When did the golden age of The Simpsons end? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nathancunn.com/2017-10-26-simpsons-decline/ <comment><USER3> There is a video with great analysis on this. Ultimately argues that Simpsons was a great piece of counter culture, then it just won and became culture, losing its ability to skewer mainstream comedy. Along with an upheaval in the writer's room, it just went absurd all the time. That's a sometimes brilliant move, but dull when used in place of any substance. It also forgot how to stay true to its characters. Much more here:

[https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk](https://youtu.be/KqFNbCcyFkk)

<comment><USER4> > Ultimately argues that Simpsons was a great piece of counter culture, then > it just won and became culture, losing its ability to skewer mainstream > comedy.

I feel like South Park has managed to do both.

<comment><USER5> I know this is an extremely unpopular opinion (I've never met anyone in person who agrees with this), but I don't think South Park is good or particularly 'topical'. It's always struck me as fake, untactful and does nothing apart from making people feel smart about themselves.

The Outline (somewhat ironically imho) summed it up when they said "South Park is not subversive":

        For 21 seasons, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have given fake woke white
        people a sense of self-satisfaction, reassuring them that they rise
        above the myopia that grips the residents of South Park; that they
        are subverting the establishment, rather than perpetuating it. Much
        like a joke South Park made about residents of San Francisco: They
        smugly inhaled their own farts.

[https://theoutline.com/post/2234/south-park-is-not- subversiv...](https://theoutline.com/post/2234/south-park-is-not-subversive)

<comment><USER6> > _The Outline (somewhat ironically imho) summed it up when they said "South > Park is not subversive"_

I'd say the Outline is the one that does exactly what it accuses South Park of: BS for "fake woke white people". It's just that they want to believe that their white people are more "woke" than the ones watching South Park.

Starting with the BS idea of "high-brow" criticizing what in final analysis is just a funny cartoon show -- this reeks of (real, not imagined) pretentiousness and taking things too seriously itself.

<comment><USER7> "The main idea that a person tries to convey to others is that he has access to much more prestigious consumption than others think about him. At the same time, he tries to explain to others that their types of consumption are much less prestigious than what they naively think. This is the goal of all social maneuvers. Furthermore, only these discussions generate strong emotions in people."

— Victor Pelevin, "Empire V"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Someone on HN once commented that watching later seasons of The Simpsons is like visiting a loved one with advanced Alzheimer's disease. This rings true to me.

It looks like them, but isn't them. They occasionally have a flash of lucidity where they are back to their old selves but then that moment is gone as quickly as it came.

<comment><USER9> That is harsh, perhaps true.

We cut our cord about 8 years ago and our TV has been limited to streaming and Netflix (DVDs too) My observation is that a great show seems to need 2 to 3 seasons to really find their pace, rhythm, and get it figured out. This is changing with the short season episodic content that everyone is doing now but network shows sort of need some time to find themselves. Beyond about season 7, they all fall apart in some way. I really can't think of anything that lasted 10 plus season and wasn't effectively a different show from s1, only the names are really the same; definitely the feelings it gives you will have changed. I really only watched Simpsons occasionally during the first 3 seasons, it's hard to fathom it having anything in common with then now.

<comment><USER10> I really liked "Law & Order" (classic edition). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order) They had 20 seasons, the cases were interesting and weird (and secretly based in real cases), they lived in a strange word were the suspect had right, but unlike "The Simpsons" they lost.

In the modern law&order versions, the CSI-whatever and other police shows, half of the suspect spontaneously confess without a lawyer and the other half confess after borderline torture. And the forensic analysis use magical methods that would not be believable even in Start Trek.

<comment> Trill-I-Am The last 5 seasons of the original law and order are trash. The new ADA wasn't nearly as good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find this HN story title misleading (or clickbait-y): "Cluster analysis" is just a tool; it doesn't show anything by itself. You can do bad and good cluster analysis, and you can probably "show" anything you want from it.

Excerpt from the blog post that explains the methodology:

> … we could consider performing cluster analysis on the data, essentially > finding a way of grouping the episodes so that those with similar ratings > are placed in groups together. A standard clustering approach would just > group good episodes and bad episodes. However, I want to alter this slightly > in that I only want a group to be made up of a single contiguous group of > episodes; basically, if the episodes of season 4 are in the same group as > the episodes of season 6, then the episodes of season 5 must also be in that > group.

<comment><AUTHOR> The title is from BoingBoing. I think it's fine, but I also have no problem with a mod changing it. [https://boingboing.net/2017/10/28/cluster-analysis- shows-tha...](https://boingboing.net/2017/10/28/cluster-analysis-shows-that- th.html)

<comment><USER12> OK, we've changed it to the original from "Cluster analysis shows that the golden age of the Simpsons ended in Season 10".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I was younger, we always talked about being able to pick what we watched - what we wanted, when we wanted. The Simpsons being our favorite show, it was pretty natural that we just wanted to watch that all day.

Anyhow, years later adult me sought to realize that dream, via Plex and Simpsons DVDs on Ebay. I have Seasons 1-14, but Season 12 is really the end of it. The great stuff was probably Seasons 3-9, with Season 6 being my absolute favorite.

Yeah I know the article is about actual analysis on this, but screw it, I wanted to talk about The Simpsons!

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/](https://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/)

TL;DR a loss of writers and voice talent from resignations and deaths combined (probably) with the show simply running out of things to say (especially as its irreverent tone took over culture; see also: DFW's writings on TV) led to its 1) becoming exactly the thing it was originally skewering, 2) relying too much on the "homer gets a new job" gimmick, 3) shifting homer's Characterization significantly, and not for the better, and 4) spending an awful lot more time subjecting homer to cartoon violence.

Decline is foreshadowed in S7, proceeds rapidly from there, and the show's wholly a shell of itself (a "zombie") past S12. Site argues its case pretty well, worth a read.

</comment><comment><USER15> I still enjoy The Simpson's ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It is obvious I'm in the minority. I don't know what people expect from the show, especially for how long it's Been on the air consistently, but for what it is, I love it. It's one of the few, actually maybe only show I look forward to.

If you haven't you should listen to The Talking Simpson's [0]. I love this podcast!

Also, if you have a cable subscription you can watch every episode on The Simpson's World website [1] (it is pretty terrible to navigate and extremely buggy though).

If The Simpson's was canceled or when, it feels like at this point it would be a pretty big deal, especially for those of us who grew up on it. Like a hell has frozen over moment. Mind boggling to put it. It's a part of our culture.

[0] [http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/category/talking- simpsons/](http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/category/talking-simpsons/)

[1] [http://www.simpsonsworld.com](http://www.simpsonsworld.com)

<comment><USER16> We own every season through itunes. It's still good. Complaints of its decline are like like complaints of the decline of SNL. There are good seasons and not so good seasons, and it ebbs and flows with new writers.

<comment><USER17> SNL is a sketch comedy show where Simpsons has a consistent cast. The characters used to be real and relatable but now have more in common with an SNL type sketch comedy show with no expressed identities.

<comment><USER16> Yea, the stories and characters depend on the writing and writers change over time. No one looks back to Conan O'Brian leaving as the end, Groening et al just hired a replacement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Simpsons suffer from a problem that's rather unique to US TV shows, and I admit this may not be completely fair, given how large a percentage of popular shows are American: When a US TV show turns out to be popular it will be milked to death. Producers will keep popular shows alive for much longer than they should, because they know a large percentage of fans will watch every new show, regardless of quality.

The Simpsons had a good run, it's time to cancel it. If it's true that it peeked at season 10, then the most of the shows are produced after it's peek.

<comment><USER19> This makes it even more incredible that Seinfeld ended its run after 9 seasons at the height of its popularity. Jerry Seinfeld reportedly turned down $100 million dollars to make another season

<comment><USER20> And set up this great interaction on Larry King live where he asks if they got cancelled:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVTP8xZCGVw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVTP8xZCGVw)

<comment><USER21> Ha! I laughed more at that than I ever did at any episode of Seinfeld. Brilliant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I collected Simpsons season DVDs until I lost interest... last one I purchased is season 14. So there's a data point on when I had (re)seen enough of the show (Although, I've seen S15-22 or so completely, sporadic watcher since then).

I think season 10 is a fair cutoff point.

The jarring thing about the more recent episodes is the decline of Julie Kavner's (Marge's) voice. It sounds...weak. Unhealthy. Other actors on the show have a similar problem but hers is most notable.

<comment><USER23> There was definitely a few seasons (probably 4), I watched hoping and anticipating it would get better ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was surprised to learn that everyone hated the Principal and the Pauper, I loved that episode.

<comment><USER25> I don't hate the episode, but even despite my contrarianism I have to admit I've been brought around to agree that it was a very bad episode for the universe even if it was an OK episode internally. It's easy to forget if you are young and you've never lived in a world where Simpson's seasons 1-7 or so are all there was in the world, but the Simpson's used to actually have a universe, rules, characters that were more than walking stereotypes, and even a bit of capacity for lasting consequences, and thus, a capacity for drama that the modern "cartoony" (in the bad sense) version has a very hard time sustaining.

If you were raised in the modern era, you can get the reverse effect that some of us oldster's describe by going back and watching Season 1 in order. It is not the best season, but it was already showing a lot of the promise that would manifest a couple of seasons later, and in so many ways you'll find it is just a different show, even more clearly than if you go a couple of seasons later. (And it does have my favorite Halloween episode. I have to admit I haven't seen them all, and there were certainly some other good ones, but when it comes down to it, it is hard to beat a dramatic reading of The Raven. There's a reason this became a tradition and not just a one-off.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I can't speak for anyone else, but I feel around season 12 is when it started getting really annoying with the celebrity cameos. The NSYNC episode was so horrendous that it actually made me stop watching with regularity, and it felt like after that too many episodes were just means in which to showcase some celebrity (e.g The Rolling Stones, Tony Hawk, Weird Al).

</comment><comment><USER27> For an actual exploration of what happened, I highly recommend this video. The Fall of The Simpsons: How it Happened [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk)

</comment><comment><USER28> My favorite take on "The Decline and Fall of the Simpsons Empire":

 _The Fall of the Simpsons_ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk)

<comment><USER29> Yes, this is excellent. I highly recommend watching this if you're interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Personally, If I were picking the assumptions and hyperparameters, I'd end up with the golden age being seasons 3 through 8 :)

<comment><USER31> Those were the halcyon days of the Simpsons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> > The decline was much like Fox News' transition to a hardcore sex channel

When did _that_ happen? Granted I haven't paid close attention in a while, but that still seems a surprising departure, to say the least. What have I missed?

<comment><USER33> They probably A/B tested the content and found out that breasts sell better than news.

Hint: this was a joke

<comment><USER32> Yeah, I get that now, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Hah, I thought this was "why", so I looked into it.

His "end of the Golden Era": Wild Barts can't be Broken: Jan 17, 1999

Futurama, debut: March 28, 1999

So there's your why...

</comment><comment><USER35> Somewhere between Armin Tamzarian, the first season of South Park, the first season of Futurama, and the first season of Family Guy.

The Silver Age ended when The Simpson's Movie came out. Almost no animated series survives the first movie intact.

<comment><USER36> The big screen is where TV shows go to die. It's a kind of admission that your idea is played out in it's native format.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I felt Simpsons lost it by S7.

When other shows lost their magic:

Southpark - S5 It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - S6 Arrested Development - "S4" Deadwood - ended before its time! New Girl - S3 Big Love - S3 GoT - <USER2> Friends - S6 Office - S7 Workaholics - S4 The League -S4

My baseline seems to be around 5 +- 2 seasons. Saw another poster say same. Similar dynamics apply in any creative job -- the writers can get bored and complacent, early success leads to staff getting lured away, etc. Must make it extremely hard to maintain quality.

<comment><USER38> Where does Frasier and Parks and Rec fit into your analysis? From what I can tell after the first season they had pretty consistent runs after a shaky first season.

<comment><USER37> Parks and Rec - S5, maybe S6

Sadley, never got around to Frazier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The Guatemalan Insanity Pepper episode was the first " _bad_ " episode to signal decline in quality, after which good episodes were absent, if not extremely rare.

<comment><USER40> Really? I remember it fondly. It went from funny, to sad, to fulfilling in what felt like a good pace.

<comment><USER39> There were a couple of violations in that episode that I remember instinctively grasping when I originally watched it as a new episode when it first aired.

I had been eagerly anticipating the episode, based on station promo spots that had teasers about the episode, and I really thought it was going to be a really good episode.

It was obvious that some extra effort was put into the animation, I had anticipated solid writing to match. It looked like it was going to be on par with a good Treehouse of Horror episode.

Instead, it turned out to be fluff. Only the trippy animation got attention, and the entire episode is built around the trippy shots. The episode lines up what might be considered the first "jerk ass" Homer incident, such that Homer eats this MacGuffin chili pepper, apropos of nothing, and why? There is no reason. It doesn't build his character. It doesn't reveal or change anything about Homer. And he's the centerpiece of the whole episode, the other characters don't figure into the plot very much, other than as sentimental plush toys. He just does it. Why is he at the chili cook off? No real reason.

So the answer is: because they (the staff) wanted to do a trippy vision quest desert sequence. And that's it. No other alignment with the Simpsons universe. It's just Homer trips out in the desert. Everything else is window dressing. Any tugs on the heartstrings, and appearances by the rest of the cast. The spirit animal becomes nothing, and is never seen again, in any other episode that mattered.

And so, then we have the principal violation of Homer doing drugs, and the ancillary violation of Homer " _doing drugs_ " without actually doing drugs. The pepper is a stand-in for hallucinogenic drugs, obviously. And here we have homer trying the pepper, but for dishonest reasons. He didn't set out to trip balls in the desert, and his character is unaware of this outcome a priori, conserving a moralistic aspect of Homer, the family man, even though, we, beyond the fourth wall, know better.

So they do this episode once, and without any explanation, or impact on continuity, and the jokes aren't even that great. The episode isn't very quotable, and has nothing else going for it, aside from the animation, which everyone does remember.

So, at the time, everyone said they loved this episode, but really the episode sucked, and rewatchng it decades later, it still sucks. But people remember the animation, and The Simpsons is animated, so surely this must be a " _good_ " Simpsons episode. But it's not.

At the time, I remember a subliminal inkling that if this episode passed muster, then more bad episodes were on the way, and I was right. The Poochie episode aired soon after, and I remember watching it at the time, and thinking to myself: "message received, this show isn't going to be good anymore, don't expect much else going forward... " and it seems that was interpretted correctly.

<comment><USER40> I'm not sure it's a jerkass-Homer episode, and him being at a chili cookoff makes perfect sense - Homer's two principal qualities are that he's stupid, and he's gluttonous. Hubris is in there, too, which is why he eats the pepper.

And I remember a few choice quotes from the episode. "This is because I kicked you, isn't it? "Dogs can't talk! - woof woof - Damn straight." But maybe that's just nostalgia talking, and the fact that I spent far too much time watching The Simpsons as a kid.

I see your point, though - I can see how it's a precursor of what happened later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> When Phil Hartman died. This was my personal intuition but it fits the data. The death was in May 98. The episode given as the turning point was Jan 99.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think it's time for it to be cancelled but It's still a money-maker i guess

<comment><USER43> It's not time for it to be cancelled until Fox has something to put in its place that would be consistently better.

That time is still a long way off.

</comment></comment><comment> gm-conspiracy Could this not be better achieved by using/augmenting with writer credits?

</comment><comment><USER44> Is there some website where you can see a good visualization of IMDB or other ratings across seasons/episodes like that for any show?

</comment><comment><USER45> They were great when they were part of the Tracy Ullman Show. All downhill from there.

</comment><comment><USER46> i wish the main tool wasn't inside an <iframe>. completely unnecessary

</comment><comment><USER47> the last truly great episode of the simpsons was season 9, episode 21, "girly edition," but its rapid decline began in season 8.

</comment><comment><USER42> Hmm but can you really tell how good an episode is by ratings?

<comment><USER48> These are IMDB ratings, not viewership ratings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Anecdotally, I never watch the show anymore. Doesn't stop it always seeming to be on though when I'm channel flicking.

<comment><USER50> I still have great respect for the Simpsons. I think future American TV history will have a special place for the Simpsons.</comment></comment>


A single photon reveals quantum entanglement of 16M atoms - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-10-photon-reveals-quantum-entanglement-million.html <comment><USER2> I find the popular descriptions of entanglement to be unenlightening. In this case we go from "a pair of socks" to an "unsystematic phenomenon that occurs simultaneously in two locations".

What? Where did the socks go?

My preferred analogy to show that the universe is weird is a pair of coins. You throw one to your friend 10m away, and toss the other in the air for yourself. Your's lands 'heads', while the coin to your friend is still tumbling through the air. At that point you can be sure that your friend's coin will land 'tails', even though it hasn't landed yet, since they are correlated (to land opposite). Somehow the coins 'communicate' through space and time, or act as though they're parts of a single entity. There's no mechanistic explanation for how this happens, it's just the way the universe appears to work. That's the mystery, and quantum mechanics at least allows you to calculate it, if not really understand it.

<comment><USER3> This is the best explanation of entanglement that I've read, and I think I finally "get it".

It also makes me think that the problem is not in understanding "why is Coin1 correlated with Coin2", but in finding the latent variable that Coin1 and Coin2 are both correlated with. Is that something being researched currently?

<comment><USER4> > Is that something being researched currently?

Sort of, but actually more no.

The way the equations in quantum physics work, this just happens, and there isn't any accounting for distance or space. That's just how it is.

Now, that seems to contradict our intuitive understanding of physics. Things can't be just linked like that without some force or information traveling between them.

So there are a few different interpretations of that quantum weirdness:

1\. That's the way things really are, and our natural perception that things don't work that way may have helped us evolve to this point, but is actually wrong on the quantum scale

2\. There is a hidden variable (the communication part, like a pilot wave) and we just haven't found it yet.

<comment><USER5> It has to do with the combinations of states in the observable you are measuring (in the photon polarization example above, it would be spin or angular momentum). You have to have some way of setting up the system in the entangled state that you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some good related learnings:

The Concept of Mass - with Jim Baggott (just watched this yesterday and it's reeeaalllyy good although basic): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHjzomqbZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHjzomqbZc)

Quantum Entanglement and the Great Bohr-Einstein Debate | Space Time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafGL02EUOA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafGL02EUOA)

Measure for Measure: Quantum Physics and Reality (kinda old but still good): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdqC2bVLesQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdqC2bVLesQ)

Would recommend this order.

</comment><comment><USER7> Okay. TFA says "although recent advances have shown the entanglement of 2,900 atoms."

The related stories at the bottom of the page for me shows: "Quantum entanglement between a single photon and a trillion rubidium atoms": [https://phys.org/news/2017-03-quantum-entanglement-photon- tr...](https://phys.org/news/2017-03-quantum-entanglement-photon-trillion- rubidium.html#nRlv)

So, uh, yeah.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if quantum computing can some how be used in machine learning as a short cut to train on massive arrays without exponential costs.

<comment><USER9> Yes it can -- quantum ML is an active area of research for the MS QuArC group and others. (Well, I'm not sure it's an _exponential_ speed up, but it's an area of research.)

eg, [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/quantum...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/publication/quantum-deep-learning/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That is quite the number of atoms (although not even a mole's worth). It makes me wonder if quantum entanglement in the brain is more likely.

<comment><USER11> I think it's not so much that the brain's atoms wouldn't be entangled amongst themselves, but that they are entangled with everything else. It's a warm and wet environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this article based on: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00897-7](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00897-7) ?

<comment><USER13> No, it's based on this one: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04704](https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04704)

<comment><USER12> Thanks very much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > In this way, the researchers succeeded in showing the entanglement of 16 > million atoms when previous observations had a ceiling of a few thousand.

It is my intended inference to show that all photons are 'entangled' weakly though two individual photons can be entangled 'strongly'</comment>


Learning to break ciphers - <AUTHOR> https://littlemaninmyhead.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/so-you-want-to-learn-to-break-ciphers/ <comment><USER2> Relevant to all his great stories of bad encryption:

[https://snakeoil.cr.yp.to](https://snakeoil.cr.yp.to)

</comment><comment><USER3> Can cipher-breaking methods be used for learning human languages?

I recently started learning Chinese, and my grammar is still very basic. Simply replacing all the vocabulary (like a substitution cipher) using my app at [http://pingtype.github.io](http://pingtype.github.io) helps me to learn new words.

Rearranging sentences for the parts of speech (noun/verb/subject/object) is comparable to the ROTR and ROTL described in the linked article.

How can I make more parallels between the cryptographic domain and the human language domain to make my studies easier?

<comment><USER4> There's some weird stuff going on in that app.

The oddest result I got was a rendering of 我长得不漂亮 as wǒ zhǎng dé bù piào liang "I long obtain no pretty". This gets the pronunciation right on four out of six characters. It gets the meaning right on three out of five words. Weirdly, it gets the pronunciation of 长 zhǎng "grow" right while glossing it as if it were 长 cháng "long".

If I give it 重新 chóngxīn, which is an adverb meaning something like "start over", it recognizes it as a single word of the correct pronunciation, but mysteriously glosses it as "reappear".

If I give it 我的狗去世了, it does pretty well, but glosses 了, a modality marker, as "is", which makes me extremely uneasy.

<comment><USER3> The dictionary is sourced from Google Translate and Unihan, with a few hundred manual edits. Click the Edit button to fix it if you already speak Chinese and find a problem! You said the pronunciation is wrong on 2/6 characters, but you didn't tell me the correct reading. Teach it! Teach me!

<comment><USER4> In the sentence 我长得不漂亮 "I am not pretty", 得 is de(toneless), the result marker, not 得 dé, the verb meaning "obtain". 不 really is the negative particle (that is to say, it is being glossed appropriately), but before a syllable in fourth tone it is pronounced bú, not bù.

I actually agree that word-by-word glossing like that is helpful, but this tool is doing a questionable job. Words that are more syntactic than semantic will be nearly impossible to fit into a word-by-word-gloss system -- for example, the ABC dictionary's gloss of "result 得" from the sentence above is "subordinating particle used to link a verb [or adjective] and the manner clause that follows it". This is difficult to condense into something that it would make sense for your app to render.

In the sentence 我的狗去世了 "my dog has died", 了 is the change-of-state particle, appropriate because my dog (presumably) used to be alive, but it's dead now. It's definitely not a verb; the verb is, depending on your perspective, 去世 "die" or just 去 "go".

If you're interested in my advice, I think the highest-value thing you can do to get good glosses is get Pleco for your smartphone and purchase the ABC Dictionary and Tuttle Learner's Dictionary addons. It'll be less convenient than your app, but much higher quality. (Detection of word boundaries is imperfect; google translate may actually be better at that particular task.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> (2015)?

<comment><USER6> Hmm 2015. then I guess I won't wait for the moderator to approve my reply over there.

> If you know of any other good ones (including a sample break), then please > provide the link

Two months after that article was published:

[https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/11/18/9](https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/11/18/9)

> But I listened carefully, because I suspected an easy target that I wanted > to have a go at.

This was my easy target.

[https://github.com/ed770878/HohhaDynamicXOR](https://github.com/ed770878/HohhaDynamicXOR)

<comment><USER7> Thank you for linking this repo, I remember reading about the algorithm in Phoenix back in 2015 but I wasn't able to find any cryptanalysis of it until now.

I find it quite fascinating how people who produce snake-oil crypto tend to not accept any mention of possible faults in their algorithms, in comparison to professional cryptographers who welcome public cryptanalysis.</comment></comment></comment>


NIST Physicists Show Ion Pairs Perform Enhanced 'Spooky Action' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2017/03/nist-physicists-show-ion-pairs-perform-enhanced-spooky-action <comment><USER2> susskind described entanglement in a bit different way than I'd heard - "that entanglement allows one to know everything there is to know about a system of particles (the whole), while knowing nothing about it's parts."

In the classical version of an information experiment, if i randomize placement of objects A and B into 2 boxes, and send one of those boxes to someone else - upon opening my box I instantly know whether the other box contains object A or B. The Quantum Mechanical version of the above experiment is very similar, except there could be several different degreees of freedom to measure on upon opening my box (what angle of spin measure on, etc..)

So to me, that doesn't suggest that something "traveled" to the other box, just like in the Classical version.

Rather, somehow I only "knew" the system at the beginning without knowing "any of it's parts" (due to entanglement & superposition).

Then, just observing a degree of freedom in one the parts finally reveals what the corresponding degree of freedom in the other part was.

This (intuitively) makes more sense to me than saying "information traveled" and "action at a distance"

<comment><USER3> _So to me, that doesn 't suggest that something "traveled" to the other box, just like in the Classical version. Rather, somehow I only "knew" the system at the beginning without knowing "any of it's parts" (due to entanglement & superposition). Then, just observing a degree of freedom in one the parts finally reveals what the corresponding degree of freedom in the other part was. This (intuitively) makes more sense to me than saying "information traveled" and "action at a distance"_

But exactly this is not the case, exactly this is the difference between classical physics and quantum physics. Classically you place one coin in each of the two boxes, heads in one, tails in the other. Nothing strange happens here, the outcome is determined when setting up the boxes. When you look in one of the box, you will see either heads or tails as determined by the setup. The other box will have the coin showing the opposing side, also determined by the setup.

The quantum case is very different. You again place one coin in each of the two boxes, again one heads and one tails, but this time the coins are constantly flipping. It is no longer predetermined whether you will get heads or tails and only when you look in one of the boxes does the coin in there stops flipping and you see either heads or tails. But more importantly the other coin stops flipping at the very same time so that you will see the opposing side when you look into the second box.

The correlation is in both cases established when the boxes are setup, the coins will always show opposing sides. The quantum cases of course also requires both coins flipping synchronously. But in the classical case the exact outcome is also established during the setup while in the quantum case the exact outcome is only established when one looks in the first box.

<comment><USER2> > the coins are constantly flipping ... the other coin stops flipping at the > very same time

I'm not sure this corresponds to my understanding of the wave function before observation.

Just because the probabilities for each state is less than 1, to me doesn't mean that it's "constantly flipping". Only that upon measurement there's a probability that one of those states gets defined/constrained.

This is what i think susskind meant by understanding the whole (probabilities of the wave function of the whole system), without understanding the parts "the particles" i.e. it's kind of not right to think of just the parts here. It's only the system+parts that must be thought of together (which of course is why one of the reasons no-one truly understands it).

<comment><USER3> _I 'm not sure this corresponds to my understanding of the wave function before observation._

This was only meant as a classical model how the outcome is not predetermined, I did not want to imply that the wave function oscillates back and forth between two states or something like that. I could also have said that you place two coins in each box and one randomly explodes when you look in the box. And of course the corresponding coin in the second box also explodes simultaneously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why does this not describe the "entanglement" phenomenon:

1) Alice, Bob, and Charlie are in a room.

2) Alice has only an apple and a pear, seen by Charlie.

3) Charlie leaves the room.

4) Alice gives one of the two fruits to Bob.

5) Bob leaves the room to meet up with Charlie and starts eating the pear.

6) Charlie instantly knows that Alice has the apple, no matter where she has ended up in the universe (which is not spooky at all).

<comment><USER3> Because Bob leaves the room with either an apple or a pear and this choice is made inside the room. In quantum physics Bob would leave the room with half an apple and half a pear, Charlie would ask Bob to eat the pear, and in this moment Bob's half of the apple would teleport to Alice and Alice's half of the pear to Bob. Charlie could also have asked Bob to eat the apple.

Very roughly speaking, this picture is actually flawed. Charlie can not choose the fruit to eat in quantum mechanics. In this picture you would also transmit Charlie's choice to Alice faster than the speed of light which is not possible in quantum mechanics. The important part of this picture is that Bob does not leave the room with a predetermined fruit, the choice happens later outside of the room but Alice still always ends up with the other fruit, Alice and Bob never end up with the same fruit.

<comment><USER4> Thanks,

> "Charlie would ask Bob to eat the pear"

This seems to be the key part. So when they run experiments on this, a certain result can be forced?

> "The important part is that Bob does not leave the room with predetermined > fruit."

Right, is this aspect measured somehow or only inferred from the theory?

<comment><USER3> I tried to set this straight in my comment. Charlie does not get to choose the fruit, the fruit is chosen at random. I just allowed Charlie to make the choice to emphasize that the choice happens outside of the room. Had I just said the choice happens at random, then it would not be obvious why this random choice could not also be made in the room with Alice. But then we were back at Bob leaving the room with either an apple or a pear.

Have I look at my other comment with coins in boxes [1], that picture captures the situation better and in a way that is not easily translated to fruits.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13981054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13981054)

<comment><USER5> > I just allowed Charlie to make the choice to emphasize that the choice > happens outside of the room.

The problem is that allowing Charlie to make the choice allows him to use entanglement to transmit information faster than the speed of light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh cool! This experiment is very fun, not just from the results side. I was able to get a tour with the photonic side of this set-up (not the atomic side, as this paper elucidates). The photons are made entangled, then split and sent into some fiber-optic cables that run about in the tracts in the hallways. The rooms used to measure the entanglements are sufficiently far apart, but due to budgets, are at right angles from the source. We only went to one of the rooms, but the measurement devices are housed in marijuana grow pods you can buy, as they tend to keep the temperature stable, have access for the wires and cryogenic tubes, will keep out/in EM noise, and are pretty cheap. There was a line on the floor of that room, off in the corner, that had where the 'light speed' signal from the other measurement room stopped when the measurement (in the room we were in) was made, proving that the measurements could not interact. If you ever get a chance, get a tour at NIST, it is well worth whatever strings you have to pull. Getting to see _The_ United States Second (where the US measures all of out time from) was a real highlight of my scientific career.

</comment><comment><USER7> > "We are confident that the ions are 67 percent spooky," said Ting Rei Tan, > lead author

I love modern physics for lines like this.

<comment><USER8> I wonder if they were an even spookier 66.6...% spooky, but Ting Rei Tan didn't want to say that cause that'd just be 2spoopy4me

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One think I've been wondering about spooky action is if entanglement reactions are bound to the speed of light. As in, if one particle of the entangled pair is manipulated, is there a "signal" that is "transmitted" at some speed? Or is it "instant" in the sense that it transcends lightspeed? Or does this question even make sense in this context? Quantum stuff gets weird fast since we have very little basis in which to intuit it.

<comment><USER3> It is instantly but you can not use it to transmit information.

Say you have a pair of entangled spins in a superposition of the two anti- parallel states first spin up and second spin down or first spin down and second spin up with equal probability for both states, i.e. each spin is up or down with a probability of 50 % but the two spins always have opposing orientations.

If you measure one of the spins, then there is no time, no matter how far the spins are separated, in which you could measure the second spin to have the same orientation as the one you just measured because the result of the measurement somehow had not yet enough time to reached the second spin, supposedly because this state change is limited to travel at the speed of light.

It is as if the spins had secretly picked on of the two possible outcomes when they were created but you just do not know which one until you perform a measurement. But this is not the case, this is what is called a local hidden variable theory and is ruled out by Bell test experiments. The spins have no definite orientation until you measure the first one but after the first measurement both spins instantaneously have a definit orientation no matter how far separated.

<comment><USER10> There is no proof or strong evidence that this occurs instantly. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics still satisfy locality.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_m...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics)

<comment><USER3> One has to be careful what one means here. I meant it in the following specific sense and we have good experimental evidence for this.

 _[...] there is no time, no matter how far the spins are separated, in which you could measure the second spin to have the same orientation as the one you just measured [...]_

If an interpretation makes use of non-locality to explain this fact is a different matter, but experimentally it looks exactly like measurements instantaneously affecting entangled partners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of the more head exploding experiments I've seen regarding entanglement is this one:

[https://youtu.be/u9bXolOFAB8](https://youtu.be/u9bXolOFAB8)

By all apparences, it seems to violate causality. It's one of those things that make you suddenly stop and bemusedly wonder if maybe we've finally found a kludge in the Universe's code.

 _edit_ BTW, if you'd like to know more about this experiment and why it has ridiculous implications, check this PBS clip: [https://youtu.be/8ORLN_KwAgs](https://youtu.be/8ORLN_KwAgs)</comment>


Require.js is a Terrible Idea - <AUTHOR> http://simplestexplanation.com/2013/08/require-js-is-a-terrible-idea/

<comment><USER2> This is depressingly ill-informed.

Require.js has an optimizer that does exactly what the author suggests: [http://requirejs.org/docs/optimization.html](http://requirejs.org/docs/optimization.html)

The point is to build your application using AMD, using individual assets in development, and then run the optimizer - which concats and adds a loader - for production.

Alternatively, you can even go a step simpler and always use concatenated files, along with a minimal loader like Almond.js[1]. If you do this, you'll probably want to use something that adds source maps for your concatenated file (for easier debugging), but that's easy - you can use grunt-concat- sourcemap[2] or a similar plugin for whatever build system you like.

[1]: [https://github.com/jrburke/almond](https://github.com/jrburke/almond)

[2]: [https://github.com/kozy4324/grunt-concat- sourcemap](https://github.com/kozy4324/grunt-concat-sourcemap)

</comment><comment><USER3> Totally misses the point of Require JS - modularisation of code, dependancy management, namespacing, etc - beside the fact that it comes with an awesome optimiser that does mashes everything into one script anyway...

</comment><comment><USER4> Even without require.js' r.js optimization tool, having multiple source files like this is not necessarily a bad thing. Smaller files are more likely for browsers to cache them. If you concatenate all source files into one 5MB[1] file, it is unlikely the browser is going to cache that. This is more of a trade off than absolute best thing.

[1]: [http://serverfault.com/questions/338722/what-is-the- maximum-...](http://serverfault.com/questions/338722/what-is-the-maximum-file- size-that-will-be-cached-by-a-browser)

</comment><comment><USER5> Minifying+concatenating is the most appealing solution for desktop browsers which employ a rather large cache on static files, considering that a web server is also fine-tuned to take advantage of caching (e.g. [http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_expires.html](http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_expires.html)). I am not sure though that this is the best approach for mobile devices; having to serve a relatively large JS/CSS file with (possible) network interruptions may increase page load time.

</comment><comment><USER6> The link 404s for me: "It seems we can't find what you're looking for. Perhaps searching, or one of the links below, can help."

<comment><USER7> Probably realized how poorly researched the article was and just deleted it.</comment></comment>


Caps Lock is a terrible idea - <AUTHOR> http://highdimensionalcoconuts.com/Essays/CapsLock/CAPS_LOCK.html <comment><USER2> The most frequent use of caps lock that I noticed is from stupid people that refuse to use shift for some reason (accessibility issues excluded - they are perfectly able to use both hands). This is also highly correlated with very slow peck-typing.

The only use for it that I can see would be for accessibility reasons, but then it should be an opt-in feature and in fact making the modifier keys watchable is already possible.

As to what to replace it with, I don't know. I disagree with the idea of a search button. The last thing I want is a button that launches Bing (when there's already a dozen existing ways to search). The impact of pressing caps lock accidentally is much more minimal than opening Bing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I mapped my Caps Lock to Ctrl years ago and haven't looked back; can't recommend it enough.</comment>


Zencoder removed WITHOUT any notification their 20% discount on multiple outputs - k-i-m

I signed up at Zencoder about 3 years ago and I've used it occasionally for some side projects, everything always worked great. About 2 years ago Zencoder added a 20% discount on multiple outputs ( http://blog.zencoder.com/2011/03/09/lower-price-for-multiple-outputs/ ) and as I encoded in various formats I was very happy.
During the last year (when they were acquired by Brightcove) I had to shutdown those projects because they weren't growing as expected.
Now I'm in the middle of another project that uses videos and so I went back to Zencoder to see what changed, and a part some new features I've also seen that they removed from their pricing page (and any other page) the reference to that 20% discount on multiple outputs.
I don't want to criticize that choice (although I think it was a great thing for Zencoder's customers), but what I criticize is that they haven't sent any notification about that change to any of the accounts I have with them. I've checked their blog and there is no post telling about this removal. I don't know if they notified by email just active-paying customers, but I don't think it's correct even with not paying customers, as when I was paying customer I payed them few hundreds dollars each month.
If you are a startup, or a big company, please, please, please stop pissing out your users with these changes, or at least send an email saying why you do such changes.. <comment><AUTHOR> Maybe Brightcove got scared by the release of AWS elastic transcoder (and their free tier) and are rushing the integration of Zencoder. I think that they acquired them just for the technology so they could replace FFMPEG and increase their speed. They are pretty slow currently and it's hard to compete on price with Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER2> The 20% discount was just discontinued for new users. Accounts that previously received the discount will continue to do so, including OP as long as the original account is used.</comment>


Web Giants Threaten End to Cookie Tracking - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304682504579157780178992984 <comment><USER2> "Facebook's new ad service, launched earlier this month, gets around the traditional third-party advertising cookies by doing the tracking on its own. When a person visits a website selling shoes on a work PC, a piece of Facebook code placed on that site—Facebook's own cookie—recognizes that the person has logged into Facebook using that browser before. The shoe seller can then send the person an ad for the shoe on Facebook's mobile app—even if that person never registered with the shoe seller."

This highlights the dangers of the seemingly harmless social widgets. Anyone who doesn't already, I highly recommend using a plugin such as ghostery[1] to block them.

[1][https://www.ghostery.com/](https://www.ghostery.com/)

<comment><USER3> On my personal blog I made a button to disable/enable all the social media plugins. I don't know if anybody uses it (my readership is approximately zero, so no point in tracking clicks or A/B testing), but I figured I'd give users the option out of courtesy.

It does use a cookie to track your preference. The default is to enable them (since most users are not tech savvy enough to know they want them off, and those same users wouldn't easily find a button to turn them on).

<comment><USER4> Instead of tracking by default, consider the approach taken by a few sites, where you have "dumb" images with the various social networking logos, that are replaced by the real button when clicked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wait, what?

 _" On Wednesday, Microsoft quietly announced in a blog post that the company will give marketers the ability to track and advertise to people who use apps on its Windows 8 and 8.1 operating system on tablets and PCs. The company will do this by assigning each user a number—a unique identifier—that monitors them across all of their apps. (The system doesn't block cookies in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.) Industry players think Microsoft-powered smartphones and Xbox game consoles will be a natural extension of the system, but Microsoft kept mum on the question."_

<comment><USER6> Did you omit the following sentence on purpose?

 _Earlier this year, Apple Inc. also began offering advertisers the ability to trail and target users through a unique ID on smartphones and tablets._

<comment><USER7> In case of Apple, the ID isn't shared between apps though. Every app now gets their own ID and even that can be reset across all apps in the privacy preference pane.

In earlier versions of iOS, people were using the device UUID which allowed tracking across apps, but using the UUID isn't possible any more, so tracking is now only possible within one app.

<comment><USER8> Just to clarify, in the newer iOS versions there are two classes of identifier that replace the UUID:

identifierForVendor is not shared across vendors, but it is shared across apps from the same vendor.

identiferForAdvertising is shared across all apps, but it is not shared between devices and can be reset at any time by the user. (I think the user can suppress it altogether, but I'm not 100% sure.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is one of those articles where you really wish the author had a better grasp of technology. From what I could decipher the really story here isn't ending of Cookie Tracking but supplementing/replacing it with unique identifiers for users. Which, if you're logged into Google's system at the moment, I'm pretty sure is already the case. Google knows who you are throughout all of its systems. What it doesn't allow is advertisers to know who you are. If they're considering allowing advertisers access to unique data about each user, that would be a really big story.

Facebook requires you to be logged in to do anything, so there's nothing new here.

Microsoft assigning unique IDs to its Surface devices doesn't really matter because nobody uses them.

<comment><USER10> Letting the browser generate the unique ID (such as a guid) may actually have benefits for users. As long as the identifiers are kept secret you would have the benefit of a login without the site needing to store any personal information. This gives much more positive control to users than an opaque cookie. It is also easier to make legislation around as you could mandate that the user supplied unique ID is the only information (along with basic browser details) that can be stored.

<comment><USER3> And then remove the existence of cookies altogether, I infer. Since only a unique identifier is necessary, with all other session data and preferences being stored on the server.

I notice in a comment further up that Apple has two separate IDs. One for advertising and one for tracking users of a vendor's applications. Should this browser ID system have two separate IDs, one for securely identifying a user and another for advertising? The secure ID would have to be unique per website, otherwise phishing schemes just became ridiculously easy.

<comment><USER10> I suppose you could implement a browser plugin that maintains separate cookies for separate combinations of sites. So that buzzfeed + facebook would be put in one bucket, and cnn + facebook in another bucket. You could then ask the users permission to use real cookies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, this isn't so much about the "end" of using cookies to track users as it is about the "rise" of enhanced methods enabled by the fact we are constantly logged in to services like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc.

The thing is, even Google services (Search, Analytics, etc) and Facebook (the Like Button, etc) use cookies to track users. It's still fundamentally the same thing. The difference is that by logging in to the same service (Google, Facebook, etc) on difference devices and browsers, they can "link" the cookie data together for a more complete picture of your online activity.

Adding to this cross-cookie data, these services can include data from their actual services (Google Search, the Facebook Social Graph, etc), and are starting to include data about the Apps you use (in their respective ecosystems). It's a nice bundle of data they can sell to advertisers (indirectly, via ad targeting).

The scarier question is: will the tracking be enabled at the client/device level? Will your Google or Microsoft web browser (or OS) directly collect and track information about your browsing? Or will it still be limited to "web tracking" (with enhanced ability to connect cookie data across multiple devices)?

</comment><comment><USER12> Now I am badly rooting for Mozilla - both its browser and OS for mobiles, for now a VPN and virtualbox or incognito combo will have to suffice.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's worth noting that the EU "Cookie Law" doesn't actually explicitly refer to cookies.

Its wording is broad enough to include alternative approaches of individually tracking users.

<comment><USER14> It's a ridiculous nonsensical law full of gaping holes.

If I visit your website, you'll log details about what I'm doing. That's kinda how it works.

This "pop up a massive cookie warning on every fucking website" is worse than advertising that start up playing sound. Worse than the original 'problem'.

BTW The EU are now planning to ban powerful vacuum cleaners in their ever further reaching quest to limit freedom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is no mention of Yahoo in the article at all. The article's title is "Web Giants Threaten End to Cookie Tracking". HN's title is misleading.

<comment><USER16> I think swapping out Microsoft for Yahoo is probably not a bad tactic for garnering more upvotes on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Will they use EME/DRM to make them undeleteable, too?

[http://blog.notevencode.com/posts/html5-eme-is-not-a-drm- sta...](http://blog.notevencode.com/posts/html5-eme-is-not-a-drm-standard/)

</comment><comment><USER18> "Cookies let advertisers reach digital audiences, but the trail stops at smartphones and tablets, because cookie technology doesn't work well on them."

Is there something here I'm missing? I spend more time browsing the web on my Android phone than my PC and I've never ran into any issues with "cookie- driven" features.

<comment><USER19> I think that what they wanted to say is one of: cookies don't really work for in-app tracking, cookies don't carry over from laptop to smartphone.

Cookies obviously work in mobile browsers, but browsers are only a part of the picture on mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The story seems to be that these companies want to do ad attribution across devices. Example: I click on an Adword on my phone, and come to your site. I then come back later on my desktop computer and buy something. Google would like you to consider this when you evaluate the ROI of that ad campaign. The author of the story sounds completely clueless.

</comment><comment><USER21> Google is bluffing... They never would end online cooking tracking because that is how they effectively target ads.

If people stop getting their money's worth with advertising on Google then Google will lose money.

<comment><USER22> Google would need cookies for tracking Firefox and IE users, but, as the article says, Google is adding its own user ID header to Chrome and Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think they are talking about 3rd party cookies only. Cookies aren't going away, otherwise most of the web will break.

And they are already severely limiting 3rd party cookies. Even Mozilla's in on the action: [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240218/Mozilla_again...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240218/Mozilla_again_postpones_Firefox_third_party_cookie_blocking_this_time_for_months)

</comment><comment><USER24> Interestingly it sounds like MS is going the opposite way to Apple which has been taking steps to stop apps (and probably ads too) from tracking the device (although you can track across different apps from the same developer).

</comment><comment><USER25> I assume they will use some kind of browser fingerprinting.

[https://panopticlick.eff.org/](https://panopticlick.eff.org/)

<comment><USER26> that's an 'ok' alternative when cookie is unavailable, definitely not a replacement technology.</comment></comment>


Why virtual worlds died - <AUTHOR> http://iteratingfun.com/post/50274986215/reasons-virtual-worlds-died <comment><USER3> > Virtual worlds don't have explicit goals. [..] They aren't games.

> Great technology doesn't mean a great user experience.

Of course, but IMO the real missed opportunity was that the one virtual world with real traction - Second Life - just made most kinds of games impossible because of technological limitations. The client-server model they chose made it impossible to play responsive games in Second Life.

Imagine if it _were_ possible to enter a SL region and jump right into a platform game or an FPS. Yes, virtual worlds are not games, but they could have incorporated and enabled games.

Instead, Second Life focused on showing how much it was "not a game", and never even tried to address the technological limitations that prevented games from running on it.

I agree with the post on the reasons virtual worlds failed. But it could easily have been otherwise - allowing games would have grown the entire virtual worlds market.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree better performing games would have made SL more interesting. But I doubt it would have turned it into a big success. Why go to a place to play games when I can just play the games directly.

Personally I think that the "separate games with common avatar and spanning community" is a better way to go.

Side note - A couple other players also tried that:

Blue Mars had better technology and 3d graphics, and ability to make some pretty impressive games, but it never really caught on, mostly because the virtual world itself never took off and retained the players.

Raph Koster's Metaplace tried that approach on the web, building games into an avatar community, and players also didn't really warm to it.

<comment><USER4> > separate games with common avatar and spanning community

You described Club Penguin: <http://mashable.com/2011/12/13/club-penguin- disney/>

I'm not sure the common avatar is a prequisite, though. Steam doesn't have one, but Valve tries to build its social aspects into the games as deep as possible.

<comment><USER5> Good point about Steam. The community part is more important than the visual identity. Actually the avatar as a 2d icon or profile pic could do ok. Like in all the fb games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Internet conquered Time and Space. Want continue a chat with someone from another continent in real time or have your messages stored and retrieved over a period of years? No problem. But now with time and space conquered we decide we want to add time and space... Hmm... So do I have to walk over to his avatar? And chat? I would like to see someone solve this conundrum and make it compelling. I find it an interesting problem to ponder.

<comment><USER7> I would extend your remarks with the observation that the worlds most successful online bookstore looks more like a superspammy point of sale system or superspammy order entry system, rather than a virtual 3-d world with virtual grep-less bookshelves and a virtual check out line with a virtual cash register staffed by a virtual teen slacker. Peapod is also a good example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Give people a blank piece of paper and ask them to "have fun!" A few might > get excited and start writing a poem or sketch a masterpiece. But most will > be annoyed, grow bored and give up.

Here we get explained how minecraft is a failure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lego is very fun (well I think so), but an app to just play lego isn't going to do as well as a lego app with game mechanic and goals to accomplish.

Minecraft has some simple mechanics. You can collect stuff. You craft stuff. You have to survive. That makes it fun to get into. And yes the creativity and community builds on that to achieve some amazing things which amplifies the fun, and at that point you can ignore the survival/goal part of it. It's quite a bit different from a virtual world like Second Life.

<comment><USER5> I think also minecraft abstracts the detail, allowing you to use more imagination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I must be misinterpreting this - how have virtual worlds died? Every MMO is a virtual world, there's still millions who play them, and they're still releasing more and more.

<comment><USER10> They're still releasing more and more, but the profitability is highly suspect. To be somewhat simplistic, the only profitable MMOs are WoW and a small smattering of niche MMOs like Eve Online.

Every attempt to unseat WoW from its throne has failed miserably - <USER2> recently the incredibly big budget SWTOR that fell with a big fat splat in the mud.

Even more niche MMOs are having trouble succeeding financially. APB, Star Trek Online, the Final Fantasy MMOs, all were commercial failures (big ones at that).

The game industry as a whole is a pretty risky investment overall (big-budget AAA-titles fail routinely and spectacularly), MMOs are even a notch above. Sometimes I wonder why they keep getting funded - EA poured a reported $200 million into SWTOR before watching it fail.

<comment><USER11> If you try to take the addiction formula of a game that's been honed over a decade and re-implement it imperfectly, of course you won't be able to unseat the king.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Horrible timing, virtual worlds are about to make a major comeback as the oculus rift makes them compelling again. Just wandering around a static environment with the oculus is more fun than the best AAA titles on traditional consoles.

<comment><USER13> Second Life is adding support. This may make it actually useful for collaboration. I also sometimes wonder what programming with Oculus rift would be like. A screen as tall as ones entire field of view, multiple monitors without the multiple monitors, a bit of a sensory deprivation effect to help with concentration--it might be pretty cool

<comment><USER12> I love the videos where people interact with the settings from within the environment they're virtually standing in. Very much a 'Matrix' moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The virtual world was never a good idea; the whole concept arose from a bad analogy made by nontechnical people. I'm not sure it's even worth looking for anything good to come out of them; my impression is that what success Second Life enjoyed (and let's face it, when we talk about virtual worlds we basically mean second life) came not from its virtual world status per se but by giving certain subculutres a place to roleplay. Just let the concept die and get on with producing things people actually want.

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't classify Chip Morningstar, Vernor Vinge, Neal Stephenson as nontechnical people.

<comment><USER16> "I started hearing about people that connected home computers distantly via telephone, and because, fortunately, I knew absolutely nothing about computers, I was able to smoosh that all together and get this vague vision of my arena, which I then need a really hot name for. Dataspace didn't work, and infospace didn't work. Cyberspace. It sounded like it meant something, or it might mean something, but as I stared at it in red Sharpie on a yellow legal pad, my whole delight was that I knew that it meant absolutely nothing." -William Gibson

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I tried second life a couple times, and just didn't get into it. Either it was totally boring, or way too kinky. Often, both. I designed a couple objects. It was exciting at first, but got tedious, and I lost interest. The idea of making a simple gambling game kind of got me interested again, because greed is often a good motivator, but I had so little interest in those games to start with, that my idea just seemed crappy after a day.

I'm kind of feeling the same way about tablets.

</comment><comment><USER18> \- Just because virtual worlds didn't results in a multi-billion dollar IPO doesn't mean they failed.

\- The sequel to LucasFilm's original Habitat still is alive and running online, 18 years later.

My two cents, in virtual worlds the users are the product. The more mass market they become, the more the less interesting the average user becomes. Unlike social networks, people visit virtual worlds to meet new people. In some regards, more could be learned from PlentyofFish than Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER19> The technology was just premature. Of course fantasy worlds ala the cyberspace of science fiction are something people will be interested in. The problem is that we are nowhere near the technology to make a virtual world that is 1/10th as compelling as the real world.

So for now we are stuck with purpose-built networked games and applications that enhance reality rather than replace it. I don't see the next step happening until either a major breakthrough in computing power and/or AI. Assuming we can find a new hockeystick from the current plateau, I expect virtual worlds with the addictiveness of heroine are inevitable.

I will be an old man and yell at the kids to get off my lawn.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Died"? Second Life has a booming economy and a consistent 50,000-60,000 _concurrent_ user count. Many of us still enjoy it; the only thing that "died" was the unsustainable media hype.

<comment><USER21> thats not a high user count. look at Wow or other popular MMOs. I bet the role playing stuff in Garrys Mod has more players.

<comment><USER22> Not concurrent players. Garrys mod has around 20k. Here are more stats: <http://store.steampowered.com/stats/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> VRML was pretty clunky and my connection was lousy.

It'd be interesting to see what people could do with it now. Unfortunately, VRML seems to have been taken out of a few browsers.

What's the modern equivalent of VRML?

<comment><USER24> There isn't as such, but there is things like WebGL which is more akin to the traditional style of programming 3D graphics (eg turing complete C-derived language rather than an XML-styled markup language).

I used to love VRML though. In fact back in the 90s I built a whole web site in VRML. Sadly it's problems ran much deeper than bandwidth and it's syntax. VRML suffered from the same issues that HTML did back then; every client rendered the document slightly differently. Plus VRML was a victim of being too premature as back in the 90s a hardware 3D accelerator was a thing of luxury - rather than now when even the modest onboard chipsets are relatively powerful. So most PCs just didn't have the horsepower to really take advantage of the 3D websites.

The weird thing is, despite it's problems - of which were many - I actually do miss VRML. It was fun and felt really futuristic. And while I don't want to take anything away from the developers who port cool demos to WebGL, the whole concept of virtual worlds has lost the same magic as it had in the 90s when people were building such things with no idea where the journey would take them (I guess like the decade before when I first got into micro computers and had no idea where that journey would lead me).

<comment><USER25> I wrote a VRML browser. Super fun.

VRML the language is still a superior scene / object graph language. The event model was almost the correct answer for describing interaction and has yet to be surpassed.

ARON (a righteous object notation) is derived from my VRML work. I hate JSON, XML, etc with the passion of a billion burning suns. So I stripped out DEF/USE prototyping and the JavaScript events and made this, cleaned up a bit of the syntax, and made this:

<https://code.google.com/p/aron/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> From my experience in SL:

1) What you can do there is so limited unless you pay $___ (fill in the blank for the price of land, etc.) to build something.

2) If you don't want to pay for land, you'd naturally go elsewhere to check things out -- I looked around, but many of the places I visited offered a very low level of interactivity. You want to ride a cool car in the field? Nope, you do not have permission to do that, and I believe that was a pavilion set up by some sort of car company or something.

</comment><comment><USER27> Back in the days most so called "virtual worlds" I tried looked pretty ugly and were hard to navigate compared to FPS games from same era.

</comment><comment><USER28> Nothing new here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, there's an expanded section at the bottom, maybe some new ideas in there..</comment></comment>


Not Constructive, a place for the discussions not allowed on Stack Overflow - <AUTHOR> http://www.notconstructive.com <comment><USER2> I don't know who you are. But if you are the creator of this site, you have my respect from the bottom of my heart.

Stackoverflow was wonderful when it was started the way it was. The moderated content was extremely useful. But later, they decided to screw everything up by doing some stupid things like assigning too much power to moderators.

I always used to assume SO was more like the real world democracy; if something isn't right, you could fix it yourself being an ordinary citizen. However, on SO, that's not the case anymore. There is a moderator on top of the users who decides what's right and what's wrong. And he goes into a 'rage mode ON' by flagging genuinely useful questions as 'inappropriate' or 'not suitable for SO', as he pleases.

How can you challenge his decision? God knows. I've searched round the site to report moderators. Good luck with reporting some rogue moderator. I like the fact that you can flag something offensive easily, but I don't like the fact that it's not as easy for the reverse.

Forget the moderators. Let's say you want to ask something about security with sessions in PHP. Good luck finding answers on SO. Your question will be migrated to some weird subdomain.stakcoverflow.com for which you need a separate account to maintain and collect your badges from scratch, again.

That's why I knew there would be a day when someone would start something like this. Nonconstructive nails it for me. And hopefully for other disappointed SO fans too.

Thanks for creating this.

<comment><USER3> I apologize in advance for sounding like an elitist prick, but in my mind, community-driven sites like StackOverflow, Reddit, Wikipedia, are prone to the noise of do-nothing armchair experts (especially in this economy with the unemployment rate) who have nothing better to do than stir philosophical debates over nothing.

As a person with a job who actually needs answers rather than reading through pages upon pages of discourse that goes absolutely nowhere, I appreciate StackOverflow's approach to moderation. StackOverflow is a place for specific questions and specific answers, not subjective nonsense questions like "how secure are sessions in PHP?" that, on this "Not Constructive" website, I imagine will be flooded with answers ranging from "PHP SUXXX LOL GO PYTHON" to "In my opinion, sessions are inherently broken blah blah blah". While the moderators may be able to mitigate these issues a little bit, the problem isn't so much with the answers as the _question itself_ , which has no "correct" answer.

So, while I can see why people with a lot of free time might want to go to NotConstructive as a diversion, I foresee this site as little more than an informational black hole of back-and-forth BS.

<comment><USER4> Before assuming it's just going to be things like "PHP SUXXX LOL GO PYTHON" check out some of the questions that have been closed. Here's one I came across this morning on open source face recognition libraries:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/953714/face- recognition-l...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/953714/face-recognition- library)

The original question was asked in June of 2009. It was marked as "protected" in June of 2010. Then it was closed as off topic in April 2013.

While it may be true that the question itself is not framed particularly well, the answers are really useful, including one from November, 2011 that was posted more than two years after the original question.

If the original question was considered off topic in 2013, then it was presumably also off topic in 2009 when it was originally asked. If it had been marked that way at that time, some very useful answers would never have appeared.

<comment><USER5> That is your example of a good question on StackOverflow that was closed?

That question exemplifies why SO needs moderators. The question is "I want this GIVE IT TO ME. I refuse to do any research on the subject."

It should have been closed in 2009, but SO hadn't been inundated with horrible questions like that yet. The current moderation, while having gone a little too far I agree, came into being because of questions like that.

You're conflating 'Is this useful?' with 'Does this belong here?' I suppose someone else doing your work is always useful to you, but it doesn't belong on SO.

There are questions that get closed where people have done their work and have asked in a good way. Current SO moderation has gone too far in cases. However, this is not one of those cases.

<comment><USER6> What the hell is up with that attitude? You're completely missing the point of a welcoming community by closing the door with an RTFM sign. He's writing his own shit but is wondering if there is a library out there already that is better/already does it.

The point of a community is to be helped and then help. You make it sound like you got to where you are by yourself and that's the only _correct_ way. To be frank this attitude has no place in a community.

"Does thing belong here?"

NO. "Are we helping each other?" That's should always be the purpose of any community site and the reciprocation of help is something that has driven every newsgroup, irc channel and community dev sites for DECADES.

<comment><USER5> Do it for me is not a question. It is a demand and a lazy one.

> You make it sound like you got to where you are by yourself

Hardly. I ask questions. RTFM doesn't answer everything, nor does it explain, but you actually ask intelligent questions and are in a position to understand answers if you did some work before hand. Of course the referenced post wasn't looking for an answer to understand, they wanted 'use libfoo.'

> "Are we helping each other?" That's should always be the purpose of any > community site

I have to write a script to install this thing here at work, would you mind doing it for me? That would be a BIG HELP to me.

See the problem yet? Technically it is a question, it would be a help to me. I suppose a community site would be more than happy to go about that then.

Oh and the response on any newsgroup for decades would be "Do your own damn homework, come back when you have a question."

<comment><USER6> I know what you're talking about but I think you just failed to read the second paragraph of the post.

> I'm using OpenCV for detecting the faces and a rough Eigenfaces Algorithm > for the recognition now. But I thought there should be something out there > with a better performance then a self written Eigenfaces Algorithm.

Does this sound like a "plz send me teh codez" to you?

<comment><USER5> Yes, I did read the whole thing. He asked, tell me what library to use. That was the whole question. It was very much a 'do my research for me' question.

"I want to do this. Tell me what library to use."

"What is better ..." questions are closed on SO for the same reason.

<comment><USER6> I think it was more a:

"There are probably people out there who already know all of this information and are willing to share it" question.

I find it curious that you don't see asking peers for their opinion as a valid form of research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey there, Andrew here, I'm the OP.

I want to be clear that I have the greatest respect for Stack Overflow. I think there has been nothing ever that has increased programmer productivity more than Stack Overflow. (quoting wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet)) Fred Brooks said that "there is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude [tenfold] improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity." But Stack Overflow hadn't been born at that time. No language, operating system or compiler could ever have more impact on developer productivity than an effective global Q&A site for programmers - that's what Stack Overflow is and it is damn fine.

It's just that Stack Overflow would be diluted and weakened by allowing open ended discussion on software technology and development. People go to SO with questions for which they want a specific answer.

Not Constructive is intended to facilitate the valuable discussions about software that don't fit into that strict Q&A format. Not Constructive is for broader questions, and welcomes subjective opinion. It's not in conflict with SO, it's a complement to SO.

Please do sign up at [http://signup.notconstructive.com](http://signup.notconstructive.com) if you're interested in hearing when we launch.

<comment><USER7> It seems it's directly related to Stack Overflow but I wonder how both will be "connected"? Are you going to go to closed questions on SO and post a link to your website? Directly contacting authors of closed questions might also prove difficult since many users don't display their email address. Overall, I don't quite understand how it's going to work out. If there's no connection to SO (beside the questions being imported from there) then it's like any other forum.

<comment><AUTHOR> There will be no direct connection with SO. Not Constructive is just a place to come to ask open ended questions about software development, where opinions and subjective answers are considered relevant and valid.

We won't be importing questions from SO.

<comment><USER8> How do you distinguish Not Constructive from Programmers.SE?

<comment><USER9> Programmers.SE originally took "not constructive" questions, but that turned out to be a mess, so they had to refine their scope multiple times until a viable model appeared. Now their scope is more or less "whiteboard" questions, which can be partially opinion based (just like almost every question on SO), but that is not the focus. The FAQ says:

        > Specific issues with software development, for instance:
          - algorithm and data structure concepts
          - testing and quality assurance
          - development methodologies
        > freelancing and business concerns
        > software architecture, engineering, or licensing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What can I say? Like many people, I believe, I find the questions that have been closed, usually as "Not Constructive" to be the most helpful.

I don't understand Stack Overflow, but the weird negativity over there certainly keeps me from asking or answering questions there or at most of the stack exchange sites.

<comment><USER11> Agreed, whenever I happen across a closed question, I always sit there and scratch my head "but that's a great question!". I think it's a similar phenomenon to the over deletionist problem on Wikipedia.

There's certainly questions on SO that should be moderated away, and WP articles that should be deleted. But there's so many of both kinds that are obviously genuinely good one has to wonder at the motivations of the people closing them.

<comment><USER12> > whenever I happen across a closed question, I always sit there and scratch > my head "but that's a great question!"

So you're saying that _every_ question ever closed that you have seen, should not have been closed? Then I think SO's moderators and users are not the problem.

<comment><USER13> Now you are jumping to conclusions.

It depends a while lot on your search skills I guess.

<comment><USER12> Am I? Read my quote, it's exactly what's being said.

<comment><USER11> No it's not. You even quoted me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's the point submitting project that hasn't launched?

Not to mention there is [http://programmers.stackexchange.com](http://programmers.stackexchange.com) which is exactly "a place for the discussions not allowed on Stack Overflow" so really, what's the point?

<comment><USER15> Testing the waters, getting valuable feedback, starting a conversation. What's the point of working on such a project if nobody is interested?

<comment><AUTHOR> So true. I have launched many projects to the sound of chirping crickets. There's a great deal to be said for building the momentum in advance of opening the doors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Who among us has not googled a problem, found the top hit at Stack Overflow, got our solution, and noticed also that the question was closed as not- something?

IMHO the whole thing can be handled by upvotes (as HN demonstrates, you don't even need downvotes)

<comment><USER17> Can you give some examples?

My experience has been slightly different. I have often found stackoverflow questions (closed as NC or NaRQ) from google searches and thought "This is interesting, but I would be embarrassed if my boss saw me reading it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thankyou.

I detest stack exchange sites with a peculiar passion (I'm usually pretty relaxed about most things). Seeing incredibly useful and important questions closed for this very reason, and others mutilated by "gods" who have the right to alter questions as they see fit fills me with rage. I only end up on SO as a result of a google search, and I haven't bothered contributing for years.

Even worse is superuser ~ a couple of down voted questions and comments and you get _banned for life_ , with no recourse. I don't know what kind of Nazis run that shop.

My 2c * avoid badges/karma/superpowers. It just creates an ego cult that is responsible for much of the problem. Wikipedia has this problem with elitist editors who think consensus amongst themselves trumps wikipedia's own rules. * Have a system of encouragement to improve poorly worded or duplicate questions. But any changes/closes/holds must be approved by the question owner. * Maybe think of a different name for the launch site. I'm not sure its possible to "reclaim" a word with so many bad memories attached.

</comment><comment><USER19> I feel like Discourse ([http://www.discourse.org/](http://www.discourse.org/)) would have been a good fit for a site like this.

<comment><USER20> Isn't the from the same creator? You can imagine the same bad moderation practices that squelch useful discussion will be baked in an encouraged.

<comment><USER21> SO is a community, Discourse is a platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > _Not Constructive is the place for open, subjective, opinionated, extended > discussion about software development._

So...Quora?

<comment><USER23> Quora is a walled garden (behind FB) which I sincerely hope this won't end up as.

<comment><USER24> And you must be "at least 13 years old". Unchecked that bullshit just to see what would happen and I got a notice, that I won't be able to retry till tomorrow. Impressive.

<comment><USER23> I'm curious about that checkbox. The whole reason for it, I'm guessing, is because of COPPA ( Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), but then that applies only when you collect a significant amount of personal information from someone 13 or younger and/or directing them to behave a certain way.

Which leads the question, why _would_ Quora need that much information about me in the first place? I don't recall getting an "I'm over 13" checkbox when I signed up for HN and we're ostensibly doing the same thing: Discussing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Judging by the points by time by rank in the front page, I 'd say this has some flags. Which would be a shame, as that kind of censure is exactly what the site is against.

Every time there is any criticism of SO here, however constructive, the flaggers come out in force :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you explain what "points by time by rank in the front page" means please?

<comment><USER25> This post right now has 130pts after 3 hours. And its way below 3 hour stories with 50pts on the front page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Background from 2011: "Why does Stack Overflow sometimes seem so eager to close "off-topic" that happen to be VERY relevant to the programming community?"

[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/188405/why-does- stac...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/188405/why-does-stack- overflow-sometimes-seem-so-eager-to-close-off-topic-that-happen)

</comment><comment><USER27> I do generally like Stack's focus because I know exactly what I'll find when I get there: super-smart and helpful users (even if I do sometimes have questions beyond its scope).

</comment><comment><USER28> The problem is that the ideal place to host these discussions is... Stack Overflow.

Their policy on open questions is dead wrong.

<comment><USER29> No, it's not. They have a clear purpose: they want the site to be _useful_. The definitive go-to site for programmers that have a question they need answered in a way that solves their problem.

Lengthy discussions can be interesting, but they don't solve problems. They're not useful. Therefore, Stack Overflow is not the right place for them.

Actually they even _have_ a place for discussions: a chat feature that can be linked to from any question.

<comment><USER30> "They have a clear purpose: they want the site to be useful"

Hmmm, you might want to re-think that one. I can't see how 200,000 questions(and answers) about how to do a for-loop in python(or insert here your fav language) is considered useful.

Don't try to sell me the "report as duplicate" functionality. It is rarely(compared to the content) used. And the reason is simple, look at the people who answer these questions! Some have a reputation in the hundred thousands. Rep farming at work!

SO is a great tool, but I think it's prime time is well behind us. Right now it has become a substitute for Google, by Javascript(mostly) kiddies, that somehow can't find the time to google their trivial questions - let alone read the documentation.

IMO unless they begin to "punish" such behavior, the quality of SO will continue to decline and people like me will begin to distance themselves even more, from this excellent(at some point) site.

EDIT: typo

<comment><USER31> > And the reason is simple, look at the people who answer these questions! > Some have a reputation in the hundreds. Rep farming at work!

I was confused by this statement. Doesn't a reputation in the hundreds put you distinctively in the lower end of reasonably active users?

You'll need to go page 1300 or so before you see users with three-digit rep: [http://stackoverflow.com/users?tab=reputation&filter=all](http://stackoverflow.com/users?tab=reputation&filter=all)

<comment><USER30> True. I meant hundred thousands! Sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Haha, I've joked with a few people there needs to be a 'CrapOverflow' as a sort of cesspit of programming 'debate' so it's good to see someone following through. (Funnily enough, I just checked and Stack Exchange owns crapoverflow.com :-))

<comment><AUTHOR> Hopefully it's not a cesspit, rather a good place to ask questions such as "which language is best for building applications such as...etc" or "which is the best of the current crop of JavaScript MVC frameworks in late 2012" or other stuff that isn't strictly technical questions with well defined technical answers.

<comment><USER22> Honest question - do you genuinely believe someone (or a group of people) without 100% understanding of your project will be able to definitively tell you what language/framework is best for building your application? These types of subjects have been debated to death with the general conclusion ending up with "use the tool you are most comfortable with".

<comment><AUTHOR> There's value in the debate. Doesn't mean there will be a "right" answer, but there will be valuable information coming out of the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Stack Overflow blog entry on why they stopped using "Not Constructive" [http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/06/the-war-of-the- closes/](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/06/the-war-of-the-closes/)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is a great idea. I think. There's not much to go on from the minimal page.

Please would you consider changing the font colour for the email registration box? The text was very pale, and so it was very low contrast.

May I ask how moderation is going to be handled? Is there going to be some form of user voting?

What will you do with obvious trolls? Some people like engaging with trolls, and that can be harmful to the site.

How are you going to handle the 'hot button' topics that attract inflammatory responses?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're hoping people might choose to become moderators. We really don't want a nasty negative trollfest. The idea is not to allow open ended mud slinging matches. Rather to allow discussion about topics that aren't strict questions with one valid answer. Free flowing discussion about software technology and software development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> No one here has mentioned Slant? I think it solves a similar problem quite well [http://www.slant.co/](http://www.slant.co/)

<comment><USER36> +1! Slant.co works great because many "not constructive" questions are on the format "which alternative among $x is best for $y?" However, the site seem to be lacking in polish. For example, it doesn't remember your login and the procedure for updating and commenting on viewpoints is convoluted. Plus, there is no timestamps anywhere so it's hard to see what is going on on the site. Stackoverflow is much better from a usability perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I recently submitted a question to unix.stackexchange, and the next day (after it had been answered) a moderator came along and "improved" the layout of my question. Objectively the result was no worse than my original, and perhaps it was indeed better, but I can't help feeling like my private space was violated by that.

<comment><USER12> Your questions and answers aren't really "yours" on SE. That's the way it works. A bit unusual, but nothing wrong per se. Like Wikipedia, but that you still get credit for what you started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I have experienced that many of the questions I am most interested in are closed as "Not Constructive", seemingly to fulfill some artistic vision of the moderators and how they would like to "architect" the community. Very frustrating.

I also had a situation where I found a bug in some Python code on an accepted SO answer, submitted an edit, and had my fix repeatedly rejected by moderators. I tracked down one of the moderators' email and asked him about it, found out that he does not know Python and that he rejected my edit because it was already an accepted answer so why should I edit it? ...? In the end, after I persuaded him that my fix was helpful by getting other developers to testify that the existing code was broken and the fix fixed it...he posted my edit as his own and took credit for it.

</comment><comment><USER39> ITT: wah, wah, StackOverflow doesn't work the way I want it to. I'm right and the mods are wrong.

If you don't like StackOverflow, go somewhere else. SO is successful because it has rules and boundaries. "Everything goes" just does not work well in online communities.

<comment><USER23> Isn't this is project an effort to _make_ that somewhere else.

<comment><USER39> Sure is, but there's not a whole lot you can say about a sign up page. Let me know once the project has launched... then we can have a discussion on how this site _actually_ works (or doesn't, as the case may be).

My bet is that the site won't form a community and take off unless they put in some rules and boundaries. Then the complaining will start, and we'll come full circle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's funny, "Not Constructive" doesn't exist any more as a reason for closing.

</comment><comment><USER41> Great idea. Imagine seeing this on HackerNews posts, or reddit, etc., even popular posts that got plenty of upvotes and had substantial discussions going on:

"As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance. If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question."

</comment><comment><USER42> I was thinking about building this just yesterdaynight!

Coincidentally a community I used to really like is being flooded by noobs and trolls in the past few months, that was the actual trigger. I was thinking of creating a community that was more like a combination of Stackoverflow, Hackernews, and a few older members of that other community.

Anyway, it's funny how often things I thought of appear right the next day. I'm sure it's just coincidence or some other illusion, but it happens pretty regularly.

</comment><comment><USER20> Link is just a crappy sign up page, but I agree with the vast majority of comments here that some really great questions that would have been useful to me have been closed. So good to see some competition coming up!

As an experienced Android developer, for example, most of the questions I see that aren't closed are simple things answered by the docs. The things I see that are closed are things I actually myself have trouble with, like which monetization solution to go with.

</comment><comment><USER43> Well I signed up immediately. In the last 4 weeks alone, every single one of my posts on any of the stackexchange sites have been marked as "not helpful" , "not constructive" etc.

I ask a simple question regards a web app, and i thought it was a genuine and innocent enough question and it got closed. The watchman culture is a little too rampant now.

I'm glad this service exists and to learn that i'm not the only person affected by it.

Looking forward to the final product.

</comment><comment><USER44> Get ready for heavy traffic. I have a search filter on SO for thread with a handy amount of votes that have been closed, mods are crazy on that site.

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting idea, and even better name.

</comment><comment><USER27> Another option is BOTHSIDER.COM ([http://bothsider.com](http://bothsider.com)).

Tweet-sized opinions on both sides of any issue, including "not constructive" Stack issues.

We are up and running right now!

Disclosure: I'm a Bothsider Founder/CEO

</comment><comment><USER46> ...or you could've started a new community here:

[http://area51.stackexchange.com](http://area51.stackexchange.com).

\- wouldn't waste our time looking at yet another sign-up dummy page.

</comment><comment><USER47> Good about time. The number of times where I have a what technologies should I use do thing X kind of question and there isn't anywhere good to ask.

Might be worth looking at OSQA as platform.

</comment><comment><USER48> I assumed this was what quora was for. But let's see how this matches up? If this just a clone then probably its going to have a hard time.

<comment><USER49> Quora is bad at/does not specialize in answers involving code/math.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Small nitpick but you don't need the coma after "trolling" and you have the conjunctive "or" after that.

</comment><comment><USER51> Might as well 301 to news.ycombinator.com

</comment><comment><USER18> Oh dear good watching all the pro SO shills leap out in defence of their kingdom is making my eyes bleed. Please, please go back home.

<comment><USER52> Yes, everyone who disagrees with you should just go away. HN is not a place for two-sided discussion!

You would make a great Stack Overflow moderator.

<comment><USER18> Nice strawman...let me guess you vote left?

<comment><USER52> That's not what a strawman is.</comment></comment></comment></comment>