The Doom Movement Bible - <AUTHOR> https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1586811 <comment><USER2> As a DOOM modder a couple of notable things:

1\. DOOM had wall running (by accident):

> So in other words, when the player is moving northwards or eastwards with a > XTAP / YTAP greater than 15, and has the initial movement check blocked by > something, the engine has the potential to perform _two full movements_ in a > single tic! Note that this doesn't actually change the TAP or anything - > it's just as if the player moves two tics' worth of movement in a single > tic.

2\. DOOM also had deliberate rocket falls - like a rocket jump except you'd do it against a cliff and fall further away from the cliff as a result. This was used to clear a wall needed to get to the Episode 3 secret mission.

I hope, somewhere in DOOM 2016 single player, I turn a corner and see an up to date but recognisable E1M1.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is just amazing. And what is more suprising is that Doom 1 and 2 are still thriving after >20 years. If you download zandronum you will learn that there are still people playing it online. of course those are some mods, but still very much resembling the original atmosphere and graphics of doom 1 and 2.

Edit: of course this probably would be different if the doom source code wasn't released at some point of time...

<comment><USER4> Yet for some reason _extremely_ few games have followed id's example. Besides Duke 3d, what other games ever saw source release?

<comment><USER5> NOLF: [https://github.com/osgcc/no-one-lives- forever](https://github.com/osgcc/no-one-lives-forever)

<comment><USER6> That's really cool. Kotaku ran an article <a year ago about the licensing issues around No One Lives Forever and how it would probably never make it to Steam; I'm surprised they never mentioned that the source code has been available for 4 years, buildable by anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you are interested what was pinnacle and end result of this, take a look at CPMA/PQL movement in quake

Thats basically strafe jumping with air control:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_DwN4z5UMo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_DwN4z5UMo)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lANjZ0NO8XI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lANjZ0NO8XI)

and some examples with fights: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHo4l-qmGHI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHo4l-qmGHI)

This was by far the most hard to master, and most rewarding skill, once you can do laps around the maps you lost track of time, and find your self doing this for hours.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T6IAHWMd2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T6IAHWMd2I)

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, really fascinating and excellently explained! I can't help but wonder, how many of these were found solely through play and how many were found as a result of code diving? The conditions to trigger some of the, such as void skip, seem so intricate as to be unlikely to be found by chance.

<comment><USER9> Doom has been played for probably thousands of man-centuries at this point so all of them had been found through normal play. However, a lot of them had no real documentation explaining why they happened, since speedrunners tend to view bugs from a "how can this help me?" mindset rather than "why does this occur?" The elastic collisions bug in particular was considered a mystery before I researched it, but the rest were more or less understood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> More or less off topic, but what is the best way to play DOOM on a modern Mac or PC? I have the CD of The Ultimate DOOM.

The same could be asked for Quake 1 & 2 :)

<comment><USER11> I'd say look into two different source ports: namely, ZDoom and GZDoom.

ZDoom is one of the most popular source ports capable of running all WADs and it's still being maintained. GZDoom is the OpenGL supported version of ZDoom with new scripting capabilities and GL lights.

For Quake 1 there's the DarkPlaces source port, and for Quake 2 there's Yamagi or Q2PRO.

<comment><USER12> (G)Zdoom can play all wads made for other ports but it's not backwards compatible with wads made for older version of zdoom. And that's a pity besides you have to change many default options to play "doom" like it was. In original doom monsters have infinite height, so you can't walk on monsters,pass under flying monsters. Looking up/down, jumping and making the bfg more powerfull are other changes. Great mods, wads and even indie games have been made with g/zdoom but the topic is the original doom movement. In that context people use mostly prboom + or chocolate doom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I tried the item-grab-through-a-solid-linedef trick in Zandronum on E4M1 (the same one as in the video on the post), but couldn't get it to work. Tried fudging around with the compatibility options (including "Doom" and "Doom (strict)") but still no dice.

Strafe-running definitely works though, and it's a trick I've used for some time, even in multiplayer.

(Also, if you're curious that Doom is still around, I highly recommend Zandronum[1]. An excellent port. And there are still mods coming out that are incredibly playable, which blows my mind.)

[1]: [https://zandronum.com/](https://zandronum.com/)

</comment><comment><USER14> this hit me right in the feels, shame that doom4 feels like a console port

<comment><USER15> I found the multiplayer of the new DOOM to be full of strange design decisions.

It clearly wants to be an arena shooter, but it couldn't let go of loadouts from Call of Duty, nor the "modern" Halo roots the team had previously worked on. (see: Call of Duty)

The result is an amalgamation of everything wrong with modern multiplayer shooters, distilled through a DOOM filter and collected in a toilet. It wants rocket launchers, but it kills in two shots instead of one because you can just spawn with one.

It's a damn shame. Instead, I decided to go play the Unreal Tournament alpha.

<comment><USER14> Doom4 loadout system is really sad. The powerup mechanic is cool but minimally useful, the Revenant is just extremely unbalanced: He can fly, kill instantly and has 3x more HP than a normal player. If you get to play Doom4 multiplayer s with friends, all you need to do is camp the spawn (which is easy because its spawn is announced way ahead of time)

Unreal Tournament alpha is not much better, the netcode is weird, the new movements are extremely buggy and the weapons are unbalanced. The only good thing about UTalpha is that they stick to the original vision: Fast paced, aim-skill game, with very little novelty (other than movements and like one weapon's behaviour has changed)

I am looking forward to overwatch, although its not a real FPS, at least I feel like Blizzard cares about the game they push out and are not blindly following trends.

I been playing UT since early 2000s when i was just a kid and I feel sad that so little importance has been given to this title. I wasn't expecting Doom to be another QuakeLive, but at the same time not another "CoD12: Future Ops from Hell - Mom get the camera edition"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > This sort of discrete movement is probably universal in games

if only... :P

i've certainly lost a lot of time to resolving collisions by considering the inbetween steps, using lines, fat lines and all sorts...

</comment><comment><USER17> I haven't been a regular around Doomworld in a long time, but it amazes me how this site just keeps on going.

Seriously one of the best online communities ever.

</comment><comment><USER18> I am so happy to see that even the creations of the genius Carmack are full to the brim with 'ugly' hacks, workarounds and tweaks.

<comment><USER19> Carmack wasn't the only one working on the code. But yeah, once the bugs are highlighted here, they're pretty glaring. Hindsight and all that... ;)</comment></comment>


Multi- to monorepository - <AUTHOR> https://www.ravelin.com/blog/2016/2/8/multi-to-monorepository <comment><USER2> I'm in basically the same boat, microservices in multiple repos that I've waffled on merging into a single repo. Each time the lack of history preservation was a big non-starter.

It would be nice to be able to place the sub-repos into non-root locations. Much of my desire to switch to a monorepo was to refactor some of the code organization also.

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone didn't know about git submodule, which does exactly what their tool does. There are plenty of tutorials on its usage.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish.

Unfortunately, git with submodules is a far cry from a single, coherent repository. Tooling is practically out the window (integration with any IDE, for example), snapshotting becomes a nightmare, coordinating your different versions becomes a nightmare.

Git sumbodules are good[1] for referencing external dependencies with their own timeline who don't depend nor interact with your project or code. They are not a great fit when your submodules are intimately related to the code around them.

[1] arguable---I personally despise them, but let's assume they're good

(disclaimer: I wrote the article)</comment></comment>


Patturns: A Silly Little Pattern Workspace - <AUTHOR> http://mattsah.github.io/patturns/

<comment><AUTHOR> Note, this uses some newer CSS and JS stuff, Only tested in Firefox 35, but should probably have a good chance on Chrome too.

Hit ctrl+s to save.</comment>


Cambodian Dancers, Auguste Rodin, and the Imperial Imagination (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/10/cambodian-dancers-auguste-rodin-and-the-imperial-imagination <comment><USER2> I don't understand why when people incorporate another culture's assets respectfully in their own work, that it's considered 'hijacking'?

<comment><USER3> This accusation usually comes down to two things:

1) Cultural productions of other peoples might be deeply linked to religious observance, social rituals, or a person's own identity (i.e. in some cultures a person may have a song that only he/she may sing). When these productions are taken up by another people that reproduces these things without the same religious context or social functions, this can seem offensive. Saying "I was respectful!" often doesn't fly.

2) It seems unfair when an impoverished people creates something beautiful but gets little economic benefit from it, while someone from a richer country/ethnicity comes along, reproduces it, and then makes a lot of money.

Note that I am taking no stand on this myself. I am only pointing out the common arguments.

<comment><USER2> I know these aren't your arguments but I can't help but respond to them.

> Saying "I was respectful!" often doesn't fly.

I think there's a big difference between works that are mockeries versus work that seeks to make something beautiful & useful that's obvious to most people.

> It seems unfair when an impoverished people creates something beautiful but > gets little economic benefit from it, while someone from a richer > country/ethnicity comes along, reproduces it, and then makes a lot of money.

I can understand this sentiment if the derivative work is nothing more than a copy. However this is an argument that's similar to the ones that proponents of extending copyright forever make. It's just another form of gate keeping and monopoly. Ideas should be shared and used. It helps promote and continue innovation, and in this case share culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article compares Rodin's drawings of the Cambodian dancers with those by Noël Dorville, but includes no images of the latter.

For the interested, I found this: [https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Tableau-Litho- signee-mine-de-plomb-p...](https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Tableau-Litho-signee-mine- de-plomb-par-Noel-DORVILLE-1874-1938-Danseuses-/401299383825)

Scroll down for larger images.</comment>


A Frameless Geodesic Dome (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://rigsomelight.com/2013/09/09/frameless-geodesic-dome.html <comment><USER3> _In order to shed rain and be fastened to each other, the plastic sheets overlap each other as shingles on a roof would._

OK, that's good; a reasonable approach to leaks.

 _It's all held together with bolts that bolt through all the layers. The shell of the dome is about 2 1 /2 inches thick._

That's not so good. Many potential leak points. Stress concentration at the bolt holes. The plastic may tear. Nothing holding the edges together with a tight seal. Almost all the problems with geodesic domes are at the joints. The author is vague about how the joints work.

Buckminster Fuller's concept for geodesic domes was that they were to be made from factory-built components and modern materials. They were to be products of the industrial age. In a factory, parts could be made to tight tolerances and be weathertight. With modern durable materials such as aluminum and Fiberglas, the domes could have long lives. During the 1950s, many such domes were built for radar stations. There are large radomes in the Canadian north abandoned decades ago, but still standing.

Then came the era of hippie domes, which were built by hand from "natural materials". This did not end well. The author of Domebook I and II has repudiated his work, after a long history of failed structures. Trying to shingle a sphere does not work well. Nor does trying to fit a standard window into a dome. Nothing quite fits, and there are too many bad seams. All this gave geodesic domes a bad name.

The domes in this article look like the ones from Dome Village in LA, but less rugged. [1] That was an attempt to house homeless people. The Fiberglas domes of Dome Village held up fine for 13 years; the project failed for other reasons.

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

<comment><USER4> Factory tolerances are not the key ingredient for weather tight buildings. Water and air management at the joints is. Good management can be achieved by careful design or by proven practice. Proven practice is why shingles can be weathertight with only moderate attention.

The reason hippie domes leaked is getting the details right during construction is hard and foregoing proven practice makes it much much harder.

Like pretty much every machined building concept other than the mobile home, Fuller's ideas were unsuccessful. Mostly because building weathertight buildings is a solved problem. The solutions are just not evenly distributed.

<comment><USER3> There's a huge success story in machined buildings - Butler Buildings.[1] They have about 100 standard steel parts, from which industrial and farm buildings can easily be constructed. Rural America has millions of their buildings, from small sheds to large factories. They offer wall and roof sections with and without insulation. (Their site promotes the fancier options for schools, malls, and churches, but the volume is in the plain metal ones.)

There are competing systems, such as Behlen.[2] ("Good iron. GREAT experience"). All these systems bolt together on site, usually mounted to a concrete slab. Such buildings are dull, boring, weathertight, easy to erect, and durable. They're rarely seen in cities, so many people don't know about them. But get thirty miles outside a big city and they're everywhere.

[1] [http://butlermfg.com/en/butler_systems_details](http://butlermfg.com/en/butler_systems_details) [2] [http://behlenbuildingsystems.com/resources/photo- gallery/agr...](http://behlenbuildingsystems.com/resources/photo- gallery/agricultural/)

<comment><USER4> Pre-engineered metal buildings [1] like those offered by Butler are an excellent form of construction for many applications. The components are fabricated using standard processes of the steel industry (milling, extrusion, roll forming, etc.).

To the degree these create a machined building in agreggate, then likewise the aggregate of dimensional lumber, plywood, OSB, asphalt shingles, gypsum board, concrete masonry, insulated concrete forms, etc.

[1]: For what it is worth most pre-engineered metal buildings in the US come from mom-and-pop shops rather than the big players like Butler because engineering is engineering and roll formed steel production is a commodity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is cool to play with and all, but what rubs me the wrong way about posts like this is the delusional 'look I made something that is applicable as anything but a novelty! I'm solving major societal problems here!'. This thing doesn't have windows, it requires replacing panels on the outer shell every few years, you can't build up not even 1 level and has virtually no sound insulation so horrible in term of land use, doesn't have walls solid enough to put plumbing in let alone fix anything else to, doesn't meet any building regulation in terms of safety - not even if you take regulations from 30 years ago, ...

I understand the draw and see the romanticism of living like a hermit in a forest; really I do. But for some reason people delude themselves into thinking that this can scale. When you're saying 'I love nature so much, I'm going to go live right in the middle of it!', it's like saying 'I love my horse so much, I'm going to eat it tonight'. Which is fine - I eat horse meat. But don't claim you're 'loving' it in the same way normal people use the word 'love'.

<comment><USER6> On the other hand, you'd be surprised with how little you actually need in order to survive and live a peaceful, happy life. Building regulations are fine - if you wanna be a normal, living a normal life, in a normal society.

But the world is a pretty big place. We don't all need these norms.

You might have a morally authoritative view on just what basic needs a human has, and certainly can justify these requirements with a human ideal forged in your own social context, but the real honest truth is, most of those ideals are arbitrary.

A lot of people can live without windows, especially if they're surrounded by nature 100% of the time, anyway. Plumbing? Who needs it if the rest of your property is set up for it - not everyone needs to live a decadent western lifestyle where running water is on demand within a few feet of your sleeping area, etc.

A lot of the world survives just fine without all of these requirements, and from that perspective this "romanticism" is less of a fantasy, and more of a "what if .. we could live simpler lives, instead of more complex ones" \- and that is the real merit of articles like this. To push us outside the "glass- half-empty/-full" norms that, ultimately, a lot of us are trapped in.

("Normal people use the word 'love'": Please tell me, what is normal. Because I don't believe you have a large enough sample size, honestly, based on your professed view...)

<comment><USER7> If someone wants to live without the benefit of a whole lot of things which are really really nice to have, like plumbing, then they have my blessing.

But even if _that_ is your desire, then a dome is a ridiculous way to achieve it, compared to a rectangular structure with a pitched roof, which is easier to build, more stable, is less likely to leak, will probably last longer, and gives you more efficient use of space and materials. Domes solve nothing.

<comment><USER8> Domes minimize radiative cooling per unit volume?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article mentions yurts and then goes on saying "at the same time the frameless dome provides a living area that is protected by a solid insulated waterproof shell. This is absent in these other lightweight structures."

I beg to differ! Yurts as used in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan often have several layers, at least one of them being water-proof. The innermost layer is often wool, which offers excellent insulation and can be dried quickly when it gets wet from prespiration, offering some sort of climate control. Mongolians experience ultra harsh continental climate, going from -40°C in winter to +40°C in the summer, and they have used yurts for centuries.

Source: stayed in yurts in Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan for a total of several weeks on a motorcycle tour, went to a yurt market to check out the building materials in Ulaan Baatar.

</comment><comment><USER10> The structure seems to be relying on bolts, plastic sheeting and foam for all of its strength. Even bolts are not usually considered structural elements, since the sheer strength of bolts is negligible - much less plastic or foam.

The whole idea of geodesic domes is that the trianglular sides distribute load more efficiently. In this case, there's nothing that could be described as load bearing. It's a semi-rigid tent that will disintegrate in a strong breeze.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you're having problems finding a suitable frame for your geodesic dome, consider bamboo. There's a guide prepared by Buckminster Fuller himself at [http://www.desertdomes.com/bamboo.html](http://www.desertdomes.com/bamboo.html) and Mitra Ardron made a variant with continuous poles at [http://www.mitra.biz/joomla/blog/2815-instructions-for- makin...](http://www.mitra.biz/joomla/blog/2815-instructions-for-making-a- bamboo-geodesic-dome) (are there metric versions?)

</comment><comment><USER12> I have few questions:

        - Is it livable in temperate zone (-20°C in winter)?
        - Is that single sheet plastic window? How does it insulate in winter?
        - Is it dark inside?
        - Can plants survive inside?
        - Building codes usually have minimal volume for bedrooms, does it meet those standards/recommendations?
        - What's 2x4?
        - What's blueboard?
        - Post some closeup pictures of doors, windows, top and base from the outside
        - How do doors open?
        - Why the working table have so massive bottom? Is it just "art"? Seems like it's unnecessarily heavy.
        - Wouldn't mass-produced triangles be simpler/cheaper?

Also I just noticed article is from September 2013!

Also previous HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6355488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6355488)

<comment><USER13> A 2x4 is a piece of lumber that measures around 2" by 4" in depth and breadth (in reality, it's slightly smaller) and is often used for structural work.

<comment><USER14> ( _it's slightly smaller_ if it is planed)

<comment><USER15> I genuinely hate that I'm going to say this, but... A 2x4 is 1.5" X 3.5" It's not _approximately_ 2x4 or _slightly_ smaller than 2x4. Not that this adds critical information regarding the article, but if you set out to work with 2x4s and assume they are 2" by 4", you'll be sorry. And yes, I have made that mistake before, but it's a mistake you only make once.

<comment><USER16> The lumber is cut to 2" x 4", but then it is dried causing it to shrink to "about" 1.5" x 3.5"

<comment><USER17> This is not correct. The standard construction 2x4 you buy at any lumber yard/home improvement store is specifically cut to 1.5" x 3.5". Of course wood naturally expands/contracts depending on the environment so it will never be exactly those dimensions, but quite close (+/\- 1/32" I'd wager).

Likewise with plywood, most (but not all) plywood sold in the US is actually slightly undersized. 3/4" is normally 23/32" thick, 1/2" is normally 15/32" thick, etc. This isn't because the wood shrunk (though again plywood will slightly expand/contract depending on the moisture of the environment), it's because the manufacturers meant it to be a little thinner.

There are still manufacturing tolerances for both types of products, but the lumber mills know what they are doing, they know what their customers require and provide tolerances that match those. Just imagine one very common usage: a deck. You think deck builders would be happy if the dimensional lumber wasn't a) very consistently the same thickness and b) very consistently the same width? Otherwise you'd have a very bumpy deck that looked pretty irregular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron Note: Do not use an open flame or heat source inside an enclosed space made from polyurethane/plastic/nylon

 _See: Agonising death_

<comment><USER18> Isn't there a pretty good chance that the horrible plastic smoke will make you pass out before the death kicks in, making it just terrifying and brutal but not agonizing?

<comment> King-Aaron I've seen the results of tents catch on fire - I don't know about the panels in the dome in OP's link, but certain plastics etc can burn _extremely_ quickly. A normal pop-up tent will burn to the ground in a matter of seconds, cocooning anything inside in molten plastic.

<comment><USER19> I can believe this. I used to work in "the Warehouse" (store name, rather than what it was). We were told that if there was a fire, particularly in the areas containing mostly plastic, we were to get out as fast as possible, no heroics, no trying to put the fire out: just scram. One of the larger buildings they owned caught fire a few years before I started, and had burned up by the time the fire department got there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Show HN: Years ago, some friends and I designed & built a dome/hexayurt hybrid[0] for Burning Man. The walls are made of insulation sheets and the hinges are taped with 6" bi-directional filament tape (many here will know Hexayurts[1], I'm sure). Additionally it has connection-edges which feature a system of fabric-strips and 2" velcro to connect edges reliably. In total it consists of 3 separate, foldable pieces that can be set up in ~20 minutes by 2 people, even in windy situations. It has 2 "windows", the pointy things on the sides. The door is a bit small and definitely requires some flexibility getting in and out :) It survived the harsh desert conditions of 3 years at Burning Man so far, incl strong winds and rainstorms, only requiring a bit of tlc between each year. The "strap-down-spider" tightens the structure down against winds and keeps it firm enough that you can easily lean against it. To make it fully rain-proof, one needs to tape the floor-tarp up against the walls (visible in the pictures). Apart from the floor-taping the setup and tear-down is entirely zero-waste, due to the velcro system. Hexayurt enthusiast might notice the silver tape that covers the filament-tape seams, which helps protect the tape from deteriorating in the UV light (w/o the silver tape, the filament tape would go brittle after abt 1-2wks of direct sunlight).

Here[3] is some very outdated documentation on the first version. We initially tried to connect the walls via bungees - didn't work out at all as you can imagine. The following year we added the velcro system after I found this amazing post [2] on a hexayurt mailing-list, describing someone's experiments with materials. Without that person's efforts and time spent on research I could have never finished this one!

Of course there's already a bunch improvements lined up for a v2 - <USER2> next year :)

[0] [http://imgur.com/a/8K1dR](http://imgur.com/a/8K1dR)

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

[2] [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/hexayurt/2QRUl3txk-8/v_A0DDc...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/hexayurt/2QRUl3txk-8/v_A0DDcSeCAJ)

[3] [http://flo.jottit.com/moonberry](http://flo.jottit.com/moonberry)

<comment><USER21> Neat! Nice work

Does it stay livable in the Nevada desert sun? What's the interior temp in the afternoon

<comment><USER20> Thanks! During peak-temperatures of the day it's definitely warm inside, yet cozy/cool enough to have a nap. Also kept the warmth inside at cold nights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From what I gather, it's made from plastic, foam and wood, and uses electrical heating. I didn't see any mention of fire risks, which is something people have brought up before with these structures. I hope there's at least a fire extinguisher in there.

</comment><comment><USER23> As an exercise in low-cost structure construction this is interesting, but this is not a practical home. It apparently lacks any kind of sanitary facilities or kitchen. As noted in the blog itself, it's comparable to a tent in terms of applications.

</comment><comment><USER24> > The geodesic dome is brilliant in how it minimizes the amount of materials > needed to enclose a given space.

Except sheet material is sold in rectangles, so you end up with a huge pile of offcuts.

As a child I was entranced by geodesic domes in the late 1970s (part of the hangover of the utopian back-to-the-land movement), and I read up on them extensively over the following decades.

I've also done a bit of construction.

Domes are wildly impractical for almost every purpose.

Yes, the hold more volume per surface area. That's great for a liquified natural gas tank. It's not so good for humans who live on flat surfaces.

They are very hard to plumb and wire.

They generate tons of waste.

They are hard to maintain.

Roofs and walls have different purposes (structural support vs shedding preciptation) and different materials are best for each.

The list goes on.

I could write a 500 page book on why domes are almost always the wrong answer, but the shortest proof I have is: if they were so great, they would have caught on.

<comment><USER25> The only success stories I have heard about with respect to dome construction do not use any sheet material at all.

They use inflatable forms, flexible basalt fiber composite rebar or basalt reinforcement mesh, spray foam, and gunnite (sprayed concrete).

As far as I am aware, even those still have moisture problems.

As mentioned by parent, the article includes cutting patterns for rectangular sheets. All the edges and corners are waste. Every edge is a cut. If you make a dome shell out of panels, you have an incredibly high amount of joints and cracks for that volume, and every one of them could move water or air through the wall. The article itself mentioned that polypropylene breaks down in UV. Maintenance.

So I guess the intrepid geodesic dome builder should sew a big balloon out of pentagonal and hexagonal nylon panels, inflate it with one of those bounce- castle blowers, and spray it with gunnite. Then saw through the top of the shell and add a stick-built cupola for ventilation control and roof pitch. You lose the portability, but if you really need that, most people make do with a tent. Those come in dome shapes, if you really need your living space to be round.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> A large-scale 2 dimension version of this was built for Terminal 2E and 2F at the Paris CDG airport. It yields the same feeling of airiness and I'm always happy to transit though that one.

[https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cdg%20terminal%202e](https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cdg%20terminal%202e)

Note that this design requires impeccable material strength characteristics. Otherwise it will collapse, as 2E did in 2004:

[https://failures.wikispaces.com/Terminal+2E+at+Charles+de+Ga...](https://failures.wikispaces.com/Terminal+2E+at+Charles+de+Gaulle+Airport)

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm left wondering about moisture. Ventilation seems pretty minimal and, inside the walls, nonexistent, so how long until this has mold all over it?

</comment><comment><USER28> I did not understand how it is completely waterproof. What if there is rough weather? And how does it prevent water from entering in case there is standing water around the base?

<comment><USER29> There is a platform under the dome to prevent standing water from entering it. Further I would expect it would be best to build on a slight rise to mitigate this issue. As for the waterproofness of the shell, as long as the higher panels overlap those below them by a sufficient amount (maybe 10cm) then the dome will shed water in even heavy storms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> one problem i've run into when making a shed is the flooring. unless you spend a huge amount of time+effort+materials on a foundation, water vapor tends to come up. This causes mold growth and eventually over the span of 5 to 10 years the floor will rot out of under you. (I'm in the Pacific Northwest)

Does anyone have recommendations on a cheap moisture tolerant flooring? I am thinking of using Marine-Grade plywood as a subfloor on my current project.

</comment><comment><USER31> This reminds me of Dome of Visions, which has now come out in 3 iterations.

[http://domeofvisions.com](http://domeofvisions.com)

</comment><comment><USER32> This is Bruce Hauman's dome (creator of the Clojure library Figwheel)

I watched a video of the talk where this dome is mentioned last week.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-kj2qwJa_E&t=9m16s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-kj2qwJa_E&t=9m16s)

I was hoping there'd be some more info about the way he lives in general. Seeing from the outside picture he also seems to grow his own food.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hexayurts[0] > Domes

0: [http://hexayurt.com](http://hexayurt.com)

(sorry, I don't have time for a more detailed post just now).

</comment><comment><USER34> Would you save much on materials by removing the lowest tier of sheets? You'd lose standing room near the walls. Would you lose strength?

</comment><comment><USER35> Didn't Halliburton make a line of urban survival domes to go with their bubble suits and management leisure suits?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzSMjSxM5Vo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzSMjSxM5Vo)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_dg6V8pQGo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_dg6V8pQGo)

</comment><comment><USER36> Great idea and execution. I did not find any mentions of a toilet in there, did I overlook something? How is this going to work?

<comment><USER37> Given the portable nature of it, a toilet is not more than a bucket. Otherwise it would require one of those expensive permanent installations for waste and water. You do not want such a bucket inside if you can avoid it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> You could spray this with layers of gunnite and build up a sealed concrete bubble. I think it'd be just as stable as an inflated form. Once you had an 'eggshell' layer of concrete, that would bear the weight of successive layers. Might require taping over the edges of the 'shingles'.

</comment><comment><USER39> A similar idea, but edible. [http://www.marthastewart.com/913141/sugar-cage- jacques-torre...](http://www.marthastewart.com/913141/sugar-cage-jacques- torres)

There was another with Jacques Pepin, that I am unable to find, where explains the concept better.

</comment><comment><USER40> This puts me to mind of a Bill Burr quote, about the real desire for guys to spend $250k on a house.

</comment><comment><USER41> Tax appraisal: cost of structure $2100, cost of land $100k. Tax bill: half the cost of structure per year plus school levies.

<comment><USER42> Not sure why you'd use expensive land for a structure like this. You could build this pretty much anywhere, so you could go for cheap land that's not suitable for normal homes.

<comment><USER41> Because you'd like to have access to public transportation or bike to work?

<comment><USER42> Right, but you could get a parcel of land that's very small, or steep, or otherwise unusable for normal homes. Depending on local regulation, you also might not need a building permit, or there might be a simplified procedure since it is very small and/or temporary. (For example we have a lot of "green land" in Austria, where you are not allowed to build. For this reason it is very cheap. But you can of course erect a tent on "green land".)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> could you lay the shape out flat first then pull it all in.

i would have 3d printed (or laser cut) something first.</comment>


Ask HN: How to Properly Decline a Job Offer - <AUTHOR>

As a recent college graduate, I've been interviewing my butt off for entry level positions. I've gotten the typical overlap at the end of the interview circuit with 3 companies extending offers. I declined an offer from one of them this morning. The tech lead that I spoke with was furious.
I'm not sure if it was something that I did incorrectly or if he took my declination personally. I intended to send an email to their hiring manager yesterday, but I missed a call from him beforehand. We agreed on talking this morning via email, and he told me one of their senior devs (one who I've met with twice) would be in contact.
The dev called. When he asked about the position, I told him that I am declining their offer with my reasons. Before he could speak, I made sure that I thanked him for the opportunity, and I let him know I thoroughly enjoyed meeting with their staff. They really are nice people. That was met with a brief moment of silence. I waited. He then hurriedly replied, "OK thank you, [noxToken], bye," and promptly hung up.
Did I do something wrong? <comment><USER2> No. That was great. They apparently are not as nice as you thought they were.

A considerate dev would say: "Well, I have to say, I'm sorry to hear that. It was a pleasure getting to know you and I hope we have the chance to work together in the future. Good luck at [company Y]."

</comment><comment><USER3> You're probably overthinking this. The dev may not have been particularly invested in your hiring process. You also unloaded your whole spiel at once, thus there wasn't really anywhere else he could take the conversation. You're one candidate out of many, and he might be thinking "well, that was a bust, guess I'll go for my coffee break". Your phone call could be a distraction from his regular routine and he just wants to get it over with.

Just to add on to that, when you get to thanking people for the opportunity, that it was nice to meet them, etc, you're basically giving a social signal that you're ready to disengage. He simply obliged.

</comment><comment><USER4> That doesn't sound "furious"? Are you sure you resd that correctly?

What you did was fine, although if you knew earlier and had contact details you could have contacted them earlie to let them know.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's really hard to convey his tone through text. I interviewed with him, and I met with him one other time for a tour. I have a feel for his natural demeanor.

I admit that I could be misreading it. The abruptness and tone, however, made it feel like he was very upset.

</comment></comment><comment> Engr-Student The interview process takes resources. They spent money but did not get the commodity (you) they had hoped for. They know that going into the "game".

The fundamental question of every position has three parts: can you do the job, will you do the job, and how well do you fit the position/team/organization -- the fit. This means that the acceptable way to say no is in those terms, or really the third one. Whether the culture is offensive, or there isn't good professional trajectory - it always boils down to not being the best fit. Speaking in those terms allows them to be glad that you declined without you compromising future opportunity.

Note: don't ever burn a bridge. You don't know today what you will consider to be a bridge tomorrow. Don't close and lock a door, just don't walk through it.

<comment><AUTHOR> >how well do you fit the position/team/organization

This was the reason that I harped on the most. The job descriptions for most of these companies were very similar. The nuances between them are mainly what sold me to the company that I chose. I said to him that I feel that according to the project explanations and job descriptions, I feel that I would be a better fit elsewhere for the time being. I did not want to come off as if I hated or would never work for their company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some people need to learn to lose. Negative emotional reaction from their side means just that. When they decline employment to the next applicant - they're not even blinking over thought of hurting person's feelings.

Move on and let them deal with their issues.

</comment><comment><USER6> Meh, don't worry about it. It sounds like you were polite and professional and didn't try to burn bridges. Just because you're the junior guy doesn't mean you're in the wrong.

If you'd told me you were turning down my position, I'd be happy for you. Partly because I just met you and have nothing (or very little) invested in you, so I just try to be positive and wish everyone the best.

Also because if you'd rather work somewhere else, this wasn't the ideal job for you anyway. I'd be glad you discovered this before being hired, rather than after we'd invested time and effort into you.

</comment><comment><USER7> No, nothing wrong on your part. You just were exposed to a bit of human nature - most people are only nice to you when they want something from you.

</comment><comment><USER8> you did nothing wrong. any company that goes into the hiring process knows that their candidates declining an offer is a possibility and as long as you were courteous they should be mature enough to respect your decision and chalk it up to the "process".

in the end they want someone who wants to commit to working there and you want to be in a place where you have no doubts.

</comment><comment><USER9> So what happened next that made you think the tech lead was furious?</comment>


Microsoft is to open Skype cyphers to FSB (to ease wiretapping) - <AUTHOR> http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://news.rambler.ru/10123765/

<comment><USER2> This is idiotic, especially your editing of the title. Knowing encryption algorithm doesn't mean that it would be easier to wiretap. It's already a public knowledge that Skype uses RC4, AES, and RSA.</comment>


Maven 3.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://maven.apache.org/docs/3.0/release-notes.html

<comment><USER2> And I _still_ will refuse to ever use Maven. A major 3.0 release only gets a list of bug tracker entries as the changelog? These guys really don't care one lick about documentation do they?

</comment><comment><USER3> Obligatory: <http://tech.puredanger.com/2009/01/28/maven-adoption-curve/></comment>


Science Fiction Interfaces - <AUTHOR> http://sciencefictioninterfaces.tumblr.com/ <comment><USER2> Oh hey I run this, originally I was just collecting the fui designs for reference when trying to make my own as a desktop ([https://github.com/seenaburns/dex-ui](https://github.com/seenaburns/dex- ui)), but since then I've kept it going.

My personal favorite is probably still Oblivion [http://www.gmunk.com/OBLIVION-GFX](http://www.gmunk.com/OBLIVION-GFX) but if these are too over the top science fiction, The Bourne Identity's is pretty fun too [http://coleran.com/gallery-category/fui/#the-bourne- identity](http://coleran.com/gallery-category/fui/#the-bourne-identity)

<comment><USER3> This is an incredible and timely resource for me. I'm currently building a spaceship cockpit for my young sons. I'm a former EE, so I've got the blinky LEDs, switches, LCDs, keypads, and other physical UI components covered, but I'd love to add a sophisticated GUI component. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a coder. Do you know if any sci-fi GUIs are available as Android apps for tablets? I have 3 Kindle Fire tablets that I would love to turn into dedicated GUI touchscreens for the cockpit.

<comment><USER4> You and your kids might enjoy piloting the ship using Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator ([http://artemis.eochu.com/](http://artemis.eochu.com/))

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the tip! I just installed Artemis on 3 tablets and it's fantastic for my purposes. And looking at the Artemis forums, there are a number of people building Star Trek-like bridge consoles, similar to what I'm doing. Except I'm aiming for more of a gritty Alien type of aesthetic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For someone who wants an in-depth look at sci-fi interfaces from a designer's perspective, [https://scifiinterfaces.wordpress.com/](https://scifiinterfaces.wordpress.com/) and the corresponding book [1] are pretty good resources. The book was even featured on YC's Winter (Summer?) reading list.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Make-So-Interaction-Lessons- Science/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Make-So-Interaction-Lessons- Science/dp/1933820985)

<comment><USER6> Huh, that's actually what I thought the link was; I'm subscribed to this link, and it's definitely interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's an overarching theme here of thin neon lines and white text on black background. Its interesting to me that despite the popularity of this in movies as the default "futuristic" computer interface, it rarely seems to make its way into actual software and especially web/app UI. One exception i can think of is the Bloomberg terminal.

I find this odd because its easier on the eyes and looks better. I would honestly prefer "night mode" for pretty much all software (ms office, the whole internet, etc). Gmail black theme looks great but the actually emails are still white background / black font...

Im not really a hacker... Does anyone know good "night mode" software or settings? There is one in windows 10 but it only applies to settings windows and not the file browser or much anything else.

<comment><USER8> I know this doesn't apply to your needs, however OSX/macOS has the ability to "Invert Display Color" and I use it all the time for precisely the use case you described.

<comment><USER7> some digging around I found Stylish [1] chrome extension which allows you to select dark modes (and others) for many common websites. Unfortunately many of the dark themes are really just dark grey, whereas I really prefer a deep inky black. My pixel xl has an amoled display which makes night modes look stunning because the pixels actually turn off with true black.

I used this app [2] to read hacker news and im delighted to find they have a web interface as well which has a dark mode

[1] userstyles.org [2] hn.premii.com

<comment><USER9> A while back I roughed up a dark theme for HN via a greasemonkey userscript, as seen here: [http://i.imgur.com/PkwVEOD.png](http://i.imgur.com/PkwVEOD.png) There are obviously some rough edges—no pun intended—such as around the voting buttons.

Dark themes really are just way easier on the eyes. Combining the Windows 10 dark theme, the black theme in Office 2016, Firefox Developer Edition, plus a bunch of dark themes for web sites yields a pretty good overall experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember the days when all the flash websites looked like this. With all the pixel fonts of 8 px height. [http://www.2advanced.com/](http://www.2advanced.com/) Was one of my favorites! (I can't even see it now as the flash is blocked by Chrome)

I actually miss that style, good thing it still exists in movies. Oblivion had also very nice GUI's. But Gmunk has a lot of other great work!

[http://www.gmunk.com/OBLIVION-GFX](http://www.gmunk.com/OBLIVION-GFX)

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the style too. I couldn't use the 2advanced site, because, while it loaded after I accepted Flash (Firefox), everything was tiny on my high- resolution screen, and zooming did nothing.

<comment><USER11> If you navigate directly to the .swf file, it might be scaled to the full browser window. That used to work for Homestar Runner about a decade ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Homestar - I loved that. Must visit again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The greatest UI in the history of films cannot be captured visually: it is the UI in Spike Jonze's "Her".

The second greatest, though, is quite visual: the interface in Minority Report.

I wish I could find the interviews with the UI engineers who talked about the influences that went into it.

<comment><USER13> I am almost certain that I would hate using the Minority Report interface, as it was depicted in the film. If Tom Cruise's character actually had to use that every day, his deltoids would be the size of bowling balls.

And I'm sure his manager loves to see exactly what he's doing from 100m away.

If you stuck that UI into a pair of VR-AR goggles, and replaced the huge gorilla-arm movements with barely-visible finger twitches, I might consider it.

<comment><USER14> I've always felt the same way. Looks really cool, and probably a lot more appropriate for a movie than what people would really use, but really awkward and impractical for the tasks it's supposed to help accomplish.

It's sort of like having to swing a Wiimote to swing a sword in a game. Initial novelty value is great, but after a while, if you could do the same thing by simply pushing a button, why wouldn't you just push a button? No matter how good the motion tracking is, if it's not the most efficient way to accomplish the task, there's no point to it.

Aside from how cool it looks and the cinematic qualities that made it appropriate for the movie, everything he used that UI for could have been done much more efficiently with a mouse and keyboard-based UI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have an almost fetish for retro and retro sci-fi interfaces.

I stumbled into this really gorgeous, simplistic terminal like design. I was so inspired by it I decided to re-create the style in HTML+CSS. Once I did that I had another spark, and decided to make it a working faux terminal. And then I had the idea that maybe I could turn it into a small little game. You discover this machine, like you dialed into it randomly one day, and have to navigate yourself around, discover the story through reading logs, and hack into other machines to progress through the levels.

It looked like this: [http://imgur.com/a/pBOtP](http://imgur.com/a/pBOtP)

I'm an engineer through and through; it was odd to be so inspired by a design that I went off to make a game :P

More recently I've been obsessed with the Alien: Isolation interface, which is showcased on the OP ([https://68.media.tumblr.com/ea49aeb0e1a6961a7dc1b3ed02ebca85...](https://68.media.tumblr.com/ea49aeb0e1a6961a7dc1b3ed02ebca85/tumblr_nhvfpifsA61u2y46bo1_1280.jpg)). It's given me yet another hankering to ... do something. Not sure what yet, but it's just such an inspiring design.

<comment><USER16> Do you have a tumblr/twitter/instagram where you share examples of this aesthetic? I'm also a fan.

<comment><USER15> No, but that's not a bad idea!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My favourite sci-fi interface so far is the 'sand' interface in the superman scene on Krypton. Russel Crowe uses it to blast light into a baby.

[https://youtu.be/nHmLhRx7Oyw?t=1m50s](https://youtu.be/nHmLhRx7Oyw?t=1m50s)

I think it would be great for the eyes cause you are forced to exercise your depth perception rather than stare at a flat screen. Would even be better than an e-ink monitor[[http://www.dasung.com/](http://www.dasung.com/)].

<comment><USER18> I wish those e-ink monitors didn't look so much like children's toys- I'd love to pick one up.

In 20 years, I think we'll look back at LCD/OLED monitors like how we currently look back at CRT/pre-CRT monitors, and wonder how on earth we stared at bright configurations of tiny lights for 10+ hours a day.

Transflexive LCDs are, in my opinion, the future: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid- crystal_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid- crystal_display). I can't wait until phones/watches/laptops start using these. My eyes will be very happy when that day comes.

<comment><USER19> The OLPC's Pixel-Qi screen (listed in that Wikipedia article) was fantastic when in its black & white mode. It looked like e-ink and refreshed at 60Hz. Apparently the company died in 2015 though :(

<comment><USER20> > The OLPC's Pixel-Qi screen (listed in that Wikipedia article) was fantastic > when in its black & white mode.

I'm sorry, but that's terribly inaccurate. I have a OLPC and the screen is poor. It is grainy and has a mesh like appearance to it in both color and transflective grayscale mode.

> It looked like e-ink and refreshed at 60Hz. Apparently the company died in > 2015 though :(

The P-Qi screen refreshes fast, but it looks nothing like a kindle panel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm also following a similar blog: [http://futureinterface.tumblr.com/](http://futureinterface.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Now I know where I'm going to be getting my wallpapers from for the next few months.

</comment><comment><USER23> Related: [https://www.are.na/john-michael-boling/fictional- interface](https://www.are.na/john-michael-boling/fictional-interface)

</comment><comment><USER24> Does someone knows if there is an equivalent collection but for FONTS?

I love the fonts used on Sci-Fi movies, like the ones showed in those GUIs, but it is pretty difficult to find such fonts.

<comment><USER25> Take a look at: [https://typesetinthefuture.com/](https://typesetinthefuture.com/)

<comment><USER24> Thanks for sharing, yeah, that site has the concept I was talking about, unfortunately it has a very few content, still good to know about it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My favorite has always been the UI in 2001: A Space Odyssey, with it's use of the EuroStile font on solid screen-filling colors.

It was borrowed by Pixar for The Incredibles.

<comment><USER19> Fun fact: there were no computers involved in the making of 2001. They were too expensive at the time. All of the monitors in the movie were actually back-projected film screens. All of the wiredframe 3D models were literally wire models, painted white, filmed and then projected on the screen.

Using back-projected screens meant 2001 had flat screens which still look modern today --as opposed to the bulbous CRT monitors used in Blade a Runner and Alien.

<comment><USER26> Thanks. That also explains the difference between Star Trek TOS and the film versions of Star Trek (which used CRTs).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Creating fake sci fi interfaces for movies, a very cool concept. It's inspiring to know that whatever makes you happy there is potentially a job doing it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Movie Ui wants to overwhelm. Real Ui wants to limit to the bare minima.. While having everything in reach.

</comment><comment><USER29> Cool.</comment>


Stack Overflow's new "Web Apps" site is in public beta - <AUTHOR> http://webapps.stackexchange.com/ <comment><USER2> I've browsed around a bit. This site actually seems quite useful. If nothing else, it's a good sounding board for "What is the best web site for X"

<comment><USER3> Unless they change the "rules", I think it will suffer the same problem as the other Stacks: They don't handle duplicate questions very well.

In succession, duplicates are annoying and detrimental, but on the other hand, the best answer in 2008 may not be the best answer in 2010 and there's no easy way to update old questions and bring attention to their need for new answers.

The set of answers for broad questions at SO is gradually becoming stale and the new questions are beginning to become uselessly specific to the person who asks the question.

Maybe a way to append or revise older questions as a lower-reputation user would help, and doing so would bring the question back into the community's foreground to be seen by fresh eyes.

Edit: "They" meaning the website, the community and the SO engine combined, not necessarily one or the other individually.

<comment><USER4> This site seems like it would suffer even more so. On Joel's blog, the the announcement for this site [1] asked "Want to know how ... delete your Facebook account?". How long is the accepted answer to that question going to be up to date, and will it be updated every time Facebook tweaks their site to discourage account deletion?

1: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/07/07.html>

<comment><USER5> 'will it be updated every time Facebook tweaks their site to discourage account deletion?' - that's the idea.

'How long is the accepted answer to that question going to be up to date?' - hopefully as soon as FB changes the system and someone realizes the answer is wrong.

<comment><USER6> But their software is heavily reified against that sort of thing -- a new answer is made and then it's karma would have to surpass the existing one (which the karma-inflation problem makes easier) but it also needs to get accepted in place of the existing one, screwing over the original answerer. The already-accepted answer could also be community-wiki-edited beyond recognition.

Pretending temporality doesn't exist doesn't make it go away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To whomever put this custom skin over the SO Engine (and sure you're reading HN, aren't you?), that's an awesome job. This site looks really unique compared to Stackoverflow, Superuser etc. and quiet appealing too.

<comment><USER8> Are you kidding? The grid lines don't line up with anything.

<comment><USER9> Chrome, OSX. The grid lines match the story separator lines and the baseline of all of the fonts. the "Top Questions" and the navigation tabs are off, but the rest is on. the drop shadow of the top bar is about 3px off from the top bar itself...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure I get fragmenting into every little niche and creating a new site for it.

Stackoverflow, ServerFault, SuperUser, MetaSO does this new StackExchange really not fit into any of the above?

<comment><USER11> Web app questions definitely don't belong on SO (unless you're developing them) or SF (unless you're administering them). They might work on SU, but they've been explicitly banned for some time. And Meta is only for discussing the SO network. So no, there's really no other place in the existing network for them.

<comment><USER6> The segregation actually isn't so bad the more I think about it -- people with tons of karma from questions about mundane windows sysadmin and inane adolescent theming shouldn't be running roughshod over people trying to figure out how to do something in gmail.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right. The segmentation is about making sure that each site has a critical mass of experts, and enough of a focus that said experts won't be annoyed by off-topic questions. (Of course it's debatable where the line should be.)

Joel and Jeff have said several times that "Google is the UI". So the segmentation doesn't hurt the "answer consumers", who'll come in through Google with little regard for which site is which, while benefiting the "producers", who do care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Unfortunately this does not cover questions like "how to do get information X from Google Adsense or Google Analytics". Anybody knows a good place for such questions?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/894/pro-webmasters>

<comment><USER13> If you're interested in the pro webmasters site, it's likely to go into closed beta in a matter of days... you should commit to the site today so that you can participate in the closed beta. The closed beta will be 7 days long after which we open the beta to the public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What a rip-off of metaoptimize!!

j/k :-)</comment>


Logic Gates in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://ahuth.github.io/articles/logic-gates-in-javascript.html <comment><USER2> The next obvious step for webdev is to build its own JS powered array of gates, like an fpga, then a virtual machine for it.</comment>


Isaac Asimov: Man of 7,560,000 Words (1969) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-profile.html <comment><USER3> For those looking for an introduction, here are some of my favorite short stories.

The Profession: [http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html](http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html)

The Last Question: [http://www.physics.princeton.edu/ph115/LQ.pdf](http://www.physics.princeton.edu/ph115/LQ.pdf)

The Last Answer: [http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last- answer/](http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/)

Nightfall: [http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.h...](http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/TEXTS/Nightfall.htm)

<comment><USER4> Here are a couple that raise some interesting ideas on a couple topics that often come up here on HN.

The Dead Past: [http://www.rednovels.com/ScienceFiction/Asimov41/27323.html](http://www.rednovels.com/ScienceFiction/Asimov41/27323.html)

"In a Good Cause-": [http://www.rednovels.com/ScienceFiction/Asimov41/27354.html](http://www.rednovels.com/ScienceFiction/Asimov41/27354.html)

The first concerns issues of privacy, surveillance, and government control of information flow. It also was the starting point for an article by Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on how the scope of the 4th Amendment is determined by what society considers acceptable and how we are greatly reducing that scope by the way we are voluntarily giving up so much privacy online [1].

(Read the Asimov story before reading Kozinski's article, because Kozinski opens with major spoilers for the story).

The second story concerns idealism vs. pragmatism, pacifism vs. militarism.

For those new to Asimov, don't try to infer Asimov's beliefs from either of these stories. He personally would have been on the sides that ultimately were shown to be wrong in both of these stories. I believe I read somewhere that in the case of "In a Good Cause-" he deliberately set out to write a story whose point was opposite of his beliefs.

[1] [http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privacy- paradox/dead...](http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privacy-paradox/dead- past)

<comment><USER5> Thank you for that link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for."

\- _Yours_ , Isaac Asimov (20 September 1973)

<comment><USER7> He achieved it.

Ask "Who is the the author of the best sci-fi story of all time?" and the answers will vary (though Asimov is a likely choice).

Ask "Who is the most prolific sci-fi writer of all time?" and, and you'll hear Asimov.

Also, I'd have added The Fantastic Voyage to the list. That has a movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just finished up a hardbound copy of "Asimov on Physics", and was able to find "Asimov on Chemistry" overseas for a good price. Definitely my favorite author, and the Foundation Series are my favorite books. Hard to believe he started those when he was 19; genius.

Anybody think a collapse is happening like in foundation (i.e. falling back from nuclear to primitive fossil fuels)?

<comment><USER9> I just (like two days ago :) finished reading the Foundation series. Psychohistory loses some of its magic for twenty-first century readers in the face of chaos theory and black swans.

If we are facing a societal collapse, we will have a hard time bootstrapping a reboot because we've consumed most of the easily accessible fossil fuels. We're in a virtuous cycle of high technology and fossil fuels that continue to support access to more fossil fuels.

<comment><USER10> > _I just (like two days ago :) finished reading the Foundation series. > Psychohistory loses some of its magic for twenty-first century readers in > the face of chaos theory and black swans._

Chaos theory might be good for the weather (or the stock market and other such micro/fast events) but it might not apply that well to human societies in long term trends (which are not that chaotic and unpredictable, most of history reads like a continuous narrative with cause and effects quite very much at play).

He also predicted the possibility of "black swans" ruining psychohistories predictions and had an agency (let's call it a "second foundation") to influence things and handle those situations.

That said, there were rumors of a Foundation based tv series. I wonder how that's going...

[http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/asimovs-foundation- trilogy...](http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/asimovs-foundation-trilogy-to- be-made-into-hbo-series.454575436/)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804484/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804484/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article was very early in the story of the Asimov's prolific nature (or practice). He had written 108 books at the time, and published over 500 at the time of his death.

I've often thought that the most valuable thing (out of many valuable things) one could learn from Asimov would be his work ethic. He wrote in one of his autobiographies that he never got writers block because he was always writing. Even vacations included time for writing.

</comment><comment><USER12> "The world is the oyster for Asimov, and for the future there are vague plans for almost everything therein save two. No mysteries are on the schedule, and no books on computers. He has been asked to write his autobiography, but counters this with the remark, "What can I say?" "

Of course, those rash statements were made in 1969, but Asimov's typewriter just kept going.

He eventually published a two-volume autobiography (about 1500 pages!), and then a condensed version called _I, Asimov_. He also published SF mystery novels ( _Caves of Steel_ , et al.), and straight-up mystery short stories (collected in the _Black Widowers_ stories), which are quite enjoyable.

<comment><USER4> He also had a couple non-SF mystery novels ("Murder at the ABA" concerning a murder at the American Bookseller's Association convention, and "A Whiff of Death" concerning the murder of a chemistry graduate student...I'm not counting this as SF because there is nothing fictional about the science in it, it simply takes place in a university chemistry department).

There were also some SF mystery short stories, such as the Wendell Urth series of stories, which are collected in the "Asimov's Mysteries" short story collection along with some that are not part of any series.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I read all of his SciFi books and short stories. They are still my absolute favorites.

I'm still searching for similar authors. I have read many other SciFi books but none has impressed me so much as some of the work and ideas by Asimov.

Maybe someone has some other recommendations for me?

<comment><USER14> Asimov's peers during the formative years/decades of science fiction (the 'Golden Age' of SF) are all worth reading: A E Van Vogt, Robert Heinlein, James Schmitz, Murray Leinster, Jack Williamson, and _many_ more. Arthur C Clarke - of similar gargantuan SF stature - was Asimov's pal; their friendly barbs at each other are hilarious.

Each writer has a unique style and outlook, and they're all worth reading. You'll find many unforgettable stories (such as 'The Humanoids', by Jack Williamson). Indeed, writers like James Schmitz were _so_ far ahead of their time that they're still awaiting re-discovery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I taught myself physics and learned to think scientifically by reading his collected monthly essays from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I owe Asimov a huge debt and I'm very glad I got to tell him that once. I miss seeing him at SF cons.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was lucky enough to start reading the foundation series in chronological order at the start of this month and finished already. It was an amazing amalgamation of thoughts on possibilities, human nature, the potential of technology and the meaning of life and how we fit into it (particularly in Foundation and Earth).

My favorite part of reading the books though is realizing how things that seem impossible are always being made possible. Computers have evolved near to the point where they were in his foundation novels - space tech not so much - <USER2> with passion and resources so much can be created. It's humbling and empowering to see the world through his eyes.

<comment><USER17> I had a great time reading that series - I chose to do the long version, like the complete narrative that included the Robot novels. But the bummer part is that there's one book, Robots and Empire, that appears to be out of print - it's the only book I couldn't buy for Kindle or iBooks, and I didn't realize until I had already somehow skipped past it and spoiled something for myself. Still haven't read it.

<comment><USER10> If you've read all the Foundation + Robots stuff, there are 2 more Asimov books I've found that also have some allusions/references to the Foundation universe:

1) The End of Eternity (Again plays with the idea of a "babysitter" organization for the world -- like foundation/2nd foundation was but in a totally different manner, and in the end has some references to the Foundation universe).

2) Nemesis

3) Peeble in the sky (which he wrote many years before).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Time was when I would read almost anything Asimov wrote. I even have his Guide to the Bible and Shakespeare, as well as his autobiographies. His editorials in the magazine, "Asimov's Science Fiction" would be the first thing I read.

I haven't read Asimov recently, but his ideas and words form a core part of my younger self.

</comment><comment><USER18> My favorite book of his -- besides Robots of Dawn -- was Nemesis. Absolutely incredible. Such a FEEL to that story.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have a vivid memory of the last phrase of "Foundation and Empire". It was a shock to discover the Preem Palver was the First Speaker.

"But now there was a somber satisfaction on the round and ruddy face of Preem Palver – First Speaker"

</comment><comment><USER20> This is from memory, so I can't find a source, but I remember doing the math at one point and coming up with 1800 published words per day from the point of his first book being published until the day he died.

</comment><comment><USER21> Asimov was my favorite Golden Age SF Writer.

And by Golden Age I mean roughly 13 years old.

More than his fiction, his books on science had a tremendous influence on me during my larval stage. I still have my old copy of "Asimov's Guide To Science" on my bookshelf.

</comment><comment><USER22> Everybody is commenting about loving Aasimov, but did anyone read the article? I read it 3 times and it still makes no sense to me. What is this all about?

<comment><USER10> What exactly seems difficult to understand in the article?

It's a profile of Asimov, describing his office, his typical work day, and his work ethic in general.</comment></comment>


Iosnoop For Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-07-16/iosnoop-for-linux.html <comment><USER2> Those of the OS X persuasion can find similar functionality in fs_usage.

[https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin...](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/fs_usage.1.html)

<comment><USER3> He also has a slide about OSX performance:

[http://www.slideshare.net/brendangregg/analyzing-os-x- system...](http://www.slideshare.net/brendangregg/analyzing-os-x-systems- performance-with-the-use-method)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just added an experimental execsnoop to the repo as well: [https://github.com/brendangregg/perf- tools](https://github.com/brendangregg/perf-tools) .

</comment><comment><USER5> Great tool ! It is interesting because we are working to extract the same kind of information but with LTTng for low intrusiveness and remote analysis of production servers. If you are interested, you can have a look at the following repository : [https://github.com/jdesfossez/lttng- analyses](https://github.com/jdesfossez/lttng-analyses)

</comment><comment><USER6> If it's not reliable as claimed by the article, then does it really serve the purpose? There might be a code-path in an innocent little app that calls brk() often and then gets tainted as causing IO.

Aside, thanks for reminding me about blktrace. I had forgotten the name last week when I needed the tool.

<comment><USER4> You can use it to study block device I/O details, confirming latency outliers, and analyzing device, size, and offset patterns. It's the COMM and PID columns that aren't reliable -- they show what's on-CPU at the time of block device issue, which is usually the origin PID, but sometimes not. This has always been the case for iosnoop (all versions). I'm explaining this caveat better today than I have in the past.

As for the origin PID... I usually trace that from a different layer of the stack (vfs, file system, or syscall). But this approach has different caveats: the overhead is much higher (more frequent requests), and if I want to associate it with the block I/O, then many solutions are going to require debuginfo, and/or a different tracer. Also, what if a process buffers minutes of disk I/O then exits, and then that PID is reused by a different process calling disk I/O? It's a remote possibility, but I just wanted to mention another problem in this area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> All I see in COMM is ksoftirqd, btrfs-transaction or md127_raid. No real programs names :(

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks like a great tool - now I wish I had the storage to test it on...

</comment><comment><USER9> Very nice. Thanks Brendan!</comment>


CloudFlare on Spamhaus SBL  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wordtothewise.com/2012/07/cloudflare-and-spamhaus/

<comment><AUTHOR> I recently got an message from a client who has a business email blocked because of a Spamhaus SBL listing for CloudFlare. I know they have already responded to this at <http://blog.cloudflare.com/thoughts-on-abuse>, but my client is paying them for speeding up their website, not to get blocked by an anti-spam filter. I see both sides of this, but the bottom line is that if they don;t resolve the problem with Spamhuas they will start to loose business starting with mine.

</comment><comment><USER2> I've been a Cloudflare (paying) customer for less than a week and I can't say it's been a smooth ride. Are they usually worry-free or did I just add problems to my stack? I'd like to hear from people who've been using them for a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been a long time proponent of CloudFlare. Usually they just speed things up and life is good. I've had a few minor problems where they 'clean up' some JavaScript and break it in the process, but those got resolved without any effort on my part within a few days.</comment></comment>


Avoid Google Maps with Gnome Maps on GNU/Linux - <AUTHOR> https://www.ghacks.net/2018/04/14/avoid-google-maps-with-gnome-maps-on-gnu-linux/ <comment><USER3> Much as I would like to avoid google, the routing on OSM or graphhopper leaves a lot to be desired.

There's no routing using public transport. Half the buildings I've tried looking up either don't exist on OSM / Gnome maps, or result in an address half-way across the globe.

That said, I prefer using HERE maps as it works very well in offline mode, including voice navigation, compared to anything else I've tried.

The fact is that getting a global mapping and navigation solution right takes tremendous effort and money (Apple can tell you a lot about how their attempts worked out for them), and I want an application that I can trust and that just works when I'm behind the wheel or at an unfamiliar location.

I'm sure OSM and alternatives will continue to improve over the years, and I'll play with them occasionally, but I will still go back to HERE, waze or google maps for the important stuff.

<comment><USER4> You can contribute better directions/addresses!

<comment><USER5> So how do you actually do this? Can you just open up Google Maps with OSM side-by-side and copy addresses? Or you need to source it from somewhere else?

<comment><USER6> Copying from Google Maps would violate copyright. Ideally you visit the place in question and correct them in OSM based on your observations. There are also some satellite maps that are licensed for use as OSM source (and that are often integrated in OSM editors)

<comment><USER7> Facts like street addresses are not copyrightable. The visual drawing of roads and other features on maps can be, however.

<comment><USER8> > Facts like street addresses are not copyrightable.

Google says it is[0]. It might be true because when you get street address from Google, you are also getting the mark on the map for the location. Whether it's true legally or not, it's better to stay away from their data. That is, if you use Google maps, you agree their terms and thus you are not allowed to copy the data.

And btw, I have seen (possibly deliberate) mistakes in street address markers in Bing maps (which is the recommended map[1] to follow for Open street map editors). So don't think that they won't find you if you copy their data).

[0] [https://developers.google.com/maps/terms#6-googles- proprieta...](https://developers.google.com/maps/terms#6-googles-proprietary- rights) (The definition of Content is explained in the following section, which says "... and places data (including business listings). ")

[1] [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing_Maps](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing_Maps)

<comment><USER9> Bing Maps aren't recommended for use in OSM.

Microsoft has generously provided permission and server resources for use of _Bing Aerial Imagery_ since 2010, but that's different than their map product.

Lately there's a bunch more imagery providers that give permission for use in OSM. Mapbox, Digital Globe and ESRI all provide imagery layers with global coverage. There's also quite some government imagery available, OSM editors will show them as an option in the areas they cover, so be sure to check when editing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're interested in contributing to GNOME Maps, you can install GNOME Builder and run it, click on the Maps icon under "Contribute to an existing project", and then hit the Run button once it clones/opens.

You'll have a local build, with all the dependencies met, in an IDE to contribute to the project.

Also, [http://wiki.gnome.org/Newcomers](http://wiki.gnome.org/Newcomers)

</comment><comment><USER11> The thing is Google Maps is so much more than a pure map, or even a multi- modal routing service.

It's also a searchable registry of all kinds of businesses, a review and qa aggregator for everything from mountain peaks to restaurants; a price comparison tool for hotels; an organized photo database where for many restaurants you could, if you wanted to, see a satellite view of a restaurant, aerial footage, then street view imagery and finally photos of individual dishes. The list goes on, I'm sure there are features I've never seen because they are not available where I live. It's probably the most impressive customer facing Google product, and maybe the hardest to replace.

That said, I still have both Google Maps and Osmand on my Android device. While it doesn't have the breadth of functionality that Google Maps does, and Osmand's interface takes some getting used to, more often than not OpenStreetMap exceeds Google Maps in terms of accuracy and detail of the pure map data. Which is incredible! So when I'm planning a hike, I use OSM. But during the hike, when I'm searching for a place to have a bite, I use Google.

<comment><USER12> "Google Maps is so much more than a pure map"

Which makes it's a shitty pure map. Every time one of those "features" gets in the way of typing in an address and navigating, I want to throw my phone out the window. That stuff should be plug-ins for people that think they need it.

<comment><USER11> Navigation is not a pure map feature, either.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, I forget sometimes most of you are from a differnt plane of existence. I wish more of my wizard friends were on HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > I was scrolling around the world, setting directions for how to cross Russia > by foot (which let me tell you in case you ever wondered, should take > roughly 60 hours, depending on locations used)

Huh, out of curiosity, I just checked Google Maps, and it suggests that walking from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok would take 1,883 hours. That's quite a discrepancy. I suspect that Google is probably more accurate in this instance.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure he meant to write _60 days_ (1440 hours).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is the advantage of using Gnome Maps over just OpenStreetMap.org? From their website[1], it seems like it's still just a client for the various services

<comment><USER15> The OpenStreetMap.org application is only supposed to be used for editing OSM data. It is not supposed to be used as a gmaps alternative. For that you should take the Planet OSM data and create a map service (WMS or similar) yourself.

<comment><USER9> The development of the website is definitely focused on helping mappers.

It's fine for individuals to use it for whatever though.

<comment><USER15> I guess it depends on how you define "heavy use". According to their policy, you should not distribute any application that uses their tile server.

[https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/](https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/)

<comment><USER9> Sure. The OP is talking about individuals directly using the website as a map though.

(I've added "for individuals" to my first comment)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > I was scrolling around the world, setting directions for how to cross Russia > by foot (which let me tell you in case you ever wondered, should take > roughly 60 hours, depending on locations used) in a matter of moments, and > it really was quite easy to do.

This post lost me here. I couldn't cross Maryland in 60 hours on foot. Much less Russia. Missing some zeros?

<comment><USER17> Could it be 60 days?

Russia has a maximum east-west extent of some 5,600 miles (9,000 km) and a north-south width of 1,500 to 2,500 miles (2,500 to 4,000 km). (According to Encyclopedia Britannica)

How long would that take to walk? Let's look at another continent for data..

According to the Pacific Crest Trail Association the Pacific Crest Trail spans 2,650 miles (4,265 kilometers) and the elite athletes can do two months, generally it takes five months.

So: 60 days to cross Russia North-to-South is not entirely out of question.

And then, who knows what the author meant. If you were to walk from Pattina, Estonia to Rasony, Belarus, that's about 60 hours and almost all of it is in Russia and in a sense it crosses Russia.

<comment><USER16> Yeah I'm guessing it must be days. I entered Moscow to Vladivostok into Google Maps (heh) and got 73 days. In reality I'm pretty sure that walk would take me at least half a year. Probably a year.

<comment><USER17> Yeah that's just distance divided by speed, I think. That's why I picked the Pacific Trail data instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Unfortunately, Gnome Maps does not provide distances in miles. Yes, I could do the math to convert these, but graphhopper already does that for me. So, it's a nice app, but one missing feature makes it practically useless for me.

<comment><USER19> That's an opportunity to start using the metric system!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How does it compare to KDE Marble?

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't understand why anyone would deliberately put themselves at a serious disadvantage by using sub-par map/browser/etc technology in the hopes of somehow limiting Google's ability to gather data. Unless you exist in a vacuum, in the long-run what you're actually doing is failing to take advantage of the data that Google's making accessible to you, at your own expense.

</comment><comment><USER22> Perhaps someone here can tell me something. I've had another rant, but this is a case of plain wrong information which is different. But I don't know how to go about fixing it.

In Australia, addresses are in the form [Street Number and Name], [Locality (i.e. suburb, town, rural district), Postcode State]. Localities are therefore very important. They need to be in any mapping database of Australia, because people will enter addresses in that form because it's what the post office uses and the local councils define.

But it looks like someone went to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and downloaded the "State Suburb" boundaries and uploaded them into Open Street Map. "State Suburbs" are not places and not used in addresses. They're statistical regions used for reporting statistics. "State suburbs" are built up of other statistical regions to approximate towns, suburbs and rural districts. They sometimes correspond well enough at a broad level to suburbs in metropolitan areas, but even in densely populated urban areas they can be wrong because what makes statistical sense isn't always the administrative border. In country areas, they take scant regard for locality boundaries. "State Suburbs" should never have been uploaded to the database.

(There's an analagous problem with Local Government Areas, which are statistical regions, and municipal districts, which are the territory of a local council. But here the distinction is going to be rarely significant because LGA boundaries are deliberately aligned to municipal district boundaries. Consequently it's more a matter of the source of the authority than the content of the data.)

You can go to data.gov.au and download locality boundaries for each state. These are what is wanted.

But I have no idea how to do this. I don't really know where to begin. I once asked someone for help about trying to find the right forum to ask for help. But it's daunting. When these online databases contain work that is wrong, it's so hard to fix them. People will be possessive of the work they've done. It's possible some of them have been corrected. Others might have been partially corrected. I just don't see how I can go through and fix them without upsetting anyone.

The alternative seems to be to just accept that there's wrong data in there because there's way too many to fix manually, even if I start now and keep going in all my spare time for the rest of my life.

<comment><USER23> That's not the case in my local area. The suburbs boundaries align quite accurately with the boundaries provided on the local council's GIS. The OSM boundaries are line-strings, so they don't have all the contours from the council, but it's clearly a representation of the real boundary, not the ABS boundary.

What areas are you looking at.

<comment><USER22> Hi. If you read my comment, I acknowledge that I can't simply replace the existing data with an upload because they've probably been fixed - the problem is that the suburb boundaries that are in OSM are a mish-mash of suburb/locality boundaries and state suburbs boundaries. This [probably] occurred as a matter of history because they started as "state suburbs" and then people have corrected them in metropolitan areas. Consequently, today they represent nothing - neither statistical areas nor address areas - <USER2> you never know whether this particular area (a) represents the SS (b) represents the locality (c) represents both because they're identical (d) represents the SS on one front and the locality on the other.

One place to look at is Mirboo. I've just picked it to avoid yielding too much PII, but it barely respects the existence of surrounding rural districts. (It might even swamp them like others I know - I'm afraid I don't have my full system here.) I know of other examples (locations to which I have an attachment), but you'll forgive me if I avoid giving too much PII on a public forum.

I'm afraid I can't give an exhaustive list because I haven't produced one. Also because I anticipate that if I produce a report it will come to nothing - I usually find that public databases are curated by people who will refuse to accept that any major corrections are necessary because they've already worked on the problem for years and therefore a major correction is taken to be an insult.

As an example, if I can only produce examples in rural areas, I fear that someone will say "we have thousands of correct addresses, but there's only twenty addresses affected by this example, and thirty by that example - it's not important enough". At that point it seems there's no point even producing a report. OSM will just fall into the category of useless databases, where, like Wikipedia, accuracy and convenience are not valued.

<comment><USER23> I read your comment, but in the absense of any specific examples it was hard to know the details of the problem.

The OSM Wiki contains a Data Catalogue for Australia. [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Data_Catalogu...](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Data_Catalogue)

The issue right now is that both the PSMA data (that you want OSM to use) and the ASGS data (that you infer it is using - and in some cases that might be the source of the boundaries that were entered, but it is not officially in use by OSM) are licensed under CC-BY, which is not 100% compatible with the ODbL that OSM uses.

The necessary solution is to request an explicit waiver from the data provider, which _has_ been requested for PSMA, but (as far as I know) never received a response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Gnome Maps looks great.

I wish they would add a local tile cache, like Marble. Not everyone are online all the time.

<comment><USER10> There is one that was implemented in response to my request for it before GUADEC last year.

I think it's still hidden behind an environment variable though due to some uncertainty behind who the long term tile provider would be.

<comment><USER24> You know how to enable it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm disappointed that it offers no offline functionality. I'd like to download the map and do all the pathing and rendering locally, because I don't want to transmit over the internet what I'm looking at and where I want to go.

</comment><comment><USER26> The only google service I rely on is their map. I wish there were an alternative.

<comment><USER27> Openstreetmap. It's an alternative that desperately needs your (and other's) help. There will not be a 1:1 replacement for google maps unless folks put forth some effort. Be a osm contributor today (it's ridiculously easy with Osmand, or maps.me, or many many other clients.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> And yet, ads on the site are served up through Google.

</comment><comment><USER29> Kills your chosen theme's window preferences, in particular the ability to resize by point-and-drag anywhere along the window border.

Gnome calls this behavior the "CSD Initiative":

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16241923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16241923)

</comment><comment><USER30> >on GNU/Linux

that sounds so strange to me.

Why target the desktop instead of web/Android/iOS ?

<comment><USER31> People use GNU/Linux, why shouldn't they have a quality native map and navigation application?

<comment><USER30> why would you use a navigation app on a desktop os ?

<comment><USER31> You do realize that GNU/Linux also runs computers that aren't anchored to a desk, right?

GNOME has been working on improving touch interface support with an eye towards mobile devices for years now.

Personally I tend to look up where I'm going prior to leaving rather than relying on turn-by-turn navigation systems. I load up a map, and use navigation features to route my trip, and I personally consider this navigation - just not realtime. Usually I write down the directions on a scrap of paper. Not everyone willfully carries around a surveillance device, and options like GNOME maps makes it possible to still have modern technology at your disposal without participating in these highly invasive ad-funded surveillance systems.

<comment><USER30> good for you, have a pat on the back

<comment><USER32> Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

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