How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart - <AUTHOR> http://www.vice.com/read/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10 <comment><USER2> This is the problem with trying to shoehorn reality into a purist ideology: people. Wherever you go, there you are. Until we learn how to stop being shitty and selfish, democratic government looks like the least bad option.

<comment><USER3> Democratic government: Shitty and selfish people electing shitty and selfish people to initiate violence against shitty and selfish people and their property.

Libertarianism: Shitty and selfish people not condoning the use of violence against shitty and selfish people and their property.

<comment><USER4> I wish libertarians would stop their crusade to redefine the word 'violence'. It waters down the word and will eventually make it meaningless if their version catches on.

<comment><USER5> They're using the same definition as everyone else. People find these allusions to violence odd because the "violence" in governments is fairly far- removed, but this is why libertarians bring it up: to remind/reinforce that this is what's going on behind the scenes.

two relevant videos:

George Ought to Help: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs)

You Can Always Leave: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fasTSY- dB-s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fasTSY-dB-s)

<comment><USER4> The use of 'violence' in this context is as stupid as saying a bartender calling 'Last drinks!' is being violent.

After all, if you stick around and don't comply with the request to leave the bar, the bouncers and then the police will get involved.

<comment><USER5> You cite an example of enforcing private property rights. And you're right, violence is used to enforce private property rights.

I'll admit some libertarians might use "violence" to indicate "badness" a little too readily and/or implicitly in these kinds of analogies (because they likely _would_ be okay with violence to enforce property rights), but both thinks _are_ fundamentally enforced with violence.

This admission doesn't make the analogies meaningless. Eg, a libertarian might say "I'm okay with using violence to enforce property rights, but I'm not okay with using violence to do [other thing]".

<comment><USER4> Why is it okay to use violence (libertarian definition of) to protect private property rights, but not to protect public property rights? To take a concept from a libertarian elsewhere in the thread: why is the private individual 'magic' and the public not?

This is the irony of libertarianism: "Freedom for everyone, but I get to keep all my goodies!". It's not actually freedom for everyone; it enshrines privilege with the people who already have a lot of wealth. It works _against_ levelling the playing field and _against_ people advancing by merit. If you're born into wealth, you're protected by libertarianism - you'll get better schooling, better networking, better secret-handshake memberships. If you're born into poverty, libertarianism handwaves and mutters something about charity (which is always amusing, because private charities have never amounted to anything like public welfare), but really doesn't care about helping you improve yourself, giving you the tools to become wealthier. The poor don't have private property, so libertarianism flips them the finger. If the poor get shafted by someone's actions, the libertarian answer is "take them to (the skeletal remains of) the court system", something which the poor cannot leverage at all. Factory spewing toxic smoke into your house? Take them to court... oh, you can't afford a lawyer, or at least one that stands a chance. Pity - there are no regulations on air pollution, because that curtails 'freedom' and is 'big government' and so the supposed answer instead is 'take them to court'.

I watched your second video. It's funny that the creator gave libertarianism a great loophole: "Oh, wars of conquest make it alright if the losers have all been killed". It's basically hand-waving away the indicated moral issues about taking things by force and translated means "I get to keep my stuff". It's a bad video full of leading statements and bad assumptions, though it does have nice production values. The entire video frames libertarianism as a mechanism to keep your material goods all to yourself - unsurprising, really, since this is what really underpins the philosophy.

Fundamentally, libertarianism is about people who want to maintain their social privileges and wealth, and not actually about fair opportunity. It's an incredibly selfish philosophy, but it's wrapped in attractive-sounding rhetoric. In any case, to answer the libertarian question "Why should I help anyone else _at all_?"(paraphrased, but ridiculously clear on every discussion regarding tax), the answer is basically "Because you're human, and humans are social animals that rely on each other; they are not self-sufficient without extreme effort".

<comment><USER5> > violence (libertarian definition of)

As I said, this is not a special definition of violence.

> Why is it okay to use violence (libertarian definition of) to protect > private property rights, but not to protect public property rights?

This follows from the libertarian view of rights. People own themselves and the product of their labor and have rights to trade voluntarily. Public property rights (not sure exactly what you're referring to by that, but guessing) tend to conflict with private property rights.

> It's not actually freedom for everyone;

Whether or not what follows this is relevant/worth discussing, I'm not sure what any of it has to do with libertarianism not being freedom for everyone. From a glance it sounds like a mix of interesting (but common) discussion points and straw-men. I'll respond if I have some time later.

<comment><USER6> Libertarians claim far too much as "the product of their labor." Firstly, they immensely overvalue their individual contribution to a product and undervalue the contribution of all who came before them. Secondly, the finite natural resources and space (land) of the planet can NEVER be considered the product of anyone's labor, and thus can NEVER be treated as private property in any strict sense (exclusive ownership in perpetuity until sold, zero property or inheritance tax). The later point is conceded by Geolibertarians[1][2] and Georgists[3].

The notion of perpetual ownership of any finite resource is antithetical to the principles of the free-market, because it allows one to purchase an infinite amount of something (i.e. perpetual rights to a piece of land, including perpetual rent collection) for a finite sum.

If as a libertarian you cannot concede these points, we cannot have an intellectually honest discussion of what a libertarian world would be like.

-

[1] [http://geolib.com/welcome.html](http://geolib.com/welcome.html)

[2] Are you a Real Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian?, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7076632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7076632)

[3] [http://povertythinkagain.com/controversies/a-word-from- the-s...](http://povertythinkagain.com/controversies/a-word-from-the-sponsor- of-the-film-the-end-of-poverty-georgism-capitalism-and-socialism/)

<comment><USER5> > Firstly, they immensely overvalue their individual contribution to a product > and undervalue the contribution of all who came before them.

Can you elaborate on this? Ownership is based on _both_ owning the product of your labor and the ability/right to trade property.

> Secondly, the finite natural resources and space (land) of the planet can > NEVER be considered the product of anyone's labor, and thus can NEVER be > treated as private property in any strict sense

I think there are a wide range of views on this among people who call themselves libertarians. A popular view is homesteading, which says that you own land once you improve it/mix your labor with it. I think there's some subtle variations in the view with respect to things like whether you own the land itself or just the improvements to it or things like that. Personally I agree that land isn't really something that can be owned. Constructed houses and the like can be owned and people can have rights to these houses but not to the land itself.

> The notion of perpetual ownership of any finite resource is antithetical to > the principles of the free-market, because it allows one to purchase an > infinite amount of something (i.e. perpetual rights to a piece of land, > including perpetual rent collection) for a finite sum.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying its antithetical to free market principles to own _anything_ indefinitely? Or just land?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Libertarians, basically by definition, are people with a low group instinct. So any project that requires large numbers of them to work together tends to fall apart.

The other big problem with the micronation / charter city idea is that people get killed over land and water rights in developing nations. Just because you have the national government onside doesn't mean it's safe to ignore angry locals.

<comment><USER8> That may or may not be true, but it doesn't sound relevant to this case. Despite the headline gloss of a "libertarian paradise," they never actually got to the point of trying to live together or work together.

Rather, it looks like some people either gave their money to a scammer or a guy who just wasn't competent to achieve his plans. As the article says, that doesn't seem like it's anything particular to any political viewpoint.

<comment><USER9> I do like how some of the larger investors still want to give the plan a shot. Albeit their methods, I think, betray the ideology - so Johnson has proven himself amoral to the philosophy and thus nobody should do business with him again, and in the anarcho vision they would collectively boycott and draft contracts with anyone they associate with to also boycott him, but really they would have to go find new land since they are acknowledging his possession of the plot.

I'm more interested in the politics in trying to approach nations to effectively take a chunk of land out of its jurisdiction. I doubt any state around today is really privy to the idea, and in this context I doubt Chile agreed to anything close to giving this town independence.

<comment><USER8> I guess it depends on where exactly they stand in the grand spectrum of libertarian-anarchism. I agree with you that it's unlikely that Chile was planning on giving this area any kind of special jurisdiction, and the impression I got from the article was that they weren't really expecting any -- they were just planning on being isolated enough that they ordinarily only had to deal with other people who were similarly politically inclined.

Plenty of libertarian types are fine with enough of a state that you can sue someone for breach of contract. I don't know whether these guys were. Maybe some are and some aren't. Just because they like Rand enough to name the place Galt's Gulch doesn't mean any or all of them were actually expecting hard-core anarchy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't understand what was supposed to be particularly Randian about this project. It just sounds like a poorly managed housing development with a HOA that selects for political bent rather than ethno-religious (as the original HOAs were used).

<comment><USER11> It's Randian because they say it is: Objectivism is a shared mythology, and like all mythologies it comes to bits rather badly when forced into contact with reality.

In my experience, most self-declared libertarians aren't very good business- people, and a surprising number work in institutionally-coddled enterprises like real estate, medicine and law. As such, it's no surprise that they're ill-equipped to deal with scam artists.

The Free State Project in the US (which aims at what amounts to a democratic coup in New Hampshire: [https://freestateproject.org/](https://freestateproject.org/)) is the only scheme of this kind that seems remotely plausible, but that's in part because their ambitions are relatively modest. They want to get enough like-minded people together in one American state that they can have a significant influence on the local government. They are aiming at a state that already has notable libertarian leanings. And they aren't aiming for an anarcho-capitalist utopia, although some of them are anarcho-capitalists. It's a great democratic experiment, and while my money is on failure it has at least a modest chance of success, and either way it should be fascinating to watch.

<comment><USER12> Objectivism is a philosophy, not a mythology. This was not an objectivist effort, actually at all. You're giving the article too much credit, it is pretty much all spin.

> most self-declared libertarians aren't very good business-people

This kind of broad smear is exactly the point of the article-- to give you cover so you feel comfortable impeaching your intellectual integrity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Housing development gone bad after being handled poorly. They also happen to be libertarians." Nan, that doesn't sell well...

"How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart"

Oh wow, much better!

<comment><USER12> Some other points:

1\. This was an obvious bad idea to anyone who has been in Chile (such as myself) given its location. Namely they wanted to build a "farm" and sustainable development midway between Santiago and Valparaiso, along a main highway, in an area that is borderline desert, yet which has a fair amount of development already, housing neighborhoods, businesses, olive pressing plants and the like... meaning effectively the chilean version of suburbs (convenient to the big city yes) and not a rural farm appropriate area.

Alas, one thing americans do too often[1], especially when buying real estate outside the country, is they want to fly in, buy the property over a long weekend and fly out. I think it's too easy to project american standards for property transactions onto other countries. Any time you're spending thousands of dollars, do your due diligence, and if that means buying a retirement property in another country, spend at least a summer there to make sure you like the country! Chile is really wonderful in many ways, but like everywhere else it has its things that are annoying.

2\. It never got off the ground. There are thousands of terrible real estate deals that never got off the ground in the USA, especially after 2008. But no sensationalist articles about them. Why? Because the purpose of this article is purely political... it's to give the people commenting in this thread an opportunity to spew their hate.

3\. There is, actually, a libertarian "paradise" in chile. Not only is much of the country pretty close to that definition on a lot of scores, but there's a successful sustainable housing / real estate development there which predates this effort by several years. (I'm not going to mention it by name because they deserve their privacy.)

But of course, you'll never hear about that operation on the pages of Vice or Salon, or any other leftist rag. Unless, of course, they become well known enough and need to be "taken down a few notches", like Ayn Rand seems to every few months, despite being dead for nearly 40 years. (such power to reach out from the grave! If only people felt the need to make up stuff to write 2,000 word articles to bash me with 40 years after I'm in the ground!)

[1] as reported in a variety of expat forums and magazines, and based on the way some of these "gringo focused" operations market themselves. For example, the same property in many central and south american countries is listed online at one price much higher (but with a full service real estate agent attached) online, than it is listed in the local listing services. OR pay dollars and pay twice to three times as much when you buy with pesos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the interesting historic tests of any ideology, no matter what, is that it must be able to survive contact with the rest of the world. Example, if your philosophy is absolute pacifism, there is nothing but the good will of your neighbors preventing them from annihilating you and taking your stuff. Even Tibet had an army.

Also. Highly individualistic ideologies struggle against moderately collectivist ones. And highly collectivist ideologies struggle against moderately individualistic ones.

Better organization and flexibility will generally win against rabble and/or inflexible arrangements.

<comment><USER12> Ok, on that first test Libertarianism is doing quite well. Having originated with Rothbard in the 1970s, it's growing every decade pretty significantly.

I'm assuming you're not believing libertarians are pacifists, but since you brought it up in an example, the definition of libertarian is: "One who believes that the initiation of force is immoral". This was a pledge that the LP required all members to sign for many years.

Note the initiation of force is immoral to libertarians, not its use in self defense, or in defense of another.

I do invite you to come hang out in any place where libertarians gather. You'll find that they are nothing if not flexible, as half of them are anarchists, half are not, and none think that they all have to believe the same to work together. (half are pot smokers, half tee-totalers, half pro- life, half-pro choice (though they do agree government should be out of it) half are high tech, half are old school, etc.)

This article, though, really has nothing to do with libertarianism.

<comment><USER6> > _" Ok, on that first test Libertarianism is doing quite well."_

I think you misunderstand the test. It is not whether an ideology has a growing number of believers over an extended period of time (On that measure, Islam is doing far better), but how well it does when actually implemented (i.e. in practice not theory).

The article is claiming that this story is an example of failure when implemented.

<comment><USER12> The article is essentially a fabrication.

<comment><USER6> Even if so, not nearly as much as the story of Atlas Shrugged and the tenants of Objectivism.

<comment><USER15> Atlas Shrugged is fiction, genius. Some libertarians are anti-Objectivist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why would anyone thik it would succeed? Any other sucessful examples in modern times?

For the amount of seemingly rational and intelligent believers and press this "philosophy" gets, I would expect there by now to be countless of obvious example of it working.

<comment><USER17> hong kong vs. pre-market reform china, south korea vs. north korea, 18th century US vs. 18th century mexico, cayman islands vs. cuba, singapore vs. jakarta

there are many examples of the more free market society doing better than its counterparts.

<comment><USER18> South Korea, 18th C US and Singapore are hardly examples of "free markets", but much more of capitalist state planning and intervention.

<comment><USER4> And 'free market' isn't synonymous with 'libertarian' anyway.

<comment><USER19> In fact a free market implies all kinds of social mechanisms to set and enforce ground rules. All the examples upthread had very strong state control.

<comment><USER12> Yes there are social mechanisms in the honest use of the word- that is, when someone proves to be a scammer they lose business in a free market. But otherwise a free market is an unregulated market. "very strong state control" is the opposite of a free market. That's central planning, and despite the name "Socialism" there's not much social about it because it does not benefit society, but it benefits the people who dictate prices (namely government bureaucrats.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I hate it when clearly American authors always equate Libertarianism with Capitalism. Originally Libertarianism was an idea that grew out of left wing politics (socialism and communism) in Europe in the 19th century. Only recently have the Americans hijacked the term for their own means. So called right wing Libertarianism.

I wish more people were up to speed with political history because it really gets my goat every time I see someone make this mistake.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm so shocked.

</comment><comment><USER22> Politicized, garbage headline.

Statism has no place in the startup community.

<comment><USER19> The startup community is the spoiled child of decades of statist initiatives. That probably explains the petulant libertarianism.

<comment><USER12> So, basically you just called the startup community and libertarians childish and petulant.

Have you got something more than name calling?

<comment><USER6> Have you?

> That you have chosen this as your avenue of response, I take as a concession > of my points in completion and admission of intellectual bankruptcy.

> No, but they are uncomfortable, hence the down votes. Alas, this is not a > site with high intellectual integrity.

> I wonder how many of them have, rather than burning the book, decided to > read it and think about it for themselves?

> so you feel comfortable impeaching your intellectual integrity.

> But Hacker News has had a very strong left bias, and a draconian moderation > policy going back at least to 2008. You risk being hellbanned for linking to > scientific papers here if the papers don't agree with the ideology of the > moderators (who, like all unaccountable entities, like to remain anonymous.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


These are the best countries for female workers - <AUTHOR> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/best-countries-for-female-workers <comment><USER2> > If India could get female employment up to the same rate as Sweden (69%) it > could potentially generate an extra $7 trillion – approximately 79% of > India's GDP.

Sounds like "more blood for the blood god" \- treating employment as an inherent good. The opportunity to work is good, but being compelled to work due to economic conditions isn't. A few people _get_ to work on fulfilling careers, but most people _have_ to work, despite how it's being sold.

</comment><comment><USER3> The US and Austria had lowered participation of women in the workforce and that makes them worse places for women to work? What kind of logic is that?

By that logic one might say that rising wages were bad for workers because it reduces the percentage of the population that work a second job!</comment>


Ask HN: Whether to change the name of startup? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys, A some people advised us to change the name of us startup. What do u think about it? Our name is To Round. It's task manager designed for visual thinkers. <comment><USER2> Do you need the app to have the same name as your startup?

If not then keep your startup name, assuming you like it, and change your app to be something a little less opaque.

If your interested in suggestions then you might want to riff on the funnel concept. Something like Thought Funnel or Task Funnel or similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have apps. And them name is To Round. Thank you for advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's a really interesting concept. As a visual person this seems really useful.

The name is weird but honestly it sticks out enough that I'd remember it, and it's simple too. Said as one word it rolls off the tongue. I'd stand by it

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for helpful suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [http://to-round.com/](http://to-round.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, you should change it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much!</comment></comment>


"A proven interest in computer science from a young age" - <AUTHOR> https://www.indeed.co.uk/job/back-end-developer-c20ef664a88b38c1 <comment><USER2> Up next:

"One or more parents must have 3+ publications in the field of artificial intelligence during the years 1956-1974. Publications by extended family may also be considered."</comment>


Ask HN: How do we make more money? - <AUTHOR>

Do you remember back in the day when programmer salary was at an all time high? People could be making above $80,000 a year easily coding in FORTRAN or COBOL, or if you knew anything about computers, you could get a job?
What ever happened to this? It makes sense that as time goes on, computer literacy increases, and the demand for skilled programmers decreases. This is sadly inevitable. But what we as programmers, the skill in an age where there is not much of it, need to rise again.
We need to either invent a new wave of computing that makes javascript, PHP, web-design, Java, SQL, C++, and Indians seem obsolete. I am not talking about making something easier that out performs, I am talking about something that is harder and much more difficult to learn. The functional paradigm, for example, would be a great way to do this. Just strangle all of the conventional tutorials out of a language and make it the de facto programming language. We just need to figure out how we would do something like this: a full scale deployment to make a language like this #1.
If this seems bleakly infeasible, then where else can we go where the market is about to explode? Where just for knowing something a little bit ahead of time, you can make a decent salary? What is going to be the next silicon valley? <comment><USER2> "We need to either invent a new wave of computing that makes javascript, PHP, web-design, Java, SQL, C++, and _Indians_ seem obsolete."

Huh?! I can't downvote yet, but unless I'm misunderstanding the above, your line of thinking is reprehensible.

<comment><USER3> I was hoping that was an acronym i've not heard yet, but I fear it is not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why don't you just become a Java Enterprise Developer? That is essentially the new Cobol.

Note that if you look who created what language and framework, you can see exactly what you describe: technologies like J2EE were created by companies who want to make money by selling the time of consultants. Therefore they have to be so complex that you can not handle them without consultants. Once you are entangled in a Weblogic+J2EE+Oracle system, there is no way out and you need scores of consultants.

In contrast frameworks like Rails were created to make the lives of their creators easier. It shows.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm completely lost. You want to create a new programming language, artificially somehow make it the only language people want to employ people for anything, while somehow making sure there's no tutorials, no Indians (including presumably those who may be on HN?) can learn it and on top of all that doesn't actually out-perform or provide any advantage to the client - it's just harder to learn and use.

What's the benefit to anybody other than you, and why do you think anybody would want to tell you how to achieve that, making the assumption that it's even possible?

</comment><comment><USER6> This sounds like a cynical effort to increase your pay at others' expense.

How do you make more money? Provide more value.

</comment><comment><USER7> The real is answer is learn Java. Perhaps Android or Java EE</comment>


Beyond 22nm: Applied Materials the unsung silicon hero - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/106899-beyond-22nm-applied-materials-the-unsung-silicon-hero

<comment><USER2> From a quick glance, looks like a solid company.

[http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AMAT&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AMAT&fstype=ii)</comment>


37% of Alcoholics Suffer from a Mental Health Disorder - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dxrxmedical.com/medication-for-alcohol-use-disorder/ <comment><USER2> 100% of alcoholics suffer from a mental health disorder: alcohol addiction.</comment>


From Reddit: Another 1 Free Month at CA for SysAdmin - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4oijel/another_1_free_month_at_ca_for_sysadmin/ <comment><USER2> Awesome! Thanks for the heads-up.</comment>


Web Based Docker Management System - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rakibtg/docker-web-gui <comment><USER2> You are missing a LICENSE file, and only one of the two package.json files contains a license declaration (although I have no idea where those fields fall on the spectrum of precedence for repo-wide licensing)</comment>


Only when Mats was dead did his parents understand the value of his game - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrk.no%2Fdokumentar%2Fxl%2Fforst-da-mats-var-dod_-forsto-foreldrene-verdien-av-gamingen-hans-1.14197198 <comment><USER2> Thank you for translating. I am one of those players in Starlight and good gods, do we ever miss Mats. I am happy more people might read this and realize that online games that promote social interaction open up a world of possibilities for people who might otherwise not have that option. Of course there's always the other side of the coin. Of course the news likes to focus on problems, but THIS is the side of the coin that truly matters: friendships forged, lives enriched through a game in which distance no longer matters.

<comment><USER3> This is translated by a machine, not a person.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was a bit apprehensive about posting a google translated article, as some parts may be slightly off, so it's great to see some people enjoyed it despite that.

It's originally written by Norway's national broadcasting (NRK), and since the art/pictures don't seem to be included in the translated version, here's the original link for anyone who wants to check it out: [https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/forst-da-mats-var-dod_- fors...](https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/forst-da-mats-var-dod_-forsto- foreldrene-verdien-av-gamingen-hans-1.14197198)

It has a few images of Mats, a few of his guildmates and a few drawings which really help bring the story to life.

<comment><USER4> Human translation: [https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/akbdug/only_when_mats_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/akbdug/only_when_mats_was_dead_did_the_parents/ef3umkx/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That was a great read, very hard to read because I could imagine where it was going. Makes me feel like I have a knot in my throat. :(

There's a netflix show called Dad of Light:

[https://www.netflix.com/sg/title/80178543](https://www.netflix.com/sg/title/80178543)

Based on a true story, it's worth watching.

The blog was translated:

[https://transnoteblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/the-father- of...](https://transnoteblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/the-father-of-light- table-of-contents-translation/)

</comment><comment><USER6> "I - or Rumor, then - acted a little on impulse; jumped out of the bushes and snatched the hat off Ibelin. Stay silent for a moment, we looked at each other. Then I ran away with his hat, without thought for where I ran, says Lisette and smiles."

You can't do that in the game.

<comment><USER7> It's possible that this was done entirely through chat. Ie/ Rumor types " _Snatches Hat_ " in chat. As long as both players agree that what's typed in chat is what happened, it doesn't matter if the game actually has an animation to support it.

<comment><USER8> I used to MUD back in the day and there were role players who were very much into the character, and if you typed "snatches hat", it doesn't matter if the game didn't have support for it, that's what happened.

Given that this wasn't rare, it seems likely that that's what happened.

<comment><USER9> Yup. WoW has special servers marked for roleplaying (as opposed to the more achievement-oriented "normal" servers), and it sounds like they were playing on one of those.

<comment><USER8> Oh, I didn't know that, thanks. Yeah, that must be what happened then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think it is a bit sad that the only connection people really had to him was in the gaming world. I doubly think that it is sad that acceptance came only in the form of a denial of sorts of his actual reality.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess this is part of what the article tries to comment on though. The traditional viewpoint is: This is denial of reality, and it's sad.

But players themselves often just see it more as an extension of themselves, where it easier to find like-minded individuals, or others who see themselves like outcasts in some way. The fact that they're banding together in virtual space is in my eyes not necessarily a negative, although excessive gaming to run away from other responsibilities can be negative.

I think Mats was very aware of his own reality, and even seemed to write prose about how these two worlds contrasted for him on his blog (which I can't find directly atm, so I'm just basing that on the excerpts in the article).

The connections he made with people, were real, even though the space he made them in was man-made, abstract or non-real. Which is probably something that could not easily be achieved to this degree with the limitations he had in the physical world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A very moving story! Inspiring to see the rich emotional connections Mats made in his virtual life that was not possible in his real life due to his physical limitations.

</comment><comment><USER12> That is a great read/translate.

<comment><USER13> Didn't it read as if translated by a native English speaker? I thought so too. Amazingly adept/scary, with only one really tiny niggle exception for the quoted "Uff" that transliterates better than it translates.

<comment><USER14> The structure of the English was very good, but there was a few places where it seemed to translate Norwegian as if it was Swedish, and quite a few places where it seemed to "guess" what a word meant.

In most cases it didn't loose much of the meaning, but the sentence translated as "It was even nicer that Mats himself, who was lying in the white coffin, had not met these people either." should be translated more like: "Even stranger was that Mats himself ..." or possibly "The only thing more strange was ..." Not fluent in Norwegian so I don't know for sure. But as a Swedish speaker I'm well aware that "rar" ( stem of rarere ) is not translated as nice, as it's one of the more common causes for miscommunication with out western neighbors. In Norwegian "rar" a false cognate with the Swedish "rar", which actually means nice. However, they likely also share common etymological roots, so are cognate and false cognate with each other simultaneously.

<comment><USER15> It's amazing to see what's happened to English "nice" itself over the history of the word [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nice](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nice)

I think technically in the case you describe the two words are true cognates, but with different meanings. Cognate means that they share an etymology, not necessarily that they share an etymology and a present-day meaning. Wikipedia distinguishes false friends from false cognates this way: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> this was nice to read, thanks for posting</comment>


Ask HN: Late stage career for a remote worker? - <AUTHOR> As another year winds to a close, I realise I am getting older. The 'typical' (not always, of course) career path for a programmer as they get older is to go into management or have some sort of 'lead' or supervisory role. As I chose to live remotely, few of these options are available to me - basically only if there's also a remote team, who wants remote managerial role. What do people here recommend as the 'late stage' career move to stay in tech? Or is it better to diversify away from from pure 'tech'? <comment><USER2> Maybe in 2019, it is still hardly possible to find remote "manager of managers" roles, but there are remote "manager of engineers" roles - I am in interviews for such positions now.

On the other hand, in 5+ years the number of remote jobs will increase, and there may be more growth for a remote manager.

There are also other ways of growth:

\- IC leadership as an architect, responsible for large areas, important technical decisions. Your expertise, communication skills, reliability, cool pragmatic head can be a great benefit there.

\- an expert in a particular business or technical domain.There are a lot of options, but I see that it is important to make a right choice, a good bet, so that your expertise will be in demand, well paid, not easy to enter and master, and flexible in our quickly changing field.

For architect and expert roles you can go into contracting and freelancing, although it requires more efforts to build network and recognition initially.

I do not know personally how viable they are to stick till retirement, but, on the other hand, there are not many places in mid and top management to accommodate all the aging engineers.

Also, how secure is a career in management these days? If you want to change a company or lost your position as a VP at some company, what is your chance to find a similar role when you are 50+?

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you want to say purely remote?

If so, here are some other options:

* Contracting

* Consulting

* Teaching courses

* Writing books

* Remote lead (as you mentioned)

I don't know anything about your skillset or desires but I'd look for something higher leverage than just being a developer. Own more of the problem space.

As far as staying remote, I think there are more and more companies willing to entertain this, especially if you are a senior developer.

<comment><USER4> > I'd look for something higher leverage than just being a developer. Own more > of the problem space.

Could you elaborate please?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I believe there is not much choice beside independent consultancy if you want to stay in tech, but not go into management.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not many options. Move to SF and tough it out, really.</comment>


Why Twitter Can't Make Money Off Donald Trump's Tweets - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/why-twitter-cant-make-money-off-donald-trumps-insane-tw-1792173606 <comment><USER2> Twitter could front run the market with DJs tweets every time he mentions a company. Just sayin.</comment>


Why the "software teams need a foreman" movement is wrong - <AUTHOR> http://davidtanzer.net/foreman

<comment><USER2> Isn't foreman the same as team lead? IMO It is always better to have a team lead and the article sums up all the issues of an unqualified team lead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the foreman Uncle Bob describes in his posts is the only person on the team with commit rights. He would review every commit (except those from team members he _really_ trusts) and reject all commits that are not up to the standard.

In my opinion, this kind of foreman he wants to have would lead automatically to the dysfunctions I describe in my post - at least in some teams. And I think the risk is not worth it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can HN prevent duplicates? - <AUTHOR> There has to be a solution for this kind of problem (duplicate posts like these two): check first https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6053531 and now check the other link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6053424 <comment><USER2> THIS THREAD HAS BEEN MARKED AS DUPLICATE

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012215)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I found a great suggestion to this problem over there:

"Maybe borrow a feature from Stack Overflow [or Get Satisfaction or Desk.com or Uservoice], which presents similar-sounding stories before posting? Some client-side JS which pulls the page, heuristically picks some "interesting" words, and runs them through search.yc?"

Here is the perfect and best of both worlds solution to prevent duplicates:

Step 1: (Algorithm) Automatically check the title (and maybe other metadata like keywords) of his submission against similar existing content on HN. Present these results to the user.

Step 2: (Human) Let the user's intelligence decide if his submission to HN looks like a duplicate of another user or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The duplicate link detector has a minimal ability to recognize duplicate links. The Hacker News community relies partly on the honor system to avoid excessive duplicate links. Some members point out duplicate submissions when they appear anyway. I'm not sure that this is a high enough priority for anyone on the HN programming team to devote a lot more effort to refining the duplicate submission detector.

<comment><AUTHOR> It can't be that hard to let a machine find out that these two links are basically the same. I'm not talking about programming a artificial general intelligence (AGI) solution here:

(a) [http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/16/estimote-creator-talks- abou...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/16/estimote-creator-talks-about- building-an-os-for-the-physical-world)

(b) [http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/16/estimote-creator-talks- abou...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/16/estimote-creator-talks-about- building-an-os-for-the-physical-world/)

<comment><USER4> Nobody's saying it's impossible. The point is that news.arc is more or less just a little project that Paul Graham works on in his free time, and the amount of features that could be implemented vastly outstrips the supply of Paul Graham's free time, so not every possible feature is going to be implemented.

<comment><USER5> But why even implement a duplicate link checker without putting more effort into parsing the uri string for obvious gotchas like whether there's a trailing slash, or extraneous but meaningless query parameters?

<comment><USER6> Coding checks such as those are pretty tedious. It's not hard, and that's why it's not interesting.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but even with pet projects you can't expect everything to be fun. I'm just suggesting that if pg considers duplicate links a problem worth solving in his application, then the extra effort might be worth the tedium.

And if he doesn't, then he doesn't.

<comment><USER6> The fact that this question keeps coming up and it doesn't get changed indicates that it isn't a problem he cares about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just a word of warning for you - there is a threshold of flagging that, if you flag too many stories in too short of a time period, you will lose your flagging privileges permanently. It's an odd implementation, frankly, so be aware. It often rears its ugly head whenever there is a popular story here (most recently: NSA/Snowden) in which there are lots of dupes reported.

</comment><comment><USER8> And what, do away entirely with reviving old topics? I thought it was rather poignant to consider the old news article about Geocities' acquisition by Yahoo when Tumblr was recently acquired. Who knows what links submitted recently will still be interesting in several years? There is value in allowing duplicates.</comment>


Design of the RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~waterman/papers/phd-thesis.pdf <comment><USER2> This should be a good read. I aspired to do stuff like this in my undergrad: [https://github.com/nickdesaulniers/Omicron/blob/master/Proje...](https://github.com/nickdesaulniers/Omicron/blob/master/ProjectReport.pdf)

People like the author, Andrew Waterman, and others like Bunnie Huang who work towards making more of computing open are inspiring. I feel like the last piece of the puzzle is open FPGAs. I'm quite sure FPGAs are critical to the open hardware movement.

I should quit Google and solve this...

<comment><USER2> Also, some choice quotes I've pulled while reading chpt2 ("Why Develop a New Instruction Set?"):

* MIPS: ...MIPS remains a trademark of Imagination Technologies; MIPS compatibility cannot be claimed without their permission.

* SPARC: SPARC Intl. continues to grant licenses for v8 and v9...for $99...[but] continued development of Oracle SPARC is proprietary.

* Alpha: The Alpha also highlights an important risk of using commercial ISAs: they can die.

* ARMv7: Between ARM[v7] and THUMB, there are over 600 instructions...NEON adds hundreds more.

* ARMv8: The compact THUMB instruction set has not been brought along to the 64-bit address space...as we show in cpht5, it cannot compete in code size with a variable length ISA.

* 80x86: Intel [has done all these great things]...the design quality of the ISA is not one of them.

<comment><USER3> Good list. Let me add to it.

SPARC: Don't forget the only production-ready, GPL'd CPU from Gaisler & its proprietary improvements. Also, Fujitsu and Russia have SPARC processors. Not just Oracle. Fujitsu's are badass.

[http://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/processors/leon3](http://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/processors/leon3)

[http://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/processors/leon4?t...](http://www.gaisler.com/index.php/products/processors/leon4?task=view&id=338)

Alpha: Yes, it died. However, my digging found that Intel and Samsung spun it off into a dedicated company licensing Alpha to anyone interested. Only found one vendor that bought it for machines. Nobody major wanted it to exist enough to buy a license. So, the market killed it.

ARM: Similar issues to MIPS in that ARM will sue your ass any chance they get. There's a reason the clone went with ARMv2 and said it was not for profit. ;)

Intel did a great one in the past. Still available but crippled. Look here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960)

POWER and PPC stayed head to head with Intel for years with many PPC cores and boards in embedded. Even in FPGA's. They also accelerated decimal ops nice for business apps.

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

Dreamcast had a Super-H. Those are still around with their own cost-benefit analysis:

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

<comment><USER4> Just to add a little bit more - there's been a handful of developments around the SuperH as patents start to lapse. The Open Processor Foundation have a couple of SuperH implementations you can use on an FPGA (note: I haven't tried this) they've got a bit of information up at their website: [http://0pf.org/](http://0pf.org/)

However this article is a better introduction IMO: [https://lwn.net/Articles/647636/](https://lwn.net/Articles/647636/)

<comment><USER3> Yep. Neat that it's getting a revival.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Haha, so Andrew's thesis is on here, too. If you like this, you might also be interested in the tech report we published just recently on RocketChip, our open-source RISC-V SoC generator.

[https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2016/EECS-2016-1...](https://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2016/EECS-2016-17.html)

I'm a grad student at the UC Berkeley architecture lab and worked with Andrew before he graduated. I'll also be interning at his new company, SiFive, over the summer. Happy to answer any questions you might have on RISC-V or RocketChip.

</comment><comment><USER6> The best part of this paper is the thorough analysis of why existing ISAs suck (chapter 2).

<comment><USER7> It's interesting why the ISAs suck or getting rotten over time (for example x86). I mean, designing an ISA is not a job for interns, it have to be developed by experienced engineers. So, are all these guys have no idea what they're doing? Or, maybe some non-visible factors force certain decisions?

<comment><USER8> Like is said in the abstract, the designers of risc-v have the advantage of 3 decades of hindsight. So they could avoid stuff that was considered good back in the day but history showed was more a disadvantage, like delay slots ot register windows.

The cynic in me likes to think that existing proprietary isa's keep adding new instructions partly to keep customers on the upgrade treadmill. If you design an open ISA from a clean slate, you can make a nice orthogonal one from the get go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lovely paper.

How about the silicon? By now we've seen quite few more-or-less open microarchitecture designs (with various ISAs), and it sure must be nice to dream up a new, lean ISA on paper, even simulate it in software.. but I would like to run Doom on it. And Quack. And not just in a simulation.

What are the chances that I can actually get to play with this design as I can with an AVR microcontroller on a breadboard or some ARM chip in one of these cheap evaluation boards? In, say, the following 5 or 10 years? Is it just a dream?

Will it be like the CPUs in the Lemote computers? Way underpowered, even compared to a high end smartphone chip, and power hungry enough to require a noisy fan?

<comment><USER10> lowRISC [0] is designing a RISC-V chip and intending to finish tape out this year.

[0] [http://www.lowrisc.org/](http://www.lowrisc.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have often wondered, do we really need any general-purpose registers to be visible in the ISA? Aren't they an implementation detail, just like caching?

IMHO, a memory-to-memory architecture would make for a much simpler ISA and allow much easier code generation (no register allocation needed).

<comment><USER2> I don't understand this comment, maybe because I can't picture what a "memory- to-memory architecture" would look like.

You MUST worry about registers due to the exponential increase in latencies between registers and larger memory communicating with the ALU. Also, limited are the amount of execution units.

If all memory accesses cost the same in terms of latency, then yes, registers would be an implementation detail.

<comment><USER11> Eliminating GP registers from the ISA doesn't preclude any optimizations which could be done dynamically in the microarchitecture. The CPU would still be able to deal with registers and caches internally, it's just that they won't be visible to the programmer.

Think of how x86-64's 16 architectural registers are dynamically renamed to more than 120 physical registers.

<comment><USER2> That certainly is an interesting idea to think about.

I would think it's hard to beat the compiler though (when it knows how many GP registers there are). Consider register pressure. If the compiler assumes there are infinite GP registers (because they're hidden now, no longer an implementation detail), it can generate code that spends more time spilling and reloading registers than computing.

The compiler has seen the code before; it knows how many variables it will need to work with an how to schedule available resources. The processor (relatively) simply is executing a stream of instructions. It would have to look pretty far ahead (VLIW) or have sufficient execution units (superscalar) to have high throughput and not get bogged down spilling.

But, if the finite amount of resources, like number of processing units or GPRs become very high relative to the amount of symbolic variables, then I think the register names could be hidden.

<comment><USER12> > when it knows how many GP registers there are

But compilers don't know this! They know how many registers there are in the ISA, but not how many there really are in the physical architecture.

Physical architectures map ISA register names into register file locations. It's an abstraction! You can really use a register more than once at the same time because they will be renamed. Your parent is suggesting that we read and write from memory as normal, and just map memory locations into the register file, rather than ISA register names.

Registers may be more of an abstraction than you realise.

(Maybe compilers do know about how large the register rename buffer really is on certain physical chips and take this into account when allocating them. Sounds like something Intel's C compiler might do. I'm not an expert.)

<comment><USER13> > You can really use a register more than once at the same time because they > will be renamed.

What do you mean by this?

Do you realize register renaming is only done for instruction scheduling purposes, to avoid bubbles in the pipeline?

<comment><USER14> I guess he refers to pipelining, which sort-of can give you a logical register twice. For example, you may be able write a new value to a register before the instruction writing out the old value has completed.

<comment><USER12> Yes. I'm not an architecture expert but I understand that if you do something like:

        addl    %ebx, %eax
        movl    %eax, foo(%rip)
        addl    %ecx, %eax
        movl    %eax, bar(%rip)

Then the second add can start while the first and the first mov are still running, because the logical reuse of eax is independent of the first and so will receive a different entry in the rename buffer.

Happy to be confirmed or corrected by someone who knows more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It defines extensions but no way to detect them. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER16> Take a look at the mcpuid register (one of the CSR registers) in the draft of the privileged architecture specification.</comment></comment>


Lie: A startup is better than an education - <AUTHOR> http://timberry.bplans.com/2016/01/young-entrepreneurs-they-are-lying-to-you.html <comment><USER2> Can just agree. I am a self educated developer and barely learned anything new when i decided to go trough the normal education process, but in the end the existing certificate is what makes sure that i not only find a job, but also get paid fair.

And lets be realistic, you don't want and mostly cant work Entrepreneur all the time. Sometimes you want a nice steady income and be able to work on your ideas in your free time without having to worry about money.</comment>


500 Startups Takes Strategic Investment from Abu Dhabi Financial Group - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/04/500-startups-takes-strategic-investment-from-abu-dhabi-financial-group/ <comment><USER2> I can assure you this is the beginning of the end of 500. ADFG is not a passive investor.

They invest for control as is obvious in the fact that they've taken on 1 of 2 board seats.

ADFG is the exact opposite of the kind of investor 500 should/would have taken if it had the choice - its extremely controlling/ domineering, totally doesnt get tech, and WILL get involved in the day to day/ realign strategy to suit its interests.</comment>


The $119B Sea Wall That Could Defend New York or Not - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/nyregion/sea-wall-nyc.html <comment><USER2> In another life I want to own a US construction company. 119B is greater that the gross national product of my home country. When smaller countries build road, bridges, other pieces of infrastructure it cost a low number of billions. Every time I read about construction in America the price is always enormous. There is just no way a wall outside of NY are costing anywhere near 119B. I refuse to believe that. It is an abusurd amount for this

<comment><USER3> Well in the UK we're currently at £90 billion ($115B) for a 300 mile railway...</comment></comment>


Zircle-ui a frontend library to develop zoomable UIs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zircleUI <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone! let me introduce zircle-ui to you (v1.0.1).

Zircle-ui is the first Open Source Project I've made and it was possible thanks to the Open Source community In retribution, I've created a project of the highest quality I could along with a detailed documentation, examples and a tutorial.

Zircle-ui intends to promote approach in the universe of UIs. My main motivation is believing there is room for a new UI/UX not constrained to grid layouts or to squared shapes. Zircle-ui was inspired by the idea underneath some really awesome projects like prezi, impress.js, tizen, zoomooz, google maps, bootstrap, UIKit and bulma among others.

You can try zircle-ui to develop a wide range of applications, such as: dashboards, health/fitness trackers, IOT hubs or controllers, contact management, information and entertainment, interactive menus, etc. In general, using zircle-ui should be fine if your application is highly interactive and you need to intuitively view and control information without loosing the user's attention.

To have an idea of what it can be achieve with zircle-ui I made a smarthome dashboard concept. You can see the source files in its repo ([https://github.com/zircleUI/smarthome- tutorial](https://github.com/zircleUI/smarthome-tutorial))</comment>


New Rules Let Companies Sell Stakes to Investors of Modest Means - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/business/smallbusiness/new-rules-let-companies-sell-stakes-to-investors-of-modest-means.html

<comment><USER2> These new regulations are pretty much meaningless:

>Regulation A deals will not be fast, or cheap. Kendall Almerico, the lawyer preparing StarShop's paperwork, says a typical company will need to spend $50,000 to $100,000 on legal, accounting and filing fees. Every offering must be reviewed by and gain approval from the S.E.C., a process that takes more than 300 days, on average.

If anyone is interested in the origins of blue sky laws, this is an interesting read ([http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2679&context=fss_papers))

<comment><USER3> an ipo costs ~1M and has recurring fees annually totally about ~1.5M[0]. I don't think this will be as revolutionary as some people are claiming it will be, but if there is less regulation you could see companies doing a kickstarter like model independently as a series A.

> Every offering must be reviewed by and gain approval from the S.E.C., a > process that takes more than 300 days, on average.

Where did this stat come from? How is there an average if the law and approval are for something that does not currently exist?

[0][http://www.pwc.com/en_us/us/transaction- services/publication...](http://www.pwc.com/en_us/us/transaction- services/publications/assets/pwc-cost-of-ipo.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As far as I can tell, in the UK all you need to do is put a #CapitalAtRisk hashtag on your share-sell offering and you're legit...

[https://twitter.com/search?q=CapitalAtRisk](https://twitter.com/search?q=CapitalAtRisk)

<comment><USER5> Your investors have to have access to credit cards and answer a few multiple choice questions too.

If you think the kind of people likely to invest in your startup will find the answers to questions like "do most startups pay dividends?" to be so difficult as to thwart their attempts to give you money, you could always post the answers on your blog though.... e.g [https://blog.nudjed.com/seedrs-sign-up- process/](https://blog.nudjed.com/seedrs-sign-up-process/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pardon my cynicism...</comment>