Diaspora - Moving Forward - <AUTHOR> http://blog.joindiaspora.com/2011/05/16/moving-forward.html <comment><USER2> "For the past few months, we've been pretty quiet, because we've been hard at work."

They are building a product whose success requires overcoming network effects. 90% of what they need to work hard on is not being quiet.

<comment><USER3> Diaspora is an open-source, decentralized system. While there may be a canonical installation on a big official "social network", there can be some meaningful separation here between the engineering and the marketing, and I think it's good that they're trying to get a decent foundation in place before they go all over trying to market.

<comment><USER4> With all due respect, they don't seem to be the most experienced engineers to solve the problem. Opening up to a larger community who is ready and willing to help would only be beneficial.

<comment><USER5> I see your point but one could ask is experience as important as vision and drive? If they were to open it up they would then be inexperienced engineers trying to learn to manage a community of engineers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Im pretty upset with their performance in general. When I develop, I release quickly and iterate like my life depended on it. I would have loved to see them start standing up real servers to get people joining and over time they overcame bugs, new features etc.... They haven't even done that. Its quite a shame they have taken the Microsoft approach to releasing code and NOT taken the Facebook Approach to releasing code. If they ever wish to take over the social environment, they MUST release then build instead of build then release.

Its driving me crazy that I can't even start using their service all the while Facebook over takes all social networks.

<comment><USER7> You CAN use their service, there are a large number of open diaspora servers, and you can even set up your own if you want.

Problem is, once you're on there, none of your friends are, and even if you manage to convince even a fraction of your facebook friends to come across, it still totally lacks functionality. At the moment all you can do is post pictures and status updates, thats it.

I would love to see regular updates of exactly what they're working on without having to monitor their git repo. Just assuring us they're working on it every couple of months while asking for more money and more time is very very dodgy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> All that post really said was: "We're still alive."

Edit: I expected some insight into where it's going, given the headline.

<comment><USER9> .. which is a good thing.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but a post with some substance would have been better :)

<comment><USER11> Agreed. I was really excited to see something about the company's new ideas/direction only to be left empty handed. Let's just hope a lot of the talk about "speeding up" will actually take place. Granted, it is a team of four so they're only able to produce so much so quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A lot of people have related to Diaspora as if it's a startup, but it isn't. It's a free software project, and the rules and expectations are very different.

<comment><USER13> I was at a conference a couple weeks ago and the Diaspora team was there talking about how they are in the process of talking with vc's.

<comment><USER14> They also got around 250k in funding.

<comment><USER15> $190k[1] before Kickstarter took its cut (5%, plus an estimated 3-5% from credit card fees[2]), which conservatively puts it at more like $175k. Also, that was a full year ago. If the guys decided to pay themselves a year's salary out of that (and there were no taxes and other fees to pay), that's ~$44k/person.

1\. [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora- the-p...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the- personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr) 2\. <http://www.kickstarter.com/start> (bottom)

Edit: I forgot to mention, there was a fraudulent $10k donation included in the 200k, that's why I'm starting that much lower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Everytime I read anything from those guys, it's all just a bunch of words, hype and promises.

<comment><USER17> You can go download their code now, run it, and contribute to the project.

Maybe they should make more public-facing updates about individual features and changes in their software, but (as is hinted to in their post) it seems like they are limited in their resources.

The Diaspora guys have the really-actually-unique challenge of developing an open-source project entirely in the open coupled with attention and radically differing expectations from thousands of people. It's kind of nuts, really. Would you want to be in their position?

<comment><USER18> They dug their own hole.

<comment><USER19> Well, it's more like:

They started digging a hole for fun in their backyard. Then the Army Corps of Engineers showed up, gave them some cash, and told them to divert the Mississippi.

<comment><USER20> No one forced them to take the cash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really hate to piss on Diaspora parade but people are kind of fed up with new social networks, they don't want to change again and again. I believe FB is the final draw as far as generic social networking goes, besides, FB is too embedded around the web.

FB has more than 500M users, if privacy and data is what drives Diaspora, for most web users that's almost useless since FB already "owns it". Maybe geeks use it, but I don't see it gaining anything relevant compared to Facebook or Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER22> As I said before, my only interaction with them is an email I sent them a while ago (more than a year ago), advising them to seize the opportunity to create a p2p framework for social applications to be built on top on, taking care of permissions, friendlists, authentication, etc under the hood to allow developers to build the fun stuff on top of that.

The response I got, six months later, was to the effect of a brief "thank you for your email, answers to some of your questions can be found in the FAQ".

<comment><USER17> I think you are being way too harsh here. They obviously get a lot of emails, and they're being pulled in a lot of different directions ("distributed social networking!", "privacy!", "a drop-in facebook replacement!")

Maybe they won't amount to much, but criticising them because they didn't respond to your email is not fair.

<comment><USER22> I'm not criticising the project, just detailing my account. I just wish they actually read my email, at least...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What an abstract collection of words. This post doesn't contain a single tangible sentence.

"We are working on an outline of what we have learnt so far, and where we see Diaspora going in the next year."

Right.

</comment><comment><USER24> They should take a look at how BitTorrent is trying to build a P2P social network. Maybe they could get a few ideas from there and implement them. I'd like to see a social network where a true "global" community can be formed, and by that I don't mean only having people from everywhere, but also having people and communities that don't answer to any one Government, at least related to what they post in that social network. I'd like to see a social network that would make revolutions even easier, and even allow the Chinese to make one if they want to, and for that it needs to be very safe and very decentralized so it can't be stopped.

</comment><comment><USER25> Diaspora will be the Hurd of social networking.

<comment><USER26> But the point is not Diaspora, the point is distributed social networking.

Diaspora is raising awareness, it's bootstraping a movement around it, and it's contributing to the technology required to make distributed social networking possible (protocols, algorithms).

Perhaps they'll be the Hurd of social networking. So long as there's a Linux, I say let them be the Hurd.

<comment><USER25> That wasn't a criticism, just an observation. It was a bit of a Rorschach statement - people have read in to it whatever they want.

That said, I haven't really seen much from them in the way of developing protocols, etc. They had the money many other projects could've used to get farther, and what would have been better stewardship of the donations would have been to use that money to spearhead a movement between existing projects to interoperate and create formal standards. Instead, they spent several months and gave us insecure rails code.

Now _that_ is my criticism.

<comment><USER26> Then we probably share very similar views? :-)

<comment><USER26> Then we probably share very similar views? :-)

\--- EDIT:

You make a very good point: for the money they got, they could be creating more value (or creating value differently). I'd prefer if they released a stripped-down 1.0 that anyone could dig into; right now, they're centralizing too many design decisions.

As far as developing technology goes, a working proof of concept should be as good a starting point as any and that's what they're doing. (Sure: not the best practice out there, to develop first and document later, but in this particular arena, I'm a pathological satisficer: just get the bloody thing done.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> They are going to have to move more quickly if they want to make a dent. I respect that they're still going strong, but the fact that they haven't done anything yet speaks louder.

</comment><comment><USER28> Diaspora had a lot of momentum and was endorsed by famous names, but failed to engage with and target the target market - which is mainly software folks and freedom beards running ARM servers. Only once you have a sufficient developer community (a high enough beard count) can you hope to take on the unwashed user masses and industry pteranodons. Probably one of their main mistakes was not to use the accumulated funding to support someone in the role of a community manager. To engage with developers and early adopters you need to have regular and informative communication, and Diaspora's blog output has woefully fulfilled neither of those criteria.

</comment><comment><USER29> The tone is defeatist, I wouldn't expect the project to survive another year.

</comment><comment><USER30> They should let me in on what they are doing with my 1k pledge.

</comment><comment><USER31> Am I the only one who'd basically forgotten about Diaspora until this popped up?

</comment><comment><USER32> I like how they make the ridiculous claim that they are the third search result for "github" on google. What probably happened is they have personalized search on and they upped themselves to #3 by clicking themselves so much.

See [http://www.google.com/search?q=github&pws=0](http://www.google.com/search?q=github&pws=0)

</comment><comment><USER33> I wouldn't be surprised to see Diaspora bring on some more experienced, less risk-tolerant engineers in the near future. They have a grand vision, for which the "minimum" viable product is almost identical to the final version, and bringing more manpower to bear on the problem might not be a bad idea.

<comment><USER12> Funds are probably an issue. $200k may seem like a lot, but it isn't when you start hiring professionals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I thank the Diaspora community so much for creating such a large-scale open source Rails application. Coming from years of PHP experience, I had such a hard time learning and getting used to Rails, but digging through the Diaspora repository has really helped me in terms of understanding what should be considered "production level" Rails code.

<comment><USER35> Except, famously, it's not.

<comment><USER34> Could you give me any examples of what you would consider to be production ready?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What I don't get... why not just use elgg...?

<comment><USER12> It seems as though Ruby (and maybe Rails) was at least one of the reasons why existing open source social networking projects like Elgg, Appleseed, etc. weren't used as a basis for Diaspora.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> That's pretty interesting. I never knew that Diaspora is using Ruby on Rails.

</comment><comment><USER38> The alternative would be to be "Moving backwards". Why not discuss about their design choices instead? or their choice of programming language? Why do we need an invite to try it? What if the social networking fad wanes before they release v 1.0?

</comment><comment><USER39> Diaspora needs to just launch. They are repeating the same mistake Google Wave made. If it's invitation only, your friends are not on it, so there's no reason to use it.

I give it 0.01% chance of succeeding if keep things the way they are.

Seriously, a year of fucking development? Facebook launched after a few hours.

<comment><USER12> _Seriously, a year of fucking development? Facebook launched after a few hours._

It amazes me the kinds of expectations people have. I mean, Diaspora is partly to blame with making huge promises and feeding the hype machine, but that can only be a small fraction of the problem, the ideas people have about what's possible in this problem domain is really off the charts. Even hackers and geeks, who really should know better.

A year is nothing compared to the scope of what they're trying to solve. Appleseed, Elgg, OneSocialWeb, etc. have all been in development for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Cool, but my startup is doing something similar. <http://openpoke.org/2011/05/16/moving-forward.html>

<comment><USER4> All you linked to is your picture...?

<comment><USER41> It's the profile pic of a parody twitter account. Not sure what the source of the image is though.

<http://twitter.com/hipsterhacker>

<comment><USER12> It's Rivers Cuomo from Weezer.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Probably the only time anything related to Justin Bieber will be on HN - <AUTHOR> http://soundcloud.com/shamantis/j-biebz-u-smile-800-slower?page=1 <comment><USER2> Ha. I told my daughter about this this morning - she hadn't heard about it. I give it 2-to-1 odds she would have heard about it by this evening. That there's a meme a-borning. Brilliant. (Also I'm always happy when I see something before she does; it mildly confuses her. I alluded to Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog last month and she said, "What? You've heard of that?" Child. Of course I've heard of it.)

<comment><USER3> "Child." I love it! Oh how they think they know everything and have a monopoly on that information.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The software referenced in the description Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch is truly cool. Turns any sound/music into a texture <http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/>

My gut says this might be the beginning of a new fad.

<comment><USER4> I couldn't compile paulstretch under Linux but got it working via WINE and wrote up what I did - <http://alicious.com/2010/paul-stretch-download/>, also made a short sample of my own making available and linked to a CDN copy of the track in question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rob Beschizza points out that "speeding up Sigur Ros," however "does not result in Biebage":

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6YC0zy1IYY&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6YC0zy1IYY&feature=player_embedded)

<comment> matthew-wegner I discovered that seeking through Sigur Ros on my car's CD player sounds pretty awesome (the skippy sound is how it seeks): <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/173540/Misc/sr_cd_seek.mp3>

And the original: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWMDfJEkQDs>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just 8x slowed down Daft Punk - Aerodynamic (Using the tool mentioned in obiefernandez's post). I liked it a lot so I have uploaded it here, for whoever wants a listen:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRFwzub7yGc>

<comment><USER7> Godspeed you! Daft Emperor

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't get it. What exactly is going on? Am I looking for a picture or sound?

<comment><USER9> If you use software to severely stretch a bubblegum pop sound from a teen heartthrob, you get atmospheric music which is by turns haunting and vaguely spiritual. Some of it puts me in the mood of Gregorian chants or my mental image of the music they describe in sci-fi books to demonstrate that the Buddhists-in-space aliens are better than humans.

<comment><USER10> Try some Gregorian chants run through the extender

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Daft Punk used this sort of extreme time stretching in the opening of their Alive tour in 2007. They used (I think) the stretching algorithm in Ableton Live to cut one of their hooks down to 1/10 speed or so before slowly bring it back up to normal. You can listen below (about one minute in).

[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1138681157301244564...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1138681157301244564#)

<comment><USER12> BT used this kind of time stretching on one of the tracks on This Binary Universe.

I don't recall which one, but he took the entire drum stem for the song and compressed it (rather than stretching it) to run in some special ratio to the length of the song. Sounds fantastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone commented on SoundCloud, this is the first time anything on SoundCloud has gone viral. 450K hits and rising. I hope for many others!!!

<comment><USER14> I remember an "infinite" (1 hour long) music on soundcloud being quite popular too. Maybe James Brown, I don't remember clearly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Check out: <http://slowitup.com>. Every day I hope to collect and curate the best slowed down songs submitted by readers. Should be online within the hour. Inspired by and dedicated to the awesome Reddit sub-topic (<http://www.reddit.com/r/slowitup>)

</comment><comment><USER16> The first few minutes sounds like a collaboration between Brian Eno and Deerhunter. Very ambient and atmospheric.

</comment><comment><USER17> Having never heard of Justin Bieber, I just tried listening to the original track. Bland.</comment>


The Valentine's Day Text Message Mystery - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/style/text-message-valentines.html <comment><USER2> Oddly enough, I just saw this pop up on Reddit, as an awkward consequence of the vanishing/reappearing text messages:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/dsyzo1...](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/dsyzo1/29f_i_received_a_text_from_my_boyfriend_29m_that/)

tl;dr: someone thought her boyfriend was cheating because a message he'd likely sent months ago appeared in the middle of the night

<comment><USER3> There could be some very pretty big consequences to this screw up. It would seem the a prompt message of explanation might be a good idea. But it's a teleco, so that would seem unlikely.

<comment><USER4> > to this screw up

While it's likely explained by other commenters as a possible replay of previously sent messages, AFAIK there is no SLA for the guaranteed windows of SMS delivery.

Also, "pretty big consequences" rarely apply when you enter into a "binding arbitration" clause with your cell phone provider.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Third party doctrine is a known loophole to the surveillance state for getting around pesky privacy laws, and my gut instinct tells me this third party sms gateway is a goldmine for whatever prism has become these days. TOS/EULAs probably say they can do whatever they want with your data including sharing with third parties so they have a legal out because it's not just the corporations influencing congress via K-street, but because the military industrial congressional complex has a vested interest in providers not protecting our privacy, and will railroad any provider that tries to stand up to them (see: Quest).

Congress on both sides is utterly corrupt and unrepresentative and until America wakes up to that fact and stops playing the two-party game nothing will change. (duvergers law has many weaknesses)

<comment><USER6> The carriers keep everything anyway.

<comment><USER5> This is true but slightly different regulations will apply to the data.

<comment><USER7> Regulations? Those rules the government makes? I bet they look the other way when they are the ones asking for data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Worth noting that SMS does not guarantee delivery in any way and can take unspecified amount of time to deliver. I've often seen messages delivered days or weeks after being sent.

<comment><USER9> We need TCP over SMS!

<comment><USER10> But then you can't send texts if the other person's phone is off, out of range, or otherwise without service...

and I think you mean backwards, SMS over TCP.

<comment><USER9> Well, you typically layer TCP over an unreliable lower-level transport to get reliable transmission, so that works, too.

Also, SMS over TCP sounds somewhat reasonable, so I didn't wanna go with that.

<comment><USER11> SMS over TCP over SMS

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Non-paywall link: [http://archive.is/0v5YA](http://archive.is/0v5YA)

<comment><USER13> Connection refused ?

<comment><USER14> Your DNS (lots of threads/comments on HN, such as [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317)).

tl;dr: Don't use 220.127.116.11

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There was an amusing story on the most recent episode of the Verge's podcast, where they mentioned that when they assigned a reporter to cover this story, the bulk of the time he spent on it was just making sure it wasn't some kind of viral marketing scheme for an upcoming romcom film or something.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is one of the reason why the Apple iOS messaging app is so popular. IIUC, when sending messages among users who have iPhones, SMS is not used.

<comment><USER17> Or WhatsApp, if you want to message people who aren't on ios.

<comment><USER18> Or signal, which has similar functionality but is always end to end encrypted and open source.

<comment><USER8> ...or Matrix, or XMPP, which are decentralized and where attaching your phone number to account is optional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's crushing when these phantom texts come back from people who had died or had long been missing.

</comment><comment><USER20> some previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21474961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21474961)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently the NYT since then was able to coax a possible explanation from Verizon, and from the company that Verizon et al uses:

> _On Thursday afternoon, after many unreciprocated emails were sent to > carriers, a spokesman for Verizon suggested that the answer might lie with a > third-party text message service provider called Syniverse Technologies, in > Tampa, Fla._

> _Was Syniverse the vendor responsible?_

> _"You really need to ask them that," the Verizon spokesman said._

> ... _Late in the afternoon on Thursday, a spokesman for the company, Kevin > Petschow, said in an email: "During an internal maintenance cycle last > night, 168,149 previously undelivered text messages were inadvertently sent > to multiple mobile operators' subscribers."_

<comment><USER20> Looks like that was speculated here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21478218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21478218)

<comment><USER21> That reads like someone with specific inside knowledge IMO.

<comment><USER22> Note that it's currently the only comment from that user, and the username looks like a random throwaway (unless vb6sp6 is a big fan of Visual Basic 6.0, Service Pack 6).

But maybe it's an obvious guess to a wide number of people with knowledge of that general ecosystem of companies.

<comment><USER21> I'm guessing it was someone within Verizon up-stream, given they were thrown under the bus. They'd know who was to blame, would potentially resent their employer being linked, and could pass off their comment as a guess if pressured.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Trump Allows U.S. Sales to Huawei as Trade Talks Resume - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-says-he-is-set-to-discuss-huawei-with-xi-11561769726?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> So does this mean that the security aspect of blocking Huawei was just FUD?

Or does this mean that the US is willing to ignore security issues for a "deal"?

<comment><USER3> Looks like it only applies to products which do not affect national security.

>At the request of our High Tech companies, and President Xi, I agreed to allow Chinese company Huawei to buy product from them which will not impact our National Security.

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/11450977744023429...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1145097774402342912)

<comment><USER2> In other words policy that has applied to all companies all the time.

The US has always required approval for stuff that would affect national security (as an example, the recent WSJ article about AMD).</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Unicode Fonts for iOS/Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.sprezzkeyboard.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey All, I built the website for my app this past weekend to unleash unicode 'fonts' for the web! Hope you all enjoy and нαρρу нσℓι∂αуѕ!

A couple variations you can copy/paste almost anywhere:

🅜̇🅔̇🅡̇🅡̇🅨̇ ⠀⠀🅒̇🅗̇🅡̇🅘̇🅢̇🅣̇🅜̇🅐̇🅢̇

M҉e҉r҉r҉y҉⠀⠀C҉h҉r҉i҉s҉t҉m҉a҉s҉

</comment><comment><USER2> Tried to rate the iOS app to get more keyboards but it keeps crashing :( cool though!

<comment><AUTHOR> There's an edge case that's triggering crash we're aware of. Submitted an update to Apple with fix but unfortunately iTunes Connect went on holiday before it was approved so have to wait till January to release :/</comment></comment>


14 Poisoned by Wild Death Cap Mushrooms in California - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/death-cap-mushroom-poisoning_us_5932249ce4b0c242ca244615 <comment><USER2> One has to wonder what they thought they were. There aren't any beginner-safe lookalikes.

<comment><USER3> People have been known to mistake them for _volvariella volvacea_ or _amanita brunnescens_.

The article doesn't say how young the specimens these people ate were. Mushrooms that seem obvious as adults can be harder to identify when young.</comment></comment>


Show HN: RaspChat a chat system that can handle thousands of users on basic RPi - <AUTHOR> https://beta.raspchat.com/ <comment><USER3> WARNING: yes, i am going to be THAT guy...

.

.

.

It amazes me that "thousands" of users sending simple messages is considered impressive nowadays on a machine with a xxxxMHz CPU and at least xxxMB ram.

This was being done decades ago on xxMB ram and xxxMHz.

sister comment says 100MB/1K connections, 150MB for 2K, so 50KB/connection and 50MB fixed cost?!!?

-

Dump Javascript/Go/$RANDOM_LATEST_BUZZWORD_7 and learn how to program [in C] if you actually want an impressive number of users per MHz/per MB

This is doable on a Cortex-M4 and an ethernet MAC...

<comment><USER4> The chat portion was written in Golang, so it's compiled and running on bare metal (edit: okay, PL0 or ring-3, like most software today)

<comment><USER3> not even close to bare metal...

Go runtime, GC, random userspace bits this is on top of

50MB!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's pretty slick looking. I realy like the interface.

I find it hard to believe a Pi can handle thousands of concurrent users though. How does it handle that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to hear you like it. Server is written to be lightweight and keeping things simple helped a lot. NodeJS totally sucked memory, Golang helped a lot in that perspective.

<comment><USER5> Got server load averages? how much ram is used?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1K parallel connections were handled under 100MB of memory. 2K were around 150MB

<comment><USER3> 50KB/connection and 50MB fixed cost?!!?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nops nothing is fixed it's just one scenario, besides your math is wrong. 50KB/connection won't map to 2000 connections.

<comment><USER6> (rate of) change in memory per user

        150MB    - <USER2>
        </comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-  =  50KB/user
        2k users - 1k users

no?

<comment><AUTHOR> if 0 -> 1000 users is 100MB, how can you explain 1000 -> 2000 with 150MB

<comment><USER7> Fixed cost: 50 MB

Variable Cost: 50KB/user

50 + 1000 * (0.05) => 100 MB

50 + 2000 * (0.05) => 150 MB

Pretty straightforward?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well if that's the math that works for you, but I won't assume anything here. If I would have written it in C or Rust lang I would have given quoted a more deterministic memory usage. Bottom line, benchmarks just quoted numbers. Should have put up a Notice disclaimer in comment as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool, could be very useful for things look like occupy Wall Street or even on a long plane ride with no internet!

</comment><comment><USER4> Which parts are Go and which parts are Node?

<comment><AUTHOR> Backend and server is compiled in Go, NodeJS is only used for asset compilation (for frontend) and minification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This chat is pretty cool I especially enjoy the "/gif" command.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep syntax is /gif <keywords>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome thing !

</comment><comment><USER11> nice job on this</comment>


Ask HN: What does de-motivate you? - <AUTHOR>

We have discussed several times about motivation. But what does really de-motivate you and can make you under-perform? Is it a person(miserable colleague, pushy boss)? What about the deadlines and the constraints of the job? Can an programming framework play the role of the major demotivator? <comment><USER2> I've noticed very aggressive, negative and curt responses by anyone knock most peoples moods.</comment>


Simpleicons.org: over 1000 Free SVG icons for popular brands - <AUTHOR> https://simpleicons.org/ <comment><USER2> What is the use case for brand logos?

<comment><USER3> Social icons in footer, or for project icons in portfolios, etc.</comment></comment>


US DoD signs $617 million Windows 8 licensing deal - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jan13/01-04DoDPR.aspx

<comment><USER2> The title is very wrong and the HN comments so far miss the point that windows is a tiny portion of that deal. I don't know the details, but judging by the products involved, I would say no more than 5-10%. Exchange, Sharepoint, all of Office client and server suites, SQL maybe some private cloud, virtualization, monitoring software, dedicated support, maybe some custom DoD regulatory stuff for records management and whatnot, that's what they're paying for.

I do know that the Army was making extensive use of Sharepoint on the fields in Irak for example.

<comment><USER3> Also this wasn't a deal with microsoft it was a deal with Insight Enterprises so expect a large portion of that deal to go towards consulting

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In reality this isn't that much money. When you consider that the entirity of the DoD runs on Exchange. They are heavy users of sharepoint and in addition to all the Desktops the DoD uses Windows on most of their deployed systems you quickly get to a staggering number of desktops and systems. Then we can start on office by then your at maybe half the actual cost. If you look this was sold to a reseller and I would venture a guess that a good chunk is for actual deployments integrating CaC cards and working with Network operators.

While I would fully support the DoD taking the plung and switching over to Linux for desktops the truth is I don't think there is a Linux vendor out there (Including Red Hat and Oracle ) that has the support infrastructure to deal with the amount of support the DoD will require. It would make more sense to get the DoD migrated to a standards based deployment that was inter- operable between divisions and vendors. Then you would see Linux support shops start to take away friendly divisions and slowly get market share. Without that your never going to see anything but a Microsoft monopoly.

<comment><USER4> Also if i recall correctly with Windows it was much easier to make OS images (modifying straight from the master gold images), while RedHat and OpenSUSE merely came with a long list of configurations to perform on the PC in meeting the requirements in DoD 8500-2. Granted full deployment would probably change this, however to be used software gets checked out for 'networthiness', and unfortunately there isn't a lot of COTS software for linux. Switching from anything but Windows would be overly expensive - just isn't worth it as long as Windows maintains a good level of backward compatibility (unlike Apple).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My understanding of Windows (which I admittedly have not used day-to-day for the past two years) is that most businesses have typically upgraded on "off- years" (or to make an analogy to Intel's tick-tock yearly release schedule, let's call them "tock" years)

If I understand correctly, the upgrade path looks something like NT4 => XP => Windows 7, skipping Windows 2000 and Windows Vista.

I've not heard of a large customer like this adopting such an experimental release. It certainly seems strange to me, especially considering Windows 8's tepid reception in the marketplace.

Anyone understand the reasoning for adopting this release instead of holding out for the next one, where (hopefully) all the egregious mistakes they've made redesigning the UI will have some sort of acceptable resolution?

<comment><USER3> The DoD was heavy users of every version of windows thats been released. For a while there was a large number of users and divisions that stuck with XP, but for the most part they just get the newest thing out there. The DoD doesn't operate like a giant corporation they are more like thousands of corporations that have a weird and convoluted relationship to each other.

<comment><USER6> There's probably quite a bit of infrastructure still on XP though, which could help explain a move to Win8

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, Ubuntu could help if they wanted to save money, but unfortunately Ubuntu has not gone through the hoops of getting official rubber stamp certifications that say Redhat's RHEL has [http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industry/government/certific...](http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industry/government/certifications.html)

There a good amount of money to be made selling software to the government. They are easily deceived and manipulated to over pay for support as well.

You just have to have someone full time who is trained in navigating the red tape and the network of connections.

<comment><USER3> Ubuntu ( and Debian ) are approved for use. They just might require a specific setup and might require verification they are secure, while RHEL can be used out of the box.

<comment><USER7> Do you have more info on this?

So far we found it is easier to just use RHEL for everything. Up until just recently only RHEL 5 (but now also RHEL 6) since it has full FIPS140-2 and EAL4 certifications.

<comment><USER3> DISA has their list of approved Operating Systems. You can request they approve your configuration if its not already on the list and they will run Retina scans and other checks on it to verify it is secure and then you can use it. Some products like RHEL are pre-vetted so you can just say I am using RHEL and check off that box on the form you must submit to your CTO every now and then. At least that's the way it was where I worked.

I would use more nouns to describe everything and even give you a link to the site, but I think its CaC secured and I left the DoD a few years ago because of these very kinds of issues so I no longer have all this memorized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> And this, after Biden said that he wants to cut $20B from the DoD spending... Really wouldn't be cheaper with something else? Maybe I'm missing something, but a Windows OS by itself takes probably couple to dozen GB, and if this is installed on a tablet device, or even on SSD laptop - this takes significant amount of space (probably to solve SxS issues (dll side-by side versions) which also grows quite big with newer updates).

And then you would have to instruct your personnel to learn two interfaces - Metro, or who knows how it's called, and the old one.

And for that all monitors better be touch-capable, otherwise - what's the point of Windows 8?

I simply don't get it... Me & My wife are both using OSX, and we are happy, and while I understand that this is probably more expensive (or maybe... not) - there is completely free OS alternatives - not one, but at least couple decent.

If a big portion of the internet is built behind free OS, I don't see why DoD can't go with that option too.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps running their existing applications is a consideration? Or retraining costs? There are plenty of reasons that the total cost of ownership might be lower with Windows.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, retraining and existing software costs probably make this transition not as overall expensive as it sounds. Now that being said, it would be nice to know that part of the ongoing cost-cutting would be switching specific groups to open source over time so that retraining and existing software becomes a non-issue

<comment><USER6> Switching at the level of groups sounds like a terrible idea. Suddenly nobody is using the same software. You think an MS Office-only environment is bad? Try an environment with MS Office, Open Office, Star Office, and Google Docs all used as SOP in different parts of the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You would think these folks could write their own OS for that kind of money.

<comment><USER12> I think its a good idea, except there is some ass-backwards rules to stop this; OMB Circular A-130. The Senate also added to the NDAA 2013 to ensure a "less expensive" commercial software is used.

"The bill indicates that Accumulo may violate OMB Circular A-130, a government policy that bars agencies from building software if it's less expensive to use commercial software that's already available. And according to one congressional staffer who worked on the bill, this is indeed the case. He asked that his name not be used in this story, as he's not authorized to speak with the press." [http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/nsa-accumulo- go...](http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/nsa-accumulo-google- bigtable/)

<comment><USER11> Ah, why am I still surprised... When you can't compete on technical merit, legislate away the competition!

<comment><USER12> Exactly. It's not they couldn't make requirements unable to be fulfilled by commercial software. It's that Senators and Congressman start getting complaints from the lobbyists representing the competition, and get legislation passed to make it go away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Was the DoD primarily using Windows XP up to this point? It would make sense for them to move to 8 if that was the case, given the longer support lifetime.

<comment><USER14> Windows 7 for most, XP for some groups and specific applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dear DoD, if you are missing the Start Button, please consider installing Classic Shell - <http://classicshell.sourceforge.net> :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Iirc, Windows 8 has a lot of optimization/improvements going on behind the Metro UI so it's a sound investment to keep their systems future-proof. Everyone's bitching about Metro UI but I'd think for a deal that big they could probably get Microsoft to fork over a non-Metro version if needed. Plus from my friends that work in the DoD they're heavily Windows-based (Windows Server/IIS/ASP/.NET) so it makes sense to continue that instead of retraining for a *nix based system.

</comment><comment><USER16> When this happened in Egypt is spawned protests: [http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/activists-protest- micro...](http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/activists-protest-microsoft- deal) while I would support an all linux DoD, I wish even more that one day I might be passionate enough to do something more about it.

</comment><comment><USER17> And the city of Munich, which is small compared to DoD users saved $17Mill by switching all their users over to Linux.

<comment><USER18> The city of Munich and DoD have so little in common that I do not understand how you could possibly think this was relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The classified systems will still use Linux, luckily.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, would have been fun to see NSA to operate under Windows. ;-)

<comment><USER21> Um, you might want to check out that National Geographic video on the NSA... You'll see a few Linux screenshots, but most of the screens are Windows. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Quq67h8j_OY>

Now as to their backend systems, who knows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is the majority of the DoD employees going to use touchscreen computers? If not, the Metro interface will just get in their way, and they'll need some retraining, too. If anything they should've gone with Windows 7. I think it's supported at least until 2020 (and if Windows 8/9 doesn't catch off, probably longer).

Also, the deal makes it to about $2,000 per user per 3 years. Isn't that...expensive? How much would the taxpayers have saved if they had gone Linux?

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately there's no support organization big enough to implement Linux in the dod. I would think that only Microsoft has the experience to support such customers with endless use cases.

<comment><USER24> IBM? 400k employees and they kinda know their *nix.</comment></comment></comment>


Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50604035 <comment><USER3> A lot of companies are actively factoring this into their HR model.

Their model is to hire fresh people and burn them out.

Increasingly this is the direction western corporations are moving. Their ideal model is: place performance quotas above long term sustainability, people then burn themselves out, you then fire them for performance reasons, and you have them on an aggressive noncompete and threaten them with it when they try to work elsewhere after. Totally consume them. Basically institutionalised "f--k you", gleefully chewing up other human beings.

In some ways we're moving to something worse than slavery. At least with slaves they were seen as "assets" rather than "temporary rentals". They had to take care of them out of necessity, so their evil had that limit on it.

<comment> barry-cotter Companies that expect people to work this hard are almost exclusively very well paying entry level jobs for fresh graduates with an up or out structure like I-Banking, management consisting or law. People know what they're getting into when they start these jobs. The hours and workload are not a secret. Most people do their two years and get out. A lot of it amounts to pointless hazing but no one is deceived into thinking Goldman Sachs has a great work life balance.

The huge majority of companies operate on nothing like this model. Either they aim to build up a workforce for the long haul and as such care about having a sustainable workload, with occasional spikes and lulls, or they're just jobs that are hard, that suck and that as a result have a high turnover and pay relatively well for low standards in hiring. See working in an Amazon warehouse.

The companies that do follow this model suck, like EA, but again that's not a secret. There's an inexhaustible supply of suckers for every industry that people really, really want to get into and whether it's film or video games they're always awful, though at least film pays better.

<comment><USER4> > Companies that expect people to work this hard are almost exclusively very > well paying entry level jobs for fresh graduates with an up or out structure > like I-Banking, management consisting or law.

I take it you've never worked in a call center? When I did, anything under a `10` (out of 10) on the random surveys they sent out was considered a failure.

<comment> barry-cotter > they're just jobs that are hard, that suck and that as a result have a high > turnover and pay relatively well for low standards in hiring.

I have worked in a call centre.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the scariest thing about burn-out, is that not everyone is financially able to take the recommended time off to recover - what then?

I've certainly been close to being in this boat, had to take a job before I fully recovered, so took one I felt might be a bit lighter on the load and still give me some chance of recovery.

Pleased to report it has been mostly successful.

<comment><USER6> what if the 'recommended time off to recover' is wrong? I believe that burnout comes from a missing a reward that is expected after protracted and intense labor, thereby training your brain that labor = bad. Maybe the right thing to do is to retrain your brain that labor = good, with primary stimuli. Making green dots appear is definitely one very effective way to get over burnout. I haven't had a major burnout incident in years, don't know if it's because I'm getting older and wiser, or if it's because I'm learning how to do little bits of work that are 1) guaranteed to succeed and 2) nearly guaranteed to reward me, at least in ways that matter to me, if not financially or socially (those are the types of reward you can't control and often lead to the hardest burnout).

<comment><USER7> As someone who hit the brick wall pretty hard at the end of last millennium this is the best most relatable description I've seen.

Does anyone know if there has been any research into this explanation and, if so any pointers to where I can read more?

<comment><USER6> Yeah. My contrarian opinion on burnout cones from about 10 years of observation as an academic track researcher in the physical sciences (typical 80+, occasional 100h+ workweeks in sometimes physically dangerous environments - carcinogens, implosion and explosion risks, one time a Dewar imploded in my face at 2am). The two leading triggers for burnout were "literally the universe" causing your experiment to repeatedly fail, and possibly more pernicious, "your boss switches tracks on you", due to funding or political concerns. Of course the management class (PIs) has zero empathy because the funnel is so selective that almost all of them had it easy, and anything less is merely a dumb or incompetent employee.

One of my buddies went into a burnout phase where he would use his pipette tips in a geometrical pattern and play flash Gameboy Tetris, or sometimes go to the casino and play poker (all of which he got really good at).

By contrast, programming is a cakewalk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One's career isnt always the sole reason for burnout, many times one's workload is totally fine, but combined with their work commute, family and other outside influences, they become burned out. We need to take a holistic look at burnout and not just attribute it to career.

<comment><USER9> Yes, this was what happened to me. My work wasn't stressful...if anything the issue with it was that I was sitting all day doing nothing, which is perhaps stressful. Added on top of that were a stressful commute, issues with the person I was living with, etc. It started as burnout and then developed into CFS. The only real solution is to deal with all the issues, and then give time for your body to recover (which might take a few months).

<comment> blaser-waffle > if anything the issue with it was that I was sitting all day doing nothing, > which is perhaps stressful

I'll second this. It feels like you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for you to be called out on not exercising the will-to-power hustle that the business culture of 2020 expects. A couple of slow months and I start getting paranoid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just gonna say it, I doubt the solution is yet more apps on the device that is the real source of anxiety.

Putting the thing in airplane mode and leaving it in a different room when you get home is going to do you way more good than staring into your phone and swiping away at more apps.

<comment><USER11> My podcasts make my commute enjoyable rather than miserable. My apps make time waiting enjoyable.

But I basically don't use my phone at home. At most TV and gaming.

<comment><USER10> > My apps make time waiting enjoyable

It's a trade off, you're getting entertainment but you're trading away creative brain problem solving time that occurs when you idle on a commute or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A bit of a tangent, but that phrase originally comes from a famous 1964 speech by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer:

[https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2019/08/09/im-sick- and-t...](https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2019/08/09/im-sick-and-tired-of- being-sick-and-tired-dec-20-1964/)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a good article.

I've experienced burn out before in my previous career, but never experienced very bad symptoms like the lady in this article did.

Anecdotally, I believe burnout is more likely when you work on a job that only cares about profits, or is not fulfilling in some meaningful way. I personally couldn't work at most of the software companies out there. Why would I want to work for some ad company, or some company that makes meaningless apps / programs that doesn't benefit humanity?

Sure, on a knowledge scale, some of that might be rewarding for me. But I wouldn't last more than six months in a company like that.

<comment> saiya-jin Burnout was experienced by many professions, ie caretakers for wounded during world wars. They did care about their work deeply. Same for these days doctors, they choose the work because they are idealists, they still care about their work but grueling hours, little rest etc still make it happen.

I've never understood how somebody can get burnout in usual for-profit corporation. No feedback loop of 'ok-enough-work-lets-rest-or-have-fun'. But its true many people are desperately lonely or struggle in their personal lives, and structured corporate one might seem tempting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yeah burnout sucks. I've been there and it can take a very long time to recover - it's devastating.

WHO classified it as an occupational phenomenon last year too: [https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/9/19-020919/en/](https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/9/19-020919/en/)

It's certainly getting worse in the modern world of knowledge work, not better.

And shameless plug (I guess?) but in my mind fascinating research, we (Asana) surveyed 10K+ knowledge workers a few months ago around the state of work (to figure out where we spend our time at work and what stresses us out etc.):

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiue54hsni6o87x/DO%20NOT%20SEND%20...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiue54hsni6o87x/DO%20NOT%20SEND%20-%20Asana%20AoW%20Report%20101019.pdf?dl=0)

</comment><comment><USER15> I appreciate giving more visibility to burnout, since I suffered from it in the past, but is this piece an article or PR for this woman and some random app?

<comment><USER16> > A serious mental-health crisis inspired her new app, designed to help people > track their mental health in the same way they might track their diet, > weight or workouts, and look for correlations in data between, for example, > anxiety levels and sleep, or caffeine consumption and work stress.

Yes, it appears to be that.

<comment><USER17> " _" We're built as a tracking-performance tool to help people enhance their lives and their mental fitness."_"

She's been the addict, now she's the dealer.

<comment><USER9> The lady who developed the app is a different person from the one who suffered the burnout. If you want to understand or cope with burnout, best just ignore the last part of the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Most instances of burnout in my life have come from non-work these days. The company I work for of course doesn't give a shit about this, despite it having a very real effect on my work output.

In 2019, one of my parents tried to meddle in my relationship with my wife, and then took the additional step of nearly ruining our wedding. The additional dozen or so hours per week needed to deal with this (which, by the way, sent me back to my therapist) was overwhelming once sustained for a few months. Oh, also, someone broke into my wife's house and stole a lot of valuable heirlooms, which also caused extra drama in the middle of these two things, which also cost me in lost time, lost sleep, and random interruptions at work.

My performance review for year 2019 was bad. My boss says it was because my Jira card count and code contributions were below X. I let him know of impending catastrophe as best I could the entire year, and adjusted expectations accordingly, but it's clear the org doesn't actually care — so why should he?

</comment><comment><USER19> I absolutely love how that app that's advertised in the writing is primarily targeted at the 25-40 range... Perhaps after 40 they think you don't work hard anymore... For the record, I started writing code for a living more than 30 years ago. I guess I should be safe, by the mind of these clever guys.

<comment><USER20> I have to say that my own experience is that people over 40 work less and at the same time seem to make more money.

<comment><USER21> This is highly inaccurate depending on where the upper bound of age is (ie excluding retirees or part timers). For instance, the average person above 40 years of age have much more time to focus on work: Children already grown, not frequently going out to bars or staying up late etc.

<comment><USER22> Children already grown?

These days, for various reasons people are having children in their mid-to- late 30s, and waiting closer and closer to 40 to _start_ having children (many then find out they can't because they left it too late).

For many, the children are not grown and old enough to leave home until the parents hit mid 50s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Burning out is definitely a taste from hell, if hell exists.

Exactly a decade ago I found myself talking to my mother in foreign languages on the phone, thinking I was talking to my clients. I even got used to lucid dreaming as it happened at least once per week.

Took me three weeks to get back any desire to (even think to) code again.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's an ad. the BBC has become increasingly more clickbaiy and unreliable as of recently.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, but if you ignore that part of the article, it's a pretty good description of burnout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I felt like this, thought for a long time it was work. It wasn't.

Turns out I had a tumor on an adrenal gland, that was over producing aldosterone. That cascaded into a bunch of other weird health issues.

Don't assume it's work, get checked out. Connect the dots.

<comment><USER26> How did you find that out?

<comment><USER25> I initially went in looking for help coping with stress from exwife+custody - its been a fucked up ride. ANyway, BP was high, so they started treating that. Then diagnosed as diabetic. I was sent to a clinical pharmacist to handle that, and he was looking over my bloodwork and saw the low potassium, and thought it might be an aldosterone issue. Aldosterone being a hormone that controls K/Na balance which controls BP.

Anyway, blood tests showed low K, high Na. Further testing showed aldosterone was out of whack. follow up testing confirmed it. CT scan found a tumor. Then a years worth of testing to be sure the thing wasn't a pheochromocytoma - <USER2> wasn't. Finally had it excised and have been getting better since.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Origin of the phrase used in the title: [https://www.thenation.com/article/fannie-lou-hamer-tired- bei...](https://www.thenation.com/article/fannie-lou-hamer-tired-being-sick- and-tired/)

I think the circumstances mentioned in the article need corrective action, but they are orders of magnitude different than what this phrase was referring to.

</comment><comment><USER28> For me burnout is less about overworking in a white collar tech job and more this feeling that I'm not necessarily wired want to constantly think about some narrow goal in one of millions of companies out there for 40-50+ hours a week.

</comment><comment><USER29> Anyone have recommendations for dealing with burnout early(3 years) into their career?

<comment><USER9> It really depends on a number of factors and how severe the burnout is. If there are other factors involved (stressful commute, interpersonal problems), make sure you deal with those.

If the burnout is mild and you're just working too hard, the solution is to take a break and reduce your hours.

If you're starting to suffer from CFS, then the best solution is a long-term break from work, and a serious re-evaluation of whether you want to continue working there.</comment></comment>


Brick Block (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://oskarstalberg.com/game/house/index.html <comment><USER2> Please note that this is an old demo that has since grown into a full-blown game: [https://steamcommunity.com/app/1291340](https://steamcommunity.com/app/1291340) (Says Windows-only, but has a working Beta for Mac)

Here's a talk by Oskar on how generating such worlds work: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bcZb- SsnrA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bcZb-SsnrA)

<comment><USER3> And already a subreddit where people showcase some pretty impressive creations: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Townscaper/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Townscaper/)

<comment><USER4> "This community is available in the app"

Looks like Reddit is not part of the internet anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Found a similar thing but with a planet on his blog: [http://oskarstalberg.com/game/planet/planet.html](http://oskarstalberg.com/game/planet/planet.html)

I'm in awe of the attention to detail. This guy is a real artist, cool to see such a skilled mix of creativity, art, and software.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was even more amazing to me [http://oskarstalberg.com/game/planet/planet.html](http://oskarstalberg.com/game/planet/planet.html)

<comment><USER7> Very nice. It reminds me a little bit of the early stages of the game 'Spore'.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I think they used a similar approach, there was a great talk about how they made planets, not sure where to find it though. Loved the concept, but found the game pretty dull in practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like how you get a wobbly floating effect, when you remove all the foundations of a block.

<comment><USER9> I was going to write the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just want to say, Oskar's twitter is a goldmine: [https://twitter.com/OskSta](https://twitter.com/OskSta). It was fantastic to see his work on Townscaper over the past year.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome. I ended up just removing random bits to make it look wrong, but somehow it always ended up looking pretty stunning. I think the shadows also add a lot to the scene.

I also made a pretty good-looking two layered structure with it: (pic [https://ibb.co/vVbtG52](https://ibb.co/vVbtG52))

</comment><comment><USER12> Oppose the tyranny of gravity

[https://imgur.com/CUbh6Cy.png](https://imgur.com/CUbh6Cy.png)

[https://i.imgur.com/CUbh6Cy.png](https://i.imgur.com/CUbh6Cy.png)

<comment><USER13> Oppose the tyranny of colour as well?

Your creation reminds of the work of M. C. Escher

[http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/nhpr/files/201409/5-E...](http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/nhpr/files/201409/5-Escher- Waterfall_0.jpg)

[https://playingcardcollector.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/rel...](https://playingcardcollector.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/relativity- by-m-c-escher-1953.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That looks like Archmatrix.[1]

Archmatrix is a full constraint system. Stretch a wall, you get more windows, not bigger ones. Stretch a chair, get a couch.

[1] [https://youtu.be/aBeco-qPip4](https://youtu.be/aBeco-qPip4)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a really cool project, I particularly like how well thought out the possible connections are between tiers. The only 'issue' I can see is that rooftops are often left inaccessible! Automatically adding some ladders or steps to adjacent would be a simple solution but I'm sure there are more imaginative and architecturally inclined people than me with better ideas!

My creation: [https://i.imgur.com/fwR4E1P.png](https://i.imgur.com/fwR4E1P.png)

<comment><USER16> Quick solution could be to just add one wooden door/trap/plank per "terrace", on the floor of it, to symbolize entrance from within

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is so simple and so enjoyable.

</comment><comment><USER18> lovely! i recommend visiting also his beautiful tumblr: [https://oskarstalberg.tumblr.com/](https://oskarstalberg.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER19> "You need a browser which supports WebGL to run this content. Try installing Firefox."

Oddly, I get this when attempting to load this website on Firefox (macOS)

<comment><USER20> Firefox 78.01 on macOS Mojave: works fine.

<comment><USER19> I'm on 80.0a1 on macOS Big Sur

<comment> jagged-chisel Betas on betas, so I don't think your experience is "odd" but probably to be expected.

<comment><USER19> Seeing that oepning the website on Firefox prompts a message for me to try opening the website on Friebfox, I'd say odd is a good adjecive for this experience. It won't be odd if I was opening it on Safari or if this version of Firefox was causing issues with multiple websites (so far, I only had an issue with this one and, yes, I did try other websites that use WebGL).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks cool. Would be nice with a YouTube video about it for those of us on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER22> Pro tip: right-click to remove blocks.

</comment><comment><USER23> oh man i had way too much fun playing with this!

</comment><comment><USER24> Very polished!

</comment><comment><USER25> the YIMBY game

</comment><comment><USER26> desktop only? worked perfectly fine on my mbp

<comment><USER27> That means a desktop platform, not a desktop form factor.

OS X is considered a desktop operating system in this context. (As opposed to a mobile platform like iOS or Android.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Please change the URL by adding "[https://"](https://")</comment>


Adobe has released the SWF file format specification - <AUTHOR> http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

<comment><USER2> I'll just quote John Gilmore:

"Freeing up specs for things that the community has already reverse-engineered makes for good publicity, and eliminates a legal EULA issue that Adobe was likely to lose in court in most countries, but doesn't change anything substantial."

[http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash- dev/2008-05/msg00004...](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash- dev/2008-05/msg00004.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The reception here is somewhat surprising. This release should be welcomed. Encouraged. Supported.

Open specifications do change the landscape.

For all sides involved. For Adobe, for Adobe's commercial competition and current and future Adobe partners, and for the Open Source world.

Having both open file format specifications and competing products perceived to have fewer features or lower quality allows you advantages in product bids. It's a good place to be for Adobe; it's a low-cost variation of the freemium model, and one that Adobe has used before.

Postscript and now PDF have survived in the wild for some years now, though you'll particularly note that the specs for PDF have been a moving target. It is nearly certain you'll see these newly-released specifications evolve over time.

Open specifications can inoculate Adobe against anti-competitive legal proceedings that can arise in various jurisdictions.

It also means that other entities are open to develop both competing and supporting products and to participate in the community without fear of exposure to the (il)legalities of reverse-engineering. And from the technical difficulties and the upgrade- and compatibility-related risks of reverse- engineering -- available specifications make for better open source, and more- and cross-compatible products.

And the release means that an organization that is a sufficiently large target to draw the legal attention of Adobe is not going to get tangled up with Adobe in the process of actually proving that the EULA was unenforceable in various courts.

Yes, Adobe likely has underlying competitive motivations that supported the specification release. They're a commercial entity, and they make money selling software products. Regardless, Adobe appears to have done a good and useful thing for the community.

I'll thank Adobe for releasing the SWF specifications.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that the point is being missed here. Adobe's intentions probably have little to do with player development and a lot more to do with Silverlight & Canvas.

Adobe's hope is that opening a platform with 98% penetration will further increase platform acceptance as the standard for rich media on the web.

Think about it from a developers POV - let's say that you're making a choice between two rich media platforms on the web - both proprietary, closed systems that require proprietary plugins and code built on proprietary languages. Tough choice, eh? Maybe you pick the one with a language you're more familiar with, or one thats been really hyped recently.

Now consider a slightly different scenario: What if you had to choose between an open, standardized platform built on an open language with open-source tools that can create applications that run on the web in any browser or your mac, windows or linux desktop. How does that compare with the proprietary choice?

Adobe has consistently moved towards an open solution both for its development tools and its platform, no doubt in response to competitive threats. Microsoft is trying to inch that way as well but seems a step behind.

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably has to do with the recent canvas progress, and John Resig's new javascript. <\--total speculation

<comment><USER6> This is a somewhat blunt way to put it, but it has to do with "you weren't paying attention to the Adobe Open Screen announcement on May 1st." SWF, FLV, and AMF were all freed then and, apart from developers already working with Flash, it didn't seem to make great waves because of the sudden, low-hype nature of the announcement. A lot of the comments that day - here and elsewhere - were confused, cynical remarks along the lines of "I'll believe it when I see it," when they had _already_ put everything up.

The direction of Flash has been towards greater openness since around the time Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005: One year later they released a new major version(9) with a new VM and a completely refactored API, and along with that they released an open source Flex 2 compiler.

Adobe would probably open source their own player and ensure it becomes the "de-facto standard implementation," if it were not licensing-encumbered.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the clarification. Not that I think it could be done in a few days, but I still see it as reactionary to developments in other technologies.</comment></comment></comment>