Programming languages 'do not enjoy copyright protection,' EU court says - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57426822-92/programming-languages-do-not-enjoy-copyright-protection-eu-court-says/

<comment><USER2> In my business I need to work with SAS. So let me offer some personal opinions what it really is. It's one of those things where I fail to understand why corporates still choose to spend money on.

As a "programing language" it's ridiculously easy to recreate with simple (though occasionally inconsistent) C like syntax. It is sold as a statistical analysis framework. While it can do regression fine, you have to pay additional money to get features like support for decision trees, and still it does not support the proven machine learning techniques (Random Forest, SVMs).

I think SAS is a dinosaur existing because of its legacy hold, trying to desperately grab the last straws - like these lawsuits, and writing disparaging papers comparing SAS with free alternatives like MapReduce & R.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3918443>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3918912>

</comment><comment><USER4> Strange. I could see implementations not being patentable, but the creation of a programming language could and should be copyrightable as a whole, not as individual pieces. Python is usable, whereas LolCats exists mainly as expression. But I'm not a programmer--what do y'all think?

<comment><USER5> This would put us in a situation where we would have lawyers comparing programming languages and assessing their novelty w.r.t. intellectual property violations. We do _not_ want to get into this situation. It might end up in a situation where two languages are similar on the inside but there's a minor change to make it incompatible but non-infringing. Not ideal.

Many programming languages are very similar to each other and it's very hard to differentiate. Python, Perl, Lua and Ruby are very similar on the inside, despite their syntactic differences. If one of them was patented or copyrighted, it could hinder the others.

<comment><USER4> I agree with what you're saying. Does my point make sense?

some clarification here:

I'm saying copyright the entire item, which to me means the syntax. The implementation ought not to be patentable due to prior art. I mean, Lovelace, Church, Turing, Gauss and Euclid have never been paid royalties for building the foundation on which computing lies. Why should Oracle be thus complicated.

<comment><USER5> > I'm saying copyright the entire item, which to me means the syntax.

A programming language is so much more than just the syntax. The syntax is only skin-deep, what matters (and where the differences are) is the semantics of the language.

The problem in copyrighting the syntax of a language is that it's very trivial to whip up another syntax. For example, JavaScript has the regular syntax but you can also write JavaScript using the CoffeeScript or ParenScript syntax while having the same semantics.

So if someone were to copyright a language syntax, it would be very easy to write an almost compatible language with a minor change to the syntax. The new language would be (source level) incompatible, but in essence it would be the same thing. The only reason for adding this incompatibility would be to avoid IP restrictions.

That's what we don't want, similar but incompatible languages with the only motivation being keeping lawyers happy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


87 line golang smtp server that just writes emails to a txt file - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/andrewarrow/jungle_smtp <comment><USER2> This server doesn't seem to speak SMTP at all, it just logs incoming text lines to a file until it sees ".\r\n" \- emitting responses for each line as if the client follows a pre-defined script of (ignored) SMTP verbs?

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah it's very sloppy, but at least u can email email@example.com now and the email doesn't bounce and I get all the info by just reading that file it writes to. So far I've gotten every test email I've sent. I rented a box at digital ocean and nothing was running on port 25. So I just slapped that together. I don't know how to configure postfix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For a better quality Golang mock SMTP server, check out MailHog.

[https://github.com/mailhog/MailHog](https://github.com/mailhog/MailHog)

<comment><AUTHOR> that's awesome! you win on quality hands down. I was writing jungle_smtp in like a chess clock running, code as fast as you possibly can, cutting every corner you can, just treat the fact that emails are currently bouncing from my domain as 100% unacceptable and save all those lost emails. For me it was definitely faster to code something like jungle than to setup any real smtp server.</comment></comment>


New USCIS Policy Will Carry Harsh Consequences for Applicants - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-uscis-policy-will-carry-harsh-consequences-for-applicants/#52b3d9264615 <comment><AUTHOR> > Whats if I receive NTA after my H1B extension has been denied?

> Earlier, if the H1B extension was denied, an H1b worker could have left USA > on its own. But, now, if the NTA is issued by USCIS for you, you have the > obligation to stay in US and appear in immigration court proceedings. Or at- > least hire a lawyer and appear in court on your behalf if you decide to > leave the US.

>NTA issued and you depart US and fail to appear in immigration court?

>A simple H1B visa extension can lead to NTA and you may have left US without any issue. But, if NTA is issued and you have left USA, you will most probably fail to appear for your deportation case proceedings. This failure to appear, in turn, will lead to issuance of forceful deportation order against you. Failure to appear also carries a 5 year ban on re-entry to US! This 'deportation order' will certainly be a cause of concern for all future US visa applications.

[https://www.am22tech.com/h1b-extension-denial-deportation- us...](https://www.am22tech.com/h1b-extension-denial-deportation-uscis- policy/)</comment>


Ask HN: I'm building an audience on Twitter. What's next? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN!
Instead of building a side project, I've decided to try to build an audience first, and then build a side project for them. I've worked on this for 1h per day for almost a week now, and I have 150 followers on Twitter. They are real followers interested in a specific niche market.
My question is: what's next? Should I keep building my number of followers? Should I make a blog? Should I try to make them sign up to a newsletter? Should I start asking them questions about potential problems they are facing that I could solve?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> blog

newsletter

podcast

youtube

guest post</comment>


The Calculus Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Excel at Calculus (Vid) - <AUTHOR> http://press.princeton.edu/video/banner/

<comment><USER2> The Math Lifesaver: <http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/>

For when you don't like your book, teacher, or need outside resources (I only used it for diff eq and linear algebra) but each is very well written and get right to the point

<comment><USER3> The first one I looked at gave Laplace functions and said "this list is not inclusive" instead of "exhaustive". Doesn't inspire confidence that the equations are transcribed well. We all make mistakes, just saying.

Or, perhaps it's another example of the "could care less" nonsense?

<comment><USER2> It is technically correct English though, just not used as often.

An inclusive list could be described as an exhaustive list.

<comment><USER3> If "[This] list is not inclusive." then we need to know what it is not inclusive of - it doesn't look like a complete sentence to me, ie incorrect, but grammar is admittedly not by strong suit.

One could write "This list is not inclusive of all available options." but there's a handy shorthand for that "This list is not exhaustive.". One could also write "incomplete" but that has a negative connotation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fantastic resource. I've been using this for the last couple weeks and it has made understanding Calculus II far easier.</comment>


Matt Cutts from Google doesn't want an iPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/mini-review-of-the-ipad/

<comment><USER2> I'm not quite sure what this whole openness hate is on the iPad.

Let's say google comes out with the heralded ChromeOS tablet, featuring a webkit browser that is really fast and can run all kinds of different HTML5 apps. Hooray for Openness!

...but doesn't the iPad have a very fast webkit browser that can run all kinds of different HTML5 apps too, plus this added feature called the "app store" that lets you make all kinds of other neat stuff. Isn't:

(web browser + app store) > web browser?

If not, how is it any less open than ChromeOS?

<comment><USER3> > If not, how is it any less open than ChromeOS?

You're setting up an artificial comparison with ChromeOS. I think most people are comparing the iPad to a Mac or PC. There's no question that it's far less open than either.

<comment><USER4> And yet one can't help feeling there's a double standard here.

When Apple released the original iPhone and told people they couldn't develop native applications but would get to write web applications for a great browser engine, there was outrage, and Apple's "culture of control" was blasted from all sides.

When Google announced Chrome OS and told people they couldn't develop native applications but would get to write web applications for a great browser, there was joy, and Google's culture of openness was praised from all sides.

"Nobody expects a Chrome OS device to be a desktop/laptop" doesn't hold up, since there are going to be Chrome OS devices which have specs at least as good as and almost certainly better than the iPhone and probably the iPad as well; why do we rant and rage and demand that _Apple_ devices have to be "real computers", then, while giving Google the free "oh, it's just a netbook/tablet/appliance" pass?

<comment><USER5> Good point. But the difference is that Google releasing a browser based platform where the only application is the browser forces them to use the same technology as everyone else to create applications, no one can create native applications for ChromeOS (or everyone can, since "native" means "web based") -- this is, in fact, good engineering because it means there are no secret APIs that give Google's apps an advantage so the Google employees writing apps are more likely to end up with a good API because they see exactly what non- google employees have to deal with. In fact, Google gives developers the same technology they use to develop apps, things like HTML5 and GoogleGears, etc. In contrast, Apple originally told people they couldn't develop native apps because _only_ Apple could release native apps.

<comment><USER4> _no one can create native applications for ChromeOS_

So it's deliberately even _more_ crippled than iPhone/iPad ;)

(which is what people would say if Apple released a web-apps-only system, which is kinda my point)

<comment><USER5> Is a blender deliberately crippled if it can't microwave food? It helps Google, I guess, to be a company that releases web-based software, because then web browsers run their software, even a web browser that they release. "Our web based OS only runs web based software" is a pretty goofy definition of "crippled". Would Apple release a web-apps-only system? I doubt it, it wouldn't provide the level of interactivity and UI/UX that Apple wants to give their customers, and Apple _wants_ to be both the the provider of the best experience and apps, and giving that ability to their developers is only secondary (even the guy who reimplemented coverflow from scratch and didn't use any secret Apple APIs was denied app inclusion initially).

<comment><USER4> _a pretty goofy definition of "crippled"_

Yes, which is why I wrote it that way. If Apple released a ChromeOS-alike, I would bet money that the response, from all corners of the tech world, would be to denounce it as unnecessarily "crippled", invoking theories of Steve Jobs' pathological need to prevent anyone from ever learning how to write native applications ever again.

And that response would be about as stupid and misinformed as the attitudes consistently displayed toward Apple for, e.g., the iPhone/iPad.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I got that. I disagree though. If Apple released a ChromeOS-alike and Apple's provided Apps did not have a advantage, due to direct hardware access or via secret APIs, because Apple made them, then I don't think we'd see people crying "crippled". I don't think Apple could keep themselves from giving themselves and advantage, though, so this ends up just being a academic discussion. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _But the iPad isn't for me. I want the ability to run arbitrary programs without paying extra money or getting permission from the computer manufacturer... I think the world needs more makers, which is why I don't intend to buy an iPad. That said, I think the typical consumer will love the iPad._

There's nothing about the hardware which is anti-maker, other than anything which specifically supports DRM, which I believe is minimal. It's almost all in the software.

What if Apple came out with the modern day version of Hypercard running in a sandbox, with capability-based gating of important facilities like dialing? HyperCard supported lots of do it yourself tinkering. For those makers who want to go to the next step, the App Store itself and the SDK are a worthwhile target.

<comment><USER7> It's hard to use the iPad for creation. Since I got mine, all I've done with it is read, watch videos and a little web surfing. It's just not made for typing. Sure, you can IM someone or reply to an email, but I couldn't write a blog entry (or even this comment) with it. You can use a wireless keyboard but it still doesn't feel right as you have to keep moving your hand to the screen to click on icons. It doesn't recognize Apple's Magic Mouse.

<comment><USER8> >You can use a wireless keyboard but it still doesn't feel right as you have to keep moving your hand to the screen to click on icons. It doesn't recognize Apple's Magic Mouse.

Sounds like you are starting to realize that the iPad is not a laptop...

I don't intend to be facetious. I think a lot of people genuinely think the iPad will revolutionize computing because it can actually serve as a replacement for the laptop (which, for many, replaced the desktop). But it's not a laptop replacement, it's just a big iPod Touch.

<comment><USER6> _I think a lot of people genuinely think the iPad will revolutionize computing because it can actually serve as a replacement for the laptop (which, for many, replaced the desktop). But it's not a laptop replacement, it's just a big iPod Touch._

That's funny. I think it will revolutionize computing because it _is_ a big iPod Touch.

The Touch is too small to be ideal for a lot of tasks. Yet a lot of use is made of the device's multi-touch interface. With a bigger screen, more mobile uses will reveal themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> He doesn't want an iPhone either. He's using Nexus One instead. What is he thinking?! It's almost like he was working for a competing phone/os manufacturer... oh wait.

<comment><USER10> > _He doesn't want an iPhone either. He's using Nexus One instead._

Eh?

> _I played with my wife's iPhone for just a few minutes before I knew I had > to have an iPhone._

<comment><USER9> He switched to a Nexus One recently: <http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/switch- iphone-to-android/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought hacking was about taking things that are purposed for one thing and re-making/re-programming it to do what you want it to do.

If people feel that Apple has created a walled garden they should get one and show us their vision on how it should operate.

The hardware is second to none, you want a camera put one in it's possible. Don't like the operating system figure out how to change it.

But don't just sit back and complain, that's easy.

I want one just so I can watch my 4 year old use it. The other she got a hold of my touch and was tapping away at it, found some app that simulates a brook, so when you touch it it ripples. So she decides to try and blow on it and see if it did anything. I thought that was amazing.

For me I will happily play in Apples garden, pay the fees live with the limitations, because it not only just works it works well.

If something better comes along I will change.

</comment><comment><USER12> I guess I'm kind of in the middle on this one. I love the concept of the ipad, but hate the closed nature of the platform and am wary of Apple pushing yet another device that pimps the appstore.

However, I felt the same about the AppleTV and the iphone, but still ended up buying both once I knew they were hackable.

</comment><comment><USER13> it's becoming a bit of a recurring theme it seems. not too hard to imagine a nearby future where consumers carry ipad (-like) devices and makers tote laptops running, say, ubuntu. it would be like the whole prosumer thing never happened.

</comment><comment><USER14> Don't want your iPad? Just do this to it: <http://youtube.com/v/lAl28d6tbko>

Best iPad demo this week!</comment>


Can people who aren't technical geniuses build complex systems? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/smart-people-should-build-complex-systems-c5627dc93518 <comment><USER2> Steve Jobs is an example of a non-technical genius? He obviously wasn't as brilliant technically as others, but he was still elite.

<comment><AUTHOR> In comparison to Bill Gates -- he's the perfect example. Each had different strengths.

Jobs was a marketing genius. While Gates understood Microsoft's marketing plan in depth -- their approach was fundamentally different.

You can also compare Jobs to Edwin Catmull when he was running Pixar. Catmull was an analytical thinker with a background in science. Obviously Jobs complimented him nicely -- and Jobs was critical to the success of Pixar.

You need to understand the implications, context and how a technology works. But you don't have to be the best engineer in the world to build tech companies.</comment></comment>


Senator Kerry visits talking Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://www.masschallenge.org/blog/senator-kerry-visits-masschallenge-talks-entrepreneurship

<comment><AUTHOR> Personally, seeing Senator Kerry was great in seeing the awareness of the importance of Entrepreneurship within the current government.

Ofcourse, I am a little skeptical, but with the launch of Startup America Partnership it seems that some concrete steps are being taken in helping Entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER2> Agree totally, Vineet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great to see the White House, the President and now Senators shining the spotlight on entrepreneurship and the central role it plays!</comment>


Impossible Escape - <AUTHOR> http://datagenetics.com/blog/december12014/index.html

<comment><USER2> I do this as a performance piece, in particular, performing it at this year's annual MathsJam gathering[0]. I do know people who have worked out how to do it from first principles. I became aware of it about 18 months ago, interesting to see it getting some publicity. I've been trying, but as yet have been unable to find the original source.

Tanya Khovanova[1] wrote about it some time ago, although I can't find the exact link, but doesn't remember where she got it from.

Nice puzzle.

[0] [http://www.mathsjam.com](http://www.mathsjam.com)

[1] [http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/](http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8701460](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8701460)</comment>


Fighting DMCA Issue in Stack Exchange - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@acsudeep/fighting-dmca-in-stack-exchange-f8206761959e#.ba2yuvfng <comment><USER2> The title is weird. The author didn't fight DMCA in SE. He sent an email that was not a DMCA takedown request to a DMCA report address and SE did a nice thing by responding.

I like that SE refused to reassign author - it's not a good solution and they'd end up with two annoyed parties instead. SE did more than they had to here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why do you think so? What could be the possible title?

<comment><USER2> Why: DMCA takedown request is a very specific process and it requests immediate removal of content. Poster can then dispute it to get it restored. ([http://brainz.org/dmca-takedown-101/](http://brainz.org/dmca-takedown-101/)) As far as I understand your post, that's not what you submitted since modifying the content / replacing the author is not one of the DMCA outcomes.

Possible: "Asking SE to reown/remove plagiarised content"

Why reowning is a bad idea? Because you didn't create that post and the post has effects inside of SE system (reputation, comment addressing, etc.). Nothing of course stops you from requesting a takedown and posting the same content again from your own account. Request to reown some already posted content seems a bit dodgy to me.</comment></comment></comment>


JSFiddle gets a face-lift - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/jsfiddle-updates/the-lifting-cb3c9f216c2f#.3te2gi73t <comment><USER2> Wow, this looks pretty nice. One of the reasons why I'd always used Codepen was because the interface was much more pleasant.

It did make me a bit weary to hear that they were undertaking a "complete rewrite" by a member who had just recently joined the team. That could quickly backfire.

<comment><USER3> I've never been a fan of Codepens UI :{</comment></comment>


US pushing local cops to stay mum on surveillance  - <AUTHOR> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CENSORING_SURVEILLANCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-06-12-14-47-09

<comment><USER2> Does anybody else get the feeling that there's still quite a bit left of the warrantless, dragnet surveillance rabbit hole?

I keep wondering when the next really big thing will drop - like evidence of industrial espionage by the NSA on behalf of some specific company, or a list of targeted organizations that includes things like the Red Cross, or IEEE.</comment>


Stephen Wolfram: 'The textbook has never interested me' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/29/stephen-wolfram-textbook-never-interested-me-wolframalpha <comment><USER2> Very interesting response to one of the flash questions at the end:

>> What is the least evidence-based, most irrational area of your life?

> High-risk, optimistic hiring of people. I'm interested in the trajectories > of people's lives and how they develop but it is something for which I have > the least well-developed theories.</comment>


Show HN: How to ensure JavaScript code quality - <AUTHOR> https://deepscan.io/home/ <comment><USER2> Our JavaScript at this point is basically an add only nightmare I have no idea how to dig ourselves out of.

It is a bigger problem than I know how to fix. We even have a similar static analysis tool on our code, but when there are thousands and thousands of existing issues pointed out by it no one really cares about adding a few more to the pile.

I tried to promote typescript and rewriting over time. I can't seem to get our front end developers to understand the value, or care. It's totally my failure; it hurts my soul.

It's honest to god something of an existential crisis for me.

I hunkered down in primarily backend over the nightmare that is our JS, whereas I spent nearly ten years full stack. Sigh.

<comment><USER3> Here is the method I used in a similar situation. Start from an extremely loyal linter config where you get 0 errors and 0 warnings with your existing code (that might mean an empty config, but that's OK). Then add rules one by one, fixing the codebase completely for each rule that you add, so that you always have 0 warnings and 0 errors with each commit. Yes, this is significant amount of work, but at least the work is broken down into chunks, and each chunk has a clear definition of done (can go straight into an agile backlog, etc). By the time you have a sensible linter config, you have a much better codebase as well.

<comment><USER4> Ditto, this is the same thing I did for a 16,000+ line app.

I used eslint ( [https://eslint.org](https://eslint.org) ) and prettier ( [https://prettier.io](https://prettier.io) ), and using airbnb's JavaScript Style Guide as a reference point ( [https://github.com/airbnb/javascript](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript) ), I would enable rules one by one. Then slowly rule by rule (commit by commit) I would clean up the code base.

<comment><USER5> Our modules currently are at 96398 lines of code (I am not counting the apps). It is still maintainable and perfectly understandable. Everything is split into module though and then every module has its own tests and its own examples. We lack proper documentation. It is not a problem yet but it could turn out to be in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for clearly answering the privacy + security related questions (I specifically went to the site to search for this - way too many software dealing with your code forget to specify this):

 _" For demo and editor plugins, we store the source content transmitted to the server as a temporary file. Right after the inspection, the file is completely deleted."_

<comment><USER7> That is laudable and refreshing. Since they are being so upfront, though, it would be nice to spell out that no copies or derivitive metadata are kept either.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. We will add those facts to documents in the next release, which is planned on the end of this month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just tried it out. Smooth sailing! A couple remarks: 1) It would be nice to explain some of the warnings. I had

        myFunction() {
            for (var x in xs) { .. }
            for (var x in xs2) { .. }
        }

it would complain about "Duplicate declaration of variable 'x'". Understandable, but then I'd like to know the javascript context information (apparently x is not in a sub-scope (as in most languages), but in the main function scope). 2) GitHub integration would be nice. A button when looking at source in GitHub which annotates the code with warnings would be quite an improvement over the current view.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the helpful comment!

1) We will consider adding explanation like "Note that 'x' is declared in function scope. Consider using 'let' declaration if you intended block scope".

2) Yes. Directly showing warnings in the GitHub site would be a nice feature. We will consider it in our roadmap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure what advantage this has over Flow and the usual JIRA ticket management.

<comment><AUTHOR> DeepScan runs data-flow analysis that is somewhat orthogonal to the type checking of Flow.

For example, BAD_MIN_MAX_FUNC rule detects an error in the following code, which is beyond type checking.

      x = Math.min(0, Math.max(100, x)); // BAD_MIN_MAX_FUNC alarm. The result is always 0.

The main diffrenece with JIRA ticket management is that it operates using information from code itself.

For example, it automatically tracks fixed and newly detected issues by a feature called historical defect merging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We're running Sonar in our enterprise so this is an attractive integration. Currently it's reporting all sorts of stuff on our Java codebase that the team seems to be ignoring. Anyone have good tips on enforcing compliance?

<comment><USER11> Make the build fail if Sonar fails. Whoever breaks the build must fix it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've tried it with a bunch of files of an open source project of mine. It's in coffee script 2 so I've converted it to ES6 first. It has found many minor problems, and a couple of potential bugs. Definitely useful!

</comment><comment><USER13> Where is the pricing page? Is it free?

<comment><USER14> from [https://deepscan.io/getting-started/](https://deepscan.io/getting- started/)

Pricing

We are in BETA stage and do not provide paid plans yet.

But open source projects are free and one private project is for your trial experience.

If you're interested in using DeepScan for more private projects, please contact us.

<comment><USER13> Ok thanks! I was looking for a pricing page in fact :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does it catch security problems because this code returned 0 issues?

      var lave = eval(atob(document.location.hash.slice(1)))
      console.log(lave.name)

<comment><AUTHOR> No. DeepScan concentrates on runtime errors and does not cover security issues currently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is it possible to run this as a npm package against local Git repositories? Or is that in the roadmap?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a npm cli pacakage but currently provide it to limited partners only. In the future, we are considering to include it under paid plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> looks interesting. What are the advantages of running such analysis on GitHub rather than locally?

<comment><USER17> It mentions 'Editor Plugins' on the page so I suppose you can run this locally too.

One Advantage I can think of of running such analysis on GitHub would be automatically analyzing pull requests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So this is only available for github projects? Any plans on including others?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are planning to support Bitbucket and GitLab in long term.

You can check out more detail in [https://deepscan.io/docs/get- started/basics/#non-github](https://deepscan.io/docs/get-started/basics/#non- github)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Curious, how does this compare to a statically typed language compiler?

<comment><AUTHOR> While DeepScan finds some type-related errors, it focuses on finding issues orthogonal to type checking.

For comparison with Java, DeepScan is like FindBugs.

Check the reply that I have wrote for shamas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Dang, my projects are in gitlab. Any word on gitlab integration ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, no gitlab integration yet. It is on the next year roadmap.

In the meantime, you can try editor plugins if you are using Visual Studio Code or Atom.

Check [https://deepscan.io/docs/get-started/basics/#non- github](https://deepscan.io/docs/get-started/basics/#non-github) for details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Write a guide on how to integrate it into an editor!

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are using Atom or Visual Studio Code, you can try the following plugins:

\- Visual Studio Code: [https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DeepScan...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DeepScan.vscode- deepscan)

\- Atom: [https://atom.io/packages/atom- deepscan](https://atom.io/packages/atom-deepscan)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> kinda useful from the one file I tried!!

</comment><comment><USER23> interesting tool</comment>


Robert Scoble Interview: "Facebook Will Make Their Own Search Engine" - <AUTHOR> http://techpp.com/2012/04/27/robert-scoble-interview/

<comment><USER2> Good interview, but the interviewer editorialized the headline.

</comment><comment><USER3> It never ceases to amaze me that Scoble is famous.</comment>


Show HN: An app that sends you weekly recipes matching your nutrition targets - <AUTHOR> https://weeklyfuel.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I originally started making this for myself, as I was trying to eat better but was too lazy to add up the calories/fat/protein/carbs in everything I was planning on cooking for myself for the week, especially since I didn't know at first where those levels should even be. The only other app I found (eatthismuch.com) that focuses on hitting specific targets left something to be desired in the way of UX and recipe quality at the time (they're constantly improving, though), so I decided to make my own.

Of course I'd love any feedback and am happy to answer any questions about how the app works.</comment>


Quake II RTX: Re-Engineering a Classic with Ray Tracing Effects on Vulkan - <AUTHOR> https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/quake-ii-rtx-ray-tracing-vulkan-vkray-geforce-rtx/ <comment><USER2> The new lighting makes such a dramatic difference. Despite the same low polygon count, the levels seem much more lifelike. If all the game classics are re-released with raytracing engines, I will be all over it. The next years are going to be good.

<comment><USER3> I'm very skeptical.

This is not just RTT; there's a big amount of rework. Likely, any old game would look significantly better with such development effort (in other words, with any good remastering).

This could be considered a great market stunt - the graphical improvement is touted to be due to RTX (ray tracing), while it's actually due to many factors.

On top of that, it misleads people into thinking that this type of improvement is typical of ray tracing, and that it comes at virtually no cost, while currently, ray tracing takes a big performance hit, and it's generally hard to notice.

Q2VKPT is close to the concept "improved with ray tracing", and while certainly impressive, it doesn't yield the same "AMAZING!" effect.

<comment><USER4> Not sure what can you be skeptical about. The difference from RT Quake to Quake it's only that the lights are not precompiled at the beginning of the level. Any other game just need to rework the light baking step to use RTX and job done.

The only downside that can be pointed out is that you are hardware dependent. Would be amazing to see thing in a console, all games with dynamic lighting would help developer and gamers.

<comment><USER5> > The difference from RT Quake to Quake it's only that the lights are not > precompiled

In the linked demo video they also use new high resolution textures. Which include not only color data as in the original Quake, but also normal maps and maps with PBR parameters (metalness, roughness).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The original textures were done by Adrian Carmack. I think he's a genius as much as John. He was capable of making a difficult theme really work: a mix between dark future and fantasy. Specially fantasy with guns is terribly difficult and I don't recall having seen a game that succeeded in making that mix as well as the Quake series.

<comment><USER7> Maybe this isn't what you're talking about, but Bungie's game Destiny is a pretty great example of medieval fantasy transposed several thousand years into the future.

<comment><USER8> Is it? I only played Destiny 2 and from the parts I really got into (pre- expansions), I didn't get a very medieval fantasy vibe at any points. Most of the architecture was fairly modern or alien. Was nice though.

Anthem has some buildings that have an older feel out in the freeplay areas, but even that would be a stretch.

<comment><USER9> It's much more apparent in Destiny 1, with the Hive architecture, which is like something out of Mordor. And in the Forsaken expansion to Destiny 2, where The Dreaming City seems like a high-fantasy kingdom, but under attack by evil forces.

<comment><USER8> ah, nice. Can't remember if it was Hive or a different faction, but while playing the core game of D2, I thought it was nice because the environment you dealt with them reminded me a lot of Alien (without the xenomorph, obviously). I think that was one thing D2 did well: in the core game, there are multiple factions that are pretty distinct so it almost feels like different games at times.

<comment><USER9> Yes, you are right: the Hive architecture is also rather _Alien_ -ish!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love RTX, but it's so hard to demonstrate it. It doesn't give _presence_ of any "wow!" effect (apart from demos that overdo reflections), it only gives _absence_ of incorrect shadows, and humans are bad at noticing absence of things.

Instead of "wow" you get "well, duh, that's how things should look".

<comment><USER11> Path tracing has huge wow factor. The problem with RTX is that on current gen hardware it runs at laughably low sample rates and the result is very noisy even after DLDN.

Games are handling this by dialling the amplitude of RTX effects way down and having a smoothing pass. After all that is done, the wow effect is gone and you're just left with a more dynamic version of the same or worse aesthetics that we're already used to.

I expect it'll truly take off on next gen hardware, whenever that rolls out.

Here's what RTX+DLDN actually looks like if not dialled down and smoothed: [https://youtu.be/CuoER1DwYLY?t=553](https://youtu.be/CuoER1DwYLY?t=553)

My takeaway is yes that quake 2 demo looks really cool, but you just know that they used every black magic hack in the book to get there, and most of it can't be replicated in a modern high fidelity game. It's definitely not a case of flicking an 'RTX on' switch.

<comment><USER12> What's DLDN? I tried Googling it with some relevant keywords but it just brings me back to this comment.

<comment><USER11> Deep learning denoiser. I don't know if NVIDIA came up with some marketing term for it. It's what allows RTX to produce meaningful images at all despite the renderer running at 0.5-2 samples per pixel which looks little better than random noise. I kind of assumed they'd call it DLDN because they called their deep learning supersampling DLSS. I guess not, go figure.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjjTPV2pXY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjjTPV2pXY0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> apk-d Rtx really shines when applied to a low-fidelity game like Q2. The difference isn't as profound in modern titles where a plethora of lighting techniques and tricks approximates physical lighting closely, though.

I wonder if in the end (should we eventually see universal adoption) raytracing will prove more of a boon towards developers rather than end users, as it has been with many other hardware advancements.

<comment><USER13> But... That's the biggest benefit of raytracing/path tracing. It's why the movie industry is already all-in on it and has been for years. It's just in games where for some reason gamers don't understand the benefits and are so eager to dismiss it if they don't immediately see everything look 10x more amazing or realistic, entirely missing the point.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps many games do not require realistic light, rather some type of simplistic model serves gameplay well enough, I do not know what kind of light modeling was used in Sunset Overdrive, but that type of oversaturated lighting works for some games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow that's a big difference.

It reminds me of what it was like to first see 3dfx OpenGL mode in Quake II when I got a Voodoo graphics card.

<comment><USER16> Not Glide mode? ;)

<comment><USER15> Now that you mention it, I don't remember if it was opengl or glide, it was over 20 years ago. Same effect tho.

I just remember seeing all of the ambient lights and glows and thinking how amazing it looked. Specifically some early campaign map where you're going through dark sewers that had a bunch of little lights that emit a glow.

But after the coolness factor wore off, it was back to using the most minimal settings possible to maximize visibility and frame rates to play it online.

<comment><USER17> If it was Voodoo you'd be using Glide. That was their proprietary API.

But yeah, the biggest improvement was putting it into Glide/OpenGL and watching all the new lights appear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Digital Foundry has an amazing analysis video and have talked to the original creator, highly enjoyable: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRCAfdBMe2Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRCAfdBMe2Y)

</comment><comment><USER19> I hope raytracing will enable some remasters of amazing old games. No need for new content, changing the stories or gameplay, just vastly improved graphics. I always preferred the Quake series for multiplayer, but Half-Life was great single player. Max Payne would be a great replay with better graphics. Some old flight sims like Jane's WWII Fighters, X-Wing v Tie Fighter, Wing Commander... I'd pay cash monies for this.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is great to see. Quake and Doom were all about elaborate fake 3d and elaborate fake raytracing to run fast and look amazing on slow hardware. As technology improved, first we got a real 3d engine and now we finally have a real raytracing engine.

<comment><USER5> What do you mean "fake 3d"? They are as 3D as any other computer generated images with linear perspective. Quake is even using a rasterizer like nearly all games today.

<comment><USER21> Doom used 2D sprites, so "fake 3d" if you ask me.

<comment><USER22> The terms "fake 3D" and "2.5D" in reference to Doom and similar games has nothing to do with sprite based mobs, it's about not having a truly 3D map. Doom's maps were drawn in 2D top-down with a height variable for any wall or platform. You couldn't have one room above another, which is why elevators in the game were solid (you couldn't stand under the floor). The various level editors for Doom based games looked like primitive 2D CAD programs.

Quake was a whole new paradigm, it was based on a true 3D engine and its maps were generated in three dimensions. You could stand under stairs, under the room above, and underneath lifts.

<comment><USER23> It's surely both the sprite-based monsters and the "2.5D" world that justify DOOM's "2.5D/fake 3D" label, though indeed more the latter. (System Shock was a transitional example of sprite monsters in an otherwise full-3D world: [https://youtu.be/CGKidgwcalM?list=PLqqLcEJ9bUtNedMdW64WioyV9...](https://youtu.be/CGKidgwcalM?list=PLqqLcEJ9bUtNedMdW64WioyV9Pgdsxkj9&t=108) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Glass, which reflects everything around it" except the character standing in front of it! It seems like it is over done but not done properly. I know it is a demo but still, its trying so hard!

<comment><USER25> Quake 2 did not have a rendered character model because it's a first-person shooter, so you never see yourself.

If you look at the water reflections, you will however see your gun model and a disembodied/floating hand holding it.

<comment><USER24> ahhh, didn't realise. Gun thing is mad

<comment><USER26> TIL Quake 2 is a sequel to The Addams Family.

Somehow... it almost works....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > id Software's Quake II launched in 1997, bringing gamers a new single-player > campaign, a long-awaited, addictive multiplayer mode that we played for > years on pitifully-slow 56K modems, and a jaw-dropping engine

As for me Quake 2 was kind of a disappointment after Duke Nukem 3D. Only Half- Life brought back the depth Duke Nukem 3D had. E.g. seeing something like a ventilation cover and not being able to break it and climb through felt infuriating.

<comment><USER28> Honestly Quake 2's biggest feature was going open source.

When I was porting Quake 2 to MS-DOS, I have to admit that it's the most I ever played of it. It really fell into Carmak's view that stories have no place in gaming.

It's a shame Valve found a much bigger market than games, but it leaves the mantle for others to pick up.

<comment><USER27> > stories have no place in gaming

What does this mean? Being told and participating in a story has always been by far the primary thing I play a game for. Interactive visual fiction experience inducing compassion and involvement bundled with moderate challenge, a degree of freedom and realism (that's why I don't like rail- nailed heavily scripted games) is what I want of a game. The visual part should be reasonable (mostly needed for the atmosphere) and controls should be convenient. In my opinion Half-Life and Fallout (all the parts) were the best games I ever played. The story unveiling and the sense of helping people in the imaginary world heroically (something that is a way too hard and dangerous for an average Joe to do in the real life where you can't save&load) and exploration are the things that make a game addictive for me.

<comment><USER28> It's an old Carmack quote:

> Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, > but it's not that important.

It's why DooM was such an incredible novelty of fast paced 3d shooter, and Quake... Well.. Its devoid of character.

It's why HL & Fallout are so beloved.

I'm 100% with you

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> No mention of how to download it - either in the negative "You can't..." or positive.

Seems a strange omission.

<comment><USER30> The creator's website ie mentioned on the article, and code is available on his github[2].

> As Christoph states on his site [1] ...

[1] [http://brechpunkt.de/q2vkpt](http://brechpunkt.de/q2vkpt) [2] [https://github.com/cschied/q2vkpt](https://github.com/cschied/q2vkpt)

<comment><USER29> That's q2vkpt. It sounds like Quake II RTX is built on top of that but with more features.

<comment><USER31> No I think they are one and the same. q2vpkt is built on top of VK_NV_ray_tracing which is the Vulkan interface to RTX. It won't run on non- nvidia hardware afaik

<comment><USER32> They're not the same.

 _"But what's new with Quake II RTX compared to Q2VKPT?", you ask. A lot. We've introduced real-time, controllable time of day lighting, with accurate sunlight and indirect illumination; refraction on water and glass; emissive, reflective and transparent surfaces; normal and roughness maps for added surface detail; particle and laser effects for weapons; procedural environment maps featuring mountains, sky and clouds, which are updated when the time of day is changed; a flare gun for illuminating dark corners where enemies lurk; an improved denoiser; SLI support (hands-up if you rolled with Voodoo 2 SLI back in the day); Quake 2 XP high-detail weapons, models and textures; optional NVIDIA Flow fire, smoke and particle effects, and much more!_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This looks like RTX versus Quake2 software renderer, so the pictures are somewhat deceptive as they do not use the more powerful original Quake2 renderers.

I would be interested how RTX compares to the other Quake2 renderers that it originally came with.

</comment><comment><USER34> Is this ray tracing or path tracing? I'd think that real-time path tracing would still be hard/impossible in real-time considering the number of samples, but I'm not sure. People throw around these terms interchangeably which complicates the discussion, though the algorithms have notable departures from each other.

<comment><USER35> I thought path tracing was just ray tracing with additional random scatters traced, is it not?

<comment><USER36> Depends on who you ask, the term is overloaded now.

These days, it does tend to mean doing global illumination using ray tracing.

Originally, the term "path tracing" was used to refer to taking a single random scatter at every step along a path of connected segments, as opposed to the idea of taking multiple random scatters at a point and averaging them, recursively. It's a way of thinking of Monte Carlo rendering as taking one sample in a very high dimensional space - where a chain of ray segments, or "path" is a single sample - rather than thinking of each ray segment separately as a sample.

Ray tracing, FWIW, can sometimes refer to situations where you're not even rendering. It has a more general meaning of doing line based visibility queries, which you can use for lots of things.

<comment><USER34> If I'm not mistaken, for your last paragraph, general visibility tests for lines that does not otherwise involve actual rendering is typically just called ray casting.

<comment><USER36> You're not mistaken, ray casting would be more common, but ray tracing is also used. This is especially true among people that design path tracing renderers where we consider "ray tracing" to be a visibility primitive. "Trace a ray" and "cast a ray" are synonymous. I also think using "ray tracing" for visibility might start become more popular now with RTX hardware since the "ray tracing" hardware only provides the visibility test, not a renderer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> can someone help me understand what "ray tracing" means in this case?

i've read a few technical articles about ray-tracing, but they mostly describe it as a rudimentary (largely outdated) way of achieving 3d effects with relatively little code, and with severe limitations (walls must be orthonormal, changes in elevation require extra work, etc.). i understand ray- tracing at this level (break the view into columns, set the fill height of the column according to the distance of the ray).

then i see marketing-style articles like this one that use the same term to describe advanced lighting effects, material reflections, etc. and i don't understand the technological jump. what am i missing?

edit: i was thinking of "ray casting", not "ray tracing". thank you for the corrections below.

<comment><USER38> What you are describing sounds more like ray _casting_ than ray tracing.

Ray casting is the old Wolfenstein 3D look: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting)

Ray tracing is what Pixar uses for Toy Story, Monsters Inc, etc... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_(graphics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_\(graphics\))

And then the new hotness for offline rendering is Path Tracing, which is a form really good but really hard to accelerate form of ray tracing: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_tracing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_tracing)

And yes fundamentally all of these are "shoot rays out from the camera", hence the very specific terminology used for each to disambiguate which approach to shooting out rays from the camera is being used and what happens when rays hit a thing.

<comment><USER39> I'm pretty sure toy story 1 didn't use ray tracing. Iirc cars was the first that did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> That looks really impressive from both technical and also marketing point of view. Especially the latter one keeps nVidia ahead of AMD. As much as I like AMD, they need to step up their game somehow.

</comment><comment><USER41> How do I get to play this again? Was my favorite FPS game of all time.

<comment><USER42> Buy the game on Steam or gog.com, and use the assets with any client you like (on practically any operating system) such as: [https://yamagi.org/quake2/](https://yamagi.org/quake2/)

Of course that doesn't get you this ray tracing thingy, although you might be able to run that when they release it and if your hardware supports it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> [https://github.com/cschied/q2vkpt/](https://github.com/cschied/q2vkpt/)

<comment><USER32> That's the source for Q2VKPT. I wonder if the source for Quake II RTX will also be released, which is the main target of discussion in this nVidia article and builds upon Q2VKPT.

<comment><USER44> They said at GTC it will but they haven't given a date for when yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This kind of demo always makes me think of how long it used to take to render a single frame of anything non-trivial.

</comment><comment><USER46> So will this be available to purchase?

<comment><USER47> It's open source: [http://brechpunkt.de/q2vkpt/](http://brechpunkt.de/q2vkpt/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> "We are not faking it" \- how about the hardware? Is it exact same that consumer could buy?

<comment><USER4> RTX is based on the Turing architecture that is a pretty amazing beast. The technology of raytracing has been around or a long time through iray what nvidia did is to bake in the necessary formats, neat interface and slight hardware adjustments.

<comment><USER48> I only worry about the number of cores being used in these demos. Tech might be same but it's quite possible Nvidia could use their high-energy prototypes to enhance the results. There is no restrictions on that. Clear statements like, "we are using the exact same RTX card we are shipping to consumer in September" would really be a selling point for me.

<comment><USER39> I think Titan RTX is a "perfect die," so to speak, so even if they used the maximum number of cores they possibly could for this demo, that same silicon is for sale.

<comment><USER48> Looking at the Titan's price range, that's something I would effort "max" for luxury gaming, only if it can give those exact results.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crooks Continue to Exploit GoDaddy Hole - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/02/crooks-continue-to-exploit-godaddy-hole/ <comment><USER2> The only fix is to not have ICANN. They are the real crooks. Seeing how they fought KnujOn says it all. Besides, the internet should not be controlled by some American entity. Trump has enough big red buttons as it is. Decentralization!</comment>


UN report authors denounce claims that pesticides are necessary (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/07/un-experts-denounce-myth-pesticides-are-necessary-to-feed-the-world <comment><USER2> The title cites this as "UN experts", but based on what I can see, it is the work of a single "special rapporteur". I can't find anything that states who the author (special rapporteur) is, and what their qualifications are. Skimming the report and looking at the citations, it seems that the author used cherry-picked newspaper articles to support some of their scientific claims, which increases my skepticism significantly.

<comment><USER3> The special rapporteur is Hilal Elver, a law professor at UCLA.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I found her biography on the UN page here- [https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/HilalElver.aspx](https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/HilalElver.aspx)

She seems like a smart person, however, I'm not seeing anything that would indicate she has any expertise in agriculture...

<comment><AUTHOR> The report is on the "right to food"\- that's a legal matter. Hence, the rapporteur is a legal expert. The profile you link to makes it clear she has some experience with environmental issues, including food security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Guardian is really going mad. The article claims this is a myth, but give no arguments of why they think it's untrue. The only thing relevant to crop yields is:

 _> The UN FAO is clear on this – without crop protection tools, farmers could lose as much as 80% of their harvests to damaging insects, weeds and plant disease._

There is not even a section in the UN report about the benefits of pesticides.

<comment><USER5> "said a spokesman for the Crop Protection Association, which represents pesticide manufacturers"

<comment><USER4> Are you saying the UN FAO's position is otherwise?

<comment><USER5> I am saying I would expect the trade body to carefully and selectively phrase their responses for the sole benefit of the trade. "could lose as much as 80%" (but will usually be far less).

A study that came shortly after this one points to clear over-use and that reducing use would actually increase yields:

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/06/farms- co...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/06/farms-could-slash- pesticide-use-without-losses-research-reveals)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a surprise to find the pesticides manufacturer's association disputes this. I'm shocked!

There's been a few studies since this one. No one seems to have actually required a reduction yet though. I think France has a target. The UK plan consists of nothing but empty words and no plan. Then was criticised by the UK Chief Scientist.

</comment><comment> Const-me Of course they are not necessary anymore, we already have GMO crops.

In some cases, GMOs eliminate the need for pesticides even for neighboring non-GMO crops: [https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/planting-gmos- kills-...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/planting-gmos-kills-so- many-bugs-that-it-helps-non-gmo-crops/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why change the title, here? The word "myth" was used by the author of the reporte quoted in the article. The use of the word by the author may be controversial but the article title is using it quite accurately.

Also- why change the focus from "pesticides are necessary to feed the world" to "pesticides are necessary", as in, in general?

<comment><AUTHOR> Could I get a clarification from a moderator, please? The subject discussed in the article and the report is the necessity of pesticides in sustaining population growth (in other words, "feeding the world"). The report itself is titled "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food". The change of the title dilutes this meaning to the point of irrelevance.

Edit: I'm not even sure the new title is less controversial. What, pesticides are not necessary _at all_?

What's the purpose of the change?</comment></comment>


Gabe Newell says Valve will release its own console-like PC for the living room - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/8/3744314/gabe-newell-valve-console-living-room-steam-box/ <comment><USER2> Well, this is interesting.

Valve has a well-deserved reputation for quality, so the expectations for the"Valve Box" are pretty high. I expect they will be met.

This will change the gaming industry dynamic quite a bit, should they be able to pull it off. Both the 360 and the PS3 are getting long in the tooth, and with no refresh of those platforms coming in the near future Valve could benefit greatly if they release their device relatively soon.

This should be interesting, to say the least.</comment>


To convince people of natural evolution, also teach them genetic programming? - <AUTHOR>

Many people find evolution by natural selection as a rather implausible way of explaining the diversity of life.
But what if all students were required to learn genetic programming?  Would that improve the situation?
Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXzcPNsqGA
http://www.karlsims.com/papers/siggraph94.pdf
http://www.karlsims.com/papers/alife94.pdf <comment><USER2> I do not think that teaching genetic algorithms will help. I think that the question we ask has become so completely infected by politics and religion right now, that it may no longer be a good question to ask. Currently, we ask people whether they believe in evolution and I believe that a substantial majority instantly translates the question in their heads to, "Do you believe in God?" Then they answer no. Likewise, I think a great majority instantly translate the question into something like, "Are you a democrat or a republican?" Regardless of the agency, such as Gallup, posing the questions and regardless of how carefully the questions were prepared, it just seems that these type of questions have been biased beyond use. In short, I don't think that the rates for evolution's acceptance are as low as they appear to be.

Lastly, most scientists, programmers, and etc that I know already accept evolution. If genetic algorithms were to be used to enhance the understanding of evolution in the general public, you would also have to teach the general public more about computer programming, algorithms, and math in general, and none of those are trivial things to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> Presumably, your supposition is that the genetic programming route might work because anyone with a "moral" aversion to learning about biological evolution may not have a problem with learning genetic programming.

I think the answer is: "only if you're sneaky and don't tell them that that's what it is". I'm pretty convinced that anyone who's thought about evolution and "doesn't understand it" doesn't understand it because they want not to. If they don't think their identity as a creationist is being challenged, then presumably they would indeed be more receptive to the concept and "get it" very quickly.</comment>


100 Reasons You'll Be Speechless over Windows Vista (or is it?) - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/100reasons.mspx?wt_svl=10288VHa1&mg_id=10288VHb1

<comment><USER2> I'm pretty speechless about that list, especially the fact that most of the things on it are just as true for XP.

I like Vista more than most, but I'd hardly consider it breathtaking.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've used Vista two or three times. Each time, it feels like my first computer experience because it's so hard to get anything done efficiently. The "enhanced user design" just gets in the way. It seems that MS just worked on happy-to-glad UI issues.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have tried Vista on my friend's laptop. Its ultraaaaaa slow. It looks like it was released a little too early.

</comment><comment><USER5> I like how the links on the left don't work in Safari 3.</comment>


Ask HN: Open source projects that need UI/UX help? - <AUTHOR> In the UX community I've found many people who would like to offer UI/UX help for FOSS projects. But its not easy to find out what projects are willing to accept these improvements. If you are involved with FOSS and need UX help, please let me know. <comment><USER2> Pretty sure bootstrap accepts contributions from the community. They're working on Bootstrap 4 right now. Maybe that would be a good place to start? (I think they're just accepting bug fixes right now though)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I find Bootstrap to be one of the shining examples of great UX in open source projects. Their UI, documentation and overall experience is probably in the top 1% of all projects. I am looking for projects like Audacity and Calibre that really need a bit of UX work done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> System project tends to have bad UI because system programmers live in terminal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, but do you reckon its worth the effort to ask system programmers whether or not they'd be willing to accept UX contributions?

<comment><USER4> You can always ask, but many programmers aren't going to be able to/don't have the desire to communicate with non-programmers in useful ways.

I wrote about the problems open source projects often face getting design (and other non-technical) help they can use: [http://opendesign.foundation/articles/import- designers/](http://opendesign.foundation/articles/import-designers/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Your article highlights some of the key issues faced in this context, by both developers and designers. Fauxflake seems to be a completely developer oriented project, so there would probably be a marginal benefit from UX applied to it (of course docs and tutorials would make a difference). I think projects like Audacity that are meant to be used by the layman, probably stand to gain the highest with better design.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I Started Reading 10 Hours Every Week - <AUTHOR> https://merki.ca/blog/read-more-books <comment> eigen-vector Personal opinion: Like most productivity tips, you don't have to hack your way into making reading a habit. A lot of the effort gets lost in the process itself. What I've found works for me is identifying the right kind of book(s) that will help me build momentum. It could be a certain writer, or a certain genre, or even a book or series that you've previously read; just start reading.

<comment><AUTHOR> I respect this opinion, but I suspect you have an easier time getting started than I do. Whatever works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I can relate about this problem: I love to read, but can't find the time to do so.

Mindfulness about "distraction" is the first step. We don't need more time, we need to prioritize what we do every moment of the day.

What also helped me is to switch my mental approach when reading: I don't see it as a "read it from A to Z" task.

I took the opposite approach, reading only the first 20 pages of lots of different books. It gives a wide perspective of what's available, it broaden the spectrum of knowledge. Then I rate each book so I can come back and read through the ones that look the most appealing to me.</comment>


Larry Tesler has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.cultofmac.com/685669/larry-tesler-the-apple-employee-who-invented-cut-copy-paste-dies-at-74/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22361282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22361282), which was posted earlier. So much earlier, in fact, that there wasn't any external corroboration yet. I'm going to roll back the clock on that submission now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Larry Tesler, Xerox PARC employee who invented cut, copy, paste, and later worked for Apple, dies at 74.

<comment><USER4> Right, the title implies that Cut, Copy, and Paste was invented at Apple, when that's not the case.

<comment><USER5> Cutting titles considered harmful</comment></comment></comment>


Teaching Kids about money management - <AUTHOR> http://pavelpichardo.com/2010/10/teaching-kids-about-money-management/

<comment><USER2> 1\. There's a very impressive video on how to teach kids to be entrepreneurs which covers the aspects of money management [http://ca.ted.com/talks/cameron_herold_let_s_raise_kids_to_b...](http://ca.ted.com/talks/cameron_herold_let_s_raise_kids_to_be_entrepreneurs.html)

2\. Another article by Ken Rockwell which covers some important lessons <http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/how-to-afford-anything.htm>

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, I will watch the video and read the article to see what can I teach them from there.</comment></comment>