The mesmerizing geometry of Malaysia's most complex cakes - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/kek-lapis-sarawak <comment><USER2> > _the Sarawak government designated it as a "protected geographical > indicator," decreeing that true kek lapis Sarawak can only be made within > state borders_

I love stuff like this... a governmental body's deliberate grab for _extra-_ territorial authority. We have similar things in Italy (D.O.C.: _Denominazione di Origine Controllata_ , meaning "Name with a Controlled Origin") but at least that's substantiated by a E.U.-level authority. I suppose in this case it is supported by national authority, but the funny thing is that it's only within the confines of a higher authority that _grants_ these powers to its lower constituents that such powers can exist (or within the context of international trade deals). A better term than the active-voice ' _designated_ ' might've been the mixed active/passive-voice " _requested, and was granted_ ", but I'm probably splitting hairs here.

I spent quite a while in Malaysia back in the early-to-mid 2000s, but I never actually tried this. The ingredients don't sound super-appetising to me.

EDIT: fixed formatting & punctuation.

<comment><USER3> The geographical indication in the EU is used to protect a product's name/brand, not stop it from being produced outside that area. I can make Aceto Balsamico in my basement the traditional way (I'd need a basement first), and can sell it, but not call Aceto Balsamico.

<comment><USER4> > The geographical indication in the EU is used to protect a product's > name/brand, not stop it from being produced outside that area. I can make > Aceto Balsamico in my basement the traditional way (I'd need a basement > first), and can sell it, but not call Aceto Balsamico.

And this is exactly what happens in Italy, too; I did my apprenticeship there and ran a Kitchen in Emilia Romanga, where quite honestly it seems everything that comes out of there is protected (restricted is more like it) with that seal.

However, after a few months I got invited to what can be best described as an underground Farmer's Market to Industry only guests that moves around people's farms/properties where they sell their products, be it Aceto, or Parmigiano, Culatello, Lambrusco etc... as a white label product sold strictly for 'personal use' only, but a poorly kept secret was that it was possible it also _somehow_ found its way to the tables of certain restaurants as an accompaniment to an apperativo or as an anti-pasti. They're amazing products, made by artisans with great care, but they simply lacked a that designation as they were done in such small batches that even considering acquiring it would set them back economically.

It was entirely like a faire with karaoke and music and dancing as well as make-shift stalls for these kind of products and they made food, and since it was mainly made up of a curated list of local chefs and farmers everything was amazing, it was the one of the highlights of my career to have been allowed to join and I wish I could have gone more often but work restricted me from going as it was mainly held during service hours and only announced a few days ahead of the event.

<comment><USER5> I don't want to seem too much a nitpicker on your spelling but:

>to an apperativo or as an anti-pasti

should be written as "an aperitivo or as an antipasto".

<comment><USER6> Is antipasti not the plural of antipasto?

<comment><USER5> Yes, antipasti is the plural of antipasto, and as such you cannot say "an antipasti", but anti-pasto or anti-pasti is improper as it would sound as someone that is "against meals".

Antipasto is a composed word, made from ante- (the prefix of latin origin meaning before) and pasto (meal). The ante in composed words is sometimes changed into anti, but the word is a known one and has no hyphen.

Whilst there are a number of accepted words including the prefix anti- (which comes from Greek and means "against") the prefix (usually including the hyphen) is instead used to make new derivatives/neologisms, i.e. if you are against (say) smoking, you are anti-fumo or antifumo (and then antifumo without hyphen might become an accepted word in the dictionary if it becomes of common use)

<comment><USER4> Mi dispiace...

I learned Italian via solely listening to it only while working in the country, best from an Austrian ex-lover who was from a border town in the North no less... so much like the other 3 languages (non-English) I speak, my grammar and syntax are admittedly usually off.

Thanks for the correction, though. Antipasto, no hyphen, got it.

As for this:

> I don't see the issue with these kind of protections. If there were none, > some massive corporation would come in, make a cheaper, worse version with > the same name, and put the original makers out of business. Consumers lose, > small businesses lose, local communities lose, and the only winner is BigCo.

That's exactly what has happened anyway in food without those things at the very source, farms are mainly a consolidated conglomerate all over the World; but in Italy the biggest food monoliths are able to have amazing clout, especially in ER, but the truth is that Italy has an integral counter-balance as it has a deep and rich history with it's cuisine such that the consumers are far better educated and entirely unlikely to fall for the the allure of a 'race to the bottom' as ER prides itself as 'Il Paese del Buon Gusto.'

It was such a pleasure cooking in ER where many of our patrons would give me direct feedback and come back to see the improvements as we went throughout the season(s) as many were locals and how so many invited me and my staff into their own homes to hang and show us how they make those aforementioned products without the labels. And just so it's clear, its not like they don't have some that are protected along side as well.

Modena is best known for it's Aceto, but one of the patrons I mentioned had vats going back over 500 years that were moved to Maranello during WWII due to damage and re-purposing of what was mainly farm land and not only did it have that regional seal, but he had proudly stated that he had sold out his entire foreseeable inventory (at the times) for the next 3 years. He had no desire to expand, and he took great pride in just making an amazing product that embodied his family's traditions and his local culture.

The situation is just a lot more nuanced than what you're making it out to be, and also you have to understand that Italy is a country with 50+ types of cheeses, and probably well over 100 types of pasta, that are really just colloquially named to _differ_ from the others and are only slightly different, if at all, than others.

What I'm trying to say is that Italy specifically is so fragmented that I don't think what you propose is a real threat after having lived and worked there.

Ironically, this is also why they say Italy is entirely ungovernable as well.

<comment><USER5> Don't worry, no need to be sorry, Italian as a language is "tough" for a foreigner, or - maybe better said - once you get over the basics (which appear simple)it gets nuanced, and - generally speaking - Italians tend not to correct too much foreigners as long as they can understand them.

Besides the fragmentation you noted, you have to add also the language one, even if today almost anyone can speak and understand Italian and normally uses it, in many areas local dialects are still widely in use, often partially mixed with Italian, to the point that the Italian you learned from a girl from the north, border with Austria, will be (slightly) different from the one you would have learned if she was from - say - Rome, both for the accent and for the use of one word instead of another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kueh lapis is delicious, but by local standards eye-wateringly expensive due to the effort involved, even when it's just "regular" layer cake and not further remixed like the Sarawak variant. With a minimum wage of RM 1100/mo, that RM250 cake is a week's income.

Some well-known local chains if you're even in the region:

[https://lavender.com.my/](https://lavender.com.my/)

[http://www.bengawansolo.com.sg/cat_signature_range.aspx](http://www.bengawansolo.com.sg/cat_signature_range.aspx)

In the spirit of HN, perhaps there's room for a startup to automate the process with robotics and 3D printing...

</comment><comment><USER8> When I was living in Labuan most food places sold cakes (usually a simpler pattern) and nasi lemak (coconut rice topped with sambal and wrapped in a banana leaf) for breakfast.

Maybe an acquired taste but I found the amount of butter and oil a bit sickly.

<comment><USER9> Nasi lemak is one of the worlds great dishes, at any time of the day!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> These are beautiful. I worked in a Malaysian restaurant as a young adult and unfortunately they didn't serve cakes. I'm a little saddened to think I may never get to experience one.

<comment><USER11> When Covid calms down, Sarawak is a wonderful place to visit.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. Kuching makes a fantastic base, and it's remarkably easy to visit the incredible, diverse places across the state. My partner and I visited in Autumn 2019 and had an amazing time. Highly recommend Bako national park in particular!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a low 懐石, these cakes would be nice to eat after reading: [https://aeon.co/ideas/is-there-any-real-distinction- between-...](https://aeon.co/ideas/is-there-any-real-distinction-between-high- and-low-pleasures)

Bonus battenberg track: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELH0ivexKA)

</comment><comment><USER14> They seem to be the Malaysian equivalent of Battenberg cakes but more intricate and complicated

</comment><comment><USER15> I thought for sure the title was a typo for "caves". But no, they are complex cakes!</comment>


Lua-Based Mac OS X Window Manager - <AUTHOR> http://www.hammerspoon.org

<comment><USER2> I'm one of the maintainers of Hammerspoon.

For some context, this is a fork of an app that's been posted to HN before - Mjolnir. We wanted to take things in a slightly more integrated direction than sdegutis, so we are building on his excellent work and branching out on our own. Massive kudos to him for giving us a solid starting point!

Happy to answer questions, here or on #hammerspoon (Freenode), or deal with any github issues you care to file :)

<comment><USER3> It's an interesting project for sure. I especially like being able to manipulate Finder menus with this.

For someone using Slate (js) that has also read your docs, I'm not sure what you mean by more integrated. Could you elaborate on the use of that word?

<comment><USER2> Mjolnir takes a very minimalist approach, you install the main app, then install luarocks and pull in all the plug-in modules with that. We wanted to ship as many modules as we could, with the app, so it would be more immediately useful out of the box. (there are other changes Hammerspoon has made, but that is probably the largest)

<comment><USER3> Great, thanks for the explanation!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're the author of that page, I'd highly suggest adding a "why" to that page. Just list a few of the cool things that you can do. I had to read the getting started guide to get any idea of what I might be able to actually do with it. But, I'm very glad that I did, this seems like a very useful tool.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, that's a good point. I'm tempted to actually just make the "why" section be a link to that guide, because any brief list would be woefully incomplete (as is the guide, but at least we're working on that!)

Edit: I have added a section to try and grab attention with some of the things we can do :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: AdBlock detection by abusing the streaming parser - <AUTHOR> https://pixel.shodan.me/streaming <comment><USER2> This has been done and thought of before. I'll go over why you don't see anyone using it. :)

Now obviously the "2 seconds" would need to be tweaked to be _slower_. Throttling my internet to 'GPRS' in Chrome results in the site thinking I'm using an ad blocker (for this demonstration, I disabled it). It took 2.10s before my browser tried to download adv.css which resulted in me being flagged for using an ad blocker.

You'll want to serve your site to users quickly or you'll raise your bounce rate (and possibly get less ad impressions as a result). But now you're looking at a 3s~ delay just to serve an image. Imagine if you had a site, more images, some javascript, etc? Would users even attempt to browse your site if every page load took 3-5 seconds to read the content because you were waiting to serve content while detecting if they are using an ad blocker?

If AdBlockers hurt you so much that having a 3-5s delay to serve your website is a realistic alternative you're better off shutting up shop or dealing with the fact your site is simply not profitable.

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw it more as a way to require users to disable their adblock without having "easy" ways to get around it. If you get bounced because you didn't disable adblock then no revenue is lost. A system can be put in place to only do this check every so often instead of every page load. I understand the issues with this method. This is a very aggressive way of checking for adblockers but highly effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting concept, but do we really need to make web sites even slower to load?

\---

START OF RANT

If you block ad-blockers (like forbes.com just did to me), I will only share your articles via archive.is .

Sure, your children may starve to death, your wife may leave you but don't blame me because in the end you did all this to yourself. I was happy to use your site when it had a couple of non-intrusive text ads to pay the bills but then you went to fill 60% of the screen with flashing images, autoplaying videos and malware installing flash ads.

END OF RANT

<comment><USER4> Why do people feel so entitled? Don't like the ads on forbes? Pay them or don't visit them at all.

<comment><USER2> Is it entitlement to not want malware? Or are we really so quick to forget: [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbe...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbes- site-after-begging-you-turn-off-adblocker-serves-up-steaming-pile-malware- ads.shtml)

I don't block ads to prevent companies from getting ad revenue. I block ads for _my own safety_ and malware prevention.

<comment><USER5> The parent post is not saying anything against adblocking, it says something against copying content to other sites to access it despite the site owner not wanting you to.

<comment><USER2> Given the context of the grandparent quote - I do not believe you are correct but I can see the ambiguity. I see it as them using the argument of "if you don't like the ads, don't visit the website" which has been argued ad nauseum (pun intended) in nearly every discussion on HN that involves ads and ad blockers.

They aren't visiting the site if they read it via archive.is links. So "Don't like the ads on forbes? Pay them or don't visit them at all." is out of place there if _not_ talking about ad blockers but actually talking about the practice of using archive.is links.

And giving people you know archive.is links, since you may not know if they run an ad blocker or not, _also_ serves to protect them from malware. So my point stands - except I'm protecting my friends/family from malware instead of myself.

Get rid of the user-tracking, Javascript-enabled/Flash-enabled/3rd-party ads that can serve malware and maybe they could convince the security/privacy concerned users (I'm purposefully excluding users who block ads to block ads from my list) to whitelist their advertisements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting concept, but I don't expect it to be used commercially anytime soon, because of how slow it makes the page load.

Then again, maybe your site being annoyingly slow for people who block ads is a feature rather than a bug.

<comment><AUTHOR> The page will remain slow until you disable your adBlock of course. Which is some extra stimulation to disable your adBlock.

<comment><USER7> LOL. It's extra stimulation to develop better adblock. I already turned on blocking of adblock blockers, because they are annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love it. Great idea! If people don't want to see ads on my website they souldn't consume my bandwidth.

<comment><USER8> I think a lot more people than you think would be behind this point of view.

The problem is: right now we are in a weird middle, in which media companies want the text to be fully available (so you can arrive to it via Google and/or social media) while, simultaneously, only visible to those who don't use an ad blocker.

This is of course impossible, but that's how we got stuck in this strange position of "I put it online for free, but I didn't mean free for _you_ ".

IMHO, a full all-or-nothing approach would be well received. Whether it would be economically successful, that's another story.

<comment><USER9> The stupid thing is that the content of most websites is mostly ads, at least from my perspective as a user. (I don't care about the nuances of who is serving the ads) On top of that, a lot of websites waste bandwidth on what I consider dumb shit, like megabytes of javascript needed to make a reactive layout. Said layout is pretty much guaranteed to be so annoying I will disable mobile viewing on my phone.

I work in marketing, and I think the issue is that advertising is a disaster. It's the tragedy of the commons. Highly annoying or misleading ads (CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD) get way more clicks and impressions. Don't even get me started on autoplaying videos. The worst offenders are traditional media companies, who are both the reason why I'm using an ad blockers and also the most likely to block me for using an ad blocker.

I don't particularly feel bad about blocking ads, but I think ads are a good way to support websites. There are very few sites I trust enough to unblock ads on though, and it's because their ads are both unobtrusive and relevant to the content.

Just for example, the Chicago Tribune's print ads are fine. Their website ads are almost entirely link to fake news articles that make the National Enquirer look like the New York Times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> BEAR CHIPS</comment>


Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days - <AUTHOR> http://www.funnymos.com/chinese-workers-build-15-story-hotel-in-just-six-days.html

<comment><USER2> Previous conversations: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1895354> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1901274></comment>


Harvard Converts Millions of Legal Documents into Open Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.govtech.com/analytics/Harvard-Converts-Millions-of-Legal-Documents-into-Open-Data.html <comment><USER2> Hi! I'm a project dev. In case it's helpful, there's lots of Q&A in this previous thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18330876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18330876)

I'll try to answer any questions that pop up here as well.

<comment><USER3> Which OCR did you use?

<comment><USER2> ABBYY FineReader -- I don't have the specific version in front of me unfortunately.

In addition to the structured text we're currently serving through the API, we also have 300DPI color scans and per-word coordinates and confidence scores, so there's a lot more we can do with the OCR data that isn't exposed yet.

<comment><USER4> For those docs that require more finesse (This is OCR :D), was there a massive manual effort involved?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And arron swartz is dead. Not sure how many of the docs made public are ones that we was trying to hack in to. That incident will always leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

<comment><USER6> None. He was distributing copyrighted articles from JSTOR. These are court cases which legally cannot be copyrighted (with any copyrighted annotations in the paper copies properly redacted). The two situations have nothing in common.

<comment><USER7> Heh. And yet case.law has a 500 case download limit except those who have been approved by research agreements that are mandatory by lexis nexis. I've been waiting since release night to get a research license approved. Granted, it's been less than a week.

What do you think would happen if somebody with a research agreement downloaded everything and released it all to the public? You'd probably then find that the two situations are very similar.

<comment><USER8> That's pretty tautological, isn't it?

> If someone did a very similar thing here to what Swartz did with JSTOR, this > situation would then be very similar to what Swartz did with JSTOR.

<comment><USER9> No, the question is asking whether a similar act would result in a similar outcome; whether there is a crucial difference in how the two perceptibly similar things would interact with law.

Analogously, one could ask what would happen if someone avoided their taxes vs. evaded their taxes. Both could be seen as morally the same act, but the legal consequences are different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is very exciting! I'm looking forward to digging into this info.

I'll read a bit more on the site, but offhand does anyone know if this is an ongoing effort, in that new (2019 and beyond) cases will be brought in as well?

<comment><USER2> For now we're stopping with volumes published up through June 2018. The Free Law Project ([https://free.law](https://free.law)) is a good source for cases published after that, although they're mostly unofficial versions scraped from court websites.

We're hopeful that all courts will switch to official digital-first publishing over the next few years, as a few courts already have. Once the transition is complete, it might make sense for us to go back and fill in the gap volumes.

<comment><USER11> FWIW: We offered many years ago to pay PACER and various states to do precisely that (move to digital publishing, and make it all open).

They were all unwilling. PACER is at least somewhat reasonable, since we did not offer to pay them the 145 million a year they were making at the time, and they felt Congress would kill them if they gave up that revenue source, which is probably not wrong. (the others, what we offered was much more than they were making).

So I'm not sure why you have such hope.

For all states hat _have_ moved to digital first publishing, just about all of them have struck agreements with lexis/etc whereby they have token "free access" sites and the data is still otherwise locked up.

<comment><USER2> > I'm not sure why you have such hope.

Hey, I work at the Library Innovation Lab -- being hopeful about open access scenarios is just one of the services I provide. :)

But basically I'm hopeful in this instance because (a) there's less and less incentive for commercial publishers to try to control this particular low- bandwidth stream of public domain text; (b) there's more and more platforms that would benefit from a standard open feed; and (c) the courts have had a lot more time to think about it (in the grand scheme of how old courts are vs. how old the internet is) and see other courts try it first.

On that last point, we have a dozen or so state supreme courts already using another service of ours, Perma.cc, so we do have some idea how they think about adopting new technology.

Would love to chat more with you or anyone else who's been thinking about how to crack this -- your experience sounds really interesting, and "hopeful" doesn't mean I think it'll be easy. Contact info is in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's a very long history to the effort to digitize federal and state case law. West, once a private company, sued Lexis/Nexis claiming that their page numbers were copyrighted. West lost, and perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, sold itself. The copyrighted material added by their editors were summaries of the cases themselves. But wouldn't these be derivative works, given that most of the time they merely copied key text from the opinion, as opposed to creating an original work? With digitization, the key number system, a valuable finding aid in the analog days, became unnecesary. Whatever happened to the Taxpayers' Assets Program? Or the Department of Justice's Juris system? Perhaps Juris was obtained under license from West or Lexis, but the Air Force had their own system, called FLITE (Federal Legal Information through Electronics). The Assets Program tried to get access to Flite but could never get the Air Force to push the button. Remember that the raw material for all of these cases are the opinions written by federal employees; i.e., federal judges. The opinions themselves cannot be copyrighted. A copyright wrapper around them was permitted. I'm surprised that only three states have made their records available under this program: in Florida it was possible to sign up for the feed and receive a zip file of all "published"(that is, filed) cases every week. More than a few private companies jumped in. It's now possible to get access to one library or another at a fraction of the 1980's cost. The deep dark secret of all of this is that, except for a few clarion cases, you only have to pay attention to the last 400 volumes or so; maybe only the last two hundred volumes of the Federal Reporter, Third Series. The U.S. Reports (not the Supreme Court Reporter, which is inside the copyright wrapper along with the Lawyer's Edition) contains no copyrighted material whatsoever. The basic problem is that there is simply too much law. It is difficult to keep up with the law in a single jurisdiction, and impossible to keep up with the case law written in the whole country.

</comment><comment><USER13> What applications can be built with this? Any attorneys here who can comment?

</comment><comment><USER14> Some can figure out how to use this data set to train a AI lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does it mean it's all in the public domain?</comment>


I'm a junior designer looking for feedback on my portfolio - <AUTHOR> http://www.steliosconstantinides.com/

<comment><USER2> I guess if my one critique is that I'd like to see more examples in the portfolio that's a good problem for you to have.

PS I like the fact that you're showing process in a very small space.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great to hear, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I liked the shit to do app an the live preview thumb image. The website I self is sweet! Nice work. Μπραβο αδελφέ!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ευχαριστώ!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice! I like the use of animated GIFs to demonstrate interactions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


South Park China: Writers in Mock Apology After Beijing Censorship - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49968867 <comment><USER2> Damnit I'll have to start watching SP again.</comment>


Face-detecting systems in China OK payments, open doors, track criminals - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603494/10-breakthrough-technologies-2017-paying-with-your-face/ <comment><USER2> > track criminals

No, they track everyone, not just criminals.</comment>


German labour reforms: Unpopular success - <AUTHOR> https://voxeu.org/article/german-labour-reforms-unpopular-success <comment><USER2> The Hartz 4 reform is unpopular in Germany, because it created a rampant low- wage sector coupled with exploitative temp work. Hartz 4 is nothing but dehumanziation, authorized by the government. Meanwhile the so-called elite bluntly enrich itself. This can only be a puzzle for people, who profit from the system.</comment>


Some best practices for using Git - <AUTHOR> https://deepsource.io/blog/git-best-practices/ <comment><USER2> Every git commit should have a ticket ID.

Squash all commits! No development commits in master branch.

<comment><USER3> Once squashed, how do you go back to the dev commits?

<comment><USER4> My dev commits are usually of the form "Add test for Foo.bar", and every master commit has a dozen or so of these dev commits squashed together. Dev commits are not usually immediately useful to anyone other than the author.

<comment><USER5> Lots of different opinions here. I prefer seeing how the sausage was made, just as much as I know that unsettles some folks. Git has a DAG for multiple reasons, but a DAG also gives options for not sweeping everything under the rug in rebase/squashes. I think graph traversal options like --first-parent are more interesting ways to get "clean" commit history logs in "master" than rebase/squash.

I've seen (and had to help junior devs fix) far more broken branches due to rebase/squash commits than merge commits in git, that I've almost considered finding ways to entirely disable rebase/squash on projects I work on. They are useful tools that I still sometimes use locally during development myself, but I'd much rather see someone's messy laundry in their commit history than a clean history with an accidental merge bomb lurking under the surface where it isn't even obvious a rebase/squash went bad until you've got the regression report and angry users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great pointers. However, I have found that even though quite a few people know this, it takes special effort to enforce it. For example, the single-purpose commits. My commits often tend to get a bit large, and include more than one "unit" of work, even though I know the best practices. Any pointers on how to avoid that?

<comment><USER5> `git add --interactive` can be a great tool to learn in this case: [https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Interactive-Staging](https://git- scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Tools-Interactive-Staging)

In particular, the ability to only stage specific "hunks" at a time (interactive "patch" in the nomenclature of git) can make it possible to "untangle" multiple changes in your working directory into separate commits.

<comment><USER6> Didn't know about that. Thank you.</comment></comment></comment>


Playing Games on a 60s Computer [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L743MjJthHY <comment><USER2> I just find the concept of programming at such a low level fascinating. Stripping away all the complexities, boilerplate, and niceties of modern programing and ending up with a system like this where you go from directly modifying the contents of memory, to playing a fully fledged game written in basic is amazing.

A good reminder that at the end of the day all this CS stuff is just ones and zeros in a chip.

<comment><USER3> This is the computing I fell in love with back in the 80s/90s, when I could realistically understand most, if not all about a given computer (that applies mostly to 80s computers).

Nothing wrong with the stuff we do today, but I think some of the "magic" of fully mastering a computer and seeing all those raw commands executing at lightning speed (relatively speaking!) was lost.

<comment><USER4> Its not lost, Its now microcontroller/arduino programming. Its a lot of fun to write code for something so direct to the hardware. There is no OS, no security, no multi tasking. You just write a bit to a certain memory address linked to a pin and motor go brrr.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes I think the higher end embedded chips are even more fun, because you have an FPGA with shared memory to the processor and tons of IO pins. You can do some truly ridiculous things, including emulating other processors in the fpga fabric hehe.

<comment><USER4> I haven't tried FPGAs yet, just doing basic AVR programming with GCC-AVR and avrdude. Do FPGAs have an open source/hobby community around them like AVR does? I have heard bad things about FPGA companies being old fashioned/secretive.

<comment><USER6> It's true that the FPGA vendors are very secretive, often to the point of requiring NDAs for access to datasheets and toolchains.

There is open source tooling for some FPGAs and a fairly small but very helpful community around it.

Yosys, IceStorm, SymbiFlow, and nmigen are the major projects in the space that I'm aware of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lovely background on what looks like the same machines working life here (PDF link)

[http://vtda.org/docs/computing/SEL/SEL810ARonPrice.pdf](http://vtda.org/docs/computing/SEL/SEL810ARonPrice.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> Was there a more convenient way to perform the bootstrap? Couldn't it have been in some kind of ROM? It appears to be only a handful of bytes.

<comment><USER9> I also wondered this, what did the pipeline company do if/when there was a loss of power?

<comment><USER10> What you saw was the cold start procedure for a completely uninitialized machine -- manually enter a short bootstrap loader of a dozen instructions or so, just enough to load a longer one from whatever I/O device was handy. A _lot_ of machines had this kind of start procedure -- if there's a large row of switches on the front panel, that's probably what they were there for.

(Core memory would retain its contents without power, so if you were absolutely _sure_ nothing could _possibly_ have disturbed that initial bootstrap routine since the last time you toggled it in, it might still be there. But a lab minicomputer of that era, probably didn't have any memory protection at all, so that's a pretty big "if".)

<comment><USER11> Why is this being downvoted? Is it incorrect?

<comment><USER12> I saw a Prime 750 minicomputer cold booted exactly as described in the 1980s - so I can't see any problem with that post.

Edit: It's describing a situation where a "Resident Monitor" isn't built in, but is manually loaded after power up.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I enjoy these retro computing videos. I have fond memories of programming on IBM 360 series systems, DEC, DG, TI and PR1ME systems. I was fortunate that my high school in the 70s had a PDP-8 and an ASR-33 TTY that students could sign up to use.

So much of life is a matter of luck, and I was definitely lucky to be a part of the computer revolution over the course of my career.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you want to learn more about what he's doing on the front panel there, check out this fantastic introduction to how the first PCs were operated with front panel switches. This series is about the Altair 8800 but the same ideas apply to most computers of the era. It starts out writing programs with front panel switches, then shows how bootloader programs worked to load larger programs off of tape or some other IO mechanism. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suyiMfzmZKs&list=PLB3mwSROoJ...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suyiMfzmZKs&list=PLB3mwSROoJ4KLWM8KwK0cD1dhX35wILBj)

</comment><comment><USER15> This brought back an old memory. My first exposure to a lunar lander game looked very similar to the game he plays in the video. It was at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. This was in the early 80s, so it was probably running on a microcomputer, not a behemoth like this. I only vaguely understood what was happening, and I couldn't land successfully. But I loved it, nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER16> I really wish I could have gotten my 7 year old son to think that this was what games looked like. He would have stuck to his Diary of a Wimpy kid books and never looked back.

<comment><USER14> Point him at the Twine community :) Though be careful, some of them are uhhhh "for mature audiences."

[http://twinery.org/](http://twinery.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So why was the Altair front panel grouped into octal, but the Imsai in hex?

I find octal totally confusing.

<comment><USER14> It's a balance between compactness and ease of converting to binary. The switches on the front panel are in binary. It's a lot easier to convert octal to binary than hexadecimal. For example:

        0o13 -> 0b1_011

versus

        0xB -> 0b1011</comment></comment>


Running Rust on the Rumprun Unikernel - <AUTHOR> https://gandro.github.io/2015/09/27/rust-on-rumprun/ <comment><USER2> Well done!

It'll be interesting to see what space unikernels take up in the coming years.

I think there is still a lot of fruitful territory to be explored in this space as traditional multi-user, multi-tenant assumptions can be thrown out the window. I think a big, unexplored advance that unikernels might be able to offer is the ability for the kernel-part to peek into the guts of what its programs are actually doing (at compile or run time) and make broader assumptions about scheduling.

<comment> vezzy-fnord It would probably be the other way around, the programs making their own fine- grained policies from primitive kernel mechanisms. This has been an area of research for decades.

Multi-tenant assumptions probably aren't going away, since mainstream systems have by and large not been able to handle them.

<comment><USER2> In this case I meant that something of a runtime or additional code could be tacked on to programs when the compiler and/or run time sees that a program only computes in response to input, for example. In the case of unikernels, distinguishing parts of the "system" is an arbitrary line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Speaking of Rust - is anyone running Rust in production apps yet? Now that Rust has reached 1.3.0, it's perhaps not unlikely.

<comment><USER4> [https://doc.rust-lang.org/complement-lang-faq.html#is- anyone...](https://doc.rust-lang.org/complement-lang-faq.html#is-anyone-using- rust-in-production)?

<comment><USER5> Clickable link :-p

[https://doc.rust-lang.org/complement-lang-faq.html#is- anyone...](https://doc.rust-lang.org/complement-lang-faq.html#is-anyone-using- rust-in-production%3F)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great work! I'm so glad this has been done. I think seeing OCaml used with Xen made me realize how great Rust could be in this context.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would like to hear more about what things are unsupported. For example, rump kernels do not have fork, so obviously if you expect you application to fork, it will not work. But there are other, more subtle caveats.

<comment><USER8> Your statement "rump kernels do not have fork" is not entirely accurate in the context. Rump kernels do _support_ fork. However, it is not conceptually a rump kernel's business to _provide_ fork. So it's actually the Rumprun unikernel that does not provide fork here. It's a small but quite important distinction, because it means that if you wanted, you could take the upper part of the stack and bolt it on to some other simple bottom layer which does support fork. I certainly don't want to, but maybe someone else does.

Anyway, you are right, not everything is supported. It would be cool to know if a valid program will work on Rust+Rumprun without having to run it, but I can't imagine a simple solution to that problem. I guess if the problem of knowing if something will work without running it were solved, programs wouldn't have bugs ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What kind of embedded devices could this be booted with?

<comment><USER10> Anything that can run FreeBSD and then some? I don't know.

<comment><USER7> NetBSD, not FreeBSD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great news!</comment>


Openlag software: A model for close and open software - <AUTHOR>

Openlag software is a model in which a company accept to release a product with a new open sotfware license (for example bsd) in x years time, x is the lag.
For example, imagine that Wolfram decides to use this kind of model for Mathematica  with a lag of three years, that is in three years you have the three years old version in the open software.  This kind of model would promote the adoption of this product from universities and other big corporations that don't want to use a black box, and at the same time the company has to innovate new features since the old version will be in the open and for free.
What do you think about this model?
The first axiom of any new model of sofware is that it should help create new jobs and profits for companies and innovate, do you think this model would allow this? <comment><USER2> There is no difference between having closed component and one with couple of years lag when I need to fix some critical bug in it to release my app today.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank, that is interesting, to solve it: The lagged software should be given patch to critical bugs as soon as they are available, and the time lag for some products could be something like six months depending on the product. That is the company should provide patch for the critical bugs in the old version if such patch are available or help to solve that. The idea is that the company only keep the advantage of new features not taking advantage of critical bugs to sell the new version.</comment></comment>


Simulation of aerosol spread in indoor spaces - <AUTHOR> https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/researchers-modelling-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-emphasise-the-importance-of-avoiding-busy <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22822175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22822175)</comment>


Scots, What the Heck? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/opinion/paul-krugman-scots-what-the-heck.html?_r=1 <comment><USER3> Paul Krugman is so much better when he's being rational about economics than when he's on yet another tirade about how bad Republicans are – whether one agrees or not, it's just uninteresting. This is similar to how Richard Dawkins is utterly brilliant when he sticks to evolutionary biology but kind of insufferable when he crusades against religion.

<comment><USER4> You're entitled to your opinion on his crusades against religion. But let's bear in mind that there are those of us who consider religious irrationalism a key challenge of our age, nationally and internationally, and hence that such a crusade is important.

<comment><USER5> Let's also remember there are people who believe that insults and condescension are the least effective ways to help someone see they are acting irrationally, and that attacking a group of people's shared identity is the worst way to work with them on the substance of the challenges of our time.

<comment><USER6> You're right it's a poor way to change someone's mind, and certainly doesn't foster inclusion, but what of people who are still making up their mind? Mainly, I'm talking about young people who have been raised in a mostly religious context, but haven't gone head-over-heels yet.

It _might_ be that challenging superstition in the most brutal way possible (outside of physical violence, that is), serves to promote more rational beliefs among this group.

<comment> k-mcgrady I doubt it. I won't repost my other comment which addresses this [1] but in my opinion people like Dawkins are fanatics. And science/atheist fanatics are no better than religious fanatics. Religious fanatics drive me away from religion but Dawkins fanaticism drives me away from atheism.

I think it's calm, rational argument that has swayed me most away from religion. Just a simple thought experiment:

1\. You think religions like scientology are crazy. 2\. You believe in a man who was born of a virgin, died, rose from the dead, and who hundreds of millions of people eat and drink every weekend. 3\. How can you call them crazy when you believe that?

Even still it's hard for me to get off the fence but simple arguments like that, which aren't arrogant and totally patronising, but lay out the facts in an honest way, are what convince people.

I think the problem with a more aggressive approach is arrogance. Most religious people probably accept they could be wrong - their belief is based on faith. But aggressive atheists argue that religious people are wrong and stupid when from a religious persons perspective the atheist has no proof they are wrong. Evolution is real and correct but isn't proof their is no God. Atheists say it's not up to them to prove their is no God, it's up to religious people to prove their is. But if you're calling someone out as wrong they will think you need to prove it. Because there is and never will be a way to disprove the existence of a God I don't think this approach works. You have to present the facts in a way that is honest but in a way that the other person hasn't thought about before.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8289140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8289140)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Krugman's article dialect borders on the offending.

The point he was making can be easily summed as the peculiarities of the macroeconomic Trilemma[1]. If Scotland honours the pound, then it must either lose monetary independence or restrict capital inflows. Every country must make this decision, whether they are in an economic union or not. Scotland's situation is interesting because effectively, a fixed exchange rate situation with Britain will mean less monetary policy mechanisms for Scotland to play with. Of course, it can always attempt to maintain economic stability with fiscal policy; it suffices here to say they have their individual purposes.

Krugman is a very well known advocate of monetary policy, especially in the 2008 recession. For this reason, it's clear he has a disposition towards favouring his own tools of choice. Of course, for being a left wing economist, it isn't difficult to see a possible reason why he favours monetary policy: it devalues currency, taking more from those who hold large cash balances.

Economists, like all other professions, should strive to be fair and balanced in their articles. Krugman's article is certainly not balanced.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity)

<comment><USER8> > Of course, for being a left wing economist, it isn't difficult to see a > possible reason why he favours monetary policy: it devalues currency, taking > more from those who hold large cash balances.

This is one of those memes that just won't die: currency devaluation isn't bad for the rich. It's bad for the poor. The rich hold the vast majority of their wealth in inflation-proof assets. Their housing costs are fixed because they own houses. The poor hold what little liquid wealth they have in cash, and their housing costs are variable because they rent.

If inflation was the pro-poor policy, you could be damn sure we wouldn't have experienced it consistently for a hundred years.

This confusion springs from the idea that inflation is a pro-debtor policy. But the biggest debtors by far are rich people and institutions. Nobody lends poor people tens of thousands of dollars to buy securities on margin, or millions to build real estate developments.

<comment><USER9> The reality is more complicated. Wages tend to be sticky downwards, therefore the main way to dig a country out of a balance sheet recession is through currency devaluation, which forces a haircut through other means. It's how Canada and Germany rebounded in the 90s.

Yes, this hurts the poor and middle class, as inflation does (though it also can help - people that bought houses in the 70s effectively got a discount), but unemployment hurts more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think it would have made more sense for Krugman to frame this as an argument for a new Scottish currency: his point is that

* a currency union without a political union is bound to cause problems if you wait long enough

* history shows us that nobody is willing to fix the currency until it's too late

So it would be better if Scotland avoids starting on the wrong track by simply creating a currency. As he states, though, the Scottish secessionists are bound and determined to go the wrong way...

(Side note: Labor productivity is lower in Canada, but something tells me that working hours are shorter and vacations longer...)

<comment><USER11> I thought that odd too: surely lower labor productivity in a prosperous nation is a positive indicator of a higher quality of life.

<comment><USER12> Canada has a lot of oil and other natural resources in proportion to its population. I suspect this underwrites a lot of their high standard of living vs. labor intensiveness. I'm not sure nations that don't have that kind of cash cow can do what Canada does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > And it wasn't just Spain, it was all of southern Europe and more. Even euro- > area countries with sound finances, like Finland and the Netherlands, have > suffered deep and prolonged slumps.

I hadn't heard of troubles in those two countries before before, though I'm sure like pretty much every country in Europe — or indeed the world — they didn't go entirely unscathed during a global financial crisis. Scotland, the UK as a whole and other western European countries aren't exactly in the depths of recession and unemployment that have been happening in Spain and Greece, for example.

Note the lack of mention of Norway (not that it's a eurozone country), which is in an incredible financial position with a $900bn fund made up primarily by saving a portion of oil revenue. While Norway has had 15 years to amass this huge fund, this is the model that Scotland would like to follow — as after independence it would have control of its north sea oil and gas revenue.

> In short, everything that has happened in Europe since 2009 or so has > demonstrated that sharing a currency without sharing a government is very > dangerous.

What happened was dangerous, though arguably the use of a shared currency and central bank helped countries support one another.

In any case, the most likely outcome in the case of Scottish independence is a currency union with the rest of the UK, in a similar manner to the Euro. If the Bank of England denies Scotland the use of its assets, it will also have to forgo Scotland's share of the liabilities, essentially wiping out Scotland's share of UK debt. So it's unlikely that Scotland's currency would be completely separate in any case.

All in all, while there are naturally unknown factors, there are plenty of reasons to seek independence and just in terms of economics — even excluding oil and gas revenue — an independent Scotland would appear to be in a good financial position.

<comment><USER14> The housing market in NL all but crashed and is still just about limping along. In some provinces the situation is pretty dreadful. The funny bit is that the prices haven't dropped all that much (because people are psychologically much less likely to take a loss on a property than they are to cash in on a profit, a big factor in this is that they'll end up with a remaining debt to the bank after selling the house which is definitely not always an option).

So the market simply froze with asking prices holding relatively steady and sales dropping to near zero at some point. As of late there is a bit of a recovery depending on the area you look at.

<comment><USER15> That tends to happen with housing, meaning people cant move but prices do not appear to fall.

(In the US you don't end up with a debt to the bank if the value is less than the loan, but thats not the case in the rest of the world)

<comment><USER16> > In the US you don't end up with a debt to the bank if the value is less than > the loan

Could you explain this a bit more. I think you are saying that in the US when you sell your house for less than the value of the loan, the banks takes the loss instead of you, which is not how I thought it worked. Does this have something to do with mortgage insurance?

<comment><USER17> I think he means if you get foreclosed, the bank has no recourse beyond just taking your house. If you sell your house, then obviously you're responsible for the difference.

<comment><USER16> That seems odd. Why would anyone sell their house for less than their mortgage when they can just walk away and not owe anything?

<comment><USER18> > Why would anyone sell their house for less than their mortgage when they can > just walk away and not owe anything?

Credit and taxes -- a short sale is, though damaging, less so to ones creditworthiness than a foreclosure, further, the _entire amount of the unpaid principal_ (in either the short-sale or the foreclosure/surrender case, but foreclosure sales generally return less than a short sale with positive owner involvement would) is taxable as income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > But Canada has its own currency, which means that its government can't run > out of money, that it can bail out its own banks if necessary, and more. An > independent Scotland wouldn't. And that makes a huge difference.

Works for Panama, Ecuador, and El Salvador, all of which use the dollar. Worked for plenty of successful governments on the gold standard throughout history. And it works for every state and city and other regional government. It's really pretty partisan and tendentious to suggest that governments playing games with the currency is a fundamental tenet of governance.

Just because your favored public policy techniques make use of currency manipulation doesn't mean a nation can't do without it, Mr. Krugman, even if the Scots _are_ pretty far to the Left.

<comment><USER20>
        > Works for Panama, Ecuador, and El Salvador, all of which
        > use the dollar.

Scotland! You too can have the economy of a Central American state!

(Scotland's GDP: $216 billion, Panama $36b, Ecuador $84b, El Salvador $23b)

<comment><USER8> Scotland was ground zero for the industrial revolution and has had relative peace within its borders for centuries.

Those other three countries all experienced coups in living memory, and didn't seriously start industrializing until at least a century later than Scotland.

Those factors are more than enough to explain a factor of four or five difference in GDP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My sister lives and works and Scotland on visa (we're American).

She (and others in her position) are worried that this passing may well end up with her visa not getting renewed or cancelled as they are UK viasas rather than Scottish ones.

Could be interesting times for ex-pats living in Scotland!

<comment><USER22> As a Scot living in the US, I'm curious to know what's going to happen the other way around.

I'm concerned about what will happen to my British citizenship in the event of independence. It seems like Scotland would introduce its own citizenship and passport with independence, but it is unclear what would happen to existing British passport holders of Scottish descent.

If the answer is dual citizenship, I wonder how this will affect the availability of public services over time. For example, as a holder of both passports, would I be free to pick and choose which country I draw a pension from, get healthcare from, and pay tax to?

For me, there are too many unanswered questions. Currency is the tip of the iceberg.

<comment><USER23> You are not the only one with this concern. Despite being out of the country for a long time I would prefer to keep my British passport. I'm also annoyed that I don't get a vote on whether my nationality will change.

<comment><USER20> Why would your nationality change? You would simply gain an option on another nationality.

<comment><USER23> I am British and have a British passport. If there is a Yes votes I will have to change to a Scottish passport, which I believe will have less value, or an English passport, which is not my identity. Neither of those is a good choice.

Ex-pat Scots, whose nationality will be affected by the result, were specifically denied the vote, while English people and other nationalities, including Germans and other Europeans living in Scotland, have been allowed to vote. Complete insanity.

<comment><USER18> > I am British and have a British passport. If there is a Yes votes I will > have to change to a Scottish passport, which I believe will have less value, > or an English passport, which is not my identity.

Er, no one has proposed that _England_ become independent of the UK -- if Scotland leaves, you could have a Scottish passport or end up with a British passport. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland -- comprised of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland -- without Scotland will still be the United Kingdom of (most of) Great Britain and Northern Ireland -- comprised of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

<comment><USER23> I don't think you get my point.

<comment><USER24> Likely worst case scenario is the UK coffers get fat on Scottish registrations. Unless you opt to become a republic, you'll still be a British subject regardless.

[https://www.gov.uk/register-british-citizen](https://www.gov.uk/register- british-citizen)

<comment><USER25> Surprisingly (to me), most citizens of Britain are _not_ technically "British subjects."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_subject](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_subject)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interesting article. Worth noting that Stiglitz is more bullish about the economic possibilities for Scotland after independence - though I understand he's an advisor to the Scottish Government.

I'll be glued to the count on the 18th anyway.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm surprised that there is so much controversy about this article - <USER2> Paul Krugman has written here is outside the mainstream in international economics, in fact it can be taken out of a textbook (in fact the author has written a very popular one on the subject).

The point or the article is simple - you are going to have a new set of problems to work out, please think about them, don't assume the best possible outcome. I didn't see a radical policy proposal that could possibly offend anyone. A lot of people seem to dislike the examples - but this is just nitpicking to show off.

<comment><USER20>
        > I'm surprised that there is so much controversy about
        > this article

You must be new to the debate about Scottish independence on the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I expect this to be a wealth transfer event and personally I am going to make some cheeky One-Cancels-the-Other Order (OCO) bids and cheeky offers on the pound and on publicly listed Scottish companies, especially financial stocks. I expect price action will likely surge upon confirmation of where this vote will go and I'm betting I'll be able to make a profit from this event. In my experience the market always overshoots upon 'risky' events and reverts back to the mean.

I would be interested to hear if anyone else sees this vote the way I do (or doesn't)?

<comment><USER29> I'm an English person that lives in Quebec, and going from what I know growing up in the UK and what I have seen here with the current polling I'm convinced not going for independence will work out worse.

The reason is markets really hate uncertainty. Given a close but non-final referendum the result isn't certainty: it's potentially decades of uncertainty. Quebec has had this for over 30 years and it's destroyed the place. (To be clear, I don't think Quebec should go independent now, but if it was going to 1980 was the time).

Independence has many unknowns, but a lot of them are of the kind where solutions mysteriously won't be available until the problem actually presents itself. For example, the Scottish EU question is a lot of bluffing on both sides, but you can't help thinking the reality will prove to be a lot less exciting. After 5-10 years it will settle down a bit, but if the status quo is preserved with the potential for another one you can watch all the businesses hedging their bets with stuff going south of the border for decades to come, while the economy in the north becomes even more dependent on the public sector, which is a recipe for trouble.

As a result I don't think anyone taking too strong a financial position based on this coming out one way or the other is particularly wise.

<comment><USER28> Right I get what you're saying but this isn't a long term trade, I'm looking to set up a sort of 'jack in the box' trade where if price leaps up or leaps down I'll catch the ride and then cash out. I expect this trade will be done in a day.

For example, I remember being in NZ when Air NZ (publicly traded national airline) was in financial trouble and their share price was tanking. As soon as I could I bought up loads of shares on the (correct) assumption that the NZ Government wouldn't let the _only_ national carrier go bust. Sure enough the NZ Government announced a rescue package and I made some good money.

Thankfully I had the good sense to bet on Uncle Sam in 2008 and made a killing in options.

My point is that sometimes politics makes for 'wealth transfer' events in the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > In short, everything that has happened in Europe since 2009 or so has > demonstrated that sharing a currency without sharing a government is very > dangerous.

The above, I think, is the interesting content in this article. Whatever Scotland ends up doing, the larger questions of how the world of the future ought to be organized are important ones, and the above principle looks like one that is worthy of some thought.

<comment><USER31> Agreed. It seems impossible at the moment, but we should ask ourselves what the ideal situation would be and work to get there: what about a world government (democratically elected) that respects the diversity and autonomy of all nations (including Scotland, Catalonia and any others through the democratic application of the right to self-determination) with a global currency?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Independence is a tradeoff. On one side, they'll put the issue of not having currency and other downsides, on the other hand they'll put the benefits that they see fit.

Krugman's argument might be sound, I don't know, but I don't think it's the only argument.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "Independence is a tradeoff"

People seem to forget this and focus on a few individual issues instead of the bigger picture. In the end nobody really knows what will happen. I feel both sides have failed at answering people's questions but that's mainly because they don't know the answers to a lot of them. The decision either way will be majorly uniformed. I think for a lot of people it will be a question of 'I don't like the way things are and this is a way to possible change that'.

<comment><USER23> Hope is not a policy.

<comment> k-mcgrady I didn't say it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The linked article draws a bizarre comparison between Canada and Scotland, should it secede from the U.K.. First of all, Canada has nearly seven times the population and vastly more land. Second, Canada's "relatively small" economy is merely the #11 largest in the world in terms of GDP and three quarters the size of the entire U.K. (and 31% higher per capita). Third, Canada never really seceded from the U.K.. Although Canada has been independent in practice for over a century and completely independent in law since patriation in 1982, Canada's symbolic head of state is still the British monarch. Canada never had to fight or vote for independence. We just gradually wound up that way.

The relationship between Canada and the U.S. does have some superficial similarities, but Canada's status as a different country has always made relations between Canada and the U.S. substantially different than between Scotland and the U.K.. The situation Scotland finds itself is almost completely different from anything Canada as a whole has ever gone through.

The more interesting parallel is between Quebec and Scotland. Quebec's population is 50% larger than Scotland's and its land area is vastly larger, but it has held two referendums on separation from Canada and has threatened to hold others several times. Here are some lessons we've learned:

1\. Baseline support for separation is Quebec is well below 50% most of the time, but separatists have chosen unusual periods when separatist sentiment is at a peak to hold referendums and campaigned hard for a victory. In these separation referendums, the advantage clearly goes to the separatists.

2\. The terms for a successful separation vote have been and remain unclear. At the time of both referendums, federalists and separatists had extremely different ideas about what percentage of the vote would be necessary to actually carry out separation. Since then a "clarity act" has been passed, but all it states is that a "clear majority" is required. If it looks like Scotland might reach 50% plus one, then the U.K. and Scotland had better have a clear stance on what that will mean!

3\. A separatist government was responsible for composing the referendum questions in both of Quebec's sovereignty votes. These governments can and will choose tortuous, unclear phrasing to get as many extra votes as they can.

4\. Everybody has different ideas of what separation would actually entail. Would Quebec keep a portion of federal property (e.g. Military equipment)? Would they assume a proportional amount of the national debt? Would they be allowed to use Canadian currency/passports? Would English centers (e.g. Montreal) and native bands that wish to remain in Canada be permitted to separate from Quebec and remain with Canada? The list goes on and on. Federalists will make separation sound as scary and punitive as possible while separatists will make it sound as harmless as possible. The trouble is, people voting in the referendum don't really know what they're voting for except a start to the negotiations!

5\. Business interests loathe political instability. Referendums and separatist governments with draconian language laws have significantly retarded Quebec's economy over the years. I would suggest that, whether they separate or not, it would be in Scotland's best interests to pass a law stating how long it must be before the next referendum on separation can be held. If this is not done, separation will remain a constant uncertainty.

6\. Separation threats haven't been all bad for Quebec. Due to Canada's practice of transferring funds from wealthy provinces to poor provinces, Quebec has received substantial funding that has helped make up for it's lagging economy. Their separatist governments have also used the specter of separation to extort concession after concession out of the federal government. If Scotland votes no, it's a safe bet that the U.K. government will be pandering to Scottish interests for generations.

<comment><USER34> > Canada's status as a different country has always made relations between > Canada and the U.S. substantially different than between Scotland and the > U.K

That is literally the point of Krugman's article, not a reason to dismiss it.

To spell it out for you, the comparison is that an independent Scotland would have a relationship to the UK analagous to that between Canada and the US, a small northern country bordering an economically dominant southern one that is its major trading partner, and with which it has close cultural ties.

The Quebec tangent you go off on makes no sense, since the situation there is colored by a long history of struggle along religious and lingustic lines that has no parallel in the Scotland/England relationship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> My very cursory reading on the subject indicate that polls have shown that Scots truly expect a major economic downturn if they secede; however they may be willing to bear that price if it will free them from a government they feel does not represent them. So, this isn't really a useful commentary on the referendum; they know the economic issues but might not care.

</comment><comment><USER36> Scots don't want to be dragged into America's next war. That's probably reason enough.

</comment><comment><USER37> If you want to geek out on the politics of Scottish independence, Charlie Stross has just the thing.

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/09/the- refe...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/09/the-referendum- question.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> If we accept that nations (that is, communities of people with a feeling of belonging to the same group that share history, culture, language, traditions, etc.) exist, then we must accept that they should be considered equal in the same way people are considered equal: they should treat each other as equal and should care about the wellbeing of each other. They should look for their own wellbeing, but consider the common good of all nations to be even more important.

Given these principles, the world should encourage nations to take care of their own issues and reach the maturity and capability to function economically and advance culturally and socially, and to interact with the rest in spirit of cooperation; they would provide the means for that.

This would be, in my opinion, one of the requirements to ensure lasting peace, as well as a potent boost for the world economy. The alternative is that these nations are not recognized or only partially recognized, and that they are unable to manage their own issues the way they wish, and to have their own voice in the world, for so many of the important matters are global nowadays. Ignoring them will always lead to growing instability, as these nations and their aspirations will not disappear -and if they do, that would be a loss for humanity.

We have the tools of democracy to achieve this peacefully. The editorial of the NYT a few days ago[1] talked about the value of achieving this democratically. Xavier Sala-i-Martín, economist at Columbia University, often explains a story that makes the same point (I tried to improve Google's translation a little):

"What if an alien interested in bringing democracy to its planet suddenly appeared in our living room and asked us how do we earthlings make collective decisions? Surely we would explain that to choose our leaders, we vote; that to pass our laws, we vote; you to decide how public money is spent, we vote, and to set taxes, we vote. If, suddenly, the galactic sir stood in front of a world map and told us: "I guess you also vote in order to change the borders on this map, right?". We would have to embarrassedly respond: "No, the borders can be changed only by fighting". Given this bizarre revelation, poor Mr. green would turn green (if that was not its original color) and would run, exclaiming that we are barbarians."[2]

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/scotlands- identity...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/scotlands-identity-put- to-a-vote.html) [2] [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=h...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.caffereggio.net%2F2012%2F11%2F17%2Fel- col%25C2%25B7lectiu-wilson-de-xavier-sala-i-martin-en-la- vanguardia%2F&sandbox=1)

</comment><comment><USER38> Krugman is a known idiot, I have far more interest in what coherent thinkers such as Joseph Stiglitz have to say on the matter: [http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top- stories/scottish-i...](http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top- stories/scottish-independence-stiglitz-attacks-no-camp-1-3520079)

In common with literally all my foreign friends who, like me, have chosen to make Scotland their home, I am mystified that there is any question of rejecting the chance to become an independent country.

I do understand that change can be frightening but, on every level, the prospects for a modern, self-governing Scotland are clearly better than remaining as comedy bit-players in an exhausted system designed to serve the needs of another country's hereditary elite?

The United Kingdom was not chosen by the Scottish people in 1707, it was a stroke of royal power politics. Today, the UK is still pre-occupied with protecting the privilege and private wealth accumulated by the top 1% during the age of empire and is, therefore, laughably unfit to steer our entire population towards the opportunities of the future.

Can my Scottish friends not sense that something is wrong when the No campaign keep hammering the same obvious psychological buttons, do they not see this for the slick marketing campaign it is when Alistair Darling and the entire UK media straight-facedly suggest that oil is a curse, because of price volatility, rather than the blessing every other country considers it to be?

Is it not insulting when they suggest that, alone among all the peoples of the world, only the Scottish are incapable of democratically determining what is best for them and acting in their own best interests?

Even if Scotland did not have extraordinary natural resources that most countries would, quite literally, kill for, a rich diversity of resources that, per head of population, very few countries in the world can rival ([http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bwh9F9LCcAAKBSV.jpg](http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bwh9F9LCcAAKBSV.jpg)), there is something much more important, and this is what I, an Irishman who has lived in Scotland for 12yrs, and ALL my foreign friends here - Canadians, Australians, English, German, Americans, Thais and French etc - can see so clearly:

A people who gain the chance to govern themselves, who become the masters of their own destiny, they grow. They cast aside of the feeling of being second- best, they lose the bitterness, the chip on their shoulder. Whatever the challenges a small nation might face, nothing is as important as the feeling of pride and self-worth that come with being a first-class citizen in your own country.

This isn't just some abstract, wishy-washy point about feeling good; the future we are heading into is one in which self-confidence, the ability to believe in ourselves and our abilities, will be a fundamental driver of business, trade and innovation. It is vital that Scottish children take on the world with the same natural self-confidence as children from Oxford or London, that they be the ones taking chances and setting up companies, not the ones deciding that, on balance, it is probably best to play it safe and aim for a dull but secure job.

Forgive me, but I must be frank: the Scottish character has been affected by three centuries of playing second fiddle to England, there is more than a smidgen of self-hate and self-destructiveness in the Scottish temperament, and the self-harm that George Monbiot writes about ([http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/scots-i...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/scots- independence-england-scotland)) is likely to manifest itself spectacularly on polling day. That is why the No campaign will keep remorselessly pounding away at those deeply embedded fears and self-doubts right up until election day, because fear is how you hold people down.

They will keep pretending that it is about Alex Salmond, while conveniently ignoring real issues, such as the fact it was Scotland's oil which made Sterling a petrocurrency, propping up its value during the Thatcher years and allowing London to become a world centre of finance, all while lying about how much oil they were extracting. None of this is secret, it is all there in government papers released under the thirty-year rule:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/how- black-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/how-black-gold- was-hijacked-north-sea-oil-and-the-betrayal-of-scotland-518697.html)

... and this is how the last gasp of empire looks: keep jock in harness by somehow persuading him that he needs the English rather than the other way round. This is the system, it has been perfected over centuries, it is insatiable and, no matter what they or their local sock puppets say, it does not have your best interests at heart.

I think the No campaign will win. Despite the recent dramatic gains by the Yes side, I believe the No campaign, with the entire weight of the London press and the BBC behind them, are tapping into rich and reliable reserves of self- doubt in the Scottish psyche. This saddens me greatly, as I believe the eventual realisation of what has been thrown away will only further poison the Scottish soul.

Despite having been sold to the electorate as a bulwark against change, the United Kingdom will change beyond recognition in the coming years. English politics will continue to be driven rightwards by the UKIP agenda, regardless of what the Scottish people want, and we may well find ourselves out of the European Union anyway, courtesy of The Daily Mail.

Certainly, the age of austerity and privatization will continue to drive down the "Barnett formula" money you are supposedly receiving in return for your oil propping up the London Exchequer, but more devastating will be the growing sense that, yet again, the Scottish have blown it, losing the one chance you had to disentangle and discover who you really are.

<comment><USER39> > Is it not insulting when they suggest that, alone among all the peoples of > the world, only the Scottish are incapable of democratically determining > what is best for them and acting in their own best interests?

Surely as an Irishman you are familiar with the Wales, and Northern Ireland?

I agree that the chip on the shoulder attitude does exist in Scotland, but I don't think that independence is the magical solution you propose.

I am also Irish, and there is a very similar sentiment towards the English in people here, yet we have had our independence for generations now.

I think that the solution to that kind of sentiment is to work more towards inclusiveness. Again I think we have a perfect example of this on our doorstep - we have only started to make progress with the troubles in Northern Ireland when politicians sat down and started working together.

I don't know what side of the debate I side with, but it sounds to me like you have bought all the emotional rhetoric that the yes campaign have been selling.

I fail to see result of the vote having any great consequence for Scotland, they will still be EU members after all.

<comment><USER25> > "they will still be EU members after all"

Last I heard, they'll have to apply to get in, which could take five years.

[http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/08/uk-scotland- indepen...](http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/08/uk-scotland-independence- eu-idUKKBN0H31FK20140908)

<comment><USER38> The EU commissioners would prefer everything to remain as it is because the UK government has promised an in-out referendum on the EU and, quite simply, they figure there is more chance of the in vote winning if Scotland is still part of the UK at that time.

So, the EU commissioners will say all they can to keep the UK together.

However ... the tone will rapidly change if Scotland does go independent. There is zero chance that the EU will risk forcing a prosperous, educated country that is already compliant with EU laws out and make them spend several years re-applying, especially when there is a real chance that England will be leaving.

The EU is a business, a very lucrative one. They need the rich countries to pay for the poor, uneducated, mafia-riddled ones to the south and the east. They already lost oil-rich Norway years ago, they won't make the same mistake again.

Just watch, the EU will arrange for "special status" to kick in on the very first day of independence, nothing will change.

<comment> pi-err You're not helping the Scottish cause with junk info like this. (I'm French and pro-independence)

"EU is a business", "north pays for south", "zero chance that the EU..." \- all parts of a thought process that'd lead you to disaster .

The EU is a complex, unique international organization designed to bring peace through unprecedented one-of-a-kind economic development.

I get from Brussels insiders that a best-case scenario is an independent Scotland joining the eurozone, while rUK votes to stay in the EU with a "ad hoc" status.

Now most member states have very different feelings about this. This forces the EU Commission to keep a low profile and stick to conservative answers on any independence question.

You have to realize that there _is_ a risk that some member states can block a fast track accession to EU for iScotland. For instance iScotland could have to go through a 3-5 years roadmap and audit until the standard 12 points for accession are cleared (vs a best case, unprecedented 12-months fast track to the EU).

As I see it, this is the biggest risk for iScotland. Even with EU Parliament on your side, member states have influence and power that could slow down the process, and expose the new country to a tough start. I hope the Yes wins, but I hope the win doesn't get ruined with unrealistic expectations.

Wikipedia has a nice sum up of the complexity of this thing: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_enlargement_of_the_Euro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_enlargement_of_the_European_Union#Scotland)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Come on Scotland STAND UP !!!!!!! Go Scotland !!!

</comment><comment><USER41> This whole debate is ridiculous, much like Texas perennially threatening to defect. No way that the UK would let Scotland leave with the oil revenues. There is that other article that points out that if Scotland defected, the Shetlands (oil revenues) would have an equally good claim to leave Scotland too.

Then what would Scotland be? The sucking welfare hole that swallows a huge amount of UK tax money, without any more tax money to support it. I.e. the poor backwater of a frontier country it once was...

<comment><USER42> The current UK Government has agreed to honor this referendum.

<comment><USER43> Parliament may not bind its successors.

<comment><USER42> The government isn't going to change before the referendum.

<comment><USER43> The principle doesn't just apply to changes of government, it means that a commitment by parliament is only good so long as parliament consents to that commitment. It can be changed or overruled at any time.

<comment><USER42> Sure but for a Government being able to function depends on you being able to take their word to have at least some value. They have committed to this. I think it is reasonable to assume they will stick to it. Yes governments break promises, but I think this is one they will stick with.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Congress Hates You, Votes To Bring Back Glory Days Of Opaque Airfare Pricing - <AUTHOR> http://consumerist.com/2014/07/28/congress-hates-you-votes-to-bring-back-glory-days-of-opaque-airfare-pricing/

<comment><USER2> Much of what Congress does proves that they "hate" us, or more precisely that are more beholden to campaign contributions than to the people who elected them as their "representatives".

No easy answers here. The occasional defeat of an incumbent, like what recently happened to Eric Cantor, can't be all bad.</comment>


Nvidia's 3D Tegra driver now open sourced - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxandlife.com/2013/04/nvidias-3d-tegra-driver-now-open-sourced.html

<comment><USER2> Except this is totally unmaintainable as "open source" since there isn't any documentation or even any sort of register listing: [https://github.com/grate- driver/grate/blob/master/src/libhos...](https://github.com/grate- driver/grate/blob/master/src/libhost1x/host1x-gr3d.c#L81)

Actually, the way it's written it seems that folks at Avionics Designs did not have access to any documentation and it's pretty much a reverse-engineered effort anyway.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am no expert in this field but I distinctly remember back when I had a Tegra 2 (LG Optimus 2X) phone that the major obstacle of porting ICS to it was that there was no documentation and no open source code. With this barrier gone I hope Nvidia will be able to pick up some steam again looking as to how they pissed most of the cellphone manufacturers according to this article [http://semiaccurate.com/2013/02/18/nvidias-telegraphs- tegras...](http://semiaccurate.com/2013/02/18/nvidias-telegraphs-tegras-woes- at-ces/) (again, don't know how true this is as I am no expert)

This could also be an interesting development for the Ouya game console, maybe game devs will be able to get more performance out of the Tegra 3 chip with it's sourcecode out in the open.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, got a Moto Atrix 4G lying around running Gingerbread when it could perfectly run ICS/JB. Not only that I have had the most instability with Nvidia Android devices. Nvidia really needs to learn a lesson and up their mobile game.

Edit: From another HN thread - Nvidia seems to be almost at the bottom as far as mobile GPU market share is concerned - <http://stats.unity3d.com/mobile/gpu.html> \- which is definitely a cause for concern given the volumes they need.

<comment><USER4> How is that data gathered? Is it from a phone-home feature that apps (games?) built with Unity3D have? If so, I doubt that's a representative sample.

<comment><USER3> Even if you ignore that data - all of the popular Android devices have been non-Nvidia except for the Nexus 7. (GS3, Note2, various Asian/European devices etc.) Even for next gen Nexus 7 there are rumors about Google/Asus dumping Tegra and going with Qualcomm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this nVidia's driver? Or some random code that can draw a solid color triangle on a tegra? Where's the shader compiler backend and the rest of libGLESv2?

<comment><USER2> It looks more like the very beginnings of a reverse-engineered driver effort.

The current shader "backend" (that is, a microcode assembler) is at <https://github.com/grate-driver/grate/tree/master/src/libcgc>. Shader compilation would be done by mesa. The rest of libGLESv2 seems unimplemented for now.

<comment><USER6> Yes, grate is similar to my effort for Vivante GPUs <https://github.com/laanwj/etna_viv> . I'm not sure how they confused this with official NVidia drivers, as it's built by a third party. NVidia open sourcing drivers would be huge news indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Now how about an open source driver for the GeForce line?

<comment><USER8> No doubt. I don't even understand the business reasoning behind closed source drivers at this point, especially with AMD on the rocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome and amazing, and at last!

FOSS linux drivers (or even just driver specs) on Tegra 3 open up those devices to run so much more stuff, and allow communities to start working on full, open linux stacks for Tegra/ARM devices. Yay!

</comment><comment><USER10> From what I've read it sounds like there's Nvida's official closed-source driver and a separate third-party open-source driver that's been approved by Nvidia in some way (I guess that means they won't sue over it).

</comment><comment><USER11> nVidia chips are intended for high-end tablets but fall short. They are essentially trying to compete with "good enough" GPU/CPUs that cost less than $10 wholesale, but a Tegra 3 is about $20 wholesale.

<comment><USER12> Where are these price figures from? I'm not quite sure they're right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cool! Thank you, NVIDIA!</comment>


ComDB2: Bloomberg's Highly Available Relational Database System [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.vldb.org/pvldb/vol9/p1377-scotti.pdf <comment><USER2> There's too many databases that abbreviate to CDB :P

This is interesting, but the weird thing is that I'm not sure this is all that different from e.g. hand sharding at the application level. By that I mean that ComDB2 doesn't seem to provide a real way of seamlessly sharding your data. Near the end of the paper:

> Under our design, each portion of the table has its own master (getting many > of the benefits of a multi-master system) and is able to write to the > portion it owns without coordinating with partitions uninvolved in the > transaction.

Maybe the paper is missing some details on how queries and transactions are coordinated between masters, but it seems to imply that the application level has to handle this kind of stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> The section you're referring to is the work underway to increase write performance, which is currently bounded by the master node's ability to process bplogs (an internal structure used to detect write-write conflicts).

re: 'the application level has to handle [sharding]', the table partitioning described in this section is merely a conceptual model 'assigning' masters to what are presumably non-overlapping row ranges in order to increase write throughput (writes/reads will be processed via that specific master). The behaviour of the system still resembles a single node database, this is alluded to intermittently throughout.

(also CRDB is the preferred acronym for CockroachDB haha, source: interning there)

<comment><USER2> > The behaviour of the system still resembles a single node database, this is > alluded to intermittently throughout.

The impression that I get from reading the paper is that this is only true as long as the interaction involves only a single master. Or at the very least, situations where the working set has to be sharded among multiple masters are not described in any detail.

<comment><USER3> Alex Scotti here. Sharding isn't something we dealt with. As the paper suggested, there was 'work in progress.'

<comment><USER2> I see -- thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> At the end of the paper they say they look forward to releasing it under an open source license. That's really interesting.

<comment><USER2> In the first page, there's a footnote that says:

> Comdb2 will be published under an open source license in 2016

which does not seem to be true.

<comment><AUTHOR> I spoke to Mark Hannum (one of the authors of the paper) recently, it's slated for a release in either this quarter or the next.

<comment><USER2> Ah, cool!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Future Programming Workshop 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.future-programming.org/call.html

<comment><USER2> Some really interesting work was presented last year: [http://www.future- programming.org/2014/program.html](http://www.future- programming.org/2014/program.html)

I sincerely encourage anyone fiddling with new ideas in programming to submit a proposal. :)</comment>


Railroad Grade Pocket Watches - <AUTHOR> https://vorticwatches.com/blogs/the-vortic-blog/railroad-grade-pocket-watches <comment><USER2> It's worth pointing out that basically every quartz watch ever is vastly more accurate than any watch that was ever certified as railroad grade.

<comment><USER3> The first quartz watch wasn't unveiled until 1969.

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

A high accuracy quartz watch is accurate to 10 seconds per year.

[https://www.watchtime.com/featured/high-accuracy-quartz- guid...](https://www.watchtime.com/featured/high-accuracy-quartz-guide- longines-vhp-breitling-bulova-citizen-chronomaster-omega-grand-seiko-9f/)

However, railroad standard was 4 seconds daily. That means that if a high accuracy quartz watch is never checked it may fail the standard within a year. However, a less accurate railroad chronometer will always be checked because it is less accurate.

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

<comment><USER4> This is some of the strangest logic ever. It will be more accurate because it's less accurate and will be checked more often? Bonkers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ad for some watch company.

Wikipedia article.[1]

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

<comment><USER6> Most posts on here are ads, this one was 90% informative and I enjoyed the read and pictures that went with it, some things that the wiki article is missing.

<comment><USER7> Just a glance at the homepage would tell you this is nonsense.

<comment><USER8> The rest of the site might be nonsense to you and me, but I think this page did very well in displaying how much thought was put into ensuring reliability in the design of pocket watch mechanisms in the 1900s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Some of the highest end railroad watches featured what was referred to as an up-down wind indicator. This is called a power reserve indicator on modern watches, and it visually communicates how much wind remains in the watch on a sub-dial at 12 O'clock.

I now want this as a battery life indicator on a smart watch.

</comment><comment><USER10> I followed the links and found out that the cheapest option is over $3.5K ([https://vorticwatches.com/products/railroad-edition-watch- bu...](https://vorticwatches.com/products/railroad-edition-watch-builder))

I did not buy this watch, and yet, considered it as a gift to a friend who is a watchs mini collector.

The watch has a "story", and when one get a compliment, he can tell the story, and that is perhaps the reason we buy some of our goods, for the story behind the product, for the "making of", never the less as for hte product itself.

Besides, everything assosicated wit htrains and taildrods turns on the imagination nostalgy by many.

<comment><USER11> That's a pretty crazy upcharge, since the base watches themselves seem readily available in very nice condition for $500-1000 - and even down to about $200 for "working, but looks a bit rough"</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why can't I read HN with my Blackberry? - <AUTHOR>

Using the Blackberry browser on http://news.ycombinator.com yields "HTTP Error 400: Bad Request". I have a Tour. <comment><USER2> I've used HN from an older non-touch Windows Mobile phone with Opera Mini, and it worked fine. Not optimal viewing experience, but it was usable. You might want to give that a try; AFAIK Opera Mini would work on your Blackberry.

</comment><comment><USER3> I read HN daily from my old BB 8800. Not perfect; but serviceable. I think www.ihackernews.com also has an optimized mobile site.</comment>


Understanding jQuery's impact on Microsoft and ASP.NET - <AUTHOR> http://encosia.com/2010/10/04/understanding-jquerys-impact-on-microsoft-and-asp-net/ <comment><USER2> I wish there was something significant in this article beyond MS's Ajax Library is dead - that's been pretty much understood by any seasoned .net guy for at least 2 years (aka, when jQuery support hit VS2008).

I wonder how jQuery and its continue improvement will effect things like Silverlight. I know I steer clients away from Silverlight and toward jQuery/Open standards whenever I can.

<comment><USER3> > that's been pretty much understood by any seasoned .net guy for at least 2 > years

One would think, but you'd be surprised.

I've seen the defunct ASP.NET Ajax Library shown in presentations as recently as two months ago (and that's just what I personally know of). There's been a lot of confusion since MIX, because there was never an official announcement that the new library is dead and abandoned.

<comment><USER2> That's fine. Seemed like a good jumping off point for further thought/discussion.

Case in point - I wonder how much Silverlight is being negatively effected by MS's positive support of jQuery (a good thing in my mind)?

Seems inevitable it will follow a similar trajectory as the official ajax library, and let's face it users are not in any hurry to download a somewhat superfluous/unnecessary plug-in.

<comment><USER3> Personally, I'd be happy to see less gratuitous Silverlight usage in web apps. I think using it for anything you _can_ accomplish with HTML/CSS/JavaScript is a mistake; modern-day Java applets and ActiveX controls.

I wrote about that a while back, and got a surprisingly positive reaction overall: [http://encosia.com/2009/09/14/is-silverlight-the-new- webform...](http://encosia.com/2009/09/14/is-silverlight-the-new-webforms/)

On the other hand, Silverlight _is_ the development model for Windows Phone 7. That alone ensures its survival for the foreseeable future.

Silverlight does excel when it comes to video too. Things like adaptive streaming, DRM[1], hardware acceleration, and fullscreen playback are things HTML5 falls pretty short on. For that matter, HD Silverlight video tends to run significantly smoother than Flash video on my machines. I've never seen any other streaming video that matches some of the full-HD adaptive streams like the Olympics and NFL have delivered with Silverlight.

So, I don't think it's reasonable to expect or hope that Silverlight is canceled. I just wish people would stop over-using it for things like LoB apps.

[1] Which, good or bad, is a requirement for most premium online video.

<comment><USER2> I missed that article, interesting, esp. the response.

I haven't followed Windows Phone 7 much - probably not a good sign as I'm a pure c# guy 99% of the time - but that is actually a smart/interesting way to leverage Silverlight. This is similar to _Surface_ , which is (I believe) another variation on Windows Presentation Layer (everywhere).

Don't get me wrong, silverlight is compelling to any .net developer because it's pretty easy to pick up and get results fast. I just wish MS would make the web less muddy by NOT adding to the confusing with something that is more or less already handled by Flash. There just isn't any need for it in that space (the web versus win phone 7, surface, etc).

In the long run I'm sure you are right, it's not like Silverlight is going to be 'canceled', I just wish they would come to there senses about its use as a web plug-in.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>