Ask HN: Any major manufacturer make office AMD machines? - <AUTHOR> I am struggling to find OEM AMD machines, I am only finding ones built by small companies that bought parts off the shelf (or by individuals).
I want to replace an aging Xeon machine we have (we bought it used in first place) with a new AMD machine, but not finding any major manufacturer (that we can trust they will have professional support) that sells AMD Machines.
Dell for example have AMD Machines but only geared toward cloud and HPC, being rack-based omputers or "normal" computers (ie: not a microcomputer, but not big as a mainframe).
I wanted just a tower atx microcomputer with AMD but not finding any, except for "gamer" machines full of neon and other distracting things that would get in the way of the machine being an office server and "hand me down office desktop" in some years. <comment><USER2> Lenovo has ThinkCentre/ThinkStation desktops available with AMD Ryzen CPUs.</comment>


BP loses laptop with 13,000 Gulf claimants names - <AUTHOR> http://www.securecomputing.net.au/News/252882,bp-loses-laptop-with-13000-gulf-claimants-names.aspx <comment><AUTHOR> Some more detail here[1]. I have to ask, why was the data held on an unencrypted laptop?

What penalties do BP face in the US over this? Anyone?

[1] - [http://www.npr.org/2011/03/30/134963073/bp-laptop-with- claim...](http://www.npr.org/2011/03/30/134963073/bp-laptop-with-claimants- personal-data-disappears)</comment>


In the Works – AWS Region in Milan, Italy - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-region-in-milan-italy/ <comment><USER2> I couldn't help but recall this joke:

Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it's all organised by the Swiss.

Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lover's Swiss, the police German and it's all organised by the Italians.

<comment><USER3> The usual cliche about Italians. I would like to remember HN's audience that Italy is the 2nd manifacturing nation in EU and that a big share of our GDP depends on engineering products and services: [https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/ita/](https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/ita/). Package medicaments, pumps, iron based products, cars, trucks, chemicals are not products that can be improvised without any organization. And in general Italian engineers are good.

P.S: I am both Italian and an engineer.

<comment><USER4> It's a joke, it's not intended to be analyzed or countered.

I may as well point out that Britain has the third-most Michelin-starred restaurants of any country.

<comment><USER5> According to Forbes (2017) UK is far from be top country [https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/11/23/the- to...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/11/23/the-top- countries-for-michelin-3-star-restaurants-infographic/#5ba052f6704c)

Aside from that, and I'm sorry is totally tangential, but I live in UK and I find the luck of food culture here disturbing. Sure there are a lot good restaurant, but most of the people are not able to appreciate and cook good food, while in France, Spain, Italy I find the level much higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The front-and-center 'voiced by AWS Polly' dogfooding is great but it sure does sound like crap. Ironically it struggles to pronounce the word Milan.

<comment><USER7> I am happy to share feedback with the Polly team! Can you be more specific about what you believe sounds bad?

<comment><USER8> It is not too bad, but is not 'Maelan' but 'Meelan'.

<comment><USER9> In defense of the software, Italian is quite difficult to pronounce. I wouldn't be too hard on it for now.

Disclaimers: I am Italian, and I used to work at AWS.

<comment><USER10> I'm surprised, how is Italian difficult to pronounce? I'm Italian too. I understand if you mean difficult for somebody who has 0 knowledge (this is true for any language). But besides very few exceptions Italian pretty wysiwyPronounce, no? I feel like I'm blinded by being too close to it :)

<comment><USER11> As an Italian expat: accent positions are very, very different; and English people associate different "default" sounds to vowels in isolation (e.g. "a").

Even educated persons will struggle if their only source is paper, because a lot of the Latin words that Italian is rooted on, actually have very different pronounciations in English.

Also: GL, GH, GN, CH, CE/CI vs CA/CO/CU, double-consonants reinforcing the sound, etc etc...

<comment><USER12> Most Italian words pretty much match their IPA representation, minus the pretty regular exceptions like Q, C, G, Z and H and the rare irregularity.

It may be difficult to an anglophone, but I'd argue that the phonetic irregularities of English are much more of a problem to a learner. "though/tough/through" never happens in Italian.

<comment><USER13> The biggest problem with reading Italian is knowing where the accent goes if it's not mandatory to write, in which case you need to know from context, as in the words at the end of [http://www.italianlanguageguide.com/pronunciation/stress- acc...](http://www.italianlanguageguide.com/pronunciation/stress-accent- marks.asp)

<comment><USER10> agreed, the accent location (stressed syllabe) comes down to knowing the word, but only a few cases of wrong accent give you a different word... in english you can change the word by mispronouncing the lenght of the first vowel in words like sheet, beach... both long vowel, different way to write it... although I'm sure I'm being imprecise on "long vowel" (don't know anything about phonetics), but I can't think of an example of non-accent based, italian equivalent

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can anyone provide any insights into specifically why Milan, Italy? I see that AWS already has 3 regions in Europe.

<comment><USER13> It's relatively well connected to both Southern and Northern Europe?

<comment><USER15> Yeah, There is a huge internet exchange in Milan and a lot of submarine cables to Middle East, India etc go through Italy.

<comment><USER13> On the other hand, Italian courts were the most wiretap-happy in Europe a while ago (and not very tech-savvy), so perhaps I'd think twice before running anything there. I bet/hope Amazon got good lawyers to handle that.

<comment><USER11> If you are going to come out in a Middle-Eastern country, that's the least of your worries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone who knows when EU-North-1 (Stockholm region) will open? Supposed to open by the end of the year.

<comment><USER17> Very soon.</comment></comment>


Chinese Government Will Invest CNY20 Billion to Promote IPv6 - <AUTHOR> http://www.chinatechnews.com/2014/04/30/20482-chinese-government-will-invest-cny20-billion-to-promote-ipv6

<comment><USER2> CNY 20 billion is about $3.2 billion USD

<comment><USER3> so approx $2^32 then. ....

<comment><USER4> So once exceed, it falls back to -1? XD

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> PLA Unit 61398 is tired of pivoting through all those pesky NAT firewalls.

<comment><USER6> Every time I hear someone calling a NAT a firewall, it rubs me the wrong way.

No matter what security benefits a NAT may or may not provide, a NAT is anything BUT a firewall. Stop calling NAT a firewall!

<comment><USER5> Stop giving me orders as if I work for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish the US would spend this much to promote IPv6.

<comment><USER8> Why? Japan spent a lot of effort on IPv6 and what did it get them?

<comment><USER9> Why? To get widespread ipv6 support, I'd suppose.

<comment><USER6> IPv6 adoption on its own is pretty meaningless.. I suspect it had more to do with economics than tech.

This is total guesswork.. But here goes.. Japan likley invested heavily in IPv6 because their economy is very tech driven, the risks of running out of IPv4 or even being viewed as "behind" were likely the driving factors IMO

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I guess they can spend the money on getting rid of Windows XP, as it barely works.

</comment><comment><USER11> Dedicated to the high speed network connection inside the great wall.

<comment><USER11> wow, been downvoted a lot. seems no one understands what I'm talking about here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> IPv6 addresses are determined by the computer MAC address, some governments must be excited about this feature.

<comment><USER13> That's entirely misleading.

The MAC address is used if you autoconfigure IPv6, it's not required. Also you can enable privacy by requesting your host to generate a random host identifier.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Privacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Privacy)

<comment><USER14> I believe pretty much every single IP stack implementation uses privacy extensions by default now.

<comment><USER10> Actually I don't think that is true yet. FreeBSD does not by default for example.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Github for designers - <AUTHOR>

I had a random thought for a site idea today: A public version control system for designers.
I come from a design background and I don't know any designers who version control their assets, like PSDs, Illustrator files, InDesign, etc. Sites like Github are designed for apps, so the presentation layer is optimized for lists of files. From a designer's perspective, seeing thumbnails would be more appropriate.
Does a site like this exist? As a designer, would you want a system in place for handling versioning of your design assets?
Personally, I think it's very important and it should be part of any designer's toolbox. It could be as simple as building something on top of Github, just with a different presentation layer.
Shortcomings: - No cherry-picking changes. Each commit is a new instance. - Adobe stuff is integral for designers, but is limited in what data can be extracted. <comment><USER2> GitHub's new image compare mode[1][2] would work really well for designers*

[1] Blog Post: <https://github.com/blog/817-behold-image-view-modes>

[2] Demo: [https://github.com/cameronmcefee/Image-Diff-View- Modes/commi...](https://github.com/cameronmcefee/Image-Diff-View- Modes/commit/8e95f70c9c47168305970e91021072673d7cdad8)

Coupled with Kaleidascope on the desktop: <http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/>

I think the problem is introducing the _IDEA_ of version control to designers. Once they grok the idea, they usually like it. But with the exception of web designers, most designers aren't introduced to the concept.

*I was a designer before I was a developer

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out Gridiron Flow - it has built-in version control as well as a bunch of other cool features for digital asset management for designers.

<http://www.gridironsoftware.com/products>

[http://gigaom.com/collaboration/visual-versioning-how-a- demo...](http://gigaom.com/collaboration/visual-versioning-how-a-demo-of- gridirons-flow-blew-my-mind/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think its an interesting idea. Never saw anything quite resembling that in the wild. Might it be that open source code != open source design? Both groups collaborate, but what does it say that designers fawn over sites like forrst (which is walled) and coders like Git? Perhaps a different question needs to be asked - like what tools would a designer use to not simply outsource but open up the design process?

</comment><comment><USER5> I would love to see something like this. I'm a part of Forrst, but this isn't exactly what they do.

Something more open and mass-appealing than Designsvn would be terrific.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, this exists. Hang on while I find the link...

Edit: Found it: <http://designsvn.com/>

<comment><USER3> This seems to require user to upload files to their server manually? Seems like it's more like an asset management/approval tool?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps you might find this useful: <https://github.com/schacon/git-media></comment>


Internet Outage Causes Major Delays at Sacramento Airport - <AUTHOR> https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/12/22/car-crash-internet-outage-delay-flights-sacramento-airport/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a crazy story. The Internet is out because a car hit into a utility pole, and the airport can't operate. Are our airports that vulnerable?</comment>


Leftronic (YC S10) turns any startup office into a command center  - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2012/06/04/leftronic-turns-any-startup-office-into-a-command-center/

<comment><USER2> Is this substantially different than GeckoBoard?

<http://www.geckoboard.com/>

<comment><USER3> Hey Jeff, Rajiv here, one of the founders of Leftronic. Here's how we're different:

* We have a custom push API enables you to update your dashboard in real-time. (And our pull API is going to come out in the next day or two.)

* Our interface is completely vector-based, which makes it work on any browser or screen size. And it's very flexible and configurable, so you can set up your dashboards exactly the way you want!

* We have no restrictions on the amount of data you push to us for custom feeds, nor do we restrict the number of instances of the dashboard you have simultaneously running.

* Our visualizations are minimalistic on purpose, which makes them immensely glanceable.

* Our data connectors pull data from third-party services as fast as their API's allow us to. We're only limited by the other side, not ours.

* We have dashboard templates that get you set up with your dashboards in a single click.

* Our integrations into the various data services are very thorough and robust.

* We have a couple more tricks up our sleeve that I can't mention yet, but stay tuned! ;)

If you have any other questions, I'd love to hear from you so please shoot me an email!

Thanks!

Rajiv

rajiv at leftronic dot com

<comment><USER4> I think that is one of the things giving us pause is the price.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I have absolutely no business use case for this, but I do have a spare 30" Dell in my office and would love to play around with this. I wouldn't pay more than $10 or $15 per month, though.

<comment><USER4> I think the pricing should be setup more of a way to get you hooked on the crack. You give some crack for free, get addicted, and want more. I think most corporations have a need for many dashboards. So what about two for free and get them addicted, and they want more?

<comment><USER5> They do have a free plan, which gets you one dashboard and unlimited custom metrics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some nits about your encrypted API:

1\. The ciphertext is not authenticated. You should MAC it.

2\. The plaintext is padded with spaces to be block-aligned. "Hello world" will collide with "Hello world_" when encrypted with the same IV, and both will decrypt as "Hello world_____" (where "_" means a space). Use PKCS#1 or some other standard padding.

[https://github.com/sonofabell/leftronic/blob/master/python/l...](https://github.com/sonofabell/leftronic/blob/master/python/leftronic.py#L260)

<comment><USER7> Cesar here, I wrote that part of the API package. You are right that we should likely HMAC the ciphertext for added security. I'll definitely explore the padding issue as well. Thank you for your insight on this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this really a _pain_ that companies feel? That they can't visualize or gather critical data into a coherent view? It seems to me that this might be a great thing to have, but companies don't necessarily know this. When you have to _explain_ and _pitch_ to companies why they need your product, I think you're on dangerous waters. A truly good product should have companies seeking you out, because what you're doing makes their lives that much easier, I don't see it for this product.

<comment><USER9> It's certainly a pain that some companies feel - particularly those with a robust and established data driven culture. With the proliferation of SaaS as a delivery mechanism for software the pain of having to check multiple sources for a coherent view of your business becomes more acute.

As to your broader point, customer education will always be an issue for any novel product but that comes hand-in-hand with an opportunity to precisely frame the problem you're solving and explain the benefits of your product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We have one at YC showing HN stats. It has become the focus (= hearth) of the room.

<comment><USER11> Publishing the URL to a (perhaps several days delayed, or even static data snapshot, but interactive demo) of this could be very powerful marketing for Leftronic.

Also, live demo link on the site leads to a page that is completely black on Safari on iPad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would be great if there were more examples of what has been done with the API on the homepage.

They should market this towards manufacturing companies...

Or I could see it doing really well in high performance computing... Setup a dashboard to monitor compute clusters...

I really need to play with this!

<comment><USER13> We were early adopters of the API, and we still use it to demo integration of Splunk with 3rd party dashboards.

The beauty of the API is that it allows you to display relatively arbitrary data in very compelling ways.

For example, we have access to quite a bit of data at Splunk, from Twitter, server logs, etc. A lot of our customers ask us how they can use the data that is inside Splunk and present it in a 3rd-party dashboard, so we built a demo with Leftronic.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the kind words, Itay.

For reference, here's the link that talks about the Splunk + Leftronic integration: <http://dev.splunk.com/view/SP-CAAADSR>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We used Leftronic at Cloudkick and I think their product idea is pretty cool. I hope they do well.

<comment><USER3> Thanks Bjorn!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am not sure why this line is buried deep in information on their site:

"We also offer a Free Forever plan which includes one dashboard and access to Leftronic's custom data API."

This should be the pickup line.

</comment><comment><USER16> We have a very geography-dependent product (peer-to-peer carsharing) and a ton of disparate data types. I hope we give Leftronic a try because I think it has a lot to offer. Keep it up guys!

<comment><USER7> Hey Bodhi! We'd definitely appreciate the signup, feel free to reach out to us at support at leftronic dot com if you need any help integrating Leftronic with your product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Selling the illusion of control to lost managers is a pretty good business plan: it scratches an issue which terribly itches them, and they're paying with someone else's money.

</comment><comment><USER4> We are looking at using it here at Viralheat.

<comment><USER3> That's great to hear! Please send an email to rajiv at leftronic or support at leftronic if there's any way I can assist you in the process!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Demoing as we speak. Great product.</comment>


Codeology: visualization of GitHub projects - <AUTHOR> http://codeology.braintreepayments.com/ <comment><USER2> For those that like things like this, check out [http://gource.io/](http://gource.io/) \- it's desktop only, but produces awesome visualizations. It works by going through your git history and essentially shows programmers buzzing around the code and updating files. It can do generic avatars, or even download their gravatar if they have one.

A lot of videos online, but two great ones are:

* The History of Python [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRjTyRly5WA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRjTyRly5WA) * 800+ days of Minecraft in 8 minutes [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRjTyRly5WA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRjTyRly5WA)

<comment><USER2> The other two videos are a bit crowded showing filenames. You can filter that out. The evolution of linux takes a different approach and filters out the filenames so you can see the people involved

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrmnlP9oaQ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrmnlP9oaQ4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This must have been a cool project to work on. It's nice that Paypal marketing is willing to put money into something like this over Ads, I'm sure it will generate some good links and "Awareness" amongst developers for Braintree Payments.

<comment><USER4> > marketing is willing to put money into something like this over Ads

Not exactly. I'm sure this cost a few orders of magnitudes less than e.g. plastering London with posters written in white on black monospace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> No workee. "Enter anyway" no workee. Version 48.0.2564.116 (64-bit), DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa"

<comment><USER6> Same here. Chromium Version 48.0.2564.82 Built on Ubuntu 14.04, running on LinuxMint 17.3 (64-bit)

<comment><USER7> same, but with firefox 44.0.2 on archlinux. probably having linux specific problems :/

<comment><USER8> Can you try now? [http://codeology.braintreepayments.com/](http://codeology.braintreepayments.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So I typed my name and clicked one of my repos and I have a small green butterfly model to view at low resolution, and I can read the description I can read on github. If I click on it or attempt to interact with it in any way, it's deselected... what exactly am I looking at?

</comment><comment><USER10> I really like things like this, and Codeology seems nicely done. I just wish the forms created gave a bit more meaningful insight into the project - perhaps communicating something about commit history, project structure, contributor network, or comments.

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool visualizations ... A few comments / suggestions:

1) running the landing page in the background caused a lot of CPU churn and slowed my laptop. Consider moving to a simple animation for the landing.

2) Error that my browser is not supported (next to most recent chrome), but it worked anyway.

3) Interesting visualization, lowering color depth may improve performance without much loss of fidelity.

4) Some easily accessible key/explanation for chunks that are whizzing around -- whether that is a key or labels within visualization. Maybe I just didn't dig deep enough, but having that default on or prominent to turn on will help new users understand the visualization better.

Nice project!

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks nice, though I do not get what I see. There is some correlation between distro size and visualization size, though why some repos have tentacle shapes, and others are blobs?

<comment><USER13> The shapes are primarily determined by the programming language used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This looks heaps pretty - sort of like my own lil zen garden of pokemon or something</comment>


Life in a Start-Up (PG-18 :)) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jelastic.com/2013/01/23/life-in-a-start-up-pg-18/

<comment><USER2> Hey Marina, I don't think this is the right community to be posting videos of dramatized no-life founders right now. It was hip maybe ~5 years ago, but now the community mostly focuses on stories on how to manage your life appropriately while running a startup so you perform better whilst not shortening your lifespan.

Also, I think the plasticized sex scenes invoke a visceral reaction, without really contributing much to the message of the movie. I'm not sure why you would endorse this as a PR manager..

edit: I probably won't get a reply to this. I get the feeling Marina Sprava is not a real person.. all of her web presence seems to revolve around Jelastic (she's member of 20+ tech groups on LinkedIn) and despite being the 'PR manager' of Jelastic she isn't mentioned on the Team page on their site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow! Looks like I work too much:) Thanks for your interest to my person:) BTW my surname is Sprava, not Prava:) I really respect your opinion according to our video, but sorry, cannot agree with you. The main idea is to show real life in a start-up and it's shown very well. Maybe you don't understand it, because you are not a startuper.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps so :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Well, I can add them to my list of people to never contact.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, would you still add them to "people to never contact" if the video was done sans the sex scene? The video would still be cheesy and over the top, but the whole start-up scene is over the top now-a-days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, at least they clearly define their target :) (not in a good way)

...and what's up with the last line? I really don't get it.</comment>


Ask HN: Is API-first chatbot constructor usefull to anyone - <AUTHOR> Hey, HN. I have a question for you.
We use our own bot constructor for years. It allowed us to build numerical chatbots and chatbot-based products, mostly for HR.
It's quite simple, has almost none visual interface and has full REST API to create, consume and connect chatbots.
It's not an NLP or AI-based in any way, good old Finite-State-Machine in XML form, with keywords support (with some additional NLP processing like stemming and so on), regex and etc, so you can build entire chatbot by building XML in pure code. You can plug any NLP engine, like MS QnA or Dialogflow if you wish though.
It also provides wide abilities for integration like POST and GET requests, Azure Functions integration, some limited memory, user profiles and string parsing capabilities.
Some messaging capabilities like Push and Broadcast available as well.
I wonder is it worth to make it available to the public? Any thoughts on this? <comment><USER2> At Engati, we are deeply embracing automation and bots to help businesses dramatically enhance their customer experience and achieve faster growth. That's why we help you build an intelligent and the best chatbot that automatically and instantly resolves your customers' most common questions. [http://s.engati.com/1qj](http://s.engati.com/1qj)</comment>


The enormous life of Anthony Bourdain, according to those who knew him best - <AUTHOR> https://www.gq.com/story/anthony-bourdain-men-of-the-year-tribute <comment><USER2> I've been to the edge, and there I stood and looked down. And then I turned around and walked away. I've been back for a few visits but have kept turning around. I lost a lot of friends there. Anthony and Ernest and Robin and so many others didn't turn back. It's easy for me to sympathize.

But maybe it's better to give them contempt. Moral opprobrium, disgrace, dishonor, could help the marginally committed to turn back.

Contempt for such great human beings, who did far more with their lives than I ever will? No. Just for one choice.

The ability to not sympathize with that choice is a blessing, an apple you may be better off not eating.

<comment><USER3> Just wanted to say that was quite a poignant piece of writing. I wish you well.

<comment><USER4> Yea, but ... Van Halen - Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love?

<comment><USER3> hahaha. I don't listen to them much, clearly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> According to the article, prior to Bourdain's publication of _Kitchen Confidential_ when he was in his early 40's, his outside-the-US travel experience consisted solely of a few trips to France as a child and one trip as an adult to Japan:

> He just talked about what traveling the world would be like for him. He had > gone to France as a kid, he had gone to Japan once, and that was it.

The fact that Bourdain not only achieved massive professional success after toiling in obscurity well into his 40s, but more specifically became the most famous traveler in the world _after barely having traveled in 2+ decades of adult life_ is pretty damn impressive. Definitely gives weight to the argument that "it's never too late"!

<comment><USER6> There's another quote of his somewhere where he claims to have not even had a bank account until into his 40s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I refuse to watch the last episode. This way his series will never end.

<comment><USER8> I found it...macabre. It was very dark.

<comment><USER9> just curious if you could expand on that a little, as i'd have trouble watching it too.

macabre because of what you know now, or was there a shift evident in the tone/subject of the shows themselves?

<comment><USER10> I'm not too sure which the last series is, as I was only introduced fairly shortly before his death to Bourdain's work, but as someone new to him — all his appearances have that faint background noise of world weary despair. It's not overwrought and doesn't in any way taint his shows, but it's a distinct undercurrent. Perhaps I'm sensitive to his language and vaguely grim manner because I've in a very small way seen into various worlds of despair, but I was in no way surprised by his last choice.

It's sad, but he seemed to have lived a good life and at least was in control of his final journey — most of us aren't.

<comment><USER11> I don't think anyone was surprised by his choice. It was part of his person. He knew the other side well, and didn't try to hide it.

That's what made him stand out to me. He wasn't singing the praises of every place he went to. He was a real human being, exploring and talking about what he saw and felt while he was bouncing from place to place. Always a little dismissive, but not because he didn't care about the people or places he was visiting. More because he was an observer to the world, not a participant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> He taught us so much about the world, and still had so much more to show us.

I'm rarely saddened by celebrity deaths; Anthony Bourdain hit me right in the gut and it continues to hurt. Such a special person. Such a huge loss.

RIP Tony.

<comment><USER12> The global reaction to his death felt like the entire world realizing at once how much they loved him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The news of his death kind of shocked me in that I had just stayed a few months earlier in the hotel[0] he died in... News article was a photo of the hotel and I was all recalling the great memories of the trip, until read the headline! :( Brutal!

Apparently it was his favorite hotel, which didn't surprise me to hear. If you ever get the chance, trust his (and my) judgement and at least visit the town of Kayserberg, France!

[0] [https://www.lechambard.fr/en/](https://www.lechambard.fr/en/)

</comment><comment><USER14> His death was tragic, shocking, sad and... helpful for me, in a way. This is a person who does almost all my worldly fantasies, in the way that I would hope to do them, and the cup goes dry still.

</comment><comment><USER15> If there was one guy I'd like to have beer with..

</comment><comment><USER16> Bourdain once described San Francisco as a two-fisted drinking town. Ain't that the god damn truth.

</comment><comment><USER17> One of my fav people :(</comment>


'More Features' Won't Save a Dying Business Model - <AUTHOR> http://www.jacksonfish.com/blog/2010/11/26/more-features-wont-save-a-dying-business-model/

<comment><USER2> "The blogs and websites I read, the google alerts I use, the social networks I frequent, all give me this experience already today. I don't need a newspaper to deliver it to me in one package."

That has a nice ring to it, but it's short-sighted. If newspapers (paper or non-paper) die, then we'd most likely see the wire servies go down with them. With newspapers gone and wire services gone, investigative journalism would largely die along with it because it is expensive and some of the best stories span continents. Many of the insightful stories we take for granted as being freely available and at our fingertips would just disappear and people reporting eyewitness events, information the government spoon feeds us, and "stories" that are nothing more than anonymous tips that are seldom second- sourced would fill much of the void. As we know, there are so many things that are never witnessed unless someone takes a shovel and digs deep. Also, hard- hitting journalism aside, where will you find people who spend the money to create pieces like this about architecture that I found on the front page of the NYTimes today? [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/27/arts/design/mu...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/27/arts/design/museums.html?hp)

IMHO, you should be careful what you wish for.

I, for one, not only love reading papers online, I'm also one of the few willing to shell out what little my paper of choice will ask me to pay (25 or 50 cents a day?) to give me news that changes my perspective instead of news that just keeps me up-to-date.

p.s. - I agree with you about that mock-up shown in the video -- very uninspiring, but that doesn't mean that all future potential takes on the idea will be uninspiring as well. That's like saying that everything that can be invented has been invented. :-)</comment>


Vermont passes first law to crack down on data brokers - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/27/vermont-passes-first-first-law-to-crack-down-on-data-brokers/ <comment><USER3> I'm still not understanding the controversy and kickback around these regulations. The hysteria around GDPR has been silly.

My home country has a Privacy Act, it's terribly weak and has little enforcement but the principals in it were drilled into me from the very start of my career. Customer data is really important. It must be kept private and not shared. And we should only have what we need to have for whatever we're doing for them. I don't know why those principals are so hard for people to swallow. Now in the states when I hear mobile carriers are selling my location data without my consent, and so on, I get completely irate. It boggles my mind why people think that kind of behavior should be allowed.

<comment><USER4> >I'm still not understanding the controversy and kickback around these regulations. The hysteria around GDPR has been silly.

Because it puts a whole bunch of people out of a job and ruins the user experience for many things. Every news site I go to I get greeted by a pop up that won't go away until I interact with it. Apparently similar things are happening with phone apps as well. And while this is happening I've read about people having their app revenue drop 90% in some cases.

We're not even a full week in yet, so we don't know what the full effects of this are going to be.

>It boggles my mind why people think that kind of behavior should be allowed.

It's not about whether data abuse is okay or not, but rather it's about the consequences of taking such a heavy-handed approach as GDPR did.

<comment><USER5> > Because it puts a whole bunch of people out of a job and ruins the user > experience for many things.

No, really, it is the advertisers who ruined the experience in the first place. And almost every site tries to make you agree to data collection without giving you another option, or hiding the other option under several menus. That's why I closed the TC page.

<comment><USER4> The advertisers are the reason why many of these jobs existed in the first place. Developers don't run off of hot air and exposure.

<comment><USER6> Then it's probably just the time to fire all of them.

I work for an ad arb business. We don't collect user-identifiable data and still make loads of money.

Your point of view would seem to justify child trafficking if that would pay the bills for most of the people in the industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We're going to end up with some HIPAA like regulations on collecting data and it's going to be a massive pain in the ass.

The scary part is the big companies will have the money to lobby for regulations to be written in a way that is easy for them to comply with while shutting out smaller companies and startups.

<comment><USER8> This law applies only to data brokers in Vermont. From the article:

 _Data brokers in Vermont will now have to register as such with the state; they must take standard security measures and notify authorities of security breaches (no, they weren't before); and using their data for criminal purposes like fraud is now its own actionable offense._

It defines data brokers as businesses in Vermont that buy and sell data on people with whom they have no direct relationship. Seems like a reasonable law - unlike GDPR, they aren't trying to reach outside of their jurisdiction, they aren't trying to wipe out entire business models, there are no absurd fines, it's easy to know if you're violating it (because you would know that you have setup a data brokerage in Vermont), etc. My guess is there are only a handful of "data brokers" as they define that term within Vermont, so this affects very few people.

<comment><USER9> Your reading that they define 'data broker' as a business in Vermont is not substantiated by the text of the bill [1].

Some excerpts that define some key terms:

 _" (2) "Business" means a commercial entity, including a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, association, limited liability company, or other group, however organized and whether or not organized to operate at a profit, including a financial institution organized, charterd, or holding a license or authorization certificate under the laws of this State, any other state, the United States, or any other country, or the parent, affiliate, or subsidiary of a financial institution, but does not include the State, a State agency, any political subdivision of the State, or a vendor acting solely on behalf of, and at the direction of, the State.

(3) "Consumer" means an individual residing in this State.

(4)(A) "Data broker" means a business, or unit or units of a business, separately or together, that knowingly collects and sells or licenses to third parties the brokered personal information of a consumer with whom the business does not have a direct relationship."_

[1] [https://legislature.vermont.gov/bill/status/2018/H.764](https://legislature.vermont.gov/bill/status/2018/H.764)

<comment><USER8> What you're not understanding is that this is a _state_ law. They can only regulate the activities of businesses that operate _within their own state_.

They use the broad definition of a "business" because in the US you can be incorporated in Delaware and actually operate in Vermont. This is actually a common thing - most US corporations are incorporated under the laws of either Delaware or Nevada but operate within their home state. But the state only has the ability to regulate the actual operations of businesses _operating within Vermont._

<comment><USER10> There's lots of ways a Vermont court could apply their laws to a Delaware corporation operating out of Delaware: Renvoi, significant contacts test, "better rule" test, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe that these practices should be completely outlawed.

I could in principle not see it anything less than a form of unlawful surveillance.

<comment><USER12> That's a bit extreme. Most of this data gets used for targeted advertising. While that sounds (and sometimes is) shady, it also enables a lot of niche companies that had a much harder time existing before.

For example, what's the point in showing ads for custom quadcopter parts to an 80 year old grandmother who doesn't know what a quadcopter is?

Data should be regulated and protected much more than it currently is. But the idea of banning it entirely would have a lot of negative effects. Let's be smarter than that.

<comment><USER13> If I need quadrocopter parts, I'll search for quadrocopter parts. I don't need your ads to push quadrocopter parts on me on the hope that I might be slightly more interested in them than an 80 year old grandmother.

I need you to build a good product and display it in a good store.

<comment><USER14> This really cuts to the core of the issue. Consumers will naturally seek out the things they wish to buy. Nobody needs to be distracted from their activities to be told what to buy.

All advertising should be strictly confined to designated areas specifically intended for consumer searching.

<comment><USER15> There are a lot of movies I went to after I saw an ad for it which I never would have searched for on my own (and I can say the same about restaurants and a couple other peoducts). Consumers aren't going to search for something they don't know exists in the first place

<comment><USER16> Yeah, but if you hadn't seen those ads, and not watched those movies, would your life really be worse than it is now?

> Consumers aren't going to search for something they don't know exists in the > first place

If a consumer doesn't buy something they don't know exists, does it really matter?

Life, at least for me and the people I know, doesn't revolve around finding things to spend money on.

<comment><USER17> The economy does.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps this is because I'm not an American, but my life doesn't revolve around "supporting the economy". The economy is supported when I go round living my life, not the other way round.

<comment><USER18> Exactly. Also: free market works well when the aggregated signals from customers are _honest_. Then it allocates resources efficiently. Advertising is all about disrupting this mechanism, injecting and generating fake signals that skew the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm all for spreading information but I can't help but cringe at the frowny, holy attitude Techcrunch displays here like they just discovered this stuff is happening. Please. Spare me the tears. You knew about this all along, it just wasn't fashionable to write about it before.

</comment><comment><USER19> For more details, see the Vermont Attorney General press release [1] and the H.764 bill full text [2].

Cynical prediction: Vermont has less than a million residents. It may be both easier (as in less effort) and less expensive, if you're a data broker, to just cease trafficking in the data of anyone tangentially associated [3] with the state of Vermont.

[1] [http://ago.vermont.gov/blog/2018/05/24/a-g-new-data- broker-l...](http://ago.vermont.gov/blog/2018/05/24/a-g-new-data-broker-law- is-good-for-vermonters/) [2] [https://legislature.vermont.gov/bill/status/2018/H.764](https://legislature.vermont.gov/bill/status/2018/H.764) [3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont#Population_changes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont#Population_changes)

<comment><USER20> I believe that would count as the law functioning as intended.

<comment><USER4> This would also come with the flip side of the coin, which is blocking access to users from Vermont. Server time isn't free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This crackdown on data brokering bothers me. I'm writing from the medical data industry.

Data isn't neccesarily about unwanted creepy stuff. In other industries, customer data can be used to recomend the right stuff, or make the kind of movies people want to watch. That stuff enhances peoples lives - <USER2> individually small but additive ways.

In my industry, data really can save lives. For instance the prime minister of my country apparantly wants to apply AI to peoples GP records to spot people who have undiagnosed cancer. This seems pretty viable to me - even in the most simple case you could quickly spot families with high cancer risk, offer the young women in them gene sequencing, and then offer the ones that are carrying super high risk cancer genes preventative treatement. You'd certainly save lives this way.

There are a lot of very scary ethical questions in my industry. Widespread use of genetics to price insurance. Employers requiring employees give access to medical records before confirming employment. And much more.

But I do worry this backlash will make it much harder to do good.

<comment><USER22> One word: consent.

It's a critical part of medical ethics anyway.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, consent is required by law and codes of practice for medical data most places.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How many businesses have a point of presence in Vermont? I can't imagine many, and if any do, they'd probably just move rather than comply with a law that would harm their business.

This strikes me as being largely symbolic and not likely to have much of an impact, unless other states follow through with similar consumer protections. However if Deleware were to pass legislation like this, that would be a lot more meaningful.

<comment><USER24> UE, Vermont... next please ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Through the article, I looked at Acxiom and it seems like they have an opt-out form. Who knows if they actually obey it but they probably have your data anyway so it's worth a shot: [https://isapps.acxiom.com/optout/optout.aspx](https://isapps.acxiom.com/optout/optout.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER26> It seems so obvious that this is happenening, but I've never really thought about it before. Like the article says, "that's the point."

</comment><comment><USER27> Amen!</comment>


Deep Space – A Simulation Drama [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HJPilemNns

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of the much, much less sophisticated simulations I did back when I got my Amiga. It's an inspiring talk in that it gets you into the mood to do these kinds of experiments, too.

For example, I think complex inter-species behavior could emerge if instead of colors, civilizations could have a set of quasi-genetic attributes. Like aggression, risk taking, need for colonization...

I think I'm going to dedicate this day to exploring that :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Please share your results when you do!

A future revision of this was going to have Intents, so each empire basically did what you mentioned.

If it was going to be a game, the player would set the intent, or proportion of different intents, for their empire (eg colonize, trade), and not be able to micromanage specific plays.

Hostile or otherwise encounters with other empires would affect rules of engagement for future encounters.

Soon enough everything would get complex, messy and unpredictable and much more interesting to watch!

<comment><USER3> I've been thinking about ways to use simulation to teach young and old (particularly the young) about complexity and unintended consequences, things that are not easy for most people to grasp well, but are essential for our society to escape simplistic ideologies and simplistic solutions, for all of us to have a more intelligent discourse on how to make the world better.

Such concepts are better understood or taught through interactive simulation (where the interaction is the users tweaking the settings, coefficients, equations or rules) combined with easy to grasp graphic representation of both the simulation in progress and the results.

Some of the things I've thought of illustrating this way:

\- Game Theory. For example have a population where individual sims engage in prisoner's dilemma repeatedly with a random other sim each time (until it runs out of money). What are the results when different portions of the sim population use different strategies? Is there a way to setup the rewards/penalties in a way that encourages the best greater good even when individuals behave selfishly?

\- complex systems, positive and negative feedback, chaos, emergence, evolution

\- The Mathew Effect (e.g. rich get richer, poor get poorer). The general concept of vicious/virtuous cycles.

\- the notion of the Tragedy of the Commons. And also the Tragedy of No Commons.

\- market economics, supply and demand, the invisible hand. when does it work and when does it not. what happens when consumers have perfect knowledge, and what happens when they have different degrees of partial knowledge?

\- Cooperation vs competition, in evolution/ecosystems, economies, politics.

Please let me know this overlaps with your interests!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the detailed comment.

The market economics part is interesting to me. I touched on it in the Q&A at the end of the talk. Initially I wanted to have ships trading to make up for deficiencies in their homeworlds (agriculture, raw materials), which would also help generate revenue, and lead to conflict. However it's not so simple (hey! let's build a functioning commodities market and HFT/algo trading system). The seed of this idea came from Traveller[1]. It's worth checking out the trade system in the first edition of that game.

The original planet sim was much more complex (along the lines of World3 [2]) and explored finite resources, overpopulation, technology growth and a whole lot more, but again, for the talk that would have been overkill. I think it's worth exploring this angle as it would provide a whole different dynamic, and would be great to see at huge scale (1000's of systems or larger) and playing out at a slower pace.

Also from Traveller, the idea that information cannot move faster than the speed of light, so it has to move at the speed of transport, which creates great dynamics for trade, and the command & control aspect of warfare. Centralized governments are not so effective. A treaty could be signed, but fighting forces will not know until the knowledge reaches them. A war can start and end before the seat of power even knows it had started.

There are so many things that could go in to it. Basically the presentation is a simple version of what I'd like it to be, but I stripped it back to the essentials (spaceships and lasers!) to make the talk interesting.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role- playing_game%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role- playing_game%29) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3)

<comment><USER4> This was an awesome and very inspiring talk.

It would be interesting to create a game where the population has limited ressources on a planet and if it overdoes the exploitation it gets extinct (like 'How bis is our island' [https://twitter.com/dirkk/status/549866431480074240](https://twitter.com/dirkk/status/549866431480074240) ). Also I was equally inspired by Vi Harts and Nick Cases 'Parable of the Polygons' ([http://ncase.me/polygons/](http://ncase.me/polygons/)).

'Boidz' and 'Game of Life' make complex behaviours from a simple set of rules. It was very smart of you to throw in some simplified physics rules (and civilization rules etc) to make these work together.

I can't access your website right now (is it down?), so I don't know if you run a blog or something. Will you continue to work on this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Site should be back now, sorry about that.

I'll revisit Deep Space at some point, there's a lot to do on it.

I have some other related but different I'm working on.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to talk about them somewhere (hint hint).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Link to the simulator: [http://www.simonswain.com/deepspace/make_empires](http://www.simonswain.com/deepspace/make_empires)

</comment><comment><USER6> What an amazingly satisfying result from simple, basic rules.

If you were looking at these simple simulation without knowing what rules they follow, I'm pretty sure it would take a fair amount of efforts to discover them.

Imagine how much of a complex task we're setting ourselves with trying to understand the world we live in and the insanely complex emerging properties of our basic human behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER7> There's a game a lot like this on Steam called Eufloria.

I really like how Deep Space incorporates planet's orbital paths into the simulation. It'd be even better if orbital dynamics were simulated more accurately on the ships as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> Where do I get the t-shirt?</comment>


"Paypal froze over $70,000 in my account; Say they won't return it for 180 days" - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/1rkkd7/paypal_just_froze_over_70000_in_my_account_say/ <comment><USER2> Why is this even news. PayPal has been doing this for years.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just for clarity: this isn't me.</comment>


23 Go To Resources for Finding Great Code - <AUTHOR> http://www.investintech.com/articles/coderesources/

<comment><USER2> Very few options for Ruby or Rails code in this list.

Only <http://www.hotscripts.com> has Rails resources.

And I can see no sites with Ruby resources.

</comment><comment><USER3> Certainly you will find code at those sites, but "great" code?</comment>


Uber offices raided in Paris by French police in 'car-pooling' controversy - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/18/uber-offices-raided-in-paris <comment><USER2> Every time someone kicks Uber down, all it does is make me more sympathetic to their business. I've had nothing but expensive, shit service with no recourse or customer support from _official regulated_ services. They operate like the government does in the film Brazil.

<comment><USER3> while Uber is useful, let's not kid ourselves. they are just new middlemen replacing the old ones.

I just can't bear Uber arrogance as they think they can just violate local laws because they are "useful".There is no justification for that.

While there may be a specific mindset regarding the law in US, most European countries do not work that way at all. French regulators will come very hard on Uber if they think they can just ignore laws.

<comment><USER4> There is absolutely justification. Local laws are unnecessarily causing harm to consumers. Uber is blatantly ignoring those laws to get consumers on their side. This leads to the laws changing.

Seattle's broken ass cab system proposed creating a ride hailing app a few years ago. They were stopped because no one was willing to update laws. Then Uber and Lyft came in. Those laws have now been changed and the old, broken system is being allowed to update to become slightly less shitty. It's still awful though.

Uber plays a dangerous game. They know the risks. They're willing to take them. I have zero issues with this. I do have issues with anti-consumer regulations that primarily exist to protect entrenched business owners.

<comment><USER5> More accurately:

Uninsured Uber drivers are causing harm to other road users. Uber is blatantly ignoring the law to make more money at the expense of the rest of society. This leads to Uber getting punished by the courts. No laws need changing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands From the article:

 _" The service uses non-professional drivers who may not be licensed or insured, raising safety concerns. Some have poor local knowledge so potentially offer a poor customer experience."_

Is this really common in France? To have an abundance of unlicensed and uninsured motorists? I thought that was against the law in most countries. I wouldn't think this would be a specific issue with Uber drivers if its the case where this is common.

Also, doesn't Uber use people who live the areas they drive in? How would they have poor knowledge of an area they live in?

<comment><USER6> It is, actually, an issue specific to driving businesses, and Uber is far more lenient than the law.

Uninsured and unlicensed drivers are normally very rare because many, many people in large cities such as Paris (where Taxis services thrive) very rarely drive. Companies such as Uber incentivize unlicensed and uninsured motorists to drive by making it profitable with seemingly far less control than existing businesses, hence the panic reaction and public debate on the matter.

Paris is relatively small but very dense, and can be maze-like. You can live in Paris and be completely lost a few hundred meters away from your place. Streets and directions are hard to follow and remember, and distances are skewed by traffic, one-way-streets, pedestrian zones, bus lanes and cycle lanes. Some streets open and close depending on the hour of the day/night or the season. It can seriously be a mess and you simply can't assume you're going to be a decent professional Parisian driver just because you live in Paris.

Lastly we all have a proper ID, so it's absolutely viable not to have a driver's license at all (provided you don't drive). Driving itself in Paris is generally a time-sink and a money sink. You only drive when you don't have a choice. For me, that's only when I'm on holiday away from the city.

Insurance is another matter, and yes it's illegal to drive an uninsured vehicle, and you also need a special license to drive for profit.

<comment> at-fates-hands Thanks for the clarification on all points, I had no idea Paris could be so confusing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I honestly don't understand what Uber is trying to accomplish with the integration of non-professional drivers into it's taxi platform.

It's devaluing their actual taxi service. By failing to address the serious safety concerns head on they're opening themselves up to litigation that they don't need and also removing trust in the overall brand. All for what, getting more drivers, you've got to ask, is it worth it?

<comment><USER8> Serious question: What exactly are the safety concerns? Both driver and customer are easily identifiable since they both connect using the Uber app, so it would be really stupid for either of them to commit a crime during the ride. If you mean non-professional drivers having accidents in traffic, I think that shouldn't be that much of a concern since everyone with a drivers license should be able to get through traffic safely.

<comment><USER9> How much do you want to bet if I stole a driver's phone the app would stay logged in and I could pretend to be them? A phone is much easier to take than a car.

Even with a picture, I could just wear stuff that obscures my hair, etc. so they wouldn't get a good look to the difference.

<comment><USER10> The exact same argument applies to someone who steals an actual, licensed taxi, and I don't think people worry about fake taxi drivers when they get a cab.

<comment><USER11> I agree, but people are warned about unlicenced cabs and many cab companies in UK will send an SMS with details of the car - make, colour, licence plate number - when you book because there was a problem of unlicensed cabs with radio scanners taking passengers before the real cab got there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I travelled in an UberPOP during a recent trip to Paris last month. The driver asked that I sit in the front seat because police had been pulling over private cars with passengers in the back, trying to catch unlicensed cab drivers.

</comment><comment><USER13> This nearly had me clicking, before I realized it didn't actually say 'car- poodling'</comment>


[PPT] VCTips Workshop 2009-11-16 - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/spacejockeys/vctips-workshop-20091116

<comment><AUTHOR> While VC's have become our favorite punching bags, it is important for entrepreneurs to understand that VC's are "agents" no different than any other agent who gets a cut on the transaction. Whereas we are expected to put in our body-and-soul and our angel investors to invest their own cash, VC is all about making use of someone else's money. So unlike us, VC's financial interest is coupled with their professional interest, i.e., their career WILL come before ours. If they are not a partner of their firm, their personal goal is to make partner and if they are not a managing partner, then their focus is on raising the next fund and becoming managing partner.

They are not evil. They are simply an agent with different set of priorities.</comment>


Redundancy and Power - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/redund.html <comment><USER2> _Unfortunately, Joel is so provincial that he doesn't know how to spell "dynamic typing", spelling it "variants"._

Paul Graham is so provincial, he doesn't know that "variants" is one of the most powerful features of static typing.

[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/Type_Declarations#data_...](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/Type_Declarations#data_for_making_your_own_types)

[http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml/manual003.html#s:...](http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml/manual003.html#s:tut-recvariants)

<comment><USER3> Not quite the same meaning of 'variant'.

<comment><USER2> Oh, I see... we're talking about Visual Basic: "Dim X as Variant".

Well then, Paul Graham is right. That is a provincial spelling of "dynamic typing".

Incidentally, I don't think variants in the Hindley-Milner sense of the word get nearly enough love from hackers. And, in fact, they _do_ correspond to dynamic typing.

data Dyn = I Integer | S String | D Double | F Dyn -> Dyn | ...

And now you can use your statically typed language as a dynamically typed one.

<comment><USER3> But the language will still be statically typed, as the correct resolution of a Dyn into an Integer, String etc, will still have to be ensured at compile time.

<comment><USER2> No, it will be ensured at run time, as all unboxing happens through pattern matches (which, btw, is EXACTLY what happens with a dynamically typed language).

For example, I can define...

      (+) :: Dyn -> Dyn -> Dyn
      (+) (I x) (I y) = I (x + y) -- integer addition
      (+) (S x) (S y) = S (x ++ y) -- string concat

So I can now use the + operator on variables of type Dyn. If a value has the wrong tag, then a pattern matching exception is thrown. Once I get enough primitive operations defined, I will never really have to manually unbox a value of Dyn type again.

The one difficulty is emulating objects, because we would not have good syntax for arbitrary method calls. We could take a Smalltalk-like or Erlang-like approach, where the object takes message... the message being of type Dyn.

We should really look at dynamically typed languages as subsets of statically typed languages. In other words, they are not untyped, they are _unityped_. In other words, statically typed, but with exactly one type. This is the relationship between typed and untyped lambda calculus (untyped lambda calculus is actually typed, where every term has type Mu X. X -> X)

<comment><USER3> This is getting into details of semantics, but I'm not sure if your example is really shows that the _language_ supports dynamic typing. It's more like an example of implementing dynamic typing in a static language. After all, you're not using the language's type system to do run-time type checking. You're using run-time pattern matching as a substitute.

Of course, I'm just being pernickety, but that's how I am :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Caribbean-Americans Searching for Their Chinese Roots - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/chinese-caribbean-american-hakka-conference <comment><USER2> Hakka as an ethnicity is a bit interesting, they're less defined as part of a certain ethnic group and more defined due to the conflicts, immigrations and the turmoils they've been through:

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punti- Hakka_Clan_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punti-Hakka_Clan_Wars)

<comment><USER3> > The modern day Hakkas are usually identified with people who either speak > the Hakka language or share at least some Hakka ancestry.

This sounds like no less plausible an ethnic group than Latinos.

<comment><USER4> Do Latinos consider themselves an ethnic group? I mean, is there a Latino identity? I always thought that was just a label applied by US census and such.

<comment><USER3> Yes, groups like Latinos and Asian-Americans might be looked at as "artificial" in the sense that they have more cohesion in the US than in their countries of origin, but they nevertheless do have affinities and sometimes form various advocacy groups or vote as a bloc. You don't have to look that hard to find things like Latino student unions and professional groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hope this article helps inform those that ask the question, "really, what are you?" Through colonialism, commerce, and migration the Caribbean is incredibly diverse. Until now I did not realize these organizations existed.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why are there sooo many atlasobsura articles now on HN? I feel like it's been at least 1/2 on front page for past couple days?

<comment><USER7> As a proud AO investor I'd argue that their stories are a good match for the hacker curiousity spirit of HN.</comment></comment>


Gray text: please stop - <AUTHOR> http://contraterrene.com/blog/ebooks/2012/06/06/gray-text-please-stop/

<comment><USER2> I'd like to see a study on this issue rather than an uninformative rant. I recently made my homepage text dark grey on just off-white. It's hard to tell quickly what I really prefer though. Conscious preference doesn't necessarily correspond to readability (measured by speed, comprehension, eye strain, ...).

Reading from a monitor isn't the same as reading from paper. There was a comment on a story recently from someone who'd worked with television saying they never use pure black or white.

I notice that, for example, the BBC news uses a very dark gray for the body text of its website's articles. Do they _really_ not know what they are doing? Also Google uses large blocks of grey text in blogs, help documents, etc. Aren't they notorious for testing everything?

<comment><USER3> The rant is against light-gray, not dark-gray. Its about the contrast and the article has a valid point - definitely worth a rant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Irritatingly, now no longer responding.

Cache here: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vMqU7OC...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vMqU7OClI5YJ:contraterrene.com/blog/ebooks/2012/06/06/gray- text-please-stop/+gray+text+please+stop&hl=en&gl=uk&prmd=imvns&strip=1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I was just going to do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Gray text is great for text that needs to be readable but not as 'priority' or demarked away from the body text, but I agree it's horrible when you see an all Gray block. My eyes do not love having to try and focus on gray contrast levels for much longer than a few seconds.

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems to me that a post like this should be written in black text. Instead, it's written in ... gray text.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it's in black text (or would be, if the server hadn't fallen over -- I really need to go with a static blogging system).

<comment><USER7> The claim about high contrast is definitely valid, but explicitly stating that it should be black, when the stylesheet says #373737 - seems a bit questionable.

I would much prefer to look at font in a very dark grey on a pale color, than the stark look of black on white.

Still, the high contrast argument it is totally valid, and it's very annoying when you see pages that require text highlighting to be read without strain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, "dark enough that I never even noticed that it wasn't #000". Happy now?

I think you were just looking for a nit to pick, frankly.

<comment><USER7> Like I said, the high contrast level is important, and I couldn't agree more with your sentiment.

Nonetheless, the original comment said something to the effect of, your post should have black text if you are making an argument for using black text. It is nit-picky to highlight that your page had dark gray text, but I only did this after you made the inaccurate claim that the page was using black text (as compared to the Apple page, which does use black text).

So it is not really the use of black or dark gray that is important, but the use of high contrast background to foreground colors. Black/gray has little to do with it. And, gray is particularly problematic because it is likely the color that is most often used appropriately, and simultaneously the color that most often used inappropriately - depending on how dark/light the shade happens to be. I mostly wanted to highlight the often present (and an oh-so- intended pun) 'gray areas' in these discussions.

High contrast - definitely, black - maybe. It's a good discussion, and there's a lot of potential depth here, as with most design issues. Apologies if I came off as nit-picking or flippant, it really wasn't the intent.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Starbucks to Accept Pickup Orders Via Its Mobile App - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/18/starbucks-to-accept-pickup-orders-via-its-mobile-app/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like it's something they were originally promising Square, but then backed out and decided to do on their own. heh. I guess that's the unfortunate side of making deals with large co's.</comment>


Vertical farms could help feed cities, save land and reduce pollution - <AUTHOR> http://www.greenrightnow.com/kabc/2010/10/13/vertical-farms-could-help-feed-cities-and-reduce-carbon-pollution/ <comment><USER2> Why Planting Farms in Skyscrapers Won't Solve Our Food Problems – <http://www.alternet.org/food/146686/?page=entire>

<comment><USER3> I think skyscrapers are a misnomer, really, vertical farming will probably be more about 3-4 story tall warehouses in the outskirts than big spires in the center of the city.

The problem is that, being in the early planning stages, many of the ideas are being put forth by volunteer architects, who are more about grandiosity than practicality.

I'd recommend checking out Thanet Earth for an example of indoor agriculture that's proven itself, vertical farming just means building it up a bit.

<http://www.thanetearth.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't imagine this being cost effective, but I like it anyway.</comment>


Show HN: Chat Simply – Group chat for everyone - <AUTHOR>

Today my friends and I are launching a project we've been hacking on for the past few years. It's friendly web based group chat (with apps for Mac, Windows, and iOS) that's not limited to a single business. It basically offers the power of XMPP with a simple UI.
chatsimply.com
Please check it out and let me know what you think! <comment><USER2> I've been pestering Nick and the gang to launch this thing for years! I'm so happy it's finally out in the world. As a UI designer, I've found this thing is the best tool for sharing and discussing visual things. Now that it's live, I can now get all of my clients on this thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> @nchapman

Looks very great. Could you reach out to me @ email@example.com? I have some feedback and may be able to get you some funding/business partnership.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks will do!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any interest in Linux? This looks like a Skype replacement, but our developers all have Ubuntu machines.

<comment><AUTHOR> The good news is that it works great in the browser, so it should work really well in Ubuntu. We support desktop notifications in Chrome and Firefox. The desktop app is based on Chromium so it should be fairly trivial to get it working on Linux in the not too distant future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome job guys! This interface is super sleek. Can I ask what's powering the back-end?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It's Backbone.js on the front-end (with lots of help from the amazing strophe.js), Rails for the REST API, node.js for lots of supporting services, ejabberd for XMPP, and MySQL for storage. It's one of those problems that seemed like it was going to be simple to solve and then wasn't (as usual) so there are quite a few moving parts to bring the whole experience together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Been waiting for this launch for a long time! Very proud of the team for sticking with it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks pwgustafson!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Chat Simply allows me to stay in contact with both my friends and co-workers from both my phone and my computer. It's nice to be able to continue a conversation from my office to lunch and back.

<comment><USER8> clearly an employee.. make yourself known and just chat with us.. this kind of pretending to be a customer doesn't work well on HN.. just my .02

<comment><USER7> Sorry if that came off wrong. I've only recently starting helping with development but have been a long time beta tester and really enjoy using it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> really nice site, clean looking interface, looks like a great app! I will check it out shortly.. Any plans for an android app?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yep, Android app is in the works. Not sure on exact timeframe but should be soon!</comment></comment>


Awesome WM 3.5 released - <AUTHOR> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.window-managers.awesome.devel/7772

<comment><USER2> OT: Wow, is the GMANE interface ever god-awful. I always forget, and then end up clicking though and regretting it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised at the footprint of evilwm (217MB/62MB), as shown in the htop window here:

<http://awesome.naquadah.org/w/images/6screenshot.jpg>

I had always assumed it was pretty lean. I use evilwm, and on my system it weighs in at 32MB/2.2MB (virtual/resident).

What does awesome bring to the table that minimal WMs like ratpoison and evilwm do not?

(Not trying to get into a WM pissing match. I'm genuinely curious.)

<comment><USER4> Wow, awesome 3.4.13 uses 17000/7904 on my system at the moment.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, xmonad at 3480/1916 virt / res...

But I took care to make it lean.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, xmonad has no taskbar or widgets. I use Taffybar with it and it adds about 10Mb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Now this is why I don't use AwesomeWM, config breaks every-damn-time.

<comment><USER8> yeah, it's been a nightmare converting all my old widgets... but in a way, I'm glad that projects like AwesomeWM have the freedom to break everyone's configs if it means newer coding standards. The alternative -- retaining support for all previous versions, at the expense of bloat -- is much less preferable.

<comment><USER6> It's debatable. In the real world, good APIs which evolve deprecate their obsolete parts instead of outright removing them. If that's too much bother, maybe it gets to show that APIs-as-configuration-files are a bad idea, especially with dynamic languages.

<comment><USER9> Awesome is the only API-as-configuration-file that I know of which consistently breaks the API between point releases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know this isn't necessarily a case, especially considering this is from a mailing list, but just like with the Enlightenment post a couple of days ago - how about some screenshots? A human-formatted "What's new" page? Yes, it's open source, there's no marketing effort, etc., but it would still be cool if I could see it and learn about it without giving up hours of my time.

<comment><USER11> The product page has some screenshots[1] as well as the wiki [2].

[1]: <http://awesome.naquadah.org/> [2]: <http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Screenshots>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone know if Awesome has a one-workspace-per-monitor option yet? That's one of the things that drew me to xmonad instead. When you have multiple monitors, being able to change the workspace on each one individually is very useful.

<comment><USER13> As long as I've used awesome (probably 6 months to a year now) I've been able to change my different monitor's workspaces independently using the default rc.lua.

Edit: Based on tessellated's response I may not be understanding the question. By workspace are you referring to the different "desktops" you can reach through the numbered boxes on the upper left (in the default config)?

<comment><USER12> > By workspace are you referring to the different "desktops" you can reach > through the numbered boxes on the upper left (in the default config)?

Yes, it looks like awesome's "desktops" are equivalent to xmonad's "workspaces".

From awesome's home page:

> Real multihead support (XRandR, Xinerama or Zaphod mode) with per screen > desktops (tags);

It looks like support is there. I might give it a shot again, but tessellated's comment about the difficulty of configuration isn't encouraging, particularly when I already have a working xmonad configuration with most of what I want.

<comment><USER13> In that case I (and tcoppi it seems) have never known it to not work. But I'm using the nvidia driver/xorg setup scripts, so maybe it does require some fiddling if you're doing all that by hand.</comment></comment></comment></comment>