Usable version of RFC 2616 (HTTP/1.1) - <AUTHOR> http://rfc2616.com/ <comment><USER2> Look nice but:

\- Needs to have a search (that lists sections found, lets you skip between finds, etc.)

\- Needs index, even though tabs are nice

\- scrollbar in middle of page != friendly (use vertical space in page and page scroll)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is this version more useable than the already available versions?

I prefer the text version myself. I can use it in more places than this HTML version.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this version much more usable: <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616>

</comment><comment><USER5> To debug my wiki engine, I did some experiment with RFCs.

RFCs as wikis: <http://simpliwiki.com/yours/SomeRfcs>

This is an other definition of "usable" I guess.

I added an orange visual cue when scrolling, to make it easier to spot where new content starts.

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't really get the point. Is the idea to get it up in the Google rankings and then add ads?

<comment><USER7> don't try this with ISO standards (not even only the domain)

<http://www.iso.org/iso/name_and_logo.htm> => WIPO

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have a look at the html source... some <http://www.intelli- computing.com/wordpress/?super_sale=DDDD> code in there...

</comment><comment><USER8> Great idea. Weak implementation. Compared to even the TXT version that's my top Google hit for [rfc2616], this is harder to search and fits less text into the same sized viewport. (Devoting ~40% of the viewport to informationless deepCyan background isn't very helpful.)

</comment><comment><USER9> this is offensively not usable. just as an example, I can't grep the whole document now. I think this is the wrong target market for fake usability.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. IMO, the only thing that needs to be done to make a plain text RFC more 'usable' is to perhaps add anchor links where needed, such as when other sections are referenced.

<comment><USER11> For your pleasure:

<http://tools.ietf.org/rfcmarkup?rfc=2616>

Type in any RFC number for similar results:

<http://tools.ietf.org/rfcmarkup></comment></comment></comment>


Movements of the Cold War: How the Soviets Revolutionized Wristwatches - <AUTHOR> http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/how-the-soviets-revolutionized-wristwatches/ <comment><USER2> A strange watch-like device that came out of the USSR was the watch-sized circular slide rule. Looks like a small pocket watch, and has two knobs, one for the inner dial and one for the cursor. I have one of these. Pictures:

[http://www.aetherltd.com/public/misc/props/sliderulefrontmed...](http://www.aetherltd.com/public/misc/props/sliderulefrontmed.jpg)

[http://www.aetherltd.com/public/misc/props/sliderulebackmed....](http://www.aetherltd.com/public/misc/props/sliderulebackmed.jpg)

These date from the era when the US was making pocket calculators, an area in which the USSR lagged.

<comment><USER3> How easy is it to actually turn those dials? I would expect a regular (linear or circular) slide rule to be much faster to work.

<comment><USER4> Very, very easy. Though I wouldn't argue that a linear slide rule isn't easier to work with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just got in to soviet watches myself. If you've not seen them, the Raketa brand from the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in St. Petersburg had some beautiful, non-traditional timepieces that are still classy enough to avoid 'gaudy'. I picked up a Raketa Kopernik for my brother for Christmas, and I'm damn tempted to keep it for myself...

<comment><USER6> I grew up in the Eastern Bloc. The Raketa brand (tr: "Rocket") were quite popular - and had a good reputation too.

Nice article, it brought back memories. Like many child geeks back then, I was intrigued by the innards of wristwatches. The rubies used in those tiny bearings were fascinating.

<comment><USER4> Of all the Soviet brands, Raketas are the most interesting, aesthetically speaking, in my opinion. To me, it seems like the designers were just having fun. My Raketa collection now numbers 241 pieces(!!), with my favorites being those with stone dials (jade, jasper). These were a nod to the origins of the Petrodvorets Factory.

[http://mroatman.wixsite.com/watches-of-the- ussr/raketa](http://mroatman.wixsite.com/watches-of-the-ussr/raketa)

<comment><USER6> I had one of those square designs when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure it was a Raketa. But the color scheme of the face had a deep blue background.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> reminded about another, and extremely significant, jump start of USSR tech by a US business around the same time - the car factory GAZ set up by Ford : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ#1929_to_2000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ#1929_to_2000)

<comment><USER8> In 1930s, USSR was buying American and European technology like crazy, especially the heavy industry technology. USSR was able to pay gold for that; gold still was the monetary metal at the time. The gold was earned by selling wheat and other agricultural supplies. The wheat was also produced like crazy, but, being a dictatorship, Soviet authorities just took however much they could from the collective farms (private farming was mostly eliminated). This likely contributed to a famine in 1932-33 in Ukraine, then a part of the USSR [1].

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

<comment><USER9> You also have to wonder how WW2 would have turned out had the USSR not been in such a rush to industrialize (not that they knew at the time)? Then again, they may have had more people to fight the Nazi's.

<comment><USER7> > (not that they knew at the time)

well, the previous 1000 years of history there could have been a hint :) By the 192x-193x that history took specific forms of "export of revolution" (into which hundreds of years of the Russian Empire's expansion morphed) on one side and the Mein Kampf's "new living space for Germans" (into which the hundreds of years, from the times of Teutonic Order, of "Drang nach Osten" morphed) on the other side.

If Germany didn't attack USSR in 1941, it would be pretty real possibility that USSR would attack it few years later. Especially in the alternative Universe where Stalin didn't destroy the very modern-military-technology- minded Red Army leadership - like Tuchachevsky and his elk - in the 1936.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not totally sure it's valid to use 'Rust Belt' to describe Ohio in 1929.

<comment><USER4> Right. It was still iron back then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Vostok Amphibias are interesting due to the clever way they chose to make them waterproof (as the outside pressure increases the domed crystal flattens). They're still making new ones, although the older ones tend to be slimmer.

The problem with cheap watches is if anything goes wrong it will probably be uneconomic to get repaired

<comment><USER12> Depends how you look at it. I have spent the value of a 1960's Certina DS many times over servicing and repairing it over the last couple of decades.

Totally worth it; it was my grandfather's favourite watch.

(Idea being - if you have some sort of emotional attachment to a watch, it doesn't really matter all that much what financial value the rest of the world puts on it.)

I would guess collectors of these watches feel much the same way - they are maintaining a bit of history, not a watch. Besides, a lot of them probably do routine CLA (Clean, Lube, Adjust) on their own; it is surprisingly simple given a very modest investment in tools - and guess how good it feels when you've successfully dismantled and reassembled your watch - and it still works...)

<comment><USER4> Nailed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was curious about the workers from Ohio who went to the USSR to help setup the transferred equipment (did they make it back? end up in a gulag?), found this short article:

[https://dueber-hampden.blogspot.com/2012/12/to-russia- with-l...](https://dueber-hampden.blogspot.com/2012/12/to-russia-with- love.html)

Sounds like they were treated like kings and came home after their contract was up

<comment><USER14> Ha, not in all cases:

[http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/772/1/the...](http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/772/1/the- forgotten-american-emigrants-to-the-ussr)

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra Well, people smuggled those watches to Poland after the collapse of USSR to get economy going.

Post-soviet state could not arrange proper exports, imagine that.

<comment><USER7> >Post-soviet state could not arrange proper exports, imagine that.

it was the time of "privatization" and the exports were "privatized" too.

For example Putin got his start in the Russian "business" (after running scared away from his KGB job after the failed coup of 1991) as one of the key persons - he was issuing export licenses, ie. representing that "Post-soviet state" \- in the massive export channel of the "privatized" commodities (mostly metals, some oil, etc) through St.Petersburg(Leningrad). A typical, and relatively small, example of such "privatized" export back then :

[https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/04/19/putin- and-a...](https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2012/04/19/putin-and-a- controversial-past/)

<comment> guard-of-terra There was perhaps a long list of people who could have save the day, and nobody did. As far as I am concerned, the whole society has failed. Blaming it on a handful people is pointless IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If I were to have a watch one day, I would want a Lip watch ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIP_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIP_\(company\)) ), and I want one of the watches that was hidden in the caves.

</comment><comment><USER16> Better link: [http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/how-the-soviets- rev...](http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/how-the-soviets- revolutionized-wristwatches/)

The current link at Hodinkee is just a summary of the collectorsweekly.com article.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, we updated the link from [https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/how-a- bankrupt-rust-belt-w...](https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/how-a-bankrupt- rust-belt-watch-company-kick-started-the-soviet-watch-industry-and-the- obsessive-collector-who-chronicles-their-history).</comment></comment>


Astronomers discover the largest structure in the universe - <AUTHOR> http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/224-news-2013/2212-astronomers-discover-the-largest-structure-in-the-universe

<comment><USER2> That's flippin' HUGE! If the Universe is about 13b years old, then this thing is essentially as about 1/3 the age of the Universe itself.</comment>


Kik, left-pad, and npm - <AUTHOR> http://blog.npmjs.org/post/141577284765/kik-left-pad-and-npm <comment><USER2> Claiming that users would be confused when installing the Kik package is a bit of a bad excuse. Installing a package without knowing what it is or does is simply nonsensical. There's no way of knowing even _how to use_ the package without looking up information about it beforehand. Anyone seriously installing a software package using a developer tool without knowing anything other than the package's name is a fool.

Additionally, the lawyers in question did not seem to want to put a new package online, they simply wanted to take down the existing one. This does not seem to be the intent of the name resolution policy.

This was a bad call on the part of the NPM team, and they should reevaluate how they arbitrate these issues.

<comment><USER3> Kik (the company) wanted to publish an npm module using their trademarked company name[1]. As has long been npm's policy, they asked the trademark holder and the author to work it out amicably. Azer handled the situation about as gracefully as you'd expect from someone who published a module without checking if the name was clear and rage-quit when that decision bit him, bitching about "corporations" and stranding the countless developers who (eventually) depended on one of his modules.

npm and Kik did most-everything right. The problem was in unpublishing already published tags. Once a tag is published, it shouldn't be able to be unpublished except in the most extenuating circumstances (perhaps a brand-new tag that inadvertently included PII). After a name changes hands, the new owner shouldn't be able to publish a new build in any of the major versions the previous owner tagged. Moreover, wholesale unpublishing modules shouldn't be allowed for the exact reasons this incident demonstrated. Based on npm's response, it sounds like they've learned that.

[1]: [https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the- breakin...](https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breaking-of- the-internet-3d4d2a83aa4d#.zgf76kuk3)

<comment><USER4> The problem is that KIK (the company) has no registered trademark for this use. If they had, they (or you) could point to the specific registration that the `kik` project infringed upon.

Any talk about trademarks is irrelevant (and npm even claims in this article that it had nothing to do with their decision).

Additionally, the `kik` package now has this description:

'This package name is not currently in use, but was formerly occupied by a popular package. To avoid malicious use, npm is hanging on to the package name, but loosely, and we\'ll probably give it to you if you want it.'

So...why did this happen again?

<comment><USER5> Because Kik plans to `npm publish kik`, presumably a JS API or something. That is a stock robomessage, though granted, not a very good one under the circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _npm won't suddenly take your package name._

"...unless we do, in which case we will."

I wonder at the cognitive dissonance that has to be there to type a thing like this when the entire shit show started with you doing _exactly_ what you're saying you won't do.

<comment><USER7> I'm not completely up to speed on the situation. Do we know that this happened suddenly?

<comment><USER6> Based on the chats here:

[https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the- breakin...](https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breaking-of- the-internet-3d4d2a83aa4d#.g9g00gzhx)

It does seem that the first contact from NPM to Azer was to tell him they were taking his package. There does seem to be a gap there, so maybe there is more to it.

<comment><USER4> The author of that post claims those transcripts represent the "complete email thread of [their] exchange", but I also have serious doubts about the accuracy of that claim.

Particularly troubling is the 'first' email from KIK|Bob to NPM:

>OK, so it doesn't seem to be possible to resolve this amicably. Can you guys help?

>Bob Stratton

>kik Interactive

If this was a cold-email to NPM, we must assume that Bob is relying on NPM to spend time deciphering the chain mail that he had just forwarded to them.

Words like "it" and "this" suggest that their had been prior correspondence between the parties, but maybe Bob just likes to dump chain mails on other parties while using extremely vague pronouns?

<comment><USER8> Following the Dispute Resolution Policy [1], NPM would have been CCed on the entire chain. This is tl;dr item #2 right at the top:

«2.Email the author, CC firstname.lastname@example.com»

Given other context in the exchange, I would give Bob the benefit of the doubt that he followed Item #2 here and did CC NPM in this discussion.

Additionally Bob is correct that as soon as the F-bomb was thrown it was a clear intent by Azer not to deal amicably with the situation and also a clear violation of the Code of Conduct [2], which is not mentioned in this article because it is directly invoked/linked in by the Dispute Policy, but is also applicable to the actions taken here.

[1] [https://www.npmjs.com/policies/disputes](https://www.npmjs.com/policies/disputes) [2] [https://www.npmjs.com/policies/conduct](https://www.npmjs.com/policies/conduct)

<comment><USER4> Bob clearly started the vulgarities by dropping a D-bomb (and labeling himself and KIK one) in the opening clause of his second email.

KIK|Bob never intended to act amicably and, in fact, admitted as such in cold text.

>We don't mean to be a dick about it, but...

NPM seems to have ignored this blatant violation of their dispute policy and didn't even engage in conversation.

<comment><USER8> That certainly reads to me as an attempt to be colloquially amicable. Certainly it would have put a better foot forward if he had started with something more like "We are trying to do the right thing and...", but minor self-effacing obscenities are something we Americans tend to use in a colloquial, "buddy buddy" way to suggest that we are aware of the complexities of the situation and empathize with the other person's plight and how they must see us. It certainly read amicably to me, but I can also see why it may not read that way to others, especially with out vocal pattern contextual information, and that it may in fact only add to the confusion of the resulting conversation.

(Thinking about it, I wonder if this is something of an l10n/i18n issue... Oh the wonders of global communications and how it can break down.)

<comment><USER9> The whole thing reads to me as a cultural misunderstanding. At least, I wouldn't consider the Kik messages to be be anywhere near appropriate language or tone. Given that npm seemed to be fine with it, I guessed that it's not unacceptable to American ears, but my emotional reaction probably would have been along the same lines as the original author.

<comment><USER4> NPM should not have been fine with it [0]. KIK|Bob's language is in violation of npm's stated Code of Conduct and Dispute Resolution process. If npm actually read KIK|Bob's emails that were sent to Azer, I don't see how they could have allowed that dispute to continue, let alone side with KIK|Bob.

[0] [https://medium.com/@blakelapierre/bob-stratton-and-kik- inter...](https://medium.com/@blakelapierre/bob-stratton-and-kik-interactive- is-a-dick-and-npm-enabled-them-111745581d15#.ijtqfa8pm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "npm did not 'steal' Azer's code."

"npm did not _respect_ Azer's code."

"This incident did not arise because of intellectual property law."

"we believe that a substantial number of users who type npm install kik would be confused to receive code unrelated to the messaging app with over 200 million users."

"This incident _did_ arise because of intellectual property _policy_."

"npm won't suddenly take your package name."

"... except when we do"

<comment><USER11> Shady.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Come on npm, no one blindly does "npm install kik" expecting to install a messenger client.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Open source" doesn't mean the code is free to take over. The blog should have used exact terms on licenses and their TOS.

</comment><comment><USER14> I like to support people that do things to convey their opinion and protest a decision. Sometimes brazen behavior is warranted to get more attention to your cause. But not in this situation. What Azer did seems like a "knee-jerk reaction" performed mostly out of spite.

</comment><comment><USER15> Well he is got balls. You were supposed to be on the side of the developer

</comment><comment><USER16> In other words: npm Inc says they have done nothing wrong and the only problem is the ability to unpublish versions other people depend on. This matches the way npm employees have been responding to the outrage on twitter yesterday.

However there are two causes for outrage here:

1\. Azer unpublished a module a large number of projects depended on (mostly indirectly via babel, which itself depended on it indirectly via a line numbers package), breaking everyone's installs.

2\. npm Inc handed over the kik package name used by azer for an actively maintained project to kik Interactive who previously tried to strongarm azer with vague legal threats unsuccessfully.

Personally I find #2 far more troubling but if you listen to what npm Inc and its employees have to say it's as if this isn't even worth mentioning.

A representative of kik Interactive asked azer for the package name (after having already published their own package on npm under a different name). Azer said no thank you, so the same person responded with an underhanded threat (but no actual legal claim) -- to which azer understandbly responded unfavourably.

Then the same person contacted npm Inc with wording that strongly implies he isn't looking for mediation but for npm Inc to do what azer refuses to do -- but with no indication that failure to comply would put npm Inc itself at any legal risk (which the statement now acknowledges although npm Inc employees have indicated otherwise before @ag_dubs clarified). And npm Inc just does exactly that.

As far as npm Inc and kik Interactive have been truthful about the exchanges that took place, at no point did npm Inc try to mediate between kik Interactive and azer over the use of the package name or alternate package names and the intended use by kik Interactive.

Npm Inc is behaving like a private company here. That's okay and they've done so in the past and repeatedly made it clear that they are a private company and offer the npm public registry as a free service and the npm client as an open source project.

However what is not okay is that npm Inc wishes to maintain an exclusive monopoly and special status within the node ecosystem by being an upstream dependency for the node project (the npm project existed before the formation of npm Inc as a private company and the npm registry was only transferred to npm Inc after it had already become the blessed module registry for node).

Right now node itself is under the control of the Node Foundation but npm (both the client and the registry) is under the control of npm Inc. The npm client and registry hold a special status within the node project by being shipped alongside node (which has previously resulted in licensing problems when npm Inc made changes to their license without notifying the node project) and being treated as "the" node module registry.

This means a non-trivial part of the node ecosystem -- as advertised and spread by the node project -- is under sole control of a private company. Further, npm employees are members of the Node Foundation and influencing it as such -- including Ashley Williams who was elected as a representative for the Node Foundation members despite an obvious conflict of interest (consciously or not) due to her prominent role at npm Inc.

It's a clusterfuck and I only see two options:

1\. npm Inc continues to maintain the registry and client but stops interfering with attempts to replace npm as the authoritative module registry for the node project (leading to the eventual replacement of the registry and client by something under the control of the Node Foundation).

2\. npm Inc defers arbitration and governance of the public npm registry to a Node Foundation committee (which they may join through the normal ways but hold no special status in), effectively giving control over policies to the Node Foundation (formalizing their special status without giving them as much power over the node project as they currently have).

</comment><comment><USER4> Some interesting things to note:

NPM claims intellectual property issues had nothing to do with their dispute resolution.

NPM disregarded Azer's unpublish request by restoring `firstname.lastname@example.com` from a backup of Azer's original publishing, __not __by repackaging the liberally licensed source.

NPM claims the full dispute resolution policy is still in place, yet many of the packages that have been taken over currently have no usable code and/or are being 'squatted' in direct contradiction of that policy.</comment>


UN: There will be 50 million climate refugees by 2010 (oops, 2020) - <AUTHOR> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/15/the-un-disappears-50-million-climate-refugees-then-botches-the-disappearing-attempt/

<comment><USER2> Without dismissing climate change as a serious potential problem, I have a couple of points:

1\. Bill Gates once remarked that when projecting five years out, we tend to over-estimate the amount of progress you expect to see, but we wind up wildly underestimating the amount of change you see over a ten year period. Exponential growth looks flat before it looks linear before you get to the hockey stick. (And being start-up people, we know those hockey sticks always materialize…)

2\. This sort of crap the U.N. pulls—see also the UK's reports suggesting we abandon backhoes and go back to employing humans to dig ditches—is based on political or quasi-religious beliefs and not practical economic analysis. Maybe there will be fifty million climate refuges, but then maybe most of those people will move to a city where they contribute to their societies' wealth far more than they would have wherever they were displaced from. The word "refugee" may have some sort of value-neutral definition, but in this case it's clearly suggesting that people are worse-off for being displaced. That is not necessarily the case. (Yes, I'm a Bjorn Lomborg fan.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Large parts of the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are underwater, as they have been every year for the past several years:

[http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110417/man...](http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110417/manitoba- flooding-110417/20110417/?hub=EdmontonHome)

The reason being that global warming is causing increased snowfall and therefore increased runoff each spring.

But since yummyfajitas doesn't read about this on his climate-change denial website, it doesn't exist.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a really scummy climate change denial website.

One great example is their coverage of ClimateGate, which is all about the negative:

<http://wattsupwiththat.com/climategate/>

But completely avoids mentioning that all investigates cleared the original subjects and found no wrong doing:

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

<comment><AUTHOR> So what? Original sources are provided, so the provenance of the author is irrelevant.

Here is the google cache of the article: [http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate- refuge...](http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees- by-2010)

Here is the image (which has not yet been taken down): <http://maps.grida.no/library/files/storage/11kap9climat.png>

Here is a mirror of the image, just in case they do take it down: <http://imgur.com/l7LQv>

As for the "investigates" which "cleared" the original subjects, they are merely political whitewashes which narrowly define "wrong doing" in such a way as to make sure the CRU actions don't meet that definition. I explain why in this thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1493976>

The fact that the CRU folks conspired to hide data is not in doubt.

Apart from lowering the status of the author of the article, what value do you believe your post adds?</comment></comment>