Minimum Viable Personality - robert-boehnke http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/minimum-viable-personality.html <comment><AUTHOR> Was this meant to be funny or demonstrate a lot of personality? (as in: you will endure all this rough English because the message is so important). I am probably not getting the humor but I found it an obnoxious read. All this to tell you "Don't be boring - do something different"? I could imagine a much better article on that topic.

<comment><USER2> One thing this blog post highlights strongly, albeit accidentally, is that if you are going to have a personality it is important to have the _right_ personality for your market. Having the wrong personality can set you back in ways ranging from not being taken seriously- and therefore having a greater hill to climb, to being offensive- and therefore being locked out of your market/audience.

This blog post reads closer to something that I expect to see on a joke or casual chat forum than something I expect to see on a VC's blog.

Having said that, I also think the message is spot-on. In particular, I thought the advice under "How not be boring" was clear, simple, and compelling.

<comment><USER3> I think you're right that the wrong personality can set you back, but disagree that this post is an illustration of it.

Another of Fred's posts a few days also had spot-on advice relevant to the HN community. It never made it to the front page: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3025690>

This one being so much more successful illustrates one of three things: (1) the personality helped or (2) people think the content in this post is more interesting than that one was or (3) pg fixed the problem that makes it harder for items to reach the front page if they're submitted too early in the morning Pacific time.

<comment><USER2> The reason it illustrated the hazards of a "wrong personality" not because it harmed Fred's particular brand, but because it was so startling that the reader can immediately see how having a "wrong personality" can have a lasting impact. This isn't a problem for Fred (except possibly for new readers), but could be for someone who is still trying to build his brand.

In other words, if this _were_ the personality of the blog (or, say, if Zed Shaw's online personality were the personality of the blog), online readers would have a different impression of Fred Wilson the VC.

 _This one being so much more successful_

Only if the sole purpose of the blog was to get attention and create discussion as to the writing style of the blog.

<comment><USER3> I did choose to measure success by upvotes. Are you saying that people are upvoting this article because of discussion as to the writing style?

<comment><USER2> No. But I would venture that I _wouldn't_ necessarily choose to measure the success of a blog by its upvotes on HN. Especially when, as it was when I first commented, that the majority of comments were about the writing style and were negative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This was the most helpful article I found on HN this week. Not joking either, I'm mucking about with product design for which this was spot on. And it was performed (I find no better word) with personality.

<comment><USER5> I liked "EVERYONE CARE AND TALK ABOUT PRODUCT YOU WIN". Kind of reminds me of when ma kid brother had literally droped out of school and we as a family seemed to care and talk about him now he just graduated from Uni. He won and we won.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Spolsky does this best, even though I can't quite pin down how.

His company doesn't have a trendy name, he doesn't really have a gimmick (other than being a clear and prolific and useful writer, which is not a gimmick), but he's reasonably celebrated.

In the context of this "don't just be useful, have personality" idea, what's his personality? It must exist, because the following that he's built points to it, but I can't identify it directly, sort of like a marketer who you've heard great things about but don't know where. (Obligatory xkcd comic link to be posted by someone else.)

Note: I'm not saying he has no personality, just that I can't point out what makes it come to the forefront, because it's subtle. I love the guy, but don't know why I love his site so much more than, say, jwz's. Maybe it's the implied profitability of his software business, versus the "I sell beer because I hate computers" message?

<comment><USER7> Joel is funny. not comically funny, but enjoyably funny, such that you can almost always get through a post or interview or whatever without feeling labored.

Joel always brings in metaphors or stories from worlds outside development (only sometimes funny). Many stories still go back to the Army, or his first job at the bread factory, but the recurring stories make you feel like you know him, you know his past, his experience at Microsoft. You know his whole personality through his vast writing, and it's all masked in "clear and prolific and useful" writing.

You feel like he's an expert, because you didn't notice that he's always injecting personality, where, an example from AVC's comments is Mailchimp, who makes their entire brand about a single chimp.

It will be hard for Fog Creek to keep their brand after Joel leaves, but it won't be hard for Mailchimp

<comment><USER8> Yes, Joel is very funny, but not in an overbearing, obvious way.

In an old essay on software specs [1] he states: _one of the easiest ways to be funny is to be specific when it's not called for_

I've noticed that he does this a lot. All the time. Sometimes too much, like in hginit.com, which I did not find that amusing. But most of the time he is spot on.

[1] <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000033.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love Fred, and I love his blog, but I couldn't make it through that post.

<comment><USER10> the fake grimlock is an acquired taste. but once you grok him, you can't believe how good he is

<comment><USER9> I knew it had to be good to be given a guest post slot, but I just couldn't understand the purpose of the format. Now that I know what a grimlock is, the writing style makes perfect sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> People like a degree of anthropomorphism in, well, anything. But when designing things with personality, keep in mind that there's, what I call, a valley of creepiness which happens when you add too much realism. E.g. it's probably okay to have a coffee-machine that kind of looks like an animal, but it's not okay to have that coffee-machine defecate perfectly realistic pieces of shit on your carpet.

Universal Principles of Design calls it the uncanny valley: [http://books.google.com/books?id=zXAx9_Y8GiEC&lpg=PA243&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=zXAx9_Y8GiEC&lpg=PA243&ots=1iPwewHla8&dq=universal%20principles%20of%20design&pg=PA243#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is basic "How People Think" 101. People like HOT, INTERESTING, SEXY. People also like FUNNY! Which is why this article was BRILLIANT.

</comment><comment><USER13> I like the occasional "common sense" article as much as the next guy, but this was a little bit too obvious, vague, and uninformative. Make a product that is interesting that has meaning and people like. Wow, really? Wait, I've got a better strategy, that is even more straight to the point: Make money, get rich.

Making something that people care about is a goal, not a strategy.

</comment><comment><USER14> I cannot begin to express how much this made me think. In preparation for my own launch coming up, I'm looking at it and wondering why I've spent so much time of Minimum Viable Product when the personality just won't cut it. The guys at Hipmunk posted something to this affect a while ago, but it didn't have the weight of this.

But how does one launch a product with a personality? As a developer, not a designer, I'm at a loss...

<comment><USER15> I think it has to develop. You can't slap it on like it's a feature, because authenticity is one of the most important components of personality/voice.

I basically try to avoid squashing the personality. Just by not thinking like a PHB, or a corporate manager, I seem to avoid being bland. And I try to have fun as I'm developing something.

Also, its better to be personal than impersonal (contrary to what I was taught about writing essays).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Totally love this article! Your company and your product have to BE ABOUT SOMETHING!!! Why should people care about you as opposed to the hundred of apps that launch everyday? You have to represent an idea. You have to represent possibilities.

</comment><comment><USER17> This reminds me of this TED talk : [http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html)

Sell by saying who you are, not what you do.

</comment><comment><USER18> I read the whole thing in the Hulk's voice.

<comment><USER19> For me it was (somewhat inexplicably) the voice of Morbo, the prodigiously- foreheaded newscaster alien from Futurama.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Rework.

</comment><comment><USER21> "webcopy that sells" speaks about a lot of this, and other ideas on how to communicate to users.

[http://www.amazon.com/Web-Copy-That-Sells- Revolutionary/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Web-Copy-That-Sells- Revolutionary/dp/0814413048)

woot.com is a great example of how to sell through persionality, and not by being a sales person, which doesn't seem to work as well on the net.

</comment><comment><USER22> How does this apply to Google search, Yahoo, Facebook, Dell, Asus, Intel, StackOverflow, Hacker News, Google News, YouTube, Kingston Memoriy, Seagate, Cisco, Verizon Superpages, C|Net, Twitter, FourSquare?</comment>


Food Crises: Predictive validation of a quantitative model of food prices - <AUTHOR> http://necsi.edu/research/social/foodprices/update/

<comment><USER2> So... what happened? It's 2014 now, and I haven't been paying close attention to food prices around the world.

Did the model successfully predict them or not?

</comment><comment><USER3> The authors don't seem very confident in their results: _According to the new study, the next food price peak will take place in about a year._

If I were confident that FB or TWTR or food prices would peak in about a year, I'd just buy shares or futures now and sell it then, rather than just publish some silly study.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand the reason for your comment: 1\. are you suggesting that prof. Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute would be more interested in profiting from his findings and keeping them private then doing science for the sake of science (in part paid by the military) or to influence policy so mass starvation can be prevented? Not everyone does their thing for the sake of money. Why would that be silly?

2\. Science works with confidence levels, the quote "about a year" is English for that there is a margin of error in their predictive statistical model. There was an all time peek august 2012, exactly half a year later. So the model might be correct and of future use. Fortunately the prices have been below that peek since. [http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/](http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/) I'd expect people posting on HN have some basic sense about science, hypothesis, models and confidence.

<comment><USER3> If the professor bought a bunch of futures (or raised a fund to do so), he would be signalling to the markets that food production should be increased, thereby preventing mass starvation. Generally speaking, people pay far more attention to money than to academic papers.

As for your point (2), that's what I was saying - the author is not very confident in his results.

<comment><USER5> Assuming the professor's wealth is around average for professors it does not seem likely that the professor's buying power would be sufficient to act as a greater signal to 'the markets' than the paper written. The professor very likely does not have enough money to signal to 'the markets' to increase food production and thereby prevent mass starvation. This suggestion of yours seems patently absurd.

<comment><USER3> _or raise a fund_

In any case betting his personal wealth would signal far more confidence than merely writing a paper. As dlthomas points out, he could do both.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Covid-19 county map displayed with demographics, policy, healthcare resources - <AUTHOR> https://covid19.topos.com/ <comment><USER2> very cool, thanks for sharing!</comment>


P: A programming language for asynchrony, fault-tolerance and uncertainty - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/p-programming-language-asynchrony/ <comment><USER2> It's worth noting that this isn't just a research language -- it's used in practice for writing drivers:

 _P got its start in Microsoft software development when it was used to ship the USB 3.0 drivers in Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone. These drivers handle one of the most important peripherals in the Windows ecosystem and run on hundreds of millions of devices today. P enabled the detection and debugging of hundreds of race conditions and Heisenbugs early on in the design of the drivers, and is now extensively used for driver development in Windows._

<comment><USER3> Honest question: what is so complicated about writing device drivers, whose sole purpose typically is to transport data from input to output, and vice versa?

Also, shouldn't drivers be sandboxed to prevent stability problems from affecting the rest of the system?

<comment><USER4> > _what is so complicated about writing device drivers, whose sole purpose > typically is to transport data from input to output, and vice versa?_

What you ask if valid, and very true, but for cable construction, not driver writing.

There are tons of protocols and issues to handle when designing a device driver. Negotiate device capabilities. Handle hot plugging and unplugging. Handle intermittent state changes in the device. Handle buffering. Handle different versions of the protocol (or multiple protocols from the same bus). Handle throttling. Initialize and configure the device correctly (and infinite variations of devices from different vendors with perhaps slight or big inconsistencies in their implementation).

And of course device drivers are not just about I/O.

<comment><USER5> Add discovery, error handling, system resource allocation(dma, memory, interrupts, pins, clocks and timers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> P is a really cool language, and I've been keeping an eye on it. Unfortunately, the documentation has been pretty perpetually out of date, and the language is still a moving target. So you can't just "get started" in P, the example code won't compile.

I don't know what their plans are or if they ever intend for it to be consumed outside of MS. If they do, some focus on docs would be nice.

Pony is a similar language - but better documented. If you're interested in P, I suggest checking out Pony.

<comment><USER7> Pony generates also much tighter, better, faster code. Code which I would use in a driver. Not managed C#. I know no other language which generates faster code. I mean faster than C++ with OpenMP, while being memory and concurrency safe.

P has fantastic proof and test generating libraries and IDE's though. In pony you'll have to write perfect code to pass the type checker. P does much better handholding to get there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> At last, the long awaited successor to C, at least in the naming convention that assumes P comes after C because of BCPL. (Apologies to Walter Bright: No inference should be drawn that D was not also a good name for that sequence.)

<comment><USER9> L must be lisp, brought here from the future by the space aliens.

<comment><USER10> Or Logo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here is a demo for using P to program a drone, shows a little more of the language itself: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ztpfMPs5c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ztpfMPs5c)

<comment><USER12> The graph visualization towards the end of the video in MS VS is amazing. I can see this being really useful for my robotics projects. I'll have to figure out how to get started. I was learning Erlang, and looked briefly at Pony, but the syntax and the demo appeals to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can we stop naming programming languages with letters and symbols and give it proper names that, when googled (or binged), makes the programming language appear on top?

<comment><USER14> Searching for "<Letter> Programming Language" works wonders. Give it a try sometime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If anyone is interested in syntax and more tangible bits, here is the manual from the GitHub page linked to in the article:

[https://github.com/p-org/P/blob/master/Doc/Manual/pmanual.pd...](https://github.com/p-org/P/blob/master/Doc/Manual/pmanual.pdf)

<comment><USER16> That would have been really helpful for things like telnet and option negotiation. Or more recently, perhaps something like QUIC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> P is also being used to build safe robotics systems. [https://drona- org.github.io/Drona/](https://drona-org.github.io/Drona/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm still holding out for NP

It'll be wayyy more complex

<comment><USER19> (Citation needed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12673739)

</comment><comment><USER17> The high-level syntax of the language looks amazing for writing and specifying complex protocols.

</comment><comment><USER21> Love it. What if all computing are communicating state machines

</comment><comment><USER22> Microsoft's "Node.js" equivalent for asynchronous stuff?</comment>


Ask HN:  Can someone please create this:  Family Medical History - <AUTHOR>

It's so ridiculous when you visit a doctor and they ask about your family history.  I don't know all the ailments my extended family has and I don't even have that much family.
I recently found out that some of my family members have thyroid issues, which explains some symptoms I've been going through.
There should be a private network where family members can input all their ailments (anonymously if they want), and then you can see what you're at risk for.
For those family members who have already passed away (or don't use computers), other family members can input what they know they had.
This would be a huge preventative measure.  What do you guys think? <comment><USER2> Simple goes a long way when it comes to dealing with healthcare information. In my practice, I created a google form that patients can fill out and then have access to whenever they need it (for sharing with other providers for example). It's not elegant, but it's easy, flexible, and it fundamentally shifts control of the patient record from the doctor to the patient. Happy to share a customizable template if anyone is interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I'm thinking about goes way beyond regular patient information. I'm thinking along the lines of a "family medical history social network".

For example, I want it to be where family members can input small ailments, such as "I suffer from cold hands and feet". Now imagine a few other relatives happen to put this down as well. This is not something that you would ever reveal in a regular doctor medical history report, but something like this could, say, indicate that there are circulation issues running in the family.

That's just an example I made up, but imagine the possibilities. The software should allow "privacy" options, so that if a family member is embarrassed to reveal an ailment, they can choose to make it private, however, the software will take that into account to see if there are patterns that it should alert you to.

I haven't brainstormed enough about this, but I just think this could be really useful in some way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think it's awesome, but better to do it through the doctors office than through patients, since most people aren't going to bother thinking about it until they're sick.

I guess there are privacy concerns and stuff, but seriously. It blows my mind that I have to answer the same questions every time I go to a doctor. In the 21st century, why on earth isn't all this stuff on file somewhere for any doctor in the world to access?

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually think it will work better as a "private family network". All it would take is one person to start it, then email family members and tell them to add whatever info they can. There is a viral effect to it.

Each family member that joins will see themselves as the "center" node, with branches connecting them to their closest relatives.

The software should be smart enough to connect each member intelligently. So let's say you enter your grandmother's information, the software will ask: mother's side or father's side. then will create an empty node for your parents, and link it through them to your grandmother. (make sense?).

Anyway, there's a bunch of cool things you can do with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. I can build a Proof of Concept for this with Neo4j. Privacy would be an issue. Do doctors don't need to know who in your family had issues, or just that someone related to you by DNA had issues? If you have mock-ups of how it would work and can commit to spending some time, I'll reciprocate. Tired of finding ways to help sell crap to people, rather work on ways to help people stay healthy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have mockups, it's just something I've been thinking about, but have left on the backburner for so long, I know I'll never get around to it. But it could potentially be of help to so many people, that I don't want to keep the idea for myself.

If you're really serious, I can help with it. I specialize in product development and marketing. I know how to get PR, have attracted millions of visitors to web sites, so I think if this thing is built, I can get good publicity for it.</comment></comment>


The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce (1983) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.brightboys.org/PDF/Wolfe_Noyce.pdf

<comment><USER2> If you enjoy this, check out the PBS documentary "Silicon Valley" [1], which was based on this essay.

1: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kzit5-Ulx_4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kzit5-Ulx_4)</comment>


ASK: Does the NSA have every BitCoin key? - <AUTHOR>

The question and its implications are obvious. <comment><USER2> what is a bitcoin key

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key)</comment></comment>


Dart plugin for Eclipse now ready for preview - <AUTHOR> http://news.dartlang.org/2012/08/dart-plugin-for-eclipse-is-ready-for.html

<comment><USER2> no comments?:) It is better than the dart edtor!</comment>


Wildfires in Big Basin Redwoods State Park - <AUTHOR> https://sempervirens.org/wildfires-in-big-basin-redwoods-state-park/ <comment><USER2> The structures are gone, but some of the trees are 1800 years old. They didn't get that old by not being able to survive a fire. It's important to accept that fire is a natural part of the ecological cycle in much of California, in fact, aggressive suppression has disrupted the natural cycle and led to more extreme fires.

<comment><USER3> This is likely true but modern fires are burning much hotter than historical ones due to the accumulation of brush... it's entirely possible some of them that survived 1000+ years were killed by this latest one.

<comment><USER4> You think that at no time in the last 1000+ years there was a time when brush built up to the levels seen today?

<comment><USER5> Generally the idea is that historically there were frequent fires which kept the available fuel to a lower level.

Humans started fighting wildfires, and for decades we were pretty successful. That resulted in more fuel buildup then happened historically.

When those fire finally burn, they often burn hot enough to destroy trees that used to survive the fires.

I don't know what the fuel levels were in this area specifically, but yes, it seems plausible that the brush might not have built up to today's levels before.

<comment><USER6> All that is true, but we humans also tend to cause fires more frequently too? I live in a fire zone (I'm writing this from a hotel room that I've been forcibly evacuated to) and while Lightning gets the blame this time (I'm sure PG&E execs are quietly sighing relief), it doesn't seem to be the cause most times.

I wonder what the quantifiable overall effect is.

<comment><USER7> I think it is qualifiable if not quantifiable in that brush is building up. Perhaps more fires are starting, but the net effect would have to be less frequent burns of a given area for brush to build up there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I live on the mountain above Los Gatos on the border with Santa Cruz. Yesterday everything smelled of smoke, and the outside was covered in white ash. Today no smoke smell and blue sky as the wind is blowing away from me towards the fire. Better right, but...the area next to me just went red with evacuation orders, and we are next.

[https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f0121f7f2f0941afb3ed705...](https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f0121f7f2f0941afb3ed70529b2cee75)

We just packed up the important stuff and have it waiting in piles near the door. It is interesting what you think about taking. Clothing for everyone, meds, etc. The FreeNAS box with all the photos and like. The wedding album. The flag from my grandfathers coffin. Books and photos from family that are now 100+ years old. A painting that hung over my grandparents sofa, and then my parents and now mine. My daughter packed a stuffed animal I gave her when she was 6.

There are a ton of very expenses items that do not make the cut. It's the things that drive happy memories but are of little monetary value that do.

A lesson in perspective I guess.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe prescribed burns once every 500 years isn't enough

[http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe- prescribed...](http://joannenova.com.au/2019/10/california-maybe-prescribed- burns-once-every-500-years-are-not-enough/)

There is a big difference between 'burning off' a couple of hundred acres and 'landscape scale fuel reduction', many reports conflate the two. Burning off 800 acres makes no difference when the surrounding 100,000 acres has high unmanaged forest fuel loads.

</comment><comment><USER10> I just moved to the Bay Area and visited Big Basin for the first time two weekends ago. I had never seen trees that large in my life.

I'm grateful that I took the opportunity to go and see it when I did. It's crazy to think that less than two weeks later there is so much destruction there.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is there any reason to believe this will inspire change? My significant other is devastated as much of her childhood was spent in big basin.

> In rebuilding Big Basin, we hope it is a catalyst for a new movement, one in > which we learn to coexist with wildfire and deal directly with the impacts > of climate change.

The only way I can see us changing the severity of damage is by incorporating fire breaks regularly - but those seem radically unpopular (as evidence by the lack of them in all of California). Maybe more funding for firefighting but I guess that's probably unpopular too... I guess you would have to raise your property taxes.

<comment><USER12> where do our current taxes go? CA as a state has one of the highest (or the highest?) tax burden in US. The schools are still awful and we have to rely on prison populations for fire fighting? WTF?

<comment><USER13> California per capita budget is around the middle of all states in the USA - somewhere around 20th highest. The state has high income and sales tax to compensate for reduced property taxes due to prop 13.

This is why many people think California has high taxes. Because they move here, get hit with a high income tax rate, then get hit with a standard property tax rate if they buy a home.

Meanwhile, my parents pay around 1k/year in property taxes on their million dollar home.

<comment><USER14> I wonder how much California nonsense would just go away if they repealed Prop13. It just seems like such a dumb law every time I hear it brought up.

<comment><USER15> The commercial aspect of Prop 13 is on the ballot for repeal this November.

<comment><USER16> This is some of the best news I've heard in a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Gone" is a clear and strong word, and it is misapplied here, unless the author is omniscient. Fires hot enough to burn these buildings down may still be a cool enough fire to be natural and healthy in this case. Or maybe not. As the article states, no one has even checked the trees yet, and they are what matter here. If it is an average wildfire, of average hotness, then the trees (and forest generally) are fine.

<comment><USER18> "As we know it" is just as important as "gone" in the title. Even if every single tree survived (almost certainly not the case), the park will not be the same for _many_ years to come, and the loss of the historic CCC buildings would be devastating all on its own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A fire there was inevitable. Anyone who's visited would've noticed that many of the trees were charred from previous fires.

For people who have never lived in or visited Silicon Valley, you should know that the parks in the area are one of the best parts around here (probably tied for first with the great weather). Big Basin has the biggest trees in the area, but other than that, it can be a little underwhelming. There are a lot of other really awesome parks and preserves (Castle Rock, Portola, Russian Ridge, Skyline Ridge, Monte Bello, Wunderlich, just to name a few) within a 30 minute drive of Palo Alto. I had been trying to go to as many as I could the last few months, but barely scratched the surface. Any of the ones I visited were better than and park I had gone to before moving out here.

<comment><USER20> It definitely sucks that so many of the great parks have been affected. September and October are pretty great for hiking in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and this will certainly put a damper on it.

I'm a little worried about what's going to happen come winter rains. With so many hillsides laid bare, there are going to be way more landslides whenever heavy rains hit, so a lot more areas than usual are probably going to get washed out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love Big Basin. It is one of my favorite places in the world. The meteor trail is the prettiest trail I've found of the hundreds or thousands I've hiked in the Bay outside of the South Bay / Peninsula. The Berry Falls loops is magnificent - I love the sudden, dramatic change of ecosystem even more than the awesome falls.

People have been reaching out to me about the fires.

I understand why we mourn, but why do we think this is a bad thing?

Fires are part of the forest.

Humans have done harm here, both from preventing past fires (which make the smaller number of fires worse) and potentially from climate change (I don't know enough to know how strong the connection of global climate change to this sort of event is), but the basics of it seem clear: forests catch fire sometimes. Such natural phenomena are what gave us the forests we have today.

</comment><comment><USER22> Another somber event for Bay Area residents. For trail runners and hikers, the Skyline to Sea trail is an absolute gem. Hoping that some of the old-growth trees make it through.

<comment><USER15> Did Skyline to the Sea with my daughter a few years back. Split across two days, it was our first overnight hike where we carried tent, bags, cookware....

I suspect it will be back by the time she has kids of her own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> [https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/exclusive-look- first-...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/20/exclusive-look-first-view- inside-what-is-left-of-big-basin-state-park-in-the-heart-of-california- wildfires/)

Hope the trees or at least most of them survive. Its a special place in the South Bay. Bldgs can be rebuilt. I guess trees will grow back too, but there is a sadness in loosing these ancient trees :( They were witness to the rise of our recent society ... Had a chance to bike to the park in May. It was shut due to Covid .. already eerie and quiet and amazing. Just one Ranger and a Sherrif watching the place. They were kind enough to let me get a pic in front of the huge Redwood cross section hanging there at park HQ ... Have to go back again when things clear ...

<comment><USER21> These trees have made it through fires before and many of them will make it through again. The forest is a living thing, and this destruction is part of it.

I haven't been to Big Basin since the winter because of COVID -- it was closed for a while, then limited parking, and I just stayed closer to home. I hope I didn't miss a last chance at seeing some of my favorite nooks intact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I used to live just down the road in Boulder Creek and hiked in Big Basin routinely for years, including hundreds of hours training for the PCT. I really love that place, and hope the damage isn't as apocalyptic as the headline suggests. There have always been big burn areas at least since I started visiting in the nineties. It's an ecosystem built to survive and thrive with fire, if it's not too much of a good thing. I still have family there, I'll be calling for an update soon.

My last visit was a few thanksgivings ago. I took an early morning hike before the feast, and on my way out passed a flock of wild turkeys. They were lucky I didn't have a flintlock blunderbuss with me. I hope they made it through the fire ok.

</comment><comment><USER25> That really bums me out. I found out while living in the Bay Area that 5 days of smoky skies a year really bother me despite the outdoors being so enjoyable the other 360 days of the year and that's part of why I moved from SF to Miami in 2018. Part of it is that when I reflected on it I just felt worse about it because I thought about the cumulative effect of all the fires. I miss the Bay Area and might move back but I'm glad to not have to deal with smoke in the meantime.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Wildfires are often the tragic manifestation of our global climate crisis.

This was a naturally caused fire in an area where fire is an accepted part of the ecosystem. The buildings were not natural and were removed just like non- native grasses and other species which interfere with the California native species. It sucks, I get it. Many places I've known and loved have been changed by fire, but they come back stronger when the burns are not too frequent which they often are when caused by man.

Anthropogenic global warming is settled science, but at the same time so is the history of climatic variation in California. CA has long periods of dryness, which is why the native plants are so specialized in dealing with it.

I feel for the people affected by the fires and hope they and their belongings remain safe, but let us not forget the long history of fires in CA and the destruction they cause when not planned for. CA is a state of change, and the storms, earthquakes, fires and other natural disasters have and will continue to cause problems. Plans can not save everyone, but plans should be made. Events like this should be kept in the proper perspective so as to educate the public and build awareness which can lead to preservation of lives down the road.

<comment><USER26> I'm curious why this is getting downvoted.

<comment><USER27> Because calling it a "naturally caused" wildfire is _technically_ true, but only really if you don't believe global climate change causes extreme weather events.

Two sentences past what OP quoted:

> This past weekend's extraordinary weather event, with thousands of lightning > strikes, wreaked havoc and destruction on California's forests and > communities and choked our air.

Lightning storms on the magnitude seen in the Bay Area this past weekend are unheard of--which caused the many fires you may be hearing about.

<comment><USER4> One storm does not make a trend. Tropical moisture often makes its way to the California coast in late summer. AGW may increase these events, but it is irresponsible journalism to try to pin this atmospheric event, and the resulting storms, on AGW.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This one hurts. I've put in a lot of hours up there camping and hiking. I was just talking with someone about how you used to be able to go up there on a whim and snag a last minute campsite. Even if it was next to some jackass running his TV and microwave it was still fun.

Any area you go into up there shows the fire damage those trees have survived over the years.

I'll miss the old-timey HQ cabin and cafe but I'm counting on a good recovery here.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't know the specifics of this fire, but I think the sequoias themselves are pretty resistant to fire, and even require fire to germinate their seeds.

<comment><USER30> I don't know about sequoias, but the closely related coast redwood can and does produce seedlings without any fire.

<comment><USER29> Wow, I had to stop and look it up.

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

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

So sequoia sempervirens aka coast redwood/california redwood is the tallest tree on earth. And the sequioadendron giganteum aka giant sequoias are not that tall, but are lots fatter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> We need some goats to eat all the fuel while it's still growing. Herbivores will also trample dead plants to the ground so grass can grow. Apparently there's too much work for the herders, based on articles published after the last round of fires.

Further reading:

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/30/goats-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/30/goats- sheep-and-cattle-solve-californias-wildfire-grazing-newsom/3308263002/)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=california+goat+herders&oq=c...](https://www.google.com/search?q=california+goat+herders&oq=california+goat+herders)

[https://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_gill_it_s_not_the_cow_it_s_t...](https://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_gill_it_s_not_the_cow_it_s_the_how)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo)

</comment><comment><USER32> German Public Broadcasting (Deutsche Welle) just published this timely and well rounded two-part overview and analysis of wildfire causes and mitigation.

part 1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUo2Vs6id7w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUo2Vs6id7w) part 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPWq8LVDtk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPWq8LVDtk)

</comment><comment><USER33> It's a terrible tragedy, but forests recover very quickly after forest fires. Although we as humans hate seeing such beautiful places get destroyed, it's a perfectly natural part of history and without these types of fires, we don't get a proper cycle of nature.

<comment><USER34> [https://imgur.com/exSaGup](https://imgur.com/exSaGup)

I took this photo not long ago (in Oregon, not California). The burn scars in the background were burned in 2002 and 2003 ([https://imgur.com/wBQhXn3](https://imgur.com/wBQhXn3)). The tree canopies that were there, that now remain only as burnt, denuded toothpicks in the landscape, have been replaced by chapparal, which will burn again just as hotly. In the intervening almost 20 years, there's nothing growing more than a few feet above the ground and there's still a lot of barren earth.

Many species do benefit from wildfires _of a particular intensity_. The megafires that we are seeing today are so hot, so big, and so intense, that no species are benefiting from them. These fires are simply destructive. There is no magical renewal afterward. For these burn areas -- and there are more and more appearing around the western states now -- life creeps back in, slowly, from the edges, and when you're talking about 50,000 acres of destruction, that takes a very long time.

I don't want to be frustrated at you specifically, but comments like this one keep getting repeated by people that heard it somewhere once. Our forest management practices must change immediately, and the common belief that _all_ wildfire is totally natural and totally good for the ecology is preventing the critical mass of public support required to make that change happen.

<comment><USER33> I'm not sure how long you think it takes to repopulate a forest, but 20 years isn't a very long time. As a human, with a lifespan of 80 years, it might seem long but to nature it's just a drop in a bucket. I'm pretty confident that the forest will regrow, just not in a time frame convenient for you. And from your picture you can clearly see that the forest is regrowing.

<comment><USER34> > _I 'm not sure how long you think it takes to repopulate a forest, but 20 > years isn't a very long time._

I really dislike this sneering tone that's so common on HN. Just come out and say "I think you're a moron". I have some notion of geological time scales, thank you.

Doug fir grows at approximately two feet per year. Do you see a lot of 40 foot tall trees in those burn scars? It's the tree that most commonly repopulates a burned area in this region of Oregon. This article has further reading on fire ecology in Douglas Fir forests: [https://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/management/firemanagement_fir...](https://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/management/firemanagement_fireecology_vegtypes_douglasfir.htm)

Note that the article makes several distinctions between varying fire severities.

<comment><USER33> As it turns out, you were wrong, and all the ancient redwoods survived. I suggest being a bit more introspective and open to the idea that you could be wrong.

<comment><USER34> I think you're probably just a troll, you sure sound like one. But just in case you're not, and on the tiniest, merest chance that there's any point at all to this: (a) I made no statement about _all_ the redwoods, only "a number of the larger trees", a statement for which I provided ample photographic evidence and by which I still stand; (b) the only reports so far are from an AP photographer, who is not an arborist; (c) it will be difficult to assess the full extent of the damage until at least next Spring, so I'll be waiting until then before being convinced of anything either way; (d) you do not have the grace and skill to make suggestions that anybody would follow.

Bye now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This passage from _Against the Grain_ makes for interesting reading right now:

 _The case for the use of fire being the decisive transformation in the fortunes of hominids is convincing. It has been mankind's oldest and greatest tool for reshaping the natural world. "Tool," however, is not quite the right word; unlike an inanimate knife, fire has a life of its own. It is, at best, a "semidomesticate," appearing unbidden and, if not guarded carefully, escaping its shackles to become dangerously feral.

Hominids' use of fire is historically deep and pervasive. Evidence for human fires is at least 400,000 years old, long before our species appeared on the scene. Thanks to hominids, much of the world's flora and fauna consist of fire-adapted species (pyrophytes) that have been encouraged by burning. The effects of anthropogenic fire are so massive that they might be judged, in an evenhanded account of the human impact on the natural world, to overwhelm crop and livestock domestications. Why human fire as landscape architect doesn't register as it ought to in our historical accounts is perhaps that its effects were spread over hundreds of millennia and were accomplished by "precivilized" peoples also known as "savages." In our age of dynamite and bulldozers, it was a very slow-motion sort of environmental landscaping. But its aggregate effects were momentous.

Our ancestors could not have failed to notice how natural wildfires transformed the landscape: how they cleared old vegetation and encouraged a host of quick-colonizing grasses and shrubs, many bearing desired seeds, berries, fruits, and nuts. They could also not have failed to notice that a fire drove fleeing game from its path, exposed hidden burrows and nests of small game, and, most important, later stimulated the browse and mushrooms that attracted grazing prey. Native North Americans deployed fire to sculpt landscapes favored by elk, deer, beaver, hare, porcupine, ruffed grouse, turkey, and quail, all of which they hunted. The game they subsequently bagged represented a kind of harvesting of prey animals they had deliberately assembled by carefully creating a habitat they would find enticing. Quite apart from being the designers of hunting grounds—veritable game parks—early humans used fire to hunt large game. The evidence suggests that long before the bow and arrow appeared, roughly twenty thousand years ago, hominids were using fire to drive herd animals off precipices and to drive elephants into bogs where, immobilized, they could more easily be killed.

Fire was the key to humankind's growing sway over the natural world— a species monopoly and trump card, worldwide. The Amazonian rain forest bears indelible traces of the use of fire to clear land and open the canopy; Australia's eucalyptus landscape is, to a considerable degree, the effect of human fire. The volume of such landscaping in North America was such that when it stopped abruptly, due to the devastating epidemics that came with the European, the newly unchecked growth of forest cover created the illusion among white settlers that North America was a virtually untouched, primeval forest. According to some climatologists, the cold spell known as the Little Ice Age, from roughly 1500 to 1850, may well have been due to the reduction of CO2—a greenhouse gas—brought about by the die-off of North America's indigenous fire farmers._

Scott, James C.. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (p. 37-39). Yale University Press.

<comment><USER36> So Mr Scott is communicating the idea that the global accumulation of CO2 prior to the 1500s was not only caused by indigenous people but it was so great that their mass "die-off" created a cooler climate for 300 years. Incredible. I wonder to what Mr Scott attributes the current existential climate crisis. I can only guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> We know that many man-made structures did burn down but the real treasure is redwood trees. And redwood trees can survive fires as part of their natural life. So let's hope for the best and better protect this magnificent place in the future.

</comment><comment><USER37> > _Wildfires are often the tragic manifestation of our global climate crisis. > While we cannot be certain that is the case here, it seems likely that this > global crisis has struck close to home._

Leading with political outrage and then immediately admitting there's no basis to think so. Forest fires came long before people and will continue long after we are gone.

It's bad writing and basically propaganda to lead every article about natural events with some bit about climate change. You can't link individual events to climate change. You might as well lead every article about a fire, flood, or hurricane with some pearl clutching about climate change.

And anyway, the evidence is that well-meaning human attempts to control wildfires are driving the growth in severe wildfire, due to the accumulation of brush that naturally would burn off in small fires without human intervention. This is discussed extensively elsewhere in this thread.

<comment><USER38> I don't how you go from "we cannot be certain" to "no basis to think so".</comment></comment>


Henrietta Lacks - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks <comment><USER2> We still use HeLa cells in the lab today. They're great models for testing adeno associated virus infectivity. It never feels right that we're using these cells at my company to do research with potential commercial applications but while a lot of people will make money off of license fees etc is we succeed, the family of the original cell donor won't. At last with HeLa, if I recall correctly, the cells themselves weren't heavily monetized, but there are some cases of cells late down the line where the patient didnt see a penny, but the researcher patented/made proprietary the cell line and charged significant license fees for it. That strikes me as even more questionable.

I wonder what the ethical right thing to do is in the case of, for example, an induced pluripotent stem cell line, or an immortalized line from a patient with a particular genome we want to study. We pay for the license for the immortalization process or stem-cell induction process, but we dont really pay for the genome, even though the reason we spend thousands of dollars immortalizing that particular cell line is because that patient has a disease we want to study and cure, and we want cells with that same genetic sequence to study.

</comment><comment><USER3> I read "The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks" a few years ago, really fascinating book. Highly recommend it.</comment>


Psychology's Replication Crisis Is Running Out of Excuses - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/576223 <comment><USER2> Serious question: how do these experiments come into existence? E.g. the Macbeth effect or the marshmallow test? It always feels like they show very specific effects and are extrapolated to explain broad parts of the human psyche. But since there isn't really any objective basis for creating hypotheses, I have to imagine people just sit around, think of some idea that sounds cool, and then come up with an experiment that is cheap to execute, kind of zany and memorable, and easy to swing one way or the other.

<comment><USER3> I do research in engineering, not psychology, but if I had to guess: probably the same way a lot of engineering research comes about. You read the literature, see interesting results somewhere, and questions start to pop into your head based on the reading ("hey, that's cool! I wonder what would happen if...").

The tricky part becomes actually answering that question: designing an experiment to test a hypothesis is deceptively hard. In my area (computer engineering), often times the hardware or software to test your hypothesis does not exist, so you're left searching for analogues and work-arounds that emulate the desired behavior. I could easily see some of these experiments operating under a similar idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > it seems that one of the most reliable findings in psychology is that only > half of psychological studies can be successfully repeated

Oof. That's a good line.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there a summary of which results did hold up?</comment>


Shape Hover Effects with SVG - <AUTHOR> http://tympanus.net/Tutorials/ShapeHoverEffectSVG/index.html

<comment><USER2> A lot of other similar graphic projects, by the same "publisher": [http://tympanus.net/codrops/category/tutorials/](http://tympanus.net/codrops/category/tutorials/) Found some really interesting ones I'd use now.

<comment><USER3> Their examples look amazing and pretty. But. Good luck trying to use them, though. They're very delicate, and break unless you make sure to find all the relevant CSS and cruft around them.

Definitely not "plug and play".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks cool on my desktop but does not work properly on my Nexus 7. Tapping an image does animate the text and brightness of the element, but the white mask does not move anywhere. The tap also causes the page to scroll to the top instantly.

<comment><USER5> The jump to the top of the page is just because the demo doesn't link the images to anything. In a real-world situation, you'd likely associate a URL with the href, or implement some other behavior onclick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cute but I thought we collectively outgrew animated hover effects in 2007.

Oh well I guess we'll never really grow up.

<comment><USER7> Well, it's not really like there's anything wrong with animated hover's as long as they're done well (as with all animation). I do like that you said "we" \- it seems less condescending that way.</comment></comment>


Terms and Conditions, the Graphic Novel - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2017/04/03/terms-and-conditions-the-graphic-novel/ <comment><USER2> > _Carnegie Mellon University estimated the median length of a single online > privacy policy, for example, to be 2,514 words. This would take 10 minutes > to read._

That seems extremely generous. That's a reading rate of 252 WPM through legalese. Wikipedia[1] seems to say that studies say we can only do 180 WPM off a monitor while proofreading, presumably normal prose:

> While proofreading materials, people are able to read English at 200 WPM on > paper, and 180 WPM on a monitor.

I presume legalese will take longer to comprehend. Additionally, that's the privacy policy. We need to also add in the Terms of Service:

> _the iTunes Terms and Conditions fluctuated in length from 14,000 words to a > whopping 23,000 words._

At the above reading speed ( _ignoring_ the fact that this is legalese) that's 1h 17m to 2h 8m of reading. The legalese _will_ slow you down if you actual seek to comprehend the words in front of your eyes. Two-and-half to three hours of reading? The user will never read the ToS.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Reading_and_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Reading_and_comprehension)

</comment><comment><USER3> In my ideal fantasy world, we wouldn't have terms of service; instead, we would be given a structured 'legal code' file, which encodes the terms and conditions as unambiguously as possible.

I could add my personal preferences to my local licenseconfig; for instance, I want to own everything created using software on my machine, and I don't want companies to be able to sell my data, regardless of whether it is anonymized.

Now when I install software, my license daemon alerts me if that software's legal code might conflict with my preferences, and gives me the option of clarifying my configuration, making an exception, or cancelling the installation.

<comment><USER4> > _we wouldn 't have terms of service; instead, we would be given a structured > 'legal code' file_

They're called terms and they're parsed by meat parsers. We call them lawyers and judges. They are more powerful than any computer. The system they've built has been working for hundreds of years. We have lots of people who understand how it works.

If you make the contract the code, you just replace lawyers with coders. You'll still have drafting errors [1]. You'll still have things looking like X but really doing Y [2]. And you'll still need somewhere to adjudicate conflicts.

The law is fine. Our backlog is in the parsers [3]. Replacing lawyers and judges with AI seems more desirable than some "code is contract" society.

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

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

[3] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-federal-courts-civil- cases-p...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-federal-courts-civil-cases-pile- up-1428343746)

<comment><USER5> He's asking for a standard, not an API to various oracle machines currently in existence.

The "system that works for years" relies on subjectively-defined terms often fiated by those oracle machines (thus only deterministic given the 'institutional knowledge' of 'accepted practice' depending on various jurisdictions) which aren't actually written down or encoded anywhere.

Because anyone who _would_ be in a position to see that and write those down usually has a job instead acting as an oracle machine for decisions made based on that knowledge.

And that's just _one_ of the gotchas where that's concerned. Taking the 'ideal' solution of just encoding 'common practices' ad-hoc as issues arise, you might as well just roll your own at that point.

<comment><USER4> > _He 's asking for a standard_

We have predictable standards codified in statute and case law. Most cases settle predictably. A few make new law. These receive disproportionate media attention because they are defining edge cases. It doesn't matter if your law is in code or text at that point. If you have an investigatory law saying "books and papers," and a prosecutor seizes an iPhone, you _have_ to produce new law.

This ambiguity is a product of mapping heterogeneity between abstract concepts and the real world. There will _never_ be agreement on what all words mean. "Is this a chair? Yes. Is that a chair? No, it's art. Who says? Let's debate." That is a product of language.

> _which aren 't actually written down or encoded anywhere_

Here's a random, recent Supreme Court opinion [1]. I don't have a legal background; I find it highly readable. Furthermore, the citations are pretty easy to follow.

> _anyone who would be in a position to see that and write those down usually > has a job instead acting as an oracle machine_

Not everyone trained in law is a legislator. (Or judge.) Many legislators, judges, lawyers, professors, students and random people opine on the law in books, blogs and other materials. This is a public debate. When courts face an edge case, lawyers from both sides cite these materials. After that, once a precedent is set (and recorded), it is respected until a new edge case arises or the statute is revised by the political system.

[1] [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/14-9496_8njq.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/14-9496_8njq.pdf)

<comment><USER6> > This ambiguity is a product of mapping heterogeneity between abstract > concepts and the real world. There will never be agreement on what all words > mean

And even if there is agreement, these meanings may change over time.

It is not uncommon for laws to be deliberately abstract precisely to accomodate future developments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let he who is without sin cast the first stone: [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/about/legal/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/)

Any software or web page you use is backed by an inscrutable pile of legalese that you "agreed to" without reading, and may or may not be enforceable.

<comment><USER8> You know, just because you take part in or benefit from a system, it doesn't mean you can't critique it at all right? It's better that despite having such terms themselves, that Mozilla's blog chose to highlight a comic that addresses the issue. Your alternative of not casting any stone just dooms us to the status quo and nothing will ever change.

This silly statement is so common that there are comics like these in response:

* [http://i.imgur.com/BTr7vwj.png](http://i.imgur.com/BTr7vwj.png) * [http://i.imgur.com/PJgLi7N.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/PJgLi7N.jpg)

<comment><USER9> > You know, just because you take part in or benefit from a system, it doesn't > mean you can't critique it at all right?

No, but it does mean your critique is necessarily compromised, if not necessarily in a fatal way. Intellectual honesty requires this compromise be addressed, but contempt is a great deal easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good idea, but pictures are unrelated.

<comment><USER11> That's what I'm seeing. It's better if they break the ideas up, try to understand them from a lay perspective, and then build a graphic novel on that. This will likely get nowhere for general population.

<comment><USER12> I think you may be seeing this as something it's not.

This is not a group's attempt at making T&Cs readable or understandable. It's not an EFF thing.

This is one guy's answer a challenge he set himself: Terms and Conditions, the text itself, is antithetical to a comic script. So I will make it fit.

This, in my opinion, is more art than anything else. It's something where most of the residents of Silicon X (valley, beach, etc.) will see it as something that it is not. For that reason, I don't think Mozilla was the best place for this to be covered.

I suggest reading the New York Times' review, from about a month ago: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/books/itunes-terms- condit...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/books/itunes-terms-conditions- comic-book.html)

EDIT: I forgot to note, this isn't intended to be a graphic novel in the mass- market sense. It's a Drawn & Quarterly publication, whose comics are not what you'd normally expect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very nice idea! Reading the comic is much better than reding the original terms and conditions document.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why does moz://a need to post this? This reads like a MacRumours post.

<comment><USER15> Because Mozilla's goal is to keep the web open and advocate for personal data privacy. This article fits nicely there with the rest of similarly themed articles on the blog.

<comment><USER16> Aside from the creative exercise, it is a complete dud argument because Mozilla isn't comparing and contrasting with their own licenses and user agreements.

I mean, does Mozilla even offer album art downloads? Because I don't even get the beef they have with Jobsman's benign T&C.</comment></comment></comment>


The "Anyone but Richard M Stallman" (ABRMS) License - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/landondyer/kasm/blob/master/LICENSE <comment><USER2> I aspire to make enough important and influential decisions some day to earn the sort of hatred RMS has.

<comment><USER3> No kidding. Despite the hate, look where open-source was pre-RMS, and where it is now. Look how important GNU tools are, GCC, Linux, and so on...

<comment><USER4> How would we judge that?

Per Wikipedia, Stallman wrote the GPLv1 in 1989. I wasn't even born then.

Moreover, I doubt this is a good argument. Would the Mill (youtube.com/watch?v=QyzlEYspqTI) be possible using Free Software (consider the GCC exceptions were pushed _way_ too late, circa 2009 per gnu.org [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc- exception-3.1.html](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception-3.1.html))?

Would Linux even exist without at least BSD having been released?

I'm more of a copyleft than a 'BSD libertarian', but I don't think we can look at RMS's contribution by comparing what was before and what is now if for no other reason because it's impossible to separate what is due to copyleft, what is due to BSD-style and what is due to a mixture of both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like a very dumb license.

<comment> vezzy-fnord Not to mention proprietary.

<comment><USER6> How is this proprietary? The license says that you can do anything you want to do with it.

This sounds pretty similar to WTFPL[0], and WTFPL is listed[1] as a GPL- compatible free software license by the FSF.

0 - [http://www.wtfpl.net/](http://www.wtfpl.net/)

1 - [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license- list.en.html#WTFPL](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#WTFPL)

<comment><USER5> _> How is this proprietary? The license says that you can do anything you want to do with it._

Exceptions limiting freedom of its usage make it non FOSS.

<comment><USER6> Yup, that makes it both open source incompatible and free software incompatible. My mistake. Thanks for pointing that out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a stupid "license"... I rather like the "DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE" that I use from time to time [https://github.com/betolink/snowgl](https://github.com/betolink/snowgl) > [http://www.wtfpl.net/txt/copying/](http://www.wtfpl.net/txt/copying/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I came across this due to a search-engine suggestion when searching for a certain xkcd comic [1]. Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6822005](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6822005)

[1] [http://www.xkcd.com/225/](http://www.xkcd.com/225/)

<comment><USER8> Important: the author comments in that thread and claims it's satire. I think it's in poor taste, but I'm relieved to know this isn't truly intended to be used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> To be, or not to be- that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer RMS The slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune 500 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing GNU end them.

</comment><comment><USER10> LOL

I wonder why the guy doesn't want RMS to use his software, but his ABRMS has the same virality as the GPL!

ROFL

<comment><USER11> > _It's not about hating free software. I'm a believer in that; I released my > first game for free in 1982. Note that the github thing I put up is > essentially totally free (something I would have been restricted from doing, > by my employer, up to a year ago).

I have a personal dislike for RMS and I think that his philosophy of economy is at best naïve and dangerously unworkable. 25 years ago he was exhorting me to quit my job in protest to support some of his politics and he wasn't pleasant about it. Thus, ABRMS._

from [http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=2106](http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=2106). via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6822190](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6822190)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Rude.</comment>


Is beaming down in Star Trek a death sentence? - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/is-beaming-down-in-star-trek-a-death-sentence/ <comment><USER2> There's a whole section in here about how people do stuff while being transported, and then about energy beings. This is just fiction, people! The philosophical issues from the start of the article are just made unrealistically complicated if you also posit that teleportation has to obey the demands of the plot. Make sure to be clear about the difference between "is teleportation _in Star Trek_ a death sentence" and "is teleportation _in principle_ a death sentence". [As has been rightly pointed out, I really mean "teleportation by beaming". There are other possible means of teleportation which don't require disassembling one's self and reassembling it elsewhere: for example, travel through wormholes.]

Teleportation in principle is not a death sentence if (like me) you're a reductionist who believes that the mind is a pattern which happens to be encoded on a physical substrate. To copy the substrate perfectly implies copying perfectly the pattern encoded on it, and hence (since I'm a reductionist) copying perfectly the self.

No comment from my end about teleportation in Star Trek being a death sentence.

<comment><USER3> What if someone made an exact copy of you? Would your consciousness gain a second body?

<comment><USER2> Yep. Both are me; they start diverging as soon as the copy is made.

<comment><USER4> Both _were_ you, they stopped being both you the second they started diverging which is the second they came into existence.

<comment><USER2> Per the parallel thread: the word "are" is misleading, and you should distinguish between the two things you mean by it. (I should have done that myself in the grandparent to this comment.) I am who I was five minutes ago, and I am also not who I was five minutes ago, for two different senses of the word "am" which happen to have the same word in English.

<comment><USER5> I think it's more accurate to say the problem is "me." We don't need to worry about it most of the time, but the only "me" around is the state of your brain at this instance in space and time. Anything else is just _more_ or _less_ "me"-like, but not exactly "me." So if someone recreated you in triplicate, the instant after they appeared, all four of you would all be the same amount "you," though you four would all diverge thereafter, and be more and more some other version of you.

<comment><USER4> Simply put, identity and equality are different things; he's conflating them. This was already pointed out, but he didn't grok it.

<comment><USER2> I'm not conflating identity and equality; I'm arguing that you mean two different things by "identity" but are using one word to refer to both, resulting in confusion all round.

<comment><USER4> I was not replying to you, you're intellectually dishonest, we're done, I've made that clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The real irony here is that Gene Roddenberry did not invent the transporter because he thought it was a good idea from a dramatic point of view, but because he was forced into it by budgetary constraints. Back in the 1960's it was way beyond the financial means of a weekly TV show to produce a special effect of a shuttlecraft landing on a planet or in the shuttle bay for every episode, so they invented the transporter as a way of getting people to and from planetary surfaces with reasonable production costs. That real-world reality has shaped the face of science fiction for fifty years.

Nowadays we have the technology to fly spaceships around on screen pretty much at will, which actually presents a dramatic opportunity: someone could write a Star Trek episode where they actually take seriously the possibility that the transporter is a bad idea and ban it in favor of shuttlecrafts. I think this could make a really good premise for a novel and/or movie. It could even re- shape the face of science fiction for the next fifty years the way the original transporter did for the last fifty.

<comment><USER7> >Someone could write a Star Trek episode where they actually take seriously the possibility that the transporter is a bad idea and ban it in favor of shuttlecrafts.

Star Trek Enterprise kind of did that, because it was set in a time when transporters were new technology and deemed unfit for anything but cargo. Unfortunately because it's a franchise staple to see the away teams beaming down to planets, they took the coward's way out and quickly forgot it.

<comment><USER6> "The Orroville" is also a (very good IMHO) Trek knockoff that dispenses with the transporter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Related: CGP Grey's "The Trouble with Transporters"

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

</comment><comment><USER9> Is sleep a death sentence?

To boil it down, "I" am made of two things: qualia and memories.

During unconscious sleep, those mysterious qualia disappear, except for brief chaotic flashes which we call dreams. Meanwhile a physical process takes place in the brain: those memories are reorganized, reformatted, and reconstituted.

In this view, there is a very literal sense to the idiom "I woke up feeling like a brand new person." Yet, few people go to sleep at night worrying that "they" will no longer exist in the morning, even though that is quite arguably the case.

I would worry about biological sleep long before I worried about teleporters. While any OSHA-compliant teleporter can (we would assume) preserve the continuity and integrity of one's memories, sleep doesn't even have that feature.

</comment><comment><USER10> If "you" are the product of your experiences (environment) acting upon your corporeal components (atoms, your "blueprints" etc), then isn't it true that the "me" from 1 nanosecond ago ceased to exist and a "new me" is actually being created in every new frame in time?

If you think of it this way, I don't see why being demolecularized by a transporter, and being reconstructed on a ship in orbit, is any different to walking across a room.

In both transitions the state of trillions of atoms in my body change, and I gain and lose atoms, the difference is only one of magnitude.

</comment><comment><USER11> No mention of the accidental creation of two William Thomas Rikers?

> If, however, we destroy the ship but mail its blueprints somewhere else and > then build a new, identical ship, it's not the same ship. It's a separate > ship built from the same blueprints. _It doesn't even matter whether you use > the same planks or not_. [Emphasis added.]

The last sentence implies that something designed to be repeatedly disassembled and reassembled is a different object on each assembly. That doesn't sound right.

</comment><comment><USER12> Teleportation is a fiction and you can just invent the necessary details to decide whatever you want, but I still like this webcomic treatment:

[http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1](http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1)

</comment><comment><USER13> It comes down to the philosophical question -- are you better defined by _the pattern_ of matter and energy that represents you, or are you _the_ matter and energy that represents you?

I personally believe it's the former. I.e. if I had a terminal illness and I made a copy of myself (the same except healthy), I like to think I would be happy to let it carry on my life and work.

</comment><comment><USER7> What would likely happen is that a society that invents a transporter would be forced to redefine their cultural parameters for concepts like "death" and "self" because the device is just _too useful_ to ignore, despite any existential ramifications it may present.

So the answer to this perennial Trek puzzle depends, ironically, on a certain point of view.

</comment><comment><USER14> Statistically, yes, if you're wearing a red shirt.

At least until they re-did all the wardrobe so that Security wore gold or navy blue :)

</comment><comment><USER15> No way in effing hell I'd teleport, even with tech 1000000 years advanced from today.

<comment><USER16> There is another.

Teleportation in Star Trek is "beaming", but worm holes are the alternate means of teleportation. There is no notion of death when traveling through a worm hole.

<comment><USER7> There was a Star Trek species called the T'Kon who used something like wormholes to create dimensional gates that let them just walk to other planets as easily as walking across the room. That was presented as a technological feat "sufficiently close to magic" even to the Federation. Wormholes in that universe seem to be rare and unstable and weird, though not nearly so much as in Farscape, where they seem to be able to access all of space and time, IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Related: "What Makes You You?"

[https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/12/what-makes-you- you.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/12/what-makes-you-you.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Polyopic heatuscopy is just an odd hallucination where you are split into multiple copies of yourself. You and your forks are aware of each others thoughts, but you may not be able to distinguish the real you.

</comment><comment><USER19> If Chalmers is right, it would seem that a transporter would be a machine for making p-zombies.

<comment><USER20> Why? Just you beging copied and your first instance dying doesn't make the copy a p-zombie.

<comment><USER19> Chalmers believes in the metaphysical possibility of p-zombies and argues that this necessarily implies that physicalism is false. If a transporter recreates the physical structure of a person, but physicalism is false, then this recreation must be without any of the subjective qualia of the original. Under the premise that the transporter works, however, the re-creation acts as if it has these qualia, so therefore it must be, by definition, a p-zombie.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie#Zombie_ar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie#Zombie_arguments)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you've played "Soma" it explores this concept a lot.

</comment><comment><USER22> If you like these ideas, read the Altered Carbon series :)</comment>


Ask HN: Why use TypeScript? - <AUTHOR> A controversial question, to be sure. Are the benefits really just having types? I come from a Ruby background, so I don't understand the hype.<p>Are types uniquely suited for frontend programming? Can't you get the same by using prettier? I feel like I"m missing something. <comment><USER2> Do you code in a team? Let's say you see this function written by a colleague Jon in 2013:

processLedgers(ledgers)

What do you pass in? An array? An object? What are the keys?

Without types you are relying on comments (notorious for being out of date) or reading the implementation.

Often the implementation will palm off the work to othe functions and objects and maybe event send it to an api or bits of it. To get a true picture of what ledgers needs to look like you need to either read a tonne of code or copy and paste some other code you hope is right.

With types you define in the type what is acceptable. Many times you don't need to look at the function definition or the code it calls or the code it calls calls etc.

So types save you time, reduce bugs, and make you happy!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm well acquainted with the merits of types in general (I've worked in Java & Scala for years).

I'm curious why it's so special on the frontend. I can't tell if it's just part of the Javascript hype-train, or if there's legitimately something different about the frontend.

<comment><USER2> > I'm well acquainted with the merits of types in general (I've worked in Java > & Scala for years).

That's your answer - same merits for the front end.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm... I feel like that's not quite the full picture. On the backend, for instance, there are options - if you like typed languages, use them! And if not, use something else!

But there appears to be a particularly strong movement towards TypeScript. I just can't tell if it's just yet another JS hypetrain, or if there is something else besides types that's a big win.

<comment><USER3> It's Microsoft paid.

Before you had React - FB paid and before Angular - Google paid. For example Angular 1 was also promoted like - it's made by Google, so it makes sense. It didn't - Angular 2 is incompatible with 1 and rejects most of initial ideas.

All these giants supported also by governments can change trends however they want. You call it a hypetrain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Once you go Typescript you never go JavaScript. You just get all those typing juices and you start getting fewer and fewer errors on your code.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am also a Ruby dev. Haven't used TypeScript in a big project yet, just played with it, but I'd say it's gonna be a standard for frontend dev soon.

Why? Writing types isn't that time-consuming... Types will tell you very easily what is expected to be passed to function. Why does it matter so much? Imo in Ruby it's not that common that service calls are deeply nested. In frontend it's opposite. Components are very nested and with all that prop passing sometimes you have search lots of files to understand what's being passed. There are proptypes yup, but if you write proptypes, why not types?

Also data on frontend mostly comes from backend, so many times there is no really good docs for data that is brought from backend. In backend you mostly access 3rd party APIs with docs or your DB, which you can easily access to see what it delivers: )

And I am not even going to mention editor plugins that show you docs with expected types. Much fewer mistakes and easier coding with external packages.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Imo in Ruby it's not that common that service calls are deeply nested. In > frontend it's opposite. Components are very nested

This feels like the answer that makes the most-ish sense, although I've worked with a ton of nested Ruby code as well.

My suspicion on why people use Typscript is that it's is more about the tooling than types. In Ruby or Python, I can drop into a REPL anywhere in the code and be in context of what I'm trying to do, but that seems way less common in Javascript. Perhaps because of the async nature?

<comment><USER5> Tooling, that means? I haven't had an opportunity to work on a big/very-big JS project yet. But from experience based on working on small-medium size JS project, I guess console.log() and refresh is just enough.

After thinking about it, I guess readability is a huge part of it, there are lots, lots of JS packages. And it makes sense for them to be readable, so they could be easily updated by new contributors to remain valid.

Personally, I have really hard time contributing to gems, because of so much metaprogramming in them, I don't feel like spending a week to understand what is connected with what and if my changes can break it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here are two relevant recent threads on the topic of typescript [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18961916](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18961916)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18942260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18942260)

<comment><AUTHOR> This comment was enlightening, even if it appears fairly critical:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18946296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18946296)

<comment><USER7> Not really, it's more of an anti-typed languages and anti-build steps comment.

Also, you have to question the programming skill of anyone who writes this:

 _Compiler warnings make it hard to test code quickly using console.log(...); I 'm more reliant on clunky debuggers which slows me down a lot and breaks my train of thought._

In my experience, inexperienced or bad programmers litter their code with log statements because they can't understand error messages or are incapable of 'running' the code in their head.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Just_ types? Let me shed light on the other side before I become engulfed the flamewar. I come from Java/c#/c++ background and tackled Ruby and JavaScript. How the hell can someone do serious work in a language without types is beyond me. "Just types" means that TypeScript transforms JavaScript to a usable sane language.

</comment><comment><USER9> I am a recent arrival to the JavaScript country and I was taken aback by the prevalent practice that one has to use other languages like TypeScript to develop JavaScript applications because the later is inadequate. I personally don't like having to learn yet another language and all the tooling around that. Aren't we already swamped enough? I am also amazed how JS standards won't address the core issues that make people need to use other languages.

So I created an experimental framework for myself, called JEEP. Its an OOP framework that enhances JavaScript by bringing features from C++. I shared with the community here by posting a Show but unfortunately it didn't succeed in capturing people's interest. I have more to say on this but defer it to later when the time is appropriate. I know and hope once I release a remarkable product created with JEEP, it will automatically garner attention. It was anyway intended to serve only me, which it is doing, and anything greater was always a bonus, so I am cool with whatever happens.

<comment><USER10> You do realize JEEP looks as much like a new language as TypeScript does?

<comment><USER9> You do realize that JEEP is still basically JavaScript and one doesn't need to learn yet another language and its tooling?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Prettier is a code formatter, not really comparable to TypeScript

</comment><comment><USER3> You're not missing anything and you will not receive any reasonable explanation for using TS. It's a step back 20y in programming. Easy to recognise when you were programming 20y ago also.

<comment><USER12> A step back 20 years in programming is quite a statement to make. What is your backing for saying that? What is Typescript doing that other languages 20 years ago discovered was bad?

<comment><USER3> I was programming all these languages and 20y I do web technologies. Dynamic typed languages with a neat syntax was a huge step forward, developer became powerful with a single line of code. The biggest discovery was - you need all that tooling, because your language is overcomplicated. I also participate many conferences back and frontend each year (sometimes each month) watching this weird and artificially made transition backwards in concepts not only on frontend.

So yes ~20y ago was that point where developers discovered they are more powerful with dynamic typed languages and a boom for web applications started.

<comment><USER11> What about the lost productivity from debugging really simple errors that would have been caught by type checks?

<comment><USER3> You stop doing really simple errors if you allow yourself to train in this direction. Really simple errors are really easy to fix. After all boilerplate and effort you make in this kind of typed languages is not worth it. I'm not saying now about inventions like Crystal, where there is no effort + there is performance benefit. But TypeScipt adds complexity, boilerplate, and it still compiles to JS so no performance benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Because vanilla javascript sucks</comment>