The Next Web Has a Brand New Look - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/voice/2010/12/31/the-next-web-has-a-brand-new-look/

<comment><AUTHOR> The should have posted pictures of the old site in the post.

</comment><comment><USER2> Diecription of The Next Web, from CrunchBase: A European blog that profiles products, start-ups and existing companies that are building the next web.

<comment><USER3> unfortunately a slightly dated description...we've grown a fair bit since then

<comment><USER4> The small gray article text is a little hard to read. I've already seen one person complain about it.

Compare the text of an article with my viewer and you can see how easier it is to read with darker, bigger text:

[http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/12/31/dictionary-com- acquires-...](http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/12/31/dictionary-com-acquires- language-learning-service-lingt/)

and

[http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://thenextweb.com/us/201...](http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/12/31/dictionary- com-acquires-language-learning-service-lingt/)

<comment><USER3> agreed, we've made it darker on this latest updated here: [http://thenextweb.com/voice/2010/12/31/the-next-web-has-a- br...](http://thenextweb.com/voice/2010/12/31/the-next-web-has-a-brand-new- look/)

<comment><USER4> Great! That was quick.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Barnes & Noble and Microsoft Team Up to Promote Digital Textbooks - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/Barnes-NobleMicrosoft/131755/ <comment><USER2> Not really news - the date on the article is April 30.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any headline that matches the pattern "XYZ and MSFT team up to do whatever" has a horrid stench of embrace-extend-extinguish.</comment>


Ask HN: Why does Google+ have an age requirement and when will it end? - <AUTHOR>

Google+ requires users to be of 18 years or older. Previous Google products have not had this requirement (e.g. Google Wave). Why did Google choose to do this and when do you think they will get rid of that limitation. <comment><USER2> From some posts on the Google+ discussion forum ([https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/?h...](https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/google- plus-discuss/RTh_laUTRFo)): Google+ will likely have an 18+ requirement throughout the Limited Field Trial as they are still building the safety features for minors. Over the years there have a been a number of poor interactions between social networks and the laws regarding minors, and Google probably wants to try to head those off as much as possible.

Probably due to US law, the same posts say Google+ will not be open at all for people under 13.

</comment><comment><USER3> Legalities most likely. Serving a younger audience usually requires specific privacy features and guidelines.

<comment><AUTHOR> But this seems like something they would have known before. Why did Google Wave not have similar restrictions?

<comment><USER4> The same reason Google Docs didn't, a social network is substantially different from a collaboration platform.

It may be for social reasons rather than legalities, it'd be very easy for a third party to run a smear campaign targeting Google+ for failing to protect minors and allowing predators to target them through the service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is an odd requirement. Situations like this just lead to people lying about their age.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not exactly. I am under 18 and have found no easy way to make my way around their age requirement. Your age is tied to your Google Account from the moment you created it and there is currently no way to ever change it.

<comment><USER6> Why would you ever choose to put your real age? Until I was over 18, my age on most websites was around 90.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why wouldn't I? Plus, _Raphael_ suggested that Google's action would _lead_ to people lying about their ages - which hinted that their was a way for people to change their ages on their Google accounts after the fact. I was simply responding to that question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Orkut, as I recall, had the same requirement; didn't it?</comment>


Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/18864332?story_id=18864332&fsrc=rss

<comment><USER2> "Psilocybin has shown promise in [...] relieving cluster headaches (a common form of chronic headache) and in alleviating the anxiety experienced by terminally ill cancer patients."

Cluster headaches are absolutely not a common form of chronic headache. They are fairly rare, affecting .1% of the population, and are extremely debilitating; many sufferers commit suicide rather than suffer through the pain.

Here is an amazing talk by Bob Wold, the guy who founded Cluster Busters, the non-profit organization that's partnering with Harvard to do the research on psilocybin as a treatment:

<http://vimeo.com/10918637>

"and in alleviating the anxiety experienced by terminally ill cancer patients."

Here is the talk by one of the researchers who was testing psilocybin for treating anxiety due to terminal cancer:

<http://vimeo.com/10931182>

Both are among my all time favorite talks, both are extremely powerful and moving. I submitted them to TED as potential talks last year, but apparently no luck so far.

<comment><USER3> I think you misinterpreted the sentence you quoted -- cluster headaches can be a common form of chronic headache, whilst being rare in the general population. That is, people suffering from chronic headaches are rare in the general population but those who are, are likely suffering from cluster headaches.

<comment><USER4> Some facts about headaches:

Migraine has a prevalence between 10 and 20%.

The chronology of migraine and cluster headache differs, but they are both chronic issues.

Untreated migraine attacks last several hours and recur ususally at least once per month. ~10% of Migraine sufferer end up abusing pain killers, which increases the attack frequency and leaves them with a permanent, milder background headache.

Cluster attacks last between 15 and 180 minutes (usually less than 1 hour) and recur several times per day during several weeks, then remit, only to replase later on (often at the same period of the week). Hence the name "cluster".

Around 1/1000 cluster patients have "untractable chronic cluster headache", ie daily attacks without interruptions, that resist to medical treatment. (I don't remember the prevalence of drug-sensitive chronic CH).

<comment><USER5> There is a wide range of "Migraine" with the most common case being relatively mild. Migraine headaches can be dull or severe because the term refers to the symptoms not the severity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Steve Jobs has said in interviews that his taking LSD as a youth was a life changing experience for him. I am very much in favor of restarting clinical trials as long as it's not abused. I think there might be great potential there and as long as we continue to stigmatize it, we will miss out on any knowledge we could gain from studying it. And even if it turns out to have no medicinal value at all, at least we'd know, rather than treating psychoactive drugs like poison. I mean, we have drugs now for treating fatigue in people who work long and irregular hours, why can't we at least give these compounds a real shot at proving whether or not they have value?

</comment><comment><USER7> DMT, which is a natural substance similar to serotonin (and also in the human body), is one of the most profound spiritual experiences one can have. It is not like any other drug. It is like opening a door to another dimension. Here's a great documentary on it - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc9e7PXsXDE>

<comment><USER8> _DMT, which is a natural substance similar to serotonin (and also in the human body)_

What does the similarity to serotonin have to say in favor of the drug?

If you want to boost your serotonin levels, it's trivial to do so directly by taking 5-HTP, St. John's Wort, or tryptophan supplements, all of which you can get at your local pharmacy without a prescription.

And be cautious: excess serotonin in the human body is thought to be bad for heart health, which is why supplements like 5-HTP are sometimes prescribed with Carbidopa to slow the 5-HTP -> serotonin transition outside of the brain (Carbidopa doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier, so 5-HTP -> serotonin is unchecked within the brain, whereas it's slowed outside of it), so not as much serotonin ends up in your bloodstream. I have no idea if DMT has similar heart-unfriendly properties to serotonin, but the point is, saying that it's similar chemically and that the substance exists in our body doesn't necessarily mean it's a great thing to take. Our bodies are careful balances of thousands of different chemicals, and some of them are only there in trace amounts, it can absolutely be dangerous to throw the balance out of whack (though if I had to guess, in DMT's case a couple doses is probably not such a problem).

I'm not necessarily knocking recreational drugs: I've dabbled and enjoyed, but chemical similarity is _not_ a good enough reason to assume that something is either safe, effective, or in any way good for you - there are many compounds that are extremely close to things that we find in our bodies that are very dangerous.

...which is exactly why we _need_ more legitimate studies on these things, IMO. I'm glad that the tide is starting to shift on this, we should know a lot more about the potential benefits _and_ risks of all the substances that people ingest, whether they typically ingest them for fun, or for health.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Regardless of how effective drugs like LSD and psilocybin are, they make it difficult to maintain traditional societal hierarchies of power and control and thus will be stamped out.

<comment><USER10> I think what OP is saying is that if every single person in a given society was to take psilocybin/LSD (or psychedelics in general) then that society would not look like society as it does 'traditionally'. The other posters to this comment thread ask how "hallucinating" would do this, but they need to realize that it is not visions or hallucinations that is the variable of change during episodes of influence under these drugs, but it is the change in thinking that incorporates the qualities of goodness, unity, beauty, hope, acceptance (I think all of these words can be compressed into the word 'love') that would be detrimental to the status quo if everyone were to feel this way.

<comment><USER11> Where is your evidence for any of that?

<comment><USER12> I think this is the sort of thing one is meant to consider and reflect upon, not the sort of thing one subjects to Standard Internet Argument Protocol.

<comment><USER11> So there's no evidence, then.

<comment><USER10> Evidence for what? The effects produced or how society would change if the effects (in change of thinking) was prevalent in all the members of the society?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have never understood the mechanics of 'drug is bad if use equal entertainment'. It will be interesting to see if the release of this information and the refereed to thaw in the taboo will lead anywhere...

<comment><USER14> Aren't most recreational drugs addictive and destructive? It's not too hard to understand why there's a stigma.

<comment><USER14> Wow, that's a lot of downvotes and only one counter-point. What sorts of recreational drugs are not addictive? And what sorts of drugs will not mess you up when taken in "recreational" dosages?

<comment><USER12> Pot, LSD, and mushrooms, for starters. Except for expansive and distorted definitions of the word "addictive", and except for that one friend everyone seems to have who couldn't handle their acid.

<comment><USER15> > that one friend everyone seems to have who couldn't handle their acid.

Do you characterize people with other drug sensitivities as "unable to handle their [Advil/Codeine/Penicillin/Accutane/etc]" ?

A drug makes 1% or 0.1% of its users go insane can still reasonably be characterized as very dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> MAPS (maps.org, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) is one of the best run nonprofits out there (I have donated for years). They have very low overhead, and in addition to directly funding key research (which is expensive) have gotten funding from other sources to cover important research into the use of MDMA and hallucinogens to treat diseases and disorders such as PTSD.

</comment><comment><USER17> Rick Doblin, the director of the multidisciplinary Association or Psychedelic Studies did a talk at google, which you can watch here:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwAGkGpv6Ss>

 _Mainstreaming Psychedelics: From FDA to Harvard to Burning Man_

</comment><comment><USER18> A little off-topic but...

This is a very good 60s psychedelic radio station: <http://www.techwebsound.com/>. Apart from playing very good 60s music, it has a plays (somewhat ironically) a lot of archive recordings of government warnings against LSD, mushrooms and other psychedelic drugs.

Interesting to listen to the formings of society's current attitudes towards drugs.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there a genuine resurgence of interest in psychedelics in the geek community, or is it just me? There seems to be a new article posted on HN on psychedelics every few weeks. Could this be the dawn of a new 1960s?

<comment><USER2> "Could this be the dawn of a new 1960s?"

No. In the 1960s psychedelics were part of the counterculture, whereas today the research and interest is all (purposely) revolving around their potential as tools for the mainstream. In fact that's probably the biggest thing we learned from the 60s, is that if we want these substances to be accepted then we need to integrate them with our existing culture, institutions, and values. If you go to any of the conferences on the academic research into psychedelics then one of the first things you'll pick up on is how much most of them hate Timothy Leary, or at the very least his legacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if zombie movies aren't rooted in a parody of governmental fears about widespread drug use.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps put the bong down now? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's amazing. The more and more research we do, the more we find out that the FUD surrounding lots of drugs is nothing more than that... FUD.

<comment><USER23> I haven't seen anyone asserting the abuse potential has vanished (or never existed). They are simply acknowledging there are legitimate uses.

<comment><USER22> You must have missed the last several drug related posts here on HN. Full of research on that very topic. And yes, the abuse potential is much lower than the government would have you believe.

<comment><USER23> Yes, I must have. I certainly don't remember any along that particular topic.

I'd be interested to see them if you still have links.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to This Algorithm  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> In grad school I managed to take advantage of the pacing effect in an educational setting. I was teaching linear algebra. What I did was make the homework incremental - 1/3 of homework on today's material, 1/3 on the previous week, and 1/3 anything in the course. Those thirds were in increasing order of difficulty.

I also started every class with a question/answer period. The rules were simple, the questioning will last at least 10 minutes, and you don't want me to ask the questions. :-) Anything that had come up in the questions that seemed to be a point of confusion was sure to be added to the next homework set.

I won't go into what else I did with that class, but the end result is worth thinking about. First note that I gave a ridiculously hard final. Other grad students who saw it thought that the class would bomb. Secondly they aced the test. What do I mean by aced? Well I had a bonus question which fellow grad students thought nobody would get. 70% of the class got that question, and a good fraction were over 100% on the test. So they must have studied hard, right? Nope. I ran into some students several months later. They told me that they tried to study for the final and stopped after a few minutes because it was useless, they knew everything. And several months later they still knew much of the material cold!

The thing is that none of what I did was very radical. The principles have been known for a century. Psychologists have been trying to get people to listen for that long. I learned about it in the 80s from a university course I watched on TV. (British Columbia had a TV channel devoted to lectures for correspondence courses.)

Yet, despite how dramatic the effects are, nobody listens and nobody takes advantage of it.

<comment><USER3> If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen. (I'm actually serious, it's an interesting story and a lot of people might benefit from hearing more of the details and the thought process behind it.

<comment><USER4> "If you made this story into a blog post, people would listen."

That's what I hate about people. What makes people pay attention isn't the ideas themselves, but whether it looks like you worked hard in writing it. I've made comments on HN that no one paid any attention to, and then turned them into blog posts and had them get to the top of Reddit or Digg or whatever. Exact same ideas, all I did was visually change the text to make it look more professionally laid out, and carefully rework some of the phrasing to make it sound better to the ear. (Plus add a couple really good first sentences and a good headline.)

I've found that if you actually leave a couple minor mistakes in your blog post it gets more votes, because it look like you're thinking at the edge of your intellectual ability, and people like that. It's the exact same thing Seth said in his post about the Chris Bliss Diss video:

[http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/03/its_how_you_...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/03/its_how_you_tel.html)

"Today, I got a video, featuring Jason, who just might be the best juggler I have ever seen. Same music, similar routine. Except... five balls. Not three, five. Infinitely more difficult. And Jason makes it look easy.

The thing is, even though I know how much more difficult Jason's routine is and how skilled he is, the very ease of his delivery makes it less likely an audience would give him that same ovation. Interesting how important effort seems to be."

<comment><USER5> * all I did was visually change the text to make it look more professionally laid out, and carefully rework some of the phrasing to make it sound better to the ear. (Plus add a couple really good first sentences and a good headline.)*

Those changes are non-trivial. Layout and writing style are integral components in the user interface for comprehending text.

<comment><USER6> Yes,

There are a lot of hn news posts I've made that I think I could make into blog posts or even articles. But I can't claim they already are in a form people will pay attention to.

For example, the posts I'm most proud of generally get few mods whereas simplistic but irrefutable objections to some other story tend to get the highest mods. But that's logical. People just aren't reading the ten or fifty posts on a paper to find the gems. They might read the first that way if you're lucky. Otherwise, they are more likely to skim. Even on the web, the writer has to present their ideas so they are accessible.

(And here I go again. This post will get far less mods than statements like "where's your evidence")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article is written as if SuperMemo were the only software that uses spaced repetition (SRS) algorithms for learning. Actually there are quite a number of other programs out there including some that are free or open source. I've used SuperMemo for years on my Palm and found it very useful for learning French but the software (at least for the Palm) hasn't been updated for many years and doesn't give the user any control whatsoever over how the program is used. For learning Chinese I've moved to a commercial product called Pleco on the Palm which is basically a dictionary but also has elaborate SRS functionality, it's really light years ahead of SuperMemo. Other more generic SRS programs include Anki and Mnemosyne. Unlike SuperMemo, it's easy to migrate your flashcards among these other applications. One other point, SRS is a huge help to learning vocabulary but learning words is only one part of mastering a language.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. I was just wondering if there was a similar open source project.

Anki: <http://ichi2.net/anki/>

Wikipedia entry about this technique: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition>

<comment><USER9> Mnemosyne is actually very good

<http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/>

it works on Win, Mac and Linux - written in Python

<comment> bjelkeman-again This should really be made into a web service. Where all the new card decks are shared for free. I think it could become a very powerful collaborative environment.

<comment><USER10> Hi! It has been by a few people including me. My site is here: <http://flashcarddb.com>

FlashcardDB allows a choice between two spaced repetition algorithms: Supermemo's SM-2 (like Anki, Mnemosyne) or the Leitner System. New card decks are shared for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is what we do at <http://www.skritter.com> for Chinese and Japanese. Spaced repetition is definitely still in the geek realm, though. Even after automating almost everything (vocab creation, addition, even grading), there are still a lot of people who don't want to practice on the computer, or aren't as interested in efficiency of the learning process. I think as spaced repetition moves away from raw SRS like SuperMemo and toward integration with classrooms, textbooks, and other software that provides content as well, we will start to see more widespread adoption and recognition of its power.

There was a recent thread here about whether SRS will evolve to appeal to non- programmers: [http://globalmaverick.org/archives/169-repetitio-est- mater-s...](http://globalmaverick.org/archives/169-repetitio-est-mater- studiorum)

</comment><comment><USER8> Once you've finished the article, there's a lot of reading material on the SuperMemo website:

<http://www.supermemo.com/english/contents.htm#Articles>

Really interesting stuff. The website and the software user interface (at least judging from the screenshots) are terrible, though.

<comment><USER12> You beat to it. I've had the site on my favorites list for months, it's got more information than the article, but it wasn't anywhere near convincing enough to get me to actually spend any money. Maybe I'll go through it again and see.

<comment><USER8> Have you tried Anki? (it's open source, see GiraffeNecktie comment). I've just downloaded it. There are also some decks shared by people (mostly for natural languages) that you can download from the app itself.

<comment><USER13> And GRE vocabulary, I don't even need to take the GRE(maybe) but I think I will study these, improve my vocabulary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's at least one maker of language courses (Pimsleur) which use the pacing effect. Unfortunately they're audio only, which at least for me isn't nearly as effective as a combination of audio and writing.

<comment><USER15> I've used these- really brilliant. Takes the pacing effect but makes it conversational so it really seems to flow. The trade-off, of course, is that it has no idea how well _you_ have memorized various things (i.e., being prerecorded audio, it is generalized).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One thing I've never bothered to do is learn an API of X language really well. Because, I thought, I'll just look up whatever I don't know. But I'm constantly stopping to look things up and it really slows me down. Now I'm beginning to think there's really some value in having a strong command of an API. Has anyone tried using an SRS tool to help with this? Or is it simply a matter of not having enough experience with X language?

<comment><USER17> I am not sure about SRS for learning API of a language. However I have recently started to use mind maps for that. Whenever I come across a new language or library I take an A4 and a pen and put down all basic concepts. It helps to grasp the big picture of the system and to see the interconnections of different blocks of code. I prefer mind maps to the standard linear up-down way of writing stuff down because the schematic representation utilized in mind mapping eases the twist between the way information is stored on paper and (presumably) in the human memory.

All in all I find spending some time on studying docs useful in contrast to the pure work-by-doing approach.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there someone I can try this out for free? Are there ready made flashcards for something useful to learn?

<comment><USER18> As mentioned above, Anki and Supermemo are two free implementations. As for ready-made flashcards, here are some I made for a calculus class:

<http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/523> <http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/577> <http://www.spicyelephant.com/decks/659>

You probably have to register for an account if you want the site to apply supermemo-type techniques. I don't recommend using the site in the long term because it will eventually force you to register for $20.

<comment><USER19> Supermemo isn't really free - maybe you meant 'Anki & Mnemosyne'? That's the big 2 in the Free SRS space.

<comment><USER18> Right. Sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is a company based here in Japan called Smart.fm (formerly iKnow) made up of really great people doing similar work.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there a good os x and iphone application for this? I'm looking particularly for one that supports images and LaTeX.

<comment><USER19> There are a number of SRS clones already produced for the iPhone in the store (Mnemosyne, I understand, works fine on OS X); there's also a Mnemosyne clone in early development for the iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> iPhone version coming out in a few weeks. (I emailed him about this.)</comment>


A skeptic faces possible charges for debunking Mumbai's miracle statue - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2012/07/a_statue_of_jesus_oozing_holy_water_an_indian_skeptic_debunks_miracle.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure why this man's investigation is being treated the way he says it is. Catholicism is not only open to having purported miracles investigated; it's, in fact, a requirement. Every year, many such investigations are conducted, and the vast majority find that nothing miraculous has occurred. The Church is fine with that; it's just as happy to weed out "imposters" as anyone else.

For instance, here's a story about a U.S. archdiocese declaring a "bleeding" consecrated host to be nonmiraculous: <http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/135600233.html>

And here's the quote that sums up the Church's position: "While the Catholic Church fully recognizes the possibility of miracles and remains open to their possibility, it does so with extreme scrutiny, investigation and care. This incident was the result of natural biological causes and should not be considered in any other way."

So I'm surprised that some in the the Catholic community in Mumbai are resistant to this finding.

<comment><USER2> Ah, just as I suspected, there's more to this story than the Slate article suggests, and it makes the Catholic community's response a bit more understandable:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4216637>

tl;dr: The Catholics aren't mad because he revealed a natural explanation for the dripping cross; they're mad because he alleged, apparently without offering any evidence, that it was all a scam set up by priests to bilk people out of their money.

<comment><USER3> He had facts which supported his assertion that the water was mundane rather than miraculous; he used those facts as an _excuse_ to accuse priests of being scammers, and all religious people of being gullible, regressive, and irrational.

If he had stopped with a mere debunking, he'd be the "good guy" here. But he followed it up with defamation and attempts at provocation, which makes him something more akin to a troll.

I have noticed this sort of behavior elsewhere: someone will make a series of statements, including some that are provocative and defamatory (accusing others of major character flaws, criminal activity, etc.) and then, when faced with backlash, will act as though they're being silenced or criticized over the most factual, least controversial part of their statement. IMO it's important, even for those who support their overall point, to call out this sort of behavior because _it does not promote rational discourse_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> According to his website, the police came to arrest him a few days ago, and if he hadn't been out at the time, he would be in jail now. So, this has gone beyond "possible charges". The church is dead serious about charging this man with the crime of letting them know that they were drinking sewage.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra And christians all over the world sit on their asses and not saying anything against arresting people for that bullshit.

I guess a sizable portion of these are actually happy about the incident.

I just _never_ see them standing up and saying: I am against this as a christian, this is not what the Christ died for.

Thus I consider all christians to have their small part in being morally responsible for that crap around the world (see also Pussy Riot scandal in Russia where I am from)

<comment><USER5> Did you know about this incident before it was posted here?

Most people live their daily lives, go to work, come home, have no idea what is happening in India.

Certainly there is plenty of Christian charity in India but it is unlikely even they know about this incident. Here is one for example: [http://www.networknorwich.co.uk/Articles/196169/Network_Norw...](http://www.networknorwich.co.uk/Articles/196169/Network_Norwich_and_Norfolk/Resources/Training/Training_Archive/Norfolk_Christian_charity_offers_India_work.aspx) they have their mission, it has nothing to do with policing Christianity.

A leaky drain, going through walls, and ending up through a nail hole in a statue could be a miracle to someone else. I can't tell someone else it's not even though it doesn't appear to me to be a miracle but just happenstance.

There is no Christianity police and you wouldn't want any because you need a certain number of Christians to vote for gay rights.

<comment> guard-of-terra I just never see people sacrificing their mental comfort and beliefs to save human beings. I do see people sacrificing human beings to save their mental comfort and beliefs. A lot.

That mismatch is a problem for me. So I want everybody have no mental comfort to preserve and no beliefs.

<comment><USER5> There are tens of thousands upon thousands of people out there right now sacrificing an easy life to save others.

You don't see it on the news because "child doesn't starve" is not a news story. People who do great things are often not promoting themselves because they do these things not for a slap on the back or a congratulations but to improve lives.

I like this guy, usually people do things as groups but he is able to on his own find where he can do the most, moves there until it is done, and moves to the next place.

<http://www.wamda.com/coe/video/235835>

<comment> guard-of-terra Sacrificing your life is easy and noble.

Sacrificing your beliefs is much harder and less common.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This guy is smooth. He's threatening "to shed some light on the role that the Catholic Church played and is still playing today here in India"

This is a brilliant defense strategy against getting arrested.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People> playing out. The play was adapted into a movie by Satyajit Ray (not one of his best, but it was after his debilitating stroke). In the movie the situation is the same except its hindu holy water. I hope it works out better in reality than in the movie.

</comment><comment><USER8> According to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4216637> this article is quite misleading.

Also see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4216363> for a parallel discussion of this.

<comment><USER9> I have the impression it is the hackernews post you link to that is misleading. Whatever the post-hoc statements of the bishop or hacker news posters, according to all information I can find, the complaint is based on article 295a, a blasphemy law: <http://www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/indianpenalcode/S295a.htm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Op-Ed in The Hindu discussion the issue: <http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article3391109.ece>

</comment><comment><USER11> > _"deliberately hurting religious feelings and attempting malicious acts > intended to outrage the religious sentiments of any class or community."_

What a bogus fucking law. Pretty much anything can fall under that. Christianity itself hurts my feelings.

<comment><USER12> You do understand that you are talking about a law in a country where religious riots are pretty common? It is similar to how race-hate or sexism is viewed in the U.S. It better to have laws that disallows picking on people's sensitive sides and causing a blowout than ignoring it. You could do a simple risk-benefit analysis and come to the same conclusion.

<comment><USER13> They're not riots, they're political parties outsourcing murder for votes.

<comment><USER14> It is simplistic to assume that it's all the political parties' fault. They can take advantage of these things only if the people let them. They are able to exploit deep seated feelings and insecurities because those exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's the website of his organisation for anyone interested - <http://www.rationalistinternational.net/>

</comment><comment><USER16> "hurting religious feelings" is an arrestable offense. Ouch. I think the western nations often underestimate their own freedoms.

<comment><USER7> Depends. Try denying the holocaust.

<comment><USER17> You think that pointing out that "holy water" is in fact sewage from a blocked drain is the same thing as claiming that the systematic murder of 6 million people never happened?

<comment><USER18> Let's clear something up here. We will never know the truth.

Evidence was burned, paperwork destroyed, the 'responsible' people were trialled in private and executed, propaganda was all over the place, facts are omitted for political gain and people needed to save face. The official story needed to be promoted.

The people who deny the holocaust do not deny, but question whether or not the official story is 100% accurate or not.

However to have any political force disallow questioning the official story is not an acceptable situation. It undermines free speech and it purveys an unacceptable duality of reality and fiction.

Wars are always recorded in the eyes of the victors and are closed from future investigation (a bad situation).

<comment><USER19> There's a mountain of evidence that supports the fact that millions of Jewish people were killed in concentration camps.

Are you seriously claiming that the biggest issue that holocaust deniers have is that the "official" version isn't "100% accurate".

<comment><USER18> Not quite - that's what your history teacher taught you.

There's evidence that an undetermined but quite large number of people sadly died in concentration camps during the second world war. The number, race and cause of death was not entirely determined and is not possible to determine any more. That's all the facts on the table - there are no more concrete facts at all believe it or not (find me a citation which is credible to prove otherwise!).

This is extrapolated into millions of Jewish people were killed in concentration camps which is the "official story" by the victors. The story came before evidence and evidence was destroyed before the story could be verified.

The main issue is that historical revisionism is used to piece together events so we can learn about the past.

When the label and respective charge of "holocaust denial" is placed one something, it is a closed subject where revisionism is no longer allowed.

It's an enforced dark age.

It should always be open for discussion and research. Perhaps one day some clarity will be found? Perhaps more can be brought to justice, perhaps more names could be cleared.

It's not closed, so don't close it is what I'm saying.

<comment><USER19> Actually, YOU find ME a credible citation that supports your little tinpot revisionist theory.

Of course, you won't, as that will expose the lunacy of your position.

ps - the moon landings actually happened.

<comment><USER18> The typical response. The burden of proof is on the inclusive case.

Were you there? If not, all you have is stories passed down built on propaganda. I don't disbelieve, but i expect evidence. I've been to Auschwitz btw - have you?

I dint get the moon landings point. They did happen.

<comment><USER20> There is in fact a mountain of evidence for the holocaust, much more than for most historical events. As much or more than evidence for the number of soldiers from various armies that died. Accuracy is not as good because estimates are consolidated from lots of sources. But the ballpark figure and the overall picture is very certain, mostly because of the huge number of different sources of information. For example:

A lot of the evidence is comparing population numbers before & after the war. here we have: national census data, synagogue or community records.

For example, in my grandmother's village they know (and documented) pretty much who lived there before. Who survived. Who died. And to a large extent, how. There is lots of speculation to make up the total of course: if someone died in the getto from nutrion related disease, does that count? Suicide? If 30% of the people just are unaccounted for how many do you assume survived and weren't found, died some other way or were gassed? In that case though, that number is around 30% and that is not atypical for local communities.

There are various other evidence sources as well: Nazi records (remarkably good), trial evidence from tens of thousands of witnesses in dozens of jurisdictions, guards, inmates, train drivers, local populations.

From that sort of evidence you can piece together how many people were gassed. For example you know from guards, inmates, locals etc roughly how many people came in a day during different periods. You corroborate that with evidence about how many bodies were disposed of. Stuff like that. This kind of counting is going to undercount significantly relative to the former kind of counting (before & after numbers) because it doesn't account for lots of other causes of death or disappearance, but thats expected.

None of it amounts to perfect accounting. If in Holland 150,000 people identified in a 1941 and 35,000 can be accounted for in immigration to Israel, the US & in the 1950 Dutch census, you have a good idea about how many died. We also know from Nazi records how many were deemed half & quarter Jews (as well as corroborate Dutch census numbers to Nazi records). Put it together and we can estimate a range of "missing persons". You have problems like the US not recording religion or Israel not recording place of residence in 1941 (maybe they were born in Belgium and eventually emigrated from France). Double counting, not counting. Part Jews that didn't identify in census data in 1941 also didn't identify later on so are hard to track. People changed their declared identities. Some assumed new identities altogether. Some immigrated to places that aren't recorded. Assumptions are made about these things. Maybe 150000 were murdered, maybe 75,000.

The real estimate is a range: 3-7 million.

As for the taboo. Thats a problem and its bad for finding truth. Mostly its a problem that Orwell put his finger on. " _The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them._ " Basically, "denial" is a mostly Fascist phenomenon, at least in Europe.

<comment><USER18> That's some good information. Thank you. This is quality discussion.

The irony of the concept of denial is that those (like myself) who choose not to form an opinion yet are lumped on with the denying group. This very concept itself is a form of fascism / authoritarianism.

Bringing Orwell back into the discussion, this is a form of doublethink i.e. holding two contradictory ideas:

1\. Fascism is bad.

2\. We'll use fascist tenets to promote that fascism is bad.

Paradox! (I personally aim to be paradox free)

<comment><USER20> You come off as more then withholding judgement opinion. You come off as challenging the general consensus opinion, including the academic one.

I'm going to give you the benefit of doubt and assume that you are in fact reacting to what you see as a censorship of discussion by tabooing the whole subject. My point with the Orwell quote is that in most cases of European "denial," it was being promoted almost exclusively by Nazi/Fascist sympathizers. Hence the labeling and stigmatization of "holocaust deniers," which incidentally was initiated mostly by the Germans of the 1950s, disgusted by the sins of their fathers.

In the 1960s Palestinians adopted a skeptical-conspiracy "denial" that was part of their conflict with Zionism. IE the holocaust myth was fabricated as an excuse for Zionist colonialism. The current chairman of the PA, for example wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject. Over about 20 years this simultaneously percolated into what has become semi-religious beliefs in the Muslim world on one hand and backed away from by its original proponents as their evidence was strongly and insistently refuted in academia. The aforementioned chairman, for example, no longer promotes these ideas. In the instances that it has merged with religion it has also adopted various medieval anti-jewish mythology and/or 19th century Czarist propaganda. Various Muslim brotherhood affiliates streams, for example, believe in the Czarist "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" document.

This is why I noted European denial separately. A lot of the modern leftist skeptics are influenced by this wave (rather than the earlier fascist one).

<comment><USER18> I am literally just withholding judgement. The opinion only needs to be challenged if it feels threatened. I do not wish to challenge it personally but would passively accept more information as it becomes available.

Genuine thanks for the notes - very interesting and a good read.

<comment><USER20> More info available than you could read in a lifetime. This is probably the most studied historical topic of all time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GM, eBay test online new-car sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2009/08/10/gm_ebay_test_online_new_car_sales/

<comment><USER2> Think these listings will be exposed to the eBay API?</comment>


Examples of Parallel Algorithms from C++17 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bfilipek.com/2018/06/parstl-tests.html <comment><USER3> I like the approach for generality, but for something like the word count example, there's absolutely no way that parallelizing at the multi-core level would beat doing this in SIMD. None of those examples are topping at at more than a gigabyte per second, which is walking pace for this sort of problem.

Further, I suspect that the extremely regular pattern of the space boundaries is probably giving the branch predictor a leg up. It almost certainly would pick up the 'every 5' pattern if not the 'every 17' pattern. So a realistic example would be far more branch miss heavy.

This is still fine work, as the effort of writing a nice C++ function and getting some parallel help on it is tiny compared to writing SIMD code, and some problems don't play nice with SIMD at all.

<comment><USER4> Thing is, not very many developers actually understand how to break an algorithm into SIMD, whereas making use of parallel algorithms is a much more accessible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking forward to coroutines. I really want to see how they compare to Go's implementation (which is great).

<comment><USER6> FWIW, you can implement cooperative multithreading yourself, by using the Fiber API on Windows, or with a few unstandardized function calls on Linux/probably other unixes.

It works beautifully (of course, putting the fact that it's slightly "magical" aside). It's much more comfortable to write Javascript-style programs in C than it is in Javascript (where you need to chain callbacks) this way :-)

<comment><USER7> You don't need to chain callbacks with await/async anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really wonder what the C++ community will think of execution policies in 5 years. Using them seems to be interesting step up from coding your low level parallel algorithms and instead using standard C++ algoritms with an execution policy to build your algorithm.

But are they an abstraction that will be useful in the future? Worth it for the language?

<comment><USER9> I think execution policies will prove too abstract and coarse in their current state, so won't be very useful.

Normally it's good to have pleasant abstractions and generic functions. But execution policies are there for speed and speed alone: if they don't make things faster, they've failed. So in this case it's worth tolerating a more awkward API to achieve better performance.

The C++17 parallelism interface is more or less to declare "this loop can be parallelized," which does not provide enough information to the scheduler. You need to express properties of the algorithm, such as its optimal chunk size. (In the future perhaps those properties will enter into the execution policy as e.g. constructor parameters.)

Second, passing in callbacks which receive one or two elements at a time is too granular. You are at the mercy of the compiler to optimize these. A better approach would be for the callbacks to receive a pair of iterators and allow the user to drive the loop. This makes it easier to avoid accidental indirections, failed alias analysis or inlining, etc.

Intel's TBB will continue to be more useful here.

<comment><USER10> It does seem that custom policies are needed when deadlockable resource pools, throttling, or per-processor type of things need to be handled.

<comment><USER11> I don't believe these functions are supposed to be one-size-fits-all solutions. I assume they are intended as the answer to "how come std::transform() doesn't run this embarassingly parallel problem in parallel?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd like to compare parallel CPU and GPU versions with Thrust: [http://thrust.github.io](http://thrust.github.io) When is a vector big enough that is worth processing on the GPU?

<comment><USER13> It depends on the type of vector operation(s) you are doing and the machine you are on. For one off vector operations it is never worth it to make a transfer to the gpu.

If you are going to have a lot of temporary vectors as part of a larger algorithm, it is usually beneficial to copy the inputs once, do all the computations on the gpu, and copy them back.

<comment><USER14> With the caveat that integrated GPUs with unified memory can skip the copy.

<comment><USER15> You would still need to transfer the data from the core L1/L2 to the GPU (same as for inter core communication). While cheaper than a copy though the pci bus it is not free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a shame the parallel recursive file size sum example reads all of the file and directory names into memory first, and then iterates over them in parallel after. A clean concise version of the same example, in a stream-like but still parallelized way, is not obvious to me at first glance (although I don't touch C++ often, perhaps someone here knows of a good way?)

<comment><USER17> Indeed, I've actually written such a thing (although in Rust, not C++), I'm still looking for a clean concise version. :-)

Here's the public API of mine[1], which is pretty blah, because it takes a closure (per-thread initialization) that must return a closure (executed on each entry in the tree). The most interesting part of the implementation is here[2], along with a suspicious termination argument.

Outside of that, ucg (written in C++) also has a recursive directory iterator.[3]

I also know of two written in Go, one in sift[4] and another in the platinum searcher[5]. The ones in Go seem considerably simpler as they fall back to goroutines.

I haven't carefully benchmarked all of these, but if memory serves, they're all faster than the single threaded variants. In my experience, the hardest part about implementing this is coming up with a solid termination argument because your consumers are also your producers. (I documented this a bit in `get_work` in my Rust code.)

[1] - [https://docs.rs/ignore/0.4.2/ignore/struct.WalkParallel.html](https://docs.rs/ignore/0.4.2/ignore/struct.WalkParallel.html)

[2] - [https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/blob/b38b101c77003fb94...](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/blob/b38b101c77003fb94aaaa8084fcb93b6862586eb/ignore/src/walk.rs#L940-L1378)

[3] - [https://github.com/gvansickle/ucg/blob/master/src/libext/Dir...](https://github.com/gvansickle/ucg/blob/master/src/libext/DirTree.cpp)

[4] - [https://github.com/svent/sift/blob/2ca94717ef0bbf43068f217c8...](https://github.com/svent/sift/blob/2ca94717ef0bbf43068f217c8a0dfb216df52225/sift.go#L159-L376)

[5] - [https://github.com/monochromegane/the_platinum_searcher/blob...](https://github.com/monochromegane/the_platinum_searcher/blob/master/walk.go)

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I've written such a thing many times as well, in languages like Go which make it easy and languages like C which make it not-as-easy and a few in between.

I was more curious if there was a cleaner C++ way of doing it with all of the recent or pending languages changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice to see a fairly thorough set of examples, but my only conclusion is that C++ really has become a parody of itself.

The language describing each policy is awful, but okay.

"so concise code" for 10 lines consisting mostly of ceremony to get the results of one std function into a vector?

Does the first example with std::transform::reduce really need `std::uintmax_t{ 0 }` twice instead of `0`?

2x-3x speed up for specifying a parallel execution policy on reasonably large examples seems deeply disappointing. Author didn't specify how many cores the examples were run on, but ouch.

Best of all is the volume of comments here predicting that these annotations will eventually be deprecated ..

I really want to like C++.

</comment><comment><USER19> i wonder why they didn't have the execution policy of a template parameter - if they pass the object on the stack then they would have to switch on the type in runtime, with template parameter you can have a specialization on the type without that overhead.

Also what is exactly the difference between parallel_execution_policy and parallel_vector_execution_policy ?

<comment><USER20> It is a template parameter, they just use a global object of a particular type to select it, probably for easier defaulting.

E.g. [https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/experimental/reduce](https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/experimental/reduce)

<comment><USER19> thanks, didn't notice the declaration - this way they can deduce the type without having to specify the template parameter directly in the call - <USER2> you don't have to pass an actual instance; clever. You never stop learning with c++

          template<class T>
          void foo(T &&);

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _"you'll get the same results for accumulate and reduce for a vector of integers (when doing a sum), but you might get a slight difference for a vector of floats or doubles. That's because floating point operations are not associative."_

That's incorrect. Addition of _int_ isn't associative in C++, either. For example

      INT_MAX + (1 + -1) = INT_MAX

but

      (INT_MAX + 1) + -1

is undefined.

<comment><USER22> Can you give an example of non-associative integer arithmetic where both interpretations are defined but differ in value? This is the case with floats.</comment></comment>


Show NH: CodeAvengers.com - learning to code just got MARVELous - <AUTHOR> http://codeavengers.com My brothers and I have just released CodeAvengers.com the funnest and most effective way to learn Javascript online. Read some feedback from some initial users below and CHECK IT OUT. We would love your FEEDBACK!! Catch me at -> mike at codeavengers.com<p>"This is a MARVELous tutorial. I feel I am really learning JavaScript now."<p>"This is great - best way to spend a few hours in ages"<p>"I really liked the idea of coding to do something, be it moving a robot or creating part of an application, rather than coding just for the sake of coding. It's certainly a lot easier to learn by doing than learn in the abstract. Thanks for the great site!" <comment><USER2> I'm a business major,never been interested in programming. Even I think CodeAvengers.com is a great way to learn JavaScript. First online tutorial that has kept my interest. Thanks BIG bro! Would like to hear if anyone else agrees with me... Maybe I am just biased??

</comment><comment><USER3> This site looks great. Tried the first 3 lessons. It seems like it would be quite effective for beginners. Would love to hear experience from someone who really is a beginner.

</comment><comment><USER4> When hitting backspace in the editor, I get the "Click Play" flash message. You might want to fix that.

</comment><comment><USER5> Code Avengers is MARVELous!!!!!</comment>


Ask HN: Who is firing? (March 2017) - <AUTHOR> Monthly listing of companies where people are being  laid of. <comment><USER2> IBM Brazil laid off ~30% (25 people) of the Linux Technology Center staff.

See the first comment: [https://www.thelayoff.com/t/JtAUPMv](https://www.thelayoff.com/t/JtAUPMv)

</comment><comment><USER3> Akamai is firing a decent batch of people.

</comment><comment><USER4> The Grid</comment>


Project A119 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_A119 <comment><USER2> Fascinating. I never knew the Mr. Show segment "Let's Blow Up the Moon"[1] had any basis in fact.

[1] [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GTJ3LIA5LmA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GTJ3LIA5LmA)

<comment><USER3> love the part where the astronaut says "I walked on the moon. Did a push up. Ate an egg on it. What else can you do with it?"

also love the fact that his voice kinda sounds like that of George HW Bush.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This era of science always fascinates me.

First landing on the moon? July 20, 1969. First satellite launch? January 31, 1958. 11 years, 5 months, and 20 days.

Insane.

<comment><USER5> The clock should really start in June 1944, with the first rocket to cross the Karman Line: a V2 ballistic missile. In many ways the moon landings (and plans to nuke the moon) were the continuation of the war effort's tremendous pace of technological improvement. The early rockets were primarily designed as ICBMs with peaceful payloads as secondary adaptations.

If you look at the early space programme it can really be seen as a set of milestones directly aimed at the manned moon landing - orbital manned flight with safe landing (Mercury), two-man operation (Gemini), space suits, EVA, docking, and so on.

<comment><USER6> > The early rockets were primarily designed as ICBMs with peaceful payloads as > secondary adaptations.

Von Braun was interested in astronomy and space exploration well before the war. He is quoted as saying "the rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet." \- referring to the Sept 7 1944 launch. In essence it was a peaceful rocket turned into an ICBM and thankfully later on returned to its peaceful status.

And on a side note: imagine being Von Braun after the US handed him the keys to their state of the art space program with a cold war sized budget. Beyond a dream come true.

<comment><USER5> > Beyond a dream come true.

Luckiest man in the war. He could have been killed in any number of ways during the war, he managed to surrender to the Allies and not the Soviets, and they chose not to hold him responsible for the 12,000 slave labour deaths of the V2 programme. Not all the beneficiaries of slave labour did so well. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Sauckel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Sauckel)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> only slightly less crazy, they actually DID this:

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

see soviet union section for their equivalent: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosion)

<comment><USER3> I'm intrigued by these atomic re-landscaping proposals.

Cooler coastal air could be drawn into California's dry, hot inland valleys by blasting a number of large, artificial passes through mountain ranges up and down the state.

And atomic explosions could ameliorate intense traffic problems in Los Angeles not only by conveniently creating new passes through the Santa Monica mountains for new multilane highways between the Valley and the West Side, but also as a means of clearing gridlocked intersections.

<comment><USER8> I think for this to happen, there would need to be demonstrations of the safety aspects of using nuclear weapons.

Can you imagine trying to justify this project to the public? It would be a nightmare: "Nuclear explosions planned outside Los Angeles"... it would likely trigger a mini-freakout.

<comment><USER9> How times have changed since people would drive to Las Vegas and party next to a nuclear test...

[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2014/08/atomic-tests-were- a-t...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2014/08/atomic-tests-were-a-tourist- draw-in-1950s-las-vegas/375802/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Soviet Union did actually show their nuclear power 3 years after by exploding Tsar Bomba

<comment><USER11> Which was an utterly impractical weapon that had no use other than geopolitical chest-beating.

<comment><USER12> The same is true for every nuclear weapon.

<comment><USER11> Not really. Smaller ones are quite good for destroying a lot of stuff or killing a lot of people, which can be really useful in war. Their presence can also be good for preventing the other side from deciding it would be nice to destroy a lot of your stuff or killing a lot of your people with their own weapons. The problem with the Tsar Bomba is that it was so large it couldn't be delivered to any real target. The test required a specially-modified bomber that wouldn't have been able to make a strike in a real war.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. How many nuclear armed countries have been invaded?

<comment><USER14> The UK and India, at least.

<comment><USER15> Children, remain calm. The Falkland islands have just been invaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > A young Carl Sagan was part of the team responsible for predicting the > effects of a nuclear explosion in vacuum and low gravity and in evaluating > the scientific value of the project.

I would be interested in their research on this, from a purely curious standpoint.

<comment><USER6> Thinking about this, the interesting part is what happens when there is no air to heat and expand? From my understanding, in a chemical explosion the explosive itself releases a pressure wave of gas from the burning of the explosive. The air surrounding a chemical explosion helps carry the pressure wave further out.

But what physical material is ejected from a nuclear explosion and can it create a pressure wave? I was under the impression that the main component of a nuclear explosion is heat. Lots and lots of heat in the form of photon energy in a rainbow of EM spectrum. The destructive pressure wave is a result of the air/material around the detonation being violently heated to millions of degrees in mere microseconds.

Of course even in the vacuum of space anything within "ground zero" (can you say that in space?) of a nuclear explosion will still vaporize, producing expanding gases which can create a pressure wave. This is how I imagine a nuclear "asteroid buster" would have to work. The bomb would have to be on the surface or damn close to vaporize material from the object to influence its trajectory.

<comment><USER17> I had to double-check with the Atomic Rocketship website. You are correct in that the energy released by a normal nuclear detonation in a vacuum would follow the inverter square law, and would not transfer force as effectively over distance as it would in a fluid medium.

Note that I said "normal" nuclear weapon. ;-) The Atomic Rocketship page describes something called a Casaba Howitzer. This is basically a shaped charge version of a nuke, that discharges its energy in a beam or cone shape. Details beyond that are still classified.

Anyway, there's more than you ever wanted to know here:

[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent...](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php)

Search within that page for "nuclear" or "Casaba" and have fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What a crazy time when the first thing people wanted to do when they reached the moon was blow it up. I wonder, with the mass of the moon being so much less than Earth's, would the explosion have altered it's orbit?

<comment><USER19> Nope! Wolfram Alpha puts the orbital kinetic energy of the Moon at 3.425e28 joules, or 8.186e18 tons of TNT [1]. The Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuclear weapon ever detonated, had the energy equivalent of 50 megatons of TNT (5e7 tons), which is 100 billion times smaller than the Moon's kinetic energy. The Moon is just really heavy - it's unlikely we could ever do much to change it's orbit (with current technology at least!).

[1] - [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=kinetic+energy+of+the+...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=kinetic+energy+of+the+moon)

<comment><USER20> What if we build a gigaton-range warhead (which modern rockets could easily lob[1]) and watch for an opportunity to deflect a comet or large asteroid? The parts I have no idea about are: how often suitable projectiles come close enough to the Moon's path that a Gt nudge would do the deed; and whether we could predict the effects of a huge nuke well enough to steer the object with the requisite precision--but it seems to me interfering with the Moon is only a bit more difficult than defending against a doomsday impact on Earth, so I hope it would be possible.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance#Come...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance#Comet_deflection_possibility)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fascinating. Kind of sad that this was ever _considered_.

<comment><USER22> Why? Of all the places to detonate a nuclear bomb in the name of science, the moon seems a pretty safe one with little consequence to any living thing.

I don't really see it as all that different than drilling for a core sample, except in scale, but that scale still doesn't affect anything, so I'm not sure it matters.

<comment><USER11> We blew up a bunch of Pacific islands and various other places with hundreds of explosions for no purpose other than to make sure we could more effectively kill people. Nuking the moon is positively benign by comparison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What a crazy time.

</comment><comment><USER24> Am I the only one that expected an article about Pixar?

<comment><USER25> Nope. lol. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A113](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A113)

<comment><USER26> Thank you. I wanted to make sure I wasn't the only one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This just boggles the mind. Soon, we'll find out that the military has had time travel technology and they've been bringing back dinosaurs to conduct research experiments to build mammoth, militarized, non-mammalian militias. Believe it.

<comment><USER28> From SG-1:

Maynard: Mr. President, I'm here to bring you up to speed on a program we've been running out of Cheyenne Mountain for the past seven years.

Hayes: I've already had my top secret briefing.

Maynard: Yes, Mr. President. But not this. Mr. President, for the past seven years the United States Air Force has been sending teams to other planets by means of an alien device known as a "star gate".

Hayes: That's funny. That's very funny. My first day. This is a joke, right? I have a great sense of humor—I didn't know that you had one—but this is good because we're finding out about each other. Now I have to call the ex- President of Togo, and when I'm done, apparently, the rest of the world is coming to an end.

Maynard: The ex-President of Togo will have to wait, sir. This is not a joke.</comment></comment>


The Blockchain Is the New Google - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/11/the-blockchain-is-the-new-google <comment><USER2> Bit of a silly title but it's chronologically close. Blockchains are the new dot-com bubble.

Yes they're useful in some scenarios but there's a massive leap between a decentralised transaction accounting system (what it literally is) and what it could be. And it does work well as a _low volume_ currency. 250K transactions a day at the moment for Bitcoin. VISA did that while I was writing this comment.

Articles like this seem to think that people's appetite for decentralisation is limitless but frankly, I _like_ that I have a bank and solicitors responsible and insured for the processing of certain transactions.

The investory sorts of people who write articles like this hark on and on about the possibilities. Rather than talking, they should be building. Stop hyping this crap up and build something with your own money.

And that's why I compare it to the dot-com bubble. The more I read stuff like this from investors, the more I think this is pump-n-dump. They bought a load of Bitcoin when it was fashionable, it plummeted and now they're trying to put it centre stage again.

Google built something. Again and again. "The blockchain" is nothing like Google.

So just remember the 90s kids. This much "it can do everything" hype with only a low volume currency or two to show for it... It's an unhealthy mix. Buy some gold. It'll last longer.</comment>


Celebrate The New Year With A New Job - <AUTHOR>

The new year is here and what better way to celebrate it than with a new job.  Post any openings you have or know of below.<p>I'll start.  My company Pedal Brain (http://en.pedalbrain.com/company) is looking for a web/print designer and a developer (Embedded C, Obj C Ruby, Clojure). <comment><USER2> These posts seem to be a pertinent and continuously ongoing occurrence on HN. Perhaps a non YC-company job board is required on hackernews?

Why not modify /jobs to include other job postings but just keep YC companies at the top, or in bold? Perhaps this will increase traffic and exposure to the page, increasing the visibility of YC-companies job postings at the same time? Win-win

<comment><USER3> /nonycjobs would be an efficient solution?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> DocumentCloud is looking for a JavaScript maestro in NYC to help develop an archive of primary source documents for journalists, in conjunction with the New York Times. Everything you work on will be released open-source (our projects so far have been Underscore.js, CloudCrowd, Jammit, and Docsplit).

jeremy at documentcloud.org

</comment><comment><USER5> We're looking to fill the following positions:

1\. Python, Django developer

2\. C/C++ developer

3\. Sales/marketing (including some outside sales)

We're based in Waterloo, Ontario. We're angel funded. Doing some pretty cool stuff.

Contact me at mike at tophatmonocle dot com (We're in private beta, so you won't find any clues as to what we're working on at our website.)

</comment><comment><USER6> My company, ProjectDX (<http://www.projectdx.com/>), is looking for developers in Portland: <http://projectdx.com/webappdev_job.pdf>

Contact me at jd at projectdx dot com.

<comment><USER7> Beyond being in Portland (lovely place), this startup has green appeal. Moreover, since I've gotten to know JD, I can vouch that he'd be a cool guy to work with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Chicago and New York. Other people's software: fold, spindle, mutilate. We beat up everything from web apps to firmware. We want you to code well, be into security, and want to spend serious time building things in order to break other things.

Contact info's in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER9> Mozilla has lots of engineering, marketing, finance and other jobs open:

<http://www.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Jobs.aspx?c=qpX9Vfwa>

Come help us make the Internet better!

</comment><comment><USER10> Top-tier high frequency proprietary trading firm. Always looking for expert level C and C++, strong knowledge of network programming, real-time systems, distributed systems, multithreadeding, Linux (to the kernel level preferably), performance optimization, occasional scripting. Very meritocratic environment where you get to see the impact of your work every day.

Financial industry experience is not required but it's a plus. Must be able to work under extremely high pressure, deliver on promises, learn and work independently and aggressively, build reliable software, and work with all areas of the business to generate P&L.

narita . jal712 at gmail

</comment><comment><USER11> My company, Causata, is looking for people in London: <http://causata.com/>

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's a pointer to the last job thread, from last month: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=952915>

The positions I posted there are still open.</comment>


Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark Beta 1 Released - <AUTHOR> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-release/2017-August/004202.html <comment><AUTHOR> After leaving the Ubuntu world a few releases ago because I was tired of having old Gnome releases and because I wanted Wayland because of its Hidpi support, I will surely come back :)</comment>


Pipe Logic (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/pipelogic/index.php <comment><USER2> This sort of post is why I love HN. At first while reading it I thought, "is this guy for real?", and then proceeded to be amazed at what he wrought with a very simple but elegant idea. A+

<comment><USER3> I've fallen in to a hole on his website. Not sure if I'll ever emerge

<comment><USER4> Numerous other articles by him have appeared on HN, some multiple times (such as the TTY one.) He's amazingly talented.

One of the things I like about his site is he has a section titled "Obfuscated Programming", and another "Sane Programming".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Check out this other mind blowing hack from him.

He sent 256 byte C64 demo to Oldskool 4K Intro compo and he won. [https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is- born/](https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/)

</comment><comment><USER6> My first boss, at Spectra-Physics, was a brilliant guy named Joe Hawkins, who had temporarily taken the job as manufacturing engineering manager, having been forced out of a startup he helped found by some other asshole founders. He posed the question, "In heat transfer, what is the equivalent of inductance?," and claimed to know the answer, Fermat margin-of-the-page style. Maybe you can take a crack at that.

<comment><USER5> > "In heat transfer, what is the equivalent of inductance?,"

It's the aptly named thermal inductance (change in objects temperature induce a change in convection current surrounding the object). Heat -> kinetic energy transfer. (unit is thermal henry). You can even create thermal mutual inductance by putting two wires next to each other in a fluid.

Electrical-analog method is well known for heat transfer analysis. Heat transfer equations are identical to electric recruits with passive components. Thermal inductance is almost never needed, so it may be little unknown. Back in the old times some even constructed electronic devices to solve transient flow problems using analogous resisistance-capacitance electrical networks. [https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/61/jresv61n2p105_A1b....](https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/61/jresv61n2p105_A1b.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's another creation of this guy - check out this synth based on SID chips: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpa7AQsx7Xw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpa7AQsx7Xw)

<comment><USER8> And if you want to make chiptunes on the go, check out the Pocket Operator synthesizers that he designed [0]. They're a ton of fun, and people on the bus will ask you why you have headphones plugged into your calculator.

[0] [http://www.linusakesson.net/music/po-2x/index.php](http://www.linusakesson.net/music/po-2x/index.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the unusual things about this is that he built a layer of abstraction, but it resembles a lower level of abstraction. It's like he's abstracting in the opposite direction that you normally abstract.

</comment><comment><USER4> Somewhat related hack by the same author, a "virtual machine" implemented entirely as symlinks: [http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/symlinks/index.php](http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/symlinks/index.php)

</comment><comment><USER10> From the title I thought it would be this stuff: [http://www.hydraulicspneumatics.com/200/TechZone/PneumaticVa...](http://www.hydraulicspneumatics.com/200/TechZone/PneumaticValves/Article/False/6455/TechZone- PneumaticValves)

</comment><comment><USER11> > In this model, a UNIX pipe acts like a wire, that is, a conductor with > parasitic capacitance.

can someone please explain why / how the 'parasitic capacitance' comes into play here ? thanks !

from my very faint memories of ee courses, iirc, 'parasitic capacitance' happens due to proximity of two parts of circuit e.g. one signal-line and another, signal-line -> earth etc. unwanted coupling causes unwanted effects (duh !) f.e. interference, attenuation, distortion etc.

how does this behavior gets observed here ?

<comment><USER12> I think the analogy to parasitic capacitance is meant to refer to the fact that the pipe is a buffer: if you connect it to a source of zeros or NULLs its value doesn't immediately change until it is full.

<comment><USER11> > ... its value doesn't doesn't immediately change until it is full.

ah ! that's vanilla impedance (i.e. Z) in play then, nothing parasitic about it afaik :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cool stuff. Are there any cryptocurrencies that take advantage of this property? Seems like a good area for exploration, implementing cryptographically verifiable logic gates over p2p transports.

<comment><USER14> You might be interested in this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verifiable_computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verifiable_computing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is very cool! I like seeing projects like this on here, that don't necessarily have a practical use but are a way to learn more about how a system works.

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh my god I love this. Magnificent. <3</comment>