The open web needs you *now* (Webkit the new IE6?) - <AUTHOR> http://www.glazman.org/weblog/dotclear/index.php?post%2F2012%2F02%2F09%2FCALL-FOR-ACTION%3A-THE-OPEN-WEB-NEEDS-YOU-NOW

<comment><USER2> > "…the proprietary CSS-like properties they have let the whole world use in > iOS and Android devices, harming the Open Web."

It seems the W3C is opposed to grassroots innovation from browser vendors without having every feature pass through their committees first. I don't buy the arguments about monopolization, and if most of your user base is on iOS or Android then it makes perfect business sense to prioritize those platforms when building out your design. Graceful degradation and progressive enhancement are widely recognised good practices, but by no means are they mandatory for the success of the 'Open Web'. The benefit Apple has brought by not bundling Flash with their iOS devices (suddenly that 'monopolization' doesn't look so bad, does it?) far outweighs any drawbacks caused by the implementation of non-standard features in WebKit.

In fact, you know what the real enemy of the 'Open Web' is? The use of terms like 'de jure'. In the real Open Web, there's no room for central governance, and no tolerance of the assertion by any organization that they represent the sole font of truth.

<comment><USER3> We had decentralized web standards in the past, with browser vendors implementing new markup features on their (and, to a lesser extent, their users') whims rather than marching in lockstep with some "central governance" - the First Browser War, where Microsoft and Netscape were slinging it out for market dominance, adding new features as quickly as possible to gain more users and simultaneously create a captive market by way of incompatible markup. Yes, this gave us Javascript (if I understand my history correctly), but it also gave us such abominations as the "marquee" and "blink" tags, and no one who worked through those times as a web developer looks back on them fondly.

I am not saying the current situation is ideal, but it is better by leaps and bounds than what it used to be, and what you are proposing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Browser prefixes are a great way for browser vendors and designers to experiment with new graphical elements. They're a good thing. But us hackers haven't caught up. It's been said before but I'll say it again: jQuery saves us from browser specific quirks in the DOM; we need an equivalent for CSS.

Last night I added Compass (<http://compass-style.org/>) to a Rails project I'm working on. It's a CSS pre-processor that takes care of generating browser specific style for you.

"@include border-radius(10px)" and you're done. All of the -webkit, -moz, -ms and -khtml prefixes are automatically generated. (Who knew there was a KDE prefix?) Same with gradients, inline-block, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> Life would be a lot easier if everyone just adopted WebKit for rendering HTML and CSS and just focus on the UI and features. Lack of a reference implementation and forcing everyone to implement their own version of HTML 5 + CSS 3 at their leisure is counter-productive and stalls adoption.

Chrome is my preferred browser because of the user experience, not because of its HTML rendering abilities. IE 9 has really good standards support, but the UI is the sole reason I don't use it. I couldn't care less about HTML 5 and CSS 3 support. Let's just stop fooling ourselves and standardise on WebKit for core HTML and CSS rendering.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is just plain silly: -webkit-border-radius: 1px; -moz-border-radius: 1px; -ms-border-radius: 1px; -o-border-radius: 1px; border-radius: 1px;

If one vendor has something that is useful, let the others ask that vendor to make it default, let all vendors strip the vendor tag and get it over with. if you do not want to implement the rule, ignore it but do not cry when people leave your vendor prefix alone.

I can't be bothered with ever changing browser prefixes.

</comment><comment><USER7> (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3570353>)</comment>


Unicode etc. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.brazen.ca/2010/04/19/unicode-etc-part-1-refresher/

<comment><USER2> Wow.

This is hands down the best explanation of unicode in general, but UTF-8 in particular I've seen by far.

and I mean by FAR.

Thank you so much for this link!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, we are happy if this can help.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you make your extension pass AMO's review? - <AUTHOR> Recently I made an extension called intelli-octo(https://github.com/pd4d10/intelli-octo).
Someone asked me if there is a Firefox version, so I uploaded it to AMO, waiting review.
After about a week I got a reply, telling me source code must be uploaded. I did it.
After some days, I got a reply that the description is not clear. I explained this extension's feature but the reviewer seems didn't understand. So it is rejected
Just wondering how do you make your extension pass AMO's review... <comment><AUTHOR> Here's my explanation:

This extension adds IntelliSense support for source code viewer at GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket. After installing it, when you view source code at GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket, you'll get some IntelliSense features. There is a GIF image showing how it works clearly, please visit [https://github.com/pd4d10/intelli-octo](https://github.com/pd4d10/intelli- octo)

Maybe this explanation is not clear to everyone. It is very appreciated if you have some advice or suggestions to make it more understandable.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you find this developer service useful? - <AUTHOR>

As a developer I've had other developers and designers ask for help solving bugs in their projects. When I respond with advice many times I get the response that they don't want suggestions and they are willing to just pay me to solve it for them. So I've started work on a project where people could find professionals on github to solve well defined problems with success criteria. It would basically be like elance highly targeted towards developers. You can come to get issues and small projects solved and also come to make money helping others out. Was wondering if others would find this useful? <comment><USER2> There are services like odesk where you can hire people to work on bugs or projects. But one with github integration might be interesting.</comment>


Idaho to take back control of privately run state prison - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/idaho-take-control-privately-run-state-prison <comment><USER2> Compare and contrast with Norway. Also from the Grauniad:

[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian- pri...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison- inmates-treated-like-people)

Includes this idea that has not been thought of in U.S. prison policy:

"...justice for society demands that people we release from prison should be less likely to cause further harm or distress to others, and better equipped to live as law-abiding citizens."

Note how the Norwegian system treated the Oslo bomber, by giving him a decent prison existence rather than treating him as the worst of the worst. This has denied him notoriety. He can't 'pay' for his crimes by being cruelly treated.

In Norway the re-offending rate is a fraction of anywhere else. So, for the Norwegian taxpayer, the deluxe facilities make financial sense.

It would take strong leadership and a generation to move the U.S. 'let them die by lethal injection' to something more like what there is in Norway, however, as Idaho illustrates, moves in the right direction can be made by individual states.

<comment><USER3> Those approaches have worked better in highly homogenous and culturally integrated societies.

I'm not saying the US shouldn't experiment with such approaches, it's my dearest wish that my country take advantage of Federalism and experiment at the state level more.

We shouldn't pretend we can appropriate every policy or approach every other country uses in a totally different context.

<comment><USER4> > Those approaches have worked better in highly homogenous and culturally > integrated societies.

Translated into from dog-whistle into English, this means "a strong bloc of white Americans will not pay for social services, safety nets, or anything else if there is a risk that black people could benefit."

Just so we're entirely clear on the dynamic we're talking about.

<comment><USER3> Best counterexample is Canada, if you want to be more convincing and less inflammatory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good. The private prison industry has a financial interest in putting more and more people behind bars. To that end it lobbies legislatures to make more things a criminal offense and to have longer prison sentences.

This is counter-productive in a free and open society, which should have the goal of zero inmates. To THIS end prison management needs to be in the hands of those with no profit motive.

This along with for profit law enforcement activities(red light and speed cameras) should be abolished.

<comment><USER6> "The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them."

\-- Corrections Corporation of America SEC filing.

<comment><USER7> This is why I very much expect a "War on Piracy" or some other war to ignite domestically, if the war on drugs is ended. There are too many people profiting from arresting and putting others in prison, and they will fight to keep that status quo, one way or another. That, combined with NSA, and other agencies increasing desire for collecting all sorts of data domestically, on everyone, could make for a pretty terrifying future. Then they could just fish for crimes through spying, and then send the SWAT teams to people's homes.

<comment><USER8> I like to think that most people are moral (perhaps I'm foolish). If you take away the war on drugs, and perhaps other ~victimless crimes (prostitution, gambling), then there aren't going to be that many crimes left.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good. The incentives involved with private prisons are so obviously counter to the public good that it beggars belief that anyone would support them. Private prisons do not bear any costs of recidivism - they profit from it.

<comment><USER10> Yep, if we are going to have private prisons, they really need to pay on the basis of capacity and not actual inmate counts. That provides a direct incentive to keep inmate count down.

The second part of this is that public prisons suffer from the same problem as private prisons. Look at the prison worker's union and what money it spends on politics in California. It basically backs every legislation that will increase prisoner counts.

Its not a public or private issue, it is, as you pointed out, an incentive issue. Sadly, the public sector incentives are just as bad.

<comment><USER11> > public sector incentives are just as bad

That's not true. The amount of funds which goes in to this kind of lobbying matters.

With a private prison system you get not just the funds from prison worker's unions, but also those from the owners.

<comment><USER10> Take a look at the money spent by the unions, contractors, and then politicians repaying the favors in salary, pensions, and extended sentences in California. It is just as much money and worse from a public trust issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I live in Idaho and I'm glad this is happening. I've noticed an interesting trend lately where libertarians are starting to take non-conservative and non- republican stances that are more in line with what progressives like me might align with.

Those living in the coastal blue states may not realize how conservative Idaho is. We have similar politics to Wyoming (Dick Cheney was elected to the US House of Reps there) but with more emphasis on ranching, timber and mining. There are small pockets of liberalism in Boise and Hailey. But for the most part there are no progressive politics here. Nearly all state votes toe the republican party line. So when a controversial topic comes up (global warming, alternative energy, healthcare, endangered species, conservation, sustainability, etc) we already know how the vote will fall and it can be disheartening.

For example I have never been able to participate in a presidential election (I still go to the polls for the popular vote though). I think people living in Austin, TX or Boulder, CO know what this is like. It's like South Park. But sometimes it becomes so obvious that a policy is failing that it crosses party lines and gets reformed.

</comment><comment><USER13> It appears there's recent decision to go this direction for this specific prison/company but keep in mind this is probably not a sign of a sea change:

"Recently, board chairwoman Robin Sandy said she opposed the idea because she didn't want to grow state government."

If she's being quoted correctly, that means the chair of the state prison board has a rather, shall we say, flat idea of good policy, and would _still_ put prisoner safety (and therefore several important constitutional principles), recidivism, respect for law and order, and possibly even cost effectiveness all below the idea that the state shouldn't do any more things itself instead of paying private parties to fulfill its obligations poorly.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting, but not really HN material.

<comment><USER15> I hate to be the guy that copies the HN guidelines (just because it seems to get done so often), but it feels especially appropriate given your choice of the word "interesting".

> _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find INTERESTING. That includes > more than hacking and startups._

(Capitalised emphasis added by me.)

<comment><USER16> This isn't very interesting though; one relatively minor state is closing a prison few of us have ever heard of because one bad actor screwed up. It's not even a useful political story, because such a minor detail is hardly even _evidence_ of anything, let alone proof. The same story as a statistical analysis of nationwide trends would at least be somewhat interesting, this is just an invitation to vent political opinions.

For those excitedly piling on about how this proves how awful private prisons are, well, doesn't Abu Ghraib prove even moreso how awful government imprisonment can be? No, no it doesn't.

<comment><USER15> My point was that for the person saying it is interesting, they are literally stating why it belongs on HN (based on the official guidelines).

Whether or not it actually is interesting is another question, and a subjective one. Personally I see your points about this story specifically, but the flip side is that it creates debate on HN about the concept of private prisons, which at least has the potential to be of interest.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Atebits 2.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.atebits.com/news/atebits-2-0/ <comment><USER2> I simply do not understand the hype with this 'new app.' Yeh, Atebits created the awesome Tweetie but then it went downhill fast after its acquisition. Don't get me wrong, I would have done the same there, but the track records speaks for itself, what makes this app any different that he won't sell out again, and support won't be dropped the second a better offer comes in?</comment>


How to Design a Good API and Why It Matters (2007) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAb7hSCtvGw <comment><USER2> Another cool paper related to API design is "The Scalable Commutativity Rule: Designing Scalable Software for Multicore Processors". Basically discusses the impact mistakes in an API design can have on performance/scalability.

</comment><comment><USER3> I still find that the Java Collection Library is one of the best design's out there, collections are something that modern languages still shockingly get wrong (e.g. .net, JavaScript). Bloch really knows what he's talking about.

<comment><USER4> I thought .NET isn't that bad especially with LINQ. In what way is Java better?

<comment><USER5> For a long time, the set of collection classes, which had more variety, and parallel programming support.

Now .NET also has TPL, immutable collections.

Also regardless of what one might think of Swing or JavaFX, at least they are there.

On .NET side, there isn't yet a GUI framework that will work without changes across all implementations, Xamarin might eventually be it, but only after 3.0 release.

<comment><USER3> In .net, you have to decide what optional library you are going to use to make up for an extremely lacking standard library. Sometimes what you need simply isn't easy to find and you are stuck rolling your own (e.g. head and last operations on tree sets). The JCL is very complete in comparison.

For UI, WPF is pretty good, and .net wasn't meant to be cross platform anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> An API should always take a transaction object as one of its parameters. This allows you to safely run multiple services inside a single atomic transaction. Without this possibility, complexity inevitably ensues.

<comment><USER7> Could you give an example under which circumstances you'd want this?

The last thing I'd want to give an API is such an object in order to do something for me (like committing).

I'd had more than one occasion where I had to pass an InputStream to an API only to find out that it kindly closed it for me. This is unfortunate if you want to pass a ZipInputStream: as it does not hand out separate streams for entries, closing the stream does close the entire stream, not the entry passed.

<comment><USER6> > The last thing I'd want to give an API is such an object in order to do > something for me (like committing).

That's not what the transaction is supposed to be passed for. It's simply passed as a way to ensure that state changes are atomic.

Basically, if you're using transactions inside a program, passing them between functions, that's the same concept. Except now you're passing the transaction to an API.

<comment><USER7> How would the API ensure this when getting passed a transaction? I fail to understand this. A transaction has two main methods, _commit_ and _rollback_ (do I miss some?). I'd never want an API to call those. That's up to the caller.

<comment><USER6> When you manipulate the state of something (e.g. database or memory), then in a transactional system you have to specify in which transaction the change is supposed to occur.

So besides commit and rollback, a transaction has a "change" method, if you'd like to look at it that way. The change method is what makes transactions useful.

And the API function is indeed supposed to call only "change", not "commit" or "rollback".

<comment><USER7> [https://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/api/javax/persistence/Entit...](https://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/api/javax/persistence/EntityTransaction.html) doesn't have this. Could you point to a transaction (preferably in Java) which permits a "change"?

<comment><USER8> I am also baffled as to what this "change" operation is meant to suggest.

Enlisting possibly-unrelated operations in a common transaction is a good tool to have in the toolbox, although it is a tad hairy to bake that into each method signature. Spring's TransactionTemplate presents an alternate approach.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How does it feel to be watched at work? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47879798 <comment><USER2> Small discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19660426](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19660426)</comment>


Planet is 'way off track' in dealing with climate change, U.N. report says - <AUTHOR> https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/multi-agency-report-highlights-increasing-signs-and-impacts-of-climate-change <comment><USER2> Can't help but feel the coronavirus lockdowns are a good trial run for a low carbon world: limited travel, local food and entertainment, less consumption of non-essentials.

<comment><USER3> It's also a great demonstration that it's really hard to get people to believe that something they can't see is real.

Coronavirus cases have been growing stably and predictably for weeks. Epidemiologists (and not only they) saw it coming. No panic would have been necessary if calm, decisive action had been taken early on. But somehow the panic seems to be necessary. Normalcy bias is real.

These past weeks have been really instructive about collective human behavior, and have me really worried about our ability as a species to address climate change.

<comment><USER4> Otoh you see collaborations s.a China sending medical aid to Italy, which makes me feel maybe we do deserve to survive after all.

<comment><USER5> We're still only demonstrating ability to react to a sudden media-worthy crisis that is putting people (including decision makers) at a very minor risk of death in the very short term.

For climate change, we need to demonstrate the ability to proactively avoid a creeping catastrophe that will occur in the medium-long term, where the harm may not happen to current decision makers, but will instead happen to other people who don't get a vote in the decision today, and isn't media worthy since nothing is really changing ("outlook remains bleak").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Poor timing for the publication of this report, to be honest. People have finite emotional capacity for dealing with stress/threats. Most people right now, with the coronavirus going, probably don't have the energy to spend on caring about this, so instead they'll just detach from it (I know that's what I find myself doing). Waiting a month or two would've likely meant a stronger impact.

<comment><USER7> People have been ignoring it for decades now, and it's not going to change due to another UN report regardless of timing. Everyone wants the upper middle class US lifestyle, and the future will have to pay for it.

<comment><USER6> If they did the report, it's because they hoped to make an impact. All I'm suggesting is that whatever impact they were hoping to make, it could've been larger with better timing. Your defeatism has no relevance to that question one way or the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't believe we'll ever succeed in dealing with climate change. It's going to kill us all and the people in power will refuse to accept responsibility the whole while.

Happy to be proven wrong!

<comment><USER9> It's not going to decimate us or kill half of us or most of us, it's going to kill us all? What scenarios get us from here to there, such that _nobody_ can adapt to the changes? Is this hyperbole or do you really think that human extinction is the probable result of AGW?

<comment><USER10> It's an interesting thought. Mass displacement will be a huge issue though. While we do have plenty of landmass in theory, migration of major cities is just.. I cannot possibly fathom how that could ever be organized. We'd panic, loot grocery stores, rob pharmacies, etc. I mean look at what this pandemic has done. You can't even buy cans of beans or toilet paper! My local store is out of bags of dry rice. Of _rice_.

I don't recall where I heard it but before I knew it was a quote, I used to say this all the time: humanity is three square meals away from total annihilation. One day without food and humans will revert right back to our caveman "attack other human, take food" lizard brains.

I definitely went a little off topic from your original post but, "adapt to the changes" isn't honestly something I can fathom happening. I don't know where you live - be it a city or suburbs or otherwise - but think about 30 million people showing up and tell me that doesn't end in a massive disaster.

<comment><USER9> Massive disaster can be a huge distance from human extinction. A 1% die off is a massive disaster but even a 99% megadeath is 75 million people short of killing us all. I haven't seen any likely AGW scenarios that get us close to that. Maybe someone could point me that way.

<comment><USER8> I was using the Planet Venus as a historical precedent of what happens to a planet in our solar system in the conditions of a runaway greenhouse gas effect when I wrote that.

I'm a cryptography-focused security engineer, not a climate scientist.

<comment><USER9> Here's a credible paper asserting that the net feedback is negative:

[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16000870.2019.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16000870.2019.1699387)

I'd have to know a lot more before deciding that either a runaway greenhouse or net cooling is plausible, let alone likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't want to be pessimistic, but I'm working on the assumption that we won't (collectively) enact any plan that (requires coordinated sacrifice of multiple countries) but (allows some country to gain economic / military advantage by gaming the system at others' expense).

So I'm assuming that it's smartest to assume climate change _will_ happen without significant mitigation, and try to minimize the suffering that results.

Now that I think about it, this reminds me a lot of our response to covid-19: I always assumed people lacked the political will for real containment, and we should focus our efforts on "flatting the curve" instead.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am always amused by headlines like this. I do not understand why the people expect earth to react to keep humans alive. Earth does what it does. We do what we do and should be willing to face the consequences.

<comment><USER13> Indeed. This is a point I frequently make to people who say things like "we're destroying the Earth" or "we're destroying nature".

We're not. The Earth, and nature, will be just fine. The question is whether or not the planet will remain conducive to human life.

<comment><USER14> The people you talk to must be so grateful for having a pedant around to correct them

<comment><USER13> I am most definitely a pedant, but this isn't an example of pedantry. This is an important distinction that has escaped a lot of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Now here's a crisis we can deal with. I hope COVID's rapid and haphazard response will teach us drastic changes are not so terrible and not so scarey when implemented slowly.

<comment><USER16> Honestly, I feel like the world leaders' confused, belated, contradictory, and deceitful response to COVID is still miles better than their response to climate change.

Just _imagine_ if climate change today were being met by the kinds of panicked direct interventions, quick decisions, and money being released the way is (fortunately) happening for COVID.

The problem is that climate change is still more like the proverbial frog in hot water, while COVID is more like a frying pan.

<comment><USER17> COVID kills old people, so the people in power (the ones competent to protect their own interests) have taken notice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Only way to deal with this problem is to reduce world GDP by 90%. Won't happen. Prepare for the worst.

<comment><USER19> hahahahahaha you're going to eat your words when this is all over

Coronavirus might not get it down by 90% but 50% is certainly possible.

<comment><USER20> That's an inane take. Even in the absolute worst case scenario of 3% global mortality, how would that possibly result in a 50% global decrease in economic output?

<comment><USER21> I think the main assumption is the remaining 97% of people are working with reduced output if they are working at all. Just because you didn't die doesn't mean you went to work and put in 100% of normal effort.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Svetlana Alexievich Nobel Lecture: On the Battle Lost - <AUTHOR> http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2015/alexievich-lecture_en.html <comment><USER2> This is one of the most powerful speeches I've come across.

I'll explain in short.

It makes me happy that such sadness, fear, pain and suffering is not present today.

On the other hand, It makes me sad that all of that meaning is lost in society and we chase frivolous things. We don't value humans for their humaneness anymore. We value them for their external appearance, and other frivolous things.

I understand that I cannot generalize the general public this way, but remember i'm taking a subjective stance. I'm merely stating its impact on my thoughts, it may be far from the truth or on point. I dont care.

<comment><USER3> > We value them for their external appearance, and other frivolous things.

Like we value King Carl Gustaf for only being born in a royal family, and bow to him while accepting Nobel prizes.

<comment><USER4> I think the respect there comes from what he represents (tradition, collective judgement of the Nobel Committee, respect gained by the Nobel prize as a result of it being awarded to certain people, etc.) not from the actual person of Carl Gustaf. While we can question each of those, e.g. achievements of some of the laureates may appear to many rather questionable today (I won't name names but I have a few in mind and many people do too), I think we can not deny that Nobel prize is still regarded as an esteemed award. So that what people are bowing to, not the external appearance of some old man named Carl.

<comment><USER5> This. Carl XVI Gustaf, as a person, is of questionable importance and virtue. But as king of Sweden he's a living symbol. He's like the flag or something. Achieving this effect is also why European royalty has been widely apoliticized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Nobel Prize winner and the author is a profoundly tragic figure. Unfortunately the English language Wikipedia article on her doesn't begin to describe the level of suffering and pain that her family has experienced and that shaped her childhood.

Unfortunately the suffering she went through caused her to have a very negative bias towards the outside world. Her writings are the epitome of depression: imagine a writer describing San Francisco by focusing just on the parts of the Tenderloin district covered in piss. That is pretty much her unique viewpoint on the world and Russia in particular.

Her family has reasons to have gripes against Russians, given that her parents were Ukrainian and Belorussian minorities who suffered disproportionally when they tried to establish independent states. So take her speeches and her writing with a generous dose of salt. She is well known for her agenda and her unhealthy worldview.

<comment><USER7> That's a pretty ridiculous ad hominem. You don't seem to even try to engage with the substance of what she's saying.

<comment><USER6> Nonsense. My entire argument is about her writing and how it was shaped by her childhood experiences.

<comment><USER8> While being factually true, that's an incredibly shallow view of her work. It's the same as linking all your sexual preferences to (un)resolved Oedipus complex from your childhood -- it's most likely to be true, but doesn't give you any useful insight into the subject matter.

<comment><USER6> >"my politics are closest to that of The Economist newspaper: mildly Libertarian, fiscally conservative, socially liberal where it's practical and pragmatic, cautiously globalist".

now everything falls into place: just like The Economist you are also virulently Russophobic

<comment><USER8> It looks like we're talking about different magazines called The Economist, but I appreciate your interest anyways.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dynamicland: The Next Big Thing Is a Room - <AUTHOR> https://phenomenalworld.org/metaresearch/the-next-big-thing-is-a-room <comment><USER3> I had the pleasure of visiting Dynamicland and hanging out with Peter Norvig, Nicky Case and many others. There's a few things that stuck out for me:

\- _The community!_ Most people I interacted with were pretty inter- disciplinary. Some came from an education heavy background, others from a more programming language background. Some from interface design, others from physical installation or video game background (and everything in between). Everyone had their own degree of skepticism but were excited by the discussions that were happening (a sign of a good research culture!).

\- _The representations_ : What excites me the most about Dynamicland is that it's an environment for fostering unique representations of ideas. The cultural forces & ideas (social programming, remixing, visible state / code at all times, 3d environment, etc) baked into the space encourage the experimentation & creation of new ways of representing complex ideas. Some scattered examples here - [https://twitter.com/dynamicland1?lang=en](https://twitter.com/dynamicland1?lang=en)

\- _Removal of artificial barriers_ : When programming on a computer these days, there's so many barriers to doing simple things. The amount of code that exists to do virtual actions in a virtual world is MASSIVE, and acts as a huge barrier. This is something Bret talks about at the end of his interview on Postlight ([https://postlight.com/trackchanges/podcast/computing-is- ever...](https://postlight.com/trackchanges/podcast/computing-is-everywhere)). Because code / programs in Dynamicland are embodied in the room, you don't need code to move a dialog box or a slider around. You just moved it yourself. This is super powerful and it means your code can focus on the actual computation itself, not on virtual UI movement. Eventually, Dynamicland will have robotics to automate moving of objects, but this already is a great start.

\- _Moving around_ : Moving around, even if it's just around a table, is AWESOME. We're so used to sitting (or standing) at a desk and staying still that we don't get to take advantage of embodied intelligence. We think in SO many different ways, and our "thinking" doesn't just happen in the head. Our arms, legs, stomach, and feet all contribute to the thinking process. Combine that with multi-sensory representations that live across all of these channels and you can explore a thought & idea space SO quickly and uniquely. This is so hard to describe and under-rated. This link ([http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/)) and this talk ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agOdP2Bmieg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agOdP2Bmieg)) attempt to do these ideas justice but it's quite hard to transfer this context!

<comment><USER4> Is it possible to visit Dynamicland as a random interested person? I'm on their mailing list and couldn't make the open house last spring - <USER2> they'll have another one at some point.

<comment><USER3> I made a small donation to Dynamicland and then requested to come by as part of that.

<comment><USER5> How big does that donation have to be, if I may ask?

<comment><USER3> I have no idea to be honest. I just gave a nominal amount, think it was like a hundred dollars. I would happily give a LOT more if I had stronger financial means / if I thought it would actually have an impact.

It seems like they're mostly seeking funding from larger institutions, as crowd-funding such a large research effort isn't really feasible or sustainable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _When I visited Dynamicland in January, I was building on a spreadsheet-like program next to my friend Omar who was building a map-based interface. Just by virtue of sitting next to each other, we were able to keep apprised of what the other was up to. At some point Omar needed a way to input a number to control the zoom of his map. My spreadsheet program had plenty of numbers, and ways to manipulate numbers, so we slid over one of my pieces of paper and it immediately worked to zoom into his maps. Omar decided that he'd prefer a slider-based number-input, and after it was built, he slid it over to my side of the table, and we used a multiplication operator I had built to expand the slider's range. Again, it just worked. At Dynamicland you get composability and interoperability "for free."_

I jumped around a skimmed a bit, so maybe I missed it, but are they prrogramming for the room itself only, or in a framework/library that allows for this, or just in a similar language? Is it all just Javascript and a well defined hierarchy of objects that can be manipulated?

How do two people, working on two separate programs, share implemented functions "for free"? The sliding across the desk portion is irrelevant (well, it's cool, but for this specific question it's no different than sharing a gist link I think), what I'm wondering is the _details_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Omar's article has all those details for you [https://rsnous.com/posts/notes- from-dynamicland-geokit/](https://rsnous.com/posts/notes-from-dynamicland- geokit/)

<comment><USER6> Ah, thanks. For those following along, the details (from what I've found so far) seem to indicate a language they've developed at Dynamiclab for this, Realtalk is used and embeds the idea of the whole platform (papers that can be both sources and targets of information/code) into itself, and how they interact with each other.

So, yes it's a shared language, and yes, it's a shared framework (the language embeds the framework concepts as first class entities in how it functions. That makes sense, and it also explains how some output display function (which would be fairly generic in this context) would be easily shareable, and by the nature of the platform, also immediately shareable if done in a certain way.

It is similar in concept to how Javascript ona webpage has access to the dom, and the bindings for the dom can be expected, so you can write something that transforms a <table> in some way, and expect it to function similarly is other tables are provided. But it might be even more accurate to say it's like CSS, where CSS and the DOM are so closely linked that (at least from the perspective of CSS, if not HTML elements in specific) there is no interop layer, CSS is meant to apply to an HTML document, so it's designed with that in mind and the interop layers are for the most part nonexistent.

So, in that respect Realtalk is sort of like CSS (with more programmability, I think) for this environment of sheets of paper that support input and output. Very cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Light is not a device we charge up and carry around in our pockets. Imagine how much dimmer that world would be: people carrying flashlights, shooting small cones of light wherever they go. It would be a small, lonely, personal world, a world where we only get to see one thing at a time, a world where one of your hands is always full with an electronic gadget." Nicely said

<comment><USER8> I think it's more accurate to say light is not _only_ a device we charge up and carry around in our pockets. I do in fact always carry a flashlight in my pocket and use it fairly regularly and many people use their smartphone as a makeshift flashlight from time to time even if they don't carry a dedicated flashlight. I imagine the extended analogy would likely hold: if Dynamicland type technology becomes common I expect it would co-exist with more traditional computing as well as other newer tech like VR/AR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds terrific. However, it feels like a lot of what they have achieved is marketing existing ideas that were already great, with improved packaging, but in a way that ultimately isn't practical.

Because truly plug-and-play components are an awesome idea. However they are not a new idea at all. As far as I can tell the real reason they are not more popular is because us programmers are worried we will be accused of being users if we use tools that are interactive. See Visual Basic 6 (which was an amazing system). Of course programmers do not realize this psychological issue exists and will not admit it is a possibility.

But in the context of Bret Victor's lab with the projectors and little pieces of paper, that puts plug and play components in a different category that makes them more palatable.

Also, projector based AR is much more convenient for people to demo than HMDs, but also not very practical for widespread deployment. But AR is amazing in general and this allows them a friction free way to demo its power with components.

But I think that multiplayer real-time collaborative interactive component based AR programming should definitely be a more common thing. It combines the advantages of all of those techniques. I also think though that all of those things are useful in lesser combinations. I believe a big part of the reason at least some of those things are not used more or more effectively is cultural or psychological rather than technical or practical.

The thing is the more you take advantage of components and interactivity the less you use the complex colored encoded text. That means programmers can spend a significant amount of time snapping together components and configuring them. Unfortunately programmers are not able to recognize this as programming. We have a feeling the more we do it the more we may lose our special incanter status and be classified as users.

<comment><USER10> > us programmers are worried we will be accused of being users if we use tools > that are interactive. [...] Of course programmers do not realize this > psychological issue exists and will not admit it is a possibility.

It would be nice if you explained what you even mean by this instead of just claiming that programmers who don't agree are in denial.

What programmer is embarrassed to also be a user? And programmers use interactive tools all time. REPLs, debuggers, editors, GUI design tools, and live-reloading web servers all qualify in my book.

<comment><USER10> Also keep in mind that when you stack abstractions on top of each other, the whole stack gets more brittle. So if you want me to use your better idea, it shouldn't abstract over the thing you're trying to replace.

To give an example: if you want to replace hierarchical filesystems you shouldn't build a thing that hides them from me, you should build a thing that doesn't use them at all. (This isn't a hard rule, sometimes exceptions are worth the trade-off.)

Understandably, this means changing things is a LOT more work than you're probably prepared for. Don't assume that we're only stuck in the past for bad reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can I build a Dynamicland clone in my area? That'd be excellent. For all the press this thing gets (from time to time), I still see neither designs, plans, nor code that I can use. Is this because Bret Victor shares _ideas_ and expects that if the world finds them valuable, they'll implement their own? Or is there another motivation to hold this close?

Maybe someone has to build an Open competitor so that we can address problems mentioned by other commenters. Maybe I'll do that here in my hometown and share it with everyone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Jan Paul beat you to it [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16211516](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16211516)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Shut Dynamicland down and focus all Bretts and the rest of the teams energy on building these collab interaction ideas into AR.

Dynamicland has 2 components - the paper and projector idea which is bad, and the interactive OS and systems which are fantastic. Replace the paper and projector with AR glasses and you have a winner.

AR allows exactly what you want - real time dynamic collab 3d interactions. Paper does not. It's 2D, flat, limited, with occlusion. You've just taken 2D screens and reversed the light source.

Dynamicland is a sunk cost. Drop it fast. Move to AR.

<comment><USER13> I was thinking the same thing. Does this technology offers anything more than AR? It seems the answer is no, unless you really don't want any glasses on your face.

<comment><USER14> Brett has a thing with actually holding what we are interacting with. He believes that the sense of touch and how our fingers evolved isn't being used by any computing medium yet.. Further like the article mentions, immersing into total virtual worlds shall leave our bodies immobile

<comment><USER12> Finger tracking and finger haptics both have good working prototypes in AR.

I'm talking above about full body standalone/wireless headset AR (like magic leap) not "point your phone camera at a QR card" AR. Full body is active and immersive. You can jump, run, turn around, and it tracks and models the 3D space around you in real time. It really is something special, and Bretts talents in dynamic collaboration are exactly what is needed in this new tech field.

Instead he's huddled under projectors pinning paper QR codes to chipboard like it's 1980 when he could and should be pushing the frontier of interaction and design where his work can make a huge difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Everything old is new again. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laApNiNpnvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laApNiNpnvI) (Xerox EuroParc 1991)

<comment><USER3> It's funny you say that. This is something Alan Kay talks about at length. For example, watch the first 20 mins of this talk - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU- Xc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc)

Essentially, he asserts that computing (or computer science even) isn't a real field (like biology or physics). Most people can't name the early computing pioneers whose work they build on (not true in Physics or Biology, we celebrate the pioneers) nor are they familiar with the work that was done in the Xerox PARC days.

It's gotten so bad that a lot of computer science research just assumes that what we have now is what's going to remain forever. In the 70's, all kinds of interesting ideas and experiments were tried.

Hardware implemented VM's, direct manipulation programming, OS-free computing environments, highly re-configurable computing a la FPGA's, and hundreds more.

Nowadays, we think that creating custom ASIC to run machine learning algorithms quicker is innovative and novel.

All this to say that many of the ideas in Dynamicland aren't new. They're rooted in ideas that are decades old. If you look at Bret's papers he uses as references frequently, you'll notice how many of them are over 10 years old - [http://worrydream.com/refs/](http://worrydream.com/refs/)

<comment><USER16> Just a personal anecdote, I gave a talk about D. C. Engelbart last week to my research group and none of them knew him beforehand.

<comment><USER3> Then you'd especially love Alan's talk!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This seems to be the next Xerox Parc! I tried to find some explanatory Videos but wasn't successful. Has anyone some links to this highly intriguing experiment?

</comment><comment><USER18> Physical computing sounds like an incredibly limiting environment, like using FrontPage rather than HTML, CSS and JavaScript. How do you do anything abstract on a platform like this? How do you i integrate any two arbitrary pieces of software? How do you apply basic programming practices such as functional (as opposed to copy/paste) reuse? Or do you end up modifying code the 95% of the time the abstraction hinders rather than helps?

I really hope this isn't how we teach programming to the next generation, because it will severely limit their understanding of what makes programming great.

<comment><USER19> I would look at this at opening up a new additional way of computing, not limiting how computing works in general.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wish I could work with people who are as interdisciplinary as this team. As an interdisciplinarian myself (psychology, busses, computer science and game- design) I need a place to belong and shine creatively.

</comment><comment><USER21> The Sony Xperia Touch ought to be able to do this. That's a nice projector- based touch system.

Possible application: interactive restaurant menus. Some places have tried handing out tablets, but you have to have someone hand them out and retrieve them. The system has a camera, so have it recognize open space on the table and people in seats. Present people with menus projected on unused table space. Plus you can offer customers games while they wait.

(Inevitably, someone will put in ads.)

</comment><comment><USER22> This looks amazing. Such a refreshingly different take on things, and such a beautiful -- and realized! -- positive vision for how we might interact with technology and each other. Brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER23> How does one get a tour of Dynamicland? Is it open to visitors and/or is there some way to get invited?

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not understanding how this works. What actions let you create a new table in Postgres or drop an index? Are there ways to install new software like pip?

<comment><USER25> As far as I understand Dynamicland is not a general purpose OS that tries to do everything. If you want to manage PostgreSQL, the shell is a pretty good way to do that.

Dynamicland looks like a real world IDE, where a lot of the interface consists of physical objects.

It's more like a Mathematica notebook than a bash shell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > At Dynamicland computing is social like cooking is social. It's also > physical like cooking is physical. You're not seated in front of a single- > person screen, but walking around an open space, using a range of tools.

Ya lost me. I hate cooking specifically because of the physicality, of the different tools, etc. If I liked cooking and all that shit, I'd be a chef.

<comment><USER27> >If I liked cooking and all that shit, I'd be a chef.

It'd a pretty dull existence if the only things you liked to do could be determined solely by your current job

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This works great when a small, gifted and creative community has tight controls on the process.

But how will it work when non-creative people take the technology and make it bland — and infuse it with ads, because that is the only viable business model that tech seems to be able to come up with.

<comment><USER3> This is always a risk with inventing something new. Their FAQ hints at how they plan to mitigate some of the negative effects - [https://dynamicland.org/faq/](https://dynamicland.org/faq/)

They want to mirror the Carnegie library model as much as possible. They're also non-profit and not interested in building a product that can be purchased (instead they think of this technology as infrastructure available to almost everyone, like the internet or running water).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Thanks for an excellent article Steve, I thought it captured the spirit of the place quite well.

</comment><comment><USER28> Does dynamicland have any kind of permissions / access system, also with regards to pieces of the room, or the whole room, or is root access to the system also controlled physically, like a conference room projector?

<comment><USER30> no, on purpose. I single person can crash the entire system (it reboots quickly). A single person can spam the entire facility. This is, at least the moment, intentional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> i don't see the big difference other than just virtual interacting, other than lots of clutter; and as miki123211 said..accessibility seems like it would be quite an issue which is very important to me

</comment><comment><USER32> Still not open source. Or "beyond" open source.

</comment><comment><USER33> Really? Red thin text on white background? I'm sorry, I will not read it. Is this the purpose of this site? What's the sense in writing something normal people cannot read?

And yet it gets to the 1st page on HN, no one complains, and my comment will get huuuge number of negative points, I know, as usually when someone posts a comment about this kind of bad design of a page/author people worship.

<comment><USER25> I liked the red text. It's a very well designed layout, and the color choice - while arguably questionable - gives it personality. Not every site needs to look the same.

The fact that it has a lot of upvotes shows that aparently many people don't have issues with the presentation.

Anyway, my browser has a "reader" mode that lets me make any website readable with a single click, so I've stopped complaining about hard-to-read aticles. Better to focus on the substance of the article...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> ... so .... virtual legos?

</comment><comment><USER35> It's nice and all, but this is a nightmare for accessibility. Not everyone can read paper or even move around. With this design, coding around those limitations is not easy. In the current model, everything could be done 100% accessibly. Why it isn't is a completely different problem. When everything is inherently physical, though, accessibility is not just about the code, it involves much more parts, such as automated devices to move things around. Considering how expensive devices made for accessibility are (a braille display is usually well over $1000), that would be a huge setback. I think the beautiful thing about computers and technology is that you're not tied to any physical medium and that information can flow freely between devices that can represent it in different ways. Now, there can be ten programmers working on a codebase, where one person uses a normal Windows box with a lot of GUI editors, another one uses Linux in text mode with vim, a third one has a Mac Mini with a screen reader and no monitor attached (my also blind friend programs like that), and the fourth uses switches, eye movement sensors or voice-recognition technology because they're physically disabled (see [https://youtu.be/YRyYIIFKsdU?t=501](https://youtu.be/YRyYIIFKsdU?t=501)). In other words, when everything is purely digital, you can consume and manipulate information in any form you like and in any form the computer can work with. It can be on a smartphone screen and with your finger, on a TV with a remote, through a voice-controlled speaker or a laptop with a keyboard, the choice is yours. The information is purely digital and not tied to a particular medium. However, in Dynamicland, the information is mostly physical and it's the computer that needs to process it, not the other way around. That makes consuming the information through a different medium than it was originally presented with very difficult. It would be possible for a computer to describe a Dynamicland environment for the blind, but it wouldn't be easy for a blind person to write the code on Paper. In a normal computer environment, such a person can just use a different tool (AKA a screen reader instead of a display) and work on the level of their sighted peers. However, a dYnamicland environment makes such things impossible.

I recognize the limited Value of Dynamicland as an exercise environment, maybe like Scratch. Even in that form, special considerations would need to be put so that disabled people have an alternative way of doing the same exercises.

Dynamicland makes a lot of other things, not related to accessibility, harder too. For example, how do you deal with larger codebases or distributed teams? How do you quickly collaborate on one piece of paper while being in two different places? Very simple to do for a Google doc. Almost impossible to do here.

The idea is kind of interesting but it would be only worth it in a pre- internet age. In 2018, people expect realtime collaboration with people in different parts of the world and with Dynamicland, that's not going to happen.

<comment><USER36> I wrote to Dynamicland's email address about this months ago, and even re-sent the email, but never got an answer.

I suppose it's inevitable that if this vision of the future takes off, we'll be second-class participants. But I guess it's too much to ask the majority to not work in a way that would be great for them, just because it's a new challenge for a few of us. We'll figure it out.

<comment><USER35> I think even sighted people will realize it's not great at all when they actually start doing it. It kind of would be, if it was introduced in the 80s, where there was almost no internet, not for home users anyway, and where laptops were mostly in the early adopters phase. This basically undoes the progress we've made during the last two decades. The internet has allowed us to collaborate remotely, and smartphones have enabled us to take the internet with us, anywhere we go. Dynamicland makes those things almost impossible to achieve.</comment></comment></comment>


PayPal Restores Seafile's Account after File-Monitoring Row - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/paypal-seafile-monitoring/ <comment><USER2> Sure, an apology - because the negative PR is starting to hurt Paypal.

But how many other tens or hundreds of other companies experience the same kind of censorship from Paypal, but never get to cause the same level of outrage for Paypal to "apologize"?

</comment><comment><USER3> The page does not translate very well, but is PayPal admitting fault here? Does this open them up to litigation from Seafile?

</comment><comment><USER4> Remember, customer outrage (sometimes) works!

</comment><comment><USER5> Paypal only apologizes when they can't get away with being themselves quietly.

</comment><comment><USER6> So, they apologize. I'm sure the damage inflicted is noticable, will PayPal cover that?

And this is the problem of the modern service industry: they never stand in for damages, even if the damage is inflicted through a wilful decision. As a client, you are at their whim.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been hoping they would become a better partner as an independent company. Maybe this is the first sign.

</comment><comment><USER8> After working with a non-profit who had transactions frozen because they mentioned Cuba in a comment field I have stopped using Paypal on all future projects. It's easy to implement for non profits but it's just not worth it to these people to have to worry about the hassle of actually getting their money.

</comment><comment> ryan-c This appears to contains comments from a previous post that linked to google translate, but I don't see a comment from dang mentioning a change/merge. Too early in the morning?

<comment><AUTHOR> It was changed by 'sctb':

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961301)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> And yet again, no explanation what this "illegal content" is supposed to be.

<comment><USER2> Or a change to a more clear policy for that matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If not a duplicate at least here's a non translated form for English users.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11960092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11960092)

<comment><USER11> wow, at least the translated verion mentions seafile in the title. the fortine article doesn't mention it at all in the title, just dropbox alternative

<comment><USER10> Yeah that site has odd SEO - I believe this is why Google uses multiple methods to parse an article title - as such I'm pretty sure they parsed the title from the <title> tag on that page

If you search the link on most search engine's it shows that the title is "PayPal Restores Account of Dropbox Rival Seafile After Monitoring Row"

"<title>PayPal Restores Account of Dropbox Rival Seafile After Monitoring Row - Fortune</title>"

Of course the article title in-line doesn't have that but it was probably a bad move on the developer's part to not create as much duplicated content on the page would be my guess as to why that occurred.

Either way it is very confusing I agree!

Just thought users would like a non-translated form as not everyone can spend extra time re-reading sentences to understand the exact context of the article!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Let me guess "We are sorry that you went public with our unlawful request"?

<comment><USER13> The request wasn't unlawful - it might not be legally required, but it's fine for any business to impose almost any requirement on any other business before doing business with them.

<comment><USER14> It violated EU privacy law if my understanding is correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://www.golem.de/news/sperrung-paypal-entschuldigt- sich-b...](http://www.golem.de/news/sperrung-paypal-entschuldigt-sich-bei- dropbox-alternative-seafile-1606-121694.html)

The original for everyone capable at reading German.

<comment><USER16> Man sagt "capable of reading" und nicht "capable at reading."

Tut mir leid, wenn das unhöfflich ist, aber ich gehe davon aus, wir alle besser schreiben wollen. :)

<comment><USER17> Es heißt "unhöflich", und da fehlt ein "dass" (...gehe davon aus, dass wir alle...).

Stilistisch etwas besser wäre: "Es tut mir leid, wenn das unhöflich wirkt, aber ich gehe davon aus, dass wir alle unseren Schreibstil verbessern wollen." (I'd say the first comma should be left out, but I have the tendency to leave out vital commas as well, so...)

;)

<comment><USER16> Bah. Das ist was passiert, wann man Deutsch in Berlin gelernt hat. Schlampig und umgangssprachlich.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Slightly off topic, but does anyone else feel like the article title used here ("Paypal apologizes to Dropbox Alternative seafile") is a pretty big slap in the face to Seafile?

First off, why include "Dropbox Alternative"? Putting the competitor's name in an article title about the other company? Seems a bit odd/kind of putting down Seafile. That'd be like seeing "XYZ happens to Twitter alternative Facebook."

Secondly, they didn't even capitalize Seafile's company name, but they did capitalize the competition's name (Dropbox).

May not seem like much but it's pretty shitty, if you ask me.

EDIT: I guess the 2nd point is more the fault of Google Translate. I still think the first point sticks. It's odd to have that in the title, it wouldn't be as weird if that was in the body of the article, though.

<comment><USER19> I don't think it's shitty. Firstly nobody knows who seafile is, so it's just clearer. Secondly, by comparing them to Dropbox they are also acknowledging that seafile is a "legit" file sharing company.

<comment><USER20> I agree. By adding "Dropbox alternative" everybody immediately knows what the company Seafile is doing...

<comment><USER21> Like snooping on their users' files, and reporting them to the police? Because that's what Dropbox is doing, and is exactly the opposite of what Seafile is doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I still don't understand how anyone does business with Paypal. Their abuses and shitty business practices like this just continue, and will only continue to get more abhorrent. This is yet another tissue paper apology issued after the fact it's already cost someone business, and only offered after it made more bad press for Paypal.

There are alternatives now. You don't have to keep doing business with these colossal assholes.

<comment><USER23> Many people who won't give you their credit card number will pay you via PayPal, because PayPal is perceived to have more consumer protection. (They maintain that perception by having a massive bias towards consumers at the expense of merchants.) Some people who don't _have_ credit cards use PayPal.

<comment><USER24> Paypal follows the sane system of having the payer tell them who and how much to pay, instead of CC's process where the seller tells them "it's cool, the buyer totally wanted me to have $X" and the payment processor simply complies.

/rant

(Yes, 3-D secure exists, but as a user it's impossible to verify that the site is actually using it before handing over the CC info)

<comment><USER23> Agreed; this and actual cryptographic signatures should be a requirement to process any payment.

I'd like that for a bill pay system, too. Right now, I have to choose between systems with direct bank account access that can debit any amount, or systems that require manual entry of amounts. I'd like to see a standard where the source of a bill sends an invoice to my bank, and I then direct the bank to pay it (either via direct authorization, or by setting parameters like "automatically pay if less than $X").

<comment><USER24> What pains me is that the committee that created the new SEPA Direct Debit standard had the choice (the two processes were used in different EU countries) and they chose the dumb one!

We actually had a sane direct debit system here in Portugal, in which the invoice would come with a code that you could input into your bank's site or ATM, therefore authorizing future debits from that company. It was safe, it could be easily revoked, and we lost it to implement SEPA's crappy version.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Observable universe contains ten times more galaxies than previously thought - <AUTHOR> http://astronomynow.com/2016/10/13/observable-universe-contains-ten-times-more-galaxies-than-previously-thought/ <comment><USER2> Main HN discussion is here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12702759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12702759)

Incidentally, it is interesting to see how many folks uniformly have the same misconception that dark matter is only about explaining galactic rotation curves. Obviously it's not at all surprising or troubling that laymen aren't experts, but the mistaken information is really far from random.

</comment><comment><USER3> To answer questions:

1) We still need dark matter. This mostly focuses on small satellite galaxies. Not galactic rotation, galaxy cluster interaction, or light lending though Galaxy Clusters.

2) The main interesting tidbit is that it seems the density of Galaxies in the Universe has changed sharply in the past 1billion years. Which may lend more data points to Dark Energy/Inflation models.

</comment><comment><USER4> We build a bigger, better telescope. Soon... "Observable universe contains 100x more galaxies than previously thought"

Downvote me all you want, I've seen the predicted amount of galaxies in the universe increase by factors of 10 and 100 time and time again over the years. This is not the first time our scientists' best guess has increased by a factor of 10 and it won't be the last.

</comment><comment><USER5> Could that mean that we don't need a dark matter theory?

<comment><USER6> I don't think so. Dark matter is needed to explain the contents / behavior of galaxies we can see. This article is talking about galaxies we can't see.

On that note, here's some interesting / related recent news in terms of a galaxy we have a hard time seeing: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of- science/wp/2016/08/25/a-new-class-of-galaxy-has-been-discovered-one-made- almost-entirely-of-dark-matter/)

<comment><USER7> It's very important to note that unlike what the media reports, there is no new classification in astronomy of "dark matter galaxies" added due to this discovery.

This is the original paper for Dragonfly 44 [https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06291](https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06291)

There are a lot of question about the composition of that galaxy, and what makes it so dimm, but we need a lot more observations of that galaxy in order to even start asking the right questions including full spectral analysis from multiple observations and tools, correct redshifting and depth placement, ensuring that there is nothing in the way that could explain why it is so dim and many more other factors.

We also need to find other candidates of highly/ultra diffused galaxies in order to even start to try to figure out what is going on.

<comment><USER6> Yes I read the paper and I know what you mean, the media loves to jump to conclusions. Of course, they're also the reason I even found out about it. I'm super excited to read what comes from the future observations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Plot twist: they don't actually exist; it's like looking into the sparkles in car paint under a constantly changing POV and direction of light.</comment>


The Iran Cables - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/18/world/middleeast/iran-iraq-spy-cables.html <comment><USER2> Another fascinating expose from leaked documents distributed from within. Report also links to "History of US Army in Iraq War"

[https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/3667.pdf](https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/3667.pdf)</comment>


The Dark Master of Russian Film - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/jan/31/dark-master-russian-film/

<comment><USER2> A.German is one of my favorite directors, but something keeps me from watching _Hard to Be a God_. Probably out of fear of being disappointed after reading so many negative reviews.

But he does have a unique, inimitable style. His cinematography is as far from the mainstream as it can get. His signature chaotic dialogues and remarks, as if you are watching casual home video, except as we know everything that happens in German's films is staged and well thought through to the smallest detail. He can be sadistic to the viewer, as well as warm and melancholic. One thing I can guarantee you, watch any of his films and you will never forget it, whether you liked it or not.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra The movie is disturbing but IMO worth it. Think of it as middle ages youtube footage.

<comment><USER3> Only that the real Middle Ages weren't so bad (on average).</comment></comment>