The Economics of Dissent: How Twitter & Fbook Tipped the Revolutionary Equation - <AUTHOR> http://zarnotes.blogspot.com/2011/03/economics-of-dissent-how-twitter-and.html

<comment><USER2> [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook- twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopians)

</comment><comment><USER3> great read about how the speed of information can greatly affect the rate of change in countries.

</comment><comment><USER4> and cell phones, texting, wifi, email ... it's about communication in general, yo.</comment>


Why I don't pledge for Carmageddon - <AUTHOR>

Recently one of my favorite childhood games has opened a Kickstarter page to recreate the madnass that was Carmageddon, and for those who pledge early there is a special discount - $15 per game.
It all sounds so good, one of my favorite childhood games on sale for $15 bucks if I pledge before the game is ready. I should jump on the offer, only one thing bothers me — The $15 for the game for those who pledge early.
When a game studio goes out to make a game they want to make something that is profitable, something that will return the investment they put in the game before it hits the stores. This is the reason most of the high-quality games cost around $70 today — investors want a good ROI to go along with their popular game.
But with Carmageddon: Reincarnation the investors are us, the user, and we _don't_ want a good ROI, for us the ROI is a high-quality game that will give me hours and hours of fun gameplay.
So why is the $15 price tag is only for early pledges? Why not make it the price of the game once it hits the shelves? if the game would cost $15 when it goes retail more people could buy it and enjoy it, and every game sold after the game is funded by Kickstarter goes straight to the pockets of the studio and the developers.
So why does the game needs to cost anything above $15?
This time I'll pass on Carmageddon, but the next time one of my childhood heroes decides to drop by in 1080p and cool new features I really expect that the studio/developers will lower the price of the game after it has been funded to a point that is below the $20 mark. I won't be able to fund _every_ new game that comes out of Kickstarter-esque funding project, but I do want to enjoy the general marketplace that these kind of crowdfunding sites create and not only those games that I personally fund, so I hope this become some kind of a trend — Crowd funded games (known franchises or new ones) should have a more welcoming price, these games are not funded by big corporations, so they shouldn't have the same attributes (i.e. price).
P.S. In a world where high-quality app for my mobile touch device costs usually less than $5, there is no reason that a game for my desktop should cost more than $20. <comment><USER2> I don't know that your assumptions on margins is accurate. Triple-A titles have a ton of art, sound, and gameplay value that seems costly to produce.

Mobile games pricing however, is largely based on _cheap_ consumers who for whatever reason, aren't willing to move far from a 99c price point. That might be okay for some games, because you can do tons of volume, and your distribution costs are nil except for 30% gross fee. However, just because you can get a Triple-A quality port on your phone or tablet (Deadspace, Rainbow Six) for a few bucks doesn't mean its at all economically viable for studios to price it at those ranges.</comment>


Junior Developer Koans - <AUTHOR> https://joecmarshall.com/posts/junior-developer-koans/ <comment><USER2> The student gazed at the giant monolith and was intimidated by its size.

"Break it up" the teacher instructed.

And so the student broke the monolith into many pieces, and then became confused by how all the pieces fit together.

"Put it back together" the teacher instructed.

And so the student rebuilt the monolith, fat controllers and all, but she was not scared, neither of the many pieces, nor the size.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a jr. dev who recently changed careers from something else technical to web development I have a bit of a concern about how the attributes of a jr. dev in web development are often portrayed as inherently negative. I feel like I see this far more in the development space compared to my past career (networking). This is just my impression, i'm a n00b, so I'm not at all sure how widespread it is.

In the networking land if I saw someone's messed up VLAN config I'd sit down with them "Hey man I see what I think you wanted to do, let's talk about what we want to do here and some other ways to get you what you wanted here."

In the dev world (particularly online) I often see citations about something silly jr. dev does as just being "bad", but those things are what people do... while they're learning to do it better. So some guy fires up create react app to quickly put together an app, maybe he didn't have to, maybe it was somewhat less efficient to use CRA, but in doing so he learns a ton about react outside of the scaffolding and etc. Being a not so great dev is also what you do while learning to be better.

I'm not at all sure if the purpose of these Koans here so maybe I'm off topic, but that's just an observation of mine.

<comment><USER4> I would assume its the rise of the 8-12 week bootcamps that essentially mock all those who have spent so much more time in the field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> More like this:

 _The Tao of Programming_ :

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

Rootless Root — The Unix Koans of Master Foo:

[http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix- koans/](http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/)

And lastly, _The Tao Of Backup_ :

[http://www.taobackup.com/](http://www.taobackup.com/)

<comment><USER6> Something like 2-3 years ago I've read similar thing with master foo but about git. Does anyone happen to know where I can find it? I've searched for it but failed to find :(

<comment><USER7> is this it? [http://stevelosh.com/blog/2013/04/git- koans/](http://stevelosh.com/blog/2013/04/git-koans/)

<comment><USER6> Yes! Thanks a lot !

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The young disciple entered the temple and prostrated 3 times before the master and asked - "I wish to know the way of Microservices. I wish to glean insight on how to build them as it will let us scale and build rapidly".

The master jumped off his chair and landed head-first on the floor.

"What happened!" ask the disciple.

"I'm learning how to sky dive" replied the master.

Upon hearing this, the disciple was enlightened.

<comment><USER9> This is so dang funny. I don't even get what the message is supposed to be exactly but I just about fell out of my chair laughing.

<comment><USER10> Message:

You/we lack the proper (production runtime) environment conducive to practicing and learning this particular technique.

<comment><USER11> Are you sure that the message isn't "micro services don't help you build mega services"?

<comment><USER8> You cant sky dive till you reach an sufficient altitude.

You cant build microservices until youve built a monolith first.

<comment><USER10> bingo

well, you _can_, but IME having a reference monolith to excavate will likely net you significantly more reliable, holistic, and consistent requirements/specifications information than whatever the fuck comes out of the product guy/gal's mouth

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Which reminds me that The Codeless Code hasn't gotten an update in multiple years now. :-(

[http://thecodelesscode.com/contents](http://thecodelesscode.com/contents)

<comment><USER13> A reader of HN commented that The Code _less_ Code hasn't gotten an update in multiple years now. He was then enlightened.

<comment><USER12> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _sigh_ … the original AI koans never seem to get exposure. Lisp based, just deeper. Closer to the metal.

[http://catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html](http://catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html)

<comment><USER15> Every koan post I've seen has had these in the comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I only wish there were more. I have been thinking a lot about junior developers and how to meet them where they are. Once you've been around the block a few times it is hard to put yourself in that mindset, but in order to help them be effective and efficient (and to keep them around) it seems like you have to.

</comment><comment><USER17> Shouldn't a koan embody a paradox? These are more wry observations than koans.

</comment><comment><USER18> > "Generate a react app without scaffolding" instructed the Master.

> The student could not.

He could, how ever, BCC his team lead's boss that he's being put on useless tasks that only serve to give the team lead a sense of superiority.

<comment><USER19> Mentor/student is not the same dynamic as lead/junior.

As both lead and mentor simultaneously to a junior developer, the suggestions I give him are very _very_ different depending on which role I'm playing at the time, and I make it abundantly clear which role is speaking at any given point in time.

This is precisely the sort of suggestion many juniors need to hear from their mentors (because there is real value in understanding the difference between deep and shallow knowledge, and the role of tooling), but is of course a terrible task for a lead to give a junior (because it's a pointless waste of time as part of a production project)

<comment><USER20> For me, personally, of course I expected different treatment and different tasks when I was a junior. However, if I were given a task just for the sake of having a task (i.e. "create X, then feel free to delete it"), that would be hugehly demoralising (as in, "you don't trust me to do even a basic useful thing? We have to start at a basic useless thing?")

I don't know what OP meant, but I assume that's what he was driving at.

<comment><USER19> Again, lead vs mentor.

The mentor/mentee relationship isn't usually a formal one enforced by your workplace — it's one built over time, when a less experience member of the team trusts somebody more knowledgeable, and seeks them out for advice. Any such suggestions are usually meant to be taken as as side projects, not as work tasks.

A lead giving you a task like that is probably inappropriate, because they should be focused on producing results. They should, instead, try to find low- hanging fruit that's within your reach. For a mentor, however, it's entirely appropriate to tell you to do something "useless" because the real goal isn't the end product, but the learning experience.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wiith: San Francisco iOS Beta Testers Neeeded - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/wiithapp/status/558517601425309696

<comment><USER2> I'd like to see a bit more than (literally) 3 words on the site saying what it is and why I should use it.</comment>


Show HN: Motivational Budget, a tool to know how much you can save [no signup] - <AUTHOR> http://www.motivationalbudget.com <comment><AUTHOR> Also sorry for previous user, is mismanip of mine deleted all your preexisting data. I'll make sure this doesn't happen in the future.

<comment><USER2> Curious what has changed since the earlier submission.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can now access the website without needing to signup. The two comments as well as analytics showed people were not happy to have to signup to tryout the app, so I did a "lazy-signup" system where you can try the app and then sign up if you want to save what you did.</comment></comment></comment>


This Startup Promises to Keep Pizza Fresh for Eight Weeks - <AUTHOR> https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3744054,00.html <comment><USER2> why would you want to do that?

Day old pizza is the best...

just like pizza delivered is better than fresh out of an oven.</comment>


Libfmsynth: a C library which implements an FM synthesizer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Themaister/libfmsynth <comment><USER2> Just as a point of comparison, here's an FM/AM modulated synth I wrote some years ago [0]. The version linked here is written in 250 lines of plain old C code with floating point arithmetic and not a single thought has given to performance (but it runs fast enough).

Originally, this synth was designed for a demoscene 4k intro, which was never finished. It was originally implemented with 16.16 fixed point arithmetic using legacy x86 assembly abusing one byte instruction encodings (e.g. using the AX part of RAX as the .16 fractional part). Some of the design decisions of the size-optimized hand-written assembly synth are still visible in the original code.

The original assembly implementation is buried somewhere deep in my hard disk.

[0] [https://github.com/rikusalminen/jamtoysynth/blob/master/src/...](https://github.com/rikusalminen/jamtoysynth/blob/master/src/instrument.c)

<comment><USER3> Always interesting to see this. Looks a lot like a 4k synth I did myself many years ago. It also amuses me to see that almost everybody was using those RBJ biquad filters.

<comment><USER2> I have to confess that I have pretty much no idea how the filter works or the math behind it. I wrote that part with a friend who has some DSP background but it was essentially copied from a signal processing book :)

But it sounds alright and was easy to implement, I can see why it's popular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty awesome, I've always wanted to make something like this myself, but listening to the demo on SoundCloud I don't think I would never even get close to this :-)

One question I have is how difficult it would be to adapt a soft synth like this to also be able to produce the kinds of sounds you would get from a SID (from the C64 etc). My understanding of waveform synth is very limited, but it has always struck me how different all synthesizers (hardware and software) always sounded so different from SID chiptunes. Probably there's some analog effects going on there that are hard to reproduce mathematically?

<comment><USER2> > Probably there's some analog effects going on there that are hard to > reproduce mathematically?

Yes, exactly. The SID chip is a pretty complex analog synthesizer and it was made using less-than-perfect manufacturing processes, making some chips sound better than others. The SID has very nice analog filters that are not trivial to emulate with digital signal processing. Additionally, there were lots of ugly tricks that abused the SID chip, such as making sounds by emitting a "all ones" full-blast signal and then cranking the volume of the mixer circuit up and down to produce a fake pcm sound.

My best understanding is that a "normal" audio synthesizer (such as this one I believe) is doing computation at the same rate as audio output rate (typically 44 or 48 kHz). SID software emulators run internally at a much higher sample rate (hundreds of kHz) in order to emulate the analog circuitry.

<comment><USER5> The sid is not a complex analog synth, it's a digital 3 poly 8 bit synth with a single analog Filter at the end of the chain. As of synthesizer architecture the sid is extremely simple and genius in design, like a skateboard many tricks are possible with a simple thing.

<comment><USER2> The complexity (emulation-wise) comes from the fact that it has analog circuitry and has manufacturing imperfections. It's not complex compared to a analog modular synth setup, of course.

Emulating it digitally is not just a matter of replicating the functionality of the circuitry, but also taking in account all the analog phenomena. It's much easier to model something like a Yamaha-style FM chip you can find in AdLib or early SoundBlaster cards.

<comment><USER5> yes of course, to approximate the analog filter in digital you need to calculate some nonlinearities, and could aswell go so far as simulate electric circuitry to such detail that you would need a supercomputer to run it. But that's not the complexity of the synth architecture (which is low on the sid), but the default complexity of simulating anything analog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool, looks like clean code. Have you compared performance against [https://github.com/google/music-synthesizer-for- android/tree...](https://github.com/google/music-synthesizer-for- android/tree/master/app/src/main/jni) ? I obsessed quite a bit over the NEON in that.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, does anyone have an idea how to start where the instructions leave off, and actually hook it up to a midi controller? What do you have to do to get it working?

<comment><USER8> If LV2 plugins are anything like VSTs, you'll need to load the plugin in your audio application and route your MIDI input through that plugin. In most DAWs this is done by creating a track then assigning MIDI input and the VSTi to the track.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is really impressive. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Stunning CS theory result:  Polynomial Hierarchy Collapses [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/phcollapse.pdf#page=1

<comment><USER2> This is not a stunning theory result, but a joke. It's not a real paper.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, Captain Obvious!

<comment><USER2> I'm glad to help!</comment></comment></comment>


The Thing King (1972) - <AUTHOR> https://www.netjeff.com/humor/item.cgi?file=TheThingKing <comment><USER2> Long live the Thing King!

And, as it did in 1972, virtual memory gives you the effect of about twice as much real memory. Back then, a megabyte of memory cost about a million dollars. Today, a gigabyte of memory costs about five dollars. Why are we still bothering with paging?

<comment><USER3> Process isolation is easier with virtual memory. Gpus went through this transition recently or in the case of Linux very recently.

<comment><USER2> Having an MMU is fine. Paging out to disk isn't worth it. The price of paging is erratic response times.

Note that few mobile devices page. It's a legacy of the desktop/server era.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This inspired a project I worked on with some collaborators a while back. DOI: [http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10773](http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10773) and code: [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/thingking](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/thingking)

We used it to enable analyzing trillion particle dark matter simulations a halo at a time, as though they were local. It was fun. We made it part of the way into implementing an fopencookie version, but ended up moving on to other projects.

</comment><comment><USER5> An actual Thing King: [https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xnyn9l0hxSs](https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xnyn9l0hxSs)

<comment><USER6> Very cool! There's a slight difference in the replacement strategy, though: the narrator said that this one places the most recently zarked things on the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great. Found the date via [https://books.google.com/books?id=9f9uAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA196&ots...](https://books.google.com/books?id=9f9uAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA196&ots=UI6nn3dQ7v&dq=%22the%20thing%20king%22%20expert%20c&pg=PA195#v=onepage&q=%22the%20thing%20king%22%20expert%20c&f=false), which also has a slightly different version of the text.</comment>


Facebook Readies App Allowing Anonymity - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/facebook-readies-app-allowing-anonymity/

<comment><AUTHOR> > _The point, according to these people, is to allow Facebook users to use > multiple pseudonyms to openly discuss the different things they talk about > on the Internet; topics of discussion which they may not be comfortable > connecting to their real names._

My interpretation of this is that Facebook is trying to make a Reddit clone. Which has an even _lower_ chance of success than making a Snapchat or Flipboard clone.</comment>


Facebook listens to your phone's microphone - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-using-people-s-phones-to-listen-in-on-what-they-re-saying-claims-professor-a7057526.html <comment><USER2> <Facebook says explicitly on its help pages that it doesn't record conversations, but that it does use the audio to identify what is happening around the phone.>

Well, _that 's_ comforting.

<Turning off the microphone in a phone's settings is relatively easy>

Really? Turning off the mic for Facebook (or even globally to apps) without making it useless is "relatively easy?" Somebody, please point out to me this feature on Android.</comment>


How to Find New Customers and Increase Sales: Tried and Tested Tactics - <AUTHOR> https://albacross.com/newsroom/how-to-find-new-customers-and-increase-sales-tried-tested-tactics/ <comment><USER2> Make something people want and tell them about it where their eyes are, preferably for free.

Then, hope they tell their friends.</comment>


Anic: Faster than C, safer than Java, simpler than *sh - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/anic/ <comment><USER2> > ANI is an attempt to fuse the intuitive feel of shell scripting

Am I the only one who still has to google most of 'sh's predicates and syntax?

<comment><USER3> That's probably because most people only sporadically have to write shellscripts. If you had to write it every day, I bet you wouldn't have that problem.

Having said that, I personally don't feel shellscripting is all that intuitive either.

<comment><USER4> As soon as my shellscripts need control structures, I jump to a "real" language like Perl or Python.

<comment><USER5> Haven't used it much, but I find Fish shell control structures much more consistent that those in *sh: <http://fishshell.org/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The first example given is a perl-golf style obfuscated thingy. Does that strike anyone else as possibly the absolute worst thing you could possible do when showing someone a language for the first time and wanting to make a good impression?

The next example is a little better, I still have no idea what it means but at least it looks like I possibly might once I've read the docs (which I will do now).

<comment><USER6> Having read the tutorial it (the dining philosophers problem example) now looks quite elegant. I'm still a little unsure about exactly what latches do and when you're meant to use the -> operator though. A quick syntax summary would really help.

<comment><USER7> But that's not the first example. The first example is the clock, which the page says is "terse but complete", and which uses very few names longer than three letters and very little whitespace.

<comment><USER6> Oh yes, that still looks like line noise and I still think it's about the worst possible first example I can imagine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is pretty cool. The compiler figures out the order of execution and parallelization of your code for you, based on a dependency graph that is generated from the code. So, you simply describe the behavior of your data and every description is assumed parallel.

Once you read the basic tutorial, the language is not hard to read.

<comment><USER9> Standard dataflow stuff really. Still, I'm excited to see how this turns out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Quite interesting concept, but I looked through the code repository and didn't find any code generation at all. Only a parser. I think it may be very "alpha".

<comment><USER11> Alpha implies that there's something that somewhat works. I wouldn't consider just parsing something as working, myself.

<comment><USER12> True, it's not alpha yet. But a lot of the semantic processing is being put into the grammar since in ANI, once a program is grammatically sound, it's just left-to-right type validation and dumping out boilerplate assembly for the equivalent of a type-safe stack machine. So even as it stands, the compiler is doing a nearly complete job of rejecting invalid programs, which really is the bulk of the work in compiling ANI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They forgot readability.

<comment><USER14> I thought so at first as well, but if you go through the tutorial, the syntax actually begins to look quite elegant.

It just comes off as odd at first because it's dealing with concepts that are actually pretty unique (to my knowledge at least) - streams and latches.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. There's a lot of semantics in that there syntax ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this a joke? The URL spells "panic".

<comment><USER16> _anic is the reference implementation compiler for the experimental, high- performance, statically-safe, fully implicitly parallel, object-oriented, general-purpose dataflow programming language ANI._

I really hope its a joke.

<comment><USER9> Why do you hope this is a joke?

<comment><USER16> The description sounded too over the top, too many words. Kind of like "The peoples socialist democratic republic of ..." its a pattern that rings negative alarms.

<comment><USER9> Maybe, though its pretty descriptive and definitely plausible (for a dataflow language anyway).

<comment><USER17> Yes, also (usually kinds of) object-orientation and (nice) static type systems don't go together well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Someone is definitely "high on their own supply".

On the other hand, (having read the tutorial) it does seem to be interesting concept that could be helpful in some fields.

Pitty it's so poorly marketed. I hope they change that after it becomes a usable product.

<comment><USER9> Its in the very early pre alpha stages right now, so I guess with a bit of work, it could be pitched better.

Of course, the real barrier to using this for real projects would be library support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a brilliant concept. Finally something new worth being excited about.

<comment><USER8> Graph-based approaches to program flow control are pretty interesting. The connecting of things to each other in a stream-like fashion is similar to Chuck, which you might enjoy.

<comment><USER19> This is very interesting, thank you. Any others like this?

I'll contribute something to you, in return: if you're interested in graph- based audio/visual programming, check out vvvv for Windows. It's like Processing, but visual (i.e., designed via UI), and very very fast. It was made by visual artists who actually use it to make big bucks, rather than computer science weenies.

<comment><USER9> Theres plenty of dataflow-type languages out there. One of the most interesting, IMHO, is Lustre, since it seems to be used heavily in the defence and aerospace industries, though its pretty tough to find any information about it (though there were quite a few code examples in a recent SIGPLAN publication).

Besides that, you may find the languages listed here interesting: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/461796/dataflow- programmi...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/461796/dataflow-programming- languages/949771#949771)

I've been playing around with dataflow concepts myself and personally see them as the way forward in programming, though I'm not quite sure yet how it would need to be done to catch on as a mainstream language. I think I'll play with anic for a bit and see what happens :)

<comment><USER11> Once they actually have a compiler you mean?

<comment><USER9> Indeed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Faster than C. That is a bold claim.

<comment><USER21> And it doesn't actually do any code generation yet.

<comment><USER11> Our compiler parses ANI soo much faster than GCC compiles whole programs, it makes GCC look pathetic!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can't wait to turn it into webapp framework.

</comment><comment><USER23> The write-up reads like an advertisement for a weight-loss product.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't know about anyone else, but when the homepage screams "portable" and I still need to add header includes to get it to compile (and the tests fail even then), I get worried.

<comment><USER12> It's portable in the sense portability concerns are at the forefront and the stable build will work with all of the major OSes; tests fail because it's simply not all implemented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder why the author chose to use backslash instead of any other character. Backslash is used for escaping in nearly every other language.

<comment><USER9> According to the newly added FAQ:

 _backslashes were chosen for a purely pragmatic reason; on virutally all keyboards, backslashes are very easy to type (requiring only a single keystroke). This is a handy property for backslashes to have because in ANI, you'll be typing them a lot!_

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I want:

      Many more examples contrasted with the equivalent imperative code.

      Examples with elaborate data structures.

      Implementation overview (current & objectives).

      Benchmarks on a multicore.

</comment><comment><USER21> You have to read the tutorial.

It does a much better job of explaining the language.

ANI seems to be quite an interesting language. I haven't looked at dataflow languages before, so this might be fairly standard.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is every language claiming to be faster than C now?

<comment><USER28> Id assume that it's not going to be faster for all uses, maybe it means faster than C for a problem that can leverage concurrency well.

<comment><USER29> Since we all have hundred core CPUs now.

<comment><USER30> 4 is not too far from 100 in tech time.

<comment><USER29> ah takes me back to the 90s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >> "Think of ANI as a way to write fast, statically-guaranteed safe, well- structured, and highly parallelized software without ever encountering memory management, threads, locks, semaphores, critical sections, race conditions, or deadlock."

You can do that in pretty much any language if you decide to. I'm not seeing the point here, and the syntax is just horrible.</comment>


W3C Approves RDFa 1.1 for HTML5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.w3.org/News/2013#entry-9919 <comment><USER2> I'm a believer in the semantic web.

I highly recommend this app: [https://bitbucket.org/alexstolz/rdf- translator](https://bitbucket.org/alexstolz/rdf-translator) for converting between:

Microdata, RDFa, RDF, JSON-LD, N3 and N-Tuples

I recommend Apache Fuseki if you want to do some querying over tuples.

I'm currently trying to build a semantic living document editor and I've been experimenting with Fuseki to do so.

[http://samsquire.github.io/livingdocuments/](http://samsquire.github.io/livingdocuments/)

<comment><USER3> Another thing of note here are the different databases RDF traditionally uses.

Take a look at: [https://github.com/openlink/virtuoso- opensource](https://github.com/openlink/virtuoso-opensource)

This is the triples store traditionally used. You will also want to look in to sparql.

An example link: [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/j-sparql/](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/j-sparql/)

The syntax is a bit weird, but it's not that different from a document store.

For those of you who use the Facebook API, you can also get RDF data out with the rdf Accept header. Something neat to think about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hold on, whats this XHTML5 they mention? We dont want XHTML5!

The W3C is just a weird organization, basically owned by some members who pursue their own agendas, producing reams of "standards" that, largely, no one uses, or even implements. Tim Berners-Lee is a great guy but it is a failed organization as far as I can see.

<comment><USER5> Maybe that is a little harsh but I noticed that. Some working groups have obscure people who enjoy generating standards and come up with alphabet soup standard abbreviations and then spend a lot of effort convincing the world that they need it.

RDF is one of those things, JSON-LD is another. Most efforts I have seen so far involve trying to convince me that I need it. It wasn't me looking for a solution. There is a big difference.

<comment><USER6> That might be true in some cases, but - for me - that's certainly not true of RDF (and the whole familly of semantic web standards produced by the W3C). After a lot of selfstudy on something quite similar to RDF/triples I was really glad to come across the W3C standards that were already there. Using the 'frameworks' of RDF,RDFS and OWL enourmously reduces my workload and greatly enhances my capabilities for the A.I. development I'm doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I tend to agree the W3C is a bit pointy headed. Still, some kind of referee is needed to keep the browser-makers playing fair. Firefox's switch from RDF to JSON for bookmarks was anecdotal evidence that the RDF format was just too obtuse for a lot of practical use cases. Way back I tried modelling data in RDF; it was challenging and not well received internally. By comparison the JSON modelling I've done recently has been intuitive, easy, and well received. Although I used be be a big fan of RDF, its become a relic, and modelling relationships isn't so hard a problem that you need RDF to do it, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER8> Quick poll: is anyone here using RDF in their technology stack? What has your experience been like?

<comment><USER9> As an early adopter it was though (since 2008). However, if you are starting today it is not bad. And RDFa (lite) is a really easy way of getting in to it. Just make you site indexable using schema.org and RDFa for Google et al is a nice start.

I work for UniProt (a databases for biologists) and for us it is really a nice way of providing data to other users to integrate into their own systems. We also provide a sparql endpoint at beta.sparql.uniprot.org for other scientist to run analytical queries without having to deal with running a large datawarehouse of their own (beta.sparql.uniprot.org). i.e upload 5kb of SPARQL queries to us instead of downloading a 100Gb of data them to run SQL in their own systems.

These days there are a number of off the self systems that work well enough. Your main danger in the beginning is trying to deal with existing (large) public data before you are ready. The philosophical/reasoning side of the semantic web can also be very confusing but can be ignored in the beginning. Just use RDF as graph data format and SPARQL as a query language and you are good to go.

<comment><USER10> How do you like working for UniProt? Where are you guys based?

In the future I'd like to work at a place like this, so if you could tell me more I'd be grateful. (My email is in my profile.)

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
      <p xmlns:ex="http://example.org/vocab#"
         xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
        Two rectangles (the example markup for them are stored in a triple):
        <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
          property="ex:markup"
          datatype="rdf:XMLLiteral">
        ... svg ...
        </svg>
      </p>

Does `property="ex:markup"` and `datatype="rdf:XMLLiteral"` seem to anyone else like a _phenomenally_ bad idea? Don't inject namespaces in values! How would you escape that anyway?

Is there some reason we don't have e.g. <svg ex:property="markup" rdf:datatype="XMLLiteral" />, or can you not do that with XML? And if so, why not? It seems like it would be very useful for mixing in data like this.

<comment><USER12> Property and Datatype are in the HTML namespace* and their values are namespaced identifiers (in XML, QNames).

The identifiers are namespaced so that if you have differing vocabs with the same property names (or datatypes), you can distinguish which one you're talking about.

Your proposed transformation means that Property lives in the example namespace, meaning it has a completely different interpretation, which is specific to the example namespace.

*: (before someone pulls me up on this, it's not 100% correct)

<comment><USER11> ah, so 'property' and 'datatype' are intended to be paired, and intended to be used to store namespaced values? I can't really find anything describing them as such, but then they're about as difficult to search for as it's possible to be :/ if you have a link, I'm curious and I'd appreciate it, but I'll take you at your word :)

Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth (you can't have two on the same element, for example. unless you can whitespace-separate them? and still, what if your value contains a colon?), but I guess less so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> At least it doesn't look actively harmful to what we already have.

</comment><comment><USER14> Who cares ? Templates are JSON data anyway, in well-established meta-media domains: [http://schema.org/AssessAction](http://schema.org/AssessAction)

All you end up arguing for is how well your Text Editor implements things like git or LightTable watches over text objects.

Sublime text, for example, only gives a deprecated Skeumorph of the microwave when in Find/Replace mode. Compare this to vim/Fuf,Unite, the fact that in this eco system one also discovers Gundo, grep, etc. easily pluggable within this system. Don't do any of it __at__ compilation, so who wholly cares? (Holy C, anyone?)

Vim enables enhanced Python (mocka chaining permutations of tags, WebObjects) development along with things things like Zen Coding and haml linters, which do we decide; does it matter today, tomorrow? And what have you learn'd in the meantime ?

I for one welcome our COBOL Overlords: [https://github.com/eevee/project- euler/blob/master/heteroglo...](https://github.com/eevee/project- euler/blob/master/heteroglot/015.cob)</comment>


If You Want Me to Get Something Done Just Leave Me Alone - <AUTHOR> http://www.cafe.com/r/38f4ec0f-37f6-40bf-9d1b-088a66b60dd2/1/do-not-disturb

<comment><USER2> The last sentence says it all.</comment>


Show HN: T2b – A wicked-powerful text macro language for building binary files - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/thosakwe/t2b <comment> yoz-y Interesting. I have several suggestions though:

\- the hex modifier does both turning mode on and off, which will be confusing in a longer file

\- it would be good if prefixes such as 0x or bx were handled to temporarily override the current setting

\- using "get var" to actually output something is weird, i'd use "put"

\- add a way to handle endianness

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, I'll get around to patching t2b today or tomorrow to get in the fixes that everyone's suggested.

This tool was hacked together quickly, and you can tell by using it that it's not close to perfect yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Trying not to be a downer, but I wouldn't think of writing such a tool. I'd use Perl's _pack_ or Python's _struct_.

Of course there might be some value in something less than a full language.

<comment><USER3> Was going to say I agreed with the sentiment. I didn't know about `struct` or `pack`, but Elixir (& Erlang) have a similar "special form" binary structures.

Though reading both `pack` and `struct` the formats are about as obtuse as a regex. And the lack of individual bit support in `struct` is limiting.

Come to think of it, like other comments already, this could be a handy CLI streaming tool. Dealing with adjusting binary output on the CLI turns out to be a pain...

<comment><USER4> For Python, suitcase ([https://pypi.org/project/suitcase/](https://pypi.org/project/suitcase/)) makes dealing with structured binary data easier.

<comment><USER5> Or Construct: [https://construct.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](https://construct.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool idea! Clear and nicely organized too :)

Wouldn't it be more readable and less error-prone to have separate commands for turning hex mode on and off? Such as `hex on` and `hex off`?

<comment><USER7> I think it might be more intuitive as an explicit stream modifier: hex, decimal, etc. No reason to turn anything "off", which is actually the activation of a diffferent mode.

Edit: What I mean is

      hex
      00
      dec
      00
      utf8
      00

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely, that's probably the best way, considering all the other commands are "stream-y" as-is.

<comment><USER8> Why have hex mode toggles at all? Just use 0xa1b2, and so on. 0x... -> hex, 0... -> octal -- invent a syntax for binary.

<comment><USER9> 0 for octal was a huge mistake. Most sane languages use 0o now, or just forget octal. How often do you use octal anyway? Like, once a year for file permissions?

<comment><USER8> OK, sure. As long as we don't have to toggle number bases...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In addition to "pack" and "struct", for prior art (or inspiration), look at any number of structured fuzzing frameworks (Peach might be a good example); constructing arbitrary binary formats from a recipe is how you build a structured fuzzer. I built one a few years ago that pursued a sort of DOM model, with id's and classes and path strings.

In the other direction, given the ability to spit out one binary character from the shell, you can bootstrap all the rest of this in pure shell script. I cheated and gave myself int{8..64} and did a whole ASN.1/DER in shell script. The shell has better control flow than custom language (but the custom language is a little simpler).

<comment><USER8> I did a KSH DER codec once too! It started out as an attempt to decode OIDs that were all over a codebase, and we had no tools to decode them, and I wanted to see if they were correct (indeed, they were not all correct). Then I extended that script a bit to other types. 'Twas a fun little side project.

With an FFI (which Bash has) one could do this much more easily than it was then (about 15 years ago, I think).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Length-prefixed strings would be useful for some file formats. You'd need to be able to pick a size for the length-prefix, such as u8,u16,etc.

Also some ability to length-prefix the output of a macro might be useful for tag-length-value-like formats.

For Unicode, ability to write out UTF-16 or UTF-32 would be useful, also CESU-8 and Java's Modified UTF-8.

Also, for a challenge, think about how you could write macros to generate ASN.1 formats such as BER. You'd probably need some more smarts in your macro language to handle such a task gracefully.

Also, how does one control the endianness of output? Maybe you need u16le and u16be, or some kind of general endianness modifier.

Output of IEEE floating point might also be useful in some applications.

<comment><USER12> > Also some ability to length-prefix the output of a macro might be useful for > tag-length-value-like formats.

Exactly. TLV (tag-length-value) support is really what I expected to see. They are hairy to get right manually.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you could achieve something like that with a macro.

        macro tlv_string s
        begin
            i32 (get CONSTANT_STRING_TAG_FOO)
            i32 (len s)
            str s
            u8 0
        endmacro

By the way, there's no `len` command at this point, so that's something I'll have to add in eventually to get something like TLV to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> cup-of-tea > t2b always writes to stdout. To output to a file, simply use a pipe (|).

Shouldn't this be use output redirection (ie. >)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, haha. I was tired. There's a PR open to fix that, I'll merge it in.

<comment> cup-of-tea Cool. That patch used weird language, though ("a greater-than sign"). I think the people who don't already know how to write to a file might appreciate knowing what this is actually called (output redirection) so they can look it up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> emily-c I use fasm for this very use case. It has a wonderful macro language that can be used to programmatically generate binary data on top of being able to emit instructions. It's really cool to see other languages for generating binary files as its an interesting niche to fill.

<comment><USER13> FlatAssembler is amazing. I remember people making fractal images using only preprocessor [1], JVM bytecode compilers and a lot of other cool stuff. Also it is a powerful editor, you can abuse 'file', 'load', 'store' directives to make existing file modifications.

[1] [https://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=2265](https://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?t=2265)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nice. I once did something similar for parsing and generating binary files from a single specification: [https://abau.org/hannah](https://abau.org/hannah)

</comment><comment><USER15> Not sure if I will use it, but I like it. This is as close to raw bytes as it gets despite some HLL like features.

This to me is real hacking, saying what the heck and writing a tool for oneself instead of looking around and getting lost in the multitude of 'mature' options that exist. I am sure hacking this was quicker, and more fun, than browsing all the available options, picking one, installing the tools, learning to use them and getting the desired result.

Now, how long till someone decides to bootstrap this - use it to hack a binary that compiles it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh definitely, this was a fun one to write. I got so caught up in it that I completely forgot the original project I wanted to use it, which was a small VM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks good. I can see this being a great intermediate format for hacks etc.

Alternatively you could use some kind of fluent API to write binary data. Depends on your use case of course.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Some sort of API would be pretty cool... I'll add that if this takes off.

At the very least, the function to execute T2B scripts could be exposed in a simple header.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Neat! I could used this for generating mixed binary/ASCII payloads for network protocol testing. One issue, though -- it seems like trailing whitespace in the input isn't handled correctly. It seems to be picked up by the command processor and treated as a duplicate of the previous command. Amusingly, I was able to diagnose this using t2b by piping its output back through itself:

       c:\mingw\MSYS64\usr\bin\echo -n hex u32 20786568 u32 36203875 u8 31 u8 0a u32 34203875 u8 31 | t2b

       Output: hex u8 61[LF]u8 41

       c:\mingw\MSYS64\usr\bin\echo -n hex u32 20786568 u32 36203875 u8 31 u8 0a u32 34203875 u8 31 | t2b | t2b

       Output: aA

       c:\mingw\MSYS64\usr\bin\echo -n hex u32 20786568 u32 36203875 u8 31 u8 0a u32 34203875 u8 31 u8 0a | t2b

       Output: hex u8 61[LF]u8 41[LF]

       c:\mingw\MSYS64\usr\bin\echo -n hex u32 20786568 u32 36203875 u8 31 u8 0a u32 34203875 u8 31 u8 0a | t2b | t2b

       Output: aAA

I don't know very much C++ yet, so I'm not sure of the best way to fix this.

</comment><comment><USER18> "It's now feasible to write a machine code compiler in shell. Hooray. Not sure why you would ever do that to yourself, though."

For more trustworthy bootstrapping. It's why I included shell compilers on this site:

[https://bootstrapping.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://bootstrapping.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page)

<comment><USER19> The problem with this kind of site and all those Awesome-XYZ lists is that it could take _years_ to review each item.

I'm not saying building these kind of lists is a bad thing, but I haven't found an efficient way to make use of lists like this and void diverting my focus.

<comment><USER18> I doubt that given it took me weeks to find review, and put up half those links. It would take some time, though. If nothing else, check out projectoberon.com and/or the amber slides:

[https://speakerdeck.com/nineties/creating-a-language- using-o...](https://speakerdeck.com/nineties/creating-a-language-using-only- assembly-language)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Excellent idea. Throw in elf support and you'll never need a linker for c code again.

</comment><comment><USER21> I really wanted something like this when embedding serial numbers and keys in ROMs. At the time I was mostly working in C and PHP, so I was imagining something closer to a template language, but something like this would have given me a good intermediate step where I could have used PHP to render this text format and then ran that to produce the necessary bits on disk.

A decade late for me, but still looks cool.

</comment><comment><USER22> It would be great if I could specify the number of bits per field like in Elixir/Erlang/C++ bit fields and then also specify what the extra bits should be set to if the total number of bits isn't divisible by 8. I know that document strings are helpful but writing it into the code would be much more robust.

</comment><comment><USER23> There is already [https://flatassembler.net/](https://flatassembler.net/) which uses macros to emit ELF and PE headers.

</comment><comment><USER24> > .idea

What's the purpose of checking this stuff into version control?

<comment><USER25> It's shared project configuration. If you're using the same IDE as the author (CLion in this case) you get all the code style settings, run/debug configurations and shared project config/settings without any setup required. If you're not using CLion just ignore the files, they don't do any harm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. It helps me a lot, because sometimes I switch between my Mac and Windows boxes. Especially in this case where I had to verify/release the build on two platforms.

The only downside is that not everyone uses the same editor, so in projects with more contributors, it can quickly create bloat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> How does it compare to [https://kaitai.io](https://kaitai.io) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, for starts, Kaitai looks like it's much more mature, and it probably is, considering that t2b is just something I hacked together yesterday.

Also, it seems like Kaitai is for parsing structures, whereas t2b is for emitting data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you use the prebuilt binaries, does the GPL apply?

</comment><comment><USER28> Not as good as [https://github.com/oriansj/mescc- tools](https://github.com/oriansj/mescc-tools) But certainly a good start</comment>


GoDaddy is exempt from SOPA - <AUTHOR> http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/sopa-hearing-will-never-end.php <comment><AUTHOR> Relevant snippet from the article:

 _Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), the only member of Congress present at the hearing with any tech experience, having founded several web companies, introduced two amendments: one to exclude universities and non-profits from being subject do having to shut down their own domain servers if accused of piracy under SOPA, and the other to exempt dynamic IP addresses, such as those found on web- enabled printers. Both were voted down.

Polis pointed out that SOPA and Smith's amendment already excluded certain operators of sub-domains, such as GoDaddy.com, from being subject to shutdowns under SOPA.

"If companies like GoDaddy.com are exempt, why aren't non-commercial domain servers exempt?" Polis asked._

<comment><USER3> just imagine if a debate about land allocations or subsidies or - <USER2> anything else that goes through washington - had the same level of attention as this.

<comment><USER4> I think there's some selection bias on your sources. Of course the Internet is talking about this Internet bill. On the other hand, I don't watch TV but I do listen to NPR and news radio, and I haven't heard SOPA come up once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I couldn't find anything in the bill text that seemed to exempt anyone, except for immunity under specific circumstances (like voluntarily trying to take down infringing sites). I don't think that's what this is about. But the article seems to mention it being part of an amendment, maybe they're referring to Lofgren's amendment 051?

"Zoe Lofgren has an amendment that says a DNS operator should have no obligation to block a website if doing so would impair the security or integrity of the domain name system or the operator's system or network. I'm sure opponents will say this makes the blocking toothless, but what they're really saying is they don't care if censoring websites they don't like harms the security of the internet." [1]

However, as per this [2], that amendment failed.

[1] [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111215/01322617096/tons-a...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111215/01322617096/tons- amendments-proposed-sopa.shtml)

[2] [http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/12152011Lofgren%20Am...](http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/12152011Lofgren%20Amdt8%20-%20FAILED.pdf)

edit: switched links

edit2: No, here's where that comes in, from Smith's amendment: [http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/Summary%2...](http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Rouge%20Websites/Summary%20Managers%20Amendment.pdf)

I'm not very familiar with the technology behind the Internet, so the terminology is confusing to me. Could someone explain if the exemption comes from the DNS Protections section or the Subdomains and Portions of Sites Section?

</comment><comment><USER6> The exemption clauses in SOPA are not specifically for GoDaddy or anyone. There is a section that clarifies this as an ISP/host who "voluntary removes" unwanted content, which basically pisses all over due process etc..

<comment><USER7> hmmm new user created 46 mins ago, posting "Pro GoDaddy" propaganda. Not here thanks.

<comment><USER6> The events of the day (godaddy, SOPA, etc...) had me join the site. My postings thus far are pretty much SOPA focused in hopes to bring a bit more knowledge about, but I didn't think my comments are in any way promoting godaddy as a service provider! If anything, I'm looking at them with a more neutral approach ( Perhaps that is "pro" compared to most other's comments bandwagoning godaddy's demise). Personally I couldn't care less about the elephant shooting, woman degrading leadership they have, or their practices as a business (I dropped them as my registrar years ago.)

<comment><USER7> Nice try, but I'm still not buying whatever you're selling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've read most iterations of the bills in the house and senate. I was one of the first to point out it wasn't limited to just DNS blocking.

I'm not caught up on the amendments but I don't see any evidence GoDaddy is exempt, outside of the fact that they are not the kind of ISP or DNS service provider that SOPA targets. They are a registrar and Authoritative DNS provider, neither of whom are targeted by the foreign infringing sites language as I understand it.

IANAL, etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> Other than the fact that Polis said they're exempt, there is no other information about how exactly they are exempted from it. I didn't see any wording like that in the bill. Was something changed recently?

</comment><comment><USER10> _Watt, who openly admitted he was an "old-fashioned guy," earlier compared the Internet to Las Vegas, saying there were some who thought that it should remain essentially lawless "what goes on there stays there," but that it should be treated more like a "pawn shop" and subject to raids from law enforcement._

SOPA would be more like cutting power lines to Vegas than raiding it. No real effect on what they're trying to stop, ruin things for everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anyone have any insight into either:

1) How they are exempt. They aren't mentioned in the bill itself. So what provision allows them to be exempt?

2) How they were actually involved in drafting the bill. I know they claim they helped in their press release but that rarely means anything.

</comment><comment><USER12> I strongly suspected godaddy would flip flop on supporting SOPA(which is why I didn't transfer the 6 domains I have with them) but this is totally unacceptable. Once my domains expire, I'll be taking them off godaddy and never going back.

<comment><USER13> Much safer to do this before they expire. Transferring domains does not makes you lose the duration you have paid for. In fact, you get an extra year of registration automatically tacked on with each transfer. It's not safe to transfer around expiration time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> GoDaddy's leadership helped write SOPA, of course they dealt themselves into the bill!

<comment><USER15> Can you support that statement? If GoDaddy helped write it, then they are worse than I thought.

<comment><USER6> For newgy:

"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said.

Source is pretty credible: [http://www.godaddy.com/newscenter/release- view.aspx?news_ite...](http://www.godaddy.com/newscenter/release- view.aspx?news_item_id=378)

<comment><USER7> ProTip: If your a new User <1hr old wanting to paint GoDaddy in a good light, the trick is to make it somewhat plausible you don't work for them.

<comment><USER6> I work for GoDaddy's competitor. If anything we've seen a windfall from the day's events due to our outstanding approach against SOPA. See my other comments/submissions and you'll figure out I'm legit.

<comment><USER7> Oh I did check your profile to form my conclusion.

<comment><USER16> Maybe "Source is pretty credible" means something different to you? With the meaning it has in rawrly's comment, you could replace it with "Straight from the horse's mouth."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone have a list of lawmakers who are supporting SOPA?

</comment><comment><USER18> So what if they are exempt, supporting SOPA is unacceptable.

<comment><USER7> You don't think it's a bit strange (read: corrupt) to be pushing a law you're exempt from but negatively impacts everyone else?

<comment><USER19> It's definitely corrupt. Buying legislative advantage for yourself -- or buying barriers and expenses for your competitors -- is what many companies and groups try to do. It's a terrible, corrupt, corporatist abuse of power.</comment></comment></comment>


Android Marketplace hits another milestone, reaches 40,000 applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/03/25/android-market-hits-another-milestone-now-serving-40000-applications/

<comment><USER2> And most of them are crap (I say this as an Android fanboy).

<comment><AUTHOR> And I concur - as another Android fanboy.</comment></comment>


Juncker "It is unacceptable that a country imposing unilateral measures" - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-metals-juncker/eu-to-impose-measures-against-unacceptable-us-tariffs-juncker-idUSKCN1IW1YE <comment><USER2> In the article, Juncker is described as "the head of the bloc's executive". In reality, he's the former Prime Minister of a dukedom of about half a million people (about the size of Fresno, California) but is now President of the European Commission. And he's complaining about the U.S. president having too much power for his post.</comment>


Wages, commissions, & bonuses - <AUTHOR> http://www.michaelonsystems.com/wages/

<comment><USER2> I think point #4 is bang on. When a company gives you a bonus in your agreement you almost expect to get it. At that point it's almost part of your salary and looses most of the value. Well written!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Do you have experience with a defined bonus structure?</comment></comment>


A Behavioral Economist Tries to Fix Email - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/economist-email-less-painful/518934/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I always thought I was a dinosaur (and probably I am one) as I consder e-mail a different form of mail, and since mail is delivered once (or maybe twice) a day, I normally do check e-mails twice a day, typically as soon as I arrive in the office and some half an hour before leaving it (in the evening only replying to really urgent messages, that are rare, all others are replied next morning).

It's somehow refreshing that the people that studied the issues deriving from "continuous update" came to similar conclusions:

>Mark's ideal system does allow for urgent communications, just not through email. If workers need to contact one another with time-sensitive requests, she says, they'd pick up the phone, send an instant message, or talk in person.

<comment><USER3> How do you handle something that is urgent? What if there is (just as some examples) a short notice meeting or a person is blocked on what they are doing until they get an answer from you?

At any company I've worked for email basically became the end-all-be-all communication platform, except maybe idle chit-chat amongst small teams (which generally use their own platform).

<comment><USER4> Face to face or a phone call is best when you need to communicate quickly with the ability to clarify on the fly.

<comment><USER5> I hate phone calls with a passion. I can deal with email in my own time and personally don't find it causes a huge cognitive load to keep my inbox clean.

Similarly msn pings. I can check em when I'm not deep in thought or actively working on a problem, or ignore that flashing for 5 mins until I'm done.

I don't understand the argument at all - a phone call is a demand that cannot be ignored for any period of time, similarly an in person chat. Book a meeting if it's important.

<comment><USER6> >a phone call is a demand that cannot be ignored for any period of time

Wasnt the grandparent's question about urgent communications... that seems to me a very useful property

But I also have the opposite opinion; phone calls are _by far_ the best method of remote comm to resolve something quickly. It hate people who don't know how to pick up calls with a passion

every time I'm forced to resort to text or email, the 5 minute problem likely is set back 30 minutes and half a day respectively; text because its a terrible method of communication, and email because no one bothers checking and responding in timely fashion

Fine if you're busy or otherwise unavailable, but anyone who comes back and tells me they subjected me to such bullshit _on principle_ can burn in hell

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised that people would assume that emails you send would get an immediate response. I'd assume that very important stuff that absolutely can't wait would relayed with an SMS / phone.

I use Thunderbird, have disabled desktop notifications, and check them maybe 3 times a day (once in morning, another time around lunch, and then the 3rd time somtime afternoon). Or if I'm bored and have no more important things to do.

<comment><USER8> Wish I was kidding about this.

My VP once e-mailed me at 5:30am with a question. He then CALLED my boss Director at 7:00am asking why I hadn't responded.

<comment><USER9> Something similar happened to me 18ish years ago, hours before I watched Office Space for the first time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Haha nice, good job he re-invented Gmail filters!

Sarcasm aside, I use filters for like, everything, so that the only email that lands in my inbox is email that's important - and if not, I always proactively filter it out or put it in a "reading" or other label.

However, I'm not as famous as Mr. Ariely!

Still cool research though.

<comment><USER3> I do that too. The problem is I have 140ish email rules. Changing them is scary because it is really like changing a pile of goto-riddled spaghetti code.

There are also things he listed that I don't know how to do in any email client. For example creating a rule that will allow emails to only notify at EOD. I'd love to have that.

<comment><USER10> Interesting. Definitely some novel use cases to be explored here! I agree the rules get a bit glass-housey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've found Google Inbox to be amazing for my private email. Important stuff gets a notification, unimportant stuff can get triaged as I see fit and snoozed for later.

Now I wish I had snoozing for my text messages...

<comment><USER12> > Now I wish I had snoozing for my text messages...

And I wish I had snooping for my gmail messages disabled...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Archive all? Fixed!</comment>


The FBI Arbitrarily Covers Up Evidence of Misconduct - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/fbi-arbitrarily-covers-evidence-misconduct

<comment><USER2> I think I might have to changed "arbitrarily covers up evidence of misconduct" to "inconsistently redacts documents".

They show a handful of instances, from thousands of documents, where different copies of the the same source document have been redacted at different times, probably by different people. Unsurprisingly, the results are different. In one of the four examples, I think the conclusion that there was an improper search is redacted.

The rules must by byzantine. I notice that the specific department of the government is redacted. That might be to protect the innocent. But other bits redacted are just bizarre. e.g. They redacted a version number in front of a policy name. They left the policy, but covered which version it was. ???

I have not met any, but I expect redactors are either grunts trained in global guidelines but without specific knowledge of what they are reading, or they are the people familiar with the material and are irritated to be taken away from their actual work. Either way there will be variable work. Secrets will be missed. Non-secrets will be redacted. I predict they err to the latter.

The FOIA requests are allowing out evidence that documents improper searches and information gathering. So, to that extent they are working.

Did the EFF make their entire corpus available so people can see how well? I didn't see a link in the article.

[1] Also note, the EFF isn't scouring documents to uncover unlawful information gathering, these are summaries of internal government self investigations.

</comment><comment><USER3> Surprise?

An internal FBI FOIA tracker could solve this problem, but the project to develop it would probably cost $3 billion and take 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER4> Damn, you beat me to the punch: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1985661>

</comment><comment><USER5> You know, with enough requests for the document, given their inconsistent redacting practices, you could probably reproduce the whole manuscript.

<comment><USER6> In most of the cases, many of the same bits were redacted, mostly names, key details, etc. Some of the over-redaction probably comes from differing levels of "redactor paranoia" and "redactor laziness".

Paranoia: I know the whole text, and I don't see how someone wouldn't be able to deduce this without redacting more text.

laziness: I know there is some key bet in this chunk, ill just redact a few sentences instead of actually analyze.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They told me if I voted for McCain the government would become ever more secretive and unaccountable...

<comment><USER8> It's a bipartisan project. It's been getting worse pretty steadily since Eisenhower, with occasional bright spots like FOIA in the seventies.</comment></comment>


Google's Chinese search engine reportedly links searches to tel numbers - sahin-boydas https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/14/17861962/google-china-dragonfly-censorship-search-engine-phone-number-link-report <comment><USER2> I still don't understand why Google's leadership believe they should support and serve the interests of the Chinese dictatorship.

<comment><USER3> I still don't understand why we expect public trading, for-profit Companies to heed to ethics or morals. Profit is the bottom line. Nothing is more sacred than that.

And this applies quite generally, even for <insert your favorite company here>

<comment><USER4> Because companies are made of people. Nothing a company does isn't decided at some.point by a person. That "profit is the only sacred thing" line is nonsense. It is possible to run a company ethically. There isn't some moralimparative to justify a means towards the end of never leaving any money on the table. Where does that line get drawn? Theft, murder, torture? There are all kinds of things companies do every day the equal passing on dollars for ethical reasons.

<comment><USER3> The line is drawn by the top management. If there is no fear of getting caught, there is no line, and history is a testimony of it. And all this exactly because companies are made of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No search engine currently operating in China requires user to login including Baidu and Bing. It's quite ironic that Google want to set a new standard.

</comment><comment><USER6> Google is a private company though. Shouldn't Google be able to do whatever it wants?

</comment><comment><USER7> The American one doesn't? I have an Android phone - they know who I am - <AUTHOR> they know what I search for.

<comment><USER8> In context this means they plan to replicate this to a government data warehouse.

Quite a bit different than our system of warrants and subpoenas

<comment><USER9> I guess we hope this backfires on the Chinese government someday... until then I hope we (the US) don't end up in the same situation.. (any more than we already probably are)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "don't be evil"

(unless it's profitable)</comment>


Show HN: WololoCI The complete CI/CD solution for game creators v0.2.0 is out - <AUTHOR> https://blog.wololoci.com <comment><AUTHOR> WololoCI v0.2.0 Ship it!

Good news everyone! we're happy to announce our new release of Wololo CI

In this release, we focused on giving the maximum information of theirs build to our users, check it out

* Build Addressable Assets

* Skip Wololo Build Player default

      * Now you can run your own build script inside Wololo build pipelines

* Fancy new Build Report: Build Time of each step and information about errors and warnings

      * Build Steps: The different steps involved in making you build, how long they took, and what messages were printed during those steps (if any).

      * Source Assets: A list of all assets which are used in the build, and how much they contribute to your build size

      * Output files: here you can see all the files associated with your build, the role and size</comment>


Eye Shapes of the Animal World Hint at Differences in Our Lifestyles (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/08/07/430149677/eye-shapes-of-the-animal-world-hint-at-differences-in-our-lifestyles <comment><USER2> Most male models als have 'hunter eyes'. Hunter eyes are vertically narrow, horizontally wide, with straight, low set eyebrows. (google images: hunter eyes man)

Sexual selection is fascinating :).

</comment><comment><USER3> > if you're the kind of animal that gets hunted, "you're very likely to have a > horizontal pupil"

Rabbit's have round pupils, though. But I guess there are exceptions.

<comment><USER4> Rabbits, like squirrels, face danger from all directions: birds from above, cats and foxes from low cover, coyotes from a hide. Horizontal pupils are a specialization on taller grazers.</comment></comment>


Utilite – a miniature ARM-based desktop computer starting at $99 - <AUTHOR> http://www.utilite-computer.com

<comment><USER2> Discussion is on the submission of the arstechnica report:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046550)</comment>


Life and Career Lessons – 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://www.codercowboy.com/2013/01/04/life-career-lessons-2012/ <comment><USER3> Thanks for this post. I expected a fluff lunchtime read here; a quick bulleted list of platitudes that you see over and over again this time of the year. But it really was a very well told, personal and clearly authentic story of your year and the hard-learned lessons you learned along the way. It reminds me of the power of a story. I think we tend to jump right to the TL;DR these days, but in a rush to condense everything into concise take-aways, we lose something along the way.

>> _...stick with me, this'll be worth it._

Glad I did, and I definitely think it was.

I don't have much to add regarding the actual content. Some of these lessons I've learned as well (salespeople are surprisingly great, right?), some I haven't. I just felt like this post deserved more praise than a simple upvote.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is why I read Hacker News. Every now and then you find something so candid and real that it makes you sit back for a moment afterward and really consider the decisions you're making and the things you're focused on.

Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't agree with the OP's definition of "asshole". Some people set a higher standard, and this oftentimes rubs people the wrong way. It's a mistake to label these people assholes, because they usually serve a valid purpose.

The people that you really have to watch out for are the Machiavellian assholes who care nothing about the job at hand and will do anything to cut others down for their own aggrandizement.

<comment><AUTHOR> from one jason m baker to another, hello :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great essay, much better than the usual year-in-review.

Re: telecommute and resultant lack of face time, highly recommend non- purposeful video/audio calls - video ping me just to chat.

Took me 5+ years of being a remote worker to learn the value of those - <USER2> sub to some degree for the random hallway/kitchen type conversations of the office. Very different experience from the audio/video of the normal remote meetings, and helpful in making up for the lack of face time.

</comment><comment><USER7> What's great about this post is that it's a win/win: the author gets a lot of value out of simply crystalizing his thoughts on paper, and readers share that benefit.

I'd encourage everyone to write as much as they can (especially periodic reflections), as writing something like this probably gives you 10x the value of reading it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Usually, these "about my year" posts are filler, but this was some excellent stuff. Thanks for sharing it. That takes courage.

 _I'm not advocating ladder climbers, I'm not advocating jerks being jerks for the sake of jerktitude, I'm just saying, they have a place, and when you find the right asshole, they're going to deliver and kick ass while doing it. The delicious irony will be, 5 years from now when your midsize is larger than midsize, the asshole who everyone hates will be the only executive of the lot who arguably deserves his merit badge title. Think on that._

Yup. I call this the "DFA Light". DFA = Done Fucking Around. [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/flow- ownershi...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/flow-ownership- and-insubordination-plus-d-f-a/) DFA usually means that in 6 months, you'll either be running something or fired.

On open-plan offices:

What you describe isn't open plan. Open plan is this horrible bullpen where everyone's visible and no one has personal space. It sucks. [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/no-idiot- disc...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/no-idiot-discomfort- is-bad/)

What you want is for people to have laptops, and have private offices for people who need them, and open/communal spaces. I worked at a think-tank that had 3:00 tea (with board games that occasionally went till 7:00) and it was brilliant. Let people choose whether they work in the open or in private. Work space is not to be skimped on. 150 SF per person of private and 150 SF of communal. It pays for itself, because typical open plan offices reduce productivity by 50-80%. This hybrid-plan is something Google does extremely well (although it's technically cubicle-based, anyone who wants privacy can take an office).

On getting fired: there are good fires and bad fires. I won't share my "number" but its nonzero on both sides (being fired and participating in firing) and I've seen good and bad.

A good fire is when they treat it as a no-fault lack-of-fit, come up with a reasonable severance (depending on their finances, this could be zero for a cash-strapped startup, or ~6 months for a rich corporation) and a positive reference. Then it's just a breakup: good people break up with each other all the time. A bad fire is when they cold-fire you and refuse to support your career recovery needs.

For me, it's really about references. I don't _need_ a severance, but if you don't agree on a good reference I will do everything in my power to fuck up your reputation. No or bad reference => war.

<comment><USER9> _if you don't agree on a good reference I will do everything in my power to fuck up your reputation_

But what if you don't deserve a good reference?

<comment><USER8> That's never been my situation.

<comment><USER10> Well, we'll never know now, will we? :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus got to the Siberian-based IT company - <AUTHOR> https://www.purrweb.com/blog/how-coronavirus-got-to-purrweb/ <comment><USER2> Sanction and fine the Chinese communist party and their officers for the catastrophe they inflicted on the world. Never again.</comment>


Justine Musk: Extremely successful people - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-Steve-Jobs-Elon-Musk-Richard-Branson?share=1

<comment><USER2> I was surprised that someone who never had any entrepreneurial activities was able to give such — to what seemed to me anyway — sharp observations on the matter. On the other hand she probably soaked up a lot from Elon Musk and the fact she is also a writer also helps.</comment>


Perelman declines 1M prize: "I have everything I want" - <AUTHOR> http://www.gazeta.ru/science/2010/03/23_a_3341933.shtml

<comment><USER2> Good story, but in Russian. Most of the audience might want to read the original, from the Daily Mail, which is in English: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1259863/Wo...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1259863/Worlds- cleverest-man-turns-1million-prize-solving-mathematics-greatest-puzzles.html)

Another article in English, from Pravda: <http://english.pravda.ru/russia/kremlin/84114-0/>

<comment><USER3> _Said to be the world's cleverest man, Dr Grigory Perelman, 44, lives as a recluse..._

Leave it to the daily mail to add an extra layer of hyperbolic bullshit. As if it weren't a fascinating story already, he now has to be "the world's cleverest man".

<comment><USER4> "The topological conundrum essentially states that any three-dimensional space without holes in it is equivalent to a stretched sphere."

I love how they throw that in as if any of their readers will understand it*

* FYI, the Daily Mail is one of our tabloids, famous for claiming that just about anything causes cancer: <http://thedailymailoncologicalontologyproject.wordpress.com/>

<comment><USER5> Possibly moving to the UK in a year. Tabloids are the thing I'm most looking forward to.

<comment><USER6> No, seriously no. They are pollution. If you read them no matter how cynical you are your subconscious will gobble up the "facts" only to spew them at you later as "truth" without the association with the source.

IMO tabloids make people dumber. So just _don't_ read them, its bad for you.

<comment><USER7> There are differing _levels_ of pollution, though. The Daily Mail is, IMHO, almost "evil" in its level of ridiculousness. It exists mostly to rile up the darker sentiments held by middle England. It's Fox News in paper form.

The Sun, on the other hand, is the ultimate tabloid (in terms of sales) but is more playful and aware of its role as a form of entertainment. The Sun and the Daily Mail couldn't be any different.

<comment><USER5> which ones have aliens and suburban housewives raising bears as children?

<comment><USER8> You're thinking of the Sunday Sport <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunday_Sport>

They were famous back in the '80s for ludicrous headlines like "London Bus Found On Moon" and "Aliens Turned Our Son Into An Olive". I can't recall seeing it on the news stands lately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When we think back on Newton or Einstein, we don't say 'he won an Nobel and pocketed a cool million'. We remember them for their results, which changed the way humanity sees the world. Granted, if it was me I probably wouldn't have declined, but then, I wouldn't have found the proof either. In 40 years nobody will remember all this circus around medals, awards, and money, just his result, which is the way he wants it. Feynman also cursed the day he received the Nobel and wished these awards bodies were more discrete and privately gave an opportunity to decline without all the publicity circus.

I hope he is secretly at work doing what he does best, away from all these distractions.

<comment><USER10> I get the feeling that Perelman's a purist, in every sense of the word. He gets the math done, and then he steps away and feels happy that he's contributed something to humanity.

Maybe he's not as obstinate as we think he is. (Frying pan to the head notwithstanding)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The thing he tries to avoid is extra attention to his persona. With all the media buzz, I feel sorry for him, tabloid "journalists" will keep distracting him for a while now. Let the man live his life the way he wants to; leave him alone. People should respect his decision however impossible it may be to comprehend for an average money-driven individual.

Don't turn him into a lab rat for own amusement; don't visit that tabloids linked above.

<comment><USER12> If he understood how other social human beings behave, he'd realize this only brings _extra_ attention to his persona.

<comment><USER13> It's very similar to something Feynman said when he found he won the Nobel Prize. I can't find the quote specifically, but he essentially said "is there any way to turn it down?" But he recognized that he couldn't and it was easier to just accept it. But he bemoaned that forever afterwards he was no longer Richard Feynman, he was Richard Feynman Nobel Prize winner. That is all from his book "What do you care what other people think?"

<comment><USER14> I read that, when he gave technical talks away from Caltech, he would have to use a pseudonym, so that the room wasn't packed full of people wanting to see "Famous Nobel Prize winning Feynman" give a talk. This way only the appropriate people in the physics dept would come to see his latest results.

<comment><USER15> Both this anecdote and the parent comment can be found in _"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman"_. (N.B. The quote marks are correct: the title itself is a quote.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It isn't like the money will vanish, presumably it will go to more work to further research in Mathematics.

</comment><comment><USER17> That's an old but cool story.

Here he is on the subway in Moscow: [http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2007/06/15/perelman- in-a-...](http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2007/06/15/perelman-in-a-subway/)

<comment><AUTHOR> the story is actually pretty recent, he was awarded the Millennium prize last Thur, the previous one he declined was back in 2006. but figuratively speaking this story goes back to Diogenes, so yes, it is old

<comment><USER17> Ah, thank you. The Millennium prize people might have been confident they wouldn't have to pay out, eh?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A while ago I read through a book called "The Millennium Problems[1].

According to the author, its unlikely that anyone driven by the money would be the ones solving the problem. If you really want money, and you are good enough to solve these problems, there are much easier ways to make a million.

Of course, that doesn't mean that whoever solves P vs NP wouldn't take the million, but looking at it this way, Perelman's decision doesn't surprise me too much.

[1] [http://books.google.com/books?id=Ofw6ru8cHOUC&dq=the+mil...](http://books.google.com/books?id=Ofw6ru8cHOUC&dq=the+millenium+problems&source=bn&hl=en&ei=X-KpS9rHJ4PCrAfqrfmdAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book- thumbnail&resnum=5&ved=0CB4Q6wEwBA)

P.S. I wouldn't recommend this book. It attempts to explain the problems but I didn't feel that it did a good job. Reading the P vs NP section (the only problem on the list I understand) I was depressed at how poorly it described the problem.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good for him. Having money would disrupt his life and set back his work. I'm waiting to see what he comes up with next.

<comment><USER20> He has abandonded mathematics. I don't know what he works on now.

Currently he mentions that he has everything he wants and doesn't want to be paraded like an animal in the zoo for everyone to see. He doesn't want money and honors.

What has alienated him from mathematics is others dishonesty. Read the "Manifold Destiny" article from New Yorker by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber (<http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2>). In there you'll find a reference to Shing-Tung Yau. Quote from the article:

 _As for Yau, Perelman said, "I can't say I'm outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest."_

<comment><USER21> Next time when I want to publish a paper, I will take the work of someone else, claim that it's unreadable and difficult to understand, "clarify" parts that were unreadable, and put my name on it. I just cannot believe that things like that are common practice for some researchers. That was a great read, thanks.

<comment><USER16> And then use your ill-gotten fame to seek out grants and funding from governments and philanthropists to further your goals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if his parents have everything they want, like a reasonable retirement.

<comment><USER23> If his parents wanted that, they should have been geniuses solving million- dollar prizes.

That said, I agree that a lot of good could be done with the money. He should take it and ensure that it does good.

<comment><USER22> Seems your forgetting the part about where his parents provided him with a place to live, food, and security while he got the education that allowed him to win a million-dollar prize. Not to mention the fact that they probably paid for his tuition, textbooks, and anything else he needed to learn mathematics. According to Wikipedia: "his early mathematical education occurred at the Leningrad Secondary School #239, a specialized school with advanced mathematics and physics programs. In 1982 [16 years old], as a member of the USSR team competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad, an international competition for high school students, he won a gold medal, achieving a perfect score." You don't get to do all that as a kid without the monetary support of your parents. I wonder if Perelman's parents had forced him to work in a factory instead of enrolling him in advanced mathematics programs, would he have achieved the same results?

Do the parents deserve a comfortable retirement for their efforts? I say yes. I say every parent that supports the education of their children does. It's just that most kids don't have a million dollars lying around that they can give to their parents. Personally I think it's unconscionable not to secure the financial stability of your family given the opportunity. If anything, just keep the money lying around for medical expenses and college tuition. Perelman should have used the money to support his parents and lay the groundwork for the educational success of his kids. I can't think of an ethical justification not to do so.

<comment><USER24> This is the Soviet Union - where public education is free, free, free, as long as you're getting good grades and staying out of trouble.

<comment><USER22> Public education is free in the United States too if your parents or guardian pay taxes. Whether the parents directly pay for tuition or not is not really the main thrust of my argument. The point is that supportive parents are critical for the academic success of children. If (when) I had the opportunity to ensure my parents would never have to worry about their mortgage or an unexpected medical bill I would take it. I'd send them on a nice vacation too while I was at it. Personally I think it's the least you can do in return for having supportive parents.

Of course, there's a possibility that Perelman's parents were not supportive. But in my experience the majority of gifted children have supportive parents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Choosing to live in squalor and denying an earned $1m prize suggests that Perelman is suffering from clinical depression.

The sad part is he's probably going to be written off as eccentric and never receive help that could change his life substantially from the better.

<comment><USER26> Or maybe he just isn't interested in money or fame.

Don't be so rash in passing out judgment.

I once asked a mathematician what he says he does when people ask him. He said that "I do math, teaching is my job, the way i make my living but what I do is math". Didn't quite expect that answer, and he's internationally known for his work too.

<comment><USER25> "Or maybe he just isn't interested in money or fame."

There's a big difference between not interested in money or fame, and living in a 1 bedroom apartment, sleeping on a dirty matress, and living with a roach infestation.

<comment><USER26> I see his choice comparable to the one often taken by start up founders when they realize that all they need is a computer and decide to be frugal and live off somebody's couch or work from their smelly garage.

I completely understand his decision. To an intellectual, a lot of the things that you would consider necessary, aren't.

<comment><USER25> You are attempting to fit a square into a circle here.

Working in a "smelly garage" or from a "friends couch" as a founder in the USA dreaming of success is Apples to Oranges vs. living in a roach motel, on a dirty mattress, turning away visitors from behind a closed door, in Russia, since 2003.

One is the romantic prototype of an entrepreneur, one is an unimaginably harsh and depressing life from which this guy has completely denied himself sanctuary.

<comment><USER16> You have zero idea of what he thinks. If he is depressed about living with his mom, he hides it well. He is depressed about teh state of politics in math, not about his lifestyle. He didn't say, "I have no choice," he said, "I have everything I need." Those are not the words of a depressed man.

Furthermore, a founder couch surfing does not hate their existence and only endures it because they hope to strike it big. A founder is having fun working on their dream and will later have a different kind of fun when they later strike it rich.

lA friend of mine hit it out of the park. When I was living in Parkdale (a poor neighborhood in Toronto that is fighting gentrification tooth and nail), he visited my apartment. His words? "This reminds me of my college days in Montréal. Those were good times!"

I later asked him whether money changed anything. He said, and I kid you not, that he and his wife used to drive to Grateful Dead concerts, now they flew and could take friends with them.

I am not so sure Perelman needs anything else. His mathematical achievement is on par with anything else done in the last century. If this were business, he would be Gates or Ellison or Buffet. If one of those guys declined an award that had no cash value, we wouldn't blink. Why should Perelman desire an award that has no mathematical insight attached? It literally has nothing to offer him, nothing.

Money is your currency. Knowledge is his. Don't accuse him of a harsh and depressing life until you can make a case that his life lacks the things that matter to him.

<comment><USER25> You disagree with me making a generalization, yet you sling one right back at me in your "Money is your currency." comment above, which I guess brings us sort of full circle.

Beyond that, well argued.

Let me clarify my original comment, and then I'll shut up on this:

There is, in my experience, a flat acceptance of eccentricity in brilliant minds.

Yet, when those of less accomplishment display similar eccentricities, peers may be more apt to question behavior.

The evidence in that article, when measured against a "normal" man suggests to me depression, or mental disease.

My comment was made in earnest, I hope that somebody along the way has made that consideration - ultimately we're arguing the same thing, don't make assumptions.

<comment><USER16> You are right, the "money is your currency" line was inappropriate, I apologise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Had Perelman knew <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequence> he wouldn't have declined the prize.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's safe to assume that Perelman could probably make as much every year or two (on Wall St. and elsewhere). So, cockroaches or not, he really doesn't need their money (all that much).

<comment><USER3> Sure, he'd only have to trade 80 hours/week on wallstreet to get it.

This case is exceptional because the $1M is no-strings attached.

<comment><USER28> I don't think top mathematicians on Wall St. are literally trading.

<comment><USER3> Trading has nothing to do with it. The most notoriously stressful positions in finance are that of analyst and ibanker, neither of which entail any trading.

<comment><USER28> I just realized that your comment was ambiguous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Lol. [http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gaz...](http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gazeta.ru%2Fscience%2F2010%2F03%2F23_a_3341933.shtml)

<comment><USER29> Whoops. Here, have a widget

      javascript:location='http://translate.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location);

Paste that as the location for a new bookmark, and save it to your toolbar for a handy bookmarklet. I'm enthused.</comment></comment>


Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved - <AUTHOR> http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html

<comment><USER2> Thank you for posting this. I worked on Tabletop Computing Research for 2 years and it's absolutely astounding the level of misunderstanding and wild speculation that's being swirled around by the iPad. Not nearly enough people have even the basic grasp of the literature necessary for me to trust their analysis.

Bill Buxton is one of the founding fathers of HCI and he most definitely is someone who knows what he is talking about.

</comment><comment><USER3> While not considered a true 'multitouch' device, the Nintendo DS had a software system to sense multiple contact points at once. This is used for a puzzle solution in the first Hotel Dusk game. It seems like the cursor would jump between the 2 points at some resolution. I assume many touch screen systems use something similar to filter inadvertent noise such as smudges on capacitive systems.

</comment><comment><USER4> Quite a few years ago I had a chance to see Bill give a presentation about his research. Not only is he a fantastic speaker, but he has been incredibly passionate about user interface design since way before it was cool.

In this video he describes his own "multi-touch" work: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvyzwN36PSw>

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the title is a reference to Alexander Shulgin, the author of Phenethylamines I have Known and Loved (PiHKAL), among other books.

On this basis, there's an errant "that" in the title, if that was the purpose.</comment>


A collection of graph classification procedures with implementations - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/benedekrozemberczki/awesome-graph-embedding <comment><AUTHOR> The collection covers these types of methods exhaustively:

1\. Factorization

2\. Spectral and Statistical Fingerprints

3\. Deep Learning

4\. Graph Kernels</comment>