Reddit CEO: TikTok Is 'Fundamentally Parasitic' - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/reddit-ceo-tiktok-is-fundamentally-parasitic/ <comment><USER2> Heh. This sounds like a business person that doesn't understand their competition, so they self-righteously trashed them as a way of avoiding the question. I mean, I sure as hell don't know the reason for TikTok's success, but I'm not the CEO of reddit. TikTok has a billion+ users, despite it's crappy reputation as surveillance-ware, so there must be something to learn from them.

<comment><USER3> > I sure as hell don't know the reason for TikTok's success

I do. Simple service that came up with a massive user base to keep it propped up and focused around funny, cute, or stupid Vine replacement clips, then US kids flocked to it.

Annoyingly; my favorite tiktok and comment about it were found on Reddit

 _When I went to college to study TV and stuff, nobody, and I mean nobody, had any inkling that this was the future of entertainment._ [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f3syl1/duck_throws_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f3syl1/duck_throws_it_back/)

<comment><USER4> Tiktok first blew up in China, but currently biggest in India.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Personally, I found TikTok to be a funny, light-hearted app, but there's definitely an overaggressive approach when it comes to pushing content and re- engaging users.

Besides what he is saying, the app and platform are designed to spread content fast, with quick feedback loops of brand re-engagement through other platforms. If you use Reddit you will notice that content coming from TikTok gets shared constantly and it's designed in a way that drives indirect traffic back to them. There are even a handful of subreddits just dedicated to TikTok videos like r/TikTokCringe which got so popular that it is not for "cringe" anymore.

Not only the videos have a TikTok watermark, but also when they end they have a prominent display of the creator username (which presumably drives people who found the content funny to search for them).

This makes me think that he is actually upset about the fact that TikTok thrives on Reddit and there's nothing they can do about it.

Just look at TikTok itself. Have you seen their user experience when it comes to sharing content? It's a super highly optimized sharing experience that even remembers your preferred sharing channels, plus it has a significant number of features for soft sharing like downloading as a live photo or gif. I mean there's zero friction between TikTok and posting a gif to Reddit or any other platform because they make it incredibly easy.

This seems diametrically opposed to Reddit's sharing experience which is constantly tinkered to create a walled-garden (for example in iOS they disabled the ability to share videos directly into messages because this effectively made visiting Reddit unnecessary.)

The other super crazy part about TikTok is how their algorithm presumably works. It's really an incredible engineering accomplishment but one that is definitely transgressing the "creepy" line. They really analyze absolutely everything about your content in order to classify it and rank it. This article gives a good explanation: [https://veed.io/grow/reverse-engineering- how-tiktok-algorith...](https://veed.io/grow/reverse-engineering-how-tiktok- algorithm-works/)

</comment><comment><USER6> > _"Maybe I'm going to regret this, but I can't even get to that level of > thinking with them," Huffman said. "Because I look at that app as so > fundamentally parasitic, that it's always listening, the fingerprinting > technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to > install an app like that on my phone."_

That's rich coming from the guy who turned Reddit into the Dark Lord of Dark Patterns. Can't use Reddit web on mobile anymore without 50 nags to install the app, and sometimes it simply won't load a page until you do. Guarantee they track every last thing you do, every subreddit you visit. Hypocrisy in the extreme.

<comment><USER7> tracking and privacy violations are only a problem when other people are doing it.

"We're protecting your data" means "we make sure nobody but us gets to profit from your data". That's not just true for Reddit and TikTok but for every tech company these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How different is the tracking that TikTok does compared to what Facebook and Google does? Except may be TikTok might be shipping this data off to the Chinese?

<comment><USER9> Exactly this is the point. It's one thing to allow companies in _your own_ country/influence sphere (NATO/western world) to build massive data piles about your citizens, but an entirely different thing to allow a national enemy (or at the very least, competitor) such as China to do the same.

Given that there are many young soldiers, policemen, politicians or employees in security-critical environments it's not far fetched that a social media app such as tiktok which has cam/mic access is able to serve as a remote controlled bug for its owners. For what it's worth, _ordinary_ tracking of location data is already an interesting data pile - a bunch of phones that for half a year only appear on a US military base and then suddenly appear somewhere remote in Afghanistan? Most likely they're deployed soldiers. Then look at what they post and suddenly you have names, ranks, specializations... and as said, all of that is possible with ordinary tracking, the dangers of an actual bug are magnitudes larger.

<comment><USER10> This app specifically is getting mobile phones banned in sensitive military areas/buildings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not that I disagree, but for some context, this is coming from the man who said "We know all of your interests. Not only just your interests you are willing to declare publicly on Facebook - we know your dark secrets, we know everything"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCnZqrJE24&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCnZqrJE24&feature=emb_title)

</comment><comment><USER12> While it may be true, saying that in front of Silicon Valley investors, while sitting next to a Facebook executive, is pretty rich.

</comment><comment><USER13> TikTok: get in trouble if you criticize the Chinese president

Reddit: get in trouble if you praise the American president

<comment><USER14> in China TikTok will get in trouble with the government if the president of China is criticized

Do you think Reddit gets in trouble with the US government if the president of the US is praised?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The pot calling the kettle...

</comment><comment><USER16> "I'm confident that Reddit could sway elections. We wouldn't do it, of course. And I don't know how many times we could get away with it. But, if we really wanted to, I'm sure Reddit could have swayed at least this election, this once."

-Reddit CEO

</comment><comment><USER17> Hello pot, here's kettle. Silicon Valley tech is really gonna eat itself

</comment><comment><USER18> if tiktok is parasitic, whats reddit then ?

<comment><USER19> Sewage treatment plant. That doesn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > "Because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it's always > listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I > could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone."

> "I actively tell people, 'Don't install that spyware on your phone,'" he > later added.

Does that mean Reddit doesn't track users? Or just that TikTok is extra good at it?

</comment><comment><USER21> Geezus the day Reddit userbase becomes the same as TikTok is the day I'm fully migrating here.

<comment><USER22> There's room for a competitor. Digg v4 2.0!

<comment><USER23> I always forget Digg was a thing.

[https://phaven- prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/...](https://phaven- prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/52825/YR1rBBeMFYU9vWtZnPvefOrPQxk/medium_0633covdc.gif)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Look at the irony. This discussion is taking place at Hacker News. Most wholesome place all over the internet.

</comment><comment><USER25> Reddit is now banning folks for upvoting content!

Im on mobile, but there is a screenshot of huffman promising for life to not delete content by users.

Reddit is a propaganda tool 100% now.

(There is another post by him saying as so, they removed both)

<comment><USER26> You're not wrong:

[https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote- policy/](https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-policy/)

and

[https://old.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/f9fox2/reddit_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/f9fox2/reddit_is_now_banning_people_who_upvote_content/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'll take TikToks 'parasitic' over Reddits toxic negativity any day of the week.

Go look at the front page of Reddit, then look at what's trending on Tiktok... From my humble perspective tiktok is a pretty positive place. Reddit on the other hand seems to have been overrun with political fighting and cynicism about literally everything.

It may not be popular among the tech crowd but for where I am in my life that is far more important to me than what permissions an app needs.

<comment><USER28> TikTok banned pro-LGBT content (until they were called out on it?), TikTok bans a bunch of things in countries that aren't illegal there (or in any civilized country, for that matter), TikTok bans criticism of certain political figures in some regions, so forth.

Positive, but at what price?

I don't like reddit, either, to be fair.

<comment><USER29> The front page of hacker news is heavily moderated and political discussions are quickly gone.

You can either have productive interesting discussions (or in TikTok's case fun videos) or you can have free speech.

<comment><USER30> Its ridiculous to suggest that lgbt content prevents fun videos. Also there is a lot of political content on HN. Its just shit flinging and random off topic rants that get removed.

<comment><USER31> The president was impeached, and there was no mention of it on HN. To say there is political content on HN is absurd.

<comment><USER32> Tech-adjacent politics is allowed, and given current politics it has been happening more frequently.

There isn't really a tech angle for the impeachment.

<comment><USER28> Not just tech-adjacent political content, but intellectually-stimulating political content, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> don't worry guys, I'm creating the new reddit. It's called fuckkit</comment>


Why I Hope to Die at 75 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/ <comment><USER2> Although I agree in general, it seems ethically incoherent to describe in details the horrors of living into decrepitude while opposing physician- assisted suicide (as the author does).

Also, the difference in life-expectancy at 60 between whites and blacks is less than two years, and perhaps significantly less. Unfortunate, but not what most of us would call appalling, especially because this might literally just be a n unchangeable fact of life.

Most importantly, the author, who sounds single, misses the significance of having a mate in all of this. Your family and friends may be sad to see you go, but it's a whole other thing for your wife/husband/etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem isn't when you want to die? But where? Opinion: I would like to die in nature not in a hospital bed. What would you do during death? Meditating being present until my last moment. Sometimes I feel I don't deserve a happy ending or even an ending and maybe life still goes on after I am gone.

Alert: never meditate on your death like Steve Jobs recommended when you are depressed.</comment>


Avoid News, Towards a Healthy News Diet – By Rolf Dobelli [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.dobelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Avoid_News_Part1_TEXT.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> HTML version: [http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news- diet/](http://www.dobelli.com/en/essays/news-diet/)

Prologue:

> This article is the antidote of news. It is long, and you probably won't be > able to skim it. Thanks to heavy news consumption, many people have lost the > ability to read more than four pages straight. This article will show you > how to get out of this trap – if you are not already too deep in the trap.</comment>


Could Humans Live in Underwater Cities? Plans to build a city under the sea - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06lnqyt <comment><USER2> How many persons is he planing to put in the prototype and in the final version? My guess is that it will be very small, more like a base in Antarctica or an off-shore oil platform.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think there's room to build in Barstow if someone wants to move there...</comment>


Hacking Heroku with Custom Build Packs - <AUTHOR> http://quickleft.com/blog/hacking-heroku-with-custom-build-packs <comment><USER2> I came across this Io (<http://www.iolanguage.com>) Heroku buildpack a few days ago: <https://github.com/freeformz/heroku-buildpack-io>

Disclaimer: I haven't tested it (I'm not a Heroku user... yet!).

</comment><comment><USER3> The reason it is a little known fact is because Heroku tells people: "This is still a bit of an alpha so please don't tweet/blog/etc about it yet."

<comment><USER4> It's so nice when people don't respect things like this.</comment></comment>


Bill Gates Noticed a Economy Trend No One Is Paying Attention To - <AUTHOR> http://observer.com/2018/08/bill-gates-global-economy-trend-epiphany/ <comment><USER2> All artifacts that are high technology become worthless within 20 years. If you had invested 100,000 dollars into a video editing suite in 1994 the whole thing would be worthless in 2004. Anyone wanna buy a 60K Sony BVW? Got one for 50 bucks on ebay shipping not included. EDIT Oops that was a a UVW not a BVW deck still can't see why you would want to record anything. Just get the tapes into the computer.

<comment><USER3> If you made $500,000 with the video editing suite in those 10 years, it was probably worth it.

<comment><USER2> 500,000 - 100,000 / 10 = 40,000

But that doesn't include salaries for professionals like editors or paintbox artists. A lot of video companies in central Ohio could not cope and went out of business at least temporarily. Mills James made it because they were poised for maximum profitability instead of just economy.

Now if you just mean 500k profits well then it very well may be worth it :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ben Thompson of Stratechery has written about this a lot. Software has a small marginal cost and that's why Facebook can have over 2 billion users MAU, I can't think of anything in the world except food and water that has over 2 billion monthly users. Even the largest non-software company could only dream of that kind of reach.

<comment><USER5> YKK( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YKK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YKK)) probably has billions of daily users.

<comment><USER6> Bosch as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bosch_GmbH)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I personally think is the most important economic trend in the world. As said, it works for books and movies to.

A word I don't see in the article or tweetstorm is commodity, which is the foundational unit of our economy. A commodity has the "old economy" property Gates is talking about where the 10th car costs the same to manufacture as the 1000th. A created thing where virtually all the expense is in the initial creation, after which duplication and distribution is virtually free, is no longer a commodity. As our entire economic system, and social system, is based in the end on the commodity as the base unit, this will have profound effects as time goes on.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't really buy this. I haven't bought it since the dotcom boom. I'm pretty sure Bill didn't really buy this when he was CEO. If he did, then the people he had in charge of ops didn't.

In those days vertical scaling was a typical solution to the problem of too many users. But the cost of exotic hardware goes up with power, so the cost of a new batch of users is higher than the cost of previous batches. Even if you managed horizontal scalability you ended up paying a kings ransom for networking hardware to link them all together. And then there's the databases.

These supposed economies of scale never really materialize. We spend a significant fraction of our development budget on improving performance and availability, learning or creating more sophisticated tools. None of that is necessary once your project stagnates, which is why maintenance software is attractive to enterprises.

These days we can get away with a lot more horizontal scalability, but most of our algorithms scale logarithmically. Many are nlogn, we strive for mlogm (where m is active users) but get stuck with mlogn often. But if you are dependent on ad revenue you want to increase m so you get paid, so the distinction matters less than it used to.

Each customer costs at least logarithmically more than the last. That means your operating costs double when you sell 4 times as many copies. That's not nearly as expensive as running Tesla, but it's not zero. If you're in charge of those strategy decisions and you aren't aware of this, then you probably won't have that job for long.

</comment><comment><USER9> That's not what Bill said:

"Not enough people are paying attention to this economic trend"

<comment><USER10> Yeah, this article is a clickbait rewrite that adds nothing of value to Bill's original note. [0]

[0] [https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Capitalism-Without- Capital](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Capitalism-Without-Capital)

<comment><USER8> I feel like this policy of all HN Articles having to use the original article title is working at cross purposes. You can't remove the clickbait from the title because that's 'editorializing'

As if we aren't all reading the comments to see other people editorialize the articles...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is econ 101, at least it was for me.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not an economics major, so forgive the possibly 'not even wrong' question: but does anyone know if there is a term for the phenomenon that price, as represented in currency, is really a lagging indicator of total value to the market, as the market has yet to digest and sum over all of the intangible value of a given 'something' into a single agreed-upon numerical metric that can the used for trade?

<comment><USER13> How about EcMH - the "Eventually-consistent" Market Hypothesis

/s-orry Bogleheads, couldn't resist :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You wouldn't download an update would you?</comment>


Jamaican Bobsledders Ride Dogecoin Into Olympics - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-04/jamaican-bobsledders-ride-dogecoin-into-olympics.html <comment><USER2> Dogecoin is monetizing user generated content, an economic revolution online. Micropayments for creators are becoming a reality.

From the article comments:

"They're also digging wells in Africa and training companion dogs. It's a real party over at /r/dogecoin. Someone gave me thirty bucks for telling a joke."

<comment><USER3> That's great, but I get the feeling Dogecoin users are even less informed about the technology than the average Bitcoin user. I wonder how many understand why Dogecoin in it's current state (like Bitcoin) _can 't_ scale to support widespread usage of micropayments?

There are two problems:

1\. The protocol limits the maximum block size to 1MB ([https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/blob/master-1.5/src/mai...](https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/blob/master-1.5/src/main.h#L30)) which puts Dogecoin's maximum transactions per second at 70, without a forking protocol change.

2\. Dogecoin targets one minute between blocks, which is 10 times faster than Bitcoin's 10 minutes per block. That number wasn't chosen arbitrarily. There needs to be plenty of time for new blocks to flood the network, otherwise forks will become more common as miners work on outdated information. This leads to reduction in effective hashrate and increased centralization of miners. Increasing the maximum block size significantly will be at odds with Dogecoin's faster confirmations.

<comment><AUTHOR> The community has already dealt successfully with one fork due to a bug. I'm sure the same thing can happen in the future if there are problems.

In many ways, Dogecoin is 'worse is better.'

<comment><USER4> You would call that successfully? The developers have no idea what they're doing. They copied bitcoins code, but didn't realize that they made a 500 million doge transaction limit, so they gave their users a short period of time to update their clients. They ended up with a fork after someone made a 500 million doge tx which could have allowed many many doublespends. Doge will not be able to scale up to real economic activity unless they get a real dev team.

<comment><USER5> >They copied bitcoins code

They copied the code to Litecoin. At least get your facts straight.

<comment><USER6> Just to clarify some of the facts.

Dogecoin uses scrypt like litecoin, but this proof of work was first used by Tenebrix. It also employs the random block reward (vs fixed for litecoin) pioneered by LotteryTickets (which includes the ongoing 10k block reward feature). I'm not exactly sure which repo it was started from, but the wallet client, namely the 1.5 release inherits all Litecoin updates since 0.6.*.

<comment><USER3> "Pioneered"? Is there any advantage to random rewards, besides novelty?

<comment><USER7> It makes mining more addictive, which increases the number of people who are willing to mine, even if the financial rewards for doing it drop. Same reason why people by lotto tickets even though it's a net economic negative.

I'd argue that the Dogecoin creators are actually quite brilliant, because they manage to exploit several known cognitive biases in humans to drive adoption. Design for the world as it actually is, not for how you would like it to be.

<comment><USER3> So, novelty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I started mining doge just to give it a whirl. It's good, clean fun for those of us who don't expect to get rich.

In the event you decide to give it a shot, a few pointers:

1\. Block rewards will be halved in 8 days, so giddy up.

2\. Obviously, use a GPU-based miner if you have a decent GPU.

3\. Sign up for a pool other than dogehouse, which has a highly disproportionate number of of the mining horsepower.

last but not least

4\. Enjoy the community, and throw doge around like a high roller. The community is the best part of the whole experience.

<comment><USER9> Is CPU mining still remotely sensible to do at this point?

Also, what's the recommended client for CPU mining on Linux at this point?

<comment><USER10> BFGMiner and CGMiner (3.7.2 -- you must use an old version) are both good choices for ATI or CPU. CUDAMiner if you are using a Nvidia card.

CPU mining is not profitable. But absolutely reasonable to do if you just want to mine a small amount of dogecoin to see how it all works. My only caveat is I'd strongly discourage anyone from mining on a laptop for an extended period of time if they care about the laptop's lifespan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're interested in supporting a fundraising campaign that's on a more serious note, please consider supporting Doge 4 Kids, our campaign to raise $30,000 for hearing aid, seizure alert, and mobility assistance service dogs for children who need them. You can donate by sending DOGE to DTMxdZkWd7aCX1a7DcJmUJs931b1GSBQsk or through credit/debit card through Crowdtilt.

[http://www.Doge4Kids.org](http://www.Doge4Kids.org)

</comment><comment><USER12> The doge donation was a small, but significant, part of the donations that helped them get there.

[https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/help-the-jamaican- bobsle...](https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/help-the-jamaican-bobsled-team- get-to-sochi)

<comment><USER13> From the campaign description, looks like $30k+ worth of DOGE was donated while the campaign had raised $73k by that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Bitcoin is to Myspace as Dogecoin is to Facebook?

<comment><USER15> i wouldn't go that far, one issue with bitcoin is that .08 is ~$65 now that values is ~40k dogecoin last time i checked.

for micro transactions the dogecoin is a better crypto currency but i don't see it as one or the other think about it as american express vs (mastercard or visa)

<comment><USER14> Value can change. Myspace was $500Million company when FB was a ~$500K company. Today, Myspace ~$5Million, FB $150Billion.

More relevant is that Myspace had an image problem, whereas Facebook got mass appeal.

A currency that is social will win the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Shiva Keshavan, Indian luger, also received a majority of his donations in dogecoin!

[http://www.ibtimes.com/dogecoin-raises-7000-send-indian- luge...](http://www.ibtimes.com/dogecoin-raises-7000-send-indian-luger-shiva- keshavan-2014-sochi-olympic-games-1552008)</comment>


Genre:Hunnu – Mongolian Country/Folk Rock - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE <comment><AUTHOR> I know that HN posts typically focus on technology, but I've discovered this genre of country rock and it is amazing.

I hope you enjoy!</comment>


Check Out Zuckerberg Touting 'TheFacebook' on CNBC in 2004 - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/05/tech-time-warp-week-check-zuckerberg-touting-thefacebook-cnbc-2004/

<comment><USER2> Extensive discussion 5 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9463044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9463044)</comment>


Mark Cuban's Opinion on the Governor Romney Tax Plan - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2012/10/11/my-opinion-on-the-governor-romney-tax-plan/ <comment><USER2> "Which is the exact detail of the Romney Tax Plan that makes all the numbers add up. _Governor Romney is the detail._ He will take all the unsolved variables in the algorithm that is our desire to reduce the budget deficit , increase economic growth and thereby increase employment and negotiate them into the outcome that will solve this country's financial problem."

LOL. This entire post basically amounts to "just trust this guy, he's _Governor_ Romney!". Facts? Numbers? Nobody needs these things. Let's gloss over all the evil things that were done at Bain. Unicorns and rainbows, just vote for my guy based on these vague promises of low tax utopia!

"- He will work to remove regulatory impediments to energy production and innovation that raise costs to consumers and limit job creation."

Let's conflate _innovation_ with the ability to destroy the environment however we see fit.

"He was hired to fix the state of Massachusetts and he feels certain that he did."

That's some debatable propaganda right there. We should always believe anything someone _feels_.

And then, of course, it ends with this:

"I'm not saying you should or should not vote for either of the candidates."

LOL again. All that _illogical_ fawning stuff I said up above? Just ignore that. Vote for whoever you want. Just wanted to get my "feelings" out there. On my blog. With lots and lots of subscribers. No one's going to read this.

</comment><comment><USER3> The phrasing in this article reminds me of butters from South Park for some reason. Do you know what I am saying? <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtLXGQu-OF4>

<comment><USER4> I was more reminded of this - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inR02pEesCQ>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"If you put a problem in front of him, he knows in his mind that given enough time, resources and control he can solve the problem._

 _Which is the exact detail of the Romney Tax Plan that makes all the numbers add up."_

This right here is pretty much the definition of faith based economics. Personally, I prefer numbers to add up based on some form of counting, but that's just me.

<comment><USER5> The fun thing is that every person can solve any problem with enough time, control and resources (given that the person has at least average intelligence and no mental disorder).

<comment><USER4> Ok then, list all the primes in reverse order. Take as much time as you like.</comment></comment></comment>


Getaround Wins TechCrunch Disrupt - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/25/and-the-winner-of-techcrunch-disrupt-nyc-is-getaround/

<comment><USER2> This is one of those ideas which wins hearts at a conference like TC but I don't get in terms of practicality. Aside from the issues already stated, let's consider:

Keeping the key in the car (if you want to use their preferred auto-key-box- thingy) - I can't believe that wouldn't adversely effect or void my insurance. Certainly the part where I get a discount for an immobilizer is going to be negated (because the immobilizer is in the key, now in the car). And parking a car in SoMa with the ignition in it seems totally dumb - insured or otherwise.

It may come with insurance but that still doesn't cover someone driving the shit out of the breaks, clutch, drive train etc. How do you account for fuel - you can't say bring it back with a full tank because you may not keep a full tank in there. How do you account for the extra miles the car is run for with your own insurance?

How much are car owners _really_ going to make a month after they have taken their cut? If you own a decent car, is $100/month really pushing the needle and making it worth your while?

I still wonder about the premis - how many people REALLY want to share their car with others. I won't let me best friend drive my car (or anyone else for that matter).

Finally, from the renters side, I'm not clear what benefit this has over ZipCars. I don't pay an annual membership with ZipCar, they're ~$6/hr, fuel is included (which it isn't here), they have distribution and choice of car, they're a known quantity, etc etc. Sure renting a Tesla or Porche is nice but again, I wonder why someone who can afford such a vehicle wants to rent it out to others and expose themselves to all the risk.

<comment><USER3> Owners will charge what they are comfortable to cover all these prospective costs. It is a market.

The main benefit from a borrower's point of view is that Getaround is both cheaper and more convenient than conventional rental. In fact, an owner could still charge more per hour, given that many rental needs are fractions of days.

It may turn out that owner's acceptable fee is high enough that it does not compare well with conventional rental, but from a pure market perspective, this seems unlikely -- rental companies all these costs you point out, plus the cost of idle inventory. An owner has already accepted the bargain of their idle inventory, and only sees upside in rental against the existing costs. Note that Zipcar also bears this idle-inventory cost on their fleet. Getaround has an advantage in harnessing idling capacity at no cost to themselves.

It may also turn out that the cost of acquiring users (both owners and borrowers) exceeds revenue per user, and so is not a feasible business. I think this is a real risk, considering the markup of 40%. I rented from Getaround in their earlier phase; it was an excellent deal, far better than ZipCar. The cars were closer (read, more distributed than zipcars) and cheaper. I think the 40% margin might move them into the range of more directly competing with common rental rates though. We'll see.

It's hardly crazy, though.

<comment><USER2> _Owners will charge what they are comfortable to cover all these prospective costs. It is a market._

Too many unknowns to calculate a risk premium - a burned out clutch might cost me $1000 to replace. What about the time the car is out of action because it is in the shop getting said work done? I could pull out my spreadsheet and begin to work some figures using pivot table, but this is about saving money not practicing for an MBA.

 _The main benefit from a borrower's point of view is that Getaround is both cheaper and more convenient than conventional rental._

Sure but the main competitor here in ZipCar (and its rivals) not rentals. If I want to rent by the hour I'm going to ZipCar, not Alamo.

 _An owner has already accepted the bargain of their idle inventory, and only sees upside in rental against the existing costs._

Not entirely true on existing costs - there are existing costs plus potential new costs directly associated with the rental element -- see above. The upside is the what's left of both of those costs.

 _The cars were closer (read, more distributed than zipcars) and cheaper._

I'm in SF, where their beta roll out is, and ZipCar is absolutely plastered across the city. I can't see how Getaround has greater distribution than a ~10 year incumbent. I'm not also not seeing as being cheaper, esp if you compare like-for-like models and factor in ZipCar includes fuel.

If I charge $7/hr, and Getaround take 40%, I make $4.20/hr. To make $100, I gotta have the car utilized for 24/hrs a month - just under 1hr a day. I think that's a tough threshold (given I need to use the car too). I'm not even sure whether $100 makes it interesting for an owner either.

Getaround is probably going to W2 me on that, so I'll have to pay tax on it, so I'll be lucky to end up with $70.

<comment><USER3> " Too many unknowns to calculate a risk premium - a burned out clutch might cost me $1000 to replace. What about the time the car is out of action? I could pull out my spreadsheet and begin to work some figures using pivot table, but this is about saving money not practicing for an MBA. "

Hmm, I guess I'm saying, charge $100/hr if you like. It's up to the owner. And it's not about saving money for a car owner, it's about _making_ money. It's only about saving to the borrower.

" Sure but the main competitor here in ZipCar (and its rivals) not rentals. If I want to rent by the hour I'm going to ZipCar, not Alamo. "

At this point, I disagree -- rental is way larger than zipcar. And I think the Getaround approach is more scalable, so that when conventional rental is dead, Getaround will have a large lead, and distribution, over Zipcar.

" I'm in SF, where their beta roll out is, and ZipCar is absolutely plastered across the city. I can't see how Getaround has greater distribution than a ~10 year incumbent. I'm not also not seeing as being cheaper, esp if you compare like-for-like models and factor in ZipCar includes fuel. "

That's where I rented, too. Not sure what to say here, we're both anecdotes, I guess.

" If I charge $7/hr "

Are you saying that because you're fixing on what Zipcar charges? Most of the world hasn't heard of Zipcar. They've heard of car rental.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone know how it would effect my own insurance knowing that random people will be driving my car on top of the extra mileage? Also what about extra maintenance involved with renting out my car, are there any incentives from Getaround concerning this ? Another concern would be that, yes in general people that rent cars may not be as responsible with their rental as their own car.

<comment><USER5> Getaround comes with insurance, so while being rented your own insurance is unaffected! As far as maintenance costs, you set your car's own price per hour, so you can decide how much your extra maintenance costs will be.

<comment><USER6> Insurance is a red herring IMHO.

* Have you ever dealt with a major insurance claim? Even if you were renting out your car for $100/hour, that won't compensate for the headache you will be in for when your renter rear ends a brand new Mercedes-Benz and sends the passengers to the hospital.

* Think beyond insurance. What are you going to do when you receive a parking ticket or red light camera violation in the mail that a renter was responsible for? In the case of the parking ticket, you're on the hook no matter what.

* Even worse, if your renter is involved in an accident that's reported to Carfax, the resale/trade-in value of your car could plummet.

* There are no incentives great enough to compensate for all of the possible extra maintenance and repairs you may have to deal with. Depending on the make and model of your car, even a small ding or scratch could cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to repair.

<comment><USER7> Those are all valid issues.

Consider, however, that every time you rent your room on AirBnB you open up yourself to as many problems (what if they steal from you; what if they damage your room; what if they cause a fire) and yet that hasn't stopped AirBnB from being a smashing success.

There's little point in opinionating on their chances of success. So far the signup rates seem to be fantastic and whether they're successful or not will become evident with time. We just have to wait a little.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How would they prevent a group of car thieves from using prepaid Master or Visa cards with fake names? Couldn't a thief just book a rental car for an hour, find the location, unlock the car with the iphone app, then take off with the car because the key will be inside? Let me know if I am missing something?

<comment><USER9> Right now it looks like they're requiring Facebook accounts to rent cars, and so they can (presumably) use the Facebook social graph as a rough proxy for trustability. Personally I sorta hate that policy (I've not got a Facebook account...) but it's a fairly good idea, I think.

And, of course many, many said similar things about AirBnB -- "couldn't a thief just book a room for the night and then make off with the TV?" -- and that's proven not to be much of an issue in practice.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't AirBnB require the host to be present during check-in and key exchanges? I assume a person would be more tempted to steal something if the owner never sees them in person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What about the issue of car thieves in general? From the sound of it, you are required to keep your keys inside the vehicle. The founders basically said "the keys will be in the ignition". Is there no locking component of any sort included in the getaround kit?

Doesn't this essentially make the application a directory of easy-to-steal cars for potential thieves?</comment>


Code Tells You How, Comments Tell You Why (2006) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.codinghorror.com/code-tells-you-how-comments-tell-you-why/ <comment><AUTHOR> I agree that is important to comment "why" you are doing something, but I highly disagree on "code tells you how". To me "how" is important to read code faster, skipping between blocks and finding what I was looking for. Code is meant for machines, comments for humans.</comment>


Police Begin Clearing Zuccotti Park of Protesters - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/nyregion/police-begin-clearing-zuccotti-park-of-protesters.html

<comment><USER2> In case you're wondering, this article does _not_ show up in the search results and I can't find it listed on Hacker News.

Tue Nov 15 08:16:52 UTC 2011

[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=zuccotti](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=zuccotti)

Hits are: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3237265>, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3094896>

Edit: I assume this is a glitch, not intentional, so someone please hit reply when it starts showing up. Also if you know why it's currently missing...

</comment><comment><USER3> The fourth and second amendments have been extinct in America for over a decade. Now it's clear that the first and fourteenth are gone too. It's a lawless police state and every effort to effect change upon that status, no matter how large or small, has been ground into dust by the establishment.

It's time to leave America. Take your ball and go home. Without a productive and innovative tax base, the country will eventually collapse, and future generations can reclaim the land. In the meantime - be elsewhere.

It's time to leave America.

<comment><USER4> Johnny Depp once said that he would like his children "to see America as a toy, a broken toy. Investigate it a little, check it out, get this feeling and then get out." This is what, we learn again, is what happens when you let greed be the highest goal. Americans are on the Pequod and its thirst for the white whale of financial gain has brought it inexorably to its ill-fated end.

There's a lot of focus on the Euro zone right now, for good reason, but the wealthiest countries in the world are all in Europe -- and they're doing fine. They're also all steeped in a tradition of social programs and tax structures to make sure that greed doesn't get the upper hand. It's no coincidence.

300 million won't leave America. Most can't. Try to move to, say, a European country as an American and you will be shown the door. Leaving isn't an option.

The only option is to affect political change: Eliminate Congress and move to a direct democracy; dilute the powers of the president. Take control again. It's simply ours for the taking. Simply stop the economy from working until these changes take place. Stop protesting -- asking for what's yours. Take it. Park in a busy intersection in your home town; stall at a toll booth. Take some friends and hold up the subway at rush hour, every day. Go on strike. Stop protesting and begging. Shut it down -- and they will beg you.

<comment><USER3> You don't need 300 million to leave, you only need the 500,000 important ones to. A statistically significant percentage of those 500k will read this comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a stream here: <http://www.livestream.com/occupynyc>

</comment><comment><USER6> Also you can listen to the police scanner here [http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?action=wp&feed...](http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?action=wp&feedId=8905)

</comment><comment><USER7> Two excellent accounts from people on the scene:

\- <https://twitter.com/#!/JoshHarkinson>

\- <https://twitter.com/#!/brianstelter>

<comment><USER7> Specifically:

"I just got shoved out of the park by a police officer. I'm now going to explain what I saw."

[https://twitter.com/#!/JoshHarkinson/status/1363615690754785...](https://twitter.com/#!/JoshHarkinson/status/136361569075478528)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> LA Times article: [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/occupy- wal...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/occupy-wall-street- police-raid-zuccotti-park.html)</comment>


OpenBSD Develops Its Own SMTP Server - <AUTHOR> http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20081112084647 <comment> patrickg-zill Even though Theo de Raadt is often abrasive, you have to give him credit for making "do it right" cool enough to attract others to his security-first perspective. OpenBSD, OpenSSH (used now in most Linux distros), OpenBGP (complex routing), PF, etc. are all pretty excellent pieces of software.

<comment><USER3> Who better to make a secure os than a cranky, nearly paranoid Canadian? I can't think of anyone.

I will not use anything else for my internet-facing boxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> love this line: _It pissed me off enough that I grabbed my laptop and a copy of rfc2821 with me to the pub_

I love the open-source developer mentality.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I think it's worked out pretty well this way.

Would OpenSSH, pf, git, xorg, most "djbware", Samba, the *BSDs, or the entire GNU project exist if we didn't first have badly licensed software, badly designed software, real or imagined personal slights on mailing lists, etc.?

<comment><USER6> But instead of "OpenSSH, pf, git, xorg, most "djbware", Samba, the *BSDs, or the entire GNU project" we would have well licensed and well designed software, etc, while something else would have been aweful and people would spend time solving that problem...

<comment><USER7> The systems that GNU resembles were poorly licensed. How do you figure that without GNU, we would have had a better replacement in their stead (what precedents do you have for your view?)

<comment><USER6> Oh, I just don't think that we can say that the bad software has been a good thing. Yes, they've made some creative minds produce some really good software, but I still think it would have been better if the first software was awesome right from the start.

After all, the creative minds would still search for unsolved problems…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> SMTP strikes me as one of those things where complying with the spec is probably relatively trivial, but accommodating existing, broken software requires significant investment.

<comment><USER9> <http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/awk/smtpd.awk> is one I did in a couple of hours, and although it dealt with 1,000s of emails in its time, I wouldn't put a price ticket on it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Now that qmail is public domain, surely this would be an easier option.

<comment><USER11> I was thinking the same thing. I also wonder why more Linux distros do not include qmail. Other than having a few anachronisms, which can quickly be brought up to modern times, it's a fast, secure, time-tested, and completely respectable mail system.

<comment><USER12> Given that Postfix and Exim have much friendlier upstream developers (qmail barely has a maintainer), I don't think it's a surprise that qmail is losing popularity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> postfix was designed by one (that is very important) talented engineer - <USER2> is an excellent well-balanced architecture behind it along with professional implementation. It is much better to ask the author to make a special release with different licence and then import it.

It is much better to reuse an excellent code of great projects like nginx, postfix or dovecot than [re]write it from scratch.

<comment><USER2> _It is much better to ask the author to make a special release with different licence and then import it._

good luck with that.</comment></comment>


The History of Greco-Roman Vegetarianism (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2010/08/the-hidden-history-of-greco-roman-vegetarianism/ <comment><USER2> > only the wealthiest citizens could afford to eat large amounts of meat on a > regular basis

Same thing in modern day Germany. My dad told me that until the 1950s, most families in Bavaria could not afford meat, or only had it a few times a year. This must have changed when people became wealthier (and meat cheaper) from the 1960s. Still, it's astounding that Bavarian food is mainly associated with heavy meat dishes like roast pork or knuckles today. Seems like many vegetarian dishes have been forgotten in recent decades.

<comment><USER3> I don't really understand why meat became so much cheaper, is it purely intensive farming of animals? Or was there other factors?

<comment><USER4> Intensive farming, technology (machines, antibiotics), breeding of extreme animals, cheap food and water and land for animals, subsidies.

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcA3P6abmjY&t=817](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcA3P6abmjY&t=817)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "What this hidden history teaches is that many Greeks and Romans survived without eating animal flesh or using animal products."

So, I get it, this post has a particular point of view to advance. But this is a terrible argument. The average Greco-Roman was impoverished and had a life expectancy of around 35-40. The average Greco-Roman happily ate meat when given a chance. Today, at least in many parts of the world, meat is pretty cheap, so the idea of meat being a decedent luxury doesn't follow the way it would have 2500 years ago. Further, in the Greco-Roman world, animals and animal products were used for lots of things - leather for sandals, honey from bees, oxen and mules to produce the grain that made up the basis of the vegetarian diet. So even the people who had a vegetarian diet (by constraint, not by choice) very much benefited from animals in ways that many activist groups today would object to.

<comment> maze-le >> The average Greco-Roman was impoverished and had a life expectancy of around 35-40

This is more a problem with statistics than anything else. If anything, the median life expectancy should be measured. The reason that the average life expectancy is so low, is that infant mortality was very high (and the procedure of childbirth was extremely dangerous). This means an unusual high percentage of humans, that die very early in their lives. So the 'average', while being a correct average, skews the number downward and thus gives the false impression that the average person only got 30-40.

If a peasant survived into his 30ies, chances were high he would get into his 50ies.[0]

For the rest of your post: Yeah, I concur, the last thing any roman would have had in mind are animal rights. Not only was slavery the norm, this was a society where you could kill your slaves without repercussions. Human sacrifices in the form of gladiatorial games were not only common but THE social event. And the army had a punishment known as decimation (every 10th of a unit was selected by lot and killed). So, all in all a society with very little regard for human life, never mind the life of an animal...

[0]: [https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human- origins...](https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/life- expectancy-myth-and-why-many-ancient-humans-lived-long-077889)

<comment><USER6> 50 years old is still a very low number for a life expectancy.

<comment><USER7> It's old enough to raise the next generation to self-sufficient adulthood. That's all that's really necessary for a population to survive and grow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it interesting to read various vegetarian-related quotes. One begins to see how much a part of the history of human thought it really is. Here's a collection I found with a quick search: [http://notable- quotes.com/v/vegetarianism_quotes.html](http://notable- quotes.com/v/vegetarianism_quotes.html)

I was pleasantly surprised by some of the names I came across - Leo Tolstoy, for instance.

</comment><comment><USER9> archive: [https://archive.fo/LiDep](https://archive.fo/LiDep)

text-only cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http:/...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2010/08/the- hidden-history-of-greco-roman-vegetarianism/&num=1&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

</comment><comment><USER10> Rather one-sided source, perhaps? And their references are literary rather than historical.

<comment><USER11> They didn't imply vegetarianism beliefs were widespread to the masses for this to matter.

They reference what historical figures of literature and philosophy thought and suggested to others about the subject.</comment></comment>


The King is Dead? Long live... Scala? Clojure? - <AUTHOR> http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2009/10/king-is-dead-long-live-scala-clojure.html

<comment><USER2> In my opinion, Scala and Clojure aren't new "kings", they're hybrid languages: bridges from the old paradigm to the new one, the same way C++ was around 2 decades ago. That's _why_ the "tail wags the dog" and sitting on top of the Java runtime (or .NET for the Microsoft world) is what matters first.

That doesn't mean they won't have longevity and staying power (see: C++), but they aren't the "kings", the Java runtime is (the same way C is for C++). If you're looking for a new "king" you need to be looking for a language/platform that is as different from the JRE as the JRE is from C. I don't think we know what that would be yet (or why we'd invest the effort in that transition).

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had a difficult time getting into either Clojure or Scala - bought a book on each, and had fun playing, but neither language felt great to me. I am stuck on (J)Ruby, Common Lisp, and Java when I need it.

BTW, Kenny is about as close to a "pure Common Lisp" purist as you can get. I worked with him for about half a year - cool guy,and very much focused on Lisp.

<comment><USER4> Kenny is a CLOS guy through and through; he admitted to never figuring how to use restarts and he doesn't grok LOOP, IIRC :-P

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is my prediction: it will take academia 10 years to stop teaching Java 1.2 and start teaching, say, Scala. It will then take industry about 20 years to realize that Java is not "the best" anymore.

So for 30 years, everything other than Java 1.6 and C# will be "niche".

(Sure, there are plenty of non-Java shops around. But anywhere where software is not the primary concern, it's the default. It got that way because of marketing and an easy word to Google, not due to any technical merits. So the new languages that are competing on technical merits are probably not going to win in industry, only among the handful of programmers with a clue. Just sayin'.)

<comment><USER6> I think you've missed how the computer world works, sure people still program in fortran but that doesn't mean it is still at the same working extent.

cobol -> c++ -> java actually happened pretty quickly and I'd expect when a useful alternative proves itself in a few niche senses on large scale a new language will be adopted and everyone will have something else to complain about.

<comment><USER5> I think you're wrong; we will have to wait and see.

In the mean time, you shouldn't let the industry's stupidity affect you. Make your own language decisions. (I work with someone who went to a hard-core Java school. He is a great Perl programmer. You can hire "Java programmers" to use real languages too :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let a thousand flowers bloom! (But yeah, clojure.)

</comment><comment><USER8> _Steele said Java brought the world half-way to Lisp. I do not think Lisp means what he thinks it means._

If someone like Steele disagrees with you on the meaning of something like Lisp, then _you_ are probably wrong.

<comment><USER4> Not necessarily; Steele is a programming polyglot and can hack in any language thrown at him. Kenny is a Lisp weenie; you know, one of those guys who can only code in Lisp.

I would take Kenny lisp aesthetic over Steele's, but Steele's technical competency over anyone else's.</comment></comment>


Nazis Were Given 'Safe Haven' in U.S., Report Says - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> That's not exactly news, Werner von Braun and a lot of others certainly weren't part of the boy scouts in Germany.

<comment><USER3> Von Braun was far from the worse - although he directly contributed to the German war effort, and knew about death camps through the usage of slave labor, it is generally acknowledged he did not have much choice.

Low-ranking nazi researchers, doing experiments on human, were never put on trial AFAIK. This was more pervasive in Japan, where most scientists from unit 731 were given pardon, and held highly respectable positions well after the second WW (e.g. M. Kitano who worked in the green cross group).

I was recently horrified to learn that figures related to how long does it take to die underwater, at high altitute, etc... were known from nazi experiments.

<comment><USER2> > it is generally acknowledged he did not have much choice.

Why didn't he have a choice ?

<comment><USER4> Some controversial background: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun#Slave_labor>

Answering your question: only von Braun could answer that. We can only guess that he might have been afraid to put his family to risk. If you read more about him you can find he was arrested by Nazis once. That might give some idea about fear atmosphere that he might have experienced.

It is easy to judge when you already know who was bad and who was good in WW2.

<comment><USER2> I already knew a thing or two about von Braun before this thread got started, what I genuinely wonder about is if we are just mixing up terms here.

When you say 'he did not have much choice' I read that as 'he was forced to do this at gunpoint'. And even in that extreme case there are still choices, just not very many happy endings.

There are plenty of scientists that would do the most unethical things if it means they get to work on their pet project.

From that wikipedia article you quote there:

"We knew that we had created a new means of warfare, and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else. We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through, and we felt that only by surrendering such a weapon to people who are guided by the Bible could such an assurance to the world be best secured."

The hypocrisy in there is so thick it's almost comical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fact that US is harboring terrorists should not be news. No need to go all the way to 1950s for this.

More recent ones are:

Pedro Ramon : bombed Cuba's UN mission to US.

Guillermo Novo : car bombing in Washington DC of Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Leteller.

Luis Posada : bombed Cuban airliner in 1976.

<comment><USER6> No need to back to the 70s, either:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also let's not forget about this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731>

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal heard only one reference to Japanese experiments with "poisonous serums" on Chinese civilians. ... The Japanese defense counselor argued that the claim was vague and uncorroborated and it was dismissed by the tribunal president, Sir William Webb, for lack of evidence.

Some former members of Unit 731 became part of the Japanese medical establishment. Dr. Masaji Kitano led Japan's largest pharmaceutical company, the Green Cross. Others headed U.S.-backed medical schools or worked for the Japanese health ministry. Shiro Ishii moved to Maryland to work on bio-weapons research.

</comment><comment><USER7> Apparently at the end of the war the Russians captured Lorenz cypher machines and continued to use copies of these with minor modifications subsequently. Probably any Nazis with knowledge of those machines would have had not too much difficulty finding gainful employment in the US in the post-war period as the cold war intensified.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nothing new, just read the work of e.g. Joseph P. Farrell and prepare to be amazed.</comment>


Beyond "The Last Lecture": Design lessons I learned from Randy Pausch - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/07/20/beyond-the-last-lecture-design-lessons-i-learned-from-randy-pausch/ <comment><AUTHOR> This July marks five years since Randy passed away. He had a profound effect on me in grad school, and then on the world through his Last Lecture -- and I hope that sharing these lessons will help honor his memory.</comment>


Read All About It: Nearly All Binary Searches and Mergesorts Are Broken - <AUTHOR> http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-nearly.html

<comment><USER2> Oh, overflow. I thought it was going to be something more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Posted: Friday, June 02, 2006"</comment>


XREPL: eXtended REPL - <AUTHOR> http://docs.racket-lang.org/xrepl/index.html

<comment><USER2> XREPL sounds nice. It makes me wish that I liked Racket as well as I feel like I should — it's a nice language, it has a lot of good libraries, and I appreciate the reasons it's _not_ RnRS Scheme, but I still don't feel comfortable not being able to make my Scheme[1] at least _potentially_ portable to other implementations.

[1] I know, I know, it's not Scheme. But it's still Scheme.

<comment><USER3> Do you worry about this when you write Python/Ruby/Clojure/Scala/etc?

<comment><USER2> Not as much, because for at least Python — I don't use the others much — the community is mostly united around a single implementation. Scheme's more varied landscape makes me more concerned with writing portable code.

<comment><USER3> What sigstoat said.

Put differently, we want you to think of Racket the same way you think of Python.

<comment><USER4> I know I certainly do.

The very things that make me like Racket over other Lisps are also the things that make me like Python over other imperative languages, ie. clear syntax, quick-to-prototype, big standard library, high quality documentation, etc. etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious how this compares to Ruby's uber REPL, pry. [https://github.com/pry/pry](https://github.com/pry/pry)

I only started with racket yesterday, enjoying it so far...

<comment><USER6> I personally prefer irb with a couple extensions over pry. However, pry is definitely useful when debugging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Has anyone tried to port Racket to iOS and Android ?

<comment><USER8> My understanding is that Apple prohibits programming languages in the App store.

By 'port to Android' do you mean running the Racket VM on the Dalvik VM? It is hard for me to see how that would be more productive than Clojure.

<comment><USER9> That's not quite it... There are programming languages in the App Store. A couple I've tried are:

\- LuaBox Pro [https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/iluabox- pro/id437557082?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/iluabox- pro/id437557082?mt=8)

\- Lisping [https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/lisping/id512138518?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/lisping/id512138518?mt=8)

\- Ruby for iOS [https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ruby-for- ios/id535080197?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/ruby-for- ios/id535080197?mt=8)

The sticking point is that they can't download substantial new functionality. So you can't make it easy to import scripts from elsewhere to be run as is they were native apps.

This is probably to avoid 'trojan horse' apps which appear to be a REPL but are really meant to be bit torrent clients or bitcoin wallets or ... anything else Apple wouldn't let in the front door.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wish Clojure had an extended REPL included with the main source. As new Clojure user, I have struggled getting going with a good REPL.

Not looking for a solution here, just citing an example, but I have struggled with Leiningen puking without a defined project. Despite the closed status, it's still an open issue for me and others.

[https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/issues/1625](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/issues/1625)

What is the best easy to install extended REPL for Clojure experimentation?</comment>


Paul Graham on Spaghetti Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.kludgecode.com/index.php/paul-grahams-recipe-for-pasta/ <comment><USER2> I haven't read the book and dunno about PG's definition of spaghetti code, but "we can make all these types of modifications without even looking at the rest of the code" sounds like the opposite of what all people I know call sc. I thought that a necessary property of spaghetti code is that almost everything is connected in a way so you can't make a change by only changing something in one place because everything is connected in weird ways because of the lack of structure, so you need to keep the whole program in your head while working on it.

Isn't the whole point of well structured programs to be able to work on them while holding as little of the program in your head as possible, so you can work on part of it and be able to "make all these types of modifications without even looking at the rest of the code"? If you have a program that can "evolve" successfully without the need for anyone to "hold it in its head", then a large team can work on it and you can usually replace a 10x programmer with a swarm of 1x ones, basically a pointy haired boss's wet dream...

<comment><USER3> _If you have a program that can "evolve" successfully without the need for anyone to "hold it in its head", then a large team can work on it and you can usually replace a 10x programmer with a swarm of 1x ones, basically a pointy haired boss's wet dream..._

Why _is_ that the PHB's wet dream? I mean, by observation I agree with you. That is the case, so I am not challengingyou on that. But what could be the underlying reason, seeing as 10x programmers are only 1.5-3.0x as expensive?

It seems like PHBs shoot themselves in the foot, repeatedly, without mercy.

<comment><USER4> PHB's tend to measure themselves by how many people they're in charge of; better 10 guys than 1 that's productive as 10. PHB's aren't entrepreneur types, they're middle managers who require underlying to justify their existence, the more the better.

<comment><USER3> That's been my feeling about it, too. Headcount and control rather than actual productivity. Also, I feel like middle managers have a terrible incentive profile. If an underling really shines, then it reflects well on the underling. If one underperforms or makes a mess, boss gets shat on for not keeping them in line. It's easy to rip on middle managers, but they have a shitty job and it's not their fault. It's just structured badly.

I think it's easier to understand why middle managers are the way they are once one understands their incentive structure. They participate in an employee's downside but not upside (she did it herself) so _of course_ they're going to be the way they are.

I may be radical but I think open allocation is the only answer for software development. All the nonsensical process that grows up around closed allocation seems archaic and stifling. I think typical middle management is useless. What you really need are HR-independent mentors. Aside from mentoring, the other thing managers can do (firing) should be so rare in a well-run company that you only need one per few hundred people.

<comment><USER5> I recommend reading about the Gervais principle![1]

[1][http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

<comment><USER6> When Michael read about the Gervais principle it inspired about 100,000 words of response: [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/?s=gervais&submit=Se...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/?s=gervais&submit=Search)

<comment><USER5> thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
        "The object-oriented model makes it easy to build up programs by accretion."

On a similar note that object-oriented model makes it easy to write code when you don't understand the problem yet. "I know I'll need a Patient and a Doctor and a Diagnosis ..." Soon you have all these pretty objects and interfaces and Patient and Doctor inherit from Person and ...

I've seen people with literally dozens of objects who still had no idea what they were building or why and couldn't answer basic questions about the problem domain.

<comment><USER3> Alan Kay's idea of OOP-- encapsulate complexity behind a simple interface, and separate the two while preferring stability in the latter-- was utterly sound and right. He wasn't saying, "go off and write opaque, complicated objects". He was talking about what to do _when complexity becomes inevitable_.

The SQL database (a brilliant, wonderful thing despite the hatred it gets) is an example. When you write a query, you don't tell it which indexes to hit and how to micromanage details. You send a declarative query to this "black box" that, most of the time, does the right thing.

I think Objects are a good thing, but they should be rare. Very rare. As with macros, only use them when the simpler tools (referentially transparent functions, immutable data) won't do. Files are a case where the object metaphor makes sense-- there's a bunch of tightly-wound connected state, and I/O is inherently stateful.

The problem with "OOP" is that it's "programming as micromanaging, inept businessmen understand it". Instead of math, it's Factories and Visitors and other nonsensical "big picture" bullshit that doesn't map in any coherent, reliable way to the underlying substrate (mathematics, logic) of computation. I'm sorry, but programming is a game where if one doesn't understand the details, one doesn't understand the fucking big picture (which is made up of _extremely important_ details).

<comment><USER8> _Files are a case where the object metaphor makes sense-- there's a bunch of tightly-wound connected state, and I/O is inherently stateful._

And user interface widget libraries, which are all about I/O. Even Racket's widget toolkit leverages the superb racket/class encapsulation mechanism.

<comment><USER9> For UI code, you should check out functional reactive programming (FRP). It essentially provides first class time-varying values instead of implicitly modelling time with mutable state.

This makes UI code more declarative and allows you to create things like neat combinators. As an example, it's very easy to write a function like `when' with FRP, which could be used like this (code roughly from a game of life app I wrote):

        when (not <$> paused) (step <$ time)

Here `time' is just a stream of events every x milliseconds. So what this code does is create a stream of step events which represent stepping the life simulation forward at each time step, as long as the game isn't paused. `paused' is a value based on a button, but it could easily have multiple inputs.

So you get signals and event streams like `paused' and `time' from UI widgets (or the system), and then combine them into new streams that you can plug directly into UI widgets. This then lets the widgets themselves be much simpler structures with not internal state. In essence, this replaces arbitrary mutable state with an explicit dependence on time which leaves less room for making mistakes while also making it easier to write high-level functions like `when'.

There's a ton of other cool things you can do--this is just an example meant to illustrate the sort of abstractions you can use; it is by no means exhaustive!

I've found that FRP leads to much nicer UI code than callback-based OOP.

<comment><USER3> FRP seems deeply awesome. Thanks for explaining it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've never understood these sorts of statements. You can write spaghetti code in a functional language too. Instead of objects floating around, you have functions. Instead of objects interacting with each other in various ways, you have functions interacting with each other in various ways. You can "build programs by accretion" in any language. Ultimately it all comes down to complexity. Simple code is simple, complex code is complex. You're not going to magically get around this by switching to a functional language. Right?

<comment><USER11> Well, if you're really programming in a function way, then you're not using side effects (or at least, the side effects are constrained). That means things are local, and you can safely compose functions without causing the behavior of other parts of the program to change.

<comment><USER12> Spoken like a true academic.

<comment><USER9> Or, you know, a software engineer. Good software engineers, after all, value things like low coupling; composability is like a stronger version of low coupling. (That is, composable things are not tightly coupled but decoupled things are not necessarily composable.)

<comment><USER13> Good software engineers certainly value low couplings. Unless it is a coupling with some code written in an obscure language with extreme (and masochistic) approach and with no common sense.

<comment><USER14> I'm not at all sure what your point is. There's nothing controversial about the benefits of referential transparency and immutable state, for modularity, composition and simplicity. What is obscure to you? It won't be to everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Where I come from, we derisively called this "Lasagna code." It's not tangled like spaghetti, but there are many, many layers.

</comment><comment><USER16> See <http://www.paulgraham.com/noop.html> for an essay from Paul Graham about a dozen years ago that expanded on the dislike that he had then for OO code.

I do not fully agree with his opinion there, but he certainly has some valid points.

</comment><comment><USER17> This has a specific name.

<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RavioliCode>

</comment><comment><USER18> * What this often means, in practice, is that it provides a structured way to write spaghetti code. *

I've had to refactor code that my co-workers have written several times because they end up throwing code in a class where it works but doesn't "belong".

For example, the REST API I'm building has thin controllers, thick domains, and thin data access layer with various supporting models. I had a co-worker write a Domain object that acted like a model (a single object that should be instantiated, properties set, and a calculation function run).

I had to refactor all his code out into a reusable model and then build helper functions in the domain for the controller to consume.

Whenever I see that I need to do the same type of operation in multiple places, it tells me that code should probably be consolidated into a structured class to make sure that any bugs in the code can be fixed in one place instead of a dozen.

So in a way the code was structured in a class but was still a mess. OOP isn't just about classes and inheritance but about structure, architecture, and how classes interact with each other.

<comment><USER19> When you 'had him write it' maybe you should have specified it more clearly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is why almost all good investors pass on startups with weak or no technical cofounders.

<comment><USER21> What? Most of the business world runs on spaghetti code sold by successful software companies. Success has almost nothing to do with technical skill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wrote about this last summer: [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/what-is- spagh...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/what-is-spaghetti- code/)

Inheritance (typically assumed to be part of OO, but not a requirement) is a big part of it. It gets nasty pretty quickly. Inheritance is the 21st-century goto, although it shares features with the even wonkier "comefrom" of INTERCAL.

Spaghetti code isn't just "bad code" but a specific kind of bad code where understanding a piece in isolation requires pinging about an ungodly number of places. There are a lot of causes of that, but usually it's poor software management and bad development practices.

<comment><USER22> "Inheritance breaks encapsulation," the elders said, and as with all extremes, they each have their problems. Language is a lossy codec for math/logic/thoughts, computer languages no less so.

<comment><USER23> The "elders" never said that. They invented inheritance because there was a need for it.

Inheritance is a great way to maintain encapsulation in the face of a messy world. Unchecked composition quickly gets you to a world where everything has to be public anyway.

<comment><USER22> It's just a figure of speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is Amazon affiliate spam... check the `tag=...` in the book link.

</comment><comment><USER25> People who critisize OOP for its bad applications have mostly not understood it.</comment>


Microsoft Just Made the Definitive 1990s Nostalgia Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/25/internet_explorer_ad_microsoft_taps_1990s_nostalgia_to_tout_ie10.html

<comment><USER2> In other words:

\- what happened in the 90s stays in the 90s.

\- 20+ years late?

\- And that video game is from 1974! :P</comment>


One-Page Chess [video] - <AUTHOR> https://danielbmarkham.locals.com/post/110651/technical-tuesdays-follow-up-one-page-chess-done-for-now <comment><USER2> The webpage is weird. For these interested, it seems to be about:

[https://github.com/DanielBMarkham/OnePageChess](https://github.com/DanielBMarkham/OnePageChess)

<comment><USER3> Seems like a very non-conflictual kind of chess game: [https://i.imgur.com/nXBxI5v.gifv](https://i.imgur.com/nXBxI5v.gifv)

<comment><USER4> To remove a piece, select a piece, and then press the delete key on your keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently made a <chess-board> custom HTML element that should make this kind of thing really easy to build: [https://justinfagnani.github.io/chessboard- element/](https://justinfagnani.github.io/chessboard-element/)

You can specify a board, the current position, and other options right in markup, like:

        <chess-board
            draggable-pieces
            position="8/R7/8/8/k1K5/8/8/8">
        </chess-board>

So it should be very easy to encode the position in a URL. You could also have more than one board for teaching moves.

</comment><comment><USER6> In his intro he says he was surprised that he couldn't find any existing ways to do this.

Lichess definitely allows you to share positions via url. E.g. [https://lichess.org/editor/rnbqkbnr/1p1p1ppp/p3p3/8/3NP3/8/P...](https://lichess.org/editor/rnbqkbnr/1p1p1ppp/p3p3/8/3NP3/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKB1R_w_KQkq_-_0_1)

Cool project allthesame

</comment><comment><USER7> It's a video of an opinionated guy explaining his design of a Static SPA Chess app.

I like it! It's fun to see someone with some expertise and opinions talk for a while.

</comment><comment><USER8> Refreshing to see something without so many dependencies.

</comment><comment><USER9> Seems like longest chess game is about less than 300 turns, there are 64 cells, and even if you don't know chess, and even without efficiently coded there are max of 128bits per turn (a lot of them not valid, and probably space that can be explored better) - e.g. it feels like not only the current position, but the history can be recorded in small amount of data in an URL.

<comment><USER9> For example, instead of using 64-bits for specifying from where the chess figure was moved, it can be the enumeration of the first chess figure for the given player, starting from top/down - so since there are max of 16 figures - it's only 16 bits. So this goes to 64+16 bits only per move. I guess you can go further...

<comment><USER9> actually the final position is given by the type of figure - queen, king, etc. - and they have limited positions possible (not all 64) - even queen would have at the best - how many? like 27-28 possible - so 16+28 bits only now per move, and it can go lower. Replaying these moves should be almost instant (not much really)

<comment><USER10> You can get under one byte per move actually. There are less than 256 moves possible from any given chess position, so you just have an algorithm to order them, and index into that. You can do even better with variable length compression and move ordering. Here's a post from lichess about their system: [https://lichess.org/blog/Wqa7GiAAAOIpBLoY/developer- update-2...](https://lichess.org/blog/Wqa7GiAAAOIpBLoY/developer- update-275-improved-game-compression)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ah, yes, a popup asking me if I like what I'm seeing from the "DanielBMarkham Community" the second the page loads, before I get a chance to even understand what the question means. This is definitely a very good pattern that definitely didn't make me immediately click back.

[https://imgur.com/lxKSA9I](https://imgur.com/lxKSA9I)

<comment><USER12> I've tried several platforms for blogging over the years. This latest one promises to let me own the content, no ads, and I can set up a subscription program for folks who want to participate more. I thought about 2 bucks a month. It would be an experiment to see if when people pay they tend to argue less and post less low-effort stuff. I suspect this is the case, but it'll be interesting playing around with the idea.

<comment><USER11> Maybe you own the content, and maybe there's no ads, but it sure looks like you don't get to _control_ the content - and a popup is obnoxious whether it's selling you diet pills, or the ability to do exactly the thing you're doing.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for engaging. I'm perfectly happy switching to something new. I've only been on this place for six weeks or so. But I'm a bit conflicted about options.

Looking at the front page of HN on any given day, a significant portion of the top comments are not about the material, but about the site itself: the fonts are too big, the layout is hard-to-read, it's a paywall, Medium has gone to crap, the site shouldn't be trusted, the load times are too long, the page is too heavy, and so on. (You have to know what I'm talking about here)

I'm a coder, so I can (and have) put content in all kinds of places. I could give you a detailed list of a dozen or so that I've tried, from plain html/js on my own server to Git Pages and this current experiment. The problem is that I have _yet_ to use any of these where I didn't get some sort of meta comment like yours.

I believe, and I hope I'm wrong, that the _control_ issue you mention is never going to go away. It's just going to be an issue of what trade-offs people are willing to make for ease-of-use. Yeah, I could drop web pages and multi-media content on AWS and set up my own membership and streaming services. Then I could get into multi-format streaming, SAML, CDN configuration, and a hundred other technical issues that I'd love to play with, but have nothing at all with trying to create some kind of useful content out of my career experiences so far.

So thanks, and I agree, but I'm still kind of at a loss at what to do. If more people complain I'll send the admins an email. I could leave, but to where? Meh.

EDIT: If I wasn't clear enough, I don't like the popup either.

<comment><USER11> Yeah. I'm sorry that today it's my turn to bother you with nitpicking, without offering any good solutions. For what it's worth, my "blog" with its single post is hosted on my own domain, on a server I pay for. It works for me, but I have zero readers, and don't plan on dealing with traffic spikes!

If it's any consolation, I would argue that font choice is a matter of taste, whereas a popup is always rude.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


3D Done with Mirrors and Prisms (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/3d/stereo/3dgallery16.htm <comment><USER2> And once you've captured your photos using clever prism setups, why not display them using prisms?

You only need a standard blackbody radiating light (incandescents) and another clever prism setup to get full color projection.

[https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wjarosz/publications/hostettle...](https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wjarosz/publications/hostettler15dispersion.html)</comment>


Mechanical Turk: Profitable or Not? - <AUTHOR> http://behind-the-enemy-lines.blogspot.com/2009/03/mechanical-turk-profitable-or-not.html

<comment><USER2> _I should also clarify that my figures are slight underestimates of the actual figures: I can only "see" Mechanical Turk through the eyes of an average worker. So I cannot see if a requester asks multiple people to complete the same HIT and, sometimes, I cannot observe the details for HITs for which I have not passed the qualification test. I still think that the numbers will be at the same order of magnitude._

I am not sure if that's a valid assumption. Almost every HIT I've written has been at least 2x (and typically 3+x) for redundancy. It is cheaper/faster to code for consensus than verify results. I have seen several HITs for which the task is likely massively redundant.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised that revenue is only $2k/day. I know that HITs don't cost very much but I was under the impression that the volume was considerably higher than this figure suggests.

Does anyone know why posting HITs is still US only? Expanding it internationally seems like a fairly straightforward way to increase volume.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps some weird law about money laundering?

<comment><USER3> IANAL but I don't see how this is any different than any other sort of international transaction. I can buy items from eBay sellers in the US so why can't I buy work in the US?

Having said that I'm certainly willing to attribute it to some weird legal restriction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article only briefly touches on the benefits Amazon gets from utilizing its own system. I'm willing to bet that the increased revenue from having richer, more properly tagged (and hence more easily-findable) product listings more than makes up for it. It'd also be nice to see the conversion rate on the'Amazon Remembers' feature for the iPhone app, which could be a good example of the upside of putting a little money into Turk.

</comment><comment><USER6> Similar to the point I made concerning Google Reader, this service is one that so long as it is not a huge loss for them, it will probably remain around as it provides huge internal and non-fiscal profits in terms of effort and information. The fact they can open it up to the public and generate any sort of income is a good thing to atleast alleviate the costs.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Maybe we reached a point where web services assure they won't disappear in the near future.

</comment><comment><USER7> its profitable, just not scaled to mega profits yet</comment>


If programming languages were religions - <AUTHOR> http://www.aegisub.net/2008/12/if-programming-languages-were-religions.html <comment><USER2> He left out assembly languages which are really unrelated tribal religions characterized by primitive belief systems and rites of passage such as killing a lion, hanging by your thumbs, full body tattoos, or living alone in a cave for a month. I know. I passed my trial. I am a real man.

<comment><USER3> No - assembly language is the perennial philosophy uniting the mystics of all religions.

<comment><USER4> That does not contradict. By the way, lambda calculus and post's correspondence system underlie..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel the omission of smalltalk is just further evidence of it's true strength considering it inspired so many of the attributes of the other religions yet still persists unknown to the masses as the true religion with no religion behind all religion.

<comment><USER6> I was going to make a comment about ALGOL being zoroastrianism, but your smalltalk comment will suffice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Lisp would be Zen Buddhism" & "Python would be Humanism"

I feel strangely peaceful.

<comment><USER8> As soon as I saw the title, I knew Lisp would be Zen. I don't think that takes any thought -- regardless of their actual qualities, they have the same mystique.

<comment><USER9> I had a slightly different take on it: Scheme as Zen, and CL as Tibetan Buddhism, which has added deities and other more complicated theology back into Buddhism, sort of like the complexity of CL.

<comment><USER10> And Arc would be Zn Bdsm: basically the same as Zen Buddhism, only more terse.

<comment><USER9> >Bdsm

And a little perverse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Summary:

"I have never written more than 10 lines of code in any language."

<comment><USER4> Terse programs are a worthy goal.

<comment><USER12> Terse no, absolutely not. Concise should be the goal.

<comment><USER4> OK. Mixed up the words. Should practise my english some more.

<comment><USER12> Ah, enough people say programming languages should be terse that I thought that's exactly what you meant.

Concise is clear and short, terse is less characters but unreadable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Actually, they _are_ religions! Didn't you know?

<comment><USER14> Some people tend to see it as a meme. It's not THAT far from a religion. Except, i didn't see any C++ programmer kill in the name of Bjarne Stroustrup...Yet.

<comment><USER15> (They do...but they're careful to hide the bodies.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Visual Basic would be Satanism - Except that you don't REALLY need to sell your soul to be a Satanist...

Dim! Yuck.

<comment><USER17> That reminds me of the one about the dyslexic devil-worshipper who sold his soul to Santa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This will go down as a classic piece of programming humor.

</comment><comment><USER19> What does that make javascript then?

<comment><USER20> Javascript would be some kind of new-agey pop religion.

It looks at first like Christianity or Judaism, but it somehow brings in funky zen concepts like lambdas and prototype chains. No one really took it seriously, then one day, it was just _everywhere_. No two implementations are quite the same, and most people do it horribly.

<comment><USER21> So, Astrology?

<comment><USER20> Maybe… _disclaimer: I'm a professional javascripter_

1\. Everyone knows it a little, but few actually use it for much, and hardly anyone really understands it.

2\. A lot of the ideas came out of old tribal warfare, and was only standardized relatively recently.

3\. People who do it full time are WAY overpaid. ;)

<comment><USER22> does anyone really do javascript fulltime...? It sounds to me like doing CSS fulltime. Or writing XML configuration files for a living. Or something...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The bit about Judaism and C reminds me of <http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/ten- commandments.html>

<comment><USER2> Commandment 8 reminds me of the Brace Wars in C and the Indent 4 vs Indent 8 camps. Those who dislike Python's significant white space haven't seen real bloodshed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> _"Ruby - A mixture of different languages and ideas that was beaten together into something that might be identified as a language."_

Is that really true? I've never heard anything like that about Ruby. It does, however, sound very much like PHP. From the PHP FAQs:

 _"Much of [PHP's] syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in."_

<comment><USER25> You could make the case. To me, Ruby looks like a strange hybrid of Python, SmallTalk, and Perl.

<comment><USER26> This makes Ruby sound far more attractive than it really is to me.

<comment><USER6> What would you change about it?

<comment><USER26> Well, when I hear that something is a mix of a bunch of other things, I tend to picture the best about those things.

So if Ruby had:

        * The clarity of Python
        * As well as the batteries-includedness of Python
        * With the flexibility of Perl
        * As well as a library managed as well as CPAN
        * With the tooling of Smalltalk
        * But without the weird VM business

Then Ruby would be much more attractive to me. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Ruby, it's a fine language. I'm just saying that I hear those three things and I picture some sort of uber-language.

<comment><USER27> I find python's clarity lacking in comparison to ruby, at least in terms of making classes and iterators. Why are all those underscores really necessary?

No mention on your other points here because I either agree or don't have an experienced opinion on the matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> ...then this photo proves that Dick Pick must have been the Messiah:

[http://jes.com/gfx/people/csn_1983_11_28_antigrav_dick_001.j...](http://jes.com/gfx/people/csn_1983_11_28_antigrav_dick_001.jpg)

(Sure don't mean to offend anyone, just a silly hacker joke.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Also does this make the jvm and or parrot like one of those weird new-age "all paths lead to the sun" sort of religions where "anything goes"/syntax so long as it involves some rough idea of a god/bytecode?

</comment><comment><USER29> Dumb article. Judaism and C are about as opposite as you can get. Judaism's texts (the bible and the Talmud) are famously convoluted, contradictory, debated, etc. C is one of the cleanest languages.

<comment><USER30> "Judaism's texts (the bible and the Talmud) are famously convoluted, contradictory, debated, etc." that sounds like C's type system to me. Is that a char or a number? A pointer or a number? etc.

<comment><USER29>
      int a; //This is a number
      char b; //This is a char.
      void * c; //This is a pointer.
      x=*((int*)a); //This is a void pointer cast to a number.

<comment><USER29> The [edit] link disappeared on me, or I would just correct the last 'a' to a 'c'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> You can convert into Judaism.

<comment><USER32> I wouldn't recommend it.

<comment><USER4> Tried?

<comment><USER32> Yup

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> well. someone doesn't like Perl.

Sheesh!

<comment><USER34> I fear you underestimate the number of people who dislike Perl.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, Perl sucks. Instead of making me rewrite libraries, I have to actually work on the problem I want to solve, 'cause the libraries already work. I hate being productive!!1!

<comment><USER35> Using the words PERL and productive without a not qualifier in the same sentence opens up some sort of alternate universe time warp that is so dangerous it should be avoided at all costs.

<comment><USER36> If you don't think Perl is a productive language, then you have never been a UNIX system administrator.

<comment><USER35> The irony of that statement is creating a vortex of it's own. ;-)

<comment><USER36> Irony...like rain on your wedding day? Or maybe a traffic jam when you're already late?

I'm not sure you and I are working with the same definition of irony here. You don't _like_ Perl, that we understand. But if you can honestly say you believe that Perl is not among the most productive, if not _the_ most productive, glue languages for use in UNIX system administration tasks...then, well, I don't know what to say. One can't really have a rational discussion with someone who is that far off the map.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've read many analyses of languages: their pros and cons, how much better I would think if I used them, how much more efficient I would be if I used them, how much cooler I would be if I used them.

But nothing was enough to convince to change. Until this. Fundamentalist Christianity. Well, goddamn.

How can I distribute desktop apps in Lisp? :)

<comment><USER3> Use Factor, the postfix Lisp.

<comment><USER37> Excellent. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Haskell would be Taoism - It is so different from other languages [...]"

I do not get it. Haskell is very similar to other languages, take Clean for example.

</comment><comment><USER38> You can convert to Judaism <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ger_tzedek>

</comment><comment><USER39> I enjoyed this article. However I find it important to note that buddhism and taoism are philosophies and not religions.

<comment><USER32> I think people saying things like that are taken into account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> You mean they aren't already?

</comment><comment><USER41> IF???

</comment><comment><USER42> his comments on C are completely unfounded. C's type coercion means you can ram all sorts of things into places they aren't supposed to go. typecasting says to me that there is nothing orthodox about C at all. if anything it is modern protestantism, a faith that lets you ram in whatever you want, but one wrong move and you go to hell (segfault)

<comment><USER43> If hell is segfault, then Heaven must be a memory leak?

<comment><USER44> Heaven is where C programmers go when they move to C++ and discover shared_ptr.

<comment><USER45> Where do C++ programmers go when the move to Java and discover garbage collection?

<comment><USER22> To the second level. Where do you think they go when they move over to Python/Ruby/whatever and find out dynamic typing?

ask Dante Alighieri...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I don't understand how anyone can be against us Pastafarians/Lolcoders!!! What is wrong with everyone? Just because I write legibly does not mean that I don't want my code to tell me that its in my pants waiting for input!

And obviously you all have not been blessed by his noodly appendages, but I shall not go and spread our sacred gospel, he shall come and touch you with his noodliness and you shall instantly convert.

</comment><comment><USER47> _PHP would be Cafeteria Christianity ... whole concept of "goto hell" was abandoned._

And here I would consider PHP the defintion of going to hell :)</comment>