Game Developers Are Trolling the Makers of Candy Crush With Other "Candy" Games - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/01/30/candy_crush_gets_trolled_by_developers_making_games_with_the_word_candy.html <comment><USER2> I think Penny Arcade sums up best how ridiculous this whole issue is: [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/01/24](http://penny- arcade.com/comic/2014/01/24)

<comment><USER3> I saw that the other day, it's pretty fantastic. Trademarking "Candy" and "Saga" is pretty absurd. Trademarking "Candy Crush Saga" is perfectly reasonable. We'd also accept "Candy Crush".

<comment><USER4> I can understand 'Saga' because their grand plan is to have 25 x-saga games (like Zynga did with -ville). If they do that and other people start making similar facebook games called x-saga then that would be unfair to King. I don't know if they have any other recourse in that instance, but they should be able to protect their brand.

<comment><USER5> Most games tell a story of some kind, and sagas are a type of story. The idea that one company gets a lock on that word is ludicrous. "A first-person fantasy-based RPG called 'Dragon Saga'? Sorry, you can't have it because a tile-matching game has trademarked the word 'saga'".

It's a bit like being able to trademark the term 'movie' \- should the makers of 'Scary Movie' be able to stop other films from having 'movie' in the title?

<comment><USER6> I watched my son playing Candy Crush for a few minutes and I don't see even a hint of a saga in that game. Can you get a patent on the process of misusing English words to back up your trademark?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome, my site, [http://itch.io](http://itch.io), is hosting the jam. Tell me if you have any questions.

<comment><USER8> Cool site! I will have to give this a closer look later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is the response King posted a couple of days ago: [http://about.king.com/about/our-approach-to- ip](http://about.king.com/about/our-approach-to-ip)

The last line in the above link reads "if you want to contact me directly on this, or indeed any other aspect of what we do – please feel free to drop me a line at email@example.com I look forward to hearing from you."

So if any of you want to drop King a line, go for it. Call them out on their BS.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is what happens when there's no downside (other than cost) to trademarking something. It doesn't hurt king to try, and the worst that happens is they don't get the trademark approved.

But when/if it does succeed, they are able to prevent anyone else from riding on the tail of their heavy marketing spend.

I don't like what they are doing, but they are just trying to maximize their profit, and also prevent their competition from free-riding off their marketing.

<comment><USER11> So... Anyone that uses the term 'Saga' in the name of a game is trying to ride off of the coat-tails of Candy Crush Saga?

<comment><USER12> The post doesn't say that. The effects of getting a trademark on 'Saga' are both to prevent others from riding on their tail (while diluting the effect of their marketing) _and_ to prevent other products that want to use the word Saga for reasons unrelated to Candy Crush Saga. I imagine they only really care about the former, but the latter would happen anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good on them! This whole debacle has angered me and I hope the little guys win.

I would have had no issue with trademarking "Candy Crush Saga", but that's it. Ffs, King's games are already clones of other games.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wish a large, well-behaved, games company would produce a game (totally original, good, but simple), posing as an independent developer, publish it, wait for King/Zynga to clone it, then sue their asses off. Seems to me like they're only getting away with this because they can bully the small guys.

<comment><USER15> The problem is that game mechanics aren't really copyrightable. Pac-Avoid was likely removed for its obvious trademark infringement (oh, the irony) but you can get away with some pretty blatant ripping off by changing all the copyrightable assets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The douchebag attorneys at the USPTO need some explanation for this madness. Given that King.com has successfully registered the "Candy" in Europe, doesn't mean it should be overlooked in America too. How can anyone actually trademark such an everyday word??

<comment><USER17> yeah, tell Apple about it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> King might have thought it was taking Candy from a baby, but now they must prepare to play Legal Saga and Negative PR Saga.

<comment><USER19> I was thinking "IP Hypocrite Saga"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's all fun and games till someone loses a lawsuit.

The Tetris Company LLC has for years claimed copyright and trademark rights over all falling-tetromino games and sending out C&D letters to independent developers. The developers laughed it off, until TTC vs. Xio, in which a district court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

By doing something like this the developers are risking serious lawsuits, and the invalidity of the "candy" trademark really can't be established except in a courtroom. And I think most of the smaller devs will settle way before then.

<comment><USER21> TTC vs Xio involved a direct clone. The judge ruled in his ruling that the game rules and gameplay were not copyrightable. Indeed, the judge noted that games like Dr. Mario (a tetris-like) would not have violated TTC's copyright.

Xio's clone went beyond just rules and gameplay--it copied the dimensions, colors, and various art assets. Comparing screenshots of Tetris and Xio's clone, it would have been very difficult for most people, even those familiar with Tetris, to identify which was the original.

<comment><USER22> Xio's game didn't copy any art assets from anywhere, as I can tell you, since I made all the art for it. [Mostly over one weekend, as a volunteer favor to the developers.]

The colors were not copied from anywhere, they were picked, by me, with no reference to any existing art, using a careful process designed to maximize distinguishability. To be specific, I decided that the colors should all be clearly separated in CIELAB lightness and hue, and then chose which lightness to match to which hue based on the gamut of then-current iPhones.

The result is a bunch of "bright" colors. But lots of games want bright colors, because they are the most easily distinguishable, and having easily distinguishable colors makes a game easier to play.

As for the appearance of the bricks, I cooked up a dozen or so possibilities in Photoshop, and let the rest of the team decide which to use. Again, created in a few various styles, but not with any reference to any previous game.

<comment><USER21> Just _look_ at the screenshots of Xio's clone and Tetris. They are almost identical. Now compare Tetris with tetris-likes such as Dr. Mario, and the difference is immediately apparent.

Copying assets doesn't just mean verbatim copy-and-paste. It includes recreating other assets such that they are virtually identical to the source material, as the art assets you apparently created were.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thought experiment: What would happen if Apple allowed all these infringing games to stay in the appstore? They'd get a fine? Get sued? What if they then CONTINUED to let the ganes stay. Making a stand on trademarking... I mean, Apple can pay any fine thrown at them and the governemt can't really close them down... Can they? "Yo Cook, shut it down."

How does a state handle companies richer than some countries?

</comment><comment><USER24> I think this is brilliant, but is slamming Apple's iOS approval process with *candy titles really the best way? Isn't there are risk that you are flooding it and causing delays for (sorry for the phrasing) legitimate developers in getting their apps approved?

Hate to cast a negative on this, as it DOES nicely illustrate the ridiculousness of the situation!

<comment><USER25> I don't think there is any requirement that these games be on iOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I can't say I sympathize with King.com. I always find it annoying when creative folks use IP laws.

<comment><USER27> Those IP laws are the same things that underpin the GPL and other Open Source licenses.

Granted, trademarks can sometimes be silly, copyright terms far too long and software patents ridiculous but at heart they do provide some very strong value.

<comment><USER28> Here and I thought that even in the absence of copyright, GPL and other open source licenses would be covered under contract law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I eagerly await the day some shameless company begins trademarking prepositions and punctuation.

<comment><USER30> I should trademark replacing trailing s with z.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> King is trademarking the words candy and saga so nobody can ripoff king's ripoffs

</comment><comment><USER32> Uhhh, I have an Puyopuyo clone in the pipeline which I wanted to release soon (denied because of jagged graphics). This calls for CandyCandy, amirite?!?

</comment><comment><USER33> Sounds like the equivalent of a distributed denial of service attack against patent trolling!

</comment><comment><USER34> Lost respect once candy crush trademarked their name, keep the trolling going!

</comment><comment><USER35> Europe is not a country. And European Union is not a country either.

<comment><USER36> Who said it was? I don't see that in the article or comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> King not so King anymore.

</comment><comment><USER38> i Love the campaign.</comment>


Icon Chooser Dialog for Font Awesome/Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> http://smallpicture.com/demos/iconChooser.html <comment><USER2> LOL.</comment>


USB Floppy Disk Drive RAID - <AUTHOR> http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm <comment><USER2> Good times...

Also in the same light: Samsung SSD Raid (while we are at the RAID topic) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs>

(it's a Samsung backed video, but still awesome)</comment>


Show HN: Morfa – new programming language – general purpose and DSL-friendly - <AUTHOR> http://morfalang.org/ <comment><USER2> After reading the "why" it seems that the creators should have tried Lisp. Fast, general purpose and _the_ language for building DSLs. No?

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if you could implement APL in morfa...

</comment><comment><USER4> a DSL should be able to offer more than the ability to define symbols as operators, no?</comment>


Canadian open data portal - <AUTHOR> http://open.canada.ca/en/open-data <comment><USER3> Like so many other kinds of national leadership, it occurs to me that the current US administration's restriction, removal and tainting of data (remember the panicked surge of downloads of science data after the election, and the restrictions on what words the CDC can use, and whether "climate change" can be uttered by Interior Department staff) is going to shift the center of "reliable data" outside the US to places like Canada and Europe. Heck, even China can decide to play in that space.

And so the US reduces its voice and influence in yet another area. One example will be that citations of US data will decline; being reminded less and less of US data, researchers and similar will tend not to look for it in the first place.

<comment><USER4> While I agree with you, I just wanted to point out, that Canada isn't clean here either. While I don't really remember all the details, the previous government had a particularly poor reputation for destroying records and attempting to control the narrative on government funded research.

Quick reference article: [https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/4w578d/the- harper-governm...](https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/4w578d/the-harper- government-has-trashed-and-burned-environmental-books-and-documents)

<comment><USER3> I remember that too. While the triggering example was the Canadian site, my concerns are more about America's loss of credibility relative to the world, not Canada specifically.

I also understand that the science censorship issues in Canada have begun to swing back the other way, but I'm not sure if that's because of their current administration or if it began before that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of the 5 or 6 I clicked on, I was only able to find one with actual data. Most seem to just be a record of the data that exists, but not a source of the data.

For example, fire stations in Canada has 35 'thumbs up' but no actual data available ([http://open.canada.ca/en/search/inventory/reference/tcod-201...](http://open.canada.ca/en/search/inventory/reference/tcod-2016-0721))

<comment><USER6> I think the ratio is heavily influenced by the submitting department. The thumbs ups are 'upvotes' back to the submitting body that they should prioritize this dataset.

If you're really interested, you can pull down the csv data set and sort by date released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ideally, a government should be a set of APIs that can be used not just for retrieving data, but also for performing various actions, e.g. updating home address, registering a company, requesting a new driver's license, etc. Permissions for authorized 3rd parties can be assigned through digital certificates. Outsourcing government functions to 3rd parties will create competition and reduce state expenses.

I wonder if Canadian or any other government has a similar vision.

</comment><comment> 52-6F-62 Anybody interested in these data sets will probably also appreciate GeoGratis:

[http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth- sciences/geography/topographic-...](http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth- sciences/geography/topographic-information/free-data-geogratis/11042)

<comment><USER8> As part of the ongoing government wide Web Renewal efforts, please note that as of August 31, 2017, the GeoGratis Catalogue and Search tools will no longer be available. As of that date, you should consult the Open Government of Canada search tool.

<comment> 52-6F-62 The framework is still in use to display geographic and topographical data in the Open Data portal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> open-source-ux For an international comparison, the Global Open Data Index ranks countries based on the open government data made available. Canada ranks well at number 5 (jointly with Finland and Norway).

[https://index.okfn.org/place/](https://index.okfn.org/place/)

<comment><USER9> One of the most striking columns in that list is the "Government Spending" column. It is red all over the place, including top two in the list - <USER2> and Australia!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> These data might be impacted by Canada's stance on disclosure:

> Last week the Canadian finance ministers announced that federal, provincial, > and territorial governments will require companies to keep information on > beneficial owners that can be made available to authorities. In the same > week, all 28 EU members agreed to make such information publicly available > on registries and to make beneficial owners of trusts available to > authorities.

Source: [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/how-much-real- estate...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/how-much-real-estate-do- foreigners-really-own-statscan-got-it-wrong/article37439665/)

<comment><USER11> That data will never be released to the public, even if they do intend to actually gather it properly. The Canadian economy needs foreign money to not fall into recession.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Was there a recent update or improvement here? They've had this going for a few years now..

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, I hadn't noticed it before, and came across it so I posted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13>
        <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">

        <title>400 Bad Request</title>

Bad Request

Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.

        Request header field is missing ':' separator.

        Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chro

A broken request parser? What a lovely first impression.

<comment><USER14> I can confirm that it is broken for me on Firefox Nightly and Chrome.

<comment><USER15> Worked fine for me: Firefox Quantum 57.0.1 (Mac OS X)

<comment><USER16> No problems here on Safari/MacOS</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lessons from History - <AUTHOR> https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/five-lessons-from-history/ <comment><USER2> if people are interested in lessons of history

i would suggest the book "lessons of History" by will and ariel durant. two historians who—after a lifetime of studying history—wrote a book trying to synthesize any lessons from their studies.

small portions of the narration are a bit dated as it was written during the middle of the cold war, but almost all of it is valid today as you might expect.

[https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-History-Will- Durant/dp/143914...](https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-History-Will- Durant/dp/143914995X)

</comment><comment><USER3> These are very good lessons, however they are (as the nature of them is described in the article) difficult to make consequence of in our daily lives. We should try our best but it seems that the lesson itself is that we are unable to make use of them as we go. It is only in retrospect we can acknowledge that they are still true.

One interesting question could be if we humans one day will surrender to "our obvious flaws" that makes these lessons true and allow ourselves to be "ruled" or "guided" by an AI who actually is able to take these lessons into practical consequence when we make our daily decisions in life, business and politics. It could be an idea for the TV-series Black Mirror to investigate.

<comment><USER4> One lesson of history the governments can try to remember is: do not sacrifice your strategic goals for a short-term gain, or "avoid hotfixes in production".

Example 1: Septimus Severus raised the legionary's yearly pay from 300 to 400 denarii while decreasing the amount of silver in a denarius by a half, thus thoroughly upsetting the Roman economy.

Example 2: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Ukraine on 9 February 1918. Ukraine obliged to deliver grain to Austria-Hungary to relieve the food shortage. In exchange, Ukraine was given lands that Polish people considered their own. When the news went public, the Poles, hitherto the most loyal nation to the Habsburgs, changed the orientation to anti-Austrian. In due time, their Regency Council declared independence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The brief mention of Smedley Butler in this essay is incredibly misleading, and doesn't make it clear that, far from being a participant in the plot by fascist-like industrialists, Butler exposed the plot, spoke out stridently against it and indeed against the nascent military industrial complex in general!

</comment><comment><USER6> These are good lessons</comment>


High availability for InfluxDB - <AUTHOR> https://www.thumbtack.com/engineering/high-availability-for-influxdb/ <comment><USER2> Do you guys have any plans to add horizontal scaling?

<comment><AUTHOR> We do, but it's still at a very early stage :-)</comment></comment>


Hoover Dam may stop producing power by end of 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://clockworkchaos.com/project7/?q=dam_water_wasters

<comment><USER2> Interesting analysis; I would like to think that there are smart people working at/with the dam over the years that have already put some effort into mitigating any effects in the event of low water levels, but who knows.

Minor gripes:

>> To see this, you can zoom in the chart using the widgets in the bottom left

Please don't make the user zoom, adjust, or work to understand your visual..the whole point of the visual is to make complex things simple.

>> I did a quick projection analysis based upon historicals

Would love to have a link here to the data for the water levels as well as the documentation that shows the max and min levels for power generation.

>> What's worse is that once the dam ceases operations the plan is for Vegas to receive the remaining water via an underwater aqueduct. Like a blood sucking mosquito, Las Vegas is ready to suck the reservoir dry leaving nothing for the rest of the South West.

Seems a bit biased when it was previously mentioned that "the increase in population levels in Las Vegas and other dessert cities is not the sole contributing factor to the decline to in water levels".</comment>


We'll Work for Peanuts. But We Won't Work Without Meaning - <AUTHOR> http://moz.com/rand/well-work-for-peanuts-but-we-wont-work-without-meaning/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I have been developing an educational game for well over a year now and was supposed to be released a few months ago. We got to 4 weeks before the deadline and the boss came in and had a one-to-one with myself to explain we needed to put the date back, he just wasn't happy with the product. As frustrating as that was, the game is now in much better shape, far closer to how we had imagined it from the start. One point I would make, as a very small company (only two full time guys, myself and our artists) we had to create short term contracts to help out at various times. The rate of pay for them was ridiculously low (as was ours), and we truly got what we paid for. If you pay peanuts be prepared to get monkeys.</comment>


Hedge fund manager open-sources trading strategy - <AUTHOR> http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/01/31/10612/monoline-flatline-bill-ackmans-letter-to-the-insurance-regulators-in-full-and-his-models/ <comment><USER2> It seems that Excel breaks down for models this large. Clearly, computation doesn't scale well. And, even scrolling through all the tabs is a PITA. Do you think the model builders actually used Excel, or did they use something else and then convert it over so that they might "Open Source" it?

I'm interested as somebody who would like to build a better tool for working with such large models.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would not be surprised if the model builders used Excel. I work with a few investment banks and hedge funds, and at least half use Excel -- though most of them are quantitative funds, so they have a few traders using Excel and many more quants implementing the actual models in C/C++. If Ackman were more of a PhD than an MBA, I would suspect him of building it in something else and releasing the kludgy model to outsiders.

<comment><USER2> Do you think there's a market for something in between Excel and raw code? I'm thinking of some sort of Excel/Rules/Code hybrid designed for large, complicated stuff. Good verification tools, multiple what-if analyses that could be run simultaneously, etc. I'm just trying to think through all the problems I've had when trying to use Excel for models even smaller (much!) and simpler than this one.

<comment><USER3> I'd be a bit shocked if people (particularly the more academic types) didn't use matlab or R. Anyone know if these two are prevalent in financial shops of various types?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have seen specs calling for Matlab, R, S+, and Mathematica. But my impression is that since the finished product is going to be in a high- performance, low-level language, they don't care what you do your rough- drafting in as long as the finished product is C++. Exception: Jane St. Capital uses Ocaml; one of their top execs is a Lisp fan who has been credited in pg essays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mssr.Byrne Hobart, thank you for an excellent link. Your blog is also quite good. I'm going to have to dig around more.

Having played with the actual Excel spreadsheet, this seems like something that probably could have been done with Mathematica using less horsepower...or am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER5> Great! Even the greatest trading strategy, once made available to the very general public (FT readers), is worthless, because you can't make abnormal returns by doing what everyone is doing.

It's a good learning tool, though. Strategies like this have been "opensourced" by academia for decades.

<comment><AUTHOR> It may be personal. I remember reading his analysis of MBIA on valueinvestorsclub.com in 2002, and he was just as down on it then (though at the time he used kilobytes of prose instead of megabytes of numbers).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> He's also [donating the profits to charity]([http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ackmans-winning- bets-a...](http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ackmans-winning-bets-against- mbia/story.aspx?guid=%7BFE2A0B83-4C2C-42A2-9B65-FB24A94D892C%7D)).</comment>


Is poker a game of skill, or a game of luck? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2015/jan/14/poker-game-skill-luck-cepheus-bot-program

<comment><USER2> 70% skill - 30% luck</comment>


Plants "panic" when it rains - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-10-panic.html <comment><USER2> Link to the research:

[https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/10/25/1911758116](https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/10/25/1911758116)

>"As to why plants would need to panic when it rains, strange as it sounds, rain is actually the leading cause of disease spreading between plants," said University of Western Australia's Professor Harvey Millar, co-author of the study.

"When a raindrop splashes across a leaf, tiny droplets of water ricochet in all directions. These droplets can contain bacteria, viruses, or fungal spores."

"The sick leaves can act as a catapult and in turn spread smaller droplets with pathogens to plants several feet away. It is possible that the healthy plants close by want to protect themselves,

</comment><comment> kris-s What is described in the article doesn't fit the definition of panic.

I'm torn because maybe I wouldn't have read the article without the needless anthropomorphization. Plants are awesome and interesting to me because they're so planty and not animaly.

<comment><USER3> A defense mechanism that is triggered by a hormone? Doesn't seem terribly far off

<comment><USER4> He makes an interesting point. Some plants have a response to rain triggered by a hormone. To ascribe the term panic to it though might possibly be mischaracterizing the response because of the tendency to anthropomorphize.

<comment><USER5> Well we don't really have words to describe plant behavior. I agree, we can't view plants through an animalian lense, but at the same time we have to use the words we have to discuss them. I think it's fair to say plant "panic" is different than animal "panic" but from what I read, panic seems to be the closest analogue.

<comment><USER6> Is our immune response to a pathogen considered panic? I think not.

<comment><USER7> A chemical reaction that sets of a string of defensive protection reactions and behaviors? Sounds quite like panic to me. It's basically "fight or flight" for plants except plants can't do the "flight" part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Panic" is an anthropomorphism for what is really going on. Plants react to water. That makes complete sense. Humans react to it when it falls on us as well. Maybe we go inside. Maybe we open an umbrella. Maybe we go dance through the fields and enjoy a summer rain. But whatever we do, they are reactions, not "Panic."

<comment><USER9> While I mostly agree with you, I just want to play devil's advocate here a little bit.

Plants and fungi have some very complex interactive networks capable of various forms of individual, inter-individual, and inter-species communication and intelligent decision making. From our perspective though, these interactions and decisions play out over some very different time scales from our own cognition. Suppose for a second that a tree was intelligent enough to be sentient, it would be VERY difficult for either the tree or us to recognize the intelligence and cognition in the other.

"Panic" responses, fear, and the whole manner of physiologic changes that happen in a human didn't spring up over-night. These pathways evolved a VERY long time ago. An insect has some obvious "panic" type of responses to predation attempts that are not so different from our own. As you climb up the ladder in intelligence to mammals, and then all the way to humans, there is absolutely no clear line where "panic" suddenly exists as I believe you would define it. It's a very smooth and gradual transition. Even in a human, if you've ever watched one come back to consciousness after a seizure or wake up from anesthesia, you'll see that it's also a very smooth and gradual transition to what we'd call consciousness and sentience. It's not at all an on/off switch.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the same neurotransmitters and hormones fill the same role in a plant response to dangerous conditions as they would humans. I know many of the same signalling molecules are in use. Evolution doesn't like to fix what ain't broke.

<comment><USER10> Time scale isn't enough to prevent us from recognizing intelligence and cognition in trees (I can't speak for the trees recognizing us). Look at their works, their accomplishments, their cooperative social organization. They've had a long, long time to show us that.

Oh! They've done nothing! No tribes nor social exchanges - never even mention hospitals and lasers and money and law...

No, trees are not sentient, intelligent nor exhibiting cognition.

<comment><USER11> No grifting, fraud, hoaxes, deceptions, violence, dishonesty -never even mention atom bombs, firethrowers, IEDs ... Clearly not sentient.

<comment><USER12> Plants can be parasites, practice deceit, produce poisons to kill animals and other competing plants, kill other plants by strangultion as well (and likely other ways). Perhaps that was your point and I missed it.

<comment><USER11> "Plants can ...practice deceit"

Sounds almost like intentionality (sentience) there.

Plants sure aren't all sweetness and light. I did suggest that, while sentience leads to inventions, it also leads to (non-feeding) murder, war (largely restricted to humans), and possibly extinction. If we 'have' any advantages on plants, sentience may not be it.

Plants can't move, and can't speak. That may explain why they've been around for oh, 50 times longer than us. And will _almost certainly_ be around LONG after we're not. Smart?

<comment><USER12> Not agreeing or disagreeing, just pinning stuff down here...

> Sounds almost like intentionality (sentience) there

Hmm. Clarification needed - does the concept of deceit mean the deceiver understands what it is doing ie. has theory of mind? If so, I'd guess plants do not deceive but do something similar driven by evolution[0] that we need a different word for as it's not sentience-driven.

I'm open to the idea of evolution itself has some sentience but I'd not waste time on it as I don't see it's a testable hypothesis.

> If we 'have' any advantages on plants, sentience may not be it.

Agreed, but sentience may actually be an advantage. After all it's not the sentience in mankind that genuinely makes me despair but other features such as greed and short-termism. Fix those and maybe our chances of racial survival would be hugely increased. IOW we have many mental aspects and sentience is only one of them.

> around for oh, 50 times longer than us

Plants separated from aninmls ~1.7 billion years ago (figure from memory), humans have been around a few hundred thousand years, by various definitions of 'human'. I guess you dropped a few zeros :)

[0] eg. natural variegation in plants ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variegation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variegation)) seems to make insects attack them less as discoloration makes the plants look to the insects less healthy ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variegation#Defensive_masquera...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variegation#Defensive_masquerade)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you liked this one, you might also enjoy reading about the mycorrhizal networks some plants can use to communicate between each other: [http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a- hidden...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden- internet)

<comment><USER3> my favorite radiolab episode is about this: [https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/from-...](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/from- tree-to-shining-tree)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article talks about signals and proteins that activate genes, but it doesn't say what actual response of the plant is being implemented by those genes. I thought maybe this was an omission, but the paper doesn't seem to talk about that either.

</comment><comment><USER15> So, what defenses are triggered? Seems like this article is half written. Where's the cause and effect? What are these protective effects you mention?

</comment><comment><USER16> The instruction to pour water straight into the pot, and not onto the plant, always struck me as odd. Maybe it's one of those small ancient nuggets of knowledge that we struggle to justify but just work. Might be a big leap still, but reactions like the one from this paper could justify not spraying water all over my house plants.

<comment><USER17> Tap water is often hard so pouring it on the plant leaves deposits behind.

Another justification is that when it's sunny water droplets on leaves act as lenses and might burn the leaves.

It is also known that wet leaves increase the chance of fungi, mildew, etc. taking hold on them. The article shows that plants are also well aware of that!

<comment><USER18> I was always told that the leaves just don't need it and it gets in the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Related - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose#Study_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose#Study_of_metal_fatigue_and_cell_response)

</comment><comment><USER20> It would have been nice to see what particular plants were used in this study. I somehow doubt that all plants react this way. Considering some plants grow under water, others such as sequoias are dependent on fog for their irrigation. Interesting article none the less.

<comment><USER21> The plants used in this study are Arabidopsis thaliana, which is a very commonly used model organism in plant biology.

I think it's not a particularly wild assumption that a lot of plants will react in this way. The MYC2 protein and jasmonic acid are important regulators of plant defenses so priming of defenses when it rains makes sense. There are pathogens (such as Pseudomonas syringae) that can trick a plant into opening its stomate, which are airholes on the leaves, as a means of gaining access to the interior of the leaf.

As the paper describes how the mechanical action of rain can wash pathogens around the leaf or onto other plants I think it's reasonable to think other plants would react like this.

The interplay between the jasmonic acid pathway and other plant hormone pathways is super interesting as plants, in general, have two ways of defending themselves. For pathogens that feed on dead tissue the name of the game is to keep the cells alive (jasmonic acid can be thought of as generally responsible for this sort of response), whereas for pathogens that feed on live tissue then the plant will kill of cells local to the infection site in order to deny the pathogen food (salicylic acid is largely responsible here).

<comment><USER20> I still stand by my original comment, it would have been nice to have the type of plant studied included in the article and or in the synopsis of the paid article.

"The plants used in this study are Arabidopsis thaliana" was this information in the story and I just missed it? Or are you making that assumption due to that being a "very commonly used model organism in plant biology"? The plant image used at the top of the article looks nothing like rock cres but instead more like some sort of hosta or lilly pad, I wonder if the image plant is shaped that way to catch and funnel water away from its roots? Just as a palm does the opposite? Anyways I could go on, just wish they had included the species in the article.

<comment><USER21> Checking the article again I got it from the "More Information" box at the bottom of the article. The paper is titled "In vivo evidence for a regulatory role of phosphorylation of Arabidopsis Rubisco activase at the Thr78 site" so that means A. thaliana.

The picture is certainly misleading, I guess they just grabbed a generic "plants in a rainforest" picture for evocative reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > "One of the chemicals produced is a hormone called jasmonic acid that is > used to send signals between plants," Professor Millar said.

Would this be "that smell" that sometimes lingers after rain fall?

<comment><USER23> Maybe you're referring to the smell of "petrichor", which comes from the soil getting wet [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What defences do plants use in this case? Article describes why but not what.

</comment><comment><USER25> Honestly, same.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very funny thought to imagine plants panicking when it rains.</comment>


Exact Computation of Sums and Means - <AUTHOR> https://radfordneal.wordpress.com/2015/05/21/exact-computation-of-sums-and-means/

<comment><USER2> Huzzah! As someone who has worked with building, testing, and numerical software, this seems like a great thing. Generally floating point computations are effectively non-deterministic: you (or the compiler) change something that doesn't seem like it matters and all of a sudden your result changes. Having more methods available that give you the deterministically best right thing at little additional expense is great!</comment>


The Free Law Project - <AUTHOR> http://freelawproject.org/about/

<comment><USER2> As the lead dev of the non-profit, it's exciting to see it appear here. We've been working on this project for four years now. The legal world is a tough one when it comes to technology: Lawyers are conservative and risk adverse, the players are entrenched, and the content is either locked up in books or in rough shape for text processing.

This is a fully open open project, and we love feedback, code reviews, ideas, volunteers, you name it. Any help we can get is great to have.</comment>


Extracting image metadata at scale - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.netflix.com/2016/03/extracting-image-metadata-at-scale.html <comment><USER2> For their image resizing tasks, I wonder if they've tried anything more complex than simply cropping around points of interest, something like seam carving [0]. I imagine that it would be pretty cheap to run a bunch of different algorithms on an image and then A|B test it on Amazon mechanical turk.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seam_carving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seam_carving), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcIJXTlugc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcIJXTlugc), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJtE8afwJEg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJtE8afwJEg)

<comment><USER3> That looks amazing, and relatively easy to implement. However it seems that Mitsubishi owns a patent on it, so maybe we will start seeing it used in __ years when they expire.

<comment><USER4> Seam carving has been in Photoshop, and other applications, for years now (as is clearly mentioned in the linked Wikipedia article).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is very interesting, but the real question is: how do you test which approach is better?

For example, in the text detection case there are almost unlimited combinations of transforms that you can put together. Usually you use some hybrid of gut feeling and results to decide, but I bet Netflix has enough data to make that call in a more principled way.

Would be awesome to hear about that. How do you create a labeled dataset? How exactly do you measure which approach is better? Is there a perceptual element to it, or is it all quantitative?

Edit: here's the related money quote from the retargeting paper linked in the other comment:

      "In terms of objective measures for retargeting, our results show that we are still a long way from imitating human perception. There is a relatively  large discrepancy  between such measures and the subjective data we collected, and in fact, the most preferred algorithm by human viewers, SV, received low ranking by almost all automatic distance measures."

</comment><comment><USER6> don't think it actually talks much about how it does it at ' scale'. how expensive is it to perform these operations? are images cropped dynamically as they are requested or do they pre-process the images and cache it somewhere.

did they do anything clever to parallelize the process? what underlying technologies do they use...

<comment><USER5> From the code samples, it looks like OpenCV... which is pretty hard to beat for well-understood image processing algos like thresholdling etc.

I guess at this point you can do it "at scale" by throwing enough servers and caching at the problem :)

<comment><USER7> It would be more interesting to see what they are using to manage the servers and run opencv which is what the comment was asking .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The authors may want to consider how much of this work could be done easily and effectively with deep learning. For content-based search and image similarity, even simple, pre-trained convnets will likely crush the histogram- based approaches you have here.

Just run your images through Google Cloud vision to do the face detection and text detection. With 2M images, it will be cheaper than the amount of dev time you spent here, and you'll get excellent quality.

<comment><USER9> They explain that not all of the images they want are faces in this case, so you'd have to train your own on "interesting regions" (though there is some work in that area). Part of the challenge in that case is generating all your labels for what the interesting regions are. This way they don't need to generate labels, at least.

<comment><USER10> Youtube did something similar for 'interesting thumbnails' last year with deep nets (many uploaders do not specify a good thumbnail preview), and reported that it gave a nice performance boost.</comment></comment></comment>


Why NYC is not Palo Alto cc: MikeBloomberg - <AUTHOR> http://ajayjapan.posterous.com/why-nyc-is-not-palo-alto-cc-mikebloomberg

<comment><USER2> I'm reminded of Joel (Spolsky's) excellent commentary on this matter.

[http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im- working-...](http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a- company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-stu/20136#20136)

tl;dr from the post:

"So... to answer your question. There is unlikely to be substantial difference between the contracts that you sign at various companies in the US working as a programmer or in the law that applies."

<comment><USER3> Joel's main point is that, even with CA's labor code, it can still come down to a gray area around what a company's "business" is.

What I think the OP is pointing out is that in NY a company is able to set up a more restrictive contract than a company. At the very least (and from personal experience), companies in NY can introduce more gray areas in the contract (making it more difficult for entrepreneurs to feel safe in working on weekend projects) while still making it seem as if they follow the spirit of the CA labor code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At my company in NYC (Intent Media) the founders specifically spent time writing a clause into our standard employment agreement granting everyone the rights to their side projects.

I'm not sure how common this is, but it seems like something that everyone should look at before signing on with a company, especially with the battle for talent that's going on right now.

<comment><USER5> It's a show of good faith but they would have no claim to your side projects anyway (unless you produced a direct competing product that they could reasonably demonstrate you had stolen from them).

At least that's my view of it. If anyone has an example of some programmer having his side project legally taken (i.e. a judge made him hand it over. Getting intimidated into handing it over outside of court doesn't count) by a company I'd love to see it.

<comment><USER6> It's easy to brush off intimidation when you forget that fighting it often involves a huge investment in legal fees that few individuals have the resources to spend in a battle with a large corporation. Especially when the law probably isn't on your side and you signed a contract giving away your IP anyway.

How about analyzing the situation for what it is: failing to protect independent innovation may result in less independent innovation. All the legal speculation and contract theorizing in the world will do no good if the facts of the matter tell a different story.

<comment><USER5> My point about intimidation was that if it is used then it still isn't proven that the case would hold water. You can't sign yourself into literal slavery, you can only be tricked into giving up rights that you have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think its not really about the law - most startups don't even realize it exists. Its much more about the culture. Investors in the Valley have had phenomenal success for some time directly investing in start-ups and firms are willing to take a bet that they will invest in the next big thing. NYC firms aren't as accessible, and even the big events (Disrupt) tend to be Valley based. Also NYC has a talent issue (although I think this is changing), for a very long-time NYC start-ups had to compete with banks to get tech talent and there isn't a huge pool of schools feeding into the city. Finally NYC is expensive, so its harder to get a "garage" to work from and 2K a month is tough to live on.

That said a lot of these issues are being resolved, and I see both founders and investors making a very big dent this time around particularly with mobile start-ups.

<comment><USER8> I built a hack during the hackathon at Disrupt and was shocked to see that even though we were in New York, there were very similar traffic numbers from California (Disrupt was using an ISP in New Jersey so I am summing NY and NJ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nothing is stopping NYC startups & employees from drafting an appropriate contract to make ownership of side-project work belong to the employee.

<comment><USER6> Why would any employer agree to that?

<comment><USER10> I find it hard to believe that it would be an unreasonable request that any work you do outside of the office, on a personal machine, and not utilizing any company IP be under your ownership. If such an issue does turn into a sticking point during negotiations, you should strongly consider that a red flag.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. Remember, it's companies that can't find programmers, not programmers that can't find jobs.

<comment><USER6> I'd really like a list of these companies with HR departments that are going to allow an exception to the standard contract because _we just really need this guy._

You're absolutely right that companies would be better off in attracting talent by revising portions of their contract. You're absolutely wrong to suppose that they're necessarily going to do that.

<comment><USER12> Every one of them, in my experience. I think I've waived that particular clause (or refused to sign the agreement) five times now for five different employers.

You just need to mention it when they give you the agreement to sign. By the time there's a piece of paper printed out with your name on it, they're committed. And on the other side of the table from that piece of paper is the guy who hired you. A reasonable person that can recognize a silly clause when you point it out.

Just cross out the paragraph, initial next to it, then sign and hand it back. If they want to make a big deal about it, it's them making the big deal, not you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unfortunately, the blog post is somewhat flawed. In the CA law he references, it clearly states that the exception to you owning your code/ideas is if they "relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer."

While IANAL, the consensus on a number of websites is that, while working for a tech startup, anything that you do in your free time could technically belong to the company you work for as its related to your "employer's business."

<comment><USER14> You're misreading the law. As an example, if you work for a software company that makes iPhone games, and you write an iPhone game in your spare time and with your own resources, that game could be at risk of being owned by your employer. If, however, instead of making an iPhone game you make a photo sharing website, there's very little risk that your work could be owned by your employer.

There are obviously lots of gray areas in between. If you're planning to try and make money off something you built in your spare time, you should talk to a lawyer.

<comment><USER15> As you pointed out, it's a gray area.

[http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im- working-...](http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a- company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-stu/20136#20136)

" _Not related to your employer's line of work. Um, wait. What's the definition of related? If my employer is Microsoft, they do everything. They made a goddamn BARNEY PLUSH TOY with a computer in it once. Are plush toys related? Obviously operating systems, compilers, desktop applications, search engines, and games are related to Microsoft's line of work. Hmmm._ "

" _This ambiguity is meant to create enough of a chilling effect on the employee working in their spare time that for all intents and purposes it achieves the effect that the employer wants: the employee doesn't bother doing any side projects that might turn into a business some day, and the employer gets a nice, refreshed employee coming to work in the morning after spending the previous evening watching TV._ "

<comment><USER16> _This ambiguity is meant to create enough of a chilling effect on the employee working in their spare time that for all intents and purposes it achieves the effect that the employer wants: the employee doesn't bother doing any side projects that might turn into a business some day, and the employer gets a nice, refreshed employee coming to work in the morning after spending the previous evening watching TV._

I don't think it's this devious. It's simpler than that. Strategically and legally speaking, you never don't want rights, even if those are rights you shouldn't, by any reasonable moral judgment, have. Companies ask for aggressive terms not to be malevolent and devious but because the lawyer's job is to get the most aggressive terms (i.e. the most rights) possible. If it were legal for a company to assert rights over an employee's work for 2 years after employment, shareholders would expect executives, and executives would therefore expect lawyers, to push for those terms. The game, at least in theory, is about getting the most aggressive (and yes, often unfair) terms upfront and letting the courts sort it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> While interesting, this seems like an insignificant piece of minutia, considering the title.

</comment><comment><USER18> I recently took that startup genome quiz and I hit upon a truth that I sort of already realized: To launch a successful startup you need to do it full time. So yes your weekend project could be the next Facebook, but the odds are really against you.

I think the real issue with Silicon Alley (having been a part of the scene since the early 90s) is that Wall Street still swallows quite a bit of the top tech talent — that with a super high overhead can get in your way. It's better than it was years ago, but that's more of the big issue for NYC as I see it.

<comment><USER19> To experiment the waters in the first place, before you go full time, that weekend project can be very helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Has anyone with a successful w/e project been successfully sued over this in NY state and lost?

<comment><USER21> Yes, IBM is in NY state. If you want me to do your homework for you and buy a license for WestLaw then I'll pass. I'll leave it to you to prove a negative.</comment></comment>


Followr has now been fixed - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/followr/phbifpkhlenmpjndnmjppbdhcocdlalk <comment><AUTHOR> Author here -- let me know if you have any trouble!</comment>


Three Things Men Can Learn From Women in the Workplace - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/kiyan-foroughi/women-in-the-workplace_b_2806619.html

<comment><USER2> Having worked with a female co-founder on two startups I would add a 4th thing which is being aware how others are feeling (not thinking). Women have much better (in my experience) radar when it comes to what other people feel at any given time and therefore know almost in advance how will they decide or act in certain scenarios. That's invaluable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Log in to WordPress via QR code (fully functional plugin available) - <AUTHOR> http://www.jackreichert.com/2012/01/22/no-more-passwords-log-into-wordpress-using-a-qr-code/

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love you input whether I left any security holes.

Username/password are never passed back and forth, only the unique hash.

Hash is removed from the database once it's used, old hashes that haven't been used can't be unless the database is hacked, but then you have bigger issues.

All database queries of the hash have been escaped to prevent XSS attacks.

</comment><comment><USER2> Google did this recently (HN discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469692>) but since ended the "experiment".

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this, but i wonder if there's a way to tie this to a Google/Facebook/Twitter account? I'm much more likely to already be logged into one of those devices on my phone...

<comment><USER4> Sure. You could have QR code point to a URL on your server that started the oauth login process and had the one time hash value passed as a parameter. That hash value would be put in the callback URL for the oauth process. Once you complete your normal oauth login your server takes the one time hash value and does the same update the db trick done here.

Aside: God, imagine if browser vendors had put a tiny bit of effort into password management or even just the UI around http auth back at the beginning. All sites could use http auth or whatever superceded it instead of their own login forms and this problem would seem just as stupid as it actually is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love the idea. Will implement in next version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it just me, but are QR codes a solution in search of a problem? I see them everywhere, but I've never seen a single person use one.

<comment><USER4> I don't use them often but if I'm walking around and someone wants me to open a url on my phone for any reason (billboard, ad, store, restaurant, anything in print) then it better be _really_ short or have the QR code right there for me to even think of bothering.

Still that means I probably use one maybe twice a month, but I would use them more if they were more widespread.

I expect most people are the same, no one types long URLs into their phones while reading them off a newspaper or billboard or store window do they?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. I don't use them much. But they are a very useful way to share information easily. When I was in between business cards I created a qr code of a vcard of my contact info and saved it as the image for my lock screen.

I had an instant conversation topic with me at all times and people seemed to appreciate the creative use as well.

<comment><USER4> Thats a great idea. I'm going to do that for my lock screen.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A map of the former surface of the Earth, now residing in the mantle - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/10/scientists-release-an-atlas-of-the-underworld/ <comment><AUTHOR> A link to the mentioned Atlas of the Underworld:

[http://www.atlas-of-the-underworld.org/depth-top/](http://www.atlas-of-the- underworld.org/depth-top/)

<comment><USER2> In particular, the image in the article is from [http://www.atlas-of-the- underworld.org/Cocos/](http://www.atlas-of-the-underworld.org/Cocos/)

The site is designed for specialist, and current version is too technical. I looked at it for a few minutes and read the explanations, but I'm not sure about the interpretation.

It would be nice to have an informal blog post with a layman explanation of each image and what is supposed to show each one. At least, a image edited with paintbrush to add a few ellipses to mark the important parts and arrows with a keyword. Do we have a geologist here?

<comment><USER3> As a nontechnical person I wonder what they need to say that they didn't say.

We have places around the world where one plate is diving under another plate. Subduction zones. The extrapolation is that the diving plate persists in some form as it dives into the mantle, and can be identified with the position it once occupied on the surface. These pieces of crust are cooler than the mantle they are immersed in. One reason we can track them is they propagate seismic waves at a faster velocity than the surrounding mantle. I'm not a geologist and I welcome feedback on my interpretation of the abstract and other materials.

<comment><USER4> Do we know how much of slab movement in the mantle just reflects mantle convection, and how much also reflects slabs' structural integrity? Near the surface, I understand that slabs are load bearing. But below a few hundred km, aren't they melting? Or does the fact that this technique detects them imply that they haven't melted fully yet?

<comment><USER3> As a layman I don't know what consensus geologists have about your questions. But I think the answer to the last of your questions would be yes. The colder/solid slab is showing up in data gathered about seismic wave propagation speed.

I have the model in mind of an ice cube in water, except with higher viscosity and of course more heat. There would be a penumbra of cold water surrounding the melting cube until a point where there would just be cool water, vaguely cube-shaped. Plus the motion would smear the penumbra but not the remaining solid. Also my guess is there aren't a lot of precise measurements, so the usual blur from that. Like an ice cube in water, if you test the solidity of the cube you find that the cube hasn't softened, just shrunk.

I looked at a few of the plots but only the Cocos plot clearly suggested a 'slab' to my eyes, and probably for the wrong reason: The plot looks like it is divided in half by the blue area. Looking more carefully and reading, I think what I'm seeing is two depths of the same object. The plate subducting under the West coast of the Americas is apparently appearing as an anomaly or slab at two depths.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I gather that at least some volatiles bake out of subducting crust during the first 100-200 km. That's what drives subduction zone volcanism. But maybe that increases the melting range for what's left. I have no clue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not clear from the article, but the site makes clear that the 'slabs' are the parts of the map colored in blue.[1]

[1] [http://www.atlas-of-the-underworld.org/Atlantis/](http://www.atlas-of- the-underworld.org/Atlantis/)</comment>


A Victim Mentality Will Doom an Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://www.caycon.com/blog/2011/04/a-victim-mentality-will-doom-an-entrepreneur/

<comment><USER2> This isn't just true for entrepreneurs. A victim mentality will doom anyone.

Keen an open mind (and open eyes), have confidence in your abilities but be ready to learn, and keep bouncing back.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree with the main point of the article that you can't have the victim mindset, but disagree with the examples. Thinking any of these things doesn't mean you're doomed. Only if you let it stop you.

</comment><comment><USER4> But it's not my fault I have a victim mentality... it's brought on by forces outside my control!

</comment><comment><USER5> Normally I would think that saying "I failed due to reasons beyond my control" is a victim mentality as opposed to "I failed due to things I can change next time" - however the article takes the opposite tack.

</comment><comment><USER6> From TFA: "People with a victim mentality should never be entrepreneurs."

Does you folks know anyone with the victim mentality that has actually become an entrepreneur? I've got several people in my life that are victim-minded and say they would like to be entrepreneurs...but they generate 10 scenarios of failure for every entrepreneurial idea they encounter. As a result they never take the necessary risk to start anything.

<comment><USER7> There's a difference between risk-aversion and victim mentality. People who are risk averse will look for reasons to not do something. People who have a victim mentality might actually go ahead and do the thing, but if they fail they'll think it's because the universe hates them (or something similar).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am a victim of Hacker News. I need to quit reading and commenting on banal blog posts and get back to work!!

</comment><comment><USER9> I think victim mentality just one of the many faults listed in the article others being negativity, over-sensitivity and fatalism.</comment>


Centring Columns in Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> http://tentaclecms.com/blog/2013/07/centring-columns-in-bootstrap/

<comment><USER2> Cant you just nest a row?</comment>


The Future of Reputation - <AUTHOR> http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Future-of-Reputation/text.htm

<comment><USER2> As an aside. There's an excellent 14 hr. radio series on the difference between, as well as the evolution of, privacy and publicity.

The only issue seems to be that the CBC has taken them offline (or in the least, they aren't streaming for me).

[http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/features/2010/04/26/the- ori...](http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/features/2010/04/26/the-origins-of- the-modern-public)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the link. I ripped the raw URLs of the MP3 files, in case anyone else wants to take these on-the-go or whatnot (not sure if this violates their TOS or not):

1\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/Ideas_04261...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/Ideas_042610_Origins_of_the_Modern_Public_1_940484.mp3) 2\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep2.mp3) 3\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep3.mp3) 4\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep4__941584.mp3) 5\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep5.mp3) 6\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep6.mp3) 7\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep7.mp3) 8\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep8.mp3) 9\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep9.mp3) 10\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep10.mp3) 11\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep11.mp3) 12\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep12.mp3) 13\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep13.mp3) 14\. [http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern- publ...](http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/modern-public- ep14.mp3)

<comment><USER2> I'm still getting the same errors as before. FF won't play them (I get a quicktime component crash) and Safari says there's an error and to check Activity window, which doesn't show me the URL of the mp3 for download (a still functional method I use for downloading Youtube videos). Edit: Chrome seems to be loading one of the mp3s but won't play it.

Also, CBC just responded to my email saying everything does work and I should try it from another browser or update my flash.

Using Lion with everything (all browsers, flash) up to date.

<comment><USER3> Try using a command line utility to download them, e.g. wget or curl:

      wget http://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/Ideas_042610_Origins_of_the_Modern_Public_1_940484.mp3

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The CBC series does seem offline. Can anyone locate alt. links ?</comment>


How to Write 225 Words Per Minute With a Pen - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2014/06/yeah-i-still-use-shorthand-and-a-smartpen/373281/ <comment><USER2> While Gregg shorthand is great for English, its not much use for anything technical. Many of the shorthand idioms are based on the word-sound, not the word-spelling, so it's okay if you're taking notes for yourself, reading someone else's shorthand becomes an exercise in decoding the word in context because you were not there for their experience during note-taking.

If you don't stay fresh with your own shorthand, just like your own source code, you can find yourself re-reading your own work and wondering what you were thinking!? That's kind of what this pen in the article semi-solves, by having an audio recording synched with your shorthand.

<comment><USER3> My understanding is that it was not generally expected that notes taken by one person would be interpretable by another. This is what I've been told by my mother, who learned and used Pitman shorthand. She says she never had to read anyone else's notes, nor did anyone else ever have a need to read hers.

<comment><USER4> This is largely why note taking is a two pass process for me. The first is the pen and paper notes taken while speaking with someone else. The second is the process of transcribing and editing those notes onto some digital medium. I end up with a really nicely fleshed out document covering much more information, much more thoroughly. For example, for a more complex point in a discussion I may add an additional paragraph or two of background and context to what was actually talked about.

I've found this process to be the best I've tried, and others who I share my notes with have voiced their liking.

<comment><USER2> If you're not reviewing your notes at least once after you've taken them, you shouldn't even bother taking them. I don't think there are very many exceptions for write-once-and-never-read notes. Note amplification is stronger if your intent is to explain the notes to someone else.

<comment><USER5> > If you're not reviewing your notes at least once after you've taken them, > you shouldn't even bother taking them.

Beethoven would disagree with you,

        Beethoven left behind an enormous number of sketchbooks.
        Yet he himself said he never looked at a sketchbook
        when he actually wrote his compositions. When asked, "Why
        then, do you keep a sketchbook?" he is reported to
        answered, "If I don't write it down immediately I forget it
        right away. If I put it into a sketchbook I never forget it, and
        I never have to look it up again.

Source: [http://books.google.no/books?id=1YN3kc31nqAC&pg=PA148&lpg=PA...](http://books.google.no/books?id=1YN3kc31nqAC&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&source=bl&ots=w5G9bts1uF&sig=0E-DqVf_esnTLnCTwXaFN3FT1WI&hl=no&sa=X&ei=UIyxU_ikEMS_ygPey4F4&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage)

<comment><USER6> Jill Price (the Woman who remembers everything)[0] also compulsively kept a journal. What is it about the connection between writing instrument and human brain that doesn't extend to QWERTY? Price also didn't refer back to her journals from what I can tell.

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

<comment><USER7> This might be of some help : [http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/writing-and- re...](http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/writing-and-remembering- why-we-remember-what-we-write.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I got so excited when he said that it really was possible to write at 100 words a minute but then he said that it's nearly impossible to actually learn Gregg, I wonder if there's a website somewhere....

About the Livescribe: it's an okay pen but difficult to hold. and somewhat awkward because of the camera at the tip, but it could depend on the way you hold pens.

<comment><USER9> The old manuals are on archive.org:

[https://archive.org/details/1916GreggShorthandManual-5thVers...](https://archive.org/details/1916GreggShorthandManual-5thVersion1916)

<comment><USER10> Just want to add that there are other shorthands which are pretty solid (and more easily available). For example, Pitmans: [http://www.long-live-pitmans- shorthand.org.uk/](http://www.long-live-pitmans-shorthand.org.uk/)

<comment><USER11> I'd advise against Pitmans, unless you plan to take it very seriously. Pitmans is one of the more complicated forms of shorthand, and relies on differentiating between hard and gentle lines.

I found Teeline, for instance, much easier to get going with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how difficult it'd be to write OCR-style software for Gregg. It'd have to be more sophisticated; character recognition alone wouldn't be enough, you'd have to do a bit of Markov modelling with most probable sentences/words too. I guess it's so niche no one will ever do it, but it sounds like a fun project.

<comment><USER13> I used to have a palm pilot and I LOVED the 'graffiti' input mode with the stylus. You had an alphabet of simplified shapes and it made it very easy to enter something quickly without needing to 'hunt and peck' on a miniature keyboard for the shift key or using shift keys to change modes.

I wondered why nobody brought gesture-based inout to iOS this way. I don't care about 'handwriting recognition' of my own writing, I want a more efficient input method, even if I have to learn it and practice to be good at it. I'm not content with tapping one button for each character I want to record :S

<comment><USER14> I think an excellent input method for mobiles is Swiftkey. It has incredible accuracy, and it learns really fast as to what and how you type. Its intelligence beat all other keyboards that I tried, and I'm able to peak at over 60 WPM using SK with two fingers, and 40 WPM with 1 finger and flow. However, it gets tricky as soon as you get sloppy or start writing technical stuff, so I tend to stick with the traditional tapping method of input.

There is a little bit of a learning curve to get optimal speed, but once you learn all the nuances and the shortcuts, it gets absolutely great. Typing long and detailed text is now reasonable on a phone, and quickly replying to something takes no time at all thanks to flow in my opinion.

<comment><USER15> A friend of mine swears by Swiftkey, too. They seem to have taken a turn for the evil on Android recently, though: still usable as ever, but bugging you every once in a while to try out new themes, or asking for overly broad permissions.

<comment><USER16> Hi there,

You can actually turn off notifications from the app by: 1) SK settings 2) Advanced 3) Uncheck the box

SwiftKey has also stated they are working on performance updates in the next release: [http://swiftkey.com/en/blog/swiftkey-5-performance/](http://swiftkey.com/en/blog/swiftkey-5-performance/)

As far as the notification at the top of the screen this is a notification provided by the Android OS and cannot be turned off or hidden.

Cheers,

Ryan Community Manager @ SwiftKey

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't see the utility of shorthand anymore. If you're just taking short notes, you don't need to write 225wpm...and if you've recorded everything, then you can listen to the recording later and take notes or type up a transcript verbatim.

It would seem better to learn a stenography system so you don't waste time inputting actual text, which surely you would need to do anyway? (How is the time the author saves writing in shorthand not negated by the time it takes her to type it up afterwards?) I guess if you knew shorthand and steno, you could do everything pretty quickly.

<comment><USER18> There are specific professions in which it comes in handy. Journalism is one of them. Every now and then, you'll encounter someone who is willing to go on the record, but for whatever reason, doesn't feel comfortable being taped. (And by "every now and then," I mean somewhat greater than half the time.) And a lot of people are put off by the act of typing into a keyboard or tablet while you're speaking to them, even if you're making eye contact all the while.

I'd say any profession in which you're on the go and often have to take notes by pen and paper, shorthand is a necessity. This is doubly true in my case, as a partial disability in my right hand makes longform pen-writing a PITA.

<comment><USER19> I know a few people who maintain eye contact while typing, for instance, while I'm running a meeting. Man, it always feels creepy to me.

Am I the only one that gets that feeling?

<comment><USER20> I do this pretty often, and people pretty much always complain. Less so people my age (college-aged), but a lot of professors, TAs, and my parents all claim that it's entirely too creepy. My parents have actually told me that they'd prefer if I just looked at the screen the whole time.

But on the other hand, why would I look at what I'm typing? I already know what it says- I hardly have to read it again. A good typist knows when they've hit the wrong key and should be able to correct for it without having to read.

<comment><USER19> I wonder if college age folks are more likely to be okay with it or if they're less likely to say something about it? Probably some combination of the two, I'd guess

I usually type mostly looking at the screen and then glance up and make eye contact or nod during pauses, to re-establish that I know the person is there and I'm paying attention to them.

I don't think it's so much a practical thing as purely social. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with looking at a person while you type. It just doesn't seem socially typical. It might be the normal thing to do at some point, in which case I'll adapt. It just doesn't seem to be the case now. It'd be interesting to do research on this, though ,and see if there's a significantly different perception between age groups.

I'd guess that most folks on this board are pretty proficient touch typists, and could look wherever they want while they're typing. Even if you're only reasonably good at touch typing, you're probably not going to mangle the words to the point where you can't run a spell check over it to fix most of your mistakes.

I'll personally probably stick to mostly looking at the screen for now, since it seems like more people are made uncomfortable by looking at them, than looking at the screen, but it's interesting to think about where it might go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Shorthand systems also exist in other languages. I'm aware that there was something called a "fast writing" system in Korea and a version of Pitman- Graham in Japan.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand#Modern_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand#Modern_Japan)

</comment><comment><USER22> For programmers, I don't think shorthand is the right technology to learn - stenographic typing has the same kind of advantages and speed, and directly inputs to the computer.

Learning shorthand does make stenographic typing easier to learn (and vice- versa), since it's the same sort of syllable-based contraction.

<comment><USER23> For a stenographic typing solution that can work on a pc check Plover: [http://plover.stenoknight.com/](http://plover.stenoknight.com/)

<comment><USER24> Here's the 2013 PyCon talk given by one of the Plover developers, Mirabai Knight: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb- dB6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpv-Qb-dB6g)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The shorthand is based on sounds, not spellings. So the difficulty is that the brain has to translate spelling into sounds first, which is a great barrier to overcome.

There is a similar fast writing system (速写)in Chinese. I tried to learn it for a year while I was in high school, but gave it up eventually. Other than the extra difficulties of logograms vs phonograms, another barrier is that one need to translate the fast writings back to "normal" ones for easy reads later. Many times it is so hard to tell what I actually scribbled down.

<comment><USER26> > So the difficulty is that the brain has to translate spelling into sounds > first, which is a great barrier to overcome.

It doesn't look like it's meant to be used to copy written text, but to take notes that have already been spoken, which is exactly the opposite to what you're describing - When I speak and you take notes, you essentially turn sounds into spelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I remember finding a textbook on Gregg shorthand in my grandmother's attic when I was 10 years old. It fascinated me (secret writing! esoteric knowledge!) and I spent a few afternoons practicing and inventing my own abbreviations, even using it to take notes in school once or twice, but my family bought a home computer not long after that, and all my energy went into learning BASIC.

</comment><comment><USER28> I was really hoping this article would end with the author revealing the Livescribe pen could expand Gregg shorthand written with it into standard characters on a computer.

<comment><USER29> It would have to be a author-guided OCR though as the same symbols can represent different words.

<comment><USER15> You can probably get pretty far with machine learning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> [http://www.nctj.com/journalism-qualifications/shorthand- teel...](http://www.nctj.com/journalism-qualifications/shorthand-teeline)

UK journalists still do teeline shorthand. I used to have to help upload practice dictations for a colleague who taught teeline.

Pitman's shorthand was the one used by secretaries when they took dictation. I was fascinated my my Mum's shorthand books as a nipper.

</comment><comment><USER31> This reminded me about my Pocket PC, which used to have a writing recognition mode that was a cross between Palm's stokes and regular writing (I could've been a 3rd-party keyboard). It was more accurate than regular writing recognition that Pocket PC had and thus faster for me to use. To this day my handwriting is altered by the way I was writing on that keyboard...

</comment><comment><USER32> I have been using the Echo Livescribe pen for 4 years now, and it has saved me on many occasions. I taught myself Quickscript before I ever had the pen, but because of the lack of OCR for it on the pen, I don't really use it much.

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

</comment><comment><USER33> Loved the exposition on Gregg shorthand, I tried and failed to master it in college sadly, but it also gave me new respect for the archivists who decipher notes on the margins of older texts, as those seem to be in their own shorthand, sometimes invented by the author of the margin note.

</comment><comment><USER34> "As a journalist, I begin most interviews by..." ...talking about my cool pen and Gregg Shorthand for a couple of minutes. Well that's a great way to spend the possibly limited time your interviewee has to talk to you.

<comment><USER35> When hand-held tape recorders were new, I'm sure many journalists opened with "Have you ever seen one of these?" shortly before asking "Is it OK if I record this conversation?". Seems like a perfectly reasonable 30 second exchange to ensure that the interviewee is informed and comfortable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Gregg eschews the parade of silent letters, like the "y" in "bay" that make > English so difficult to learn as a second language.

I stopped reading here. I can't take this drivel seriously.

<comment><USER37> srsly?

<comment><USER38> At least for me - a native German speaker with English as a self taught second language - I find that the `y` in bay actually makes it easier to figure out the correct pronunciation.

Since `a` is pronounced as `ah` in German, just having `ba` would make the `a` sound like the one in `bra`, which would make it hard to distinguish between `ba(y)` and `ba(h)` when first learning the language.

Removing the y's would also leave one with seemingly strange words like `awa`, `ga`, `sla` and `sta`. Which quite honestly to me, look much more like mnemonics rather than actual English words.

<comment><USER39> I thought that at first as well (about the potential confusion), but then recalled that most of the "possible" alternatives aren't real English words:

"bah" is really only a sort of exclamation and the sound of a sheep, not something you'd really have appear in an interview.

As you pointed out, "awa(h)", "ga(h)", "sla(h)" and "sta(h)" aren't English words [1] that you'd confuse in context so "away", "gay", "slay" and "stay" are the only possibility for them. The "y" really is not necessary.

I really want to learn Gregg now...

1 "gah" like "bah" ends up being an exclamation, and "slaw" as a food... but I can't think of a case where it would be confused with "slay" in context.

EDIT: Clarification on gah, awa, etc

<comment><USER40> The 'a' sound in "Slaw" is a bit tricky. it rhymes somewhat with the 'o' sound in 'ostrich', 'ought' or 'taught', which are written with the symbol for an 'o'. Oddly though, the word "Father" is written with an 'a'. If it's really necessary to distinguish between these sounds, Gregg Shorthand does allow for diacritical marks over vowels, but they are rarely used, since the meaning is usually clear from the context (and they slow you down).

It may help to realize that John Robert Gregg was Irish - so imagine his _somewhat_ British pronunciation of vowels. Since Gregg shorthand is written phonetically, the words "father" and "farther" are written pretty much the same . That becomes a bit confusing to an American speaker of English.

I taught myself shorthand in high school. I love foreign languages and found it fascinating. A "Secret Language" like someone said above.

But I agree with one of the other posters, if you do not use it often, you will find it very difficult to do well. The basics of Gregg shorthand are incredibly simple, but it is another thing entirely to master - to be able to write quickly and accurately takes practice. Still, it is not impossible and you use it quite readily only knowing the basics. Unfortunately it has become a lost art except to a very few.

It would be quite an undertaking to write OCR software for Gregg shorthand because the writer has a lot of freedom to construct abbreviations on the spot or join several small words together when convenient (rather like native Germans can come up with compound words you won't find in a dictionary). The other problem would be clarity. While Gregg Shorthand doesn't have rules like Pittman for placing certain strokes on or above a line, proportion is quite important because several letters share common shapes ("n and "m", "p and b", "t and d", "f and v" are all quite similar but vary in length or height).

So the writer would have to be consistent in their proportions and the software would need to be able to learn the writer's style.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tourism Remedy: 10,000 Free Flights to Japan - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/10/11/tourism-remedy-10000-free-flights-to-japan/

<comment><USER2> 10,000 free tickets, goal to increase tourism by having people spread word of mouth recommendations of how they didn't spontaneously generate an extra limb on touching Japanese soil.

I wonder if this is the best use of funds. If they've figured out word of mouth is going to be an effective strategy, wouldn't 20,000 tickets at half price go further, even considering the extra good will that the second half off would generate?

I know I'd go for the half-off just as quickly as for the free.</comment>


How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python 2nd Edition (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english2e/

<comment><USER2> Computer scientist here

It seems to me that there are 2 types of "Computer Scientist"

One with a more traditional education, including all the tech subjects, plus all the college level math (3 or 4 calculus, 3 or 4 algebras, discrete mathematics, differential equations, etc). I am in this group.

And then the more... I don't know how to call it... "modern education" maybe? which is very light in the math side, and very focus in implementation of the technical side

Computer science is not about computers, nor is a science. But it is about the process of information transformation. While the book shows some of that in Python, a single language is not enough to "Think like a Computer Scientist", what is worse it helps perpetuate a false impression of what a computer scientist do.

Applied Python would be a better title

<comment><USER3> I would fall into your latter camp, being self-taugh. I started with the interpreted languages JS, Ruby and Python and, in the end, I didn't feel like I understood what I was doing until I got into C and even Objective-C. Therefore, it wasn't until I touched a pointer or dealt with memory management that I felt like I was really more than a coder.

Not everyone wants to learn C, or C++ for that matter, but at least taking the time to understand I/O and (in my case) POSIX systems goes a long way to writing better programs - even if they are just in Python.

<comment><USER2> I began as self-taugh like you, but I went from Basic to Assembler in 1 year. I gained a lot by understanding what the compiler was trying to make work, so I agree with you that understanding of lower levels goes a long way into what you produce at a higher level

Then I went to college, and math forced in me a more abstract thinking. I had to make it work in my head, because writing the symbols will not make sense if I could not conceptualize it first. I honestly hated differential equations, but in retrospective, it help me a lot to write functions that create new functions in return, and this is in C# (I don't like the mess that C++ became, but I respect other people that do)

<comment><USER3> Haven't gotten into diffy-q but that's next up after I grock Swift and finish my Angular app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am a computer scientist, and even though I've used python extensively in both product development as in prototyping, and I honestly don't think python helps people here.

If you want people to learn to think as a computer scientist via programming languages, teach them at least 1 language in the 3 major paradigms (OO, FP, declarative).

(There's more to learn: data structures, architecture, math, .... that I will not delve into here...)

The problem is that the insight comes at a price: You'll start comparing and might conclude that LanguageX is not suited for taskY.

<comment><USER5> Not sure that sounds like a problem to me. Python isn't suitable for everything, but very often it's good for at least a prototype.

<comment><USER6> _Python isn 't suitable for everything, but very often it's good for at least a prototype._

Well, yes, but you're missing the parent post's point. It's not saying that python is a bad language, that's sorta irreverent. The post uses understanding a language decision itself as an example of "thinking like a computer scientist." No matter how good or bad any single language is, learning to use language is not "thinking like a computer scientist."

<comment><USER5> OK, I agree. In the computer science sense, I enjoy Python because I find it has a high degree of transparency. That is just a personal judgement though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would instead suggest the subsequent "Think Python - How to Think Like a Computer Scientist" by Downey: [http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html](http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkpython.html)

<comment><USER8> Allen Downey also has some awesome other work, and his Bayesian statistics made simple talk at PyCon was a good one ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_sIDLVisvA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_sIDLVisvA))

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's not bad - I read this book a while ago to boost my Python-fu. But it left me feeling like most software/language books - unsatisfied, i.e. here are the pieces (syntax), here are a few (boring, trivial) ways to put the pieces together, etc. To give a really strong CS foundation, SICP still rules. :)

</comment><comment><USER10> "Thinking for Programmers" -Leslie Lamport [http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/3-642](http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/3-642)

</comment><comment><USER11> Published by O'Reilly as "Think Python", available from the author(s) as a free PDF at [http://thinkpython.com/](http://thinkpython.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I do most of my work in python, but the one thing that I use all the time and makes my life easier is types. I was introduced to types via c++ and java and having to declare them explicitly gives (imo) a much more concrete idea of what a program is actually doing. You can learn a little bit about types in python, but their connection to correctness and strange bugs (in python) is hidden by the dynamic type system.

So while I like python a lot and use it as often as I possibly can, I think it hides one of the key elements that distinguishes of thinking like a computer scientist from just thinking logically. Computers are all numbers, types give numbers meaning and provide strong tools for intuition. Python hides that.

<comment><USER5> I went the other way :)

I find that I rarely get confused about the types of the things that I'm manipulating, and in practice I find that the problems I have are unexpected behavior from say third-party web APIs, surprising data at system boundaries and so on. Usually I try to mitigate this by introducing a "type system" (or more accurately, declarative data validation enforced at runtime) near the boundary of the application, such as a parser, JSON schema, option parser, etc.

The biggest thing I do miss in Python is solid and natural concurrency. Gevent is the closest I've found, but it doesn't play as nicely as I would like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> this is a great introduction to basic CS ideas for __beginning python programmers __\- and that 's most people:

* hobbyists * professionals who decide they need programming in their jobs

if you're a CS major, there is "structure and interpretation of computer programs" or book of your choice.</comment>


Nereus deep sea sub 'implodes' 10km-down - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27374326

<comment><USER2> It would make sense to update the title to indicate that this is old news, it happened on the 10th of May, more than 4 months ago.

<comment><USER3> Also that it was an remotely operated vehicle not a manned submarine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Was posted at the time but didn't get much attention: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7732667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7732667).</comment>


Amazon Prime offers ad-subsidised unlocked phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/prime-exclusive-phones <comment><USER2> If this is implemented as non-obtrusively as it is on the kindle, than I could get behind this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Around 2000 we used to sell free (or almost free computers) that served ads. I suspect this will have the same fate.

</comment><comment><USER4> So you can unlock a regular moto g. Can you unlock the Amazon moto g?</comment>


The world's first super light electric folding bike - <AUTHOR> http://www.yikebike.com/site/

<comment><USER2> Looks like an awkward riding position.

E.g. when you approach a pothole or curb on a regular bicycle or motorcycle you can easily stand on the pegs/pedals. But it looks like if you tried that with this thing you'd have to thrust your pelvis forward, lean back, and put your weight on the handle bars behind you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Twice the weight of a Brompton bicycle, not enough battery range for an ordinary cycle commute across London, terrible handling, no luggage capacity, ludicrous price.

Also, under EU law this contraption is a light motorcycle, which means it needs to be type certified to be used on the roads, which this machine will never achieve. In their own FAQ, the designers admit that the machine is not road legal in any of their target markets - their solution is to ask prospective customers to lobby for a change in the law. Even if they completely redesign the machine to be road legal, you'll still need a driving license, road tax and a helmet to ride it; you might as well buy a motor scooter, which will be cheaper, faster, more comfortable and safer.

Other than that, it's a great idea.

Honestly, this sort of thing makes me genuinely angry. It's a blatant example of the cart leading the horse, a designer starting from a blank page and ending up with a solution that is novel, exciting and far worse than all the existing solutions. It's exactly the kind of humbug that will result in more design awards than units sold. The bicycle is for the most part a solved problem. The non-folding bicycle was perfected over a hundred years ago and the folding bicycle has scarcely improved since the Brompton was launched in 1989.

The market is polarised into bicycles and motorbikes for a reason. If you add motive power and fuel to a bicycle, you end up with a machine too heavy to comfortably carry. Once you're over that threshold, it makes no difference at all whether you go 1kg over or 100kg over. You might as well use the extra weight and build a proper motor vehicle. Trying to bridge the imaginary gap between a bicycle and a motorbike makes perfect engineering sense but no practical sense. It's what happens when you forget that you are solving a human problem, not a technological one.

</comment><comment><USER4> $4,500 to have some one yell "Too lazy to walk, ya fuckin homo?" - <http://paulgraham.com/segway.html>

Much like the segway this product just make you look dorky and lazy.

</comment><comment><USER5> Dupe (222 days apart): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=810787>

Accomplished by appending "/site/" to this submission.

<comment><USER6> I'm ok with duplicates, especially when there's something else going on today that makes another look interesting. It can be helpful when submitting an old link to add a comment such as:

 _Interesting in light of recent discussions around the physics of gyroscopes and the brain's adaptation to balancing on a unicycle._

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I rather ride an electric skateboard than this.</comment>