Philip K Dick. Somehow there's a new Blade Runner so he must be alive still.

<comment><USER39> [http://www.pkdandroid.org/disappearance-of- android.htm](http://www.pkdandroid.org/disappearance-of-android.htm)

They built a robot clone of him and his head made a run for it and is still on the lam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> John Wyndham and Arthur C Clarke both wrote on the topic. Good luck.

<comment><USER41> Both are dead.

<comment><USER40> I know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> John Scalzi

<comment><USER43> Why? I mean I like his books a lot but he doesn't exactly ponder immortality all that much. "Old man's war" maybe touches on this a little - but I think it's more about regaining youth than immortality.</comment></comment>


8 Simple Ways Your Startup Can use SMS and Voice with TelAPI - <AUTHOR> http://www.telapi.com/blog/8-simple-ways-your-startup-can-leverage-sms-and-voice-with-telapis-cloud-telephony-platform/ Using TelAPI to create applications that interact with the telephone network is simple. Dead simple. Despite its simplicity, TelAPI is a powerful tool with a range of practical uses for startups. The best way for us to prove this, is by giving you sample code and example apps to backup our claim and get you on your way to setting up your first TelAPI application. <comment><USER2> I never really thought about how I could customize greetings for customers based on their caller id information. That would be nice for customer service lines.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the conference room example, that one's actually pretty useful for when you can't Skype.

</comment><comment><USER4> Esp. like the call transcribe to text! Very easy to implement and useful in many applications.</comment>