Ask HN: Apple filed to patent an app concept that I released a year ago.  - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
I would appreciate your input on my current situation.<p>I recently learned that Apple has filed to patent a teleprompter concept to be integrated with iMovie and Final cut pro. They also have a sketch of how it can be applied to the iPad. Here is the link:
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/02/apple-to-add-teleprompter-tools-to-imovie-and-final-cut-pro.html
The screen shot of iPad rendering is very similar to UI of my app published almost a year ago (built along with hnuser: xoom). Take a look at the screenshot of the app here compared to the diagram in Apple's patent.
http://itunes.apple.com/app/vrt2-video-recording-teleprompter/id433107401?mt=8
On one hand I am proud that our UI design is spot on for the teleprompter that Apple, as a great artist, "stole" it. On the other hand I am concerned.<p>Should I just ignore it or do something about it? If so, what should I do? I very much appreciate your help and feedback.
Thanks -Vj <comment><USER2> For what it's worth, Apple filed for the patent in August 2010, which predates your app.

<comment><USER3> Even so, does that mean he can't continue using the concept without fear of legal threats? Are patent filings made public immediately, and even if so, does that preclude the use of a similar concept right away?

It's a bit ridiculous that a logical design for a digital teleprompter- recorder could be patented, in a world where new UI concepts can be whipped up and released in a few hours.

<comment><USER4> > Even so, does that mean he can't continue using the concept without fear of > legal threats?

Yes. To top it off, patent filings _aren't_ made public immediately. There is a substantial delay (I think something like a 12 to 18 months, but I am not certain of that). Just one more way the patent system is a crazy, Kafkaesque mess.

Personally, I think independent inventions in the period between filing and disclosure should be considered prior art (or as evidence that something was obvious and/or "in the air"), but that's not the law, sadly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You're incorrect about several things in your claim. The only overlap that Apple's filing and your app are that they share a teleprompter element.

If I read the description on your app correctly, you use it for teleprompting while video recording the person doing the talking. You mention several use cases such as perfecting a speech, or recording a good version of yourself giving a speech.

The Apple patent filing however, is for a completely different use case. It details specifically the use of doing voice-over audio recording of a previously recorded video.

So just because you both support a teleprompter element, doesn't mean you're covered by this patent filing OR that Apple "stole" from you. Patents are taken as a whole, and not all their individual parts that go into it.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you didn't file something, provisional/patent, and no other application is accepted/pending with earlier date then your app release date, then it's probably public knowledge, and a prior art that will block anyone from filing.

<comment><USER7> Not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong. It's harder to _prove_ that your work predates something else, but if you can, you still have a copyright on it.

<comment><USER8> we're not talking about copyright law here, but patent law.

<comment><USER9> If @vjanma has a concrete way* to prove that his design is in the same timeframe as Apple's then they could challenge the patent application. The patent application is not a patent yet. So talk to a patent lawyer.

*you do have an application in the app store. But you may need much more documentation to challenge the patent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ah they've used Ozymandias in the patent! Classy.</comment>


Emmanuel Macron is the new président de la République (65,1 % of the votes) - <AUTHOR> http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/article/2017/05/07/emmanuel-macron-est-elu-president-de-la-republique-avec-65-1-des-voix-estimation-ipsos_5123779_4854003.html <comment><USER2> There are many democratic reforms needed in the EU, but on the bottom line, this institution has brought us peace for many, many years while it kept (european style) freedom for hundreds of million people. That Macron got the next french president is good news - maybe he become the Trudeau of the EU.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can French residents educate me as to if the sentiment among his supporters is more 'pro-Macron and his party', or more 'anti-Le Pen and her party'?

<comment><USER4> It is safe to say that the conservatives and leftists are more anti-Le Pen than pro-Macron, and they represent about 40% of the population according to the first round of the election.

Considering that Le Pen gained only a few extra votes compared to the first round, it can be said that about 2/3 of Macron's supporters in the second round are not pro-Macron but in fact anti-Le Pen.

<comment><USER3> Can we really assume that based on votes alone? Just because they didn't vote for him in the first round doesn't mean they don't like him.

<comment><USER4> According to a poll from Kantor Public onepoint/TF1, of the people who voted Macron, 36% voted to support Macron and 64% voted to prevent Le Pen.

<comment><USER3> I was hoping for answers that weren't poll-centered. As we saw in the US election, what people say they want and what they actually want can be very different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a great news, few more years of delusional socialism will open people eyes that this system eventually runs off of other people money. Journalists will not have to travel to Venezuela to get pictures of people on the streets. History will repeat itself again.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I watched the debate and Macron is much more "libertarian" and Marine Le Pen is much more "statist".

One example: Le Pen wants to block M&A of "French" companies in the name of "economic patriotism". Macron does not want to interfere (he is a former investment banker).

This outcome is excellent for the French economy.

<comment><USER7> Macron wants to sanction Poland because Whirlpool is moving factories from France to Poland.

<comment><USER8> No he does not. He wants to ensure that the redundancy plan is fair to the workers, which is pretty different.

Le Pen was the one who wanted to prevent Whirlpool from leaving.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lazy GNU make variables - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2016/07/lazy-gnu-make-variables.html <comment><USER2> So, a couple days ago I shared a Makefile with John, meant to become the standard Go project Makefile at CloudFlare. Here are the comments:

> John: This is very expensive. Can't it be calculated once (:=)?

> Me: The problem is that we don't want to calculate it if we don't need it, > because we might run make before go is installed, and that would fail.

> John: [http://blog.jgc.org/2016/07/lazy-gnu-make- > variables.html](http://blog.jgc.org/2016/07/lazy-gnu-make-variables.html)

I think he wrote this piece to answer my question.

That's working with great people right there.

<comment><USER3> Well, it was nice of him to send you a blog link, rather than telling you to buy his book, which mentions this exact trick :)

[https://www.nostarch.com/gnumake](https://www.nostarch.com/gnumake)

<comment><AUTHOR> Many of the things in my book are on line in different places. The technique I use in the book is here: [https://www.cmcrossroads.com/article/makefile- optimization-e...](https://www.cmcrossroads.com/article/makefile-optimization- eval-and-macro-caching) It uses a different technique and requires replacing $(FOO) with $(call cache,FOO) everywhere.

The book comprises everything I've written about GNU make edited, rechecked and cleaned up with additions to cover new GNU make features and a couple of other things I hadn't written before.

<comment><USER4> If you start asking him too many questions he does eventually just throw the book at you (albeit a free autographed copy).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a fundamental part of Make. If it's news to anybody, PLEASE go read the manual. Otherwise we will keep getting more and more new systems that supposedly improve Make, written by and for people who never bothered to learn how to use Make.

</comment><comment><USER6> Make can't decide whether it's a dependency graph or a macro language. That leads to weird semantics like this.

<comment><USER7> You have rough corners in every language. Make is actually quite good (meaning: easy to read, without much gymnastics) in its typical use case of compiling a software project. The post was written specifically to explore one of these rough corners everything has.

<comment><USER8> Reading it may be easy, but every time I've tried to _use_ make (i.e. write a Makefile that does what I want) I've found it to be composed almost entirely of rough corners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Still learning things about GNU make after 20 years. Great software.</comment>


Evidence that fish have feelings - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160220-do-fish-have-feelings <comment><USER2> If you're interested in this topic, I heartily recommend Carl Safina's Beyond Words. It presents compelling evidence for the thesis that the default in the animal kingdom is conscious & feeling.

<comment><USER3> Just took a glance at this, and it doesn't seem the book suggests that the whole of the animal kingdom has consciousness, right? Could we attribute this to a spider or a scorpion? Of course this depends on the definition of C, but we can agree there's a "higher" form of consciousness, which the book is mostly exemplifying by using elephants and wolves. These larger creatures seem obvious, but serve no evidence to whether or not the simpler lifeforms like insects, and even small fish have anything more than basic instincts.

<comment><USER4> I have a betta. It's pretty easy to tell when he's feeling something; if you've ever had or seen one, you know they're pretty expressive little guys. Granted, he mostly seems to be anticipating being fed (or the possibility of lady bettas wandering by the nests of bubbles he builds), or getting pissed off (which he displays by war-dancing -- just youtube it) at the snail living in his tank, but he's fully capable of interacting with humans at the level of most other sorts of pets. I'm not anthropomorphizing. If he could breathe air, he'd be doing his very best macho impersonation of a tomcat (or small yippy dog that thinks it's approximately the size of a great dane).

If we go one step up and think about the average high schooler, I still am having trouble differentiating what (the high schooler) he or she might feel from what the betta might -- hunger, sexual frustration, happiness, annoyance, loneliness... the betta probably can't do trigonometry, doesn't have opposable thumbs, and has a different set of instincts tailored to his environment. We've simply evolved to do different things; that doesn't mean humans cannot observe emotions analogous to our own in other creatures.

Spider-wise, I've never observed one for periods of time long enough to do much more than remove it from my house, but who knows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would not be surprised if fish have feelings or even emotions.

The link is worth reading. Despite being short, it summarizes several reasons why non-humans are likely more similar than not to humans that have been developed in the past 2 decades, with no published counter-examples.

</comment><comment><USER6> I almost felt guilty for taking fish oil and eating sushi, but then it's clear that a fever reflex doesn't equate to missing Jane the cute fish next door, writing Leaves of Kelp or being jealous of Henry's dorsal fins, although I must admit they are quite impressive. It might seem anthropocentric (it's definitely anthropomorphic), but Jane was really tasty with soy sauce and wasabi.

<comment><USER7> Don't feel bad - fish eat other fish. We eat animals, animals eat us.

Circle of life.

<comment><USER8> Non-human animal activities should not provide a logical or moral foundation for our behavior and it is illogical to claim that we should eat the same diet they do, especially as most of them are obligatory carnivores killing for survival, whereas humans physiologically resemble frugivores. Also your reasoning would justify killing companion animals and also humans - after all, "circle of life".

More importantly, we recognize that unlike animals, we cannot justify taking the life of a sentient being for no better reason than our personal dietary preferences. So it is probably not useful to consider the behavior of fish when making decisions about our own behavior.

<comment><USER7> People have been killing each other since the beginning of time.

Are we living on the same planet? Why do I have to give eating salmon any thought?

Here's a question to ponder: what are morals and these 'should's you describe meant for? For people to share common values so that we get along better, right?

That's created by humans, FOR humans, that we want to get along with!

For everything else, I don't really understand.

I am nice to squirrels, I just happen to like them. Rats, I don't like. Cockroaches I really don't like - when I see one in my house, I take a slipper and kill that sucka.

Am I supposed to justify stomping on a cockroach too? Where does this moralizing end?

<comment><USER8> > Why do I have to give eating salmon any thought?

The same reason you would give thought to killing a Golden Retriever for food. Due to indoctrinated beliefs, people think it's alright to kill certain animals for food, but not others, and when asked why, the logical inconsistencies become very apparent. See [http://www.carnism.org/](http://www.carnism.org/) and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4)

> Am I supposed to justify stomping on a cockroach too? Where does this > moralizing end?

Any killing is self-defense in always justified. However, if there's an opportunity to practice non-violence, why not take it?

<comment><USER9> To play devil's advocate:

I see from another comment that you are Vegan, so how did you make the distinction of what living things are acceptable to eat, and which are not? Plants are just as alive as mammals, fish or insects; so if it isn't 'life' that you are preserving, what exactly is it? some idea of consciousness? intelligence? How does something like Honey fit into your view of this issue?

Further, how do you justify your greater reliance than meat eaters on migrant underpaid labor? Is human suffering for your nutrition preferable to animal suffering?

Isnt this just a game of semantic false moral superiority until there is a nutrition source that is completely death and suffering free?

<comment><USER8> > Plants are just as alive as mammals, fish or insects

Two things: plants aren't sentient and animals also eat plants - many, many times more plants than vegans do. So if you truly regard plant and animal life to be the same, it would behoove you to immediately stop eating animals! It's very obvious how this argument falls flat on its face when brought to the light of critical thinking.

> how do you justify your greater reliance than meat eaters on migrant > underpaid labor?

This is just conjecture, but I'll try and answer anyway. You can be vegan _and_ care about how workers are treated. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Personally, I grow most of my food myself, but obviously this isn't practical for most people. Why not turn this question around and ask, how are slaughterhouse workers treated and what their experience must be like?

> Isnt this just a game of semantic false moral superiority until there is a > nutrition source that is completely death and suffering free?

Pretty ironic to hear this from someone who beliefs him or herself to be superior to animals, and justifies their destruction. It's not a game of semantics - in fact, it's not a game at all. Animal agriculture is the _leading_ cause of climate change. You can be coy all you want, but you are actively contributing to the problem by consuming animal products.

<comment><USER9> >plants aren't sentient

Is a venus fly trap sentient? Is a cricket sentient? Is a starfish sentient? Is a worm sentient? How about trees that communicate with other trees nearby?[1][2]

>and animals also eat plants

Plants also eat animals[3] animals also eat other animals, so i dont understand how this is an argument.

>This is just conjecture

61% of all farmworkers have incomes below pverty level, average life expectancy subtanstially lower than rest of population[4]

cites migrants earning 7500$ per year, 52% having no legal status in US[5]

>Why not turn this question around and ask, how are slaughterhouse workers treated and what their experience must be like?

you could certainly make that argument, but i dont think its likely to mirror agricultural migrant labor

>Pretty ironic to hear this from someone who beliefs him or herself to be superior to animals, and justifies their destruction.

Thats quite a label to apply to someone you've never met and whose never said anything like that.

You seem to believe you are superior to plants though...

[1][https://karban.wordpress.com/research/](https://karban.wordpress.com/research/) [2][http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a- hidden...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden- internet) [3][http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/publications/volunteer/young_na...](http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/publications/volunteer/young_naturalists/insectivores/insectivores.pdf) [4][http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/migrants.html](http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/migrants.html) [5][http://articles.extension.org/pages/9960/migrant-farm- worker...](http://articles.extension.org/pages/9960/migrant-farm-workers:-our- nations-invisible-population)

<comment><USER8> You're making straw man arguments. Humans don't breed, enslave and kill billions of starfish, crickets and worms. Do you see what you're doing? Rather than acknowledge we're harming many animals which are no doubt sentient, you're appealing to fringes to bolster an illogical argument. I'm not surprised - many carnists take refuge in the plant-killing argument as a last resort. It's fascinating what lows the human mind will reach to justify cruelty. And so what if animals kill other animals? Do you really think that's a reason to act the same? Why pick this behavior, and not the one in which animals commit infanticide or sniff each other's rear ends?

> You seem to believe you are superior to plants though

The only one I'm superior to is myself when I still paid for the abuse of animals.

<comment><USER9> >Humans don't breed, enslave and kill billions of starfish, crickets and worms.

But we do breed, enslave and kill trillions of carrots, apples, potatoes, tomatoes, etc

But again, you have made it clear you feel that some life is not as valuable, namely plant life - so it is morally acceptable from your view to kill plants but not animals because of the difference in the value of life.

Thats good for you but i am interested in hearing arguments from someone who doesn't just ignore uncomfortable facts.

<comment><USER8> The plant-killing argument is extremely trite and appealing to it to justify the animal holocaust just shows you are desperate for any reason to keep engaging in animal abuse. Please - do have the humility to read again and see just how ridiculous your arguments have been. Claiming vegetables are enslaved and killed is just silly and you know it. What's more, I've repeatedly told you more plants are killed for livestock feed, but somehow you choose not to address this apparent contradiction.

<comment><USER9> you actually completely fabricated what you think my views are, i'm justifying nothing and my position is still unstated.

I'm simply exploring a philosophical question, while you are obviously defending your lifestyle choices.

That philosophical question being how can one type of life be valued more than another, or how do you justify a moral position of life is precious while simultaneously ending life daily for nourishment. this is a quandary literally every human on the planet faces, no one is attacking veganism, or you , or your choices.

How you are missing that this is my argument, and continually projecting me as some one dimensional 'vegans are even worse than meat eaters' is quite confounding to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Exhibiting a basic survival instinct in a situation of simulated danger is weak evidence for emotion.

<comment><USER11> Exactly. I think authors understand this too. The problem is that they want to make their article popular and get more citations, that is why they add this BS about consciousness to their article.

What is sad is that most comments on HN are about "feelings" that their pet fish has and how fscking happy they are when fed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article does not support the HN title.

<comment><USER13> I think it does. The study authors present evidence that fish, as measured by a stress hyperthermia response, respond in a manner consistent with an emotional response.

As a recanted neurobiologist, I find that surprising and I'm willing to go along with the headline. It would be even more surprising (to me, at least) to find that something as fundamental as emotional response were not to be found in more primitive branches of the phylogenetic tree.

<comment><USER14> I don't buy it. If I attach a switch to an incandescent light bulb, then the bulb will get hot if I press the switch. If I press the switch enough, the light bulb will burn out. But it would not be accurate to say that the light bulb "died of stress" or that this was evidence that the light bulb could "feel" anything. It certainly doesn't prove the light bulb is conscious.

<comment><USER15> Humans try so hard to believe consciousnesse is boolean, like "humans have it" and "every other living thing does not" is almost funny. I have news for nerds,, conciseness is a float, imprecition and all.

So cannibalism and eating dolphins is way more closer than the average human is comfortable with, so people like to err on the lest uncomfortable side.

<comment><USER3> Is there no C line in the animal kingdom? If so we're saying spiders and cockroaches are conscious? Surely there's a distinction, and nobody really doubts elephants, dolphins and great apes, but we can clearly see the difference in quality of C. So if there is some kind of line or distinction within the animal kingdom, where would it be? Are insects the end of mechanical behavior? Or could that line extend to small fish and crustaceans? I think the article is using the word "feeling" a little too freely here. By the same measure, There could be an experiment suggesting cockroaches get stressed, and if so, would we be so quick to say they have feelings?

<comment><USER16> The problem is that consciousness is such a loaded concept. It can mean higher-order thought, self-awareness, ability to feel emotions, the phenomenon of subjective experience itself, and more. I find that most conversations about it involve lots of talking past each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > We weep for the blood of a bird, but not for the blood of a fish. Blessed > are those with a voice.

From Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like Kurt Cobain was wrong about that one.

See: "Something in the Way" \- Nirvana

<comment><USER19> Would have been his birthday when this was published, no less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For anyone interested, an article on studies into fish intelligence: [http://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5958871/fish-intelligence- smart-...](http://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5958871/fish-intelligence-smart- research-behavior-pain)

Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8131772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8131772)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is interesting. A good counterarguments against one of the most inconsistent diets I know of. Vegetarians that reject meat but do eat fish.

Edit: I guess only stress == hyperthermia but it's still a step in the general direction.

<comment><USER22> Speaking as one, I don't avoid meat because I oppose in all cases the killing of animals for human consumption. I'm a pescetarian because I think the environmental impact of industrial agriculture, both in emissions and in land and water use, is unnecessarily large. Similarly, I try to mostly avoid milk for the most part, which a lot of vegetarians who wouldn't touch fish don't seem to have any objection to...

<comment><USER23> I gave up fish before I gave up meat for reasons of sustainability (there are only so many fish in the sea).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How is this a surprise? The world learned this years ago with Finding Nemo.

</comment><comment><USER25> Define "feelings".

<comment><USER11> The whole article is about undefined "consciousness". As the article itself says, it is "loosely defined as an ability to experience thoughts and emotions".

I wonder why HN would discuss "mind", "consciousness", "being an observer", etc. All these terms are no different from religious "soul", philosophical "qualia", they are equally undefined.

At this point of progress in AI and computing I would expect hackers to study how intelligence invents these terms [2], not falling for this mistake themselves. It was suggested that AI would become "confused and as stubborn as are men in their convictions about mind-matter, consciousness, free will, and the like" at the beginning of AI development [3]. I would be more interested in study of how AI or more intelligent animals, such as monkeys, develop religion and "mind"-like terms.

The article itself [4] is about stress-induced hyperthermia (SIH). It proves that fish increases temperature and moves to more warm water in response to stress. It is not too interesting for HN. Instead, synonym "emotional fever" is used for SIH and the conclusion is made that fish is capable of emotion and everyone happily discusses meaningless "emotions", "consciousness" and the like.

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

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

[3] [https://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/doyle/gallery/minsk...](https://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/doyle/gallery/minsky/mmm.html)

[4] [http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1819/2015...](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1819/20152266)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Of course they do, our Betta gets as excited as a puppy every morning when we show up to feed him. Each one we have had over the years has had a distinct personality.

<comment><USER27> > our Betta gets as excited as a puppy every morning when we show up to feed > him

I don't think that really supports the theory of fish having feelings. I'm not sure it requires feelings to respond to repeated stimuli in a way to generates a more advantageous outcome. That's not to say fish don't have feelings, just that I'm not sure this is necessarily good evidence.

> Each one we have had over the years has had a distinct personality

That seems more likely to be indicative of feelings/consciousness in my eyes. Personality, specifically different personalities in the same type of organism, would indicate to me complex learned behavior (what else is personality but that?).

<comment><USER28> How can one support the theory of _people_ having feelings, except for assuming that people feel more or less what you feel yourself? Unless you can experience others' feelings yourself somehow, you can always call everyone else's behavior "responses to repeated stimuli in a way that generates a more advantageous outcome." Personality is no different (so different fish, or people, have a different strategy of generating advantageous outcomes - learned or innate, it indicates some degree of complexity, but not "feelings.")

The whole subject of "feelings" is kinda thorny as long as you either subscribe to a worldview where there's no real difference between inanimate and living objects (it's all just a bunch of atoms, it just so happens that some bunches move and some are stationary), or, alternatively, if you do believe in such a difference but have nothing but a gut feeling to rely on when defining the limit between "machines" and "feeling beings." Which means it's a thorny issue for, well, most of us.

<comment><USER29> There is a third option, its all just matter, but matter is inherently conscious. I subscribe to this view.

<comment><USER28> It's not without its merits, but the question then remains whether emacs suffers when closed if it accumulated enough state for Steve Yegge to consider it "conscious" the way humans are.

<comment><USER30> Doesn't everyone understand that Emacs is an evolving symbiotic life form?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It is easy to accept popular sensational science if I turn off my brain and any critical thinking.

<comment><USER32> What exactly do you take issue with in the article?

<comment><USER11> Just read the abstract of the article [1]: "It has been suggested that the capacity for emotional fever evolved only in amniotes (mammals, birds and reptiles), in association with the evolution of consciousness in these groups. According to this view, lack of emotional fever in fishes reflects a lack of consciousness."

The article is about "emotional fever", defined as "a transient rise in body temperature shown in response to a variety of stressors". Article shows that fish can show this behaviour. On the other hand, the "lack of consciousness" or its existence, is not proven. It is just a hypothesis, based on some "view", expressed in [2].

[1] [http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1819/2015...](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1819/20152266)

[2] [http://dx.doi.org/10.2170/jjphysiol.49.1](http://dx.doi.org/10.2170/jjphysiol.49.1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I feel wet

</comment><comment><USER34> Maybe I'm too empathic, but I would always assume animals have feelings, feel pain etc. and try to prove otherwise. Not the other way around.

<comment><USER35> Perhaps, but do plants? Bacteria? Insects? Where do you draw the line? Is there a line?

<comment><USER36> > Is there a line?

There's good reason to believe that there isn't. Which means it's ultimately a political question and will always have an arbitrary answer.

<comment><USER37> What is that good reason, pray tell?

<comment><USER36> These things evolved, piece by piece, over millions of years.

<comment><USER37> As did quadrupeds and bipeds, but if asked to draw a line about their locomotion that is quite easy to do.

Have not seen a convincing argument that we will not find an evolutionary line in the sand between sentient and automaton animals.

<comment><USER36> If you look at both quadrupeds and bipeds, you'll see around the time they evolved an interrim period in which creatures existed that were not really quadrupeds or bipeds.

Evolutionary success creates only the illusion of lines, none really exist.

<comment><USER37> You take the word 'line' too literally here, it just means a boundary.

Reality has very few lines.

Using an unnecessarily strict definition for line, you'll find there is almost nothing in the universe that is perfectly distinct:

There are no species, no genders, no living things, dead things, no discrete individuals, not even any discrete objects, no colors. Nothing is high, nothing is low, nothing is dark, nothing is bright; nothing is anything.

We can obviously draw a _boundary_ between quadrupeds and bipeds -- we're doing it the second we use the words. Whether that boundary is absolute is not valuable.

The interesting question isn't "Can we argue for a continuum of awareness between insects and humans?" That part is easy.

The interesting part is, "Do we know enough about consciousness to describe a meaningful boundary between them?"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recommended CS subjects for someone with a mathematics background? - <AUTHOR> I graduated a couple of years ago with a B.S. in Mathematics and a minor in Computer Science.  Since then I've mostly worked in IT/Tech Support.  I haven't had much luck finding something to do with my math degree, and don't really have enough programing experience to go directly into a software development job.<p>I'd like to either go back to school or try to pick up teaching myself where my Computer Science minor left off, but I'm not sure where to go from there.  I was wondering if anyone could recommend what fields are in demand and would make the best use of my mathematics background?  It seems like machine learning might be a good option, would you agree? <comment><USER2> If you are well versed in math I suggest looking into D-Waves Leap program. There is a big demand for people in this field and the pay is very good. The thing is the programming is very "Mathy" so it might be right up your alley!

[https://www.dwavesys.com/take-leap](https://www.dwavesys.com/take-leap)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll check that out!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage your "TO READ" list? - <AUTHOR>

I have a long list of books and articles to read on different topics, some are recent, some are old classics and topics vary from latest technology to philosophy and finance, science, fiction & non-fiction, politics, the list goes on and on.
How do you manage this not to read only about one thing or not to get caught reading only the recent stuff (which could be junk).
How many books do you read at the same time?
How do you guys juggle with this problem?
Cheers, <comment><USER2> I try to stay focused by creating a personal syllabus for each subject I'm interested in. I add books to them, as well as objectives and questions I'd like to answer. Of particular value has been the habit of setting written products as my objectives. These help me focus on important aspects of a subject as well as help weed out irrelevant reading material.

I use a simple sequential filing system for articles. I assign incoming articles a serial number. I have a file that allows me to browse these by subject and author, but the serial number makes them easy to reference when I want them.

<comment><USER3> Wow, that's impressive - often I struggle to recall the details of what I've read - setting a written product of an objective would be useful. This must take a lot of discipline... how long did it take you to establish this habit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use Trello. I've got a board with four categories:

\- _Things I Need to Read:_ Title of each card is the title of whatever it is I want to read and the description is a link to the book/article so I know exactly where to find it.

\- _Acquiring:_ Used as a staging area. The books I'm planning on reading next go into this category.

\- _Reading:_ Self Explanatory

\- _Finished Reading:_ Self Explanatory

I find this setup to be very useful, but can be a little bit of a pain if you're adding a large reading list at the beginning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great tool! Not only for managing my "to read" list but most importantly to manage my "to do" list. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dailylit.com is great for getting extra reading in. Beyond that I have "Hard" book that I make sure I read at least 30 minutes a day, to ensure I'm not only reading fluff.

As far as articles go, when I find something that I don't have time for right then I drop it into a "Consume" folder in my bookmarks, and then periodically I go in there and power through some of the stuff, it's not optimal, but as long as you have some way of making sure you periodically check it, it is a trusted system.

<comment><USER3> I have a bookmark folder "to read" which would be better named "I don't really care about this". The best system I found was similar, but just suited my habits better: if I find an article I wanted to read but not right then, I send it to my kindle using the browser plugin, and spend an hour each evening reading through things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read everything on my Tungsten E Palm Pilot. I have three of the buttons programmed for different reading programs. One is for hard non-fiction, such as Harvard Business Review and other management articles, one is for soft non- fiction like biographies and the third is for fluff, i.e. fantasy, science fiction and westerns.

I have a lot more time for listening than I do for reading. When a new non- fiction book is released, I look up the author on YouTube to see if there's an interview about the book so I don't have to read it. I download the longest one, convert it to an MP3 and listen to it using the fourth button on my Palm Pilot which is for podcasts.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't manage it, I barely cope.

I would probably look into transcranial stimulation and smart drugs if I had more gumption :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I use Notes app which comes bundled with OS X Mountain Lion, in which I keep lists of books I'd like to read.

For articles which I'd like to read later, I use Instapaper.

</comment><comment><USER7> Also, I would give a lot for effective software that actually helps with info overload.

tldr.io seems nice, anyone tried it?

<comment><USER3> "But information overload isn't the problem. If it was, you'd walk into a library and die." [http://www.gtdtimes.com/2010/02/11/the-problem-is-not- inform...](http://www.gtdtimes.com/2010/02/11/the-problem-is-not-information- overload/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Instapaper

</comment><comment><USER10> Good Reads</comment>


Doctors on front line of worst-hit city in world say it's time to end shutdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/09/doctors-frontline-worst-hit-city-world-say-time-end-shutdown/ <comment><USER2> I don't think it's "inordinate fear" of the virus that's making people so cautious - it's resultant fear from observing the incredible incompetence of national leaders and the vast majority of community leaders. The few people who stand out positively are those who have acknowledged that every situation is different, that solutions need to localized, have described the situation, shown their homework, and made decisions and announcements of when things will be revisited based on what data and competent advice they have actually made an effort to gather.

</comment><comment><USER3> So let's say that so far you stood apart, are or not at risk population (age, previous conditions, whatever) or just live with someone in that group. Now the shutdown gets over, you have to go to work or else get fired, and odds that you meet someone with the disease will be still high (the 20% in the Bronx is an indicator).

I don't see how this could backfire.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's one thing to say that NYC should re-open- they're past their peak. They've gotten through the worst of it. I read one study that said as much as 20% of New Yorker's had antibodies now.

But the rest of America (and Canada) are not yet at the peak yet. The number of deaths per day is still climbing. To re-open now is to kill thousands.

<comment><USER5> NYC's 20% infection rate of 20% was reported on April 23rd.

There is no reason to think the virus is more deadly outside of NYC. To lockdown until a possible vaccine is to kill additional thousands beyond those who will die from COVID-19.

<comment><USER6> >There is no reason to think the virus is more deadly outside of NYC

What do you mean by this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there any way around this paywall?

<comment><USER8> [https://outline.com/HZUPdc](https://outline.com/HZUPdc)</comment></comment>


Incoming 'Moby Dick' asteroid goes missing near Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25086-incoming-moby-dick-asteroid-goes-missing-near-earth.html#.UwTl8tsZW1F <comment><USER2> Article says it was last seen 14 years ago, so it's obviously not some asteroid we've been monitoring too recently that just inexplicably disappeared like I, someone who doesn't know much about astronomy, assumed from the title. We apparently were just wrong in calculating its trajectory..

<comment><USER3> The "incoming" in the title suggests a trajectory aimed at grabbing eyeballs and clickthroughs. :-)

<comment><USER4> As does "goes missing near Earth" I don't think going missing 14 years ago equates to going missing near Earth.

<comment><USER5> 3.4 million kilometers at closest approach doesn't even equate to "near Earth". But what better can you expect from the New Scientist?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's a nice press release ([http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news182a.html](http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news182a.html)) regarding the impact of a small NEO (2-3 meters in size) last month with Earth.

Being small, it was discovered only 21 hours before impact, and its sonic signature is believed to have been observed in the mid-Atlantic around Bermuda.

Larger asteroids with orbits that will come near Earth's are being discovered routinely by sky surveys (e.g., Catalina, [http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/css/css_mission.html](http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/css/css_mission.html)) as far away as Jupiter.

</comment><comment><USER7> Are you joking? Yesterday it seems like a meteor impacted the province of Santa Fe in Argentina: [http://zeenews.india.com/news/space/scientists-probe- meteor-...](http://zeenews.india.com/news/space/scientists-probe-meteor-link- to-argentina-explosion_912507.html)

Why nobody connected it with this "Moby Dick" ?

<comment><USER8> Because unless there's some proof, there's no reason to believe that the two events are related.

Case in point: last year's meteor event over Chelyabinsk, Russia took place shortly before a publicized close-pass of Earth by asteroid 367943 Duende. Many people quickly jumped to the conclusion that the two were related when, in fact, they were conclusively _not_.

<comment><USER7> It was not a conclusion just nobody pointed the provable connection.

Sorry you are wrong about the scientific method. The proof came later, the hypothesis first. If two improvable events came together it's worth the investigation beyond if the events are related at the end or not. When I said connection I meant two events happening at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For comparison, the asteroid from the extinction level event which killed the dinosaurs was about 5 kilometers in diameter.

<comment><USER10> And the object that exploded over Chelyabinsk last year was estimated at 20m in diameter.

So 270m, while a long way off "catastrophic", is well into "serious".

<comment><USER11> It could still be catastrophic. If it hit a large city, it could immediately wipe out millions of people. If it hit the ocean near the shore, it could create massive tsunamis. If it fragmented into tiny particles on impact or caused a huge firestorm, it could block out enough sunlight to cause a "nuclear winter" scenario:

 _" Similar climatic effects are believed to have followed large comet and asteroid impacts in the past, due to sulfate bearing rock being pulverized and lofted high into the air combined with the ignition of multiple forest firestorms, which is sometimes termed an impact winter..."_[1]

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

<comment><USER12> Not to mention if it came down in a politically tense time and the ensuing confusion triggered us to deploy the instruments of our civilization's destruction, which we like to keep ready at hand.

<comment><USER5> I think I remember reading that one. _Lucifer 's Hammer_, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every good SF reader knows that an asteroid that suddenly disappears is actually an alien spaceship. :-)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is really interesting because there seem to be two camps on this. A lot of stories are reporting the asteroid as missing, while others report pictures taken by the Dubai Astronomy Group. One of those camps has it very wrong. [http://www.express.co.uk/news/science- technology/460471/Aste...](http://www.express.co.uk/news/science- technology/460471/Asteroid-the-size-of-three-football-pitches-flies-past- Earth-at-27-000-mph)

</comment><comment><USER15> One of the ones that got away?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1490_Ch'ing- yang_event](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1490_Ch'ing-yang_event)</comment>


Eighty years without flippers - <AUTHOR> http://jsomers.net/blog/eighty-years-without-flippers <comment><USER2> With regards the first item on his list, in the UK we have things called "Washer-Driers" which both wash _and_ dry clothes. I find it hard to believe that the USA doesn't have such a thing, but the evidence suggests this to be the case.

Curious.

And it's been mentioned before on HN <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=602515>

For some reason the comments there suggest the models used don't work very well. Mine works beautifully.

And regularly.

<comment><USER3> I'm in the US, and I've seen them (here's one at Target: [http://www.target.com/Haier-Front-Load-Washer-Dryer- Combo/dp...](http://www.target.com/Haier-Front-Load-Washer-Dryer- Combo/dp/B000QFGY7C/ref=br_1_4?ie=UTF8&frombrowse=1&searchView=grid5&searchNodeID=10917091&node=10917091&searchRank=pmrank&searchPage=1&searchSize=30&id=Haier%20Front- Load%20Washer%20Dryer%20Combo)). From what I've seen, they're more expensive. Also, if you're doing N loads, it takes longer if you have one combo unit (2N time) than if you had a separate washer and dryer (N+1).</comment></comment>


Supermassive black holes found spiraling in at seven percent light speed - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/09/supermassive-black-holes-found-spiraling-in-at-seven-percent-light-speed/ <comment><USER2> Recent HN thread on a NY Times article talking about the same work: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10233874](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10233874)

That thread also contains an excellent description of the last parsec problem by HN poster antognini.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Supermassive black holes are expected to come in pairs pretty often. That's > because every galaxy has its own supermassive black hole, and galaxies often > merge, bringing the two together.

Okay, but following this reasoning, we should also see triples and quadruples, I would say.

<comment><USER4> A two-body system is gravitationally stable, and three or more are not (long- term, in general).

<comment><USER5> There are plenty of long-term stable three-body systems: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_star_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_star_system)

Only 3-body systems nicknamed "Trapezia" systems are unstable: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_star_system#Trapezia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_star_system#Trapezia)

Regarding the article itself: it's a nice simulation, probably correct, but the data barely supports the theory. Data is so noisy (and from different instruments) - they didn't even bother showing a periodicity spectrum. Feynman would call this bad science:

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7569/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7569/full/nature15262.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hmm, I wonder what it would be like to fall into a black hole rotating at light speed then? In addition to the spaghetti effect, would it be a whorled spaghetti effect? What would it be like to fall in from the top versus the equator or another latitude? I wonder what the singularity at the center would be like besides just a hoop. Can you make the singular hoop (english sure is strange here) process if there is another large black hole nearby?

Man, I need more or less coffee, I can't tell which though.

<comment><USER7> Well, I have one theory -- but it hangs by a string at best...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What would happen mathematically if two singularities orbiting each other merged? Would it become one singularity or some super nasty complex mathematical system?

<comment><USER2> See some reddit posts I pointed to in a previous thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10236561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10236561)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't really "weird" things start to happen when physical matter hits 10% speed of light?

</comment><comment><USER10> "The Final Parsec Problem" \-- not to be confused with the Last Mile Problem :p

<comment><USER11> I don't know; there are comparisons you could draw between a telecoms company and a supermassive black hole.</comment></comment>


Monsters Together: When Stalin and Hitler Were Allies - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/apr/23/hitler-stalin-monsters-together/

<comment><USER2> That is not a good title. I don't like them being called 'Monsters', since this totally misses the point and prevents any useful further insights. Both Hitler and Stalin were HUMANS, like all (most) of us. They were once young kids, had dreams, hopes, feelings not too unsimilar to everyone else. What has become of them is not a 'Monster', it's a result of deeply buried interactions between the human condition and our environment. And even if not, and they both have been sent by some satanic deity, they still should be called humans - not monsters, because that only helps writing the whole historic event off as a distant fairytale where you might aswell add some dragons to sauce it up even further into fantasyland.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here it comes, demonizing Russians at the price of rewriting history.

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was similar to pacts that every other European country had - including Poland[1]. Except that Poland had it since 1934 and USSR only since 1939. Stalin made it after realizing that Britain and France were playing him from April to August 1939 [2].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_Non- Aggre...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_Non- Aggression_Pact)

[2] [http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSnazipact.htm](http://spartacus- educational.com/RUSnazipact.htm)

<comment><USER4> Also:

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

"The agreement was signed by Germany, _France, the United Kingdom,_ and Italy."

and:

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

Initially: "Germany, Italy and Japan"

then:

"Hungary (20 November 1940), Romania (23 November 1940), Bulgaria (1 March 1941) and Yugoslavia (25 March 1941), as well as by the German client state of Slovakia (24 November 1940). Yugoslavia's adherence provoked a coup d'état in Belgrade, and Italy and Germany responded by invading Yugoslavia"

Note that some countries first signed and only then the Nazi regimes came to power in them. Hard time in Europe then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stalin was a Hitler's ally no more than a person, yielding to a ransom demand from a kidnapper. His one and main purpose was to delay Germany attack on USSR, to prepare for war as good as it was possible. Anything else would be a suicide.

It's just a part of massive denigration campaign.

<comment><USER6> _It 's just a part of massive denigration campaign._

Stalin _was_ a mass murderer:

"The exact number of deaths caused by Stalin's regime is a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed upon that it is on the order of millions."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin)</comment></comment>


Fellow student gets hit by bus...so I make a game about it - <AUTHOR> http://nickvsbus.clay.io

<comment><AUTHOR> The title sounds kind of bad, but he made it out with just a scratch and bruise (amazingly). The game links to the video of it.

It's an HTML5 game, so it's cross platform (play on your phone if you'd like)

</comment><comment><USER2> The game plays well enough, but the subject material seems rather insensitive ("lol game over, oh you're pretty much invincible"). Does Nick approve?

<comment><AUTHOR> I sent him a message on Facebook before I started it but never got a response (I imagine he's pretty overwhelmed right now). I chose to move forward with it because it's just going with the whole idea that he's pretty awesome for taking a hit like that and being fine.

I'm sure it was a very scary moment for him and his family, but I hope this lighter take on things helps a bit. However, should he want me to take it down, I'll respect that decision.

<comment><USER3> He approves, I'm a good friend of nick's and he thought it was hilarious. I think he even liked the link on the foam sword friday facebook event page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> TBH i was more impressed with the vid than the game :)</comment>


Ask HN: How can I complete a project? - <AUTHOR>

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to this.
I am a self-taught programmer. I used to teach a PHP/MySQL course at a community college. I currently work in technical support for a web hosting company. I'm really good at fixing errors in other people's code or adding new features. I suck at taking my own projects from start to finish.
I will start a new project and make tons of progress. Then, I won't have time to look at it for a couple of days. When I try to continue, I can understand the code but I have no idea where I was going with it. I'll either want to rewrite large sections of code or start over.
I document lines of code as I write them but I have no idea how to plan or document the project itself. I started using an IDE (Netbeans) but I still use it like a plain text editor.
I've used frameworks including CodeIgniter and Laravel before but I still end up with a mess.
How can I plan/organize my code/workflow to become a professional programmer? Any websites or books you could recommend would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Is it a code problem or a productivity problem?

Code productivity: Using issue tracking like FogBugz or Github really helps you make sure you work on the important bits first to get a minimum viable product.

I try to think 'Lean Startup' on my projects. Only create the features you really need. Get the bare minimum thing working properly and get feedback/testing from someone who would actually use your product/service. Iterate. Be agile.

More generally: The basic productivity techniques can be a distracting read <http://www.43folders.com/howto>.

Breaking things down to much can create overhead. I've been trying to improve the way I stay on task. Not just working on the project, but working on the most critical parts without getting distracted. Its too easy go on a tangent, and research something which wasn't critical.

I'm currently refining a method I call ReasearchLock: keeping track of the current task so I don't deviate from it. Things which appear critical often turned out not to be if I tried to get by without them and just left them for later.

I outlined my original idea in a note: <http://njoin.co.uk/grains/5107d5516decf91f10000002> but have refined it since.

</comment><comment><USER3> I recommend Pivotal Tracker or Trello for organizing tasks.

It's easier with N > 2 people involved but the rough workflow goes:

a) create a story in Pivotal that covers a new use case or a tweak to an existing one

b) start the story, work on the use case, add notes at the end of working on it so next time you work on it you can reference them

c) when you finish it, mark it 'finished', then deploy it and mark it 'delivered'

d) Then do acceptance testing: ideally automated, but manual is fine too for most cases. This is where it's nice to have a 2nd person check it for you. If it works, approve it, if not, reject it and go back to work.

Also, if you're not using unit tests, they're really helpful to keep you on track - never walk away with passing unit tests, and you always have something to start with next time you go to work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate you recommending these tools to me but they aren't going to benefit me if I only have a vague idea of what a "story", "use case", "acceptance test", "deliver", "deploy", or "unit test" mean. I only know how to write code. Is there a website or book you can recommend that teaches these things?

<comment><USER3> Honestly? Wikipedia has a decent overview.

The tl;dr versions:

Story: A story is literally a story about what you would like your project to do: "I want to be able to find and read news", for example on HN. That's what they call items entered into pivotal.

Use case: One way someone might use your project to accomplish a task. "I would like to reply to an email" for example.

Acceptance test: A test, manual or automated, that is the criteria for whether something is acceptable for a given use case

deliver: There's a button, it says deliver, you click it. Usually means making something available for testing

deploy: Put your project onto a server where other people can use it

unit test: An automated test that tests a very small amount of code, a 'unit', and is used for making sure that unit works correctly. C.f. acceptance tests above, which test a much larger amount than one 'unit'. An example would be a test that tests one function, one method, or one line of code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is one of the main reasons I use cucumber, I write out a feature and then work my way through it. This works great on a side project because you can drop what you're doing and come back to it a couple of days later. You just run your last spec and get back into flow. To make sure you always know where to jump back in just make sure you have a failing scenario when you finish up for the night or whatever. It doesn't even matter if you've started writing the code for it, just write out the scenario in english and you're good to go.

</comment><comment><USER5> JACKSON STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING

No, just kidding.

Before you start just do a very brief sketch of what you want to achieve. Keep putting notes on this as you go through. This is rough and informal and will change.

When you leave off make a huge comment with some notes - "implement this, that, the other. Don't forget that you were having trouble with that."

When you go back to a project have one tiny feature in mind, and do that. Don't try to finish the whole thing. Little steps.

<comment><USER6> I still think in JSP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're like me, I toy around with side projects until they get boring. I'm great at 'proving the concept', and when I'm hired for pay, I don't generally have the same problems, but problems without clear objectives, or 'side projects' generally end up dying on the vine. A couple of improvements I've made over the years that help me finish.

1) Do the boring parts first. Start off writing (or using libraries for) the boring parts of your code that you don't like. Profiles? Logins? That sort of thing? You can generally drop something in that will service the need with very little effort, and replace it later if and when it gets traction. This leaves the 'fun' parts of code to be written that I generally prefer to work on.

2) Start using Github, as much as you can. Make _meaningful_ commit messages, so that you can look at your commit history and see what you were doing and what you planned to do next. I often misuse the commit log and put things in like "Finished such and such, but I really need to implement function_x()". This lets me know what was a priority the last time I was working on it so that I don't start on new_function_y and then lose steam when I realize that, oh yeah, I forgot to do function_x, which new_function_y will need.

3) Use Github issues. If something isn't working as expected, only fix it if it's something dire. If it's just a glitch, or a render bug or something minor, then just create a Github issue to come back to it later. Also important that you set milestones. Alpha, Beta, Closed Beta, Release.. something like that. Don't tie to version numbers, just tie your milestones to actionable times. If you can implement three features and fix five bugs and then be able to show it to friends and family, that should belong to a 'closed beta' milestone. After that, let them report issues back to develop your 'open beta' milestone.

4) Break things down into the smallest tasks possible and avoid scope creep. Make an issue for every new enhancement and bugs. Pick a couple of boring issues and 1 really exciting one to work on per day. If the features are big enough that you can't do a couple a day, then they probably need to be scoped down and broken up in to smaller issues. How many you do a day isn't as important as making sure to knock out more boring things than exciting things to keep momentum going. By the time you get to the exciting thing, you should feel accomplished and motivated by the two boring things you already knocked out.

5) Hold yourself accountable to someone, something. If you've got potential customers as friends, let them in on it. Keep them updated weekly or bi- weekly. If you don't have potential customers, use a wife, a girlfriend, a teacher, a friend, whomever. Ask them to keep you moving forward and specify dates for milestones. There's a big difference between slacking off on your own and slacking off when you know that somebody at the end of the week is going to expect a progress report.</comment>


Movies of Cold War Bomb Tests Hold Nuclear Secrets - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/12/nuclear-films/ <comment><USER2> _Trinity and Beyond_ is occasionally available on Netflix and Amazon streaming. If you catch it, watch it. It's a mesmerizing documentary composed entirely of restored atomic test footage with spare narration by William Shatner and an eerie score from the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

Peter Kuran, the director, worked as a VFX specialist on _The Empire Strikes Back_ and he's done some other nuke-related documentaries too. He's also working for the subject of this article.

<comment><USER3> [https://youtu.be/XsnL6gmGOZA](https://youtu.be/XsnL6gmGOZA) I think you can watch it in 3D.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "100 Suns" is a great book if anybody is interested

[http://www.amazon.com/100-Suns-1945-1962-Michael- Light/dp/02...](http://www.amazon.com/100-Suns-1945-1962-Michael- Light/dp/0224064517/)

</comment><comment><USER5> As far as i remember, there is an easier way to determine bomb yield, which works at least for bombs which are mostly fission: take a sample from a cloud using the aircraft or a balloon, determine a ratio of original fissile material vs some primary fission product, then knowing time passed since explosion calculate fraction of the material that have reacted, and knowing ideal yield per kilo and amount of material in the bomb, calculate precise yield. For boosted fission the fusion portion of yield is insignificant, and also the fusion is nearly 100% complete, so this is easy to factor in, and in some cases even OK to ignore.

Of course if most of the yield was fusion this is a different story.

<comment><USER6> Aren't most bomb designs these days "mostly fission" \- with most of the energy in most H-bomb designs coming from fission of the secondary tamper by the neutrons from the fusion stage?

<comment><USER7> Yes, that's always been the case as I understand. The fusion stage is to get the bomb to do its exploding thing before it propels itself apart and thus just scatters debris everywhere.

<comment><USER8> Don't you have this backwards?

Fusion is the fusing of two hydrogen atoms into a helium atom - the process of the H-bomb.

Fission is the splitting of a uranium atom which releases neutrons and energy.

The latter reaction produces the energy to start the former reaction.

<comment><USER9> There are bombs where a fission stage ignites a fusion stage which sends neutrons to start another fission reaction.

From: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon#Summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon#Summary)

"(3) The fusion fuel of the secondary stage may be surrounded by depleted uranium or natural uranium, whose U-238 is not fissile and cannot sustain a chain reaction, but which is fissionable when bombarded by the high-energy neutrons released by fusion in the secondary stage. This process provides considerable energy yield (as much as half of the total yield in large devices), but is not considered a tertiary "stage". Tertiary stages are further fusion stages (see below), which have been only rarely used, and then only in the most powerful bombs ever made."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Java's Not Dying, It's Mutating - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/02/javas-not-dying-its-mutating.php <comment><USER3> "Unfortunately, people who state that Java's dead are not the people who use the latest Java technologies day in and day out."

The 'cutting edge' stuff - scala, groovy, etc. - is used by a comparative handful of people, but is the stuff those people really enjoy using (when I have to do a Java project, I do it in Grails).

The predictions of Java's death seem to be based on a Java 1.3-1.4-style Java, and that does seem to be dying. That doesn't really mean that Java itself is dying, although many people did leave the 1.4-style stuff and jumped to other languages altogether (C#, Ruby, etc). This is all anecdotal on my part - <USER2> based on people I know and stuff I see.

I could say the same thing about PHP (from experience). Many people got frustrated with it 6-7 years ago and jumped ship to Python, Ruby, etc. But 'modern' PHP (while still having much of the stuff people love to hate about PHP) can provide a much stronger base to build on that 7 years ago. Likely the same could be said for 2000-era CF, 2000-era Python, and other camps.

<comment><USER4> > The predictions of Java's death seem to be based on a Java 1.3-1.4-style > Java

What do you mean by Java 1.3-1.4-style Java? Do you mean the specific language features used (for example, is everything different now you can use generics and annotations?) or the style of coding?

Me, I've been using Java for the past 12 years or so and it, though the language has changed, it still doesn't feel _that_ different.

<comment><USER3> I should have said 'era'. Most people I knew that were using Java as a day job were stuck on 1.3/1.4 forever, even after 1.5 was released, so could never avail themselves of anything remotely new or interesting in the language. Even something as basic as the new for() looping in 1.5 was something they couldn't or wouldn't adapt to, and most of them left Java for something else.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, that makes sense and sounds similar to my experiences: Java 1.5 (I meant Java 5 :-) had been around for an awfully long time before I was able to use it at work. Of course, when we actually were able to move to Java 5, it felt like a bit of an anticlimax. The new for loop and generics and autoboxing and the like are all cool and probably make Java a bit more fun to play around with but hey, I'd been playing with Python and Haskell in my spare time by this point and they're a lot more different and more pleasant to work with. I guess I'm an example of your rule because I only use Java where I have to at work now and I can't think of a personal project that I would use Java for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Java" is an overloaded term.

"Java the Language" is not dying. I would be happy if it did, but it's going to enjoy COBOLesque longevity, and for mostly the same reasons.

"Java the Virtual Machine" is not dying, and I don't care one way or the other -- why do I care if Jython targets JVM vs. CPython that targets its own VM or IronPython that targets .net? If it gets the job done well enough, I'll use it. It isn't really mutating either.

"Java the Eco system" is not dying - there's too much invested. It will be years before it dies, if it ever does. It's also not mutating.

Seems to me like no part of Java is dying, and only a small part of Java is mutating.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hurry up and die already.</comment>


Ask HN: Does your adblocker break the web? - <AUTHOR> I use uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger on Chrome and while it used to be great, I now notice that it seems to break half the websites I visit. Does anyone else experience this? Any better options? Thanks! <comment><USER2> I'm using AdBlock and "AdBlock for Youtube" and never experienced issues except in LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Facebook Ads portals.</comment>


Things I Learned from My First 6 Months of Anime Blogging - <AUTHOR> http://www.tfwanime.com/9-things-i-learned-from-my-first-6-months-of-anime-blogging/ <comment><USER2> Suggestions on easy low maintenance blogging platforms? I have been wanting to do my own blog on security for some time, even got a domain. I don't really want to do Wordpress, it makes me sad and I'd rather have someone else host.

<comment><USER3> Jekyll and Github Pages is pretty low maintenance (static files and Markdown) and hosted on github.io.</comment></comment>


Fighting game Skullgirls reaches crowdfunding goal in less than 24 hours - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/26/fighting-game-skullgirls-reaches-exorbitant-crowdfunding-goal-in-less-than-24-hours/

<comment><USER2> What's amazing is that they made their goal in under 24 hours to raise 150k for a DOWNLOADABLE CHARACTER.

I thought this was for the full game.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Fans donated $78,000 to breast-cancer research in the name of the game, > which put it second behind Super Smash Bros. Melee. Normally, that would > have eliminated Skullgirls from Evo

Raise tens of thousands of dollars for charity = get kicked out of conventions? I have no idea how Evo works, but I assume I must be reading that wrong...

<comment><USER4> It was a competition to receive a spot. Coming in second would have meant losing that spot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not trying to be snarky, but can someone who knows more about fighting game development explain their budget?

        For comparison, Skullgirls' budget was around $1.7
        million and, since Filia was complete at the time
        of signing, that covered production of the last
        seven characters.

Surely producing the game was a lot more work than just making the characters? As far as you can even break down the budget in retrospect at all, surely adding another character to an existing game doesn't costs anywhere close to entire_budget_of_game/num_of_existing_chars($1.7m/7=$242k, big-band is supposedly a from scratch character with a $200k budget, the partially complete Squigly is $150k)?

EDIT: also, what is "Hit-box Contracting"?

<comment><USER6> Definitely not. Big band would be significantly less, however, if not for crowd funding specific costs (backer rewards, payment fees), and services a publisher generally provides (QA, first party fees). Also, the 8th character counts for way less, since most of her frames were reused from other characters.

I was a designer on the game, and while it's hard to look back and tell you exactly how much time was spent on character specific stuff vs. general features since people's time was often split awkwardly, I'd say the clear majority of resources were spent on character specific stuff. Art was by far the largest team, and worked almost exclusively on character specific stuff. Design was more evenly split, but definitely leaned towards characters. Tech was unsurprisingly mostly other features, but was a small, small team (poor Ben and Rick )= )

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the insider insight!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Fighting game community is tight as hell, and have a great time all together every year in Las Vegas at the big Evo tournament.

This is not your typical venture. The team at Skullgirls has proven themselves already. Before even starting this game, the lead designer was a top player in the fighting game scene (Mike Z). He was around as the American Fighting game scene began, and taught many how to play fighting games at an interstate level (Puny Americans lose to Gigantic Tager!!). One can argue that they are community leaders in some respects.

Ask anyone in the scene, they know what Skullgirls is: the only "real" American hyper-fighter. They are very tightly integrated into the community in levels that few startups can even imagine. This isn't some sort of Mortal Kombat newbie piece of trash, this is a game with an actual skill ceiling.

If you're in the fighting game scene, supporting this project is a must. Its not even a matter of getting value out of this, its about supporting players you respect... highly skilled players who have ventured out of their way to develop a fighting game.

This is more to a testament to the Fighting Game community, than it is to Skullgirls itself. We're freaks, and proud of it, and proud to support our brethren. There are only so many people who can consistently execute combos with 1/60th of a second accuracy (aka: 1-frame links), while simultaneously setting you up for a standing reset. There are only so many people who even understand what that means... and the Skullgirls team is one of the few that not only understands this stuff... but also designs the game at that level and improves around it. (Skullgirls is the only 2d fighter with Anti High/low unblockable setups recognition for example)

I dare say, they are the only ones in America who can balance the game at this level. The other companies who understand this sort of stuff are all in Japan, and even compared to them Skullgirls has pushed the envelope. Supporting Skullgirls is supporting the Fighting Game Scene, the only real Fighting Game company in America, and bringing top tier gameplay into the American Game Design world.

<comment><USER8> The following article by Patrick Miller "The educated gentlepersons fighting game primer" presents quite well the challenges and mechanics of a fighting game, if you wish to understand a bit more why designing a character is so expensive:

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/127524225/The-Educated- Gentleperso...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/127524225/The-Educated-Gentleperson- s-Fighting-Game-Primer-Insert-Credit-Patrick-Miller)

I uploaded it to scribd without the writer's permission, because insert credit hasn't solved their recurrent problem with malware on wordpress. The original article is at:

[http://insertcredit.com/2013/01/14/the-educated- gentleperson...](http://insertcredit.com/2013/01/14/the-educated- gentlepersons-fighting-game-primer/)

<comment><USER7> Indeed. And while other companies have moved onto 3d animation techniques to cut costs, the hardcore 2d animation fighters WANT a 2d animated fighting game. The fanbase understands the costs associated with a 2d sprite-based fighter, and are more than willing to support it.

Hell, notice that the _most expensive_ slots, the $1000 donation level and $500 donation level, are sold out. People are lining up to support Skullgirls. They probably should open up more $1000 donation level slots to get more money.

The $250 donation level is also sold out, correlating with another common cost of fighting game aficionados: a full custom stick. Fighting game players see the price and think: "Am I willing to donate a custom stick to the Skullgirls cause"?? Yeah, why not?

Speaking of which, no custom stick from the Skullgirls team? Son, I am disappoint. They probably can raise a good $500 per stick if they just scribbled their names on a custom stick (Sanwa parts, etc. etc.) and put it up as a reward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Remember, She's FREE[1]"

       1. for a limited time

_WHY_ would you put up with this? How did people see slimy trash like this and actually decide to give them money?

I feel sick.

<comment><USER10> Welcome to the crowdfunding fad. Try to cut yourself a hundred thousand dollar slice of the pie before it dies out.

<comment><USER7> See my post here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5291205>

The Skullgirls team is highly respected in the fighting game community. They not only are catering to their niche, they are the only company in the USA who is catering to their niche.

Just because their budget is small doesn't mean that they're a non-serious company, or part of a crowdfunding fad. They are the real deal to fighting game players, especially those who specialize in "Hyper-fighters". (MvC, BlazBlue, and Skullgirls)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Since nobody here appears to know the background story or have read the actual Indiegogo page (<http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keep-skullgirls- growing>)...

This game has been big news in the fighting game community, mostly because it's seriously high quality and the developers have lots of community credentials. Great. However, their publisher dropped them following a legal spat, and as a result, they aren't getting paid anymore, despite having a PC port to finish up and some new characters that they'd like to implement.

This money is not just to finish a character; it's also an indicator that the community likes this game enough to continue to support its creators. More practically, it's salary for them for a few months.

</comment><comment><USER12> 150k for a single character. And fundraising goes for a month for such a job? Actual job itself shouldn't take more than a month

<comment><USER12> indiegogo page [http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keep-skullgirls- growing?c=...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keep-skullgirls- growing?c=home)

> $48,000: Staff Salaries - 8 people for 10 weeks

Am I underestimating the job or this manpower is ridiculous? Game is already there, they are adding a new character.

<comment><USER8> A fighting game is an exercise in balancing the mechanics of multiple characters to one another. It's a bit like a rock-paper-scissors in realtime with a lot more combinations. So besides the animation, which is equivalent to that of a cartoon (and skullgirls has some quite excellent animation standards) there is a lot of balancing and fine tuning of the various move characteristics.</comment></comment></comment>


Jason Calacanis on "The Death Spiral" - <AUTHOR> http://www.altgate.com/blog/2008/10/more-from-jason-calacanis.html

<comment><USER2> Ok, I know it looks dark out there, but to me Jason Calacanis is basically like Jim Cramer - it pays to bet against him. In my opinion the huge amount of stimulus out there just takes time to filter down to recreate optimism. Governments are under pressure to take action NOW, but anything they do is going to take 6-12 months to take effect, so they keep piling it on. So they take action after action, until _BOOM_ another bubble. Those who have jobs are paying half what they did 6 months ago for gas, plus we're looking at 1% interest rates, copious availability of government credit. Plus I think world wide, there'll be a celebration next week (Bush is Gone!). It might be restrained, but I think it'll happen.

I, for one, plan to buy a new Canon 5d ($3k) at the end of November. Even if my job evaporates. Especially if my job evaporates.

Plus that whole Digg to 50 m uniques? Trust me, not going to happen. At least not without new leadership.

<comment><USER3> The celebration of Bush being gone will only happen if McCain doesn't win. I'm from Europe (Netherlands) and I sure hope it won't happen but I don't trust the polls one bit.

<comment><USER2> There's that whole "hope" theme. And lots and lots of people voted early, in the midst of this awful financial mess. They're immune from last minute turnarounds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> tada:

<http://tinypaste.com/pre.php?id=4ea66>

</comment><comment><USER5> How long's it take to join a mailing list and get the content the way Calacanis requests? Seriously, guys. Just do it, it's worth the 25 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER6> That didn't last long. Anyone aware of any other leaked copies please? wikileaks.org?

<comment><USER7> What's your email? I can forward it to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The email did say "do not reprint."

<comment><USER7> While I agree that it shouldn't be reprinted per the instructions on the email, it's sort of inevitable when he sends it to 10kish people.

<comment><USER8> Shouldn't be an excuse for the behavior.

<comment><USER7> It's not an excuse - it's a reason. Jason should expect this to happen and act accordingly instead of feigning "outrage". I do like his $1 idea though.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but when thousands of people are involved in anything, I pretty much expect idiotic things to happen.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Real-time metric counter using Soviet-era Nixie tubes - <AUTHOR> http://tellaparteng.tumblr.com/post/51805124205/in-the-nix-of-time

<comment><USER2> When I read these and see the general response I wonder how the average code- jockey today would respond to the articles that were quite common in Elektor and other 80's era electronics builders magazines.

This stuff is childs play in comparison to the kind of gear hobby electronics types would churn out in those days and if the response is as strong as I think it is this may mean that a new wave of home-brewers is about to launch.

<comment><USER3> I think the geek zeitgeist changes from decade to decade depending on what cool new thing is out there. 50 years ago it was building Heathkit and being a HAM radio enthusiast. 25 years ago, it was the PC/microcomputer. 15 years ago, the web.

Now, we have a weird amalgamation of all the above, at price/performance levels that would blow away anyone operating in those previous eras, and enabled things like cheap 3D printing and software defined radio.

It's a heck of a nice time to make interesting hardware.

<comment><USER4> to throw out a few watery ideas based on your comments - it seems to fit with the 'retro' aesthetic; or at least the re-hashing of old ideas at a high frequency. This reminds me very much of the idea of post-modernism. Perhaps the downside is we loose some authenticity but make up for it in the wealth of the combinations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Damn, that looks costly. Each one of those tubes goes for at least $40-$60 on eBay, and the socket/driver boards are another $5 each. I like the acrylic base and standoffs--well done!

</comment><comment><USER6> This story made me want a nixie watch: <http://www.cathodecorner.com/nixiewatch/watchmovie.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> Boy, I want one of those. I just found Nixie clock building kits. I'm really tempted to buy one as the primary clock for my office. That'd look fabulous.

</comment><comment><USER8> _All told, there are over 500 solder points or connector crimps..._

Meh. The H-8 backplane alone took 500 solders.

</comment><comment><USER9> Makes me want to build one as a divergence meter:

<http://steins-gate.wikia.com/wiki/Divergence_Meter></comment>


Ask HN: Should I participate in campus placements?  - <AUTHOR>

I am from India and currently doing my masters in the top engineering institute in the country.
I am about to finish my masters and most of my colleagues are getting ready for campus placements.
I am in a big dilemma.
I had two years of work experience before I entered the college. No placement company gives any additional benefit for the same.  (90% of students don't have work experience so companies take other for granted).
While studying I have done following things 1. Developed a highly appreciated webapp for a top hospital in the country. 2. Co-founded a startup and its going on well. (though I will be out of it soon) I did all the development and maintenance. 3. Worked on a defense related project 4. Developed a portal for Education ministry and administered over 20 small projects related to it.
I personally feel I have got a lot of experience which most of the companies will not appreciate. Most of them still use C programming to test programming knowledge and involves programs like reversing a linked list. I am a python/php/ruby guy.
Hardly any company visits the campus aiming to hire web developers. Most of the recruiters are large banks which will pay a lot but put me on some .NET/J2EE project.
However there is a lot of pressure on me that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Everyone says why risk finding a job in open market when a high paying job awaits you through placements. <comment><USER2> I assume you're referring to USA. .NET is something that web developers use and J2EE for web engineers. There may not be as much money in python/php/ruby, that is because it's not viewed as enterprise worthy in USA.

I suggest trying out for both company offers and placements, and see what they have to offer. I don't know what your 'placements' are like to be honest.

If you want python/php/ruby roles, do not rely on companies looking for workers on campus for such roles.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am in India and I might be hired by Indian companies but eventually they get outsourced work from USA which I think is even more horrible than directly working with a US company.</comment></comment>


Honeywell should have seen Nest coming years in advance - <AUTHOR> http://www.ipstreet.com/blog/how-patent-intelligence-can-help-you-identify-competitors-before-its-too-late?utm_campaign=Tyler%20Hakes&utm_source=HackerNews <comment><USER2> Sure, they should've anticipated that someone with no HVAC experience was going to come along and make an inferior product that's in the cloud™ and has smartphone apps and whatnot.

What they didn't anticipate is that they'd actually be as hyped as they were. Luckily for them, Nest had many, many embarrassing failures with their products that Nest's brand has faded quite a bit. I don't think established players like Honeywell are in any real danger here, unless they, in turn, mess up with their now "IoT" products.</comment>


When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, by Cory Doctorow - <AUTHOR> http://baens-universe.com/articles/when_sysadmins_ruled_the_earth <comment><USER2> every time someone refers me to this I suffer, mostly because it reminds me of old-time optimism for the internet future, the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace.

All we got now is a facebook nation and a lousy web 2.0.

<comment><USER3> I think that the thing that bothers me most about this story is how plausible it all is. That said, it's one of my favorites of his (although none of the rest come close to Printcrime: <http://craphound.com/?p=573> ).

<comment><USER4> The thing that really makes it plausible is, and I think every sysadmin has felt this, the feeling you get when you're in a server room. Spend enough time isolated in there, and I bet you every sysadmin will start to daydream about how something catastrophic could happen outside and he wouldn't even know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wonderful story, but I kept wondering the whole time, why weren't they printing out every useful bit of survival and geographical and machine maintenance and biofuel making information they could find online in preparation for the generators running out of fuel?

</comment><comment><USER6> Like all C. Doctorow's work it can be found in many different formats @ <http://craphound.com/overclocked/download/>

Quite an interesting read, I'd gladly read a sequel.

<comment><USER7> They are also available on feedbooks.com (the PDF version on craphound.com is 2-column, on feedbooks.com is 1-column)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love it! I was on my way to bed when i saw this on HN, 45 minutes later.. Woah. I would definitely read a sequel. This made my mind spin, not sure i'll manage to sleep now :-D

Makes you wonder though, would this actually be possible? And if so, how could we prevent it? Not that we can prevent the unpredictable, but too much of todays internet requires constant maintenance, we have the web 2.0, how about a internet 2.0 where some changes are made to keep it alive no matter what? (theoretically speaking, not suggesting this is a good solution).

Would have to be planned in the open too, making a open sourced new plan-spec of the new internet.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great story. I didn't plan on reading it; 1 hour later...

</comment><comment><USER10> I this in comic form and it is by far one of the best comics I own. It is an absolutely awesome comic, took me a while to find it as well!

<comment><USER11> is this a digital version you could link to..?

<comment><USER10> I don't know of a digital version of the comic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cory is always a pleasure to read.

</comment><comment><USER12> "I had two hundred days of uptime on Greedo," Van said. Greedo was the oldest server in the rack, from the days when they'd named the boxes after Star Wars characters. Now they were all named after Smurfs, and they were running out of Smurfs and had started in on McDonaldland characters, starting with Van's laptop, Mayor McCheese. "Greedo will rise again," Felix said. "I've got a 486 downstairs with over five years of uptime. It's going to break my heart to reboot it." "What the everlasting shit do you use a 486 for?" "Nothing. But who shuts down a machine with five years uptime? That's like euthanizing your grandmother."

Cory rocks.

</comment><comment><USER13> This one hits a little too close to home. As a web developer and a father with a wife and son I almost wept at my desk after reading some bits of this story.</comment>