CEO Responds to Nun's Urging a 'Politically Correct' Board Make-up (1996) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cypress.com/?rID=34986 <comment><USER2> _Suppose that Intel 's lowest-paid trainee earns $15,000 per year. The 50 to 1 CEO salary rule would mandate that the salary of Intel's co-founder and CEO, Andy Grove, could be no more than $750,000. (...) Consequently, the practical meaning of this "responsible corporation" law to Intel would be this gun-to- the-head proposition: "Either cut the pay of your Chief Executive Officer by a factor of four from $2,756,700 to $750,000, or pay the federal government an extra $395 million in taxes."_

I wonder if raising trainee's pay as a solution to this "problem" was deliberately omitted, or it did not even occur to T.J. Rodgers.

<comment> daniel-cussen As long as we're not omitting solutions, Intel could lay off its lowest paid trainees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Mr Rodgers makes some very good points in his letter. Definitely where it comes to board membership and the ethics of inisiting on 'balanced' board make up.

However I'm not sure about the inherent logic in Paragraph N:

'The May 13, 1996 issue of Fortune magazine analyzed the ethical mutual funds" which invest with a social-issues agenda, and currently control $639 billion in investments. Those funds produced an 18.2% return in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 returned 27.2%. The investors in those funds thus lost 9% of $639 billion, or $57.5 billion in one year, because they invested on a social- issues basis. Furthermore, their loss was not simply someone else's gain; the money literally vanished from our economy, making every American poorer.'

Is this is implying that if you make an investment choice for personal reasons (maybe invest in a family business) and the company returns 10% rather than 20% that you could have received from a different investment that you have lost 10%. And that you have made the world poorer with that choice. The logic seems a bit hokey to me.

<comment><USER4> > Is this is implying that if you make an investment choice for personal > reasons (maybe invest in a family business) and the company returns 10% > rather than 20% that you could have received from a different investment > that you have lost 10%. And that you have made the world poorer with that > choice. The logic seems a bit hokey to me.

The idea that in that circumstance you've suffered a loss is the concept of the opportunity cost, one of the most basic ideas economics has to offer.

The idea that by doing so, you've made the world poorer is on less firm ground, but it's not exactly arcane reasoning. It's the same logic that backs the claim that high-GDP countries are richer than low-GDP ones -- they have more money. The general idea here is that if you start with $812 billion, and you turn it into $755 billion, you've lost money ("become poorer").

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While "politically correct" is to me a shibboleth that marks the user as a vitrolic and dishonest conservative pundit, the letter itself is perfectly reasonable and polite. However, there is one very interesting part:

 _A search based on these criteria usually yields a male who is 50-plus years old, has a Masters degree in an engineering science, and has moved up the managerial ladder to the top spot in one or more corporations. Unfortunately, there are currently few minorities and almost no women who chose to be engineering graduate students 30 years ago. (That picture will be dramatically different in 10 years, due to the greater diversification of graduate students in the '80s.)_

Well, it is now 17 years later, and the end result doesn't look "dramatically different" to me. So maybe the criteria (at this level and/or others) aren't all that objective and rational after all.

<comment><USER6> One black dude on the board. Unfortunately, not as much progress as one would have liked.

[http://investors.cypress.com/directors.cfm](http://investors.cypress.com/directors.cfm)

<comment><USER7> I disagree. There is 'black dude' on the board based on his rather amazing qualifications and nothing more. This give me much more hope than if he were there for other reasons.

<comment><USER6> I should have said "not as much progress as I would have liked." Also, you have no more idea the reasons for the make up of the current board than I, or anyone else, does. I'm happy you are hopeful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > What absurd logic would contend that Americans should be harmed by "good > ethics?"

Why is that absurd? Is it unreasonable to think that, say, Americans might be expected to pay more for clothes in order to reduce the numbers of people burned to death in Bangladeshi textile factory fires?

</comment><comment><USER9> Why are almost all CEO:s and company leaders tall? Is it just a coincidence and when they selected the "most qualified" candidates almost all of them happened to be tall? Is it because taller people just are that much smarter than everyone else?

<comment><USER4> Well, taller people are somewhat smarter than everyone else. If your model of CEOs is that they're selected top-down from the smartest members of the population, you'd probably expect them to be taller than average, because someone exceptionally smart probably had a lot of different things go right to achieve their high total, including the particular thing that's related to tallness.

I tend to assume that most leaders are tall because tallness contributes heavily to charisma, rather than because it's somewhat related to intelligence.

<comment><USER9> I see. Silly me for suspecting it has something to do with discrimination. That explains why there are so few women on leadership positions -- they are on average 10-20 cm shorter than men so they are both much dumber and much less charismatic than guys. It doesn't explain why the tall and hyper- charismatic smart Dutch men aren't dominating the world. But I guess it's only a matter of time. Perhaps we should export some of our geniuses to the short and Asian countries, they obviously suffer from a severe lack of tallintellect there.</comment></comment></comment>


Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html <comment><USER2> >Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for.

I don't understand how those two sentences are related. I've never heard a political or ideological battle explained as being "curiosity destroying".

<comment><USER3> Plus I don't understand why curiosity is the value of the community. Is it? There are so many kinds of values, and even a nuance between learning and mere curiosity. Recently black American experiences have been a conversation here on HN — if this conflicts with curiosity, then which is more valuable?

Or are we talking about the values prescribed by the proprietors of HN?

<comment><USER4> Curiosity is the value of the community because that's how it got started and that has always been its mandate. It's simply a question of being one kind of site rather than another. Does such a site have a right to exist? I think it does; the alternative would be that all sites must be the same, and that can't be right.

If so, it needs to be operated in a way that preserves it for that mandate. The default outcome is certainly not that, so we expend a lot of energy trying to stave that off, as one must when trying to escape entropy.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20stave&sort=byDate&type=comment)

The idea of "black American experiences conflicting with curiosity" strikes me as a bizarre formulation.

<comment><USER3> > The idea of "black American experiences conflicting with curiosity" strikes > me as a bizarre formulation.

BLM and its concerns for justice is considered a very political topic. Black issues in America aren't about to become an unpolitical issue.

An oft repeated argument is that political activist speech kills curiosity. There's no transparent line to know when political speech is curious enough not to violate site rules.

Also, where does the mandate of the site come from? The president of YC? My worry is that the prescriptions of the site don't seem to have any story for evolution.

<comment><USER4> There have been many threads about those topics (the situation as of a month ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624962)) and related topics. I particularly liked [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23669188](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23669188) because it got so many comments from black HN users sharing their experience. Similar examples:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23540162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23540162)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23564048](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23564048)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23772359](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23772359)

There's plenty of curious conversation there. There's also plenty of flamebait and flamewar, unfortunately, but that's unavoidable when the society at large is divided on a topic—or rather societies, since we have the added dimension of being a highly international community to deal with. The HN guidelines are written in such a way as to encourage the former and discourage the latter, but there are limits to what's achievable.

HN's mandate comes from how it was created. It has its particular niche. I think it's a good niche that is worth preserving, and I'm pretty sure the bulk of the community agrees, since that's why people come here. In a way, I like that you're questioning it, though. If the argument becomes "HN should have a different mandate", this suggests that it's doing an ok job of fulfilling the existing one.

<comment><USER3> Why is my post penalized, and without any note to the effect? When I logout my submission disappears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Someone should tell PG, his last two blog posts were about "cancel culture".

<comment><USER6> Hackernews is not a personal blog where you could acceptably express your own personal political opinions

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I come to HN to discuss ideas. What's the difference between an "ideological battle" and discussing ideas?

<comment><USER8> I think ideological battle is a matter of the _manner_ of discussing ideas. Hallmarks include: posting the same argument in multiple places within a thread and in multiple threads in a short timespan; dragging a peripherally related discussion toward well-known contentious issues; repeating popular catchphrases, slogans and talking points with little regard for how well they apply to the specific instance of a topic under discussion; using shallow predictable arguments of the sort found in TV sound bites rather than more sound and nuanced arguments; little or no participation in non-political threads on HN; refusing to acknowledge the weaknesses or downsides of your own positions; making lots of pronouncements and declarations rather than asking lots of questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I totally agree. I tell this to my friends too. Not every forum and platform is to argue about politics. There are some people who do not concern themselves with these issues. Some such people continue working on what they love. Not everyone needs to be dragged into the pit of political mudslinging. HN should talk about FOSS, privacy and anything tech activism.

</comment><comment><USER10> If only things were so easy. Alas, things are not that simple, at all. Just try to discuss a project which automates the creation of a whitelist for master/slave connections which you'll be using when you attend the black hat conference and you'll find out you just violated 4 new rulings-on-speech without having the slightest clue as to why - unless you've been following those maligned discussions on politics and ideology that is.

In short, when everything has been politicised it is impossible to discuss anything without involving politics.

</comment><comment><USER11> Get your house in order, or enabling fascism will be a pointless exercise. Discussion here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/22/portland-c...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/22/portland- constitution-dhs-crackdown-legality/?outputType=comment)

</comment><comment><USER12> It is good to make it clear ahead of elections. Still, every piece of information contains a degree of such dimensions, intentionally or not.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good reminder. Especially in US presidential election season, but else-while too: there are few places where ideological opponents can come together for a rational discussion. HN comes closer to such a place than any other I know. Ironic that is has been flagged.

</comment><comment><USER14> Are tabs vs spaces ideological battle?

<comment><USER15> _set expandtab_

...though in my experience ironically referencing the subjects of common flame wars, with the intention of collectively rolling our eyes at how silly flame wars are, usually results in flame wars. Maybe not here though.

Emacs users, I love you.

<comment><USER16> I use both vi and emacs. I find vi quicker under my fingers, but more complex things are easier for me in emacs: compare-windows, keyboard macros, the shell in a window (especially since it became smart about passwords a decade or more ago). There may be vim equivalents I don't know of.

Peace. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Who still believes in 2020 that technology isn't political? Have you never heard of the impact of Facebook or Twitter on our societies? Cambridge Analytica, anyone? It lead to Brexit & Trump...

Any technology changes society, thus has a political impact. Trying to hide it is ideological. Does HN promote this ideology only? Or does it welcome various points of view?

</comment><comment><USER18> I just wish things would be enforced more strictly. If you look at the comments being punished, a lot of clearly political statements get ignored while others don't - even if they just correct wrong statements. It's the tiring and commonplace way of "ban everything, enforce selectively". Same with r/cpp r/programming unfortunately.

<comment><USER4> If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted to HN—there's far too much. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at email@example.com. [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20likeliest&sort=byDate&type=comment)

If you think that one side gets consistently moderated while the other side doesn't—on whatever divisive topic—then you might be falling prey to the notice/dislike bias: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment). Because of that bias, all sides feel like the site, the community, and the moderators are lined up against them, and they make interchangeable statements about it (except for the bit about which sides are supposedly favored).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This guidance was missed 6 weeks ago when people wanted to talk about the horrors of police brutality.

The way I see it is if a person's intent is seeking either sympathy or any social value proposition HN is likely not the ideal venue. It's like the taboo of talking about politics in the office for those of us who don't live in the valley where that is more generally accepted.

<comment><USER20> > _It's like the taboo of talking about politics in the office_

How would you define "talking about politics"? Does it include talking about government? If so, all of the Snowden leaks are off the table.

What about policy? That seemingly covers universal basic income, entrepreneurship incentives, etc.

News stories about tech companies? Most of those are constantly in the news for enraging the entire political spectrum.

What about government clients, as it also relates to policy? We'd basically never talk about Palantir on here again.

I don't see any way to talk about tech companies, entrepeneurship, (technology) business, philosophy, or most other interesting HN topics without crossing into something that most people consider too political for office conversation.

<comment><USER19> If you are a general officer of a company and discussion of a political subject is necessary for the sake only of business continuity then it becomes necessary to discuss politics at work. That is an extremely narrow edge case.

Otherwise if you are perplexed at what construes a political discussion you are most likely looking for any excuse to knowingly engage in politics. This sort of deliberate dishonesty is one reason I refuse to move to the Bay Area where such behavior is commonly accepted.

<comment><USER20> I sincerely asked you what defines a political comment. If you have a neat and easily-applicable definition, I'd love to know what it is.

I don't have one, and I don't think most people do. That was my point.

I have no idea where the Bay Area part come from or why you think I'm being dishonest. Perhaps you interpret rhetorical questions as dishonest?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Moving machine learning from practice to production - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.semantics3.com/2016/11/13/machine-learning-practice-to-production/ <comment><AUTHOR> OP here, the post was really meant to invite discussion.

I would love to hear more from people deploying machine learning techniques at their projects, teams and companies.

<comment><USER2> We touched on a lot of these questions in this talk about how we went from a prototype to a production machine learning system: [https://vimeo.com/181931334](https://vimeo.com/181931334)

The main point I haven't seen mentioned that often is to constantly verify your data and your data processing pipeline. We treat these checks as integration tests and run them as part of our continuous integration system. We also use New Relic to monitor model freshness, to be alerted if any part of the pipeline has broken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> years ago i dealt with NN's in automated trading, and little regard was given to source data requirements. it was like NN's were treated as magic boxes rather than black boxes. a magic box will miraculously produce useful output even when you feed it garbage, but a black box has specific requirements for its data source to make it useful. so i like how the author dedicates one entire part of the three-part flow chart to sources and preprocessing. if i deal with NN's again i'll definitely place more emphasis on this aspect.</comment>


EBay Acquisition Map Shows Where It Got On The Wrong Track - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/04/ebay-acquisition-map-shows-where-it-got-on-the-wrong-track/ <comment><USER2> I think these 'subway' maps - are a fun thing to look at but they don't convey information that well.

<comment><USER3> I had to write Prolog code at University to traverse one of these. Pretty interesting!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> well ... i'm not with tc on the alando case. alando was basically the unofficial german ebay and they had to buy and i guess it worked out very well.</comment>


History of Lisp (1979) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/lisp/lisp.pdf <comment><USER2> "The Evolution of Lisp" by Guy Steele and Richard Gabriel is also a good related paper: [https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf](https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Both are awesome papers, I found this very interesting:

"In 1975 Gerald J. Sussman and Guy L. Steele Jr. began experimenting with some interpreters in an attempt to understand the consequences of the Actor model of computation. This led to the publication during 1976–1978 of a series of papers describing a new dialect of Lisp called Scheme. Scheme was one of the first languages to have taken seriously the implications of lexical scoping and first-class functions. Namely, Scheme correctly treated closures—a closure is a function along with the local environment within which it was defined."

I heart Richard Gabriel once saying that the goal of Scheme was implement Carl Hewitt's Actor model but they discover closures instead, got hyped and forget about the original mission.

Later history repeat itself twice, Robert Virding a true Lisp Hacker implement LFE his own LISP for the BEAM ecosystem and accomplish the original Scheme goal and probably without even know or care much about it, in the similar way that once Mike Williams, Joe Armstrong and him build Erlang the best implementation (in my opinion) that we got from the Actor model without know nothing about it existence at the time of the development of Erlang.

<comment><USER4> No, I did not know of Scheme's original goal, and we had never heard of the actor model when doing Erlang. And we wouldn't have cared either. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You know a programming language (family) is old when someone wrote a history about it almost 40 years ago.

<comment><USER6> its a shame that there isnt any more history on the family....

thats how it goes w all tech history tho

take for instance gary "gates" kildall, no one knows, its a shame

<comment><USER7> Some information about the early years is gone; people were often too busy to write down what they were doing. But there's enough still around that it's even gone recursive [http://kameken.clique.jp/Lectures/Lectures2010/NLP2010/relat...](http://kameken.clique.jp/Lectures/Lectures2010/NLP2010/relatedDocuments/docNo1.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For the source code and more: [http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/)

</comment><comment><USER6> do ....i ....have deja vu?

seems like modern languages make the same mistakes.

i could be wrong....

<comment><USER9> You aren't wrong - they did and keep doing it. ;-)

IMHO that's why Common Lisp is decades ahead of other languages. Lisp made its mistakes in the 60's and 70's and largely corrected them in Common Lisp in the 80's.

<comment><USER6> i mean, that garbage collection was fucking abysmal!

You seem much more knowledgable than me....

We talking turbo pascal levels or what?</comment></comment></comment>


GitHub is down - <AUTHOR> https://status.github.com/? <comment><USER2> I hope the world realizes that clouds are not just fluffy white things in the blue sky, but can create destructive storms too, with wind, rain and so on.

Make sure your infrastructure is ready to weather such storms - have local backups and fallbacks, make sure your code is available even if github (or the Internet) goes down.

The more I hear 'cloud', the more I try to depend only on tools that work offline.

<comment><USER3> Metaphors like that only makes it even more confusing. It's a marketing scam, let's call it for what it is. Servers. They are servers.

<comment><USER4> There _can be_ difference between hosting on bare metal boxes and hosting on cloud providers.

If you are connecting different services (message queues, databases, storage, transcoding), and spinning up and down instances based on current demand and spot prices, then cloud hosting is totally different. On the other hand, if you are just renting a couple of dedicated cloud instances, then yeah - they're just (virtualized) servers.

<comment><USER5> Yeah. The problem is, "cloud" now means both of the things you described and then some. Probably the best definition corresponding to present usage of this word would be "not on localhost".

(Because yeah, if I host a Dropbox clone on my Raspberry Pi sitting on the wardrobe, I have my files "in the cloud" now.)

We need a new word for automated, dynamic allocation/deallocation/management of remote instances for various services. Something that would differentiate it from buying a VPS.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. Amongst non-technical people, 'in the cloud' just means 'somewhere on the internet'. For example, if I backup my iPhone onto iTunes on my laptop then that's not on the cloud, but if backup to iCloud then it's on the cloud.

I guess it's frustrating that cloud means quite different things depending on the context, but I guess that's true of a lot of language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Phew, I can't develop anymore but [http://left-pad.io/](http://left-pad.io/) is still up so my systems continue operating.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting to me to see all the services that depend on or integrate with GitHub in some way, as they all have problems at times like this.

My side project [https://statusgator.com](https://statusgator.com) shows currently a dozen different services all posting warnings or down notices on their status pages. It's mostly CI services and the like, all which break in some way when GitHub is down.

<comment><USER5> > _It 's mostly CI services and the like, all which break in some way when > GitHub is down._

It boggles my mind. If you're not adding a new dependency to the project, your CI server should _never_ hit GitHub when doing builds. Who sets those things up without local cache?

<comment><USER8> Why shouldn't your CI get the source code it's building from GitHub?

<comment><USER5> It should, but only once. Redownloading the same sources over and over and over again is a stupid waste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> And so is all Github-dependent deployment...

<comment><USER9> Got here because of that haha, can't deploy. EDIT: Why downvote fellas?

<comment><USER10> Because your comment adds nothing.

<comment><USER11> It adds something. It shows an example of an actual person affected by this. Yours here, however, I'm not sure what that adds :)

<comment><USER10> Someone was apparently confused as to why his comment was downvoted. I answered that question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Haha, I always feel guilty when this happens, I'm doing something and suddenly start getting errors, which just escalates on refresh and now everything is down :P

</comment><comment><USER13> You can also follow githubstatus on twitter: [https://twitter.com/githubstatus](https://twitter.com/githubstatus)

<comment><USER14> Interesting that one of the tweets uses identical wording to one of the status messages, and one doesn't. I would have assumed the tweets would be automated, but maybe there's a thinking that the message for the status bar isn't necessarily appropriate for Twitter, so it can be 'overridden'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> updates : [https://status.github.com/messages](https://status.github.com/messages)

</comment><comment><USER16> SourceForge is doing fine ;)

<comment><USER17> And so are my free private repositories on Bitbucket. :)

<comment><USER18> and my two independent gitlab instances.

<comment><USER19> I'm guessing your gitlab instances see as many visitors as SourceForge

<comment><USER18> That's why I call it private.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Jean-Philipe Once the office router was down, we just pushed our commits to a USB stick. Worked pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER20> The common complaint is that when github goes down so do issue trackers/project management/docs etc. What are the equivalent alternatives for these systems that are distributed, so tolerant to downtime.

If you are in a situation that you're using a DVCS but relying on centralised everything else, and saying that you're unable to work because your Issue tracker/CI server is down, have you really gained anything over the alternatives?

<comment><USER18> You can setup gitlab with clones, if one server goes down, second has a copy. You know, git is a distributed system, unlike github.

<comment><USER21> But if two systems are identical, wouldn't it be likely that both would break at the same time?

<comment><USER22> No. Unless you do something dumb like "don't test that the failover system is fully functional before taking the primary offline;" this applies to any maintenance, which also includes upgrades. Usual HA tactics apply - don't rely on one power source, one network link, or just about any SPOF. (Which means that requirements start breeding like rabbits, which gets expensive rather quickly - whereas Github is free-as-in-beer, which is _good enough_ for most people)

Perhaps the only case breaking both at once would be deliberate action (DDoS etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The Web UI is still accessible for me, just extremely slow.

</comment><comment><USER24> GitLab to the rescue!

<comment><USER25> Momentarily, yes. But it's just another central hub.

<comment><USER26> You can host your own.

<comment><USER27> Which can go down too.

<comment><USER28> Still, a lot less risky. Self-hosted hub is something you have more control over and is less likely to be DDoS'ed by some Chinese harm-wishers.

<comment><USER29> Not just that, but if it's self-hosted, that also implies that it might be local to your work-area. I.e. It's on-premise, so even the entire internet going down wouldn't necessary stop local operations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I pinged GitHub and it seems to be responding but the web UI is taking a few minutes to respond.

</comment><comment><USER31> Just a friendly reminder to store source locally.

Generally try not to put external services in a critical path.

</comment><comment><USER32> Amazon oregon is down for me - can't get the EC2 status page... and the service outage page also has trouble loading...

[http://status.aws.amazon.com/](http://status.aws.amazon.com/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Status page[1] is now saying everything is operating normally... now waiting for the post mortum...

[1]:[https://status.github.com/messages](https://status.github.com/messages)

</comment><comment><USER34> Taking bets on if this is the chinese government testing out GreatCannon v2.0.0

<comment><USER35> Panama Papers anyone?

<comment><USER36> If only someone started selling tinfoil hats with "I told you so" logos.

<comment><USER5> Ask the [http://shieldheadwear.com/](http://shieldheadwear.com/) guys. They actually managed to kickstart stylish tinfoil hats...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> git is decentralized, but a bunch of the supporting infrastructure GitHub provides, like Issues and PRs, isn't. It would be neat if that stuff were tracked in a git repository as well.

</comment><comment><USER38> Is HN traffic significantly above average at the moment?

</comment><comment><USER39> If only we had a version control system that didn't rely on a central hub...

<comment><USER40> We do, it's called Fossil! [http://fossil-scm.org/](http://fossil-scm.org/)

Fossil tracks issues (tickets), documentation, and wiki pages at the same level as it tracks code, so when you clone a Fossil repo, _everything_ gets downloaded to your local computer. You can then respond to tickets and perform repo maintenance offline, syncing everything to the server when you're back up.

Edit: A few weeks ago I got a job a one-hour train ride away. I can commit, close tickets, and write docs on my way in, sync everything to the internet when I get to work, then do the same on my way back - even though I don't have a net connection during my commute. It works great. (Ok, not as good as not having to travel at all, but great nonetheless!)

<comment><USER41> the parent commentator was joking that git _is_ decentralised, but that we made it centralised again by relying on a small number of hosters (github, bitbucket and others)

<comment><USER40> Heh, don't worry, I got the joke. But I also got the joke the last time this was posted, and the time before that, and the time before that...

This just _keeps happening_. It's not GitHub's fault that they keep getting DDoSed or have a network outage every now and again. But it's not a problem with no solution.

<comment><USER42> To be honest, I can cope with Github's downtime, it is probably less than if I was hosting a Git solution myself and the service is much more reliable than all the other solutions I've tried (which are either lacking features or have bugs or have massive downtimes).

Github is trying their best as far as I can see, they manage to fix the majority of issues within three hours and even during those three hours its not the end of the world because you can still code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Does it affect my work if I am using Waffle? My company is planning to use a kanban service.

</comment><comment><USER44> The webpage works fine for me. Can you tell me which part of the infrastructure is down?

<comment><USER14> Back up now, apparently, but GitHub themselves were reporting "Major service outage" in bold red letters. It looked very serious, but it seems they've done a great job getting everything back up fairly quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> has any one tried setting up a fossil-scm locally and work with that instead

<comment><USER46> Yeah. I've been using it on and off for a while, but git works fine locally, so it was mostly for private bug tracking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Sorry github, I know my code is unbearable to watch :(

</comment><comment><USER48> Maybe it's time to use Git with Storj ?

</comment><comment><USER49> Facebook and Twitter seems to have sorted their once frequent outages pretty well over the years. Come on, GitHub - you can do better!

</comment><comment> vladimir-y Azer Koçulu did you kill Github? )

</comment><comment><USER50> we need a gittorrent.

<comment><USER51> No. Git is easy to distribute, that's pretty much the point, and even if your central repository is down you can generally work: you can easily commit locally and can even use ad-hoc servers for P2P collaboration. Anything based on your VCS (CI, deployment) can be rerouted or handle multi-master sources.

The problem is all the shit that is _not_ in the VCS and not directly based on it: issues, code reviews, discussions, … and the community around them if you have external contributors.

"Gittorrent" attacks a problem which by and large is already solved, it might further improvement on it but it's improving something _which is not the bottleneck_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> No issues for me, just merged a pull request.

</comment><comment><USER53> GitHub seems to be back up again now.

</comment><comment><USER13> well, it seems it is working now, even if the error persist on the status page.

</comment><comment><USER54> it's "working" now , still very slow

</comment><comment><USER55> And? Work offline.

</comment><comment><USER56> final status - [https://twitter.com/Insping/status/717271742964568065](https://twitter.com/Insping/status/717271742964568065)

</comment><comment><USER57> I like how they write there "Everything operating normally." :) when it is down...

</comment><comment><USER58> You'd think by now GH would have a more resilient system in place ... I mean it isn't like it is the first time it happens to them.

Thanks for the downvote, my hearts goes to you. :/

<comment><USER59> I guess you will get what you pay for... which is nothing for most of their users.

<comment><USER60> > I guess you will get what you pay for...

1\. There is literally no amount of money which will get you 100% uptime. You may be able to buy _guarantees of_ 100% uptime, however...

2\. ... which will not change the fact that things still go down, and that if something goes down in a way which violates your signed contract, the most you can hope for is some kind of monetary compensation and, maybe, an apologetic- sounding employee to scream at until you feel a bit better. If you expect to buy someone's _care_ , you're woefully naïve.

My point is that the paying customers don't necessarily get a better service. All they get is limited compensation for enduring the same bad service all of the rest of us get.

<comment><USER61> It's true that you can't get 100% uptime. And yes 99.999% is more of an SLA agreement/goal than a generally achievable metric. But Github aren't even managing two nines - they only have 98% uptime over the past month. That's bad for _any_ service.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fluent Design Is Microsoft's New Metro UI for Windows and More - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/11/15615812/microsoft-fluent-design-system-project-neon-features <comment><USER2> It's hard to see what this is actually going to look like, but if it gives their UI back some more "definition" (or in UX jargon probably discoverability of affordances) I'm looking forward to it.

I know skeuomorphism (as in: imitating physical materials, not in: using metaphors from the physical world) is out, but considering we have these awesome hidpi, high contrast screens (and cameras and light and motion sensors), why can't we have convincing different materials in our UIs?

I was really disappointed that "Holo" didn't look like I imagined holograms, and "Material" doesn't look more like paper or any other material. I'm disappointed that the blur effect in macOS is so unphysical and illogical (sometimes blurring the background, sometimes the titlebar, ...).

I wish MS or any future UI would have different types of (subtle!) material effects. Frosted glass, thick refractive glass, reflective surfaces, matte paper... not just "flat" or "blurred". And if pulled of correctly, it would not look gaudy, it would be as convincing an illusion as force touch is on MacBooks. Making me tilt my phone or laptop because I can't believe that there is not actually a piece of paper beneath my screen!

Edit: Yay, it seems they are legitimizing the blur effect that is available as an undocumented API now as "acrylic", and more materials are to come! But oh no, it is the same as macOS vibrancy (also with potentially illogical background and foreground modes) [https://docs.microsoft.com/de- de/windows/uwp/style/acrylic](https://docs.microsoft.com/de- de/windows/uwp/style/acrylic)

<comment><USER3> Skeuomorphism is coming back in a measured way — originally it was kind of a "this notepad app looks like a notepad" which ultimately seemed a bit absurd because a yellow-ruled paper texture doesn't really mean anything in a non- physical environment. It was more noise than signal.

...but now as you mentioned — these elements we're interacting with should follow some sort of universal constants and are picking up associations of physical reality that actually mean something. Elements move in from one direction and out from another at set speeds, light sources are coming from consistent places, animations radiate out from the source of interaction...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only person who thinks that the UI peaked at Windows2000?

It seems to me that in Win2000 the entire 2D interface/look was perfect, it refined the Win95/98 interface. Sharp lines allowing for easy visual separation between elements. Excellent colour scheme. Buttons were buttons and an obvious visual clue that they were 'clickable'.

(Disclaimer: I use i3 exclusively.)

<comment><USER5> "Clicking" on the little "x" to close the application window is near impossible with anything other than the mouse. We can't pretend interfaces like touch are gimmicks anymore. They're pushing a decade now in mass market.

<comment><USER6> Yes, because one part of the demographics uses its fingers, we got to piss of the other part of the demographic who doesen't. Man, i wish i could be that lazy as a coder. Yes, boss - we kicked the ethernet support. Focus test shows a near majority of our customers comes in via WiFi.

I would be so ashamed on this inability to combine form and function.

<comment><USER7> Wifi uses Ethernet too :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fluent in what?

The video is all eye candy with quick cuts. It doesn't show anybody _doing_ anything. The discussion indicates that Microsoft wants to bring back pens, since finger-pointing is so low-rez. They also have that new movable knob input device. Both of those give tablets more desktop-like attributes.

Part of the idea is that you can write on anything. Didn't Apple try that once about 20 years ago? I think it was called "Ink".

<comment><USER9> The video is amazingly inhumane. Things that presumably took many person-years to create are shown for such a small fraction of a second, and in such rapid succession, that it hurts my brain to watch.

I know that they are doing some fascinating work --- I own a Hololens, and I think some of their research work is potentially game-changing.

But who is the audience for a spot like this? Do non-devs care about their "design system"? Would devs not rather see something substantial, instinctively dismissing this kind of razzle-dazzle?

<comment><USER10> Glad I am not the only one who only had "finally I get to see what they mean - oops the 100ms timeslot is over" moments watching this video.

<comment><USER11> That seems to be the trend in videos these days. It drives me crazy when they show a car and it's 0.2s in a tunnel, 0.3s on a mountain and so on. You can watch a whole video and still don't known it looks. But together with music and sound effects it's cool.

<comment><USER8> Explanatory videos come in a few flavors, many of them bad:

\- Blipverts, like this one. Pretty, but useless. Typical use: Ads, Kickstarter videos.

\- Talking heads with PowerPoint. Boring. Typical use: online courses, TED talks.

\- Long single-shot videos of someone doing something complicated. Boring, but useful. Typical use: how-to videos.

\- History Channel style. Video of important stuff with occasional interpretive graphics and explanation. Tough to balance but can be done well. Expensive to produce. Tends to oversimplify.

\- Classic industrial film. See anything from the Jam Handy Organization. The Internet Archive has hundreds of these films. Good at getting concepts across. Blah by modern standards. Narrated, but not much talking head time. Minimal animation of details. Many stock shots.

That field needs some design work. If the goal is to explain (not sell), the industrial film model, modernized, has potential. It takes more production effort than a blipvert or a PowerPoint video, but less than a History Channel video.

Top of the line in explanatory videos: "Victory through Air Power" (1943) [1] This was made by Disney for one purpose - to convince President Roosevelt to go with heavy land-based bombers as the main weapon in the Pacific war.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/VictoryThroughAirPower](https://archive.org/details/VictoryThroughAirPower)

<comment><USER8> Classic Jam Handy: "Around the Corner", which explains how an automobile differential works.[1] (Skip the first three minutes.) If you watch this, you _will_ understand how a differential works, and won't forget it. An explanation of Microsoft's new UI with similar clarity would be helpful.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/Aroundth1937](https://archive.org/details/Aroundth1937)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for that. I'm the opposite of a "car guy," but that was a highlight of my day.

<comment><USER8> There's a whole series of those films, all done for Chevrolet.

\- "What Stops Them" \- hydraulic brakes

\- "Tough Friends" \- automotive steel alloys

\- "No Ghosts" \- auto frame design for stiffness

\- "Horsepower" \- shows exactly what one horsepower is

\- "Balance" \- system integration of the automobile

\- "Precisely so" \- measurement and manufacturing precision

\- "Streamlines" \- air resistance

\- "Down the gasoline trail" \- from fuel tank to exhaust

All these are in the Internet Archive in the Prelinger collection of industrial films.

Chevrolet really wanted to explain how an automobile works. These films are much better at explaining than most of what we see today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Consistent design guidelines coupled with cross platform libraries is what Google did right about Material design. It seems like both Apple and Microsoft have failed to properly build this before and I have always disliked iOS and Metro designs for this reason.

<comment><USER13> I know I'm alone in the this but I find material design truly horrible and I'd love for it to go away.

Still you are right though about the cross platform thing

<comment><USER14> I also don't like its aesthetic, plus I find it lacking in discoverability and one-handed usability on phones. But consistency of execution is the one thing it gets right, as GP says.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They should simply call it the 'loosely-based-on-Minority-Report-But-Rehashed- Design'.

Full disclosure: I am not a Designer.

<comment><USER16> I am a designer, and I am not sure what most of this on the surface level is. I dug a little deeper and saw some pretty basic component library stuff. I'm not sure if this is just weirdly presented, I am behind the times, or both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So instead of a mix of 4 different ui kits, Windows will now be a mix of 5 different ui kits?

<comment><USER18> Fluent is "Modern Design Language 3.0" (aka "Metro 3.0"). It seems to be an evolution of UWP, not a brand new UI Kit, and the code demos shown show a very easy crossover from existing UWP XAML to add Fluent tools/design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> From a cursory search it looks like there are no new design documents yet, just a site with a bunch of buzzwords for now [http://fluent.microsoft.com/](http://fluent.microsoft.com/)

<comment><USER2> If you click on "Build" in the top-right corner, there is more. A bit hard to find.

<comment><USER19> I missed that thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://fluent.microsoft.com/](http://fluent.microsoft.com/)

I like the "Motion" section with a video showing the Xbox One guide menu. Anyone who owns an Xbox One knows the guide menu is laggy garbage with confusing menus. I don't trust a company to suddenly get this stuff right if they can't even provide a smooth and intuitive menu on a game console with 8 CPU cores.

Granted, it got a _little_ better recently, but there's still so many improvements needed.

</comment><comment><USER21> Microsoft has a history of screwing up every other OS releases. After being slight successful with window 10, It's their chance now to screw up again. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4415403](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4415403)

UI Looks back to Aero/Glass effect of Windows Vista: I wish they had learnt their lesson.

</comment><comment><USER22> Am I the only one who just wants their desktop to look like Windows 95 for the next 50 years? Except maybe a bit more bit depth and DPI. This design is simply unsurpassed and everything new that comes out is a step back. There is one feature that I would like from modern Windows window manager though: I really like Windows 10's full-text search for settings.

<comment><USER23> I would really like an OS as simple to use as MacOS 9 but with a modern filesystem, full text search, and keyboard shortcuts for switching apps. That's it. That would be fantastic.

What made Classic MacOS so nice was that it was persistent. Each folder remembered where its window was, what size/shape, icon size settings, icon layout, sort/list view, coloured labels, etc.

Human spatial memory is a fantastic thing. It's so frustrating that we've decided to throw that all away with modern UIs that don't persist anything and windows that get reused (browsers). It's no wonder non-technical users struggle so much that they've more or less given up on desktop PCs.

<comment><USER24> I'm pretty sure Windows has had the ability to remember folder-specific settings since Windows 95. I don't know when window-sizing and location memory came into play, but it definitely worked in Windows 7+. Until Windows 7, if I remember correctly, folder-specific customization was all or nothing: every folder had individualized settings, or all folders were treated the same. The file-specific libraries (Documents, Videos, Pictures, etc) let you strike a balance between those two extremes (among other things).

<comment><USER23> It does, but it's not the default. The default in Windows is that you have a browser and opening folders reuses the same window. Classic Mac OS is not like this. Every folder has a 1 to 1 relationship with the window showing its contents. A folder cannot be open twice, and a window cannot change what folder is displayed inside it. Applications worked like this too. An application could only be open once. Trying to open it again would switch to it.

The goal of all this is to help the user build spatial memory for everything on the computer. By not having applications, documents, or folders move around the screen of their own volition the user is better able to keep track of them.

This mirrors a real-life desk where objects like papers, pens, folders, and your calculator can be found right where you left them. If every time you sat down at your desk those objects were rearranged you'd probably complain to the cleaning staff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> From TFA:

> Most of the changes include subtle additions like blur effects, which is a > type of design we saw back with Windows Vista

And so the wheel turns...

</comment><comment><USER26> This seemed like overkill until I remembered their hololens work. Now it makes perfect sense and seems like a smart play.

</comment><comment><USER27> When I first heard about this a few months ago, I was excited. I don't know why. Microsoft is cursed with terrible design and always will be. If they ever designed something nice I'm pretty sure the universe would have to unbalance itself to compensate.

<comment><USER28> I feel that's rather subjective.

I personally prefer the Windows 7 and Windows 10 interface to OSX. I really liked metro; I also prefer the windowing system in general with the snapping and other features. The designs of the surface studio, the surface book, and surface pro are much more compelling than anything I've seen out of Apple in recent memory. My goodness, that surface studio..

IMHO MS is a MUCH more exciting company ATM from a design standpoint; or from just about any other point I would stand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> [http://fluent.microsoft.com](http://fluent.microsoft.com) doesn't render in Safari properly

<comment><USER30> Tried and works fine in: Windows/Chrome Windows/Edge

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yeah these design documents always look nicer than the actual implementation. In practice Windows 10 looks... lifeless.

</comment><comment><USER32> does it fix the scrolling with WPF?

</comment><comment><USER33> Did they fix font rendering? if they did I will go back to windows. If they didn't. No thank you.

Just fix fucking font rendering, I did use Windows machine as my workstation for 4 years, But I had to switch to Ubuntu, because of ridiculous font rendering they introduced in DirectWrite. I don't have money to pay for new monitor every 2 years, and I am quite happy with my dual monitor 27 inch 1080p until windows 10 changed font rendering to DirectWrite. It is fucking disaster in low dpi monitor. As always Microsoft ignored their current users in pursue of new users. I haven't seen this attitude from any other company. I haven't seen apple make font rendering on old MacBook worse to force people to switch to new MacBooks. Or I haven't seen something similar from Google. This is fucking total disaster. As someone who reads text for whole day (programmer) I care about my eyes and it fucking hurts my eye to see font rendering in new UI (UWP) and Edge.

p.s. Old/win32 application do use old rendering engine and are acceptable.

<comment><USER34> I don't think I've ever noticed anything too strange with font rendering in Windows. Can you (calmly) explain what you're talking about?

<comment><USER2> Not the parent poster, but basically, they dropped RGB subpixel rendering, and now use plain anti-aliasing for all font sizes. They may have changed hinting and anti-aliasing parameters, too. No difference on a HiDPI screen, since you don't need subpixels there, but on standard definition screens many find it looks a bit blurrier (me included).

Supposed benefits are that it is easier to render text on colored backgrounds (you can just render with alpha to a buffer and combine it with the background, with RGB subpixel rendering you have to consider the background while drawing), and you can scale text without color artifacts.

To be honest, we have plenty of computing power today, and our GPUs are underutilized most of the time anyway. I wonder why we can't just have RGB subpixel aware rendering of everything (not just text, but also lines and polygons) implemented as a kind of shader pass. Render everything at 3x horizontal resolution, and merge using an appropriate shader. And if you have a HiDPI screen, just drop the shader.

<comment><USER35> It's actually not possible to accurately composite subpixel AA using the GPU since you can't configure blends per-channel. To do it accurately, you need three different alpha channels.

<comment><USER36> It is actually possible to do using a feature called dual source blending, which unfortunately is so rarely used that drivers tend to fail to implement it properly. But it does give you the possibility to use 3+ alpha channels with full hardware acceleration, at some memory cost.

Though since DPIs are going up and 3 alpha channels is such an unusual thing, I guess they just figured it wasn't worth the trouble.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Markov and You - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001132.html

<comment><USER2> It might be fun to try to guess the authors of Markov-generated "samples" of famous works.

<comment><USER3> Can you guess who this is?

"It seems this piece of thing: Even if you're into that Lee Smolin suggests, though I have little programming experience, but argues a working brain, at least not be of thing: Even if it's that the viewer: But many didn't. And the lack of Markov-generated "samples" of research. The main problem is more or Wikipedia) would cover 99% of falsifiable predictions, lack of how the danger from the unjustified (given the even ones. To summarize: intelligence, motivation, and space is awesome, and Wikipedia (or sites directly accessed through Google and location when they fall sick could provide interesting data"

<comment><USER2> Haha is it really me?

(Is "is it really I?" correct?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The first time I came across Markov Chains was a blog post about generating Italian surnames.

[http://doubtingtommaso.blogspot.com/2008/03/markov- chains.ht...](http://doubtingtommaso.blogspot.com/2008/03/markov-chains.html)

Very cool stuff.. it seems quite powerful given how broadly it can be applied.

</comment><comment><USER5> could you possible use this to generate content for your site that wouldn't be penalized as being 'duplicate content'? wonder if google has a reverse filter (or index) of content created in this way to penalize computer generated text..etc...

<comment><USER6> Would it be possible to detect Markov-generated text?

Perhaps the only way to do it would be to note that the probability of one word following another seems more constant over time in Markov text than in human-generated text? It'd be interesting to know if anyone's done this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This a mandatory read. Click every link! Garfield is the best postmodern thing ever!

</comment><comment><USER8> OP, Markovized (first 100 words):

"Markov chains is chosen based on that is the PageRank formula: Ther I considered that, but I fed the company is often called a testament to this idea to work with. Now let's proceed to include amusing bodily functions. Garfield cartoon strip meets Markov chains. I got back: One example of a page by making each letter of any illusions about what it this post, make it (a letter of a testament to get to the broad power of increased cheapness, however. You're not be surprised to longer sequences of passing importance. But Markov chain in"

<comment><USER9> Would it be a measure of... consistency? if one's markov chain matched the body's summary?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I have info and loads of manuals in Emacs, how do I use them? - <AUTHOR> Emacs famously has so many features and most mature packages you find have decent documentation, yet whenever I need to look for a new package or information on say org-mode, I find myself just googling it because C-h a (which I default go to) doesn't whittle things fast enough.<p>How can I use emacs info and friends more effectively? Specifically in looking up docs on already installed packages? Asking here because this might end up being useful to others. <comment><USER2> For software already installed, Emacs should have an index of all your "info" format documents, usually bound to "C-h i".

Then you can use "m" or "C-s" to find the manual you want.

I don't think there's any stock full-text search of all installed manuals at once, but, once you're in a manual, then the various means of navigation are usually very efficient, and (sadly) generally better than most manuals in HTML.

<comment><USER3> "m" is to select a menu item from the list presented on the current page. "C-s" is for text search across the whole manual. And then there is "i" which is to search in the index of the manual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I actually do C-h i, then C-s for package name. Then RET on the package name, then C-s <term> RET and hit C-s repeatedly until I'm near a page node that seems reasonable.

Also, C-h C-h will show you the help of help commands.

M-x apropos-value is crucial when you don't know what variable it is, but you know it's somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER5> helm-apropos is nice(r) for flipping through commands, too.</comment>


What Does the Internet Look Like? [pictochart] - <AUTHOR> http://discovermagazine.com/2006/oct/map-internet-servers/

<comment><USER2> I'd be happy to see the "larger version" of the image. Unfortunately the href of the a tag is missing:

</comment><comment><USER3> The study was done in 05, so not sure how accurate this would be since: 1\. networks are not static, a lot of peering relationships keep changing 2\. network topology varies from geographic topology 3\. video traffic (youtube, etc) since 2005 could have changed the results from this study</comment>


Meet made-in-China Facebook, Twitter :) - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/Meet-made-in-China-Facebook-Twitter/articleshow/6851506.cms <comment><AUTHOR> though I don't understand language of that site. I tried with google translator it shows some Dutch , Portuguese ;)</comment>


Who Can Name the Bigger Number? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/bignumbers.html# <comment><USER2> I was given this test when I was 13 by my grade 8 teacher. I wrote something along the lines of:

(7)^(7^(7^(9^(9 ... ))))))

after realizing about second into the challenge that the extra time taken to draw a 9 vs a 7 was worth it.

To my surprise, when we got back from lunch I was told that there was a tie for first place. I thought "how could this possibly be?"

It turned out that the way the teacher phrased the question was "write the biggest number" which to me, and all but one person in the class, meant the furthest number from 0 on a number line while still remaining positive. The other person just drew an ENORMOUS "10" on her piece of paper. The teacher went on to explain out of box thinking about solutions (like mine) and out of box approaches to the question (like hers).

<comment><USER3> _the extra time taken to draw a 9 vs a 7 was worth it_

Is it??? Adding one more exponent is huge, while 7->9 feels much smaller. It's all intuition, though. Does anyone know how to tackle such a question?

Limited empirical results say:

      CL-USER> (log (expt 9 9))
      19.77502
      CL-USER> (log (expt 7 (expt 7 7)))
      1602540.6

Taking the log of an expt is silly, but it makes it printable.

<comment><USER2> So I ran some tests for a 10 second countdown. I'm pretty sure you are right and my mind changing 13 year old self was wrong.

I can do 21 "7"s in 10 seconds (given ok legibility) and 18 "9"s. So it looks like 7 is indeed better.

<comment><USER4> Still, starting to write immediately and then worrying about optimization while the process was running was the right solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An older submission with 68 comments: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1539538>

Great article, worth repeating/re-reading every now and again.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you enjoyed this article, and haven't read "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Doug Hofstadter yet, then stop reading HN immediately and order yourself a copy:

[http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%83%C2%B6del-Escher-Bach- Eternal-G...](http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%83%C2%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal- Golden/dp/0465026567)

Having read this book would, in a fair world, be worth more on your CV/resumé than a large proportion of comp-sci degrees.

Even better, go out of your front door to a real bookshop and get them to order you one. Who knows, you might speak to someone! BONUS!

</comment><comment><USER7> Previously posted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1539538> (68 comments)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=951095> (1 comment)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=514955> (1 comment)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=492615> (0 comments)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47408> (0 comments)

</comment><comment><USER8> TREE(3).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%27s_theorem#Friedman.27...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%27s_theorem#Friedman.27s_finite_form)

<comment><USER9> While I was able to follow the Aaronson article with no particular trouble, I can't seem to grok this. I'd be very grateful to anyone who could give a slightly lower level explanation.

<comment><USER10> So, this is about trees labelled with positive integers at their vertices. (To be formal: let's call them "i-trees", a name I just made up; then an i-tree consists of a positive integer "root" together with a possibly-empty list of i-tree "children", and is of finite size.)

Here's a way of classifying some i-trees as "smaller" than others. Say that the following operations make an i-tree smaller: (1) Reducing one of the integers that appear in it. (2) Deleting any subtree. (3) Replacing a node with one of its subtrees. And say that one i-tree is smaller than another if you can transform the latter into the former by a sequence of these basic steps, and not otherwise.

Finally, for any positive integer n, say that an n-tree is an i-tree in which all those positive integers are at most n.

It turns out that the smaller-than relation that I just described is a "well- quasi-order" (don't blame me, I didn't make up the terminology) on i-trees, which means: If you take any infinite sequence of i-trees -- T1, T2, T3, ... -- then there must be i,j with i<j and Ti smaller-than-or-equal-to Tj. This probably sounds like a bizarre and arbitrary notion, but it's useful because when a set is well-quasi-ordered you can do a kind of mathematical induction on it. (Mathematical induction is the thing that's usually described as "if something's true for 1, and true for n+1 whenever it's true for n, then it's true for all positive integers" but generalizes to something like "if something's true about any object provided it's true about all simpler objects, then it's true for all objects"; what's needed for this to work is approximately for "simpler" to be a well-quasi-order. I am skipping many details, but this is just a motivational aside anyway.)

There's a sort of finite version of that theorem, which goes like this: For any n, if you consider n-trees rather than unrestricted i-trees then there's a fixed N such that whenever you have T1, ..., TN there are two for which the earlier is smaller-than-or-equal-to the later.

How big is N, given n? The answer is the TREE function. It's nice and small for n=1 and n=2 but becomes absolutely enormous for n=3.

The very rapid growth of the TREE function is related to another cool fact: In a certain sense that I'm not going to bother making formal here, you cannot prove the theorem without making essential use of infinite quantities. (One can even quantify, kinda, just how much infinity is required.)

If you happen to like this stuff, here's another theorem (Goodstein's theorem, if you want to look it up) with the same sort of flavour. You already know, I take it, how to write a number in base n: one way to say it is that you write it as a sum of terms of the form [smaller than n] times n^k. Well, suppose you do that and then do the same thing to all the exponents, and to all the exponents that that produces, and so on, until you've expressed your number in terms of (1) numbers smaller than n and (2) the operation "a times n ^ b". Let's say that you've then written your number "in superbase n".

OK. Now, consider the following process. Start with any number. Write it in superbase 2. Replace all the 2s with 3s (so you now have something in superbase 3). Subtract 1; if necessary, fix up the superbase-3-ness. Replace all the 3s with 4s. Subtract 1 and fix up. Replace all the 4s with 5s. And so on.

Typically, the "replace n with n+1" operation increases the number enormously, and you might think that your numbers will increase without limit. But, as it happens, you always get down to 1 eventually -- but (1) the number of steps it takes to get there grows outrageously fast and (2) again, you can't prove this without (in some sense) using infinite quantities.

(For any readers who know about infinite ordinal numbers, here's the one-line proof: At each step, when you have the number written in superbase k, replace all the k's with omegas. Then the "add 1 to the superbase" steps do nothing, and it's easy to see that the "subtract 1" steps always strictly decrease your number. But the ordinals are well-founded, so you can't strictly decrease infinitely many times. QED.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> An excellent article, touching on many aspects of Computation theory. Well worth reading if you are interested.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is the same reaction to the intro that I had last time, but this bit stands out: _the girl he was up against, who wrote a string of 9's followed by the superscript 999. Aha! An exponential_. My guess? She just started writing smaller nines so that she could fit more in...

</comment><comment><USER13> If people use things like exponents and nested factorials can you decide between two numbers without explicitly working out what the number is? It seems like sort of a hard programing problem to take the entered text (assuming an unambiguous format - machine parsable) and quickly tell which one is larger. Some numbers that are easy to write down might take years to calculate but if you apply some kind reasoning, similar to algorithm analysis, you might be able to construct arguments for why one number is larger than another.

<comment><USER14> In general it'd be reducible to the halting problem, if you allowed a Turing- complete language for the number-generating programs.

I imagine you could tackle a good subset of the problem though with a symbolic algebra package (mathematica?) if you restricted the form of the number- generating programs to a certain set of mathematical expressions for which it knows enough tactics to reduce the inequalities involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In 2001, there was a contest to see who could name the biggest number using a C program:

 _The object of the BIGNUM BAKEOFF is to write a C program of 512 characters or less (excluding whitespace) that returns as large a number as possible from main(), assuming C to have integral types that can hold arbitrarily large integers._

See the third line of <http://djm.cc/dmoews.html> for more, including the (quite interesting, IMO) results.

</comment><comment><USER16> I suppose a way to create confines to this test would be to ask the "contestants" to enter their number as a line of code with a restriction on characters. The (theoretical, as it may take eons to compute) output of the code would be your answer. A "big number" golf if you will.

</comment><comment><USER17> Graham's Number. Fin.

<comment><USER18> My answer is always Graham's Number + 1, just to fuck with people like you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The referenced Albert Bartlet quote is from his lecture _Arithmetic, Population, and Energy_. It's a fascinating look into the exponential function, and available on DVD from the University of Colorado. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm reticent to post humor here, but this article immediately made me think of this sketch from Mr. Show: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkP_OGDCLY0>

</comment><comment><USER21> A variation that actually works as a game: Name the bigger number, but if your number >= double your opponent's number, you lose. 0 and 1 are off limits.

</comment><comment><USER22> <http://xkcd.com/207/>

</comment><comment><USER23> I was thinking something like:

Googol ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !</comment>


Volkswagen ID3 has "massive" software problems - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2019/12/19/volkswagen-id3-has-massive-software-problems-as-company-begins-year-of-ev-introductions/ <comment><AUTHOR> I immediately understood that this is the case once I heard that VW is manufacturing the cars, but intend to deliver them only half a year later. And now my suspicion is confirmed. I bet they are trying to not just simply get the software running, but get all the Automotive SPICE procedures right, which is probably the real culprit here.</comment>


Ask HN: I work at a for-profit college.What is going on here? - <AUTHOR>

I work at a for profit college. The college enrollment is declining and the drop out rates are higher than they have ever been. This college is now building another branch with the same (dated and failing) structure in a different location but within the same general area ( same state and not far from the original branch). Common sense dictates that this does not make sense financially, hence whatever is [really] happening I suspect is something one would need a business degree, law degree or some other insight to truly understand. So I'm asking what could possibly be going on? Is it as simple as "They really think they'll make money" or is it more along the lines that this is part of an "Elaborate exit strategy to boost up the value of the college before the great crash" hence allowing some subset to walk away financially well off. I know I'm exaggerating and being extreme, but you get the drift. I really think there is something else going on here. <comment><USER2> The problem is much bigger than most people can even fathom. Many articles, including the one mentioned by atsaloli will provide insight into the situation. As to your question of whether it is 'they think they will make money' OR 'elaborate exit strategy, logic would indicate and the evidence overwhelmingly supports the latter.

I am (unfortunately) confident that history will not look favorably on the majority of these for profit colleges that pose as reputable institutions. The incentives are completely misaligned.

Here are a few good references to look at:

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-07-...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-07-30/for- profit-schools-report/56589260/1)

<http://www.nber.org/papers/w17710>

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/for-profit- colleges...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/for-profit-colleges- statistics-federal-dollars_n_872834.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> In addition to the links already posted, I might suggest watching the Frontline documentary College INC <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/>

If you're college is not already in the online arena, my first thought is that an investor is going to come in and try to turn it into another University of Phoenix or DeVry.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's happening at some other schools, too.

May I recommend to you the blog post "Will Your College Go Out of Business Before You Graduate?" by Mark Cuban?

://blogmaverick.com/2013/01/26/will-your-college-go-out-of-business-before- you-graduate/</comment>


The Ultimate Modern Desert House - <AUTHOR> http://www.jetsongreen.com/2009/06/desert-modern-rimrock-ranch-house.html

<comment><USER2> Maybe not so green but for aesthetics I prefer this one designed by Guy Dreier:

<http://www.lloydplatt.com/arch/gill(3).jpg>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an interesting design, but it's probably worth mentioning that any efficiency gains from passive heating are likely far outweighed by the need to drive long distances to get to anything due to the house's remoteness.

<comment><USER4> You assume that you _need_ to get to anything frequently.

Although I'm just about 7 miles outside town and therefore it's not an issue for me, I figured out that if in addition to my chickens and veggie garden, I had a few cows (probably miniatures -- they're more feed efficient) and a handful of goats and some fruit trees, I really wouldn't need to leave my property except to work. And that could be done by telecommuting if I were willing to search for that kind of job.

My house is built on the east side of a hill. If I were starting from scratch, I'd seriously consider building it _into_ the hill. With solar heating and all the windows on that side -- that's where most of them are now anyway -- and the rest of the house underground. In the summer, my walk-out basement is cooler than the air-conditioned main floor and Minnesota has about the same level of solar insolation as Austin, TX so we have more than enough sun to do it.

I like this guy's house and there really shouldn't be any reason it couldn't be built in the average suburban subdivision except for idiotic zoning laws and even more stupid Homeowner's Associations: how people can live in those things is beyond me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe it's just me, but the industrial steel roof structure over the house is genuinely ugly. There is no integration between the house and this roof. The functional climatic solution could be done elegantly and in a more integrated way.

<comment><USER6> I've thought of the same idea: steel canopy over a hyper-insulated house. The whole point is that there is no integration. It's hard for heat to get into the house. Greater visual integration could be achieved by using congruent shapes. However, the stock configuration of the canopy is probably much cheaper.

Another idea I've had: an A-frame house, with one side facing the sun, completely covered with solar panels. Angle of the A-frame would be based on the angle most efficient for PV panels. Angles could be asymmetric.

<comment><USER7> Are you familiar with Earthships? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship>

There's a lot of interesting work done there on sustainable buildings, and I think there are ideas there that can be applied in non-earthship buildings as well.

<comment><USER6> Another idea for hot climates: Monolithic Dome Eco-Shell with a fabric covered geodesic dome built around it. Paint the fabric with ceramic bead reflective paint.

Eco-Shells can be put up very quickly, and are cheap and very strong. They're just a step away from a bomb shelter, actually. Fabric-covered geodesic domes are also cheap. (DIY)

<http://www.monolithic.com/topics/ecoshells>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It looks like someone was building a gas station, then changed their mind and put a house there instead.

<comment><USER6> How about a big neon sign that says "Eat at Joe's?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Kaufmann Desert House (designed by Richard Neutra) is a whole lot more aesthetically pleasing imho:

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

[http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/la-fi- home26-20...](http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/la-fi- home26-2008oct26,0,5859306.story)</comment>


Red Hat Ansible Engile - g-b-r https://www.ansible.com/ansible-engine <comment> g-b-r What do you think? Does this change your view about the prospects of Ansible after the Red Hat's acquisition?</comment>


Only 15 percent of Americans have used Uber or Lyft - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/5/19/11714298/uber-lyft-ridesharing <comment><USER2> Wait, you're saying the hype of a Silicon Valley startup doesn't match reality? Next you'll tell me Santa isn't real.

</comment><comment><USER3> Believe it or not, a lot of people live in the flyover states, or for that matter, in the flyover parts of California and New York.

Cities like Syracuse are asking for Uber to come in and they are being told to talk to the hand; it is like asking Verizon for FiOS expansion.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's a rather questionable use of "only" ...

<comment><USER5> Yeah, even other Voxers (like Ezra Klein) commented on the headline. 15 percent seems like quite a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That seems surprisingly high to me. I bet there are a lot of areas where people never use taxis or Uber. I think the first time I was in a taxi was in my twenties.</comment>


1 in 4 men have genital HPV infections that cause or are linked to cancer - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/1-in-4-men-have-genital-hpv-infections-that-cause-or-are-linked-to-cancer/ <comment><USER2> I had occasion a few years ago to raise this point as a question with a doctor hauled out as a medical expert interviewed on public radio.

His response, simple and dogmatic, was that current literature and understanding (and, compared to my own knowledge, he was behind the curve on this) did not support vaccinating males.

Correlation and suspected causation between infection and oral cancers in gay men was already being demonstrated. As just one point. He appeared to be uninformed on this.

My point? Many doctors are not in the lead on these topics. Much medical practice (in the U.S.) appears to be last in line in terms of adoption.

Currently, there is some thinking that HPV may be tied to some prostrate cancers. I have no evidence that there is a connection. But, another point for men to consider and to monitor for further information/developments.

It so far appears there is no statistically significant downside to being vaccinated. If I had a son, I would have him vaccinated. For his own sake, and for the sake of his future partners (of whichever gender).

<comment><USER3>
      It so far appears there is no statistically significant downside to being vaccinated.

The theoretical risk is that telling teens that they are protected against one risk of unprotected sex could make them more likely to risk unprotected sex in general.

If you do choose to vaccinate your teen for HPV, why are you compelled to _inform them_ that's what it's for? After all, when you vaccinate them for other diseases, do you tell them exactly what the vaccines do, what diseases they prevent, or how they work? If you don't tell them they've been vaccinated against X # of HPV strains, they wouldn't make a corresponding change of risk behaviors.

Also, pay attention to _which_ vaccine series you purchase (some protect against as few as two strains), and make sure the entire series is applied (generally three shots over 6 months).

[EDIT:] Adding my definition of "fully informing": "There are 40+ strains of HPV. About a dozen have been demonstrated to cause cancer. This vaccine, if properly applied, will protect you against exactly two[0] of them."

[0] Two, four, or nine, depending on which vaccine is used

<comment><USER4> > If you do choose to vaccinate your teen for HPV, why are you compelled to > inform them that's what it's for? After all, when you vaccinate them for > other diseases, do you tell them exactly what the vaccines do, what diseases > they prevent, or how they work?

I don't see why you wouldn't inform a teen about this exactly as much as an adult patient would be informed, even if the parent was the ultimate decision- maker.

<comment><USER3> I agree, but "informing" them without _fully_ informing them (see below) is the risk vector.

<comment><USER5> "Hey, this might protect you against prostate and some other nasty forms of cancer which can be caused by this sneaky STD that tons of people have which is typically asymptomatic (and thus why most people don't really know about it)." If a 12-14 y/o doesn't understand that + the implications, I'd like to fix sexual education until they do. Is it really that difficult as a parent to explain such a thing? I had "the talk" when I was around 10, and I read a lot on my own over the following years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every time I read about HPV, the prevailing answer is "get vaccinated ". Great, sure. And what about men over 30 who already have it? Vaccines are good and all, but does that mean noone's looking for a cure?

</comment><comment><USER7> Get vaccinated.

<comment><USER8> A fair point but keep in mind that for a long time the vaccine was considered to be only for girls/women, at least in the US.

<comment><USER7> That doesn't prevent your doctor from prescribing it off label. It wouldn't be covered by insurance. I received it off label and the shingles vaccine off label.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe now this will cause more people to finally take HPV and vaccines against it more seriously?

I mean, if white guys can contract cancer because of it, then it has to be really serious, right?

Sigh....</comment>


In the Shadow of Big Brother - <AUTHOR> https://literaryreview.co.uk/in-the-shadow-of-big-brother <comment><USER2> Is worth knowing that Orwell was standing in the shadow of Zamyatin's novel 'We' (A man so revolutionary, he managed to be exiled by both the Tsars and by Stalin), when he wrote '1984'.

[http://orwell.ru/people/zamyatin/zei_en](http://orwell.ru/people/zamyatin/zei_en)

It is in many ways a much better book, and worth reading for many reasons, one of the best of them being that Stalin banned it upon publication, the ban not being lifted till 1988.

Here it is - [https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/We_2.pdf](https://mises- media.s3.amazonaws.com/We_2.pdf)

<comment><USER3> The world in We feels a little more like Brave New World to me but I agree that it's a fun book.

<comment><USER2> It had never occured to me to call it a fun book. Brilliant, without question. But not fun. There are definitely some excellent jokes in it, but they are more deeply sardonic rather than fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We have 5-eyes now, instead of Big Brother.

We have always been {enemies, friends} of {places we haven't bombed, places we have bombed} in {war, peace}.

Everyone knows there is nothing you can do about it.</comment>


Ideal Image Slider - <AUTHOR> http://gilbitron.github.io/Ideal-Image-Slider

<comment><USER2> I know we all despise carousels, but unfortunately they are frequently asked for by clients (or recommended by designers and then asked for by clients), and they do sort of solve the "how do I fit many things into the same space" problem, even if the end result is usually worthless and often annoying for end users.

That said, this one appears to be lacking the little "blobs" you can click on, which seems to be an extremely common carousel request, in my experience. We used Slick recently and found it pretty good: [http://kenwheeler.github.io/slick/](http://kenwheeler.github.io/slick/)

<comment><USER3> Always track interactions (1) with the carousel and evaluate with the client later. You could make a case for a different solution if the statistics show that interaction with 2nd, 3rd etc. content items in the carousel is below acceptable levels (and you've done your best to make it work).

This type of experience (case) can then be carried forward to new projects, possibly convincing designers and clients. Although it might turn out they work just fine, it probably depends on the audience.

[1] Use Google Analytics events to track interactions (next, previous, pause, resume etc.), and add 'campaign' parameters to links inside carousels to compare traffic to product pages originating from carousel links vs. regular menu links (if any).

<comment><USER4> Tracking interaction with events is a great idea. Using campaign parameters internally however doesn't seem like a good idea, fwiw: [http://www.annielytics.com/blog/analytics/how-to-trash- your-...](http://www.annielytics.com/blog/analytics/how-to-trash-your-google- analytics-account-with-campaign-tagging/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a good idea, but very buggy on an iPhone 5s in Chrome.

One of the best implementations I've seen on mobile is the craigslist image viewer. Ex [http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/cto/4620247868.html](http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/cto/4620247868.html)

\- the image drags with your finger, rather than sliding after you make a gesture. \- while dragging sideways, the image moves but not the page \- while dragging up/down, the page moves but not the image \- a counter at the top shows that there are multiple images

</comment><comment><USER6> This appears to be completely unusable on mobile.

<comment><USER7> The swiping seems to be really laggy, makes it seem like its broken.

<comment><USER8> It seems to be waiting for touch end. I expect mobile sliders start dragging on touch start and only navigate if released past some threshold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The corners of the container switch to square before transition and then back to round.

<comment><USER10> Hmmm...I don't see that on FF Nightly 34.0a1 (2014-09-01) on OSX. Given I run Nightly, take that as a grain of salt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you need a responsive, touch-friendly slider/carousel I would strongly recommend Royal Slider [1]. One of the best sliders/carousels I've seen with tons of options (lazy load, thumbnails, etc.) and there's a WordPress plugin version that's great for clients that want to control their sliders/carousels.

[1]: [http://dimsemenov.com/plugins/royal- slider/](http://dimsemenov.com/plugins/royal-slider/)

</comment><comment><USER12> The demos could show some common use cases, namely these:

\- Previous and next slide visible

\- More than one previous and next slides visible

\- Half of the previous and half of the next slide visible

A simple slider of one image with different transitions is really easy to implement on pure JavaScript. I imagine this slider can do more than that, but it isn't immediately obvious from the examples.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're talking about a carousel (showing multiple slides at the same time). This is technically an "image slider" so is designed to only show one slide at a time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Awesome, too bad supports >IE9.

Don't ge me wrong, not my decision to support IE8...

</comment><comment><USER14> Sure this is a great project, but I have somehow the feeling that image carousels / sliders went out of fashion somewhere 2013.

(And I don't think that is a bad thing.)

However, the lightbox still prevails.

<comment><USER15> This was my first reaction also. And there's a reason they went out of fashion, because they _divide_ user's focus and bring no benefits apart from being pretty.

<comment><USER16> > bring no benefits apart from being pretty

Sometimes being pretty is exactly what you need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is really awesome. Can see this becoming very useful as more sites go jQuery-less. Also great job with the documentation. Simple, expressive and to the point. Wish more documentation looked like that.

</comment><comment><USER18> Now to make it a Wordpress plugin.

</comment><comment><USER19> It seems nice, but right clicking and selecting "View background image" doesn't always give me the current image. I use this so many times a day. I'd imagine breaking this on one of my websites might piss my users.

Edit: Forgot to say, I'm using Firefox 32.0 on Linux x64.

</comment><comment><USER20> At least the demo site fails to show all images if Javascript is disabled.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there a way to do lazy loading? That would be ideal :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You can use the data-src attribute to lazy load images. See [https://github.com/gilbitron/Ideal-Image-Slider#getting- star...](https://github.com/gilbitron/Ideal-Image-Slider#getting-started)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> no jQuery dependency ✓

<comment><USER23> can run server side ✓

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> __sigh __

image sliders</comment>


Melting permafrost in Arctic will have $70tn climate impact – study - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/23/melting-permafrost-in-arctic-will-have-70tn-climate-impact-study <comment><USER2> Carbon pricing, carbon pricing, carbon pricing. No other approach will allow technical solutions to emerge faster.

If you want to do something about climate change, talk to your politicians about carbon pricing. In the US there is finally a bill before the House now: [https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and- carbo...](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and-carbon- dividend-act/)

(Also: plant trees, go vegan, fly less. But first and foremost make polluting expensive.)

<comment><USER3> We implemented carbon pricing in Australia, then Rupert Murdoch overthrew the government and installed his own conservative party to undo everything.

U have the same issue with Rupert over there. He owns your conservative party and the main media delivery platform to the socio-economic areas that decide elections.

His fear game is simple. You either have a tax OR the jobs the blue-chip companies provide. They will threaten to leave your country (during an election most likely) and u will need to deal with those consequences. In the days of social media engineering, fake news wins. Rupert invented fake news! He successfully deflected all the blame to the Russians, when its his propaganda network which is responsible for deseminating fake news at scale.

[https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2019/apr/02/news-...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2019/apr/02/news-corp-launches-offensive-against-labors-climate-policy- amid-glowing-budget-previews)

[https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/08/it- fe...](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/08/it-felt-like-a- big-tide-how-the-death-tax-lie-infected-australias-election-campaign)</comment></comment>


The Computer Graphics Library - <AUTHOR> http://fabiensanglard.net/Computer_Graphics_Principles_and_Practices/index.php <comment><USER2> For anyone curious in the field, there's a version of Michael Abrash's black book publicly available at github;

[https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-black- book](https://github.com/jagregory/abrash-black-book)

<comment><USER3> although its labelled and oft quoted as such the black book is really an optimisation manual in disguise imo.

the content on graphics is virtually non-existent except for outdated information about old hardware interfaces from a time before DirectX, OpenGL and any particularly friendly rendering interfaces (so there was GDI and Win32 for early Windows, but we weren't yet in the time where programmers could spunk away resources and the hardware suck it up without destroying your performance).

there is some discussion on VSD techniques, the bresenham line algorithm etc. but these are also outdated - libraries today draw lines for us and even AAA games can ship without giving a serious crap about culling and hit framerate...

i do still highly recommend reading it, just don't expect to learn anything useful about graphics. my main takeaway from this book was 'optimise by measuring then experimenting and measuring to confirm the optimisation'. its so obvious but a large number of programmers i've worked with seem to prefer to guess and not measure...

<comment><USER4> I actually started reading the book slowly a few days ago, and am now in Chapter 17. So far there hasn't been anything about graphics; it's been mostly about low-level optimization and discussion of differences between 8086, 286, 386, and 486... yes, it's that outdated. There are some ideas that apply more generally (optimize your design and algorithms first, profile or measure, etc.). I don't think you need a book to learn these things, and I think they're close enough to common sense (for programmers) now anyway.

Having said that, I still find the book interesting, and I can't wait to get to the part where Mr. Abrash gets to talk about the software rendering in Quake (which he worked on). It might be outdated information for most of you, but I'm actually interested in seeing how far you could push software rendering with modern CPUs; it's sad that progress on that front pretty much ended around the time Unreal was released. If it was good enough for games back in the 90s, why wouldn't it be good for games in 2014?

If someone else here happens to be interested in 90s software rendering, make sure you read this bit about the Thief engine.. :-)

[http://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html](http://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html)

<comment><USER5> I started writing one and got discouraged when per-pixel Phong shading on the teapot ran at like 10 FPS. A profiler showed me that I was bottlenecked by simple unavoidable work like matrix multiplies in my shaders. Maybe that profiler was wrong though... now I want to hack on it some more.

<comment><USER4> When was that, and what sort of hardware were you using?

Here's a rather impressive software renderer that does per-pixel Phong shading and shadow mapping (among other things): [http://users.softlab.ntua.gr/~ttsiod/renderer.html](http://users.softlab.ntua.gr/~ttsiod/renderer.html)

You might also want to look into Ingo Wald's thesis on realtime ray tracing. In a ray tracing tutorial Jacco Bikker wrote that Wald is reporting speeds of several frames per second for scenes consisting of thousands of polygons at a resolution of 1024x768 pixels, _on a single 2.5Ghz laptop_. That was written _ten years ago_ , in 2004.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The link towards the "shadow mapping article" seems broken, it's this one: [http://fabiensanglard.net/shadowmapping/index.php](http://fabiensanglard.net/shadowmapping/index.php)

</comment><comment><USER7> No love for the Shirley book? That's what we used at CMU.

[http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Computer-Graphics- Peter-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Computer-Graphics-Peter- Shirley/dp/1568814690)

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice list of books. I think I read _Fundamentals of interactive Computer graphics_ (1st edition) around 1999 :).

<comment><USER9> Around '93 for me, the plates with the Xwing blew me away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Off-Topic : What are some of the unsolved problems of graphics programming? Realistic Animations?

<comment><USER11> I haven't followed progress recently, but one question that's gotten some research is how to make GPU-ized raytracing work on dynamic scenes. Static scenes can be handled fairly well by preprocessing data into efficient spatial data structures like KD-trees or octrees. For example, here's an nVidia paper from 2009 that raytraces scenes made up of huge numbers of voxels, using a representation called a sparse voxel octree: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.156...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.156.3512&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

Last time I looked at this research, though, how to handle highly dynamic scenes efficiently was a bit of an open question. It seems to largely be a data-structure research problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> ahaan, gotcha..</comment>


Top Javascript MVC Frameworks Reviewed - <AUTHOR> http://codebrief.com/2012/01/the-top-10-javascript-mvc-frameworks-reviewed tl;dr Ember.js rocks http://emberjs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr Ember.js <http://emberjs.com/> is prefered by the author.</comment>


How Satya Nadella tripled Microsoft's stock price in just over four years - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/17/how-microsoft-has-evolved-under-satya-nadella.html <comment><USER2> I have no doubt Nadella is a better CEO than Balmer, he's definitely been a better resource allocator. But MSFT's EPS has. basically been flat since before Satya arrived. It's stock price tripled because it's a bull market, no other answer necessary.

</comment><comment><USER3> Microsoft seems grossly overvalued with a P/E of 50. For the longest time, Microsoft had the same P/E as the s&p500 (10-18), but now it's 56% above the s&p500's (23). If Azure were to fall behind, I could see msft's stock dropping by 40% and kept aloft mostly by it's dividend, Money has been pouring into the whole tech stock sector after that cryptocurrency selloff earlier this year.

</comment><comment><USER4> To be fair all major stocks have increased the last five years.

</comment><comment><USER5> LinkedIn brings in more rev that Windows products seriously? Is there a table somewhere showing what they are spending on different product groups?</comment>