Startpage – private search engine - <AUTHOR> https://www.startpage.com/ <comment><USER2> A few other alternative search engines:

Searx : [https://searx.me](https://searx.me)

Searx Instances : [https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki/Searx- instances](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/wiki/Searx-instances)

Ecosia : [https://www.ecosia.org](https://www.ecosia.org)

DeuSu : [https://deusu.org](https://deusu.org)

Also staying on topic, anyone remember Cuil? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuil)

<comment><USER3> None of them have any features in addition to what we get from Google/Bing/Yahoo/Yandex.

Searx seems to have categories such as music, science, news, social media and so on which is better than nothing.

What I currently do is: (site:blogspot.com OR site:livejournal.com OR site:wordpress.com) <query>

Blog search gives me pages written by people: fans, amatuers and sometimes professionals; I miss such pages and perspectives when I do a general web search in Google. Above search, however, excludes self-hosted blogs and other hosting services. For forum search I just add something like phpBB|vBulletin|Invision to the query which is a hit or miss. I also have Google CSE created from my 500+ RSS feeds which gives very good results.

Earlier Google used to have both these features and it is annoying to see they remove useful functions. I just hope someone comes up with a search engine for blogs and discussion forums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've seen startpage forced as the default search engine and home page on relatives computers by some installer they'd run. My inclination is not to trust organizations that use such tactics.

<comment><USER5> Hi nitrogen. They may have also experienced the reported DuckDuckGo Browser Hijacker see: [https://duck.co/forum/thread/24346/what-is-the-duckduckgo- br...](https://duck.co/forum/thread/24346/what-is-the-duckduckgo-browser- hijacker). _Both are viruses that have nothing to do with the legitimate search engines._

Hope this helps!

<comment><USER6> I wonder why someone feel incentivised to do this. Can you offer any insight as to why someone unrelated to your org would design malware that switched the default search to your site?

<comment><USER5> There are good hackers that will likely save our world from disaster.

Then there are bad hackers out there with various motives, often monetary. Some of them make a living or get a thrill by propagating viruses.

You will notice there are companies selling software to remove viruses, like the supposed DuckDuckGo virus, for example: [http://www.2-spyware.com/remove- duckduckgo.html](http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-duckduckgo.html)

There are virus creators out there that take the names of legitimate companies like DuckDuckGo and StartPage, likely to trick people for their own reasons.

Let me emphasize again that _DuckDuckGo and StartPage are legitimate search engines, and the reported viruses that try to benefit from respected industry names like these have nothing to do with the legitimate search services._

<comment><USER7> I never seen any malware installing ddg as the default page, but I've seen many installing startpage. Also commercial softwares with default checkbox. I cleaned one just some days ago on my girl's laptop.

Sorry, I have no way to know if you are a victim or a bad actor in the matter, but I choose to ban you from anything I touch. And I know every geeks around me do the same.

If you are indeed a victim, I'm sorry for you and hope you'll find a way to get your legitimacy back. Right now it's very bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm wary of these things, there is no way I can trust they do what they say they do without having direct access to their infrastructure anyway. And if they are getting results from Google, surely they are at the mercy google when it comes to survival.

<comment><USER9> All of the things that look like search engines get their results from Google, Bing, or (occasionally) Yandex. Building your own big search index is not something you can raise $1 million and just go do.

<comment><USER10> You can do your own search-index with 2.3 billion pages for about €300/month:

[https://deusu.org](https://deusu.org)

<comment><USER9> I think your project is great for how it does so much with so few resources, but most big search engines have an index which is more than 1,000X as large as yours (per document), in order to improve results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm using Startpage on my desktop at home. I like the general idea but have noticed that it is very slow at times (enough so that I have an alternative search engine I use when I get "annoyed"). Overall it's pretty good though. Basically a privacy wrapper around Google (which of course is also likely the explanation for the slowness and a big danger as they could be hosed by Google pretty quickly).

<comment><USER5> Hi Kriro. For image search, DuckDuckGo may be a hair faster because it uses Amazon AWS servers. But other searches should be about the same speed.

Please contact us if you see this happening so we can address it.

A recent article did a speed comparison test of StartPage vs. DuckDuckGo, along with other comparisons. See: [http://securityspread.com/2016/10/24/duckduckgo- startpage-20...](http://securityspread.com/2016/10/24/duckduckgo- startpage-2016-update/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If they're hitting google apis, they must be paying obscene amounts of money, right?

<comment> OV-104 Also seems kind of redundant, why not just go through Google?

<comment><USER13> [https://www.startpage.com/eng/protect- privacy.html#hmb](https://www.startpage.com/eng/protect-privacy.html#hmb)

I've been using them for years, and switched to them full time when I gave up all things Google a few months ago. The results are better than DDG, though DDG in my opinion has a much better site design (especially under the hood; it's very clean).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I had startpage as my default search engine for some time.

It is pretty slow compared to google and duckduckgo, so I switched to duckduckgo.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for using private search, no matter which private search engine you use!

DuckDuckGo uses Amazon web servers so they may be just a hair bit faster for image search according to a recent comparison article. See: [http://securityspread.com/2016/10/24/duckduckgo- startpage-20...](http://securityspread.com/2016/10/24/duckduckgo- startpage-2016-update/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So is the concept that they are providing Google-like results with the privacy of Duck Duck Go? I have never had any issue with using Duck Duck Go.

<comment><USER16> Sometimes DDG doesn't give the most relevant results; to work around this, if I haven't found something by using DDG, I'll stick a !s in front of the query to check StartPage instead.

<comment><USER17> > !s in front

Any position works

<comment><USER18> s! works too

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I haven been using Startpage for quite a while now ad my default search engine. Google results + privacy, great! On iOS you can set DDG as the default search engine, make a shortcut maybe for "!sp" and search on SP! The site could be a little quicker and some results nowadays only seem to appear only on Google but it's still great.

</comment><comment><USER20> I use StartPage and thinks it works very well.

I like the "Proxy" function, but it's only available for search results, it would be nice if you could submit a link and use the proxy function for pages not indexed by StartPage, they could then send their crawler to that domain and the search engine would improve.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for using StartPage.com for search privacy! I will pass along your suggestion to our tech team. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Does anyone know if there is a considerable difference between [https://startpage.com/](https://startpage.com/) and [https://eu.startpage.com/](https://eu.startpage.com/) ?

<comment><USER5> Hi. Do you mean Ixquick.eu? Ixquick.eu is sister to StartPage that delivers metasearch results, but without Google or Yahoo search results. (It used to deliver Yahoo results, too.)

We ended our contract with Yahoo for Ixquick.eu because they were reported to be working with the US government to access user information See: [http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/technology/startpage-to- dr...](http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/technology/startpage-to-drop-yahoo- from-search-results-35138188.html)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for explaining this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seems like a good thing. I just hope their business model is sustainable.

<comment><USER22> Sponsored results, according to [https://www.startpage.com/eng/company.html](https://www.startpage.com/eng/company.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Oh wow this is legit? I always figured it was one of those referral spam things in my analytics.

</comment><comment><USER24> A related company: [https://www.startmail.com/](https://www.startmail.com/)

There is more info on that site about the Team and Company.</comment>


Ask HN: What process should I use to present large amounts of data? - <AUTHOR>

eg. When looking at a large table of open government data (locations, money spent, why it was spent, benefits/costs of the money spent), do you have a suggestion as to how I could aggregate all this information into several different presentable forms? Each presentable form should show different ways to interpret the data.<p>I am a very amateur programmer, but this project really interests me. <comment><USER2> There is no generic answer. Who is the intended audience, and what are they hoping to see? Look carefully at the various dimensions of the data. What is the nature of the dimension? What is its scale? What is its variation? How would it best be presented? Could you use colors or shapes or sizes instead of numbers? Will the view be interactive so detail can be brought out where requested? How large is your display area? Model out some types of queries your assumed audience might think about, and use these test cases to validate and refine your approach.</comment>


Ask HN: NW.js or Electron (july 2017) - <AUTHOR> Hi ! Comparison between NW.js and Electron are all several months old.
I am starting a project and I have to choose between the two platform, any recommendation ?
My only requirement is that it can connect to the usb port / socket, and write on disk. It's not a problem for both of them, so... what to choose ?
Thanks ! <comment><USER2> apps like slack were built with electron, electron seems ore popular on github</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best blogs and resources for starting as a contractor? - <AUTHOR> I'm about to start contracting in the UK and I would like to get a better understanding of the market, and learn how to find the most rewarding contract work. <comment><USER2> ContractorUK is actually pretty good, and have some good starter articles:

[https://www.contractoruk.com/first_timers](https://www.contractoruk.com/first_timers)

Also their forum is active and also ok.

My only warning is that there's presently a shit storm for contractors raging which is HMRC's handling of IR35, basically them trying to tax all contractors as employees even though they have none of the protections.

I'm not contracting at the moment, but as I understand it, it makes a massive difference to take home if you get caught in IR35.

New rules are supposed to be coming in from April 2020. I think public sector contracts are already under new rules and it's much more likely in that sector to get a contract that they're declaring to be under IR35.

Because you have to pay the _employer 's_ NIC bill as well as your own I think it means some contracts are ultimately worth something like 16% less than advertised.

</comment><comment><USER3> The contractor's handbook on Amazon is a good resource, probably goes more in details than you'll need but if you're an overachiever it's a good read.

From my personal experience I would say, if you're considering contracting you've been a dev for quite some times, don't let impostor syndrome settle in. Trust yourself. It's not harder to be a contractor than an employee, it just pays more.

For understanding of the market, fill your linkedin profile with as much as you can, so people find your profile when they do linkedin search. As a web developer contracting, you should get half a dozen interesting messages weekly, filtering people who contact you for completely unrelated stuff.

If you do that for a while, you can start seeing trends (more active months, average rate, amazing rates, technology etc.).

If you have time to spare, try to negotiate as hardball as you can at first. If people are not saying no to your rate, you're probably underselling yourself. If you're in a rush, then start with what you see as being the average rate instead.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hey wil

I work out of WeWork in Kings Place, Kings Cross and often hear of gigs

Put your email in bio and I will be in touch

ps London is an amazing AI hub, the city itself is starting to have a real sci-fi feel to it ;)

First pic Tulip Building, nixed by Mayor Khan

[https://imgur.com/a/ZEcLmUN](https://imgur.com/a/ZEcLmUN)

Second pic Kings Place (WeWork office). Wimbledon watchers on the canal. New tower for Google's Smart City. There are five additional towers extending out to St Pancras' Station.

[https://imgur.com/a/IXitCDj](https://imgur.com/a/IXitCDj)

Surrounding the towers Google is building a massive pedestrian promenade with retail, entertainment, restaurants, theaters, as well as outdoor ampitheater featuring public UCL lectures.

I think we need a Kings Cross HN meetup ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for this!

I've added my email to my bio :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Most accountants will give a free one-hour consultation. I met with a few before starting contracting and not only does it mean you can choose one who you get on with, but you can also have all your tax, legal and other questions answered.</comment>


Multi-threaded emulation for QEMU - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/697265/ <comment><USER2> Here is a paper from last month's CGO2017 conference, explaining the techniques more in detail: [http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~cota/pubs/cota_cgo17.pdf](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~cota/pubs/cota_cgo17.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> For some reason I thought the reason that this hadn't been implemented already was that Sony had patents on multithreaded binary translation. I guess those might have only applied to specific techniques for heterogeneous or ring-bus systems (i.e. Cell), though.

<comment><USER4> No, it's just that it's the kind of feature that's quite hard to retrofit to an existing design, since it breaks existing assumptions in a lot of places. And it's only relatively recently that the kind of embedded board that you usually want to emulate with QEMU has had a multi-core CPU.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This has recently landed in upstream qemu and will be available with the 2.9 release.

<comment><USER2> Some bugs are being found that affect single-vCPU emulation. There's still a possibility that it will be reverted before the release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> does this mean one could run (without hardware support, say in aws) smp virtualization? i.e. linux on linux or windows on linux (why not just spawn another machine? because you want to have more control than what aws provides)

<comment><AUTHOR> This allows you to create one host thread per guest vcpu, so yes, you can run a smp guest on aws. But, it will be pretty slow compared to KVM, since the execution of the threads is limited by the host cpu resources and the fact that you are using translation and full system emulation.

<comment><USER5> so I guess that means QEMU always does full translation instead of just translating the privileged ops? (ala what vmware's innovation back in the day was)</comment></comment></comment>


Lock up children during eclipse – expert (1976) - <AUTHOR> http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/ECLIPSE_WEB/ECLIPSE_76/NP15.jpg <comment><USER2> My elementary school actually did this during the 1994 annular eclipse. They literally taped all the windows shut.

They wouldn't even set up a pinhole viewer.

<comment><USER3> Country/State?

<comment><USER2> North Bay, Ontario, Canada

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can only imagine the risks are terribly overstated.

1000 years ago we didn't have mass media hysterically screaming, "Don't look!" and the average pleb certainly _did_ look at such an incredible sight... so where are the reports of mass blindness following the partial eclipses of old?

<comment><USER5> No reports of blindness, but they may have received significant eye damage. Until the last 100-200 years when literacy become common the average pleb wasn't really aware of their eysight deterioration.

<comment><USER6> All kinds of human activity suffer significantly from poorer vision. For example, sewing and weaving, hunting and fishing. The term presbyopia isn't just derived from Greek, it was coined by the ancient Greeks themselves who also endeavored to understand the phenomenon. See [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773258](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773258)

If someone's eyes were damaged I have little doubt that they'd recognize the damage. I can imagine all sorts of reasons why this may not have been recorded, presuming such damage was common. But that they didn't realize their vision deteriorated, I highly doubt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Unless you are in totality or near totality, I doubt a child would notice anything special is going on. Unless, of course, they notice a bunch of other people staring at the sun through glasses--and then attempt to do the same thing sans glasses.

I was just in an area of 70% coverage and away from all the starers, I did not notice anything special going on. It was a bit dimmer at mid-day, but that could have been easily ascribed to cloud coverage.

</comment><comment><USER8> There may be something to this. I was an elementary school kid during the late 70s (1979?) eclipse. We went out onto the playground to view it, and I'm pretty sure I ignored all the warnings to not look directly at the sun. (It's not like I hadn't looked directly at the sun before, though.)

</comment><comment><USER9> This article has an impressively poor explanation of how pinhole viewers work.</comment>


Android N's freeform window mode - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/this-is-android-ns-freeform-window-mode/ <comment><USER2> I actually think that this is a step backwards. I've been using smartphones, tablets, tmux and a tiling window manager for several years now, and _that_ feels like the interface of the future, not overlapping windows. I have one primary interaction with my computer at any one time, but it's easy to switch interactions whenever I need to. And when I _do_ need multiple windows, I can always just split the screen. But I hardly ever have more than one window per screen, and basically never more than three windows per workstation.

<comment><USER3> I also don't understand why I can't just swipe up from the overlay button and immediately switch to the previous window, like alt-tab. Such an obvious shortcut, yet Android doesn't do it.

<comment><USER4> On the developer preview of Android N you can double tap the recents key to switch to the previous window

<comment><USER5> And alt-tab is tied to the same actions ever since Android 3.0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google, stop teasing us and release a free Linux desktop OS and compete with Microsoft !

There is no reason to fear Microsoft since they already have you in their cross hairs. They have been losing loads of money trying to compete with you [1]. Windows 10 even has a search field on the task bar !

It can't be anti-trust concerns. Microsoft got away with bundling IE with Windows cutting off Netscape's air supply. Its hard to imagine you being punished for giving away an OS for free.

Every dollar that does not go into Microsoft's coffers is a dollar they can't spend competing with you. Seems like some fiduciary responsibility to me :)

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-reorg-earnings- repo...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-reorg-earnings- reports-2013-7?IR=T)

EDIT: No, Chromium OS doesn't count. There are still plenty of people who need/uses desktop applications.

<comment><USER7> > Google, stop teasing us and release a free Linux desktop OS and compete with > Microsoft !

You mean Chromium OS? You can download it here:

[https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os](https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os)

<comment><USER8> A desktop OS - not a browser OS ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So wait.. did we just do all this and end up at an operating system like a desktop OS that can only support Java apps?

<comment><USER10> Android does native binaries as well.

I refuse to let the 90s have vindication!

<comment><USER9> Ah thats right. I remember Go can be used with the NDK as well I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I knew this is going to happen. This move is against Microsoft move. (Microsoft brought Bing to the core of its product and showed google, It is dead serious about fighting). Google does realize if Microsoft can beat ChromeBrowser/GoogleSearchEngine (two of most important product of google) Google as company is done (I am not claiming google in this scenario is going to disappear, but it is going to be underdog.)

Google's only move was to attack the core of Microsoft, Which is Windows.Google does have pretty much everything in Webspace/MobileOS space and application space (these are web-based app, ironically in my fedora other than emacs,all of my apps are googlechrome-webapps) other than the core desktop os. And at the other hand Microsoft does have core desktop os + everything in application space but nothing in webspace/mobile.

They completely find themselves against each other and they are going seriously to attack each other because they understand perfectly they are too dangerous to each other.

Google can and will replace desktop app with web apps in long term (which is Microsoft's nightmare) and Microsoft will use its core product to hit google and improve its position in web against Google will.

I predict this is going to happen after Satya Nadella vigorously attacked Google's position. I even commented about this almost 1 year ago.

The reason Google and Microsoft are so dangerous to each other is because they want the other one's market share.Apple at the other hand positioned itself very well. They are for high-end and expensive market.Microsoft and Google does have high-end and expensive product , but who are we kidding, in that space they are nowhere near Apple. and Apple showed in recent year (other than Iphone 5c , which was strategic mistake) apple is not interested to low price product market and they are happy with their community.But Google/Microsoft does have serious clash of interest.

The other thing, don't forget about UWP, Microsoft does use this strategy just because it wants to use its advantage to push itself to mobileos as vigorous as possible.

There is so many clues about what is going on.These two company is just like army preparing for big fight.

This is just like chess. I am so curious how this will pan out.

</comment><comment><USER12> One could debate the merits of tiling vs overlapping windows for a range of form factors ...

Since most android apps are not tablet optimized, we wind up with multiple phone (not tablet) optimized apps sharing the screen.

I'd rather just have one tablet optimized app using the screen (and easy way to switch between) than multiple phone-optimized apps sharing the screen.

<comment><USER5> The biggest usage of tiled view will be to make entries into one app while referencing something in another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am definitely excited about this. If Android takes off on the desktop it would be good for app developers

<comment><USER14> I sincerely hope we won't see "Android" desktops with tighly locked-down bootloaders, and a unmodifiable pre-installed OS with a bunch of unremovable junkware. You know, like it's with phones and tablets now.

<comment><USER15> Agreed. I'd actually like to see the opposite: I want a "real-linux" phone, not an android phone. (I have yet to test the ubuntu phone, but am excited for it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hrmmm, looks a lot like ChromeOS.

<comment><USER17> Looks like Window 2.0 to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Where do you access the apps from? I'm not seeing any icons on the homescreen.

<comment><USER19> Likely an app drawer or home screen shortcut (on another page not shown) like most other Android devices. In these screenshots I don't see the persistent app drawer shortcut that's common to most Android launchers but you can chalk that up to possible UI changes like not showing it on all pages of the desktop, hiding it when focused on something else, or launching via some other button/gesture.

I haven't messed with this preview yet so I'm not sure but it's my guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> so, Android has become a full blown OS just OS X or Windows. Thats great.

As long as Google keeps mucking up the UI, the core competency of being a intuitive smartphone that is effortless to use remains an elusive goal.</comment>


Technology is poised to upend America's property market - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/02/15/technology-is-poised-to-upend-americas-property-market <comment><USER2> [https://outline.com/DVFUJj](https://outline.com/DVFUJj)</comment>


Uber fired 15 people in email using Comic Sans - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2014/12/uber-fired-15-people-in-email-using-comic-sans/

<comment><USER2> Wow. Either we're missing some important context -- or it sounds like Uber's management was basically having a "No Wire Hangers" episode:

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

"What did we (forget to) tell you? Contractors may not use employee discount codes! Ever!"</comment>


Oculus CEO envisions billion-person MMO - <AUTHOR> http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/06/oculus-ceo-envisions-billion-person-mmo/ <comment><USER2> Will he leave his last will and testament in the form of an Easter egg hidden inside the game, protected by a series of 80s pop culture-fueled puzzles?

If so, I'm in.

<comment><USER3> I've already started memorizing War Games for this very moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Metaverse should be built like the web: distributed, and every server / space / community can be built with different physics / rules / aesthetics. Iribe's lowest-common-denominator vision is uninspiring. A centralized, controlled, monetized space sounds like the mall.

<comment><USER5> I agree that a distributed Web-like Metaverse is more likely to be interesting and more likely to succeed. The problem of a concept like the Metaverse is that certain elements of it work great as part of a science fiction story -- like the presence of "physical constraints" where property exists in some absolute place on a virtual grid, and users have to actually move their avatars along that terrain to get from point A to point B. This is fun for a story where the hero must quickly get to some point but time is of the essence, but as a real-world concept it's absurd. I think part of what makes the Web so successful is the concept of the hyperlink and the URL, being able to jump so quickly from place to place.

I consider imposed physical limitations on a meta-VR space to be like DRM. It's an attempt to slap existing limitations of reality (scarcity, in the case of DRM) onto a medium that no longer needs it. Why should I have to take a virtual train to get from one VR space to another? Why should there be "lots" where people have to pay to get the best "locations" to put their VR space? It reminds me of the old GeoCities sites and the short-lived concept of neighborhoods, which failed to realize that people don't browse the Web by metaphorically walking linearly along a sidewalk, staring at each storefront in turn. We jump, we "teleport," and that's the strength of the Web.

You might be interested in the Janus VR (formerly known as Firebox) project: [http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~mccrae/projects/firebox/](http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~mccrae/projects/firebox/) It's an attempt at a sort of VRML-like markup for defining webpages with VR content. I've played around with it a bit in my Rift, and it's neat to have the discoverability of virtual browsing but without the constraints of physicality: links are just doors you can open into virtual spaces, and you can always pop open an address bar to go somewhere new.

In short: VR lets us transcend limitations in where we can go, but the Web let us transcend limitations in how we interact with the world. Individual VR experiences can be whatever people want, but a meta-VR system must take into account the simple fact that humans can now "teleport."

Here's a nice video that shows what Janus VR is like: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jva-855nLvM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jva-855nLvM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think MMO is really the right characterization. It's probably the closest thing were used to today. It makes less sense as a "segregated game oriented world", and much more sense as a shared virtual space, as in the cyberspace with avatars from science fiction. We have some of those today of course, notably second life, but an always-on persistent virtual world shared with everyone is a very different vision. It may have game-like elements, but to me that's not the interesting part.

"I want a billion people to live partially in a virtual world in the future" seems plausible.

</comment><comment><USER7> Please call it the Matrix, please call it the Matrix, please call it the Matrix...

</comment><comment><USER8> Neal Stephenson envisioned it first - and yes, sweet lord I'm excited!

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

</comment><comment><USER9> If you've seen Gamer, this is eerily similar, but it'll look more like Second Life...and be awful.

<comment><USER10> The Oasis

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can also envision a 7-billion person MMO that doesn't need special glasses. It's called life.

<comment><USER12> But you only get one apparent life. Bummer.

<comment><USER13> And you have to pay for in-game items with in-game currency. Not to mention the incredible long grind at the start.

<comment><USER14> And no fast-travel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me a lot of the "holoband"[1] from Caprica.

[1][http://caprica.wikia.com/wiki/Holoband](http://caprica.wikia.com/wiki/Holoband)

</comment><comment><USER16> Iribe also said that Valve is working with them on the (MMO) software, but they have nothing to announce yet.

Valve already has many of the pieces. For example, independent 3D artists can make virtual goods for games like Dota 2. If the goods get approved, players can buy those goods (with real money), and the 3D artist gets a cut of the revenue. See Steam Community Market:

[http://steamcommunity.com/market/](http://steamcommunity.com/market/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm enthusiastic with Oculus technology as a games platform (I've tried it), but skeptical about "the metaverse."

The games industry has had a mixed reaction to the Oculus purchase, but people are still cautiously optimistic due to Carmack and other gaming heavyweights being at the company. Looking toward the upcoming E3 and beyond to next years GDC it'll be interesting to see where Oculus' focus is.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is just a rehashed version of a slightly longer but more in-depth article originally written at The Verge:

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/5684236/oculus-wants-to- bui...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/5684236/oculus-wants-to-build-a- billion-person-mmo-with-facebook)

Any chance the powers-that-be could weigh-in and update the URL to properly direct traffic?

</comment><comment><USER19> This was the discouraging part about the Facebook acquisition to me: the possibility of cooperation with the people who already have decades of experience creating virtual worlds has gone out the window. It's like the possibility of seeing EA's or Blizzard's games on Steam - that would make my life so much easier as a PC gamer, but will never happen 'cause: money!

</comment><comment><USER20> I really like the idea of a virtual world that runs in parallel to our own: millions of camera-containing devices out there, all hooked up to the internet, continually building and refining a virtual facsimile of the real world. Then you could hold up your phone on a street and see, augmented reality style, the virtual people who inhabit it in parallel to you. Kind of a cool concept.

<comment><USER21> There was a similar idea in the book, Daemon. Seems more feasible now with CV/ubiquitous sensors.

[http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Daniel- Suarez/dp/0451228731](http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Daniel- Suarez/dp/0451228731)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ready, player one?

<comment><USER23> this book is amazing. everyone who is interested in where this could go should read it.

edit: [http://readyplayerone.com/](http://readyplayerone.com/)

<comment><USER5> At the risk of sounding overly negative, I think RPO gets a lot of praise that it really doesn't deserve. The concept of the OASIS is neat, and the segments dealing with the nature of VR in society (education in VR, logging in to escape the reality of life in the "stacks", the lengths to which the main character goes when dedicating his life and daily habits entirely toward the Quest). But it's all wrapped up in a bunch of shallow 80's references that made me feel like the author was insecure about the strength of his own ideas and needed a bunch of Family-Guy-esque name-dropping so the nerd demographic reading it could say "Oh, I know that reference!" When I read a book taking place in the future, I sort of hope that there's something there about the future to explore rather than getting the sense that all culture and media just stopped in the end of the 20th century and the only thing that happened since was VR getting developed. Strikes me as reader/author wish fulfillment. The protagonists weren't likable, the villainous evil corporate anti-open- source drones were stunningly one-dimensional, the two Japanese brother characters felt like walking MY SAMURAI HONOR stereotypes, and the romance with Art3mis felt like getting the princess at the end of a game as a prize (which would be a neat parallel with the video game references were it not played straight). If I was younger when reading it I would have been more forgiving, but it all felt like a "kids rule, grown-ups drool" sort of plot.

It seems like, despite the protagonist's fears about IOI turning the OASIS into a soul-less amusement park, that's kind of what the OASIS already was in the story. There wasn't much talk about players generating new worlds and new experiences -- most of the time characters were enjoying the pre-packaged "Lord of the Rings", "Star Trek", or "Dungeons and Dragons" VR worlds, reliving existing ideas again and again. The gunter protagonists weren't off creating fantastic new landscapes or generating culture, they were poring through the ruins of the old trying to find some arcane clue -- and I didn't get the sense that they would be doing that if they didn't have the Hunt to focus on. These are interesting things to think about -- and definitely a worrisome part of dystopian visions of VR that turn the ultimate communication/creation tool into a trough full of pre-packaged feed for consumers -- but I don't think that RPO's author was attempting to focus on that. Rather, the sterile emptiness I felt from the OASIS seemed more a result of the author just not describing much that wasn't necessarily "just so" for the plot.

There are a lot of neat VR ideas in it that I hope get more exposure, but it's despite the nature of the book rather than because of it.

<comment><USER24> I don't disagree with your assessment of the book and its ideas. The book is not very deep on any level, technical or emotional.

For me, it doesn't have to be. It's a light, fun read that I can scramble through and smile about when I need an escape from my own reality.

That's not to say there aren't some solid ideas that should be explored in greater depth. I just don't think this particular story is the right place to dig deep.

Someone in this thread suggested that they might enjoy a sequel. I partially agree ... I think that the technology ideas, the dystopian future, and the OASIS itself lend themselves greatly to deeper exploration as a setting. I just don't really think most of the characters are worth exploring any deeper. The story is good, maybe even great (I like it a lot, but I'm weird), but it feels complete. Let's move on and play a little with the RPO fictional world itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think the movie Lawnmower Man 2 had something like this.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yeah, we tried that with Second Life.

<comment><USER27> Most successful products were already tried in the past. Conditions change, and execution is more important than the idea itself.

<comment><USER28> Unfortunately there were no obvious errors in the execution of SL.

Could swing off in another direction, although everyone who wants a virtual online world always aims directly toward SL.

A virtual online world seems to have no useful purpose other than acting as "moth to flame"

<comment><USER29> Maybe not obvious errors, but we have learned things since SL. Minecraft hit a sweet spot of getting ordinary people to actually build stuff, it that aspect Minecraft is a better preview of the metaverse.

In retrospect the learning curve for SL's content creation was too hard or intimidating. (and Minecraft has obvious limitations.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's appalling how well reality conforms to near-future scifi, sometimes.

<comment><USER31> "You can do whatever you put your mind to"

Its no coincidence that most of the people building out the tech future were raised with fictional tech future of cyberpunk and cyberpunk-esque fantasies in their youth and have been steadily building those fantasies into reality - consciously or not...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> When the fuck did bad sci-fi books become people's technology roadmaps?</comment>


Why SQL is neither legacy, nor low-level, nor difficult but simply awesome - <AUTHOR> http://www.vertabelo.com/blog/notes-from-the-lab/why-sql-is-neither-legacy-nor-low-level-but-simply-awesome <comment><USER2> I like this one:

Fallacy #5: The database is the wrong place for business logic

We use stored procedures and functions for all sorts of application logic.</comment>


The devalued American worker - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/14/the-devalued-american-worker/ <comment><USER2> "That's what happens in recessions. But for decades after World War II, lost jobs came back when the economy picked up again."

Before WWII there was 1930s depression(stock crash). In the WAR ALL CAPITAL was destroyed outside the US, making US to become the ruler of the world.

Today there has not been depression yet, the stock crash or hyperinflation or whatever happens is not here yet.

Bailouts, QE, Keynesianism, stock pumping means those that have created the crisis have not paid for it, but the people.

Everything else is just noise and confusion. The people that are controlling more and more wealth also control the media.

They are really scared about the future. They prefer to confront each other against each other("they are taking your jobs"), or against an external enemy(Russia, China) that to lose their current status quo.

You see all those articles about automation or immigration taking people's jobs, but in reality is as simple as those controlling the wealth's representation(money) giving it all to themselves first with the geometric, not algebraic methods of redistribution printing money gives them.

I have actually earned hundreds of times what I "invested" on the stock market. It is not because I am smarter, but because I understood the game. I have a company in the real world in which a 10% profit per year is great news. In the stock I have won 200% profit rates!! on recent years. This is unsustainable.

</comment><comment><USER3> With great power comes great responsibility. With the help of technology, despite our plans of paving ways to make this world a better place to live. The future still tends to be scary for many.

</comment><comment><USER4> Green made a bunch of mistakes. Drop out of school. Leave a job with a pension when instead he could have moved his mother to New York. It sounds like he just moved without a job or a plan. I know the economy is changing but anyone who just bails on a decent paying job and moves with a family and no job prospects would be in the same situation. There's obviously more behind this story.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is logical. Engineers sell their talent for peanuts to technology companies, who then own all their work that automates tasks, which makes unqualified workers worthless. A lot of you might bitch and moan about it (you're "socially conscious", a socialist or whatever)... well, you're enabling this, so know your responsibility in it.

The big problem with this trend in the long term is that big masses of uneducated people might take control eventually; populist revolutions and communist-like rule of a Stalin-like redneck dictator is not at all out of the question. They may confiscate the technology, but they can't simply make a worthless worker do worthy work so they might be paid barely enough, for doing nothing worthy, an aberrant lifestyle anyway. And we may very well get there without a bloody revolution too, with most oblivious to the slow shift even.

<comment><USER6> Engineers are subject to the same problems of labor scarcity (or lack thereof) as the people whose jobs are automated. Engineers are also automating their own jobs. If they could sell their talents for more than peanuts, they would; many try and fail ("striking out on their own").

I think a social awakening is more likely than a populist revolt. Simple solutions such as raising effective corporate tax rates, banning money from politics, and minimum wage reforms could avert revolution.

> might be paid barely enough, for doing nothing worthy, an aberrant lifestyle > anyway

I don't agree this is the direction. And if we do head there, it's more likely due to total automation and AI (rather than a Stalin-like ruler). In that future, people won't starve in the streets, they'll be working subsidized jobs. And that sounds a lot like today's reality anyway (not a sci-fi dystopia).

<comment><USER5> I'm thinking more of those who make, say $200k, and are content with solving puzzles all day long without caring for much else. Those who can make a difference who don't care what difference they're making.

Awakening is the opposite term for what that is. Rising the corporate tax until when? until businesses are barely profitable? that's effectively confiscating the technology and letting them run it more efficiently than the state can, that's the road to the new communism. Minimum wage reform, same thing. Plus, this is all economic suicide if we look at the rest of the economy, not just the automation-enablers, but that would be going too off- topic here.

Yes, this all sounds like today because we're on our way to that dark future. And we're calling it awakening apparently, see why I said people would be oblivious to the shift?

<comment><USER6> Many tech companies pay 0% in taxes. Some pay a negative tax rate. The wealthy pay about 10-20% effective taxes. The tax burden has been shifted to the middle class. And this isn't considering inflation, which taxes everyone except those on the inside (basically, banks and owners of gov't contracting companies).

Fixing these problems isn't communism. It's a return to mid-20th century American policies.

With this type of reform in place, it's a lot easier to envision a nice future where some people get $200K/yr to solve puzzles, and others get a $40K/yr minimum wage to blog about their day. Edit: and aside from basic income or minimum wage, this is how I think a lot of people should be paid -> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8708820](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8708820)

<comment><USER7> "The tax burden has been shifted to the middle class."

That does not correspond with the latest news I've seen: [http://www.aei.org/publication/new-cbo-study-shows-rich- dont...](http://www.aei.org/publication/new-cbo-study-shows-rich-dont-just- pay-fair-share-pay-almost-everybodys-share/)

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't expect a conservative think tank to frame the issue any other way. He's an alternate take: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/chart-shows- corp-ta...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/chart-shows-corp-taxes- grossly-unfair_n_3321737.html)

 _Payroll taxes now make up 35 percent of all federal government tax receipts, up from 11 percent in 1950. Corporate income taxes, meanwhile, now make up less than 10 percent of federal revenue, down from about 26 percent in 1950._

Keep in mind, your article and mine are only counting federal taxes. The middle class pay a higher proportion of their income buying things than the rich, so they're hit harder by sales taxes. Same goes for property taxes. And many states tax low income workers on income even though the IRS cuts them a break. One should also factor in court costs and fines for petty crimes. There's gasoline tax and toll roads as well. These are all regressive.

Edit: the shift I mean is from corporations and super wealthy to the middle class generally. I would agree that upper middle class (doctors, lawyers, etc) probably carry most of the weight on taxes and the lower middle class gets many breaks (for good reason, though).

<comment><USER7> "I wouldn't expect a conservative think tank to frame the issue any other way."

You _do_ realize that's a symmetric slur, right?

Besides, from what I've seen in general the US is already the most progressive taxing country in the world. Like so many other "liberal" issues, there's never any stopping point, never enough, which is an incredibly dangerous way to operate (and is a great deal of the reason why we're in the final 10 years of liberal dominance as it is now tearing itself apart, because there is _never_ enough, there _can 't_ be enough, there _mustn 't_ be enough, and if that means it must push beyond all bounds of reason or rationality, so be it...). And also, if the taxation level is a problem, given that our government spends radically more than it is taking in on taxes as well, maybe the government shouldn't be spending so much? Maybe the reason we are in such an economic funk is that we route too much wealth to the government, for it to expensively and poorly try to figure out what to do with it for us? Here's the symmetry: But of course I wouldn't expect a liberal source to even _consider_ the possibility that handing all the money over to a centralized entity to disburse remains something that we have neither evidence nor experience to suggest is a particularly fantastic way to get things done at this scale.

I'd also observe the numbers are from the CBO, not the think-tank in question.

<comment><USER6> I disagree with the premise of this argument.

First, regarding sources: all I was pointing out is that there are multiple ways to frame the statistics, and that the framing is predictable based on the political bias of the source.

Second, liberals are fine routing less money to the government. The solution would be less DHS/war spending, less welfare for banks/corporations, and also re-balancing the tax burden of individuals vs. corporations and investors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this paper taking a significantly more left-leaning direction over the past couple of years?

That's my perception, just curious if anyone else thinks so as well.

<comment><USER8> Though this post was from a while ago, I now realize I was confusing The Washington Post with The Wall Street Journal.

Not sure how I made that mistake, but that would explain the "change in viewpoint"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Its going to get worse. When cars and trucks drive themselves we'll see the loss of millions of jobs.

<comment><USER10> That may take a while, [http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html)

 _" But the maps have problems, starting with the fact that the car can't travel a single inch without one ... all 4 million miles of U.S. public roads will be need to be mapped, plus driveways, off-road trails, and everywhere else you'd ever want to take the car. So far, only a few thousand miles of road have gotten the treatment .., The company frequently says that its car has driven more than 700,000 miles safely, but those are the same few thousand mapped miles, driven over and over again."_

<comment><USER11> The vast majority of professional driving is done on predictable routes, from a port to a warehouse or from one warehouse to another.

<comment><USER12> Routes aren't infallible though, diversions occur because of predicable (planned maintenance) and unpredictable (crashes or weather incidents), and diversion routes may vary significantly.

Not an insurmountable problem - may even just be able to park the vehicle where a diversion route is unknown and wait for it to clear, but still an issue to deal with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Demand starved economy is starved of demand...

NO WAY

Minimum Wage leads to inflation, but printing money to bail out banks doesn't...</comment>


The DAO: Or How a Leaderless Ethereum-Based Organization Raised $50M - <AUTHOR> http://www.coindesk.com/the-dao-just-raised-50-million-but-what-is-it/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also, it appears The DAO has now raised over $100M USD: [https://daohub.org/](https://daohub.org/)</comment>


Silicon Valley Woos Stanford Students - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2019/11/02/how-silicon-valley-woos-stanford-students <comment><USER2> At what other schools are students heavily wooed by Silicon Valley? Berkeley? We live in the Northeast, and our son wants to major in electrical and computer engineering or in computer science. I wonder how important it is to study in California to have a good career in tech.</comment>


Tesla cancels 10-kW Powerwall, leaving only 7-kWh model - <AUTHOR> http://www.autoblog.com/2016/03/21/tesla-cancels-10-kw-powerwall/ <comment><USER2> Requiring Javascript to the point the only thing you see without it is a blank page? I'm out.</comment>


PVS-Studio vs Chromium - <AUTHOR> http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/pvs-studio-vs-chromium/

<comment><USER2> I think they come across as a little cold and cruel when talking about whether or not they will give the results to Google, but essentially they are correct. Google should be happy to have those results and the price should be small enough to be worth it. I just think it could have been phrased better, or not said at all.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I don't doubt that they should somehow get compensated for their time, but making it sound like an extortion attempt strikes me as a poor choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And that is how you do marketing and provide a useful service (and not another photo sharing app)

</comment><comment><USER5> Has anyone else used PVS Studio before? Looks interesting as a static analyzer, but curious how it stacks up against other options. It looks like it's pretty reliant on Visual Studio. This is the first I've heard of it. With a free trial and at only 1,600 Euro for a single-user license, I might actually try it out.

<comment><USER6> Why did you find that cheap?

<comment><USER5> I'm used to pricing for commercial embedded tools, which is rarely this straightforward or inexpensive. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but that's why I found this "cheap". Of course, I can't really speak to its value without having evaluated it. The "only" qualifier presumed it's a comprehensive, commercially-supported static analysis tool that I would find valuable, but the call for actual users' opinions was my first step in testing this presumption. I'm installing it now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr "Chromium is good."

<comment><USER8> Good as in "coded according to established coding standards". This probably reduces the likelyhood of programmer errors (such as the quoted mistakes with sizeof()..), but doesn't mean that there are few actual bugs left.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on our beta justin.tv redesign - <AUTHOR>

We put out a beta of our redesign of justin.tv channel pages yesterday.  I'd love to hear feedback from the Hacker News community.
To see the beta version of a channel page, just add "/beta" to the end of the url - for example:
http://www.justin.tv/help (current version)
http://www.justin.tv/help/beta (beta redesigned version) <comment><USER2> First of all I want to say that I have used justin.tv a lot during the NBA season. It was awesome, so thanks to you guys.

Secondly, I like the redesign which IMO is much better than the previous one because of a few reasons:

1) Bigger screen are devoted to video which is why people use the website 2) Of course less ads, which, will please a lot of current users. 3) Less scrolling, better website IMO 4) Grey background is way better than the black one.

I think if you can have an on/off button for chat, it will greatly improve personal experience, because I think not a lot of people come to website to chat with others, but to watch.

Good luck.

-Ujjwal

<comment><USER3> There is an on/off button for chat; it's just under the chat menu now. Obviously that's somewhat difficult to find.</comment></comment>


May a college expel a student for 'unprofessional speech' in Facebook posts? - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/27/may-a-college-expel-a-student-for-unprofessional-speech-in-facebook-posts/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr the student posted

"I give her a big fat F for changing the group power point at eleven last night and resubmitting." "Im going to take this electric pencil sharpener in this class and give someone a hemopneumothorax with it before to long"

Seems to me that abuse and threats of violence can get you expelled/fired regardless of the medium.

<comment><USER3> Ignoring whether or not it's valid to claim that as a "threat of violence", this article makes it sound like the prosecution's case is built upon the use of unprofessional language, as opposed to any threat of violence.

[edit] Certainly a threat of violence also falls under the category of "unprofessional language", but my point is that if you swapped this out with (say) a non-threatening yet equally disrespectful phrase, the case wouldn't be noticeably different.

<comment><USER4> And not ignoring it for a moment, it's very clearly not a legitimate threat of violence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> the rubric 'unprofessional speech' is a poor choice

this a student not a professional, part of the reason they are in university; the fact is that they are not a 'professional' nor do they spend the bulk of their time around other professionals

it's ok to hold university students to various standards of conduct/behaviour but "professional" shouldn't be one of them.

<comment><USER6> I'm 30 and didn't go to college. I work professionally as a developer since I was 17. If I go to School now I'm not a professional anymore?

<comment><USER7> You may find the wiki page on equivocation[1] interesting in the context of your argument.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, many who opposed adoption of the U.S. Constitution did so anonymously, to avoid retribution.[0]

0) [http://www.learnliberty.org/blog/anonymity-and-doxing-in- the...](http://www.learnliberty.org/blog/anonymity-and-doxing-in- the-1787-ratification-debates/)

Edit: My point is that, leaving aside argument about whether anonymity is "good" or "bad", it's often prudent.[1]

1) [http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&...](http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=csspe)

</comment><comment><USER9> Can students expel faculty for their actions?

<comment><USER10> Yes, faculty can be fired for violating the code of conduct or their contracts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a good time to mention [https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining/comments/60qe8k/mining_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherMining/comments/60qe8k/mining_on_university_computer/df94zt7/)

<comment><USER12> Why mention a hypothetical when we have real-world cases?

[http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/update- illicit-...](http://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/update-illicit- litecoin-mining-discovered-at-mu-s-reynolds- journalism/article_f154ec40-760b-58cc-9d20-f29f33af6b9f.html)

> _COLUMBIA — Two MU students have been accused of running an unauthorized > Litecoin mining operation on computers in the Reynolds Journalism Institute. > MU Police Capt. Brian Weimer said that Eric Wichmann and Josh O 'Steen were > arrested by MU police Dec. 6 on suspicion of tampering with computer data. > Weimer said they were arrested on suspicion of a misdemeanor violation of > the state tampering statute, though tampering can also be a class D felony. > Wichmann, an Internet technology major, and O'Steen, a computer science > major, went to the police station voluntarily and were released the same day > on a summons, the two students said._

<comment><USER13> How profitable is Litecoin mining? I'm curious how much $$$ these kids blew up their future for.</comment></comment></comment>


Lab Explosion Raises Question: Should Smallpox Virus Be Kept or Destroyed? - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/09/19/762013515/russian-lab-explosion-raises-question-should-smallpox-virus-be-kept-or-destroyed <comment><USER2> > only two labs in the world __known__ to store live samples of the variola > virus

Variola virus was everywhere 40 years ago. It's hard to imagine that all countries except USSR and the US really gave up the virus. We must assume that there are other live samples around. North Korea, China, Japan, Israel, ...</comment>


Standing versus Sitting - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1001-standing-versus-sitting <comment><USER4> Standing desks are great, especially if you have lower back problems. It does take at least a week to get used to it, because initially the pressure gets transfered from your back to your legs. If you can swing it, the ideal work setup for back health is a standing desk and a sofa or easy chair you can stretch out on with a laptop. I also have a medicine ball on the floor (you can use any sort of ball, soccer, basketball, etc) to put one of your feet on from time to time in order to change positions up a bit.

Another thing to think about is monitor position. Even with a standing desk, you don't want to be looking down into your monitor... you'll eventually mess up your neck. I'm relatively tall, so I have one of those monitor swingarm things that raises my monitor up to eye level.

A suggestion for those who are space-constrained... now that we have LCD panels, you can simply mount your screen on the wall, and then use a shelf or shelving "system" to create a "desk" mounted to the wall. This is what I did at home, and it cost < $100 for the LCD mount and semi-custom shelf/desk.

</comment><comment><USER5> Standing is great, but walking is even better. I've been using a treadmill desk for the past 7 months and have seen the same benefits Jamis noted - <USER2> fatigue, better concentration, improved posture. Walking at a slow pace (.7 to 1.2 mph) is less stressful to your joints than standing still, but you don't break a sweat and can type, use a trackball, and talk on the phone comfortably.

<comment><USER6> i am having a hard time picturing a treadmill desk. are you joking? if not, do you have any references you can recommend on the logistics of it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you really want to get fancy, check out these desks: <http://www.biomorphdesk.com>

You can get them with quiet motors that enable you to go from sitting to standing at the touch of a button.

<comment><USER8> Coupled with an Aeron, this makes the perfect investment of your VC money for the entire team!

<comment><USER4> Aerons are about $400 used, last forever, and you can get $400 for it again if you want to sell it. Their utility as a symbol of excess and financial mismanagement died out in the previous dot-com bust. In fact, now that servers are cheap, you might as well spend your money on nice chairs and desks - <USER3> least they last forever.

The new metric for startup waste is the amount of time founders and their employees spend on social networking sites. If your CEO is averaging 50 TWEETS per day, you're fucked.

<comment><USER9> Out of curiosity, where do you find them used?

<comment><USER4> craig's list, and if you are in SF or Oakland there are a number of furniture places that buy and sell them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find that I frequently have to get up and pace when doing any work that requires thinking work. I don't know that I'd like to work while standing however.I have a tendency to lock my knees and this leads to unfortunate consequences.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been working standing for the last few months, with similar results. It's definitely easier on my back, and seems to be good for my wrists as well. If you try it, make sure you mount the monitor up at eye level. When you're standing up straight, there's a lot more distance between your wrists and your eyes.

</comment><comment><USER12> That's pretty neat. $1295 is a bit steep for me though.

I'm pretty happy with my current desk. The top is just a 68"x30" (or so) wood piece from Ikea, with legs from Ikea as well. It's very sturdy. And, while it's not beautiful like the Amish desk, it does possess its own spare elegance.

It has no drawers or shelves or anything fancy like that. For storage I've just stuck a couple mobile file cabinets underneath.

Instead of using a keyboard tray I just put my keyboard in my lap, which actually is very comfortable and leaves me space in front of my monitor so that I can sketch ideas.

The total was around $200. It's not a stand up table but I think it would be fairly easy to just get some new legs and bolt them on.

</comment><comment><USER13> I read once in Discover Magazine that standing (and, to a lesser extent, sitting up) causes the release of stress hormones that impair thinking. Given that, a standing desk may not truly be all that.(Sorry, I couldn't find a link to it on the website. I have had trouble finding articlelettes in the R&D section of the magazine with the website's search feature before.)

Of course, whenever I need to do any truly deep thinking about a problem, it's usually not at my desk, so perhaps that detriment may not really be that important

Meanwhile, if you really want to take having an active posture while working to its extreme, I once read an article about treadmill desks...

</comment><comment><USER14> I'll have to go home and put cinder blocks under my desk legs to prop it up to standing level and try it. I have recently noticed that I have leg fatigue at the end of each day from sitting so much, and I do all my thinking while pacing about anyway, so standing seems like an interesting option.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am still laughing out loud about an Amish computer desk.

I am not sure I wish to stand all day, I really would prefer to go back and forth between the two options perhaps with a laptop or two workstations.

</comment><comment><USER16> Can't believe they missed the opportunity to mention Hemingway.

</comment><comment><USER17> From what I read years ago, standing is better for your back than sitting. Especially the kind of sitting where the person slouches for hours at a time.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've always wanted to get one of those big exercise balls to replace my general issue office chair, but a desk that I could stand at would be nice, too.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone know where one can get an adjustable table for a little cheaper? $1200 is a little out of my budget.

</comment><comment><USER20> a "kneeling chair" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kneeling_chair>) is a similar solution that keeps your spine straight but doesnt put stress on your legs. i have a friend who has one and he loves it

<comment><USER21> I had a kneeling chair. It was great for 10 minutes, but after several weeks I got fed up with the strain it put on my lower back.

<comment><USER22> That was the point. You have to build up the small muscles that support your spine. Until that has happened, your lower back will hurt ... but that is a good sign. Once the muscles have developed, you can sit for hours and your posture is dramatically improved. That is what happened for me.

But now I'm thinking standing or walking is the way to go. There is deep evidence that walking while working improves performance ... and is more fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You can get a great standing desk at Ikea for about 100 bucks. I swear by mine.</comment>


Families in Geel, Belgium, take in those with mental illness - <AUTHOR> http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/chronic-crisis-in-a-centuries-old-tradition-families-in-geel-belgium-take-in-those-with-mental-illness-226602311.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I am posting this due to questions recently asked of me in a discussion about suicide and health care. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7228764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7228764)

 _Something occurs to me when reading what you wrote here. I have heard folks who have struggled with depression (and not just suicidal depression) talk a lot about how important in person time was to recovering generally. I wonder how much depression is a social as opposed to a purely mental /neurological illness.

We humans need social contact and this has been known since at least the time of Aristotle (and probably time immemorial).

Perhaps you could answer this question: when your adult sons come over and care for you (this is a really great thing btw, and something we have lost as a society), is that in itself theraputic? Or is it just a stop-gap?

If it is theraputic, then we are missing a key piece of the discussion in the discourse of mental health._

So, I thought I would share this here, for all of Hacker News, in part because I also talked with people who asked me, in essence, "If not now, then when?" can certain things be discussed. I don't know that it is so much a question of when as how. I submit this in attempt to provide some answers to those questions.</comment>


The Attraction of Complexity - <AUTHOR> https://minnenratta.wordpress.com/2017/12/10/the-attraction-of-complexity/amp/ <comment><USER2> I can't follow the article's conclusion at all.

The data is very clear that there is less change/expression on complex code. Aggregating it by function seems like a bad move - if those functions were broken down into pieces, you would end up with more simple code, that from the simple model from the article would require much more change than the complex function.

</comment><comment><USER3> This analysis seems to be based on some notion of "Cognitive Complexity", but I can't find its definition in the article. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER4> a metric created by sonar source [https://www.sonarsource.com/resources/white- papers/cognitive...](https://www.sonarsource.com/resources/white- papers/cognitive-complexity.html)

<comment><USER5> There's no singular definition within that document for cognitive complexity, just a bunch of metrics.</comment></comment></comment>


The Curious Case of Linux Containers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sumbry/the-curious-case-of-linux-containers-328e2adc12a2#.ehqvuvenq <comment><USER2> We solve all of those use cases in our cluster management system of which Docker is a key enabling component, except for point 5, though we do have other components that require multiple steps to provision. I bet we could run Hadoop if we needed it.

It's easy to point at Docker and say it's a trivial wrapper around some technologies that have been around for years and call everyone crazy for buying into the 'Docker is going to change the (sysadmin) world' hype. Of course in essence it's pretty trivial, many things are.

Docker, and Docker-like systems really are changing the sysadmin world. Easily formalised software environments is what this hype is about, and the fact that the Docker community isn't really looking at the stateful service problem right, doesn't mean they're not enabled by Docker either.

To me, and to many 'devops' (i.e. developers rolling into sysadmin roles) Docker was eye-opening. We reduced our chef scripts by 80%, and thus our headaches by 95%. It's saving us months of ops work. If you were a seasoned sysadmin and rolling your eyes at the fact that we were rolling out application level services in the same chef codebase we were setting up our system environments with, then yeah you already were better than us. But as far as I could tell the way we used to do it really was the status quo, at least in the startup/small it business world.

<comment><USER3> Someone once said that the public cloud was never about virtualization but rather automation. I would contend that the container revolution we're going through now isn't really about containers but ultimately distributed system platforms. And if it changes the way many have traditionally approached problems great!

My main point is that we're really just at the beginning of all of this. I'm not picking on Docker (I'm actually embracing containers) but rather pointing out that many of these next gen solutions are only tackling the basic use cases right now. While I'm excited there is so much more work left to be done. Implementing many of these solutions still requires a bunch of engineering effort and I'd like to see more turnkey solutions. The developer end is definitely getting easier and more productive but the operational end is getting more complex and still not solving some use cases everyone has. How many different ways can different companies implement HA MySQL for example?!

There are tons of other platforms out there that have recognized and solved many of this class of problems for years but the Cloud and microservices are actually starting to make this worse as adoption skyrockets. Platforms are not really a new thing, we went through this with JVM Platforms a ~decade ago, Heroku style PaaS ~five years ago, and now containers + cloud today.

I guess this is what progress looks like :)

<comment><USER4> Ha you weren't kidding about the number of HA MySQL drop-in engine replacements out there, damn. At least most people follow the ANSI-SQL standard, which is something.

I'm not being snarky, but what are the use-cases that everyone have? I'd argue authentication and authorization would be one of the few things, and it was already solved with JSR 196 like 15 years ago. It worked, had a well defined spec, and most importantly it had interop with PAM on UNIX, Kerberos, LDAP, raw db's, mixed mode, you name it. Everyone complained it was too enterprisey and no one used it, so they re-invented the wheel in the early 00s with Rails and Devise and Authlogic and a billion other non-standards. Transactions? Persistence? Java's spec took care of that too, and fairly rigorously. So I'm with 100% with you on this being a solved problem.

We're making gradual progress (i.e., the option to develop in a language where the correctness of our code can be formally verified thanks to more readily available, mathematically sound type-systems) but like any society there are trends, and where there are trends you'll have the recurrence of many old things (Interpol ripping off Joy Division) and the invention of a few new things (where are often the composition of two older ideas, or the implementation of a new idea which wasn't computationally feasible previously but now is, or a concept from another industry like signal analysis or three- phase road traffic theory applied to our code-monkey'ing domain).

RE: Overall progress - Microsoft is doing some fantastic things in Powershell, effectively taking concepts like package management, man pages, and the shell, extracting the best elements from each of those, and implementing them in a consistent manner. No more choosing between systemd or init.d or other holy wars. If you want to do it differently, you effectively have a standardized interface to write your new implementation against within most of the platform. Don't like ASP.NET's templating system? No problem, it's all open source, and you can swap your own in, but it's all modular so nothing will break, and your co-workers can continue working in the traditional Razor templating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I find curious about all the container discussions and narrative is the strange lack of context. Sure discuss Docker but also discuss namespaces, cgroups, overlayfs, aufs, and all the other critical enabling technologies where a lot of major problems with containers exist and will be solved. For instance user namespaces, cgroups are not namespace aware, how to integrate overlayfs or aufs so they can be mounted by user namespaces seamlessly.

Surely these projects and developers need support and focus. Or else it become mere marketing for companies that have the funds or ability to market themselves. Do we just talk about libvirt without context or understanding of kvm and xen, how would that be useful or meaningful?

An 'immutable container' is nothing but launching a copy of a container enabled by overlay file systems like aufs or overlayfs, a 'stateless' container is a bind mount to the host. Using worlds like stateless, immutable or idempotent just obscures simple underlying technologies and prevents wider understanding of core Linux technologies that need to be highlighted and supported. How is this a sustainable development model?

Docker chooses to run containers without an init. The big problem here is most if not all apps you want to run in a container are not designed to work in an init less environment and require daemons, services, logging, cron and when run beyond a single host, ssh and agents. This adds a boatload of additional complexity for users before you can even deploy your apps, and a lot of effort is expended is just managing the basic process of running apps and managing their state in this context.

Contrast that with LXC containers which have a normal init and can manage multiple processes enabling for instance your VM workloads to move seamlessly to containers without any extra engineering. Any orchestration, networking, distributed storage you already use will work obviating the need for reinventing. That's a huge win and a huge use case that makes deployment simple and slices all the complexity, but if you listen to the current container narrative and the folks pushing a monoculture and container standards it would appear there are no alternatives and running init less containers is the only 'proper' way to use containers, never mind the additional complexity may only make sense for specific use cases.

<comment><USER6> _Docker chooses to run containers without an init._

I don't think Docker chooses one way or the other, and people do run Docker with an init: [http://phusion.github.io/baseimage- docker/](http://phusion.github.io/baseimage-docker/)

<comment><USER7> Correct, Docker doesn't care what you run inside the container. You provide a command to run, and it runs it. That command may be your application server or a traditional init process which in turn will fork multiple children.

Docker _does_ make it easier to follow an "application container" pattern, and that pattern avoids (with good reason) booting an entire traditional init system inside the container. But following that pattern is not mandatory. Not forcing too many patterns upon users all at once was part of the original Docker philosophy. Unfortunately that aspect was drowned in the cacophony as a few loud and passionate people interpreted Docker through the lens of their own favorite patterns.

In retrospect I wish we had been more assertive in reminding everyone to respect the philosophy behind Docker: that you can share tools with people without forcing everyone to use them in the same way as you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many of the author's desires are handled in SmartOS ([https://www.joyent.com/blog/triton-docker-and-the-best-of- al...](https://www.joyent.com/blog/triton-docker-and-the-best-of-all-worlds))

<comment><USER9> And OpenShift: [https://enterprise.openshift.com/](https://enterprise.openshift.com/)

<comment><USER10> I'll pile on!

Cloud Foundry is another opensource PaaS: [https://www.cloudfoundry.org/learn/features/](https://www.cloudfoundry.org/learn/features/)

(Disclaimer: I work for Pivotal, which donates the majority of engineering effort to Cloud Foundry)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't like containers for the purpose of deployment. All they do is hide complexity from DevOps people - But the complexity is still very much there. Hiding complexity from DevOps people is useful in a PaaS context, but it is an anti-pattern when you consider pretty much every other use case.

Docker encourages developers to keep adding more and more different technologies to a system. If you consider most popular applications today, they are usually made up of hundreds of different technologies - Each of which requires their own bootstrap/setup logic.

Maybe if each micro-service was made up of fewer different technologies, deployment wouldn't be such a headache and you wouldn't need Docker to begin with.

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Author's terminology seems muddled. The first bullet is correct, but only on a technicality, and it fails to point out that strictly there is no "Linux container," only an emergent and weakly cohesive combination of features that as an artifact create a so-called Linux container (as opposed to being a well- defined atomic unit/OS resource). The third bullet equivocates archive formats with application containers.

</comment><comment><USER12> The author's 'platform' concerns are in fact infrastructure automation concerns generic to any service-oriented architecture and _not_ specific to containers.

My take as an early LXC adopter (way pre docker) and from-concept builder of two production clusters using custom automation:

1\. Service state. The author essentially requests master-slave promotion. Corosync/pacemaker is an excellent place to look for well tested solutions here. The normal approach used there is superior to the author's, ie. a floating IP used by all clients is switched to an already live replacement master, which is first jabbed in to action, and which shares the same backing storage as the nodes which has failed. (A great solution for shared backing storage on standard hardware is DRBD)

2\. MySQL update. Change management with SOA has to be far more rigid due to complex interdependencies. Typically you version your entire service, exhaustively test it against peer services, and only then deploy the updated service. This implies a workflow process more formalized than the series of manual operations the author hand-waves about. That said, in a typical database scenario it is often possible to upgrade across minor versions simply by updating the binary, since it will read the old on-disk database store fine.

3\. Heartbleed. With an appropriately automated approach to service builds, this should be trivial. Mask the affected packages or versions, rebuild all services, test and deploy. This really goes back again to overall workflow formalization and automation. (Solid infrastructure would have cryptographic signoff on stuff before it runs, eg. production demands a signature from test infrastructure that all tests have passed before executing a new service)

4\. Service dependencies. This is far more complex than people assume. My advice is to use corosync/pacemaker, a well tested approach. (There are others)

5\. Hadoop. Same as any other service.

There are many other problems with SOA-type infrastructure automation; some ideas I wrote up ages ago can be seen at [http://stani.sh/walter/pfcts/](http://stani.sh/walter/pfcts/) as well as the sketch/documentation of the solution I built.

</comment><comment><USER13> > Did you know that even with all the advances with technology the amount of > time that a housewife spends maintaining a household today is the exact same > as it was in the 1950s!

Unrelated to the core of the article, I know. But it seemed odd to me. Is this true? Or was it a metaphor?

EDIT: did a bit of googling and found a couple[0][1] of not-extremely-academic references that claim that it's less than half... but couldn't find anything more authoritative.

[0] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens- life/9721147/Women-s...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens- life/9721147/Women-spend-half-as-much-time-on-housework-today-compared- to-1960s.html)

[1] [https://www.anglianhome.co.uk/50years](https://www.anglianhome.co.uk/50years)

</comment><comment><USER14> Are cgroups meant to be secure against malicious code trying to get out and install rootkits on the underlying system?

AFAIK, hardware-level virtualization is. If code running under Xen can get out, that's considered a bug in Xen and it gets fixed, right?

OTOH, chroot is not considered to be secure. It isn't designed to be secure. It is not a security tool. Code in a chroot jail is expected to be able to leave without subverting the security mechanisms which, by and large, don't exist in the first place.

So, are cgroups Xen or chroot?

<comment><USER15> Containers (which are more than just cgroups) are supposed to be secure.

In practice, the attack surface is much bigger for containers than VMs, so there are far more "break out of container" vulnerabilities out there than "break out of VM" vulnerabilities.

Most containers are run in a VM, usually one being run for you by Amazon or Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Also be warned — I have no idea what I'm talking about. Take everything in this article with a grain of salt." \- pretty much. I'm not sure whether the author thinks "platforms" even are. And the complaints that "linux cgroups aren't the entire platform so why call it containers" seem pedantic.

I don't see why "handling MySQL failover", "resource management", "upgrading OpenSSL" should all be handled by the same piece of software in any case.</comment>


Angular-translate 2.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://angular-translate.github.io We finally made it to 2.0 with a lot of new features! <comment><USER2> Almost a year ago when this project was announced on angular google group I was looking for a i18n solution for my app, I tried it but the negative performance impact made me discard it. Its approach of implement i18n through filters and directives relying on angular dirty checking make your app really slow If you have a regular amount of i18n strings. I ended up generating different templates for each language with grunt and using a simple i18n function mapping a dictionary for strings on js code. I see that it hit 2.0 now, its evolution make it usable without a notable performance penalty?

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, dirty check is not the best thing when it comes to performance. However, we've updated the directive to only set up watches when needed. Which means, when you don't change the language at runtime, but kick off some $digest cycles, they don't get re-evaluated. So this should be an performance boost. Filters always set up watches, if you use filters, well... deal with it. You could use the directive. angular-translate isn't the answer for everyone and that's okay because this is not what it should be. It solved a problem for me and people like it, which is why I still develop this module.

For some cases angular-gettext surely makes more sense, angular-translate gives you just a much higher integration into the angular world and solves more problems like async loading, fallback languages, pluralization, language negotiation etc etc.

Chose what fits best for you! :)

<comment><USER2> "Conditional watches" on the directive sounds good, I will try it. Also gettext support will be great, the use of existing i18n tools is a must have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Had a look but couldn't quickly see if this supports Gettext? As you build out an increasingly large app and i8n is important to you, using a standardized i8n process makes your life significantly easier than managing lists of strings.

We've been using angular-gettext[1] along with Transifex and it's made a significant impact our development and translation management.

[1] [http://angular-gettext.rocketeer.be/](http://angular- gettext.rocketeer.be/)

<comment><USER4> IMO, they way gettext handles translations is way superior than the key->value model for many reasons:

1\. You never will run out of keys.

2\. Makes code much easier to read with a real language on messages instead of keys that can't possibly describe the whole message.

3\. While writing code, you don't need to stop to think in a new key to add your message, go to the key->value list file and add it there. You just wrap you message with _('') and it's done.

4\. Easier to write messages that have variables inside using sprintf or similar.

<comment><USER5> 100% agree. I definitely don't need another "what should I name this key?".

The only benefit I can see is when you want to change the English version you can do so without breaking the relationship.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Kiro,

Just see my comments above :) If angular-translate doesn't fit to your needs, that's okay. Just stick with angular-gettext. But you'll lose all the awesomeness like async loading, fallback languages, language negotiation etc..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Minor nitpick: The english "paragraph" is better translated as "Absatz". "Paragraph" has a very narrow meaning in german (a section of a legal code, e.g. §1 BGB).

</comment><comment><USER7> I looked at the changelog on Github, and while there is certainly a lot of good stuff in there, for such a big release I would expect more information on some points, such as 'determinePreferredLanguage' or 'teaches directive custom translate-value-* attr'. Or link the commit ids to the commits (and link to relevant issues).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeap you're right, the changelog generation didn't work very well because our commit messages weren't always very specific. This will become better in the future.

For further information, checkout this G+ post: [https://plus.google.com/+PascalPrecht/posts/V5GtNp1tU27](https://plus.google.com/+PascalPrecht/posts/V5GtNp1tU27)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More information about the release can be found here: [https://plus.google.com/+PascalPrecht/posts/V5GtNp1tU27](https://plus.google.com/+PascalPrecht/posts/V5GtNp1tU27)</comment>


Are We Living in a Hologram? - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/space/are-we-living-in-a-hologram.html <comment><USER2> The original experiment found noise.

So what they are doing is building two identical experiments and comparing their noise.

If the noise from both experiments is the same that may be evidence that it's not actually random noise, but a signal of some kind.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was able to get a much better grasp on what the Holometer aims to measure on the Fermilab Holometer website <http://holometer.fnal.gov/index.html>, really nifty stuff!

</comment><comment><USER4> I recently read "Holographic Universe"[1], which is all about this topic.

An interesting fact about holograms that the book points out is that, if you cut any piece from a hologram, the image contained within that piece will be the entire hologram's image, with more distortion or noise...not a part of the image as would be expected from cutting a regular image or photo.

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/Holographic-Universe-Michael- Talbot/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Holographic-Universe-Michael- Talbot/dp/0060922583)

</comment><comment><USER5> Perchance the jitter occurs because we are moving quite fast through a fine voxel grid which is the underlying representation of the world in a simulator inside someones computer. Measure the actual distance between the endpoints of a line drawn on a pixel display as the line is repeatedly redrawn in new positions, and the results will be noisy. Perhaps our creators simply didn't care enough to implement anti-aliasing?

<comment><USER2> It's unlikely that there is an underlying voxel grid because that would not be compatible with relativity.

If we are in a computer, then you would need some other type of representation where voxels are local to each other - perhaps by storing distance between every pair of voxels that can interact.

<comment><USER6> Not necessarily voxels, but possibly discrete connected structures, arranged in a graph.

<comment><USER5> Would relativity then be a necessary component in a simulation, with an effort put into implementing the correct mechanics? Or could relativity be a side effect of an underlying representation you chose in order to achieve something else, like the massive parallellism needed to compute the next discreet step in the simulation?

<comment><USER2> If you have e=mc2 then relativity happens mostly automatically (Because energy is mass, it makes objects heavier when they go fast, and since they are heavier it takes even more energy to accelerate them, take that to the limit and c becomes the fastest you can go.)

And once you have that you realize that energy is relative (because speed is relative, otherwise you can easily get free energy by having two slow object who's speed adds up to c), and the rest of the coding falls out from there.

I'm not sure if relativity is necessary for the coding, and you do it in reverse. I think e=mc2 was first and everything followed from there.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for following up my chain of thought.. you are clearly the go-to guy for universe simulation implementations. Let me know when you are available to put in a couple of man-centuries of development. I'll provide funding, food and not too alien coworkers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll have to read it again a couple of times, but it seems to be a sort of incorrect mashing together and misunderstanding about the holographic principle related to black holes, and some other stuff.</comment>


Conway's Game of Life in one line of APL - <AUTHOR> http://catpad.net/michael/apl

<comment><USER2> While we're speaking about obfuscated game of life implementations, try this one in C. It draws on an X11 root window, no Xlib required.

<http://www.ioccc.org/1991/davidguy.c></comment>


Risky Subway Stations for Commute in NYC Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://nyc-subway.locale.ai/analysis/public/Static-Analysis-Z3GC32D6UJYR57SDRQ5D <comment><AUTHOR> Read more here: [https://blog.locale.ai/which-subway-stations-to-avoid-in- new...](https://blog.locale.ai/which-subway-stations-to-avoid-in-new-york- city-amidst-the-covid-19-pandemic/)

NYC Subways have been serving as the major transit choice for New Yorkers. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority or MTA, which operates most of NYC's transit systems, reports a massive 1.7 billion subway rides as of 2013! That's huge when comparing it to a 803 million figure for the city buses.

Today, the subway usage has obviously decreased due to coronavirus. But, what about people like doctors, essential services staff and other people, who still can't afford a personal commute and rely on the subways? They are the ones most at risk but they have limited choices.</comment>