Show and Tell YC: Built a webapp in ~14 hours - <AUTHOR> http://tweetsnap.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Woke up on Friday morning (read: lunchtime) after a to-4am code-a-thon with a startup project I'm working on, refreshed and ready to take a well-deservered early weekend of rest and relaxation.

:) Right.

Needless to say, the first thought I had when I woke up was "wouldn't it be cool if..." and the rest, as they say, is two days of pure hackery. I give you the end result: TweetSnap.

It's a really simple premise: enter your Twitter username, get an image back which you can put on your site to show your latest tweet.

It's designed for people who uses websites/etc which don't allow the typical "insert javascript snippet for AJAXy awesomeness" but does allow you to hotlink images (great example: forum signatures).

I haven't looked to see if anyone else has done this yet, mainly because I just did this for fun and I don't really care :) But try it out, give me your feedback. Temperamental results to be expected while on shared hosting :)

For the techies:

\- Rails 2.1 w/ a minimalist MySQL DB

\- Image generation done with RMagick 2.5

\- XML parsing with Hpricot

\- Message parsing a combo of htmlentities and a custom lib (supports characters like ø™¡)

<comment><USER2> Very very cool, what did you program in? Have you had any previous experience with Twitter API/RSS feeds? Reason being if you are pretty versed in rss feed pulling/image generation the backend is done pretty quickly, as most of it is just knowing how to do it. I'd imagine you spent more time on making it look pretty. Does it automatically filter out replies and such?

<comment><AUTHOR> Rails 2.1. No previous experience with the Twitter API, but I'm used to building RESTfully designed applications (which Twitter is). I chose to pull the XML version of your timeline as opposed to the RSS version, because the information is purer.

First day was getting it to work, second day was design. Replies aren't filtered (although I'd like to do that at some point, for the moment I'm happy to keep it simple).

Biggest effort went into RMagick, which was incredibly frustrating. On the second day I rewrote the majority of the stuff I wrote on the first day so that it was better organised and less of a mess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The link you generate shoots back tweetsnap. People might want it to point to their twitter stream. This is an interesting tradeoff between what people would want and what will make this spread.

I think the solution is to make the tweetsnap link have a link to the user's twitter stream. For example:

The href leads to a page that shows the same form to make your own tweetsnap widget, but the page could have a side bar that grabs the last few tweets from @tipjoy and a link to <http://twitter.com/tipjoy>

<comment><AUTHOR> Edit: Now made.

<comment><USER3> Hmm. That is nice, but I would put back the form to make your own. Make the link to the twitter user's stream an afterthought. Probably not that big of a deal either way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love the Show and Tell idea, we should have more of them!

</comment><comment><USER5> Further expanding on what you've done there, what about doing "mood avatars" based off tweets? Essentially a mashup of Twistori/Tweetsnap?

What I'm thinking basically is, people can upload their normal avatars to your site, which you use as the backdrop for your image.. and based off emotions that they tweet (love, hate etc) it can overlay a translucent colour on it?

So in effect, changing the mood of someone's avatar, based off their Tweets?

Just a thought :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I thought about letting people upload their own backdrops, or providing more than one. But I'm keeping it simple for now; it's much easier to add a feature than to remove it later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a cool idea.

We had our fun with image hackery with featurelist. A lot of users discuss things on forums, etc, where they can't post javascript/flash, so we created little banners like this so users can get other people to vote for their feature requests:

<http://featurelist.org/widgets/feature_badge/513/banner.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! What technologies did you use?

<comment><USER6> Pretty much just relying on the PHP/GD image manipulation functions and some TrueType fonts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is the most impressive app I've seen in weeks. Very cool.

</comment><comment><USER8> The design is beautifully minimalist. I love it!

</comment><comment><USER9> Once again... Perfect opportunity for TIPJOY!

<comment><AUTHOR> Added, it'll appear soon.

<comment><USER3> Nice widget! You're featured on Tipjoy :) <http://tipjoy.com/featured>

Make a slightly narrower version, and I'll put tweetsnap in my sidebar here: <http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I've got a list of features I'm toying with. You'll likely see this in the next week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> nice work. not sure where but something like this was around when people thought Virb was cool and people needed images of their tweets as it didnt allow JS etc

</comment><comment><USER11> Twitter, tweitter, twitter. Is there nothing else?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> By the way, if anyone's curious, my Twitter name is Aupajo.</comment>


Ask HN: How are the new Google Drive/Dropbox plans so cheap? - <AUTHOR> Several months ago, Dropbox dropped their price[1] to $10/month for 1 TB, matching Google Drive[2].
But cloud storage providers charge a multiplier more than this:
* S3[3] is $0.0220 per GB at scale for reduced redundancy, or $22.53/month * Google Cloud Storage[4] is $0.02/GB for reduced redundancy, or $20.48/month. * Microsoft Azure[5] is $0.0224 per GB at scale, or $22.94/month.
The only cloud provider that comes close is Amazon Glacier[3] at $0.0100 per GB, or $10.24/month, but you have to wait 4 hours for your data.
These prices are just for storage - not including any transfer to/from the user.
What am I missing? How in the world can Dropbox and Google charge less than half of what just the raw storage would cost?
Is Dropbox taking advantage of most users not actually using their full 1 TB? Are they losing money when someone actually stores that much stuff? Is this some kind of de-duplication magic? Do they have access to a cheaper method of storage than the rest of us?
1. https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/08/introducing-more-powerful-dropbox-pro/ 2. https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375123?hl=en 3. http://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/ 4. https://cloud.google.com/storage/pricing 5. http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/storage/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8233328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8233328)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh excellent - this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

From that discussion, it looks like Dropbox:

1\. probably has lower costs than the published S3 rates

2\. compresses and de-duplicates their data

3\. oversells, so most people must not be using their full 1 TB.</comment></comment>


Medal of Honor uses WebGL for Nations on Battlelog - <AUTHOR> http://battlelog.medalofhonor.com/mohw/en/nations/

<comment><USER2> This is a modified version of Google's 'WebGL Globe' library. I've created a couple of these myself for Reddit

[http://www.webgl.com/2012/09/webgl-globe-visualization- reddi...](http://www.webgl.com/2012/09/webgl-globe-visualization-reddit- traffic-to-barack-obama-ama/) [http://www.webgl.com/2012/03/webgl-globe- visualization-reddi...](http://www.webgl.com/2012/03/webgl-globe- visualization-reddit-traffic-for-3rd-neil-degrasse-tyson-ama/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool, reminds me of another great WebGL globe demo: <http://superfad.com/missioncontrol/traffic/>

</comment><comment><USER4> It's not a modified version of Google's globe. Source: I wrote this one.

</comment><comment><USER5> there's a singularity at the poles; sucks=true</comment>


Creatively share - <AUTHOR> http://tackk.com/

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool! I just tried it out. How do you imagine it being used?</comment>


When I was nineteen years old, Elie Wiesel grabbed my ass (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jblistman/when-i-was-nineteen-years-old-elie-wiesel-grabbed-my-ass-10370829c4bd <comment><USER2> When Elie Wiesel compatriots and family were 19 years old (and younger) they had much much worse things happen to then.

Not that this excuses bad behavior, but on the grand scheme of things, to miser about what was or wasn't some purposeful sexual gesture from a Holocaust survivor decades later seems petty.

When I was 10 years old some dirty old man (apparently known around the neighbourhood for such things) tried to touch my pee-pee. If it was some important sexual incident, sure I'd be scarred. But for something like that, besides some anxiety at the time, I could not care less then or today...

<comment><USER3> With respect, just because you were not traumatized by a particular type of event, does not mean that someone else wasn't traumatized by the same kind of event.

And your lack of trauma over a type of event does not give you carte blanche to trivialize the emotions and expressions of someone that was.

<comment><USER2> > _does not mean that someone else wasn't_

No, but it means things are not objectively traumatising, it's what we make of them, and that people can over-react (and perhaps under-react).

> _And your lack of trauma over a type of event does not give you carte > blanche to trivialize the emotions and expressions of someone that was._

Of course.

But the individual personal experience of something should not be sacred from criticism, especially when it moves from personal to a more public accusation or demand.

In other words: some people might feel (or claim they feel) traumatised over whatever. We shouldn't as a society always take their claims at face value and accept their subjective impact as necessary valid -- just because a subject called it so. Emotions can be bogus too.</comment></comment></comment>


Superstitious Beliefs Cemented Before Birth - <AUTHOR> http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/10/30/paranormal-superstitions.html

<comment><AUTHOR> If this is original research and not just confirming an earlier result, then this is probably one of the most important studies ever done. I'm sure kids will be reading about this in their textbooks someday.

(Although I'm 95% certain that the causal mechanism proposed by the article is wrong, i.e. the idea that intuition and analytical thinking are opposed doesn't make sense either on its own or as an explanation.)

<comment><USER2> I think the article is merely suggesting that a previous study (Lindeman, Aarnio) proposed such a mechanism.

At the very end, I infered the proposition that the intuitive-thinking trait[1] is correlated with superstition because the two share the same cause.

[1] The phrase "higher intuitiveness and lower analytical thinking" has a rather glaringly ambiguous "and" usage. It could be replaced by "or," "in addition to," or "and therefore." The last, which is the only interpretation requiring opposition of thinking styles, strikes me as the least likely.

<comment><AUTHOR> "the intuitive-thinking trait[1] is correlated with superstition because the two share the same cause."

Why is that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just a crazy idea, but did they try to find out if sudden change of perspective in those who experience the paranormal (like near death experience) CAUSES the digit ratio to change?

</comment><comment><USER4> What is meant by intuitive thinking?

<comment><USER3> I don't think the author talks about intuitive thinking in positive vein. Whatever is not analytical is named intuitive. However, the real definition of intuitive is probably that kind of thinking that comes out of subconsciously learned patterns and not from proactive conscious thought - often cited in the usual example of Friedrich August Kekulé discovering the benzene structure from a dream of a snake biting its own tale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the premise is flawed, intuitive analytic is not a contradiction in terms.

I'd be more prone to ascribe said beliefs to dominance of emotion over thought. The way they use the language seems to imply they're trying to scale for the Intuitive vs Sensate side of the personality scale rather than the Thinking vs Feeling side.

I'd find it a lot harder to believe intuition vs sensory information gathering led to higher superstitious belief, and a lot easier to believe that emotional rather than logical evaluation methods are focused in this direction.

Interesting point nonetheless.</comment>


New: Y Combinator American Express - <AUTHOR> http://datasyndrome.com/post/19274060089/y-combinator-amex

<comment><USER2> Except one that doesn't ruin your reputation when you take a risk that doesn't pan out?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tanking a Y Combinator startup does not ruin your reputation. It can help it.

<comment><USER2> Which is my point. The point of the post is that YC is a credit card. I am arguing that it's not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Think of it as an Amex Black <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion_Card></comment></comment></comment></comment>


PHP Creator Rasmus Lerdorf Shares Lessons Learned from the Last 25 Years - <AUTHOR> https://thenewstack.io/php-creator-rasmus-lerdorf-shares-lessons-learned-from-the-last-25-years/ <comment><AUTHOR> > I had absolutely no idea… At every point along the way, I figured there were > about six months of life left in PHP. Because that's about the amount of > time I thought it would take for somebody to write something real that could > replace it, that also would work for me. And I kept waiting… And nothing > did.</comment>


New version of Raspberry Pi A+ - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/EbenUpton/status/757637427074826240 <comment><AUTHOR> Some people are critical of Tweets, but this shows Eben Upton acknowledging a new version of the Raspberry Pi A+

The updated version looks to be the same but features 512MB of RAM instead of the original 256MB.</comment>


Ubuntu Wiki Homepage Vandalised - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ <comment><USER2> Are you sure it's been vandalised? The author has been a member for a while so it might well be that he thought he was editing his own C4C home page and accidentally did the main wiki page instead.

(if it gets reverted, it used to appear as a homepage for Computers 4 Christians group)

<comment><AUTHOR> That seems more likely. At a glance it looked so bizarre that I could think of no other explanation.

<comment><USER3> This is the second weird Bible/Christian story I've seen in two days. Yesterday there was mass disruption in my area when some guy started preaching the bible on the train. The passengers got so spooked they self-evacuated.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- london-41466140](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41466140)

<comment><USER4> Poor preacher, I usually enjoy these.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if I would panic, but I would definitely be worried if someone started religious preaching about "death not being the end" in an enclosed place that I cannot easily exit. In addition to worrying, I would probably get angry too at being the target of such religious proselytising to people who have not asked anything.

<comment><USER6> That's happened a couple of times during my commute. I don't see any reason to take on about it. Maybe if the guy's waving a knife or something, but that'd be cause enough to worry whether he's preaching or not, out of my book or any other.

Sometimes people go around trying to sell stuff they've half-inched off a store shelf, too. Welcome to public transit, where there are other people living their lives just as you're living yours. Different lives, of course, but that by itself need not be cause for fear. I'd even say it should not, but I suppose that's not for me to decide in any case save my own. In any case, I hope I can be forgiven for thinking it rather silly to evacuate a train because someone's got the word on him.

<comment><USER7> > Welcome to public transit, where there are other people living their lives > just as you're living yours. Different lives, of course, but that by itself > need not be cause for fear.

Of course they should live their lives, but in public transport they should STFU about it and not harrass other commuters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's reverted now. You can see the revision here: [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Home?action=recall&rev=282](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Home?action=recall&rev=282)

</comment><comment><USER9> "Immutable Page"

Immutable - You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

<comment><USER10> It's only immutable because you're not logged in.

I've logged in and reverted the edit. Wiki's - Simple :-)

<comment><USER11> I think someone must have edited the wrong page. This doesn't look like vandalism to me!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This seems more like someone accidentally edited the wrong page.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, my guess is there's a CMS mixup. The "Computers4Christians" distro described is a spin of Ubuntu with some preferences tweaked and some variation on preinstalled packages.

<comment><USER14> If stock Ubuntu was good enough for St. Paul, it is good enough for me.</comment></comment></comment>


Apollo Astronauts Didn't Need Heavy Boots - <AUTHOR> http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html <comment><USER2> Some time ago (and I really ought to spend some time trying to track down the original source) there was a questionaire in the UK. One question was

      "Does the Earth go around the Sun,
       or the Sun go around the Earth?"

The followup question was

      "How long does it take?"

Of those who got the first one right (remember that, they got it right) nearly 80% gave an answer on the followup that amount to "about a day."

I have a mental model of how this can happen. For ordinary people on the street, the Sun goes around the Earth and it takes about a day. That's what they see, that's what they experience, and to them, that's what matter. Moreover, using the Earth as your frame of reference, they're right.

However, it's been drilled into them as an unattached, unassociated, irrelevant-to-them "fact" that the Earth goes around the Sun. When presented with the first question, then, they parrot that answer, with no idea of what that actually means.

This doesn't, therefore, mean they're stupid. It just means that they have a mental model of the world that works perfectly well for them, and they've been confused by "facts" that have no use.

I'm not arguing it's good, or right, but at least it helps me understand how otherwise perfectly functional people can appear so stupid and irrational.

<comment><USER3> _Meeting a friend in a corridor, Wittgenstein said: "Tell me, why do people always say that it was natural for men to assume that the sun went around the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend said, "Well, obviously, because it just looks as if the sun is going around the earth." To which the philosopher replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the earth was rotating?"_

—from Jumpers5, a play by Tom Stoppard.

<comment><USER2> Tom Stoppard is always a joy, but there are often points to be picked apart. Wittgenstein's friend's answer was simply wrong. The reason is that they both look the same, and the Earth feels stationary. By that observation people choose the model that feels more correct and relevant.

<comment><USER3> I think it's valid to assume that this was before the (galilean) principle of relativity. Even today many (most?) people don't know that it's ok to choose either model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To those who may think that a lack of scientific understanding by the general population is not of significant concern, I know of no better quotation than the following:

"We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."

      - Carl Sagan, interview with Anne Kalosh, 1995

<comment><USER5> It is inefficent for everybody to learn to about science. It is better to let them specialize in whatever they're good at. This allow advanced division of labor so that we can have a really sophisticated civilization.

It's a tradeoff.

<comment><USER6> _It is inefficient for everybody to learn to about science._

I agree it's inefficient for everybody to learn advanced science; but basic science? Gravity for Newton's sake? Don't people spend around 10 years going through basic education? What are they learning in those 10 years if they can't even understand a tiny bit of how the world that we live in functions?

Also, if you have read the article it's not just a failure to understand gravity, there was a severe lack of ability to apply logic (even by the TA that was teaching logic!). Well that says something about the education system.

I would argue that everyone should learn at least the basics of science, and appreciate the fact that this marvelous civilization that we are living in is shaped by the very science that they don't fully comprehend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Two students asked if I was going to continue asking them about things they had never studied in the class.

I'm in grad school and people still ask this question after tests. Many of my peers expect only to be asked questions that have already been asked during the course of instruction, or at least ones that resemble them very closely. I think this is pretty good evidence that people are only in school for the degree and not for the skills and practice of thinking/wondering/exploring on their own.

This might have something to do with our generally rather antiquated public educational system that basically beats "wondering" out of students heads in favor of industrial education.*

*This is not true of all teachers or all schools systems, but it applies to much of my experience.

<comment><USER8> Sorry that I intercept, but that there are "people [who] still ask this question" is an indicator only for that there are people "only in school for the degree" but not for that people in general are "only in school for the degree". Then if so, what about yourself?

<comment><USER7> Not a bad question. I am absolutely in grad school for the degree. It is not, however, my first reason for being in grad school or even one of my primary reasons.

Much of what I am learning I could learn on my own by studying the books and thinkers my peers and I have studied in the classroom setting this semester; I know this to be true. The draw of graduate work (and any post secondary education as far as I'm concerned) is the opportunity to think alongside professors with a wealth of accumulated knowledge and wisdom in their particular field, and to think and discuss with classmates who share a similar passion to one's own. Learning completely on your own doesn't come close to the experience of learning from and with people who share one's passion for a particular subject.

So it's pretty disappointing when a rather large chunk of those peers don't seem to care one way or the other about real learning and application of knowledge, but only seem to care about the grade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's particularly amazing how high functioning people who lack basic logical reasoning skills can be.

I have to admit: sometimes it takes me weeks (or even months) to realize that someone I know is a complete idiot. The problem is that day-to-day interaction is so scripted that there is no opportunity for them to reveal how stupid they really are. But as soon as you deviate from the script and try to work together on a real problem or argue about something it becomes embarrassingly evident.

I've starting trying to provoke little academic arguments with new people just as a quick intelligence test (this seems marginally more socially acceptable than trying to unearth some other proxies for intelligence).

<comment><USER10> Hah, I think I might have met you before ;)

In all seriousness, can you give me an example of the sorts of arguments you start?

In a more idealistic phase of my life, I used to start political arguments at the drop of a hat. Not to verify someone's political leanings were like mine, but to instead verify that they had thought about (the) issue(s), and developed any opinion at all.

Now I just sigh when people say they don't take an interest in some topic I think is generally applicable to their lives.

<comment><USER11> _in some topic I think is generally applicable to their lives._

No offense, but you have absolutely no business deciding what's applicable to _someone else's_ life. Just because it's interesting to you doesn't mean it has to be for others. And if it isn't, it's still perfectly acceptable.

I sigh when people judge others for not caring about things that they themselves care about.

<comment><USER10> Fair point, and perhaps poorly worded on my behalf.

You may disagree with me, but I think there is some political, social- economical, geo-political or even local-government topics that effect everyone. Or rather, there is at least one topic that effects every single person, whether they think it or not.

That was more what I was getting at.

<comment><USER12> Rational ignorance may still be the best option. (From a game theoretic individualistic point of view, of course.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is everyone under the mistaken impression that a human is primarily a reasoning animal? Much of what appears to be "reason" is pattern recognition with no significant cognition backing it up. Don't think you're immune either. We all do a lot of things that if questioned closely is based on presuppositions that aren't ultimately as justifiable as we think.

<comment><USER14> "Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason." – Oscar Wilde

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this." – Bertrand Russell

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> An internet oldie. Here's another one:

"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."

\-- Robert Heinlein

Much 'education', classroom and otherwise, falls into this category. Not to mention that much of it is done by people who can't sing, anyway, or are teaching atonal "music".

And the consequences are not tragic, either. Does anyone have scientific proof of the contrary ?

(No, I'm not a drop-out - that's why I know ;-)

P.S. nazgulnarsil nailed it (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=580529> ). Neatly put, sir.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am scared for the future of humanity.

<comment><USER17> Actually, we're doing a lot better now than we used to be, as IQ scores seem to be increasing over time.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect>

I bet we'll keep on muddling through.

<comment><USER18> _Actually, we're doing a lot better now than we used to be, as IQ scores seem to be increasing over time._

As much as any such observation may have been measured correctly, it doesn't logically follow that intelligence itself is increasing, because of a variety of factors. The link you posted provides some of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For what it's worth, this story is absolutely ancient and possibly fictional. I think I originally read it in a humor collection on Gopher. We don't know who wrote it (it's not the guy hosting the page), so it should be taken with a grain of salt.

</comment><comment><USER20> Um .. heavy boots will help to be more rooted to the ground (because of the additional momentum necessary to move them) and thus will help achieve a more natural walking experience, right? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER21> You are right. I also think the Apollo astronauts probably did use heavy boots for that reason. But you're missing the point of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Given that the escape velocity on the Moon's surface is about 2.4 kps I can't see any astronaut having the strength (even if totally unencumbered) to jump up at that speed

<comment><USER23> Or a lunar module for that matter

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo16LM.jpg>

<comment><USER24> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Escape_Systems>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How could anyone in a college physics class miss this one? They really should have failed the class if they did, because they can't even grasp basic Newtonian physics.

</comment><comment><USER26> [http://www.bautforum.com/astronomy/2265-pen-moon-question- re...](http://www.bautforum.com/astronomy/2265-pen-moon-question- revisited.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> the thing not being taught in school isn't any basic fact, but critical thinking skills. I firmly believe from all my time as a tutor that there is a window in childhood during which children need certain stimulation to pick up these skills, and much like language if this window is missed it becomes much harder to train them later in life.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is a great story. I first recall when I first knew I was being misled by a teacher. I was in 9th grade earth science, and she had shown a documentary on the early history of the universe which had made reference to string theory. String theory posits perhaps 11 dimensions in some versions from what I gather. The teacher thought this was ridiculous and said something to the class to the effect of, well I can't even imagine having a fourth dimension, can you? Student Parrots: No! Teacher: Well then, of course string theory can't be right!

Now I was 14, and it would still be a few years before I first would read 'A Brief History of Time' and so I knew nothing of string theory, but, I somehow knew, on some basic instinctual level that I was being misled in that moment, that just because the teacher could not "imagine" higher dimensions did not in and of itself mean that there could not possibly be higher dimensions in theory. Looking back, that was the start of a distrust in me with regards to the academic "establishment" which has continued in varying degrees to this very day. It is one of those epistemological moments of clarity: once one realizes it is possible to be misled by a teacher, which one naturally is conditioned to trust, then really who else could possibly mislead one? What sources can after all be trusted? Once one realizes the inherent fallibility of everyone, including one's teachers, then things just are not quite the same ever again, there is a certain loss of innocence there which can never be gotten back.

<comment><USER28> Indeed, I remember Hawking said in the book he had difficulty with visualizing the several dimensions he was working with.</comment></comment>


AudioGL: 3D Modular Software Synthesizer & Sequencer - <AUTHOR> http://audiogl.com

<comment><USER3> I'm waiting for Bitwig to come out. It will support Linux.

<http://bitwig.com>

My understanding is that several former Ableton engineers became frustrated with the direction management wanted to take the software, so they left to hack on what they would have built for themselves. The result is Bitwig.

<comment><USER4> It does look like a very exciting project but I'm slightly worried that Ableton's legal team will not be too happy with it. There seem to be quite a few visual similarities, I'm assuming this sort of thing would fall under Ableton's intellectual property rather than the devs?

<comment><USER3> I also think Ableton's legal team will not be happy with Bitwig, but I think all of the following DAWs are visually similar:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_workstation#Comme...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_workstation#Commercial_systems)

Of these, only Renoise supports the linux platform, and I just learned about them this morning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i was gonna comment on how similar this is to some demoscene tools, specifically .werkkzeug (<http://www.theprodukkt.com>). then he listed the demoscene as one of the influences <3

sick project, this one.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the video makes a poor presentation of the product.

Maybe he should have started with an empty project and progressively added components to show how the software works.

I'm clueless about music, so, do you think that anyone familiar with this kind of audio tool is going to be able to see the benefits of this software amidst the perceived super-complexity?

<comment><USER7> It is very intimidating for a starter. On the other hand, there's a lot of software like this floating about inthe Audio world already - Max/MSP, Supercollider, Pure Data and Reaktor being the best known, so for an experienced synthesist it's good to see that it can handle a whole project through a coherent interface, rather than seeing a small proof of concept and wondering whether it'll scale up. I thought the 3d was rather gimmicky at first, but being able to see the automation projected onto the signal processing network is pretty neat, and it certainly seems fluid and responsive. It's very interesting, and $200 is not an unreasonable price if it fulfills its technical promise.

Two caveats: one, I think it will be important to offer a demo version of some kind (and I'm sure he's thought of this) as getting the most out of a piece of modular software like this really requires you to build a whole workflow around it. There's a ton of free and cheap products to do the simple tasks, so a product like this demands a certain level of commitment - and those who are already committed to a competitor may be reluctant to switch. Users of products like this are often the best sales team for the product and can be fanatically loyal, but are also fairly high-maintenance as a result. Technical support and backwards compatibility are the bane of small synthesis outfits, although that said synth users are a very nice bunch :-) The other caveat is that a modular tool is only as good as the individual modules - so if the oscillators or filters don't excite people, then the parallelism and modularity can be for naught, or at least much less. I don't want to judge the sound from a YouTube video or at this relatively early stage of development, and I do like that it's aimed very firmly at techno artists rather than pretending to be a destined for rock or pop. I just hope the author invests even the basic modules with character, rather than relying on the user to add it through additional complexity. Some synths offer a great variety of configuration and modulation options, but the base modules impose such a distinctive tonal signature ('ear candy') that everything you make with it sounds a bit similar - I used to find this a problem with Roland synths, in particular. Of course, this is very much a matter of taste, and it's probably much better to develop a distinctive sound of one's own than to be chasing the elusive qualities of other sysnths that people say they would like it to sound like. People like me, I have to admit :-)

Overall I'm impressed. I'm not sure if I would use it or not, as I've been trying to do less and less in the computer and more in hardware, and with fewer pieces of gear at that. I've owned some 20 or 30 different synths over the last 15 years and probably used twice as many software products, so I've been trying to slim things down to doing everything in only 2 or 3 devices and using the computer as a tape recorder and occasional supplemental tool. Too many options on the computer means I spend too much time editing rather than creating, but this product does seem to strike a nice balance between the two modes of working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool video. I am clueless when it comes to music and music theory, so the interface seems a bit overwhelming to me. However, I'm sure there are people that could master this and make something worthwhile.

Btw, I've been finding a lot more music from independent artists. For example:

[http://soundcloud.com/crystalfighters/champion-sound- regal-s...](http://soundcloud.com/crystalfighters/champion-sound-regal-safari)

[http://soundcloud.com/strobehypnoticz/deadmau5-bleed- strobeh...](http://soundcloud.com/strobehypnoticz/deadmau5-bleed- strobehypnoticz)

I hope software such as this will help flatten out the music industry some more.

<comment><USER9> Don't worry, you're not the only one. I've played music for years and write music in my spare time and still found this interface to be overwhelming :)

<comment><USER10> I've been making electronic music using all sorts of software for 15 years and this seems really confusing. I think he could improve it considerably by reducing the visual complexity when zoomed out[1]. He could also create tools for making sub-modules at the patch level, but I get the feeling that this environment is going to remain pretty high-level and such things may not be so useful (as they are in Max/MSP, Reaktor, et al).

[1] see: <http://www.raskinformac.com/> \+ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The interface is really slick. Very, very nice. I am disappointed that Linux is not mentioned.

Barring Linux, I would love to see this on the iPad or other touch interface.

<comment><USER12> The software is definitely innovative, but I agree, he should probably be targeting iPad first. There's a lot of "wannabe" musicians like myself that would probably drop a good $49 or $99 on a big app like this. I think a lot of people would love to create music with their hands, and be able to do it anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have to say I really love the 3d pan/zoom interface. That is a great way to move quickly between different contexts.

<comment> the-cakeboss I don't understand the point of the 3d element. It seems like a great way to further complex an already overwhelming interface.

There needs to be a way to encapsulate the different components of a synth, and expand them as needed. Furthermore, there need to be ways to better organize an instrument set.

<comment><USER14> actually the interface is very simple once you grasp the synth model: each instrument > played by 'seqencer' timeline triggers notes > whose output sound textures modified by 'automation' lines

now see a whole bunch of instruments side by side each one with its own timeline for sequencer and bunch of timelines automation

this just explodes the whole stack of standard 2d tracks to be visible all at once instead of being hidden or listed one below another

the 3d gives me a feeling of full immersion and thorough visual control, i actually crave the next step: to manipulate with my own hands these timelines in realspace

however few issues i see with 3d:

\- trouble precisely aligning individual notes in time, easy in 2d grid but in 3d space they feel distant and disconnected, (messy?)) : maybe solved with a quicker more integrated swing to flattened 2d sideview or better yet - <USER2> gridlines

\- handy way to time slice select a sub set of instruments to cut and paste slices (loops) around the song

possibly all implemented already. i'm just bsng this after view of one video

anyways, looks pretty and feels cosmic

<comment> the-cakeboss I'm not trying to say that it isn't very effective, its just that when looking at it you are presented with a lot of information simultaneously, I'm sure that after learning it, using it won't be as difficult.

But with that said, being able to reduce the amount of data confronting you would most likely be an invaluable asset. I'm no musician, nor do I have much experience with DAWs, but the ideal environment, and this is true for many things, would be one that is both expressive and easy to use. I just can't see how exploding all the components in such a manner is reaching those said goals. Why can't you just explode them when need be?

Also, why is the quality of immersion important to you? Immersion as it is well known does not make for effective or powerful interfaces. Its simply a further unnecessary abstraction between a user and the data. Correct me if I am wrong, but it doesn't seem that things like BumpTop have really caught on.

<comment><USER14> the visual 3d zooming and panning seems to work well enough to isolate focus on relevant parts while simultaneously keeping the less relevant stuff still visible in the background. the 2d flat track hiding environments are already available, the 3d is this one's edge.

by immersion i meant better coupling between my internal representation of the project/song tracks and how the program's ui represents it

however i probably got too exhuberant at first - i got carried away after the pretty graphics triggered this imaginary trip where i saw the whole thing like a giant construction site / sort of a space dock / giant cavern where my point of view is floating in the midst of it and all around me are these timeline beams which i rearrange amd modify at will. but reality is a bit limiting through the single mouse pointer.

another idea that sunk in since last post is that this program may be more practical as an addon ui envelope of sorts to already existing music production tools. currently only the ui seems to be the core benefit while a high quality music production backbone is a separate huge project in itself.

the ui may attract newbs to toy around, however advanced users will not switch from their already preferred environments unless this tool also has an edge in the music department

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The author says it will be available for PC. PC running which operating system?

<comment><USER16> Directly from the article:

AudioGL is a big project for one developer. These dates are estimates.

AudioGL BETA (Windows32/64): July 2012 AudioGL v1.0 (Windows32/64): Fourth Quarter 2012 AudioGL BETA (Mac): Fourth Quarter 2012 AudioGL v1.0 (Mac): First Quarter 2013

<comment><USER15> Thanks but my point was that in his video he said it would be available for PC and Mac. PC != Windows so it bugs me when people say something is coming out for PC but really mean PCs running Windows. This PC runs Ubuntu Linux as do millions of other PCs around the world.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I release my Computational Human library? - <AUTHOR> Hey folks! I've been working on a lot of computational biology lately, and through the process have developed a very rudimentary library to string together different simulations and interactions between organs, cells, and systems. Though this is of course incredibly basic, I do think a toolset like this would be useful to drug companies seeking to do simulations, labs, and independent makers! What do you folks think? Should I polish it up and release it? <comment><USER2> Is it something the drug companies wouldn't already have internally?

<comment><AUTHOR> You know, I'm sure they do have it, but I imagine keeping a dedicated team on it would be costly, maybe it can be abstracted out as a service?

Also, profit aside, perhaps open sourcing it would bring the most value to the most people?

<comment><USER2> If I was you, I wouldn't want to help the drug companies without getting paid. But I would be interested to see how what you've written could benefit not for profit researchers?

I don't know much about the field, but if I was you I'd probably email Professor Eric Grimson at MIT and see if he has any suggestions how your library could be beneficially shared. He seems pretty nice and into this kind of stuff.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Astrology? Yay, Nay or Meh? - <AUTHOR> For a 'pseudo science', astrology and horoscope chart making is heavily dependent on the gifts of CS.
What would a marriage of AI and Astrology come up with..?
Example:
1. astronomy says Jupiter, Saturn and mercury will be in the constellation of Sagittarius on Christmas Day.
2. Vedic astrology marks dec 25th as a day when a cluster forms in the house of Sagittarius with 6 celestial bodies(three planets, sun, moon and Ketu, the imaginary south node of moon).
I don't know astrology and so I don't know what it means. And let's assume that it is significant for some world event.
A rational non believer would say that any events on that day is common place and a coincidence.
But can AI map 'coincidences' to come up with a pattern? If it does, would it be able to transform a pseudo science into a valid science.
In other words, what's the difference between pattern recognition and prediction by AI vs pattern recognition and prediction by old world knowledge? <comment><USER2> Since you asked :) - Nay!! (what's meh?)

and you said it - it's a pseudo science... so why, even?

If you hadn't said 'pseudo science', I'd have assumed you're a believer and that the question was in earnest.

OTOH - you do end with 'old world knowledge' so I'm not sure anymore.

but you're not asking that...I suppose what you're asking is akin to training an AI on two unrelated datasets and asking it to predict one based on other... sure - it's going to spit out some 'pattern recognition' where none exists. Basically, AI (or anything else) can't manufacture causality.

<comment><AUTHOR> 'Meh' = 'I don't know.'

1\. Psychology is also considered pseudo science. The age old question about economics is whether it is science or art...some ..usually the cynical..settle on pseudo science.

Pseudo science is a catch all term.

I am reluctant to dismiss something that captures the attention of so many people..now and in the past. Many mathematicians were Astronomers as well as astrologists. When did astrology become the illegitimate bastard child of astronomy? Why?

What about personality tests? What about algorithms? Google search algorithm is not a secret. It must be easy to reverse engineer it, but only a small percentage of the population who use google know how it works. For the rest of the layfolk, it is magic and for others, it's something advanced enough that it's beyond their comprehension. But nobody really believes or calls google search results = 'divination'. Because we know and accept that it's in the realm of mathematical possibility.

Why not astrology too?

2\. Can you explain a little more about AI part of your response. That's what I want to understand. I can't even articulate well what question I am thinking of..but I think if you expand upon that I might find the right words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sure, you can parse over huge amounts of data and find all sorts of bogus "patterns" that don't actually mean anything[1][2]. But you can't make a valid science with real predictive power out of something where there is no actual causal connection between event A and event B.

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

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

<comment><AUTHOR> So you are saying astrology is 'phony'?

Learning Vedic astrology is my 2020 goal. I find it compelling enough to try to understand what is about...it's something I have been looking into for 5-7 years and I am no longer skeptical about it.

Can you change my mind? (Despite the awkward wording, it's a sincere query)

<comment><USER4> Yes, astrology is phony. It's nothing but confirmation bias, placebo effect, paredolia and fraud.

There is no known physical mechanism by which astrology could possibly work. Its claims have been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked through experimentation, and the psychological biases which cause it to appear true are well known and documented[0,1].

Note that this applies to all forms of astrology. Doesn't matter if it's Indian, Greek, Babylonian or generated by algorithms - the thesis that astrological phenomena and star patterns have an influence on human personality, behavior or events is demonstrably and universally false.

Please spend 2020 learning something of value, rather than continuing to be intrigued by meaningless nonsense.

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

[1][https://www.relativelyinteresting.com/astrology-and- horoscop...](https://www.relativelyinteresting.com/astrology-and-horoscopes- debunked/)

<comment><USER5> Saying astrology is placebo effect is giving it a lot of credit. Placebo effect is fairly strong and positive. It's hard to develop drugs where its effects aren't masked by placebo.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. It's not a suitable parallel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note that the traditional date/sign assignments don't even resemble the current calendar relationships. Most people were born with the sun _a full sign off_ from what pop culture horoscopes say. Plus, for a bunch of those who think they are Scorpio, the sun was actually in _Ophiuchus_ on their birthday.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know about that. I am planning on studying Vedic astrology or Indian Jyotish. It uses the sidereal zodiac which is based on the fixedness of the stars and is moon sign based rather than sun signs. They also have north and south nodes of the moon which are technically shadow planets as they don't really exist but are only part of the moon.(in myth, they cause the eclipses) It's an entirely different system. I am looking forward to learning and studying more. I want to do it right and expect it will take me 3-5 years as does any in-depth study of any subject. I haven't decided how to go about it.</comment></comment>


Applying McLuhan's Tetrad to the Smartphone (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.glocality.eu/articles/10.5334/glo.9/ <comment><USER2> McLuhan's ideas get written about so much, but nobody does it nearly as well as McLuhan himself. His 1969 interview with Playboy I think is the best primer:

[https://www.nextnature.net/2009/12/the-playboy-interview- mar...](https://www.nextnature.net/2009/12/the-playboy-interview-marshall- mcluhan/)

</comment><comment><USER3> To me, the smartphone conditions us to experience relationship with other people through single-finger swipes.

There are many other positive effects that smartphones bring but I don't think we've fully internalized the negative side effect of the constant dopamine Drip of social media.

<comment><USER3> This cranky comment written on an iPhone 6S in a Walmart parking lot.

<comment><USER4> Nonetheless, this dopamine meme is getting quite tiresome.

      Oh no! U hacked my dopamine!

Let's come to terms with the fact that self control and executive function is more than capable of overriding the urge to play video games.

A bunch of VC drones throughout silicon valley are backslapping over how brilliant their neuroscience exploit payload was, because it makes their status seem so much cooler, and it's abstract enough that it defers real responsibility.

It's the tech version of the agribusiness meme of victimization by genetic propensity for obesity.

But maybe transfats and refined sugar have more to do with obesity than genes.

And so, if we really thought carefully about social media and smart phones, rather than capitualting to the macguffin of dopamine, which has very little actionable meaning (in the same way the story of genetic propensity leaves the individual with little room act against a fatalistic assessment) maybe it'd be a better choice to look at real motivations, than to defer to unassailable buzzwords.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That was a worthy exercise which explained well the concepts used.

Unfortunately, either the tools or the author were not up to the task of providing interesting insights.

(IMHO, YMMV, etc. Also, apparently undergrad work, from the pub header.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. It's a good start, but very basic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reads like a last minute research assignment with a minimum length requirement. The 'tetrad' diagram is probably one of the more distracting and less useful paths to understanding McLuhan. I encourage anyone interested in the topic, or McLuhan, to look elsewhere.</comment>


Adobe to Discontinue Shockwave on April 9th - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/adobe-sends-emails-about-retirement-of-shockwave-on-april-9th/ <comment><USER2> They really shouldn't make Flash completely unavailable to download. They're cutting off a lot of legacy content with cultural significance.

Yes, using unmaintained software is bad for security. However, the alternative of forcing people to use third party sources—which will all be somewhat shady, since Flash is technically under copyright—is even _worse_ for security! Now, you might be downloading a fake, malicious copy of Adobe Flash! God knows there are enough of those already in circulation...

Put it up on a public company archive server somewhere. I really like what Panic does, all software vendors should have something similar: [https://download.panic.com](https://download.panic.com)

<comment><USER3> It really doesn't matter insofar that the internet is going to keep copies of shockwave installers for decades long after adobe would ever realistically keep offering downloads.

I do think it would be cool for them to keep offering downloads of the installer. Adobe should be proud of shockwave and show that pride by keeping the installer out there.

<comment><USER2> > the internet is going to keep copies of shockwave installers for decades > long after adobe would ever realistically keep offering downloads.

But how can you be sure these are legitimate copies of Shockwave and/or Flash?

<comment><USER4> Even if archive.org wasn't willing to host the installers because of copyright, they could list known good hashes couldn't they?

<comment><USER2> Sure, and that would be a legitimately great service.

But, many people do you think are going to go and check the hash beforehand? How many people even know _how_ to check the hash? Admittedly, the type of user who will go through so much effort to run old Flash content probably skews more technical, but the point remains.

The alternative is that Adobe could just leave the downloads links up under a giant "Not Supported Don't Use" banner. I know which option I'd find more responsible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Holy crap, they were still updating Director as late as ~2016? I don't think I've heard anyone talk about using it since like 2000. Feels super weird to see "Adobe Director".

I always just figured they dropped it like they did Freehand after they bought Macromedia for Flash.

<comment><USER6> Still hurts that they killed Fireworks. Best photo editor ever for quick web ready edits.

<comment><USER7> The Sketch before Sketch

<comment><USER6> Yep. Except sketch still isn't up to delivering the same level of usability that fireworks had.

Not to mention it was bundled in Creative Suite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _> Released in 1995 by Macromind, Shockwave brought interactive content and games to the web in a way that was never seen before. In 2005, Adobe purchased Macromind and all of their interactive web products such as Flash and Shockwave continued under the Adobe name._

Not Macromedia – "MacroMind"?!

I had never even heard the name MacroMind until I looked it up just now, to learn it existed until its 1992 merger with Authorware, when it became the vastly better-known Macromedia. How on earth did the writer of this article accidentally use the name of Macromedia's obscure predecessor?

<comment><USER9> Probably because Director was originally created under a different name, VideoWorks, which WAS released by MacroMind before they eventually became Macromedia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can't believe they're still updating it.

I do still miss the ease of use fo flash though.

Wish someone would make something this simple outputting web standards.

Flash let a whole bunch of creative people make interactive experiments and websites that they just don't have the technical skills to do now you need to use a more formal setup.

Flash sucked for many reasons, but for this it was excellent and hasn't been replaced.

<comment><USER2> Adobe Animate is basically a rebranded version of Flash, and it can export html5. I don't know how complete/compatible the export option is, but I know we've used it at my company for a small project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Note that this announcement is about Shockwave, not Flash. Here is an article about the difference between the two: [https://medium.com/@nosamu/the- difference-between-flash-and-...](https://medium.com/@nosamu/the-difference- between-flash-and-shockwave-b27609808a02) While Shockwave Player will be discontinued on April 9, Flash Player will be discontinued at the end of 2020: [https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash- update/](https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I think I remember playing games and watching videos ~2001 on shockwave.com. Shockwave powered a lot of web games for a long time

<comment><USER13> I have very fond, if somewhat hazy, memories of shockwave.com too. For some reason, I have much warmer feelings for the Shockwave brand than Flash, which I mostly think of as a resource hogging nuisance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I liked Shockwave for the year or two it had the Havok physics engine. But Macromedia didn't keep up the payments and had to take it out.

</comment><comment><USER15> A decade ago people were able to put together very impressive things in Flash. I was never wanting to take that route however that content still deserves to be viewable by future generations. Sure the Flash viewer might open your computer to hackers but if I wanted to see what my music mad workmate was trying to impress me with a decade ago then it would be nice to be able to risk my computer viewing it.

With browsers now 'evergreen' and auto-updating I am not sure about this complete disconnect with allegedly bad web pages of the past. Having to dig out a ten year old PC running 'Vista' to view a Flash based website of yesteryear is far from accessible. I wonder how people in the archive business view this. HTML is essentially backwards compatible although I think the blink tag has finally gone from Firefox. Flash deserves a legacy final edition that grownups can use to show stuff to their grandchildren in decades to come.

<comment><USER2> Adobe has a standalone program called Flash Projector that can load swf files. That's what I'd generally recommend for viewing Flash content, though you do need to isolate and save any swf files beforehand.

<comment><USER15> They even have a linux 64 bit version! That is great news.

That downloads page takes me back a bit. I remember that time when I would boot into Windows and there would always be a pop up saying there was an update to Flash for me. It was one of the more reliable surprises in the universe, even if ignored by everyone you could at least rely on the Flash installer to be wanting your attention with that familiar download page there for you, just waiting to keep you safe on your adventures online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Note that Shockwave installers will also stop working after that point, as even the "full" installer downloads components from the web during the install.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if Unity and Electron will be the Shockwave of tomorrow.</comment>


The Chef and the Knife - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/simple-quotes/forage-co-be-aware-of-the-little-detail-17d791e26772

<comment><USER2> Is costumer a euphemism for something I'm unfamiliar with, or has this author just misspelled customer?

<comment><AUTHOR> I misspelled it. (not a native english speaker) thanks for noticing!

<comment><USER2> OK! Sorry for pointing it out. I was afraid it was some "prosumer" new thing I hadn't heard of.

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries, always appreciate feedback! Thanks a lot :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


My iPhone SE - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/303671-this-is-my-iphone-se <comment><USER2> My XS Max has been cracked since day 35 and the apple employee failed to apply the apple care+ I requested to my phone (I know, my fault for not checking). That being said, the glass quality has improved leaps and bounds. They phone has been cracked for over a year now and the cracks have showed zero sign of expanding beyond the original point, and the glass is all intact (not slowly chipping away as previous phones have). The cracks are narrow enough that they are almost unnoticable when watching netflix on the phone, and I am a major home theater geek. I have no desire to spend $600 just so that I can crack the phone again. I really hope a future model returns to a metal back however, as a glass back seems solely designed to break easily and need repair.</comment>


Linux devs ponder pulling contributions over new Code of Conduct - <AUTHOR> https://www.itnews.com.au/news/linux-devs-threaten-to-pull-contributions-513008 <comment><USER2> Stallman claims that once code is licensed under the GPL, it can't be revoked:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18081199](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18081199)

Which kind of makes sense, since anyone who currently has a valid license to use the code (anyone running Linux) has all the source and can legally redistribute or modify it, based on the terms of their current license.

<comment> the-red-herring Where would it be stored these days to be publicly accessible? Microsoft owns GitHub and I bet it made Torvalds unhappy.

<comment><USER3> I don't follow - what does Github and its ownership have to do with anything? I could be wrong, but I was under the impression Linus mirrors on Github just for convience's sake.

I do know that Linus's Github repo is not the official public repository for the kernel -- that's kernel.org's job. And FWIW, relations between the Linux and MS kernel devs have (to my understanding) never been better, especially since the Spectre/Meltdown reveals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"The question not to get hung up on is what any individual 's choice in this matter says about their attitude towards, say, historically underrepresented minorities. It is perfectly cononsistent to be pro-tolerance and pro-inclusion while believing this subculture ought to be all about producing good code without regard to who is offended by the process."_

I don't follow the logic. A hostile environment would negatively impact the long-term sustainability and quality of the project... alienating people who would be want to and are able to contribute... it's an odd trade just to appease those who would threaten the project because they demand the ability to offend or ostracize people.

A quick gaze beyond the rhetoric looks like a silly sense of entitlement.

<comment><USER5> If you read into it, the new Code of Conduct actually may actually do more to ostracize people.

Notable contributors have already been harassed on Twitter and other platforms because apparently their actions outside of the Linux Kernel and LKML deem them breaking it, and people love to attack people for breaking rules.

There was also no-one really asking for a new Code of Conduct, and things weren't really broken. People are mostly just worried that its going to cause more issues and tension than when we had the lack of a proper CoC, or cause them to get targeted.

The Code of Conduct also has a few questionable statements, such as not judging people based on their technical abilities, which is a super important thing when you're actually developing one of the world's largest operating systems and people like to contribute garbage.

It was also, as the Author themselves has stated it was only made as a political statement, and the entire idea of it is to push an agenda. (^ See their twitter for where they said this)

Sometimes hostility and arguments really drive some people to do better at times also; and it makes people think about their code quality and double check it before they actually submit their patches -- you don't want to be slated by Linus if you submit rubbish do you?

<comment><USER6> _The Code of Conduct also has a few questionable statements, such as not judging people based on their technical abilities,_

Have you actually read the CoC? Because I just did, and I couldn't find that line.

<comment><USER5> "In the interest of fostering an open and welcoming environment, we as contributors and maintainers pledge to making participation in our project and our community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of [...] level of experience"

<comment><USER6> Don't harras the noobs is hardly the same as don't judge a contributor on the technical meritas of their work.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Woman at the Heart of Everything Google Builds - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/melody_meckfessel_google/all/

<comment><USER2> I'm sure Ms. Meckfessel is a lovely person, but this is clearly a PR driven piece pumped out of Google for recruitment purposes.

Throughout this entire NSA scandal people lament there's nothing we can do, but these tech companies are vulnerable to talent shortages. A simple action for a conscientious hacker is to simply not work for PRISM collaborators. Apply your talents to companies willing to make privacy assurances.

<comment><USER3> > PRISM collaborators

You mean companies that comply with US law? So your advice is to work outside of the US?

<comment><USER4> >You mean companies that comply with US law? So your advice is to work outside of the US?

1\. Or work in areas which do not handle data that the US requires by law. You can find software jobs in the US that do not require collaboration with governmental domestic spying. For instance many people choose not to work for companies that build weapons of war for a variety of reasons. These people can still work inside the US.

2\. Additionally non-US residents work for Google. Being outside the US doesn't really have much relevance to the discuss.

3\. I also reject the notion that Google had no choice. Google may have been able to comply with the letter of the law without giving up user data by using e2e cryptography. One can support or question their actions, but they are not powerless victims in this drama but active agents that can be held responsible for what they do.

<comment><USER5> > Google may have been able to comply with the letter of the law without > giving up user data by using e2e cryptography.

Only at the cost of not providing the service that users want, which includes such things as fast, full-text email search, recovering accounts after passwords (and other security tokens, if any) have been lost. Once Google can extract the unencrypted email for any purpose, the practical consequences of their legal obligations make all cryptography Google provides useless against this sort of attack.

Yes, Google has a choice. But let's be clear on what that choice is: They can choose whether or not to offer a mass-market email service. Once they've decided to offer that service, the practical consequences are inevitable, given the current, relevant legal framework.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you or I, or even Google knows the total set of their options, but we can sit here and come up with some alternatives.

>Only at the cost of not providing the service that users want, which includes such things as fast, full-text email search,

e2e encryption is completely compatible with fast, full-text email search. There are several companies that currently offer such services, that is webbased, fast searchable email, that is e2e encrypted such that no plaintext arrives on the server side (unfortunately I am under an NDA or I would tell you more but you can read the papers if you like). Stuff like this: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/12/19/an- mit-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/12/19/an-mit-magic- trick-computing-on-encrypted-databases-without-ever-decrypting-them/) It's not just databases it's search engines as well.

I think gmail probably loses some enterprise clients because they don't do this, but I expect "enterprise level" features like this from gmail in ~2-3 years by my guess. Probably sooner due to the nosedive in trust they just took.

Google has a monopoly on new email account creation so they don't need to innovate to get new customers (hell android locks everyone in). It isn't outlandish to suggest that they could have chosen to innovate and done what has been in the research literature for some time now. Secure e2e encrypted cloud email.

>recovering accounts after passwords (and other security tokens, if any) have been lost.

Have you tried to get gmail accounts back because I know people that have lost all their email. Are they better at this now (maybe they are, I hope so)? Even with this as a requirement, it is achievable. The user's client just sends a copy of the key to a foreign key escrow service that will unlock their account if anything happens once they prove they are who they say they are with various forms of ID and proofs of knowledge. Paranoid users can elect not to do this. Or ask people in your circles that you have marked as trusted to attest to your identity. You could do some clever threshold cryptography with your closest family and friends.

They big trick is making money off ads while not learning about the contents of the email. One way could be a bounded leakage strategy whereby the encryption scheme allows some ad matches without giving up more than one or two popular words per email.

All of this is a sideshow though. The NSA wasn't going to throw the Google execs in jail for not towing the line. Google is an extremely powerful company with a strong lobby in Washington. Not to mention that just pressing the charges would be a major embarrassment for the NSA. Twitter fought and won. Likely they just offered Google some nice contracts with the US government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Wired article talks about internal tools used to compile code. In line with that, there is an interesting video "Building Software at Google Scale" [1], which seems to give an overview of the systems used.

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qv3fcXW1mg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qv3fcXW1mg)

</comment><comment><USER7> The chick in charge of the Internal Tools team? That shit is widely regarded within Google as a dead-end ghetto, devoid of opportunities for promotion and looked down on by the other focus areas.

\- 5+ year Ex-Googler

EDIT: I'm done with this fucking site. You won't have weareconvo to kick around anymore.

<comment><USER8> This is a spiteful and misogynistic comment - you do yourself and this community, a large disservice.

<comment><USER9> Just curious, how offensive is "chick"? I catch myself accidentally using it every once in a while (a vestige of shitty, all-boys Catholic high schooling). Should I be mildly embarrassed or mortified?

<comment><USER10> It depends. If you're using it in a negative statement, it tends to connote a woman who isn't very smart. If you're making a positive statement, I think it would be roughly equivalent in formality to calling someone a "babe," without the connotation of being pretty. So still don't use it to talk about someone in a professional context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> really, a story about a prominent female engineer, and the first paragraph is about how she dresses? I'm hardly a feminist, but this is kind of rediculous.

<comment><USER12> In context, it's actually pretty relevant. The anecdote, like the piece itself, is about how she deals with being a woman in a very male dominated world. Dress is one of the most direct and tangible differences between men and women.

<comment><USER11> I'd disagree. But even if it is the "most direct", whatever that means, you don't think that there are more serious gender-assumption transgressions in the tech world? It's a little annoying to me that the first anecdote is the most superficial one.

I give the writer a pass, if Melody herself insists that that's the most important issue, or if that was, chronologically the first thing that Melody brought up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >The other key thing, according to Meckfessel, is that the system compiles code with unusual speed. In typical Google fashion, it spreads compilation tasks across vast array of servers, rather than generating the executable software on the developer's local workstation.

I hope she has more than this to focus on as Go usage is picking up within Google. And with Go, just the local workstation can do it. :)

<comment><USER14> That's only because the amount of Go code is small. Google builds all transitive dependencies from source in HEAD, so if there were 10 million lines of Go sitting in the repository, your local workstation won't cut it.

It's not even the build times which are the most pressing issue these days, but the time for tests to run.

<comment><USER15> One of the major design goals for Go was that incremental compiles should not require a rebuild of all dependencies. I believe they bake interface information into the library files for this reason. If you don't change a file, you shouldn't need to rebuild it.

If you sync to a later CL, you might need to rebuild what's changed, but even then all this should be cacheable across the company. Go was designed as a language to avoid a lot of the mess that the build tools have to deal with for C++.

<comment><USER14> In theory the same applies to Java, if I have a java_library, and none of the inputs have changed, I shouldn't have to rebuild anything. But the theory often doesn't match up to the reality with respect to objfs caching of dependencies in my experience.

Also, any non-trivial app at Google is going to touch non-Go dependencies.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Patent office whistleblower: 'Managers have no idea when employees are working' - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/09/12/patent-office-whistleblower-managers-have-no-idea-when-their-employees-are-working/?hpid=z4 <comment><USER2> Oh dear god, the complaints are full of people saying, "well, I don't know when my employees are working". But then they readily admit that they are meeting their "production quotas". So what's the problem?

The entire point of the work-from-home program was to give employees leeway in when and where they work, as long as they do the work in a satisfactory manner and meet their deadlines (and it sounds like they are).

Now, I think the whole federal government should be massively scaled down, but in this case, I don't see what the problem is. If the managers aren't happy with the employees output, then _give them more work_ and _shorten their deadlines_. It sounds like employees are meeting whatever work quotas they are given.

<comment><USER3> I think implied here is that the quotas are insufficient for determining whether an examiner is doing work. I am sure that examiners and their supervisors would be at least somewhat aware if this were the case.

Based on the general quality of USPTO reviews for software patents, I would say it is pretty plausible that some of these people are getting credit for 'doing work' without actually doing their jobs. So few patents get extra scrutiny in court that I imagine many examiners could get away with that for ages - there'd be no external feedback to indicate that they are cheating.

<comment><USER2> Fair enough. If the quotas are not adequate for determining the standard of work, then they made a mistake in implementing this work-from-home program.

But that's not at all what the focus of the whistleblowers are. They're all upset because they don't know _exactly when_ they're employees are working. To be honest, I only read the first two, but they both mentioned almost nothing about inadequate evaluation methods and focused exclusively on the fact that they didn't know when their employees were working.

Well, that's not how work-from-home works for most organizations (and that's never how I've seen it work with successful organizations, having been working from home for over a decade now).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The most frequent obstacle to telework I've seen in Government is basically "If I can't work from home, you can't either!" from managers.

I can't help but think that this case is more of the same.

If the work isn't getting done or it is of poor quality - make that the point.

Unfortunately, enforcing accountability for that sort of failure is non- existent in Government whether the workers are in their cubicles or in their pajamas.

If the only verification of work you're doing is something that could handled with grep, you don't really get to complain.

<comment><USER5> The most direct way managers see if employees are working is if they are sitting in a cubicle farm for X/hours day.

This is not unlike in the programming world when you measure if someone is working if you see them typing on the keyboard. If they stop typing they are not working.

This most of all betrays that dysfunction.

What if these people were in the office and just pretended to work but instead played solitaire. Management wouldn't know any better perhaps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So what? Isn't it more important that their employees are doing a piss-poor job?

Managers should be concerned with what salaried employees produce, not how much time it takes them to produce it.

<comment><USER7> i probably think managers are concerned about the fact that, they don't have a say on work allocation and hence what can be considered total produce.If more people get away doing nothing, it can become an epidemic,hard to control .They are more worried that they are unable to manage these very basic values like honesty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Who cares when they work and how much they work if they can produce the work at the quality expected. This was the premise of the 4 hour workweek, work smarter not harder. I do see the problem if your job requires interacting with colleagues and you are unavailable most of the time, that should be figured out between employee and manager.

<comment><USER9> Nobody is complaining these people worked 4 hours a day, clocked out and left.

The problem is they worked 4 hours a day, lied about getting stuff done, then claimed they worked 10 hours every day to get overtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It wouldn't surprise me if this was more widespread given my experience working with the US government, and everyone else I know that has worked with them has similar stories. When I did a contract for the FAA My coworker said to me sarcastically: "They take two hour lunches then take off Friday and still somehow manage to get 40 hours in. I only wish I knew _how_ they did it so I could do the same"

Edit: Thanks for the downvotes. I'm sure your experience working with government is different.. Oh wait, you've never worked for them because if you had you'd know I'm right. I've lived in DC almost my whole life and I've got connections in almost every institution. If you think they're sharp as shit and work really hard you're in for a gigantic surprise.

<comment><USER11> Many people here seem to be taking these type of expectations that people work for their contracted amount of time almost personally. Not appreciating that if the person is 'sharp as shit' then their hourly rate if they are a contractor, or their salary reflects that and they are still expected to be doing work during all hours, because these are jobs where the work is never done, its a never ending heap which only grows.

It is a shame some people in jobs where they are compensated for their talent expect that they don't need to do achieve at the level of their talent for the amount of time they are being paid for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So I suppose if you say "yes" to any patent application then you get to keep your job, and any patent application will probably be approved.

</comment><comment><USER7> was Einstein a patent clerk ,when he modeled theory of relativity?Does it mean , they have more time to be creative or does it mean something else?</comment>


Collaborative Software That's Wary of the Cloud - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/collaborative-software-wary-cloud/ <comment><USER2> Here's the link to the Ink & Switch paper: [https://www.inkandswitch.com/local- first.html](https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first.html)

They also have a bunch of other articles that are great reads. The one on end- user programming is especially good, imo: [https://www.inkandswitch.com/end- user-programming.html](https://www.inkandswitch.com/end-user-programming.html)

<comment><USER3> Just to clear something up: CRDTs, op transforms etc. only work well when your collaboration is near real-time. The oft-cited "work off-grid for two weeks and magically sync your work with everyone else" doesn't really work out in real life. You will need merge and diff tools. The equivalent of CRDT's behavior would be to merge git conflicts by time — whoever commits first gets merged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> RE: storing user data in a central server or on device, this feeling is what it must be like to feel old.

I remember developing applications for the pocket PC in the .NET Compact Framework 3.5 era. The advice from the Larry Roofs and Dan Ferguses of the world was simple: you can't assume you have network connections all the time, so get your data locally on the device, and sync it when the network returns.

All these years later, while the devices are much more powerful, the network is still not reliable enough to treat it as interchangeable with local storage. Why stream my music over Google Play Music when I know that the hand- off from one cell tower to another will consistently cause a few seconds delay in re-establishing a connection and thus my VPN will have to reconnect, and other knock-on effects?

Yes, use the cloud where appropriate, but if your app is useless without a data connection, it (IMHO) likely means that it could be replaced with a mobile website which at least operates under different user expectations.

I'm excited about CRDTs, once someone makes a robust-enough library for 'good enough' CRUD style abstractions for them (automerge may be this, but I'm a no- JS snob), that library will likely take off in usage, IMO.

<comment><USER5> It depends on what transformations are allowed. So you cant have a general solution and apply it to many use cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ink & Switch are behind Automerge: "A JSON-like data structure (a CRDT) that can be modified concurrently by different users, and merged again automatically."

[https://github.com/automerge/automerge/](https://github.com/automerge/automerge/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Really interested in this idea for a significant personal reason - I've been working on a Medical Records system for a friend in the developing world, to replace an existing system that is 'carry around binders of data wherever we go and dig through them to find patient records.' The problem with this, of course, is that if you don't have the right binder with you (and they have multiple health professionals and cultural reasons related to how they see patients meaning that they often might not have the right binder), you have no access to that patient's records.

The solution I've been working on, because of their context, is a C# Windows Forms app (the plan right now is to deploy on MS Surface Go tablets [why WinForms? Because it can be run by any old Windows machine and should be able to for a long time, and if push came to shove it should run under WINE or something similar with minimal problems, hopefully lengthening the life of the software) that stores data in JSON files, with a data-reconciliation mechanism that works by the app zipping up the data and then they can transfer that file to another peer machine and integrate the data together ( Naive reconciliation model of newest data wins ), with all peers able to have the latest data at any time. There is no server component because of the context where this project works means that they cannot rely on internet access being available for up to days at a time, but they can share files via USB drives/local wifi/etc. Plus, for lots of reasons I don't want them to have to rely on me for a working system. If they have the app, they can share data.

I have looked at CRDTs, but doubtful I want to adopt them for several reasons - 1) No good open-source implementation in C# that I know of, 2) The current app is hopefully fairly simple, code-wise, and just does 'newest record wins' data reconciliation, which is easy to explain and easy for a user with minimal technical knowledge to internalize, 3) Medical data really should be repeatable and deterministic, and I have not seen good answers on how to record and display the decisions that the CRDT made.

P.S. if this project sounds interesting to anyone with C# experience who would be interested doing code review of this app, please comment and I can add you to the GitHub repo (it's private right now, as it's not quite finished and I want to have some documentation around it so that others could use it, before turning it to public). I'm not a C# dev (VB6/Mobile/web), and the app would benefit from someone with C# experience pointing out all my dumb mistakes.

<comment><USER8> Sounds like an interesting system! I'm working on a digital archiving system that is conceptually similar except that I also have to manage binary files (and also doesn't have to store critical patient data). The system stores metadata as JSON files in Git repositories, with binaries managed by git- annex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Didn't Google Wave first use CRDT's? Well before 2011?

<comment><USER10> I thought Google Wave was based on operational transformation? [stackoverflow about the difference]([https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26694359/differences- bet...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26694359/differences-between-ot- and-crdt))</comment></comment>


Tips for maintainable metaprogramming - <AUTHOR> http://philosophymademanifest.blogspot.com/2009/05/metaprogramming-still-need-programming.html

<comment><USER2> My tips:

All tips are subject to costs/benefits analysis, to be broken if necessary. But don't underestimate the costs; it is very easy to do so when metaprogramming. "Can anyone ever understand it again?" is a _big deal_. "How does the debugger handle it?" and "Can I even get print statements/logging into the critical places?" are also very big deals. "How long does it take a newbie to come use the framework?" and "How long does it take for a newbie to _understand the framework to the point they could modify it_?" are two separate questions, and you should spend at least a bit of time thinking about the latter one, even if it is not a primary design driver.

Metaprogramming should be additive; once some property is added to some entity, it should generally not be modified or taken away. Some modification forms may be acceptable, like the Decorator pattern, but those should be carefully thought through. Think through naming _very_ carefully before deploying, you will rapidly be stuck with the bad names.

There ought to be a simple path from unadorned program, through the metaprogram, out to the final result. Metaprogramming should not be scattered willy-nilly throughout the code, where if you call _this_ function with _these_ params, suddenly all arrays grow an extra method, but otherwise they don't. Another way of looking at this is that there should be a conceptual "compilation" phase before any "real" code runs, where all metaprogramming has taken effect. (It may not be literal; some things may only take effect on module load, for instance, but if a module load is an atomic event and there's no way to access it "before" the metaprogramming has done its thing, then it's ok even if the module is loaded late at runtime.)

Metaprogramming construct use should be minimal. I work in Perl a lot, which permits a surprising degree of hacking on the interpreter, such as with source filters and the terrifying ability to take over the entire parse process briefly. If you have to use this, OK, but at least try to avoid it first. Try _hard_. Every construct you add by definition means it is that much harder for the next person to understand how your metaprogram works, and by definition, brings the semantics of your program that much further away from the base semantics of the underlying language out into your own world. This further means that A: the learning curve for your new language just went up and B: you are now out on your own in language design, which is a notoriously tricky area that really benefits from "many eyes". Don't underestimate the importance of that last point! (In perl, so far, I usually manage to write things without any source filter, and with only rare throwing subrefs into a symbol table entry.)

In order to make some things easier, you must make some other thing harder (if only relatively). Keep in mind the difference between "harder" and "impossible"! If you are writing a glorious metaprogramming framework to make it easy to handle querystring parameters, don't forget that people might still legitimately need to access some parameter from multiple handler functions, or legitimately need access to the original querystring. If you are writing a glorious metaprogramming ORM, don't forget that I might need the full power of SQL; does using your ORM mean giving up aggregation or (distressingly common) joins? It doesn't have to be the common case, or the optimized case, but if you make aggregate queries actually _impossible_ then I've got a problem. (How could that happen? If you do something to the name of a column, and don't give me access to the column mapping, then within the program I may not be able to even write my own query. I can lose joins if your framework has excessively strict ideas about controlling your tables and you don't let me put foreign key refs in... or your framework breaks when they are there because it does bad things!) A lot of frameworks I see make too much impossible, and a lot of times it's just gratuitous, easily-fixed.

</comment><comment><USER3> For the author: this is possibly Opera-specific but I get this error when opening the page: <philosophymademanifest.blogspot.com>

[Error: name: ReferenceError message: Statement on line 3: Undefined variable: _gat Backtrace: Line 3 of inline#2 script in [http://philosophymademanifest.blogspot.com/2009/05/metaprogr...](http://philosophymademanifest.blogspot.com/2009/05/metaprogramming- still-need-programming.html) var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-8120690-1");

]</comment>


Demystifying the Selfish Mining Bet - <AUTHOR> https://eklitzke.org/demystifying-the-selfish-mining-bet <comment><USER2> "The dependent version of the problem would be where we cards are discarded after being drawn. So on the first draw, the deck has 52 cards and 4 aces, and thus there's a 1/13 chance of drawing an ace. On the second draw there are 51 cards in the deck, so the second draw has a chance of 4/47 of being an ace."

Shouldn't that be a 4/51 chance?</comment>


Show HN: Make a box – a puzzle game - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kelukelugames/makeabox <comment><AUTHOR> Took a few hours the first time. There are thousands of solutions.</comment>


Visualizing Sorting Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://www.hatfulofhollow.com/posts/code/timsort/index.html

<comment><USER2> That's a pretty interesting way of visualizing it, best I've seen. Some others...

<http://www.sorting-algorithms.com> (Interesting animations of all the major sorting algorithms).

Although my all time favourite is GDB + GnuPlot + 3d Array (array index/values/step) plot and stepping through the steps of the sorting algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER3> They're kind of fun to look at, but I guess I don't really see the point.

What are these supposed to illustrate?

<comment><USER4> hackers as painters?</comment></comment>