Amazon Is Asking Indians to Hand Over Their Aadhaar Biometric ID - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/pranavdixit/amazon-is-asking-indians-to-hand-over-their-aadhaar-indias <comment><USER2> Some clarifying info, since the title is kinda clickbait—the AADHAAR card doesn't have any biometric info for it. It just has a number. The biometric info lies with the government who can then authenticate an individual based on it.

This whole AADHAAR linking business has been a point of contention in India over the last year as the government is slowly mandating linking your AADHAAR number with all kinds of contracts and services, from rental contracts to telecom providers to bank accounts.

If anyone deserves blame for this kerfuffle, it's the government.

<comment><USER3> Aadhaar is interesting to watch, given America's debate over using social security numbers for the same purpose, and how to replace that in the wake of Equifax. It seems like the winds are starting to align for us to have something like Aadhaar, so it's interesting to see Indian reaction to it.

SSN for services is par for the course in the US. My cable company has mine.

<comment><USER4> > _SSN for services is par for the course in the US. My cable company has > mine._

Which seems broken too. Why don't they just let you prepay for service such that they don't need any identity information?

<comment><USER5> Because a lot of services don't work without trust. Credit rating agencies are the Certificate Authorities of the physical world.

To give an example, a company will hand you a $1K smartphone for as little as $20. The only guarantee they have that you'll pay the remainder is that you have a history of doing so, they gather this history from credit ratings agencies.

In order for you to be uniquely identified they need a unique identifier. Even full name + birth location + birthdate may not be unique given enough data- points.

SSNs aren't fit-for-purpose. But the purpose of uniquely identifying an individual is a valid one and likely a hole that will need to be filled one way or another (and there are many good concepts to replace SSNs).

<comment><USER6> But this doesn't seem responsive to the point. If I pre-pay for my phone and service, why does Verizon still demand my SSN and other data? Why do they even care who I am?

<comment><USER7> If by pre-pay you mean pay the full retail price, then you can do so without any SSN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The slippery for aadhar card is on full display here. Few years back when this biometric identity card was introduced the government promised not to make it mandatory and now your cannot even shop online without this card.

<comment><USER9> If I'm being honest I would much rather have the government use something like a public biometric ID number that uses biometrics to validate the number rather than a broken SSN. I mean we already give our fingerprints to the DMV, and to the Customs/Immigration desk when coming back from an international flight.

In today's world not only is SSN vital to everyday life, it is also ironically one of the least secure means to establish ID. Having your SSN out in the public is potential financial ruin, and we generally need to hand out that number to various private organization, and individuals. And if the Equifax leaks are any indication SSNs are the weakest link in society.

<comment><USER10> >I mean we already give our fingerprints to the DMV, and to the Customs/Immigration desk when coming back from an international flight.

I'm not sure what country you live in, but US citizens most certainly are not required to give their fingerprints to the DMV or Customs/Immigration when flying internationally.

<comment><USER11> There's more than 50 American DMVs, all the states plus DC and each of the territories have their own. Do you really think you know everything about all the requirements for an ID for all of them to make such a statement?

<comment><USER12> Which DMVs require fingerprints?

<comment><USER11> Please reread my post, I never claimed any did.

But anyway, off the top of my head:

[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/05/us/3-accused-of-murder- in-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/05/us/3-accused-of-murder-in-a-plot-to- get-1-million-in-insurance.html)

>The police later discovered that a thumbprint from the corpse did not match the one on Mr. Hanson's California driver's license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amazon only requires id when you order from Amazon Global, and that's because customs requires Indians to provide identity and address proof when you're importing something. If you don't want to provide it to Amazon, you have the option of providing it to the courier service (FedEx/Aramex/whatever). Also, you can provide any other address proof like driving license, electricity bill, voter id etc. Aadhaar is convenient because it is one of the few documents that are accepted as proof of both identity and address (passport, driving license, voter id and ration card are the others).

So, yes, clickbait article.

<comment><USER14> Aadhaar is NOT a proof of address. Or Age. UIDAI has clarified it.

<comment><USER2> The Aadhaar card has your birth year on it. How is it not a proof of age within a maximum error of one year?

<comment><USER14> They don't VERIFY the birth year. It is only as good as the other ID docs submitted to them.

In their own words: [https://twitter.com/UIDAI/status/934731727808774144](https://twitter.com/UIDAI/status/934731727808774144)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The local newspaper reported that the state government is asking for Aadhaar when distributing free HIV medicine. That seems a lot more problematic.

</comment><comment><USER16> Amazon is not asking for any biometrics. They are asking for your Adhaar number. The government has an authentication API that can confirm your identity for Amazon using the number. They can do this authentication by email, by phone, or by fingerprints.

This whole FUD about Adhaar is really sad to see. It's a useful service and we desperately need a national ID. Until now different things require different IDs. Voting card, ration card, PAN card, Passport, Driving license, and so on. With Adhaar we finally have the chance to move to one unique ID for every citizen. Of course like everything done by government, there are inefficiencies and bureaucracy, but it's markedly less than what we face in other IDs.

<comment><USER17> > whole FUD

I'm sorry you can't see the privacy implications of Aadhaar. If it's easy to track every single place you go and every rupee you spend, it affects you in a few ways

Citizens start self censoring themselves. They subconsciously stop engaging in activities that are legal but might be traced back to them. I've personally done many things that I'd rather people didn't know about. I might have dabbled in substances, for example. Maybe I might not have done that if I had known that the eye of Big Brother was watching.

You say elsewhere you're confident that whatever the abuses of the government, we'd be able to vote them out. With the tracking ability they'll have in a couple of years, that might no longer be possible. Who would show up to a protest if they knew the govt would be able to track them there?

Ultimately it comes down to this - Indians enjoy a lot of privacy and anonymity because they're one amongst 1.3 billion people. Paradoxically they don't value this much at all. Given a chance they'd gladly trade privacy for wealth. It's not my place to say if that's a good trade or if they should make it, but you don't really know what you got till it's gone.

<comment><USER16> > If it's easy to track every single place you go and every rupee you spend

How so? How can it make it easy to trace the ₹13 cash I used to buy a cig?

> I might have dabbled in substances, for example. Maybe I might not have done > that if I had known that the eye of Big Brother was watching.

How does having a UID help the government in tracking your weed smoking habits?

> With the tracking ability they'll have in a couple of years, that might no > longer be possible.

This is the point we go off the rails. You're delusional.

<comment><USER17> > You're delusional.

I'm sorry you think so. I agree that I could have made my case better, and normally I'd take a stab at it now that I have a full keyboard in front of me. But your ad hominem attack makes it not worth my time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A ID number to buy stuff? I remember hearing about that somewhere. I think it was an old book? Someone should tell China, their life gamification score could benefit... ID theft and all.</comment>


Saudi Arabia Just Announced Plans to Build a Mega City That Will Cost $500 Bn - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-24/saudi-arabia-to-build-new-mega-city-on-country-s-north-coast <comment><USER2> Previous thread on the same topic: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15543404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15543404)</comment>


A Drug to Cure Fear - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/opinion/sunday/a-drug-to-cure-fear.html <comment><USER2> I'm of the opinion that eventually (soon) human emotions/gut level feelings will be replaced with a controlled layer.

In an earlier time hunger, fear, (and probably even things like love and religious sentiment) had strong purposes. To a certain extent they certainly still do.

The problem is in this world all to often these impulses are destructive and as the problems of the world get traced down to the root these emotions will become revealed as troublemakers and replaced with something more suitable as the capacity is developed.

For example... look at hunger. We need it to tell us to eat. Or we did. But the desire to eat evolved in a time when food wasn't as rich or as plentiful. So now it causes problems. Kills more people than terrorists and cars and smoking and drugs. So people try to beat it back, go on diets, suffer, but why?

So eventually what I think will happen is that something will be tied into your metabolism. You'll get hungry when you physically need to eat and in proportion and with desire for the things your body really needs. Adjustable, controllable. Not the things a body craved on the Savannah 20,000 years ago or whatever.

Other emotions... same thing. Incidentally, I'm not advocating this...I have no doubt plenty of people would be horrified at the thought and the concept has extreme risks for sure. But I think in the total cost/benefit it will be what happens to humanity fairly soon evolutionary speaking.

</comment><comment><USER3> Propanolol is not common, but it's certainly not a new finding by any means for treatment of anxiety (whether that is a one-time "stage preformance" dose, or a daily dose for persistent symptoms).

I do wish that Propanolol was tried on more healthy (edit: those without heart conditions where beta-blockers would be dangerous) psych patients before benzodiazapines or SSRI's. I have PTSD and it helped me a lot with barely any side-effects. Dependance is still a question, of course, but I still advocate its helpfulness. I do not however in any way think it should be advertised as a drug to "cure" fear.

That notion makes me sick. Unfortunately, that's what people will be seeking, in lieu of other treatment options that don't involve medication.</comment>


Drone-Ethics Briefing: What a Leading Robot Expert Told the CIA - <AUTHOR> http://m.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/12/drone-ethics-briefing-what-a-leading-robot-expert-told-the-cia/250060/ <comment><USER2> "The ethics of military robots is quickly marching ahead, judging by news coverage and academic research."

Perhaps the author means that the _use_ of military robots is quickly marching ahead, outpacing any consideration of the ethics of such action.

I think the article, and some of the articles linked therein, just illustrate that maybe it's time for the US to step back from the world stage...before we do something really stupid.</comment>


The Next Steve Jobs (And the Last One) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/10/the-next-steve-jobs-and-the-last-one.html

<comment><USER2> Comparing him to Miles Davis.

>Maybe it's Miles who can give the most appropriate quote about what Steve Jobs did: "Don't play what's there, play what's not there."</comment>


Show HN: I Wrote an Introduction to Linear Regression in Haskell - <AUTHOR> https://samcgardner.github.io/2018/10/06/linear-regression-in-haskell.html <comment><USER2> Hello Sam, very nice! Thanks for writing that up. If you implement more of Andrew Ng's class assignments, please post them also.</comment>


Sun Small Programmable Object Technology Project (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://www.sunspotdev.org/vision.html <comment><USER2> Can't believe that Sun SPOTs made it to Hacker News after all this time. I run the mirror site mentioned here, and still have a few drawers full of SPOTs (as well as a couple of complete kits in the boxes.

I was _just_ talking to someone the other day about resurrecting the Squawk VM and porting it to the Cortex Mx architecture. It really was ahead of its time.

<comment><USER3> 80-100k SRAM is still a pretty steep tax for most Cortex Mx parts, though not the largest.

<comment><AUTHOR> Given the kind of applications I was able to write in 640KB, there might be still enough space available, even after taking 100k away.

By the way here is a port to ESP8266, MICROBIT, LPC1768, NUCLEO_L476.

[https://github.com/tomatsu/squawk](https://github.com/tomatsu/squawk)

<comment><USER3> Lots of the Cortex M4 parts have less than 100k SRAM total. That '476 is relatively big with 128KB SRAM. The LPC1768 has 32KB, so maybe things have been really slimmed down than I remember.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Sun Labs' ECC implementations power a small-footprint, secure Web server > stack (including HTTP and SSL), nicknamed Sizzle, that can be embedded > inside a wide array of small devices, so you can monitor and control them > securely via a Web browser.

Interesting name.

</comment><comment><USER5> Way ahead of their time. SunSPOTs were great!

</comment><comment><USER6> Those were fun. One of the cool thing about them is that most of the stack was written in Java.

The JVM itself was written in Java, the operating system was written in Java, and there was only a small bit of C code for initial bootstrapping and some C microcontroller code for some things (interrupt handling if I remember correctly).</comment>


Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030 - <AUTHOR> https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/02/22/taiwan-ban-single-use-plastic-drinking-straws-plastic-bags-disposable-utensils-entirely-2030/ <comment><USER3> The UK dropped to _500 million_ bags annually used from _7 billion_ after introduction of a 5 pence per bag charge. That's just one country albeit one of the world's largest. Still I think we're over due for much more agressive action.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/30/england-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/30/england- plastic-bag-usage-drops-85-per-cent-since-5p-charged-introduced)

<comment><USER4> Meanwhile when I moved here in New York I was shocked at the common practice of "double bagging" where they literally put a plastic bag into another plastic bag.

The argument being that 1 bag isn't strong enough.

<comment><USER5> It's dumb for light items, absolutely.

But New Yorkers tend to carry their groceries home in their hands for as far as a mile, instead of wheeling them out in carts to a car trunk and then carrying them 20 feet to the door of the house.

Heavy items (liquids and canned goods and stuff like potatoes) WILL tear through plastic bags if not double bagged. The worst offenders are half gallons of milk/juice, which have sharp corners.

This has happened to me more than once. I've also on occasion just made it home with a bag that's seconds from splitting open.

And then you're half a mile from home with your groceries all over the sidewalk and nothing to put them in.

<comment><USER6> At least in Europe, since the introduction of the bag surcharge, the new plastic bags are thicker and much stronger. At most, they get punctured, but I have never had one break open on me.

<comment><USER5> The grocery store I grew up shopping at (in NY) also had thicker bags, but they were still vulnerable to punctures, which would turn into tears under the wrong conditions. They used to put a paper bag (no handles) inside a plastic bag (with handles) - which turns out to be super sturdy. You could carry cannonballs in those things, except that you could feel the handles stretch out after a few blocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > uniform invoices – widely used in Taiwan

I wondered what this meant, so I looked it up: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Invoice_lottery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Invoice_lottery)

To encourage businesses to report their earnings, Taiwan's tax authorities operate a receipt lottery. Genius.

<comment><USER8> It's pretty common to buy something then be asked to pay 5% more if you want a receipt - 5% being their sales tax.

<comment><USER9> I've experienced that kind of shenanigans in Vietnam, but never in Taiwan. What did you buy?

<comment><USER8> Electronics

<comment><USER10> I've never, ever, been asked to pay more for a receipt.

<comment><USER8> have you ever asked for a receipt where one hasn't been offered?

<comment><USER10> Yes. And never heard of any additional cost.

<comment><USER8> Well you must go to classier places than I do (:

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's claims the plastic ban bag in San Diego led to a Hepatitis outbreak [https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/sep/08/stringers- pl...](https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/sep/08/stringers-plastic-bag- ban-led-hep-health-crisis/)

<comment><USER12> Two economists have claimed that the ban in San Francisco led to an increase in food-borne diseases. The proposed mechanism is that people don't wash their reusable bags, and dangerous bacteria gets onto them. It isn't clear to me how strong the evidence for this is.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/16/is- sa...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/16/is-san- franciscos-ban-on-plastic-bags-making-people-sick-perhaps-not/)

<comment><USER13> I've seen this also and have not seen any evidence to the contrary. Considering how damning this study is to plastic bag bans, I'm guessing this means there aren't any studies that rebut these findings.

<comment><USER14> So we need studies now to tell you to occasionally clean the bags you put raw meat into?

<comment><USER13> That's one way to interpret the results. Alternatively, the study shows that in the normal course of human behavior, plastic bag bans may have nontrivial negative health impacts.

Also, it shows that in considering the carbon footprint of reusable bags, we should factor in regular (not occasional) cleaning.

Considering that a reusable bag needs to be reused many (hundreds, if memory serves) of times before reaching carbon neutrality versus single use plastic bags, this is not necessarily a trivial impact.

<comment><USER14> Carbon neutrality is not the only metric by which we create these regulations. Nor should it be. Single-use bags introduce many externalities that are captured and controlled by imposing a minimal cost.

<comment><USER13> No one said it is the only metric. But it is a relevant one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seeing some of comments about price.. just thought I can put more info here since that's where I'm from and some points are not mentioned, especially the previous plastic reduction effort by Taiwan started in 2002.

In 2002, the restriction on plastic bags that are thinner than 0.06mm was imposed to all stores, but it was not a complete ban. Stores that offer plastic bags thicker than 0.06mm need to charge customers. The idea behind thicker bag is reusability. Two types of responses from stores: Stores started providing thinner bag as long as they are bio-degradable (Link 1), or they provide thicker bag as long as customers are charged. Customer's response: Since 2002, 71.7 reduction in plastic bag use in supermarkets, and 43.4 reduction in plastic bag use in stores. (Link 2, Link 3)

And just a side note, Taipei started being more aggressive since 2000 by charging garbage bags. You have to purchase government issued garbage bags if you want to throw your garbage out of your house. (Mentioned in link 4)

Some links are in Chinese

Link 1: [http://e-info.org.tw/node/202363](http://e-info.org.tw/node/202363)

Link 2: [http://www.epochtimes.com.tw/n176732/%E6%93%B4%E5%A4%A7%E9%9...](http://www.epochtimes.com.tw/n176732/%E6%93%B4%E5%A4%A7%E9%99%90%E5%A1%91%E6%94%BF%E7%AD%96-%E4%BB%98%E8%B2%BB%E5%A1%91%E8%86%A0%E8%A2%8B%E6%93%AC%E6%8F%90%E9%AB%98%E5%88%B05%E5%85%83.html)

Link 3: Similar to link 2 with different stats [https://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0615/p07s02-woap.html](https://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0615/p07s02-woap.html)

Link 4: [https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3134910](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3134910)

<comment><USER16> > You have to purchase government issued garbage bags if you want to throw > your garbage out of your house

That's the case in many countries - in Japan for example. (not government issued but city-issued or prefecture-issued bags).

<comment><USER17> Same is definitely true in Zurich, but not the rest of Switzerland.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 12 _years?_ 12 months seems plenty.

It's not like they need decades of research to _reintroduce_ paper straws, paper bags and reusable bags.

Edit: I'm confused now.

 _" As of next year, food and beverage stores such as fast food chains must stop providing plastic straws for in-store use. From 2020, free plastic straws will be banned from all food and beverage outlets. From 2025, the public will have to pay for takeaway plastic straws, and a blanket ban is to be imposed in 2030"_

They're banned free from 2020, but public have to pay from 2025? What happens in between then?

<comment><USER19> paper straws really suck, please don't let them be the solution.

<comment><USER20> What's the problem with paper straws?

<comment><USER21> As I recall from my childhood, they get mushy if you dawdle too long with your drink. They also are more prone to collapse if drinking a milkshake and you deform a spot on the side mid-suck.

<comment><USER22> The newer ones are better, but can still colapse if left in a drink too long.

I never understood straws however. They bypass your tounge, thereby skipping the whole point of a tasty drink, and nobody uses straws for water it seems. It is very strange, and looks vaugely infintile to see an adult suckling in public.

<comment><USER21> I use them in cups when I drive or watch media. I don't have to tip up the cup and block my field of view. I'm a fan of the plastic disposables. I used to use permanent straws, but I got tired of having to wonder what was in my biofilms. Now I reuse a disposable straw until I manage to buy a refill at a gas station and get a new one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I recently bought a set of reusable stainless steel straws. They were expensive, but have a timeless "design" and have a build quality that gives the impression they will last a lifetime.

When dirty I throw them in the dishwasher with the other cutleries. They don't take any space in the washer so cleaning them is essentially "free". (Making abstraction of the ecological cost of a dishwasher.)

<comment><USER24> I've read that a dishwasher is less wasteful than hand-washing of dishes (perhaps this isn't true for people who are very, very scrupulous about their use of water while washing dishes, but that's not most of us).

<comment><USER25> Assuming you use the dishwasher correctly: you don't overload it, You don't run it too empty, and you don't pre-wash/rinse your dishes. Fail either of the above and a dishwaser uses more water.

When you overload the dishwasher things don't get clean and then you wash by hand afterwards (in the case of pots/pans this might still be less water use just because when hand washing you are likely to drain the filthy water half way through)

I've seen people who scrub the food off by hand under running water before putting it in the dish washer - they are clearly using more water since hand washing plus rinsing the soap off is using less water than they use for the rood rinse.

That said, I would not expect a dishwasher can actually wash the inside of your straws so that is one of the things that should be reserved for hand washing. If you use a minimal amount of water in your wash sink, and a minimal amount of rinse water hand washing can be a low water use thing. Most people leave the water running for longer than they need to for rinsing and this wastes a lot of water.

<comment><USER26> Arguments about water "consumption" (hint: it's still water afterwards - <USER2> tends to clean itself if you didn't outright poison it and wait a bit) do not apply in humid regions - saving water someplace else doesn't help regions with water scarcity one bit. Berlin is an extreme example, they need to pump water out of the ground in any case to prevent the area from reverting to a bog.

Hot water usually costs a lot of valuable energy though.

<comment><USER24> The world is going to have more, not fewer, dry regions where water must be conserved over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You got to be at least a little cynical about 2030 date for something like this. Why not 2020. This isn't electric cars. We don't need to think about cost curves or 10 year product cycles.

<comment><USER28> There is a business and people impact to these types of decisions. Reducing usage of anything means one or more businesses will cease to operate and people will lose income. The government needs to afford these industries an opportunity to adjust to the new regulations.

<comment><USER27> sure, presumably there are some people that _only_ make or deliver plastic spoons. But, they aren't many.

Businesses will need to change practices. Supporting industries (regular cutlery, dishwashers) need to adapt a little. There might be a little pain or cost. Highly optimized workflows (eg McDonald's) a little more.

Generally, this is not that disruptive. Industry could adapt in 6 months, 18 months comfortably. Anything over two years is pointless.

No businesses will even think about this until 2028. Why bother with a tiny change 12 years from now. It may not even come to pass.

Generally, I don't like long lead time for democratic considerations. It makes accountability worse, and encourages political shenanigans. Decision makers should be there when their decisions take effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As good as this will be for the environment and aesthetics, just have to think the bubble tea vendors as well as regular green tea vendors who sell their drinks in sealed containers to be pierced by a sharp straw are not going to be fans of this ban.

<comment><USER30> Those bubble teas come in a plastic cup with a plastic lid and then they give you a plastic bag too! This will be a big change for a lot of vendors.

<comment><USER31> They should switch to a paper bag which is biodegradeable.

<comment><USER29> There are biodegradable[1] non traditional-plastic bags too. Might be more expensive in the beginning.

[1][http://biobagusa.com/products/retail- products/](http://biobagusa.com/products/retail-products/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Drinks taste better without straws anyway, and you can be satisfied with a _lot_ less by sipping directly. I was amazed how easily I could gulp down some 32 oz. drink with a straw but when opening the lid and sipping I could be perfectly happy with a tiny coffee-cup size.

<comment><USER33> I don't like straws myself, but they are better for your teeth since most beverages are acidic and the straw allows the liquid to bypass your teeth.

<comment><USER34> I suspect we'll see the market for reusable straws increase in Taiwan.

<comment><USER9> I have no numbers but I suspect that's already happening. I saw several people carry these reusable cups for drinks around last year (it seemed almost like a fad, but I hope it lasts):

[https://www.rakuten.com.tw/search/冰霸杯/](https://www.rakuten.com.tw/search/冰霸杯/)

Buying a reusable straw seems like the obvious next step.

Many shops also give a 3% or so discount to people who bring their own cup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Morocco is already actively banning plastic bags since 2016.

www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2016/07/green-morocco-bans-plastic- bags-160701141919913.html

<comment><USER36> According to rumor, this was an initiative of the king who was unhappy with the immense amount of litter across the countryside. Conventional plastic bags have been replaced by fiber bags that, I guess, are biodegradable eventually, but I do wonder if their creation generates just as much CO2. Plus, every single shopkeeper will give you a new-style bag (or three) for free; no one is being encouraged to reuse bags.

<comment><USER37> Last time I was in countryside Morocco, the waste management program consisted in dumping all your trash in the street and let the wind take care of it. There was indeed lots of plastic litter flying around. Looks like banning plastic bags is a good start but they have bigger challenges to tackle when it comes to environmental pollution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Surprisingly Singapore, a developed country with Budget surplus, and that which can afford a plastic ban, is no where in any list. And the plastic bag use is extreme here.

[1] [http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/3-billion-plastic- bags-a...](http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/3-billion-plastic-bags-a-year- cut-use-with-mandatory-tax)

</comment><comment><USER37> What is the rationale ? Are disposable plastic bags really that much worse than reusable / paper bags ? From what I understand plastic waste is usually burned for electricity or heat in industrial processes, and it's not that much worse than natural gas.

<comment><USER39> > From what I understand plastic waste is usually burned for electricity or > heat in industrial processes,

Except for the ones that end up in the ocean: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch)

<comment><USER37> The plastic that ends up in the ocean comes from places & countries that have no waste management at all besides dumping garbage directly in rivers and the ocean. I doubt that's the case for Taiwan.

<comment><USER40> I was in Taiwan a couple years ago doing a beach cleanup, plastics (bags, etc) most definitely make it into the water there.

<comment><USER41> Right, but most of them are getting landfilled at the worst, right? As I understand it, the majority of the garbage is coming from countries that have no commercial-scale waste disposal except ocean dumping.

<comment><USER42> Well, if we're guessing, surely developed nations produce an order of magnitude more waste in general. Just like the average American consumers more energy than everyone else.

<comment><USER37> We don't have to guess, according to this source, 98% of marine litter comes from outside Europe & US [1].

[1] [https://www.marinelitterthefacts.com/sources](https://www.marinelitterthefacts.com/sources)

<comment><USER40> Taiwan is outside Europe and the US. So that statistic doesn't really help prove the point that most of the trash in the ocean around Taiwan is from other countries that dump straight into the ocean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Does anyone know of a deeply-argued argument against the use of plastics like these?

Don't take this question as meaning that I believe such an argument doesn't exist, or that I think they shouldn't be banned. I'm currently agnostic on the matter, because I don't feel I know enough about it.

I tend to only hear shallowly-argued reasons for banning these things (which doesn't mean their conclusions are wrong).

<comment><USER44> Plastics are polluting and poisoning the oceans:

[https://www.ft.com/content/30b30b1e-004a-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c...](https://www.ft.com/content/30b30b1e-004a-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5)

<comment><USER43> I can't read that article (says a subscription is required). Plastics may be polluting and poisoning the oceans, but

\- what exactly is the source of those plastics? I saw someone else in this thread claim that it was from countries with poor waste management. So is banning use of those plastics in certain countries actually going to help? Is better waste management a better solution?

\- evaluating any proposal means doing a cost/benefit analysis of it and the alternatives. So some plastics from some sources contribute to that pollution and poisoning. But how much better or worse are the alternatives to banning them?

See what I mean about shallow vs deep arguments for proposed solutions?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I hate seeing these extremist bans. I was homeless in California when the bag ban went into effect. Following hot on the heels of the bag ban a hepatitis epidemic broke out in Southern California. I believe these two things are related.

I have a permanently compromised immune system. Reusing bags is problematic for me. However, I use grocery bags as trash bags. I almost never buy trash bags. This has basically been true my entire adult life. I bet a lot of people reusing grocery bags are buying trash bags separately.

I am very concerned that when we outright ban disposable bags and utensils we create a health risk that may go unrecognized.

Using metal straws and trying to clean them between uses strikes me as very problematic. That strikes me as a tremendous opportunity to foster antibiotic resistant infections.

I really wish the world would stop and wonder why such products are so popular instead of decrying them as clearly lazy and evil and no-good-nik. Because I fear that a lot of people will mysteriously die of illness and wondering if there is a connection to the ban of disposable items will mark you as a loony.

<comment><USER46> First, are you seriously suggesting that they were popular for the reasons that you personally prefer them?

Second, even if it did cause an outbreak what does that tell us about how endemic hepatitis was already? Is that not an issue already that it was all around us such that simply changing the habits of our shopping bags could cause this problem? It sounds like there is a deeper issue that needs to be addressed.

I'm sympathetic to your particular issues and I hope that there is an acceptable middleground for people with your situation but these seem like some serious edge cases to me. That is not to say that I expect you to have to suffer because you are an "edge case", but I don't see why we can't essentially ban something that is a problem overall while still finding a way to protect your health needs.

<comment><USER45> _First, are you seriously suggesting_

This is not good faith engagement.

 _Second, even if it did cause an outbreak_

I didn't say it caused an outbreak. I believe there are likely multiple contributing factors. But the epidemic disproportionately impacts the homeless population. For homeless people, paying 10 cents a bag is a serious hardship. Bags go from being a free courtesy item that enhances their life to yet another financial burden when money is already a serious problem. There are multiple factors that then make bags a potential vector for disease for the homeless.

The bag ban in California is aimed at injecting a facade of sustainability into the upper class lives of people who have no plans to give up their cars and big houses. It puts a big burden on people who lack either a car or a home or both. It is the people walking or taking public transit who most need a bag to carry their stuff. But, no, the US has no plans to improve public transit.

The only thing I am suggesting is that the discussion should be more nuanced. I see no reason why such a suggestion ought to be dismissed as unreasonable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I understand the need to change approaches and for companies to move to other manufacturing, etc., but 12 years??

Two years seems about right?

I always wonder when there's a long implementation period before requirements take hold if that's a politician making sure they don't have to handle the fallout but can still wallow in the glory.

<comment><USER48> You don't mess with the Taiwanese bubble tea. Seriously, they use one hell of a lot of plastic crap in Taiwan for takeouts but a lot of people also carry their own utensils, for various reasons.

Agree, 2 years should be plenty. I'd stretch to 5 but in 12 we'll all be drowning in the stuff.

<comment><USER49> Ah, this is why carry out is allowed to have plastic for an extra 5 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Maybe it's an anecdote, but I've noticed that over the past year or two, most bars and clubs have stopped giving me a straw by default and instead I'd either had to grab one from the jar or ask for one.

This is good, I don't need or want a straw in my drink. Even with the introduction of bamboo straws they should keep this policy. Obviously there are reasons to want a straw, such as wearing lipstick or having sensitive teeth, but for lots of us it's unnecessary.

<comment><USER51> Saves the business money since they don't have to buy as many. But yeah, I actually really enjoy straws and need them (protein shake with a beard kinda requires one). I use them often but would have no problem if they were made out of something less environmentally damaging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Kind of feels like a lot of governments are starting to make promises they won't be around to keep .. good for headlines support / minimal effort required.

</comment><comment><USER53> I agree for the bags, the cups... but not the straws. I am not going to give steel straws to my kids. They are dangerous (no more walking while drinking), hard to clean, heavy, they can't play with it... But it's not because I use plastic straw that I don't reuse them, a "disposable straw" usually last nearly a week if the are not used with something hard to clean like syrup or milk.

As for the bag side of things, we use PET bags [1] here in Switzerland, which lasts between 6 months and a year. They where even available for free at some point. Not even mentioning the environment, those bags are highly superior to plastic bags, bigger, easier to handle and much more robust.

[1]: [https://img.coopathome.ch/produkte/880_880/RGB/1012284_001.j...](https://img.coopathome.ch/produkte/880_880/RGB/1012284_001.jpg?_=1454707905335)

<comment><USER54> Try showing your kid a video of a straw being pulled out of a sea turtle's nose. Assuming they're as sensitive as most kids are, they'll instantly grok what the problem is and refuse to ever use a plastic straw from that point onward.

<comment><USER53> Just dispose of the straw properly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> At least major cities and provinces in Philippines started banning plastic bags, styrofoams and disposable, plastic utensils since 2012

[http://plasticbagbanreport.com/category/world- news/philippin...](http://plasticbagbanreport.com/category/world- news/philippines/)

</comment><comment><USER56> My wife and I started a business built around helping people reduce the amount of single-use plastic they send to landfill. The zero waste movement is growing super fast. [https://wildminimalist.com](https://wildminimalist.com) if anyone is interested.

</comment><comment><USER57> Here is a suprisingly comprehensive list of countries which have programs to reduce plastic bags: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase- out_of_lightweight_plast...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase- out_of_lightweight_plastic_bags)

</comment><comment><USER58> I think the banning of disposable utensils will be hard to adopt given how big the restaurant/night market scene is in Taiwan. I doubt many people will want to carry steel straws, chopsticks, or forks. When you want to go get food, do you want to think about what food you want? Or what utensil and container you need to bring? It's far more convenient to just provide a utensil there.

There's a post on reddit which basically sums it up - [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7zbjdj/taiwan_to...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7zbjdj/taiwan_to_ban_singleuse_plastic_drinking_straws/dun7n2q/)

<comment><USER59> The same can be made with paper or cardboard.

<comment><USER58> I see how paper/cardboard containers would work, but how does a cardboard straw or fork work? Wooden chopsticks are mainstream but a certain thickness is required for strength, which you can't get in a straw or fork. Plus they lose strength when they get wet, so now you need to add some coating to protect them. But then that destroys recyclability which destroys the point of using such a material.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> As of 2018, Greece charges €0.04 / bag.

Albeit very effective, I don't know how to feel about the actual contents of my new multi-use bag.

Almost every food item is packed in a single-use plastic package. It certainly seems that those are a greater concern than the plastic bags.

</comment><comment><USER61> If I'm remembering correctly from my trip to Taiwan a few years ago, free plastic bags were already banned. At least at the stores I was going to. You had to pay a small fee to get a bag. (Was also interesting encountering the lotto receipts!)

</comment><comment><USER62> I see it in effect there now already; people are buying and carrying around these collapsable silicone cups and cute cloth cup-holder things. Like a lot of things in Taiwan (particularly if related to food), it seems to have gotten trendy.

</comment><comment><USER63> By 2030 wow. Great. Flying cars and disposable utensils coming in the same year.

<comment><USER64> 2030 seems far, but it's better than no deadline. I believe they give so many years to make this change, to allow manufactures to make adjustments and changes to their machinery without hurting jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Just to play devils advocate on this, this isn't very free market. How is this not clearly choosing winners and losers? What about the plastic bag producing companies and their shareholders? The government is choosing multi-use bag makers over single use bag makers.

I feel like this is "common sense" enough that people don't fight it, but if it is a more complex (and more important) issue like climate change and banning polluting power sources, it all the sudden becomes an ideological and philosophical issue and we have to just wait until the economics are just right to see whether we'll survive or not.

Why can't we treat polluting our air and water in the same way? Just because we don't have to see the pollution blowing around the roadway we aren't going to worry about it?

<comment><USER65> what is the environmental cost of staying in the hospital? Coliform bacteria are found in half of reusable bags and E. Coli are found in 12%.

Reusable bags weigh 40-50 grams, one time use bags are 6 grams. I'm for finding bio-degradable plastic replacements, not because they take up landfill space (who cares, landfills are very safe), but more for the bags/plastics that don't find their way to the landfill.

<comment><USER66> I have a few cloth bags I cycle through. A few small ones that I carry around in my pocket, and a few larger ones that I use if I need to make a large run to the supermarket, which honestly is pretty rare nowadays because I tend to just pickup a few items at a time as needed.

Every week, whatever bags I've used get thrown in with the rest of the laundry that I would still be doing anyway, and they don't push my loads so high that I find myself doing more laundry than I otherwise would.

One time use bags get maybe two or three uses tops whether paper or plastic, but I've been using the same cloth bags for about 10 years, and I'll probably still be using the same set of bags or close to it in 10 more years. Maybe by then I'll be married to someone that knows her way around a sewing needle and/or machine to deal with any potential wear and tear.

So I don't know mate, what's the environmental cost of tossing your bags in the laundry with the rest? It's not nothing, but its probably better than the mass manufacturing, shipping, distributing, disposing of and/or recycling (in a best case scenario) of "one-time" use bags, and certainly better than staying in the hospital because you don't bother to wash your bags.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I live in Austin, Texas and we have a ban on single-use plastic bags. People just have to bring reusable bags when they go shopping or pay extra.

It did seem to cut down on the number of bags you see littered about.

<comment><USER68> Enjoy it while you can. The Texas executive branch is trying to reverse that ban, along with every other single-use plastic bag ban imposed at the city level. See [https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/11/texas-plastic-bag- ba...](https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/11/texas-plastic-bag-bans- threatened-supreme-court-challenge-laredo-ordin/).

<comment><USER67> Well, Texas...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Does this include those newfangled biodegradable straws and utensils?

</comment><comment><USER70> > "You can use steel products, or edible straws – or maybe you just don't need > to use straws at all," he said. "There is no inconvenience caused at all."

This is debatable. I've definitely heard dentists recommending using straws to drink sodas to reduce the acidic decay effect on front teeth (basically just prevent the teeth from exposing the to harmful liquids). [1]

[1]: [https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/news/20050617/sipping- soda...](https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/news/20050617/sipping-soda-through- straw-cut-cavities#1)

<comment><USER71> Dentist also recommend not drinking soda at all. You're argument also assumes everyone drinks soda all the time.

<comment><USER70> 1\. "You're argument" should be "Your argument".

2\. No, my argument is not assuming anything - that's why I said "debatable" not "incorrect". At least for some of the soda drinkers like myself, we prefer sipping with a straw - but probably a steel straw preferably now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> The number of plastic straws I see discarded in my local park (Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY) is _astounding_. I wish New York City would enact a tax/ban.

</comment><comment><USER73> Bisbee, a town in Southern Arizona, recently saw its popularly approved of plastic bag ban overturned by the AZ state legislature.

</comment><comment><USER74> Kind of a long time frame for this change. I could get 2020, but why 2030?!

I see, they will stop giving them for free and 2030 is total ban.

</comment><comment><USER75> Are there alternatives to single-use plastic straws? I don't see many multi- use ditos.

</comment><comment><USER76> > single-use plastic straws

People will resort to single-use cleaning implements to wash their straws.

</comment><comment><USER77> Good to see that China is taking a step against plastics and is becoming more green

</comment><comment><USER78> What's a non-single-use straw?

</comment><comment><USER79> Looks like people will be carrying little handbags around (to hold cutlery) or renting a straw from a vending machine you can return the item to. or even biodegradable bamboo straws.

<comment><USER79> or what about using pottery and throwing them into a special bin and getting a satisfying crash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Has nobody thought of marketing straw straws?

<comment><USER81> Looks like they have: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strawstraws/straw- straw...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strawstraws/straw-straws) [http://www.harveststraws.com/](http://www.harveststraws.com/) [http://www.strawbystraw.com/](http://www.strawbystraw.com/)

<comment><USER80> Neat, but none of those seem to ever be able to scale enough to be able to completely replace plastic straws.

I wonder if a cutting bar and reel system can be made that can cut and bundle the straw on the fly as the grain is harvested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Great job making the world worse.

<comment><USER24> The least charitable possible interpretation is they're making Taiwan worse to make the world better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> I find it hilarious that California is attempting to pass similar legislation with about a ~$2 billion price tag yet there's people living in tent cities from Oakland to San Francisco down to LA with San Diego actually building a tent housing complex in a a parking lot.

</comment><comment><USER84> The Law of Unintended Consequences will:

* Put companies out of business that produce or import said goods

* Reducing availability and increasing cost of medical goods that use plastic because the aforementioned companies no longer exist or are importing products

* Put pressure on manufactures to use alternate materials (bamboo and glass most likely) causing shortages and rising cost

This in the long run is going to put an overall strain on on the country that is going to drive commerce away and make a black market. Just look at place that bans or places a sin taxes on certain products.

Soda Tax in New York that made people go to New Jersey:

[https://nypost.com/2014/06/26/highest-court-in-ny-refuses- to...](https://nypost.com/2014/06/26/highest-court-in-ny-refuses-to-reinstate- big-soda-ban/)

Bicycle Tax added because people stopped using cars because of another tax so a new tax had to replace the car tax:

[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/17/first- bicyc...](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/17/first-bicycle-tax- nation-deflates-oregon-riders/)

<comment><USER18> _> Put companies out of business that produce or import said goods_

Tough. Don't go into business ruining the environment. Similar closures would have happened in asbestos, coal, tetraethyl lead additives and plenty of other things we've discovered are a _very bad idea._

 _> Reducing availability and increasing cost of medical goods_

That's quite a leap - do you have a source?

Scotland is banning _all_ plastic straws from end of next year. I sincerely doubt there is going to be a black market as a result.

<comment><USER85> That applies to computers and all of the other un-repairable ewaste generating electronics. All purchases of smartphones, laptops, in fact pretty much all of bestbuy would fall in that category. Can we get a ban on those too?

[https://ifixit.org/ewaste](https://ifixit.org/ewaste)

<comment><USER24> I'd argue that disposable bags, disposable straws, disposable chopsticks, and the like are in a different category because there is a ready alternative which is not particularly onerous to use.

<comment><USER85> You're quite right. But, how many tech people do you think are willing to inconvenience themselves with a heavy laptop or a bulky smartphone if it meant that they were repairable? My opinion is that the vast majority will continue to line up to buy the latest shiny use-and-throw bauble from TechCompanyX, while railing against coal and plastics. I'm just against the "Do as I say, not as I do" mindset.

<comment><USER24> Are tech people uniquely unlikely to use plastic bags? I don't really understand the logic here, and a laptop that is appreciably worse seems like the wrong analogy to a canvas bag.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tiny magnets will escort ions out of rare material from a shipwreck - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/how-magnetic-nanoparticles-will-help-preserve-a-500-year-old-shipwreck/ <comment><USER2> Incredibly cool.

Alternate title: The Dark Arts of Advanced and Unsafe Rust Programming. ;-)</comment>


Why Lisp? - <AUTHOR> http://lisperator.net/blog/why-lisp/

<comment><USER2> > _This is helped by a great feature of the environment (Emacs/SLIME) which > provides cross-referencing tools, for example, I can place the cursor on the > name of a function and ask "where is this defined", and it jumps to the > place of the definition, which could be in my own code or in third party > code. But I can also ask "where is this function called" or "where is this > variable referenced". This is extremely useful for code refactoring and it > beats every "modern" IDE I've seen._

wow, rly? you have this in Eclipse (and probably every 'modern' IDE out there) for every language.

<comment><USER3> Or, you know, cscope?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> few more slogans:

* Ruby's emphasis on writing DLS came from Lisp world, where this practice have been developed.

* Some of Python's elegant forms - with, lambda and various comprehensions - like this: return (x, y) or a = [3, 4, 5] came form Lisp.

* Lisp's macros are unmatched. Those of C/C++ are mere string substitution.

* REPL is Lisp's invention.

* Shadowing (re-binding) of variables and procedures used routinely - we don't need any special "dependency injection".

* Logically, everything is a pointer, so, technically, every "object" if a first-class citizen.

* Lisp is mostly-functional, so, in cases where you must have mutation, you just do it.

Enough for today.) Over-excitement is a vulnerability.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting that "Lisp" is assumed to be Common Lisp and that Scheme is assumed to be strictly a learning tool. I've found Racket to be much more useful than any other Common Lisp/Scheme.

<comment><USER6> Well, Common Lisp is Lisp, Racket is Scheme, they are different. This perpetual confusion is just useless. Let's call things by their names. You don't call C++ C or php perl, right?

<comment> qu4z-2 Common Lisp is Lisp.

Racket is Scheme.

Scheme is Lisp.

SBCL is Common Lisp.

<comment><USER6> Let's translate it to C:

C99 is C.

C++0x is C++.

C++ is C.

Clang is C99.

Do all the lines seem correct?

<comment> qu4z-2 I disagree with your translation. I admit that "SBCL is Common Lisp" is a stretch, but no more than your original "Racket is Scheme". How about instead:

LISP 1.5 is like C

Common Lisp is like C++

Scheme is like Objective-C

(ignoring all the other Lisp dialects that have fallen by the wayside: Maclisp, Interlisp, ZetaLisp)

<comment><USER6> Here's a more detailed answer: [http://lisp-univ- etc.blogspot.com/2013/01/common-lisp-is-jus...](http://lisp-univ- etc.blogspot.com/2013/01/common-lisp-is-just-lisp.html)

I also agree, that Racket is not Scheme, it's a new language. But I stand, that Common Lisp is still a Lisp. Lisp 1.5 would be BCPL or B :) (Why? Because C is in active use, while Lisp 1.5 isn't, so your analogy isn't quite correct)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's not so much a question of "Why Lisp?" as it is a question of "Which Lisp?," if you ask me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Today you have 3 main alternatives:

* Common Lisp (used by the author of the article)

* Scheme

* Clojure

<comment><USER8> Scheme is not a single alternative. Racket [0] is a Scheme, which can be compared to things like Python or Ruby. There are other implementations, which should be used for different uses. For example, Chibi Scheme [1] is a nice alternative to Lua, but not to Python or Ruby.

Given your other two Lisps, I rather make this list:

* Common Lisp (which implementation?)

* Racket

* Clojure

[0] <http://racket-lang.org/> [1] <http://synthcode.com/wiki/chibi-scheme>

<comment><USER9> I think Chicken[1] is a very attractive Scheme alternative. It's full- featured, fast, compiles down to C, has a very nice library (egg) system, and a relatively large and active user community (as far as Schemes go).

[1] - <http://call-cc.org/>

<comment><USER10> Hear, hear; I've been using Chicken for commercial and personal projects for about five years now. It keeps getting better.

Occasionally, Racket has a package that I'd like to port (e.g. datalog); but I find it otherwise overbearing.

Chicken has found some local maximum of efficiency and availability of useful libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's only a few reasons to use Lisp. It's educational from a math/comp-sci aspect, you enjoy programming in it, and you can make money doing so. Career wise, it's way down on the list of languages/environments in which I would choose to do my daily coding. (And I don't currently have my brother-in-law calling me on a weekly basis to assist in automating various tasks in AutoLisp... )

<comment><USER6> There are more reasons to use Lisp actually: the biggest one of which is, probably, that many programs become much simpler in it.

But, actually, such argument is meaningless. The only meaningful argument would be to compare the pros and cons of using Lisp versus some other language for a specific field with some specific constraints.

For instance, I won't be trying to use Lisp over JavaScript for writing Firefox plugins, but, probably I would use it over Objective C for this task ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a big Lisp dialects proponent but I don't like that article very much.

It's very naive and the author is unexperienced IMHO.

For example the author writes: _"I can place the cursor on the name of a function and ask "where is this defined", and it jumps to the place of the definition, which could be in my own code or in third party code. But I can also ask "where is this function called" or "where is this variable referenced". This is extremely useful for code refactoring and it beats every "modern" IDE I've seen."_

Ouch.

The author doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable of "best practices" and IDEs from the last ten years available in the Java/C# world.

Lisp dialects can really shine in various ways but "refactoring" ain't exactly one area where Emacs (which he mentions and which I do _love_ ) beats "modern IDEs".

Apparently the author's only experience comes from old JavaScript development environments and some Perl hacking. He's hardly "connected" with real-word, modern, way of developing software.

His description as to how he's upgrading servers by manually copying binaries also shows he's disconnected from actual enterprise deployment techniques.

Overall it feels very amateurish.

But kudos for picking a Lisp dialect and sticking to it and reaping the benefits of that smart choice...

<comment><USER13> I dislike most of these "modern IDEs". They seem to encourage Big Programs that shouldn't be written in the first place. [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/ide- culture-v...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/ide-culture-vs- unix-philosophy/) (IDE culture vs. Unix philosophy).

However, you are right that, in terms of features, they deliver, if you keep your directory structure, language choice, and development practices within certain bounds.

<comment><USER14> Yes... I mean even if the programs are big, IDEs encourage a massive footprint of just about anything. (I would not go so far to declare big programs per se as a bad thing.) Massive build instructions, massive Interface declarations, massive amount of stub files... Things happen with IDEs that would never happen when using a plain editor.

Probably Java has a part of its verbose reputation due to the abuse of IDEs. It's just so easy to use 60 letter function names, if you used a regular editor, people would not do this because their hands would start to hurt.

<comment><USER15> >Massive build instructions […] would never happen when using a plain editor.

How many non trivial projects do you compile by hand rather than using an automated build system (make etc)? How does autoconf or cmake prevent or discourage you from using 'massive build instructions'? Why is turning on more warnings or other compiler options a bad thing?

>Probably Java has a part of its verbose reputation due to the abuse of IDEs. It's just so easy to use 60 letter function names, if you used a regular editor, people would not do this because their hands would start to hurt.

You are talking about code-completion. What 'regular editor' do you use that doesn't have at least basic support for code-completion? pico/nano? Notepad?

When these arguments/rants come up, it seems that the definition of 'IDE' changes to fit the argument being made. If somebody suggests they prefer to use an IDE because it has code-completion, they are quickly told that plain editor X also has code-completion. Then it is argued that IDEs are bad because they have code-completion which encourages you to write verbose code. This seems to extend to many other 'IDE' features: I've seen people argue against inline documentation lookup, against syntax highlighting, against a 'build' or compile command in the editor, against 'jump to definition', against interactive debuggers. I've also seen people argue that all those things are available in 'plain editors' and thus there is no need to use an IDE to get them.

At this point I've no idea at all what the difference is between an IDE and 'plain editor'. Other than truly basic editors that hardly anybody uses to code, I think just about everything could be called an IDE.

<comment><USER16> Agreed, my workflow is basically the same whether I use an editor or IDE.

The only difference being that sometimes I wish the editor had more features and sometimes I wish the IDE had less stuff on the screen so I could just see the code.

It is however a lot easier to configure an IDE into a dumb editor than it is the other way around.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Techniques for Microsoft SQL database design and optimization - <AUTHOR> https://www.apriorit.com/dev-blog/421-microsoft-sql-optimization <comment><USER2> Here's my SQL Database Optimization Guide:

Ignore all the advice about "rules". Create a realistic dataset and run performance tests before you release _anything_ into production. Check your query-plans to find the pain-points. The database is frequently treated black box surrounded by superstition and cargo-cult "rules" that are either out of date or just educated guesses.

Wrap anything weird in a view so you can rebuild it as you see fit.

Avoid getting fancy as much as possible until the simple, normalized, naive implementation fails.

<comment><USER3> This IS the answer for all databases. Start simple, do straight forward queries, and then measure, measure, measure.

Unfortunately query plan builders can do odd things. Is IN faster than EXISTS? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The only way to know is to test, and this is true across the board.

<comment><USER4> Not only is it sometimes faster, and sometimes slower, but the answer can change, for the same schema, for the same query, depending on the volume and distribution of data.

<comment><USER5> Can you please provide an example of answer changing?

<comment><USER6> Yes. Every day. The developers here write SQL that runs acceptably for a given schema at a given point in time. Unfortunately, the code pattern isn't scalable (which is generally why people say that RDBMS' can't "scale" anyway, but that's a different rant) and performance changes, sometimes dramatically. Where a LEFT OUT JOIN ... WHERE outer.value is NULL worked great for an anti- semijoin earlier, NOT EXISTS may be better. What jpitz is talking about are statistics that are tracked by the engine. They are a key part of how SQL Server's CBO determines the best plan to access the data. As data grows, chances are you're going to get skew on the keys that you've defined. If your data is such that the counts and distinct counts of your keys are guaranteed to remain consistent, then you have a lower chance of plan changes as data scales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have found that _Use The Index, Luke_ is a good reference when looking at optimizations. It's also nice that it covers most of the major SQL databases, so you can see differing optimizations and how to handle them.

[http://use-the-index-luke.com/sql/preface](http://use-the-index- luke.com/sql/preface)

<comment><USER4> That is a great resource.

Here are some I've used:

Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Querying: T-SQL Querying [https://books.google.com/books?id=FZlCAwAAQBAJ&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=FZlCAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Good resource for designing high performing queries and investigating performance problems.

PostgreSQL 9.0: High Performance [https://books.google.com/books?id=OWOAu0GcsqoC&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=OWOAu0GcsqoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Greg lays out a great foundation for doing performance analysis that is largely applicable to any rdbms platform.

Optimizing Oracle Performance [https://books.google.com/books?id=D7ElCwAAQBAJ&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=D7ElCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Another great book that explains the process of approaching and solving performance problems.

Joe Celko's SQL For Smarties [https://books.google.com/books?id=i-19BAAAQBAJ&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=i-19BAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Everyone writing SQL should read Joe.

<comment><USER8> What intrigues me about Joe Celko's book is that he is completely anti all forms of auto indexing (and it makes sense) but is the assumption for all the web frameworks that I come across. Most recently I hit this when looking at yesod.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good list here. A few things I would add about execution plans specifically.

1\. SET STATISTICS IO ON. This is _much_ more useful than setting time on imo. This will give you physical / logical reads per table as well as how specifically they were fetched. Usually I don't care if the query took 11 seconds, I want to know what took those 11 seconds.

2\. The % numbers that everyone relies on when skimming execution plans are total BS. No one seems to realize this, but the percentage values are based off of the estimated query plan even when you're running the actual execution plan. Use the plan to determine which operators were chosen, disregard the % values. To get the true amount of work done, look at stats IO above. If your underlying issues is missing or stale stats for example, that incorrect data will pass through to your execution plan and that plan will lie to you.

3\. Try to determine _why_ a plan is getting generated. Don't just keep trying wacky code changes until you can get the correct plan (once..), find out what the optimizer is seeing and why it's doing what it's doing. You may know what operation is best in the current moment ("this was much faster as a nested loop") but instead of using a join hint, force the optimizer's hand by correcting whatever underlying issue is making it think that the merge/hash is a better route. This will save future-you hours of head-bashing when, inevitably, that join hint that was added three years ago causes a big production issue.

</comment><comment><USER10> A lesser known hint I remember having heard. If you use an indexed column in your query, use the same character encoding in the query than in the column, otherwise you end up with a full scan (like varchar vs nvarchar).

<comment><USER11> This is also true for date types. Be careful when you use date trunc functions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a junior DBA so take what follows with a grain of "he probably has no idea what he's talking about":

One of the most frustrating things coming from a world of say python or C is a function that implements an algorithm of say O(n) it will run in O(n) all-day- everyday but if a table's stats are out of date or there's a missing index or anything related goes awry a typically fine running query could perform terribly. And that's infuriating but it's the nature of the beast I guess.

<comment><USER2> Yup. As developers we're always told to trust the database and to use proper, normalized relational theory and how it's so much better that in the database we just say what we want instead of specifying exactly how to calculate it like we do in the client programming languages...

But that beautiful kernel of relational theory is wrapped up in a six-foot- ball of duck-tape, bubble-gum, and hot glue in the form of a zillion hacks and leaky abstractions.

At a certain point it really feels like databases are failing to live up to their promises. I _expect_ things like sharding to be hard. I'm okay with that. But if I have _one_ database server, I expect to be able to create tables, _maybe_ indexes, and for it to Just Work given that information. That's what we're paying for.

<comment><USER12> Until there's an automated way for a database to tell a developer that their particular query is running terribly because of some defacto reason there'll always be a need for a DBA to interpret and investigate, though, I wish it weren't so. I wish we could just treat databases as "dumb" stores of information that could be queried in n number of ways without issue. Some or most DB-as-a-service offerings will handle the mundane tasks of backing up, upgrades, etc. but I know of none that offer this DBA-like level of service where an automated tool can tell you exactly what's going wrong, basically take the context of your query and match it with the current execution plan and the underlying structure of the tables and your data (data types included) and tell you what is wrong. That'd be a huge innovation if it exists. And I'd be out of a job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another issue with sql server which is very baffeling. It is MUCH faster to use sub selects than left join if you data allows it.

That is do not:

select a.bla, b.blabla from foo a left join bar b on (a.id = b.id)

Do:

select a.bla, (select blabla from bar where id = a.id) as blabla from foo a

I have reduced a big etl query with about 20 left joins from 2 hours running time down to 7 minutes by this.

And before you ask, yes the tables have been properly indexed, it is just that left join performance in sql server is very bad in some situations.

<comment><USER14> Did you compare the execution plans of both queries? Without doing that, it's hard to know why the planner did what it did. Maybe statistics were off and it was choosing a worse plan for the left join because it thought it'd be faster, where the sub-select it was forced into what should have been an inferior plan (if statistics were correct), which in reality was faster.

<comment><USER12> yes I, too, would like to see more on this. I am skeptical that doing sub queries is faster than joins

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it just Firefox or is this page a pioneer of "staunchly unresponsive design?"

Edit: nope, Chrome too. I literally can't fit all the text on a small screen, no matter how feverishly I pinch, rotate or pan!

<comment><USER16> Same issue on my iPhone 5s. I changed to text mode and was able to view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It may no longer be current, however, the query parser has an easier time if you use semicolons. After making a habit out of this for a few years, I find that the brain has an easier time too.

</comment><comment><USER18> Some tips from a SQL Server DBA:

* DON'T USE USER DEFINED FUNCTIONS IN ANY PREDICATE OF ANY TYPE EVER, THIS IS DEATH.

* If you want things to go fast, consider that your query needs to be able to be converted into a "search argument" to use any of those precious indexes you made, so:

LIKE 'hdfhafsdh%' \-- This works!

LIKE '%fafads%' \-- Scanning all the things, so sad.

In the same vein, any function you use on your values in the tables mean that there are often no indexes you can use to help your operation (with a few technical exceptions around specific optimizations SQL Server has around datetime <-> date calculations )

Download SQL Sentry Plan Explorer - it just became free and with it you can shred apart your execution plans with ease and keep histories of the work you have done on a query, or watch a plan change over time as your tune it with ease.

[https://sentryone.com/plan-explorer](https://sentryone.com/plan-explorer)

<comment><USER19> Please don't use all-caps for emphasis. This is in the HN guidelines:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


Rice Cooker Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.subtraction.com/2014/04/30/rice-cooker-technology/?utm_content=buffer41efc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what this dude is complaining about. He says "Oh woe is me, my rice cooker is so complicated! Look at this instruction manual" and then proceeds to post a diagram that includes complicated steps like "put the rice in the pot" and "plug it in". The actual cooking of the rice involves pressing two buttons; one button is literally the power button to turn the damn thing on, and another button lets you select what type of rice you want. If pressing two buttons is considered to be a complicated process, how did he manage to make the blog post?

The advent of fuzzy logic in rice cookers is pretty great, in my opinion; maybe he doesn't get a lot of benefit out of the ability to cook e.g. brown rice or bread or vegetables in his rice cooker, but if he's trying to complain that this device is so so complicated, he should probably post an actual complication that he has trouble with, instead of whining about pressing two clearly labeled buttons.

<comment><USER3> The name of his Web site might be a clue.

An experiment: perhaps microwave cookers. Issue 500 free modified cookers to a suitable target group who might need them, e.g. undergraduates. The modification consists of a simple device that records the settings used each time the microwave is used and uploads the results to a central server each week.

My hypothesis is that the number of programs actually used will be a very small subset of the total available. I know that my microwave oven is mainly used to reheat leftover soup, and occasionally to make porridge in the bowl. Highest power, 3 minutes or 5 minutes, that is that.

The _issue_ is to make the most commonly used settings easily found. Back to UI design again.

Edit: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7674708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7674708)

Acomjean arrived at a similar place while I wrote this.

<comment><USER2> the most commonly used settings on this rice cooker ARE the most easily found, though! You press the power button! You press the "White Rice" button if you're cooking white rice; you press the "Brown Rice" button if you're cooking brown rice. This rice cooker demonstrates EXACTLY what you're saying should be done, and yet this man complains.

<comment><USER4> If you look at the lineup of Aroma (the brand the OP chose) rice cookers, you'll see that the author could have bought a simple one-button model just like his old one, but chose not to.

[http://www.aroma- housewares.com/kitchen/appliances/products/...](http://www.aroma- housewares.com/kitchen/appliances/products/Rice%20Cookers.html)

In terms of whether his cooker will last 25 years, I'm not really sure how good Aroma is as a brand, but most of the Asian people I know (I'm Asian too) buy top end Japanese branded rice cookers like Zojirushi and Panasonic (aka National) -- and these cookers last a really long time. When you eat rice daily or almost daily, spending a little more for reliability is a no-brainer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Like microwaves which have about 30 cooking modes now and used to have a power level and a timer.

I wonder if internet of things and google analytics will show what features of appliances people actually use.

Oblig new yorker: [http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/No-I-don-t-want-to-play- ch...](http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/No-I-don-t-want-to-play-chess-I-just- want-you-to-reheat-the-lasagna-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8542213_.htm)

<comment><USER6> My microwave actually crashes and reboots once in a while.

<comment><USER7> Really!?

I still don't understand why anyone would want a microwave with any controls other than a power and timer wheel. I only see downside like an accidental extra digit causing my leftover pasta to catch fire.

Who designs these things?

<comment><USER8> I love microwaves where the time is set with a dial, mine broke recently and I couldn't find another one that had a dial (why are they so hard to find?), so I settled for a conventional keypad one. To me it seems counter intuitive but the keypad is much more difficult to use, I get a little irked every time i interact with that thing.

<comment><USER9> The dials break easily, but they aren't a commoditized part so they're difficult to replace. Number pads are more reliable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you eat brown rice every day, a decent induction rice cooker is absolutely worth the money (bonus for GABA mode).

<comment><USER4> Even for white rice, I find the induction cooker is better. The only difference between the rice cooker my parents have vs. the one I have is that mine has induction, and mine consistently makes perfect rice, while the quality of theirs varies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have the same 'new' rice cooker. You have a button to turn it on and a button to launch the cooking. I don't see what's complicated about it.

(The other buttons are for brown rice and delay cooking start. Pretty useful too even if I never use them).

</comment><comment><USER12> Survivorship Bias. "They don't make'em like they used to" because the ones that broke have been dead and buried for decades, and the few that remain are the only ones to be seen.

*edit: i accidentally selectioned a survivorship in my biases.

<comment><USER4> Don't know about that. Those National rice cookers that the OP mentions are simple and extremely reliable. My parents, even though they upgraded, still have two of them in storage, and they work to this day. And they've had them as long as I remember, which would put them around 40 years old.

<comment><USER12> I'm not saying that National Brand aren't good, i'm saying if you were in the store in 1950, you'd see 3 rice cookers on the shelf and mutter that all this new fangled technology always falls apart, and if it were up to you, you'd still just cook rice in a pot, the old fashioned way. Only 20 years later would you realize that your National Brand cooker is solid as a rock.

My point is that the article is talking about the pointlessness and failure prone nature of feature creep, and i'm saying the framing is bs, because the same thing could be said of the National Cooker if it weren't for surviorship bias.

<comment><USER4> >> i'm saying if you were in the store in 1950,

Well, here's the problem. In his framing, he got his in 1989, which is a different era from 1950. I had an older model (from the 70s) of the same rice cooker handed down to me when I started college, also in 1989. In 1989, these cookers were were already known to be simple and very reliable for a long time.

The framing is actually BS because the company that makes the OP's new rice cooker also makes a simpler rice cooker, that from a functional and esthetic perspective, is almost exactly like the one he replaced. He basically chose to buy the more complex one when a simple one was available, and that's on _him_ , not the technology.

The OP's also being disingenuous when he says his new low end rice cooker won't last as long as his old high end rice cooker. I've had my digital Zojirushi for almost ten years, and I don't think it will have any problem lasting 15 more. The good rice cookers are built to last.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sometimes simpler is better - his old unit was most likely entirely mechanical and involved an analog thermostat or thermistor and a single button. The new one? has a control panel and a microcontroller/processor.

Things like this are why I got the simplest, most mechanical washer and dryer set that Lowes offered when I moved nine years ago. I didn't want touchscreens or LCDs; I didn't want to have to reboot my W/D if something went wrong. Not a single problem in those nine years, and if something does break, it's going to be a simple mechanical part that's easy to fix.

<comment><USER14> As the complexity/variability of a product's functionality grows, a product team's ability to ensure quality across all functionality diminishes.

As a consumer of many kinds of things, I almost always gravitate toward the offering that is most simple/focused in its purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I partly agree. I use 2 microwave buttons: popcorn & +1 minute. I kept my old microwave that had 1 dial (since it's _half_ the controls, same machinery) but I can't put it over the stove.

My Vitamix has great controls: a giant power switch, a knob, and a giant _maximum power_ switch. My Kitchenaid is great, too: 2 metal levers and a right-tighty metal-on-metal attachment arm.

It's those flat 'capacitive' buttons that I hate. My fridge has some. Did I press it? I can't feel it in the dark. Did my elbow brush it?

<comment><USER16> Agreed! Unfortunately these things are giving way to LCD's and the flat buttons, and not just in appliances. Cars are especially guilty of this (switching from knobs and buttons to touchscreens) which require visual attention instead of just feeling around and therefore make them more dangerous. It's an ugly trend that is inconvenient in the kitchen, but could be potentially life-endangering on the roads--I wish more companies would realize that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Make fun, but I think this is an excellent point about feature creep. If your target market already has a 'good enough' product offering how do you differentiate yourself to get someone to spend more on your equivalent product or buy a replacement for something they already own and works fine.

This does not seem like a optimization by the marketplace towards better products as some economic theories would suggest. Or is it?

</comment><comment><USER18> You can still get the non-digital kind from Tiger, others.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think this is not about "complicate", this is about a kind of emotion that author didn't want throw his old rice cooker :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Compare and contrast with many of the new UX concepts being explored in the web/mobile space...

</comment><comment><USER21> Even these newfangled digital ones are pretty cheap now.

I love the idea of being able to schedule when to have it cook.

<comment><USER4> As with anything else, you typically get what you pay for. If you eat rice a lot (i.e., almost every day), you are generally better off spending > $100 for a good rice cooker, like a Zojirushi.

What really separates a good rice cooker from a bad one is how consistently the rice is cooked when you make _larger amounts_.</comment></comment>


Oryol: A small, portable and extensible C++ 3D coding framework - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/floooh/oryol <comment><USER2> Orthodox style argument aside, this project uses a build system written by the same author called _fips_ [0]. I've tried it myself, and it's an absolute joy to use. A few simple commands will get you up and running on any supported platform, and it does an excellent job of telling you what went wrong if there's a failure. It also has a system for compiling the same shaders to multiple platform targets.

Oryol's demos[1] are impressive as well. Especially the ones that showcase emulation and various integrations of immediate-mode GUI frameworks.

The entire project is underrated in my opinion. With web assembly slowly coming alive, there's a distinct lack of small, multi-platform engines designed with the web in mind. I only wish Oryol's ecosystem was larger, it could be a realistic alternative to Three.js perhaps—if it isn't already.

Keep up the good work floeofwoe. :)

[0] [https://github.com/floooh/fips](https://github.com/floooh/fips)

[1] [https://floooh.github.io/oryol/](https://floooh.github.io/oryol/)

<comment><USER2> _flohofwoe_ *, sorry.

Curse the two-hour edit window.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to know what people who work full-time with C++ think of the "Orthodox C++" concept (link in the article) that this project adheres to.

<comment><USER4> It's a reaction to the Boost crowd, who took C++ into template la-la land. For realistic programing:

* Avoid multiple inheritance. It seldom helps and there are lots of confusing cases. Putting one object inside another is fine. If your inheritance tree is more than two or three deep, you're probably doing it wrong.

* RTTI is better than unchecked downcasting.

* STL collections are fine and should be used in preference to built-in arrays.

* Avoid Boost. If anything goes wrong, you'll spend days to weeks figuring it out.

* Exceptions are not that bad. Go and Rust now have de-facto exceptions, with all the complicated unwinding machinery, but they're called "panic" and "recover". Just make sure that anything you pass in an exception is a self-contained copyable object with no pointers to anything, because that's where ownership and allocation trouble appear.

* Don't do anything in a destructor that can fail or block. Like closing files opened for writing. Destructors are for releasing memory. Raising an exception in a destructor is not a good thing.

* Don't overload operators for anything other than math. It just confuses people.

* Streams are more cool than useful. But mostly harmless.

* unique_ptr and move semantics have promise, but it may be too soon for those features. If you have complex ownership issues, consider Rust, which has compile-time checking for that stuff.

<comment><USER5> Small nit but Rust's panic is not an exception mechanism:

[https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/panic/fn.catch_unwind.html](https://doc.rust- lang.org/std/panic/fn.catch_unwind.html)

Particularly you may not be able to catch all panics. Result<T,E> is the canonical way to handle errors in Rust.

Also in gamedev(where this looks like this comes from) we generally avoid RTTI(for size reasons) and STL(for allocation control reasons, see EASTL, etc).

<comment><USER4> For both Go and Rust, it's not _supposed_ to be exception handling. But both languages have acquired proper unwinding, so people can and do use it that way. The original idea in Go was that if you caught a panic, the program was in a bad state, and all you should do is report the problem and maybe restart the program. Like "longjmp" in C. Now, people are doing recovery without re- launching the program. That's effectively exception handling.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sex robots, artificial intelligence, and ethics - <AUTHOR> https://hub.packtpub.com/sex-robots-artificial-intelligence-and-ethics-how-desire-shapes-and-is-shaped-by-algorithms/ <comment><AUTHOR> How desire shapes and is shaped by algorithms.

With Houston banning a robot brothel, it is time to have that conversation no one wants to have. Algorithms invading our most private thoughts and deeds, how does that make one feel? Where do AI developers draw the line?

</comment><comment><USER2> i find it rather sad that by sex robots and making AI sexual, humanity shows a few things:

\- it demands (not asks) consent. Because a robot can't say no

\- fears rejection to the point of avoiding human contact and turning to AI

\- wants to be in control. Again, because a robot cannot say no</comment>


Elon Musk Kindle book $1.99 on Amazon today 3/12/17 only - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future-ebook/dp/B00KVI76ZS/ref=br_prlt_grdDy_pdt-10?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-3&pf_rd_r=YS8BGNMS9K6R8FKWNC44&pf_rd_r=YS8BGNMS9K6R8FKWNC44&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=294705da-74e5-4360-a0ae-4c53c0fc77d6&pf_rd_p=294705da-74e5-4360-a0ae-4c53c0fc77d6&pf_rd_i=7533915011 <comment><AUTHOR> I think he inspires a lot of people out there. Good luck.</comment>


Reification (Computer Science) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(computer_science) <comment><USER2> The first time I learned of reification was when c# added reified generics as opposed to the type erased generics in java. Made type information easier to see when doing reflection. No need for "super type tokens" etc.

<comment><USER3> That is a very narrow understanding of the word though. Reification is best shown by the automated theorem progress which given constraints reify the program to verify these properties. (Especially when nested, such as proof of correctness by refinement)</comment></comment>


C++14 for Qt programmers - <AUTHOR> http://woboq.com/blog/cpp14-in-qt.html

<comment><USER2> The ability to have expressions in the capture is awesome! That's going to clean up my Slots quite a bit.</comment>


Auto-prioritise your tasks with eisedo - <AUTHOR> https://www.eisedo.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> eisedo is a new task manager app inspired by the Eisenhower Matrix.

What makes it unique is that it automatically prioritises your tasks for you, helping you to manage your time in the most productive way.

Now, you no longer have to worry about which tasks to tackle first - <USER2> will work it out for you.

Not only are your tasks automatically prioritised, you're also able to identify and eliminate time-wasting activities to ensure you dedicate your time to tasks that help you to achieve your goals.</comment>


Mr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense Review – Honey and Heartbreak - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/24/mr-lear-a-life-of-art-and-nonsense-review-jenny-uglow-honey-heartbreak-half-life <comment><USER2> Georgia vs Tennessee Live Stream Free [https://www.facebook.com/events/521526188196835/](https://www.facebook.com/events/521526188196835/)</comment>


Our Mistakes – Clover Food Lab - <AUTHOR> https://www.cloverfoodlab.com/about/our-mistakes/ <comment><AUTHOR> Sharing this because I found it interesting that a company is public about mistakes it has made/is making.</comment>