IT leaders trust Microsoft more than Google, 2-to-1 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3207 <comment><USER2> That's a potentially deadly problem I call "management by managers".

One can also refer to Scott Adams' point-haired boss character for further enlightenment.

<comment><USER3> You said what I was going to say and you're absolutely correct. This must be the stupidest comment and opinion I've read in a long time:

The skeptical attitude toward Google was best summed up by Donna Trivison, Director of IT for Ursuline College, who wrote, "There seems to be some conventional wisdom that Google is the answer to what's been wrong over the years in the Microsoft universe. That kind of thinking may be dangerous. As consumers of technology we need to keep each and every business partner honest and working for us. Handing trust carte blanche over to Google because, as the wisdom goes, they are good citizens, seems misguided to me. If I had to pick one, it would probably be Microsoft because they have withstood the scrutiny their misdeeds have landed them. Google remains, for the most part, untested."

<comment><USER4> That attitude is so amazingly pervasive throughout all IT. The notion of only buying something that is "tested" is due to most managers' risk aversion. They are not willing to bet their jobs on some company or technology until x% of their peers have already done it.

<comment><USER5> You are totally right about the pervasive attitude throughout corporate IT organizations. The only point I would question is the "..willing to lose their jobs.." part. Most corporate IT orgs have their story so well prepared to deflect blame in the case of failures that employees are rarely, if ever terminated. Instead the business takes the failure on the chin and all of us in technology have to deal with the reduction in credibility.

<comment><USER2> There is a tendency the higher profile a failed project is, the highest the chance to redefine success based on its results.

This stems from the pain of firing the high-level executive that signed the check. The larger the check, the higher the executive is in the corporate ladder and the more painful the firing, thus, the executive is never fired because the project cannot fail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey, who you trust more?:

a)A program that is in your own servers - computers. b)A program that is on others computers.

So difficult to understand why people trust A more than B. Whatever they promise you, they can look at your data if they want, not so easy in A.

E.g The NSA have the option to see whatever they want in the USA, they have it so easy to do industrial espionage against other countries(they did it with airbus, with national security excuses).

Google can't say no to NSA. Microsoft either(they let them put backdoors in their software), but is not so easy.

<comment><USER7> What in the world makes you think Microsoft lets _anyone_ put backdoors into their software?

<comment><USER6> They need to send their network and security code to NSA for inspection, they look at it and MODIFY, they don't know in some cases what does the modification does.

It has been that way from 1995 days(I had family members working in MS at that time).It's normal, they are a US company after all.

I'm too lazy for citation, just search by yourself, here you can look at the "there are good contributions from NSA" probe: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/01...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/01/08/AR2007010801352.html)

You know, we "can be all terrorist" mentality, like the printers mark, they need some way of accessing any computer just in case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So to summarize:

"Microsoft sucks, but I know their stuff, and I'm too afraid to change."

Also, 12 people, from companies of which I've heard of two (NAMICO and Lincoln Financial) do not a comprehensive poll make.

</comment><comment><USER9> And how many of these same IT managers route every last piece of corporate email through Postini?

The hypocrisy and FUD in corporate IT is out of control.

Most IT managers today are survivors from the days when "IT" was basically a blue-collar job - running cables, installing switches, and hiring other companies to do all the application layer work. Their days are numbered, so they cling to the glory days when desktop software made by Microsoft made everything so difficult for end users that a huge in-house IT organization was viewed as a necessary evil.

</comment><comment><USER10> n = 12 ?

i'd love to see this poll done with startups: founders that were in diapers when DOS was launched. also, for the 8 that voted microsoft, what do their organizations as a whole vote toward?

</comment><comment><USER11> All that just to say _"No-one ever got fired for buying IBM"_ ?

<comment><USER2> I have one example of someone who was fired because he bought IBM</comment></comment>


Moving from bash to zsh - <AUTHOR> http://askubuntu.com/questions/1577/moving-from-bash-to-zsh <comment><USER2> Recommend reading zsh-lovers (<http://grml.org/zsh/zsh-lovers.html>).

Also check the zsh reference card on the sourceforge website. Learn the various techniques of globbing on the command line.

For zsh-lovers to make sense, you have to also refer to the zsh reference card (zsh sourceforge.net site) as well as the User Manual by Peter Stephenson (pws).

<http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide.html>

<http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/zsh_toc.html>

I have found the zsh-users mailing list to be a great place to get the best and quickest answers. The folks who maintain zsh such as pws and others who have been there for over 12 years (such as Bart Schaffer), answer questions.</comment>


Show HN: The JavaScript Way, a book for learning modern JavaScript from scratch - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bpesquet/thejsway/# <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, author here.

Backstory: I'm a CS engineer/teacher and this book is a side project started in December 2016. You can read a bit more about it here: [https://medium.com/@bpesquet/walk-this-javascript- way-e9c45a...](https://medium.com/@bpesquet/walk-this-javascript- way-e9c45ab5b696).

The writing process is now completed and I'm actively looking for feedback to make the book better. Any opinion or advice about content, pricing, or that hastily created Leanpub cover would be greatly appreciated. However, please keep in mind that this is a self-published effort still far from being polished and open to improvement.

I'd also like this thread to stay focused on the book itself, not on the merits/weaknesses of JavaScript or the usefulness of choosing it as a first programming language.

Thanks in advance!

<comment><USER3> Nice. Thanks for sharing.

Bravo for burrito recipe. I'm convinced I became a programmer in 4th grade. Our creative writing assignment was instructions for making a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Then our teacher followed our instructions literally. Hilarity ensued.

\---

I think the Intro's link to the local env setup in the appendix is broken.

Anymore, I always check the colophon first, then decide to proceed.

I applaud the online option.

I'm dubious of the local option. "Install the latest XYZ" will bite you (your students). Especially with JavaScript and nodejs. Mayflies live longer.

For future, should tutorials start with Docker images, or scripts, or virtualbox images, or something, to mitigate digital drift? Hoping other commenters will share their ideas, experiences.

<comment><USER4> Re: nodeJS versions, I'd go with something like "Install NodeJS, this book was written with version x.y.z"; I don't think JS will become backwards incompatible in the near future, so as long as the book doesn't contain experimental or unofficial JS features, it should be fine for the next 5-10 years.

<comment><USER5> Anecdotal I suppose, but I have an app that was written for node 5 and it doesn't work on 6+. I'm sure I could figure out and upgrade it, but it's not too high on the priorities yet thanks to nvm. Oh, and it's not the code, it's one or more of the npm modules.

<comment><USER6> Odds are that it is a native module. That's unfortunate, but there is a plan in place to make a consistent native module API: [https://github.com/nodejs/abi-stable-node](https://github.com/nodejs/abi- stable-node)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just got home from teaching JavaScript to a room full of people who've never written a line of code in their life.

This book is missing something critical that most intros to JavaScript overlook:

How does the student set up the plumbing and run their code?

It's amazing how much of a hump this is for many trying to get started. It also amazes me how oblivious most of us programmers are to it.

"Just open Chrome Dev Tools" or "put this in a file and run Node" are really strange computer tasks to someone who has never typed and executed code.

<comment><USER8> > "Just open Chrome Dev Tools" or "put this in a file and run Node" are really > strange computer tasks to someone who has never typed and executed code.

While not a perfect answer to the issue, I often tend to wonder whether or not we lost something in the transition from traditional microcomputers (Apple IIe, Commodore, TRS-80, etc) to the PC era...?

Actually, even in the early PC era, the PC booted to ROM BASIC; this was how personal microcomputers worked.

That said, in the very early history of personal computing, with machines like the Altair, IMSAI, and Sol - these machines "out of the box" (so to speak) didn't drop immediately into a ROM BASIC or "monitor"; they usually had to be "booted" off of some paper tape or other storage media hosting the boot process (I wasn't around during that period, but I wonder if that was only a part - if you then had to "bootstrap" your way up the stack to get to something useful? I know on the Altair, unless you had it set up in ROM to boot from, you had to hand-toggle some initial boot code in just to read the larger boot process from paper tape). All of this process was virtually identical to how commercial and larger systems were booted.

But the Apple changed this, and made the "personal microcomputer" accessible to the general public. Now, they could power it on, and get to a prompt of some sort. It still didn't do much, but it wasn't as arcane. All you had to do was type some stuff...and...you got something in return: A recipe filing system, a calendar, a poem, a maze, a game of some sort (Hunt the Wumpus!), etc.

This continued to be the case for (about) a couple of decades - the first real crack in this was the introduction of the Macintosh, but most people stuck with the other systems, with the Mac relegated to the desktop publishing realm mostly (at which it really excelled). Things started to really change in the late 1980s and early 90s - mainly because of the introduction of more usable versions of DOS and (later) Windows. Thus, the PC era was born.

People began to stop being creators (of software) and started to become consumers instead. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing - there were still creators of course, but this marked a split; there were now two distinct camps being formed.

With this, though, began the difficulty in teaching programming - if you didn't know how to get to the interpreter or compiler, you would have a difficult time learning.

So here we are today. Fortunately, the answer seems to be coming from the web: There are more than a few sites out there that let you examine, edit, and run code all from your browser, for more languages than you might have thought existed (and new ones are added constantly). It isn't the same as it was (from when I was a kid), but maybe in a way it is better: Help - whether from others or from some other resource, is just a few clicks away (no longer do you have to thumb thru magazines or books trying to formulate an answer)...

<comment><USER9> I disagree with the "People began to stop being [creators/hacker]" part - <USER2> existing people didn't change, the market OPENED UP to allow people who were not hackers and computer experts to be computer users. This is a good thing; otherwise computers would have remained a niche hobby like ham radio or woodcarving.

You're right that the average computer owner is not as savvy about the internals as before, but that's just because the pool of computer owners has expanded so much, on account of the simpler and consistent and more learnable interfaces.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. PCs scaled to billions of users. Programming knowledge scales to a much lower level, I believe there's only millions of programmers or at best tens of millions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think that the best book ever about JS for everyone, especially for those starting from scratch is [https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know- JS](https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS) you simply don't need anything else

<comment><USER12> Completely agree, YDKJS is a great book for learning the language. In my opinion though, it's not the best book for how to practically use JS in the real world. It would be a great supplement for those looking to learn more about language details with the book the OP posted.

<comment><USER11> You can only learn how to practically use the language by...practicing it in the real world. No book can teach you that because the real world is too complex.

<comment><USER13> Disagree.. A book could easily show you some basics for project/directory structure, basic code organization, documentation, simple defaults that can really make life easier for a noob. With that he can get used to it and compare code he has to work, or is reading, with what he has already been taught.

<comment><USER11> I think it's undeniable that we spend most of our time by debugging and fixing the existing code structure, bugs, defects and sometimes adding new features. I highly doubt of existence of a book that can teach how to effectively do that. It's a luxury and real pleasure if you are asked to create the project from scratch in a real job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> le-mark Very, very nice. I briefly went over some chapters and I especially admire the 'no framework' approach you've taken. I believe there's a real need for a book like this, kudos to you for making it happen! What inspired you to create this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your nice comment.

I'm currently writing a blog post about this experience. Expect it soon on [https://medium.com/@bpesquet](https://medium.com/@bpesquet).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another great JS book on github...

[https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS](https://github.com/getify/You- Dont-Know-JS)

<comment><USER15> This is a pretty great one, and one of the books I recommend for anyone who is learning JS.

My favorite book to recommend though is Eloquent JavaScript (also free). Just a fantastic, readable, intro to programming and JS.

[http://eloquentjavascript.net/](http://eloquentjavascript.net/)

<comment><USER16> Eloquent is good if your have prior programming experience. It starts easy but the 4th chapter goes quickly to a level above what I'd expect a beginner to understand without some exposure to programming or general CS theory. The exercises include a recursive list and recursive deep comparison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you ask me all that you need to know about modern JavaScript is that it exists mainly to sell online learning material.

But I may be a bitter old man and your resource looks pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER18> Saw this on Reddit last night, poked around on a few pages. It's great! Love the movie list example on this page: [https://github.com/bpesquet/thejsway/blob/master/manuscript/...](https://github.com/bpesquet/thejsway/blob/master/manuscript/chapter10.md). Going from "for" loops into map/filter/reduce concepts is an excellent way to teach!

</comment><comment><USER19> This is great!

I am fairly familiar with programming having done both AS, Lingo and PHP I understand code when I see it. I am however not a programmer but more a technically oriented product designer and so I don't get to practice as often.

I have been trying to get into javascript and while I understand all the fundamentals it's still not something that I feel comfortable doing which is a shame as it's kind of the language of the internet.

Skimming through this books it looks like the perfect way for me to spend my next two weeks of vacation so thank you so much.

Is there a way to to donate to you?

Having made something as comprehensive as this you need to think about how to break it up so that you keep users engaged and so that you cam maximise your revenue. Selling books is mostly a spike and then long slow ramp towards halt so make sure you keep your content alive.

If I may come with two suggestions.

1\. Make a forum for your readers perhaps in the form of an online reading group so that you have someone to go through the book with.

2\. Make a step by step email course where you go through the book and have people turn in assignments perhaps even in forums.

3\. Let people hire you as a private teacher perhaps build up . a network of private teachers. (Ok that was three suggestions)

These I think would be great ways to monetize.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your nice comment and for these suggestions.

You can support my work by buying the ebook version on Leanpub: [https://leanpub.com/thejsway](https://leanpub.com/thejsway).

Monetization is not my #1 priority right now, but that might change later ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What all these tutorials omit is the tradeoffs JavaScript and node incur in order to be simple and friendly.

\- In JavaScript: no type annotations, numbers are floating point numbers, garbage collected, no multi-threading in the language spec. There are some ways to workaround these limitations, but they're not a part of the language.

\- The concurrency model of node, based on libuv event loop. This dictates what node is good for and what is not good for. Short lived tasks = good. Long lived tasks = bad (service degradation + cascading failures bad)

</comment><comment><USER21> I love the tl;dr section. It's basically what I have do when reading books, in order to recall the essential information without having to read the entire chapter again. Well played.

</comment><comment><USER22> Should one learn ES2015 before learning ES5? Is there any value or need to learn ES5 if you're not maintaining an old codebase?

<comment><USER23> Not all browsers support ES2015 so knowing ES5 first is helpful.

<comment><USER24> Except on almost any serious project you should be using a transpiler anyways.

<comment><USER25> transpiler?

<comment><USER26> It converts your ES6 code into Javascript that can run on all browsers. It's how you can get advanced Javascript features before the browsers fully implement them. Look up Babel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Looks great. I love modern JS, and the faster everyone can move on, the better!

I didn't see any async/await stuff though, is there a reason for that? I'd imagine it would make some code much easier to follow.

<comment><USER28> > and the faster everyone can move on, the better!

Why? Where does this mindset come from?

<comment><USER29> Direct style is easier to reason about. Control passes onto the next line consistently, for both async and sync operations.

Do you _really_ prefer callbacks or just use them because they were once necessary? Are they so good you'd use them for sync operations too?

       add(a, b, function(sum){
         ....
       })

Personally: that seems like a waste of time. I'd rather just do:

      var sum = a + b;

Likewise I'd rather do:

      var response = await superagent.get('https://...')

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Didn't know "var" was outdated. Good stuff, thanks!

<comment><USER27> You can technically still use var if you wish, but I'm not sure of any reasons to do so.

When switching to let/const, bear in mind the difference in scope:

var is function-scoped:

        (function () {
          var x = 1;
        })();

        var x === undefined

let/const are block-scoped:

        if (true) {
          var x = 1;
          let y = 1;
          const z = 1;
        }
        x === 1
        y === undefined
        z === undefined

<comment><USER31> I find function lexical scope more natural for JavaScript which is very function orientated, where you pass functions around and use closures a lot. I also find it a PITA having to declare variables before the block, instead of where they are first used. Ex:

if(..) { ... huge block of code .. var foo = 1; }

Means I do not have to scroll back and forth to declare and set the variables at different places.

<comment><USER32> In strict mode JS runtimes will hoist the `var` declaration to the top of the declared scope anyway. So `foo` would be declared at the start of the containing function scope, regardless of where you appear to declare them.

<comment><USER33> That is not specific to strict mode, in fact. It will always be hoisted.

<comment><USER31> What I think he means is that if you "use strict" you will get an error if you reference a undeclared variable, but due to the hoisting you will not get an error if you use a _var_ iable before it has been declared - if it's declared later in the scope. But if you use let, you will get an error! Such errors are trivial to detect even for beginners though ... Something more nasty is when you have an undeclared (undefined), maybe misspelled object property, then neither "use strict" block scope, or even const will help. It's also hard to find such bugs via static analysis, Typescript nor Eslint will detect it! This is a feature in JavaScript though, and has nothing to do (but often confused) with block scope vs function scope, or loose type vs strict types. In other languages you would need several lines of boilerplate just to do something like "foo.bar=1", and I think the convenience outweigh the possible hard to debug errors, and I'm also working on a static analysis tool that will detect some of those errors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is incredible.

GF wants to learn to program, she has a strong math/finance background and I think she'd be good at programming but the web can be a bit overwhelming in totality.

</comment><comment><USER35> I went over a few chapters this afternoon and really enjoyed what you've put together. I'll definitely recommend it to friends who ask me about learning to code.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is really good! And I like the dig at 9gag :)

</comment><comment><USER37> this looks promising. I like how it teaches the concepts using plain Javascript without focusing on a tool or library. Kudos.</comment>


Is it over for RSS readers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.accmanpro.com/2008/08/01/is-it-over-for-rss-readers/

<comment><USER2> no</comment>


Your dark mode toggle is broken - <AUTHOR> https://kilianvalkhof.com/2020/design/your-dark-mode-toggle-is-broken/ <comment><USER2> Many sites have a toggle switch (a binary selection option) available in the page's main navigation. Adding in a third state complicates the UX for what should ultimately be a simple thing.

The article shows three separate buttons. That would take up too much real estate in an important part of the page.</comment>


Hacking your face to dodge the rise of facial recognition tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/avoid-facial-recognition-software <comment><USER2> Here's a pet peeve of mine: The critique of increasing mass surveillance focuses too much on technological problems and abuses by individual humans.

A fully-functioning, automated surveillance society with minimal potential for abuse by individual police etc. would be much worse than the partially-working systems we have now. A surveillance society is the antithesis of a free, democratic society.

The underlying assumption of mass surveillance is that the individuals in societies can not be trusted to work for the best of the society and must be left no option but to conform to the law. This is in stark contrast to the idea that citizens generally see their society as something they wish to preserve, and legislation and law enforcement exists to modify incentives in cases where altruism, self-interest and a sense of social responsibility are insufficient to keep order.

In other words, to support a surveillance society is to give up on the foundations of a democratic society that works to support the goals of its citizens, in favour of a society that treats its citizens as subjects to be ruled over.

This is, of course, a much harder political argument to make than "the tech doesn't work", but it's an argument that needs to be made because one day, the tech will work.

<comment><USER3> can a democratic society vote itself into a dictatorship? what if some citizens want to subvert democracy and liberal social norms, but do so democratically? democracy is a discussion of ideas. it is your job to convince people that freedom is advantageous to global governance or that they can be combined.

with freedom you will get fracture and economic decline, conflict and instability. with global governance you will get a monopoly on stable world trade and endless economic and civic prosperity, as the best ideas will be rapidly adopted by the most number of people, ensuring benefit for all generations of mankind yet unborn.

what if it turns out that your perception of freedom is not maximal freedom unless people freely choose it? and if they abandon it (for what you might consider a type of mental slavery) to a dynamic but perpetual system of control-information with new benefits far outweigh any negative consequences, like the ability to understand all preceding human knowledge in one lifespan or avoid all disease and aging related problems.

humanity once we reached the age of writing, became the game of convincing other people to think and act alike. i cant think of a more illiberal and limiting idea than what i am doing right now - forcing my words into your head - yet this is the structure upon which everything we see has been built.

you will find yourself in an increasingly marginalized position, and eventually your views will be silenced, as they should. you may be civilized, but barely register as a barbarian for what is to come, which will take yet more centuries to unfold.

(28m42s) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQZ-2iMUR0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQZ-2iMUR0)

<comment><USER4> A democracy in theory can do anything if the sole description is democratic choice.

However in practice you have constitutions and inalienable rights which would prevent a dictatorship from being voted in. Unless of course you everyone involved is okay with breaking the law to gain control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Leigh Bowery was a dazzling face (and body) hacking visionary.

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxbqk7xjA5o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxbqk7xjA5o)

[https://nl.pinterest.com/orchidsatellite/leigh-bowery- stylin...](https://nl.pinterest.com/orchidsatellite/leigh-bowery-styling- shoot/?lp=true)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3yVBhVrltU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3yVBhVrltU)

Edit: (bigbangchina: I wouldn't exactly characterize Wigstock as a "feminist gathering"...)

He was the main inspiration of the Tranimal movement, which also gives facial recognition systems a hard time.

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vZ9P2LSRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vZ9P2LSRs)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqoN3AUdl0k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqoN3AUdl0k)

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

</comment><comment><USER6> This is going to lead to a great episode of British political theatre.

The burqa is an effective counter measure. Full body, with a mesh eye opening.

The UK is either going to have to ban the burqa in public, at the price of being called an islamiphobic nation.

Or continue to allow the burqa, and watch as it becomes the new cartoon criminal outfit, and acknowledge that The Government has established policies favorable to Islam over other religions.

Get your popcorn and TV license ready.

<comment><USER7> What about allowing burqas, but requiring a "license plate" to be affixed?

<comment><USER6> Plausible. Rfid or some other pingable ID marker.

You'll still get a fight about something physically visible though. Too much Jew with a gold star connotation.

<comment><USER8> Kind of an interesting connection there, hard to say that having a marking on your burqa somehow makes it more obvious you're a Muslim.

Would be weird to walk around with a licence plate style identifier though, since anyone could scan it and follow you rather than just someone with a massive facial recognition database.

honestly the thing I don't like about facial recognition is that it could somehow become mandatory in a country where you're not even required to carry any kind of national ID unless you're driving, and it's suddenly your problem if a facial recognition system you didn't consent to can't recognise you.

<comment><USER6> It becomes mandatory and the "social credit" system follows shortly thereafter.

You stop being an individual and become a cog in the national machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even if you can occlude your facial features, you're probably still licked if the particular implementation has gait analysis. We need to develop a fremen- style movement system to subvert the sandworms, I mean surveillance

<comment><USER10> As much as I like the Fremen aesthetic, we should probably accept that when most of us attempt to walk without rhythm, we might succeed in not attracting the worm, but end up looking like a civil servant from the Ministry of Silly Walks in the process.

Still, if that means the surveillance system concludes that we're all John Cleese…

<comment><USER6> If you walk without rhythm, you'll never learn though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's sad we have to hide from our 'elected' western government.

<comment><USER12> I agree with you completely; I opt out of the scanners at the airport every time on that very principle alone. But, I would also assert that most people would not agree that " _we have to hide_ ".

<comment><USER13> Tried that once. Got the German shepherd scanner instead.

<comment><USER12> Where was that? I've only ever experienced the "advanced patdown".

<comment><USER13> This was on the way from our hometown in the midwest to points Scandinavian. While this was going on, my daughter got the "advanced patdown," and she still mentions it when I bring up traveling :( Went from loving it to not interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's so much human effort directed at developing sci-fi level technologies to target advertising and eventually help sell you crap you don't need. We could have Mars colonies by now if that effort wasn't wasted on something so meaningless.

<comment><USER15> Corporate greed has no bounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Face hacking doesn't necessarily have to be hi-tech. Maybe more and more people in future will dress like activists. Mouth mask may become an important fashion piece, which is already happening in East Asian societies.

<comment><USER17> I've read that wearing masks in public is illegal in the US.

The laws that made public mask wearing illegal were from an age when the KKK used masks to hide themselves when committing violent crimes and for intimidation purposes.

<comment><USER18> It's not just illegal, I believe it's a felony in my state.

<comment><USER19> Except on Halloween? What about on your way to a masquerade party?

<comment><USER18> Carrying open containers of alcohol isn't legal to from a party either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The fundamental issue with all surveillance mechanisms is that it's the exact opposite of foundational legal principles like presumption of innocence. [1] If anyone or everyone could be guilty of something _if only they were caught in the act,_ and if judges accept such evidence as prime and override any suspicions that these are beyond reasonable doubt and ignore the fact that these could have error rates or be completely falsified, [2] then law enforcement and prosecution wouldn't have to work hard. It's questionable if law enforcement really works hard in any country and does what it's expected to by the common people; it seems to be a continuous power game (and power grab) in many places where law enforcement is becoming more and more militarized.

Biometric and behavioral recognition, profiling and tracking will turn all democracies into namesakes and into dictatorships where people will always self-censor because they don't want to get into any trouble. There is a bigger chance that more (not all) activists will be marginalized and silenced through different means. That would be a tragedy for everyone. "Nothing to hide" would seem like a cruel joke that thoughtless people of the past played on the future.

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

[2]: Even routine evidence collected and processed today could have error rates or be falsified, but there seem to be trends where technology is perceived as being infallible, and is trusted completely on first sight.

</comment><comment><USER21> In case if anyone is interested, publicly known face recognition algorithms usually require a photo to have at least 50 px between eyes. The article says that the system used by police has 90% error rate and this is surprisingly poor result.

For comparison, an article about Russian photographer [1] says that he managed to recognise approximately 70% of people he took photo (he was recognising people in the subway to show how different people look in social networks and in real life; useless research in my opinion).

If you would like to check it for yourself, you can try demos like searchface [2] - it has indexed most of the photos from the popular social network vk.com.

I think the laws should be adapted to make face recognition illegal. Otherwise businesses and governments will want to be able to identify the citizens or customers, to collect and sell detailed data about them.

[1] [https://advox.globalvoices.org/2016/04/07/the-russian-art- of...](https://advox.globalvoices.org/2016/04/07/the-russian-art-of-meta- stalking/)

[2] [http://searchface.ru/](http://searchface.ru/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I would just use a baseball hat and sunglasses which at least doesn't shout "hey, I'm actively combating facial recognition tech", look at me.

Also, if you use an obfuscation tool like this, you would mark yourself for closer inspection by human wetware which makes this approach counter productive.

</comment><comment><USER23> The world seems to become more and more like Minority Report every day I read an article like this.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Hacking your face to dodge the rise of facial recognition"? I mean, it's not that it wouldn't _work_ , in a way - but it strikes me as a rather gruesome approach!

</comment><comment><USER25> >And while FR may be error-prone now, this is unlikely to stay the case for long.

Well less error prone. There are only so many different possible faces. Even people will routinely misidentify faces in a crowd. They need to use hair, clothing and context to avoid constantly saying hello to strangers.

There will always be a reasonably high level of false positives...

</comment><comment><USER26> The self checkout lines in walmart and target have a HD camera right in your face. I have always found these disturbing, they aren't even looking at what I'm buying. Do you guys think they are using facial recognition on these streams?

<comment><USER27> Most modern checkout experiences can identify you with very high accuracy sans-camera, so I doubt it.

<comment><USER28> What percentage of shoppers are already carrying the store's loyalty card and are willingly presenting it at the checkout?

What percentage of shoppers have the store's app loaded on their smartphone and carry that willing around too?

<comment><USER29> I went to the mall last week for the first time in ages. About half of the directories were replaced with signs telling you to install the Westfield shopping app, for "TURN BY TURN DIRECTIONS" through the mall. Like, really? There are only 2 walkways through the mall...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> _" an array of tiny infrared LEDs wired to the inside of a baseball cap"_

I had that idea some years ago, but using instead big powerful IR LEDs around a hat or cap to create a sort of white _halo_ around the entire head. Never tested it...

<comment><USER14> This works but gets you kicked out of all malls and supermarkets.

<comment><USER10> For women it might be easier if the LEDs are built into a hair accessory like a _hairband_. Less of a social stigma than a baseball cap. Glasses work too of course.

 _(Heh. I used Wikipedia to verify the spelling of 'hair band', but ended up on a page about Glam Metal.)_

<comment><USER31> It might also be useful under the belt, e.g. on skirts or underwears, to thwart upskirting attempts.

<comment><USER32> Naomi Wu (@realsexycyborg) recently demo'd a "downskirt" cam for similar purposes. It basically shows the back of the legs and functions like a back-up camera on a vehicle.

[https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/103896197816802918...](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1038961978168029184) (slightly nsfw)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> A link in the article about getting a 3D-printed model of someone else's face makes me wonder how long before the Yellow-vests in France figure this out and print out a copy of Macron's face to use in their protests?

</comment><comment><USER34> i am sure that in a few years most of people will hide face behind AR mask anyway.

but there is lots of ways to recognize people against their will, combination of height walking style, radio signals from wearables, and maybe even odor

</comment><comment><USER35> coincidence that this appeared at the same time as [https://qz.com/299003/a-quick-history-of-why-asians-wear- sur...](https://qz.com/299003/a-quick-history-of-why-asians-wear-surgical- masks-in-public/) ?

I think not...

</comment><comment><USER36> need to get one of them hyperface scarves...</comment>


Out of sight, out of mind - <AUTHOR> http://drones.pitchinteractive.com Data visualization on "surgical precision" of drone strikes in Pakistan <comment><USER2> The man who ordered these strikes has a peace nobel price.</comment>


Ask HN: Why do big companies and clients insist on IE8 support? - <AUTHOR> When big clients pay money for IE8 support I feel like this :
http://i.imgur.com/EsnE9a1.gif
Is it really needed? As developers our lives would be so much simpler if there were no IE. :(
Source(devmag.io) <comment><USER2> I think the question is more about 'old' customers rather than 'big'.

The reason most of the time is that the company had a bunch of apps/websites built in the era of IE6/7 maybe even IE8, and they need to be able to run in compatibility mode. It is cheaper for them to stay with old IE than to have these apps re-written for modern browsers.

Hopefully we're nearing an age where the cost of maintaining these old systems is starting to be more painful than upgrading, but I'm sure we'll continue to see old IE requirements for another 5-10 years.

</comment><comment><USER3> They have legacy applications, written in the late 90s, that have been maintained barely alive because they are linked to a critical process like supply chain, pay, etc, and they still require their employee to use the most ie6 compatible browser.

It is always cheaper to ask the new application to be backward compatible with the environment, rather than upgrading all the legacy ones. But this is also the surest way to dig your grave deeper...</comment>


Mistakes  Installing Rails - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nitrous.io/2013/12/10/one-month-rails.html

<comment><USER2> Nice piece of marketing dressed as troll-bait. 10 points.

</comment><comment><USER3> So there DO is a TheOnion for coders!

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord I'm not sure if this is meant for absolutely complete beginners, or if it's tongue-in-cheek.

#5, #4, #2 are general ignorance of Unix-like systems. (being unaware of password prompts of obscuring input, or in more technical terms setting /dev/tty to raw... really?)

#3: "But the one thing you can't write in the text editor? Unix commands!" To be pedantic, that's shell scripting.

#1 is basically a build-up for an ad.

In all cases, little of this is directly related to Rails.

<comment><AUTHOR> They may not all be 'related to Rails'. But we keep a list of the top reasons our students have... and these are 5 of them that are worth knowing about for beginners.

<comment><USER4> Absolute beginners, yes.</comment></comment></comment>


The Unexotic Underclass - <AUTHOR> http://miter.mit.edu/the-unexotic-underclass/

<comment><USER3> sad that this isn't getting more attention here. it has all sorts of implications for people who are looking for ideas for their startups - <USER2> what to avoid - who want to reach a big market.

pair this with this WaPo piece: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/27/i...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/27/is- silicon-valley-only-interested-in-the-problems-of-twentysomethings/)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting, what PG would say. I would expect YCombinator to have many non-mainstream startups, but I don't know.</comment>


this-is-not-an-attack: SSH probe username of security researcher? - <AUTHOR> http://188.8.131.52/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm inclined to believe this is legitimate research - looking up the IP address seems to check out, it's at least assigned to "Technische Universitaet Muenchen". First probe I've seen that truthfully declares itself as non- threatening.</comment>


Companies Might Be Smarter with Workers in the Boardroom - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-20/companies-might-be-smarter-with-workers-in-the-boardroom <comment><USER2> > Top executives don't always know what's going on at the operations level.

How much of this sort of talk is just hot air? Does it really matter that CxO doesn't know about loading trucks or whatever? I mean, there's a place for the knowledge, and someone should collect it, but isn't this kind of article just more of that "eat your broccoli, it's good for you" sort of thing?

I can give something of an example. In the 80s, I worked for an aerospace company that made satellite launch vehicles. I often went out on the factory floor to see the parts I had helped design get made. The brake press operators, welders, lathe operators and others were just artists, doing stuff by feel that they really shouldn't have had a feel for. But they almost universally thought what they were building was too strong, over-engineered. What they were missing was that flight loads designed the rocket's structure, not manufacturing or transport. In fact, there was a rule that Ground Support loads should not design any structure. That is, manufacturing, transport and erection were carefully done so that they imposed much milder loads than flight did. The workers missed this important aspect of flight vehicle design.

<comment><USER3> That doesn't negate the point. Your example simply demonstrates incomplete osmosis of information. Ironically, something every CxO I've encountered seems to embrace and delight in maintaining.

I've not come across a single business problem that cannot be solved by breaking down knowledge silos. Does the lathe operator need to know from whence the reqs come? Maybe not. Will he be more likely to crank out stricter tolerance parts if he knows? My experience says yes.

The issue is one of personality and power however. Perception management is a tool of VPs/Execs, and they will fight tooth and nail to maintain as tight a control over their informational asymmetry as possible.

In each of the several companies I've worked Quality management at, I've managed to streamline operations and improve the Quality of the end product by punching holes in every knowledge barrier I encounter. Generally, you end up with a small network of tribal knowledge keepers/emitters. Without fail, though, this practice tends to lead counter-intuitive pictures of the health of the company not painted or represented well by the metrics most management track people seem to focus on. I end up demonstrating to at least one CxO that what they're getting fed in the form of spreadsheets is nothing like what's actually been going on on the working floor.

The effect of out of touch management pales in comparison, however, to outright malicious management, who are just out to make a mark without sitting down and really thinking through what a company needs. These are your VP's that come with their own posse and promise the world, come in and break everything for 6 months to a year, and then leave the company treading water trying to recover in the wake of alienated or laid off employees caused by their mismanagement. There is no greater threat to malicious management than an employee that is connected enough with the internal knowledge network that is the company that to call them on their shenanigans. Unfortunately, this tends to run into hierarchy issues, where the people most effective at punching through silos and integrating what they find in order to streamline the day-to-day are infrequently in management positions. Most of the impetus to do such a thing tends to come from wanting to get something done within the system as it exists. Managers (or at least the one's I've had) tend to be a bit more reserved in such things based on the politics around their position.

Therefore you can end up in the unenviable position of the person outing the Emperor's New (lack of) Clothes. I've made the personal decision to value my integrity over the job before, and called a spade a spade, and I'd do it again.</comment></comment>


The PS2's Backwards Compatibility from the Engineer Who Built It - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@freelansations/the-story-of-the-ps2s-backwards-compatibility-from-the-engineer-who-built-it-ec39cf5a0353 <comment><USER2> A note about the xbox one's backwards compatibility, it's not an emulator of any sort and doesn't create a virtual environment of a Xenon CPU, which is PowerPC based.

Individual games were recompiled for the x86-64 architecture of the xbox one.

If you insert an xbox 360 game disc into an xbox one it simply uses it as a token to prove that you own the physical game, and downloads the xbox-one- native version from Microsoft.

<comment><USER3> > downloads the xbox-one-native version from Microsoft.

Ew.

<comment><USER4> I imagine it downloads binaries and libraries, which would be less than a hundred megabytes. All the art assets would still be transferred from the disc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great read!

One thing that stood out to me:

> when I entered the team...I had no real electrical engineering skills to > speak of whatsoever and I didn't even know how to boot up Windows 3.1, let > alone how to write any programs...I got the chance to learn how to program > computers thanks to a training program that the company ran.

I don't know if that's a function of the 90s, or of Japanese companies, but I almost never hear of companies nowadays taking in completely unskilled employees and training them up.

I also found it quite amusing that the engineer went through all that effort to emulate the PSX sound chip in software, only to have the decision reversed and the hardware chip included in the PS2.

<comment><USER6> I'm likely wrong but I believe that is/was part of Japanese company culture.

You were brought in, trained up and expected to stay with the company through good and bad times until the day you retire/die.

<comment><USER7> It sounds exactly like that. "Someone else was already supposed to be taking care of that and when I asked what was going on, I was told that they were quitting the company and that it was on me to pick up where they left off, no ifs, ands, or buts."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since the next Xbox and Playstation will have the same architecture as the current generation (AMD CPU + AMD GPU), not having backwards compatibility would be a surprise.

<comment><USER9> Why would they add that when they can just sell you a remaster for the price of a new game?

<comment><USER10> It helps move consoles in the first year or two when they don't have many compelling titles of their own. Not every title gets remastered, and the ones that do don't tend to be launch titles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Doubtful anyone else cares but if you are looking for the Jim Ryan quote in the linked article you should search for "anybody" not "anyone" as the quote is slightly wrong in the Medium post.</comment>


Self Replicating Virus T-Shirt - <AUTHOR> https://irrelevant.shop/item/self-replicating-virus-t-shirt <comment><USER2> I want to thumb this up, but if the page isn't going to bother to explain it...

</comment><comment><USER3> Try to scan the QR and you will understand. Hopefully.

<comment><USER2> Who on earth would scan a QR code labeled a virus with no other info, when that is a thing that actually happens? It sounds like its going to continue buying shirts on your credit card

Its fairly obvious that this is probably some joke or prank, but why would I risk that, or invite others to? Is this something you do to your friends or enemies? A minimum there should be a collapsed-spoiler</comment></comment>


Change NVR Camera to AI face recognition, DIY nest IQ camera witho monthly fee - pi-deeplearning https://github.com/SharpAI/facebox_sdk/blob/master/hardwares/README.md <comment> pi-deeplearning Burn AI image onto RK3399 HMAX box. Connect box to DaHua Network camera.

Then it will push you familiar faces or unknown faces notification to you mobile.</comment>


Surge Price Predictor for Airbnb Hosts - <AUTHOR> http://beyondstays.com/pricing <comment><USER2> I can't fault Airbnb hosts if they use this -- if I was a host, I probably would. Nevertheless, it takes some of the charm and advantage out of it for us hostees. Airbnb seemed like a marketplace where sellers for the most part aren't trying to optimize their profits to squeeze out every last buck.

Edit: Actually, to be more accurate, it didn't feel like much of a "marketplace" at all, and that's where the charm was. You weren't terribly aware of supply and demand and the rest of econ 101 when using it.

<comment><USER3> Great point -- as we designed this, we thought a lot about how this might impact a marketplace/community (Airbnb) that we love.

In talking to a lot of hosts, as well as hosting ourselves, we've learned that (a) pricing your home is really hard, and (b) there is a LOT of work that goes into being a great host. From cleaning your home to welcoming guests and answering inquiries, (not to mention the cost of food, furniture, linens, etc.), most hosts spend hours every week making sure their guests are safe & happy.

If we can help hosts by making it easier to accurately price their home, we think we can create a bigger incentive for great hosts to continue hosting.

* Edit :: I run operations at Beyond, have hosted for years on Airbnb, and helped design this - appreciate the question

<comment><USER4> This is awesome. I'm very impressed by the concept and design. Do you guys have any kind of development blog, etc? Would love to read more about the development process, timeline, etc, and my initial googling comes up totally blank.

Would definitely use the pricing tool, and maybe the management service too if I were Airbnb'ing my place.

<comment><USER3> Thank you -- we appreciate that!

We're going to be sharing a lot more in the coming weeks.

There is a lot of interesting data out there, and making sense of that data/making it available is one of our teams goals.

If you have any ideas, send them my way: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd personally love a travel site that aggregates Airbnb & VRBO & Hotels. Listing everything a city has to offer on a single site could be a real differentiator to sites like Kayak.

<comment><USER6> We do this! Check out [http://www.tripping.com/](http://www.tripping.com/)

Tripping is the top metasearch site for vacation rentals with over 1 million homes worldwide. We also have the richest data set in the industry, so it'll be fun to see how our data compares with BeyondStays.

<comment><USER7> Tripping is great! Two thumbs up.

<comment><USER6> Thanks Nick!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Somewhat scary to see that at around $190 for one bedroom, there are nights when AirBnb is more expensive than 4-star hotels like Westin.

<comment><USER9> The hotels have been downgrading the quality around their brand names for years now, cramming people into tinier and more cookie-cutter spaces. Plus the average Airbnb has _always_ had more livable space (not to mention a kitchen!) than a hotel. For 190 a night, you're probably getting the whole Airbnb unit to yourself.

Take that, and SF's 14% hotel tax, and I think they're reaping what they've sowed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one who has noticed that hotel is cheaper than Airbnb? Especially in SE asian countries, you can actually haggle hotel prices if staying for extended amount of time.

Even without that, it's still cheaper in some cases to stay at a hotel and with the added bonus of room service.

</comment><comment><USER11> A little scary to me that their entire business is dependent on another business. Yeah, yeah, Airbnb is successful, but I imagine there are a bunch of ways Airbnb could mess with them if they ever felt the need.

<comment><USER12> This happens all the time.

Build tools and managers to till the kingdom then pray the king shows mercy and buys you out.

<comment><USER11> A solid strategy I suppose, just not a risk I'd personally take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When is someone going to build the exact opposite for guests ;-)</comment>


Show HN: ClickBin - create collections of links (no login required) - <AUTHOR> http://clickb.in This is @lxe my first Show HN. What do you think? Useful? If not, what feature would make it useful for you? We'd love your feedback, positive or negative. <comment><USER2> Quick next steps: 1\. Allow for renaming of Bins 2\. Bookmarklet and/or FF/Chrome plugin for saving URLS 3\. Allowing for putting a URL into multiple bins in a faster way

Just some thoughts. Would love to know your business revenue model.</comment>


Ask HN: Where to host site that will upset some companies? - <AUTHOR>

Not NSA-proof required, just need a host for content that will upset some business owners, content that won't be taken down. <comment><USER2> I'd suggest hosting it in a jurisdiction those business owners are not familiar with.

<comment><AUTHOR> as in .se?

skimmed untraceableblog, picked up some useful insights there</comment></comment>


Smeagol: guiding you through setting up an osx machine for open source ruby work - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/atmos/smeagol

<comment><AUTHOR> FTR:

      smeagol is this ugly dude who led some hobbits around,
      this is kinda the same thing. Except, like, instead of
      hiking mordor you're trying to write some open source
      code on a mac.</comment>


Sunlight through glass does not provide Vitamin D - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/well/live/does-sunlight-through-glass-provide-vitamin-d.html <comment><USER3> It's worth noting that despite not providing Vitamin D, there's still a fair bit of value in getting sunlight through glass:

1\. Seasonal Affective Disorder is treated using just the visible light spectrum entering the retinas of the eyes [1], and there are a ton of studies showing its effectiveness (in fact, most SAD lamps explicitly filter out ultraviolet light).

2\. Some infrared passes through some glass and seems to be good for a thousand different things. [2] [3]

3\. UVA passes through glass and has beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system. [4]

[1] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0273230092...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0273230092900358)

[2] [https://valtsus.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-therapeutic- effects...](https://valtsus.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-therapeutic-effects-of- red-and-near.html)

[3] [https://www.quora.com/Can-infrared-light-pass-through- glass](https://www.quora.com/Can-infrared-light-pass-through-glass)

[4] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X1...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X15368974)

<comment><USER4> UVA is what causes skin cancers. Recommending or dismissing UVA exposure is irresponsible, especially in places with tons of UV radiation. Dermatologists go extra to teach people to choose sunscreen with good UVA protection, meanwhile Applied Science (one of my favourite youtubers) - "UVA penetrates regular window glass; hey its not to be worried about"...

<comment><USER5> Actually, there was an article posted here (I think) not too long ago about a study that showed the positive benefits from sunlight were enough to outweigh the slightly increased chances of skin cancer.

I'll see if I can find the link.

<comment><USER4> Yeah I think it really varies by the region. Sure it's good to go outside in Sweden and England, but not in Aussie and NZ when you can get sunburn in about 15 minutes.

I've had couple of barbecue parties this summer in Auckland and NOBODY went outside until sun was way past 5PM. We preferred to sit in stuffy kitchen rather than enjoy beautiful beautiful outdoors. Even in middle of winter you can feel sun bite you as you stand in front of pedestrian crossing.

<comment><USER6> Trying to explain this to people visiting Australia is always amazing.

"It's so lovely and sunny here, why aren't you tan?"

"Because the sun is a terrifying ray of pain and death here."

<comment><USER7> The sooner we completely phase out CFCs and other stratospheric ozone depleting gases, the sooner we can go back to the good old days where you could enjoy that sunshine.

The prediction is 2050-2070 we will be back to the 1980 level of ozone thickness.

<comment><USER8> Scientists have been trying to combat the perception that it is to blame for the high prevalence of skin cancer in Australia for a couple of decades now - it will never be a good idea to 'enjoy that sunshine' the way people used to.

(2001 paper - [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6944/503469e4f779e99884e144...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6944/503469e4f779e99884e144fd679f58a82966.pdf) " Sufferers of skin cancer today should more likely blame their affliction on skin type and sun exposure during their youth than any changes in ozone distributions over the last twenty years. Therefore it is safe to say that even without ozone depletion, Australia would still have a very high rate of skin cancer.")

<comment><USER9> Wasn't the worst of the ozone thinning over the poles? Not sure the ozone layer actually affects sun exposure in Australia or NZ.

<comment><USER8> Over Antarctica, yes. But in some conditions (right winds? I forget) thinner patches of ozone do blow over the south coast of Australia, and does increase UV exposure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My question was: "Why does it block UVB?".

Found the answer on Quora: [https://www.quora.com/Why-does-glass-block- UV](https://www.quora.com/Why-does-glass-block-UV)

 _" With a band gap of 4eV, glass can't absorb any photons with less energy than UVB light; namely, it is transparent to UVA, visible light, infared, etc; but the higher energy photons can and are highly likely to be absorbed."_

So it seems hard to create glass that doesn't block UVB.

<comment><USER11> So in case anyone just panicked thinking "Wait, so do my car and office windows block cancer producing UV or not??", this is what I found on cancercouncil.com.au (first google result):

\- UVA penetrates deeply into the skin (the dermis) causing genetic damage to cells, photo-ageing (wrinkling, blotchiness etc) and immune-suppression.

\- UVB penetrates into the epidermis (top layer of the skin) causing damage to the cells. UVB is responsible for sunburn – a significant risk factor for skin cancer, especially melanoma.

Which contrary to what I knew, links melanoma to sunburn, not DNA damage.

<comment><USER12> A good example of what UVA does would be the famous trucker with sun damage to one side of his face-

[https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/06/06/bill-mcelligott- sun...](https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/06/06/bill-mcelligott-sun- damage_n_1573546.html)

<comment><USER13> Here's an archive for those getting Oath'd

[http://archive.is/aVhiM](http://archive.is/aVhiM)

<comment><USER14> Or the source: [https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMicm1104059](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMicm1104059)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Those concerned about low vitamin D levels can get more of the vitamin > through foods.

As someone who had a number of health issues whose underlying cause was a vitamin D deficiency I do not agree.

There is no substitute for light. Supplementing with D3 had very limited effect. Using a vitamin d lamp however was a world changer within days.

<comment><USER16> Was your supplement dosage enough though? In the order of 10000 IU per day?

The problem with vitamin D was that up until about a year ago, official recommendations in many countries were mistakenly low (500-1000 IUs), which as it turned out, was not enough for many people. It was even hard to find proper pills that has high enough dosages, because when you got to your local farmacist which was going by the official recommendations, all they had were 200-500 IU pills, because they were not expecting that anyone would need more. So as an average citizen who does not do their research properly, if they just went into a farmacist and took the first Vitamin D supplement they saw, the chances were that they were getting one which had basically no effect.

When the dosage is right, many people experience positive effects and dormant Vitamin D levels really do go up. The sun is not required.

<comment><USER17> The problem with Vit D3 supplement is that you don't absorb most of it. It is well known, than the bioavailability of the supplements is not the same and that even the molecule itself is not the same as the one your organism produces.

Also, the science is starting to question the supplementation. It's too early to tell, but one hypothesis is that it is a biomarker at the end of a pathway and not at the beginning of it, i.e. as a consequence of a proper diet and sunlight, and not a cause of a healthy system.

<comment><USER18> > It is well known, than the bioavailability of the supplements is not the > same and that even the molecule itself is not the same as the one your > organism produces.

Reputed and trustworthy citations from scientific sources required, please.

<comment><USER19> No it's not required. This is a discussion board not a thesis paper review board. Do your own googling. If he or she is wrong then call bullshit.

<comment><USER20> IMO "Reputed and trustworthy citations from scientific sources required, please." is just a more elegant way of calling bullshit

<comment><USER21> It's an elegant way of covering noise with more noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's like the old Klingon proverb: People who live in glass houses should upgrade to transparent aluminum.

<comment><USER23> I have checked and according to graphs I have found both sapphire glass and AlON both do indeed transmit UVB.

<comment><USER24> Ah good, I need to replace the windows in my house, that'll be a great upgrade.

      Checks prices

It'll only cost me ~$240,000 for a single room!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's not about us, UV light destroys almost all types of plastic materials, and affects color of wood and fabrics - so without glass UV filtering our furniture, floors and pretty much everything else inside our houses and cars that is exposed to sunlight would last a lot shorter.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder why Vitamin D level blood test is unusually expensive than other blood test . It doesn't even get covered by CBP ( complete blood picture )

<comment><USER27> capitalism

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> UVB is required for health _and_ carcinogenic?

<comment><USER29> Welcome to unintelligent design.

Evolution will happily incorporate an abundant resource into one biological process even if it is damaging to another. Heck, even if it is damaging to the same process it is being incorporated into.

<comment><USER30> The heat we produce in oil motors is what makes them work, but it's also what destroys many components. I don't pretend life has been designed or not, but it doesn't look stupid to me: in a relative world, everything is a compromise.

<comment><USER29> It's far worse than the trade-offs required by physics.

Evolution is _short-sighted_ in a way that is hard to overstate. It exclusively cares about the current environment, it can only consider alternatives when they have actually been implemented, it can't look-ahead to see if a chain of changes is really desirable, and _it can 't even look-behind to determine if a previous design is better-suited to the current environment_.

A better analogy to the way evolution operates using an engine would be: imagine that you first develop an engine that runs on a pure fuel, but then for a long span of time you can only get an inferior, highly contaminated fuel that produces a corrosive acid while it burns that slowly destroys the engine from the inside. You make a few tweaks to mitigate (but not stop) the damage from the acidic residue, but then you discover that by adding an additional afterburner with a special additive, you can get an extra 8% output from the engine. But then later when the pure fuel is available again, you discover that running the engine with the afterburner on a pure fuel will make it explode in short order. It's too late to redesign the engine without the afterburner -- most of the engines currently in existence suffer from the problem -- but it's pretty easy to re-contaminate the pure fuel so that it continues to produce the acidic residue that is both destroying the engines and expected by the afterburners. Meanwhile, most people still don't want to buy a pure-fuel engine without the afterburners since they have a lower output, and you really don't need most engines to last forever anyway.

That's the sort of bullshit you deal with in an evolved system.

<comment><USER31> What else could you hope for?

It seems like you'd like for evolution to have some model, so it can test old designs in the current environment, and simulate forward the current design into future environments, without needing to burn an organism and time on the test. But how could that be possible?

<comment><USER32> By evolving intelligence that creates computers and models and does that exact simulation, and then modifies the necessary biology to apply the best scenario. Seems to me we're well on our way there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Worth saying that for fellow British users we won't be able to get _any_ vitamin D from the Sun until mid March. We live at too high a latitude - <USER2> sun is too low down in the horizon.

</comment><comment><USER34> On the other hand UV tends to lower your folate levels. Populations' skin colors tends to track the latitudes they live in but also the ratio of vitamin D to folate in their diets. That's part of the reason the pre-agrigultural population of Europe with their fish heavy diet had skin colors so much darker than modern Europeans

[https://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-42939192](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42939192).

</comment><comment><USER35> I've noticed plants do poorly behind windows at my office (thick glass, newer glass) despite being South facing (northern hemisphere). At home in a windowsill behind glass from the 60s they thrive.

Anyone had a similar experience? Think it could be because of the office glass?

<comment><USER36> Office glass is heat-shielded to reduce AC costs. That's be my guess - lack of IR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> My newborn daughter's pediatrician recently told my wife and I how important it is to sit in front of the window with our daughter, specifically for vitamin D generation via sunlight exposure (as opposed to taking her outside right now because it's very cold/winter). I guess I (and perhaps all parents of winter babies?) should ask about a vitamin D supplement.

<comment><USER38> or just go outside with your baby. humans are pretty resilient, especially the rubbery little ones and they are really good at telling you when they are uncomfortable.

<comment><USER39> Sunlight does not provide enough UVB for sufficient vitamin D production above a surprisingly low latitude (35N) during the winter months.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/well/live/do-i-get- enough...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/well/live/do-i-get-enough- vitamin-d-in-the-winter.html)

<comment><USER38> Great to know! I just started supplementing vitamin D this year in New England, and it seems like it's really helpful.

I think a big part of my point was about the resiliency of children. It's worrying that new parents are scared to experience the world with their children.

<comment><USER40> as a new-ish parent, i'd love to get my kids outside to soak up sunlight but it's nearly impossible to stay outside for any meaningful amount of time in the northeast winter.

<comment><USER38> I've seen parents schlep <1 year old babies up some of the White Mountains in mild winter conditions (snow on the ground, below 32F, etc). I think you are doing something wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I agree with the other comments, isn't this common sense and known? I have been told this when I was a kid.

<comment><USER42> Common sense is wrong as often that it's right, being told something as a kid doesn't help either since you're less likely to question the source.

<comment><USER41> Yeah of course, there are many things that are widely believed but are false. But we were told this in a 30 minutes course a doctor was giving, in a campaign the schools were doing to educate us about the danger of the sun. A few other things were told, like that there is no total protection sun cream or that even cream that are marked as water resistant do not resist water. That's when we learned that 1mm of "modern glass" would cut nearly all uv light, while it requires nearly 50 meters of water to block it.

Of course not all that might be true, but as far as I know, it is pretty accurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I was aware of this, but it never crossed my mind that this fact might be causing problems for me.

I realize now just how little sunlight I get. I probably spend less than 5 minutes outside a month as I only go from indoors to indoors by car.

</comment><comment><USER44> Does anyone know of any instruments you can use to measure uva and uvb?

<comment><USER45> You can build your own, [https://makezine.com/projects/build-hack-and-deploy- detector...](https://makezine.com/projects/build-hack-and-deploy-detectors-to- measure-solar-uv-radiation/)

Or buy one [https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html](https://www.solarmeter.com/model65.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> When I lived at my parent's place the following scene always was a bit odd during the winter months:

"Hey Mettamage, why is your window wide open? It's freezing!"

"I need vitamin D."

"Then why do you cover your body with a blanket?"

"It's cold."

</comment><comment><USER47> Also note: research on vitamin D has suggested that it's not vitamin D that provides the benefits often touted, but the fact that you are outside getting exercise.

</comment><comment><USER48> I get my vitamin D levels check every quarter because of my kidney failure. Based on my past experiments, I'd say if you are in the bay area, walking in the noon sun for 15 minutes every workday would be enough to keep healthy vitamin D levels. In terms of supplements, about 1500 IU/day is enough during winter season.

</comment><comment><USER49> My personal experience with nutrition makes me consider the childhood years as the deciding factor in regards to living healthy without much time or resources allocated towards personal health. There are outliers, such as genetics and parenting will limit a child or not but I can only assume it's a struggle starting unhealthy in the early to late 20s. All my childhoods friends that were into skateboarding, biking or another intense activity from sun rise to sunset cannot put on weight. Typically have healthy skin unless acne prone and are very coordinated with balancing. The reason this article compelled me to write is because the next generation of parenting is restricting kids from the freedom of outside activities unless a parent is there with the kids. There will be a lot of lacking factors besides vitamin D and it's terrible to think about. I've been a person who has most of my life believed that deterrents should exist against parents who let there kids become unhealthy. It seems we're heading the opposite direction.

<comment><USER50> Might you be confusing correlation and causality? Whatever caused your childhood friends to be into intense physical sports, might also be the cause of their adulthood health - perhaps a natural inclination to physical activity, or maybe an unusually fast metabolism that gives them lots of energy to burn.

Not to suggest that you're wrong - childhood exercise probably is very important, and is under threat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Has anyone used the Sperti UVB vitamin D lamp? [https://www.sperti.com/product/sperti-vitamin-d-light- box](https://www.sperti.com/product/sperti-vitamin-d-light-box)

It appears to be the only FDA approved one.

<comment><USER52> It is FDA cleared rather than approved, which is a lower bar. And it appears to be cleared as a tanning device, not as a Vitamin D-related device:

[https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf15/K151721.pdf](https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf15/K151721.pdf)

Note that the manufacturer has gotten in trouble with the FDA before:

[https://www.fdalabelcompliance.com/letters/ucm284022](https://www.fdalabelcompliance.com/letters/ucm284022)

So I'd maintain some skepticism on the product's efficacy as it related to health. (I tried finding other clearances related to the product and failed, but they might still be out there...)

<comment><USER51> Interesting. Thanks for the information!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> it's interesting how UVB also modulates eye growth (and myopia) - [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/fullartic...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/fullarticle/2588252)

"After adjusting for high levels of education, a well-established risk factor for myopia, they found that participants with the highest UVB exposure, especially in the teenage and young adult years, had about a 30% lower risk for myopia than those with the lowest exposure. The study also found no association with myopia and vitamin D levels or genetic variants in Vitamin D."

</comment><comment><USER53> Have never used one of these, but have heard good things about lamps from [https://www.circadianoptics.com/](https://www.circadianoptics.com/) from friends living in high latitudes.

</comment><comment><USER54> Be careful not to have vitamin D deficiency! I think that might have been one of things which contributed to my multiple sclerosis. I was sitting in front of pc most of the spring/summer, rarely spending time outside...

</comment><comment><USER55> "It doesn't matter if it's winter or summer, you will make no vitamin D sitting in front of a window"\- this is a true statement.!

</comment><comment><USER56> I've known about glass inherently blocking UV for a long time, but have wondered why do posters, etc. fade in store windows.

</comment><comment><USER57> Simple solution. Open the window in your house or in your car while you driving. You will then get direct exposure to the sun!

</comment><comment><USER58> tldr: no.

</comment><comment><USER59> The article mentions commercial and automobile glass. What about forty year old double pane glass in an old house? On very cold winter days in Vermont I enjoy a kitchen bathed in sunlight. No benefit?

</comment><comment><USER60> Isn't this common sense?

<comment><USER61> How could the fact that glass blocks UVB but allows UVA and Light be common sense?

<comment><USER62> I think it's one of those things that _should_ be common sense but we don't generally think about it hard enough. By that I mean everyone probably could figure it out if they just gave it about 30 seconds of thought. I clearly remember the day I learned this back in high school. My physics teacher was discussing the refraction of light in materials like water and glass and the conversation moved into how materials can break up the components of light (like a prism). Another student was trying to make sense of this concept of light breaking down into frequencies and its component parts but still be light after being broken down. Forcing us to think about it ourselves, the teacher asked the class two questions: 1) Have you ever gotten a tan anywhere on your body on a long car drive in the summer? Everyone thought for a moment and answered that they hadn't even gotten so much as a farmer's tan on their arm to which he asked... 2) Why?

This forced us to think about it and realize that the window was doing more than just refraction and was stripping out or absorbing part of the light and even though it appeared as the same light to us, whatever was being removed must have been in the spectrum of light not visible to humans.

So we all intuitively know this, but never stop to actually think about it.

<comment><USER63> Doesn't seem like much intuition was had in your example, to be honest.

The teacher primed you with "Why have you never gotten burned on a long summer drive?" and then you bought that as fact and backsplained it with some basic prism experiments, the backsplanation not really mattering once you buy the fact from the teacher.

In other words, I'm not sure what 30 second thought process you think the average person can walk through to replace a teacher telling you the fact outright.

Once you know a fact, people can "intuit" any explanation. Just talk to children and listen to their bizarre theories -- but I would not call that intuition because they cannot arrive at the original fact that way.

Besides, my intuition is the opposite. My friend was a truck driver and said he'd get sunburned hands. He always kept sunscreen in the cabin.

<comment><USER62> My point was that once you learn the basic physics underlying this, you should be able to come to the proper conclusion about the vitamin D question easily enough. Every person going through the US school system is required to take a basic physics course, as far as I know. So every child who receives a HS diploma in the US should know this basic concept and, if they actually thought about it, should be able to figure it out.

I think you're confusing the underlying theory with us encountering the question _on the day we learned it_ and then dismissing the fact that we were primed with the current conversation to know the answer. What I'm saying is that once we had that knowledge about the underlying physics, the same question(s) could have been posed weeks or months later (with no priming) and we should have been able to figure it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Exactly what I was told as a child, and hence have 'known' for more than fifty years.

<comment><USER65> Yes, I asked my science teacher this exact question when I was 15 (as I burn easily) and was happily told I couldn't get sunburnt behind glass. So far, experiments have proven this true.

<comment><USER66> Auto glass must be somehow different, because in Florida, you can surely get "some color" on your skin on a long drive and the sun beating in through the window.

<comment><USER67> Maybe it's due to heat made by Sun?

<comment><USER66> No. Definitely pink from slight burn. Google says some side windows aren't the same as the front and back.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


When are we going to stop writing code? - <AUTHOR> http://plsadventures.blogspot.com/2009/08/when-are-we-going-to-stop-writing-code.html

<comment><USER2> "I believe it is very nearly within our reach to stop writing software and start specifying software instead. Write the specification, press a button and have a full implementation that is mathematically guaranteed to implement your specification."

Well, we'd have to write that specification in some sort of consistent formal language. What kind of computer program converts a program specified in formal language into an executable program? Oh, right--a compiler.

The most generous I can get here is to suppose he's advocating a declarative high-level programming language. But that wouldn't be nearly as interesting to write an essay about, so let's pretend that your declarative, high-level "specification" language means "no more writing code". Either that, or he honestly believes you can write a compiler for English. But given how most specs are written, I would be even more fearful of the output of an English compiler. So you have to use a formally specified language--oh wait, that's coding again.

<comment><USER3> The worst part is that he seems to think this is a novel idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Who said anything about novelty? Referring to tools that do most of what is described seems to negate any claims of novelty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I notice the majority of my corporate programming job lately is just connecting things. Take data out of a table, show it on the screen, take data from the user, put it in the table, Take someone's library, put my values into the function calls.

It seems like there should be a way for things to "connect" themselves. Eh, just thinking aloud I guess.

</comment><comment><USER5> Continuing to write code, allows the profession itself to continue to be looked at as a commodity. It keeps people in jobs, and unfortunately keeps many creative thinkers out of the loop. As it is, only programmers can write code effectively enought to produce innovative web sites and therefore, web companies that reinvent the web as we know it, and produce masses of wealth. If we did not use code, not only could we be more efficient with producing these websites, becasue we would not be also producing even greater code errors, and via numerous different types of code that are all used for different things and are not designed to work well together, becasue the programmer wants to keep a monopoly on it, but all creative thinkers that have brilliant ideas on how to utilize software and the web to better the world, and the worlds of business and technology, will be also to contribute their ideas. The bottom line is that tyically, the most creative people are those whom are natural artists. But these artists arenot techies, and therefore cannot translate their creative ideas to the web or software without including the mind of a programmer. This goes for anyone with a great idea. If you have a great idea for software or the web, but then partner with a programmer to carryout your ideas. Make sure you stay on top of your game. Because just like when a story gets passed along through many people, when your idea gets translated into code from someone else, there is a lot of room for error and distortion. Just as it is when a programmer is forced to deal with numerous different programming languages just to express what they want to create. Errors occur. As youtube and digg have both cut out the middleman in video media and news, and allow the consumer to make the choice as to what they like, why not cut out the middle man(main stream media, or programming), and allow all creative people to build and create without code, but via a universal point and click type program? Let the creation come directly from the source. Until we the consumers, and the creative thinkers demand this, we will never stop writing code.

<comment><USER2> You're saying programmers aren't creative people. I disagree--programmers, like good musicians, are intensely creative people with a remarkable degree of technical ability. "allow all creative people to build and create without code"? That's like saying "allow all creative people to play songs and paint beautiful landscapes without having to strum guitar strings or wave paintbrushes around". And as it turns out, that's possible--you can play other instruments, or draw with computer rendering tools, if you don't mind a slightly tone or a different "look", and still end up with good art. But good art is hard in and of itself.

Knowing how to express an idea in code is easy. It's easier as languages get more high-level but it's easy enough now. But knowing what ideas to express, and having ideas that are consistent enough, have the right tonality and the right balance and the right leanness to express, is the difficult part. Playing piano is about knowing what keys to hit, not how to hit the keys. Same with programming. If your fingers are too short, slow, and fat to play the piano, play trumpet. If the incidental parts of one programming language are difficult or useless to you, use another.

<comment><USER5> Programmers are definately creative and very skilled. What I mean is that there is often something lost in translation anytime you take a creative idea from one person to another, just as happens when a story is told. In my opinion, programming language needs itself, can hinder the creative ideas of many whom do not know programming, and do not have time to learn it all. By the time they take valuable years to learn, their idea is lost in translation and is now old. If that person could have developed their idea without code, we'd have much greater choice in creative sites and software because the process of creation is easier. Its the same as how YouTube has allowed millions to upload their own videos and choose whats important and interesting, or how Digg has allowed users to choose what news is of relevance. In this case, am I saying that mainstream media professionals are not cretive? No. But that's exactly what these two companies have done. They have cut newpaper companies and mainstream broadcasters out, and allowed the user to be creative and broadcast and post directly to other users. Thats what having a program that would allow non programmers to create would offer. Because of YouTube and Digg, we as individual online users, are able to see and experience a much greate variety of entertainment and relevant information chosen upon by our peers and not those that control media, and allows many creative people that are not typical movie stars, music artists or celebrities, to become well known, famous and express themselves and their ideas directly to the masses, without the mainstream media controllers (or programmers), and with absolutely nothing lost in translation. We should treat programming the same as we are not treating web 2.0. How can we push a true web 2.0, with the main aspect of the building of these sites still functioning as web 0.0? Programmers are great and creative. And presently, without them, there would be not web, and my companywould not exist, and nor would google, digg, youtube, or any other site. I work directly with my programmer for my startup daily. But if this was in place, it would help to harbor much creater creativity because everyone could get involved directly.

<comment><USER2> Just a note--if you use paragraph breaks and try to structure your thoughts instead of spewing long stream-of-consciousness comments, it makes it easier to understand what you're saying.

YouTube and Digg simplified distribution, not creation. Distributing software is no more difficult than distributing anything else. What you're talking about isn't analogous to allowing non-celebrities to create music, what you're talking about is allowing people who don't know how to sing, play an instrument, or compose a song to create music.

I've looked over your business's website. It seems like you have a good idea and a useful target market, but the web implementation is questionable, and there's nothing stopping someone from taking your same basic idea, executing it better, and eating your lunch.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the constructive feedback on the site. Point well taken. I have thought about that very issue. Too bad I'm not a programmer. I am working with my programmer in implementing the site as I invision it. Will be sure to communicate that to him, and get back on the drawing board to address those issues. Have any specific suggestions? Or, any recommendations on programmers? Thanks again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "When someone says 'I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done,' give him a lollipop. " - Alan J Perlis

from the article:

> _Compilers, on the other hand, are generally very good. I have a high degree > of confidence in most of the compilers I use. Sure, there are occasional > bugs, but as long as you're not doing safety-critical development, most > compilers are perfectly acceptable._

Which is the same reason that we use Rails, Django, or Cake, etc. We're not doing safety critical development, we're writing CMSes and blogs. This isn't rocket science, but it is code someone will pay for. So why not do it in the most comfortable and convenient way currently possible?

It's not necessary for the carpenter to be an expert on the design and manufacture of power tools. Knowing the tools they use, however, will improve the quality of their work.

Similarly, the quality of my work as a programmer will improve as I grow into my tools, knowing their uses and imperfections. It is not necessary for me to be constantly focused on how imperfect they are and how I should be building better tools instead of using the ones I have. Along the lines of kenshi's comment: why are people upset that I am enjoying myself and taking pride in my work? I recognize the limits of my tools and I am comfortable with their being limited.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was listening to an interesting interview with Dustin Nguyen, a comics artist yesterday. He had a background in CAD work, and for a long time had a pet project of creating locations for scenes in a CAD package. The idea being he and his co-workers would be able to save a load of time when drawing the art, because they could just use rendered backgrounds.

He mentioned this idea to his boss (famed comics artist Jim Lee) who apparently just said: "Why? Drawing is fun,".

And to this idea of automatically generating code from some formal spec, I can't help but think: "Why? Programming is fun,"

Sure no one likes tedious, rote programming. I especially don't like the kind of tedious typing statically typed languages tend to require you to write. But if you aren't finding the art of programming fun... I think you are in the wrong line of work.

For any interested parties, the interview with Nguyen was from episode 91 of the Sidebar podcasts - <http://www.sidebarnation.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Problem solving is fun, and programming is a convenient way to access a large class of problems and express solutions to them. When the problem solving bit is done, the rest is just typing. I'd rather spend more time solving interesting problems and less time typing.

Not to mention that I am likely to make mistakes while I'm typing up my solution. I'd rather not have to waste time chasing errors I've made that could have been avoided. Instead, I would rather spend time fixing errors in my solutions to problems, or looking for even better solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "I believe it is very nearly within our reach to stop writing software and start specifying software instead. Write the specification, press a button and have a full implementation that is mathematically guaranteed to implement your specification."

Talk about stupid ideas. This illusion has been out there for a while and infects _non_ programmers. I am almost tempted to post a "don't feed the troll" ascii art pciture

</comment><comment><USER9> Once singularity is reached, our code will write themselves. We'll just sit back and enjoy a latte/beer/whatever.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's ironic that we've used computers to attack problems and improve processes in virtually every aspect of life _except_ writing computer programs. The process of programming still looks pretty much the same as it did in Grace Hopper's day. I agree with the author: that's just stupid.

The question remains, though: what do we do about it?

<comment><USER11> When Grace Hopper was programming your choices involved Assembly, FORTRAN and COBOL. Yes, we still have to write code, but 10 lines of Python / Ruby / Lisp / etc... do the work of 100 lines for FORTRAN or 1000 lines of Assembly. I'll call that an "improved process."

<comment><USER10> No, that's an _incremental_ improvement. All we're doing is writing fewer lines of the same damned procedural code.

We didn't replace our horse and buggy with a car, we put some Tri-Flow on the bearings and meth in the feed bag and called it a day.

<comment><USER2> If you're writing FORTRAN/COBOL style procedural code in high level languages, then (as the kids say) you're doing it wrong.

You tell the computer what you want it to do. The computer does it. You can tell it at as high or low a level as you want (within reason). The computer requires a precise formulation of what you want it to do before it can do anything. Can you see a way out of this?

<comment><USER10> It's true that the computer requires a precise formulation of what you want it to do, but I'd submit that current programming methods are very far from the so-called minimum description length limit, where we'd be telling the computer nothing _but_ what we want it to do. A framework for encapsulating different problem domains would help, as there are far fewer problem domains than there are programs.

If anyone seriously thinks that traditional procedural languages (even the more concise ones ones like Python and Ruby) are going to scale for another fifty years, they're on glue. We can't go on like this.

<comment><USER2> We have frameworks for encapsulating different problem domains--they're called frameworks, libraries, DSL's, sometimes full-fledged languages of their own.

Sometimes they are called operating systems: if you want to tell the computer "play chess with me" it's a simple matter of opening a chess program.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cold-calling America – my 12 year-old son tries polling - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/37799779 <comment><AUTHOR> It is a mark of how this election is gripping ... everyone, and it's sweet. And kudos to the kids, experimentalists both of them and good luck to them on the paper round tonpay the phone bill !</comment>


The Shocking Savagery of America's Early History - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Shocking-Savagery-of-Americas-Early-History-192122641.html?c=y&story=fullstory

<comment><USER2> Well, that's nothing compared to the shocking savagery of America's later history. From the KKK and Jim Crow laws, to constant wars, to dropping two a-bombs to civilian towns, to overtopping legitimate democratic governments, to medical experiments on unsuspecting latin americans ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment> ), toto agent Orange, to international murders, to self-righteous global-cop self-appointed role, the list goes on and on...

</comment><comment><USER3> "We will even find important interludes of peaceful exchange and adaptation between natives and newcomers. The historical challenge is to find the ebb of conflict as well as the flow. The full story demands subtlety as well as drama."[1]

[1] [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112309/savage-new- world-b...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112309/savage-new-world- barbarous-years-bernard-bailyn#)

</comment><comment><USER4> Forgive me, it has been years since I've read Zinn's A People's History Of America, but as far as I remember Zinn described the early settlers in exactly the same light as OP's link does. Or am I remembering the book wrongly?</comment>


Announcing Support for Impala with Amazon Elastic MapReduce - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2013/12/12/announcing-support-for-impala-with-amazon-elastic-mapreduce/

<comment><USER2> Has anyone comparison tested Impala + EMR and Redshift?

<comment><USER3> It's unlikely to be much different than the recent Berkeley benchmarks, since they all ran on AWS: [https://amplab.cs.berkeley.edu/benchmark/](https://amplab.cs.berkeley.edu/benchmark/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Hadn't seen these before.</comment></comment></comment>